Upon A Pale Horse (Bio-Thriller)

by Russell Blake

  Pity he was the wrong kind of lawyer. Another item to store away in the regret locker.

  At his hotel he had lunch in the lobby restaurant, his conflicted thoughts revisiting that newspaper account of the professor’s suicide, and after chewing a surprisingly tasty sandwich, he retired to his room for a long nap. He wanted to depart soon, but his bouts with concussion-related instability were too severe, and he reluctantly opted for another evening in Switzerland, with a train trip the following morning.

  “You don’t smell a rat?”

  “No – if you look at his behavior, it’s consistent. The only question mark is what he was doing at the bank, and we’ve unfortunately made no inroads there. The damned Swiss take their bank secrecy seriously, and our overtures to the bank officers were rejected out of hand.”

  “Offer them more.”

  “That’s not the issue. It’s an ethical thing with them.”

  “Offer them a lot more.”

  The head of the surveillance team shook his head even though he was on the telephone and the other speaker couldn’t see him. “I did. It’s a non-starter. But there are plenty of reasons he could have been there. Handling something for his old firm being one of the most likely. Or for himself. We have no real idea what he’s been doing with his money for the last ten years. Remember that he’s an asset specialist. It could certainly follow that he’s structured something for himself, too. Do you have any results on the analysis of his bank records?”

  “Inconclusive. As you know, if he was smart, nothing would show up. That’s kind of the whole point to what he does for a living.”

  “So far, all he’s done is buy an expensive new watch. We tracked that down about an hour ago. Traded in his brother’s. Which is completely consistent with a young man on the way up with more money in his pocket than sense.”

  “The girl said he sounded…distant.”

  “A concussion can do that. Look, we’ll keep an eye on him, but so far everything points to a waste of time. He was clean when he came out of the bank. He hasn’t done anything suspicious in weeks of watching him. My money says he doesn’t know squat.”

  “All due respect, analysis isn’t your job. It’s mine. Just stay on him and report back anything that seems odd. He mentioned he was considering a second opinion.”

  “We intercepted a call to a French specialist, so again, entirely consistent. He made an appointment for Monday. In Paris. So we know where he’s going next.”

  “Why can’t he just stay put? We didn’t anticipate that.”

  “Free will. It’s a big pain in the ass. But don’t worry. I’m all over it. If he so much as farts, we’ll know about it.”

  THIRTY-THREE

  Frankfurt

  The early morning direct train from Zurich to Paris took four hours, depositing Jeffrey at the Gare de Lyon at just before noon. The trip was fast and comfortable, the train only half full, and he used the time to doze, saving his energy for the marathon that was to come.

  At his hotel, the Novotel Paris Les Halles, he checked in using his credit card and was shown to his room by a grumpy middle-aged man who seemed to disapprove of everything he encountered, starting with Jeffrey. After a cursory tour of the amenities in halting English and a disgusted look at his tip, the bellman left, closing the door behind him a little harder than necessary, his displeasure obvious. Jeffrey quickly unpacked and then ordered lunch in the room, preferring to remain sequestered until his doctor’s appointment the following afternoon. The meal was passable, and after finishing it he carried the tray outside his door and placed it in the hallway, using the opportunity to confirm that there were no surveillance cameras. Satisfied, he moved back inside and collected his laptop bag, in which he had packed an extra shirt and a toothbrush, and then ducked back out, taking care to flip the “Do Not Disturb” sign over on the doorknob as he eased the door shut, his phone off and in the room safe.

  Jeffrey slipped into the emergency stairwell and descended the four floors at a careful pace, and then left through the service entrance next to the restaurant, paying no attention to the puzzled glances from the hurrying wait staff. Two blocks away he got a taxi to the Gare du Nord, where a train to Frankfurt was departing within the hour. He’d been relieved when he’d bought his train ticket in Zurich – the attendant had barely looked at his passport, as had the immigration officials. Apparently imminent invasion by young Americans wasn’t high on the European threat scale, because nobody seemed at all interested in him.

  His purchase experience at the Gare du Nord was even more informal, which mirrored what his prior day’s research had led him to expect, and when the train pulled into Karlsruhe, the German officials merely glanced at his identification before waving him on, and he easily made his connection to Frankfurt.

  Night was falling when he arrived, and he located a small hotel near the nursing home. The clerk on duty seemed happy to have his money and expressed no interest in his papers, which suited Jeffrey perfectly. Dinner was bratwurst at a small family-operated restaurant down the block from the hotel, served by a smiling waitress who looked about sixteen. Jeffrey resisted ordering some of the cold draft beer with a nearly superhuman exercise of willpower, remembering the doctor’s final words against drinking any alcohol for a week, and was in bed and asleep by nine p.m., his plan to be at the nursing home at eight.

  The following morning he walked past his destination several times to get a feel for it. The retirement home was about what he expected, if a little more upscale, like a smallish three-star hotel filled with geriatrics. After steeling himself for the coming ordeal, he pushed through the entry doors and approached the front desk with a smile, offering his most winning look of sincerity to the middle-aged brunette behind the counter, who returned his greeting with puzzled curiosity.

  “Bitte. Do you speak English?” Jeffrey asked in German, having looked up the phrase that morning.

  “Ja. A small,” she replied, then repeated it in German while holding her index finger and thumb together, unsure if she’d gotten it right.

  “I’m here to see Herr Schmidt. Alfred Schmidt?” he said, taking care to speak slowly.

  “Ach. Ja. Alfie. Und your name?”

  “Richard Muller. I spoke with him on the phone a little while ago.”

  She didn’t seem to get the last part, but no matter, she gave him a polite smile and lifted the telephone handset. Her murmured German was incomprehensible to him, but he made out his putative name and Alfie, which was positive. She set the phone down and resumed staring at him, and he continued beaming at her like a dullard.

  Several minutes later a man about Jeffrey’s age wearing white pants and a long-sleeved white shirt approached and motioned for him to follow into the depths of the building. Jeffrey did so, relieved that nobody had asked him for identification – that was the only part of his plan that he had no solution for, and the best he had was a lost wallet explanation, if pressed.

  They arrived at a large common area, where a number of the residents were sitting in easy chairs or at tables, chatting in German or staring at the television, a few of them gazing off into space. His guide walked up to an ancient man in a reclining chair and leaned toward him, speaking loudly so he could hear. The man nodded and gestured for Jeffrey to come nearer and have a seat across from him, and the white-clad orderly then moved to a group of women who were playing cards at the other end of the room. Jeffrey took in the frayed tweed jacket and button-up dress shirt, the clothes obviously expensive at one time. The old German’s form now barely filled them out, like a scarecrow that had been outfitted at a haberdashery.

  “I was wondering when you would come,” Schmidt said in good English, his words somewhat slurred. Jeffrey studied his face and saw the tell-tale drooping of the left side. “Yes, I’ve had two strokes over the last year. My time is short, which is just as well. Can you imagine being in this hellhole for eternity? Surely death is better than that. Anything is.”

  “Thank you
for seeing me. I appreciate it.”

  Schmidt waved it off. “I always knew you, or someone like you, would come. I’d just about given up on it, and then you called. In a way, it’s a relief. It’s about time that the world knew what has been done to it.”

  Jeffrey was taken aback by his words. “What’s been done to it…” he repeated.

  “Of course. By me. And people like me. Working for the Nazis, and then the Americans and Russians.” Schmidt’s voice was little more than a rasp, and he glanced warily to the side as he spoke, his eyes taking on an air of reptilian cunning before settling back on Jeffrey. “Don’t worry. The only one of these fossils that speaks English is Helga over at the card table, and she’s deaf as a post.”

  Jeffrey hesitated, unsure of how to proceed. He’d been expecting to have to drag any information out of the old Nazi, and instead found him eager to talk. Jeffrey was wary of a trick, but couldn’t see one, other than the man lying – but to what end?

  “Where should we begin? Would you prefer if I ask questions, or do you just want to tell me what you have to say at your own pace?” Jeffrey asked.

  “You’re not much of a reporter, are you?”

  “I don’t usually do interviews. I’m more of a research journalist. Forensic investigation, that sort of thing,” Jeffrey lied.

  “If you’d waited much longer, you would have had more use for your forensic talents. I’m old, and I don’t have a lot of life left. I think all the doctors are amazed I’m still breathing. Sixty years of smoking, booze, womanizing, and everyone I know is dead, but I’m still here! The devil takes care of his own, they say…”

  “The devil. Yes, well, you’ve certainly lived a long time,” Jeffrey echoed, wondering where Schmidt was going with the discussion.

  “Too damned long. But I’m not going quietly. I won’t sit by and watch my secrets go to the grave with me. I’ve come too far. Too far…” he said, his last words drifting off as he seemed to turn in on himself.

  “Then maybe we should start at the beginning. Or as close to it as you think would be relevant.”

  “Relevant? Mein Gott, it’s all relevant. The problem is knowing what to leave out. I could sit here for days with what I know, and barely scratch the surface.”

  “Well, then, perhaps just the most important parts?” Jeffrey suggested.

  “Important. Fine. Maybe we should move back to my room. This is going to take a while,” Schmidt said, giving him a sly look from under hooded lids, reminding Jeffrey of the way a fox looks at chickens.

  “Certainly. Is that permitted?”

  “Of course. This isn’t a prison. Don’t worry. I haven’t fashioned a shank out of a spoon. If I had, I’d have used it on myself long ago.”

  “Very good. Do you need help?”

  “Only to get up. Then take your hands off me. I hate people touching me.”

  “Haphephobia,” Jeffrey recalled, his mind automatically indexing for the disorder.

  “No, that’s fear of being touched. I’m not afraid. I’m not afraid of anything at this point. I…I just don’t like it.”

  Jeffrey extended his hand. Schmidt gripped it with surprising force and pulled himself to his feet, his body slight, almost nothing but skin and bones.

  “That’s enough of the shared intimacy. Follow me back to my lavish suite. Come see what you have to look forward to if you outlive your usefulness,” Schmidt spat as he shuffled out of the room. Jeffrey trailed him as they moved into another corridor. “I call this ‘death row.’ Needless to say, my fellow prisoners don’t share my sense of humor. Pity. They’re all fools. As far as I’m concerned they can’t die fast enough. But some, like me, linger on forever, like radioactive waste.”

  Jeffrey elected not to comment, and struggled to maintain a professional demeanor – as he imagined a seasoned journalist would. At the moment that consisted of following a mildly demonic troll back to his living quarters to hear…what, he didn’t know.

  “Can you tell me what this is all about, Dr. Schmidt? I mean, I know the broad outline, the cattle mutilations, rumors of experimentation, but not the details…”

  Schmidt slowed and then cackled, ending with a wet cough as he moved towards a door on his right. He turned slowly to face Jeffrey, whose blood froze in his veins at the old man’s next words.

  “The details, eh? Well, my boy, today’s your lucky day. I’m about to give you the scoop of the century. In the old days, we called it germ warfare. Now, it’s bio-warfare, but it’s all the same thing. It’s about silently killing millions, using nature to do it. It’s all about forbidden fruit, and playing God, and boundless power. It’s about the genocide business. And you can call me Alfie. Everyone does.”

  THIRTY-FOUR

  Alfie

  Schmidt’s room was actually more akin to a tiny apartment, with a separate bedroom and a small living room that barely accommodated a sofa, a faded brown La-Z-Boy lounger, a coffee table, and a small circular dining table with two wooden chairs in the far corner. The German stepped into the room and made straight for the lounge chair, and Jeffrey took a seat on the couch and extracted a notepad from his laptop case – a prop to add to his journalist demeanor. He leaned forward and placed a small recorder on the table that he’d bought at an electronics store adjacent to the station in Paris.

  “Do you mind if I record this?” he asked, and Schmidt shook his head.

  “Absolutely not. I don’t want anyone thinking that you made it up.”

  Jeffrey switched the tiny device on and then announced the date and Schmidt’s name with officious sincerity. Once he was done, he hesitated at how to begin, eyeing the old man as he continued speaking.

  “Well, then. Rather than asking questions, I’ve asked for Alfred Schmidt to tell his story in his own words. The next voice you will hear will be his,” Jeffrey said, and then sat back, waiting for the German to begin.

  “I originally started working on biological weapons for the Nazis in 1942 after graduating from Justus Liebig University in Giessen. We were weaponizing foot-and-mouth disease, and spent much time on cholera as well. Some of our work was sent to the Japanese, who did widespread testing on the Chinese during the invasion and occupation of China – about half a million dead, but you’ll never hear about it. Unfortunately, the research was never able to reach its full potential due to wartime constraints on resources. Those were dark times, with the party coming apart and the Allies attacking on all fronts. Anyway, that’s ancient history, and everyone agrees that the Nazi party was guilty of atrocities that make anything we did on the biological side meaningless.”

  Schmidt cleared his throat.

  “After the war, the U.S. approached me about moving to the United States to continue my work, which I jumped at. I spent the next forty years in its biological weapons program, first working at Camp Detrick, in Maryland, and then later at a number of other facilities, including Plum Island and Pine Bluff, Arkansas, where I was primarily working on lethal viruses, including viruses that could destroy the immune system. Even though–”

  “You mean to say…” Jeffrey couldn’t help interrupting. “You mean, after all…well, after the Nuremberg trials, our government actually hired you to–”

  “Yes, yes, they contacted me. They wanted my expertise. Does that surprise you? The important thing is that, even though your President Nixon officially ended offensive efforts in 1969, the clandestine agencies continued to secretly fund offensive programs that showed promise. So while the programs were supposedly finished, and everyone made a big deal out of signing the Biological Weapons Convention in 1972 banning bio-weapons research, the truth was that select experimentation went on. I continued my work, and perfected a number of different agents before turning to retroviruses.”

  Jeffrey’s ears perked up.

  “The cattle mutilation period was when we were testing a variety of pathogens, specifically trying to synthesize a variant of bovine leukemia and splice it with simian immunodeficiency virus. We
already knew from experimentation that we could make diseases jump species – that was a major thrust of our research. In 1972, we were able to infect chimps with leukemia and destroy their immune systems by causing bovine leukemia virus to cross to chimps. The subjects died of Pneumocystis pneumonia, and there was great excitement at the time because we’d created not one, but two new diseases never before seen in chimps – leukemia and Pneumocystis. We did it by having them drink milk from cows with bovine leukemia. Anyway, the findings were later duplicated and written up in 1974 in Cancer Research. This was extremely exciting in my circle because it presented a whole new approach to bio-weapons – the ability to create a contagious immuno-suppressive agent that would kill targeted populations.”

  “Wait a minute. I recognize the second cause of death – the Pneumocystis pneumonia. Isn’t that one of the primary complications from…” Jeffrey paused.

  “Yes. Exactly. It’s one of the leading causes of death from AIDS.”

  Both men were silent for several moments.

  “Wait a minute. You’re not saying…”

  “I will tell you this much: I was working on a contagious bio-weapon that could cause catastrophic damage to the human immune system. Through most of the early and mid-seventies. I was part of a team – one of several teams, as a matter of fact, that had been integrated under the umbrella of the NCI – the National Cancer Institute.”