“This wasn’t just a single coordinated attack,” Hammet mumbled to himself, turning in a slow circle to take in the whole space. “Black Sunset was a
Yana’s search of the wing she was in — one that could only have been an aeronautics center — moved quicker than she had thought it would. A large amount of the papers she found were either in the Sixth Seal’s combined language or in Russian.
Still, what she did read didn’t shine light on what exactly was going on.
She turned and kicked a table leg in frustration. A stack of papers fell and scattered to the floor, revealing blueprints for a piece of an airplane’s engine. It was clearly part of an engine, though it all meant little to her.
It was the
Though it was in German, she could still read it — thanks to the movie
“
The stunned question launched the Russian into the other papers. She needed to know more about the Sixth Seal’s spectral aircraft.
Zahra exited the tunnel between the southern and western wings and stepped into what had obviously been a space dedicated to medical research and development. The commonality between aeronautics engineering and medical R&D was lost on Zahra. She had no idea how the two related to one another. The only project she knew about was Black Sunset, and even it, she knew very little about.
“Or,” she said, talking to herself, “they aren’t related at all.”
It’d make sense that a group with the financing of the Sixth Seal would have worked on several different ventures down here. Medical experiments weren’t anything new to the Nazis, either. Nor were they an untouched frontier for their Axis allies, Imperial Japan. Both groups had performed abhorrent experiments on not only their prisoners but also their own soldiers.
The SS and Japan’s Unit 731 were the worst of the worst, and leading the Nazi charge was the Angel of Death himself, Josef Mengele. Just the thought of being in a place like this, surrounded by medical equipment used by Nazi scientists, made Zahra’s skin crawl.
“But it wasn’t just you, was it?”
The question had been for the Nazis as a whole. This wasn’t just a secret Nazi facility, though they did seem to be the central cog. The Americans and Soviets had happily taken part in all this, too.
Like the South Wing, this space also possessed an elevator back to the upper levels. Zahra did a quick lap around the lowest level first before boarding the lift. The only things down here, besides another split in the floor, were crates of unused vials, syringes, gloves, and aprons, among other similar items.
She also found a foursome of soiled hospital gurneys.
The elevator clunked into place on the next floor up. Zahra stepped off and noticed that the right-hand portion of the catwalk was portioned off into what looked like offices.
“Let’s hope they left in a hurry.”
The office wall facing the central cavity was made entirely of glass. It was broken in some places but nowhere near where Zahra was now. She started around the catwalk. Twenty feet later, she came to her first obstacle: a fogged glass door. A single word had been printed on the glass. It was in the combined language they’d discovered, the mix of English, German, and Russian, and read, “PRIVATE.”
She tried the knob and was tickled to find it unlocked. That was good, but not all that important. She could have easily smashed the glass and reached inside to unlock it. If it had been a solid interior door, the aged deadbolt would have bent to the will of a bullet.
She entered a room sporting eight unimpressive desks. Upon taking a glance around, she doubted this was where the juiciest of juicy data would have been kept. The desks here were situated facing the center of the room with a walkway down the middle. Around each desk were basic, two-drawer file cabinets. It all seemed… administrative.
No leader would have buried their darkest secrets in a place like this. Still, if she had the luxury of time, she’d have thoroughly combed through all the cabinets. Instead, Zahra skipped them all and headed for a second door, one that led deeper into the facility.
“Whattaya bet…”
Zahra had a feeling this was where the pot of gold had been hidden. Why else would there be a door and wall separating workstations? She crossed the first room and tried the next doorknob. It didn’t budge.
