The Bleiberg Project (Consortium Thriller) (17 page)

The new camp offered them the sight of more barbed wire, watchtowers and endless rows of wooden barracks. The first snows were beginning to stick. The sun shone and reflected on the immaculate white expanse but brought no warmth. Seeing the building toward which they were being herded, one of the kids screamed for joy. After all, aren’t doctors kind and considerate? And the man at the top of the steps staring at them, arms crossed, who could he be if not a doctor?

The child’s only reward for his show of enthusiasm was a smack on the back of the head so violent that it propelled him face-first into the snow. In German, the doctor sternly rebuked the guard, who sheepishly fell back, while the medic hurried down the steps to the boy. He carefully turned him over and examined him, without returning the child’s smile. They both stood up. The man’s dark eyes locked onto Eytan’s hostile glare. A wink and a sentence in Polish. A single sentence that defined a whole life. “I don’t want any damage to come to my rats.” Eytan clenched his fists hard enough to break his knuckles. That’s what they were to him. Rats.

As they were marched into the building that was a hospital in name only, Eytan passed by the doctor, who had returned to his position at the door. With no regard for the possible punishment, including death, he announced in the calmest, coldest voice possible, “Some rats bite.”

The man in the white coat smiled, then closed the doors of a place that adults called hell.

I
’m floundering in a lunatic
asylum. They’re all absolutely out of their minds, but Pops takes the cake. I’m going to be murdered by a bunch of maniacs. We all go through tough times, but I’m breaking all records in the life’s-a-bitch category. “Cut out the Subject 302 bullshit. It’s ridiculous. If you were Bleiberg, you’d be ninety-five years old at the very least. You barely look older than sixty. I’m not buying your half-assed story.”

“My formula stops the aging process. In the case of a subject who is still growing, the process stops around the age of twenty-eight, at the peak of his or her physical development. The subject will suffer no loss of faculties over time until natural death occurs around the age of one hundred or one hundred and twenty, according to my calculations. However, if the subject is already over thirty, the aging process is frozen at the time of the injection. Amazing, don’t you agree?”

“You nutcase!” I feel such pure hate for this guy, the insults are going to get a lot worse if he keeps this up. Pops comes over. One more step, and we’re in making-out range. He whispers, “Do you know that the dermatologist Daniel Cornelius Danielssen made several attempts to contract leprosy to prove it was infectious? Do you think I hesitated for a moment before injecting myself with the mutagen? That is the cost of scientific progress. Now imagine a human being whose movements are so swift and precise, they’re imperceptible to the naked eye. You can never beat that kind of agility and speed. This human’s reaction adapts to the requirements of any given situation. Imagine a human who never loses control of his emotions, who always makes the right decision at the right time. Does that not remind you of someone?”

I glance at Eytan. Bleiberg approaches the giant. He grabs his right arm and roughly tugs the bloodstained sleeve of his shirt up to his elbow. Eytan winces in pain but doesn’t cry out. A letter and six figures are tattooed on his forearm.

“Allow me to introduce Eytan Morgenstern, a Polish Jew who at the age of eight the Nazis sent to the new camp at Auschwitz. Selected by the guards who used medical criteria defined by my team, he was transferred to Stutthof, my research facility, to become…”

Bleiberg lets go, takes one step sideways and repeats his demonstration with Eytan’s left arm. This time, the tattoo consists of three figures. Three, zero, two.

“…Subject 302. My first masterpiece.”

Eytan lowers his head toward the old man. His face is a portrait of infinite contempt. “By claiming it’s a vaccine, you’re going to inject the whole planet with your shit, aren’t you? Money doesn’t interest you. So why? And why now?” Eytan doesn’t speak the words, he spits them out.

“If only you knew how wonderfully proud you make me. I’ve been following your exploits for years. Ever since your mission with the commando unit assigned to abduct Eichmann in 1960. How old were you then? Twenty-seven? It’s amazing. A half-century later, and you don’t look a day older. Look at what awaits you, my dear.” Bleiberg cups Jackie’s cheek with one wrinkled hand. She stares at him in disgust. It looks like she’s fighting the urge to spit in his face.

He comes back over to me, looking smugger than ever. “To satisfy the fantasies of Himmler and his clique, my first experiment incorporated minor subsidiary mutations, such as increased growth and, in Eytan’s case, a modification of hair color. I turned his brown hair blond. Even as a child, he couldn’t stand it. Something tells me that he didn’t grow used to it as he got older.”

He glances at Eytan. “How long do you spend shaving your head and face every day?

No answer. The giant’s silence pains me. I never thought I’d see him so distraught that he couldn’t speak. Eytan Morg knew more about the Bleiberg Project than he was letting on. He was the Bleiberg Project. But how could you blame him for keeping silent about this monstrosity? Anyway, are there words strong enough to describe the inconceivable?

I’m sick of this. “Shoot us and get this over with. If it weren’t for your gorillas, you shriveled little shit, I’d beat you to a pulp.”

“I don’t want to kill you, Mr. Corbin. Perhaps not, at least. And this will answer your question, Eytan. The mutagen has a life of its own. Each organism reacts differently. We had to carry out tests on a massive scale. A handful of enlightened dictators around the world allowed me to work in total secrecy on political prisoners. I am now able to say that thirty percent of the subjects survive the treatment. The rest die within two minutes, three for the most resilient. Science will decide your fate, not I.”

Put a bullet between our eyes, dammit! For pity’s sake, I don’t want to wind up a guinea pig for a modern-day Frankenstein.

“As for why the operation is taking place now, there are two answers. First, it took me fifty years of hard work under the radar to develop a serum that could be produced in industrial quantities. Second, seven billion humans now sully the planet. Nine billion by 2050. Before the end of the year, we will reduce that to two or three billion at the most. Humanity will have taken a crucial step in its evolution. The survivors will form one single race. Unemployment and poverty will be eradicated. Nutrition and environmental issues will be solved in one fell swoop. What can I say, Mr. Corbin? I’m an incurable ecologist.”

He’s not even joking. The guy totally believes what he’s saying. Billions of innocents will die to satisfy the megalomania of a madman.

“Now, if you don’t mind, I’ll move onto my final experiment with my favorite guinea pig,” Bleiberg says, turning to his guards. “Show them into the waiting room.”

Seeing the evil smiles of the four assholes, I fear the worst.

Before she is ushered out, followed by two chaperones, Jackie raises her hands in the air and yells to Eytan, “2003!” She gets a whack in the back for her trouble but ignores it.

2003. Fat lot of good that does us.

The two men
shoved Eytan toward a bed.

“My child, I assume you haven’t forgotten the pain that is inherent to the mutation process. You are going to help me once more in my research. I’ve no idea what might happen when the mutagen is injected into a subject treated with my original formula. Thanks to you, I’m going to find out.”

The so-called doctor took a plastic-wrapped syringe out of his white coat and headed toward the beds. Eytan struggled to break free. His head was buzzing. Panic was clouding his brain. Not this. Not again. He recalled the incessant jabs, the ensuing convulsions, the debilitating pain. And the fear that filled his cell with every new day that dawned.

One day, he was so terrified he wet himself. Beside himself with anger, Bleiberg had him hosed down to teach him good manners. The SS guards laughed at the naked child as he clumsily tried to protect himself from the icy water. Then they dragged him into the laboratory by his arms, hammering his back every time he screamed. Eytan learned very young that crying out offers no protection. That morning, on Heinrich Himmler’s orders, an official in a black uniform came to take pictures of the doctor and his guinea pig. At the precise moment the flashbulb popped, facing these soulless, compassionless, loveless monsters, Eytan discovered the power of his anger.

One way or another, sooner or later, without a second glance, without remorse, he would kill them all.

I don’t dare
to imagine what the waiting room looks like. Two clowns lead us down the drab, empty hallways of the complex. It’s Saturday morning, and apparently even the bad guys give their staff the weekend off.

Jackie looks astonishingly laid back. I’ve no idea what she’s got in mind, but I’d welcome any initiative with the great pleasure. We’ve reached the waiting room and, judging by the symbol on the gray double doors, it doubles as the crusher.

A card is swiped across a scanner, and the room opens up to us. The doors are not only thick, but also efficiently soundproofed. A deafening wall of sound hits us. Two huge cylinders spin side by side in a pit wide and deep enough to hold an automobile. Thankfully, a safety barrier surrounds the machine. The grinders spin slowly, but their mechanized teeth are frighteningly large. All in all, an injection seems preferable right now.

The goons start heading out. They may be locking us in, but at least they haven’t killed us. Suddenly, Jackie slams her handcuffed wrists against the wall. Before I finish saying to myself that she’s lost it, the cuffs spring open.

She lunges at one of the goons and drives the open cuff into his carotid. He collapses, grasping his throat. In a flash, Buffy grabs his head and twists sharply, snapping his neck.

As the other goon moves to grab her, Jackie jabs her makeshift weapon into his face. He lets out an excruciating scream and blood spurts from his face. She’s poked his eye out. Gross!

Jackie finishes him off in exactly the same way as his buddy. She comes over, grabs my wrists and rams them against the wall. The handcuffs fall to the floor. I can’t believe it.

“French model. Stamped Manurhin 2003. Defective. The laughing stock of the small-arms world. Grab a gun.” I do so. Jackie takes the other guy’s gun and his security card. I feel like kissing her, and something tells me she wouldn’t protest, but for now we sprint back toward the laboratory.

The guards forced
Eytan to sit down. Overwhelmed by painful memories, he didn’t have the strength to resist. This place was nothing like the laboratory where he underwent such torture over sixty years earlier. The room was chillingly modern. The floors and walls were covered with a gray industrial paint. The three beds on either side and the medical equipment made it look like the emergency room of a hospital, an impression reinforced by the paleness of the artificial light. How many “patients” had Bleiberg tortured in here?

Relieved that the monster they had been warned about appeared totally impotent, the guards relaxed for a moment. A half-second too long. Eytan banged his cuffed hands down on the cart carrying the monitoring equipment. Jackie was right. But with one busted shoulder, fighting two fully fit men and an armed woman held no appeal. Eytan needed a bargaining chip.

Before the guards could react, Eytan jumped onto the bed, bounced once and leapt feet first at Bleiberg. Instead of hitting him, Eytan wrapped his calves around his dumbstruck target’s head. They crashed onto the floor. Despite the old man frantically lashing out, Eytan wasn’t about to loosen his hold.

Elena sized up the situation with disconcerting serenity. On his back, arms and legs thrashing ineffectually, the professor briefly reminded her of a turtle lying helpless on its back. “Get out, and stand guard by the door,” she ordered the two guards. “I have to negotiate with Mr. Morg.”

They glanced at each other in surprise but gave in to the woman’s authority. When they had left, Elena walked toward Eytan and Bleiberg.

“Don’t worry, Professor. I’m here.”

Despite the fatigue
cramping his muscles, Eytan tightened his hold. His successful maneuver had won him a hostage, but the sudden jarring movements had accelerated his loss of blood. A more experienced opponent than Bleiberg would have broken free. The temptation to get it over with, to break the monster’s neck once and for all, was overwhelming. But in Eytan’s diminished state, a hostage would be crucial.

A few paces from the incongruous couple entwined on the floor, Elena began to applaud. “Agent Morg has lived up to his flattering reputation. What daring, what brilliance. All with one shoulder out of commission.”

“Stop there.” Eytan’s command lacked assurance, but Elena obeyed, holding her arms wide as a sign of nonaggression.

“OK, look, I’ve stopped. Tell me, Eytan, I’m curious to know what you hope to achieve, exactly. Save your friends or force me to destroy the facility in order to sabotage our plans? If that’s the case, I fear your hopes will be dashed. You can no longer stop the Project.”

She drew her gun and pointed it at the two men. Bleiberg tried to speak, but the windpipe, compressed by his creation’s powerful thighs, emitted only gurgling and hissing sounds.

Elena’s dark eyes locked onto Eytan’s. “You’ve been fighting unworthy opponents for too long now, my friend. The ability to make decisions and act on them without being inhibited by moral standards decreed by cowards is no longer considered an asset these days. Now people trade off. Compromise is the golden rule. Force is stigmatized. Once upon a time, you knew the real meaning of power. But over the years, an insidious evil has possessed you—compassion.”

She leveled her gun at Eytan. Then suddenly lowered her hand a fraction. Two gunshots later, Professor Bleiberg breathed his last, his heart and head pierced by two perfectly aimed bullets. The Israeli agent had released his hold and rolled away just before Elena opened fire.

“That’s the hostage variable eliminated from the equation. Now everything is much simpler. Stand up. And don’t pull the cripple trick. You don’t need any help.”

His legs as stiff as tree trunks, Eytan struggled to his feet and stood as upright as his strength would allow. He glared at his enemy. In her eyes, he saw the end of a journey that he had been forced to begin sixty-eight years earlier.