The Darwin Strain

by Bill Schutt

  According to the best efforts of American and British moles, the Russians were at least five years away from being able to build their own atomic bomb. Truman supposed that if the world had until at least 1953, then maybe something other than a massive nuclear arsenal could be worked out. Maybe there was no need for new bomb tests and especially not for Doctor (“Strangelove”) Teller’s brave new hydrogen bomb. Maybe there was time enough to avoid Einstein’s warning that, while it was impossible to predict if or when World War III would be fought, if it involved nuclear and biological weapons, there was no doubt that World War IV would be fought with sticks and stones. If Teller’s “H-bomb” was ever built and successfully tested, it would surely make the Russians even more paranoid, and the president had been taught by history that there was probably nothing more dangerous than to back the Russians into a corner.

  Like the White House itself, the center wasn’t holding together. Everything seemed to be coming apart, almost everywhere. Even the Jordan River was now a too easily unlocked door to crisis. “We, the British, and the survivors of Hitler have been highly successful in muddling the situation as completely as it can be muddled,” he had said only a few weeks earlier. Then, giving official recognition to the state of Israel, he stepped back and, hoping for the best, received the worst reviews since the Ford Theatre’s last performance of Our American Cousin. Not even his wife was immune from the media smear campaign. Even his “dumb dog” Fella wasn’t spared attacks. Now it seemed the entire Middle East was erupting into war, and there was no need to trouble oneself trying to guess which side Stalin would soon be backing.

  And that’s only the beginning, he told himself. The next unlocking of a crisis led directly to MacArthur himself. First, there had been the general’s push to unseat him from office—which, according to Bobby Kennedy’s sources, might only have been a sleight-of-hand distraction. The Kennedy boy suspected General MacArthur was running some other operation right under their noses, having effectively up-and-evolved his own chain of command.

  “And did I mention MacArthur’s inordinate interest in scientists at the Metropolitan Museum of Natural History?” Bobby had warned. And for the world tonight, according to the latest developments involving a newsboy in New York, General MacArthur’s “inordinate interest” already had the Russians lathered up and chomping at the bit.

  Somehow biology was at the crisis’s core, this time—as if it weren’t enough for physicists to have opened the lid and given the world something it could never give back. (As if.) The massive, increasingly unpredictable, and potentially uncontrollable consequences of the atom bomb were already beyond scary, though in the current atmosphere, Truman dare not admit this publicly. The air was thick enough with threats of impeachment and accusations about being “un-American.”

  After having received the full reports on Japan’s Unit 731 atrocity, President Truman decided that the most American thing he could do was to stop the lid from being pried open on the next Pandora’s box. He at least had to try. Had to. Thus the executive order “removing and forbidding all research into the manufacture and use of biological weapons, even for a retaliatory strike in the aftermath of an enemy attack.”

  There was of course no bite in the order, as the president was now all too painfully aware. So long as the Russians were interested in seeking out and mining microbial horrors from the earth, MacArthur and his cabal of followers would support “defensive” research—which, though it was officially aimed at finding cures against bioweapons, simultaneously meant finding and developing the weapons that would require the cures. Under the MacArthur protocol, defensive and offensive research could be rendered indistinguishable.

  Worse, Truman realized, I may never know about what is being done. The same arrogant offensive that prevents me from closing loopholes and enforcing the injunction comes with the expectation that I will soon be out of office, and that uncounted secrets can be kept from me.

  “But arrogance and overweening pride are not exclusively American traits, or Russian ones,” he said to the night. “They travel among the continents like rain.”

  The world on the other side of the Oval Office windows actually seemed peaceful, even utopian, if one did not look too closely. The high-altitude afterburners of a Huntsville jet hinted at how the marriage of new engines and the pressurized cabin of the B-29 bomber would soon produce transatlantic passenger jets, while von Braun and Sanger looked to space planes and Mars, and beyond . . . and to high-altitude weapons.

  Bobby Kennedy knocked at the door and was welcomed in. He shuffled in tiredly, bringing coffee and pound cake. President Truman continued looking out the window.

  “Bit of advice,” the president said. “No matter how many times the bastards try to burn you down, never give up.”

  The budding young lawyer and politician nodded.

  “Got it?” Truman emphasized. “No matter how many times they try to burn you down. No matter how many times they try to burn you down.”

  “Nothing’s going to stop me,” Bobby said. “You can bet good money on it.”

  As indeed he could. It was easy to see that the Kennedy boys had a capacity to lead, and every intention of doing so. What troubled Truman was that young Bobby was presently doing much of his learning on the knee of Joe McCarthy. Would he grow to be the kind of man who led the parade, or one who, like McCarthy, simply observed which way the parade was about to move and placed himself in front of it?

  For all of this, Truman wished there were simply a better way for humanity to choose its leaders. One of Wernher von Braun’s friends had recently explained, “There are some jobs that should never be given to people who strive to obtain them, especially if they show too much enthusiasm.” What the rocket scientist had in mind were the sorts of people who would have to be drafted by their countrymen on the basis of brilliance and qualifications alone—with one of the chief qualifications being that he or she specifically did not want the job. What he dreamed of seeing was a president who had to be dragged kicking and screaming into the Oval Office.

  Truman pictured it, smiled, filed the entire scenario away under the category of not in my lifetime, then asked Bobby, “What’s the latest with the newsboy incident?”

  “The coin boy! Amazing kid. Do you realize that, all on his own, without ever having heard of Dr. Sanger’s silver-birds, he’s made drawings of rocket planes and space stations? His parents say he always obsesses on one thing or another, week to week. This week it’s breaking codes and floating things above magnets. I think we’re going to be hearing a lot from that boy someday.”

  “Then it’s important to keep an eye on him. Make sure he stays on our side. I guess some help with housing and the college of his choice wouldn’t hurt?”

  “Already on it,” Bobby said. “I’ve set him up with a mentor at Midtown High School of Science and Technology.”

  “Good. Good. And the two spies he nailed for us?”

  Bobby opened a folder and placed it on the president’s desk. The floor beneath it creaked in protest, as if at any moment the weight of a few additional papers might become the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back.

  “So far,” Bobby said, “they’ve refused to give us anything other than their first names—Genya and Victor—and we don’t even know if those are their real names. Thanks to this kid, we got them before they had time to break up their equipment. We already know that they had devices aimed right at the same museum MacArthur has been casing, but you’re not going to believe what that equipment was focused on—a broadcasting theremin.”

  “You mean, one of those creepy music things?”

  “Yeah. Its inventor personally had two of them delivered to the museum after he gave a concert there. One was still functioning as a listening device, right in the office of Richard John MacCready!”

  “R. J.? Hendry’s guy?”

  “Mr. President, before you ask, I can assure you that Mac had no part in this. He’s saved my brother’s
life twice. JF vouches for Mac, one hundred percent. Same for Mac’s entire team.”

  “And what about this theremin guy?”

  “Missing. Somewhere in Russia.”

  The president thought for several long seconds about what he had just heard. “Does your friend Joe McCarthy know any of this?” he asked.

  Bobby shook his head. “My brother said I should stay mum on the whole issue for now. Big Joe is getting a bit trigger happy these days and might accuse MacCready of spying for Russia—meaning the guy could be red, white, and blacklisted even if he is a war hero and patriot.”

  “Good advice. But why are the Russians interested in him and his crew?”

  “We don’t know. My brother served with Mac—but he puts up his hand and tells me to stop, if I ask anything about past missions. Says, unless I’m really, really interested in the evolution of elephants and chimps, it’s nothing too important. But you know what he’s like: tells you the truth every time, but only part of it. That one word, ‘too,’ could mean anything.”

  “But this friend, Mac, is on to something ‘too’ important now, isn’t he?”

  “If it’s got General MacArthur vibrating and sending in his top scientist—”

  “Who?”

  “A woman named Nora Nesbitt. And on top of that, according to the latest from our contacts in Naples, the Russians have started sending ships toward Mac’s location—which, as Hendry just confirmed for you, is the isle of Santorini. It would seem to me that this time Mac has really stumbled ass-backward into something everyone wants.”

  “And how deep do you think the problem with these two newsboy spies goes?”

  “Almost certainly part of a much larger network,” Bobby said. “We know nothing yet, but my family has pulled a few strings in Chicago, to put a couple of good men on it.”

  “Then I guess we’ll know soon enough.”

  “As I say—we’ve put good men on it.”

  July 4, 1948

  11:02 a.m. Santorini Time; 4:02 a.m., Eastern Standard Time

  An Undisclosed Location in Massachusetts

  The two Russian captives had survived two very long nights of wakefulness and worry—which was just fine for Jack “Sparks” Rubenstein.

  Rubenstein’s hatred of Stalin ran deep. He personally knew an entire family that had been decimated—worse than decimated—during the dictator’s increasingly expansive purge against Russia’s Jews. And now there were architectural plans in the Kremlin for extermination camps in the eastern Soviet Union. Stalin scarcely tried to keep a secret of it.

  The monster’s letting all the countries of the world look on, and show how little any of them really care, he concluded. Hell! There are plenty right here in America who would watch with a sneaky admiration.

  During the war, Rubenstein had become a dependable head-buster and interrogator, especially when it came time to cleanse the New York waterfront of Nazi saboteurs and spies. With quick and intensive lessons in “the fear of God,” he and “Bugsy” Siegel had even convinced three spies to act as if they were still working for the German fatherland, while sending carefully scripted misinformation back home—the sort of information that cost the Germans at least a good, thick handful of submarines.

  After uncovering a plot to drive through a Jewish neighborhood with machine guns, mob accountant Meyer Lansky had offered “Sparks” and “Bugsy” a salary to handle the pro-Hitler Bundists.

  “You don’t have to pay us,” said Rubenstein. “We’ll clean out the rat nest for free.” They loved fighting the Bundists. On many a night, Rubenstein had arrived at his brother’s house covered with blood and grinning from ear to ear.

  Not very much had changed in the years since. Sparks was reliable. He would always get the job done. His new assistant was a former OSS code breaker named Josh Roykirk, a man whose career was in tatters because he fell in love with a black woman and dared to marry her. Lansky had taken a liking to the Roykirks and drew a protective wing over the family.

  Throughout the night, the two interrogators had been playing “Mutt and Jeff” with the handcuffed and foot-cuffed Russians. The cuffs were welded shut. To any outside observer, it would have been immediately apparent who was playing the role of “good cop.” Roykirk emerged from his separate interrogation room, went straight to the kitchen, and began laying ingredients around a large rectangular pan.

  “What? You’re making him lasagna?” Rubenstein asked, incredulously. “Forget about that bullshit. I need you down the hall and in the next room.”

  “Look, I worked with this one interrogator during and after the war. A real charmer. I’ve told you how we got information out of Heisenberg and Speer. And in the heat of the war, I was there with him when he started feeding this one senior SS officer, with good food and compliments. He also fed the guy the only little scraps of information we already had about his activities, pretending as if we really knew more. We would stroll about in open air, through the Scottish countryside. And our OSS guy keeps praising him on this clever act or that clever act—and, guess what! The German ends up telling us far more than we knew to begin with. A whole shitload more.”

  “Yes, well—Josh, it’ll be my turn on your guy when I’m done with Victor. But in just a few minutes, I’m going to need you to join me.”

  There was already blood on Rubenstein’s knuckles. He whistled a cheery tune as he laid out several long pins, a white washcloth, and a Bunsen burner on Roykirk’s lasagna tray. “When the pincushioning starts,” he said, “everyone talks.”

  “You start pincushioning balls and eyeballs, and won’t he also confess to flying over the moon last night on a broomstick? And you want me to assist you in this?”

  “You won’t have to,” said Rubenstein, maintaining a low, controlled volume. “I’ve probably softened him up enough already, so that all I really have to do is show him the instruments of torture and let him see the expression on my face.”

  “So, what do you want me to do, Sparks?”

  “Just keep me from losing my temper. And you can start by not calling me Sparks.”

  “Got it.”

  “I hate that name!”

  “Got it,” Roykirk said again.

  “Makes me want to go right to needles,” Rubenstein said. He pointed one of the pins in Roykirk’s direction, studying the man’s face. “You see my way, now? Maybe your way will work with the other Russkie. I guess we’ll see. But even if you do get anything useful out of him—you can get a lot more with a kind word and a red-hot ball piercer than with just a kind word.”

  July 4, 1948

  11:02 a.m.

  Santorini

  There came a sudden shout over the walkie-talkie. “Mac—look up—up there to your east!”

  Mac gave a quick glance downhill, to reassure himself that Yanni and the others had stayed put, then lifted his eyes eastward. The aircraft had made three close passes before moving off. For many long minutes, they appeared to be holding two points above the horizon, but now they were once again growing darker and larger, noisier and nearer.

  Long before they made their fourth pass over the island, Mac figured that any townspeople drawn outdoors by the noise were more likely watching the skies instead of him, so he had run across two fields of goats to a cliff-side overlook. For more than twenty minutes, the planes had been circling out widely after buzzing the lagoon—each time opening the bomb bays, clearly trying to target something.

  Now a decision had finally been made. They were coming in fast, and bringing hell with them.

  The aircraft with the antennae-like booms projecting out front of the cockpit dropped something large near the lagoon’s center. The object sprouted a drogue chute and fell out of view near Nea Kameni—targeting the red plumes.

  The second plane dropped a pair of winged, rocket-propelled bombs. After three seconds of free fall, the rockets ignited, each following a radio-guided arc to the same exact location on the water. Mac judged that they could not have detonated mor
e than six feet apart, with no less than a ton of explosives each.

  “Base,” called Nesbitt. “We’ve heard the explosion. What do you see?”

  “Two guided bombs—went down right where they lifted Dmitri’s brother out of the water. Looks like there’s something they didn’t want us to see. Whatever it was, it ain’t there no more.”

  “The other plane—can you see what it’s doing?”

  “Yes, Nora. I’m looking across the lagoon at Nea Kameni. There’s a balloon rising on a tether over there, and the plane with the two booms sticking out is winging right back at it . . . booms just snagged the tether in the middle . . . What? There’s something like a steam shovel claw at the end of the tether—just got hauled out of the lagoon with one hell of a bottom sample.”

  “Mac, you’d better come back right away.”

  “Believe me,” he shouted back, “I’ll be down as soon as I can! I’m . . . Uhh, someone opened fire on the plane. Tracers went up from the far side of Nea Kameni . . . Smoke, now . . .”

  “Who’s firing?”

  Mac did not reply. The plane continued westward past Therasia—bomb-bay doors open, reeling in a huge sample from Cousteau’s vents. Water and rocks and red mud streamed out behind the closed jaws of the shovel. So much of the sample was blowing out of the jerry-rigged system that Mac believed by the time the shovel was aboard and the bomb-bay doors were closed, they—and he did not believe for a second that “they” were Americans—would be lucky to have recovered a thimble-full of the red stuff.

  But there was no need to worry about what “they” could accomplish with even a thimble-full. The bomb-bay doors never closed. Barely two miles southwest, over the sea, and still maintaining low altitude, the plane began bleeding smoke and oil in thick black streamers. It tried to veer due south but the starboard wing tipped up, nearly vertical, and she immediately lost all lift. The stranger hit the sea so hard that plane parts were indistinguishable in the splash.