“Now for you,” began Grimme. “I want all of this fixed and fixed now! Kill the Americans and clean this mess up. We cannot afford to jeopardize our work here.” Suddenly there was a shudder throughout the complex. Then it began to shake. It felt like a long, drawn-out explosion somewhere deep below them. Grimme stopped her rant. Rather than go away, the shaking continued. Now it was getting violent. Grimme braced herself against her desk.
“What is that?” Grimme asked. Boehm was trying to stand still but was stumbling to keep from falling down. More alarms went off. Pictures fell from the wall. Both women were knocked to the floor. One of Grimme’s assistants ran into the room but fell flat on his face as he came into the room. A large chunk of the ceiling fell across Grimme’s desk. More of the ceiling fell over by the door. A large crack appeared on one wall.
Deep inside the Fortress, Hugo’s charges had gone off. The core of the power station was obliterated by the explosives. The violent removal of this subterranean cap directly exposed the volcanic activity far below. Within seconds molten magma was unleashed and began to rise from the earth’s depths. The searing heat rose as the lava reached the floor of the power complex at temperatures close to 1,300 degrees Celsius.
Equipment throughout the lower levels burst into flames and melted in pools of burning metal as the lava spread across the floor. Power throughout the fortress failed as the generators and associated cabling melted in the withering heat. The floors themselves began to burn. Technicians in the area were incinerated within seconds. Steel supports became pliable and melted. Paint on the walls burned away. Concrete simply crumbled and began to fail.
The power station was coming apart. This presented a deadly problem for the complex. The power station was centrally located at the most lowest levels of the Fortress. With the station crumbling, the floor above became unstable. Left unchecked, the lava would destroy the Fortress from the inside out. And there was no way to stop the destruction. Now that the lava was flowing nothing the Germans had could stop it. It was a fatal blow to Fortress Alpha.
Grimme looked at Boehm lying on the floor near her. A large chunk of concrete dislodged from the ceiling. Emergency lights came on with the power failure.
“What happened to the lights? Get up,” she was screaming at the top of her lungs. “You must save your Führer!”
Boehm struggled to her feet and tried desperately to get to Grimme. Each time she took a step the horrible shaking caused her to lose her footing and she fell again. For the first time Boehm feared they may not survive. But she had to try! Once again she jumped to her feet and moved toward the Führer. Grimme had not moved from her position on the floor beside her desk. She was no help at all. Boehm threw herself toward Grimme, crashing into the front of her desk.
“I’m coming, Mein Führer!”
Grimme was now curled into a ball on the other side of the desk like a child. “Help me,” she screamed. “Please help me.” The office was now literally disintegrating around the two women.
In a last ditch effort to get to Grimme, Boehm got to her feet by hanging on to the edge of the large desk. She steadied herself momentarily and took a step toward Grimme. Instantly a large part of the floor above crashed through the finished ceiling and landed directly on Boehm. There was a horrible dull sigh from Boehm as the weight of the concrete chunk smashed her chest. Her lungs were crushed. She could not breathe. She choked on her own blood and stomach contents as they were squeezed out of her mouth. Boehm looked over to Grimme. The Führer’s face was the last thing Boehm saw as she died.
After seeing Boehm die, Kaete Grimme rolled over and tried to stand. She was knocked off of her feet immediately. The room was filled with smoke and ash. She could not see the door. She tried to crawl but was stopped as a huge crack began to appear in the floor under her right hand. One side of the crack was rising and the other side falling away. As the crack enlarged steam and smoke started pouring through the crack. It became hot, damned hot.
Grimme’s eyes widened with fear as the floor below her began to give way. More concrete fell from the ceiling narrowly missing Grimme as she tried to crawl away. But where was she to go? The heat was approaching unbearable and getting worse each second. Smoke and flames were pouring in through a widening chasm in the floor.
Hugo’s explosive charges dealt the Fortress a mortal blow. Lava had obliterated several floors below Grimme’s office. The floors were buckling and failing fast.
“Help me, please!” she screamed at the top of her lungs.
Grimme’s repeated cries for help were heard. She was answered by a single male assistant who ran into the room, his arms over his head trying to protect himself from the falling ceiling.
“I’m coming, Mein Führer!”
He took several steps and immediately fell through a hole that opened in the floor a few feet in front of Grimme. His screams were silenced instantly as his body fell into the lava below and was vaporized. The floor was seconds from collapse. Kaete Grimme’s existence was coming to an end and she could do nothing to stop it. The heat in the room was now causing Grimme’s mahogany desk to smoke. Papers on the floor near the hole in the floor burst into flame.
The room shook violently again and the floor dropped about twenty feet down resting on the remnants of the floor below. The lava flow was rising. Grimme screamed in agony as the floor became like a griddle, searing her hands and knees. She tried to move but her hands and legs were burning and sticking to the melted rugs on the floor. The pain was unbearable. Flames burst from her pants. Grimme’s eyes bulged as the fear and pain overtook her. She was on fire! Seconds later, the Führer of the Fourth Reich, Kaete Grimme, was incinerated as the lava flowed up and over her.
Explosions were now occurring on all levels. Lower levels were filling with molten lava. Those levels above were failing structurally and falling into the lava pool below. Very few if any were going to survive this inferno. It was fitting that the Fourth Reich Germans were perishing by fire. But not only were the Germans themselves perishing but their secrets as well. The secret of making gold was burning away along with billions of dollars worth of German gold.
CHAPTER SIXTY- NINE
Even though the group was well over a mile from the Fortress they could hear the low rumblings of explosions. They felt earth tremors that seemed to be getting stronger and stronger. Dane stood up and looked toward Fortress Alpha. He knew he had no chance to see anything through the jungle but it didn’t stop him. His best friend was out there somewhere and he was worried.
“C’mon, Hugo,” Dane said quietly. “Get your ass out here.” Tim stepped over beside him.
“Sounds like explosions,” said Tim. “I wonder what’s going on.”
“We gave them a small going-away present. But it turned out to be much larger than I imagined. Our grenades set off a huge fuel fire and set off some of the armament on their attack helicopters,” explained Dane.
Ben walked up, catching the tail end of Dane’s last sentence. “Well, that would give those bastards something to chew on while Hugo got out,” he said, trying to reassure Dane. “Hell, I bet with all of that going on Hugo will be able to just waltz out of there.” Dane smiled, yet was worried for his friend’s safety.
Ben continued, “Well, at least we are relatively safe here. We can wait a while until Hugo comes in. We might as well relax. Anyone want some food?” Ben walked over to one of the larger backpacks and pulled out some kind of jerky. “Dana? Randall?”