The Methuselah Project (19 page)

Roger realized he was staring, but he couldn’t help himself. To a starving dog, even a rubber bone must look appetizing, and Sophie Gottschalk was definitely no rubber bone. For a man who had spent decades in captivity, the shapely figure before him radiated pure femininity. At about five feet, seven inches tall, Sophie was blessed with waves of luxurious chestnut-colored hair that cascaded over her shoulders and disappeared behind her back. Unlike the men, she didn’t wear a white lab coat. Not yet, anyway. Instead she sported a navy-blue skirt and a silky, pastel-blue blouse that accentuated her slender waist. A single gold chain adorned her dainty neck. To Roger, her face evoked memories of Hollywood actress Hedy Lamarr.

Cutely uncomfortable under Roger’s intense gaze, Sophie directed her eyes back to Hans. “Who is this man? What’s he doing here behind bars?”

“Allow me to introduce our guest officially. This is Captain Roger Greene of the United States Air Force.”

Roger shook his head but kept his eyes nailed to Miss Gottschalk. “You mess that up every time. It’s United States Army Air Corps, Eighth Army Air Force, Fourth Fighter Group. You don’t need the squadron number.”

“My mistake. U.S. Army Air Corps. You see, Fräulein Gottschalk, the captain’s fighter plane was shot down. He was brought here, where he has provided invaluable data for the Methuselah Project.”

Sophie’s eyes darted back and forth between her three new colleagues. “Shot down? Where? In the Middle East?”

Roger yearned to lure those luminous green eyes back to himself, so he hurried to provide the answer. “No. I’ve never been anywhere near Egypt, Persia, or any of those places. I was flying cover for a group of B-17s, but my wingman and I ran into trouble with some of your German fighters. Two Messerschmitt 109s latched onto my tail and kept blasting until I crashed in the Third Reich.”

Sophie’s eyes were undeniably on him now. But the emotions in those eyes ranged from confusion to resentment. “Whoever you are, I don’t appreciate being mocked.”

Roger basked in her presence. “You’re gorgeous, even when you’re angry. Did they tell you that you’re the first woman I’ve laid eyes on in seven decades?”

Her eyes flashed, and she turned to Hans, Gerhard, and Martin. Clearly they were enjoying their sport.

“Who is this person, and why is he babbling like an imbecile?”

Hans crossed his arms and sat down on Kossler’s desk. “He told you the truth. Captain Greene was participating in a bombing raid over the Third Reich when one—excuse me, two—of our faithful Nazi pilots shot him down in the year 1943. He has been a guest here ever since that time. So you see, we have living confirmation of Methuselah’s viability. Our project is not a theoretical one. The task is to reconstruct the genetic signature and physiological realignment process that we achieved in 1943, but which was destroyed in an Allied bombing.”

Astonishment washed over Sophie’s face. She eyed Roger the way a scientist might scrutinize a living dinosaur. Her gaze transformed into one of fascination.

Hans caught Gerhard’s eye and snapped his fingers. “Show her a file.”

Gerhard approached the bank of file cabinets and opened the top-left drawer of the first column. He removed a bulging folder, which he handed to Sophie.

“Your orientation assignment will be those file drawers,” Hans said. “Study the material thoroughly. The one you’re holding contains a general overview on Captain Greene. Become familiar with every minute detail. These files, coupled with Captain Greene’s presence, provide indisputable proof that artificially enhanced physiology resulting in scientifically extended human life is definitely possible.”

Roger relished every graceful movement as Sophie opened the folder and leafed through its contents. For the first time, he could glimpse the yellowing, black-and-white photographs of himself as a freshly captured airman. He hadn’t been aware some of those images existed. One was a group shot of him with the other six airmen who had died in the bombing. A second pictured him lying unconscious in a tray of soupy liquid. Another showed him standing behind the bars of cell 7 back in Blomberg’s facility, a Nazi flag with a black swastika hanging on the wall just outside his reach. He recalled how much he’d wanted to rip that rag to shreds.

Sophie held up one of the photographs, comparing the picture to Roger, who stood watching her. He had witnessed similar comparisons countless times. She was trying to decide whether the face beneath his beard and mustache was indeed identical to the one in the image. For her sake, he wished he hadn’t stopped shaving. He must look like a Neanderthal. “Yes, it’s me. Your people have kept me a prisoner all these years.”

“It’s utterly extraordinary. All during the time of the DDR? Why, if the Soviets had ever suspected that—”

Hans bolted off Kossler’s desk. “Hush! No politics or current events in front of the subject.”

Too late. Roger’s mind was racing. “The DDR? What’s that? And what about the Soviets? Is the Red Army advancing?”

Gerhard put a finger to his lips. “Not one word. There is a standing policy. We do not discuss politics in his presence.”

Sophie nodded. “I understand.” Again she studied the face in the photographs and then scrutinized Roger like a rare zoological specimen.

He, in turn, gazed back, relishing her feminine curves from her head to her toes. She stepped closer, and his nose detected a heavenly floral fragrance. Perfume. Combined with Sophie’s natural loveliness, the experience bordered on intoxication.

She leafed through more pages. “Inconceivable. All accomplished with 1940s technology? I have so many questions.”

Hans motioned toward the exit. “That’s the problem. We do too. The material in your hands will answer some questions while sparking others. You will help us to find the missing puzzle pieces.”

Before they departed, Roger seized his chance to ask about breakfast. “Hey, what’s keeping old Kossler with breakfast? I’m starving.”

Martin glanced at Hans and raised one hand in a gesture of innocence. “I forgot. So many things have happened today.”

Hans addressed Roger. “Dr. Kossler won’t be back. He died in his sleep last night. Interesting timing, isn’t it?”

“A nice change for you, perhaps?” Gerhard suggested with a crass grin.

Kossler dead? Roger regarded the men’s faces. He was unsure whether to rejoice or to grieve. During all these long years, Otto Kossler had practically embodied Germany, captivity, and the evil of so-called “Nazi ideals.” Often Roger had loathed the man’s presence and had refused to speak to him for days at a time. That self-imposed solitary confinement, however, always proved too heavy a burden. Then Roger would resume conversing with Kossler for the sake of being in touch with a fellow human. Somewhere during those perpetual empty decades, the German scientist had become either an enemy Roger cared about, or else the companion he loved to hate. Suddenly he was dead. An inexplicable sense of loss descended over Roger’s heart.

Hans jerked Roger out of his musing. “Never mind. We will supply your meals now. Each of us four will take turns bringing breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Now excuse us. Changes are coming, Captain Greene.”

M
ONDAY
, J
ULY
7, 2014

T
HE
K
OSSLER ESTATE
, G
ERMANY

I
n the weeks following Sophie Gottschalk’s arrival, her face, the musical timbre of her voice, and the fragrance of her lilac-scented perfume consumed Roger’s thoughts. At night atop his bed, he relived every glimpse of her and every word she uttered. During the day, he tried to pass time as he had for years, by reading, exercising, strumming the guitar, or playing solitaire. But self-distraction failed him. The printed pages of
The Count of Monte Cristo
would fade, only to be replaced by smiling visions of Sophie and her luminous green eyes.

What are you doing, admiring one of the enemy? She’s a German, a Nazi.
Then again, he’d never known a Nazi could be so enchanting. After such a sterile existence without female companionship, this daughter of the Third Reich emotionally overwhelmed him. He yearned for her appearances with his supper tray.

For decades, Roger had incorporated Bible reading into his daily regimen. Back when his spirits had sunk into the nether regions of depression and he had been near suicide, only the leather-bound Bible had stabilized his mind. It had lifted his sinking soul from bottomless pits of despair. He clung to his Bible to maintain sanity. Because of this spiritual nourishment, he strove to obey the Scriptures’ admonitions against lust, to keep his mind off Sophie’s body and to concentrate on her face. But the years of isolation and what the male scientists labeled his “red-blooded” qualities sometimes overruled and lured his eyes elsewhere.

Well, I’m human. What fellow in my shoes wouldn’t admire a girl for being a girl?

Occasionally Sophie would descend to the bunker, not to bring supper, but to retrieve a piece of equipment or the next file from the bank of cabinets lining the walls. Each time she departed, it was as if murky clouds had scudded over the sky and blocked out life-giving sunshine.

For years, he hadn’t bothered much about his appearance. If he grew shaggy and resembled an aborigine, so what? Now he diligently shaved each morning. He would spend hours in front of the mirror as he meticulously groomed his hair with the round-tipped scissors supplied by Kossler.

One morning, right in the middle of trimming his sideburns, he scolded his reflection. “You shouldn’t be doing this. She’s the enemy.” Within seconds, he returned to fussing over his appearance like a high schooler preparing for his first date.

Was she really so gorgeous? Or would even a plain Jane come across like a living doll to a guy in his shoes? He wasn’t sure. He also grew tired of philosophizing.

At first, whenever Roger spoke to Sophie, she appeared both intrigued and intimidated. Heeding Hans’s warnings, she never stepped within reach of the bars. Before she slid his supper tray through the rectangular slot in the bars, she placed the key ring on Kossler’s desk. This had been the drill from the beginning of his bunker existence. Even if Roger had succeeded in grabbing a caretaker through the bars, the effort couldn’t reap those priceless keys.

But gradually Sophie Gottschalk warmed to his attempts at conversation. Beginning with a few awkward questions, she asked where he grew up. Which states he had visited. What had been his interests and hobbies. The day Roger launched into a passionate description of the joys of piloting single-engine aircraft and of weaving in and out of towering cloudbanks, her rapt eyes never left his. He could see that, in her imagination at least, she was up there with him, soaring in freedom.

But even his most velvety-soft attempts to squeeze her for news about the outside world proved fruitless. Apparently Hans had thoroughly lectured her. Each time Roger tried to glean a nugget of information, she stiffened. Her demeanor became formal. “I must go,” she would say before retreating through the detested metal barrier.

One day Roger gave his mirrored reflection a pep talk. “Okay, if asking about world affairs drives her away, then stop asking. Instead, talk about your past. Give her compliments. Just don’t give that girl an excuse to walk away.”

On another occasion Sophie actually sat and marveled at his description of how the two Messerschmitt fighters had shot him down after he’d run out of ammunition by rescuing Walt Crippen. He believed she literally held her breath as he recounted how his Thunderbolt had skidded across a farm field and careened into the trees.

“Weren’t you hurt?”

“That’s the amazing thing. My plane was busted up all around me, but the cockpit slipped right between two massive oak trees.” He held out his arms to show the girth of the trunks. “When I climbed out of the wreck, I had nothing worse than bruises and a bloody nose. Maybe God was looking out for me. I don’t know.”

The memory of Walt Crippen’s ten-dollar bill popped into his mind. Roger considered showing it to her, explaining how he and Walt had a running bet about who could flame the next enemy plane. On the other hand, maybe a Nazi girl would be angry if she learned how many of her countrymen he’d blasted from the sky. He left the bill in his flight jacket.

Sophie’s air turned wistful. “I’ve flown before, but only on passenger airplanes. Never in a single-engine one.”

“Maybe I’ll take you up for a spin someday.” With a frustrated shake of the barred door, he added, “Sorry. That probably won’t be anytime soon. I don’t get outside much.”

The conversation ended. With a quiet
“auf Wiedersehen,”
Sophie turned and disappeared through the metal barrier to the steps beyond. But what was that emotion peeking through her eyes just now?

Did I see a tear? Has somebody in this God-forsaken country actually shed a tear for me?

He wasn’t positive. Part of him hoped it was true. Some corner of his soul yearned to believe that, after nearly a lifetime, a fellow human cared about him personally. Especially if that person bore the face of an angel. Then, like a shaft of sunlight piercing storm clouds, inspiration shot through Roger’s mind. The concept struck him as so thrilling, so staggering, that the full magnitude of the scheme pressed him down into his armchair.