“Uuuwaah” was all Eddie could manage. When the tongue restraint was removed, “Uuuwaah” proved not to be “Yes.” “You dirty motherfuckers! You’ll pay for this! You cocksuckers!…”
Eddie turned his head toward the sound of Sara’s voice. “Whose fucking side are you on, Sara? I’m supposed to make nice to the bastards who cut out my eye because the next experiment’s gonna be painless? What’re you, nuts!”
“You were warned, Mr. Berg,” said Letzger. Then, in German, he ordered, “Put him in the chamber now and close the door. He can rant all he wants, and we won’t have to listen to it.”
Struggling, Eddie Berg, his light weight no match for his burly captors, was carried into the Lexan enclosure and fastened into a Ziegler chair, then the door was closed, effectively muffling his shouted invective. Sara ran to the clear plastic wall of the chamber and, stretching her arms out to embrace it and pressing her body against it, shouted, “I love you!” There was no way she could tell whether Eddie could hear her, but she felt better for having tried. She turned away from the plastic wall and faced Letzger. Contempt and sarcasm coated her voice with acid as she said, “Now what, Dr. Mengele?”
“Mengele was a fool who wasted his talents—such as they were—pursuing medical trivia for ideological reasons,” Letzger replied affably, “but at least he had the sense to perform his experiments on human beings instead of other animals. Come, let me show you some of our other experiments. We must complete them before the last test of the night, otherwise all the time and expense we have invested in them will be wasted.”
“And wouldn’t that be a pity,” said Sara.
The sally was wasted on Letzger. With pride, he displayed a young Mexican male immobilized in a Ziegler chair. His throat was bandaged and his head held rigid in the same kind of device used on Eddie Berg. Both eyes had been enucleated and steel rods pressed deep into the tender sockets. Letzger dropped into a stilted, lecture-like presentation as he said, “Notice the top of the skull. A Collison cannula has been implanted in the brain, permanently attached to the bone of the skull with acrylic cement and four stainless-steel screws. Through it, we can pass anything directly to the living, conscious brain. In this instance, the electrode has been moved several times so as to gather data from different parts of the brain. We are testing a new drug for the suppression of epileptic seizure. The other wire conveys a current to produce seizure on demand, thus—” Letzger pressed a button and, to Sara’s cry of “Stop it!” the Mexican went into violent seizure, thick drool coming from his mouth. The convulsion stopped immediately when Letzger lifted his finger from the button.
Nausea gripped Sara again, but she had nothing left in her to vomit. She covered her distress by asking, “Why doesn’t he scream?”
“Oh,” said Letzger apologetically, “of course, I forgot to tell you. You will notice the bandage at the primate’s throat. The vocal cords have been removed. We always do that when a tongue restraint is contraindicated and there is—unlike the case of your Mr. Berg—sufficient time.”
A buzzer went off and a red light flashed to the left. Both Letzger and Sara turned toward the sound. The flashing light was next to a large revolving drum that was slowly coming to a halt.
“Ah,” said Letzger, “I see that another experiment is finished. The light and sound are triggered by the computer monitoring the vital signs. The primate has expired.”
“The primate?”
“Yes, of course. We humans are no less primates than any other of the apes, monkeys, marmosets, and lemurs.”
Two attendants started to retrieve the body of another Mexican from the now-still Noble-Collip drum. Sara could see inside the drum through the open door. The inner circumference was covered with hard rubber-clad bumps and projections. “God!” she screamed as she saw the body, then quickly averted her eyes. It didn’t help. She couldn’t rid herself of the horror of the image seared into her brain. The corpse was virtually pulped; the bones, even the teeth, broken. The purple-blue bruises on the outside of the body were as nothing to the damage on the inside they concealed from view: ruptured liver, spleen, kidneys, and other vital organs.
Wires from different parts of the body led to a small box implanted in its back. Letzger pointed to it. “My own invention. That is a low-powered transmitter for the collection of data. I didn’t invent the transmitter, of course, but the armoring is mine. As you can see, it survived intact after nearly a week inside the drum. Something, unfortunately, we cannot say for our subject. The data will tell us how well the antistress drugs we gave him worked. Come, I’ll show you how we dispose of our waste.”
“Waste? You call a human being you’ve just tortured to death for a week waste?” Sara broke down, sobbing uncontrollably as she watched the body of the young Mexican being taken to a door. After a few moments, Sara got a grip on herself. She didn’t expect to get out of the Riegar plant alive, but if by some miracle—an earthquake, say—she did, she wanted to be able to give as accurate an account of what was going on there as possible. She owed that much to Eddie and the unknown number of others who had suffered and died in these precincts.
Letzger pushed a metal plate at the side of the doorway and a hydraulic mechanism opened the door for the attendants carrying the body. As Letzger turned, his white coat swung open just enough for Sara to see that he was carrying a pistol in a black holster on his belt. She looked carefully at the attendants and detected the telltale bulge of what she assumed were similar weapons under their white jackets.
In the center of the adjacent room was a large vat, twelve feet in diameter. Five feet above it, a glass-lined, inverted funnel-shaped hood projected from the ceiling and ducted away the furiously hot and corrosive gases given off by the roiling, fuming sulfuric acid. Opposite the door, a metal slab, also glass-coated, projected out from the side of the vat. On the end nearest the door, it was supported by a gurneylike set of folding legs and wheels. The other end was attached to the side of the vat by a piano-type hinge. The attendants placed the body on the slab and looked toward Dr. Letzger.
Letzger waited until Sara had approached close enough to see well, then nodded. At his signal, the hefty attendants gripped the slab at its far end and lifted it easily into the air. The body slid down quickly into the vat. The acid reacted violently to the body’s water content, boiling up with a great eruption of fumes. Letzger and his henchmen turned away from the vat to protect themselves from the reaction as the flesh and bone of the corpse disappeared into the seething caldron.
“Jesus!” Sara said, moving back in alarm. “What is that stuff?”
“Oleum,” Letzger said. “It is delivered here by railroad tank car, used first in the production of pharmaceuticals, then as you have just seen, for waste disposal. Before you say it,” Letzger said apologetically, indicating the duct hood, “yes, we are aware of the air-pollution problem, and we are working on it. I would not want you to think we do not recognize our responsibility to the environment.”
Sara looked at Letzger intently, searching for sarcasm or mockery. There was none. Letzger was sincere in seeking to avoid her censure for environmental damage. She shook her head in astonishment.
“You do not believe me?” Letzger asked.
“Oh,” said Sara, “I believe you all right. It’s just that no one would ever believe me if I repeated this conversation.”
“You disapprove of us? Even now that you know we do not harm animals? That we employ only humans your own government is at pains to keep out of your country?”
They walked back into the laboratory. Sara said, “I can’t believe I’m having this conversation.” Again she tried to get through to Letzger with sarcasm. “Why don’t you just use the homeless?”
It didn’t work. Letzger’s reply was matter of fact. “Unsuitable specimens. Eighty percent of the homeless in this country are either severe alcohol or drug abusers. A substantial number of the rest are mentally ill.”
“So what do you think we should do w
ith them, put them in concentration camps?”
Again the sarcasm was wasted. “There was a time when your government took care of them in institutions, where they belonged. You threw them out in the street to save money and then complain of their presence. Now, look here. Through this plastic window we installed in the abdominal cavity and stomach, you can see at work our new ulcer-suppressant drug.”
Sara felt as if she had been captured by the Mad Hatter. It was more comfortable than her previous fantasy, inspired by the acid vat, of being held captive by cannibals. She didn’t know how much longer the other experiments in the primate laboratory would take to be completed, and she was ambivalent about it. On the one hand, she wished the sufferings of the tormented be ended as soon as possible. On the other hand, she dreaded the “final experiment” of the evening; the one supposed to be painless for Eddie Berg. It sounded too much to Sara like the “final solution.” She shuddered and waited. Even if her captors relaxed their guard for a moment, and she could make a break for it, she wouldn’t. Not and leave Eddie Berg behind to meet his fate alone. “Oh, God,” she prayed. “Help me, please!”
* * *
“The ship sails at seven hours your time, correct?” Hoess’s voice sounded tense over the digitized scrambler.
“It is already loaded with what was demanded,” said Metz. “It could leave now except that the keel is in the mud because of the load of pharmaceuticals and fuel aboard. It must wait for the tide at seven.”
“Good. I am promised my son at exactly that time—one here. As soon as the ship is under way, he will be delivered to me personally.”
“Where?”
“They won’t say. I am to follow instructions and be led to him.”
“I don’t like it. They could abduct you.”
“You have nothing to say in the matter. I will not hazard the life of my son.”
“At least let my men accompany you at a discreet distance. It is for your own protection.”
“No. They will have what they want. I could have given them anything, would have given them anything, in exchange for my son. There would be no point to taking me. No. Just you see that that ship sails on time!”
“The ship will sail exactly as scheduled, sir. You have my word on it. But, when you go for your son, please be care—” Metz stopped speaking when he realized Hoess had hung up. He sighed and walked over to a shipping crate only the day before delivered from Germany. The customs declaration attached to it read “Marine Equipment.” He opened it and checked his Kampfschwimmer gear. He might never have to use it again, but Helmar Metz felt more comfortable having it close at hand.
* * *
The dank, man-made mists that swirled about the Riegar plant shrouded it in an amber glow from the sodium vapor lamps that sought to push back the early-morning dark. The vents that controlled the pressure of the superheated steam from the stationary power plant hissed loudly directly above Michael Stone as he vaulted the fence, then lay motionless in its shadow, watching carefully for any sign of danger. His eyes, long since adapted to the gloom, detected none. Still he waited, using all the time he had, to be certain. Then, with a passable imitation of the call of a mourning dove, he signaled Pappy Saye to join him. Another waiting and watching period, then, finally, Wings Harper joined them. All three then waited and watched, wearing dark jeans, dark sweatshirts, black boots, and bandannas—either covering the scalp completely as Pappy Saye’s did, or sweatband fashion, over faces, with the exception of Pappy’s, darkened with green camouflage paint. Pappy Saye had his face streaked with it to break up its outlines.
Satisfied that they had not been detected entering the Riegar grounds, Stone started crawling slowly on his belly toward a large vertical steam pipe leading up to the roof, which, at this part of the plant, was twelve storys above the ground and lost in the glowing mist. The men crawled slowly, hugging the ground until they lay in the lee of the building. Stone silently cursed the rumbling mechanical God knew what that caused him to have to strain to hear what he was listening for. Not hearing it, he eased out the hatchet he had taken from among his uncle’s tools and duct-taped to him, then he rolled over on his back and stared up at the great pipe, studying it.
The pipe was in eight-foot sections, except for those that branched into the building at irregular intervals. At either end of the sections was a wide flange, drilled for the bolts that around the circumferences of the joined flanges held the pipe sections together against the great pressure of the steam that flowed inside them. Only the smallest part of each flange was visible, because the pipe itself was covered by a heavy layer of insulation for thermal efficiency. Stone wondered how long ago the insulation had been applied and whether it was asbestos. He hoped not, and wished he had been able to get some painter’s breathing masks.
Stone’s thoughts were interrupted by the sound he had been waiting to hear. Just above the growling of the plant, he detected the unmistakable beat of a four-cylinder Lycoming 0-320 aircraft engine, the chunkety heartbeat of a later model of the classic Cessna 172 high-wing monoplane. Straining through the interference of the noises of the plant, he grimaced as he tried to distinguish the signal he was waiting for from a normal power adjustment. Then it came, a clear “blipping” of the throttle. It was the signal from Saul Rosen at the controls that Arno Bitt had jumped and was away. As if in confirmation, the Cessna’s engine sound receded as Saul headed back to the airport and Stone’s Mustang to speed to the plant to join the attempt to rescue his sister; the argument against which Stone had known he was going to lose before he started it, then accepted defeat gracefully and offered his fast roadster in exchange for the van so Saul could join them sooner.
Michael Stone eased to his feet and, grasping around the pipe with his left arm, dug his left heel into the insulation around the first flange, then thrust his body upward. As far as he could go that way, Stone used the hatchet to chop a gap in the insulation, then slid the blade back into his belt, grasped the pipe in two arms, raised his right leg and, with his body weight, gingerly tested the strength of the insulation. It held. He hoped it would do so long enough for Saul to be able to use it when he got there. Stone noted the time and thrust himself upward. The pipe, despite the insulation, was quite warm. Sweat formed on Stone’s face. His bandanna kept it out of his eyes. He was in his element now. Careful, alert, and determined, Stone was the complete professional SPECWAR operative again. Hanging on to that hot pipe, now lost above the ground in the swirl of mist in the middle of the night, Michael Stone was home. What was even better, he knew in his heart that so were the men who followed him.
17
Arno Bitt descended steadily through the cool dark air at 3,500 feet, body comfortable in the familiar harness below his trademark rectangular black parachute. He steered it easily, like a glider, toward the mottled amber glow below. He knew his target was to the left of the steamy mists that boiled from the production side of the plant and six storys higher. Deftly, he countered the slight breeze from the river that tried to push him to the right, toward the mists, as he watched sharply for his tower-rooftop target. As he glided silently lower, he could make out a dark square, vaguely outlined by the glowing, moving mists on one side and upward-beaming security lights that washed the lower reaches of the office tower on the other. He took one hand off the risers to cinch the sling of Wings Harper’s AK-47 to hold the weapon tighter across his chest. He wanted his landing to be as quiet as possible.
The tower rooftop, its square expanse becoming visible enough for him to make out the small shedlike structure directly over the elevator shaft that housed the motors, had a vent to bleed off air pressure from the rising cars, and an emergency escape door. Arno could see now that the shaft house was near the center of the roof, effectively cutting down his landing area to only that space left between the tower’s roof edge and any of the shed’s four sides. He steered more to his left, against the current of air that kept pushing him toward the mists. Those mists hid the huge
tanks, retorts, and piping of the manufacturing process, a twisted maze that extended upward from the twelfth-floor rooftop as high as four more storys. Obscured by the ever-shifting mists, they constituted a potential death trap. As his landing became imminent, Arno steered a spiral path, timing his glide so that he could land into the wind from the river, behind the elevator service shed. He flared his chute and practically walked onto the eighteen-story-high roof of the Riegar tower, quickly spilled the air from the canopy, lest a sudden gust pull him off the edge. Then Arno carefully stowed his parachute for, he sincerely hoped, later retrieval. That done, he examined the shed itself. It was made of steel, painted against the weather. The roof was flat, the entire shed looking like a steel box. On the east-side wall was a vent to relieve the compression of air from the rising cars. Arno inspected it. As expected, Riegar security had welded iron bars across the inside of the vent flange. No entry that way.
From a pocket, Arno took a small two-AA-battery krypton-bulb flashlight. He thrust it into the vent, then turned it on and inspected the interior. The elevator motors were clearly visible, as was a control panel with three large buttons to operate the elevator nearest him from inside the shed in order to assist in maintenance. He played the light to his right. Clearly visible was the door, located on the north side of the shed, on the same side as the front door to the plant so far below. A standard safety push bar operated the latch from the inside. Arno wondered why maintenance men would have a key to get in. Someone caught in a stuck car could go through the trapdoor to the roof of the car, but how then get up to the shed? They certainly couldn’t climb up the greased cables. He turned off the light before withdrawing it from the vent, pocketed it, then walked around to the door. It was secured by a Medeco-cylinder lock. The small gap between the steel door and frame, through which one might attack the sliding latch, was protected by a steel plate welded so as to project from the face of the door across the opening.
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