River of Desire: A Romantic Action Adventure/Thriller (17 page)

Von Schotten fingered the wound, compounding his pain. “Your shoulder is infected. Vhat happened?”

Being shot by soldiers might make him look more suspect than he already did in Von Schotten’s eyes. He had to downplay the seriousness of his wound so he could convince Von Schotten to allow him to leave with the vaccine. “I fell on a nail. Its embedded in my shoulder. Kruger can remove it when I return to Peru.”

“It should at once be treated.”

“
I don’t have time. I must get back,” he pleaded, too weak to put up much resistance.

The doctor studied his shoulder. “I vill clean and salve wound and disinfect vith
Sangre de Gardo
sap. Xikxu vill tend you while I fetch remedies.”

Von Schotten left the room and returned with surprising dispatch with a bowl of steaming water and a jar of salve, which he placed on the desktop. He produced a wash cloth. “This may hurt, but I must clean your arm.”

The doctor’s warning was an understatement. Dylan gritted his teeth to keep from crying out while the doctor washed the wound. For a moment the world around him grew dark. He fought to maintain consciousness.  

Von Schotten lightly fingered the opening. “Cavity looks to be wound from bullet.”

A glance down confirmed the doctor’s impression. “No—it  was just a screw with a very wide head.”

A raised eyebrow let Dylan know he hadn’t been fooled. Von Schotten covered the punctured area with salve and a gauze pad.

“Vhen vas this young woman infected?”

“
A couple of days ago.”

Von Schotten taped the pad. “She must be vaccinated in two or three days more. You may take her vaccine, but only if you rest first. As doctor, I cannot permit you to travel in your condition. Othervise you may never be able to complete your mission of mercy.”

“But...”

“
No argument. Few hours vill not endanger her life.
Verstehstdu
?” Von Schotten’s eyes held his.

“
I understand, but I can’t...” he muttered.

The doctor stared through him, unbending.

Weak and tired, Dylan crumpled. What choice did he have? “Only a couple of hours.”

“
Ach so
, but first eat something.” Von Schotten signaled the guard. “Ask Sava to heat
Sopa de Mani
.”

The thought of eating the popular peanut soup turned Dylan’s stomach. Eating would only delay his departure, and he was anxious to move on as quickly as he could. “Sorry, I’m not hungry.”

“Nonsense,” Von Schotten replied. “You cannot keep your strength vithout nourishment.” He patted Dylan on his good shoulder.

The soup arrived, carried by an extremely young native girl, who placed the bowl on the desk in front of him.

When he hesitated, Von Schotten pointed at the bowl. “Eat.”

Dylan slowly poured a spoonful of the soup into his mouth. His throat constricted and he had trouble forcing it down.

Von Schotten sat across the desk from him. “Is good?”

“
Fine,” Dylan mumbled. He took two more spoons of soup and tried to swallow them as gracefully as possible to appease Von Schotten, whose eyes never left him.

“
So,” Von Schotten sat forward and placed his elbows on the desk, “For whom do you really vork?”

“
I already told you. Do we have to go over old ground?”

Von Schotten rose, went to the bookcase and extracted a volume. He thumbed through it. When he came to a page about mid-book, he searched it with a finger. “Here, an article by Simon Weisenthal, the Nazi hunter. He mentions everyone he is after. Look-” he moved toward Dylan, book outstretched, “my name.” He pointed at words that danced before Dylan’s eyes. “On list.”

“I see,” Dylan said, although his vision was bleary, compromised by his deteriorating condition.

“
And he is not only one looking for me, as you vell know. There are those privy to information about my research who at nothing vould stop to steal my secrets and do me in. You had better not be one of them. I need more proof of your background.”

“
All I have is my business card and license.” Dylan dug through his pocket for his billfold and opened it for Von Schotten.

Von Schotten glanced at the license. “So, you are tour guide, Herr...” he glanced down at the license, “Hart. Vhat does that to prove? It may only be cover.”

“There’s nothing else I can do to prove myself to you, but I am telling the truth.”

The doctor studied him for a moment longer. “I have no choice, but take your vord. Xikxu, escort our guest to small bedroom.”

Startled momentarily out of his daze by a strong hand on his arm, Dylan weakly rose to follow the guard to a room with a cot. As soon as the guard left him alone, he pulled aside the mosquito netting and sank heavily into the starched white sheets. He could finally take inventory and measure the damage done. Everything about him hurt, and his shoulder had become an amorphous mass of misery. He fingered the bandage covering his wound and could feel heat rising from beneath. A bad sign. To comfort himself, he pictured Leah, but instead of putting him at ease, the memory created an intense ache, more nagging than the one in his shoulder. He wouldn’t rest until he took her the vaccine.

He gradually relaxed into the bedding, sensed that he was falling asleep. He stirred in an attempt to keep himself alert, on guard, but his limbs were leaden, his lids heavy. Against his will, his eyes drifted shut...

* * *

Dylan startled awake with a stabbing pain in his shoulder and looked around in confusion at his surroundings. After a long moment, he remembered where he was and what he had to do. He had no idea what time it was, though the room was dark except for moonlight. He had probably slept too long.

The moonlight illuminated his shoes on the floor. Dazed, he bent over and pulled them on, then stumbled from the bed to the locked door. Fearful the guard would not allow him to leave, he picked at the lock with his pocketknife until he heard a click. He quietly pushed aside the heavy door and crept past the sleeping guard down the hall in search of the doctor and the vaccine.

An oil lamp left burning in Von Schotten’s study drew Dylan inside. He approached the desk, hoping to find evidence of the vaccine’s whereabouts. He reached around a framed certificate to search the center drawer and accidentally knocked it down. When he picked it up, he noticed the embossed Swastika. He examined it more closely. The document, made out to Dr. Frederick Von Schotten, had been signed by Adolf Hitler himself.

Behind him, Von Schotten’s voice boomed. “Vhy are you in study snooping?”

Surprised, Dylan dropped the framed certificate. It clattered against the desktop. “I was only looking at your letter of commendation. I had no intention-”

Von Schotten’s features flamed. “Liar! I thought it suspicious about your arrival.
Nicht
?”

Dylan raised his hands, palms forward, in a conciliatory gesture. “You don’t understand. I came into the study to find you. I must return to Dr. Kruger’s.”

“Is that vhy you go through desk,
schweinehund
? I no longer believe anything you say,” the old man said with a raised voice.

The commotion drew Xikxu to the door with the readied revolver in his hand.

Von Schotten shot Dylan a skeptical stare. “So for smallpox vaccine you come?” He turned toward the desk and bent over it.

Dylan immediately saw the spidery red birthmark on the back of his neck. His remembered what he had heard from the Machinguegos, what seemed like an eternity, but was only days ago. His gut clenched. So Von Schotten was the doctor who visited the Machinguegos at the time of the epidemic, not Kruger. He was in more danger than he had thought. “I came looking for you, but I was distracted. My wound has made me less than clearheaded. I’m sorry.”

Von Schotten pulled a revolver out of the center drawer and faced him with a steady aim. “For my enemies you vork,
nein
. Tell me of your association vith them. I vill not be fooled by lies.” In the silent room, Von Schotten’s whole body hummed with smoldering rage. “Enough of this deception. Tell truth or Xikxu vill think nothing of eviscerating you on the spot.” The doctor’s gesture was pure menace.  

Dylan had to buy time to come up with a plan. “Wait! I’ll talk. I’ll tell you what you want to know.”

Weapon raised, Von Schotten stepped closer to Dylan and confronted him almost nose to nose. “Vhat is purpose for your visit?”

“
I swear I came only for the smallpox vaccine.” The pistol poked his rib. “But I failed to mention I’m a medical examiner. I’m aware of the nature of your work and wanted to find out the composition of the viral concoction you’ve been using on the Indian people in Peru.”

Instead of the denial Dylan expected, the doctor took a step back. “How do you to know?”

He had to think fast. “I’m with the National Institute of Health and worked with Dr. Harvey Samuels on the Zaire project. His main interest is Hemorrhagic viruses. Since the Hemorrhagic fever we’ve seen here in the Amazon is unique to any we’ve seen before, he...we...only want to know what the local people are infected with so we can treat them.”

Von Schotten quivered with what seemed like a mixture of anger and anxiety. “It is not hybrid containing smallpox, Herr Hart.” The doctor slapped his free palm on the desktop. “You vant microbe information. That is vhy you snoop about study.”

“I must identify the microbe or more people will die.” The exasperated look on Von Schotten’s face told him he better up the ante or he’d never prevail. “If I don’t take the information back with me, a UN military exploration unit will be sent to find out more.”

Von Schotten narrowed his eyes further, looking more sinister. “Vhy should I believe you. You already lied to me.”

Trying to prove himself seemed futile. “You can’t mean to let these people die for no reason. What purpose does it serve?” 

“
Life or death is no concern for me.” He brushed off the remark with a hand. “I never condone vanton murder, but advancement of medical science is of far greater importance than single human life.”

Dylan stared open-mouthed at him.

“Most of vorld’s medicines come from rainforest. Tribes stand in the vay.”

Dylan’s fingers dug into the arm of the adjacent chair. He hated to dignify this man with a response. “Every human being is significant, but we’re not speaking of one. Scores of men, women and children have been infected with this virus.”

The doctor’s steely gray unfocused eyes looked as cold as a night in the Andes. “Not my concern. I merely am paid to make formula.”

A chill shivered through Dylan. “By whom?”

Von Schotten drew his brows together. “Do not play dumb,
Herr
Hart. If you vork for National Institute of Health, you know who funds research.”

“
The United States government?” Dylan chanced.

“
The Central Intelligence Service does not care how I conduct my research.” The doctor showed pure contempt. “Only that I make virus potent enough to deter against terrorists—or so they say.”

Bile rose into Dylan’s throat. “I don’t believe you. The U.S. Government has no idea what you’re doing.”

“If that is true, it is because they choose not to know.” Von Schotten cleared his throat, spitting phlegm into a starched white handkerchief. “Just like they chose not to back me up vith Project Paperclip. As soon as my vork with the CIA vas exposed by Drew Pearson in American press, followed by public outcry, they exiled me to this God-forsaken place. I have been trapped here for years.” He gestured with the firearm. “They may vant to forget me, but I shall not let them. They betrayed me and they vill live to regret it.”

“
What do you mean?”

Von Schotten’s gaze fixed on the far wall. “I have enough said.” He turned his intense stare on Dylan. “I hate vhat I must to do,
Herr
Hart, but you know too much. As doctor, I take lives only in interest of science, but exceptions must at times be made.”

Dylan had to shake off the shock of Von Schotten’s admission and it took all his strength to pull himself up into an intimidating stance. “You call yourself a healer, but you’d let your former colleague’s granddaughter die for no good reason when you alone have the power to save her. She’s not just his only granddaughter, she’s my fiancee and I’ll do anything to see she lives.”

“Not much to do, Herr Hart. You know too many things that could be used against me. Too late.”

“
It’s too late for you, too. Kruger knows all about your experiments. If his only granddaughter dies because you wouldn’t release the vaccine to me, he’ll see the Brazilian government and the United Nations all come down here and blow you and your experiments right out of the jungle before you can say ‘The Third Reich will rise again!’”

Von Schotten glared at him. “Xikxu, take him outside!”

Xikxu started toward him, but before the guard reached him, Dylan lunged and grasped the doctor’s shoulders. “Don’t do—” The guard wedged himself between the two men and pushed Dylan backwards, off balance. Too weak to put up much of a fight, Dylan toppled onto the desk.