William Dietrich - Ice Reich

"I went to the Americans. I confessed all. They didn't believe me until they intercepted a radio signal from your U-boat. Then they made me a captive guide, exhibiting a sorry mistrust I've only slowly been overcoming."

"Well, it's too late to guide them, Otto. They're all dead, even Jurgen. The submarine is gone, the island volcano erupting, the disease and cure lost. Forever, I hope. It would be insane to go back there."

"The submarine… gone?"

"It was full of plague and slowly sinking the last time we saw it. This destroyer can look in hopes of practicing its naval gunnery, but I don't think they'll find it."

"And was anything salvaged from this vessel?"

"Of course not. You want a souvenir?"

Kohl sighed. "No. Just that Jurgen was holding some… papers of mine."

"Ah. I saw those come aboard. Important?"

The German thought about that. Then he shook his head. "No. Not important. Not anymore. Because life goes on, I think. Because it's time to start over and make up for the past, no?"

Hart nodded. "Admiral Byrd once remarked that Antarctica can provide a man with a chance to remake himself. Maybe he was right. But I'm sorry about your papers, Otto. I don't know what other evidence we have to back up your story."

He shrugged. "Yourselves, certainly. How else did you come to be down here in an open boat?"

The pilot nodded. "There's that."

"And one other thing." Greta fished into her clothes and pulled out her bottle. "An algae or a sponge, a strange organism. Perhaps some scientist will confirm its novelty."

"Greta! You saved some?" The pilot was surprised.

"Just this raw sample, when I destroyed the rest. I'm curious. As a scientist, you know."

Otto peered. "This is what all the fuss has been about?"

"This and how humans could misuse it."

Kohl nodded. "That I understand." He paused then, considering the way the couple looked at each other. "Well. Would an engagement present be appropriate?"

"It would be very appropriate," Hart said. Greta smiled.

"Good. Because I've been carrying this halfway around the world and don't have a clue as to why." He reached into a pocket and took out a scrap of soiled ribbon, handing it to Greta. "But I kept it as you asked."

She looked happy as she unwrapped the pebble.

"What the devil is that rock?"

She lifted the locket out of her clothes and unsnapped it. "It's memory, Papa." She slipped the pebble in and closed the tiny container. "It goes here, near the heart."

Her father nodded. "And now you two go on to…?"

"California, I hope." Greta looked shyly at Owen. "It's warmer than Montana, I hear. And I want to be near the sea to study whales. Not to hunt them, but to learn from them."

"And you, Owen?"

"I think commercial aviation is going to increase after the war. I want to fly and I suspect California will be as good a place to start as any. I once spent some time there."

"Good. And I think I want to help rebuild some of what we destroyed after the Reich finally dies. They will need Otto Kohl, I think."

An ensign stepped into the room. "The captain wants to talk to you three. You have a lot of explaining to do."

"Of course, of course!" Kohl nodded. "What a story we have to tell! Lead the way, young man!" He put a cautious hand on Hart's shoulder. "Captain Reynolds and I are slowly becoming the best of friends," he whispered. "It's taking time but he's warming to me, I think. So you, of course, must let me do most of the talking."

As the trio climbed toward the vessel's bridge, Owen Hart slipped his arm around the woman he loved.

This book was inspired by a true incident. In 1938-39, Germany's Hermann Goring did send an expedition to Antarctica on the seaplane tender Schwabenland. Its pilots were the first to fly over the coastal ranges of Queen Maud Land and they assigned some names to the region that persist today. The Germans did drop swastika-engraved darts from their flying boats to establish a claim to the continent, and did greet curious penguins with a "Heil Hitler!" They named the area New Schwabenland.

Except for Hermann Goring, however, all the characters in this novel are imagined. None are meant to represent the actual members of the Schwabenland expedition. The history recounted here is solely the author's invention. To the degree possible, however, this novel's descriptions are based on historic accounts of the places, times, people, and mores of the Nazi era.

Those readers familiar with Antarctic history and geography will recognize some sources of the novel's ideas. Atropos Island is inspired by real-life Deception Island, for example. Dry valleys such as the one described do exist. So do leopard seals. The disease depicted is fiction but scientists have recently discovered underground ecosystems of bacteria fed by chemicals and the earth's heat energy. The drug was suggested by the story of penicillin, discovered accidentally in 1928 when mold spores blew through a scientist's window and fell on plates of bacteria. The strain that was developed as an antibiotic in World War II, Penicillin chrysogenum, came from a single moldy cantaloupe found by a researcher in a supermarket garbage bin in Peoria, Illinois. Proving again that truth is at least as strange as fiction.

This book would not have been possible without the opportunity to make two visits to Antarctica as a science journalist writing for the Seattle Times, under a fellowship program of the National Science Foundation. I am grateful to the Times, the NSF, and all the people I met there. They and the southern continent affected me deeply.

Antarctica is an extraordinary place, which tends to have an enormous impact on those who visit it. No continent on earth has quite its combination of hostility and beauty. In the twenty-first century Antarctica is likely to come under heavy pressure from nations eager to exploit its resources. It is imperative this unique place be preserved as the wilderness and research park it is today.

I am in debt to the encouragement of my agent, Kris Dahl, and the patient guidance and support of my editor, Rick Horgan. And I am at a loss to adequately thank my wife, Holly, for her help with this book. She became my collaborator on this novel under difficult circumstances. Across a vast distance we became closer, and I will always be grateful for that.

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Everything he knew was useless now.

There was a cold clarity to that realization, a crystallization of hopelessness that in its own odd way was bracing. It was the first coherent thought to penetrate Ethan Flint's panic in some time. He acknowledged, with an acceptance that was calming, that he was probably doomed.

The cries of pursuit were growing closer. The heave of Ethan's chest and pounding of his heart had quieted enough to hear the sound drifting across the desert, its harsh rasping reminding him of the caw of crows. He'd grown up with the urban birds, watching them multiply on songbird eggs until they flew across the endless rooftops like plumes of smoke, and they spoke in a language hard and aggrieved. It was a relative of that sound the fugitive heard now: human calls that were shrill, excited, and without remorse. It was a yipping designed to induce fear and at first Flint's brain had screamed the need to think so urgently that it drowned out every other thought. Now his peril was being more rationally- more grimly- absorbed. He was being hunted, but why? By whom?

The day had climaxed into an oven of punishing heat, the air so dry that Ethan seemed hardly to sweat. He understood this was an illusion. He was parched and rapidly dehydrating, despite his knowledge of how dangerous such a condition could be. There was so much he'd memorized before coming to the desert: the proper salt balance, his necessary caloric intake, the dimensions of a solar still, or how to splint a bone or identify an edible plant or make fire with a lens. He'd sought to be an aboriginal engineer, a wilderness technician. A lot of good it was doing him now! The plane crashed, his friends dead, his carefully chosen gear a growing deadweight. And now this unexpected pursuit. When running for your life you don't have much time to index-search the precepts of Wilderness Comfort on disk, he observed wryly. His peril would be funny if it wasn't so damned frightening.