“This is all so incredible,” Nabinger said. He looked at Von Seeckt. “So you believe this message refers to the mothership?”
Von Seeckt nodded. “I believe it is a warning that we must not fly the mothership. I believe the chariot obviously refers to the mothership and I would take very seriously the never again and death to all living things writings.”
“If this is true,” Nabinger said, “it means that the ancient humans were influenced by the aliens that left these craft behind. It would help explain so many of the commonalities in mythology and archeology.”
“Let’s hold on here a second,” Kelly said. “If these writings in the Great Pyramid in Egypt refer to the mothership — which was abandoned on this continent — then it had to have been flying once upon a time.”
“Of course it flew at one time,” Von Seeckt said. “The real question is: Why did they stop flying it? What is the threat?”
“I’ve got a better question for right now.” Turcotte handed a mug of steaming coffee to Von Seeckt. “You told me on the plane out of Area 51 that you were recruited by the U.S. military during the Second World War. Yet Professor Nabinger tells us that you were with the Nazis in the pyramid. I’d like an explanation. Now.”
“I second that,” Kelly said.
“I do not think—” Von Seeckt paused as Nabinger reached into his backpack and pulled out a dagger.
“I was given this by the Arab who guided you into the pyramid back then.”
Von Seeckt took the dagger and grimaced, then placed it down on the table. He cradled his wrinkled hands around the mug and looked out over the bleak terrain of the Indian reservation. “I was born in Freiburg in 1918. It is a town in southwest Germany, not far from the border with France. The times I grew up in were not good years in Germany. In the twenties everyone was poor and angry over the way the war to end all wars had ended. Do you know that at the end of the First World War no foreign troops had yet set foot on German soil? That we were still occupying French soil when the government surrendered?”
“Spare us the history lesson,” Turcotte said. He had picked up the dagger and was looking at the symbols carved into the handle. He knew about the SS. “We’ve heard it all before.”
“But you asked,” Von Seeckt said. “As I said, in the twenties we were poor and angry. In the thirties everyone was crazy from having been poor and angry for so long. As Captain Turcotte says, you all know what happened. I was in the university in Munich studying physics when Czechoslovakia fell. I was young then and I had that — ah, what are the words — myopic, self-centered vision that the young have. It was more important to me that I pass my comprehensive exams and be awarded my degree than that the world was unraveling around me.
“While I was at the university, I did not know that I was being watched. The SS had established early on a special section to oversee scientific matters. Their commander reported directly to Himmler. They put together a list of scientists and technicians that could be of use to the party, and my name was on the list. “They approached me in the summer of 1941. There was special work being done, they told me, and I must help.”
For the first time Von Seeckt brought his gaze out of the desert. He looked at each person in turn. “One of the advantages of being an old man who is dying is that I can tell the truth. I will not pretend and whine as so many of my colleagues did at the end of the war that I worked against my will. Germany was my country and we were at war. I did what I considered my duty to my country and I worked willingly.
“The question that is always asked is ‘What about the camps?’” Von Seeckt shrugged. “The first truth is that I did not really know about them. The higher truth is that I did not care to know. There were rumors, but I did not care to pursue rumors. Again my focus was with myself and my work. That does not excuse what happened or my role in the war effort. It is simply what happened.
“I was working near Peenemunde. The top men — they were working on the rockets. I was with another group, doing theoretical work that we hoped would have future application. Some of it touched on the potential of an atomic weapon. You can find out what you need to know about that from other sources.
“The problem was that our work was mainly theoretical, laying the groundwork, and those in command did not have much patience. Germany was fighting a war on two fronts and the feeling was that the war had better be over sooner rather than later, and we needed weapons now, not theory.”
“You say you worked at Peenemunde?” Kelly cut in. Her voice was harsh. “Yes.”
“But you also say you didn’t try to find out about the camps?”
Von Seeckt remained quiet.
“Don’t bullshit us,” Kelly said. “What about the Dora concentration camp?” The wind blew in the door from the desert floor, chilling the group.
“What was Dora?” Turcotte asked.
“A camp that supplied workers to Peenemunde,” Kelly said. “The inmates were treated as terribly as the people at the other, better-known camps. When the American liberated it — the day before Roosevelt died, as a matter fact — they found over six thousand dead. The survivors weren’t far from dead. And they worked for people like him,” she added, thrusting her chin toward Von Seeckt’s back. “My father was with the OSS, and he was there at Dora. He was sent in to find information on what had happened to some OSS and SOE people who had tried to infiltrate Peenemunde during the war to stop the production of the V-2’s.
“He told me what it was like at the camp and the way the Allies acted when they arrived — the intelligence people and the war-crimes people showing up and fighting over the German prisoners and how some of the worst were scooped up by the intelligence people and never came to trial. The intelligence people treated the German scientists better than they did the survivors of the camps, because of the knowledge those men possessed. They just stepped over the bodies, I guess.”
As Kelly paused to catch her breath, Von Seeckt spoke.
“I know now what happened at Dora. But I did not know then. I left Peenemunde in spring of 1942. That was before”—his voice broke—“before it got bad.”
He held up a hand, forestalling Kelly, who had begun to speak. “But over the years I have asked myself the question: What if I had not been ordered away? What would I have done?”
He turned back to the other three. “I would like to believe I would have acted differently than the majority of my colleagues. But I spoke earlier of the honesty an old man should have. The honesty to come to peace with oneself and one’s God — if one believes in a God. And the honest answer I came up with after many years was no, I would not have acted differently. I would not have stood up and spoken out against the evil.
“I know that for certain because I did not do so here, in this country, when I saw things happen out at Area 51. When I heard rumors of what was going on at Dulce.”
Von Seeckt slapped his palm on the tabletop. “But now I am trying to make my peace and be honest. That is why I am here.”
“We’re all trying to make our own peace,” Turcotte said.
“Go on with your story. You say you left Peenemunde in the spring of 1942?”
Von Seeckt nodded. “Spring 1942 I remember it well. It was the last spring I spent in Germany. My section chief came to me with orders, reassigning me. I was a very junior member of the research staff and would not be missed. That is why I was selected. When I asked my chief what I would be doing and where I would be going, he laughed and said I was going wherever the Black Jesuit’s vision said.”