Children of Wrath (37 page)

“‘Dr. Spiegel’s letter was in sophisticated Russian,’” she continued in a more businesslike tone. “‘The man either knew our language proficiently or had an excellent translator—although anyone who’d read what he’d written would surely have gone to the police.

“‘It began with a paean to me, not merely hyperbolic but grandiose to a pathological degree. He referred to me as one of the greatest scientists the human race had ever produced, having done more than anyone to destroy the Cartesian myth that body and soul were separate. Only gradually did he come to his point—that by climbing upon my shoulders or some such rubbish, he had reached
beyond
what I could ever have achieved.’

“The gall,” Grzenskya blurted an involuntary cri de coeur, then pretended she was merely clearing her throat.

“‘In intricate detail he explained how, in Berlin, he had re-created my famous Tower of Silence, so necessary for the type of experiments I do.’”

As if hit by lightning, Willi knew exactly where it was suddenly. Of course. Why hadn’t he thought of it? Where else had Ilse just gone in her ice cream wagon? Where had all this emanated from? The very first time he’d been there, he’d noticed it—that looming neo-Gothic hulk supposedly abandoned for years—the old Viehof water tower. Direktor Gruber himself described it as something out of a vampire movie.

“‘His experiments were proving beyond a doubt,’”—Grzenskya grew paler with each line she read—“‘that the cortex and its substructures were, as I’d postulated, the source of all higher nervous activity. That I had not been able to obtain definitive proof of this hypothesis because my experiments were limited to cats and dogs. But that without such constraints he had—’” Here her throat seemed to stop up entirely, her face, even through many layers of Pan-Cake makeup, flushing whiter than the letter. Slowly lowering the glasses, Grzenskya looked at Willi, then managed to utter, “‘By using human beings, specifically children ages seven to fourteen, as subject material.’”

Spiegel,
Willi was thinking.
Spiegel
meant “mirror.” Dr. Mirror.

“You know who speaks perfect Russian?” Fritz’s whole face had darkened.

“‘If we could see into the cranium,’” Willi was recalling the words, “‘we might view how a person—’”

Thirty-two

The six-sided tower rose like an abandoned castle, tall and bulging at the upper stories, masked with thick black soot. At its turret a long chain whipped in the afternoon wind, making a ghostly rattle. It was nearly three. Twenty-three hours since the boys had vanished. Every minute hell.

On the nearby streets, the
Viehof
pulsed with activity. Livestock agents held on to hats as they hurried down sidewalks or bartered on corners, smoking fat cigars. Trucks along Thaer Strasse groaned under heavy loads—some with piles of burlap sacks stamped
SCHNIZTLER AND SON
. Far down the block, a herd of pigs sang farewells as they marched toward the tunnel entrance. Willi watched it all from the shadows of an alley near the former pump house. A coiled predator biding time.

Everything was set for sundown. Gunther was requisitioning squads of armed security police, as he’d done for this morning’s action, Fritz off digging up facts on Dr. Spiegel and planning to meet them here at dusk to assist in a two-pronged attack. Which would never take place, because Willi had no intention of risking another disaster such as 146 Maybach Ufer. All of it was a ruse to get them off his back. He was going in alone this time. Right now.

Stepping from the shadows, he calmly walked across the street, then ducked sideways, bolting toward a rear entrance of the old brick pump house, which according to maps was connected to a back staircase up the water tower. The door was completely enshrouded in spiderwebs, beneath which hung a rusted lock. The webs were as sticky as cotton candy as he swept them aside. Using the metal toothpick from his army knife, his fingers summoned years of experience both in wartime reconnaissance and as a Berlin detective, and in less than five seconds the lock popped.

Inside, pigeons flapped through the cavernous space, sending echoes ricocheting back, the old pumps and generators long vanished, dust on the ground thick as carpet. Padding across it guided by his flashlight, his heart only brightened when beams shone on a sign indicating
WASSERTURM
. Water tower. This time the security door was heavy steel and, from the looks of the rubber edges surrounding it, hermetically sealed. The lock was infinitely tougher than the first and caused him to break a minor sweat. But it gave way finally, and as he pulled it open, a strong gust blew over his shoulders. At once he saw that what looked like a derelict tower outside had been completely renovated within, strangely so.

Designed evidently for some specialized purpose, both the walls and the ceiling were swathed in some kind of quilted insulation, the windows triple-paned, the floor coated with rubberized pads—as if every possible measure had been taken to eliminate sound or vibration. Which was just as well for him, he told himself, wrapping fingers around the Luger and starting up the spiral stairs. All the better to keep his presence secret as long as possible.

On the first floor and then again on the second, and then the third too, the steel doors had no locks. They were completely sealed. No way in. A chilly fear ensnared him. Had he chosen incorrectly? Ought he have waited and stormed in with plenty of support as planned? His heart pounded as he wound around the fourth and final flight, envisioning Erich and Heinz somewhere just on the other side, but facing another lockless steel door. Ready to pound in a fit of rage, he noticed suddenly there were also no hermetic seals this time, and yanking for the hell of it, his heart jumped when the door slid open.

Inside, total silence. Darkness. Until his eyes began adjusting. Then, along the walls, cases of equipment, bottles, jars filled with mysterious-looking tinctures, everything meticulously arranged, labeled. Long white tables bearing complex-looking gadgets with dials, switches, wires everywhere. Keeping the Luger warm in his fingers, he gingerly trod in until a muffled sound sent him jumping back against the wall. A fast glance told him some kind of passage opened to his right behind a bank of machinery. He ducked into it.

It wasn’t long, just a few steps, until the view reopened and his throat jammed entirely. Ahead, his eyes were seared by what made Magda’s dungeon seem almost humane. Or at least within the realms of recognizable cruelty.

In a room that took up the full tower floor, illuminated under bright spotlights, tall glass cages, such as might contain birds or lizards at the zoo, stood one per wall. Only here, in each, strapped next to one another in chairs, were sets of boys. At first glance they looked healthy enough, clean white hospital gowns neatly draped across their bodies, feet tucked into slippers. But as Willi focused on the tops of their heads, squinting to make certain he wasn’t being tricked by shadows, he discerned something wrong with the crest of their skulls. They were missing. Completely sheared away—as one might do to a soft-boiled egg. It reminded him of a brutalist painting he’d seen some years back by the famous George Grosz, who caricatured the pillars of contemporary German society with similarly open skulls, and steaming piles of shit for brains.

What Willi beheld now was far more surreal.

And far more brutal.

It explained, at least, what had happened to those kids in the wheelbarrow down in Magda’s dungeon; he’d never grasped why the tops of their skulls looked as if they’d been lifted off by a can opener. Now, leaning against the wall for support, having to concentrate on holding back a wave of nausea, he understood. All too graphically.

It was no can opener but a surgeon’s knife that had lifted off their craniums—so they could be used as guinea pigs in some kind of sick experiment.

The kids in these cages, Willi saw, staring in horror, were definitely still alive, eyes glazed in a sort of narcotized trance, chests rising and falling, every so often a finger twitching. Wires ran from machinery outside the cages through the glass walls and directly into their skulls.

He stopped breathing.

A figure had appeared not a dozen feet away in a surgical suit and cotton mask, busy examining various levers and dials, jotting readings on a clipboard. Gradually, seeming to sense something, cold gray eyes looked up, scanning the darkness. A thin hand lowered the mask, revealing a long nose and spongy, red cheeks. Energy surged through Willi’s muscles.

He clutched the Luger.

A lunge toward the tray of surgical equipment that included several long, sharp objects inspired him to step from the shadows.

“Freeze, Ilse!”

The youngest Köhler stopped. Her face slowly turned, the icy eyes fixing on Willi. Blinking several times, she recognized him, and from some hidden armoire deep within her psyche, she emerged suddenly garbed in womanly robes.

“Hello, Inspektor.” A soft smile eased even the harshest aspects of her face. “It took you a while.” Her eyelids flounced. “But you found me. Congratulations.”

She’d never gotten a formal education, Willi knew. But if they gave a degree for survival instincts, she’d pass with honors. He could have used her behind enemy lines. A gifted blend of her brother’s determination and her sister’s guile.

She was parting her mouth now, moistening her lips.

“You’re much handsomer than your—”

“Where’s my son?”

He kept the Luger aimed at what was supposed to be her heart.

A single corner twisted on her lips. “Oh.” She was grinning still, but with shifting undertones. “I see. You mean now that you know what it feels like to have loved ones taken.”

A writhing rabbit dangled in his mind.

“Where is he?” Willi cocked the trigger. He’d finish the bitch with a single bullet even if he had to then turn the place upside down to find Erich. “I’ll give you till—”

A sharp pain in his shoulder, though, followed by a loud gunshot, told him he was the one who’d gotten the ultimatum, his whole arm spasming, the Luger jumping to the floor.

“Stay where you are,” a male voice commanded.

Willi grasped his shoulder, damning himself for his arrogance. He’d chastised Freksa for the very same stupidity, thinking he could go it alone behind enemy lines. And look what happened to Freksa. At least the wound was superficial. He clutched it tenderly. It burned like hell but wasn’t bleeding; the assailant obviously had good aim.

“You okay, my dear?” he heard more distinctly.

“It’d take more than him to hurt me.” Ilse ripped off her surgical cap and shook out a mane of greasy red hair, a smirk spreading across her pockmarked face. “A lot more.”

From the far side of the room what seemed like a silver light approached, which quickly distinguished itself as a small oval mirror. A silver eye patch. A long smile underneath drawn across aristocratic lips.

“Well, Inspektor”—von Hessler was aiming a Mauser—“I suspected you might find your way here. I hope none of your friends follow suit. You’re the first visitor we’ve had. What an honor.”

Von Hessler’s good eye danced with dark delight.

So it was him. The “top-hat” the Reverend Braunschweig had babbled about, who’d enthroned Helga as a priestess of her own cult.
You don’t think she got her mansion banging a tambourine
. And Magda in her prison cell, Willi recalled, lamenting how her little sister kept falling in love. First the doctor. Then the priestess. The doctor evidently had been there all along.

“You’re going to let me have him, aren’t you?” Gray eyes appraised ravenously, the sweet side of Ilse in tatters now.

Reflected off von Hessler’s eye patch, Willi caught a glimpse of his Luger only feet away, beneath one of the lab desks.

“A little patience, dove.” The doctor stepped into the light. “I know you don’t get to practice enough, but it’s a thrill for me to have someone to show off my achievements to. You know how badly I wish I could invite more people up, the whole world—if only it were ready. But do get his gun, before the Inspektor indulges in some foolish move that deprives us both of pleasure.”

Willi considered a quick grab to make her a human shield, but with a shot such as von Hessler, he knew it’d be suicide. The man’d blow off Ilse’s head anyway if it came to it. With a pang of despair Willi watched her shake her stringy red hair, crouch, and paw for his gun.

“Excellent.” The doctor nodded as she placed the Luger on the table next to him. “Now fetch my four o’clock snack,
Liebchen
. You know how sensitive my stomach is.”

Ilse lingered, her muscular figure taut.

“Ilse—”

She scowled, pink lips twitching, then obediently scurried off—a wolf in shepherdess’s clothing.

“Such a sweet thing. And a great help in my work. I couldn’t do it without her.” Von Hessler kept the Mauser aimed with a surgeon’s steadiness. “How do you like my place, Kraus?” He neared. “Took me years to construct. Not even that fat
Viehof
director knows I’m here. No one does. Except”—he smiled—“you.” He pointed the muzzle around the six-sided room, the boys in their glass boxes seeming to follow him visually. “What you see is an absolutely unprecedented type of laboratory. All external stimuli brought under control, no accidental sounds, no fluctuations of light, no changing air drafts.” He searched Willi’s face for admiration. “Even the floors are supported on rubber-coated girders to eliminate vibrations. At my fingers, the most advanced measuring instruments on earth. This, Inspektor, is my Tower of Silence.”

“Where’s my boy, von Hessler?”

“Oh, yes.” He laughed, rolling out a lab chair, keeping the gun fixed as he sat. “I forgot. Parental instincts.” He kicked up his legs on a desk. “A purely unconditioned response. Sometimes as a scientist I put the horse before the cart. But relax, relax. Your son and his fat little friend are fine. You should have realized I knew where you lived, Kraus. Remember, I dropped you off? Rest assured—I’ve only given the best care to the darlings. I always do. They’re perfectly tranquil in a state of suspended animation, as it were, sedated with carefully administered soporifics. And well nourished intravenously. Were you to awaken them, they’d remember nothing beyond the ice cream truck.
If
you were to awaken them.” He laughed with the sudden volume of an artillery barrage.