Free The Black Knight by Dean Crawford Page A

out. ‘Would that have made much of a difference to the Nazis?’
    ‘It could have,’ Chandler said. ‘The warm water channels to the eastern coast could have provided one of the most important access routes into the continent: subterranean sea channels, perfect for concealing the movement of German U-boats that could have been used to supply the base.’
    ‘What does this have to do with Black Knight?’ Hannah asked.
    Jarvis reappeared on the screen as he spoke.
    ‘As many people know, the Nazis and Hitler specifically were obsessed with the occult, the paranormal and pretty much anything other-worldly. The Nazi regime placed great stock in anything that supported their notion of an Aryan master race, from whom they were thus supposedly descended and destined to rule the world. You name it, they went after it: Atlantis, the Ark of the Covenant, the Holy Grail and many other artifacts both mythical and obscure. But one particular device caught the attention of investigators during the post-war period: something called Die Glocke , or The Bell.’
    Jarvis spoke as the screen’s image split into two and revealed an image of a large, metallic object shaped somewhat like an acorn. Ethan could see strange symbols written around the circumference of the object’s base, almost like hieroglyphics.
    ‘This object was reportedly part of the Nazi’s most secretive research and development programs in progress toward the end of the war. The Germans were making truly tremendous strides in technology, pioneering jet engines, electromagnetism, superconductivity and other exotic discoveries that we’re only really coming to terms with today. There were rumors among the allies that in the rush to conquer Germany and occupy Berlin in the final days of the conflict, the governments of America, the United Kingdom and Russia were also keen to confiscate German technology for themselves, acts which created some friction between them even as the last shots of the war were being fired.’
    ‘You’re saying that what might be up here is something that belonged to the Nazis?’ Captain Forrester asked.
    ‘Again, we can’t be sure just what’s up here,’ Jarvis cautioned. ‘The truth is that if the Nazis did have an Antarctic base then they may well have attempted to regroup there in the aftermath of the German defeat, and taken much of their technology with them. It’s not often broadcast by NASA, but after the war the vast majority of former Nazi scientists were brought back to the United States. The men who had previously worked for the Nazis on rocket technology for their infamous V-Bombs ended up pioneering the race for the moon. Werner Von Braun, one of NASA’s best known scientists during the space race and the creator of the Saturn V rockets, was a German scientist who worked for the Nazis.’
    Ethan peered at the schematics of Die Glocke .
    ‘That doesn’t look like anything we ever sent to the moon, except maybe the lunar capsule.’
    ‘ Die Glocke was not a spacecraft,’ Doctor Chandler replied, ‘at least as far as we can make out. No evidence of it was ever recovered from Germany after the war, at least as far as official records reveal, and scientists like Von Braun never admitted any awareness of the project. However, there is a tantalizing trail of evidence supporting the notion that something was indeed created in Germany that matches Die Glocke in a number of ways. The Third Reich had an underground scientific laboratory in a facility known as Der Riese , or The Giant, near the Wenceslaus mine near the Czech border. Experiments conducted there refer to a device made out of a hard, heavy metal that was some twelve to fifteen feet high and nine feet wide, similar in shape to a large bell. The device contained two counter-rotating cylinders which were filled with a metallic substance somewhat like mercury but violet in color and code-named Xerum-525. Other leichtmetall , or light metals, like thorium and