The Methuselah Project (14 page)

W
EDNESDAY
, J
ULY
22, 1953

T
HE
K
OSSLER ESTATE
, G
ERMANY

I
nside the cage beneath Kossler’s residence, Roger closed Dostoevsky’s
Crime and Punishment
and placed it atop the four-foot stack of volumes beside his armchair.

Lacing his fingers behind his head, he watched Kossler peer into a microscope for a long moment before inking a notation into his logbook.

“Hey, Doc.”

Still writing, the German replied,
“Was wollen Sie?”

“
Was will ich?
I want a lot of things. For starters, I want to speak in my own language today, not German.”

The doctor shifted his gaze to meet Roger’s eyes and readjusted the glasses perched on his nose. “But why?” Kossler’s Germanic accent persisted, but his English had grown much better over the past ten years. “You’ve made such marvelous strides in German. In fact, your vocabulary now surpasses that of many citizens of the Reich. Your accent is superb. Much better than my English pronunciation.”

“Maybe so. But English is still my mother tongue, and I want to use it. If I don’t, I won’t know how to talk to my own people when the war is over. I’ll end up sounding like a goose-stepping Kraut.”

“Goose-stepping?” Kossler laid down his pen and crossed his arms. “That’s hardly an appropriate adjective. Geese walk with a …” His eyes strayed toward the concrete ceiling as he searched for a suitable description. “Widdle?”

“Waddle. But it doesn’t matter whether the word is appropriate or not. I don’t want to end up sounding like one of your precious Führer’s buddies.”

Kossler shrugged. “As you wish. For today, we will speak English.”

“I was also going to ask if you’ve ever read this book,
Crime and Punishment
.”

“No. As a man of science, I haven’t indulged in fiction since my schoolboy days. Besides, Dostoevsky is a Russian author. As you may have heard, Russian literature isn’t highly esteemed in the Third Reich. Much of it was burned. Don’t think it’s easy finding English-language reading material for you.”

Roger sat up straighter and crossed his legs. He picked up the novel. “I’m surprised you don’t know this one. Adolf Hitler has a lot in common with the main character of the story.”

Kossler’s eyebrows lifted. “In what way?”

“You see, this young guy named Rodion dreamed up a theory. He suggested that some people who commit crimes deserve to be caught and punished because they’re stupid. They make mistakes. But he also surmised other people are so smart that they can rise above ordinary law and commit crimes—even murder—because of their superior intellect. That strikes me as a lot like Hitler. He figures he can wage war, murder innocent people, do anything he wants to do because he has delusions of Aryan grandeur. But when you boil it all down, he’s still just a petty little two-bit crook who’s too big for his britches. In the end, he’ll be punished for his crimes.” Roger had phrased his words calmly, unemotionally; however, his barb was intentional. He studied Kossler’s face to see whether the verbal attack had scored any damage to the target.

“Am I supposed to become indignant or outraged, Captain Greene? Do you hope to see me fly into red-faced rage for your amusement?”

“Nope. I’m just telling you how I see things. In Dostoevsky’s book, Rodion got what was coming to him. Someday Adolf will too. It’s just a matter of time.”

“Not the most profound philosophy I’ve ever heard.” The doctor picked up his pen and carried on with his writing.

It was Roger’s turn to shrug, even if the doctor wasn’t looking. “I just call ’em like I see ’em. Sorry if it’s not deep enough to challenge vast mental resources like yours.”

The doctor paused and returned his attention to Roger, another miniature victory in the airman’s ongoing war to slow Nazi progress on the Methuselah Project. “Are you aware of the change in your own mental resources since you arrived here?”

The question caught him off guard. He considered it. Had there been any particular change in his thinking? Sure, he could speak fluent German. He’d mastered grammar books for several European languages. Trigonometry and calculus had become enjoyable distractions to while away the hours. Classic literature had become part of his life—

“I thought not,” Kossler said. “The fact is, your years with me have greatly deepened your own education. The Methuselah process might also deserve credit for enhancing your mental faculties and your memory since you came here. The same way it enhances and preserves your biological systems. Yet the incredible amount of reading you have done certainly broadened your mental horizons. Based on our conversations, I daresay you could easily teach university graduate-level courses even without formal academic training.”

“Maybe so, but I’m still the same guy. Still a pilot.”

“You mean, you
were
a pilot.”

Roger shook his head. “Wrong tense. I
am
a pilot, Doc. Ever since I was a little tyke looking up at every airplane that flew over the orphanage playground, I’ve wanted to be a pilot. As soon as I grew old enough to get a job, I signed up for flying lessons. Flying is in my blood. You can cram a canary into a cage, but it’s still a bird. And you can lock me behind bars in this private zoo of yours, but you can’t change my nature. I, Captain Roger Greene, am a pilot.”

During Roger’s brief monologue, Kossler once again put his eye to his microscope. The man was ignoring him. How to get his mind off his work? Shifting strategies, Roger broached a new topic. “So how’s the war going? I haven’t heard bombs falling in eons.”

Kossler flipped the notebook to a clean page. “Captain Greene, as I’ve repeatedly told you, I’m not permitted to discuss military topics with a prisoner. I sympathize with your curiosity, but my orders from my superiors—”

“Doc, those simpletons are not your superiors. They are inferior to you. The pompous officials who strut in here to see me and inspect your work don’t possess one iota of your intelligence. Their eyes practically glaze over when you begin discussing the most basic physiology. Think logically: Is giving me a hint about whose side is winning going to send the Reich swirling down the toilet? Besides, who am I going to blab to in this dungeon?”

“Blab?” Kossler peered into the cage and straightened his spectacles as he did nearly every time he looked up. “What’s
blab
?”

“It’s one of those quaint American slang expressions I don’t want to forget. It means to talk too much, to spill the beans.”

“Ah. Spill the beans. I recall the phrase from my undergraduate studies in Tübingen. Quite a colorful expression.”

“Well, how about it? Surely you can give me just a little inkling on the course of the war? Just the most interesting headlines from the newspapers. That would be no secret.”

Kossler hesitated, as if debating within himself. He glanced across the lab to where Werner Neumann increased the blue flame under a boiling beaker of liquid.

“Aw, don’t let Werner stop you. He won’t tell anybody.”

Finally Kossler seemed to reach a decision. He set the pen on his notebook and looked Roger in the eye. “As a civilian man of science, I won’t pretend that I follow the military situation closely. But perhaps I can give enough information to quench your general curiosity so that I may concentrate on my work.”

“Hallelujah! Now you’re talking, Doc!” Roger sprang from the bed and grasped the cool steel bars, ready to hang on Kossler’s every word. The attempt to divert the old boy from his work had paid off better than expected.

The scientist called to his associate. “Werner, perhaps we do an injustice in keeping our guest totally uninformed. Even if it’s against policy, I believe it should be permissible to share a few insignificant details.”

“That is your prerogative, Herr Doktor. In this laboratory, you are the authority.”

Kossler stood and circled his desk, on which he sat to address Roger more directly. Arms crossed, he said, “I must warn you, when my superiors come to visit—whether they are in military or civilian clothing—you are not to breathe a word of what I am about to tell you. It wouldn’t be good for me, but it would be worse for you. Our National Socialist leadership doesn’t appreciate having their instructions cast aside, even when they affect only one prisoner.”

The long preamble stretched Roger’s annoyance to the breaking point. “Okay, okay. Scout’s honor. Now tell me, who’s winning?”

Kossler sighed. “Winning? Well, that’s difficult to say. Both the Allies and the Axis powers have experienced gains and losses.”

“Such as?”

“Well, as you may have guessed, England has fallen. Wehrmacht troops now occupy England, Wales, Scotland, and Ireland. Oh, and Iceland too. That was the latest island our side acquired, although I don’t see any practical use for such a place.”

Roger felt his jaw drop before he could stop it. He’d never imagined such a nightmare. The Allies had been planning to invade Europe when he crashed. “How’s that possible?”

Kossler shrugged. “The tides of war. They come in, they go out. When our Japanese comrades convinced the Chinese to attack the Eastern Soviet Union, Moscow realized it couldn’t survive an onslaught of powerful armies on both the east and west. To preserve what was left of his nation, Stalin made concessions and sued for peace.”

Roger gripped the bars more firmly even as his legs went rubbery. “Concessions?”

“Basically Ukraine, Byelorussia, Moldavia, and some Central Asian regions that end with
-stan
were ceded to the Third Reich. Also, large tracts of Eastern Siberia were yielded to the Empire of Japan. In exchange for these lands, new treaties were signed, and Germany is now at peace with the Soviet Union, which is much smaller than when you arrived. Our new territories comprise what you might call a nonmilitary buffer zone.”

Roger groaned from his heart. “So all those German troops and aircraft that used to be on the Russian front—”

“Were reassigned to France and the Netherlands. From there, they invaded the British Isles. That battle occurred in 1949. Or was it 1950? As I said, I prefer to concentrate on science.”

“What about our American guys? The United States had air bases scattered all over England.”

Kossler cleared his throat, as if embarrassed at what he must confess. “I hear they fought gallantly, both in the air and on the ground. But when the Luftwaffe unleashed new, technologically superior fighter airplanes and bombers, England no longer stood a serious chance of resisting. The blitz ended almost as soon as it began.”

Roger’s head sagged. Bile churned in his stomach. For once, no snappy retort came to mind. Should he step into the bathroom? He feared he might vomit.

“Of course, not all of the British and American military personnel died. Many of them survive in prisoner-of-war camps. As I understand it, however, conditions are not so enjoyable. Unlike here, they suffer from inadequate diet, poor sanitation. Still, thousands of them are alive.”

“And Churchill?”

“Rumor has it Mr. Churchill perished in one of the V-5 rocket attacks on London, but I don’t believe his body was ever identified.” He turned his head. “Werner, did you ever hear whether Churchill’s body was recovered?”

Werner gave his colleague a long, silent look before replying. “No, I never heard.”

Roger stared down at the threadbare patch he’d worn in this corner of the Persian rug. He almost regretted having asked. Eventually his gaze met Kossler’s blinking owl eyes behind their spectacles. “You admitted both sides experienced gains and losses. So far it sounds like all the losses have been on the Allied side. What did Germany lose?”

The scientist returned Roger’s gaze with sadness. “Lives, Captain Greene. The lives of untold numbers of citizens. War is such a horrible business, and even the innocent pay. Between those lost in battle and those sent to occupy newly acquired territories, the population of the Fatherland has been quite sharpened down.”

“Sharpened down? Do you mean ‘whittled down’?”

“Excuse me. Whittled down.”

Roger pumped for more information before the flow ran dry. “So where’s the worst of the fighting happening right now?”

“At the moment, hostilities have cooled quite a bit, even though our two countries are technically at war. The main problem seems to be the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. Without all those aerodromes in England and northern Africa, your American forces can’t reach us. Neither can our Luftwaffe bombers or Japanese airplanes reach American soil. Stalemate.”

“You mean, nobody is fighting anyplace?”

“I didn’t say that. At the moment, both sides are dueling on the high seas with ships and U-boats until more effective long-range weapons can carry the battle farther. And the Japanese are still skirmishing in southern Australia. Pockets of resistance remain there.”

Roger ran a trembling hand through his hair. The nightmare grew worse with every sentence. “But surely Germany must run out of soldiers one of these days. I mean, even with the Atlantic separating us, the United States and Canada are a lot bigger than Germany. We’ve got a larger population. It has to be only a matter of time before we overpower your military through populace alone.”

Kossler paused, as if debating whether to express something else on his mind.

“You’re hiding something, Doc. I see it in your eyes. Go ahead, say what’s on your mind while you’ve got my attention.”

Kossler once more cleared his throat. His face bore all the signs of a schoolboy who must make an embarrassing admission. “All right, but remember that you’re the one who asked me to—how did you say it?—blab the beans. You’re quite correct about our limited population. The many years of warfare seriously eroded our civilian and military forces. But you’re not the first person to foresee this predicament. If steps had not been taken early on, there might have come a day when we simply ran out of men.”

“Steps were taken? I don’t think I’m going to like whatever you’re about to say.”

Kossler looked to Werner Neumann, who had ceased working to listen. “Werner, it’s so degrading. Would you like to be the one to tell him?”