Echo of the Reich

Начало книги

It was the sound of boots on concrete that puzzled him.

Footsteps were always echoing through the labyrinth of passageways and laboratories in the perpetual gloom of the mine, but these sounded different, organized almost-a squad of men marching with purpose rather than a handful of scientists ambling along. And as far as Georg Schuster knew, there were no soldiers based in the facility.

The Komplex Milkow was located in the Wenceslas Mine, a bewildering network of tunnels and chambers, some natural but others hacked from the rock, which covered an area of almost thirty-six square kilometers. It was the home of Der Riese — “The Giant”-an SS research facility and one of the most secret bases ever established by Nazi Germany. The research project being conducted there-it bore two project names: Der Laternentrager, meaning “the lantern bearer,” and Kronos, or “Saturn”-possessed the highest possible category of both secrecy and funding priority within the Third Reich. No other research of any sort, in any country, had been allocated the classification Kriegsentscheidend, “decisive for the outcome of the war.”

Читать дальше →