A Hatchet for Hitler

There are stretches of the American highway system that run through miles of desert. Sometimes, roads turn off into apparent nothingness. Uncultivated lands. One might assume that these disused paths once went somewhere, but have lost their purpose. Sometimes this is true. Other times they lead to fixtures power grids requiring only occasional maintenance. Or they take you to access points for water and oil pipelines. Then there are some—and these are easy to pass by unnoticed—that lead to a dead end. Unnamed roadways terminating at chain-link fences labelled with some forbidding sign: ‘RESTRICTED AREA,’ ‘DO NOT ENTER’. It was one of these roads that I was trying to locate.

My association with XXXXXXX was based on professional chauvinism. I knew him from college when we were both idealistic journalism students. He truly believed in the power of reporting to hold the world to account! It was that same sense of purpose that led him to an unprofitable career writing for obscure magazines and blogs, while I pragmatically rose up the elevator of jobs at respectable newspapers. 

If he knew how many jokes he was the butt of amongst the rest of our cohort, he may never have shown his face in class. Or, maybe he did know, and just didn’t care. His belief in principle over everything was unshakeable. It might have been that he forgave our scorn with a similar sense of superiority that made us look down on him. Who is the winner and who is the loser depends on one’s scale of values.

It is anyone’s guess why he chose to maintain contact with me over the years, yet he would send me emails sporadically. Sometimes they were very short remarks on some developing situation in the world. Sometimes they were meandering rants, like you would at 4 AM and immediately regret sending. I don’t think he ever regretted them, though. I rarely responded.

But his last communication was different. This was not the usual obsessive rumination that one could simply dismiss as a manic side effect of skipping daily meds. It had an urgency to it. Like a saint about to be thrown to the lions. 

Also, it included specific coordinates. 

XXXXXXX had been, as far as I could tell, chasing the tail of an alleged government conspiracy involving kind of prison/laboratory complex in the New Mexico desert. Theories were abundant on less-than-reputable online chat forums speculating about human testing or extraterrestrial communities. These rumors circled around a specific few acres of land, which was deliberately obscured in Google maps. Also, some anonymous troll claimed to be a whistleblower, but was agonizingly ambiguous about the nature of the operation. 

After his message to me, XXXXXXX could not be reached. No one knew where he was. No one I contacted had spoken with him in weeks. All I had were the coordinates he had sent me.

Despite the far-fetched nature of whatever this adventure was, the dire nature of the message drew me in. If it wasn’t a physical dilemma, it was still a cry for help. Also, a good journalist doesn’t let go of a lead…

The side road was easy to miss. It was unpaved, and obscured by brittle plant skeletons. Still, there were faint tracks of the occasional vehicle. The GPS coordinates were exactly what I had received. I drove a little farther up the road, and pulled my car onto an unobtrusive shoulder. I wasn’t sure how long this path would be, but I betted that I could investigate it more clandestinely on foot. 

It was a pinkish dusk. I had a flashlight, but was avoiding using it unless it became completely necessary. I had no idea if I was walking into an ambush. The signs of road vehicles were clear. Judging by the tracks, they appeared to be large off-roaders. I followed the trail through dry brush and rocks. It proceeded gently uphill for a while until I reached a decline into a depression in the terrain. The geography provided a perfect subterfuge from curious eyes on the road seeing the tell-tale gate: a chain link fence. The sign just read: ‘NO ENTRY’. Beyond the fence, in the distance, I could see a cluster of nondescript buildings. They could be mistaken for some kind of abandoned military or industrial installation if not for a few lights in the windows. 

I took off my jacket, hung it on my shoulder, and started climbing the fence. At the top, I draped my jacket over the barbed coils on the top of the fence, and hoisted my body over. There goes a good jacket! Luckily I was wearing tough boots. It took me a minute, clinging to the fence, to extricate my jacket from the barbs, but I didn’t want to leave any evidence.

The maneuver had taken a few minutes, and it was almost dark now. I closed my eyes for a moment to adjust to the darkness, then surveyed the abstruse compound. Dammit, I should have brought my binoculars! In the darkness, I could just barely make out a fenced area that looked like a basketball court. Suddenly a spotlight flashed on, illuminating the court. I froze.

A group of people paraded in single file out of the adjacent building. They were dressed in matching striped outfits, like old-timey pajamas. They were followed by someone else, dressed like a military officer. The officer yelled something I couldn’t understand, and the pajama people proceeded to walk slowly in a circle.

Crunch!

It was the sound of shoes on the gravel directly behind me. I froze. They must have been very stealthy to get that close without me hearing, which meant this sound was an announcement of their presence. I made my hands visible at my sides, slightly away from my body so as not to appear dangerous, and slowly turned around to face whoever was approaching.

A flashlight ignited straight in my eyes. Squinting, I could see a figure in the darkness. They seemed to wearing a helmet and carrying an assault rifle. I raised my hands in surrender.

“This is a restricted area. Turn around, get on your knees, and lace your fingers behind your head.”  

I complied. He zip-tied my hands behind my back and pulled me to my feet. 

“Walk!”

He marched forward toward the mysterious compound. We stopped in front of an imposing door. The armed man looked into a surveillance camera on the wall above.

“Intruder apprehended,” he told the camera.

After a moment, the door automatically opened. There was no one to greet us in a hallway lit only by red lights. He marched me down the hall to a second door. The door was immediately opened by a man in a suit. Total G-man. I was ushered into a sparsely furnished room lit by white fluorescents. I turned back to see my capture in the improved lighting. He looked like military police. 

“Sit!” he said, gesturing to a chair in front of what I assumed was an interrogation table. I sat, bracing myself for the worst.

“I’ll take it from here,” said the G-man.

He stood in from of me on the other side of the table. There was no chair at his disposal. 

“Would you like to tell what you are doing here?”

“I don’t know. What authority are you?”

“I’m with a government department you have never heard of. You can call me John,” he said calmly. “I assure you that if you cooperate and answer my questions you will be safe in our custody. Now, ma-am, who are you?”

“Give me an attorney and they can tell you.”

“I’m the closest you have to an attorney here. And there is no phone call.” He smiled. “So you may as well talk to me… or sit in silence as long as you please. I have time.”

“I have rights”

“Not on this side of that fence.”

“I’m a journalist!”

“I guarantee you, my agency supersedes the power of the fourth estate. Would you like to tell me your name. It will make this conversation more pleasant.”

I remained silent.

“There’s no point in pleading the fifth here. We’ll find out who you are regardless.”

“Nancy. My name’s Nancy Drew, and I’m a detective.”

“Cute. Have it your way, Nancy. Now why are you hopping fences in the middle of the desert?”

“Who are those people out there, walking around in circles? Political prisoners?”

“Hmm. Hard to explain. Let’s say, they are one of America’s greatest untapped resources. Now would you like to tell me how you found this place”

“Are you holding another journalist here? Or did you kill him.”

“Ahh, I see.” The G-man chuckled. “You’re looking for XXXXXXX. I assure you, there is no need to worry about his well being.”

“Where is he?”

The G-man sighed.

“Ok.” He walked over to an intercom on the wall. “Can you locate XXXXXXX and tell him to report to exam room A-2. Thank you”

After a few moments of sitting in angry silence while the G-man casually ignoring me, the door opened. XXXXXXX entered. He was dressed in uniform. It was the uniform of a Nazi SS officer.

“It’s good to see you,” he said.

“What the fuck is this?” I yelled at the G-man. “Is this a sick joke? Did you brainwash him? What in the actual fuck?”

“Well, perhaps I will let the two of you catch up,” said the G-man. He walked leaving me alone with my old colleague who apparently was playing some king of perverse gag. 

“Listen. this is no joke.”

“What the hell is going on here?” I demanded. 

“ It’s a long story.”

“No shit!”

“Ok, where to begin?” 

“What is this? CIA?”

“Actually it is a top secret division of the department of energy.”

“WHAT?” This was getting more absurd by the minute.

“Let me explain. I’ve was chasing down some rumors about a secret government project. It seems there was one whistleblower, but it was all very cryptic. The word ‘Project Hatchet’ kept popping up. For years every lead went to a dead end. I scoured the dark web. Eventually, an anonymous leak released some numbers. Finally, I realized, they were coordinates. That brought me here. Now, a little history: at the end of World War, American military intelligence discovered an experimental German program developed in the concentration camps. At first they thought it was insane, but the results proved otherwise. You see, there was a small, secretive sect of Jews in Poland. Something what you might call ‘Jews for Jesus’. They claimed to possess the original teachings of Jesus, and practices what they call ‘the Doctrine of Extreme Forgiveness’. The Nazis were experimenting with electromagnetic and using prisoners in the camps as test subjects. With this particular Jewish sect, they got some astonishing results. They found that whatever tortures they did to these particular Jews, they kept insisting on forgiving their tormentors. This extreme forgiveness created an amazing energy that the Nazi scientists found a way to harness. I mean, it was so powerful it could light a city.”

“You are fucking joking.”

“No, it’s true. After the war, the Americans took the technology and recreated the experiment.”

“You mean this… is a CONCENTRATION CAMP?”

“Yes, but they don’t kill the Jews. They are far to valuable an energy source. Just torture. The problem is, production is far too labor intensive for it to be viable now. The theory is to store the energy, and, as fossil fuels diminish and become to pricey, use the forgiveness energy as a replacement.”

“And… you?”

“Well, once you discover the project they won’t let you leave. They give you a choice: become a Nazi or a Jew”

“Are you saying they’re going to hold me here indefinitely?”

“Yes. You just have to pick a team”