The Colossus

by Ranjini Iyer

  Max hugged Uncle Ernst tight. His soft warmth was so comforting, she wanted to never let him go. Without him, she wouldn’t have survived Papa’s death. Uncle Ernst had become her emotional support then. Her rock. And his love was unconditional, a ferocious, duty-bound love.

  He went to his refrigerator. “I bought your favorite snickerdoodle cookies from Bittersweet bakery today,” he said, handing her a white paper bag.

  Together they walked to the elevator.

  As the elevator doors began to pull close, Uncle Ernst waved with plump fingers. His sweet, lopsided smile was laced with concern, and it stayed with Max even as she felt herself alone once more.

  Max had some strengths, and one was the ability to compartmentalize. Right now, she needed to make a plan. She opened the package of cookies Uncle Ernst had given her and bit into one.

  As if in a dream, Max went back into her apartment. In an hour, she brought her home back to normal, making sure she’d put every strewn piece of paper, every book, every little meaningless tchotchke back where it belonged. After, she went to her desk, sat down with a sigh, and opened the top drawer. There sat a copy of the Gita, an ancient Hindu book of scripture. Opa’s last gift to her.

  She took it out and held it against her chest. She had promised him that she’d read a verse whenever she needed solace. The Gita isn’t about religion as much as it is about self-realization and the art of living a life of truth and integrity, Opa had said.

  She opened it to the first page.

  Dearest Max, my visit to India introduced me to this great book. Your mother and I often had heated discussions about the wisdom presented here. I trust that it will give you the peace it has given me,

  Your loving Opa.

  Opa had not underlined the word peace. Her father had done that, a month or two before he died. On her twenty-second birthday, Papa had taken her copy of the Gita and made sure she saw him underlining that word. She had asked him at the time why he was doing it, and he had smiled. It hadn’t been a happy smile.

  “Hopefully you’ll never find out,” was all he had said.

  Had he known then that he was going to leave her and wanted to give her a means to heal?

  Max touched the page with a renewed mixture of anger, loss, and sorrow. She turned to a random verse, stared at the words for a while, and closed the book. A mere verse couldn’t help her today.

  She walked over to the window and looked at the lake. A sense of clarity seemed to descend upon her. If she went though with this, if she went on to decode her father’s research, she would be bringing a part of him back to life.

  But that would mean taking on danger of a magnitude that she couldn’t possibly fathom. She hung her head down to her chest, relishing the sweet pain of her tense neck muscles stretching.

  She could try and pretend she had never met Lars. Her home no longer looked like it had been violated. She could try and put this out of her mind forever. Of course, she’d have to figure out how to live with herself knowing she had taken the easy way out. Truth was, she wasn’t very brave. No sense in pretending otherwise. Besides, Papa hadn’t wanted her to be involved anyway.

  All right.

  She would spend one day reading the diary. If she found something worthwhile, she’d decide what to do next. She was convinced that the Indus Valley and the seal played a significant part in Papa’s research. If so, she would need help. An archeologist or a historian to guide her.

  First thing tomorrow, she would go to her alma mater—the University of Chicago. They had a strong history department. There, surrounded by the university’s resources, she’d read what was left of Opa’s diary.

  Bone-crushing exhaustion hit her. Before getting into bed, Max took a large butcher knife and placed it under her pillow.

  In one short day, life had changed forever. What next? she wondered as she stared at the inky, starless sky.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Berlin, Germany

  Headquarters of Berliner Pharmaceuticals

  Former chairman Peter Schultz entered his old office and made his way slowly across its polished marble floor, remembering with fondness the days he had spent there. Now his son served as chairman. Today, with his son away in Antwerp, Peter Schultz was going to address the board. He checked himself in the floor-length mirror by the large walnut desk. His hair was thinning, but elegant. Silver. His figure was lean, his skin wrinkled, but tan. Vanity remained one of his vices, but the years had treated him well. Schultz still felt handsome, energetic, and ambitious.

  Ambition was a great driving force in old age, Schultz had always maintained. In one’s youth there was time to procrastinate. At his age, he hadn’t a moment to waste. And he wanted, more than anything, to leave behind as glorious a legacy as his father had left him. He straightened his navy blue jacket, turned, and swept the agenda for the morning off the desk’s mirror-like surface.

  There was a knock on the door. It opened and Hans Altgeld strolled in. Schultz smiled at the sight of his faithful man of action. Thickset, with bleached blond hair of an almost comical shade of yellow, Hans carried his fifty-odd years well. Hans did work for Berliner of the white-collar and semi-white-collar crime variety. Low-level espionage and sophisticated threats were part of Hans’s daily responsibilities. Stopping research from appearing in scientific journals in order to keep Berliner’s stock high was another asset he provided. Usually it involved arranging expensive gifts and lunches for editors and eminent research scholars and making sure various bits of research in question were debunked or talked up—whichever was more useful. There had been a few incidents where physical violence had been necessary to encourage some people to see things from Berliner’s perspective. But Hans was always up for a challenge.

  Hans glided toward the desk and stood beside it with hands folded behind his back, managing to dwarf it with his demeanor.

  Schultz extended his hand. Hans engulfed it in his beefy one. “Wie geht’s, Hans?” Schultz said. “Surely, you aren’t here to see me.” He chuckled. “The chairman is out of town.”

  Hans’s work at Berliner had remained unchanged under Schultz’s son. Without speaking, he set a key on Schultz’s desk.

  Schultz raised an eyebrow.

  “Lars Lindstrom is dying,” Hans said.

  Schultz put both palms on the desk and leaned into it. An enormous weight had been lifted off his being with those few words. Lars was the last remaining link to Hiram Rosen, Samuel Rosen, and the Indus pills. With him gone—soon, hopefully—he was free. Berliner was free.

  “Finally we can bury the past,” Schultz said. “Once I’m done addressing the board,” he pointed to the room next door, “I’ll drink some champagne. A lot of champagne!” He rubbed his hands together. “This is excellent news!”

  Hans’s expression remained impassive.

  Schultz recognized the look in Hans’s watery gray eyes and picked up a phone. “Start without me,” he said to his son’s secretary and settled into the worn leather chair. “I haven’t been in this room much since we last met. Five years ago, wasn’t it?” He waved Hans to a chair in front of the desk.

  “Five years ago, following Hiram Rosen’s death, we intercepted two packages from his lawyer’s office,” Hans said in a dull monotone. “One addressed to a Dr. Klein, care of a London post office box, the other to a Dr. P.S. Oup, care of a PO box in Manhattan. Both packages contained a sheet of paper each and a vial of pills. We burned them.” Hans pointed to a fireplace at one corner of the room.

  “A moment of triumph,” Schultz said, wondering what Hans was getting at.

  Hans nodded. “Since the packages contained the key to decode Hiram’s research, we surmised that Hiram had sent his work in coded form to Lars Lindstrom and Dr. Oup, whom we haven’t yet identified. We hired a company to monitor Lars’s phone after Hiram died. We also monitored Hiram’s old business partner Kevin Forsyth, Maxine Rosen, and Ernst Frank. A software tap that would send me text messages every time one of them made
a phone call and used words such as research, tablets, India—”

  Schultz gave an impatient wave. “I remember all this! I’m old. Not gaga.” He turned his eyes toward the boardroom. He ached to celebrate the decades of work, the frustrating, humiliating hours spent with the FDA, the Euro Medicines Approval Board, and all those in power, to get their assurance that Berliner’s two new drugs would receive the adulation they deserved. Brocarax was Berliner’s soon-to-be-launched miracle cholesterol drug, and Janperin was a revolutionary anti-obesity drug. He should be talking about them to the board right now, not reliving the past with his old henchman.

  Hans went on as if he hadn’t heard. “When Lars received the research, he informed Hiram’s lawyer that all he would do about it was keep it safe. True to his word, he did nothing. We considered the matter closed.” Hans took a breath, shifting in his seat. “Now Lars has developed a conscience, I’m afraid.”

  A point made at last. Schultz let out a soft curse. “Even if Lars is suddenly interested in fulfilling Hiram’s wishes, without the key to decode it, the research is still useless.”

  Hans didn’t respond.

  Schultz’s brain kicked into problem-solving mode. It was what he had been raised to do, and did well. This matter would have to end with him.

  “What is Lars doing about it? And what is this key? Obviously you’ve been up to something.” Schultz picked up the key Hans had placed on the table.

  “It’s the reason I’m here,” Hans said. “Lars went to Chicago to see Hiram’s daughter.”

  “Does Lars think she has the text to decode the work? I thought she knew nothing of the matter.”

  “It would seem that she knows nothing. Lars merely wanted to hand over the research to her since he’s dying. I tried to check with you about going to Chicago, but you weren’t available. You did say I could take action if needed.”

  Schultz nodded.

  “I managed to get this locker key from Lars and frightened him a little. Heavy-set men speaking English with a German accent can be scary.”

  “I didn’t know you had a sense of humor, Hans,” Schultz said with a small smile.

  Hans continued. “Anyway, I used this key to access the locker where Lars said he kept the research.” He pulled a sheaf of papers seemingly out of nowhere and placed them on Schultz’s desk.

  Schultz’s eyes scanned over the documents. “I cannot be sure if this is Hiram’s work or not. Get these looked at by an expert. At any rate, we must get all copies of the research from Lars, once and for all.”

  “Ya, mein Herr.”

  “Drink?” Schultz opened a small cabinet by the desk, considered its contents for a while, and took out a bottle of Pierre Ferrand cognac. “I don’t usually drink cognac at this time of day, but it is what calms me.” He offered Hans a glass.

  Hans began sipping his drink.

  Schultz considered his glass. “Can you taste the anise, sense the sandalwood?”

  “Years of eating bratwurst and sauerkraut have dulled my taste buds,” Hans offered.

  Schultz put down his drink. “How about the person who has the second supposed copy of the research?”

  Hans shook his head. “The action has all been on Lars’s end. There may not even be a second copy.”

  “Let’s not underestimate Hiram,” Schultz said. “Continue the taps on everyone’s phones.”

  Hans agreed with a tilt of his head. “What if the Rosen girl gets involved?”

  “We wait and see what she does,” Schultz said. “Find someone in Chicago to keep an eye on her.” He swirled the golden liquid in his glass, stood up and paced the room. “We have too much to lose if Hiram’s findings about the Indus pills see light. I hope you know that.” Schultz held out his hand for Hans to shake and end the meeting.

  Hans didn’t move. He said with some hesitation, “Mein Herr, five years ago, we didn’t speak much about this.”

  Schultz looked askance at his faithful man.

  Hans’s father had worked for Berliner on an assembly line after the war. During the war, he had been a young SS guard. When all former SS were being prosecuted and jailed, Schultz had used his influence and given Hans’s father and a few other low-level SS guards jobs at Berliner. In the process, he had saved the Altgeld family and won their undying loyalty.

  Schultz clenched and unclenched his fists. His arthritis was acting up. “I hoped this old wound would never have to be opened again.” He paused before continuing. “Samuel Rosen was once head chemist at Berliner. A brilliant man. He passed on his research on some health pills from the Indus Valley to his son, Hiram.”

  For an instant he could see his old friend, dark and intense, perched on a corner of his desk, staring down at him, giving him orders. Only Samuel had ever dared to talk straight to Schultz. He had admired him for it.

  Schultz stared into his glass.

  1943. Schultz could see Samuel being dragged away to Krippenwald labor camp. He had made a decision then to continue Samuel’s work—it was far too important to be left unfinished. Schultz set up a lab to continue Samuel’s research on the Indus pills.

  The scientists at the lab made a discovery—one with disturbing implications. It might have been prudent to take the discovery public, make reparations, and be rid of the whole business. But Berliner was not the pharmaceutical power in those days that it was today. The negative publicity in the fifties, when German companies were only just picking up the pieces after a devastating war, would have dealt a fatal blow to Berliner.

  It had been a grave error of judgment.

  Schultz put his hands in his pockets. His voice dropped to a whisper. “Hiram found out what damage the Indus pills could do. What harm they had already done.”

  Hans’s eyes narrowed.

  Schultz settled back in his chair. “I have destroyed all the pills. The last few were in those vials we intercepted. However, if the scientific community embraces Hiram’s findings, even without the pills for proof, it could be catastrophic.”

  Schultz wondered if his eyes betrayed his fears. “Along with his findings, Hiram will reveal our association with Nazis and concentration camp workers!”

  “But Bayer had strong Nazi ties, too,” Hans said indignantly. “They were part of IG Farben—and Farben created Zyklon B! Bayer even used Auschwitz inmates for their rubber works. No one cares about the Nazis anymore.”

  Schultz leaned forward, his long arms nearly spanning the width of the desk. “Very well,” he bellowed. “I could lose everything. Berliner’s reputation and my life as I know it. Is that reason enough for you?” He took a giant gulp of cognac. The drink burned through his chest.

  Hans stood up. “It is, mein Herr.”

  “No Rosen will stand in my way again,” Schultz murmured. “Do what it takes and bury this matter. But no blood. From now on, Berliner’s name must remain unsullied.” He breathed in deeply, lifted the drink to his mouth, and drained the last drops of cognac from the glass.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  University of Chicago

  History Department

  “An archeologist?” the librarian mused. “Let me see if I can unearth someone to help you.” She suppressed a laugh at her pun and picked up a phone.

  Max looked around. Fresh-faced students buzzed about, sipping steaming coffee or nibbling on donuts and bagels.

  Being here felt almost normal. The incident at her kitchen and her apartment, the whole business with Lars and Papa’s death seemed eons away. She had stepped back into a less troublesome time. At least she hadn’t felt in mortal danger back in those unsure undergraduate years.

  She turned around suddenly. Was she imagining it, or was someone following her? She decided not to think along those lines, or she’d go totally mad. The shot fired at Lars, the same gun touching her skin—they had done their job. She was scared. Terror stricken, more like. And yet, here she was. It didn’t mean she was brave. It was just that the previous day seemed so removed from her present sense of reality. S
tanding here amidst these students, surrounded by stately, old, comfortable-looking buildings, it felt almost absurd thinking on those lines. She decided it was a good thing. For now anyway. All she was going to do was some harmless research. How threatening could that be to anyone?

  A slim young woman wearing pencil jeans that looked sprayed on walked up to the desk. Max tried to smooth the front of her wrinkled cotton skirt with her palm.

  *

  * *

  Dr. Julian McIntosh leaned back.

  Classes were over, exam papers corrected. Why was he not feeling the sense of accomplishment he normally felt at this time? His choices for the summer were not unexciting. Dr. Jackson had requested his help to conduct research for a textbook he was writing on religion and related architecture, with a focus on Vietnam and Cambodia. A trip to the Angkor Wat was in order. Dr. Jackson was a brilliant man, if tedious at times. Still the work would—might—make up for that. Julian rubbed his eyes. And he mustn’t forget the paper he had started working on for the conference in Prague next summer—use of Japanese iconography all over the world. With a special focus on Japan’s Buddhist iconography. Fascinating subject.

  He suppressed a yawn. He wasn’t bored, surely. No, what he was was tired. He had been up late keeping Raquel company while she worked. My Raquel Stanton, he thought with pride. Girlfriend, banker extraordinaire, beautiful beyond compare, independent. And yet somehow, horribly insecure.

  Raquel was the kind of person who liked to make and check off lists of high-powered weekend activities—sky diving, hot air balloon rides, jet skiing. She compared notes with colleagues about what everyone had done over weekends. “Did you check out the new jazz club on Huron? Tim Robbins played there last night,” some colleague might say. And Raquel would spend all her free time trying to get tickets to some other frou frou show to compete, with the expectation that Julian would join her regardless of the event. All he wanted to do was sit in a coffee shop with a nice book and—