The Lance

CHAPTER ELEVEN

At the German research station on the Princess Martha Coast in Antarctica, spring was in full swing. For the last four weeks the thermometer had soared above freezing. Global warming and the hole in the ozone layer were hot topics of conversation in the dining hall.

The thinning ozone layer was Hans Schmidt's field of expertise. Thirty years old, he was a rising star in the expanding science of environmental studies. Hans had an engaging, open face, hazel eyes and fair hair. He'd let his beard grow over the last few months, the reddish color hinting at his Viking ancestry. In a month he was going back to Germany to marry his childhood sweetheart, Heidi. Life was good for Hans.

He'd dressed in high brown laced boots, sturdy pants over insulated underwear, two shirts and an open red jacket. He wore a fur lined hat with flap ears tied up on top. Antarctic weather could change to fury in an instant, even in the warmer months.

He'd checked out a Sno-Cat and persuaded Otto Bremen, the head of the station and the chief geophysicist, to go inland with him to the mountains of the Fenriskjeften, the "Jaw of Fenris", named for the giant, ravenous wolf of Norse myth. It was still largely unexplored territory.

Bremen was older, in his early fifties. He was stocky, shorter than Hans. His face was round and jolly, which made him a favorite for playing Kris Kringle at Christmas time. He had tufted eyebrows turning white over blue eyes and silver-rimmed bifocals set slightly askew on his large ears. He wore an insulated yellow parka with a German flag stitched on the shoulder and sturdy boots and pants.

They pulled out of the garage cavern hollowed from the ice beneath the station and headed toward the mountains. The heater in the high cab of the Tucker Sno-Cat was on low in the fine weather. Hans cracked a window for fresh air. The Tucker was one of three identical vehicles donated to the station by Eric Reinhardt, a wealthy American businessman of German descent.

The big Allison diesel engine rumbled in a contented drone. They headed over the snow and ice toward the mountains an hour away. With two 60 gallon tanks, a closed cab and plenty of storage, the Tucker was like a Rolls Royce in this part of the world.

Bremen tinkered with another Reinhardt gift, an experimental device using ultra sound technology to detect mineral deposits. The Fenris Mountains would provide a good field test. No one had ever found much in the Antarctic ice, only a little iron and some copper. None of it promised commercial development. Besides, the Antarctic treaties prevented any kind of serious mining operations.

The big Sno-Cat closed on the mountains and Hans turned parallel to the front of the range, looking for anything unusual in the melting ice and snow. After ten minutes the mineral seeking device began to beep.

"Something ahead," Otto said. "According to this, no more than three of four hundred meters." He consulted a chart. "High density iron, copper, the readings are going crazy."

"Look there!" Hans pointed through the windshield.

He slowed and brought the Tucker to a halt. On the side of one of the jagged peaks, ice and snow had broken loose in the spring thaw. A gray, regular outline was visible against the dark rock.

"What the hell is that?" Hans let the engine idle.

"I don't know. It looks man made. That's where the readings come from."

"I don't remember anything about a station or camp here."

Stations were often abandoned in the Antarctic. Both men were familiar with the history of the region. Neither had ever heard of anything in this area.

They climbed down from the cab and walked to the mountain wall. Two wide doors of rusting steel, each twelve feet high, were set into the rock. Ice and snow blocked the lower part of the doors.

Excitement filled both men.

"What do you think?" Otto said. "Can we get in?"

"Maybe we can push the debris aside."

"Let's try it."

The Sno-Cat was equipped with a heavy blade used to groom the station runway for supply planes. Otto and Hans climbed back into the cab. Hans engaged the four speed transmission and brought the Tucker around to the doors. He lowered the blade and began working. In twenty minutes, the way was clear.

The two men stood before the doors. There was a large, U-shaped handle on each one.

"They have to open in." Hans rubbed his glove across his face. "No one would have doors that opened out. They'd get blocked by snow."

"I wonder if they're locked?"

"Against what? Penguins? Let's push and see."

They pushed against one of the doors. Grunting, they pushed harder. With a rusted squeal, the steel door opened. They pushed at the other door and swung it inward. The interior lay in darkness.

Hans went back to the idling cat, backed it around and pointed it straight at the open entrance. He switched on the six halogen headlamps and hit high beam. The interior lit up with brilliant white light. He took two hand held torches from the cab and joined Otto.

A high roofed tunnel ran straight as an arrow into the mountain. Bare electric light bulbs, long dark, were spaced down the center of the ceiling.

"Whoever built this bored right into the mountain."

"What could it have been for?" Otto said. "This is huge. It would take a lot of equipment. I never heard of anything like this down here."

A little way in, Hans paused at a room on the right.

"This could have been a guardroom." He pointed at a frost covered stove in the corner. "That looks like something from sixty or seventy years ago."

"A military base? For what? Who built it?"

On the other side of the corridor was a kitchen and eating area, big enough for a hundred men. They passed two barracks rooms with gray wooden lockers still in place at the ends of the bunks. Hans opened one. Empty.

They walked down the corridor, past what might have been officer's quarters with two bunks to a room. They came upon a radio room. A microphone and telegraph key still sat on top of a metal desk, next to a large transmitter console tied with snaking cables to a tall rack of receivers and test equipment. Next to the transmitter was a wooden box. Otto opened the box. Inside was something like a typewriter, with a complex keyboard arrangement of letters and buttons.

Everything was covered by a thick layer of white frost. Otto wiped off the face plate of the silent transmitter. The switches were marked in German. Both men saw the swastika at the same time.

"Holy shit! This must be Doenitz's secret base!"

Grand Admiral Karl Doenitz, head of Nazi Germany's naval forces, had once referred to "an invincible fortress in the Antarctic", but no one had ever found evidence of its existence. Now Otto and Hans were standing in it.

Hans picked up a logbook lying on the desk. He thumbed through it without absorbing the words, set it down again.

"This short wave stuff was state of the art in the forties," Otto said. "Look at the size of that transmitter. Must be two kilowatts at least. There've been rumors of this place since the war, but no one ever knew where it was, or if it was real."

"Berlin isn't going to be happy about this."

"No one wants to think about that Nazi crap anymore. What they do with this is their business. But we have to report it."

They left the radio room and continued down the passage. The next room contained two large diesel generators, silent and cold. Exhaust tubes disappeared into the ceiling.

Down the tunnel a series of four rooms opened to the sides. Three were empty. The fourth held six large wooden crates, each stenciled in black with an eagle and swastika. Hans rubbed frost away from a label.

He looked at Otto. "It says 'kitchen supplies'."

"That's a lot of supplies."

In the corner Otto spied a long crowbar, set against the icy wall. He picked it up and pried away the lid of a crate. He shone his light inside.

"Not kitchen supplies. Look at this!"

The crate was filled with paintings. They peered in.

"That's a Vermeer!" Hans said. "I recognize the style. Or it's a damn good copy."

"No one would stash a copy here." Otto pushed the lid back in place. "That painting is worth a fortune. It must have been stolen during the war. I'll bet all these crates are full of things stolen by the Nazis."

They walked down the tunnel and passed two large closed doors on their left. The doors didn't budge when Otto tried to open them. At the end of the corridor they came to a steel door with a spoked wheel and a combination dial.

Hans tried to turn the wheel, but it was locked in place.

"If they left paintings worth millions outside this vault, what could be in here?"

Otto shrugged. "Who knows? We'd better get back and tell the others. It's going to play hell with our research time once Berlin sends people to check it out."

"Look on the bright side. There has to be a finder's fee for that art work. Maybe we'll get some real funding out of it. Publicity, too. That never hurts."

In the scientific world, fame was a good thing. Both men thought that the future had just gotten brighter.

Back at the station, Otto contacted Berlin by satellite with news of the find. It never occurred to him that someone else might be listening.