Chapter 340
In Haigerloch the cellar under the castle that contained the German atomic programme was scarcely wider than a 21st Century one-car garage and about twice as deep. The reactor pile was dormant. Since the Kingdom of Norway had halted sales of heavy water to Germany years ago and domestic sources could provide only minor volumes of less than stellar quality. Short of actually invading Norway there was no way to redress this situation, and procuring heavy Water from the Soviet Union had been vetoed 'on security grounds'.
This, among other things, was what the two British Agents had been sent to find out. Had MI6 and the Torchwood Institute been aware of this the mission would never have been laid on in the first place.
“So what do you expect to find down there? The Arc of the Covenants? The Holy Grail?” Felix asked.
“No, for I am not an Archeologist, nor do I own the appropriate headgear for that sort of work.” Ian replied, “but I do see your point.”
He turned the car off the road and into between some fields and hills, concealing them from easy view. They were an hour from the farm and Ian was sure they were not being followed. It was time to make for their destination. They could have taken the Highway but the problem was that this was far too obvious and there were too few opportunities to go off the road should the need arise.
“There's little enough that the Admiral could tell our people, and all of that is horribly outdated by now.”
He paused and looked at Felix. “Everything al-right?”
“Yes, yes. Why shouldn't it be?”
“Fair enough. So anyway, according to the briefing I was given, the Germans are nowhere near reaching something called 'critical mass', whatever that is. And from what they didn't tell me I think that the Germans aren't going to achieve that soon. I mean considering how large the programme was even when we saw it in Wales and when you compare it to the description...”
Felix leaned back in his seat and considered this. “So no secret Nazi Super-Weapon then.”
“Lord no.” Ian replied and re-started the engine, “but someone is worried.”
“And because of that two humble and faithful servants of the Crown get send into enemy territory on a bloody wild goose chase.”
The car moved off.
The Castle Church below which the cellar is located
“They do build them pretty, I have to give them that.” Felix remarked as he looked at the spire of the church through a pair of binoculars.
“The entrance seems to be down there.” Ian said and pointed at a shed that was leaning against the rock and seemed to serve no practical purpose.
“You are kidding me, right?”
“Apparently not. The sketches and descriptions we have are very clear on that. But...”
“But you can see even from here that it's rather unlikely the Gerries are anywhere near where we are, wherever that is?”
Ian just nodded.
“Let's wait for darkness.”
~**---**~
In the dark they parked the car a few blocks from the entrance near the village church and approached it on foot. Both wore their Gestapo outfits, both as a cover and to dissuade any nosy questions. The shed itself wasn't guarded on the outside, the only sign of it being in any use was a bicycle chained to a tree and blackout curtains in the windows.
The door was locked but Felix, while Ian stood guard, knocked on the door. A lock turned and the guard inside, armed with pistol, found himself faced with two clearly very high-ranking men who found that his uniform was out of order.
“Yes, Sir! Do you wish to speak to Professor Heisenberg?”
“Of course!” Ian improvised, “and you will never tell anyone that we were here, not even the Führer should he come by and ask. Understood?”
“Yes, Sir!” the man said and snapped to attention with a Nazi salute that would do the Leibstandarte proud.
Through the door they went and looked at what had the Torchwood Institute so scared.
They knew they had been right when saying that that the German programme was nowhere near what the Torchwood Institute had possessed when they had last heard of Tube Alloys. Ian discreetly motioned for Felix to start taking pictures, using the miniature camera[1] MD-1 had developed. For some reason Ian thought that calling it 'Q-Branch' was a good idea. He filed this away for future use.[2]
Professor Heisenberg was leaning over a desk where he was working on some papers. Ian was tempted to merely hit him over the head or shoot him outright but that would make it too bloody obvious that someone knew what was going on here and in the paranoia that pervaded Germany these days everyone would immediately point to Allied Intelligence.
No, better try and worm every bit of intelligence out of him that was in there, put the fear of god into him lest he talk about them to anyone while they were still in Germany and then legg it towards the Swiss border as if Beelzebub himself was on their tail. Considering who had to be howling mad with anger that was probably not even that far from the truth.
Suddenly Ian yearned for a cup of tea[3] and stepped over to Heisenberg.
“Professor, could I have a moment of your time?”
“Who are you?” Heisenberg yelled but instantly stopped when he saw the Gestapo insignia.
“No worries, Professor. We know that you are loyal to the Führer and the Fatherland.” Ian lied and glanced over to where the near empty reactor was waiting for heavy water and Uranium.[4]
“However my principals do not trust others in the chain back to Berlin so we have been sent to verify the...truthfulness of various reports so that appropriate measures can be taken if need be. And to that end you must never mention our visit.”
That had been said in a tone of voice that made even Felix's skin crawl. As annoying as the Red Caps were at times they never disappeared people like the statement implied. Suddenly Felix had an image of Ian sitting in an armchair, stroking a white-haired cat, an image that for some reason implied evil..
While Ian and Heisenberg talked he started walking around, taking pictures whenever no one was looking. He was less than impressed. Even when the British programme had been located in the Welch mountains it had been more than this. There was a pile, yes, but the one Einstein and his people had operated even back then had been larger, and by the looks of it also significantly better shielded. But it was empty, the racks that would eventually take the Uranium cubes were fastened to the top covering and raised with it.
Ian was being given a detailed briefing that told him more about nuclear theory than he had ever learned before and together with what he knew and suspected it was frightening. If this could be weaponized and if the Germans managed it then Britain was doomed.
But luckily he had the same impression of the local state of affairs as Felix. Einstein and Bohr would be far more able to evaluate the pictures but even he as a layman could estimate the likelyhood of success by the shear scale of this facility when compared to what he had been told about Torchwood, and that had been only the most broad and vague outline and he still didn't know where it was.
~**---**~
They stepped back into darkness twenty hair-raising minutes later after issuing more blood-curdling threats about not telling anyone they had been there. Neither spoke until their car was moving again.
“Bloody hell.”
“Aye.” Ian replied, “if that is their main effort then we won't have anything to worry about.”
“But we can't know that.”
Ian nodded. “True enough.”
They never even saw the checkpoint until they came around the corner half an hour later. No way of avoiding it. And they also didn't know that Heydrich was inspecting it. He was limping massively and ahd he sought proper medical attention instead of joining the hunt it may have been less pronounced but he was there.
Asked later Felix would say that the first indication that something was wrong was that there were more guards than usual, the second being when they yelled recognition and the bullets started flying.
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Comments, questions, rotten Tomatoes?
[1] By WW2 standards. It's still about the size of a large cigarette case, can take only a limited number of pictures and with crap quality even by the standards of the time.
[2] O brother what a bad insert... Still, couldn't help myself.
[3] At this point I rose, fired up the water cooker and made a quick one for myself.
[4] There was/is a significant Uranium deposit in Eastern Germany. While this wasn't a secret it also wasn't really exploited until the Soviets combed their zone for anything related to German Nuclear research and discovered some 100 metric tons of Uraniumoxide and wondered where it might be coming from. By 1990 (when predictably the ex-Soviet/German company went bust) they were the world's 3rd largest Uranium producer. The price that was paid for that...
That said, while it is likely that to a certain degree the materials found there will fuel British and French Nukes to some degree the company will extract nowhere near as much TTL, mostly because the British aren't as starved for domestic or Commonwealth sources and a evil, greedy Imperialist-Capitalist company has more regard for it's repressed workers. OTL the reactor wasn't actually in the cellar until 1945 (and rumour has it that the Uranium, after being discovered hidden in a pile of manure) ended up in New Mexico but here it was moved for security reasons as there are hundreds of dirty, filthy, slavic Bolsheviks running around Berlin and her Universities. The cellar was discovered earlier and then rented out until some nameless staffer found and rented it.