Verschuer laughed again. “We can always find more twins. All we have to do is ask the Americans. Passau was only a trial run. Many more will follow. We must save the future!”
Cockran was livid. “Ask which Americans? I don’t think the folks at Cold Spring Harbor are going to be giving you much help. Not when the story of your liquidation of American twins is published.”
“Really, Herr Cockran? You Americans can be so naïve. Do you actually believe your government will allow such a story to be published? Why do you think your Eugenics Record Office was so helpful in our endeavor? Your War Department, Herr Cockran, is as much interested as we are in saving the “Great Race,” the Nordic and Aryan strains which have created the best within modern civilization. The American Army Officers Corps, especially its Military Intelligence Division, made the initial investment in our project from their secret contingency funds. Then MID arranged for permanent funding from the Carnegie, Rockefeller and Waterman foundations.”
Verschuer smiled. “We are the cutting edge of scientific progress. The Americans couldn’t write their bank drafts fast enough. But it’s not only your government and the American Officer Corps. Their German counterparts are equally aware that we must constantly seek new ways to improve our race while we relentlessly weed out the weak — the morons, the blind, the cripples, not to mention the Jews and Bolsheviks who seek to bring our civilization down. Unfortunately, the German Army had no contingency funds, secret or otherwise, for our critical endeavors. The Americans did and the SS provided the final element that was missing.”
Cockran heard the door open behind him and looked back over his shoulder to see Sullivan, Sturm and Ingrid enter the office, followed by Mattie. Ingrid’s face was hard and set. He had seen that look on her face before, the morning after she had been raped by her husband.
“What did the SS provide?” Cockran asked.
“Manpower, Herr Cockran, manpower. Who do you think furnished the construction workers who built our beautiful clinic? Or the young Teutonic guards you savagely murdered?”
Verschuer paused and licked his lips as if they were dry from talking so much. “Soon, Herr Cockran, very soon, the SS will be an authorized arm of the German government. Already the SS have many friends and even allies in your Army’s MID. So you should free me and leave my patients here. In America, as in Germany, the future belongs to us!”
Cockran sat on the front edge of Waterman’s desk and caught movement in his peripheral vision. While Cockran focused on Verschuer, Sullivan had moved behind him and given Verschuer’s own Luger to Ingrid. The weapon in her right hand, Ingrid moved toward Verscheur.
“Ingrid! No!” Cockran shouted and lunged across the desk, the “us” of Verschuer’s final sentence still hissing from his mouth as Ingrid placed the snout of the Luger’s sound suppressor on the scientist’s left temple and pulled the trigger. The spray of blood and gray matter from the exit wound spattered onto the curved glass window of Wesley Waterman’s immaculate office.
Ingrid stood there, smoke still curling from the barrel of the Luger, tears streaming down her face. “They raped her! Verschuer and my husband had that Nazi bastard Max rape my little sister!” Ingrid choked back a sob and continued, her voice trailing off. “My little sister…”
Ingrid released the weapon and it fell to the carpeted floor as she stood there, convulsed in sobs. Sullivan silently walked over to the weapon and wiped the Luger clean of prints with his handkerchief. Then he placed it in Verschuer’s left hand, closing his fingers over it. Cockran watched as Verschuer’s lifeless fingers opened and the weapon once more fell to the floor. Then Sullivan looked at Sturm and gave him a thumbs-up gesture and Sturm nodded in return.
“Herr Cockran, I suggest we depart quickly,” Sturm said. “The Irish have disposed of the orderlies and we located clothes for the twins. You are correct. No one else is alive on this floor. We need to move the twins immediately to the airfield and Herr Churchill’s aircraft. We must take them out of Germany before the SS can invoke the aid of the Nazi V-Men in the Bavarian government.”
Cockran smiled. Why was he not surprised that Sullivan and Sturm had recognized kindred spirits in each other? “Let’s haul ass, Bobby.”
88.
I Hope She Was Worth It
Regensburg
Friday, 3 June 1932
KURT von Sturm stepped out of the I.C.E. building into the early morning sunlight with an arm wrapped tightly around Ingrid’s shoulders. Ingrid, in turn, had an arm around her sister Beatrice whose brother Thomas held her hand. Mattie followed with the rest of the twins while Cockran, Sullivan and the two apostles provided a rear guard.
Cockran motioned for Sturm and Sullivan to join him. “Bobby, take six of the twins with you, pack them into the Opel and head for the airfield. Move them onto the trimotor and make sure Winston has filed a flight plan for Vienna.” He paused and turned to Sturm. “Go and bring the Mercedes here. Take Ingrid, her brother and sister and the last two twins to the airfield. Mattie and I’ll grab a taxi with the other two Apostles and meet you there.”
Sturm appreciated Cockran’s decisiveness. They did not have much time. Kapitän Bloem might have been alerted to the gunfight by someone inside the building and soon could be sending reinforcements. Ingrid’s sobbing had ceased, her face still wet from tears, but her body seemed drained of energy. Sturm thought back to the numbness he felt after he first killed a man up close—a natural response to an unnatural act. Ingrid was no killer but she did not need to be one in order to do what she had done. He didn’t think Ingrid would ever fire a weapon again.
Sturm left Ingrid in the arms of her brother and sister, Cockran protecting them and ready to provide cover fire, if necessary. He walked around the side of the building and back towards the city center at a brisk but controlled pace. At Brückstrasse, he saw their canvas-topped Mercedes touring car where he had left it on the narrow side street in the shadow of the twin-spired cathedral.
Sturm quickly took stock of his surroundings, alert to anything unusual but he saw nothing except the bookstore, the electric streetlamps, the empty vestibules of residential entrances. He moved towards the Mercedes, crossed the narrow street and reached for the driver side door. He did not hear a sound, not even the scrape of a shoe sole on pavement but, as he placed his hand on the door, he saw movement. A blur of color moving behind the reflection of his own face in the window. Without thinking, he threw himself to the pavement, hearing the cough of sound-suppressed gunfire, the glass shattering, as his right shoulder hit the ground.
Sturm rolled beneath the car’s undercarriage, gunshots chasing him but missing. Sturm reached the other side on his back and heard his attacker’s footsteps sprinting around the car to gain a killing angle. Still on his back, he had seconds to act and reached into his holster. Above him was a streetlamp just behind the car. He aimed his Luger and fired, shattering the glass of the streetlamp just as the gunman cleared the back of the car. His attacker flinched as the glass shards pelted his neck and shoulders. Sturm fired three times, each shot landing in a tight circle in the man’s upper body.
It was only then, as his assailant staggered back from the killing shots delivered by Kurt von Sturm that he saw his attacker. His friend. His protégé. Bruno Kordt.
Bruno stood there and looked at him with sad, regretful eyes—almost apologetic. His fingers opened and his gun fell to the ground. He sank to his knees and fell forward.
Sturm rose and went to him. He knelt at his side and gently turned him over.
“How did you know I was behind you?” Bruno whispered.
“I didn’t know it was you,” Sturm said. “I reacted. I was lucky.”
“And I was unlucky,” Bruno said. “I thought I’d stayed out of the reflection angle. But then I hesitated. It’s not an easy thing to shoot Kurt von Sturm in the back.”
“It’s not an easy thing to shoot Bruno Kordt,” Sturm said, reassuring his protégé.
“You’re a
lousy shot, you know that? It takes you three shots to kill me? You’re slipping in your old age.” Bruno smiled.
“Four, if you count the street lamp.”
“Bastard,” Bruno said and tried to laugh but he spasmed with pain instead.
Sturm heard footsteps and raised his gun, but it was only the others running to offer support after hearing the shots. Cockran was in the lead, gun drawn and ready to fire. Sturm held up his free hand to indicate that everything was fine. He saw them all, Cockran, Mattie, the Andersen twins, the two Irishmen, Ingrid’s brother and sister…and Ingrid. She was taking the scene in, saw the man that Sturm knelt over. Then she met his eyes. She recognized what had happened. He could tell she understood.
“Kurt,” Bruno whispered, straining through the pain. Sturm turned back to look at him and noticed that Bruno had turned his head to see Ingrid as well. Bruno turned back to Sturm, now. “Remember what I asked you in Munich? When I asked you why you had done this for the woman? If you had fallen in love with her?”
Kurt smiled. “I do, Bruno. I remember telling you that I hadn’t.”
Bruno managed to smile back, as if to say, I never believed that.
“I hope she was worth it,” he said.
“She is, Bruno.”
“Good,” Bruno said. “Good. I would hate to have died for nothing”
“You haven’t my friend. Believe me you haven’t.”
Bruno’s eyes lost their focus and his breathing grew weak and faint. Then it stopped, his eyes still open as though hoping for one last look at the world of the living.
Sturm reached out with his free hand and closed Bruno’s eyelids. Killing was a necessary part of the life he had chosen. But in that moment, while he had kept his promise to Ingrid, it had just become too much to accept.
Sturm looked up and saw Ingrid had separated from the others and was walking toward him. A sad smile washed over his face. He no longer wanted that life. He wanted a life with Ingrid. Bruno had been right. He loved her. As Sturm stood up to go to her, something caught his eye. He looked up at a spot of light drifting across the beige stucco walls of the buildings surrounding them. There was something familiar about its shape, the quality of its movement. It was like a reflection of sunlight off the glass covering of a timepiece. But there wasn’t any direct morning sunlight at that early hour. The reflection had to be coming from somewhere else, from a much higher vantage point.… A rifle scope!
“Ingrid!” Sturm cried and raced to cover the ten feet that still separated them, reaching out for Ingrid who stopped at his sudden shout, frozen in place. “Get down!” He had to get to her in time. Sturm saw the shot hit her before he heard it as the bullet ripped through her body.
“Ingrid!”
89.
Plan B
Regensburg
Friday, 3 June 1932
COCKRAN, Mattie and the others had been ten yards behind Ingrid. Blood spurted from Ingrid’s left shoulder and she lurched forward from the impact. Sturm caught her before she hit the pavement and carried her behind a motorcar. “Get down!” Cockran shouted as he took Mattie off her feet in a flying tackle just as another shot rang out, missing her by inches.
Two more shots were fired, one slamming into the motorcar where Sturm had taken Ingrid and the second hit the automobile where Cockran had taken shelter with Mattie. Ingrid’s brother and sister had taken cover with their sister behind the first motorcar while the Andersen twins and the two apostles were huddled beside Cockran and Mattie. The sniper’s element of surprise was over but their peril was not. They had to move before the police or, worse, the SS arrived on the scene.
“Sturm!” Cockran shouted, “The shots are from the Cathedral! The left tower! You and Bobby’s boys give me cover fire. I’m going in but you stay here! There may be others!”
Up ahead, the narrow street twisted to the right. The rooftops of the buildings directly ahead might block the sniper’s line of fire. At best, the sniper would have one clean shot, at worst two, until Cockran had covered the 30 yards of open ground from the last building to the cathedral’s wide plaza where the angle would be too steep to hit him. He waited until he heard Sturm fire a shot followed by several more from the two apostles. Then he dashed from behind the motorcar and across the narrow street, his eyes focused on his goal, the twin gray spires of the gothic Regensburg Cathedral. He reached the edge of the last building and made an all-out sprint for the cathedral. A bullet cracked into the pavement behind him spraying splinters of brick. He abruptly changed his direction and headed off at an oblique angle to the cathedral as the sniper fired again hitting the plaza stone in Cockran’s former path.
Cockran knew it had to be Hudson. He didn’t need to see the sniper’s face to know that. The long canvas bag Hudson had thrown on the elevator floor hadn’t registered at the time but now it did. A sniper’s rifle! Cockran didn’t know how badly Ingrid had been hit, but he knew that, had Sturm not reacted as quickly as he did, Cockran wouldn’t have either and Mattie might have been hit as well. Both she and Ingrid had been sitting ducks. Instinctively, he knew why Hudson had tried to take them out first. They were credible witnesses to the horror of Passau in ways the drugged twins who had signed consent forms were not.
The shots clearly had come from the left tower’s fourth level, just below the spire. Reaching the cathedral, Cockran took the steps three at a time and slammed open the heavy wooden door. Inside, he quickly found the stairs to the left tower. He pulled out the Webley and headed up the curving stone stairs. Hudson was trapped!
At the second level, Cockran paused to catch his breath. There was no need to hurry. Hudson wasn’t going anywhere soon. As Cockran moved up, he heard nothing. No more shots. He paused again upon reaching the third level. Again, no sound. He knew they didn’t have much time. If Hudson didn’t want to be trapped in the tower by the police, he would have to leave. Soon. And Cockran would be waiting.
But, as he waited for Hudson, he heard no sound from the fourth level. Did Hudson know he was there? Cockran knew he couldn’t wait. Hudson had to be taken out now. How should he ascend? Swift or silent? He wanted swift but he chose silent and crept up the stairs slowly, his left hand on the inside wall, right arm extended, the Webley in his hand. He paused on the last two steps before his head would be visible from the landing. Now was the time for speed, not stealth. He charged up the remaining steps, firing one shot as he hit the fourth level.
Empty! The fourth level was empty! Where the hell had Hudson gone? Cockran walked to each of the four sides of the tower. On the far side of the tower nearest the river, a crowd had gathered around the place where Ingrid had been shot but, surprisingly, there were still no police. He completed a tour of the tower and came to the side closest to the twin tower on the right and his heart sank. A catwalk! Between the towers. A goddamn catwalk! While he had been coming up one tower, Hudson had been making his escape down the second.
Two could play that game, Cockran thought, and it might be a good idea. It wouldn’t do to have the police find him up here alone. Cockran climbed out the window onto the catwalk and walked across in quick strides. Inside the second tower, he stopped. There was a Springfield M1903 sniper rifle with a Warner & Swasey scope lying on the tower floor, its canvas carrying case discarded as well. The same canvas carrying case Hudson had in the I.C.E. building. Both the rifle and the canvas case would have hampered the sniper’s getaway. Cockran walked to the far wall of the second tower and looked down. No sign of Hudson. He walked to the south side and looked out. Wait! There, in the distance, barely two blocks away was a blond haired man in a leather jacket scurrying down a deserted side street. Hudson! The bastard who had just tried to kill Mattie and Ingrid!
Cockran quickly calculated the distance at less than one hundred yards. Cockran retrieved the Springfield. At five hundred yards, Cockran had been a mediocre shot in his MID training. At one hundred yards, he was not half bad. Not in Hudson’s league, of course, and, unlike now, it had been a
stationary target. Still, a shot from a hundred yards or even one hundred fifty yards was worth a try. He might get lucky. Cockran locked in the rifle to his shoulder, wrapped his left hand through the strap and onto the stock, the hard rubber of the Warner & Swasey scope compressing as he pressed it against his right eye. He found the fleeing Hudson with the scope and brought the crosshairs to bear on the back of his head. He tried to hold steady but he felt his knees begin to weaken and it was more difficult to breathe. The crosshairs were shaking. Hudson was still moving, maybe a hundred thirty yards now. Then he stopped, as if deciding which way to turn. Cockran moved the crosshairs up to a point barely a fraction above Hudson’s wavy blond hair.
Remembering his MID instructor’s mantra, he took a deep breath, let half out and held it. Cross hair. Cross hair. At this range, he knew the bullet would only drop a few inches below the cross hairs. He squeezed the trigger slowly. He remembered it was a three pound trigger pull. He gave the last pound a gentle snatch. The rifle bucked slightly, the shot deafening in the tower’s close quarters. Cockran kept his eye on the scope as it settled back a split second later in time for him to see the results of the bullet’s impact on the upper half of Hudson’s back as blood spurted and his body fell forward. Not half bad, Cockran thought. Tough luck, Ted.
Cockran knew he had no time for a second shot. He had to get out of there. His ears were ringing. Unlike most snipers, he had worn neither ear plugs nor shooting gloves. He pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and carefully wiped the rifle clean of prints. He figured the police would be coming up the first tower and not the second. Cockran would make his way out much as Hudson had done.
The Gemini Agenda Page 43