The Seraphim Legacy
by
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AUSCHWITZ, POLAND JANUARY 17, 1945 The young German nurse carefully inventoried the medical records and specimens she had previously removed from the hospital safe, and boxed them in secure containers ready for transport to Berlin. Her orders were specific. All records relating to research concerning anthropology, human heredity, and eugenics code name 'Seraphim' were to be removed from the camp hospital, and sent to the Brandenburg Institute in Berlin immediately. The Red Army was closing in on the region, and was estimated to be at the gates of Auschwitz-Birkenau within days. A growing exodus of fleeing German soldiers was retreating to the west, in both organized and unorganized columns. The documents and specimens were loaded on an aircraft, and arrived in Berlin shortly thereafter. Immediately upon receipt Professor Karl von Norhaur, director of the Institute, carefully repackaged the Seraphim shipment, and included it in two truckloads of other documents from the Institute being sent out of the city for safekeeping at an underground location safe from Allied bombs. PEENEMÜNDE, GERMANY APRIL 20,1945 The men, who were about to die, were digging their own mass grave under the watchful eyes of heavily armed SS guards. Off in the distance, a rocket was positioned on a mobile launcher in a clearing carefully excised by them - slave laborers from the nearby Dora Concentration camp at Mittelwerk. Virgin pine forest had been replaced by a steel gray column pointed skyward, bathed in the early morning mist and cold of a Baltic dawn. The place was several miles from the main missile base at Peenemünde. It was screened from the Baltic coast, and known only to selected members of the German High Command. By the end of the day its location would be erased from the face of the earth. On this day, however, a project of utmost secrecy, unknown to Allied Intelligence was nearing completion. Three men walked slowly toward the small launch area. SS Major Karl Schmidt and SS Oberstleutnant Ernst Holder were middle-aged. They were dressed impeccably in the black uniform of the SS, the Totenkopf death head insignia prominently displayed on their peaked headgear. The third man, much younger, was Ernst Oberg, wearing civilian clothes that were protected by a white laboratory coat. Each carried a container emblazoned with a large Nazi Swastika. The men placed each vessel in an open compartment of the rocket, a modified version of a V-2, inserting them in precisely defined hatches illuminated slightly by soft blue light. They quickly turned, and as night gave way, proceeded to a secluded bunker, donned protective eye goggles and prepared to observe what was to follow. Oberg reached for a nearby field telephone, gave the launch command, and turned toward his two companions as he replaced the instrument in its cradle. "Gentlemen," he said quietly, "we have, each of us, been honored by this assignment. History will record our efforts favorably long after we have departed this life." His words were drowned out in the roar of engines as the rocket slowly rumbled, shook, and lifted up into the pale dawn light, and quickly disappeared from sight. Oberg turned to his uniformed associates. "Now that this phase is complete, you must leave immediately. The Russians are about to take Berlin. The Füehrer will not leave his bunker ... all will be lost in a matter of days. All traces of this place will be gone later today." "Unfortunately, what you say is true," said Holder sadly, as a staff car bearing the insignia of the German Admiralty approached. The three men slowly moved to the outside entrance of the bunker and peered up into the morning sky. Oberg walked toward the car, stood off to one side as the two men, giving the Nazi salute, entered the vehicle and settled into the back seat. "Godspeed, gentlemen," he said, as the car pulled away, rapidly disappearing down a dirt road into the forest nearby. Perhaps not all is lost, he thought, as he lit a cigarette, and walked back toward the launching pad. The Reich will prevail. A wise man in time of war prepares for peace.
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About the Book
The Seraphim Legacy begins in 1945 with launch of a secret V-2 rocket carrying a special payload from a German base in occupied Denmark. This is followed hours later by a German U-boat casting off from a secluded base on the Baltic Coast, headed for a mysterious rendezvous at sea. Adolph Hitler, as one of his last acts, has ordered both actions as Allied Forces descend upon his bunker in Berlin. In May 1996, a British ocean excavator discovers wreckage of unknown origin deep in the North Sea. A group of extreme right-wing German nationalists hurries to the site, hoping to find the V-2 rocket that went off course at the end of the war. American intelligence agents from the CIA are also interested, because they believe that the wreckage is that of a sunken U-boat with the remains of a high ranking Nazi official. They also believe the submarine may possibly contain information needed by Congress regarding the location of secret Swiss bank accounts holding assets of Holocaust victims. Instead, the CIA agents find themselves embroiled in a struggle of global proportions and hampered by powerful forces within their own government. From South America, Austria, Germany, Washington, London, Moscow, Baghdad and the vast darkness and cold of the North Atlantic the pieces of the puzzle gradually emerge. And the image they form is horrific – a nightmare repeating itself after more than fifty years. The Germans are creating, testing, and stockpiling weaponized biological bacterium under the code name Seraphim. Their goal is to take up where Hitler left off, with a weapon powerful enough to create a Fourth Reich, while America and her coalition Allies are distracted fighting a multi-front war on terrorism. Fans of Ken Follett, Jack Higgins, Frederick Forsyth, and W.E.B. Griffin will love The Seraphim Legacy.
About the Author
Paul Fee is a California native. He was raised and educated in the San Francisco Bay Area, and completed his formal education by attending law school at night earning a Juris Doctor degree. He took early retirement from a management career with a major California corporation and now devotes full time to writing. He lives in the Northern High Sierra at Lake Tahoe with his artist wife Lynne. This is his debut novel. He is currently working on the sequel to The Seraphim Legacy. Look for the release of The Seraphim Paradox coming soon to bookstores.