The Gene of Life
Page 13
“It’s an airfield,” Jake said.
“A former airfield,” Max said.
The grassland area was about ten yards wide and one hundred twenty yards long, bordered by tall plants and bushes. One wouldn’t be able to tell it used to be an airfield without anything else to go on.
“Little wonder the eyes in the sky couldn’t pick this up. It looks no different from empty wilderness,” said Max.
“It was well-made. Without ultrahigh-resolution satellite photos, no one would ever find it from the air.”
“It must have been twice as big before. Give it a few more years and this whole area will be virgin forest again.”
“This is more than enough for takeoff and landing for a JU-55,” Jake said, as he glanced at the photo and the open area in turn.
“JU-55?”
“A midsize Nazi transport plane developed just before the end of the war. It has a maximum load capacity of twenty tons, a breakthrough at the time. They used this airfield to bring in people and materials.”
“That’s how they built those three buildings. But to what end?”
“To create the Fourth Reich, and realize their march back to power.”
“Oh stop. This is the twenty-first century.”
“But this place is frozen in time.”
“This is the Nazi legacy? Everything’s a ghost of the past.”
“Even now, a helicopter could easily land here.” Max pointed toward the clearing.
Max could tell Jake and the others all came to the same conclusion. There were no shrubs in the center, only weeds and undergrowth. The shrubs had been cleared away by human hands, and not all that long ago—a few months prior at most.
They stood there for a long time.
Jake and his assistants set about taking pictures and measuring the old airfield. Max and Katya returned to the lab building.
“Are you okay?” Katya looked at Max with a worried expression.
Max nodded.
They entered the laboratory and opened the desk drawers. Most were empty, but they found a few discolored notebooks. They were experiment records, but there was nothing in them about fetuses or about surgeries conducted on humans. Rather, they had to do with cell division in plants.
Katya was flipping through the pages of one of them. “I can’t imagine Nazi scientists were researching botany.”
“Either they took the rest away or destroyed them.”
“Which is to say they started doing their research elsewhere. Either that, or . . .”
Max was thinking it over.
“Are you being possessed by Nazi ghosts, too, Professor? What do you gain from looking into any of this? I understand collecting blood samples from the villagers, but . . .”
“You ventured out to the depths of the Amazon with me because you believed there was something here. Everything here means something. The inviolable law of fieldwork—in nature, nothing is pointless.”
After looking through the lab for an hour they went back outside. The sun was beginning to set. They were exhausted, and not just from physical exertion. Mental fatigue had a way of affecting the body.
All of a sudden it got dark. Black clouds obscured what little they could see of the sky through the trees. Huge drops pelted down on them, and they hurried under the trees for cover. Protected by the dense canopy, they didn’t get the least bit wet, as if the rain was just an illusion.
They leaned against each other and watched the rainforest haze over. A half hour passed without any sign of the downpour letting up. They started walking; the village was due east. The jungle was so dark now that they half-believed it was already sundown. All they heard was the splash of the raindrops on the leaves.
There was no change in scenery no matter where they looked. They were surrounded by trees and more trees, and the ground was a soft mix of mulch and water. Their hiking boots were full of water, and it splashed out at their ankles with every step. There was no sense of progress.
“We’re lost,” Katya said.
“Someone’s watching us,” Max said, scanning their surroundings. That was the feeling he had.
“Is this any time to make jokes?” Katya drew closer to him.
An hour had already passed since they’d started walking. The rain had only increased, and the rainforest became one big wet blur. They were truly lost.
“We should wait out the rain somewhere.”
The water level was rising. It had already reached above their ankles.
“Be careful. There’s a river or swamp nearby. That’s where all this water’s coming from,” Max said.
Katya screamed. Max turned to look her way, but she was gone.
“KATYA! WHERE ARE YOU!?” But the rain drowned him out.
“Help!!!”
“WHERE ARE YOU!?” He rushed over to the source of her voice.
A muddy deluge rushed past. The water was rising above his knees. He spotted an open space in the tangle of trees a few yards away. Katya’s head was bobbing up and down in the water. The rain had swelled a stream. Katya hadn’t been washed away because something was holding her in place. She struggled to bend backward and keep her head above water and breathe. Max was about to step into the water before he stopped himself. He could get sucked in, too, and they’d both be swept away.
“Careful!” Katya shouted. “The ground falls away with a steep drop!” She swallowed water and started to choke.
“Don’t let go! I’ll get you out of there!”
He stretched out his hand, but couldn’t reach her. He couldn’t see any branches or footholds. Max wiped his face with his palm; it was raining so hard he could barely breathe. Katya went under. Max stepped into the stream. He lost his balance and his legs swayed. Just when he was about to fall, he spotted a vine and grabbed it. He leaned forward while holding onto the vine and grabbed Katya by the arm. He lifted her up with all his strength. Katya paddled through the water and gulped in air while coughing up water.
They noticed a little girl standing nearby. She was holding onto a vine hanging from a huge tree.
“That girl’s come to the rescue!” Max said.
Katya looked at the girl, who was staring at them. She was fourteen or fifteen. Her skin was tan, her hair was reddish brown, and she had big, dark blue eyes. She looked like she had Caucasian blood in her.
Katya reached out and gripped the little girl’s hand. The girl looked up with a shy smile.
Just as suddenly as it began, the darkness lifted, as did the rain, and all that was left was the gurgling water winding through the undergrowth.
“Storm’s over.” Moments ago, the forest had been too dark and misty to see more than a few yards, once again it was transformed into a world of lush green. “Do you know the way to the village?” he asked, gesturing as he spoke.
The girl thought a moment before nodding and walking off. The three wove their way through the trees as large drops fell from the leaves. After about a half hour, the entrance to the village come into view. Before they knew it, the girl was gone.
A few hours later, Jake and the rest returned as well, exhausted and dripping.
“Three buildings, an airfield, and German-speaking villagers,” Jake said. “That’s plenty of evidence Nazis were here, but they’re not here anymore. And we don’t have any leads as to where they ran off to yet. We’ll search again tomorrow. With this much evidence, we should find something.” He dug into his meal and shortly after, fell into his hammock.
Max couldn’t sleep at all. The snoring from the huts was worse than the sound of the jungle at night.
“Thank you so much, Professor,” came Katya’s voice from the next hammock over. “You jumped into the water for me.”
“If that girl hadn’t been there, would we still be alive?”
“We never asked her name. I’ll look for her tomorrow.”
When he closed his eyes, he saw the girl’s face. She was clearly different from the other villagers they had seen.
Silence.
“When I was a kid,” Max said, “I wanted to be a football player. That was before I realized I lacked the talent.” A small sigh. “Everyone’s got their own talents. And everyone has things they must accomplish. People have no choice but to live complicated, interconnected lives.”
“That’s not what I asked, Professor,” she said softly. “What I want to know is . . .”
“You should go to sleep. More jungle awaits us tomorrow.”
The silence that followed lasted for a while, until, at last, he heard her dozing breath. Max closed his eyes again. Now he saw Katya’s fair face, but soon enough, he drifted into a deep sleep.
CHAPTER 11
Max woke up to the voices of children. There was no one in the other hammocks.
The voices were coming from outside. He could hear Katya’s voice as well. Max got down from his hammock and went out. The sudden brightness made him dizzy. Katya was surrounded by children. A few other people and a few dogs were also in the clearing.
“The children brought it here,” Katya said. Her surgical-gloved hands were bloody, and she held a fishhook-shaped sewing needle. “Their little pet must have gotten attacked by wild animals.”
A foot-and-a-half-long capybara lay in front of her. It didn’t have the energy to run, but just moved its head from side to side. The giant rodents were a valuable source of protein for the Indigenous Amazonians.
“You’re just prolonging its suffering,” Max said, shaking his head. Its belly was torn, exposing its organs.
“How could I just let it be?”
“It should be euthanized.”
“I’m not a fan of euthanasia,” Katya asserted firmly, pushing its entrails back in and resuming her stitches. Her skill and dexterity were a match for any expert surgeon’s. “I studied medicine in order to save lives, and I’m researching life science in order to know more about the mysteries of life,” she muttered to herself, but clearly Max was meant to overhear. She finished stitching in ten minutes. “There. That should do it. Let’s just let it rest. Here, a good luck charm.” She took off her red scarf and tied it around the capybara’s neck.
“Your skills are wasted on veterinary surgery.”
“Tania. The girl’s name is Tania.” Katya stood up and pointed to the girl holding down the capybara’s legs. “I thanked her earlier, but she doesn’t seem to understand me. Asking her name was all I could get across.”
The girl from the day before looked at Max and smiled bashfully.
“Where are Jake and the others?”
“They left about an hour ago. They lose their minds whenever Nazis come up.”
“Which, from their viewpoint, is totally understandable.”
When they spotted Max, the dogs began to bark, and a villager raised a hand and said something. The chattering children took the capybara away, leaving Tania behind. Max asked Tania where the Nazi buildings were. Tania just stared at him.
“It’s no use asking her,” said Katya. “She doesn’t understand a word you’re saying.”
“I want to go to the place from yesterday. There are three big buildings. They were built by the Nazis.” Max drew three buildings and a swastika on the ground. “Please take me there.”
Tania looked like she was thinking. Then she started walking toward the jungle. They walked through the dense treescape for around a half hour, but there were no buildings in sight.
“This is a different path from yesterday,” Max said. “And I don’t think this is a shortcut, either.”
“You’re right; the village with the buildings wasn’t this far.”
“Where is she taking us?”
Tania just kept walking. Max grabbed Tania’s shoulders, and she stopped and turned to face him. Fear flashed across her face.
“Don’t get rough!” Katya pulled her away and hugged her.
“I’m not going to. I just want to know where we’re going.”
“Let’s trust her. She saved our lives yesterday!” She gently stroked Tania’s hair and gave her an affectionate push on the back. “Go on. We’ll follow.”
“I have a feeling we’re going to get lost again.”
“But today we have the best guide we could ask for.”
“Another rainstorm!” They looked up, but while they heard the sound of the rain, the drops hadn’t reached them yet. The leaves were acting as umbrellas. “Let’s hope it won’t be as bad as yesterday.”
Tania walked along unconcerned. Then she stopped, and stared straight ahead. Max and Katya looked in the same direction. What they saw stopped them in their tracks—a plank among the trees, with a mark that was fading away—a swastika.
Though now covered with shrubs, they could tell that this place had been cleared of vegetation long ago. As they looked around they found more planks. Max pushed his way through the bushes, and suddenly he saw more than endless trees. He saw a clearing with overgrown grass, misted over in the rain, with more than forty cross-shaped headstones lined up in rows. This was a graveyard.
Max stepped into the rainy cemetery, and Katya cautiously followed.
“Karl Heinberg, 1918–1962,” Katya read. “Albert Schneider, Otto Mronz—they must be the Germans who fled to this village! We have to tell Jake and the rest as soon as we can.”
Max tried to use drawings to explain to Tania, who was standing by the entrance to the graveyard, about the three Nazi buildings, and that Jake and the rest were there. Tania stared silently at Max’s crude illustrations.
“The fat old man is over here. Bring me over to him,” said Katya, gesticulating.
Tania nodded, took Katya by the hand, and entered a part of the jungle opposite from where they’d just arrived.
The storm had passed, giving way to the sun’s harsh rays. Max walked around the headstones in this secret graveyard where no one ever came to pay their respects. Here lay those who had escaped the hunters the world sent for them. What they had done could never be excused, but Max wondered how they felt, dying in a jungle so far from their homes.
“Over here!” said Katya.
He followed her and Tania, and a very short-of-breath Jake appeared alongside the other men. His face and hair were dripping wet, and his shirt was clinging to his body. He raised a hand in Max’s direction as he hyperventilated. Then he entered the graveyard, and crouched down to inspect each of the headstones. “Reinhard Benchell,” he said, reading a faded inscription. He couldn’t hide his swell of emotion. “There’s one here for Gehlen, too! ‘Died August 19, 1978’,” he read, tracing the epitaph with a finger. “That’s thirty-six years ago.”
“So, they did die,” said Katya. “And past the age of 80. They lived for a relatively long time.”
“Then explain that hand. The fingerprints and DNA were a match. How could it have belonged to anyone but Gehlen himself?”
“It was a clone. They were making clones here. There’s no other explanation.”
“Clones, in the ’70s? They hadn’t even analyzed the human genome yet.”
“What other explanation could there be? Granted, back then they . . .”
Katya stopped there. She just couldn’t account for it, and neither could Max. He was confused. Calm down. Something must have happened. There must be a scientific explanation. There must be an explanation that makes sense, Max repeated in his head.
“We know for sure they were doing genetics research.”
“That equipment made that crystal clear,” Katya said.
“Someone must have continued their research and used the left-behind DNA of Benchell and Gehlen to make their clones.”
Katya didn’t reply. Max hadn’t said it because he thought it was true. He just couldn’t think of another plausible scenario.
Jake took pictures of each decaying headst
one with his video camera, and his assistants copied their inscriptions. Max and Katya walked between them as they read the inscriptions. Max froze in front of one headstone in particular. “Dr. Otto Gerhard.”
Katya stared at Max.
“He was said to be Dr. Mengele’s right hand.”
“That Nazi scientist? The one they called the Angel of Death?”
Max nodded.
“Looks like he came here, too. And then he died.”
Jake joined up with them. He was pale. “They’re all dead. There are forty-eight graves. Thirty-four of the war criminals we’ve been hunting are buried here,” he said.
“For all we know, those tombstones could be fakes,” Max said. “It was you guys who doubted Hitler’s corpse was real. You’re not going to dig them up and examine them?”
“We’ll start tomorrow,” Jake replied. “We’ll examine their bones, their teeth, what they were buried with, and if we can, their DNA. We’d like you to lend us a hand, Professor.”
Katya stared intently at the headstones. The sun was soon blocked by the trees, and the air was turning cool while silence fell. The jungle’s nighttime transformation had begun.
“Let’s wrap it up for today,” came Bocaiúva’s deep voice.
After dinner they had nothing to do but think. They were all still in shock over their discoveries that day.
Max went outside. The village was quiet, the villagers were already asleep. He heard the occasional cries of the birds and beasts as they tried to intimidate each other. He sat on a log in front of the hut. The moon was shining in the center of the sky, which was filled with stars. Just the moonlight alone was surprisingly bright.
“This night sky is too beautiful to miss by sleeping.” He turned around, to find Katya standing there. “But the mosquitoes will eat you alive by morning,” she added as she sprayed him with insect repellent.
The chemical smell spread through the air. One spray was enough to fell quite a few bugs. She sprayed Max’s whole body before sitting down next to him. “It’s so quiet. Almost as though no one’s here.”