Father Night (44 page)

“We’re under attack,” Alli told her. “Secret Service is down; there’s only us now.”

Vera crawled over. Her eyes were red and tearing, her breathing labored. “I’ll give you cover.”

Alli nodded and they both crawled to the doorway. Unprotected, Alli’s eyes were tearing and some of the tear gas had seeped into her lungs, making them burn, but the women had no other protection.

“I saw three of them,” she said. “I shot one. If I can get to him—”

“You can put on his gas mask,” Vera finished for her. “Gotcha.”

Vera crawled past Alli and began shooting. Alli rose to a crouch, tapped Vera on the back, and sprinted out. She immediately saw a second man heading for her uncle’s room, brought her gun to bear, and shot him twice. As he pitched sideways, she heard a shot emanate from her uncle’s room and her heart lurched heavily in her chest. The snout of a gas mask emerged from her uncle’s room and, with unerring aim, she put a bullet through it.

The figure recoiled. Then the now-useless gas mask was chucked into the hallway. A moment later, a figure lunged out of her uncle’s room. She fired on the run, but missed him. He turned on his belly and fired at her, twice. She felt shards of plaster and wallboard whiz by her ear, one of them drawing blood as it nicked her.

*   *   *

R
EEDER, BLOOD
gushing from his ruined nose, lunged for the gas mask on one of his downed men at the same moment the girl did. She looked no more than sixteen, but she had killed two of his highly trained men. Who the hell was she? He elbowed her aside and ripped the gas mask off Johnson. Johnson groaned, still alive. Reeder finished him off with one blow; no loose ends, those were Herr’s orders. Eyes tearing, lungs wanting desperately to clear themselves, he began to fit the gas mask over his head.

He saw the girl. Roaring, he launched himself up. She fired her gun, and he was struck in the chest as if by a pile driver. Flung backward across the hall, he lay there, half stunned. He looked down in disbelief at the blood pouring out of him.

With consciousness flickering and dying, he stared up at the damned girl who had killed him.

*   *   *

J
ACK AWOKE
with a massive headache and a pain in the side of his neck. He reached a hand up, felt a sore spot where he thought he had been shot. He swam slowly into full consciousness. There had been no noise when Lorenzo had shot Weaver, no recoil, no smell of cordite. He’d just had time to register those facts when the driver had shot him.

At the moment, he was lying on a sofa in a richly appointed library. The far wall was lined with shelves of books. To his right was a huge fireplace in which flames cracked and sparked merrily. Above, a carved marble mantel held an ornate ormolu clock in the style of Louis XVI.

The sofa on which he lay was covered in midnight-blue satin. A painted porcelain coffee service on a low Carrera marble table gleamed in the buttery lamplight. Swinging his legs down, he sat up, but his head pounded so painfully he was obliged to sit perfectly still as he deepened his breathing, pushing through the pain. The aromatic scent of freshly brewed coffee invaded his nostrils.

“
Krankheitsgefühl, sind wir
?”
Feeling poorly, are we?

Jack raised his head, his eyes focusing on the figure sitting in a high-backed chair upholstered in the same fabric as the sofa he was sitting on. Werner von Verschuer.

“
Ich fühle mich wie Scheiße
,” he said.
I feel like shit
. “What did your flunky hit me with?”

“I needed to make certain you wouldn’t come out of it prematurely,” von Verschuer said by way of answer.

Baring his square teeth, von Verschuer lifted back one of the lapels, revealing an enamel pin: a swastika, along with the double-lightning-bolts insignia of the SS.

“
Mein Vater ist
.”
My father’s
. Von Verschuer let go of the lapel. “To keep his memory alive.”

“That’s not all you’ve kept alive of his.”

Von Verschuer shot a quick glance over his shoulder at the closed door. He frowned. “You seem to have figured out quite a bit about Acacia.”

“Everything except its true purpose. Attempting to assassinate the supreme leader of Iran once is insane enough, but twice?” He shook his head. “That wasn’t why you created Acacia.”

“Of course not. The assassination was to be a training, that’s all.” Von Verschuer smiled again. “Tell me, McClure, have you ever heard of Louis Simpson?”

Jack stared at him, unblinking.

“Simpson was an American Pulitzer Prize–winning poet, but before that he served in the 101st Airborne Division and fought in France, the Netherlands, Belgium, and Germany. You’d do best to mark his words. I did. He wrote that ‘the aim of military training is not just to prepare men for battle, but to make them long for it.’” Von Verschuer’s smile broadened. “That, in a nutshell, is the aim of Acacia, to create a class of modern-day warrior who longs for battle, who is so proficient in mind, body, and, most importantly, spirit, that he is virtually undefeatable.”

“But twins?”

“You know nothing of my late father’s work, do you? Well, neither do most people, even historians who pawed through the wreckage of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute of Anthropology, Human Heredity, and Eugenics.”

“That’s how you got your nickname: Your father was given that code name within the SS high command:
Vater Nacht
.”

Von Verschuer shuddered like an old lady. “I detest nicknames, especially that one.”

“Twins,” Jack prompted.

“Yes, twins.” Von Verschuer leaned forward. “Coffee? It was just brewed. No?” He shrugged, poured himself a steaming cup, and continued. “One of my father’s aims was to create the perfect soldier, not simply the perfect Aryan. Twins have special qualities, whether it’s chemical, physical, or ephemeral, my father did not know. But that was the journey he was on, the one I picked up, refined, and extended. I had his notes, you see—all of them. He was far too clever to keep them at the institute.”

Von Verschuer sat back. “And he was right,
mein Vater war brilant
. Sadly for us all, he wasn’t privy to the advances in science I was. The genes of twins are subtly different and this, in turn, gives rise to shared enzymes in their brains. This has been my work for decades.”

“Gene manipulation.”

“Precisely.”

It was at that moment that Jack realized just how demented von Verschuer was. How he had seduced other people to his way of thinking was beyond Jack’s comprehension.

“So the Fraine twins.”

“Washouts.”

“And the others—Batchuk’s sons.”

“Loony as Coney birds. Too much manipulation, a dead end, so to speak. The Batchuks ended up being at war with each other, as did the Fraine twins, instead of hating a programmed enemy they could be sent out into the field to destroy.”

“Yet you allowed these time bombs to roam free.”

“First of all, they are my children, so to speak. Dear God, one doesn’t harm one’s children, McClure! Second of all, they were still in the experiment. Their ongoing behavioral patterns were closely monitored, the better to refine my system.”

“And what about Frankie Heroe?”

“Who?”

“Frankie Heroe, the twin who Acacia took to the Horn of Africa in 2002.”

“Oh, him.” Von Verschuer shrugged.

“In what way was Frankie a part of your experiment?”

Von Verschuer winked obscenely. “You’re the clever one, McClure. You’ll figure it out.”

Jack considered for a moment, and then the entire dreadful scenario blazed clearly in his mind. “Frankie was recruited to be the exception that would prove the validity of your rule.”

Von Verschuer had adopted an equally obscene professorial air. “Continue.”

“He was the
control
in the Acacia experiment on human beings.”

“No. Frankie Heroe is a twin, but he’s also black. He proved himself incapable of channeling his thoughts the way my own children could. My experiment was validated.”

“Aryans.” Jack felt disgust clog his throat. Von Verschuer was so arrogant he hadn’t bothered to try training Frankie. “And then he had to be eliminated.”

“Naturally. Only, well, the incident became a bit problematic when he didn’t die in the directed mortar attack. Still, when he was sent home he was more dead than alive.”

Jack barely restrained himself from attempting to throttle the demonic creature so effortlessly confronting him. “Which leaves us—where?”

Von Verschuer spread his hands. “Here. Your last stop, McClure. As for me, I have shut down Three-thirteen, rather than have its constituents interrogated. I will leave here, to continue my experiments elsewhere.”

As if on cue, the heavy wood-paneled door to the library swung open, revealing a large, powerful-looking man with one blue eye and one green eye. According to Caro’s description, this was the Syrian. Then Jack’s blood turned cold.

Striding in, at the Syrian’s side, was Annika.

*   *   *

A
LLI RIPPED
the gas mask off the man she had shot and slipped it on. For the next fifteen seconds she experienced the immense relief of breathing normally. Then she rose up, staggered a bit, and had to hold on to the wall while she regained her equilibrium.

*   *   *

“G
ET THE
hell away from him,” Iraj ordered.

Like a soldier, Werner kept his position. “But you promised.”

The Syrian grabbed him and threw him bodily onto the sofa.

“Jack,” Annika said, for the moment ignoring the two other men, “my grandfather is dead.”

“Dead?” For the first time in his life Jack felt as if his mind were moving in slow motion. “How?”

“Hit-and-run.”

“What? I can’t believe it. He seemed indestructible.”

“Mortal,” Iraj said, “like all of us.”

Jack focused his attention on Annika. “What are you doing here?”

“
Was machst du mit diesen Leuten zu tun, meint er
.”
What are you doing with these people, he means
. Von Verschuer’s smile had turned sardonic.

“I am upholding my grandfather’s alliance with the Syrian.”

“What alliance?” Jack said. “I don’t believe you.”

“That is your prerogative,” the Syrian said as he stood in front of Jack, “but the truth is staring you in the face.” He shrugged. “What you think is no concern of mine.” His fingers snapped. “Now come, stand up and meet your fate like a man, not sitting down like a child.”

As Jack rose, he hefted the porcelain coffeepot and smashed it into the Syrian’s face. The Syrian cried out, staggering back, hands over his burning skin. Von Verschuer leapt to his feet to help the Syrian.

Annika drew a small-caliber handgun, but before she could aim it, von Verschuer knocked it away and shoved her. Jack dived after the gun, grabbed it, and fired once, twice. Von Verschuer reeled into him with such force the gun flew out of his hand, skittering to the other side of the room. Blood burst from von Verschuer as if from a dam. He clutched himself, his eyes wide and staring.

The Syrian, having regained his balance, wiped his face, trying to clear his vision. He had hauled out a CZ Phantom, and was trying to find a target. Von Verschuer, lying sideways where he had fallen onto the sofa cushions, tried to speak, but only bloody bubbles emerged from his open mouth. He was drowning in his own blood.

Jack took hold of Annika’s arm and, before the Syrian could regain his sight completely, hauled her out of the library.

*   *   *

“C
ARO, WHAT’S
wrong?”

Vera had heard shots being fired and had been undecided about sticking her head out or staying put as Alli had asked her to do. Now she put her arm around her half-sister as Caro bent over, head between her legs.

“I can’t … catch … my … breath.”

“It’s the tear gas.” Vera, trying to keep her breath shallow and losing the battle, wiped her eyes. “I’ll get us both new towels.”

She slid off the bed and was crossing to the bathroom when Ms. Mallory, the nurse she had been introduced to, stepped into the room and said, “Back away from there.” Vera recognized her under the gas mask she had clamped over her face.

It was only then that Vera saw the 9mm Glock pointed at her. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Caro move, a blur of motion as she grabbed the water pitcher. Mallory swiveled, aiming the Glock at Caro.

“No!” Vera shouted, tackling the head nurse, slamming her to the floor. By some horrific miracle, Mallory retained her grip on the Glock, and now brought the barrel down on Vera’s forehead. Blood spurted and a bolt of pain shot through Vera’s head. She gritted her teeth and, drawing up her right leg, jammed her knee into the nurse’s jaw. Ripping off her gas mask, Vera broke her nose. The Glock waved in front of her face, and she crushed down on Mallory’s throat with both her thumbs. The nurse’s mouth opened, filled with blood. She arched up, almost dislodging Vera, but Vera bore down with all her strength. With a muffled
crack!
Mallory’s throat cartilage shattered.

Vera rose and, leaving the head nurse to gasp out what was left of her life, slipped the gas mask on Caro, then staggered to the bathroom, put her face under the cold water, and rewet her towel, once again masking the lower half of her face. She was wringing it out when she heard a thud, and raced out to find Caro leaning against the wall nearest the door.

“Caro, what are you doing?”

“The Syrian’s people are here. They’ve finally found me.”

Vera tried to pull Caro back to a chair, but Caro was so agitated and Vera was so debilitated from the tear gas that she merely sat down in the doorway with Caro leaning against her.

“Where are the alarms?” Caro said. “Where’s the Secret Service?”

The second question was answered as they crawled out into the hallway and saw the bodies strewn all around.

“Good God,” Vera said. Gaining her feet, Caro helped Vera up. Caro reached one of the downed intruders first, ripped off his gas mask, and adjusted it on Vera’s face.

“Thanks, Sis.”

“Anytime.”