The Gemini Agenda

by Michael McMenamin

  “The chloroform causes the blood in the ventricle to coagulate and deposit on the heart’s valves which leads the heart to fail.”

  Kramer turned back to the dissecting table and placed one hand on each woman’s head. Mattie reached the end of the marble table and stood behind Cockran, pressing her body into his back. She gasped. Like a waiter removing the silver dome from a dinner plate, Kramer grabbed the blonde hair of each woman and simultaneously pulled off the top half of their skulls which rose up with their hair, revealing the empty cavity beneath. Reflexively, she turned from Cockran and dry heaved as Kramer casually dropped the half-skulls onto a metal pan beside the table.

  “I apologize,” Kramer said, acknowledging Mattie’s discomfort. “Science is not always pretty. I have already removed the brain pan. Together with the cerebellum, I extracted each brain and examined them. Then I opened the thorax, followed by the removal of the sternum. Next, I separated the tongue by an incision beneath the chin. With the tongue came the esophagus and with the respiratory tracts came both lungs. Then I made a transverse incision across the pericardium and removed the fluid. After that, I took out the heart. I washed all the organs and examined them more thoroughly. The tiniest spot can furnish valuable information. Dr. Mengele does not tolerate the slightest deviation from these standard procedures.”

  Mengele? Mattie didn’t see him. He never came back to the library as he promised.

  “Bourke!” she said, breaking back into English. “Where is Mengele?”

  It was as if a trance had been broken. All three men, who had been transfixed by the horror on the table in front of them, regained their senses and scanned the room.

  “I don’t know,” Cockran replied. “I thought he was with you.”

  “He didn’t come to the library,” Mattie said. “I never saw him.”

  Cockran didn’t hesitate. “Bobby! Sturm! Cover the main entrance.”

  Cockran turned to face Mattie, placing both his hands on her shoulders, his face as cold as it had been that night in Cold Spring Harbor. “Let’s move! We’ve got to get the twins out of here now! If Mengele tipped them off, more SS guards could be here any minute.”

  78.

  Burn in Hell

  The Verschuer Clinic

  The Bavarian National Forest

  Thursday, 2 June 1932

  DAMN! Cockran thought as he raced for the door leading to the corridor. How could they have let Mengele escape? His apparent subservience had caused them to take him for granted. The consequences could prove fatal. He opened the door and spotted Hudson.

  “Have you seen Mengele? Did anyone come out this door?”

  “Nope,” Hudson replied. “Everything’s been quiet out here. What’s up?”

  “Mengele’s escaped. The rest of the SS may be here any minute. You and Mattie take Ingrid and the two twins to the tunnel door. I’ll get the others and meet you there in a minute.”

  Moments later, with Kramer left bound and gagged in the Pathology Lab and Sullivan and Sturm in tow, Cockran was back at the tunnel entrance.

  “Mattie, you and Ingrid take the twins out through the tunnel. The road where Rolf is waiting with the bus is a half mile due west of the tunnel entrance.”

  Cockran faced Sullivan. “Bobby, you ride shotgun on the bus. If you and Ingrid think the twins need medical attention, take them to the hospital in Regensburg. Otherwise, take them to the airfield where Winston and Rankin are waiting. Once we’re clear of here, Bobby will send the two apostles there also. We’ll meet you at the airfield after we see if Kramer knows the other twins’ location. If you’re not there, we’ll try the hospital”

  Sullivan frowned. “I’ll do it but I’d rather be the one to question Dr. Kramer.”

  Cockran paused. He had intended to use Hudson to interrogate Kramer. Finding the twins was important and Cockran wouldn’t mind for scum like like him to have his severed ear shoved into his mouth. But a shattered kneecap might prove more effective than a severed ear.

  “Okay,” Cockran replied. “I left Kramer in the Pathology Lab. Find out what he knows.”

  Cockran then turned to Hudson. “Ted, go with the women to the airfield. We’ll follow shortly.”

  Cockran could see that Hudson didn’t like taking his orders but he didn’t object.

  “Piece of cake,” Hudson said as he opened the door to the tunnel and swept his arm toward it in a grand gesture, grinning as he did so. “After you, ladies.”

  Cockran knew the tricky part was how to buy Sullivan enough time to complete his interrogation. He assumed Mengele had escaped by using a subterranean tunnel. But where did it lead? To the woods? Or to the SS barracks? If it led a half mile into the woods like the one they had used, Bobby would have his fifteen minutes with Kramer before the guards arrived.

  Just then, even through the steel door to the Pathology Lab, Cockran could hear a muffled but unmistakable scream. He smiled. Maybe Sullivan wouldn’t need all those fifteen minutes.

  Cockran turned to Sturm. “The SS barracks is roughly fifty yards west of the Clinic. If there is a tunnel leading from the barracks to the Clinic, we’re screwed.”

  Sturm said nothing but nodded his assent.

  “You stay by the clinic’s front entrance in case reinforcements come that way. I’ll check the doors in this wing. The tunnels should be located in the same spot in each wing. If there isn’t a tunnel in this wing, then Mengele probably took a tunnel that led into the forest.”

  Again, Sturm nodded, his eyes focused on the entrance. “I’ll be outside. The field of fire there will be more favorable.”

  “Right,” Cockran said. Sturm had guts. He’d be more exposed that way but more effective. Cockran would have done the same. He then checked every door on both sides of the corridor but there were no entrances to tunnels. Sullivan would have his fifteen minutes.

  Cockran saw Sullivan emerge from the lab wiping blood from the edge of his sword cane.

  “Did you make any progress with Kramer?”

  “A little. He speaks English, you know. I don’t believe he’s high enough up the food chain to really know where the other twins have been taken. Where’s Sturm?”

  Just then, Sturm entered through the front door and swung his Schmeisser in a wide arc toward Cockran and Sullivan. “All quiet. No guards yet.”

  “Are you certain?” Sullivan asked.

  “I’m certain.”

  “Good,” Sullivan said. “Come with me. There’s more to do.”

  Cockran and Sturm followed Sullivan back into the Pathology Lab. He could see that Sullivan had draped sheets over the twins’ bodies on the dissecting table. Beside the marble table, lashed to a hospital gurney, his mouth gagged, was a very frightened Dr. Gustav Kramer.

  Sullivan’s blue eyes were as cold as Cockran had ever seen them. “I realize,” Sullivan said, “there isn’t time to give these two girls a proper Christian burial. But doesn’t it seem wrong to leave them here for whatever other use these bastards might find for their remains?”

  “What do you propose?” Cockran asked.

  “Burn down this bloody shop of horrors.” Sullivan replied, as he took a large bottle of isopropyl alcohol and began dumping its contents over the two bodies. “More bottles are over there,” Sullivan said, pointing to a shelf. “I’ll do this room; you two the observation rooms.”

  Cockran and Sturm looked at each other and silently nodded their assent.

  “This will be a good diversion,” Cockran said to Sturm as they began dousing the rooms with alcohol. “The SS guards will be too preoccupied with fighting the fire to worry about finding the ones who committed all the mayhem here.”

  Sturm did not reply but looked him in the eye and nodded his agreement.

  Ten minutes later the two men returned to the main room where Sullivan was just emptying the contents of a bottle onto some drapes. Sullivan fished in his pocket and brought out a box of matches.

  “What about Dr. Kramer?” Cockran asked.
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br />   “And aren’t you a grand fellow to be reminding me?” Sullivan said as he took down one more bottle of alcohol from the shelf, walked over and emptied its entire contents on Gustav Kramer’s bound and gagged body. Even though the gag, Cockran could hear the man’s muffled screams.

  “For what he’s done here, we know where this one will be spending eternity,” Sullivan said. “Tis only fitting in the last moments of his life that we give him a wee taste of all that he has to look forward to.”

  With that, Sullivan undid the gag, lit a match and tossed it on the drapes. Already doused in flammable liquid, they burst into flame which quickly spread across the room, inexorably coming closer to the helplessly bound body of Herr Doktor Gustav Kramer. The three men turned on their heels and made their exit amid the unearthly screams of Kramer as he watched his approaching death.

  “Burn in hell, you bloody bastard. Burn in hell,” Bobby whispered.

  Sullivan was a hard man, Cockran thought, as he looked back at the flames, but who would have imagined a cold-blooded killer like him would have such a biblical sense of justice?

  79.

  SS Ambush

  The Verschuer Clinic

  The Bavarian National Forest

  Thursday, 2 June 1932

  THE fire in the Pathology Lab quickly spread to the only path open for its voracious appetite—across the bar of the H leading to the north corridor. Cockran reached the door to the tunnel and looked back. Sullivan was limping down the corridor with Sturm behind him. They were still twenty feet away when he saw the flames leap out into the corridor.

  “Hurry, guys! The fire is right behind you.”

  Sullivan looked to the door on his right where they had placed the orderlies. “Would we be setting those boyos free?” Sullivan asked Sturm. “They aren’t SS, after all.”

  Sturm shook his head. “Nein.” His voice was cold. “There are no more innocent people left in this building.”

  With that, the German put his arm across Sullivan’s back and underneath his armpit, helping him quick march the last twenty feet to the tunnel’s entrance. Once in the tunnel, Sturm volunteered to take the point with Cockran and Sullivan following.

  “What did Kramer say about where the other twins were taken?” Cockran asked.

  “Regensburg,” Sullivan replied.

  “That’s a fair size city. Where in Regensburg?” Cockran asked as they moved down the tunnel, following Sturm’s electric torch.

  “Kramer didn’t know. They were moved through the same tunnel Mengele used to escape. Mengele told Kramer he would take him there after they finished the autopsy of the two twins.”

  “Why weren’t the Andersens taken out yesterday as well?”

  “They were scheduled to be ‘serviced’ by the SS. Kramer admitted that, which is why I believed him when he said he didn’t know where in Regensburg the twins had been taken.”

  “You’re right,” Cockran replied. “If Kramer would admit to that, then he probably didn’t know where the other twins were taken. Did he say anything else? Anything at all?

  “Aye, and sure it was strange. Both Verschuer and Mengele speak English, just like Kramer. “Don’t worry, Gustav,” they told him. ‘We’ll keep them safely on ice until you arrive.’”

  “On ice?” Cockran said, recalling that Mengele had said the same thing when he professed not to know the other twins’ whereabouts. “Did he tell you what that meant?”

  “No. His English is passable, but his vocabulary is limited. He was genuinely confused when I asked him what he thought it meant.”

  Cockran nodded. “Once we get to Regensburg and meet the others, we can ask the Andersen twins. One of them may be able to tell us.

  As they exited the tunnel, Cockran could see Kurt von Sturm silhouetted against the dark forest, his face bathed in the light from a raging fire not a half mile away.

  “Is that the clinic or also the forest?” Cockran asked.

  “I believe only the clinic, but possibly the barracks as well. Perhaps even the guard towers,” Sturm said. “But the fire authorities will have been notified. We need to move quickly. It would not be good if two strange aircraft as distinctive as your autogiros are reported in the area by the fire brigade. As you Americans say, someone might put two and two together.”

  The three men headed north toward the landing zone and the road where Rolf’s bus had been parked. As they neared the road, Cockran was surprised to see the dark shape of the bus still there. Something was very wrong.

  “You take the left and approach the bus from the front,” Cockran said to Sturm. “I’ll come from the right. Bobby, keep us covered.”

  Sullivan nodded, unslung his Thompson and put in a fresh clip while Cockran and Sturm did the same with their Schmeissers. In the light, Cockran could see the rounded rear end of the motorbus, green with gold trim on the bottom half, cream colored on the top. He reached the rear of the bus and listened. There was nothing to hear except the sounds of the forest.

  Then Cockran heard a soft moan. It was not far away. He cautiously peered around the corner of the bus and saw a figure on the ground slowly crawling towards the open door of the bus. The man’s progress was achieved only by his left arm, the right arm tucked underneath. Cockran saw no one else and stepped into the open and moved toward the figure. If he drew fire, he hoped Bobby and Sturm would be able to suppress it.

  The man had stopped all movement when Cockran reached him. In the moonlight, the left side of his face exposed, Cockran could see it was Rolf Heyden. Cockran checked for a pulse and found it, faint but there. Cockran gently rolled him over and immediately saw why he had been crawling with only one arm. Machine gun bullets had ripped across his front. His right hand was tightly clenched against his stomach, vainly trying to hold his intestines in place.

  Rolf’s eyes opened as Cockran rolled him over. “Rolf! What happened? Who did this?”

  Rolf tried to move his lips but no sound emerged. Cockran bent his head down until his ear was only inches away from Rolf’s face. He took a canteen of water from his web belt and tipped it up to pour a little into the man’s lips which only caused Rolf to choke and cough up blood. Cockran once more bent his ear down to Rolf’s face.

  “SS ambush,” Rolf whispered, barely audible. “They took the women.”

  “What about Hudson? The other American?”

  The question seemed to energize Rolf who lifted his head up from Cockran’s hand. “He, …he was…” Rolf said and then his head fell back into Cockran’s hand. He coughed once and was still. Cockran felt for a pulse, faint but there. They had to get Rolf to the autogiros. The first aid kits there were his only chance of making it alive to the hospital in Regensburg.

  “Sturm,” Cockran whispered loudly, “Rolf has been shot and the SS took Hudson and the women.” Before Sturm could respond, the forest erupted in machine gun fire. Sturm ducked behind the front of the motorbus and Cockran rolled beneath it. From a secure position behind several fallen trees, Sullivan laid down suppressing fire with his Thompson.

  Cockran and Sturm joined up behind the bus. “There are at least four of them,” Cockran said. “They’ll try and outflank us. We’ve got to do it first. Bobby will keep them pinned down. The noise from the Thompson will cover any sounds we make. You go left. I’ll go right.”

  Sturm nodded.

  “Kill silently if you can,” Cockran said, drawing a commando knife from its leg holster.

  Sturm nodded again and drew his own.

  Cockran moved quickly through the woods. He had done this before. His Schmeisser was slung over his shoulder, his knife in his hand. He heard the SS man before he saw him, crashing through the underbrush, intent only on making it far enough to the right to catch Cockran’s team in a cross-fire. He could tell the man had never been in combat. Cockran had.

  Waiting behind a tree, Cockran moved silently behind the SS man as he passed, wrapped a hand around his mouth, and plunged the knife deep into his kidney. His cry of s
urprise was muffled and his body went into shock as Cockran let the man fell to the ground, his blood pumping out and spreading over the forest floor. Cockran moved on, his approach masked by the sounds of Sullivan’s Thompson. His next victim would not be so difficult to find.

  He wasn’t. Cockran circled behind him. Sullivan had switched his position and was now far to the right of the two SS shooters. Cockran approached from the left but a sudden cessation in gunfire from both sides allowed Cockran’s target to hear him. The man turned to look back just as Cockran launched himself forward, his right arm extended, knife in his hand. Too slow to bring his weapon to bear, all Cockran’s victim could do was cry out a second before his throat was impaled on the point of the knife, his hot blood gushing over Cockran’s hand. The warning was all the dying man’s comrade needed, however, to line Cockran up in his sights.

  Cockran rolled over behind his victim’s body as bullets intended for him hit the shooter’s teammate instead. But Cockran was on his back and could not free the Schmeisser. He reached in his shoulder holster for his Webley but he knew that it would be too little and too late.

  Still firing, the other SS man rose up and, as he did, his body danced and jumped from Schmeisser rounds ripping into his back. Cockran watched as Sturm grasped the dying man’s hair and sliced the knife blade across his neck, blood spurting from his severed carotid artery.

  Cockran lowered the Webley he had brought too late into play. “Thanks. I owe you.”

  Sturm shook his head. “No. I am only repaying a debt.”

  “What debt?”

  Sturm smiled. “Last year. Castle Wewelsburg. You and I were alone. I was bleeding out. You could have done nothing. No one ever would have known.”

  “You’re wrong. Someone would have known.”

  “Who?”

  “Me.”

  “You’re a remarkable man, Herr Cockran.”

  “Not really. An average American actually.”

  “I doubt that. But if you are, I hope our countries never go to war again.”

  “I’m sorry we ever did.”