Unlocking the safe and reaching inside, he removed a six-inch by eight-inch by four-inch, gray, plastic box lined with foam, designed to cushion the five bottles of serum from being damaged.
“We must destroy the serum and get out of here,” he shouted over his shoulder, closing the safe. “After that, we’ll break down the door and find my wife and daughter. They’re—”
Gunfire echoed through the room. Juan jumped, nearly dropping the box of serum. Colonel Gunter stood in the doorway, a black leather attaché case in one hand and his Luger in the other, pointed right at Clarita. She was blinking rapidly, horror and pain on her face, a beaker of acid held over the sink. Her other hand clutched her throat, blood pouring from between her fingers. She gurgled something unintelligible, then tipped the beaker of acid and collapsed to the floor. Acrid smoke billowed up from the ruined paperwork.
Juan screamed, barely believing his eyes. Jerking his head in Gunter’s direction, he bared his teeth in animalist fury.
“What was in the sink, Herr Doctor?” Gunter snarled, turning the pistol on Juan.
“Fuck you!” Juan shouted, rushing to Clarita’s side and dropping to the floor.
The girl’s eyes were wide with panic. She knew she was dying. Gouts of blood were surging from her mouth in time with her pumping heart. Staring up at him, Clarita tried to say something but couldn’t; she was choking on her own blood. She reached up with her free hand and grabbed hold of Juan’s lab coat, once again trying to speak. One last fountain of blood exited her open mouth—and then nothing, her eyes went dim and her hand dropped lifelessly to the floor.
Juan turned to his captor, who was advancing across the room. “You murdering bastard!”
“She was useless to us,” Gunter hissed. “Now answer my question. What was in the sink?”
Juan looked down the barrel of the Luger pointing at his forehead. “She … she destroyed the viral replication data,” Juan sputtered, expecting to hear another shot fired.
“Damnation!” Gunter spat. The sound of automatic weaponry was drawing closer. Instead of firing the pistol, he waved the barrel, urging Juan to his feet. “We need to leave, Herr Doctor. It seems that you are still of some use to the Reich.”
Juan stayed on his knees, unwilling to move. Perhaps whoever was attacking the compound would free his wife and child—if he delayed long enough.
“I said move!”
Juan was climbing slowly to his feet when a bullet splintered the floor directly in front of him. He yelped with fear. For a split second he imagined being in the Old West, having outlaws fire at his feet. When Gunter waved the pistol a second time, Juan moved quickly.
“Just in case the compound is overrun, we need to reach the motor pool and escape with both the serum and the paperwork contained in my attaché.”
“What about my wife and daughter?” Juan asked, opening the door.
“Don’t worry about them, Herr Doctor. We have contingency plans. If my men cannot hold out against our assailants, your family will be secured. You will rejoin them either in Buenos Aires or Berlin.”
Both men had exited the lab and were rushing toward the back of the building. As Juan passed a window, he glimpsed a group of green-clad men, obviously soldiers, not ten feet from his position. He picked up his pace.
“Good God!” exclaimed Gunter, stopping in front of the window. His mouth hung open. The glass suddenly shattered and an oval-shaped object bounced off his chest.
Juan immediately recognized the object and dove to the floor.
Gunter looked at his feet, also recognizing the object—a grenade. Before he managed to take more than half a step in Juan’s direction, he was ripped apart by an explosion. Blood and gore, combined with plaster and brick, flew in all directions. The exterior wall blew outward. The ceiling collapsed, burying Gunter’s shredded body.
Juan covered his head, but small- and medium-sized chunks of plaster struck his body a glancing blow. The concussion made his ears ring, turning him temporarily deaf. A cloud of dust billowed all around. As he staggered to his feet, his glazed eyes darted right and left, searching for the box containing the serum. There it was, half buried under rubble. The attaché case lay nearby, bits of gore stuck to its black leather exterior. The case was damaged but functional enough to protect the valuable research papers inside.
Juan couldn’t leave either of the two lying around for the Germans (or their attackers) to find. Brushing away the bits of Gunter, he tucked the attaché case under one arm and, holding tightly to the box of serum, stumbled from the blast zone. A chunk of rubble had struck his thigh, causing a deep bruise. Other than that, he was in decent shape; unlike Gunter, whose sudden death couldn’t have come at a better time. He’d never wished harm on anyone, but Gunter was an exception.
He thought about how frightened Maria and Selena must be. He had to find them quickly and devise a safe way to smuggle them from the compound. Pushing through a set of double doors, Juan nearly collided with five Germans, one of whom was Private Kruger.
“Where’s the colonel?” Kruger demanded, grabbing his arm. “I was told he’d be with you.”
A young lieutenant, who looked like a prototypical Aryan pulled straight from a Hitler Youth poster, confronted Juan. “What are you carrying? Is that the research Colonel Gunter was after? Answer me, swine!”
Juan was terrified. The lieutenant, whose name was Schmidt or Shultz or something, was wearing an expression of utter contempt on his cruel, perfectly chiseled face.
“Gunter’s dead,” Juan sputtered. “A grenade killed him.”
“Hand me those papers and the box, Herr Doctor,” the lieutenant ordered.
Clutching the attaché case tighter, Juan started to shake his head when the lieutenant’s arm jerked upward—in his hand a pistol, its barrel pointed squarely between Juan’s eyes. “Very well, your fate is sealed,” the German snarled.
“No, Lieutenant, don’t!” Private Kruger cried. “We need this man.”
The young lieutenant gave Kruger a sharp look. “And why is that, private?”
“Dr. Hernandez is our lead researcher. Colonel Gunter says he’s as smart, or smarter, than the Jewish scientists that defected before the war. He’s a Brazilian Einstein. The Führer still needs him … I’m certain of it.”
The lieutenant looked Juan over, his cold appraisal nerve-racking. Suddenly, a multitude of voices were heard emanating from behind the double doors in the blasted hallway: English voices with American accents. The lieutenant’s expression changed dramatically.
Two German guards stepped forward, rifles held at the ready. Raising his hand, the lieutenant shook his head and motioned for the others to beat a hasty retreat. Grabbing hold of Juan’s upper arm, he shoved him forward, the squad immediately encircling the two men. When they were out of earshot, the lieutenant said in a hushed tone, “The Americans fight like ghosts. They possess advanced military training—a Special Forces unit, most likely. Our goal has changed. We will retreat to the motor pool and escape with the serum and the prisoner, if it’s not yet overrun.”
The squad turned a corner and dashed by three soldiers who were headed in the opposite direction. The lieutenant barked for them to bring up the rear. Following orders, they fell in line. Kruger hurriedly informed them of their new mission.
Juan was still hearing plenty of gunfire, but it wasn’t nearly as intense as the previous few minutes. Judging by what the lieutenant said about the enemy combatants, he deduced that the Americans were winning the battle. As he entered the mess hall and raced toward the kitchen doors, Juan’s concern for his family steadily increased.
The kitchen was deserted, its crew having abandoned their spatulas and ladles in exchange for rifles and handguns. The squad cautiously approached the back entrance. One of the soldiers poked his head out the door then quickly pulled it inside.
“All clear, Lt. Schmidt,” he said crisply.
Schmidt nodded. “Once we’re outside, form a shield around me
and the doctor, then head toward the motor pool, using any available cover. On my mark … go!”
The squad exited the building without incident. It wasn’t until the last soldier stepped outside that the bullets began to fly. Lying in wait behind a stack of crates was a squad of marines. Their orders: shoot anyone exiting the building. They opened fire, cutting into their enemy.
The front four soldiers went down immediately. The others dove to the ground and, using the bodies of their dead comrades, and some nearby wooden pallets, returned fire.
Leaping over fallen soldiers, Juan crashed through the kitchen’s back door. Bullets ricocheted off the doorframe as he lunged inside. Racing through the kitchen, he nearly lost his footing on the greasy floor. Regaining his balance, he burst through the mess hall doors and stopped short, smelling smoke in the air. Was the building on fire? He suddenly heard someone entering the backdoor. Since the mess hall doors were still swinging, Juan caught a glimpse of Lt. Schmidt. The German’s flinty blue eyes were furious.
With the attaché case tucked under one arm, and the box of serum stuffed in the side pocket of his bloodstained lab coat, Juan sprinted to the nearest exit. He was halfway down the hall and rounding a corner when he heard the mess hall door crash open.
“There’s nowhere to run, Doctor!”
Juan didn’t believe him. Anxiously, quietly, he turned the first doorknob he found. Finding it locked, he bit his lip to keep from cursing out loud. Perhaps Schmidt was searching for him in the opposite direction. He might have panicked, had he known the Nazi was creeping steadily down the hallway toward his position. Schmidt was less than ten feet away when Juan tried the next doorknob. It turned. With heart pounding, he slipped into the small administrative office. Thankfully, it was empty, and contained a window he could use to escape the building.
He gingerly eased the door shut. After slipping around the desk, he approached the window and reached for the latch. If he was quick enough and careful enough, he would be outside, on his way to rescue his family. He froze, his blood running cold at the vision he was seeing through the window’s dusty panes.
The dormitory where he hoped to find Maria and Selena was engulfed in flames.
The attaché case clattered to the floor. Frantically fumbling with the window’s latch, Juan felt the beginnings of a horrified shriek rising in the back of his throat. This can’t be happening! This isn’t real! They escaped before the fire! Gunter told me they were safe!
From the corner of his eye, he saw what started the blaze: an American soldier was using a flamethrower on an adjacent building. A small group of German soldiers exited, their bodies burning. He could hear their high-pitched screams. They stumbled and fell shortly after exiting the building. They looked like piles of burning refuse, just like the scattered piles burning outside the dormitory where his family … One of the burning piles was much smaller than the rest.
•
A loud, choking sob, which was escalating into a tortured wail, escaped Juan’s lips as his trembling fingers turned the window’s latch. His breath caught in his throat. He tried to raise the window to crawl outside, but his arms were quivering, his legs shaking at the sight of what he knew was his daughter’s scorched body.
Juan collapsed to the floor. In his grief, he failed to hear the door open behind him. Seconds later, the barrel of a gun was pressed against the back of his head.
“Stand up, Herr Doctor,” Schmidt demanded.
Just then, something inside of Juan snapped. A loud howl, which momentarily surprised Schmidt, burst forth from Juan’s throat. He jerked sideways, spinning his arm around, striking Schmidt’s wrist, which knocked the pistol from the young man’s grasp. His other hand slammed into Schmidt’s rib cage. With a pain-fueled yelp, the German staggered backward, clutching his cracked ribs, barely able to suck air, his eyes locked on the skittering gun.
Both men dove for the weapon but Schmidt was closer. Grabbing hold of it as he landed, the German turned and rolled. Before he could do anything, Juan was atop him, enraged, ripping the weapon from his grip. Instead of shooting the young lieutenant, Juan threw it aside and, in his crazed grief, wrapped his fingers around Schmidt’s throat, squeezing, channeling every ounce of heartache and misery onto the German struggling beneath him. To his everlasting horror, by the time Juan came to his senses and realized the extent of his fury, Schmidt’s body was limp, his eyes bulging, his larynx crushed.
In shock, Juan scrambled backward, away from the corpse, unable to believe what he’d done. He’d turned into an animal, a madman, a murderer. Juan looked down at his hands and felt like an enemy of the medical profession, a betrayer of the Hippocratic Oath.
A slew of emotions were bludgeoning him, making him sick to his stomach. He had to think. Violently shaking his head, Juan crawled back to the window and, slowly rising to his feet, forced it open. While climbing through, he heard voices in the outer hallway. The Americans were sweeping the building, looking for survivors.
For some unknown reason, the Americans seemed more like invaders than liberators, which triggered Juan’s flight response. Climbing stealthily out the window, he dropped to the ground, primed and ready to flee. That’s when he remembered the attaché case. Pulling himself back up over the sill, he reached inside and grabbed the case. As he dropped back to the ground, he heard the sound of heavy military boots step into the office. He ducked, moving out of sight and away from the open window. At first he crept along the wall, but then, as his fear built to a crescendo and the smoke threatened to start a coughing fit, he pushed off and sprinted toward the burning dormitory. Whether his wife and daughter were among the charred bodies or still trapped inside the burning building, they were beyond rescue. Either way, he couldn’t allow his research to fall into the wrong hands.
The soldier wielding the flamethrower stood fifty feet away, facing the other building. Juan came to a halt in front of his dormitory, unable to draw any closer. The heat was so intense that it felt as if his clothes might burst into flames at any second.
Purposely keeping his gaze averted from the burned bodies lying at his feet, he took the attaché case firmly in hand, reared back, and flung it as forcefully as possible into the flames. By this time, part of the building had collapsed, and the case disappeared from view. He knew there would be no salvaging those papers.
The box of serum was next. Removing it from his lab-coat pocket, Juan reared back like a baseball player, ready to heave it into the flames. He was all set to throw it, but hesitated. After working so hard to create the serum, he simply couldn’t destroy it. As he returned the box to his pocket, a gust of wind brought acrid smoke his way, causing him to choke and gag.
“You there!”
Juan’s head jerked toward the voice. Looking over his shoulder, still coughing, he spotted a squad of ten American soldiers rounding the corner of the research building. They were running his way, the lead soldier pointing directly at him.
“You, whoever you are, come here!” the soldier ordered.
In a panic, Juan raced toward a line of trucks parked beside the motor pool. Multiple shots rang out. Dirt kicked up beside him. Changing direction, he sprinted toward the burning building, bobbing and weaving as he ran. Additional shots rang out, causing more dirt to kick up around him.
Suddenly a stab of pain lanced through the flesh of his left side, just above his hip bone. Juan was staggered, thrown off balance, almost falling. He’d been shot. The pain was intense. Being a doctor, he knew it was merely a flesh wound. He pressed on. Seconds later, he was shielded by the burning building.
He was in luck. Part of the building had collapsed, striking a nearby light pole, which itself had fallen, knocking down a section of the chain-link fence that surrounded the compound.
Pressing his palm against his bleeding side, Juan raced to the downed fence and scrambled across, disappearing like a wraith into the foreboding Argentine jungle. For the next twenty-five minutes he refused to stop running, despite his p
hysical and emotional exhaustion.
At last, Juan threw his spent body to the ground and sucked in great gulps of air, all the while sobbing with inconsolable grief. All of his hopes and dreams were dashed, destroyed in one fiery afternoon. As he lay staring at the jungle canopy, cheeks wet with tears, an image of his wife and daughter formed in his mind. Focusing with a fury, he burned their faces into memory, never wanting to forget. It was all he had left, for together with their bodies, their family photos had gone up in flames.
He lay there losing track of time, sinking into despair, until he realized that his family would be ashamed if he let grief and despair ruin his life. He vowed, in their name, to return to civilization and devote the remainder of his life to the betterment of mankind. But first, he had an important decision to make.
Removing the cushioned box from his lab-coat pocket, Juan popped open the lid and gazed down at the small bottles of serum. In a few hours, the serum would be spoiled, thus depriving the world of a golden opportunity. Knowing he was left with only one possible option, Juan removed a bottle of the crystal-clear serum and the accompanying syringe. He slipped the needle into the rubber stopper and drew the appropriate amount, according to the calculations he made for the start of the human trials. Since he’d been sweating profusely after his headlong dash into the jungle, he was glad the box contained packets of alcohol swabs tucked inside a mesh pocket.
He was terribly frightened. But, if the gamble paid off, he’d have plenty of time to study his body and synthesize the serum for the general public. Disease would be eliminated; death might be overcome. However, should it fail, he would be joining his family in heaven. Either way, both were acceptable outcomes.
Juan removed his lab coat, rolled up his shirtsleeve, and wrapped the coat’s belt around his bicep. Then, before his good sense talked him out of such foolishness, he swabbed the site with alcohol, slid the needle into his vein, and injected the experimental virus into his body. Without hesitation, he smashed the remaining bottles of serum between two rocks and tossed the box deep into the surrounding undergrowth.
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