The Sigma Protocol (76 page)

“Keep going,” Ben said, like a hesitant student.

“The efforts of Sigma—our attempt to
moderate
the politics of the postwar era—were only the beginning.
Now we can change the face of the planet! Ensure universal peace, prosperity, and security, through the wise management and marketing of the planet’s resources. If that’s what you call a conspiracy of the elite—well, is it really such a bad thing? If a few miserable war refugees have to meet their maker ahead of schedule in order to save the world, is that really such a tragedy?”

“It’s only for the ones you judge worthy, right?” Ben said. “You want to keep it from everyone else? There will be two classes of human being.”

“The ruled and the rulers. But that’s inevitable, Ben. There will be the Wise Men and the ruled masses. That’s the only way to engineer a viable society. The world’s already overpopulated. Much of Africa doesn’t even have clean drinking water. If everyone lives twice or three times longer, think of what this will do! The world would collapse! That’s why, in his wisdom, Lenz knows it must only be available to the few.”

“And what happens to democracy? The rule of the people?”

Godwin’s cheeks colored. “Spare me the sentimental rhetoric, Ben. The history of man’s inhumanity to man has been history itself:
mobs
destroying what the
nobility
had painstakingly constructed. The main task in politics has always been saving the people from themselves. This wouldn’t go down well with the undergraduates, but the
principle
of aristocracy was always correct:
aristos, kratos
—rule of the best. The problem was that aristocracy often didn’t give you the best. But imagine if for the first time in human history, you could rationalize the system, create a hidden aristocracy based on merit—with
Wiedergeborenen
serving as the custodians of civilization.”

Ben stood up and paced. His head spun. Goodwin, spinning his giddy justifications, had been hooked by the irresistible lure of near-immortality.

“Ben, you’re what, thirty-five, thirty-six? You imagine you will live forever. I know I did at your age. But I want you to imagine being eighty-five, ninety, God willing you live so long. You have a family, you have children and grandchildren. You’ve had a happy life, your work is meaningful, and although you have all the normal afflictions of old age—”

“I’ll want to die,” Ben said curtly.

“Correct. If you’re in the condition of most people at that age. But you don’t ever have to
be
ninety. If you begin this therapy now, you’ll always be in your prime, in your mid-thirties—God, what I’d give to be your age! Please don’t tell me you have some ethical objection to it.”

“I’m not sure what to think at this point,” Ben said, watching Godwin closely.

Godwin seemed to believe him.

“Good. You’re being open-minded. I want you to join us. Join the
Wiedergeborenen
.”

Ben sank his head into his arms. “It’s certainly a tempting offer.” His voice was muffled. “You make some very good points—”

“Are you still here, John?” interrupted Lenz’s voice, loud and enthusiastic. “The last helicopter’s about to leave!”

Godwin rose swiftly. “I need to catch the shuttle,” he apologized. “I want you to think about what we discussed.”

Lenz entered with his arm around a stoop-shouldered old man.

Jakob Sonnenfeld.

“Did you have a good talk?” Lenz inquired.

No. Not him, too
. “You—” Ben blurted out to the old Nazi hunter, revolted.

“I think we may have a new recruit,” Godwin said somberly, and gave Lenz a brief but significant look.

Ben turned to face Sonnenfeld. “They knew where I was going in Buenos Aires because of you, isn’t that right?”

Sonnenfeld looked pained. He averted his eyes. “There are times in life when one must choose sides,” he said. “When my treatment begins—”

“Come, gentlemen,” Lenz interrupted again. “We must hurry.”

Ben could hear the roar of a helicopter outside, as Godwin and Sonnenfeld moved toward the exit.

“Benjamin,” Lenz said without turning around. “Please stay right there. I’m so glad to hear you may be interested in our project. So now you and I must have a little talk.”

Ben felt something slam him from behind, and steel clamped against his wrist.

Handcuffs.

There was no way out.

The guards dragged him through the great hall, past the exercise equipment and the medical monitoring stations.

He screamed at the top of his lungs and let himself go limp. If any of the
Wiedergeborenen
remained, they’d see him being abducted, and surely they’d object. These were not evil people.

But none of them remained, at least no one he could see.

A third guard took his upper arm and joined the others. His legs and knees slid painfully against the stone floor, the abrasions excruciating. He kicked and struggled. A fourth arrived, and now they were able to hold Ben by each limb, though he torqued himself back and forth to make it as difficult for them as possible, and he kept shouting.

They trundled him into an elevator. A guard pressed
the second-floor button. In seconds the elevator opened on to a stark white corridor. As the guards carried him out—he’d ceased resisting; what was the point?—a passing nurse gaped at him, then looked away quickly.

They brought him into what looked like a modified operating room and hoisted him onto a bed. An orderly who appeared to have been expecting him—had the guards radioed ahead?—fastened colored restraints to his ankles and wrists, and then, once he was secured to the table, removed the handcuffs.

Exhausted, he lay flat, his limbs immobile. All of the guards but one filed out of the room, their work done. The remaining guard stood watch by the closed door, an Uzi across his chest.

The door opened, and Jürgen Lenz entered. “I admire your cleverness,” he said. “I’d been assured that the old cave was sealed or at least impassable, so I thank you for pointing out the security risk. I’ve already ordered the entrance dynamited.”

Ben wondered: Did Godwin really invite him to join them? Or was his old mentor simply trying to neutralize him? Lenz was far too suspicious to trust him anyway.

Or was he?

“Godwin asked me to join the project,” Ben said.

Lenz wheeled a metal cart over next to the bed and busied himself with a hypodermic needle.

“Godwin trusts you,” Lenz said, turning around. “I myself do not.”

Ben watched his face. “Trusts me about what?”

“About respecting our need for confidentiality. About who you or your investigative friend might have already talked to.”

Here was his vulnerability!
“If you release her unharmed, you and I can strike a bargain,” Ben said. “We each get what we want.”

“And, of course, I can trust you to keep your word.”

“It’d be in my own best interests,” Ben said.

“People do not always act in their own self-interest. If I were ever to forget it, the
angeli rebelli
were there to remind me.”

“Let’s keep it simple. My interest is in having you release Anna Navarro. Yours is to keep your project secret. We have a mutual interest in striking a deal.”

“Well,” Lenz said dubiously. “Perhaps. But first I’ll need a little chemically inspired honesty, in case you don’t come by it naturally.”

Ben tried to suppress the wave of panic. “What does that mean?”

“Nothing harmful. A pleasant experience, in fact.”

“I don’t think you have time for this. Especially with law-enforcement agents due to arrive at any second. This is your last chance to deal.”

“Ms. Navarro is here on her own,” Lenz said. “She hasn’t called in anyone else. She told me so herself.” He held up the hypodermic. “And I assure you she was speaking the truth.”

Keep conversing. Keep him diverted
.

“How do you know you can trust the scientists on your team?”

“I don’t. Everything, all the materials, the computers, the sequencers, the slides, the formulas for the infusions—they’re all here.”

Ben pressed. “You’re still vulnerable. Somebody could get access to whatever offsite storage arrangements you’ve got for the data files. And no encryption is unbreakable.”

“Which is precisely why there
is
no offsite storage,” Lenz said, with evident satisfaction in demonstrating the fallacies in Ben’s suppositions. “That represents a risk I cannot afford. In all honesty, I did not get where I am by placing excessive trust in my fellow man.”

“As long as we’re both being honest, let me ask
you
something.”

“Yes?” Lenz tapped Ben’s left forearm until a vein popped up.

“I’d like to know why you had my brother killed.”

Lenz jabbed a needle into the vein with what seemed unnecessary force. “It should never have happened. It was done by fanatics among my security people, and it’s something I deeply regret. A terrible mistake. They were concerned that his discovery of Sigma’s original board would imperil our work.”

Ben’s heart thudded, and again he fought to control himself. “And my father? Did your ‘fanatics’ kill him, too?”

“Max?” Lenz looked surprised. “Max is a genius. I very much admire the man. Oh no, I wouldn’t harm a hair on his head.”

“Then where is he?”

“Did he go somewhere?” Lenz asked innocently.

Move on
.

“Then why kill all those other old men…?”

There was a slight twitch under Lenz’s left eye. “Housecleaning. For the most part, we’re talking about individuals with personal involvement in Sigma who sought to resist the inevitable. They complained that Sigma had fallen under my sway, felt displaced by my emerging role. Oh, all our members were treated generously…”

“Kept on a string, you mean. Given payments to fortify their discretion.”

“As you like. But it was no longer enough, not now. What it came down to was a failure of vision. The point remains that they declined to, shall we say, get with the program. Then there were those who became importunate, possibly indiscreet, had long since ceased to have anything to offer. They were loose threads, and the
time had come to snip them. Perhaps it seems harsh, but when there’s this much at stake, you do not simply give people a firm talking to, or spank their wrists, or put them in ‘time-out,’ yes? You take more definitive measures.”

Don’t give up
, Ben told himself.
Keep him engaged
.

“Murdering these old men in itself seems a foolish risk, don’t you think? The deaths were bound to attract suspicion.”

“Please. All the deaths appeared to be natural, but even if the toxin were discovered, these were men with plenty of worldly enemies—”

Lenz heard the sound at the same moment Ben did.

A burst of machine-gun fire not far away.

And then another, even closer.

A shout.

Lenz turned toward the door, hypodermic needle in one hand. He said something to the guard standing by the door.

The door burst open in a hail of bullets.

A scream, and the guard collapsed in a pool of his own blood.

Lenz dropped to the floor.

Anna!

Ben’s relief was enormous.
She’s alive, somehow she’s alive
.

“Ben!” she shouted, flinging the door shut behind her and turning the lock. “Ben, you all right?”

“I’m all right,” he called.

“Stand up!” she screamed at Lenz. “You goddamned son of a bitch.”

She advanced, machine gun leveled. She was wearing a doctor’s short white coat.

Lenz stood. His face was flushed, his silver hair mussed. “My guards will be here any second.” His voice quavered.

“Don’t count on it,” Anna replied. “I’ve sealed off the entire wing, and the doors are jammed from the outside.”

“You’ve killed that guard, I think,” Lenz said, bravado returning to his voice. “I thought the United States trained its agents only to kill in self-defense.”

“Haven’t you heard? I’m off duty,” Anna said. “Hands away from your body. Where’s your weapon?”

Lenz was indignant. “I have none.”

Anna approached. “You don’t mind if I look, do you? Hands
away
from your body, I said.”

Slowly she took a step toward Lenz, slid her free hand inside his jacket. “Let’s see,” she said. “I sure hope I can do this without setting off the damned machine gun. I’m not too familiar with these little guys.”

Lenz paled.

She produced a small handgun from inside Lenz’s suit with a flourish, like a conjurer pulling a rabbit out of a top hat.

“Well, well,” she said. “Pretty slick for an old man, Jürgen. Or do your friends still call you Gerhard?”

Ben gasped, “Oh, my God.”

Lenz pursed his lips, and then, oddly, he smiled.

Anna pocketed Lenz’s handgun. “For the longest time it baffled me,” she said. “The federal ID lab ran the prints but turned up nothing, no matter how many databases they used. They tried the army intelligence files, but still nothing. Until they went back to the old ten-print cards from the war and a few years after, which haven’t yet been digitized, why should they be, right? Your SS prints were included in the Army’s files, I guess because you escaped.”

Lenz watched her, amused.

“The techies speculated that maybe the prints on the photo I’d sent them were old, but the strange thing was, the fingerprint oil, the perspiration residue they call it, was fresh. Made no sense to them.”

Ben looked at Lenz. Yes, he resembled the Gerhard Lenz who appeared in the picture with Max Hartman. Lenz in that 1945 photo was in his mid-forties. That made him, what, over a hundred years old.

It seemed impossible
.

“I was my own first successful subject,” Gerhard Lenz said quietly. “Almost twenty years ago I was for the first time able to arrest, then reverse, my own aging. Only a few years ago did we devise a formulation that works reliably on everyone.” He was looking off in the distance, his gaze unfocused. “It meant that
everything that Sigma stood for could now be made secure.”