The opening to the tunnel was big enough to drive a truck through. Above it, carved in relief, was a Nazi eagle emblazoned with the immediately identifiable letters SS.
They were standing on the remnants of what once must have been a paved road of some sort. Rocks were scattered everywhere and several trees had been sheared in half. Had someone used explosives to blow the rocks away from the bunker entrance? Unless someone had come spinning through the forest with a buzz saw set at random heights, it was the only thing that made sense. As the rocks had been blasted away from the entrance, they had exploded outward, snapping the enormous trees like matchsticks.
“Looks like we found it,” said Ericsson.
Casey and the others nodded.
While they had no idea what kind of research had gone on inside the underground complex, they knew they were staring at a piece of history; a piece of history few even knew existed.
“Are we going to stand here all night?” asked Rhodes. “Or are we going to go inside and look around?”
“We’re going to have to leave one person outside to stand guard,” said Gretchen.
Reflexively, she began to look in Ericsson’s direction until Cooper said, “I’ll do it. I’ll stay outside.”
“Okay then,” replied Casey. “Megan and Jules, you’re with me.”
As Alex took up her position at the entrance, the three other women struck off down into the tunnel.
“Remember, the Nazis boobytrapped everything. So be careful.”
“Roger that,” said Rhodes and Ericsson in unison.
Their night vision goggles cast an infrared beam that helped illuminate the tunnel. Alex Cooper watched from her position until her teammates disappeared from view, swallowed by the darkness.
As the three women walked, they noticed the composition of the tunnel walls changing. The solid stone was soon studded with minerals as they went deeper.
“Quartz?” asked Rhodes as she reached out to touch some of the crystalline formations they were passing.
“Either that,” replied Casey, “or Kammler’s miraculous minerals.”
“This place has got a very bad vibe to it,” said Ericsson.
Vibe was the right word, thought Casey, and it was definitely bad. The tunnel seemed to pulse with an ominous force all its own.
“Hey, Jules,” said Rhodes. “If we find anything in here with a full set of teeth, it’s all yours, okay?”
“And I’ll make sure to send anything that’s younger or has a hunger right your way,” Ericsson replied.
Something along the ceiling caught her eye and Casey looked up. They appeared to be murals.
The other two women followed her gaze.
“Man, the Nazis were sick,” said Megan as she stared at a rearing horse with glowing eyes leading a dancing column of skeletons. “I thought this was supposed to be some sort of scientific facility.”
“It was,” answered Gretchen.
“So what’s with the paintings?”
“I’ve got no idea. Let’s keep moving.”
“Shouldn’t we be getting video of this?” asked Ericsson.
“Probably,” agreed Casey, who stopped to remove the digital night- vision camera from her pack.
Turning it on, she pointed it toward the ceiling and then pressed the record button. “Okay, let’s move,” she said.
Every thirty feet was another set of blast doors that had been propped open. A string of lightbulbs ran down the tunnel’s left side. Up ahead, they could see what looked like a guard station of some sort carved out of the solid rock.
“Would it surprise anyone if suddenly three SS officers just stepped right out in front of us?” asked Rhodes.
Casey instinctively reached for her pistol just to make sure it was still there.
“How deep into this place do you want to go?” Julie asked.
“As far as we can,” replied Casey.
The answer was good enough for Ericsson, who kept checking behind them, to make sure they weren’t being followed.
They stepped into the old stone guardhouse. There was a desk with a field telephone that was vintage World War II. There was also a cot, a table with two chairs, and a bookcase lined with moldy, German-language books. On one of the walls was a small control panel with a series of buttons and dials that looked as if it might have been responsible for the opening and closing of the heavy blast doors they had been passing through.
“Check this out,” said Rhodes as she dusted off the desk. “More runes.”
Casey looked down and saw the strange string of symbols that had been carved with the point of a knife. “More Nazi occultism. Terrific. Let’s keep going.”
They exited the guardhouse and continued walking deeper into the tunnel.
“When do you think somebody opened this place back up?” asked Ericsson.
Casey shook her head. “I don’t know. It’s hard to tell.”
“Weeks? Months? Years?”
“Jules, I don’t know.”
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to-”
“I’m not angry,” replied Casey. “I’m just trying to process what I’m seeing too, okay?”
“Okay.”
“I’ve got about as much of this figured out at this point as you do.”
“I got it,” said Ericsson. “Enough said.”
Casey chastised herself for not being more professional, but Ericsson had a bad habit of asking dumb questions when she was on edge. Gretchen didn’t need that now.
The trio moved on in silence. Above them, the Nazi murals grew more macabre. Casey continued filming, just as she had in the guardhouse. She had no idea if any of this would be of value back home, but she had her orders.
Up ahead, they came to their first obstacle-a set of blast doors that were closed. Rhodes tried to push them open, but they wouldn’t budge.
“Maybe they left the key under the mat,” said Ericsson.
“What mat?”
“Found it,” said Casey, as she ran her fingers down along the outline of a smaller entrance that had been cut into one of the blast doors.
Ericsson came over, flipped up her NVGs, and lit up the lock with her filtered flashlight.
“What do you think?” Casey asked after a couple of moments.
Ericsson studied the rest of the door for any sign that it was wired, either with boobytraps or with alarm sensors, and then finally said, “I can do it.”
Taking off her backpack, she removed a small zippered case. Holding the flashlight in her mouth, she unzipped the case and pulled out a small steel lockpick gun.
Kneeling, she adjusted the flashlight and then slid the tension wrench into the lock and applied a slight amount of downward pressure. Next came the pick gun. Once it was inserted, she began pulling the trigger. The noise it made resembled a stapler being depressed over and over.
She adjusted the tension wrench a couple times and then felt the lock give way.
Removing the equipment from the lock, she said, “We’re in.”
Casey and Rhodes drew their weapons and pointed them at the door as Ericsson stowed her gear and then slung her pack over her shoulders.
Flipping her NVGs back down, she reached for the door handle and waited. All three took a deep breath and then Casey whis-pered, “Go.”