“Sounds like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde,” I said.
She stared at me. “What?”
I repeated the name of Robert Louis Stevenson’s famous doppelganger.
“That’s right,” the doctor said, blinking rapidly. “That’s…that’s what I called myself.”
“Jekyll?”
She shook her head. “Hyde. Marlon Hyde. The name just came to me. I must have read the book, but I don’t remember… I rented a room and gloried in the killings there… Oh, God…”
“Pathetic,” Rothmann said. “It seems you are even weaker than your brother.”
She took a step toward him, but I raised a hand.
“The maps,” I said. “Those drawings you left on the bodies. I know what they mean-the camp at Auschwitz.”
“Oh, how clever you are,” Rothmann said sardonically. “I knew as soon as I saw the first one. How could I forget the huts where the subhumans were contained?”
“It didn’t help you identify the killer, though,” I replied, giving him a scornful smile in return. I looked at the doctor. “Why didn’t you just leave evidence pointing directly to the Rothmanns?”
Her eyes dropped. “Because…because I couldn’t. Something inside my head stopped me. The process…coffining…” She looked at Rothmann. “I think I even hoped…hoped that you would realize who was behind the killings and stop me…stop me before I did irreparable damage to the movement.” She let out a brief scream of frustration, then turned to me. “How did you know the drawings were of Auschwitz, Matt Wells?”
“I…I’m not sure,” I replied feebly. My own brain hadn’t exactly been functioning normally in recent days. I had a flash of the machine that had been lowered over me in the camp-and the blaring music, the pounding of army boots, the barking voice…
I turned to Rothmann. “What the fuck did you put in my head?”
“How should I know? You escaped before the process was complete. Besides, what happens in each case depends on the subject’s own mind. Coffining is led by the individual’s unique mental structure.” He gave an icy smile. “Perhaps, deep down, you are attracted to the Reich’s methods.”
I wasn’t going to let him distract me. I looked back at Marion Gilbert. “Did you do the drawings of Auschwitz because you approved of what went on there, or because you realized it was the Nazis’ biggest disgrace?”
She stared at me. “I don’t know…I really don’t. I was only able to do partial drawings, anyway… they just came from deep within me…”
There were pinpoints of red on Rothmann’s cheeks. “Auschwitz was no disgrace. My father did wonderful work there.”
“Research on twins, no doubt,” I said.
“Of course. That was Dr. Mengele’s main interest and my father was his right-hand man. Following their research, my sister found that twins made excellent research subjects. We were able to monitor each sibling’s progress during the conditioning process by reference to the other. The unusual complex understanding between most twins-not necessarily identical ones-was highly beneficial in structuring their minds to our purposes.”
“Do you know if he ever experimented on you and Irma?” I asked, feeling a strong impulse to hurt the fucker. “Who knows? Perhaps all this is your father’s doing, not yours or your twin’s at all. Perhaps Irma and you were coffined yourselves, back in Auschwitz.”
“Don’t speak about my sister,” he said, his body rigid. “She was a genius.”
“Really?” I said, looking at Gwen. She seemed to be apprehensive and confused. I wondered how deep her conditioning really was. “What about the Antichurch of Lucifer Triumphant? What did two fine Nazi rationalists need with a backwoods cult?”
Marion Gilbert lifted up the mask with the end of the skewer and tossed it onto the Fuhrer’s lap. He gave her a supercilious look.
“We understood early on that Americans needed religion, even a perverted one like that. The history of the country shows that. The founding fathers thought they were creating the perfect state for mankind to develop to its full potential.” Rothmann gave a scathing laugh. “Unfortunately, they failed to take account of mankind’s need for spiritual comfort. If the original state had been atheist, it would have achieved much more. Think of the civil-rights movement and those ridiculous Negro preachers.”
“You’d just have mown them down, I suppose?” I said.
“Certainly not. There is always a need for research material, even from the base races. Besides, this is not a liberal country. How many people are, to use your words, mown down by the police each year? How many blacks and Hispanics are incarcerated, and rightly so? The subhumans need a firm hand.”
I managed not to hit him, somehow. “So you let people wearing gargoyle and hyena masks, the latter with a hard-on, into your pantheon?”
He gave me a cold stare. “Whatever was effective.”
Marion Gilbert pointed the skewer at the mask. “He didn’t just let them into the rituals. He was the man in the hyena mask and his sister wore that one. People like them do not lead normal lives in any way.” She shook her head. “They think the process blanks everything out, but I remember, after the sacrifice of a young woman, I saw them-incest was no taboo for them…”
Rothmann looked completely unperturbed, glancing at Gwen and holding her gaze for a few moments. My suspicions of incest had been correct, but that only opened a new door into the abyss.
“Dana Maltravers,” I said, catching Rothmann’s eye. “Are you her father?”
He shook his head. “The research that Dr. Mengele and my father carried out in the camp, and that my father continued after the war, suggested that genetic defects were a danger. No, Dana is not my daughter. With Irma, I always wore a condom.”
“What happened to her father, then?” I asked.
Rothmann glared at me. “Are you sure you can handle the answer?”
I held his gaze. “You killed him, didn’t you?”
He laughed. “Wrong. Irma did. He was one of the first sacrifices when we reinstituted the Antichurch.”
I took a deep breath and forced myself to move on. “What about the blinding of the victims after death? Was that really necessary?”
He raised his shoulders. “The original Antichurch did that. Besides, our father lost his sight toward the end of his life-heavy smoking had damaged his eyes. My sister and I felt that was the kind of commemoration he would have relished.”
“I’m sure you’re right,” I said callously. “That didn’t put Irma and you off smoking though, did it?”
Rothmann looked at me evenly. I hadn’t laid a finger on him.
“What about Karen and me?”
He frowned. “Surely you have worked out why we abducted your lover. Her investigation into a certain London investment banker was becoming a problem.”
“Gavin Burdett of Routh, Ltd.”
“I know you saw him recently in Washington.” He smiled. “Let’s just say he is no longer of any significance.”
“What? You killed him, too?”
Rothmann shrugged. “He was expendable, and besides, his personal needs were becoming an embarrassment.”
“But Karen’s free now.”
“Like you, she escaped,” he said, giving me a tight smile. “So there’s nothing to worry about.”
“You better not have harmed her or our child,” I said, raising a fist over his bloodstained thigh. He ignored it and kept looking straight ahead.
“I’ll tell you something I don’t understand,” I continued. “Why did the Star Reporter pay so much attention to the occult murders? You suspected one of your own people was the killer, but your own rag was full of the story every day.”
Rothmann gave me a look that suggested I was mentally deficient. “Woodbridge Holdings owns numerous newspapers. Do you imagine we would censor such a major story from all of them? Murders mean major earnings for papers like the Star. Besides, we knew the investigations were going nowhere.”
“You had your
niece on the spot. Shame about Dana’s career.”
“She successfully framed you and bought us time. Besides, we have plenty more like her. But you, you should have kept quiet after we took your partner,” Rothmann went on. “We had no specific interest in you.”
“I love Karen. She’s carrying our son.”
He blinked slowly. “That was what Lister said would be your weakness.”
A cold finger ran up my spine. “Lister?”
“You didn’t think he was just a pawn, did you?
“Gordy Lister is involved in all our plans. He masterminded the kidnappings, both Karen Oaten’s and your own.”
We really had blown it when we let Lister go, but I couldn’t do anything about that now. “What about Joe Greenbaum?”
“He had long been a thorn in the sides of companies such as ours.”
“Lister set the bomb?”
He looked at Gwen again. “No, he did not.”
I let my head drop. The sick fuck. “You used her?”
“Yes, we did. And her brother. They have turned out to be excellent operatives. The Jew Greenbaum’s work has been atomized for good.”
I felt the blood boil in my veins. The bastard was wrong there, but I wasn’t going to tell him about the data stick yet. I wanted to get off the boat alive and it might be a useful bargaining tool.
I looked at Marion Gilbert. “The double weapons for each victim referred to you and your bother?”
“And to the…the Fuhrer and the professor, and power of two. They were an inspiration to me for a long time…but not…not anymore.” She stepped closer and I realized she had reached the end of her tether-her eyes were wild and her hands were shaking. She raised the skewer high.
“No!” Rothmann screamed. “Barbarossa! Barbarossa!”
This time, the instant I heard the name, I felt my knees give way. My mind filled with clashing images and sounds, but beneath them I felt a strong will that I could no longer resist. I knew it was foreign to me, I knew it was evil, but I was completely in thrall to it. The clamor ceased and I opened my eyes, ready to defend the man who had spoken the word.
Gwen had advanced on Marion Gilbert, who was bleeding from her right hand. Marion slashed at the younger woman. That was when I realized Gwen was holding a combat knife very similar to the one I had acquired during my escape from the camp.
“Now, my Fuhrer?” she asked, her eyes bright.
Rothmann saw that I had moved closer to them. “So, Wells… Are you ready to do your duty?”
I was looking down on myself, as if I were a spirit floating free. I had no control over the self that was in my body.
“Yes, my Fuhrer,” I heard myself say.
“It seems the process advanced further into your brain than we thought.”
The disembodied part of me was trying to understand what was going on.
“You see, Marion?” Rothmann was saying. “Things have changed since your time. We are now able to master even the most difficult subjects without prolonged treatment. Sometimes it just takes several repetitions of the trigger to prompt a response.”
The doctor took another swipe at Gwen, but the younger woman easily avoided the weak blow.
“You…you don’t control him,” she gasped. “He got out of the camp, he’s been working with the police…”
Rothmann laughed hoarsely, his face white as he clutched his wounded thigh. “If I tell him to attack you, he will do so.”
Marion Gilbert looked at me and I saw that she was wavering.
I sensed that my eyes had gone as blank as Gwen’s.
“Wells!” the Fuhrer yelled.
I watched as my body immediately tensed.
“Give him the knife!”
Gwen looked at the Fuhrer dubiously.
“Go ahead!” he roared.
I took the blade from her and weighed it in my hand. It felt comfortable there.
“Stop it,” Marion Gilbert said, her voice faint. “I can’t…I can’t take anymore.”
Rothmann gave her a triumphant look. “Gut her, Wells,” he ordered.
Watching in horror, I saw my body take up a combat stance, knees bent and arms in front of the chest. I tried to take control, but I had no access to the part of my being that was wielding the knife. But my victim was too quick for me.
Marion Gilbert was against the bulkhead, holding the remaining skewer vertically. The steel shaft was closer to her body than it had been. “I hope all your plans come to nothing,” she said in a low voice. Then she took a deep breath and pressed the point against her throat. With a desperate wail, she shoved the skewer upward to its hilt. A few seconds later, she crashed lifeless to the floor.
I felt my separate self slip back into my body and the knife drop from my hand. “Did you…did you make her do that?” I stammered feeling more like myself again.
He grunted in pain. “No, I’m afraid I didn’t. Unlike you, she didn’t respond to the default trigger word. She was beyond direction… It would seem she may even have regained contact with her conscience.”
I felt a surge of anger. “Fuck you.”
Rothmann looked up at me, and then smiled. I turned and saw that Gwen had picked up the combat knife. “You know, Wells, I think your reliability is questionable. At the current advanced state of our operation, that is inappropriate.” He ran his tongue across his lips. “Kill him, my dear.”
I’d been waiting for that. “Gwen, do you know that your father is dead?” I looked over my shoulder and saw that the knife had stopped a few inches from my back.
“What?” Her voice was suddenly that of a child.
“I suppose Gordy Lister made sure you didn’t see the papers.”
“No newspapers or TV are allowed without authorization,” she said emptily.
“Don’t listen to him,” Rothmann said, his voice was wavering.
“It happened here, didn’t it?” I said. I was going out on a limb, but the fact that Richard Bonhoff’s body had been dumped in the river was suggestive. “On board the Isolde.”
“No,” Rothmann said, “of course it didn’t.” But the fear on his face gave him away as a liar.
Gwen stepped up to my side. “Why?” she asked, her eyes damp. “He loved us. You should have let us contact him. We could easily have reassured him.” She leaned forward. “Why?”
“Stop!” Rothmann ordered, edging along the sofa. “Put down the knife!”
“Why?” Gwen moaned again. “He loved us…” Then she pushed past me and grabbed her Fuhrer’s collar. “If the river was good enough for Daddy, it’s good enough for you,” she said, then dragged him forward with surprising strength. When he was clear of the furniture, she put the knife to his throat and hauled him to the cabin door. “Don’t get in the way,” she said to me, over her shoulder.
I kept my distance, and then followed them out into the pale morning light.
Gwen forced Rothmann along the side of the boat till they were both standing at the bow.
“Barbarossa!” he screamed, then another word I struggled to make out-it sounded like “Gerty.” After that, he fell to his knees and screamed for help like any normal person.
I looked to my right. The guards at the gate had heard. Their boots thundered across the deck as they approached. I leaned over the side, reached for the package I’d taped under the pier and ripped it away. I tugged the mooring rope at the stern free.
“Cast off,” I yelled to Gwen. “Now!”
“Shoot the bitch!” Rothmann roared, before she clubbed him to the deck with the haft of the knife.
Shots rang out from the pier. I had the Glock unwrapped by the time the men were ten yards away. I fired at their legs and they crashed down. I leaped off the boat and ran toward them, kicking their weapons into the water and then covering them with my weapon.
“Gwen!” I shouted. “Can you start the engine?” I turned and saw that the Isolde had already drifted several yards away from the pier. I heard a movement and smashed
my boot into the face of the gorilla who had fancied his chances. “Start the engine, Gwen!”
But she stayed at the bow, the combat knife at Rothmann’s throat. Looking closer, I saw blood on her chest-a lot of blood. At least one of the rounds fired by the guards had hit her.
I thought about trying to jump on board, but the boat was already too far away.
All I could do was cover Gwen’s escape. After all that had been done to her and her twin brother, and their father, it was the least I could do.
There was a curtain of mist on the reach that led toward the Potomac, so the Isolde was soon hard to make out. I wasn’t sure if I imagined it, or if one of the figures at the bow had gone overboard.
Forty-Four
I let the guys I’d shot look after each other’s leg wounds-they seemed to have had the relevant training-and used one of their cell phones to call the cops. Telling the dispatcher who I was got me put me straight through to Chief of Detectives Rodney Owen. He came down to the marina quickly, several cars in his wake.
“Any news about the boat?” I asked, after the gorillas had been removed.
“We’ve got her. She was drifting in the Potomac, but there was no one alive on board.”
“So they both went over the side. I wonder if either of them is still breathing. The girl looked like she’d been badly hit.”
“Our people are all over the river,” Owen said. “They’ll find them soon enough.” He shook his head. “Marion Gilbert’s body was on the boat, as you said. Who’d have thought our medical examiner was a secret Nazi?”
“Not to mention serial killer. She fought against what had been done to her, but it really screwed her up.”
Chief Owen looked at me. “You realize I’m going to have to take you in for questioning.”
I shrugged. “Fair enough. How are Simmons and Pinker?”
“Versace’s still in a coma. It looks like Clem’s going to make it, though. They had a scare a few hours back, but he’s stable now. I spoke to him. Looks like you’re in the clear, but there are a lot of details we have to go through. The FBI’s on your case, as well. You’ll have to talk to them about the occult killings.”
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