The Reich Device (34 page)

‘Fuck! We can’t stay here!’ Nash bellowed the obvious and let off another targeted volley. A body dropped in agony a few yards to his left – one of his men rolled around in the mud minus a leg.

A burst of fire hammered into the ground, showering Nash with earth. Rolling over, he pulled a smoke grenade from his webbing.

‘On three! Give me covering fire!’

Temple duly slapped home another magazine, pouring firepower on the wooden shack.

Nash lunged forwards, and tossed the smoke grenade through the nearest window. The shack erupted in a cloud of thick orange smoke. For good measure, he tossed in another; it had the desired effect.

The front door of the shack burst open.

Despite the choking smoke, the guards kept in formation. A burst of fire – move – a burst of fire – move. The guards worked as a team to make an orderly retreat to the river, whilst still pinning Nash’s men down in the exposed ground.

Nash issued new orders over the din. ‘Left flank, give covering fire! Number One keep those bastards down on the riverbank!’

The enemy still had plenty of fight left in them, but with luck they could be held. Nash was sure Heinkel would be among them.

Out of nowhere, a boat engine roared into life.

‘The jetty!’ Temple pointed towards the water.

Nash poked his head around the corner of the shack.

Steinhoff and Heinkel!

Heinkel expertly hacked at the mooring lines with a machete, and returned fire with his automatic pistol. Evidently, he and the scientist were doing a runner and leaving their comrades to it.

Nash took a careful aim, trying to pick out the engine compartment. He fired, suddenly flinching as fragments of wood exploded next to his head.

‘Shit!’ Nash rammed home another pistol mag and clicked a round in the chamber.

Too late – Heinkel was already on the move!

The engine revved violently to the sound of crunching gears as Heinkel threw the boat into reverse.

Nash lunged forward into the open, firing rapidly at the stern. It paid off: thick smoke billowed from the engine compartment.

Choking on the smoke, Heinkel pushed hard on the throttle, sending the boat downriver. The stern disappeared from view.

Suddenly, a heavy burst of machine gunfire erupted from behind the shed at close range. Nash was perplexed – why wasn’t he dead? Then he realised the shots were not directed at him, but at the assault team holding the rear. Sparks flew as shots bounced off the oil drums; then his rearguard was gone in a fireball of hot diesel.

Nash threw himself to the ground, the scorching heat whisked inches over his head. As the blast wave receded a familiar sound registered in the back of his mind: the
click clack
of someone reloading a heavy-calibre machine gun.

Catching a glimpse of a huge muscular German – the guy from the boat, standing tall, weapon at the ready – Nash tensed and waited for death as another surge of heat passed overhead.

The German disappeared from view behind the orange glow. Nash dove back into cover on the other side of the shed, hitting the dirt hard.

‘Fuck!’ he curled up into a ball. Shards of wood and hot metal screamed inches above his position. The steady whir of the heavy-calibre weapon filled his ears.

He risked a glance up the hill.

Flames and mayhem; there was no chance of making cover. That left only one choice; take the fight to the enemy.

He rolled over, pulling the pin from a grenade, and hurled it through the shack window. He buried himself into the ground.

The explosion showered more shards of timber and glass in all directions.

Jumping to his feet, he piled through the first window to be met by a turbulent mass of splintered furniture, dust and blood; but no soldiers. Where was the German giant?

The remains of the front door suddenly burst from its hinges.

The German stood looming in the doorway, with large splinters of wood down his left side. He limped forward. Blood poured around a shard of timber impaled in his eye, his face ached with the pockmarks of numerous shrapnel wounds. Inflammation would soon close his remaining good eye, and the pieces of wood jutting from the back of his hand would make it awkward to hold his weapon – but none of that mattered – for now, killing the enemy was good enough.

The German screamed as he lifted the machine gun.

Click
– the magazine was empty.

‘Shitze! Shitze!’ He leapt forward, discarding the heavy weapon.

Nash wheezed as the air was driven from his torso. The weight of the huge German sent a sharp pain through his chest, ribs fractured.

The first punch hit home like a block of cast iron, crunching teeth together. Blood filled his mouth. Dazed, Nash flailed his arms in a frantic attempt to defect the next blow.

Smash!
Cartilage shattered on bone, blood gushed from Nash’s face; with his eyes puffing up under the assault, his vision began to close. He bucked violently, but it was no good, the German was simply too heavy.

‘Die! Die! Die!’ The German rained down more vicious blows.

‘Fuck you!’ Nash bellowed with remains of his strength, then twisted his body whilst fishing in his belt kit for a knife.

The German landed another devastating punch and, sensing the end, grabbed Nash by the throat.

‘Time to die now, American!’

Nash choked on the vice-like grip. The German expertly pressed his thumbs into the Adam’s apple – Nash knew the technique – a very efficient way of crushing a man’s airway. He hunted for air, but found none; his pulse pounded surreally inside his head.

The grip tightened.

Nausea began to rise and, with his lungs bursting, his eyes beckoned the fog of unconsciousness.

Miraculously, Nash found the blade, and with the last of his strength, he rammed it home.

The German bellowed at the pain in his chest, distracted enough to release his grip. Nash sucked in lungfuls of air.

‘Shitze! Shitze!’ The German pulled the knife from his own chest. ‘My turn, American scum!’ He powered down with the weapon.

Parrying, Nash somehow managed to deflect the steel tip into the floorboards.

Thud!

The impact echoed close to his head.

‘I said die, American!’ The German reigned fists down on the helpless Nash, then pulled the knife from the floorboards.

This time the knife landed on target.

Pain erupted in Nash’s shoulder. For good measure the German twisted the blade.

‘Arghh!’ Blood gushed from the wound and, with his vision blurring, Nash knew he would not be able to deflect the blade again.

‘American swine!’ The German bellowed another stream of obscenities as he pulled the knife from Nash’s shoulder, raising the blade high, cursing through clenched teeth as he swung the knife down again with all his bodyweight behind it.

Nash waited for the end.

Gunfire filled the room.

The huge German erupted in an explosion of bone fragments, blood and internal organs. He gave a confused look, then dropped the knife and slumped forward.

He was dead.

Gagging underneath the weight of the blood-soaked body, Nash thrashed his legs, with panic rising.

Suddenly, the dead weight was lifted. Nash gasped in air. He opened his eyes, blinking; a shadowy figure began to emerge.

‘You alright boss?’ came the welcome voice of Rudy Temple.

Nodding, unable to speak, Nash sucked in air.

Temple smiled. ‘Told you I’d save your limey arse!’

Nash heeled the corpse in the head. ‘Fucking Englishman, not American! Nazi bastard!’

Temple pulled Nash to his feet. ‘Take it easy mate, he’s well and truly dead.’

Nash rested against Temple, holding his shoulder wound, relieved to be alive.

Outside the fight was all but over. The last few guards on the riverbank surrendered with dignity. The assault team rounded up the workers from the tents up the hill. Then scouted the remains of the jetty and beachfront for prisoners. The miners were a ragged bunch; all locals. No doubt they would have been worked hard on the promise of a good wage, before being ruthlessly dispatched. There was no sign of Heinkel or the scientist.

Later that evening a steamship left South Africa for Germany. It carried a precious cargo. Not as much as they would have liked, but enough, just enough for the task ahead. Dr Steinhoff nodded to himself with satisfaction as he checked the purity of the batch; the nano carbon was perfect. His superiors in Berlin would be pleased.

T
he pieces of the puzzle were coming together at last. Steinhoff worked carefully with the nano carbon from Zululand. Awestruck by the properties of this new material, and feeling the hand of history on his shoulder, he worked on, checking his calculations.

What was it that Professor Mayer had said? Wave energy being converted to particle energy; or maybe it was the other way round. It didn’t matter, either way it was a revelation – like stepping out of the Dark Ages and finding a spaceship.

Steinhoff flushed with another rush of adrenalin.

Mayer had also mentioned electricity. It made sense now. The device needed an electric field to work. The nano carbon had some very special electrical properties. The first few experiments had been simple, a kind of ‘proof of principle’. If Professor Mayer had been alluding to some kind of propulsion device then it would need to be made of light but strong materials – aluminium sheeting – just like a rocket. There was plenty of that lying about the workshop. It had taken a few attempts, but eventually he was able to make aluminium sheets coated with nano carbon.

The results were astounding.

Steinhoff checked the calculation again –
this couldn’t be right
– but it was.

The carbon coat conducted electricity better than any other material known to man. The optical properties of the material also changed, going from a matt black to an eerie fluorescent green glow when it was charged with a small amount of electricity. Amazingly the colour changed even more, from green to yellow, to orange, and then to a bright fluorescent red as more electricity was passed through the material.

Where did these optical properties come from? Were they important?

Steinhoff had absolutely no idea; but he did understand electricity.

That’s it! A giant dynamo! Electromagnetism!

The material was super-conducting, it would make a fantastic giant dynamo; an electric motor that would propel a new kind of rocket.

Steinhoff set about the task immediately.

He wrapped up one of the carbon-coated sheets in a copper coil. Sure enough, when electricity was passed through the copper coil, the carbon was magnetised. Steinhoff felt the sheet trying to move. But even so, the movement was not that strong, not enough for a rocket. Maybe it was just a question of more carbon, or more electricity?

He needed more aluminium sheets; it needed to be bigger.

He skipped meals and, with no need of sleep, adrenalin kept his mind working through the night. As the first rays of morning light filtered into the workshop, he stepped back to examine his handiwork – it looked good.

The latest design made much more sense. It incorporated several long sections of nano-coated aluminium sheeting for more power. The sheets were bent and bolted together on a frame to form a hollow tube. In effect, the inside of the tube was a bunch of carbon plates.

He checked the power cables attached to the device.

All good.

It was time to give it a go.

Tentatively, he turned up the dial on the power supply; a sudden flash brought the device to life.

Steinhoff jumped.

The plates immediately gave a bright fluorescent red glow; but there was no movement.

‘But what’s this?… Yes… ’ Steinhoff muttered to himself. Something
was
happening in the middle of the tube. A fine carbon dust began to form – a kind of long thin line of red carbon plasma appeared in the middle of the tube.

He smiled.
Progress!

The electricity in the plates was somehow vaporising the nano carbon from the surface to form the plasma in the central core of the tube.

He stared at the glowing plasma, the stuff of science fiction.

But how could he make it move?

He kept his eyes on the red glow down the middle of the tube and, walking slowly around the prototype equipment, he carefully examined each part of the tube.

How to make it move?

Lost in thought, he made another full circle around the prototype, and ended up staring down the tube. He shook his head, lost; he took the pipe from his pocket in resignation. He lit the tobacco and took a few puffs to get a good glow in the bowl. It seemed to help.

He absently sucked away on his pipe, blowing clouds of smoke into the open end of the tube.

Suddenly, as the tobacco smoke hit the red plasma, there was a brilliant white flash. The whole structure jolted forward. The force was enormous – it moved the tube, and the bench it was sitting on; even smashed the retaining bolts that were holding the bench to the concrete floor.

Steinhoff’s jaw dropped, dumbstruck; his pipe clattered to the floor.

What had just happened?

The impossible.

He stared at the pipe, then at the wrenched bolts.

How could a couple of puffs of tobacco smoke create such a massive force?

He examined the bolts.

Completely shattered – only a force of at least several tons per square inch could do that. Steinhoff ’s brain kicked into overdrive.

This was monumental. If a few puffs of tobacco smoke could create a lift of several tons, what would a steady stream of smoke into the plasma tube do? Lift hundreds of tons? This was wild! There was nothing like this!

It made the last five years of effort on the rocket programme look stupid. They had spent half a decade making a rocket engine that would lift a couple of tons, and by today’s standards that represented a fairly large rocket. But this was in a different league. This was a whole new way of thinking that could power an enormous rocket. Maybe it could lift a rocket that was a hundred metres tall, ten times the size of their current efforts.