Echo of the Reich
Praise for
The First Apostle
“Fast-paced action propels the imaginative and controversial plot.”
—
Publishers Weekly
Praise for
The Messiah Secret
“An entertaining, hunt-and-chase thriller that races from the English countryside to a hidden valley in the Middle East…appealing and clever protagonists coupled with intriguing history.”
—
Publishers Weekly
In Close Quarters…
The Walther kicked in his hand, but the only sound the weapon made was a flat slap, followed by the metallic noise of the slide being forced backward by the recoil, the ejected case clattering onto the stone floor, and a fresh round being loaded into the breech.
He had no idea whether or not he’d hit his target, but because the man made no sound, Bronson assumed that he’d missed. Semi-automatic pistols are notoriously inaccurate, even in experienced hands.
But then there was another shot, the crack of a small-caliber weapon, and immediately Bronson heard a howl of pain from the intruder, followed by the sound of something heavy and metallic falling to the floor. No way was he going to stand up to see what had happened, but he still needed to know the situation. He reached up and placed his flashlight on top of the metal control panel, aimed it more or less at the door of the room, and switched it on. At the same time, he ducked down again, aimed the Walther around the corner of the control panel directly at the lantern, and squeezed the trigger.
A
LSO BY
J
AMES
B
ECKER
The First Apostle
The Moses Stone
The Messiah Secret
The Nosferatu Scroll
ECHO OF THE
REICH
J
AMES
B
ECKER
A SIGNET BOOK
SIGNET
Published by New American Library, a division of
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Published by Signet, an imprint of New American Library, a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc. Previously published in a Transworld Publishers edition. For further information contact Transworld Publishers, a division of Random House, Ltd., 61–63 Uxbridge Road, London W5 5SA, England.
First Signet Printing, October 2012
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Copyright © James Becker, 2012
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.
ISBN: 978-1-101-60481-6
REGISTERED TRADEMARK—MARCA REGISTRADA
Printed in the United States of America
PUBLISHER’S NOTE
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party Web sites or their content.
If you purchased this book without a cover you should be aware that this book is stolen property. It was reported as “unsold and destroyed” to the publisher and neither the author nor the publisher has received any payment for this “stripped book.”
ALWAYS LEARNING
PEARSON
Any novel is a joint effort, and I’d like to thank my
brilliant agent, Luigi Bonomi, for his unswerving
support and encouragement, and Simon Thorogood
and his talented and dedicated team at Transworld
for all their work on this book.
And Sally, of course, just for being there.
P
ROLOGUE
Ludwikowice, Poland
April 1945
It was the sound of boots on concrete that puzzled him.
Footsteps were always echoing through the labyrinth of passageways and laboratories in the perpetual gloom of the mine, but these sounded different, organized almost—a squad of men marching with purpose rather than a handful of scientists ambling along. And as far as Georg Schuster knew, there were no soldiers based in the facility.
The Komplex Milkow was located in the Wenceslas Mine, a bewildering network of tunnels and chambers, some natural but others hacked from the rock, which covered an area of almost thirty-six square kilometers. It was the home of
Der Riese
—“The Giant”—an SS research facility and one of the most secret bases ever established by Nazi Germany. The research project being
conducted there—it bore two project names:
Der Laternenträger
, meaning “the lantern bearer,” and
Kronos
, or “Saturn”—possessed the highest possible category of both secrecy and funding priority within the Third Reich. No other research of any sort, in any country, had been allocated the classification
Kriegsentscheidend
, “decisive for the outcome of the war.”
Schuster had no idea why soldiers should be inside the complex. Then an appalling thought struck him. Surely it couldn’t be the Russians? Not so soon? No, that was ridiculous, because if the Russians had arrived there would have been yelling and shooting, and the explosions of grenades.
Schuster opened the door of his laboratory and peered out hesitantly. Then he relaxed, reassured by the sight of the familiar uniforms of Wehrmacht soldiers.
Even so, the appearance of a uniformed German officer, accompanied by about a dozen soldiers, was unexpected, and Schuster stepped out into the corridor.
“Who are you?” he asked.
The officer leading the soldiers stopped and looked at the man who’d just appeared. The questioner was a middle-aged man wearing a white coat and a puzzled frown.
“I’m SS
Hauptsturmführer
Wolf,” the new arrival replied politely, proffering a document that bore the distinctive signature of
Reichsleiter
Martin Bormann. “I’m in charge of the SS Evacuation Kommando, working directly under the authority of General Kammler. And you are?”
The scientist shook his head. “I’ve never heard of an Evacuation Kommando,” he said, glancing at the order before handing it back.
“That’s because you don’t have a sufficiently high security clearance,” Wolf responded, with a slight smile that vanished almost as quickly as it had appeared. “And I still need to know your name.”
“It’s Schuster. Georg Schuster.”
Wolf took another sheet of paper from his uniform jacket and studied the list of names printed on it.
“You’re one of the electrical engineering specialists?” he asked, and Schuster nodded. “Good. Just wait over there, in that chamber,” Wolf ordered.
“What’s going on? What do you want?”
“What I want to do is complete the task I’ve been given. In case you haven’t noticed, Engineer Schuster, the Russian forces are almost upon us, and it’s vital for the future of the Reich that they don’t get their hands on the equipment you’ve been working on here. That’s what I’ve been sent here to achieve.”
“So you’re going to evacuate us?”
“There’s a Junkers Ju-390 heavy-lift aircraft waiting at Bystzyca Klodzka airfield just a few kilometers away,” Wolf replied, not quite answering the man’s question. Then he strode further into the complex, his men following on behind.
In less than an hour, Wolf had completed the first part of his assignment. He had identified all of the scientists and engineers at work within the facility, and these men and just a handful of women were now waiting in two separate stone chambers ready to leave the mine, one way or the other. But it wasn’t just the personnel that Wolf had been ordered to take care of. Far more important than them was the device itself.
The double doors to the test chamber were massive—heavy steel frames lined with copious layers of what looked like insulating or soundproofing material. Wolf ordered his men to swing them open, and then he strode inside and for a few moments just stood and stared at the object in front of him.
General Kammler had told him in broad terms what the device was supposed to do, although neither Wolf nor, probably, Kammler himself understood more than a fraction of the science involved. But they both knew that Hitler’s dream of a thousand-year Reich now lay in tatters. Not even the development and deployment of the V1 and V2 terror weapons, nor the latest generation of combat aircraft powered by jet engines, had been enough to hold back the armed forces of Germany’s enemies. Forces that Wolf knew would soon be baying at the very gates of Berlin itself.
What was left of the German army was being squeezed between the British and American forces advancing from the west and the rapidly approaching Russian army. It was now apparent that the Soviet forces were going to reach the area of Ludwikowice first, and that was the worst-case scenario by far. It would be a disaster if the Americans or the British got their hands on the device, but if the Russians took possession of it, that would be a catastrophe of global proportions.
