The Anvil

by Ken McClure

  ‘Mean anything?’ asked Leavey.

  ‘Quite a lot,’ replied MacLean thoughtfully.

  ‘Do you know what’s in the tubes?’ asked Leavey.

  ‘Sperm samples,’ said MacLean.

  ‘What for?’

  ‘I’m not sure,’ said MacLean. ‘It’s not unusual for great men to be asked to provide sperm samples for preservation in deep freeze, a sort of genetic bank for future generations. But I can’t see where Von Jonek fits in to all this.’

  ‘Artificial insemination?’ suggested Leavey.

  ‘The donors would never allow it,’ said MacLean.

  ‘If Von Jonek’s involved I don’t see that they would have had much say in the matter,’ said Leavey and MacLean had to agree.

  ‘I think that must be it,’ said Leavey. ‘They are using the samples to inseminate women, maybe at the clinic?’

  MacLean looked unconvinced. He said, ‘That kind of operation wouldn’t take a budget of 18 million dollars and it wouldn’t explain the secret nursery.’

  Leavey conceded.

  MacLean opened more doors and found an incubator room being kept at 37 degrees centigrade, human body temperature. Inside there was a rotating drum full of test tubes containing a red-coloured fluid.

  ‘Anything?’ asked Leavey.

  ‘It’s some kind of cell culture system,’ said MacLean, closing the door again and opening up the door next to it. This proved to be another fridge. He almost went weak at the knees when he saw a light blue box lying on the middle shelf. It was labelled, CYTOGERM. MacLean picked it up and held it to his chest for a moment before raising it up to his lips. Carrie would have her new face.’

  ‘Mission accomplished,’ said Leavey.

  MacLean nodded but was too emotional to say anything. Leavey asked, ‘Is there enough?’

  MacLean nodded again, opening the box and stuffing the glass vials into his pockets.

  Almost absent-mindedly, Leavey completed the search of the lab by opening the final door. He expected to find a cupboard; instead he found a cathedral.

  The door was the entrance to a huge cavern in the rock, lit by an eerie green light. When they entered they found they were standing on a metal platform, ten metres above the floor of the cavern and part of a gallery that ran right the way around. The ceiling was another good ten metres above them.

  ‘It’s bloody enormous,’ whispered Leavey. ‘What the hell’s it for?’

  The floor space was occupied by parallel rows of large glass tanks, each filled with liquid, as if the place were some sort of giant marine museum. Leavey led the way to a flight of steps leading down to the floor, their footsteps echoing on the metal rungs and MacLean went up to one of the tanks for a closer look.

  ‘What in God’s name is that?’ exclaimed Leavey with revulsion as he joined him.

  ‘It’s a human foetus,’ said MacLean, finding exactly the same in the next tank along and the one after that.

  Leavey grimaced at the discovery but MacLean was puzzled. He couldn’t see the point in keeping so many exhibits of the same thing when they all seemed to be perfectly healthy. There was nothing of any pathological interest at all.

  ‘This place gives me the creeps,’ said Leavey.

  MacLean thought such an admission strange coming from Leavey. ‘It’s the strangest museum I’ve ever been in,’ he admitted. He rested his fingers on the glass of one of the tanks but immediately recoiled as he found it warm. He opened his mouth to say something when suddenly the foetus inside gave a spastic jerk and both men jumped back.

  ‘They’re alive!’ exclaimed Leavey.

  MacLean took more than a few moments to come to terms with the sheer horror of the discovery then realisation dawned. ‘My God, he’s succeeded in gestating children outside the womb.’

  ‘Surely that’s not possible?’ whispered Leavey.

  ‘I didn’t think it was either but I knew various Japanese research teams have been trying. To succeed in simulating placental function for nine months in vitro is an incredible feat.’

  ‘Unless your name is Von Jonek and you have an 18 million dollar budget apparently,’ said Leavey.

  ‘But why?’ murmured MacLean as they moved among the tanks.

  ‘They all have numbers on them,’ said Leavey. ‘This one has a seven.’

  MacLean looked at the contents and said, ‘It’s a seven month old foetus, perfect in every way.’

  ‘What’s the German for “month”?’ asked Leavey.

  ‘Monat,’ replied MacLean.

  ‘I thought so,’ said Leavey. ‘The label says, Sieben Woche. That, if I’m not much mistaken, means seven weeks!’

  ‘That’s crazy,’ protested MacLean, ‘It’s far too well developed.’ He looked at the labels on other tanks but still had a problem with labelling. ‘There is just no way that… ‘ And then the truth hit him. It was obvious. he should have realised it at once. It was Cytogerm that was speeding up cell proliferation and shortening the gestation period. That’s how Von Jonek had succeeded where others had failed. Everything fell into place. The cell cultures he had found in the incubator room were human ova. They were being fertilised with the sperm of celebrated men and brought to maturity in the tanks with the aid of Cytogerm.

  ‘Someone’s coming!’ hissed Leavey and MacLean dropped to his knees beside him to look anxiously up at the gallery. They heard the sound of approaching footsteps on metal and Leavey signalled that they should get underneath the tanks. They held their breath as the sound grew louder. MacLean wriggled up into a position where he could see the entrance to the high gallery through a gap in the tank’s supporting frame. He saw a man appear and rest his hands on the guardrail to look down at the tanks.

  MacLean’s first reaction was to press his face back to the ground but he found that he could not take his eyes off the man. He was well over six feet tall and dressed entirely in black, a colour which emphasised the fact that he was completely hairless and had skin the colour of alabaster. Even at that range MacLean could see the redness of the eyes. The man was an albino.

  MacLean and Leavey adjusted their position under the tanks to follow his progress as he walked slowly round the echoing gallery, pausing at intervals to look over the rail like an animal sniffing the air. He made a complete circuit of the gallery and disappeared through a door, which banged behind him; the noise reverberated round the cavern.

  Leavey let out his breath and said, ‘I guess that was Hartmut, Von Jonek’s little helper.’

  The two men started to make their way back to the steps leading up to the gallery. MacLean paused when he got to the foot of them and looked back.

  Leavey read his mind and said, ‘What do you want to do about this place?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ he confessed sadly. ‘I simply don’t know. When I think about the people these thugs killed in order to… do what? Create designer children? Jesus!’

  ‘We could alter the thermostats,’ said Leavey.

  The tanks were fitted with thermostats maintaining human body temperature. MacLean looked at Leavey as if inviting him to share the moral dilemma.

  Leavey pointed to a water supply valve. ‘Maybe a flood?’ he suggested. ‘When the water reaches the electrics, the system will short out.’

  MacLean sought resolve for a moment in remembering Jutte and thinking about Carrie. ‘Open it up,’ he said.

  Leavey failed to budge the wheel and looked around for something to provide added leverage. He found a spanner and inserted the narrow end through the spokes of the wheel, putting his weight against it, straining until the veins on his forehead stood out. The wheel suddenly gave, sending the spanner spinning to the floor and Leavey sprawling as a torrent of water erupted from the outlet to knock him over and soak him.

  ‘Let’s get out of here!’ said MacLean helping Leavey up.

  They had barely made it back to the foot of the steps when a door opened above them and Hartmut re-appeared on the gallery. There was a moment when the th
ree men stared at each other then Hartmut withdrew a thin silver whistle from his pocket and put it to his lips. There was no sound that Leavey or MacLean could hear but two massive Dobermans came bounding along the gallery to sit snarling at Hartmut’s heels.

  Hartmut raised his arm to point at MacLean and Leavey. He let out a cry and the dogs bounded into action. Leavey traced the path of the first dog with the barrel of his gun as it coped with the difficult steps and squeezed the trigger. There was a quiet click and nothing else. ‘The bloody water!’ he exclaimed.

  MacLean kept his gun on the second animal, waiting for a sure body hit when suddenly it veered from the steps and leapt over the rail at him. He tried to get out of the way of the animal but the proximity of one of the tanks stopped him. The animal hit him squarely in the chest sending him and the tank behind him crashing to the floor in a shower of broken glass and warm fluid. Somewhere in the process, the gun fell from his grasp.

  His hands fought desperately for something to grip on the mound of writhing muscle that was intent on tearing his throat out and he managed to get his fingers under the studded collar. He could now keep it at arm length but knew that he could not sustain the enormous effort it required for much longer. As the animal lunged again at his face he used it’s own weight against it and slid out to one side. At least he was out from underneath the beast but the stalemate persisted and he was tiring fast.

  MacLean went for one last gamble. There were several shards of broken glass around him. He removed one of his hands from the dog’s collar to snatch it up and sweep it across the animal’s throat. A fountain of warm, sticky blood rewarded his efforts.

  There was no time to relax; the sounds of snarling said that Leavey was still locked in combat with the other animal. He pulled his legs clear of the limp, heavy carcass lying on them and crawled towards the sound. Leavey was still fighting but the blood on his face and arms said it was an uneven contest.

  MacLean saw the spanner that Leavey had used to open the water valve and picked it up. He came up behind the dog and raised it in the air but at the last moment the beast caught sight of him and turned on its haunches to spring at him. He raised his foot to fend it off but it sank its teeth into the calf of his right leg and brought him to the floor, which was now awash with swirling water from the open valve.

  MacLean was fast approaching complete exhaustion. As he fell over on to his back he caught a glimpse of Hartmut leaning over the rail above them. He was watching the contest impassively but with total concentration, like a cat watching a bird that was about to become its prey. MacLean raised his hands weakly to fend off the animal that was coming for him when Leavey, who had now got to his feet, had more success with the spanner. He brought it crashing down on the Doberman’s skull and there was silence.

  ‘He’s going to raise the alarm!’ warned MacLean as he saw Hartmut move off along the gallery. Leavey stood up straight and threw the spanner at the spindly figure above. It hit Hartmut on the side of his right knee and brought him down. Leavey was already half way up the metal steps before Hartmut had started to recover. He had just managed to get upright, using the rail when Leavey caught up with him. He made an attempt to defend himself but was no match for Leavey who, even in his exhausted state, took him out with two blows.

  Leavey returned to the floor of the cavern and retrieved their guns before they were lost in the tide of rising water. MacLean, sitting on the steps, applied a makeshift tourniquet to his leg and was relieved to find that he could still walk, albeit painfully. Leavey finished drying out the guns and rested a hand on his shoulder. ‘How are we doing?’ he asked.

  ‘Just fine, Nick,’ murmured MacLean through his teeth and returned the gesture.

  NINETEEN

  The men made their way back up to the gallery and along to the door that Hartmut had used because it was nearest. They hoped to find an exit route but were disappointed. The door led to a series of small chambers in the rock, which had obviously been living quarters for Hartmut and the dogs. They were about to leave when Leavey said quietly, ‘Sean, a moment.’

  MacLean knew from the tone of his voice that something was badly wrong. He went back to see what he had found. Willie MacFarlane’s body was lying in a small dark cleft in the rock. He had been shot through the head. Leavey knelt down beside the body to close his friend’s eyes and MacLean shut his own for a moment in silent grief.

  ‘Let’s go,’ said Leavey.

  They had to go right round the gallery to reach the door they had used earlier, the one leading to the lab. They took a last look at the floor of the cavern where the water level had now reached the first of the electrics and saw that sparks and smoke were coming from one of the control panels. An alarm suddenly went off and the cavern a filled with the urgent whooping of a siren. Outside they could hear the sound of running feet in the tunnel. They were trapped.

  MacLean pointed to the bench and both men squeezed themselves underneath it with no time to spare as the door burst open and five men passed through the room on their way to the cavern. From his knee-level view MacLean could see that three of them were guards and the other two were wearing white lab coats. Leavey saw their best chance and flung himself across the room to slam the metal door shut, trapping the five men in the cavern. As he secured the door, an older man, also wearing a white coat and accompanied by a further guard came into the lab behind him. The guard raised his gun.

  He did not see MacLean who fired from below the bench and hit him in the chest, throwing him backwards against the wall. MacLean struggled out, painfully nursing his wounded leg. Leavey now held the older man at gunpoint.

  ‘MacLean!’ he exclaimed. ‘You!’

  ‘It’s been a while,’ said MacLean.

  ‘Don’t you realise what you’ve done?’ snarled Von Jonek.

  ‘I think so,’ replied MacLean. ‘But you can fill us in on the details if you like.’

  Von Jonek, prompted by Leavey holding a gun to his cheek, outlined a list of what he clearly saw as his considerable achievements. He only confirmed what MacLean had worked out for himself.

  ‘What happens to the children, Von Jonek?

  ‘The seeds of a new order have been sown. Ther’e nothing you can do.’

  ‘A new order?’

  MacLean’s frown deepened as he listened to Von Jonek boast that the babies were placed as adopted children in the homes of ultra-right-wing families who were part of the Anvil project. Because of their genetic background and social advantages, it was believed that they would sail through their academic years to achieve positions of power and influence in every sphere of public life. Political indoctrination from an early age would ensure a commonality of purpose. The brightest and best of an entire generation would ensure the supremacy of right-wing values and lead to a politically stable right wing Europe, a suitable climate for Lehman Steiner to grow ever larger and ever more influential. Petty squabbles between European governments would become a thing of the past as the bonds formed on the Anvil proved stronger than any other considerations. Europe would become the dominant world power.

  Leavey and MacLean were aghast at the sheer audacity of the venture and Von Jonek mistook their silence for admiration. He adopted a conciliatory tone. ‘You must see how much better Europe will be with strong, co-ordinated leadership?’ he asked. ‘There will be law and order, peace and prosperity for all.’

  ‘And if anyone should disagree with the government?’ asked MacLean.

  ‘Why should anyone wish to disagree?’

  ‘What if they did?’ insisted MacLean.

  ‘Naturally there must be discipline,’ said Von Jonek. ‘The law must be upheld.’

  MacLean snorted his disgust. ‘You have the nerve to pontificate about the law when you’re responsible for the murder of so many innocent people? You make me sick!’’

  Von Jonek moved uncomfortably in his chair. ‘You really don’t understand,’ he began. ‘In an undertaking of this size it is sometimes necessary
to take seemingly harsh decisions. Some things are to be regretted of course, but…’

  Leavey spoke for the first time. He said with deceptive calmness, ‘I found my friend next door.’

  ‘Your friend?’

  ‘His name was Willie MacFarlane,’ said Leavey. ‘He had neither the genetic background nor the social advantages to make him a force in your brave, new Europe… but he was my friend.’

  Von Jonek caught the ice-cold nuance in Leavey’s voice and his eyes showed fear. ‘I don’t understand…’ he whispered. ‘What friend?’

  ‘The man your thugs caught in the Hacienda. They shot him, or maybe it was you personally?’ said Leavey.

  Von Jonek was now trembling, his throat had gone dry and his voice sounded hoarse as saw Leavey check his gun. ‘No, it was a mistake, an unfortunate… ‘

  Leavey raised the gun and said, ‘On behalf of all these people who were subject to your “seemingly harsh decisions” I’m going to blow your head off.’

  ‘No, no, you wouldn’t dare… ‘

  Leavey fired and Von Jonek was dead. ‘Oh yes I would.’

  MacLean rifled through every drawer and filing cabinet in Von Jonek’s office, taking whatever he thought might be relevant to the authorities then he and Leavey started back up the tunnel to the junction.

  With Von Jonek dead and five men still penned up in the cavern, confusion reigned over the alarm. The only guards to know of the intruders were either dead or trapped in the cavern, leaving the others up on the surface to assume that the alarm had something to do with the missing man they had been searching for. MacLean and Leavey were aware of this advantage but they also knew that the insistent ringing of a telephone without answer in Von Jonek’s office was going to merit imminent investigation. They heard running footsteps ahead of them and ducked into the shadows to wait for the runners to pass.