“Now those little gems I have heard of. The University of Chicago has placed feelers out to all diamond and mineral companies around the globe.” He looked at Hamilton. “Now we know why — power generation applications.”
The professor spread the six photos out on the desk, and after a second of hesitation, Lee sat up and looked.
“The Schoenfeld abruptly returned two years later in the fall of 1939 just outside of Le Havre. She was found and towed in by the German navy. This is the Schoenfeld as she looks today.”
Lee, with a curious Hamilton, looked at the black-and-white photos. The Schoenfeld was clearly shown. She had been dry-docked somewhere in Germany. As Lee looked closer, he reached for a magnifying glass on his desk and then reexamined the first photo. His mouth fell partially open — emotion the experienced intelligence man never allowed to show openly.
“My God,” Hamilton said, disappointing Lee in the fact that he expressed surprise in front of the German scientist. He had been told to always act as if you are never surprised. But this time even Garrison Lee was at the very least uncomfortable looking at the photo.
Men, sailors — at least three hundred of them — were burned and buried in the battle cruiser’s superstructure. Contorted in agony and frozen into many misshapen forms and all burned beyond recognition, everywhere. Parts of the ship were melted, others pristine. Men were melted into her decking as if nothing more than long-dead candles. The teak deck had been burned away in most areas, leaving charred steel plating, but held firm in other parts of the ship. The stern of the large vessel was scorched and actually bent ten degrees lower than the rest of her hull. Lee ran his fingers through his hair and then looked up at Wentz.
“That is not all of it, Colonel,” the German said as he pushed a second picture into Lee’s view.
Vegetation of some sort permeated the ship. Small trees, vines, flowers, unimaginable vegetation of varying variety.
“The plant life on board, as you can see, is not burned as the rest of the ship. The material is very much alive.”
“How?” Hamilton asked as he looked at the amazing photo.
“That’s not the question here, young man. The right question is why. Why is this material not burned like the rest? And why did the ship that vanished in front of a thousand eyewitnesses return at all? And how, since there was no one left alive to initiate that return?”
“Well?” Lee asked.
“Even those points are not the real story, Colonel.”
Lee was becoming frustrated and showed it with his glare.
“Many renowned botanists in Germany have come to the same conclusion — none of this plant life is found anywhere on this planet.”
Lee continued to stare at the man who had clearly seen better days in the sanity department. “You mean to tell me that while attempting to electromagnetically hide a vessel with rather dubious science, you made that ship vanish into another world?”
“That is precisely what I am saying. Perhaps another world is not the proper term that should be applied here, Colonel Lee. Maybe another plane of existence is a better theory.”
Lee examined the other photos. “This one?” he asked as he turned the photo around for Wentz’s viewing.
“Wherever the Schoenfeld disappeared to, it happened in no more than three minutes. To us, it was two years; to the ship, only three minutes. That is a picture of the captain’s cabin. You can see the date on the calendar as circled by her captain as the exact date of the experiment, and this is a close-up of one of the disfigured and burned crewmen. Not very appealing, I admit, but crucial. See the time on his wristwatch? That and the date on the calendar coupled with the time specified on the sailor’s watch proves that the Schoenfeld was only gone for three minutes.”
The other German intelligence photos were close-ups of the damage done to the bodies of the sailors. Broken, bent, and charred, mouths open in agony. Lee pushed the photos away.
“I can get these photos to my superiors, Professor. But before I do, I want to ask how a climatologist is privy to this type of top-secret information outside of the fact they sent you to corner the market on hard-to-find blue diamonds.”
“Ah, the gist.” Wentz removed the photos and handed them to Hamilton. He again indicated the map he had previously placed on the desktop. “My duties were to study the seas surrounding the vessel during the experiment. Water temperatures, impact of electromagnetism on seagoing animal life, things such as that. During the run-up to zero hour, we conducted generator testing on the electromagnetic field. We started noticing certain disturbances when the generators were turned on. Small, hurricane-like formations started to pop up in the vicinity of the test site. Hurricanes, as you know, just don’t suddenly appear. They build up, usually around Africa, and then move west and north. We counted no less than six of these small, deadly storms appear every time the field generators ramped up. Never before or since did these storms arise in that area. It is suspected that because of power fluctuations without the steadiness of flow the blue diamonds could deliver, our current system brings together pressure variants from two differing planes of existence.”
“Your point, Professor?” Lee asked, beginning to lose what patience he had but mostly because the German was speaking in scientific terms so far beyond him it became frustrating trying to keep up.
“Here,” he said, pointing to a map of the North American eastern seaboard. This made Lee somewhat nervous. “The same storms have appeared here off Norfolk, Virginia.” His finger moved to another circled location. “And here, off Newport News, and here, just outside New York. Three different hurricanes of a weak nature and very brief in duration, and also two of which occurred during the off-season for storms such as this. They appeared in minutes and vanished just as fast.”
“Your people are testing this device in American waters?” Lee asked as he straightened with a look of apprehension on his tanned face.
“No, Colonel Lee. The German government has curtailed all experiments in the area of bending light for stealth purposes.”
“Are you saying American theorists are possibly following the same science?” Hamilton asked incredulously.
“That is exactly what it is I am saying, young man. This experiment must be stopped. We also have information that the Russians may also be experimenting with the same technology in the Black Sea. As a matter of fact, my government has recently discovered they may have already achieved success to a certain degree. If this is true, and if you Americans are trying the same thing, we could see a major catastrophe in the next year. We could lose everything, or anything that is close to the experimental platform — that includes entire cities.”
Lee sat back into his chair.
“Our intelligence says that the probable location for the testing of the unified field theory is happening somewhere in and around your Philadelphia Naval Shipyard. Colonel, you must warn your superiors that this cannot happen. We have agents in the Soviet Union attempting to explain this in a roundabout way to the Russians through diplomatic channels, but as you may know, the Russians don’t particularly like Germans that much. This must stop. Even our fair-minded Herr Hitler has seen the dangers this scientific path may lead us down.”