Johnny woke up to the shrill ring of the room telephone. “Hello,” he said sleepily into the receiver
“Mr Duncan, hospital reception here. I have a Miss Cahill at the desk. Shall I send her up?”
“Yes, please.”
He splashed cold water onto his face then pulled on his trousers and looked at his reflection in the mirror above the sink. He needed a shave and a shower, but he wanted to speak to Veronica first.
There was a knock at the door. “Hi Veronica, come on in its good to see you,” he said as he opened the door. He walked over to the chair by the bed to retrieve his shirt.
“Jeez John. How is she?”
“Still in a coma the last time I saw her. I’ve heard nothing; I assume there’s no change.”
“I couldn’t sleep worrying of Caitlin and yourself.”
“Thanks Veronica.” He picked up his mobile from the chair. “I’ll need to call her mother; I couldn’t contact her last night. I think it’s all right to use a mobile in this block.” He pressed the key for Sue, and after a few rings a hoarse voice answered.
“John–is everything all right?”
“Sue, don’t get alarmed. It's Caitlin, she’s asleep and… I can’t waken her up.”
“What! What do you mean can’t waken her up?”
“Yesterday she fell asleep in front of the TV while I was making the tea, and when I tried to wake her–I couldn’t!”
“Oh dear!”
“We’re in Ninewells. They’ve carried out tests and said she’s in good health, but in a coma. The doctor says it could last from a few days to a few weeks.”
“My baby. I’m coming up,” she said and then hung-up.
Veronica, who had been gazing out of the window, turned toward him. “Look John, maybe I’d better go.”
“No, I want you to stay,” he said, throwing the mobile onto the bed. “I’m going to have a shower.”
After he washed and shaved, they headed down to the main concourse for some coffee. Outpatients were arriving in droves and looking for their destinations as Johnny and Veronica entered an open-plan café. They bought toast and coffee and sat at a table near the back wall.
Veronica stared at Johnny. “I can’t believe Caitlin’s in a coma she seemed so…
lively when I met her.”
“Veronica,” said Johnny as he buttered his toast. “There’s something I should tell you.” He took a bite of his toast. “Physicists in your country are working on some machine which will open some spatial dimensions. I think one dimension is what we would call Hell.”
Veronica took a sip of her coffee. “Where did you find this out?”
“I was visited by someone or something; no vision this time he seemed as real as you or I. He said the experiments must stop at all costs.”
“How does this tie in with Caitlin?”
“In a dream last night, I was shown Caitlin or at least her astral body or soul or whatever by Samael - he’s who we would call the ‘Devil’. She was searching for something in what I believe to be the thirteenth dimension. I could see her, but
couldn’t talk to her, I was just an observer. The demon clarified that if I wanted to see her conscious again, I would need to deny seeing ‘the visions'.”
“Oh God! So, we cancel ABC?”
“For now, yes.”
Caitlin lay peacefully sleeping on a bed with the back section raised. A clear tube entered her arm under a large sticking plaster. The ward she was in was full except for one bed.
“Caitlin.” Johnny whispered. “Veronica’s here to see you and Mum's on the way.”
He held her right hand. “Are you going to wake up today baby?”
A male doctor with thick, black hair approached the bed.
“Mr Duncan?”
“Yes.”
“The toxicity tests have returned with a negative result; so, we can cancel that out.”
“What’s next Doctor?” Veronica asked.
“EEG.”
“Okay, thanks Doctor,” said Johnny.
Sue came rushing in accompanied by Ollie. “Oh baby!” she said as she stood by the bed.
“What did the Doctor say?” she asked Johnny.
“They’re still carrying out tests.”
“How could you let this happen?”
“Me!”
“It’s something to do with this trouble you’ve caused.”
“The doctor says comas can be induced by many things.”
“Who’s this?” Sue asked, nodding toward Veronica.
“I’m Veronica Cahill, a colleague of John’s,” said Veronica with iron in her voice.
“I’ll wait on you downstairs John,” she then said looking at John.
“Me too.” Ollie said, turning to follow Veronica.
“So what happened, again?” Sue asked with venom.
Johnny recited the sequence of events again, tactfully leaving out the fact he had left Caitlin alone for a short while.
“I’ll never forgive you John Duncan, if she doesn’t pull through.”
“Come on now Sue, she’ll wake up and want a McDonalds in no time.”
“How can you be so sure?”
“I just know — that’s all.” He gave her what he hoped was an encouraging smile.
“I have to see about something will you give me a phone if there’s any change.”
He left the ward and descended an empty staircase before walking along a busy hallway with a polished floor and paintings on the walls.
In the central concourse he saw Veronica and Ollie sitting in the same café he and Veronica had been in earlier. The crowds hid him as he made his way toward and then out of the main door.
A bus arrived and dispatched visitors and more outpatients for the already crowded hospital as he pulled his mobile from his jacket pocket and rang his sister, Gemma.
“Johnny, long time no hear.”
“Yeah, well, you know, I’ve been busy.”
“I’ve been reading about you.”
“Listen Gem, I need a favour. Are you still into that paranormal stuff?”
“Yes, now and again. Why?”
“I need the services of a kosher medium, psychic type in the area.”
“Keith Moncliffe, Camphill Road Broughty Ferry; he’s the best.”
She then gave Johnny the man’s number.
“Thanks sis. I’ll explain all later. See ya!”
He made the call to the number and then put the mobile back into his pocket.
When he headed back into the café Ollie had gone back upstairs.
“Where have you been?” Veronica asked.
“On the phone. Veronica, I need you to drive me to Broughty Ferry.”
“Where?”
“Come on, I’ll show you the way.”
After a short drive they pulled up outside a three storey, well-built, cream-coloured house. The stainless-steel sign on a gate pillar of the garden wall read: Keith Moncliffe BSc. (Hons) Psychology.
“You sure about this John?” Veronica quizzed
“As I explained on the way here, I’ve no choice.” He opened the car door. “Are you coming?”
Johnny pushed the bell button on the small portico and waited. A tall woman with thick, brown hair above a face with a pale complexion and grey eyes eventually opened the door.
“I’m Mr Duncan; I phoned about an appointment. You said there had been a cancellation.”
“Yes, come in.”
They followed her through to a room with wood panelling on the lower half of the walls, white painted plaster made up the rest. A glass coffee table in the centre of the room had papers and magazines scattered upon it.
“Please wait here. Mr Moncliffe is with a patient,” the woman said as she closed the door.
“Thank you,” said Johnny.
Veronica sat and browsed through a magazine as Johnny paced back and forward; then moved over to the window and gazed at the well-kept garden. After about half an hour a well-groomed man of about forty with short, fair hair and a brown goatee opened the door. “Mr Duncan?”
“Yes.”
“I’m Keith Moncliffe,” he said as they shook hands. “You told my receptionist you had an emergency?”
“Yes,” said Johnny, as he turned to Veronica. “This is Veronica Cahill; do you mind if she sits in?”
“No, not at all. Could you follow me please?”
The room was bright and reminded Johnny of his doctor’s surgery. The only thing different was a red leather couch.
“Please take a seat,” said the psychologist.
The pair sat on stainless-steel and black leather seats in front of a glass top desk.
Johnny looked around. “I’m not sure you’re…”
“Mr Duncan, I am not only a psychologist; I’m a medium and a good hypnotist.
Now, what’s your problem?”
Johnny put Caitlin’s and his fate in the man’s hands. He explained in detail all that had happened.
“So, you see Mr Moncliffe, I need someone to take me to the thirteenth dimension.”
“Far too dangerous Mr Duncan. You understand that this place you talk of is otherwise known as Hell. If you go, you may never come back!”
“I’m prepared to pay you well.”
“Mr Moncliffe, do you have children?”
“Yes, and very well, but you must do as I command.”
“Of course.”
“Right, make yourself comfortable on the couch. Now, normally to induce hypnosis I ask the patient to count down from two hundred. In your case we need to induce an astral projection of sorts; so, I need you to count from one. Miss Cahill as I’ll be in a trance–like state I would like you to alert my receptionist, Miss Wilkie, if anything untoward happens. Please do not awaken us.”
Moncliffe stood up and pulled the chair out from behind his desk, then placed it beside the couch and sat down. “Right when you’re ready close your eyes and take a deep breath then count.”
Johnny closed his eyes and felt apprehensive as he counted.
“That’s it, now just relax,” said the hypnotist. “We’re climbing up a beautiful staircase. You're getting lighter with every step; up, up we go.”
After a while Johnny wasn’t sure if he was still counting out loud or in his head. He could hear the hypnotist’s voice all around. He felt warm and peaceful; the apprehensiveness had gone. Soon he stopped climbing and floated up through the clouds toward a brilliant, blue sky. A radiant being floated up beside him.
“Still very relaxed and becoming lighter and lighter,” said the being.
Johnny realised the figure was Keith Moncliffe.
They entered a massive sphere of white light where Johnny was sure he could see figures moving and sensed love. Then they floated on upwards out of the top of the sphere and into another similar sphere.
They floated through one sphere after another. The further they rose the darker the spheres became, and the feelings of love diminished. Johnny could still see groups of figures but they were no longer white.
They slowed as they entered a dark sphere. “This is the twelfth dimension. I will go no further; however, I will wait here for your descent,” said Moncliffe.
Johnny moved upwards while voices flowed through his mind. “Go back now or you will never go back at all,” they teased, but Johnny kept on rising. He left the twelfth dimension and entered the thirteenth.
The dark encroached upon him and made him shiver. Wisps of black mist moved toward him and then passed through him. He heard a whisper. “This is the place of the damned. Look up!” He looked up and saw, set against the backdrop of star-studded infinity, a bridge-come-stairway which linked the sphere with a smaller sphere. Souls climbed the steps one after another.
A scream brought his attention back to where he had stopped. A small figure ran out of the gloom. “Caitlin!” he shouted as the figure became clearer.
“Dad!” she shouted, running into his arms. “What are you doing here?”
“I’ve come to take you home baby.”
A growl came from the dark from where she had emerged. “Dad, we need to go–
now!” But it was too late: a dark figure with light grey skin, and a mouth filled with sharp pointed teeth, flew at them.
Veronica watched with concern as Johnny’s breathing became erratic, and he entered a stage of REM. She looked at Keith Moncliffe, but he still seemed to be peaceful.
What it all meant she wasn’t sure; but one thing was for sure: Johnny was in the thick of it!
In the hospital, Sue looked up at Caitlin’s face; she was sure she heard a sigh. She noticed that the child’s breathing had changed and that her eyelids flickered. “Nurse!”
she shouted.
A male nurse appeared, he was short, but well-made with cropped red hair and tattooed arms. He looked at Caitlin.
“This is good,” he said. “I think it means she’s dreaming. I’ll call Doctor Macmillan to check.” He then turned to Sue. “Don’t worry we’re winning.”
The horror that was the Angel of Death stared down on the cowering pair in the gloom of the thirteenth dimension. They both closed their eyes and Johnny said a small prayer. When he opened his eyes again, he was descending with Caitlin in his arms and the shining figure of the hypnotist alongside. He heard a spine-chilling scream from above, and he assumed that the Dark Angel was a bit miffed.
“What happened?”
“I saw the danger you were in; I threw a psychic net around you both and pulled you down.”
Caitlin woke up with a start. “Mum, where am I?”
“Oh, Caitlin dear,” said Sue as she wiped the tears from her eyes. “You’re in hospital. We were all worried.”
“Where’s dad?”
“He went off somewhere… I’ll need to phone him.”
“It was dad; he came for me!”
“What do you mean honey?”
“Mum, you have to phone dad and see if he’s okay.”
“Okay, but I don’t understand.”
Veronica breathed a sigh of relief. “Am I glad to see you both back with me again?
How did it go?”
“Very well,” answered Johnny.
“Yes, but you may be in for trouble soon,” said Keith, rising to stretch his legs.
“I need to find out how Caitlin is.” Johnny said, pushing himself up from the couch.
“You can use my phone if you wish.”
“Thank you, but I have my mobile,” Johnny said, switching on his phone, which at once rang. “Hello, Sue.”
“Johnny she’s awake; Caitlin’s okay!”
“Oh, thank God!”
“She’s asking for you.”
“Okay, I’m on my way.”
“Thanks Mr Moncliffe I can’t thank you enough,” he said as he put his mobile back in his jacket pocket. “How much do I owe you?”
“Miss Wilkie will deal with that. I want you to call or come to see me again for I fear that this isn’t over yet.”
Johnny paid up at the receptionist’s desk adding an extra one hundred pounds for a job well done.
Johnny walked into the ward with tears in his eyes and hugged his daughter then hugged his ex-wife.
“Thanks for coming for me dad.” Caitlin whispered when he turned back toward her.
“Will someone tell me what this ‘coming to save me’ is all about?”
“Oh mum, let’s just be happy for now!”
“Come on Sue let’s go, and let Caitlin get some rest,” said Ollie as he took her arm and gave Johnny a nod.
“Well, okay. Will you be okay baby?”
“Yes mum.”
“We’ll be back tomorrow to take you home.”
“Dad,” said Caitlin, after her mother and Ollie had left. “Will it be okay to sleep tonight?”
“Of course, honey. Don’t you worry about a thing; I’ve done what they wanted; now you watch some TV, and I’ll see you soon.”
“How do you know the demon won’t come back for Caitlin or yourself?” Veronica asked as they drove along the dual carriageway that connected Dundee with Arbroath.
“Well, they’ve shown me how powerful they are; I’d be a fool to do anything that would endanger my daughter again. I obviously won’t be going ahead with the TV
interview. And I have Keith Moncliffe to call on if needed.”
“Why were you chosen for the visions?”
“I’ve thought about that too. I believe it’s because I’m a journalist I suppose who happened to have a few choice articles published in some international magazines.”
“So, what now?”
“What now? Well, I will need to take the risk and try to stop these experiments in the States. How? I don’t know.”
They turned right under the railway bridge, and Johnny glanced up at Arbroath Infirmary sitting gazing out at the North Sea. “Are you coming up to the flat?”
“It depends, are you cooking dinner?”
“I’m the guy that sets out to make an omelette and ends up with burnt scrambled eggs, but okay.”
“A pizza and some wine will do fine.” Veronica said and then laughed. “I need to go back to my room and get some work done also check the emails. I’ll come by at seven.”
Johnny opened the door to his flat, listened, and then crept in and looked in every room. “What am I doing?” he asked himself. “This whole thing’s got me freaked.”
He did some housework and then sat down in front of his laptop in the spare room. He had his own work to do.
At five past seven the doorbell rang. Johnny, freshly showered and shaved, ran through to the hall and opened the front door. “Veronica! You look good enough to eat.”
“Mm…! Maybe later,” she said, walking past him through to the living room.
The doorbell rang again. Johnny tugged the door open again.
“Pizza sir?” A youth asked him.
“Dinners arrived,” he said as he laid two thin cardboard boxes on the coffee table and then waltzed into the kitchen humming the ‘Blue Danube’. He returned with a bottle of red wine and two glasses. “Wine madam?”
“Yes please.”
He filled her glass up to the brim.
“Are you trying to get me drunk sir?”
“Yes,” he replied, watching the wrinkles at the sides of her eyes as she smiled.
“Good, I feel like getting drunk after all that’s happened.”
“Sounds good to me,” he said as he sat down and opened his box.
Johnny awoke to a loud crash from the living room. “Jesus! What was that?” He shouted, as Veronica mumbled something and then went back to sleep. He jumped out of bed and pulled on his bathrobe. A cracking noise and the smell of smoke made him rush to the door. “Oh shit!” he shouted as he gradually opened the door and saw flames spreading through the living room. The right-hand window had been smashed and black smoke was escaping through the jagged hole. He ran into the hallway and closed the living room door, then ran back into the bedroom and pushed the door shut as the smoke alarm screamed.
“Veronica, get up!” he shouted as he ran over to the bedside chair and hauled on his clothes.
“It’s the living room; it’s on fire. Come on we got to get out of here.”
Bizarrely, he heard the letter box flap close, which he put down to a draft caused by the broken window. He took his mobile from the bedside unit and pushed it in his pocket and then grabbed his jacket. By the time he had his jacket on Veronica was dressed.
“Right,” Johnny said, as he opened the door. “Oh no!”
The hall carpet was ablaze and flames were creeping up the walls and pushing black smoke onto the ceiling. He slammed the door shut and pulled a sheet off the bed, then rolled it up and tucked it along the bottom of the door. He then ran over to the window and pulled up the lower frame. Looking down he shook his head–the garden was further away than he remembered. The distance was just too great for a
‘hang and drop’. He pulled his mobile from his pocket and rang 999.
“Which service: ambulance, police or fire?”
“Fire–we’re stuck in the bedroom at 10b Guthrie Port Arbroath, the rest of the flat’s on fire!”
“Right sir, there will be an appliance with you soon.”
He hugged Veronica as they stood by the open window. Smoke was squeezing into the room from the minute gaps between the door and its frame. The heat became unbearable and the sound of cracking and smashing deafening.
Johnny coughed, and Veronica sobbed with despair when suddenly, they heard the sound of aluminium on sandstone. The top of a ladder had appeared at the window.
Johnny looked down and saw Bob Tosh, the Roofer who lived two blocks along the street standing at the bottom. “Okay John, I’ll hold it steady, down you come!” he shouted.
Johnny pulled his head back in, and said: “Veronica, you first.”
She removed her shoes and threw them along with her handbag onto the lawn.
Then she climbed out of the window and onto the ladder. “Oh my God! Oh my God!”
Veronica shouted, climbing unsteady down the ladder.
“It’s okay Veronica I have hold of the top and Bob has the bottom. You’re doing fine.” Johnny said.
The roar of the fire increased as it raged through the flat. A big black mark appeared on the inside of the bedroom door. Johnny burst into a fit of coughing.
“Good lass,” said Bob as Veronica stepped off the ladder and gave him a quick hug.
Flames ripped through the bedroom door as Johnny climbed out onto the ladder and then descended to the safety of the garden.
The three stood on the grass and looked up at the smoke belching out of the bedroom window. Suddenly the bathroom window cracked, and they saw flames dancing around inside.
“We best move into my garden,” said Bob as he took the ladder down.
They made their way through the garden gates which connected the properties as a siren screamed to a halt on the street outside.
“These lads will take care of it!” Bob shouted.
Johnny hugged Veronica as they watched Bob put his ladder away.
“Marj’ll have the kettle on John, why don’t the two of you go up to my flat.” Bob said as he approached them.
After climbing the stairs Johnny knocked on the maroon door and pushed it open.
“Come on in,” said a soft voice. “We’re in the kitchen.”
Johnny went into the neat kitchen, followed by Veronica, to find Mrs Spink, his neighbour, sitting chatting to Marj Tosh beside a steaming kettle.
“Thanks for this Marj,” said Johnny. He then turned to Mrs Spink. “I’m glad to see you Mrs Spink.”
“I saw Mabel standing out on the street gazing up at the fire,” said Marj.
Bob strode into the kitchen as Marj handed out mugs of tea. “I’m just in time then.”
“You can make your own, Bob Tosh, these are for my guests.”
“Mm…! Typical,” said Bob with a laugh. “The firemen are running hoses up your close and their shooting water in through the front windows off that hoist thing they have. Hamish Murray’s there, and he says he’s coming up for a statement.”
The doorbell rang; so, Bob left the room, and when he returned a stalky paramedic with a shaven head followed him.
“Anyone require treatment here?”
“We’re all right,” said Veronica, looking at Mabel Spink, who nodded her head.
“No smoke inhalation or cuts?”
“No, fine,” said Johnny.
“Okay, I’ll leave you to enjoy your tea.”
“Would you like a cup?” Marj asked.
“Not while I’m on duty,” the paramedic laughed.
Sergeant Hamish Murray knocked on the kitchen door just as the paramedic was leaving. “Hope you don’t mind Bob–the front door was open, so I came in.”
“No that’s all right Hamish come on in.”
“Mr Duncan. We meet again.”
“Yes, under different circumstances.”
“An eventful life you lead.”
“Well, I don’t plan it this way.”
The policeman took out his note book. “The firemen have got the better of the fire now. You won’t need me to tell you that the house is pretty well gutted.”
He wrote something and then said: “I’ll need a statement please.”
Johnny gave the sergeant the sequence of events.
“Okay,” said Hamish, after Johnny had finished. “Have you got anywhere to spend the rest of the night?”
“Yes sergeant we’ll be staying at my bed-and-breakfast: the Harbour View,” said Veronica.
“How about you Mrs Spink?”
“Mabel will stay with us,” said Marj.
“Okay then, thanks Bob. Oh, CID will be down to see you tomorrow Mr Duncan.”
“All right, thanks sergeant.”
The next morning as the sun was playing cat and mouse with a large rain cloud Johnny walked along the High Street and then turned down Guthrie Port. The sight of his flat stopped him in his tracks: the windows were rectangular, black voids, and the blackness seemed as if it was creeping up the building above them.
He climbed the stairs and stood gazing at his front door, which was still intact and open. “Hello, anybody there?” he asked as he walked over the scorched floorboards, some of which were burnt away leaving the blackened joists exposed.
“Yes, in the living room,” said a familiar voice.
“DS Mitchell,” said Johnny looking at the black walls of his living room.
The policeman was crouching as he searched around the floor area in front of the right-hand window. “Ah, Mr Duncan you’ve saved me a journey I was just going to come and see you.” He looked up at Johnny. “A bit of a mess?”
“Have you got anything to add to the statement you gave Sergeant Murray last night?”
“No.”
“Well, we’re dealing with a case of arson. The forensic chappies have found pieces of a bottle in the living room that have traces of petrol on them. The reason you and Miss Cahill couldn’t get out of the bedroom was because petrol had been poured through your letter box and ignited. We’ve found a petrol can in a wheelie bin down the road and suspect it to be the one used.”
“I thought I heard the click of the letter box flap last night, but assumed it was just the wind.”
“Whoever did this wanted you dead I’m afraid. Lucky for you Bob Tosh is a light sleeper.”
“Yeah, I owe him a big one; he’s a good man.”
“So, any idea about this one?”
“No, must be those neo-Nazi’s I guess.”
“We’re working with the German police on those people. They’re a slippery bunch; nothing can be pinned on them. How about the murder, have you remembered anything in connection with it?”
“No–nothing!”
“We’re no further I’m afraid.” DS Mitchell said, standing up. “Okay. You’re staying at the Harbour View?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, take care.”
After DS Mitchell left Johnny walked through to the spare room and stared at his laptop, melded to a charred floor joist. He stared out of the crack in the blackened glass of the window and watched the large rain cloud, which had escaped the sun -
deliver a shower in the distance. He then took out his mobile; he had some calls to make; first was his insurance company.
Johnny walked into Veronica’s room at the boarding house and collapsed on the bed. “Well, I’ve phoned the insurance company and bought myself another laptop.”
“Where is it?” Veronica asked, looking up from her computer.
“Och, they didn’t have the model I wanted, but the guy in the shop said he’d have it in by tomorrow. I need to write my column as soon as possible!”
“You can use this one when I’m finished,” said Veronica as she resumed her work.
“Johnny?”
“Yes, my sweet?”
“I phoned a colleague of mine, Dave Martin, about this dimensional thing. And he said, among other things, that some old German guy and his son had been bugging scientists and politicians to stop the tests. It seems that during the Second World War Hitler was scared off by some experiment with a UFO where something materialized from another dimension. He was of course laughed off as a joke.”
“What’s his name?”
“I thought you’d be interested; so, after some arm twisting I got Dave to email me the details. His name is Günter Wiedemann and he lives in Stuttgart. I have a mobile number, that’s all.”
She stared at Johnny. “I wonder if what he saw was similar to that thing from which you and Caitlin escaped?”
“Could be,” said Johnny as he sat up and looked out at the Harbour. “Could be.”
Johnny rang the number given to him by Veronica as he sat by the window and gazed at the yachts bobbing up and down.
“Ja!” said a firm voice.
“Hello Mr Wiedemann, my name is John Duncan. I am calling from the UK about the dimensional tests about to be conducted in the United States. I believe we both have an interest in stopping them.”
“Where did you get this number?”
“From a secure source.”
“Are you the John Duncan that I read about in Time Magazine?”
“Yes, that’s me. I was wondering if a colleague and I could come over to Germany to meet you.”
“You will be phoned back shortly!” The line went dead. Johnny looked around at Veronica, absorbed in her work. He thought better of disturbing her and watched a boat leave the safety of the Harbour for the open sea instead. His mobile rang. “Yeah, hullo–John Duncan.”
“Mr Duncan my name is Matthias Wiedemann. My father has told me he would like to meet you to discuss the mutual interest?”
“Fine.”
“Very well, please understand we have been the target of fools; both the harmless kind and the dangerous kind, ja!”
“We will be most discrete Mr Wiedemann.”
“Please phone me on this number when you have come to Stuttgart and I will meet you. For now–goodbye.”
Johnny and Veronica sat on the British Airways 11:55 am domestic flight to London Heathrow on a rainy Thursday in Aberdeen. As the plane began to taxi to the runway Johnny shook his head.
“What’s up?” Veronica asked.
“The last time I sat here in one of these I was going on a well-deserved break. And look how that turned out? The only good thing was meeting you.”
“Well,” said Veronica, grasping his arm, “you’re going on another well-deserved break, but this time with me, and we’re going to gather a few facts along the way.”
Johnny felt apprehensive about going to meet the old German as the plane broke through the dark clouds and settled into an azure sky. It could be a waste of time, he thought, but something had to be done and this was the best lead–the only lead! He had covered his work by not only doing one column, but two and then emailing them.
He had also phoned Sue and found that Caitlin was well and back at school. Johnny would take his children out for the day when he returned, he mused.
They caught the connecting flight at 15:40 pm and then flew into a hazy Stuttgart at 18:25 pm. A cream Mercedes taxi took them east along an autobahn surrounded by green fields before turning north. They passed through an urban area and eventually entered a leafy suburban area, which revealed a panoramic view of the city of Stuttgart.
The taxi descended into the city centre and passed by the main railway station, a behemoth of a building with a church like tower, before pulling up outside what looked like a sixty’s department store.
The Steigenberger Graf Zeppelin Hotel, chosen by Johnny because of his love for an old rock band, stood on Amulf-Klett-Platz and gazed across at the railway station.
“Mr and Mrs Smith,” whispered Johnny, as they walked through the plush main hall toward the check-in desk.
“Jeez! You’re so last century, but I like it.” Veronica said with a smile.
They checked in and headed up to their twin-bedded room on the third floor, where Johnny flopped onto one of the beds while Veronica started to take things out of her bag.
“What time do we have to meet this guy tomorrow?” she asked.
“Eleven o’clock in the main square, the Schloss Platz, by the Jubilee Column.”
“How about some dinner, mister?”
“Yes, my dear.”
They ate a local pasta-based dish, Maultaschen, and drank red wine in the intimate atmosphere of a white stucco-walled restaurant. After which the remainder of the evening was spent sitting at the bar where Johnny quaffed wheat beer and Veronica her favourite: vodka and lime juice.
“Maybe we should have a look around Stuttgart,” said Johnny, after his third beer.
“Nah! I’m tired.” Veronica retorted.
“Yeah, you’re right there’s always tomorrow. Let’s go up and test the beds?”
“I thought you’d never ask.” Veronica said with a wide grin.
After a hearty breakfast of ham, cheese and enough dark bread to sink a battle ship Johnny and Veronica strolled along the Koenigstrasse. The tree lined pedestrian precinct had the usual array of shops found in any big city.
The late April day was humid, and the sun hid behind light grey clouds. The buds on the trees, above waves of people washing from one shop to another, showed signs of opening up for the summer.
Johnny’s senses were drawn toward a stall where big sausages were being grilled and sold on rolls with onions. The aroma was enticing, but he had had too much for breakfast, so he gave it a miss and stood with Veronica as she looked in an expensive shoe shop window instead.
“What is it about you women and shoe shops?” Johnny asked with a grin.
“Oh, don’t be such a frump, we’ve got the time.”
Eventually they left the throng of shoppers in the Koenigstrasse and entered the spacious Schloss Platz with the baroque New Castle sitting in all its elegance on the far side.
People strolled, cycled and walked dogs along wide pathways as a thunderstorm rolled across the distant hills.
“Well, that’s the Jubilee Column,” said Veronica, pointing toward a big column which dominated the centre of the square. “How are we going to recognise him? Is he going to wear a red carnation?”
“He said he’d find us.”
Large, well-painted houses gazed down from surrounding hills at the pair as they stood at the base of the column and watched people come and go. The thunder seemed to be creeping toward the city.
Johnny looked at his watch after a while. “Well, that’s ten past and no sign of our man.”
Then, a tall man with receding dark hair and a large moustache approached the pair.
He was dressed in jeans and a light blue T-shirt. “Mr Duncan?” He asked in perfect English with only a slight trace of a German accent.
“Yes. Mr Wiedemann?”
“Yes, I’m Mathias Wiedemann.” The German said as the two men shook hands.
“This is Veronica Cahill–my associate.”
After shaking hands with Veronica, Matthias said: “If you’ll come with me please, I’ll take you to meet my father. I’m sorry for being late, but I had to check it was you; I have a photograph on my mobile phone. Also, I wanted to see if anyone was tailing you."
“Where did you get it?”
“From the internet.”
They drove over the green Neckar River on a concrete bridge in Mathias’s blue Mercedes and passed the silver, circular building of the Mercedes Museum.
“Mercedes-Benz seems to be everywhere,” said Johnny.
“Porsche and Maybach are also here; this area is known as the cradle of the German automobile. I worked for Mercedes-Benz all my working life and took early retirement last year.”
The road entered a tunnel, and when they emerged at the other end Matthias took a slip road and then took a right and drove half a kilometre along the road before pulling into the kerb.
“Just a precaution to see if we have been followed.” Matthias said, looking in his rear mirror. Satisfied, he reversed the car into a side road and then went back the way they had come and entered the town of Fellbach.
They pulled into the garage driveway of a two-storey detached wooden house. The front garden had two cropped lawns separated by a flagstone path. Manicured bushes ran up either side of the yellow painted building.
“Right here we are,” said Matthias as he opened the driver’s door and walked round the front of the car. “Please come this way,” he said as he followed a path which took
him past a large double-glazed window. Then, unlocking the dark wood front door, he said: “Please come in.”
The darkened hallway had a pine staircase, which led to the upper level. A deep red wallpaper, which had flowers picked out in cream, decorated the walls.
Matthias led them into a spacious living room where an old man dressed in slacks and a checked shirt stood up from a black leather reclining chair. His skin was pallid and wrinkled and he had large bags under his eyes.
“Papa, this is Mr Duncan and Miss Cahill,” said Matthias, holding out an arm toward the pair.
“Ah yes, it’s nice to meet you.” Günter said as he offered his right hand to Johnny.
“It’s nice to meet you too sir,” said Johnny, shaking the man’s hand.
Matthias strolled over to the large front window and pulled the partially opened blind up allowing more light to flow into the room. “Please sit down. Can I get you a cup of coffee or tea?”
“Coffee will be fine,” answered Veronica.
“Same for me.” Johnny said.
“Papa?”
“Herbal tea, Matthias.” Günter said as he lowered himself back onto his seat.
“I trust you had a pleasant journey and that you find my home city to your liking?”
“Yes, it’s a great city–very clean!” Johnny said.
“So, Mr Duncan, I believe you’ve been seeing visions in the Holy Land?”
“Yes. Okay, I’m not a religious person and I didn’t ask for them, if ask is the right word. Now, cutting to the chase; I understand they were shown to me so I would influence politicians and scientists to stop the experiments on opening a gateway to other dimensions.”
Günter leaned back into his chair. “Why you, and not some politician?”
“Because, I’m a journalist who has written some penetrating articles.”
Matthias returned to the living room with a tray of pale, blue china cups on saucers and a jug of milk.
“So, Mr Wiedemann,” said Johnny as he accepted a cup of coffee and nodding to milk. “Can you tell me what happened all these years ago?”
“I was a member of the Hitler Youth, gripped by the hysteria sweeping across Germany at the time. I won’t deny it; I thought Hitler was a god. I was at a rally he gave in Stuttgart, and I knew then I had to be part of the new world he talked about.
Not that I had any choice you understand.” Günter paused to sip his tea, which Matthias had set on a small table beside him. “In 1940 I was sent to work with Doctor Teubert, a brilliant, young particle physicist well ahead of his time, on the Austrian border. His team were tunnelling under a mountain where they were going to build a powerful cyclotron and centrifuge. And carry out tests in uranium isotope separation and produce a Nazi atomic bomb. The world believed if the Third Reich were carrying out these experiments it was in Berlin. The leaders were happy for this deception to carry on while the main work was to go ahead away from prying eyes in southern Germany and Poland. I was chosen because I had done well in science at school.”
Günter then told the story of the dimensional experiment on the day Hitler and Himmler were present.
Johnny’s jaw dropped when he heard the description of the entity that materialized.
“That’s a description of the Angel of Death. I had a run in with her. She manifested as a little girl who befriended my daughter and then took her astral body to the thirteenth dimension.”
“Did you get her back?” Matthias asked.
“Yes, with the help of a medium.”
Günter nodded and then continued, “whatever it was I was not waiting for it to escape from the force field; so, I ran out of the cavern and through a side tunnel to an escape hatch. I then ran through the trees and slipped under the perimeter fence. I ran as far away as I could from that thing!”
He paused and took another sip of his tea. “I took refuge with my family back in Stuttgart. As the days passed I was relieved, but puzzled as to why no one looked for me. Months later I heard the cavern had been sealed up–with the scientists inside!”
“Dear God!” said Veronica. “How barbaric.”
“From then I was no longer a Nazi. I remembered the fear on Hitler’s face when the demon tried to get at him. He was no god!”
“We must stop these tests gentlemen,” stated Veronica. “But we need proof; solid evidence.”
Johnny sipped his coffee and stared at Günter. “The place where the experiments were to take place have you been back to the area?”
“I can see where you’re taking this Mr Duncan. As far as I am concerned the mountain is a war grave.”
“But if we can stop the tests Mr Wiedemann millions, indeed the world could be spared. The Dark Angel is one thing, but Samael, the King of the Demons, and his hordes flying out of some portal is quite another!”
Matthias looked at his father. “Papa maybe it’s time to open the past to save the future.”
“Open the past,” said Günter, shaking his head. “You never lived through these times: the fear and the killings. But yes, it's time to act for the sake of future generations.”
“The place is now an area of woodland walks and mountain climbing,” said Matthias.
“Can we go have a look?” Johnny asked.
“Yes.” Matthias said, looking at his father.
“Tomorrow?”
“Yes. At which hotel are you staying?”
“The Steinberger Graf Zeppelin,” answered Veronica.
“Good, I’ll pick you up there at eight tomorrow morning. It will take about three hours to get there. Oh, and you’ll need good walking shoes.”
Johnny, and then Veronica stood up. “Well until tomorrow, and thank you sir,” he said to Günter.
“Thank you, my boy.”
Matthias stood up and gathered the cups. “I’ll take you back into Stuttgart.”
That night, after dinner, Johnny left Veronica watching a film in their room and slipped out for a breath of air. The night was balmy, and an almost full moon shone down through the orange haze of the street lights. As he strolled up to the corner of the street a constant stream of cars and buses flowed by on both sides of the street.
Late night shoppers returned to the railway station festooned with plastic bags.
Suddenly a black BMW X5 screeched to halt and two muscled men dressed in black got out and approached him. He turned and walked back toward the hotel entrance, but found his way blocked by a third man dressed in black. The thug had an obvious bulge under the left arm of his jacket.
“Mr Menzel would like a word with you,” one of the two men approaching said, in English with a heavy German accent.
Johnny had no choice but to get into the vehicle which still had its rear nearside door open. He was followed in by one of the men while the other got into the front passenger’s seat.
“Do not be alarmed Mr Duncan I wish you no harm. I merely want to talk to you,”
said a dark-haired man in a grey suit, who Johnny sat next to. “I am Johannes Menzel.
The group I belong to are called Progressive Movement Three,” he paused to let the information sink in. “We have followed you and Miss Cahill since you arrived yesterday.”
“But…!”
“Oh yes, that silly old man’s son thought he wasn’t being followed, and we don’t know where he stays!” Menzel said.
The BMW pulled away and merged into traffic. They passed the railway station still busy with shoppers heading home.
“Where are you taking me?” Johnny asked, hoping the fear he felt wasn’t coming across in his speech.
“Just for a drive so we can have a talk.”
The vehicle pulled up at a crossroad, the red traffic light illuminating Menzel’s face.
“These visions, did you actually see them?”
“Why do you need to know Mr Menzel?”
The driver gunned the BMW as the lights changed to green.
“Because the people I deal with Mr Duncan believe Judas to be the first anti-Semite: the man who betrayed the King of the Jews. First, we have these Gnostics with Judas being the beloved disciple of Christ. Now you with a deal made between the two, and Judas a demon who vanishes in a burst of flames.
“I will repeat what I’ve told many people: I never asked for any of this. I am not religious. I went to Israel for a break and was given these visions because I am an incarnation of a shepherd boy present in the Garden of Gethsemane.”
Johnny stared into the man’s light grey eyes which burned with an unnerving ferocity.
“Was it you who burned my house in Scotland?”
“Mr Duncan, there are neo-Nazi fanatics all over the world. As I told the police I had nothing to do with that. The man, Lehmann, murdered in your house, was a fanatic. He was a fringe member of a group affiliated to ours, but again I had nothing to do with his actions.”
The car slowed to a halt, and Johnny gazed out at a well-lit building and realised it was the Steinberger Graf Zeppelin.
“Goodbye Mr Duncan.” Menzel said as the bodyguard on Johnny’s right opened his door and got out to allow Johnny to pass. Then he jumped back in along with the other thug who appeared out of the shadows, and the BMW sped away and merged with the other red taillights.
“Must have been a long breath of air?” Veronica said, as Johnny entered their room.
“I’ve just met Johannes Menzel and other assorted thugs.”
“What? The guy that’s supposed to be descended from Hitler!”
“Yeah, that’s him.”
“What did he want?”
“He wanted to know if I really did see the visions.”
The BMW X5 sped along the autobahn which took the Progressive Movement Three to Munich.
“Well Johannes, what do you make of our Mr Duncan?” Hans Schröder, Menzel’s number two, said, from the front passenger’s seat.
“I think he’s telling the truth.”
“This means we have a problem.”
“Mmm, indeed it could mean that Wiedemann tells the truth and that my grandfather, our glorious Fuhrer was frightened of something he saw in 1941!”
For a moment there was only the sound of the BMW engine purring as the kilometres passed by then, suddenly, the sound of raucous laughter filled the vehicle.
The next morning the humid weather had gone, and a healthy wind blew along Amulf-Klett-Platz as Johnny and Veronica stood by the front door of the hotel. A man with a yellow bag which had Stuttgarter Zeitung on it in black letters asked them if they would like to buy a newspaper. They declined as the blue Mercedes of Matthias Wiedemann peeled off from the passing traffic and came to a halt next to them.
“Good morning,” said Matthias as he opened the rear nearside door for the pair to enter.
“Good morning,” replied Johnny as he allowed Veronica in before him.
“Miss Cahill, good day,” said Günter from the front passenger’s seat.
“Mr Wiedemann! We weren’t sure if you were coming.”
“I must.”
After Johnny and Matthias settled in, they pulled out into the traffic and headed south with Matthias checking his mirrors for any sign of being followed.
“I wouldn’t bother with that Matthias. I was taken for a drive by Johannes Menzel last night, and he knows where you stay. They watch your movements.”
Johnny looked at Veronica with raised eyebrows. “I’m afraid they look on you as a joke.”
“Not so much of a joke now you’re here–ja!” Günter said.
Johnny had to agree with that as he watched the passing buildings.
South of the city they picked up the A8 autobahn and headed east past the bustling airport. They then drove fast through the German countryside as they headed toward Munich. A coffee stop was made just outside Ulm at a roadside service area. The place reminded Johnny of the service stops back home only the coffee was better. His mobile burst into life while he was taking a bite from a chocolate filled pastry.
“Yeah, hello–John Duncan.”
“Mr Duncan its DS Mitchell here I’ve been trying to contact you, we’ve picked up a man called Albert Lehmann. He’s the brother of Rudolf Lehmann, and he’s confessed to setting fire to your flat.”
“That’s interesting, thanks for letting me know.”
“I called by the Harbour View and heard you had checked out.”
“Yes, we’re taking a break for a few days.”
“Okay then sir, we’re going to charge the man with arson and attempted murder.
Oh, and one more thing, he said the neo-Nazi leader, Johannes Menzel financed Rudolf Lehmann’s trip over to the UK. It seems that he -Albert Lehmann - came over himself to revenge his brother’s murder.”
“Who was that?” Veronica asked after Johnny put his mobile in his pocket.
Johnny updated her on the arrest for the fire as they finished their coffees. The foursome then left the café and resumed the journey.
Matthias negotiated the roads around Munich picking up the road to Rosenheim. As they left the city suburbs, Johnny saw the jagged horizon that was the Alps rise in the distance.
An hour later Günter needed to stop again; so, they pulled into a service area beside a large lake surrounded by trees and had an early lunch. The place was empty save for a family of four, who were having a late breakfast, and a couple who sat in a corner with large coffee mugs. They sat at a pine table by a window and ate sausage and bread after which Johnny and Veronica walked through the trees to the lakeside. They sat on a rock and gazed at the mountains.
“What a great spot,” he said.
“Yeah, it’s good to get out of the car for a while,” said Veronica as she threw a small pebble into the water, “I don’t know how we’re going to get into this place when we get there; I mean it’s been over sixty years!”
“Yeah, well let’s get there first then we’ll see,” he said, picking a piece of tobacco from his lower lip. “DS Mitchell said it was Menzel who financed that Lehman guy’s trip over to Scotland. Although he denied he had anything to do with it last night.”
“I wouldn’t trust any descendant of Hitler to tell the truth.”
The journey continued through rural countryside until at Rosenheim they turned south and headed into the foothills of the Alps. They followed the River Inn as it flowed out of Austria on its way to the Black Sea passing quaint villages and hamlets.
After the town of Fischbach Matthias took a slip road off the autobahn to the right and followed a country road for a few kilometres until he turned into a car park surrounded by trees.
“Here we are mein Freunde,” he said, “Zankel Country Park.”
The mountains rose on either side and made Johnny feel rather small.
“Jeez this country just gets better and better,” he said closing the car door and taking a deep breath. He walked over and studied a board which had a map showing various walking routes.
Matthias opened the boot and retrieved walking boots along with two thin walking sticks for his father. He then grabbed a backpack which he threw over a shoulder.
Günter sat on the bench of a wooden picnic table to slip on and lace up his boots.
The quartet then set out along a woodland path led by the sprightly old German who, seemed to be a man half his age.
“What good can we do if half a mountain lies up against these doors?” Veronica asked Johnny when the pair fell behind the other two.
“Remember Günter used an escape hatch to get out. I guess that’s what we're looking for.”
After a kilometre walk, they arrived at a clearing at the base of a huge cliff which had boulders piled up against the face making a huge slope.
“This was the entrance; under that rubble lies two doors,” announced Günter as he looked at the scene with dismay written across his face.
Johnny stared at the rocks, covered in lichens and moss. “It’s hard to believe anything went on here.”
“Believe it Mr Duncan!” Günter said. “Now follow me.”
He walked to the right of the cliff face and followed a path between bushes and shrubs. He then climbed up between two huge rocks where he stopped and started to pant and cough.
“Papa, please rest!” Matthias shouted, putting his arm around the old man’s shoulders.
Günter pointed at a mound of heavy boulders. “The escape hatch is under those rocks.”
Johnny looked at Matthias, and then the two men walked over and began, with some considerable effort, to move the rocks. After half an hour of hard work they faced a basal rock, which they budged with Veronica’s help. Finally, a rusty green hatch cover sat and stared up at them. Matthias tried to turn the handle, but it was unrelenting.
“Let me try.” Johnny said.
He grunted as he pulled on the lever, but it refused to move. Matthias picked up a rock and hit the handle which eventually moved a little with every strike. Ten minutes later he had the handle turned through forty-five degrees. “That must be it!” Matthias declared. He then opened the hatch and stared into the inky darkness, which was pierced by the top of a rusty ladder. He reached into his backpack and pulled out a flashlight which he gave to Johnny before pulling out another, which he switched on and shone into the opening.
The old ladder groaned as Matthias and then Johnny climbed down, flashlight beams probing the darkness. After a three-metre descent the two men stood in a two-metre square empty room.
“Okay Veronica, you can come down now if you want!” Johnny shouted.
“Papa, you had better stay where you are!” Matthias shouted.
Günter looked at Veronica. “After all these years I have a chance to see it again, and my son wants me to stay here!”
Two light beams focused on the ladder as Veronica and then Günter descended.
When they were all standing at the bottom, Matthias said: “Well Papa, which way?”
“Only one way – that way,” he said, pointing into the mountain.
Matthias shone his torch in the direction his father had indicated to reveal an opening.
“Give me your torch John; it’ll make me feel safer,” said Veronica Then, one by one, they headed into what was a narrow passageway. Their torches showed roughly hewn walls and, on the ceiling, defunct lights were connected to one another by a pinned cable. The air was foul and seemed to penetrate their souls and depress their spirits.
An overwhelming sense of claustrophobia had descended on Johnny; the thought of all that rock above his head he reasoned. Then, after a few metres the claustrophobia eased as they entered a large area.
“This is where it all happened,” said Günter, who took Matthias’s hand as they moved further.
Veronica screamed as she held the shaking torch beam on an object on the ground.
“What’s up?” Johnny asked as he stumbled toward her.
He found himself staring along the torch beam at a leering skeletal face. “Must be one of the scientists.”
The skeleton was dressed in a lab coat which was once white, but was now dark grey.
“Oh my God!” Günter cried as he approached them.
“There’s another one over here,” said Matthias as he shone his flashlight in front of him.
“My colleague’s.” Günter said mournfully.
Johnny took the torch back from Veronica and shone it around the cavern. “I don’t understand. If this is where it all happened where is the UFO; where is the other equipment?”
Günter raised himself up from praying over the remains of his former friend.
“Matthias will you give me your flashlight.”
After receiving the torch, he said: “If you will follow me please.”
They followed the old German as he shone his torch around the walls until it found two massive, rusty-green doors, but he didn’t stop there he kept the beam moving until it found a cleft in the rock.
“Our quarters were in an old cabin outside, but Doctor Teubert kept some scientific papers in here.” Günter said, as he pulled a leather-bound diary from the natural fracture in the rock wall.
“Well, well what do we have here?” said a voice familiar to Johnny as powerful flashlight beams shone on them.
“Menzel!” Johnny shouted as he turned.
“Very perceptive Mr Duncan.”
Günter, who was standing behind the other three, shoved the diary into Matthais’s backpack.
“You followed us here?” Johnny asked, peering behind the torches making out four maybe five thugs with, he assumed, more than just torches!
“Something like that; so now we’re all here, it's time for a cosy little chat. That’s what you English say isn’t it Mr Duncan?”
“I wouldn’t know, I’m not English!” Johnny retorted. He then watched as the flashlight beams became brighter as the neo-Nazis came closer. “What is it you want to talk about Menzel?”
“The Bell and the other scientific stuff.”
“Where is it?” Johnny asked, shrugging his shoulders.
“What? You mean he hasn’t told you! Come now Günter, it’s time to lay your cards on the table.”
“What does he mean papa?” Matthias asked as Johnny and Veronica looked quizzically at the old man.
“Come on papa tell them.” Menzel said.
Günter looked thoughtfully at his feet. “We all knew the Bell was powered by a small nuclear reactor. There was even a device which enriched uranium–a centrifuge.
We realised just what it was we had in our hands. Doctor Teubert and the others, to my astonishment at the time, were Germans not Nazi’s. They wanted to hush the whole thing up, but I was an idealistic youngster; my head was full of dreams–put there by Hitler; I contacted the Fuhrer’s office and told them that something extraordinary had been discovered. When Teubert found out what I had done and Hitler and Himmler were coming, he reprimanded me.
I was for telling them everything. They pleaded with me to stay quiet. Eventually I agreed to remain quiet until after the initial demonstration. An intelligent man, Franz Teubert, he seemed to know what was going to happen.”
“So, what happened to the Bell after the place was sealed up?” Johnny asked.
“After almost a year of hiding away and a lot of soul searching, I couldn’t stand it anymore; so, I contacted the Americans and convinced them what lay under this mountain. They mounted a daring raid and somehow succeeded in taking the Bell and the equipment back to America.”
Johnny and Veronica were thunderstruck by the revelation.
“So, you sold out your country Wiedemann.” Menzel taunted.
Günter raised his head and stared at Menzel with loathing in his eyes. “Sold out my country!” he shouted. “My country had been poisoned by people like you!”
Johnny put his hand on Günter’s shoulder. “What is your part in all this Menzel?”
“Carrying on from where your dead Fuhrer left off?” Veronica mocked.
“That mad Austrian. No Miss Cahill I serve someone more powerful than some Nazi. I have been recruited to make sure the dimensional tests go ahead.”
“Samael–you’re with the demons!” Johnny said.
Menzel laughed – cruelly.
“What did he offer you–immortality?”
“Again, very perceptive Mr Duncan. We’ve all been offered a place in the new world, which is why the extra-dimensional experiments go ahead.”
“Why the neo-Nazism,” asked Matthias.
“Because it suited our purpose. I have large sums of money through donations from individuals and companies. You have no idea how many neo-Nazis there are throughout the world.
“And a lot of this money was re-donated to the tests - from a bona fide benefactor of course,” said Johnny.
“It must be tiresome being right all the time Mr Duncan.”
“It has its advantages. Like I know it was you who sent Rudolf Lehmann over to kill me.”
“Ah yes, that hot-headed simpleton. And you’re still alive,” said Menzel. “Well that’s about to change,” he continued as the sound of safety catches being released filled the cavern.
“Now look Menzel… What can we prove? We’ve seen an empty cave in Bavaria.”
Matthias secretively reached into his back pack, and whispered: “When I shout guard your eyes’ then run to the escape hatch!”
“I can’t take the chance,” Menzel continued. “Anyway, conveniently, I have you all here together. Who’s going to find the bodies in this tomb?”
“I’m not coming son,” whispered Günter. “I’m not leaving this time. You three must get out of here I would just hold you back.”
“But Papa…”
“Do it now!” Günter ordered.
Matthias pulled a ring on the black object he had in his hand and then threw it toward the thugs. “Now!”
“What…?” Menzel shouted as a stunning bright light filled the cavern.
The three ran toward the tunnel under a hail of bullets, which ricocheted off the walls in every direction. Matthias turned back to look at his father. “I can’t leave him!”
Johnny grabbed him and shouted: “Come on! He’s given us this chance; we’ve got to take it.”
They reached the tunnel, and Johnny pushed Veronica then Matthias in, before looking back to see that Menzel and his men were regaining their eyesight. He then ran on through the tunnel as torch beams and bullets danced around him.
The ladder groaned louder than before as they ascended toward the disk of light.
Then, as they fell out of the hatch, the sound of running boots filled the tunnel below.
Johnny kicked the ladder which gave out a final moan as it fell away into the dark. He then closed and secured the lid, and then he and Matthias rolled two heavy boulders over the top. The threesome then stood and looked at the hatch and caught their breath.
“Come on, back to the car I have a feeling this won’t hold them for long!” Johnny shouted.
They ran past the cliff face and then through the trees to the car park. Matthias pulled out his keys and pressed a button; the lights of the Mercedes flashed as the doors unlocked. He then jumped into the driver’s seat and fired up the engine. When they were all in, he reversed and then sped out of the car park.
“Matthias,” said Johnny, still panting. “Go in the other direction. They’ll expect us to go back the way we came. We need time to think.”
“Okay,” said Mathias nodding.
They made a brief stop to pick up a vignette which was required for the drive through Austria otherwise Mathias sped along the autobahn, which took them to Innsbruck under the gaze of the Tyrol Mountains.
“Where did you get the flare from?” Johnny asked.
“Günter told me to pack it and a pistol just in case. I don’t know where he got them from.”
“A remarkable man–your father!”
“Yes,” said Matthias as he stared thoughtfully at the road which flowed toward them.
“What now?” Veronica asked.
Matthias looked at her in the rear-view mirror. “I’ll need to inform the police about my father.”
“I would hang fire on that Matthias until we see how this is going to play out.”
Johnny said as he gazed out at the scenery which was bathed in the spring sunshine.
“We’re screwed without any evidence!”
“Veronica can help with that.” Matthias said with a grin.
“What…?” A bewildered Johnny asked.
Matthias looked at Veronica in the mirror again and said: “If you would look in the pocket on the back of my pack, please Veronica.”
She screamed with joy as she pulled out the leather-bound diary.
“Papa put it into the pack at the first sign of trouble.”
The three looked at each other then burst into loud raucous laughter.
“I’ll need to say it again Matthias: a remarkable man–Günter.”
Once the laughter had subsided Matthias said: “I did not want to leave him. I should have carried him out.”
“Listen here Matthias.” Veronica said. “He didn’t want to come. He wasn’t going to come back even if the trouble hadn’t happened. I think he had felt guilt throughout his life at what he had done all these years ago. He’s with his colleague’s now; with the ghosts of his past. He gave us the chance to live on and we’ve got to use it!”
“Yes, you’re right,” acknowledged Matthias, overtaking a truck filled with red and blue gas canisters.
They crossed the River Inn which was almost bright blue with melt water off the Alps. The road followed the river and was like a friend who was guiding them on, thought Johnny.
“So now we have the evidence, what do we do with it?” Johnny asked rhetorically.
After a few moments, Veronica said: “One of us will need to hide the diary in a safe place for the moment; or until I contact my newspaper and tell them what’s happened and get them to inform our ‘ear’ in the White House.”
Matthias pulled into a petrol station on the outskirts of Innsbruck. Johnny and Veronica went into the shop while Matthias fuelled up the car. They bought coffee and sandwiches then paid for the petrol.
Matthias drove the car around the back of the building where they sat and ate, hidden from the main road.
“So where do we go?” Matthias asked. “Do we risk going back to Stuttgart?”
“I think we should," answered Johnny. "We’ll exchange hotels. Do you have somewhere to go other than the house in Fellbach?”
“Yes, I do.”
“Menzel’s not going to shoot us in broad daylight. These companies and rich people who finance him would not approve.” Johnny said with a wide grin.
“Okay let’s go.” Matthias announced, after draining his coffee cup.
They travelled along the E60 through some of the world’s most spectacular scenery arriving in the suburban Feldkirch area at five pm.
After a short meal break, they headed on through the town of Bergenz, which sat on the shores of Lake Constance. A paddle ship steamed lazily into the harbour as they drove along the lakeside road, which took them back into Germany where the landscape then started to flatten.
“You know Matthias,” said Johnny as they neared Ulm “One thing that puzzles me: weren’t there any question’s asked about the disappearance of Doctor Teubert?”
“I would suppose Heisenberg was approached by some of Hitler’s thugs in Berlin and told to keep quiet; or perhaps they simply announced that he had met with an accident.”
When they eventually drove into Stuttgart Matthias drew up a few streets away from the Steinberger Graf Zeppelin and a weary Johnny and Veronica climbed out.
“I won’t ask where you’re going; I have your number and you have mine. I‘ll be in touch,” Johnny said, holding open the front passenger door. “And Matthias, be careful.”
“You too and here take this; you’re the main man–ja!” Matthias said, handing Johnny the diary.
Johnny and Veronica approached the front desk of the hotel where a young woman in a neat, blue suit sat in front of a computer screen.
“Can I help you?” she asked in German.
“Yes, I’m Mr Duncan, and we would like to check out tonight please,” said Johnny.
“I am afraid you will have to pay for tonight as it is eight-thirty,” said the receptionist switching to English.
“Okay,” said Johnny as he handed over his debit card.
Ten minutes later they were back at the desk with their bags. Johnny surveyed the foyer as he asked the receptionist to call a cab for them. There were couples heading for the bar or the restaurants, nothing sinister he thought– so far!
He gave the woman a tip and told her that if someone asked for them — they had left in a private car.
After ten long minutes the automatic glass doors slid open, and a well- built, dark-haired man in a green sweater and jeans walked in, and said: “Taxi Mr Duncan?”
“Yes,” answered Johnny as he and Veronica picked up their bags.
Outside, the driver put their bags in the boot and then opened the nearside passenger door of the white Mercedes. He then jumped into the driver’s seat and asked: “Where to?”
Johnny looked into the rear-view mirror. “We need to find another hotel tonight.
Do you know of one which will have a room available?”
The cabbie spoke in fast German into his mobile radio. Then asked: “What area of Stuttgart would you prefer?”
Johnny looked at Veronica. “Around the airport.”
“Okay, that’s easy,” said the man as he turned around and started the engine.
They drove south, through the night time traffic. Johnny gazed at Veronica, her placid facial features orange in the glow from the street lights. “You okay?” he whispered as he put his hand on hers.
“Yeah, I’m fine,” she replied huskily and then smiled.
They crossed the busy A8 Autobahn as an aeroplane flew overhead. Then, after a few moments the cab left the southbound Bundesstrabe at the next slip road and drew up in front of a six-storey block.
“Hey, it’s a Holiday Inn!” said Veronica
“They will have a room for you here,” said the cabbie.
Johnny and Veronica retrieved their bags, paid the driver and then entered the bright foyer of the hotel. They booked a twin room on the fourth floor, which was clean and functional, but not very big.
Veronica threw her bag on one of the beds and then placed her laptop on the table by the window and opened the lid. “I’ll email about the paper and tell them what’s happened.”
“Okay, said Johnny as he picked up the telephone receiver. “I need some clothes washed."
“Good idea, said Veronica as she started tapping away on her keyboard, “I could do with getting a few things washed as well.”
After a few moments Veronica stood. “Shit!”
Johnny, who was stretched out on one of the beds, turned onto his right side and rested his head in the open hand of his bent right arm. “What’s up?”
“Looks like they want confirmation that I’m not wasting their money: I’ve to go back to the States tomorrow.”
Johnny hugged Veronica as they stood at departures in Terminal One of Stuttgart Airport. “Give me a phone when you get there. Caitlin phoned this morning; she says to remind you of Disney World.”
“I haven’t forgotten,” said Veronica, wiping a tear from the side of her eye. “Listen John I have something to tell you …”
He put a finger to her mouth. “Not now, tell me later, as long as it’s not about another man.”
“No,” she smiled. “Nothing like that.”
They kissed and then she joined the queue for the security check carrying her laptop.
Johnny, whose flight wasn’t until later, headed into a shop and bought a British newspaper. He then strolled into a busy café and got himself a latte and sat at a table which faced a departures monitor.
After a while someone sat down beside him. He paid no heed and kept on reading an article on the British monarchy. Another person sat at the table then another.
“Really, Mr Duncan German newspapers are much better than the British gutter press,” said a voice in German accented English.
The voice sent terror through every nerve in his body. “Menzel!” he growled as he raised his head and eyed the German and two of his thugs sitting around the table. “So you slithered out of the hole in the mountain.”
“I’d like to sit around and trade insults with you all day, but let’s get to business.
You have something I want, and I have something you want.”
“What do I have that you want?” Matthew asked.
“Come on Mr Duncan, don’t be tiresome, I know of the diary. Old Günter was very talkative before he joined his colleagues.”
“That man was a hero.”
“A dead hero!”
“You make me sick. What is it you’ve got that I would possibly want?”
Menzel reached under the table and then placed Veronica’s laptop on the table.
“What…? But you can’t have, I just watched her go through security.”
“As I told you before there are neo-Nazis everywhere.”
Johnny felt his heart sink. He looked around and saw passengers… happy passengers.
“Now Mr Duncan we understand each other–ja!”
“Where is she?”
“She’s safe, for now.”
“Okay, I’ll get you the diary,” growled Johnny.
“Right, where is it?”
“It’s at the hotel we stayed in last night–the Holiday Inn.”
Menzel turned to Schroeder. “Go and get Miss Cahill, we’ll meet you at the car.”
In the car park Johnny got pushed into the back of the black BMW by Meine, the driver, as Menzel climbed into the front passenger seat.
“No tricks Mr Duncan,” said Menzel as Meine got in behind the wheel.
The opposite door to where Johnny sat opened, and Veronica climbed in followed by Schroeder.
“Veronica, am I glad to see you?”
“Johnny!” she cried.
Menzel turned to face them and said: “How touching.” Then turning to Meine, he said: “Right let’s go to the Holiday Inn.”
While Schroeder stayed with Veronica Johnny led Menzel and Meine into the Hotel.
“Hello,” he said approaching the reception desk.
“Mr Duncan?” the receptionist said.
“Could I have the key-card for the room we stayed in last night please? I’ve lost one of my rings–it has sentimental value,” he said as he turned and saw Menzel and Meine loitering around the door area.
“It may have been cleaned.”
“Maybe I could go and have a look?”
“Yes, okay.”
Johnny took the card and headed to the elevator. At the same time Meine left Menzel and slipped into the elevator behind him. The doors opened on to the fourth floor and Meine followed Johnny along the deep, red carpet of the hallway. They entered the room and Johnny took out his penknife and went into the bathroom.
Meine watched as he unscrewed the vent cover on the back wall above the cistern.
“Polizei!”
Schroeder spun to look at the figure that had knocked on the window of the BMW.
Then he pressed a button, and the window lowered. “Let me see your ID card,” he barked.
An old Walther P38 pistol levelled at him through the open window. “Will this do?” A familiar voice to Veronica said. “Put your gun on the front passenger’s seat and come out of the car–slowly,” continued Matthias.
Schroeder threw his semi-automatic onto the front passenger’s seat and opened the door, then climbed out of the car.
“Now, hands behind your back. Veronica, will you hold the gun?”
“With pleasure, and nice to see you.”
They tied the thug’s hands, gagged him and then shut him in the boot.
“The diary’s hidden in the room we stayed in last night,” said Veronica as they ran toward the front door. But they halted when they saw Menzel, sitting in the foyer, through the glass.
“Round the back, there must be a fire escape or something,” said Matthias.
They rounded the corner which took them to the back of the hotel. A white truck sat beside open double doors, and a man in blue overalls jumped down from the open rear and then carried three cardboard boxes into the building.
The pair slipped through the open doors, after the delivery man disappeared into the darkness, and found a hallway that led to a swing door and, to their relief, a stairway to the right.
Johnny removed the cover and then stuck a hand inside and pulled out the diary.
Meine grabbed the book with one hand while pointing a handgun at Johnny with the other.
“Hoi!” Someone shouted.
As Meine turned, he was caught on the side of the head with a ferocious left hook from Matthias. He collapsed onto the tiled floor of the bathroom, his pistol sliding around the back of the cistern.
“Matthias! Veronica! “Johnny shouted as he hugged them.
“Right let’s go, said Matthias, “down the back stairs.”
When they were out of the bathroom Johnny slammed the door and pushed the back of a chair, he had hauled from beside the window, under the handle.
Outside, they ran over the car park to the blue Mercedes, Johnny stopping briefly at Menzel’s car to grab his bag. Matthias gunned his car when they were all in and, they flew out onto the Bundesstrabe.
“Where will we go?” Matthias asked.
“I will put this,” Johnny held up the diary, “in a safe place–in Scotland.” He then turned around to face Veronica in the back and said: “How about you Veronica what are you going to do?”
“I’ve no change of clothes; Menzel has my laptop; I’m coming with you for now.”
Matthias guided the car onto the east bound side of the A8 Autobahn. “You’ll need an airport then; Stuttgart’s out–too obvious.”
“How about Munich?” Johnny asked.
“No, I think Menzel might head there after Stuttgart. I’ll take you to Frankfurt; it’s a big airport–more people with which to mingle. Would one of you phone airlines for a flight to the UK?”
The journey to Frankfurt took an hour and forty minutes. The airport lay to the south-west of the city and sprawled over a large area. Matthias drew up in front of terminal two where the British Airways desk was located, Veronica having booked them on one of their connecting flights to Edinburgh.
“Well, thanks again Matthias. Will you be okay?” Johnny said.
“Yes, I have many friends both gay and straight.”
“I never realised you were… you know!”
“Gay. Yes, since I left school.”
“No doubt we’ll meet again,” said Veronica as she raised herself over the back of the driver’s seat and kissed him on the cheek.
When they were sitting on the London bound flight, which was speeding along the runway, Johnny said: “I never realised Matthias was gay.”
“Yeah, I knew by his mannerisms.”
“I guess it takes a woman to notice such things.”
“You sexist beast!” she laughed as they soared up through the thick, grey clouds.
When the plane levelled out at over thirty-thousand-feet Veronica turned her head to face Johnny. “Where are you going to put the diary?”
“I’ll tell you once I’ve made the phone call.”
He then gazed out at the top of the cloud cover through which they had just broken.
“As a child I used to lie on the grass of the park not far from my home and gaze up past the wiry branches of the trees. I dreamed of floating up to touch the clouds. I thought if I ever achieved this, I would meet God, all white-haired, playing a harp or something.”
“That’s the image of God we, as Christians, were taught at elementary school,” said Veronica, looking past Johnny at the clouds.
“A benevolent old man who looked after us in life and death, but reprimanded us if we were naughty!”
“Yep!”
“All this before we grew up and asked awkward questions and now realise it’s all about love!”
“I suppose we were lucky; some kids aren’t sheltered from the realities.”
After thirty minutes the plane again broke through the clouds, downward, into a rain-lashed Heathrow. Johnny could just make out the terminal buildings through the watery haze.
Veronica gripped his arm as the plane bumped onto and then sped along the slick runway eventually coming to a halt, then taxiing into a slot.
“Well, that’s the first part of the journey,” sighed Johnny.
“Yeah, it’s on to Bonnie Scotland now,” said Veronica, undoing her seat belt.
Edinburgh Airport was relatively quiet as they strolled out of baggage retrieval and into the main concourse after the flight from London. Men in suits with briefcases scurried around looking at departure monitors while families sat in cafes waiting to go on holiday.
The taxi journey to the city centre took twenty minutes. In which time they passed street after street of blackened sandstone tenement buildings before entering the busy thoroughfare that was Princes Street.
The black cab drew up in front of the Ramada Mount Royal Hotel, a modern building that stood incongruently next to Jenner’s department store and gazed up at Edinburgh Castle.
They checked in and then dined in an Indian restaurant in Rose Street, which lay a block away from Princes Street, but ran parallel with it. After the hot curry and a pint of Guinness Johnny felt better than he had done for days and declared: “There’s nothing like Scottish food and beer to get you back on form.”
They left the eatery and strolled along the cobbled street past pubs and shops. The pair then turned down Castle Street and on to Princes Street where they encountered couples window shopping and homeless people with dogs asking for money.
The evening was mild with only a slight breeze as the maroon city buses thundered down the road stopping to allow smartly dressed youngsters out, heading off for a night on the town.
In the hotel they went to the bar for a night cap before retiring. They sat at a table by a window and admired the illuminated castle, which looked as if it hovered above the city.
“I’ll make that phone call first thing in the morning,” said Johnny stifling a yawn.
“And I’ll have to buy some clothes.” Veronica said with a smirk.
Johnny walked through the large, grey stone arch and on up the drive past two sides of a rusty iron gate which lay discarded on either side each step producing a crunch from the rough gravel.
The dry tangled weeds in the unkempt garden on either side of the drive rustled in the wind and a bird screeched in the distance making Johnny glance from side to side.
The house was a Gothic behemoth, built of the same grey stone as the arch. Turrets reached up from each corner and were silhouetted against the starry sky. The lower windows were of the Gothic arch type and the black paint of the frames was flaking.
The upper windows were oddly circular and were latticed. No light spilled out from any of them.
Johnny climbed the few steps up to the oak double door, which lay under an ornate portico and tried the handle. The door was unlocked, so he pushed the right-hand side, which swung easily into the dark. As he entered, he heard a wail which made him shudder, but he proceeded on into the claustrophobic black.
The wooden hallway floor was covered with threadbare carpeting and the worn floorboards creaked with every step Johnny made. Through the gloom he could just make out a big staircase at the back. He heard another wail as he nervously opened a door to his right. The room was full of the ghostly white shapes of furniture covered with dustsheets. He jumped when he saw his reflection in a large mirror on the wall behind the door. Then, as he hurried out of the room, he heard another wail, which sounded like someone calling: “Dad!”
He moved to another door on the left and noticed that it was ajar and that an eerie red glow was creeping through the gap. Another wail filled his head: “Dad, dad!” My God, he thought, it sounded like his children; no, it was Caitlin and Brad. He pushed the door open and crept into the room.
A large chair sat in front of a roaring fire and the glow was pushing the darkness away. A head bobbed above the back of the chair and Johnny realised someone was sitting in front of the fire. He moved forward as the cry of his children came again:
“Dad, dad, help us!”
Suddenly, as he reached the chair, a figure jumped up and turned to face him. “Oh my God!” he cried. Standing before him was the figure of the Dark Angel. He could make out the tall, black clothed body and the dirty shoulder length hair, but the face…
it was Veronica’s!
Johnny sat upright in the dark. He was sweating, and he wondered where he was.
Gradually, however, remembrance descended over him, when he saw Veronica sleeping next to him.
He jumped out of bed and rifled through his clothing until he found his mobile. he pressed in the number for Sue.
“Hello,” said a sleepy voice.
“Sue, it's Johnny.”
“Johnny! What do you want at this time of the morning? You been drinking again?”
He looked at the digital clock on the bedside cupboard; the red numbers read: three-twenty.
“No! Look Sue, is everything all right? Are the kids all right?”
“Yes, goodnight; or should it be good morning!”
The line went dead, and Johnny threw the phone on top of his clothes then climbed back into the bed.
The next morning he drew back the curtains and marvelled at the sight before him.
Princes Street Gardens in all their green loveliness stretched along the opposite side of the street. The Gothic Scott Monument stood in the upper gardens like a stone version of Thunderbird Three, and the Castle, perched on its volcanic plug, looked glorious in the rising sun.
“Time for breakfast.” he announced as Veronica turned over in the bed and pulled the top of the duvet up around her shoulders.
After breakfast Veronica did a little shopping before they crossed Princes Street and walked along the side of the stately Royal Scottish Academy building. Buskers were setting up for another day’s performance as the pair passed the pillared building of the National Gallery.
“Okay! Where are we going?” Veronica asked as they climbed the steps, which would take them to the top of The Mound.
“We’re going to the headquarters of The Bank of Scotland; I phoned an old friend who will put the diary in a special safe deposit box.”
When they reached the top of the steps Veronica stopped and turned around to take in the view. Johnny, however, kept on walking with eyes wide, for coming skipping toward him was Caitlin!
“Baby, what are you doing here?”
“Hi Dad, I’m here with Mum. We saw you climbing the stairs. Mum’s over there in the car,” she said, pointing over to the road.
Johnny glanced along the parked cars, but couldn’t see Sue’s car.
“Did you bring me a present back from your holiday? What’s that under your arm?”
“It’s…”
“Oh, can I have it Dad?”
Johnny took the diary from under his arm.
“No!” Veronica screamed as she ran toward them.
Caitlin snatched the diary when Johnny’s attention was focused on Veronica. “No Caitlin… What?”
The young girl suddenly grew in size and her skin became pallid and wrinkled. The Dark Angel then threw the diary to two men standing beside a green Audi before she vanished. Johnny recognised Menzel and Schroeder as they climbed into the car.
He ran up and slapped the side of the Audi in frustration as it sped away. Menzel looked out of the rear window and gave him a ‘Hitler salute’. Johnny then slumped to the ground and sat on the pavement with his head in his hands. “How could I’ve been so stupid,” he groaned.
Veronica sat down beside him and put an arm around his shoulders. “Don’t blame yourself, all of us would have done the same thing in your position.”
He looked up at the sky. “I was suspicious when I couldn’t see Sue’s car, but when I looked at her; it was Caitlin–it was my baby!”
A man in a pinstripe suit carrying a briefcase walked past them and then descended the stairs. Johnny stared at him for a moment and then said: “Well that’s it! How did we ever think we would escape from them?”
“Come on now John, don’t get despondent.”
“What do we do now?”
“Well let’s get away from here for now,” she replied.
As they climbed down the stairs, Veronica said: “These dimensional tests are held somewhere in the Mojave Desert–right!
“Yeah.”
“Right, let’s get back to the hotel and book two seats over to the States. We’ll go to Washington first; I have to touch base with the paper, then we’ll go over to the West Coast.”
“How are we going to find out where exactly these tests are taking place?”
“You leave that to me!” she said with a smile.
Johnny took his earphones off as the movie he had chosen finished and then took a sip of the orange juice he had been handed. He then turned to Veronica, who sat in the window seat on the British Airways flight to Washington Dulles. “The new Bond movie; not bad, but I still miss the humour.”
Veronica lowered her book. “James Bond huh! Sexist rubbish!”
“Hey! What happened to Sean Connery being the sexiest man in the world?”
“I like the men, not the movies.”
“Who’s being sexist now?”
“It’s not the same thing.”
“Ah well,” he sighed, looking for another film.
“Why don’t we just talk for a while,” said Veronica, putting her book in the pocket on the back of the seat in front of her.
“What do you want to talk about?”
“Your childhood; your parents?”
Johnny dropped his earphones onto his lap. “Not much to tell. I went to school in Arbroath. I liked sports and wanted to be a footballer.”
“What stopped you?”
“When I got older, I became involved in underage drinking and that was the end of any sports career. I did, however, manage to get 5 O-grades and two Highers. My father was an engineer in a local works and my mother worked part-time when she could. What about your childhood?”
“I was brought up in Butler Ohio,” said Veronica as she took a sip of her lemonade,
“my father was the local Fire Chief; he was an authoritarian. He kept my mother tied to the kitchen sink while he was working or chasing other women. I hated him for what he did to her, and I swore that I would never let that happen to me. I always wanted a career in Journalism; so, I made sure I got the grades to enter Merrill College.”
“Are your parents still alive?”
“Mom still lives in the same house. My father died of a heart attack three years ago.
The saddest thing is that after hating him all these years I cried my eyes out at the funeral.”
“What does your sister do?”
“Ann’s a housewife in Cleveland. She has a fine husband, Ian, and a son, David, who’s just applied to enter Merrill College.”
“My sister Gemma’s a solicitor in Dundee. She’s like me: relationship’s not being a strong point.”
A meal of lasagne and vegetables was then served as Johnny settled down to another movie.
Veronica put her hand on Johnny’s arm as the film she was watching finished.
Johnny turned and smiled and signalled for her to take off the earphones. “What was it you wanted tell me?”
“When?”
“At Stuttgart Airport. You said you had something to tell me.”
The seatbelt sign illuminated and passengers returned to their seats. A stewardess asked Johnny if he had any rubbish, and he put empty plastic cups into her black, plastic bag.
Veronica touched his cheek and said: “I’ll tell you somewhere quieter.”
Veronica’s house lay in the town of Annandale Virginia-part of the Washington Metropolitan Area. The streets of the area were broad and leafy, and the houses were set well back from the road and were of various sizes. The drives that led up to the garages were infested with cars.
“I rent this place from a woman I know who works for the government.” Veronica said as they walked up the driveway toward a two-storey, red-brick house, after climbing out of a yellow cab with their bags.
Veronica unlocked the brown-painted front door and pushed against a mound of mail.
“Come on in,” she said, placing her bag on the first step of the staircase and picking up the letters and promotional leaflets.
“Stuff for the recycler,” she said to herself.
Johnny then followed her into the lounge which was spacious and had a large window that looked out onto the front lawn. A small dining room, with a polished table and four chairs connected to the lounge by an archway.
“Sit down John until I get things sorted,” said Veronica, before she pushed open a door in the dining room and disappeared.
He sat on a large, cream settee with brown cushions at either end. The walls were painted in a light blue overhung with a white ceiling. A large, slim television hung like a black painting on the wall which faced the settee. In a corner, a cupboard had a large photograph of a smiling Veronica in between two women; one older; one younger: mother and sister, Johnny assumed.
Veronica strolled back into the lounge and said: “Come on Mr Duncan time for bed.”
“What? It’s a bit early.”
“It’s not sleeping I’ve got on my mind.”
“Oh, the things you’ve got to do for queen and country,” Johnny sighed as he rose off the settee and grabbed his bag.
Johnny looked at his watch; it was 7.40 pm. He had been woken up by a rumbling stomach and the shouts of children, which had drifted in from the street.
The bedroom was big with warm, amethyst-coloured walls. A sliding mirrored door wardrobe stared across a white shag pile carpet at the bed. Johnny raised his head and looked at his reflection–he needed a shave.
Veronica rolled over and kissed him “Would you like to go out for some dinner?”
“Yeah, I want to sample some American food–those big platefuls I keep hearing about.”
“Huh! Just a waste.”
After showering, and Johnny having his shave, they left by the rear door. The evening was humid; the sun had begun to drop out of the sky casting golden rays over the houses.
Veronica hauled up her garage door and unlocked her silver Buick.
“Nice car,” said Johnny as he sat in the passenger’s seat.
“Thanks,” replied Veronica, starting the engine. The vehicle suddenly filled with the sound of an announcer talking about the Washington Redskins.
“What type of food do you want to eat?” She asked as she reversed the car out of the garage.
“Anything American.”
“Okay well, I know just the place.”
They drove along the road and then took a left and headed along a busier road where houses gave way to shopping malls and restaurants.
“Hey look at that–Fuddruckers!” Johnny said.
“Yeah, it’s a burger joint. I keep forgetting, you haven’t been to the States.”
They pulled into a parking lot outside a restaurant where a red neon sign, under a yellow neon star announced ‘Silverado’.
Veronica undid her seat belt. “This is a popular place, I hope we can get a table.”
Inside, a waitress dressed in a red and white vertical striped shirt told them they were in luck: there were two vacant tables. They sat by the window on the lower level.
The restaurant, as the name suggested, followed a western theme with cowboy paintings and Native American woven rugs hung on the walls.
“Yeehaw,” said Johnny as he sat down.
“Oh my God!” Veronica said. “You’re not going to embarrass me are you?”
“No mam!”
Another woman in a red and white striped shirt appeared at the table and announced that she would be their waitress for the evening. After handing them a menu she asked them if they would like something to drink.
“An orange juice please,” said Johnny.
Veronica eyed Johnny and then said: “A white wine for me please.”
After the waitress scuttled away, Veronica said: “Not having a beer tonight?”
Johnny looked up from his menu, “Nah, I’m going to give up the booze for a while.
Funny thing is, despite all the hassle that’s been going on, I feel more contented than I have done for years.”
After the waitress cleared away the dishes Johnny sat back and patted his stomach.
“Man, those fajitas were great. I think I’m going to like it here in the States. When does the gunfight start?”
Veronica coughed as she sipped her wine and then said: “When I get you home.”
“Wow! Just what I fancy: a feisty American woman.”
The next morning after a breakfast of coffee and more coffee Veronica stood in front of the mirrored doors of her wardrobe brushing her brown hair. “What do you want to do today, John?”
“I was going to come with you and see how a big city newspaper operates,” he said as he strolled into the bedroom.
“Pretty boring I would have thought. Wouldn’t you rather see some of the sights?”
“Oh, I see, you don’t want a small-town hack showing you up,” he said with a grin.”
“Not at all; I thought, as it's your first time here… you know!”
“Yeah well, I’d like to go to the National Air and Space Museum and see the Spirit of St Louis I suppose.”
“Okay–let’s go!”
The day was steadily gathering heat as they drove along the Capitol Beltway on the way to downtown Washington DC. The traffic, according to Veronica, was light, as she turned left, at an intersection, on to the Henry Shirley Memorial Highway. The surrounding area had gone from low-rise residential to high-rise residential.
After a while the freeway became many freeways at different levels and veered to the right as it passed the United States Air Force Memorial building.
“Hey there’s the Pentagon!” Johnny shouted as the five-sided building loomed up on the left.
They crossed over the bottle green Potomac River and cruised into the centre of Washington. Veronica then negotiated her way through several busy streets before she
drew up beside the large white cubes that housed the National Air and Space Museum.
“There you go John,” she said, looking at her watch, “I’ll meet you back here at say…one o’clock.
“Okay, see you,” he said as he gave her a kiss and then climbed out of the car.
Inside the museum there were hordes of children milling around waiting on teachers and parents for tickets. Johnny made his way through the crowds and entered America’s celebration of flight and space exploration.
The central atrium was impressive; aeroplanes of various ages, including the ‘Spirit of St Louis’ - hung from the ceiling as if frozen in flight. Well, he thought, this is good, but why didn’t she want me to see her work?
Two hours later and Johnny stood on Independence Avenue beside where he had been dropped off and surveyed the passing cars for the silver Buick. The traffic was heavy and noisy, and Johnny found his mind longing for escape.
Veronica drew up ten minutes later and gave him a wave. He ran along to the car and slumped into the passenger’s seat.
“Well, did you see the ‘Spirit of St Louis’?” she asked with a smile.
“Yeah, I did and a hell of a lot more as well.”
“Want some lunch?”
“Yup!”
Veronica swung the car out into the traffic and headed for the Potomac. “Well, we’re heading for the west coast tomorrow morning–9.15 flight. Ronald Reagan to Los Angeles.”
“Good girl.”
“That’s not all. I know where the tests are taking place.”
“You’re just something else!”
Johnny and Veronica drove out of Los Angeles International Airport in a metallic green Pontiac and followed the signs for Interstate 10. The freeway they were on was a river of flowing metal in both directions under a broiling sun. They picked up the
‘ten’ and headed east past the shimmering glass and metal towers of downtown Los Angeles.
“This is something else; I can’t believe I’m really here!” said Johnny, who was driving.
“Just keep on this freeway; we’re heading for Phoenix.”
The flatness of suburban Los Angeles gave way to a hilly area where big houses gazed down at the busy road. After the huge Kellogg Intersection, the landscape flattened out again, but was fringed with peaked mountains on the eastern side.
“How about some grub Veronica?” Johnny asked as Lynyrd Skynyrd asked for their bullets back on the radio.
“Yeah, pull-in wherever you want.”
Life size replicas of dinosaurs stood at the roadside in Cabazon, the town where Johnny had chosen to eat. “Jeez, its roasting,” he said as he opened the driver’s side door, “the car's air-conditioning gives you a false impression of the outside temperature.”
After some pancakes and coffee in a diner called Bedrocks, they were back on the road again in a flat, desert landscape dominated by a huge tower of a casino which looked out of place.
The land became craggy as the road climbed out of the green oasis that was Palm Springs and, after the summit of the mountain, it flattened out again before beginning a gentle descent.
“Is this still the Mojave then?” Johnny asked looking at a large saguaro cactus.
“No, I think we’ve passed into the Sonoran Desert,” said Veronica, looking between the GPS on her phone and the roadmap she had found in the glove department. “I think we should stop at a town called Blythe up ahead and find a motel. We need to leave the interstate just after, but we should rest and refuel.
As they drove into Blythe, the sun had begun to set turning the desert landscape a pinkish-red.
“Wow! What a great colour.” Johnny remarked.
“Yeah, it’s something special, isn’t it?”
They checked in to a Travelodge and spent a comfortable air-conditioned night.
“What are we going to do when we get there Veronica?” Johnny asked as they sat in the forecourt of a gas station with coffees and muffins the next morning.
“Try to get in and get them to stop the tests. We did all right under the mountain in Bavaria.”
“Yeah, but we had Mathias and Günter there. This place will be a populated government site I assume.”
“Well, let’s see,” she said, nodding for him to start the engine.
They crossed the Colorado River, which was on its way to the Gulf of California with parts of the Grand Canyon, and entered Arizona. Then, at the town of Quartzite they left the interstate and headed north along a two-lane that stretched into the scrubland, straight, like a ruled black pencil line on vellum.
They came to a crossroads, and Veronica said: “Turn right here John.”
She looked at him as they drove and then said: “No wait John, turn back!”
“What, back to the I 10?”
Veronica rubbed the sides of the bridge of her nose with the index finger and thumb of her right hand. “No, head north.”
“What’s wrong, are we lost?”
“What? No! I mean yeah. I just got mixed up that’s all!”
She stuffed her cell phone in a pocket and studied the map. “We must turn left ahead and cross the Colorado and then look for the 95.”
They drove through the dusty desert and after a while stopped at a town called Parker where they had coffee and pancakes in an old diner on the main street.
The bridge over the Colorado River reminded Johnny of something he once constructed out of Meccano. And the water reminded him of milky coffee: light brown and frothy at the edges.
Back in California, they left the Colorado Valley and drove through the arid, featureless landscape until they came to a crossroads where Johnny filled the tank at a gas station. There was a red digital read–out above the door which told him the temperature was 92 degrees Fahrenheit.
The 95 took them through a flat land, with dried up river beds, to Needles, a town which lay in the Mojave Valley. They took Pew Road out of town, which skirted agricultural land before climbing to the Needles Highway.
“We need to take the next left John,” said Veronica.
They turned onto a narrow road, which climbed up the rocky hillside.
“Look out for a dirt track on the right.”
A few hundred metres further on there was a dusty track on the right. The only problem was that a large mesh metal gate with a huge padlocked chain spanned it. A sign on the centre read: KEEP OUT. TRESPASSERS WILL BE SHOT.
Michael Catone stepped out of the shower and grabbed a white towel from a folded pile, which sat on a stainless-steel shelf, and dried himself. He then wiped the condensation from the mirrored door of the cabinet above the cistern and lathered his angular jaw with white shaving foam. Then, taking a safety razor from a holder on the sink, he closely shaved the stubble from his face. Director Blakely at Langley wanted to see him in her office; he wanted to look dapper.
Out on the freeway heading for Fairfax County he thought of his father, Adriano, a third generation Italian American. He had been a tough cop in Chicago all his life until he retired last year. Ironically, after facing death at the point of a gun or knife many times, he dropped dead of a brain haemorrhage. He had wanted Michael to be a doctor; nothing to do with law enforcement.
Michael applied to the CIA and was accepted. The last heated argument ended with them hugging, and Michael saying “I’ll make you proud of me papa.” That’s what he was still doing, two years on, he thought, as tears slid down his face.
He parked his black Mercury, checked his appearance in the rear-view mirror and then walked toward the arched entrance of the CIA headquarters, his mind turning over what the meeting with Blakely was to be about.
Michael ran a hand through his thick, black hair and then straightened his green neck-tie before knocking on the varnished wooden door, which had National Clandestine Services Director in small gold letters on it.
“Come,” boomed a female voice.
A thin woman with short, red hair sat reading behind the only desk in the room. She raised her head, and said: “Ah, Catone. Sit down please.” She pointed to a seat in front of her desk and then closed the folder she was reading and took another from a drawer under the desk.
“Operation Dimensions,” she said putting the folder in front of Michael. “Study it, we think the officer involved has been somehow compromised and has been feeding us disinformation.”
Michael picked up the file as if it were infectious and looked at it.
Blakely stared at the young officer. “We need you to do a surveillance job and assess. Your travel details are in the file. Thank you!”
“Michael knew the meeting was over with the brusque ‘thank you’; he rose and left the room with the folder. He headed along the corridor until he came to an open area filled with desks. He sat at a desk second on the right and placed the folder down on top and stared at it for a while.
“Hi Michael,” said a tall man with cropped brown hair and a pockmarked face.
“George! What’s new?”
“Nothing much; I’m more of a contracts manager now. Gotta keep an eye on the green badgers.”
“Yeah well, I’m on for a bit of surveillance.”
Michael watched George Grey walk along the central aisle and sit at a desk next to a contractor. He had worked with George a few months previously. They were under cover with two other officers as Miami Bookmakers interested in getting into the illicit drugs trade. They were to infiltrate two Colombian Cartels and instigate a war between them.
Michael accompanied George to an initial meeting with one of the Cartels in a seedy Miami hotel where the merchandise was sampled and a working relationship set up.
The next step was a trip to Colombia and the Cartel’s base; a villa outside Bogotá.
Michael and the leader, Miguel Gordilla found common ground in the works of JRR
Tolkien; Lord of the Rings being one of Michaels favourite books. He discovered the drug baron to be knowledgeable on literature and classical music, but violence was never far away. A rival cartel member was executed around the back as they sat sipping brandy on the large veranda at the front of the house.
In the end, the two agents were lucky to escape with their lives after the other gang rumbled their colleagues and word spread.
After studying the file for a while Michael stood up, stretched and exhaled explosively. My God, he thought , a UFO from the Second World War, outer dimensions and neo-Nazi’s; I need a caffeine break!
He gazed out of the small kitchen window at the neat gardens as he waited for the kettle to boil. He had almost quit after the Colombian operation, but the thought of his father and the man’s fight against crime had shaken the self-pity from him.
Back at his desk he placed the coffee mug on a wicker mat by a small potted cactus took a deep breath and began a detailed study of the file. Half an hour later he stood up and stretched. He was to fly out to Los Angeles that evening and follow his subjects, who were flying there the next day.
The freeway back to his home in Hyattsville was blocked. He could see flashing blue lights ahead over the lines of metallic roofs. He switched on the radio and tapped his fingers on the steering wheel to a Bob Marley song. The cars in the lane he was in moved, and he approached the cause of the hold-up: a blue BMW had smashed into the rear of a brown Oldsmobile. Firemen and Paramedics were extricating people from the wreckage.
God, thought Michael, one minute you’re driving along the road with all your personal thoughts, and the next minute you could be trapped in crumpled metal.
Back home he opened his canvas kit bag and placed clothes alongside the toiletry bag that remained there. He then phoned his mother and told her he would be away for a few days.
The Los Angeles flight took off on time and rose into the clear blue sky. Michael settled into his novel. Reading took his mind off the potential dangers ahead and engrossed him like a film could never do.
The next day he watched Johnny and Veronica stroll into the main T1 concourse of Los Angeles International Airport with the rest of the passengers who had just arrived from Washington. He followed them to the Hertz hire car desk and then left the building and went to Parking Lot B where he retrieved his hire car.
The traffic was heavy on Airport Boulevard. Michael pulled into a small bay from where he watched the Hertz courtesy buses enter the compound and drop clients off at their respective cars.
He saw Johnny and Veronica climb down from a bus and put their bags in a green Pontiac. Michael started his engine while keeping his eyes fixed on the pair as they entered the car
Eventually they left the car park, and Michael followed them onto Interstate 405
heading north. Then, staying a few cars back and thankful for the heavy Los Angeles traffic, he tailed them on Interstate 10. They passed through the heart of the city and on, through the sprawling suburbs.
He followed them through the heat of the Mojave Desert finally stopping in Blythe where he emailed his report. He spent an uncomfortable night in his car waiting for the pair to reappear the next morning from their motel.
Johnny jumped out of the car and grasped the padlock so it lay in the palm of his hand staring up at him. “Right, let’s go back to town. This isn’t going to stop me,” he said as he let it drop.
They headed back to Needles and bought a heavy-duty pair of wire cutters from a hardware store. Johnny ignored speed limits as he drove back to the track where he put the thick chain into the jaws of the cutters. He brought the handles together with a grunt and the chain with the padlock fell to the dusty ground. He pushed the gate open and jumped back into the car. Clouds of dust flew into the air behind them as they drove up the track which wound its way up the mountainside.
“You sure about this?” Veronica asked.
“You've changed your tune. What happened to the earlier bravado?"
“Listen, we’ve come this far we’ve got to see it through now.”
“Don’t you think it’s just too easy?”
“Yeah well, maybe this is the way they want it: just to look like any other bit of desert hillside.”
After a while he stopped the car and opened the driver’s door. “Come on, let's go.”
Veronica followed him as they stumbled over a rough, boulder-strewn ground until he said: “Look.”
Veronica peered around a rocky spur into a flat inner area. The side of the mountain which faced away from the highway had been quarried out and there were several openings in the sides. Men in white lab coats were entering and leaving blue cabins, which surrounded a helicopter pad with a small, blue bell helicopter on it.
“Jesus!” said Johnny, “okay Veronica let’s go.”
“Maybe we should wait here for a while and just watch.”
“No, I think you should have a closer look Miss Cahill,” said a voice with a German accent.
Johnny looked back and saw Menzel with two of his thugs, Schroeder and another, standing behind Veronica with Heckler and Koch sub-machine guns. He shook his head and exhaled loudly.
“I'm disappointed you took so long to get here Mr Duncan.”
“You’ve been waiting on us?”
“Of course, did you think you could just walk into a secret site such as this? I told the government people I would deal with you. Now if you would be so kind as to head for that first portal.”
Johnny and Veronica climbed down the inner side of the spur and walked around the edge of the helipad with Menzel and his men behind them. They entered the opening and faced closed grey elevator doors. Schroeder tapped in a code on a keypad at the side and the doors slid open. “Get in!” He commanded.
Once all five were in the lift Menzel hit the 0 button on the inner pad and the doors closed. Johnny felt a little nauseous as they sank into the ground at great speed. The elevator stopped, and the doors opened on to a chaotic scene where men in lab coats rushed around checking pieces of equipment then writing on clip-boards. To his left Johnny could see people sitting in front of computer screens behind a large window in what he assumed was the control room.
Then, through the melee there it was: the Bell, sitting on a plinth, the black surface reflecting no light. A team of men in blue overalls were milling around it as if the craft had recently flown in for a pit-stop.
“Yes Mr Duncan, the alien craft that Hitler, because of his stupid pride, turned his back on. Just imagine how different the world would have been if he hadn’t. The Nazi’s would have won the atomic bomb race!”
“I don’t understand. Why is the US government now interested in this?”
Menzel laughed. “These people are not exactly model citizens; they belong to the CIA ja, but a secretive branch. They are interested because of the power they could have over any enemy if they could travel through dimensions–they could just appear anywhere. Star Trek for real-ja!” Menzel said with a grin. “The Bell, stored here in this old mine since the Second World War and, all but forgotten until it was accidentally found recently. But, don’t take my word for it; ask Miss Cahill she will have no doubt read a file on it at Langley.”
Johnny stared at Menzel with knitted eyebrows. “What? Don’t bring Veronica into this.” He then turned and looked at Veronica, “Langley, but that’s the CIA headquarters in Washington!”
Menzel’s walkie-talkie crackled into life. He walked away from the group as he answered it.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about Menzel.” Veronica said when he rejoined them.
“Oh, don’t you Miss Rodgers! It is Rodgers, isn’t it? And you won’t know this boy I suppose?”
The lift doors opened and another two of Menzel’s thugs dragged Michael Catone out into the cavern.
“He told my men when they picked him up beside your car he was a tourist who had lost his way.”
“I’ve never seen him before!” Veronica shouted.
“Well, you won’t mind if I blow his brains out then. Trespassers will be shot!” said Menzel as he raised his pistol and aimed at Michael. He released the safety catch.
Seconds passed which seemed like hours before Veronica growled: “Wait!”
Veronica stared at Menzel. “Okay,” she hissed. “I’m a CIA officer. My name’s Erin Rodgers.” She looked at Johnny, “I’m sorry John.”
Johnny looked at the floor and shook his head. “I don’t understand; you’re a reporter.”
“No, I was undercover as a reporter with the Washington Post. The Agency officers don’t go undercover as journalists, but in this case it was appropriate.”
“And you and me…, that was all a sham?” he asked with a faltering voice. “This was what you were going to tell me–wasn’t it?
“Oh, how heart wrenching.” Menzel mocked.
“It was no sham. I was going to tell you.” Veronica said, ignoring the German.
“The Agency sent me to find out about you. They told me you were a subversive risk to the US. When I got to know you, I realised there was something wrong. I was then to observe you and Günter as you were considered a threat to the tests. I was also to report back on the neo-Nazis. The government, no matter how dark the department and these gentlemen are not what you would call: good bed-fellows.”
“But, wait a minute; I met you before I had the visions!”
“It was because of the articles you wrote for Time and Nexus. Don’t you see? They must have been too close for comfort.”
The metallic voice of a PA system reverberated around the cavern: “Please clear the area around the Bell. Nonessential personnel will now leave the test hall.”
“Right, over there.” Menzel said to Johnny, Erin and Michael, as he pointed to the side of the control room. “As I’m such a good person, I’m going to let you watch the experiment before I have you killed.”
The lights in the cave dimmed, and a spotlight illuminated the UFO. An eerie blue light shone from the large window of the control room where white coats and blue overalls jostled for a view.
The atmosphere around the black craft crackled and hissed. An electromagnetic field, thought Johnny; his Higher-Grade Physics coming in handy at last.
There was a flash of light and standing before them was the Angel of Death. She was just as Johnny had remembered: grey wrinkled skin, dirty shoulder length fair hair, a thin body draped in black, shabby clothes.
“What do we have here?” she asked in a rasping, mocking voice.
“Where do you come from?” the PA system asked.
She cackled, revealing pointed, yellowing teeth
“I come from beyond nothingness. I come from nowhere. I come from everywhere.
I come from eternal damnation; where I will take you all, you sons of whores!”
She then rose into the air and spun as she stretched her arms out to form a crucifix shape.
After a moment the cavern shook–violently. Bits of rock dislodged from the ceiling and fell around Johnny and Erin. Menzel and his thugs ran into the control room.
“Cut the power!” shouted a tall, thin man in a lab coat.
“I’m trying sir,” said a younger blond-haired man sitting in front of a computer,
“but it’s as if whatever that is out there’s blocking my attempts.”
Johnny signalled for Erin and Michael to run to the elevator. The doors were closed; so he slammed the call button with the palm of his hand, but nothing happened.
It was a perfect late spring day, cars crossed the curved white structure that was the Hoover Dam, which lay on the border between Nevada and Arizona. Tourists on day trips from Las Vegas gazed in awe over one side at Lake Mead, whose waters were rising after years of drought. The other side provided a breathtaking view of the drop to the Colorado River, which was cutting its way through Black Canyon.
Sighs of wonder, however, turned to screams of horror as the area began to shake.
The tremors were gentle at first, but built in intensity with every passing second. Rock pieces the size of small cars broke off the surrounding cliffs and crashed onto the dam, many rolling down the spillway into the river.
Tourists ran along the trembling walkways as waves from Lake Mead smashed into the side of the dam throwing up white froth, which splashed onto the road. Drivers heading south-east blasted their horns at the vehicles in front; but a large boulder had crashed onto the centre of the road blocking the Arizona side of the dam. The Nevada side was impassable due to cars off the dam piled on top of one another.
The screams and shouts were drowned out by a deep growl as a giant fracture appeared on the cliff of the Arizona side of the dam and ran to the canyon floor. Then with a horrendous groan a large part of the rock face along with part of the dam sank into the earth.
Unleashed, Lake Mead gushed in a frothy hell through the large gap and surged along the canyon taking boats and wooden riverside cabins with it. The water crashed around bends loosening rock and sweeping away trees and shrubs.
After the earthquake had passed, Jim Hart, the Davis Dam Power Plant head engineer, stood beside the control room of the switch yard with his men. The yard sat on high ground next to the dam. He had ordered his men off the dam during the worst of the tremors. He cast an eye over the structure which was sixty miles south of the Hoover dam; everything looked okay.
“What do you reckon Jim?” Trey Wylde, an electrical engineer, asked his boss.
“I’m not sure, that was a hell of a quake.”
His cell phone chimed into life. “Yeah, hullo.”
“Jim, its Ron White at Western Control Phoenix here. Listen, for Christ’s sake, you gotta get away from there! The Hoovers damaged, Laughlin and Bullhead will hopefully be evacuated. Just get yourselves up to higher ground.”
As he stuffed his mobile in his trouser pocket, a violent aftershock hit the area and a large fracture appeared at both sides of the far end of the reservoir.
“Jesus Jim, look!” Trey shouted as other engineers joined them.
A wall of water surged along the lake toward the dam.
“God! It’s too late,” said Jim as water rushed over rock promontories and islands.
The men watched in horror as the wave crashed into the earth-fill part of the dam and ripped it apart. The Forebay Bridge, which spanned the channel at the power plant, was partially destroyed as the wave rushed toward the main part of the already weakened dam.
Water smashed against the concrete, but it held and the wave flowed over the top.
An upturned yacht from a nearby marina crashed into the dam and was held there by the force of the water.
A few miles south of the dam people ran around the large, white cuboids that were the Laughlin casinos and gazed in terror at the torrent rushing toward them. Some stood transfixed still in shock by the earth tremors, which had damaged extensive parts of the city; others ran into the buildings and headed for the stairs.
A police car drove around telling people to head for higher ground oblivious to the little time left before the wave struck. Confusion reigned as cars with people trying to escape south blocked Casino Drive, the main drag. Other escapee’s took Highway 163
to higher ground.
Cars and coaches were pushed into one another as the deluge surged through the town. Boats on the river were ripped from their moorings and swept downstream. The Laughlin Bridge was swept away with only some twisted metal left protruding above the speeding water level. The casino towers stuck out of the water like groynes at a beach during high tide as the wave hit the centre of residential Bullhead city, which lay within a bend of the Colorado. The wall of water paid no heed to the path of the river however and swept over the city taking parts of buildings with it and upturning vehicles. Many shocked citizens were swept away in the deadly current.
Water, a vital life ingredient, swept children away from their mothers and husbands away from their wives all in a gushing hell. Victims screamed in horror and disbelief when pulled from their normal existence.
The flood lost intensity as it hit the agricultural land south of Bullhead city. By the time it flowed into Lake Havasu most of the energy had dissipated, but the surface level of the lake had, however, risen enough to flood downtown Lake Havasu City.
The earthquake had turned the lower Colorado between Lake Mead and Lake Havasu into one large lake, the cost: the submerged cities of Laughlin and Bullhead along with many other smaller communities in the area.
People stood on the tops of towers in Laughlin and Bullhead waving frantically as helicopters flew over the expanse of water, but the first aircraft were looking for people still alive in the water.
Families appeared on the rooftops of their homes that lay on higher ground. Many survivors stood or sat at the water’s edge after swimming or wading out of the flood.
Emergency teams from unaffected surrounding towns were doing what they could to reach them.
Jim Hart paced back and forth with his cell phone held to one ear desperately ringing his home in Bullhead City, but there was no answer.
“Shit, I ain’t ever seen anything like this!” Trey said as he turned from looking at the flood with tears in his eyes.
“We can’t stay here, people; our families need our help. I’m going to look for my folks!”
“Yeah, let’s go!” shouted another man.
So, the seven engineers set off over rough terrain with heavy hearts.