The Black Gate (6 page)

Peter recalled that a
Standartenführer
was the equivalent rank of a colonel in the American military. “Who is Baumann? I thought von Falkenstein was in charge of the project.”

“The
Herr Professor
oversees the technical aspects of the project, yes,” she told him, “but Baumann is in charge of the SS contingent at the facility and is your military superior.”
 

“Did he give you that scar?”

Mina shook her head. “No. That was the
Herr Professor’s
handiwork after I made a mistake,” she said softly. “That is not the only one.”
 

Peter stared at her, aghast. He wasn’t sure what to say, so he kept his mouth shut.

After a while, Mina went on, “The
Herr Professor
will likely not take notice of you unless you are incompetent at whatever tasks he may assign to you. He looks upon the engineers and technicians as menials who are a necessity to achieve his goals. He is the brain, while people like you are his hands. Do what he says and only ask questions if you must, but that is all.”

She turned left and took the vehicle over a small bridge into a town. There were enough landmarks for Peter to identify their location: Neheim, which lay about nine kilometers northwest of Arnsberg.
 

They rode in silence for a time before Mina said, “You have never done this before, have you?”

“What, parachuted from a burning plane into enemy territory to work undercover as an SS officer on a top secret project?” Peter snorted. “No, this is a new entry on my
curriculum vitae
.”

“I meant field work,” she persisted. “You have no experience.” It was a statement, not a question.

“No, I’m afraid not.”

Her hands tightened on the wheel. “You should never have accepted your orders to come here. This is not a mission for an amateur.”

“I wasn’t ordered here,” Peter told her. “I volunteered for this mission.”

She threw a disbelieving look at him. “You are a fool.”

Peter shrugged. “I’ve been called worse. If it’s any consolation, I know my business as an engineer. If you can get me inside, I can probably bring the project to a screeching halt. And that brings me to the big question: just what the devil is The Black Gate?”

“Better that you learn of it as you should, directly from the
Herr Professor,” she said
. “That way…you will react naturally. You could not possibly believe me, even if I told you. It is something you must witness for yourself. Even then, you will not believe. Not right away. But I hope you are half as good an engineer as you claim. Otherwise, you will be a dead man. Or worse.”

Peter wasn’t sure what to make of those last words. They drove on in silence, the road taking them along the east bank of the Ruhr River, passing under the massive viaduct that carried the rail line into Ansberg.
 

“There it is.” Mina pointed up the hill to their left. “
Schloss
Arnsberg.”

The castle, or what was left of it, stood upon a hill that had a commanding view of this part of the Ruhr River Valley. The river flowed on both sides of the hill, heading one direction on the western side before hooking back north and passing back along the eastern side. Peter could make out the remains of a wall and the ruins of the foundation of the old castle, but that was all that remained.

“I hate to say this, but I’m a bit disappointed,” he said as he craned his neck, trying to see up the hill through the
Kübelwagen’s
windshield. “I was expecting something more along the lines of Castle Frankenstein. You know, the one in the movie with Boris Karloff. Except I guess this would be Castle Falkenstein, wouldn’t it? The names sort of go together.” He smiled at his own wit, but the expression evaporated at the scathing expression she gave him.

Before he could apologize, she said, “There is perhaps more truth to what you say than what you might think. And before you say anything else that will get us killed, get your papers ready. We’re coming up to the first checkpoint.”

Peter fished out his SS identification papers, hoping the soldiers on guard duty wouldn’t notice that his hands were shaking. His mouth suddenly went dry.

The checkpoint wasn’t any more elaborate than those Peter had encountered during his trips to England, but the strings of barbed wire and sandbagged firing positions were imposing enough, all the same. The difference was that in England he’d had nothing to fear.
 

The two men on duty were joined by two more who emerged from a small guard shack beside the gate. One of them held the leash of a German Shepherd, and the human-canine pair began a circuit around the vehicle after Mina pulled to a stop and rolled down her window.

One of the SS men, who was so big he could probably have upended the car by himself, shone a flashlight in her face and barked, “Papers!”

She and Peter handed the man their identification. The big soldier studied hers first, then shone the light in her face again. Then he looked over Peter’s documents, studying them carefully, before hitting him in the face with the flashlight beam and holding it there.

It was a long, terrifying moment until Peter remembered that he was in character. He wasn’t the man he had been before Bob threw him from the plane. He was a decorated
SS-Hauptsturmführer
who had fought in a dozen major battles before receiving a debilitating wound, after which he had continued to serve the
Reich
. Such a man wouldn’t sit silent, quaking with fear under such treatment.

“
Oberscharführer
,” he said quietly, having gotten a glimpse of the sergeant’s rank tab before being blinded by the flashlight, “shoot me if you like, but get that light out of my face. Now.”

“My apologies,
Hauptsturmführer
Müller,” the man said as he shifted the beam of the flashlight to the ground. “I am required to be thorough, especially for new personnel.” He quickly handed back their papers.

“Your diligence is to be commended,” Peter said, “and I shall so inform the
Standartenführer
.”

The man stood at attention, drawing himself up even taller than his already impressive height. “Thank you, sir!” He snapped out his right arm in a salute. “
Heil
Hitler!”

Peter raised his own right hand in a casual parody as the guards stepped away from the car and the gate was raised.

After they’d driven through, Mina said, “You should not have done that.”

“What?”

“Told him that you’d tell Baumann. When you don’t, it may come back to you.”

“Maybe I will.”

She slowed the car to a stop after they’d come around the hill far enough that they were out of sight of the check point. “Have you heard nothing I’ve told you?”

“I’ve heard and treasured every word. But as much as I’d like to, I can’t sneak into whatever this is and pretend to be a church mouse. This uniform won’t let me.”

She shook her head as she stared at him. “I don’t understand.”

“It was like back there.” Peter hooked a thumb back toward the check point. “Had I acted like I wanted to, which would have been to crawl down into the footwell of the car to hide, those men would have known I was out of place. They were expecting to see an SS officer, so I had to give them one, or as close to one as I can. It will be even more so with Baumann and von Falkenstein. Had my cover been some sort of civilian engineer, perhaps I could hide under the table and no one would notice. Unfortunately, that sort of cover wouldn’t have gotten me in here, would it?”

“No,” she conceded. “The
Herr Professor
was not so concerned about the replacement beyond the technical requirements, but Baumann was very insistent that he had to be an SS man. He trusts no one else.”

As Mina started the car up the hill again toward the stone ruins that waited above, Peter said, “You keep calling von Falkenstein the
Herr Professor
. You must respect him a great deal, even after what he’s done to you.”

“He is a very great man,” she said as she parked the car in a small motor pool inside the broken walls of the ancient fortress. Guards were posted at intervals along the wall, with more patrolling the castle grounds. Her words carried an undertone of fear that left Peter wondering.

“So you’re what, his secretary?”

“No, I’m his mistress.”

“Oh.”

She got out, slammed the door closed, and stomped toward the security check point at the top of the sweeping stone steps that led to the base of the castle ruins.

Peter hurried to catch up to her.

***

Once past the outer guard post, Mina led him into what had once been part of the lower section of the castle, then down a set of spiral stairs lit by bulbs set in sconces along the stone wall. Peter could sense the age of the castle as his hand brushed against the stone.

“How old is this place?” He asked, his voice echoing in the narrow passage.

“The first construction probably took place around the year 1100. From the drawings I’ve seen of the castle in later years, it must have been quite beautiful, although not nearly as imposing as you might have wished.”

Peter winced at the sarcasm.

“It was destroyed in 1762 during the Seven Years War,” she went on, “and has been left in ruins since.”

“Too bad the
Herr Professor
didn’t see fit to install an elevator,” Peter huffed. The staircase was playing hell with his bad leg, and there was no handrail to cling to.

“We have elevators to reach the lower levels,” she said. “We’re almost there.”

“How did von Falkenstein get any sort of large equipment down here?”

“It was not brought in this way. The main access portal is through the railway tunnel that runs through the mountain just north of the
schloss,
which is also how the excavated material was removed when the facility was built. This is just for personnel.”

“I see.”
 

Just when he thought his leg was going to give out completely, the spiral staircase opened into a room with slab-sided concrete walls and floor, although the ceiling was rough hewn rock. The elevator was at the far end.

More guards were posted beside the elevator doors, and Peter did his best to rein in his labored breathing and minimize his limp.

The guards, who all wore dress uniforms, unlike their colleagues posted outside, saluted. “
Heil
Hitler!”

Peter snapped up his right arm. “
Heil
Hitler!”
 

“Take us to Level One,” Mina said to the soldier who stood nearest the elevator controls.

“At once,
Fräulein
.” He slid open the outer door and the elevator’s safety gates and gestured for them to step inside. Peter noted that none of the men they’d encountered to this point seemed surprised or taken aback that Mina was in uniform.
 

The two of them stepped in, followed by the soldier, who closed the gates. Taking a grip on what looked like a throttle control on the wall of the elevator, he pulled it down, and the elevator began to descend.

Peter’s engineering mind had been at work since they took the first step down the spiral staircase. He guessed that the stairs had taken them roughly twenty meters into the hill. He was able to gauge the elevator’s rate of descent by using the bottom and top of the elevator as reference points against the rock wall of the shaft as it slid by beyond the safety cage as he counted off the seconds.

His ears popped as they continued down…and down.

At a depth of roughly one hundred meters, the elevator slowed to a smooth stop.
 

“Level One,
Fräulein, Hauptsturmführer
.” The soldier pulled open the gate, and Peter followed Mina out of the elevator, only to stop dead in his tracks.

He had expected to find himself in a drab concrete-lined tunnel. Instead, while he knew the walls, ceiling and floor must indeed be lined with concrete, the facility (or this part, at least) was decorated to the standard of a five star hotel. The flooring was Italian marble, and the walls were covered with a tasteful beige wallpaper, with illumination provided by elegant brass sconces set at precise intervals.
 

They were greeted by another group of guards. A pair stood flanking the elevator, while two more sat behind what looked like a hotel concierge counter. They simply came to attention without rendering the otherwise obligatory Hitler salute. The elevator was at the top center of the T junction made by two corridors, and Mina led him down the corridor that formed the base of the T, directly away from the elevator.
 

“This isn’t what you expected, I take it?”
 

“Not at all,” Peter breathed. “This is…this is amazing.”

“The
Herr Professor
enjoys his creature comforts when he is not in the laboratory. Your room will be here,” she pointed to one of the doors they passed, which had
136
emblazoned on it in brightly polished brass.

“What about my bag? I left it in the car.”

“The soldiers will bring it in. Don’t worry.”

“What’s down the other corridors flanking the elevator?”

“The dining hall and kitchen are down the one to the right as you face the elevator,” she told him. “To the left is the armory, supply storage, and the barracks.”

“Good to know,” Peter said.

Near the end of the corridor, Mina pointed to a double door with the number 100. “That is the
Herr Professor’s
suite.” Nodding her head to the other side of the corridor, where door 101 was located, she added, “and that is Baumann’s.”

Just ahead was another lobby with a pair of larger elevators and more guards.
There must be at least a company of troops here already
, Peter thought, wondering if the additional company mentioned in the ULTRA intercept had arrived yet.

“Take us to Level Two,” she told the senior soldier on duty.

This elevator was somewhat different. Where the first one had been a rather crude and slow affair, this one was ultramodern. Peter cursed to himself as the stainless steel doors closed, eliminating any chance he’d have of gauging how deep the second level might be.