by Winn, J. K.
“I see,” Dylan said, although his vision was bleary, compromised by his deteriorating condition.
“And he is not only one looking for me, as you vell know. There are those privy to information about my research who at nothing vould stop to steal my secrets and do me in. You had better not be one of them. I need more proof of your background.”
“All I have is my business card and license.” Dylan dug through his pocket for his billfold and opened it for Von Schotten.
Von Schotten glanced at the license. “So, you are tour guide, Herr...” he glanced down at the license, “Hart. Vhat does that to prove? It may only be cover.”
“There’s nothing else I can do to prove myself to you, but I am telling the truth.”
The doctor studied him for a moment longer. “I have no choice, but take your vord. Xikxu, escort our guest to small bedroom.”
Startled momentarily out of his daze by a strong hand on his arm, Dylan weakly rose to follow the guard to a room with a cot. As soon as the guard left him alone, he pulled aside the mosquito netting and sank heavily into the starched white sheets. He could finally take inventory and measure the damage done. Everything about him hurt, and his shoulder had become an amorphous mass of misery. He fingered the bandage covering his wound and could feel heat rising from beneath. A bad sign. To comfort himself, he pictured Leah, but instead of putting him at ease, the memory created an intense ache, more nagging than the one in his shoulder. He wouldn’t rest until he took her the vaccine.
He gradually relaxed into the bedding, sensed that he was falling asleep. He stirred in an attempt to keep himself alert, on guard, but his limbs were leaden, his lids heavy. Against his will, his eyes drifted shut...
* * *
Dylan startled awake with a stabbing pain in his shoulder and looked around in confusion at his surroundings. After a long moment, he remembered where he was and what he had to do. He had no idea what time it was, though the room was dark except for moonlight. He had probably slept too long.
The moonlight illuminated his shoes on the floor. Dazed, he bent over and pulled them on, then stumbled from the bed to the locked door. Fearful the guard would not allow him to leave, he picked at the lock with his pocketknife until he heard a click. He quietly pushed aside the heavy door and crept past the sleeping guard down the hall in search of the doctor and the vaccine.
An oil lamp left burning in Von Schotten’s study drew Dylan inside. He approached the desk, hoping to find evidence of the vaccine’s whereabouts. He reached around a framed certificate to search the center drawer and accidentally knocked it down. When he picked it up, he noticed the embossed Swastika. He examined it more closely. The document, made out to Dr. Frederick Von Schotten, had been signed by Adolf Hitler himself.
Behind him, Von Schotten’s voice boomed. “Vhy are you in study snooping?”
Surprised, Dylan dropped the framed certificate. It clattered against the desktop. “I was only looking at your letter of commendation. I had no intention-”
Von Schotten’s features flamed. “Liar! I thought it suspicious about your arrival. Nicht?”
Dylan raised his hands, palms forward, in a conciliatory gesture. “You don’t understand. I came into the study to find you. I must return to Dr. Kruger’s.”
“Is that vhy you go through desk, schweinehund? I no longer believe anything you say,” the old man said with a raised voice.
The commotion drew Xikxu to the door with the readied revolver in his hand.
Von Schotten shot Dylan a skeptical stare. “So for smallpox vaccine you come?” He turned toward the desk and bent over it.
Dylan immediately saw the spidery red birthmark on the back of his neck. His remembered what he had heard from the Machinguegos, what seemed like an eternity, but was only days ago. His gut clenched. So Von Schotten was the doctor who visited the Machinguegos at the time of the epidemic, not Kruger. He was in more danger than he had thought. “I came looking for you, but I was distracted. My wound has made me less than clearheaded. I’m sorry.”
Von Schotten pulled a revolver out of the center drawer and faced him with a steady aim. “For my enemies you vork, nein. Tell me of your association vith them. I vill not be fooled by lies.” In the silent room, Von Schotten’s whole body hummed with smoldering rage. “Enough of this deception. Tell truth or Xikxu vill think nothing of eviscerating you on the spot.” The doctor’s gesture was pure menace.
Dylan had to buy time to come up with a plan. “Wait! I’ll talk. I’ll tell you what you want to know.”
Weapon raised, Von Schotten stepped closer to Dylan and confronted him almost nose to nose. “Vhat is purpose for your visit?”
“I swear I came only for the smallpox vaccine.” The pistol poked his rib. “But I failed to mention I’m a medical examiner. I’m aware of the nature of your work and wanted to find out the composition of the viral concoction you’ve been using on the Indian people in Peru.”
Instead of the denial Dylan expected, the doctor took a step back. “How do you to know?”
He had to think fast. “I’m with the National Institute of Health and worked with Dr. Harvey Samuels on the Zaire project. His main interest is Hemorrhagic viruses. Since the Hemorrhagic fever we’ve seen here in the Amazon is unique to any we’ve seen before, he...we...only want to know what the local people are infected with so we can treat them.”
Von Schotten quivered with what seemed like a mixture of anger and anxiety. “It is not hybrid containing smallpox, Herr Hart.” The doctor slapped his free palm on the desktop. “You vant microbe information. That is vhy you snoop about study.”
“I must identify the microbe or more people will die.” The exasperated look on Von Schotten’s face told him he better up the ante or he’d never prevail. “If I don’t take the information back with me, a UN military exploration unit will be sent to find out more.”
Von Schotten narrowed his eyes further, looking more sinister. “Vhy should I believe you. You already lied to me.”
Trying to prove himself seemed futile. “You can’t mean to let these people die for no reason. What purpose does it serve?”
“Life or death is no concern for me.” He brushed off the remark with a hand. “I never condone vanton murder, but advancement of medical science is of far greater importance than single human life.”
Dylan stared open-mouthed at him.
“Most of vorld’s medicines come from rainforest. Tribes stand in the vay.”
Dylan’s fingers dug into the arm of the adjacent chair. He hated to dignify this man with a response. “Every human being is significant, but we’re not speaking of one. Scores of men, women and children have been infected with this virus.”
The doctor’s steely gray unfocused eyes looked as cold as a night in the Andes. “Not my concern. I merely am paid to make formula.”
A chill shivered through Dylan. “By whom?”
Von Schotten drew his brows together. “Do not play dumb, Herr Hart. If you vork for National Institute of Health, you know who funds research.”
“The United States government?” Dylan chanced.
“The Central Intelligence Service does not care how I conduct my research.” The doctor showed pure contempt. “Only that I make virus potent enough to deter against terrorists—or so they say.”
Bile rose into Dylan’s throat. “I don’t believe you. The U.S. Government has no idea what you’re doing.”
“If that is true, it is because they choose not to know.” Von Schotten cleared his throat, spitting phlegm into a starched white handkerchief. “Just like they chose not to back me up vith Project Paperclip. As soon as my vork with the CIA vas exposed by Drew Pearson in American press, followed by public outcry, they exiled me to this God-forsaken place. I have been trapped here for years.” He gestured with the firearm. “They may vant to forget me, but I shall not let them. They betrayed me and they vill live to regret it.”
“What do you mean?”
Von S
chotten’s gaze fixed on the far wall. “I have enough said.” He turned his intense stare on Dylan. “I hate vhat I must to do, Herr Hart, but you know too much. As doctor, I take lives only in interest of science, but exceptions must at times be made.”
Dylan had to shake off the shock of Von Schotten’s admission and it took all his strength to pull himself up into an intimidating stance. “You call yourself a healer, but you’d let your former colleague’s granddaughter die for no good reason when you alone have the power to save her. She’s not just his only granddaughter, she’s my fiancee and I’ll do anything to see she lives.”
“Not much to do, Herr Hart. You know too many things that could be used against me. Too late.”
“It’s too late for you, too. Kruger knows all about your experiments. If his only granddaughter dies because you wouldn’t release the vaccine to me, he’ll see the Brazilian government and the United Nations all come down here and blow you and your experiments right out of the jungle before you can say ‘The Third Reich will rise again!’”
Von Schotten glared at him. “Xikxu, take him outside!”
Xikxu started toward him, but before the guard reached him, Dylan lunged and grasped the doctor’s shoulders. “Don’t do—” The guard wedged himself between the two men and pushed Dylan backwards, off balance. Too weak to put up much of a fight, Dylan toppled onto the desk.
Xikxu grasped Dylan’s arm, shoved it painfully behind his back and began to haul him off, but Dylan fought to pull himself free to reach an arm toward Von Schotten. “Wait. If I’m going to die anyway, please share your secret with me. This may be your last chance to tell another scientist about your breakthrough. What can it hurt? I’ll never be able to share the knowledge with anyone else.”
Von Schotten’s head bobbed rhythmically in what looked like thought. After a pregnant pause, he signaled Xikxu, who stopped, but held Dylan’s good arm behind his back and kept his weapon ready.
“That interests me, Herr Hart. I have not had opportunity to discuss vork vith scientific colleague. I admit it to be tempting proposition.” The doctor stood erect with his chest out, his chin high. Dylan had obviously hit upon his one weakness besides paranoia. Pride. “I am first scientist to successfully combine Ebola virus vith Handovers microbes.”
Dylan sensed the gravity of the doctor’s words. “How?”
Von Schotten’s thin lips twisted into a malicious grin. “I spliced strand of RNA from Ebola virus onto RNA of Handovers. Vithin three generations, hybrid mutated into unique agent. The microbe is highly lethal and impossible to treat”-his untamed eyes shone-“except I, too, make vaccine, taken from antibodies of infected tribe, that blocks action of virus vithin cell so it cannot replicate as it normally vould. True power lies not in virus, but in antibody. He who controls antibody, controls vorld.”
“Why you?” Dylan wondered aloud, “when so many others are working on this?”
“Others are veaklings! I alone use people to harvest virus.” Von Schotten’s eyes shone. “No one else has strength or stomach. Hybrid vill not to grow in another specie.”
The force of Von Schotten’s words hit Dylan hard. This unethical man held the power of life or death in his hands and would be willing to use it entirely for his own ends.
“Now, Herr Hart, although I enjoy our little chat, it must end.” Von Schotten turned toward his guard and gave an order in a dialect Dylan did not know. “Xikxu must remove you.”
As the guard dragged him across the room, Dylan strained to free himself. At the door, he was able to dig his heels in long enough to say, “Dr. Von Schotten, I beg you to consider the life of your colleague’s granddaughter. You said you didn’t approve of indiscriminate murder, but you are about to wantonly condemn a young woman to her death.”
Von Schotten held the pistol steady. “No more arguments, Herr Hart. Xikxu, take him away.”
Xikxu grasped Dylan’s arm in an iron-clad hold and dragged him from the house, the gun sealed to his skull. Dylan resisted the powerful guard as much as he could in his weakened condition, but was propelled relentlessly forward. He stumbled along, partly on his own, partly hauled by the guard.
At a great enough distance from the house that he wouldn’t be heard or seen, Dylan hooked a foot in a vine and dropped to his hands and knees. He swiftly slipped the jungle knife from his sock into his palm before Xikxu yanked him upright and pushed him forward.
In a clearing. Xikxu’s tug on Dylan’s arm demanded he stop. The time had come to kill or be killed. Before the guard had time to react, Dylan flipped the knife out of its sheath and thrust it into the other man’s gut. The guard’s eyes popped wide with surprise. He silently clutched his stomach and fell to his knees. A moment later, he pitched forward and lay still. Dylan took a deep breath and wiped the sweat from his brow. After cleaning the knife on a leaf, he placed it back in his sock. He had promised himself he would never kill another human being again after Somalia, but saving Leah’s life was all that mattered to him now.
He grasped Xikxu under the arms and, despite his throbbing, almost useless left arm and shoulder, adrenaline gave him the strength to move the portly guard behind thick growth. With one last sideways glance to insure his safety, Dylan darted back around the house and sidled up to the study’s window to see if Von Schotten was still in the room.
Inside, Von Schotten sat by his desk rifling through a file. When he glanced up, Dylan ducked out of the doctor’s field of vision and made his way around the side of the house, staying close to the exterior wall. He scanned each room in passing for possible new dangers. In one room Sawa was making a bed. A wiry, indigenous man swiped a mop over the floor, but appeared more interested in talking to her.
Dylan bent beneath the sill and continued his reconnaissance, the hum of a generator cloaking his footsteps. At the next window, he saw a lab table in the center of the room. He had found his target. He climbed through the open window into the empty laboratory and went directly to the lab’s pint-sized refrigerator. It contained an array of beakers the doctor had labeled in German. Most of the technical names had no meaning for him, but the last beaker he picked up read, Variola major, a name he recognized from the letter he had carried.
To the best of his knowledge, this had to be smallpox vaccine.
He rummaged through drawers until he found a rack of empty test tubes and a box of matching corks. He searched for a surgical mask and lab coat and found both draped across the desk chair. Plucking rubber gloves off a wire rack, he pulled them over his large hands
He removed the beaker gingerly from the refrigerator and placed it on the lab table. With extreme care, he uncorked it and carefully filled a test tube with the Variola. After he sealed the tube, he placed it in his breast pocket. On second thought, he prepared another test tube, tore the label off the beaker and wrapped it around the second tube before placing it in his other pocket.
With the tubes safely stored, he scanned the other beakers. One read, Ebola/Hanta, and had a skull and crossbones on the label. This could be either the live infectious virus or the vaccine Von Schotten had developed. The potential danger of exposing himself to the “Hot” Virus was so great, he decided not to tamper with it, merely report its development to the authorities when he returned to Iquitos. Now he had to get the vaccine back to Leah.
A scraping sound in the doorway almost caused him to knock over the beaker. He spun around and faced Von Schotten.
Chapter Thirteen
Leah leaned back on the garden bench and took a deep breath. The air, thick with moisture, lay heavy in her lungs. She stretched her legs, grateful to be allowed outside what had become cell-like house walls. Kruger no longer needed to worry about her escaping-her life depended on remaining with him. The idea of meeting in the garden had actually been his.
She watched while he tended to his garden full of exotic orchids and bromeliads. Every so often he would stop to study a particular plant, carefully stroking a vine or pinching dead leaves. As he did,
he spoke to the plant, either encouraging or flattering it. The task evidently placed strain on his back and legs, for he bent over more than normal when upright, showing a decided limp. She marveled how he took meticulous care of his plants, even while neglecting his own condition. The attention he paid to his garden made it difficult to believe anyone as nurturing as this shriveled up old man had caused the suffering of so many.
She envied Kruger’s absorption. If only she could find an activity that would take her mind off of Dylan. Two days had passed since his departure and every day her worries multiplied. She could hardly think of anything else. Was Dylan safe? Had he found his destination? What if he ran into trouble and never returned? If he did return, would he have the vaccine?
Terror grew in spite of her efforts to keep it sequestered in the shadowy corners of her mind, and with it came thoughts she’d rather not entertain. Would Dylan abandon her like her father; point his boat back toward civilization and leave her to her fate? She didn’t want to think this of him, but she couldn’t help herself. She had trusted men before, only to be disappointed. Why would she expect a paid guide to do what her father wouldn’t? With this niggling doubt came a sense of dread, which almost made her interview with the doctor a welcome way to take her mind off her worries.
Kruger limped over to her and handed her a green orchid with the air of one offering an emerald. “These are my children, mein kinder. A lovely flower for lovely young lady.”
“It’s gorgeous.” She was touched, but wary. She had to consider the source of the sentiment.
“Flowers are only creatures on earth to rejoice in my presence, Leah. Look here-” He gently lifted a large, lavender bloom. “This Cattleya Skinneri, national flower of Costa Rica.”
“And this,” he caressed a deep cinnamon-brown flower with a rose lip and heavy red venation, “Laelia Tenebrosa.”
Nearby a hummingbird landed on a long stem with pink leaves. “What’s that lovely flower called?”
