True (2004)

by Cordy, Michael

  'Joachim wasn't the only one to drug the toast last night,' she said. 'Everyone who toasted you last night not only drank Venus but also a test drug that causes temporary prosopagnosia. It's called Amigo Extract and I gave it to the guards as well.'

  'Prosopagnosia? What are you talking about?'

  'Even though they don't understand what's happening to them, everyone who drank the toast last night woke up this morning with temporary face-blindness.' As she watched the realization dawn on Helmut Kappel's face, she thought back to her last night in Phoebe's apartment. The thank-you card from little Sofia pinned to the board above her bed had made her wonder if Amigo Extract might undo the NiL drug's effects: the prosopagnosia folder her father had created for her had stressed the links between his face-obsessive love drug and her face-blindness research. Temporary prosopagnosia might break the spell. She had rushed to the hospital and raided her samples cupboard for a canister of the Amigo Extract tablets intended for the prosopagnosia trials. Phoebe had spilt the first dose she had prepared, but last night, while Helmut questioned Max, Isabella had spiked each toast with it, then helped Joachim deliver the glasses to the guests.

  It had been a desperate gamble and she hadn't dared hope the tablets would succeed, especially as the Amigo Extract and Venus had been mixed in the same drink. It was only when she and Max had made their way to the chapel unrecognized, even though they had bumped into Klaus, that she had believed it might work. Phoebe's rejection of Helmut had confirmed their success.

  'Helmut, your younger son designed his Tag Vector to meet safety regulations, and that was its Achilles heel,' Isabella said. 'If no one recognizes your face in the next forty-eight hours the infectious stage isn't triggered and Venus is neutralized. It will be flushed out of everyone's system and everything will return to normal. And, trust me, the Amigo Extract will keep these people face-blind long enough to neutralize Venus.'

  Helmut scowled at her with disbelief, hatred and fury in his pale eyes.

  'It's over,' Max said.

  Helmut turned to Joachim. 'Tell me they're lying.'

  Joachim was looking around in panic, as though searching for something.

  'Speak to me, Joachim -- could they have done this?'

  'Trust me, Van". It's not over yet. I won't let you down,' Joachim backed away and picked up an aluminium case from beside his seat. 'I'll show you, Vati. All is not lost.' He rushed out of the chapel shouting to the guards, 'Which one of you is Gustav? Who can fly the helicopter?'

  MAXFELT NO TRIUMPH OR SATISFACTION AS HE WITNESSED HIS father's fury and his half-brother running from the chapel. He had known his father would never roll over and accept defeat. He pulled out his Glock and ran after Joachim. Whatever was in the case, he couldn't let Joachim leave with it.

  He brushed past the Stasi guards on the door and chased his half-brother across the ice towards the helicopters. 'Don't do it, Joachim!' he yelled, as one of the guards by the Chinooks pulled the tarpaulin off the first helicopter and Joachim climbed aboard. 'You can't leave.'

  The engine started and Joachim stood at the door, pointing a gun at Max. 'You don't tell me what to do, Max. You've ruined everything.'

  Max stopped twenty yards from the helicopter and lowered his gun. 'It's not too late to end this madness. We can't let Vater get away with it. He drugged you, for Christ's sake. He doesn't love you, Joachim. He doesn't love me. He doesn't care about anybody except himself.'

  Joachim smiled sadly. 'But I love him, Max. And I share his vision, whatever it is.' He held up the aluminium case. 'I've got more Venus in here. I'll give it to others. I'll wait till the prosopagnosia passes and drink more myself. I can still make Vati's vision come to pass. He can rely on me. And when it's done I'll sit at his right hand.'

  'But you can't leave,' Max shouted, as the rotors roared into life, churning up the snow and drowning his words. He ran towards the helicopter but stopped when his foot hit one of the steel hawsers, frozen to the ground beneath the snow. 'The choppers aren't going anywhere,' he bellowed. 'Last night Isabella and I chained the landing runners.'

  Oblivious to his cries the helicopter rose into the watery sky. It flew higher and higher and Max briefly thought it would escape. Then he saw the two hawsers unravel. When the first snapped taut the helicopter shuddered and jerked in mid-flight. As the second exerted its pull there was a tearing, grinding sound. For a moment it hung, suspended in the air, perfectly still apart from the whirring rotors. Then it fell in a flailing, helter-skelter spiral. It clipped the chapel's crystal dome, then crashed on to the lake, cracking the thick ice. One of the oil tanks exploded, and the aircraft burst into flames. Fissures appeared on the lake, running past the chapel and beneath it. As Max watched the helicopter grind through the ice and sink beneath the lake's freezing waters he felt a rush of sadness for his brother.

  Panicked guests were streaming out of the chapel, down the red ribbon of carpet to the island. Fighting against the human tide, Max ran in the opposite direction, across the shifting ice. By the chapel doorway he saw Klaus and Odin, but no sign of his father or Isabella.

  Inside, the chapel floor had been riven in two. An ever-widening crack cut across the ice, separating the front rows and the dais from the rest of the seats and the exit. Max could see water rushing beneath the fissure. In their desperate scramble for the exit, the bridesmaids and others in the wedding party leaped from the dais across the gap and streamed past him. Claire slipped on her high heels and slid back towards the water. Max grasped her hand, pulled her to her feet and shoved her towards the exit with the others.

  His father was still standing on the dais like the captain of a doomed ship, with Phoebe and Isabella below him, poised to leap across the divide. Max locked eyes with him, but Helmut glared at him with such hatred and fury that Max almost didn't recognize him. 'Kill him!' his father yelled. 'Kill my son. The big man with the white hair. Shoot him.'

  Max turned and saw one of the ex-Stasi fighting through the crowds, trying to reach his master. The guard raised his gun and fired at Max. The bullet missed by inches, and Max didn't hesitate: he shot the man twice in the chest. When he turned back to his father, Helmut had his knife in his hand and was reaching for Phoebe.

  SECONDS EARLIER

  WHAT WAS HAPPENING WAS SO FAR REMOVED FROM WHAT HELMUT Kappel had imagined that he still couldn't accept it. He looked down on the fleeing masses and felt contempt, disgust, and rage. Venus might have been postponed but it wasn't over. Dreams only ended when they came true.

  And who had betrayed him? His own son. The boy he had raised to be the perfect Kappel. Just the sight of Max made the bile rise in his throat. He should have drowned him with his mother. As Max turned to shoot the Stasi, Helmut drew the assassin's knife from his ankle sheath, stepped down to the next tier and grabbed Phoebe's arm.

  'It's finished, Vater,' Max shouted, jumping the divide. 'Joachim's dead and he took Venus with him. Face it, you've lost! It's over.'

  Helmut ignored him. His destiny might have been postponed -but Phoebe had adored him before Venus. 'Where are you going, Phoebe?'

  She tried to shake him off. 'Leave me alone. We've got to get out'

  'You can't leave me. You're mine. You love me.'

  'Get off me, Helmut. Please.' He saw fear in her eyes. And disgust.

  He slapped her face. 'You adore me.'

  A blow on his shoulder made him release her. He swivelled round to see that Isabella was about to hit him again. 'Leave her alone,' Isabella said. 'Come on, Phoebe, let's get out of here.'

  'Out of the way, Isabella,' Max shouted, from the bottom of the steps, and levelled his gun at his father.

  When he saw the look in Max's eyes, Helmut knew what he had to do. He pushed Phoebe down the steps, and pulled Isabella to him, pressing the knife blade to her throat.

  Phoebe clambered to her feet and moved to help her friend, but Max restrained her. 'Phoebe, the ice is breaking up. Get out while you can. I'll handle this.'

  'But-
-'

  He pushed her across the widening crack in the ice. 'Go. Now.'

  Max didn't look back as he walked, gun in hand, across the dais, towards his father.

  'Shoot him, Max,' Isabella shouted. 'He murdered your mother. He murdered my father. Shoot him. Don't worry about me.'

  'But that's the whole point,' Helmut whispered in her ear. 'Max does worry about you. Love has made him weak, Isabella. You have made him weak. I can control him through you.'

  Helmut smiled, as he gazed at the love in his son's eyes. Today hadn't been a complete disaster. He still had the technology and Joachim's files. He would pay a scientist to make up the serum and keep it simple this time. He would simply inject the first people he came into contact with and let Venus spread from there. That had been his mistake: he had been too theatrical. But his dream could still become reality. And when it did, no one would care about what happened today.

  First, though, he must punish Max and the interfering bitch who had spoilt his plans. He would make Max pay for his treachery by forcing him to watch his love die. Then he would kill him too.

  'Put the gun down, Max, or I'll slit her throat.'

  'DON'TYOU DARE DROP YOUR GUN!' ISABELLA SCREAMEDAT MAX.

  She knew that Helmut Kappel would kill her as soon as Max dropped his weapon, but she saw indecision in Max's eyes. Max really did love her, she saw now, and his love for her outweighed his hatred of his father. That didn't help her, though. 'For Christ's sake, shoot him.'

  'Quiet,' Helmut rasped, pressing the flat side of the cold blade so hard against her throat she could barely swallow. 'The steel is millimetres from your jugular. You're a doctor -- you must know that if I turn the blade you'll bleed to death in seconds. I've done this before. I know what I'm talking about.'

  She stared at Max, willing him to be the killer he had been and not the man he was trying to become. For some seconds, father and son faced each other, saying and doing nothing. Then there was a sharp crack behind her and she felt the ice dais shift beneath her feet. Momentarily unbalanced, Helmut slackened his grip and the blade lifted from her skin. In that instant, she was centimetres rather than millimetres from death. With all her strength, she thrust backwards and pushed Helmut away from her.

  He was too quick, though, and as she rolled out of his grip and fell to the ice he swung the knife in a downward arc, slicing her left cheek, the reindeer coat and her shoulder. She registered no pain in her face as the blade cut through the soft flesh but white-hot agony shot down her arm as she fell on to the ice. Instinctively she reached for her shoulder with her right hand and tried to staunch the blood. When her fingers pushed through the incision in the tough reindeer pelt and disappeared into the deep, sticky wound, she knew the tendons had been severed. Her arm hung useless by her side. Blood blurred her left eye as she saw Helmut Kappel move nearer. Time seemed to slow and she noticed that the knife blade in his hand was still gleaming. All she could think of was how sharp the curved steel must be: it had sliced through her face and arm so cleanly and quickly that there was no blood on it. She tried to get up. She had to get away from that blade.

  MAXSQUEEZED HIS FINGER ON THE TRIGGER BUT AS THE ICE shifted beneath his feet he steadied himself instinctively before he fired. While his father raised his knife above Isabella's squirming form, preparing to deliver the coup de grace, Max aimed at his chest. There was another sharp, cracking sound and the ice dome began to collapse. As he pulled the trigger a sheer block hit the floor beside him, upending the ice plate he stood on, throwing him to the ground. He fired skywards through the gaping hole in the fractured dome, as more blocks of ice crashed on to the dais, collapsing it beneath Isabella and his father.

  Max heard Isabella cry out as he hit the shifting ice. The crunching impact knocked the gun from his hand. It skittered away from him and fell into the widening schism of dark water, eight feet across, that separated him from his father and Isabella. Helmut had also lost his knife, but it lay only a few yards to his right, across another narrow fissure. To Helmut's left, Isabella lay in a pool of blood, perilously close to the rushing water that prevented Max reaching her.

  His father glanced at the knife, then at Isabella and Max, and finally at the exit. Helmut's only way out was by walking round the schism but Max could head him off. There was another break in the ice by the exit behind Max, but it was narrow and the ice was continually shifting. Max considered diving into the water or running round the schism but Helmut would reach either the knife or Isabella before he got close enough to do anything.

  'I won't let you leave without Isabella,' Max shouted to his father. 'If she dies, you die.'

  For the longest moment his father wavered between the knife and Isabella, then he moved towards her. As Max stood helplessly on his half of the divide, watching his father bend over Isabella, he dared to think he might help her. Then Helmut slid Isabella towards the water. 'Get off me!' she screamed. She tried to kick him and roll away, but with her wounds she was defenceless.

  Helmut looked at Max. 'I understand the current is particularly treacherous here. It'll pull her under the ice and out to sea.' His father smiled. 'Max, the question you have to answer is this: do you stop me or save her, as you tried to save your mother?' The smile broadened. 'I think I know your answer.' He rolled Isabella into the swirling, freezing water, then headed for the knife and the exit.

  THE SHOCK OF THE ICY WATER EXPELLED THE AIR FROM ISABELLA'S lungs. Immediately she felt the pull of the current and tried to swim against it. With two good arms it would have been difficult, but with only one it was impossible. She kicked and clawed her way to the surface, gulping for air as the current dragged her to Max's side of the divide. It didn't take her directly to him: it pulled her diagonally across the schism, away from him.

  As he ran to intercept her, she twisted herself towards the approaching ice shelf to where one of the tiers of seating extended over the swirling water. As her wounded shoulder hit it she braced herself for the pain, but in the cold she felt little. With all her remaining strength, she reached up and hooked her good arm over the extended seat, anchoring herself against the whirling current. Then the pain struck again, and she saw the icy water turn pink with her blood. The rational part of her hoped the cold would slow the flow, but the pain was intense. Just hanging on with one arm was excruciating, and the saturated reindeer coat was so heavy.

  Max stretched his arm along the seat and tried to reach her. His lips were moving but she couldn't hear anything. She stared at his mouth: 'Hang on, Isabella. I've got you.'

  She tried to call to him, but she had no more breath. Even as his hand edged towards her, she felt her arm slipping off the seat. She tried to regain her hold, but her body wouldn't obey her. She felt -- or imagined she felt -- his fingers brush her arm. Then she slipped off the seat and the water reclaimed her.

  This time she couldn't even struggle as it sucked her down and swept her under the ice. She searched for an opening in the frozen celling, but all she could see was her own reflection and a shimmering white light beyond. The gash in her cheek was so deep and red. She watched herself smile at the absurdity of worrying about her appearance when she was about to die.

  The pain faded. She was slipping away, her lifeblood leaking into the cold relentless water.

  Then the pain returned with a hot, searing surge. Strong arms ripped her from the current's numbing embrace. She blinked and felt herself steered towards a bright light, an opening in the ice. Her first instinct was to struggle against the force that was wrenching her back to life and pain, but she was too weak. She felt an additional push and suddenly she broke through the surface of the water and her lungs filled with air. There was a final surge beneath her and she found herself gasping on the hard, cold ice. Fighting for breath she looked up - and tried to scream. She had surfaced in the gap beside the exit and Helmut Kappel stood over her. In his hand he held the curved, razor-sharp blade.

  AS MAX HAD PREPARED TO PUSH ISABELLA OUT OF THE WATER HE HA
D seen the dark shape looming overhead, and known it was his father, but he had had no choice: Isabella had to surface now or drown.

  There was only one way to end this.

  He summoned all his strength, pushed her out of the water and on to the ice ledge, then took a deep breath and fell back into the water. Before the current could take hold, he pulled with his arms and kicked hard, projecting his body out of the water as far as he could. As he broke the surface he blinked against the light and saw his father looming over Isabella, knife in hand. Time seemed to slow. Max landed heavily on the frozen surface, slid past Isabella and yanked at his father's ankle, upending him like a skittle. Helmut's smile of triumph turned to shock as he fell to the ice, dropping the blade. Still gripping his father's leg, Max slid back into the water, pulling his father with him, taking rapid shallow breaths, expelling the nitrogen from his bloodstream. When the water closed in, he held the struggling Helmut as close as a lover, pinioning his arms to his sides. Then the relentless current dragged father and son beneath the ice.