The Traveler Read Online Free PDF Page B

of the laboratory.
    They felt the earth beneath the bunker roll as if the ground was made of water instead of bedrock. Heinrich Himmler’s eyes widened in shock as the doorway erupted in flame and sparks as her emergency backup systems were knocked offline.
    â€œ Mein Gott, what has happened?” Thomsen cried as he felt the first ripple of earth movement.
    As for Himmler, he knew exactly what had happened. He had been warned of possible RAF assaults on the power-producing systems of the war effort.
    â€œNo!” he said loudly as the world around him turned to electrical flame.
    *   *   *
    The Upkeep traveled to a depth of 112 feet, three feet farther than the designers wanted, but this failure actually ensured the success of the mission. Just as the Upkeep hit the bottom of the dam nearest the last of the solid granite masonry blocks where they joined clay and earthen bank, the shock wave as the hydrostatic fuse detonated the nine thousand pounds of explosive in the barrel-like weapon.
    At first there was little reaction other than the giant waterspout above the dam’s upper superstructure. The wash inundated the German guards running about in a panic. Then the real magic started to happen as Mother Nature started to take an interest in the game. The initial cracks in the dam were small, but as the explosion reached out from the base, the return of water to that empty pressure void slammed into the wall of concrete at over a thousand miles per hour. It cracked. The sizable void traveled like a snake at maximum speed as it raced up the waterside of the dam. It hit the top and the first of the five-thousand-pound chunks of wall started to cascade into the small village below, whose residents had already started to run for their lives.
    The Möhne Dam and the surrounding countryside had only minutes of life left to them.
    *   *   *
    â€œGet me my power back!” Thomsen said as a shower of sparks cascaded to the floor, making even Himmler duck low.
    â€œGet me to my car!” Himmler said as calmly as he could as he was pulled by his security team from the glass-enclosed room. His eyes fell on a panicked Thomsen as he tried to find out what was wrong. The fool didn’t even realize his precious project had been attacked. Thomsen’s eyes showed fear as he knew then that his life and his project were done. He would never survive the Reichsführer’s wrath.
    The lights flickered as the SS men cleared the room and ran for the elevator while they still had power to operate the lifts.
    Himmler turned to two of his SS security men. “Remove Thomsen and only his most essential personnel. The rest need to be silenced, including the Traveler and her sibling, if she returns.”
    The two men turned and made their way to the laboratory below and started to pull Thomsen from the room amid his cries to help stop the catastrophe to his experiment. Three of his assistants were also pulled out of the lab as others used fire extinguishers to try to stem the flow of the disaster.
    Before anyone knew what was happening, bullets ripped into the laboratory below. Technicians froze at their consoles as their world exploded into chaos. Bullets ripped into their screens and then themselves as SS machine guns opened up from the stairwell in the far wall.
    Thomsen and his three assistants were pushed toward the elevators. The second was waiting with an SS soldier. Professor Thomsen was hustled toward the lift. Suddenly he felt the large glass window blow inward and was inundated with shrapnel. The largest piece lodged into his thorax and jugular veins. His last view of his precious Wellsian Doorway was of men with weapons destroying it and his people. His last dimming vision was of the small brother of the Traveler as he ran away in fear. He wondered if the boy would ever make it out alive. Thomsen died with many regrets, but the boy’s fate was not one of them.
    Before