Oskar stabbed at several buttons.
At once a cacophony of Klaxon horns and sirens screamed their wailing warnings, echoing urgency and danger throughout the area. And underlying the din, the sudden, growing, many-voiced roar of terror and panic…
Oskar took Gisela by the arm.
“Come,” he said. “We must hurry. There is little time.” They ran from the room.
Bursting from the main entrance of the communications center, they instantly found themselves swept into a savage crush of milling people pressing toward the area exit. Pushing, shoving, tearing, frantic to get away from the caves. Explosion imminent! Past rumors of a super-explosive power being born in the depths of the caves fed their panic. Oskar grabbed Gisela's arm as she was being carried away in the boiling stream. The blaring horns and piercing sirens fanned the alarm of the crowd. Evacuate! Evacuate! Gisela stared in horror at the tumultuous scene. It was her doing! It was bedlam….
Oskar bucked and butted as he shouldered his way through the horde pouring away from the cave entrance toward the exit gate. His hand was firmly locked around Gisela's wrist as he plowed ahead.
They had only a few minutes to reach the bunker at the entrance to the cave….
Dirk slammed on the brakes. The ambulance screeched along the street, narrowly missing the people scrambling to get out of the way. The Klaxon horn shrieked its constant warning—bah-boo!.. bah-boo!.. bah-boo!… The streets were alive with people running away from the area near the caves. He pushed on more slowly, literally nudging people out of the way. Ahead was the checkpoint entrance to the restricted area — the Sperrzone.
A riotous, chaotic crowd of men and women was flooding through the gate. The air was filled with shouts and screams, sirens and horns.
Slowly the ambulance plowed forward, horn wailing….
They were at the gate.
Several SS guards were feverishly trying to control the terrified mob. The crush was so dense that Dirk was forced to stop. A couple of SS men began to fight their way toward him. He leaned out of the cab.
“Get those goddamned people out of the way,” he screamed at them. “We've got to get through! Do something, dammit!”
One of the guards shouted something at him.
He could not make it out.
“For Christ's sake, get us through!” he screamed.
The SS men began to clear a path before the ambulance. Cursing and threatening, they forced the fleeing workers to give way. Inch by inch Dirk prodded the vehicle into the gateway bottleneck. Suddenly the bells in the church tower high atop the cliff began to peal, clanging out their warning.
They were through.
The crowd of people thinned. The furor and turmoil lessened as more and more of the workers fled. The violent uproar began to die down.
They were at the bunker.
Dirk looked around anxiously.
There!
Oskar and Gisela were making their way toward the ambulance.
Gisela gave Dirk a long look. Her eyes shone. Tears streaked her dirt-grimed cheeks, and she had a small cut on her forehead. She looked triumphant.
And beautiful.
Dirk leaped from the cab.
With Sig, he tore open the back doors to the ambulance — and quickly hauled out a stretcher. A couple of blankets lay folded on top. At once they ran for the bunker entrance, followed by Oskar and Gisela.
The two SS men guarding the bunker entrance were still at their posts, frantically herding the last few people from the caves. They eyed the ambulance crew apprehensively as they came running for the entrance.
Urgently Dirk shouted over his shoulder to Sig and Oskar. “Hurry! We may still get him out in time!”
They were at the bunker. Dirk glanced at the SS guards. “Keep the doors open till we get back out!” he called. “Pray God we make it!”
The SS men exchanged a troubled look. They stood aside.
The four ran into the caves.
The corridor inside was empty. The workers and technicians getting ready for the test had fled.
Dirk was startled by the depressing dampness. They ran toward the cross corridor in the back. Every second counted.
They reached the guard post. It was abandoned.
They turned right toward the heavy steel door that would seal off the reactor cave itself.
It gaped wide open!
Dirk and Sig put the stretcher down. They ran to the door. For an instant Dirk was tempted. Could they destroy the pile? For good? He rejected it. Himmelmann was right. It was a chance they could not afford to take. Stick with the original plan….
Quickly they examined the steel hatch. It was a couple of inches thick, swung on a series of massive hinges. There were two heavy locks set into it about two feet apart. Sig worked them. They would lock automatically if the doors were slammed. At once they pushed it shut. Hard. The locks sprang home with a single metallic click.
Dirk ran to the stretcher. He tore the blankets aside. Beneath them lay the dynamite charges. The cans of borax. The Panzerfaust warheads. The tools.
“Get going!” Dirk said. “You've got five minutes!”
At once Sig and Oskar grabbed the borax cans, a blanket and the tools. They raced down the corridor toward the heavy-water storage room.
Dirk picked up the five-stick charge. “Gisela,” he said hurriedly. “Take the two small charges. Place them in the lab. Just inside the door. One on each side. Where they can be easily reached.” He was already running for the steel door.
Gisela snapped up the two charges and ran for the door to the laboratory….
Sig stopped just inside the storage cave. In a glance he absorbed the layout. The huge heavy-water storage tank stood about three feet off the cave floor on a sturdy wood-and-steel platform. A maze of pipes with a variety of diameters ran along the walls and to the tank itself. Some were studded with meters and gauges and valves. Sig was certain he could identify some of the equipment. The access-port cover on top of the tank was firmly bolted in place, as he had known it would be. A pipe from what seemed to be a liquid-air or nitrogen cold trap led to the top of the tank above them, controlled by a valve set close to the tank wall. A second pipe also entered the top portion of the storage tank. A dry-air source? It, too, had a valve on it. At the bottom of the tank a heavy pipe ran toward a small opening in the wall, where it disappeared. There was a valve at the tank itself, and another a couple of feet from the wall. The pipe slanted downward. It was the pipe through which the heavy water would flow to the reactor in the floor pit in the adjoining cave.
He made his decision. He pointed to the valve on the pipe between the storage tank and the cold trap.
“We'll use that one. Up there,” he said. “We can dismantle it without screwing things up. The pipe slants into the tank, and the borax powder will roll directly down into the heavy water. It'll have plenty of time to dissolve before the test.”
He looked around. He spied a tall A-ladder on rollers. He ran for it.
Oskar was already spreading the blanket on the floor under the valve above. Any borax spillage would have to be caught. They must leave no trace.
Sig positioned the ladder and at once they climbed up. The valve was easy to reach.
Quickly Oskar began to dismantle it. He loosened the bonnet screws and lifted out the stem and gate. Below was an opening in the pipe about two inches in diameter.
Sig had opened the cans of borax crystals. He suddenly swore.
“Shit! How the hell do we pour the damned stuff into the hole in the pipe down through the valve housing? Some of it is bound to be caught in the body. We'll never clean it out completely!”