Delta Green: Denied to the Enemy (6 page)

Previous inquiries into the subject of the Deep Ones by the Karotechia involved many other books:
Unter Zee Kulten
,
Fishbuchs
,
Hydrophinnae
,
Dwellers in the Depths
. These books simply proved to be a primer for the more complex and demonstrative text found in the
Cthaat Aquadingen
, seemed almost to have been created for precisely the purpose the Karotechia was pursuing—to open diplomatic relations with the aquatic civilization of the Deep Ones.

When it was discovered in a private collection in Krakow in December 1939, the book was rushed back to the newly established Institute of Ancestral Studies in Offenburg. Initial consideration indicated that inscriptions in the
Cthaat Aquadingen
matched some of those found in
Unter Zee Kulten
and other restricted texts, and the book was handed over to Oberscharführer Weber to continue his researches.

On December 29, 1939, Project Black Water became an official reality, brought into existence by a secret executive order penned by Himmler and signed by Hitler himself. Its mission was to explore the possibilities of the mystical formulae found in the
Cthaat Aquadingen
and to utilize those processes in defense of the Reich.

Four Karotechia researchers were assigned to the project under Oberscharführer Weber. Two of the team were academics with reserve ranks in the SS but who had been rapidly absorbed into the group: Dr. Max Soldin, an ethnologist from the University of Berlin with extensive knowledge of the Polynesian cultures, would study the sociological aspects of the text; and Dr. Franz Mors, a former associate of Bohr at Gottigen with an impressive record of mathematical excellence, would study the formulae.

The two others were SS men who had been in the Karotechia since its inception, and pursuing the same aims even before that, who would handle the actual implementation of any of the formulae discovered within the text. Scharführer Egon Schwelm and Scharführer Otho Lutzen both had served in the
Sonderkommando-H
, an early Ahnenerbe SS project to collect all documentation relating to the torture and killing of Germanic witches by the Catholic Church. Originally, it had been hoped that this information about the church’s oppression could be used one day to cause the German public to abandon Christianity, but much darker secrets were uncovered by Sonderkommando-H’s investigators.

Lutzen and Schwelm were both present when the first “magick formula” was discovered, buried along with the remains of a long-dead wizard named Jurgen Tess. They were also present during the first test of the twisted science called “magick” as it was utilized on Tess’ remains. What happened in that bunker in 1937 gave birth to the Karotechia, and gave Lutzen and Schwelm experience in an art very few others had. Black Water would test that resolve, and some would be found lacking.

During the early months of 1940 the Black Water team dissected the
Cthaat Aquadingen
in Offenburg, working relentlessly to place a terrible new weapon in the hands of their Führer. Soldin and Mors pored through the text, uncovering four “calling rituals” utilized by the Polynesian peoples to contact the Deep Ones. Weber, Lutzen, and Schwelm worked on the actual content of the book and the meanings implied in its often horrific text, trying to put together a diplomatic primer for the Führer himself, in the hopes that when contact was made, a deal could be struck rapidly to assure victory.

The year 1940 saw great change for Germany: the utilization of Operation Case Yellow in May; the rapid invasions of France, the Netherlands, Belgium, and the low countries; Germany’s power increased as did the legend of its fighting prowess. This acquisition of territory opened new vistas of research to the men of Black Water, and in late 1940 their entire project was relocated to the shores of Normandy in northern France. The book Unter Zee Kulten
pointed
to the coasts of Cornwall and Normandy as gathering places for the creatures of the deep, and it was implied that something like a city of the Deep Ones existed in the English Channel somewhere nearby.

The German fortifications being constructed on the coast of France served as perfect cover for the construction of the Black Water facility at Cap de la Hague on the channel. Housing over forty people, the Black Water camp was known as the Bootshaus, or the Boat House, by the local German forces, due to the extensive small boat traffic from the camp to the Channel Islands at all hours. The isolating cliffs on either side of Cap de la Hague and its deep natural inlet provided an ideal secluded spot for contact to be initiated by the Karotechia with the Deep Ones. Most thought that the highly secretive Bootshaus was a mining facility, laying magnetic mines near the Channel Islands in anticipation of the Allied invasion. In truth, these boats were part of the more mundane aspects of Black Water. Researchers and experts were stringing the area between Cap de la Hague and the Channel Islands with underwater microphones in the hopes that the furtive Deep Ones could be located and monitored through sound.

First attempts at contact were made on the evening of March 27, 1941. Weber, Lutzen, and Schwelm cast the first three “calling stones” into the sea off the point on the Cap de la Hague on a moonless night and waited for nearly five hours. The sign, as it had been foretold in the
Cthaat Aquadingen
, appeared just after midnight, when the water out past the reefs began to glow a vivid greenish blue. The phenomenon lasted for more than three hours and was well documented on film by a team of Wermacht cameramen. A small Kriegsmarine craft was even sent out to collect samples of the water while it was still luminescing. As far as modern science could discern, the glowing algae discovered in the samples was a species unknown to man. Evidently a more hardy cousin to Chlorophycea, or common green algae, this odd organism contained an equivocal compound which rendered it luminescent under certain conditions. An extensive amount of the water and algae was sent to the University of Stuttgart for study.

Meanwhile, the Black Water team celebrated amidst the frantic preparations for the second calling. Weber, Lutzen, and Schwelm prepared the second sequence of stones, planning to initiate the call on the 26th of April, and everything appeared to be fine until the night of April 19th. That night proved to be the turning point for Black Water and would lead later to Weber’s obscurement of facts and falsified reports to Karotechia command.

It began innocuously enough. Dr. Franz Mors, the mathematician in charge of detecting codes and ciphers within the
Cthaat Aquadingen
, informed his personal guard that he was going to walk the compound at 9:37 P.M. Nothing about it seemed amiss; it was his usual activity for the evening. According to the guard, he seemed “his usual self.” No one had noticed any changes in Mors’ attitudes during his study of the book. Indeed, he seemed happier than ever on the French coast.

He was happy for reasons no one else understood.

Mors proceeded directly to the motor launch dock with three pages he had torn secretly from the
Cthaat Aquadingen
that evening. When questioned by the sentry on duty at the boat dock, Mors offered the guard a cigarette. When the guard leaned in to have it lit, Mors impaled the man with a bayonet. The guard survived the attack, and later fired a warning shot as Mors sped off to sea in a small boat.

It was initially thought Mors was attempting to escape to England, but once the base was alerted to his flight, and the lights were trained to the water past the breakers, it became obvious this was not his plan. Mors anchored the boat one hundred yards off shore and stood on the prow shouting at the waves in a shrill voice which, when the wind was right, could be heard from shore—although the alien language he shouted could not be understood. All hails to the ship were ignored. After contact by loudspeaker was attempted, Weber ordered a group of SS men to take a craft out and apprehend Mors to bring him back in unharmed. As the men boarded their ship and prepared to launch from the dock, the waves and wind started to pick up and Weber canceled the order. Under the advice of Scharführer Schwelm, a sharpshooter was sent to the end of the rock outcropping on the bay to shoot Mors as he stood illuminated in the base tower lights.

A boat was standing by, still tethered to the dock in the rough water, waiting to recover Mors’ body after the sniper had fired. It is uncertain whether Mors had completed his ritual or the bullet struck him down during a lull, but the shot hit Mors high in the chest and threw him from the ship. The second boat immediately pushed off from the dock and sped to the scene of the now pilotless craft.

It is unclear what happened next. Several of the eyewitness reports vary significantly from those of the command staff, but of the forty or more people on the shore, dock, and ships, nine were killed in the pandemonium and fifteen were hospitalized for a variety of reasons. Whatever was seen in the water caused Major Horst Krofft, an Iron Cross-awarded Wermacht veteran of the Polish campaign, to open fire on his own men with his Gewehr 41 rifle, hitting four before he was tackled. Another man, Hauptment Arthur Berlich, could not be roused from the fetal position after running desperately more than four miles from the beach in a dash which took him through two rows of razor wire. He was later sent to the Strasbourg Sanitarium, as were five other men who were present on that beach.

Others simply tried their best to disappear completely. One man, Oberleutnant Georg Friesler, made it all the way to the frontier of Switzerland four days later before being shot trying to sneak over the border at Les Rousses. Leutnant Hans Springer chose a simpler method of escape; he swam out to sea and drowned after being smashed against the rocks on the rough night surf.

What exactly was seen in the water remained a mystery, even in the privately circulated report which was hidden from Karotechia command at Offenburg. Nothing specific was mentioned of the sinking of the two boats, although it is certain that both boats were violently sunk and all hands were lost about a hundred and fifty yards off shore. Several of the eyewitness reports hinted that the ships were sunk by some creature of unprecedented size and configuration, which rose up and overwhelmed both craft with its bulk. Others insist the “beast” was actually a huge hand, the hand of some enormous submerged and unseen creature, which rose up from the waves and swatted the vessels to the bottom. Most refused to talk of it at all, and insisted that the boats were destroyed by the overpowering waves.

Weber’s typed testimony of the episode, which was circulated only within the camp, was chillingly succinct: “The incident on April 19 clearly demonstrates the importance of Black Water to the Reich. No one outside the Cap de la Hague camp, not even those of the highest ranks or position, are considered cleared for this information.” This statement threw Weber’s insanity into sharp relief for Bruning, and even as he read the synopsis his skin ran cold. Bruning knew Weber had thrown his life away at the moment he chose those words, the moment he defied the chain of command and prepared the private briefing for the camp. Bruning knew also, that he had chosen a similar path by not reporting Weber’s deviation the moment he had discovered it.

Bruning’s fate had found him, it seemed, and he could feel it. One way or another, such a divergence from the accepted could not go long unpunished. He had nothing to lose now except time. Bruning read on eagerly, searching for his particular part to play.

Hero or villain?

The camp’s response to the incident was no less than absolutely deranged. The Black Water group, fearing interference in their delicate project by outsiders in the government, cut them out of the loop and became a separate entity unto itself. Weber and his command team closed off the camp and manufactured reports to send to Karotechia command at Offenburg. In these reports the incident was nothing more than “a training accident” where “several novices died in a boat collision.” They hid the death of Dr. Mors from command and continued to file reports under his name for some time after the incident. Soldin, Schwelm, and Lutzen followed Weber’s unorthodox lead out of fear, hoping that they could complete the calling ritual and cement relations with the Deep Ones before the Karotechia discovered the ruse. By then, they believed, they would be the greatest heroes the Reich had ever known, and above any reproach.

With their time running thin, the hastily prepared stones were thrown to the sea on the 26th of April, barely in time to keep within the guidelines of the ritual. The camp was shut down for the evening except for the watch staff, and all light sources were extinguished so as not to alarm the creatures. Only Weber, Schwelm, and Soldin were on the beach in the isolated inlet waiting for their moment of triumph.

At 9:35 P.M. on the night of April 26th, 1941, something shambled from the waves and up the beach towards the small knot of Karotechia men.