The Children's War (193 page)

“But, but . . . ,” Erich sputtered, somewhat confused. “I want to help,” he whispered finally.

Peter was taken aback. “Really? Why?”

“I don’t know, I just feel . . . I don’t know, I feel put down, angry even. This machine, this lab . . . My language, I don’t even know it!”

“All right, all right,” Peter preempted Erich’s soul-searching. “We don’t have time for your thoughts on this right now. Just let me read what they’ve written and you can tell me if it makes sense or if I’ve stumbled upon somebody’s idea of an April fool’s joke.”

The document was labeled “top secret” but was nonetheless written in the format of a completed, publishable research report. Peter read the abstract and introduction and then scanned the body of the paper. He read the conclusions carefully, then sat staring at the words, drumming his fingers nervously on the
desk. Erich was studying one of the loose sheets, but when he saw his brother stop reading, he said, “It says in the abstract that this is a sterilization program. Is that what you were looking for?”

Peter nodded, perturbed by what he had read.

“Is it some sort of replacement for surgery?”

“Could be,” Peter replied, still distracted by the conclusions he had read. “Maybe somebody wants to lower the obscene number of abortions we have in this country.”

“So it’s meant to be voluntary?” Erich asked hopefully.

“I doubt it. The conclusions emphasize the fact that the drug is potable and tasteless. I think you can read between the lines on that.”

“What’s wrong? I thought you knew what you were looking for?” Erich asked, perceiving Peter’s grim mood.

“Not really. I mean, I expected it would be about this, I just didn’t expect . . .” He didn’t complete the thought. For some reason he felt an overpowering sadness, and all he could think of was Irena. He wondered what she looked like now and what she was doing.

“Didn’t expect what?” Erich insisted in a harsh whisper.

“They’ve finished the research,” Peter explained forlornly. “The fuckers took the information we gave them and finished the research.”

“Who? What? What do you mean?”

“The Americans. This research was incomplete, heading nowhere, in fact, when we handed it over to them. And they went and finished it. With their high-tech analyses and their supercomputers and . . . If these conclusions can be believed, they completed it, they got the finished product.” He stopped speaking. He could see Barbara glancing worriedly over at them. He lowered his head and rubbed the back of his neck as he tried to gain control of his anger. After a moment, he sighed deeply and looked up at Erich. “Look at the body of this report. Is there enough information in here for you to figure out what they’ve used?”

Peter sat in silence as Erich worked through the formulae. Occasionally Peter answered one of Erich’s questions about the meaning of a word or phrase, but otherwise he did nothing. He knew he should sift through the mountains of files in the office or look through other files on the computer to find further information, but he could not bring himself to move. All he could think of was how he had felt when Barbara and Olek had shown him his number among the list of those tested. Now, with the research complete, would there be other numbers on a different list for Schindler to contemplate? He imagined the scenario: male prison laborers in a factory given the option of access to a brothel and all the doctored beer they could drink as a reward for exceeding some ridiculous quota. The poor bastards would work themselves to exhaustion, drink themselves into oblivious sterility, and then be allowed access to equally wretched women who would be watched to see if any of them got pregnant. “This society is sick,” he muttered to himself.

“Huh?” Erich asked.

“I said, is there enough there for us to work out exactly what they’ve done?”

Erich glanced back at the document. “Er . . . It’s hard for me to say, I’m not really familiar with what they’re doing.”

“Not many people are. Is there enough information for a nonspecialist?”

“I’d say no. We need more details, their laboratory books or something.”

“Fine, we’ll look for those.” Peter turned his attention back to the computer. “I’ll peruse what he has here, you get Barbara to help you unlock the lab table drawers and see what you can find out there.”

“Look for handwritten notes,” Erich suggested. “If it’s at the stage where it can be entered into a computer document, then it’ll be too condensed for our purposes.”

Peter nodded noncommittally as he tapped some commands into the computer. Erich had no idea of the current state of computer software and was therefore unlikely to know how useful it could be; then again, Chandler was equally unlikely to be very up-to-date and would probably follow the same timeless routine that Erich used. After scanning the files for a few moments, Peter decided to follow Erich’s advice and turned his attention to Chandler’s office.

He ignored the mounds of paper moldering in the corners and tried the desk drawers. All but one opened easily, and each contained useful office equipment: paper clips, staples, rubber bands, writing paper, pens, pencils, and so on, all inextricably jumbled in heaps and piles. The locked drawer took only a few moments to open; it contained a bottle of single-malt Scotch, two glasses, a candle, matches, and some high-quality chocolate. Peter smiled, and wrapping the whiskey in a rag he found on a nearby table, he placed it and the chocolate in his bag.

He then went to the file cabinet and unlocked it. Labeled files were in each drawer and he quickly read the headings, hoping that Chandler had not been clever enough to indulge in disinformation. By the third drawer, the end of the alphabetical listing was reached, and a few unlabeled file folders were shoved in the back. He inspected these and found no papers, but there were several computer diskettes. Their size was the more compact form, common in the NAU but virtually unknown in all but the most advanced laboratories in the Reich. He glanced at Chandler’s machine and saw that the diskettes were incompatible with it. Intrigued, he pulled out his computer and inserted the first diskette.

He felt a sudden shock of recognition as he examined the file list. He opened one of the files and checked it just to be sure, but he was not mistaken: they were his work. Every single one was a file that he and his team had decoded, translated, and sent on to the security agencies in the North American Union. This was not the muddled data they had stolen from the laboratory, this was no summary garnered from American press reports: what Chandler had was every detail that had been sent overseas in exactly the format Peter had sent it. Exactly. He scanned the file names and found the list that contained his entry, the list that
Barbara had tried to hide from him so long ago. He opened it and worked his way through until he found his own number. He sat stock-still staring at the entry as the burning sensation of having been betrayed spread through his limbs.

His brother came over to him holding several journals. “Look, it’s all in here. We found them over there, and they even have the appropriate chemicals and equipment on the shelves nearby!” Erich waved excitedly toward a table that Barbara was still inspecting.

“What’s it say?” Peter asked, his eyes still fixed on the words he himself had written months before.

“Hey, where’d that come from?” Erich gestured toward his computer. “Wow, that’s small! Is it any good?”

“It’s mine, and yes,” Peter answered deadpan.“Now, what do you have there?”

Erich recognized something like anger in Peter’s voice, and deciding not to ask any more impertinent questions, he opened one of the books and indicated the handwritten notes. “They’ve been duplicating the work in that paper, I guess they’re checking the results. They refer to notes we haven’t seen, but I don’t think those will be necessary since it’s all laid out in detail here.”

“How far have they gotten?”

“Up to a few human trials. Nothing massive,” Erich answered, obviously uncomfortable with his brother’s inexplicable anger. “They must be volunteers, I mean, well, they have to be, don’t they?”

“Volunteers,” Peter muttered disdainfully.

“Look, I know you don’t like this regime and have had your problems with them, but, seriously, they wouldn’t do that sort of thing! I’m sure they’re volunteers. It’s easy enough to get people to agree to . . .” Erich stopped, confused by Peter’s actions.

Peter had removed his jacket and had rolled up his left sleeve. There, on his arm, was what looked to Erich like a light cast. Peter carefully undid the clasps to reveal an undamaged arm underneath; he then rolled his arm under the light so that Erich could see the numbers printed there. “That was my name for some years. Now, check this list of ‘volunteers’ and you’ll see that my number is on it.”

Erich read the numbers on Peter’s arm, and tracing down the screen with his finger, he located the appropriate entry. “You volunteered for this?” he asked, amazed and perhaps condescending.

“No!” Peter hissed with suppressed fury.“No, I did not! So much for your
volunteer
theory!”

“You were tested against your will?”

“I wasn’t even told! The first I knew of it was seeing this list about a year ago.”

Erich looked at him, his mouth open with realization. He ignored the implications of Peter’s lack of cooperation and asked instead, “Then you’ve been sterilized?”

“No. Apparently not. Not if my wife’s been faithful.”

Erich looked confused.

“I guess they were testing a preliminary substance for something simple and obvious, such as toxicity,” Peter explained patiently. “It was enough, I would suppose, to see if we dropped dead. I was injected and left alone; I guess it didn’t have any adverse affects.”

“You . . . You have a wife?” Erich asked stupidly.

“Illegally. And a daughter, also illegal.”

“I have a niece?” Erich asked even more dreamily.

“Yeah, someday we’ll have a family reunion. Now snap out of it. We’ve got to get out of here. Do we have enough information?”

Erich nodded, still obsessed by his new knowledge. “Yes, yes. That report, these books . . . It’s enough.”

Peter grabbed the books and tossed them in his bag along with the report. He tossed in the diskettes as well, having decided they were also useful for a different reason: they would prove the level of infiltration or betrayal involved. Information sent directly to the NAU security agencies had come right back to the Reich. That was proof of an extremely devastating leak and would be both useful and advantageous knowledge for the Undergrounds to possess.

Suddenly losing patience with the entire affair, Peter snapped at Barbara, “Anything else?” When she shook her head, he ordered, “Right, let’s get out of here. We have enough.” He packed away his computer, then turned his attention to Chandler’s computer and typed in a series of commands that overrode the built-in protection and deleted all the files. As the machine cranked through the deletions, he went out into the main section and picked up a bottle of fluid. “Does this burn?” he asked Erich.

Erich read the label and nodded.

Peter picked up several more bottles of the fluid and began dousing the files in Chandler’s office. He motioned for Barbara, Mark, and Erich to head for the window. “Take my bag, I’ll meet you outside,” Peter ordered, and continued to throw the fluid on the other desks and any other files he could find.

His three companions hoisted themselves through the window and disappeared into the night. Peter finished dousing the laboratory and laid a trail of fluid up to the window. He glanced out the window to be sure the coast was clear and that the others had already reached the first fence, then he lit a match, watched long enough to see the flame spread, and when the fire reached Chandler’s office, climbed out and bolted for the first fence. As he scrambled on his belly under the inner fence, he could see his companions ahead of him, already at the outer fence.

As he emerged into the dead-man’s zone, he rose to his feet and started to dash for the outer fence. He did not get even three steps before a lone guard called out to him,“Halt or I’ll shoot!”