Hell's Gate Read online

  Dedication

  For our families,

  and for Colonel Percy Harrison Fawcett,

  who was there

  Contents

  Dedication

  Prologue: Blood Bright and Bible Black

  Chapter 1: Who Goes There?

  Chapter 2: Missing Cargo

  Chapter 3: The Hidden

  Chapter 4: Someone to Watch Over Me

  Chapter 5: Reunion

  Chapter 6: Yanni

  Chapter 7: To Hell’s Gate, Demeter

  Chapter 8: Whistling in the Dark

  Chapter 9: Departure

  Chapter 10: Predator

  Chapter 11: Extinction

  Chapter 12: From the Mist

  Chapter 13: Maruta

  Chapter 14: Children of Blood

  Chapter 15: Leila

  Chapter 16: Stolen Food, Stolen Dreams

  Chapter 17: In the Shadow of Hydra

  Chapter 18: Lifeline

  Chapter 19: Carrier

  Chapter 20: The Hungry Earth

  Chapter 21: And You Shall Fight Legends

  Chapter 22: Descent

  Chapter 23: The Gift

  Chapter 24: Marching to Valhalla

  Chapter 25: Preparations

  Chapter 26: I See You

  Chapter 27: Daedalus Wept

  Chapter 28: Watch the Skies

  Chapter 29: Profiles of the Future

  Epilogue

  Reality Check

  Acknowledgments

  Selected Bibliography

  About the Authors

  Credits

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  PROLOGUE

  Blood Bright and Bible Black

  God has no power over the past

  except to cover it with oblivion.

  —PLINY THE ELDER

  February 16, 1944

  Along the banks of the Gniloy Tickich River, Ukraine

  Soviet-German Front

  An early thaw.

  That is how it began.

  The air was peculiarly humid for this place at this time of year. The hard freeze that usually set in around December and lasted until March had never arrived. The river, usually a sluggish stream, was now a freezing torrent.

  A light breeze blew hair into Viktor’s eyes. Brushing it aside, the seventeen-year-old stopped momentarily to admire the view. The countryside was beautiful—even peaceful, especially if one discounted certain facts: the muddy tank tracks in the snow, the constant engine noise, and the smell of black fumes.

  The gray packhorse turned his head toward the boy and chewed wetly on his metal bit.

  You’re hungry, Sasha. Me too.

  Viktor loosened Sasha’s bridle, then reached into his coat pocket, withdrawing half a handful of grain. Sasha took it eagerly, then nudged the boy’s shoulder.

  “That’s all there is,” he said, giving the animal an exaggerated shrug.

  The horse, a small Russian panje, was native to the Eurasian Steppe and not much larger than a donkey. Viktor had known the breed for most of his life. They were Russia’s answer to the knee-deep mud trails that were referred to only by mapmakers as roads. This particular horse was strong and steady, although he was pulling a sled piled more than a little too high with wooden crates. For three days, the cargo had not left young Viktor’s sight. At night, he had slept on it. The boy knew that although many of the crates his countrymen were hauling through the mud contained ammunition or even guns, this one held only shovels and pick axes. But they are as important as guns, he reminded himself. Maybe more important.

  Viktor was right, although he was as ignorant as the next man when it came to the specifics of their mission. As they had been for many of his countrymen, his only orders were to “go forward” and to “kill them all.” For his part, Viktor had never actually seen a German, but more and more of late, he wondered how he would react if he did. The boy gave an involuntary shudder and focused on removing a small burr from the horse’s withers.

  As he stood comforting Sasha, he had no idea that he was one of nearly half a million soldiers converging from almost every point on Russia’s compass. They were gathering along a front more than two hundred miles long, their commanders hoping to disintegrate, beyond all hope of recovery, the last German offensive capability in the East. With the help of the weather and local partisan units, the Soviet forces had driven Hitler’s armies steadily back through Russia into the Ukraine. Only the generals knew that sixty-five thousand German soldiers were now nearly surrounded in a salient that bulged deep into the Russian lines. To historians it would become known as the Cherkassy Pocket. To those trapped there, to the ones who survived, it would always be known as Hell’s Gate.

  Within the salient, sleet, mud, and melting snow had combined to immobilize the once-unstoppable invading force. The Luftwaffe had finally dropped supplies and ammunition but unfortunately for the Germans, the materials landed behind the Soviet lines. Equipment and even lines of communication were breaking down—although the beleaguered Germans did learn that their “inadequately lit” drop site had been blamed for the Luftwaffe’s error. Unknown to the Axis troops was the fact that the 24th Panzer Unit, after slogging north to relieve the German forces, never even came close. Instead they had inexplicably turned back—in accordance with a direct order from Adolf Hitler. Nearly encircled at Cherkassy, the Germans knew that their only hope for survival would be a massive breakout; but now even this had been postponed.

  The Russians, meanwhile, continued to strengthen their positions in what was shaping up to be a classic pincer movement. Russian historians would record that some 200,000 Soviets formed the enveloping arms of the pincer. The German high command believed that it contained twice that number—and, for a while, it did.

  Viktor stroked the horse’s neck, then tightened up the bridle. If we dig in deep enough, for long enough, you’ll be food.

  He tried to push the thought aside, but could not, until a strange sound distracted him. A loud rumble was not unusual in a war zone. But with this rumble the sky itself seemed to have exploded, somewhere in the distance.

  Seconds later, the sound came again—louder. Overhead now, like a thunderclap . . . on a cloudless day. The boy’s ribs absorbed the shock wave and they vibrated like twelve pairs of tuning forks.

  And then there was silence. Cold silence.

  Men and vehicles stopped. As they had done in the past under a variety of circumstances, the shell-shocked and the inexperienced looked toward their officers and to the older soldiers for an explanation. Fresh conscripts turned expectantly toward men who had lived through the Blitzkrieg and the Siege of Leningrad, where starvation, cold, and round-the-clock bombings killed a million of their countrymen. Surely these battle-hardened survivors, the frontoviki, could tell them what had just happened.

  But even they had never heard a sound like this before. No one had.

  It was the boom of a supersonic object decelerating.

  A palpable sense of confusion, mingled ever so slightly with fear, moved through the Soviet ranks. Hundreds of soldiers stopped whatever they were doing to search the sky, shielding their eyes against the sun’s glare. Those with the best eyes, or who happened to be looking in the right direction, perceived a faint metallic glint, moving with unnatural speed against the heavens. Some of the men instinctively raised their weapons but by then the plane—or whatever it was—had already disappeared from view.

  Aleksey Karasev was a master sergeant in the Red Army but with three gold war stripes he commanded as much respect among the soldiers as any general. Karasev blew a cloud of smoke from a cigar that resembled a mummified finger. Can’t be artillery, he thought. At last report, German tank divisions were more than seventy miles away.
It hadn’t sounded like artillery either.

  “Ëб твою мать!” the sergeant cursed, “Keep moving!” But there was already a commotion up ahead. What now, he thought, striding toward the source of the problem—a cargo truck that had stopped in the road. Karasev knew that his weary men would use any excuse to catch a few moments of rest—and if left to their own devices some of them would settle in, like homesteaders, right there in the mud.

  The truck was one of the newly arrived American models. A Dodge, they called it. The driver of the canvas-sided vehicle, a young Russian woman, hung out the open door, pointing excitedly at the sky. The grizzled sergeant never noticed that she was extremely attractive, with long black hair that hung down the thickly padded polushubki she wore. Now, though, she let her truck’s engine stall. A little knot of soldiers, clustered near the truck, was tracking a path from her index finger into the sky.

  “There! There!” she shouted.

  Several of the men stood by mutely, while others, having caught a glimpse of the truck driver, puffed themselves up to full height.

  One of the girl’s new guardians fired a single round into the air. It was immediately followed by several more from the man’s companions.

  Sergeant Karasev could see that they were taking aim at two parachutes that had appeared above them—white circles with a red marking of some kind—incongruous against the blue sky.

  There was another shot, this one from farther up the convoy. Karasev squinted into the unnaturally bright sky. There were more parachutes—perhaps half a dozen that he could see—and more rifle fire.

  Returning his attention to the closest chutes overhead, Karasev saw that there were no men hanging below them. Instead, there were black canisters.

  Supply drop? Karasev wondered. Another botched attempt by the Luftwaffe? But another thought intruded, bothering him remotely: The canisters seemed too small to be carrying very much in the way of fuel or supplies.

  One more shot cracked the morning air and Karasev’s thoughts refocused. Not only were these idiots wasting ammo, they were probably alerting the enemy.

  “Who gave the order to fire?” he barked, but something kept his eyes focused skyward, even though his neck was beginning to ache badly. “Damn you! Cease—”

  The containers suspended below the two nearest parachutes exploded, simultaneously.

  A cheer went up and a few of the shooters turned back toward the girl seeking approval or perhaps just a smile. Instead the gunfire, the bursting canisters, or both had startled the partisan, and she retreated into the cab of the truck and rolled up the window.

  Karasev was not thinking about the woman. He was thinking about the accuracy and range of the Mosin-Nagant rifles his men were carrying: the supply-drop containers were too high off the ground when they exploded. Far too high.

  His men seemed to realize this as well, and Karasev saw that his was not the only face now creased with concern. He looked skyward again but there was nothing left to see except the wounded parachutes, one of which fell near the convoy. Before he could stop them, two of the shooters were tramping their way through thick, wet snow.

  The men were out of breath by the time they reached the chute, though it had landed fewer than a hundred steps ahead—strangely beautiful, in its own way: stark white and crimson against the mud.

  “Draja, this silk is priceless.”

  “And it’s ours. Now, grab it before it decides to fly off.”

  Draja and his friend Marius took hold of the material, stretching the fabric between them.

  “You’re crazy, Draja. They’ll never let us keep—”

  The men froze, the lament over proprietary rights wiped from their thoughts by the insignia seemingly painted onto the silk: a red circle and within it a black swastika. The circle was enclosed by another symbol: the wide gape of a strange skeletal mouth.

  Marius released the parachute as though it had stung him, and at precisely that second a gust of wind blew under the fabric and lifted it toward Draja until it clung to his face. The silk vibrated with a low, chilling moan.

  I’m being swallowed! Draja thought, as he kicked and batted at the billowing chute. Logic had dropped dead. His instincts were turning toward panic.

  Sergeant Karasev saw none of this. Nearby, an elderly soldier with Asian features had let out a shriek. The man had been leaning against the truck’s grill to warm himself when Titania gunned the engine to life.

  “Private,” Karasev snarled, and the man snapped to attention. “How do you expect to protect the motherland with a load of shit in your pants?”

  The man looked down at the ground, shamed, and for a moment the sergeant felt shamed himself, as if he had just shouted down his own father. Now Karasev noticed how thin the man was, even through his thick clothing. He appeared to be more a bird than a man, so recently and so horribly malnourished was he. And yet he had stiffened his spine and come voluntarily to the front lines. The sergeant bowed his own head briefly, then turned and called out to the two men who had chased down the fallen parachute. The idiots were struggling with it—and the parachute seemed to be getting the better of them.

  “Bring it!” the sergeant shouted. “Clowns! What are you doing, making this your life’s work? Get back here!”

  Karasev turned again toward the elderly, red-faced foot soldier and did not see the two men as they stopped struggling and sat down in the snow. Addressing the private, his tone softened. The sergeant noticed that the man’s face bore an irregular pattern of shrapnel scars that had become known as “German kisses.” He had also lost several fingers, probably to frostbite.

  “Let’s go, soldier.”

  But instead of falling in as ordered, the old man remained at attention. Cocking his head slightly to one side, he gave the sergeant a quizzical look.

  I can’t believe this. Now what? Karasev wondered. These easterners—yellow Russians. So many dialects. “Where are the translators when you need them? Go! Go!” he said as firmly and respectfully as he could. But his words and gestures seemed futile.

  The old man slowly raised his arm and pointed a trembling finger at him. The expression on his face sent a shiver down Karasev’s spine and made his knees feel suddenly loose. He looked down and noticed that a yellow film had coated his white-quilted pants and field jacket.

  “What . . . ?”

  Karasev sampled the gritty substance with a finger. It smells like flowers. He looked up at the sky, then at the private, whose clothing appeared to have been similarly misted. A trickle of blood ran out of the old man’s nose.

  The sergeant sniffed loudly and tasted copper. His own nose was bleeding as well. He wiped at the flow with his sleeve and recoiled at the size of the red smear.

  For a moment Karasev’s world went completely silent—no engines, his men no longer cursing or quarreling. It was as if someone had poured wax into his ears, so that the only sound he could hear was the rapid pounding of his own heart. Then, as quickly as the sensation had come upon him, it was gone. Karasev gave an involuntary flinch—for now his world was full of sounds.

  No more than forty paces away, a horse reared up and overturned the crate-laden sled it had been pulling.

  “Easy, Sasha—easy, boy!” the young sled driver cried but the animal’s eyes rolled back into its head and it let out a surprisingly human cry that startled its driver and anyone else near enough to hear. The boy tried to utter more words of comfort to his horse and was rewarded with an immense sneeze that hit him squarely in the face. As the sled driver wiped his eyes, Sergeant Karasev watched him stiffen with fear, unable to comprehend what had just occurred and unable to utter any more words.

  The boy’s face and hands were covered with blood. In shock and stunned silence he stepped back, just in time to avoid being crushed by his horse as it collapsed in a red gush and the sickening wet sound of ribs snapping. Dying, the animal whipped its head back and forth—blood and pink lung tissue spraying out of its nose in great arcs.

&n
bsp; Sergeant Karasev turned away, his eyes widening under a surge of adrenaline . . . until he saw the rest of his men, and closed his eyes. They too had started to bleed—all of them—out of their noses, from their mouths. “No!”

  The roar of an engine alerted him now and he spun toward the sound. A T-34 tank veering wildly off course, throttle open. Its broad treads threw mud and blackened snow into the air. Several of Karasev’s men dove out of the way just before the war machine struck the side of the truck they’d been standing next to only a moment earlier. The tank toppled the lighter vehicle and without slowing, rode up and over the cab. In the time it took Karasev to snatch a single breath, the driver’s compartment was compressed, from roof to floor, into a space too small for anyone to fit even a hand. Within that space, the sergeant knew, the girl must have died even before she realized what was happening.

  She was the lucky one.

  In every direction, men were staggering and turning red, bleeding from every orifice. For many, their last voluntary movement was something they never dared do in public—their trembling fingers making the sign of the cross—forehead . . . lips . . . and breast.

  Along a path five miles north and five miles south, wherever the scent of flowers had descended, snow was stealing heat from fresh-fallen blood, and melting. The field on which Sergeant Karasev stood smelled suddenly like the floor of a slaughterhouse.

  Karasev’s oxygen-starved nervous system misfired, sending wave after wave of spasm through his body. The sergeant’s vascular system was degenerating into a maze of hemorrhage. Blood normally routed to the brain poured instead into his intestines, which swelled until the rising pressure blasted the hot liquid past an ineffectual muscular valve and into his stomach. He vomited an enormous quantity of blood onto his boots, then followed it down when his knees gave out.

  As he lay weeping and groping at the mud, Karasev discovered that his vocal cords had slackened and that the musculature around his mouth was now numb and beyond conscious control.

  My lips are dead and I must pray . . .

  He surveyed the battlefield through a red filter, for his tears were blood. And his last conscious perception was the sound of ten thousand people dying.