Two Graves (51 page)

“But if they are identical twins,” asked Pendergast, “how is there any difference between the two embryos?”

A smile illuminated Fischer’s fine features. “Ah, Mr. Pendergast, you have precisely identified the central question our scientists have struggled with for years. The answer is this: The human genome carries three billion base pairs. Even among identical twins there are errors: bad copies, reversed sequences, and so forth. We augment that variation by slightly irradiating the unfertilized egg and sperm before union. Not so much as to create a freak; just enough to give us the variation we must have to swap genes. So instead of mixing and matching genes randomly, as nature does so crudely, we can build a man or woman according to careful specifications.”

“And the ‘bad’ embryo?”

“Nothing is wasted. The bad twin develops into a baby as well. Your, ah,
Tristram
is a perfect example.” Fischer chuckled. “He or she is raised for menial labor in the camps and fields, a useful and fulfilled member of society.
Arbeit macht frei
. And of course this bad twin,
der
Schwächling
, is an excellent repository of organs and blood in case the good twin is damaged or requires a transplant. Naturally, these are isograft transplants, the most perfect kind, which cannot be rejected.” He paused to light another cigarette. “The painstaking research, the refinement of the procedure, the perfection of the result—you can imagine it took years,
decades
, of careful work. It took many, many iterations, each one slightly better than the last.”

“Iterations,” Pendergast said. “In other words, sets of twins, intermediate steps in the process, that weren’t yet up to your exacting specifications. Human beings to be liquidated.”

“Not at all. You can see them every day in our village, living out useful and productive lives.”

“You can also see their doppelgängers in your underground concentration camp.”

Fischer cocked an eyebrow. “My, my, you were busy last night.”

“And Alban? I assume he is the acme, the pinnacle, of your work?”

Fischer could hardly disguise his pride. “Indeed he is.”

“Which means he himself is the beta test.” Pendergast answered his own question.

“Yes. Dr. Faust volunteered his own family—a true man of science. The Faust-Esterhazy line proved exceedingly rich. But I must say the Pendergast line proved even richer. The union between you and Helen, accidental though it was, produced a most remarkable product.
Most
remarkable, exceeding all our expectations.” Fischer shook his head. “We had allowed her parents to move to America and live there freely, raising their children. It was an early experiment to see how our subjects might function in outside society. It was a catastrophic failure. When Helen grew up, she went rogue on us. Her body had already been prepared to always bear twins—that was easy. When she accidentally got pregnant, she was forced to return here. Otherwise her fetuses would have died, without certain special treatments necessary for her to carry them to term. But she returned to Brazil more than eight weeks’ pregnant, too late for the blastocyst cell treatment we’d developed here at Nova Godói. This forced us to try something new—a tricky and highly experimental technique
of shifting genetic material between more developed fetuses. You’ll appreciate this irony, Herr Pendergast, but it was the very lateness that led to our crowning success. We had always believed the genetic work had to be done early, no later than the first few weeks. And yet the delayed work on Helen’s twins proved to be our breakthrough.” Fischer paused. “Helen could never accept the fact that we would not let her take her children back to America. We had to keep them, of course. Even at such an early age, Alban was so promising.”

Throughout this back-and-forth, Alban had been listening, a neutral expression on his face.

“This is your mother he’s talking about,” Pendergast said. “Doesn’t that trouble you in the least?”

“Trouble?” Alban said. “On the contrary, what I feel is pride. Look at how easy it was to learn the location of your Central Park meeting place—from an employee of New York’s own police department, no less!—and how quickly our people put a plan into effect.”

This was followed by a brief pause.

“And Longitude Pharmaceuticals?” Pendergast asked. “What of them?”

“Merely one of many satellite operations loosely affiliated with our work,” Fischer answered. “Our research was subtle, complex, and wide ranging; we had to draw from many sources. They are usually kept at arm’s length—but when accidents occur, as they did at Longitude, certain unfortunate steps must be taken.” Fischer shook his head.

“You mentioned that I was at least partly responsible for the successful conclusion of your work,” Pendergast said. “That you incorporated me into its final phase. What precisely did you mean by that?”

“My dear Agent Pendergast, surely you must have guessed that by now. I’ve already referred to it: your attack on the
Vergeltung
, your dogged pursuit of Helen and us, her kidnappers. We had another final beta test for Alban in mind—but when you blundered into the picture, we turned what could have been a setback into an opportunity. We completely changed the parameters of the test—rather hastily, I
might add. We decided to set Alban free in New York City. To prove that he could kill with impunity, even while revealing his identity to the security cameras. Leaving clues convincing you that the murderer was, in fact, your own son. That knowledge would give you, ah, sufficient motivation to catch him—don’t you think? If the greatest and most intrepid detective, given every opportunity, cannot catch his own murderous son—wouldn’t you say our beta test was a success? A complete, unmitigated success?”

Pendergast did not reply.

“And then Forty-Seven escaped and blundered his way to you. Once again, we turned misfortune to our advantage. We altered Alban’s final mission. Instead of a fifth murder, he would kidnap Forty-Seven from
your own house
. A mission he executed flawlessly.” Fischer turned to Alban. “Well done, my boy.”

Alban nodded his acceptance of the praise.

“So now you’ve perfected your work on twins,” Pendergast said. “You can produce a pair of them at will—one, a perfect killing machine, strong and intelligent and fearless and cunning. And, most important, perfectly free of any kind of moral or ethical constraint.”

Fischer nodded. “Such
constraints
, as you put it, lost us the war, you know.”

“And then you have the other twin, as weak as his sibling is strong, as lacking in natural ability as his counterpart is overflowing with it: slave labor and, if necessary, an unwilling organ bank. And so, having perfected this process, this ability to manufacture these diabolically perfect human beings—now that it’s done, what are you going to do?”

“What are we going to do?” Fischer seemed taken aback by the question. “But surely that is obvious? The thing we have vowed—that we have
sworn
—to do ever since your armed forces stormed our cities, killed our leader, scattered our Reich to the four winds. Why would you think that our goal, Herr Pendergast, has varied one whit from that which it has always been? The only difference is, now—after seventy years of endless work—we are ready to set about
achieving that goal. The final beta test is complete. We may now begin—what is the term you use?—the
roll-out
.”

He dropped the cigarette to the dirt floor, ground it beneath his boot. “But this begins to grow tiresome.” He turned to the man named Berger.

“You may proceed,” he said.

B
ERGER—WHO HAD BEEN CHAIN-SMOKING THROUGHOUT
the conversation—now nodded almost primly. He set the folding table in place, placed the medical bag on it, opened it, and rummaged around inside. A moment later he removed a hypodermic syringe—a thick glass tube surrounded by a sheath of gleaming steel, with a long and cruel-looking needle attached. Bringing out a rubber-stoppered pharmaceutical vial containing a reddish liquid, he pushed the needle into it and then—carefully, without hurry—drew back the plunger until the hypo was nearly three-quarters full. He squeezed off a few drops of the liquid. Then he turned and approached Egon, syringe extended.

Throughout the conversation, Egon had been looking floorward, dangling from his manacles, like an animal resigned to his fate. But now, seeing Berger approach, he suddenly became animated. “
Nein!
” he shouted, struggling wildly. “
Nein, nein, nein, nein—!
”

Fischer shook his head in disapproval, then glanced over at Pendergast. “Egon failed to follow his explicit instructions: remain with you at all times. We see no point in rewarding failure here, Herr Pendergast.”

Berger nodded to the guard. Putting his weapon to one side, the man came forward, grasped the luckless Egon’s hair in one hand and his chin in the other, brutally forcing his head back. Berger approached, needle extended. He used it to gently probe various spots in the soft flesh beneath Egon’s chin. Then, choosing one, he forced the needle—slowly, precisely—up into Egon’s soft palate, inserting it right up to the needle hub. He depressed the plunger.

Egon’s struggles grew hysterical. He screamed—or, rather, made a frightful gargling sound between his clenched teeth, as the guard kept his head locked.

Then—quite quickly—both Berger and the guard drew back. Egon slumped forward, panting, whimpering. Then his whole body stiffened. Veins began to stand out on his neck, blue and bulging. The network of veins quickly spread, like rivers finding new courses through fresh ground. They spread up to his face, down to his forearms, throbbing visibly. Egon began bucking against the restraints, making a strange
grrrrrr, grrrrrrr
sound. His spasms grew more violent, his face increasingly purple—until, with a violent eruption of blood from his nose, ears, and mouth, he collapsed, sagging against the restraints.

It was the most dreadful of executions.

With oddly fastidious motions, Berger returned the hypodermic and vial to his bag. Fischer had not even bothered to watch the proceedings. Alban had looked on, however, a glimmer of interest kindling in his blue-and-violet eyes.

Fischer turned back to Pendergast. “As I said, we were impressed by what you did on the
Vergeltung
. However, in the course of the proceedings, you caused us to lose many good men. Now that the beta test is complete, you are no longer necessary. In fact, you are a random element that needs to be removed. But before Berger continues with his work, you perhaps have a final observation, or a final question?”

Pendergast remained motionless, bound to the wall by the heavy chains. “I have something to say to Alban.”

Fischer extended his hand in an offering gesture, as if to say,
Be my guest
.

Pendergast turned to Alban. “I am your father.” It was a simple statement, spoken slowly, but pregnant with meaning. “And Helen Esterhazy Pendergast was your mother.” He nodded toward Fischer. “Murdered by
this man
.”

There was a long silence. And then Fischer turned to Alban, speaking in a condescending, almost fatherly tone. “Alban, do you have anything to say to that? Now would be an appropriate time.”

“Father,” Alban said, turning his eyes to Pendergast and speaking in a high, clear voice, “are you trying to provoke some sort of parochial family feeling? You and Helen Esterhazy merely donated sperm and egg. I was
created
by others.”

“While your twin, your brother, is a slave laboring in the fields?”

“He’s a productive member of society. I am happy for him. Everyone has his place.”

“And so you think you’re better than he is.”

“Of
course
I’m better. Everyone here is created for his place and knows it from the beginning. This is the ultimate social order. You’ve seen Nova Godói. There’s no crime. We have no depression, no mental illness, no drug addiction—no social problems whatsoever.”

“Supported by a camp of slave laborers.”

“You speak from ignorance. They have a purpose. They have all they need or want—except, of course, we can’t let them reproduce. Some people
are
simply better than others.”

“And you, being the best of all, are an Übermensch. The final, the ultimate Nazi ideal.”

“I accept the label proudly. The Übermensch is the ideal human being, creative and strong, beyond the petty considerations of good and evil.”

“Thank you, Alban,” said Fischer. “That was most eloquent.”

“The Übermensch,” Pendergast repeated. “Tell me: what is the
Kopenhagener Fenster
? The Copenhagen Window?”

Alban and Fischer exchanged glances, obviously surprised and, perhaps, alarmed by the question. However, both men quickly mastered themselves.

“It is something you shall go to your grave in ignorance of,” Fischer replied briskly. “And now,
auf Wiedersehen
.”

A silence fell in the room. Pendergast’s face was the color of marble. Slowly, his head drooped, and his shoulders sagged—a picture of despair and resignation.