Operation Antarctica

- 3 -

The double doors weren’t locked and opened easily enough, although the creaking of the hinges echoed like a wailing siren around the chamber and brought the hackles rising at the back of Bank’s neck. His gut was telling him to run away, and over the years, he’d learned to trust it. But he had a job to do here, and a team to lead.

“Cally, you’re on point. Parker and Wiggins, watch our backs. We don’t know what killed these Jerries, so if you see anything squirrelly, you have my permission to shoot it.”

McCally led Hughes, Patel, and Wilkes into the darkness beyond the door, with Banks and Hynd following right behind them.

It became obvious quickly that they were in a long, enclosed tunnel. There were no doors to either side, just an alley of darkness stretching away beyond the range of their lights. It was colder still in here, and the darkness felt heavier, more oppressive. The floor rose upward at a slight incline, and Banks’ mental map of the area told him that they must be travelling up toward the domed area of ice they’d seen from the outside.

The corridor was made of the same metal plating they’d seen throughout the facility, and again Banks was reminded more of the interior of a boat than an under the ice base. The heating costs in fuel while the place was operational must have been enormous. That had him wondering, not for the first time, what was so important to the Nazi effort that could lead them to such secrecy and expense.

And in a project that has obviously failed.

He hoped to find an answer at the end of the corridor.

The corridor itself continued for fifty more paces. There were no more corpses, but as they approached another double door, they saw thin, watery, light coming through the small eye-level windows in the doors themselves. Banks didn’t have to give the order; all of the squad unslung their rifles into their hands and their level of alertness went up a notch. They moved as one toward the doorway.

Banks stepped forward to try to peer through, but the windows were frosted over. He managed to clear his side, but the inside was still too milky and opaque. He could make out a large darker shadow beyond, but nothing to say what might lie on the other side. He motioned for silence and they stood quiet, listening, but all he heard was the team’s own breathing. He motioned for McCally to come forward, and covered the corporal as he slowly pushed the door open.

Once again, a creaking wail of old hinges echoed loud all around them. All attempts at secrecy were now moot. Banks gave the signal, and the squad, as one, moved forward through the double doors.

Almost as one, they stopped, dumbfounded by the sight before them.

They had arrived in a high-domed circular chamber some fifty yards across. Thin watery light came in from above where a vaulted ceiling of girders and glass let in sunlight through a layer of thin snow and frost. There were more corpses here, a score of men lying on the floor, almost equally split between civilians in overalls and uniformed airmen. Again, they all appeared to have fallen where they stood, then just gone to sleep and been frozen. Everything was covered in more frost, which felt crisp underfoot. The only sound in the chamber was the crunch as Banks took a step forward, and he winced at the noise, wondering what he would do if any of the dead men woke at that point.

The main thing, the elephant in the room he was trying not to think about, the thing they couldn’t drag their eyes from at first, was the silver metal saucer that sat almost exactly in the middle of the chamber. It was twenty yards in diameter, and the only thing breaking the expanse of shining metal was a large red circle at its highest point, with a five-foot-tall, black-on-white Swastika in the center.

The saucer sat flush to the ground, and rose to a maximum height of ten feet at the center of the Swastika. There was no sign of any doorway or window, no method of ingress that Banks could see from where he stood by the doorway.

“Fucking hell,” Wiggins said softly, and Banks realized he had nothing of any greater import to add to the statement just then.

It took Banks ten seconds to be able to drag his gaze from the saucer. It commanded attention, catching the eye and refusing to let go. The silver surface had avoided all ravages of time — there was none of the otherwise ever-present frost covering the metal, which was polished to a high shine, reflecting the girders and glass roof above in a most disorienting manner that was almost hypnotic.

Finally, Banks looked away, and took in details of the rest of the chamber.

Another bank of the tall metal containers they’d seen in the generator room lined the wall directly to his left. He guessed this was the endpoint of the thicker cable, but as yet couldn’t fathom what their purpose was, or what manner of power source might have been in use here.

To his right was obviously the engineering or laboratory area. A corkboard covered the wall almost a quarter of a way around the outside circle, and it was covered with blueprints, diagrams, and notes. Six long trestle tables were likewise festooned with books, notebooks, and charts.

Banks saw that the rest of the squad was still transfixed by the saucer. He clapped his hands, twice, the noise echoing like a drumbeat in the chamber.

“What’s the matter? You lot never seen a fucking Nazi UFO before?” he said. “Parker and Wiggins, find something to stow all this paperwork in. It’ll be coming with us when we leave. And take it gently; it’s probably going to be fragile.”

“I’ll imagine it’s the sarge’s wife,” Wiggins said, then had to dodge out of the way to avoid a smack on the head from Hynd.

“Cally, you see if you can make heads or tails of the power system. The rest of you, you’re with me,” Banks said, and turned his gaze again to the saucer.

The first thing he spotted was that the floor area around the saucer was also devoid of frost, to a distance of several yards from the vessel all around. As he got closer, he noticed markings on the floor, what looked like quarter-inch thick lines of gold embedded in the metal plates. Two of the lines appeared to be concentric circles running around the saucer and marking the boundary of the frost-free area. The other marks were a series of straight lines and squiggles that he could make no sense of from a distance.

He stepped forward for a closer look, his left foot landing on the outer of the gold circles. He felt a tingle run through him, not a current surge as such, more like the sensation of licking the poles of a battery. At the same time, a shout rang around the chamber from McCally at the bank of metal containers.

“No, Cap. Back off.”

Banks lifted his foot off the circle and stepped away. The tingling stopped immediately.

“What is it, Cally?” he said.

“Come and see, Cap. I don’t have a fucking clue.”

Banks walked over to McCally, who stood beside a series of gauges embedded in a panel in the wall. He tapped the top one. It was a meter graded from zero to a number in the millions. The needle pointed at zero.

“This moved,” McCally said. “When you took the step forward, it went up. Not by much, but it was noticeable.”

Banks shouted across to Hynd who was still at the edge of the outer circle.

“Go on, Sarge,” he said. “Just one step, then back again. Don’t do anything stupid.”

Hynd took a step forward while Banks watched the gauge. There was a small but definite movement of the needle, and it fell back to zero as soon as the sergeant stepped back out of the circle.

“What the hell is this shit, Cap?” McCally said.

“Buggered if I know, Cally. But I don’t think we should fuck with it until we’ve got more intel.”

“There’s something else, Cap,” Hynd said, and motioned that Banks should have a look. The sergeant pointed at his feet as Banks walked over to where he stood. The area of floor that was free of frost had grown, now stretching for an inch beyond the outermost of the gold inlaid circles. Banks bent toward the gold lines and felt heat coming from the circle even before he touched it. It felt warm through his gloves.

“What the fuck, Cap?” Hynd said.

Wiggins and Parker returned from the right side of the room. They had managed to find two canvas kit bags, both of which they’d filled with the books, notebooks, and charts that they’d found in the work area.

“Is that the lot?” Banks asked.

Wiggins nodded.

“Everything that was salvageable. The frost had got in too deep to some of the paperwork and it fell apart as soon as we so much as breathed on it. But there’s some solid intel in the bags from what we saw while we were packing it.”

“Good work,” Banks replied then spoke up so that the whole squad could hear him. “I need to call this in, lads. We’ve got two choices; you can stay underground here in the base, or we set up camp out in the hut with the bunks and the stove.”

“I vote we get outside, Cap” Wiggins replied. “This place gives me the screaming heebie-jeebies.”

The rest of the squad was in agreement.

“The hut it is then,” Banks said. “Let’s hope we can get the stove lit; otherwise, it’s going to get a tad chilly.”

“Maybe we’ll just burn Wiggins,” Hynd said. “All that lard should keep us toasty for a while.”

McCally took point again, and now that they knew the route, they made good time through the base and up into the suddenly too-bright Antarctic day. Banks looked straight ahead as they crossed through the open central chamber — he’d seen enough dead for one day. When they reached the top landing, they saw that some of the frost had melted from the man who lay below the main entrance. Some pink showed at his cheek, pink tinged with blue, and Banks again had a vision of the man standing up and going about his day. He stepped quickly over the body, not looking down, wondering whether he’d be able to stifle a scream if a cold hand reached for his ankle. He let out a sigh of relief he didn’t realize he’d been holding in when they stepped out into the daylight. He knew it wasn’t hot outside, but somehow it felt like a summer day in comparison to the cold, dark bowels of the base’s tunnels.

I’m not going back down there again unless I have to.

He closed the door behind him. It shut with a clang that he hoped was the ringing of a bell to bring the episode to an end.

Once they got to the hut, McCally took charge of organizing the men and trying to get the stove going. Banks and Hynd stood in the doorway while Hynd had a smoke.

“I’m going down to the dinghy to call it in, Sarge,” Banks said. “If we’re lucky, they’ll say that the paperwork is enough and we can hightail it back to the boat and a bit of dinner.”

“When are we ever lucky?” Hynd replied. “I’ll make a start on going through the papers while you’re away, just in case.”

Banks nodded and left Hynd to his smoke, heading back down the track to the jetty and the dinghy.

In other circumstances, he’d have taken his time and enjoyed the view which was a stunning vista of ice, rock, and clear blue water in picture-postcard quality, but something about this place still had him spooked, and his gut was telling him there was trouble brewing. As he’d told Hynd, he was hoping that the brass back home would be satisfied with the paperwork, but he knew better. As soon as they heard about the saucer, the paperwork would be almost secondary, no matter what revelations lay there.

He had to wait while the call was relayed through the icebreaker and on to Whitehall. The clipped tones of the voice at the other end were calm and measured for the most part, but he went quiet at the mention of the saucer, then quieter still when Banks mentioned the two names he’d read — Carnacki and Churchill.

“This needs to go up the chain to the highest level,” the man said. “Stay in position, and check back in four hours. We’ll have orders for you then.”

As he switched off the radio and climbed up out of the dinghy, Banks already knew what the answer would be. His gut told him, and kept telling him every step back up the track.