Alternative 3 Read online

  They follow him towards a dark object squatting in the middle of the hangar, the soles of their boots echoing loudly in the silence.

  The peculiar object is draped in a black shroud, which the oberleutnant recognises as parachute silk.

  ‘The Russians have reached the far end of the runway. I’d say we’ve got five minutes, ten at most.’ The pilot looks tense, but strangely confident. When neither of the men respond, he continues, ‘Captain Schaeffer is waiting for us at Christiansand. Everything is ready.’

  The bandaged man grunts an acknowledgment, but the oberleutnant is transfixed by the strange circular object in front of him — clearly some kind of advanced flying machine. The pilot of the strange vehicle barks at him, breaking off his curious gaze.

  ‘Give me a hand with this.’

  The oberleutnant helps him remove the cover, the light fabric bunching at their feet, as a sudden burst of machine-gun fire rips through the silence of the hangar. The men freeze. The hangar is quiet, their heavy breathing the only sound. The shots were close. Very close. In unison they begin seizing the cloth with renewed urgency.

  As the last of the black cloth falls to the ground, the oberleutnant’s jaw drops open in amazement. He marvels at the perfect symmetry and craftsmanship of the disc-shaped object, running his hand along the smooth, shiny steel fuselage.

  ‘You did it!’

  But the pilot of this strange machine is already running over to a large winch system against the near wall of the hangar.

  ‘Quickly!’

  The oberleutnant joins the pilot on the winch, setting in motion a complex system of geared pulleys. As they wind furiously, the roof of the hangar parts in the middle. A pale finger of light falls across the craft as two large sections of roof begin to slide down towards the hangar floor. After a minute of tremendous exertion, the hangar and craft are open to the sky. They run back to where the bandaged man waits patiently, the pilot diving under the low body of the craft and disappearing up a hatch underneath. The oberleutnant fails to notice the bandaged man standing directly behind him, his pistol drawn.

  The bullet hits him in the back, dropping him to his knees. The pilot rushes back out from under the craft, startled, his weapon also drawn. But his angry confusion turns to dread as he watches the bandaged man stand over the oberleutnant, roll him over and coolly place a single shot through his forehead. The pilot stands motionless, silently questioning the dark, fathomless eyes under the thick bandages, before slowly wiping the sweaty dismay from his brow with his sleeve and ducking back under the craft.

  ‘We have to get out of here!’

  The bandaged man slowly holsters his gun. His eyes move from the lifeless figure at his feet to the craft beside him, to the darkening sky above, as he draws a slow, heavy breath. Then he too disappears underneath the craft and up the ladder.

  Beyond the hangar and cratered runway, a Russian soldier ventures tentatively out onto the exposed grassy area from the thick bush on the fringes of the airfield. Silently, efficiently, more soldiers emerge, Tokarev rifles held tightly in both hands as they fan out into a wide arc. Incredibly, even more soldiers reveal themselves from the bush until the entire length of the airfield is a moving sea of infantry advancing towards the aerodrome hangars. But the men freeze almost simultaneously as a low-frequency humming begins to permeate the air around them, almost imperceptible at first, but rapidly growing louder. Several of them run and dive into large muddy craters, aiming their weapons wildly in the direction of the buildings as the noise continues to grow, the pitch rising with the volume. Other soldiers follow their lead, most falling flat onto their stomachs in a prone firing position. But they are unsure of any immediate threat — the strange noise appears to be emanating both from the aerodrome buildings, and from above them. Without a clear target they hold their fire.

  As the noise grows to an unbearable shriek, a huge hangar at the far end of the complex suddenly illuminates from within. Brilliant white-orange light spills from cracks in the hangar’s doorframes, the enormous doors shaking uncontrollably on their hinges. But what stuns the puzzled soldiers most is the searing white light shining into the low clouds directly above the hangar.

  The soldiers are now more frightened than curious. They have heard stories of fantastic feats of Nazi engineering — rocket ships that can carry bombs from Germany to London by themselves, and planes with no propellers that can fly faster than any conventional design. But nothing has prepared them for the astonishing sight before them. A flat ball of orange fire hovers over the hangar. The noise and the dazzling, fiery light stuns the soldiers into a trance-like state of inertia. Some hold their arms in front of their faces to shield their eyes from the glare, others swap questioning glances with shoulder shrugs and blank shakes of the head. Too late, they realise that something is taking off from inside the building. Before they can react, it emits a series of blue-white flashes from its surface, instantly accelerating into the low cloud at phenomenal speed, and is gone.

  Washington, October 1945

  ‘I don’t like this.’ President Harry S. Truman stood at the White House window, hands on hips, as he always did when faced with a difficult decision. God knows he’d had a few of those. ‘I don’t like this one goddamn bit.’

  The four other men in the room glanced at each other. From the looks on their faces they weren’t enjoying themselves either.

  Harry Truman had been in office only six months, but the former army captain had already presided over the end of World War II, dropped two atomic bombs on the Japanese to force a quick surrender, and begun supervising the rebuilding of post-war Europe. Thrust into office by the death of one of the century’s most indispensable men, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Truman was far from prepared for his new responsibilities. Blunt, tough and plain-spoken, the second-term senator from Missouri had seen little of Roosevelt in his 12 weeks as Vice President, and had received no special briefings on the major issues facing the administration, such as the deteriorating relations with Soviet Russia, and the development of the A-bomb.

  But the man was up to the task. In his first few weeks in office he had overseen the unconditional surrender of the German forces, ending the war in Europe while US troops were storming the beaches of Iwo Jima and Okinawa. The decision to drop the bomb on Hiroshima hadn’t been particularly difficult to make. In his eyes it was purely a military weapon and he’d never had any doubt it should be used, when balanced against the heavy cost of life an invasion of the Japanese mainland would have incurred.

  President Truman turned back to the men, loosening his tie as he closed a thick file on his desk. The words Classified — Ultra Secret shouted at him from the cover. ‘OK,’ he said finally, easing his tired body into his deep leather chair, ‘let’s work this through.’

  The men shifted uncomfortably in their seats.

  ‘I’ve read the file. Makes quite a read, I can tell you. How much do the Russians know?’

  Again, the men shifted uneasily.

  ‘That much, huh?’ He flicked his pen thoughtfully on the desk. ‘All right, then. If I have to make a call on this then we’re going through it from top to bottom. Speak your minds. I’ve read the official line — now I want to make some sense of it, is that clear?’ He leant forward to emphasise his point, looking each of the men in the eye.

  The men nodded solemnly.

  ‘Now, what can we make of the suicide?’ he asked, leaning back into the chair. ‘From what I can see we haven’t been able to dig up one tangible bit of evidence.’

  Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson cleared his throat. ‘Our investigation was pretty thorough. Our men interviewed everyone from his personal waiter, valet, chauffeur, secretaries, pilots, top generals — the works. Their stories were remarkably consistent, even down to the details. All agreed he’d committed suicide. I don’t think they could have agreed to a story like that without one of them slipping up. They’re all convinced he topped himself in the bunker, so we have to assume they b
elieve they were telling the truth.’

  Truman looked sceptical. ‘I put the question straight to Stalin at Potsdam,’ he said, referring to the post-war conference where the victorious Allies carved up Germany and most of Europe. ‘He didn’t even have to think about it. Just shook his head with a big fat “Nyet”. Seems to think he made it to Spain or Argentina.’

  Stimson continued. ‘We know they found a couple of bodies in the Reichstag garden, a man and a woman, burned beyond recognition. It fits with what we heard from everyone we interviewed, but it’s certainly not conclusive. They couldn’t find any dental records so they had his dentist draw them from memory —’

  ‘And?’ said Truman.

  Stimson shook his head. ‘They’re close enough.’

  Truman shook his head in disbelief. ‘Gentlemen, from what I’ve just heard, and on the basis of present evidence, no insurance company in America would shell out on a claim on Adolf Hitler.’

  The room was silent as each of the men digested this unassailable fact.

  Truman was keen to move on. ‘OK, let’s look at the evidence for an escape. What have we got?’

  This time Secretary of the Navy James Forrestal responded. ‘I was with Zhukov when he described his entrance to Berlin.’ Marshal Georgi Zhukov was in charge of the Soviets’ final assault on the city. ‘He says a whole division saw some type of advanced aircraft leaving Templehof airport as they stormed it. Apparently it scared the wits out of his men.’

  ‘The flying disc,’ said Truman emphatically.

  ‘Well, actually they said they saw a bright orange object that looked like it was on fire.’

  Truman grinned mirthlessly. ‘Well so would I if I was a peasant Russkie straight from the Urals.’

  Forrestal tilted his head and raised his eyebrows in reluctant agreement.

  Truman continued. ‘If you were Hitler — your empire’s falling down around your ears, and the Russkies are right up your ass, where would you go?’

  Stimson didn’t hesitate. ‘At the time we thought he’d fight it out at his Nordhausen base in the Bavarian Mountains. It’s basically a fortress tunnelled from sheer rock. We figured if he left Berlin that’s where he’d go. It’s virtually impregnable to assault and conventional bombing, and we found it had enough provisions and armoury to sit out a siege for years. But there’s no landing field close by, and the Russians had taken the road and train lines in, so —’

  ‘So he didn’t go there,’ said Truman impatiently.

  ‘No sign of him. They surrendered as soon the unconditional was announced. We searched it of course, from top to bottom. Hell of place — a real warren of tunnels and caves, but no A-dolf.’

  ‘And now we have this submarine captain,’ said Truman.

  ‘Here’s where it gets interesting, Mr President.’ Chief of Naval Operations Chester Nimitz had been silent till now. He already knew most of what he’d just heard by heart, but the others knew very little of what he was about to tell them.

  ‘I’m all ears, Chester,’ said Truman.

  Nimitz looked at the other men in the room for a minute, working out where to begin. Then, pulling a bundle of maps from his satchel, he stood up and placed them on the desk in front of the President. The other men joined him at the desk.

  ‘Two months ago the Argentineans apprehended a German U-boat in the Mar del Plata. It was commanded by a Captain Schaeffer. We interrogated him in Argentina . . .’ Nimitz unrolled the maps, twisting them round to face the President. ‘If he’s telling the truth, then this has to be one of the most remarkable voyages of the entire war.’

  Now the others were all ears.

  ‘He claims he left Kiel Harbor . . . here.’ He pointed to the map. ‘In the Baltic on 25 April . . . and stopped briefly . . . here.’ He slid his finger across to the left. ‘At Christiansand South for fuel the following day, arriving . . .’ He pulled a second map out from the pile and splayed it out on top of the first. ‘Here at Mar del Plata, Argentina, on 17 August. Nearly four months later.’

  Truman looked puzzled. ‘I’ve got two questions. Why, and why so long?’

  ‘The second one’s probably easier to answer. Schaeffer reckons he heard over his radio that the war had ended just a few days out from Christiansand, and decided to make for Argentina rather than staying on in Europe. Says he offered his crew the option of getting off along the Norwegian coast. That would explain why he was found with a skeleton crew, but — as you point out, Mr President — it doesn’t tell us why.’

  ‘You got that right,’ said Truman.

  ‘I have to say though, it’s one hell of a naval feat.’ Nimitz traced a route across the map with his finger. ‘Through the North Sea and the Limey Channel, past Gibraltar and along the coast of Africa, to surface all of 66 days later in the middle of the South Atlantic Ocean.’

  Truman looked sceptical. ‘Could he do that?’

  Nimitz nodded. ‘I think he could. Says he evaded capture by diving and surfacing, and erecting imitation sails and even a funnel to look like a cargo steamer from a distance. It’s definitely a possibility.’

  They silently contemplated the map and the strange voyage for a moment, but the Fleet Admiral wasn’t finished.

  ‘What I don’t understand is why you’d go to all that trouble, risking the lives of your men, when you could have turned the U-boat in to the Norwegians?’

  Truman didn’t like the way this was heading. ‘OK Chester, what have you got? Let’s hear it.’

  ‘Well, Schaeffer still put in at Mar del Plata even though he would have heard over the radio that another fleeing U-boat, the U530, had just been captured by the Argentinean authorities.’

  ‘What’s your point?’ said Truman quietly.

  ‘My point is, sir, that if someone — someone important — wanted to get out of Europe without being caught, they’d take a U-boat. And this one was at sea long enough to —’

  ‘To take a grand tour of German territories and friendlies,’ Truman cut in. ‘Did we find anything on board to suggest he was carrying a VIP?’

  Nimitz shook his head. ‘Nothing. The Argentineans went through it first of course, but according to them they didn’t find anything either. They’ve been co-operating with us so we have no reason not to believe them.’

  Neither did Truman.

  ‘Remember the U530, the one that was caught just before Schaeffer? It was captained by a 25 year old, Commander Otto Welmut. The sub had a crew of 54 men.’ Nimitz paused for effect. ‘Usual U-boat crews are anywhere from 16 to 20. The cargo consisted of 540 barrels of cigarettes and unusually large stocks of food. The average age of the crew was 25. When they were questioned by the Argentineans they all claimed they had no living relatives.’

  ‘All right,’ said Truman, ‘let’s assume for a minute that Hitler somehow made it to Christiansand South and hitched a ride on the U-boat. If he didn’t try to fight it out at Nordhausen, where did he go?’

  ‘That’s easy,’ said Nimitz, rummaging through the pile of maps on the desk. He pulled out a map that Truman didn’t immediately recognise. It was of a large continent — very large — surrounded by sea on all sides. The latitudinal lines — normally horizontal on the maps of Europe and the Pacific he had so carefully scrutinised since becoming President — were a series of concentric circles.

  ‘Antarctica,’ Truman whispered. He could feel the hairs on the back of his neck standing up as Nimitz straightened out the map.

  ‘Fifty-six hundred miles from Africa, 1900 miles from the tip of South America, 4800 miles from Australia — and it’s bigger than Europe.’

  ‘It’s colder than hell down there,’ said Stimson. ‘Nothing can survive an Antarctic winter.’

  Nimitz shook his head. ‘That’s not entirely correct. It’s not just a snow-covered ice pack like the Arctic. It’s a real continent, with plains and valleys, and mountain peaks up to 15 000 feet. The temperature in the interior is around zero in summer, and never drops below 20 or 30ºF below in win
ter.’

  The other men looked at Nimitz blankly, so he explained, ‘In other words, it’s colder in parts of North Dakota or most of Canada than it is down there.’

  Truman looked concerned. ‘OK, Chester, I’m with you this far. But what evidence have we got for a base down there?’

  Secretary of State Dean Acheson sat forward as Nimitz began rolling his maps up. ‘Well, sir, quite a bit actually,’ he said. ‘And we didn’t have to go down there to get it.’ He took a seat. The room seemed smaller now. More humid. Perhaps it was because the men in the room were all breathing more heavily. Faster too.

  ‘Throughout our interrogations of German Paperclip personnel, we’ve been digging for information on Nazi activities in the area.’ Paperclip was the code name of the secret operation to bring the Nazis’ top scientists to America to work for the US government on projects from jet engines to missile technology.

  ‘Nothing obvious, just a bunch of general questions on a range of things. But when we put all the bits of information together, they added up to Antarctica.’

  ‘How’s that, Dean?’ said Truman.

  ‘Various scientific teams were moved down there — that’s how we know all this. Seems scientists like to share their discoveries amongst one another. Anyway, they sent down the whole works: hunters, trappers, collectors, zoologists, botanists, agriculturists, plant specialists, mycologists, parasitologists, marine biologists . . .’

  ‘Lot of people to keep a secret,’ said Truman.

  ‘We know that once all the data was gathered, they shipped out some of their best deep-underground construction teams. These were the guys that built Nordhausen, so we know they had the technology to build an underground complex.’

  ‘And they’ve been building it throughout the war?’ asked Truman.

  ‘It would explain why any ship that even came close to the shipping routes from South Africa to Antarctica was set upon by packs of U-boats.’

  ‘To protect the secret,’ finished the President.

  ‘They’d need tractors, planes, sledges and gliders, and all kind of machinery and materials. By now they could have scooped out an entire mountain, and built a completely camouflaged base. A magic-mountain hideaway.’