Peter nodded. The crew gathered around, brainstorming. Ted, a little reluctantly.
“German royalty used double mechanisms on safes, so she’s right. It’s not just the cross, that’s why it didn’t fit,” Ted said.
Olivia nodded.
“So one of these numbers, there are four pages written on in Harald’s notebook. That is, four pages where he had made direct references to this place. And he numbers his book, with his own hand.” She flipped the pages in the small book. “This page, 4, then here again, pages 8, 9, 45, and the last one is odd, it says page 4 again. It should say 18.”
She looked up at the group. “Harald is one crazy Nazi bastard, huh,” said Liam Murphy.
“Not all Germans were Nazi,” Peter snapped.
“We don’t know if Harald was one, I mean, we should never have found this place if he hadn’t kept these clues and the map,” Liam insisted.
“Yes, and we don’t know why he left the clues.”
Miller touched Peter’s arm. “Let's all calm down now. Peter, you and Ms. Olivia do your thing, figure this out. Meanwhile, me and Friedman will go back the way we came and see if there’s another way around this place. We need to find the labs.”
Ted raised his hand. “Frank, I suggest we all stay here.”
“Why?”
“There’s nothing out there, trust me.”
Miller gave the man a dubious look. He turned to Friedman and nodded. The bodyguard withdrew from the room.
“Right, I’ll stay.”
Olivia and Peter wrote out the numbers 8, 9, 45, 4. The group crouched on the floor and stared at these numbers, each one thinking his thoughts. Except Ted Cooper, who watched from where he stood. He frowned and came over.
“Let me see this.” He picked the paper off the floor.
His brows furrowed in thought. He turned to Peter Williams. At first, hesitant to talk with his colleague — mostly because Peter wouldn’t meet his gaze. Something contemptible came to his head and he was about to drop it when he caught Miller’s accusatory stare.
“It’s a date,” he said.
Peter looked at him then, “What’d you mean?”
Ted Cooper explained, “It’s clear to me now. Reports differ, but the most acceptable of them is that the scientists left this place and surrendered to the Allies on 6 September, 1945, days before Wilhelm Keitel signed the Instrument of Surrender, right—"
The crew grunted, nodded their understanding.
“But we were wrong.” Ted waved the paper. “This says we were wrong all this time—”
“But how’d you know that? Historians don’t even know Kruger, we can’t find him in any documents from that time,” Peter countered.
“We could change that now. We are here now, and we just might find some documentation or a logbook with his name on it. You never know.”
Ted showed the paper again.
“You still don’t get it, Peter—8, 9, 45, 4, it’s a date. September 8, 1945, four guys, maybe including Kruger, left these labs behind and met the Allies—”
“That agrees with other reports,” Frank Miller interjected. “Not all the guys here left at the same time. There was a revolt, and a subsequent clampdown. Now we may have an explanation for what appears to have been a fire outbreak here.”
Once again their attention was drawn to the dismal walls, the bizarre order in the mess room. It was all falling into place.
Ted Cooper gave the paperback to Peter Williams. Together they went to the console by the door. Still uncertain if their conjecture was accurate, on shaky feet, Peter started punching the numbers.
Upon entering the last digit, the console's background screen lit up with a dull green light. The vault hissed around its edges. They heard a low, continuous droning as the vault came alive.
Peter stumbled away from the console; he dropped the paper. The door stopped vibrating and now they heard it make a constant tone, like a counter.
Peter turned to Ted. “What now, it’s not opening, man. It’s not—”
“The cross!” Olivia yelled. “The cross! It needs the cross!”
She sprinted forward with the object, jammed it into the niche, and this time the cross slipped in easily. It made a clicking sound as it fit in place. The vault started another round of vibrating. The hissing sound got louder, smoke emitted from the sides of the door.
They heard clanking sounds, like metal fittings, working, grinding against each other, and dislodging. Then a final pop.
The door opened. The crew jumped back in fear. Then forward again in jubilant exaltation, applauding their success.
The passage beyond the door was brightly lit all around. White light shone from the ceiling, walls, and floor. Frank Miller pulled the metal door open wider; it swung easily on hinges that could just have been oiled.
Immediately, Miller crossed the threshold. They heard a click and the door started swinging close.
“Whoa, whoa, what’s happening now!?” Liam Murphy shouted.
Itay Friedman was fast. As though he expected this to happen, he quickly reacted. Nicolai’s box of tools was opened on the floor. Friedman picked a huge wrench from it and hooked it in the door.
It held and the door remained opened.
Still in shock and doubtful, the crew watched the door.
“Come on, guys. It’s okay now,” Miller encouraged from inside the white passage.
Borodin took the next tentative steps and was inside. Then the rest started rushing through.
“Everybody freeze!”
They turned around and behind them were soldiers, guns pointed at them.
5
Admiral Anton Huebner was not a brave man. He was also a thinking man. The fleet would descend on the Antarctic if his ship went missing there. And if they found the troops he had sent ahead, his objective and the point of it all, will be lost. Besides, he had on his ship all the witnesses and proof against him.
So he waited, in fact, in order to demonstrate his sanity. He moved out of the range of the Antarctic to meet up with the approaching scouting ships. It turned out that there wasn’t just one, but three of the other destroyers. And they were almost in range.
He rushed up to his station and began dishing out orders.
“New course!” he barked.
“Sir?” his surprised exec asked.
“You heard me, Vasquez. New course. We are meeting up with the scouts.” Huebner looked at his exec.
The young lad got the message. His admiral would never abandon a mission, except if he had made provisions for backup. Whatever the admiral was up to, he had it under control.
“New course…” Vasquez called the coordinates.
“Who the hell are you people?” a stunned Frank Miller blundered from behind the door.
About fifteen guns were pointed at the crew. Grim faces and hands ready to pull the triggers.
“This facility is now officially under the jurisdiction and authority of the Argentine government. Please step out of there now,” said the soldier taking the lead.
He gave the sign with his hand, and his men started marching around the crew. They went into the vault and made those inside come out.
“You can’t stop us, this place is not claimed yet—”
“It is now,” said the soldier.
“—we discovered it. We just want to look around, purely for research purposes.”
Something in the soldier's eyes shifted. He made another gesture with his hands and his men relaxed, taking their aim off Miller’s expedition. The lead soldier pulled his mask down to reveal quite a young, childish face with a thin line of hair on his lip. Black eyes that would have been shy ones stared at the expedition crew.