Three hundred feet of downward travel was completed in eerie silence by the five men inside the smaller of the two transit elevators. The smallest of the five stood with his leather-gloved hands clasped in front of him. It had been this miniscule gentleman who had commenced full-scale start-up of the experiments that he personally dubbed Operation Traveler. Once the covert order was received and the funds swindled from the military for the massive project, the strange equipment was quick to start arriving on December 15, 1941. Two years of hard work and the expenditure of stolen wealth the Third Reich would never miss and the “Wellsian Doorway” was finally complete.
The small man reached up to his greatcoat’s thick collar and closed it more firmly around his chilled neck.
“Apologies, Reichsführer, the temperature on the main concourse and laboratories has to be maintained at a constant fifty-four degrees. It is imperative that we never vary as our computing apparatus is extremely temperamental.”
Heinrich Himmler, the Reichsführer of the SS, the head of the most powerful organization outside of the German Wehrmacht, stood silently, not bothering to acknowledge the man in the white lab coat nor temper a comment of his explanation. He finally spared the man a glance. In the dull lighting Professor Lars Thomsen could only see his own reflection in the small wire-rimmed glasses of the former chicken farmer turned mass murderer.
“I am just pleased to note, Professor, that the many millions of Reichsmarks I have funneled to this project were not wasted on creature comforts. I can bare the chill.”
“As you will see, Herr Reichsführer, your money”—he quickly noticed the frown as the pencil-thin mustache wrinkled at the corners of the small man’s mouth—“with respects, the Reich’s money, has been well spent.”
The elevator started slowing as it reached the fifth of five levels three hundred feet below the forest floor.
“I assume your special cargo arrived intact from the east?” Himmler asked as two SS guards dressed in long black field coats slid the large elevator doors aside and then immediately went to attention as Himmler waited for his answer inside.
“Yes,” Thomsen answered as his eyes flicked to the other three men accompanying them. These black-coated officers raised a brow his way. He knew the semi-disguised men were private industrialists that had assisted the leader of the SS in funding and in the material supply needed, and then coordinated the most technical project in the history of mankind. Himmler finally turned and faced the scientist full on.
“Good, with securing the special package perhaps you can now realize how close this project is to my heart. To directly challenge the Führer’s edict, one that was of my own design, would be considered by some as”—he smiled but only briefly—“treasonous? But the need to have complete cooperation from the test subjects cancels all that out, yes?”
Thomsen knew he had better answer right or he would be buried deep inside this bunker when it was razed to the ground after Himmler got what it was he desired out of him. He would show the man his resolve in the finalizing of the design and its test subjects.
“How could the advancement of science ever be construed as treasonous, Herr Reichsführer? As you will see our test subject is now cooperative and very much intelligent enough to see the final test through. The Traveler has accomplished this feat more than once. With the assurances now in place with the transfer of her brother, yes, the Traveler will complete the final test and we can begin to transfer equipment to Berlin at the first opportune moment.”
Himmler raised his brow and then nodded. He turned and stepped from the large lift. “I am pleased to hear your reputation for humanitarian causes has its limits.” Heinrich Himmler looked back at the much taller scientist as he wanted to see his expression when he realized that the scientist’s small meetings he held with his staff over the use of slave labor as test subjects had not gone unnoticed. Thomsen remained silent as Himmler smiled again, this time even more brief than the first, and then nodded for his security detail to move ahead. Thomsen and the other three observers moved quickly to catch up.
The men were led to a large enclosed area that overlooked an even larger room filled with men, women, and equipment, the likes of which none of the SS men or industrialists had ever seen before. Standing in the middle of the laboratory space was what looked like a large door frame constructed of a material that was not immediately recognizable. This frame had large conductors that coiled out of the top and sides of the machine. The entire flooring was covered in a rubberized material that protected the workers inside from static electricity. The men and women all wore coats of either white or blue — it was explained to Himmler that the technicians had been broken into two teams. The white team handled the power output and consumption, which would be massive in scope, while the blue team was in charge of radar tracking, signal acquisition, and would perform the actual conducting of the test. There were sixteen rows of stations with a technician at each console and over 170 power cables running from the monitoring stations to the Doorway, as the Reichsfürher had come to call it. He was adamant about using the doorway’s code name because of its British connotations in using its full moniker, the Wellsian Doorway, in honor of the man who wrote about this very subject many years before.
Thomsen turned and bowed his head at Himmler as the Reichsführer remained standing at the large, thick window that gave visitors a view of the entire floor below.
“With your permission,” the German scientist asked.
The small man nodded just once.
“As you know, gentlemen, this project began in earnest in 1941. It is meant as a ‘fail-safe,’ if you will, against the Americans entering the war against Germany, a scenario our farsighted Reichsführer saw as a precursor to the Fatherland losing the war with so much of that world pitted against us. This fail-safe, gentlemen, is now ready and may I say with pride, fully functioning. This will be the final non-German personnel test in the schedule. The next test will be conducted by a representative of the Reichsfüher’s staff and myself when our equipment has been properly placed inside our Berlin complex.”
Himmler knew that they had lost at least sixty reassigned non-German personnel in the doorway’s testing. Some of the lost were recovered right back inside the facility, mangled and in grisly pieces at the doorway’s opening, or were lost in the void of time and space.
“As you already know the first gate was commissioned in May of 1942 and was completed that same month. Our scheduling of tests has been nonstop since that historic day. The first success came three days ago.” Thomsen handed Himmler a folded newspaper. As he was unfolding it he saw the headline in bold print as described by the London Times over one year ago: “American Fortress of Corregidor Falls to Japs.” And then next to the headline was the scrawled signature of none other than himself. Himmler nodded as he refolded the newspaper. “May I assume that is your signature next to the headline, Herr Reichsführer, and no others?”
The miniscule man nodded his head and handed the newspaper over to the next man who examined it and passed it on.
“As you know, the very first Wellsian Doorway was built right here in this room you see below. It was dismantled exactly six months ago as we built the secondary door — the one you are now seeing below. The first doorway has ceased to exist for exactly one year, gentlemen, as it was dismantled in the past — only the doorway and its signal remain. No personnel, no power other than what it would take to run the testing. This newspaper and several others like it were placed next to the first doorway over a year ago. To see these newspapers again is proof positive that the Wellsian Doorway”—here he paused for dramatic effect—“works beyond all expectations.”