Ice Storm (16 page)

"Are you okay?" Baxter ran to my side.

I touched my chest. I felt sticky blood. "What was that thing?"

He stared away, into the snow. His right eye twitched. "That was Death."

Chapter 39

Graham looked up from his position on the bed. His good eye widened as he studied the bandages wrapped around my torso. "What the hell happened to you?"

I limped into the room. "Fenrir."

"Fenrir?"

"That's what Rupert called it."

He shook his head. "I don't understand.

"Apparently, Fenrir was a gigantic wolf in Norse mythology. He was sired by Loki and according to prophecies, was destined to kill Odin. The gods knew he was trouble and bound him up. Fenrir bit off the right hand of one of them."

"So, it's an ancient legend."

"A modern one too."

"Oh?"

"According to the Whitlows, the locals have whispered about a beast running around these parts for years. They call it Fenrir."

"Impossible. No land animal could survive out here."

"And yet, something attacked me."

His eyes narrowed. "So, this Fenrir thing is a wolf?"

"No one's ever really seen it. Holly described it as Antarctica's version of Bigfoot or the Loch Ness Monster. It's a … what's the term again? Oh that's right. A cryptid. A year doesn't go by without someone claiming to see it. Usually, they're just hoaxes."

"We should ask Pat about it."

"I already did, right after he saved me from it. He just walked away." I noticed the leather book in his lap. "What are you doing?"

"Translating."

"But I thought—”

"You thought wrong." Graham tossed the book to me. "Turn to page six."

The book contained about one hundred pages, bound by tiny metal rings. I flipped to page six. My heart skipped a beat as I glanced at the top line. "It says
das Bernsteinzimmer
. If I remember correctly, that stands for …"

"The Amber Room," Graham said.

I scanned the rest of the page. But I only understood a few words. "What does the rest of this say?"

"All sorts of things. There's almost too much information here." He took the book from me. "Here's an inventory of the individual panels. There are lots of calculations about the weight of amber embedded in them. And these other ones appear to be some kind of amber catalogue. They've got tallies based on colors, texture, and size."

"Interesting. So, it's not about the Amber Room as a whole. It's focused solely on the amber."

"Sure looks like it." He shuffled a couple of pages. "This part is a history of the Amber Room. And here are some maps of the Baltic region. The Nazis seemed interested in tracking down the exact origin of the amber."

"The Baltic Sea makes sense," I replied. "It accounts for eighty percent of the world's amber supply."

He gave me a quizzical look.

"What'd you expect?" I shrugged. "I'm a treasure hunter."

"Well, they don't seem convinced it came from the Baltic. They recorded a few other possibilities here. Also, they were interested in more than just geography. They wanted to know the exact date of the amber itself."

"Why would that matter?"

"I'm not sure. I've only gotten through a few parts of the book. It seems to be some kind of manual, probably issued to the residents. It's got rules, schedules, and other things."

"Does it mention anything about
Werwolfsschanze
?"

"Give me a second." He flipped forward a few pages. "Okay, here's a general description of construction in the region. According to this, there were three bunkers. The first bunker was a testing facility."

"That must be the gas chamber."

"The second bunker looks small, sort of like a vault in the ground."

"It's a mass grave." I quickly filled him in on the last few hours. "What about the third bunker?"

"Okay, here we go. The third bunker was known as
Werwolfsschanze
." He looked up at me. "I just thought of something. We've translated
Werwolfsschanze
to Wolf's Lair. You don't suppose …"

"That it has something to do with Fenrir? Yeah, I already thought of that. At this point, I'd say anything is possible."

He returned to the book. "Taken as a whole, the bunkers seem to be dedicated to the development of some kind of drug. The drug was developed at
Werwolfsschanze
and tested at the gas chambers. I guess the deceased initially ended up at the mass grave. Later, the Nazis turned to incineration."

"Forget about the drug. Let's focus on the Amber Room. That's what we came here to find."

"I wish it were that easy. It seems the Amber Room was very much a part of whatever the Nazis were trying to do here." He flipped a few pages. "Okay, this section looks important. It takes up most of the book."

He turned the book around and showed me the page. Three words were printed at the top of it. "
Fall Garten Eden
," I read aloud.

"Translated literally, it means Case Garden of Eden. A looser interpretation would be Operation Garden of Eden."

"A biblical reference?"

"According to the summary,
Fall Garten Eden
involved the amber being used as a
Baum des Lebens
." He glanced at me. "Does that mean anything to you?"

I shook my head.

His fingers tightened. A page crinkled. "Hang on a second.
Baum des Lebens
. I think … no, that impossible. That can't be right."

"What?"

"
Baum des Lebens
." He said the words slowly, carefully. "It translates to Tree of Life."

"Tree of Life? The one from Genesis?"

"It appears so."

"Another biblical reference. Who knew the Nazis were so religious?"

"They weren't. Hitler was their messiah."

"Then it must be symbolic."

"Maybe." He skimmed a few lines. "Okay, here's something. The goal of
Fall Garten Eden
was to create, well, a
Garten Eden
."

"The Nazis wanted to create a Garden of Eden?"

"Figuratively speaking, yes. In other words, they wanted to fulfill Adolf Hitler's dream of purifying the world." Graham's good eye tightened as he read a few more lines. A look of sheer horror appeared on his face. "I know what this is about."

"What?"

"Those drugs—the ones the Nazis tested on prisoners—weren't meant to enhance soldiers. They were intended to inoculate them."

"Inoculate them from what?" I asked slowly.

"
Großen Sterbens
." His face turned ashen. "It translates to the Great Dying."

Chapter 40

A chill ran down my spine. "That's insane."

"Actually, it makes perfect sense when you think about it," Graham replied.

"How do you figure that?"

"Consider the original Garden of Eden."

"It was paradise on Earth," I replied. "Adam and Eve lived peacefully within its borders. All their needs were met."

"Until the serpent arrived. It tricked Eve into eating fruit from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. She gave it to Adam too. So, God cast them out of the Garden. That's the Original Sin."

"And because of that, they couldn't access the Tree of Life."

"Correct. The Bible isn't too clear on what happened to the original Garden of Eden. Regardless, Adam and Eve had been banished. And without the Tree of Life, they became mortal."

"So, how's that fit into Nazi ideology?" I asked.

"Genesis isn't a history book. Most scholars agree the Garden of Eden is just an allegory."

"How so?"

"It's a primitivist fable," Graham replied. "Similar to the Greek concept of the Golden Age or the more modern notion of the Noble Savage. The general idea is people once lived in an idyllic society. There was no work, no hunger, no pain, and no war. Things were perfect. But then mankind tried to better itself. It ate from the Tree of Knowledge, so to speak. And that caused it to fall from grace."

"Maybe there's some truth to that." I shrugged. "Ignorance is bliss, right?"

"I suppose it would be if you were fortunate enough to live in the Garden of Eden. But that Garden never existed. Ancient people had tough lives. Far tougher than the ones we enjoy today. While primitivists long for a past that never existed, futurists have been busy building a real Garden of Eden. They've given us trains, cars, and airplanes. Books, radio, and television. The telegraph, the telephone, and email."

The words sounded strange coming from an admitted technophobe like Graham. "Primitivism might not help anyone. But it doesn't hurt anyone either."

"Primitivists don't just long for a nonexistent past. They want everyone else to long for it too. And that brings us to Hitler. Hitler took the allegory in a slightly different direction. As I'm sure you know, he believed in the Aryan race. Its people were of supposedly pure racial stock and lived in the distant past. That was his Garden of Eden."

"Let me guess. Mixing races was his idea of the Original Sin?"

"Correct. Hitler believed Aryan descendents had lost their genetic purity by breeding with unfit partners. To his way of thinking, the Nordic race was the purest of all surviving races and thus, the closest fit to the Aryan ideal." Graham's brow furrowed. "That's why the Nazis supported eugenics. They thought they could reverse the genetic decline by sterilizing and killing so-called undesirables. They took it so far they ended up wiping out two-thirds of Europe's Jewish population."

"That's a pretty fucked-up take on the Garden of Eden."

"No doubt."

"So, the Nazis who lived here wanted to fulfill Hitler's dream of a genetic Garden of Eden," I said. "And the Amber Room constituted their Tree of Life. I assume that means the Amber Room was essential to their efforts. But how?"

"I don't see anything here." Graham skipped back to the section on the Amber Room. "What else do you know about amber? How old is it?"

"Baltic amber is pretty old. It dates back to the Eocene epoch, about forty to sixty million years ago."

"Here's something interesting." He stopped to read a short section of text. "Apparently, the Nazis thought the Amber Room's amber was a bit too old to be from the Baltic."

"Yeah?"

"They dated it to about two hundred and fifty million years ago."

"That's pretty old." I thought for a moment. "But not impossible. The oldest amber known to exist comes from the Upper Carboniferous Period. That was over three hundred million years ago."

"Let's assume the Nazis were correct. The Amber Room's amber dates back two hundred and fifty million years. What's the significance?"

An idea formed inside my head. It scared the hell out of me. "The current geological eon is called the Phanerozoic Eon. It's been going strong for about five hundred and forty million years."

"So what?"

"Scientists divide the Phanerozoic Eon into three geological eras. The Paleozoic, the Mesozoic, and the current Cenozoic." My voice picked up speed. "The switchover from the Paleozoic to the Mesozoic took place about two hundred and fifty million years ago."

"How did that happen?"

"Via the Permian-Triassic extinction event." I took a deep breath. "Otherwise known as the Great Dying."

"Holy shit." His jaw dropped. "I thought
Großen Sterbens
was just an invented term. Are you saying it was a real thing?"

"I studied it back in college. It killed off the vast majority of all living animals. Wiped out most of the insects too. All told, it was the biggest extinction event in history. Experts have all sorts of theories about what caused it. Volcanic eruptions in Siberia, some kind of impact event, stuff like that." My brain started to churn. "Of course, there's another possibility. Bacteria."

Graham nodded slowly. "An infection. A world-wide infection."

"Some of the infected insects could've been trapped in the amber. Amber is airtight. It would've acted like a tomb."

"Incredible." Graham lowered the book to his lap. "So, the Nazis wanted to extract the bacteria from the amber. Then they wanted to revive it and prepare an inoculation against it."

"It wouldn't have been easy. But if successful, they would've been able to spread it across the globe. A second Great Dying would commence. Only the inoculated few would survive it." My body temperature dropped a few degrees. "Hitler's dream of a Garden of Eden would be fulfilled."

"That explains every aspect of the compound. They extracted the
Großen Sterbens
bacteria and created potential inoculations for it at
Werwolfsschanze
. They injected prisoners with those inoculations and then exposed them to the bacteria in the gas chambers. Initially, they buried the dead in that mass grave. Later, they switched to incineration." Graham inhaled sharply. "Do you think their plan would've worked?"

I shrugged. "The Nazis thought so."

"What are we going to do?"

"Same as before. We're going to find
Werwolfsschanze
. Then we're going to locate and excavate the Amber Room. Is there a map in that book?"

"Yes," he replied. "But we should think about this. Maybe the Amber Room is too dangerous to be allowed to survive."

I stared at him.

"It could wipe out every living thing on this planet, Cy."

"I know."

"Then you know what we have to do."

"We have to find it." I exhaled. "And then we have to destroy it."

Chapter 41

"Do you want to know why people call me Crazy Roy?"

I looked around the common room. Most of the residents had showed up on time for Baxter's town hall meeting. But Beverly was nowhere to be seen. Her absence was beginning to grate on my nerves. "Not really."

"Because I scare the shit out of them."

I glanced into his unblinking eyes. Roy Savala looked like a cowboy, an honest-to-God arctic cowboy. He was tall and brawny. His chin was square and covered with scruff. His eyebrows were thick and untamed. Based on his lined face, I guessed him to be fifty years old. But it was difficult to know where the weathering ended and the aging began.