The Morgenstern Project

by David Khara

  “Exactly, and you just told us that patience is a skill that needs to be honed,” Jackie reminded him.

  Eytan accepted his defeat and smiled. “Go get him,” he sighed. Sometimes he wondered if he would have liked Jeremy better when he was depressed. At least he would have kept his mouth shut.

  Chapter 34

  Poland, March 1943

  Leaning against the hood of a Mercedes parked on a dirt road that led to a small farm, Karl-Heinz was devouring his favorite sandwich, made to near perfection by his aide-de-camp. It consisted of a healthy chunk of braised pork flavored with a drop of port wine and cushioned between two thick and spongy slices of French pain de campagne. Of all the culinary delights that went with his SS colonel status during this time of restrictions, this was by far the best. Granted, the sandwich could have used a bit of butter. But it was wartime, after all, and beggars couldn’t be choosers.

  An unexpected breakthrough in his hunt had made his treat all the more enjoyable. Up until two days earlier, he had no appetite at all. He had made no progress in his search, and traveling across a country that he loathed revolted him.

  Karl-Heinz hadn’t been able to undertake his assignment from Reinhard Heydrich right away. Terrorists had attacked Heydrich on May 27, 1942, and the protector of Bohemia and Moravia had died from his injuries a week later. The assassination was met with a retaliatory mission supervised by Karl-Heinz. He had orchestrated the murder of nearly 200 men from Lidice and the deportation of the village’s women and children to concentration camps. The entire town was then burned to the ground.

  What followed was a gloomy summer, a boring fall, and a bone-chilling winter. For months, Karl-Heinz—along with the dozen man-hunting experts who made up his unit—scoured every inch of Poland in search of the Stutthof escapee. Using his best-known methods for cracking tight-lipped rats, he and his men had covered hundreds of miles, crossed scores of villages, and questioned countless farmers. All for nothing. Eytan Morgenstern had vanished. A child had outsmarted the Jäger. He would be ridiculed by the Gestapo and the entire Nazi Party.

  But Karl-Heinz’s ordinary determination had turned into pure obsession. He hadn’t given up even after his superiors had suggested that he shut the search down. At this point, they were preoccupied with the defeat on the Russian front and the growing involvement of the United States. Sure, the higher-ups had good reason to be worried. And yes, the Reich would fall. It had been obvious ever since Churchill, backed by the entire British Empire, had refused to throw in the towel. But the SS colonel didn’t care about any of that. To him, Nazism was a bullshit ideology created by a bunch of incompetent extremists. Göring was just a fat, corrupt, drugged-up psychopath. Himmler was a social-ladder-climbing zealot. And as for Hitler, he might have been an incredible speaker, but his tactics as commander-in-chief were ill-advised as soon as he strayed from the blitzkrieg method.

  This was the bitter truth for which the people of Germany would soon be paying the price.

  So why the hell would he follow a doomed leadership’s orders to put his manhunt on hold and join a collapsing army? Never in a million years would he come home from a hunt empty-handed.

  And because perseverance was always rewarded, fortune had finally smiled on him.

  Two days earlier, his unit had been on the brink of giving up all hope. They had arrived at a small garrison held down by a low-ranking soldier named Reinke. The guy was showing Karl-Heinz and his men much less respect than he was used to receiving.

  As an upstanding captain in the regular army, Reinke disapproved of the SS and made no attempt to hide his feelings. His honesty would have been risky if he had been talking with any other SS officer. But Karl-Heinz liked an honest man. A few well-chosen observations about the ridiculous policy of deporting the Jews and the absurdity of Operation Barbarossa had put the officer at ease. And while Reinke and Karl-Heinz would never be friends, they understood one another. A fugitive was more than enough for him to handle. He didn’t need to get on the bad side of more than fifty men under the command of a throwback with an outdated sense of honor.

  By this time, the Polish resistance had become a force to be reckoned with. They had recruited an extraordinary number of fighters and demonstrated unmatched determination. Acts of sabotage on roads and railways were cropping up everywhere. Not a week went by without a train getting blown up. Even more worrisome, the Armia Krajowa was wreaking havoc on the Wehrmacht’s infrastructure. The skirmishes and losses along the frontier were having a devastating effect on troop morale.

  Reinke himself had recently felt the wrath of the resistance. A few days earlier, a convoy carrying weapons had been attacked. He had lost fifteen good men, and the weapons in the trucks had vanished, along with the resistance fighters. The nature of the ambush proved just how formidable the resistance was becoming. Karl-Heinz knew the attacks would only become fiercer from here on out. Reinke had reluctantly acquiesced to Karl-Heinz’s retaliatory measures: the execution of fifty civilians and the deportation of women and children. But he didn’t hide his feelings that it wouldn’t change a thing.

  Karl-Heinz had asked the captain for information about the terrorist groups in the region, but no one in the German garrison seemed to know much about the fighters. One name popped up time and time again, though: the Tawny Bear. Specific details about this character’s identity were unknown. He was simply described as a sort of Hercules on a savage mission to liberate Poland.

  “Given his reputation, it would be a pleasure to eliminate this beast. Unfortunately for you, I’m rather busy with my current assignment,” Karl-Heinz said.

  “Eliminate him?” Reinke raised an eyebrow. “As far as the Polish people are concerned, this man and his gang are heroes. Kill a hero, and he becomes a legend. Kill a legend, and he becomes an inspiration. No one can kill inspiration.”

  “Everything dies sooner or later,” Karl-Heinz responded. “And even someone with a reputation that’s beyond reproach can be exposed. If you do get hold of that Bear, don’t give him the opportunity to strut. Humiliate him. Make him out to be a coward. Persuade the people that he was working with you all along. You’ll see what happens to this inspiration that you fear.”

  “Shrewd advice,” Reinke said. “But catching him won’t be easy. Considering the condition the sole survivor of the last skirmish was in when we found him, these men will put up a formidable fight even if we do locate them.”

  “Well, maybe this soldier has a piece of information that would help you smoke them out,” Karl-Heinz suggested. He was already losing interest in the conversation.

  “I don’t know how reliable his information would be. The boy loses his cool in stressful situations. He says he felt like he was being chased by a wolf.”

  “First a bear and then a wolf? Your resistance fighters are a regular zoo.” Now the Jäger was bored to tears. “Your soldier has too wild an imagination.”

  Reinke was quick to respond.

  “If you think about it, all of Poland’s a damned zoo—one filled with scavengers that have adapted to winters that no civilized human can stand. But on a more serious note, our soldier, Hanisch, said he saw the aggressor just as he pounced on one of our men. This is his description: ‘tall, long blond hair that flowed in the wind, and ferocious blue eyes.’”

  “Very interesting.”

  “Indeed,” Reinke sighed, “A colorful description, but it’s really not much to go on. One interesting thing: our soldier does seem to have a name for this wolf that attacked him.”

  “Let me guess: Wilhelm Grimm?”

  “No, Colonel. Eytan.”

  “What?” Karl-Heinz was jolted out of his lethargy. “Eytan?”

  “Hanisch claims he heard one of the terrorists yell his name. He said he sounded like he was calling a disobedient dog.”

  The wheels in the colonel’s head were spinning. Eytan was a common name for Polish boys. These days, most of them were awaiting deportation in the ghettos and camps. Certa
inly Eytan Morgenstern, the boy he was searching for, would have looked like a child at the time of his escape. But the experiments could have enabled him to undergo a significant growth spurt in the space of months. And his short hair would have grown out. What better for a Jewish fugitive than to team up with a band of underground fighters?

  Although it was probably just a coincidence, Karl-Heinz intended to find out. He wasn’t about to make any mistakes. He ordered Reinke to summon the soldier and insisted on meeting with him alone in the captain’s office. The latter willingly complied. Once alone with Hanisch, Karl-Heinz showed him his only photograph of Eytan Morgenstern. Hanisch’s reaction at the sight of the child in the striped prisoner’s uniform left no room for doubt. “That stare!” the soldier repeated several times as he pointed to the image with a trembling finger.

  Without causing any more drama, Karl-Heinz left the office and rounded up his men before asking Reinke for a map of the region. The hunt was back on track.

  That was why the Jäger and his unit had been scoping out the surrounding farms for the past two days.

  Karl-Heinz smiled as he swallowed the last bite of his sandwich. Thanks to a twist of fate, he would complete his assignment. And for him, it would be a double victory. He would not only capture Eytan Morgenstern, but also put an end to the dirty doings of that Tawny Bear, the one who was winning over the hearts of the Polish people.

  Feeling protected by fate, Karl-Heinz picked up the succulent-looking apple sitting on the hood of his Mercedes. He took out a long dagger from his boot and began peeling the fruit. He removed the skin in one fell swoop and bit into the flesh. It took only three bites to devour his dessert.

  Karl-Heinz threw the core to the ground. He wiped his fingers on a handkerchief embroidered with his initials before cleaning the sticky blade. He looked at the words inscribed in the metal: “Meine ehre heisst treue.”

  “My honor is loyalty.”

  The official Nazi motto, as decreed by Himmler.

  “My honor is victory,” the Jäger corrected.

  He put away his weapon and saw that one of his men was coming back from the small farm, that day’s main target.

  “Nothing of importance in the house, Colonel. But we found a secret hatch under a bale of hay in the barn,” the soldier announced proudly.

  “Interesting. Could be contraband or supplies for the resistance. We shall soon find out,” Karl-Heinz mused as he slipped on a pair of black gloves and started walking in the direction of the barn.

  “We’ve detained the farmer and his wife. If you want, I can question them, Colonel.”

  “And deprive me of my aperitif? No. What names do these people go by?” he asked as he stopped at the door.

  “Jablonski, sir. Bohdan and Cecylia Jablonski.”

  “And how old are the Jablonskis?”

  “I’d say they’re in their sixties.”

  “What a shame,” the Jäger lamented as he cracked his knuckles. “The younger ones always last longer.”

  Chapter 35

  Chicago, present day

  Eli had been cooped up in Frank Meyer’s office for about an hour and was getting antsy. Avi, on the other hand, seemed right at home, with his nose buried in a book on anatomy and genetics, which he had found in the professor’s pigsty of a workspace.

  Eli felt a wave of relief wash over him when their host returned. Frank shoved a metal box in Eli’s face, and he took it eagerly.

  “Here’s Eytan’s supply of serum. Tell him I’ve been working on a new version that won’t be as painful to inject. And while you’re at it, please remind him that he is allowed to come visit me, even though I know he won’t.”

  “You can’t call the guy clinically anti-social, but I bet he’d be a real piece of work for a psychiatrist,” Avi snickered.

  “How well do you know him, Dr. Lafner?” Frank asked, glaring at Avi.

  “How well can we really know anyone, Professor Meyer?” Avi replied, looking caught off guard. The sarcastic educator-scientist was now all seriousness.

  “True, but that’s a bit too philosophical for the point I was trying to make.”

  “And what point was that?”

  “When you look at Eytan, you see a gutsy and determined man, right?”

  “That’s a pretty accurate description.”

  “Well that’s your problem. When Eli and I look at him, we see a child. A child who hates what’s happened to him. A child who’s terrified of losing someone he loves yet again. That’s why he keeps to himself. It’s why he has never committed to a woman. It’s why he’s willing to stare danger in the face regardless of the consequences. Here’s the truth, Avi. Eytan is still trying to escape Stutthof. He’s still there in his head. So please, try to see under the surface and spare us comments like ‘a real piece of work for a psychiatrist.’”

  “I never saw him that way,” Avi said. His tone had softened.

  “It’s okay, Avi. You don’t know him the way we do,” Eli interceded. He shot Frank a reprimanding look.

  “No more jokes, I promise.”

  “If you can’t understand him, at least respect his suffering, for the love of God,” Frank pressed.

  Eli leaned over the desk and placed a soothing hand on Frank’s forearm. “Calm down. He gets it.”

  Frank took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes.

  “I’m sorry. I take this very seriously.”

  “I think we’ve all noticed that,” Eli said, trying to lighten the mood. “We snacked a little on the road, but how about we go for a real breakfast? As your punishment, you can pick up the tab.”

  Frank accepted the proposition. They walked to the faculty cafeteria in silence. With Avi embarrassed and Frank feeling guilty, Eli tried to break the ice by feigning interest in Frank’s research. The latter took the bait, and soon he was back to himself. By the time the three had finished their eggs and hash browns, Avi and Frank were busy discussing medical subjects that were completely foreign to Eli. In fact, it seemed that the two were practically made for each other. Frank even suggested a possible collaboration in the event that Avi ever decided to leave the intelligence agency. Avi was intrigued.

  Eli celebrated the first signs of a budding friendship. Frank and he would not live forever, and they would need someone to watch over Eytan once they were gone. During their flight to the US, Eli had latched onto an idea—an idea that seemed iffy at first but was becoming more conceivable in light of recent events. Jackie and Jeremy radiated an infectious zest for life and, more important, thought the world of Eytan. The same went for Avi. The three youngest members of the ragtag group seemed to get along and even enjoy each other. They appeared to be the perfect incarnations of what Eli had been dreaming of for a long time: successors.

  A text message interrupted his thoughts. Eli leaned toward his breakfast companions and quietly interrupted their conversation. He didn’t want to draw attention from the others in the cafeteria.

  “Once we’ve received your students’ results, we’ll meet our friends in Fort Wayne. Operation Baltimore was fruitful, according to Jackie.”

  “Eytan was in Baltimore?” Frank asked.

  “Yes, that’s where the prosthetics company is headquartered.”

  “Makes sense,” Frank replied, as if it were obvious.

  “Why’s that?”

  “Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University, kid. It has the best school of public health in the country. It also has one of the top five medical schools and is right up there in the fields of physiology and biomechanics. That’s everything you need to conduct research in the area of prosthetics.”

  “They’ve got your institution beat?” Avi asked.

  “I wouldn’t go that far. Sure, Johns Hopkins is ranked higher in certain fields, but those dorks have won only three dozen Nobel prizes, and we’ve got almost ninety. So who would you say is better?” Plainly, Frank wasn’t waiting for an answer.

  Eli, Avi, and Frank continued chatting for a couple of hour
s, until the three students turned up, tablet computers in hand. Frank joined them. He spoke with the students for a good fifteen minutes, his eyes glued to the screens of their devices. Finally, Frank gave each student a slap on the back and started walking back to his companions, bringing the tablet computers with him.

  “You can thank my little friends for their good work. They may not look like much, but they’re already extremely gifted in their field. So we can say this much about the prosthetic: it’s imaginative—and insidious.”

  “I’m with you on imaginative, but what do you mean by insidious?” the doctor asked.

  “The pulses sent by the brain and relayed through the nervous system to the muscles are analyzed by a microprocessor. It records the commands.”

  “You already explained that. Nothing unusual there.”

  “Oh yes, Dr. Lafner, everything’s perfectly normal as far as that’s concerned. But the program hidden in the standard code is much less so. I’m guessing that the military would find this feature fascinating. And it would be just as intrigued by the little gift I’m about to share with you.”

  Chapter 36

  Poland, spring of 1943

  Janusz and Karol had left the campsite two days earlier to attend a secret meeting with other members of the Armia Krajowa. In the works for quite some time, the rendezvous would be a forum for new missions, the number of which had risen as the German position had weakened. According to reports, which were a bit slow to reach the middle of the forest, British Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery was pushing back Erwin Rommel’s tanks in North Africa. America’s intervention in the Pacific and the successive setbacks that the Wehrmacht was suffering in the USSR were giving the resistance fighters a surge of hope. At this point in the war, the role played by the resistance fighters was becoming increasingly important in preparation for what everyone was dreaming of: a large-scale landing on the Atlantic coast.