He quickly recounted what his team had seen. It didn’t take long. Besides the grand reveal and Kane’s survival, there hadn’t been much of anything to report. They had followed Kane from the Russian camp in their own Sno-Cat, staying far enough back not to be noticed. An unrelenting storm had assisted them in the effort.
“Are we still waiting to engage?”
“
“And if there aren’t any toxins?”
“
“Agreed. What is your ETA?”
“
Emil longed to enter the Underworld, even if it was just to cross inside the doors. But he knew his place, and he had his orders.
“Yes, sir. We’ll be waiting for you at the northern end of the lake. See you then.”
Zahra was thrilled to be out of the cold. The ambient temperature of the secret passage was downright balmy compared to what was outside. Still, she kept her winter gear on. They all did.
She was also thrilled not to have been poisoned to death. It called into question the vitality of Dietrich Krause’s coded message, or they were still too shallow. It was very possible that the cave-in had happened further inside and that the internal grounds were still toxic.
She looked up at the row of lights lining the center of the tunnel’s ceiling. It appeared the electricity wasn’t an issue here. She still had no idea how. The only thing that made sense was nuclear power, though, she didn’t know how viable an option that really would have been back then — especially all the way out here.
“Seems a bit excessive, don’t you think?” Zahra asked. Even though her words were soft, they reverberated loudly around her. The entrance had maintained the original dimensions as the doors, measuring fifty feet tall and four times as wide.
Yana shrugged. “I guess that all depends on what they have down here with us.” She switched her gaze to Hammet. “Any ideas, Herr Braun?”
He shook his head. “I’m at a loss. But whatever it is, it will be grand. That I can assure you. The Nazis never did anything small. They liked to put on a grand show whenever possible.” He motioned to the entrance. “Hence, all this.”
Yana sighed. “I am going to be very pissed off if this is nothing more than an oversized broom closet.”
The three operatives chuckled together.
They eventually came to the end of the tunnel entrance. It ended at a connection point of sorts. Within the dim light of the intersection were three cookie-cut tunnel openings. Lights ran across the equally tall ceiling in an X formation, giving Zahra and the others a touch of illumination, though not much. Zahra didn’t know what to expect, but it definitely wasn’t this.
“What the hell?” she said, walking to the center of the enormous four-way stop. She gave the other three archways a quick look, but it was too dark beyond them to make out much of anything. “How big is this place?” Her voice bounced around like mad.
Yana unzipped her coat and removed a flashlight from her chest rig, clicking it on and showing it on the wall between the entrance tunnel and the one to the east, Zahra’s left. “Look at this.”
Zahra and Hammet added their own lights and were in awe of what they found.
“It’s the
“It’s holding the upside-down globe,” Zahra interrupted, “the one from the dead sailors’ uniforms.”
“That’s not all. There are words over here. And they’re in English.”
Zahra and Hammet turned and found Yana pointing her light at the next wall. This one was between the eastern and southern tunnel openings.
“Well, yeah,” Zahra replied. “English would have been the common language between the represented groups.”
“Okay, sure, but listen to this…” Yana read her discovery aloud. “‘And I beheld when he had opened the sixth seal, and, lo, there was a great earthquake; and the sun became black as sackcloth of hair, and the moon became as blood; And the stars of the heavens fell unto the earth, even as a fig tree casteth her untimely figs, when she is shaken of a mighty wind.’”
