David Gibbins - The Gods of Atlantis

Hoffman felt physically sick. ‘A Wunderwaffe, mein Fuhrer.’

Himmler reached over and pulled the swaddled package on the table towards him, clunking it on the planks. It sounded heavy, metallic. He looked at Hoffman intently. ‘My detractors think I am obsessed with the occult, with mystical symbols and rituals. They think it clouds my reason, but that is what I wished them to think. In reality I use it to cloak my intentions. I needed an artifice to shroud my wonder-weapon in mystique, to convince those who would follow me that the plan to use the weapon was in the Nazi cause. What better than the ancient symbolism I myself had nurtured, and had placed at the heart of Nazi ideology?’ He waved his hand at the crates. ‘Schliemann’s greatest treasure was not found at Troy but at the Greek citadel of Mycenae, buried under the Mask of Agamemnon. It was a most astonishing discovery, and fell into my hands when we dug beneath Schliemann’s house in Athens after we had conquered Greece in 1941, to follow a rumour that he had concealed treasures there. We found it wrapped with a note by Schliemann’s wife Sophia about the discovery, placed there after his death. It was nothing less than the sacred palladion of the Trojans, brought back to Greece by the victorious Greek king Agamemnon. The Trojans thought the palladion had fallen from heaven, a divine gift to the founder of their city. In a sense they were right: it was a meteorite, probably brought to Troy millennia before from some distant place. Meteorites are found most easily on ice, and I convinced my followers that this was vindication of Welteislehre – the so-called world ice theory developed by my Ahnenerbe scholars, a mad fantasy – and that it was a sacred artefact from the supposed Ice Age precursor civilization that had led us to scour Iceland and Greenland for clues. At some time in prehistory the meteorite had been fashioned by human hands into the shape you will see, and then melded with gold: meteoritic iron on one side, gold on the other. I told my followers that it had been forged in Atlantis. It is the most ancient Aryan symbol, a swastika.’

Hoffman stared in amazement at the shape within the package, about fifteen centimetres across. Himmler held him in his gaze. ‘With the iron surface facing down, it is a reverse swastika, a symbol of ancient Troy. You can see it decorating ancient potsherds from Troy illustrated in Schliemann’s book. But there’s more. When my scientists analysed the meteoritic iron, they found it had a unique magnetic signature. One of them came up with an ingenious idea. By holding the palladion with the iron facing down, it could be used as a key, one that could never be replicated. A magnetic mechanism aligned to the unique signature of the meteoritic iron could allow doors to be opened, doors to the secret vault that contained the Wunderwaffe.’

‘The chamber beneath this tower?’ Hoffman murmured.

‘I embedded the palladion in the most secret core of SS ideology. It was concealed below the floor of my SS headquarters at Wewelsburg Castle, like a sacred reliquary. Every new SS general had to swear an oath on that spot. You yourself have been there, when I showed you the cover to the reliquary with the reverse swastika on top, the arms of the cross bending to the left instead of the right. But only a select few knew the significance of what lay concealed beneath – the palladion – and its use as a key. For those, I devised an activation signal called the Agamemnon Code. A simple message, an image of the reverse swastika inside a red roundel, would be sent to a few chosen followers when the time was right. It would signal the start of my plan. Not Adolf ’s plan, but my plan. A plan for a new Reich and a new Fuhrer, but a Reich of global dimensions, one based far away from the squalor and mess of Nazi Germany.’

Hoffman suddenly remembered Dr Unverzagt. He reached into his tunic pocket, and pulled out the crumpled piece of paper the man had given him. He smoothed it out and held it up, showing the reverse swastika. ‘You mean like this?’

Himmler nodded. ‘Dr Unverzagt was one of the select few. I knew that Wewelsburg would be stripped bare by the Allies when they captured the castle, so I had the palladion removed to a secret location deep inside a salt mine in Poland. Then, with the advance of the Russians, it was taken to the bunker in the forest in Upper Saxony where the disease weapon had been perfected. The bacterium was kept there, and the virus in the secret storeroom below us now in the Zoo tower. Both could only be accessed using the palladion as a key. Twelve days ago, I persuaded Hitler to issue the command to destroy the infrastructure of Germany. My followers were ready, and the Agamemnon Code was activated. The palladion was brought to me. Most of my followers are now dead, those who believed I was merely a devoted acolyte of Adolf, those who were deluded into thinking that releasing the Wunderwaffe was to be a final act of loyalty to Hitler. They served their purpose, as obediently and loyally as I had apparently served Adolf. Their elimination was also part of my plan. Only a select few survived, those who knew my true intentions and were loyal to me and my cause above all else. Unverzagt was the penultimate link in the chain. Now it passes to you.’

Hoffman stared at the package. Was his own elimination part of that plan, too? ‘If I am the last link, why am I only finding out about this now?’

Himmler leaned back. ‘It was essential that this plan appeared to most of my followers to be about loyalty to Hitler. That way I could attract the most fanatical Nazis, the most ruthless. It was a plan to enact once Hitler was dead. It would seem to Hitler’s followers like Gotterdammerung, the final act of loyalty to the Third Reich. With impending annihilation, their loyalty could easily be switched to self-destruction. They believed that my intention was to release the disease weapon and inflict as much horror as possible on the world that had betrayed Hitler, and then to join Adolf in some kind of Valhalla with all the Aryan heroes and gods of the past.’

Hoffman stared at Himmler, barely able to believe what he had been hearing, the full truth of it only now hitting him. Himmler had always seemed so obsequious to Hitler, idolizing him. If he was telling the truth now, if this was not just some insane pipe dream, then it had all been a sham, all those years when Himmler had seemed like the bulwark of the Third Reich, the man whose administrative efficiency made up for the incompetence of Hitler and the others of his inner circle. Hoffman cleared his throat. ‘But for you the wonder-weapon has another purpose?’

Himmler stared at him. ‘The victors in this war, the English, the Americans, the Russians, those who delude themselves that they are the world powers to come, have their own Wunderwaffe, the atomic bomb. We know the Americans already have it, and I ensured that the key developments of our own atomic research programme at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute were left there to be captured by the Russians. This means that the Americans and the Russians will be trapped in a stalemate. Neither side will be able to use the weapon against the other, knowing that to launch it would provoke a response that would destroy the aggressor as well. But my new weapon is different. When I reveal it to the Americans and the Russians, they will know that I am prepared to use it. They have discovered the death factories. They know that if I can do that to the Jews, then I am capable of anything. The Final Solution was not just about crackpot racial theory. That was a cover for me too. And the threat of destruction will be entirely one-sided. I will be safe, and they won’t know where to hit back. I can hold the world to ransom. We will be safe. In our new Atlantis.’