Agent of Vengeance Read online

  “I believe that a significant quantity of this substance could theoretically wipe out the human population of a country the size of Poland in less than a day. What makes this agent ideal for warfare, if it can be weaponized, is that after extraction from the soil it is no longer virulent after twenty-four hours. Meaning that after a day, the area in which it was released becomes completely safe for human rehabitation.”

  Broder concluded, “I hypothesize that if I can successfully weaponize this substance, it could be developed into the world’s most effective weapon. After releasing it into a targeted area, after twenty-four hours we can occupy the country which will be free of its prior inhabitants. The land, industry, and wealth would be ours, intact!”

  Up until Werner completed his speech, Hitler had sat quietly in concentration behind his desk. When Werner finished, Hitler rose from his chair as if possessed by the devil. The Fuhrer’s steely blue eyes glowed as he exploded like a madman.

  “Eureka! How many years have I been waiting for someone to walk through my doors and tell me of this kind of possibility? Why was I not informed that the potential for such a weapon could be made?”

  Hitler returned to his seat, staring out the window in deep contemplation.

  Werner was taken aback by Hitler’s sudden outburst. He said, sheepishly, ““Until now, no such substance was known to science. It is impossible to determine how it was initially formed. Perhaps it emerged because this particular gravesite was used for bodies that had undergone unusual medical experiments at Treblinka involving radiation and noxious gases. In any case, I ordered that the entire site be sealed off, and I am bringing in the most state-of-the-art equipment from my former laboratory at the University of Berlin. We will not rest until we have developed the Strain for the service of Germany.”

  “With your help, Herr Professor, I can turn the war around!” Hitler said with a glimmer in his eyes.

  “Mein Fuhrer,” Broder said, “Unfortunately, I have only scratched the surface with my analysis of the Strain. It will be a tremendous undertaking to transform it into a weapon of war.”

  Hitler turned his gaze to the ceiling. Twenty-five minutes had passed. Outside, Bormann tried in vain to comfort the Ambassador of Japan who considered the delay a personal insult and an affront to his country.

  Broder had been standing at attention the whole time. He was sweating profusely, and his glasses were slipping down his nose.

  Hitler turned, looked into the cowered eyes of Broder, and smiled.

  “Herr Professor, you will be provided with everything you need to make this weapon. All of Germany’s resources are at your disposal. Next to me, you will be the most powerful man in Nazi Germany. All I ask is that you give me your personal pledge that you will not fail me.”

  Broder nodded as Hitler continued.

  “This project must be executed in total secrecy. Only the two of us will know the true purpose of your work. I will instruct Bormann, my secretary, that you have free access to meet with me for any reason at any time. Professor Broder, you will not let me down!”

  Hitler turned to a large map on the wall behind his desk. He studied it for several minutes. Hitler then picked up a pointer from his desk and waved it in the direction of the map. He placed the tip over a small island off the coast of Greece. Then he changed his mind.

  “You will build your laboratory on Crete.” Hitler ordered. He gave a parting nod to Werner. “Please wait outside.”

  Hitler then called in Martin Bormann. Ten minutes later, Bormann emerged with a letter in his hand. He handed it to Broder without saying a word.

  Werner stared at the official letter from Adolf Hitler. It stated that Werner has essentially unlimited access to all of the resources of Germany’s treasury and military. The letter granted Broder the power to requisition any funds and personnel that he needed for the completion of his project.

  Werner staggered out of the Reich Chancellery. Meeting Adolf Hitler in person was a dream come true. Now, Hitler had made him his partner to save Nazi Germany. He told himself, “I have now only one goal in life: to fulfill my promise to my Fuhrer.”

  From the Chancellery, Broder went straight to Berlin Airport and entered its administrative offices. He showed the letter to the director of the airport and demanded a plane and a pilot. After reading the letter, the director cancelled a scheduled flight to Switzerland and ordered that Broder be taken anywhere he wished. When he arrived in Crete, he found that with Hitler’s letter, all doors were open to him.

  It took Broder less than a week to find a suitable site for his facility. Mount Kedros was isolated enough for a top-secret laboratory, and its rugged terrain answered the need for security. Due to local resistance, most of the villages in the area had been razed to the ground by German troops, and therefore the remaining locals were likely to keep their distance from Nazi activities.

  In order to bring in the necessary supplies, Broder set up offices in the names of fictitious companies in Athens, Barcelona, Budapest, and Prague. Each office operated independently, and were unaware of the operations or even existence of other offices. He randomly distributed orders of building materials and equipment so that it would be impossible to discern what he was constructing.

  Hitler, an amateur architect, decided that he alone would design the laboratory and the surrounding facility. His plan was to maintain total security and at the same disguise the facility’s true purpose.

  The laboratory was located in the center of the base and surrounded by three concentric concrete walls. The outer wall was fifteen feet high and was guarded by an elite SS brigade. The middle wall, twenty feet high, was located one kilometer inside the outer wall. The terrain was highest at this point. The area between the outer and middle walls was cleared of all rocks, plants, and trees, leaving a flat surface where a minefield was laid. The innermost wall, three hundred feet from the middle wall, was thirty feet high, making it the tallest structure on the mountain. Between the inner wall and the middle wall a twenty-foot-wide moat was dug and filled with a think synthetic oil manufactured to have the same characteristics as quicksand. Anything that fell into the moat was immediately swallowed up by this sticky substance.

  There were no guards between the three walls. Securing the area were nests of automatic machine guns set off by weight-sensitive plates placed at random throughout the areas between the walls. Any movement detected by the plates would also trigger high-intensity search lights.

  The buildings above ground level were disguised to look like weather monitoring facilities. All administrative offices, housing, security, and supplies were located on the upper level. One building at the end of the complex housed hundreds of Jews to be used as test subjects. The lower level, located twenty meters below ground, consisted of several different research laboratories connected by underground tunnels.

  Soil and debris from the contaminated areas of Treblinka were excavated by Jewish slave laborers and shipped to the site in triple layered zinc barrels. Hundreds of Jews were killed by the Strain during the excavation. The barrels were stored in a large underground warehouse and accessible only by passing several layers of security and a specially designed airlock.

  An elaborate security protocol assured absolute secrecy. No one, including Broder, ever left the area behind the inner wall. All materials and supplies entered the base via an automated rail line. Flatcars entered a gate in the SS command center adjacent to the outer wall and passed through gates in the middle and inner walls without any human assistance. When they arrived to the central complex, the flatcars were unloaded and stored. Any waste products created by the project staff or laboratory were burned in a special facility within the complex. In this way nothing from the inside complex ever reached the outside.

  The guards in the SS security station in the inner complex were selected specifically because they were orphans and would have no need to contact family members on the outside. In the inner security office, there was a single landline and r
adio transmitter which was fully disassembled when not in use. The landline connected to only one phone, that of the chief officer of the outer security center, Oberst Kropp. Kropp was responsible for fulfilling all needs of the inner compound.

  With these arrangements, no information concerning the workings of the project ever left the base, thus ensuring total secrecy. The facility was manned by Professor Broder’s staff from the National Biological Laboratory. After helping transfer all the materials excavated from gravesite area containing the Strain, the overseeing staff from Treblinka were transported to the facility, and the Jewish slave laborers were killed off with Zyklon-B gas. Therefore, the only person outside of the facility who knew of the Strain Program was Adolf Hitler.

  Werner Broder had two objectives in developing the Strain into an effective weapon of war. First, to isolate the strain from the soil and stabilize it in order that it would maintain its lethality. Second, to develop a reliable delivery system.

  After two years of work, the delivery system was ready. It consisted of a tempered steel cylinder the size of a tennis ball. The cylinder contained a receiver capable of processing long-wave radio signals. When the cylinder received a correctly coded transmission it would open, releasing its contents. A specially designed radio transmitter, similar to the German code machine known as Ultra, complete with Enigma ciphers, was developed. The Strain transmitter was capable of sending coded signals around the world. Broder was especially pleased with the construction of the delivery cylinder. Durability testing confirmed that it was capable of lasting indefinitely, even in the most hostile environments.

  Professor Broder was also successful in isolating the Strain from the soil samples. However, whenever the Strain was removed from the original soil sample, it would die within twenty-four hours. No media proved capable of retaining the stability of the Strain, and every effort to prevent its breakdown was a failure. Finding an appropriate medium was critical because Broder’s experiments showed that even in the soil from Treblinka the Strain was slowly losing viability. Additionally, the Strain was present in the soil diffusely and needed to be isolated and concentrated to make an effective weapon of war. The problem was that there was an infinite variety of potential media to choose from. Broder knew eventually that he would come upon the solution, but time was not on his side.

  There was also the question of distribution. Cylinders could be placed strategically to cover all populated land areas of Earth. However, Hitler had realized that many countries had naval assets at sea that would be out of reach of the Strain. He sent an urgent message to Broder to address the issue. Broder sent back a message stating that large cylinders, the size of naval mines, would be produced to be strategically placed in rivers, lakes and oceans. Upon “Judgement Day,” the Strain in these cylinders would be released upon all the waterways on Earth infecting any humans at sea.

  The war situation had become catastrophic for the Germans. The Allies were closing in on Germany’s borders from both the East and the West. Crete itself was under nearly constant bombardment from American and British forces. In December of 1944, mainland Greece was liberated by the Allies. However, the German garrison on Crete tenaciously held out due to Hitler’s insistence on sending heavy reinforcements to the island. The German High Command did not understand this obvious waste of manpower and resources, but Hitler overruled them. What the High Command did not know was that Germany’s last hope of winning the war was the ongoing efforts of the Broder Laboratory.

  Professor Broder, realizing the desperate situation, worked his team of scientists and technicians to exhaustion. Each was required to fill a minimum of four twelve-hour and three sixteen-hour shifts per week. Broder himself only slept four hours a day. This grueling work schedule continued until about three months before the end of the war.

  On February 3, 1945, Allied bombers on a routine mission struck a coastal ammunition depot in Crete about one hundred miles from Broder’s facility.

  “Hey Jack, great job!” Tom the co-pilot called out to Captain Armstrong, the squadron flight leader. “Lenny’s B-52 must have hit a munitions dump. Man, it went up like a match box!”

  “Probably tripped some sort of chain reaction,” Captain Armstrong called back.

  “We have a major problem now, though. The rest of the plane’s racks are full.”

  “What’s the problem? We still have plenty of fuel to return to base,” shot back the Captain.

  “Roger. But that means we’ll have to stick around for unloading. That and all the paperwork will cut a half-day off our weekend pass.” Tom groaned.

  “OK, gotcha. Good thinking. What’s our secondary target, Tom?”

  “K-5. Looks like a weather station, but the boys at intel think it’s a relay station for Kraut signals.”

  “Great - let’s show ‘em what a Kansas tornado looks like!” the Captain said with a smile. “And if you Germans are listening, we got enough bombs left to teach you peeping Nazi bastards the whole English language.”

  With that, Captain Jack Armstrong’s squadron of B-17 Flying Fortresses turned to the direction of Broder’s base.

  3

  “Ronnie, are you sure you’re going to meet us at the beach?” Mary asked from behind the steering wheel. She was parked on Hayarkon Street in front of the U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv, Israel.

  “Don’t worry, I just have to give a quick report. Maximum one hour. Honest. Then I’ll join you and the kids at the beach in Netanya, and then we’ll all go for dinner, O.K.?”

  “Fine,” Mary said, with a look of disbelief. “Anyway, I have to go, the kids are waiting for me at home.”

  Ron bent over and stuck his head into the open diver-side window. He gave Mary a long kiss. Then she drove off.

  Ronald Fletcher was enjoying his current assignment in Israel. As the son of the famed General George Fletcher, he had been an army brat as long as he could remember, growing up on bases in more than fifteen countries. When his father retired, the family settled down in Kenosha, Wisconsin where Ron’s grandparents lived.

  On his first day at Kenosha High School, Ron, then a junior, met Mary, a freshman, as they both reached for a straw in the cafeteria. It was love at first sight.

  As Ron walked in the direction of the United States Embassy, he thought about how lucky he was. He had married the first and only woman he had ever loved. She was still, in his eyes, the same beautiful freshman at Kenosha High School. Mary was five foot five and very petite. Her button nose perfectly complimented her glowing green eyes and thin, delicate lips. Mary still wore her glistening black hair with the same simple flip from her high school days. Then, as now, she was every boy’s dream, but from that very first meeting, she only had eyes for one boy, Ronald Fletcher.

  And why not? Ron was a local celebrity. Years of scrimmaging on far-flung military installations at Stuttgart, Okinawa, and Daegu had honed Ron’s skills, and he had been starting quarterback for the last two years at his old high school in Washington State. Tryouts at Kenosha were a breeze, and within a few weeks he was both first-string quarterback and Captain of the Kenosha High School football team.

  Ron was six foot five and weighed around two hundred pounds. He had the squared jaw look of a movie star. Though he spoke quietly, if he lost his temper it was best to stay clear. With Ron, it was one punch and lights out.

  Upon graduation, Ronald Fletcher received a full scholarship to the University of Chicago, not for his athleticism, but rather for his academic achievements. While he worked on his B.A. in U.S. History, he was constantly shuttling back and from Kenosha to spend time with Mary. At graduation he asked Mary to marry him and she joyfully accepted. The wedding took place at the Quadrangle Club. After Mary graduated high school, she joined Ron at the University of Chicago and studied psychology while Ron began his post-graduate studies.

  After completing a P.H.D. in International Relations and Diplomacy in four years, Fletcher shocked Mary and his family by suddenly announcing he was leaving academ
ia to serve in the U.S. Army. After recovering from the initial shock, Mary realized that Ron needed to serve not only because of his own patriotism, but also because he felt a family obligation to serve.

  Ron had a natural knack for picking up languages and had practiced his skills all over the world. He could speak fluent German and Japanese without an accent, and had a working knowledge of several other languages. Even though he joined the army as a mere recruit, his intellectual abilities and top physical condition set him apart from the crowd. After basic training he was sent to Officer Candidate School in Fort Benning, and then completed the Special Forces training program at Fort Bragg.

  From there Fletcher has sent to Fort Holabird, Maryland where he completed further courses at the United States Army Intelligence Center. By that time the Vietnam War had begun, and he was deployed to active duty. Ron was made a liaison officer to a Vietnamese brigade, and completed a series of in tours in which he rose to the rank of lieutenant colonel and was appointed chief liaison officer for the Green Berets. During his time in Vietnam, Ron earned just about every medal the United States Army could award.

  Fletcher gained a reputation as a fearless commando as the leader of an elite unit of American and South Vietnamese joint unit known as the Lion’s Pack. Their official mission was to cause fear and panic among the Viet Cong leadership. Operating behind enemy lines in North Vietnam, and sometimes in neighboring Cambodia and Laos, Ron and his men averaged capturing or killing at least five Viet Cong officers a week.

  Ron’s coup de maître was the capture of Major Ho Lin. Ho had the reputation of being the most proficient interrogator, i.e. torturer, in the Far East. He had developed his sadistic skills to perfection. Lin described his techniques as “the art of obtaining information through prolonged agony.” By the time of his capture, Ho had become the Viet Cong’s top interrogator of Vietnamese agents caught spying for U.S. Intelligence.