The Vengeance of the Tau (28 page)

“It was delivered by air,” McCracken theorized, looking over the old man’s model as if expecting to see bombers dangling from the ceiling.

“Low-altitude drop. Our best pilots were used to lower the margin for error. Without any danger of antiaircraft fire, it was a simple matter.”

“A gas, then.”

“No, an aerosol containing an advanced neurotoxin. Do you know what a binary agent is?” the old man asked McCracken.

“A compound that must interact with another element in order to be activated.”

“In a nutshell, yes. And the neurotoxin that formed the White Death was actually quite harmless until it came into contact with hyaluronic acid.”

“Don’t tell me,” said Blaine. “This hyaluronic acid can be found in the eye.”

“Precisely. Once the aerosol and the acid joined, the neurotoxin was activated, passing through the cornea and paralyzing the rods and cones of the retina in a matter of seconds.”

“Permanently blinding all victims,” McCracken added.

“It was brilliant, perfect,” the toymaker said. “When the canisters containing the aerosol ruptured over Altaloon, a fine mist was sprayed outward and down, the effect that of an open umbrella trapping everything beneath it as it dropped.” His gaze fell fondly once again on his model. “It was to have been just the beginning. The White Death was to be utilized as an equalizer on the battlefield as well as off, and what an equalizer it could have been! Imagine the possibilities! What parts of the world we didn’t overrun, we could have held hostage. Civilization would have cowered before us.”

“That sickens me,” Tessen scoffed.

“Are you not one of us?” the old man shot back.

“One of
what
?
I am a soldier, a warrior. I fight with honor and dignity. I could not kill that which was unable to fight back.”

“Now, perhaps, but what about then, when we were all gripped with the fervor of the times? It was our destiny. Nothing else mattered.
Nothing!
”
The old man again turned his gaze lovingly on the model before him. “And here it is, frozen in time for all to behold, frozen as an example of what someday will be a—” He stopped suddenly, face suddenly pained and unsure. “But it’s gone,” he said sadly, as he turned toward McCracken. “You say it’s gone.”

“How was it stored?” Blaine asked him. “In the crates, I mean.”

“In small tanks. From them the aerosol could be easily channeled into virtually any explosive. Missiles, rockets, grenades—why limit ourselves?”

It all made sense, McCracken reflected to himself. The Jews who were behind the killings of vengeance in the war’s wake, as well as whatever force had pulled the rest of the crates from the secret chamber more recently, had discovered a way to release the White Death within a confined area. It wouldn’t be hard. The explosive shell would have to be composed of some material that vaporized upon detonation so that no trace would be left. Then, since the microdroplets would dissipate rapidly into the air, no evidence of what had really transpired would remain. To the authorities first on the scene, even as quickly as minutes later, it would seem as though men armed and able to defend themselves had been slain by something that was impervious to their weapons.

Because they couldn’t
see
what they were firing at.

The wild, random shooting that struck nothing … The fact that none of the victims had tried to run … The way that access through impenetrable lines of defense had been gained … This was what Johnny Wareagle was up against halfway around the world.

An invincible army … Blaine felt chilled by the prospects.

“How many crates were stored in the underground chamber?” he asked the old man, almost reluctantly.

“The exact number escapes me now. In the area of a hundred, I think.”

“How many tanks in each?”

“It varied with the size of the tanks. Between eight and twelve. A few more in some cases.”

“But more could be produced.”

“Not easily. All traces of the original formula were lost before we could retrieve them. All attempts to re-create the White Death since have failed.”

Blaine swung intensely toward Tessen. “Which implies someone’s been trying, doesn’t it?”

“And failing,” Tessen reminded. “Leave it there.”

“I can’t, Tessen, not by a long shot. Don’t you get it? Whoever’s got the White Death has known about its presence in that chamber for a long time. So why pick now to bring it up? Answer: because they’ve figured out a way to reproduce the formula.”

“Of course!” The toymaker beamed. “Our plan exactly. Massive quantities to do the job, to perform the true task the White Death was created for.”

“What task?” Blaine and Tessen asked almost together.

“To unleash it on entire cities of our enemy, of course.” The old man’s gaze turned distant, yet bright. “Imagine the model of a city captured in the grip of the White Death. The fires, the looting, the desperation. All order gone. No possible way to return it. I would have pictures, even videos now!” His eyes rotated feverishly between Tessen and McCracken. “I will have to obtain them. It shouldn’t be hard, shouldn’t be—”

His words were cut off when gunfire erupted outside on the grounds enclosing the house. The screams were hideous, the cries desperate.

“Mein Gott,”
muttered the old man.

“They’re here,” McCracken said.

Chapter 26

“
BLINDED,
”
WAS ALL MELISSA
could say after Gunthar Brandt had finished the story of the battle of Altaloon that his journal had started. “But not you.”

“No. We had been issued protective goggles. We donned them just before the White Death was dropped.”

“Yes!” she remembered. “I read in your journal that you were ordered to put something on. But that section was too badly damaged to make sense of. What happened afterwards?”

“Our company was broken up. We were all reassigned, mostly to the front lines where the kill rates were the highest. The reason was obvious: they didn’t want us to survive the war. I got lucky.” He chuckled humorlessly. “Or maybe I didn’t.”

“And when the war was over?”

“The few of us that were left kept our mouths shut, but I for one never got over Altaloon. I never will.”

“Then the White Death was never used again.”

“Why don’t you tell me? I mean, that is why you’re here, isn’t it? If the crates are gone, it means that someone must have the intention of unleashing it once more.” Brandt sat up farther in his bed. “Now it’s my turn to ask the questions,
Fräulein.
Who are you working with?”

“No one. I told you.”

“How did you find me?”

“I told you that, too.”

“And no one else knows you’re here?”

“Only the administrator of the Document Center in Berlin.”

“Leave me,
Fräulein,
”
Brandt said coldly. “Leave me and never come back. Altaloon has chased me all my life. I do not wish for it to finally catch up.”

“Good-bye,” Melissa said, and turned.

“I’m … sorry,” Gunthar Brandt’s voice called after her.

Before she had reached the door, it crashed open and the big nurse, Brandt’s
Altenpfleger,
lunged in, holding a pistol in her hand aimed straight at Melissa.

“No!” Melissa shrieked.

The pistol spit once, twice. Melissa felt her breath freeze up. She gasped and would have screamed had not the nurse clamped a hand tight over her mouth.

“Look!” the nurse ordered.

Melissa turned to see blood seeping from a pair of bullet holes in Gunthar Brandt’s face.

“Under the sheet!” the nurse directed. “His right hand! Quickly!”

Melissa moved to the bed and lifted up the sheet on that side. A silenced pistol was still gripped in Brandt’s hand.

“He would have killed you,” the nurse said.

“Why? Who are you?”

“Later.”

“But—”

“There could be others. We leave now.”

Melissa stood there suspended between actions, between thoughts. The nurse grabbed her arm and yanked.

“I said
now
!”

And together they plunged into the corridor. The big nurse held her pistol hidden by her side the whole time that she and Melissa advanced down the hallway. Her other arm rested distressingly against Melissa’s back, and Melissa couldn’t tell whether she was being taken hostage or rescued. The confused succession of events had numbed her, and, having no choice, she simply went along.

She could feel the big nurse’s tension through the course of the walk to the third-floor elevator.

There could be others.

The nurse was taking her own words seriously. Melissa followed the woman’s eyes as they darted across those of everyone they passed, half expecting her gun to begin spitting fire again any moment.

Gunthar Brandt had had a gun, was seconds away from killing her, when the nurse had burst in. What did it all mean? As incomprehensible as things already were, they had gotten worse.

After an interminable descent in the elevator, the nurse led her outside into the cool early-evening air. Melissa felt the woman decrease the pressure against her back. The nurse guided her toward a car parked in the staff area, an old Volkswagen. Melissa resisted briefly.

“You must come with me,” the nurse told her. “It is your only chance to live.”

“Who are you?”

“Get in.”

“Who are—”

“Do as I say!”

Melissa climbed into the passenger seat, and the woman slammed the door behind her. She then got behind the wheel and started the engine.

“Now tell me who you are,” Melissa demanded.

“We will drive through the night to an airfield and a plane,” the nurse said instead of responding. “By midmorning it will all be clear.”

“You knew I would be coming here,” Melissa assumed. “You knew I’d be coming to Brandt.”

The nurse pulled the car onto the road from the rest home, eyes maintaining a vigil in the rearview mirror.

“No,” she corrected.

“Then what … Wait a minute! You were watching
Brandt
!
That’s it, isn’t it?”

The woman stripped off a wig to reveal hair of an entirely different color and texture. She smoothed it as best she could while she kept driving.

“I took the place of the real nurse only today. The time had come.”

“Time had come for
what
?”

“Mobilization. Brandt’s name was on a list of those who could be valuable to us. …”

“Us,” Melissa repeated.

“He was a link, one of the few left. We knew there was a chance that someone would be coming to see him, though not to talk.”

And then Melissa realized. “You thought I came to kill him.”

“And we thought you’d then lead us to those you represented. Listening to your conversation with Brandt told me otherwise. I knew Brandt would have to kill you to protect the secrets he had held for so long. But, based on your questions, I also knew you could help us in ways you could not possibly be aware of.”

“And just who is
us
?”

“When we get there,” was all the woman would say.

“Get
where
?”

“Israel. A place known as Nineteen. …”

The panic in Tessen’s eyes, Blaine knew, mirrored his own. They had only seconds, a minute at most, before they would be under siege to the killers now on the grounds. Killers who never lost a single member of their number to whatever counterattacks their victims were able to mount.

The screams beyond dissipated as quickly as they had come. Somewhere downstairs glass shattered. The White Death had entered the house. McCracken’s eyes had wandered to a model of an especially grisly battle scene where Nazi soldiers were launching a chemical warfare attack, protecting themselves with—

“Gas masks!” Blaine blared over the screams mixing with futile gunfire on the first floor. He recalled the toymaker’s insistence on the accuracy of his work. “You have them, Professor, you must!”

“Of course! In the closet!”

“What closet?”

The old man led Blaine to it. McCracken grasped his elbow to make him go faster and threw back the double doors for him. The neatly arranged shelves and hooks featured a wide assortment of weapons and equipment. In addition, there were five fully clothed mannequins in different Nazi uniforms. One of the mannequins wore a gas mask. Another had a similar mask clipped to his belt.

Blaine reached inside and tore the one off the plastic face it concealed. Tessen reached for the other. Downstairs, the gunfire had stopped. Tessen was already tightening his mask over his face. McCracken started to follow suit.

“What about me?” the old man wondered.

“Hide in the closet and keep your eyes closed.”

“They’re my masks! This is all mine!”

“And we’re your best chance of keeping it,” Blaine said, and started to reach inside the closet for the rifles.

“They’re not loaded,” the old man told him.

“Where are the bullets?”

“I … have none.”

Tessen and McCracken exchanged glances, Tessen through the plastic lenses covering his eyes. The two of them drew their pistols.

“They won’t be expecting a fight,” Blaine said hopefully, pulling his mask over his head.

“If they know you’re here, they will.”

The door to the workshop fragmented inward. A small grenadelike thing fluttered through the air and shattered on impact with the floor.

Ssssssssssssss …

It sounded like a snake to Blaine. The deadly droplets of the White Death were filling the room. Screaming, the old man staggered toward the closet with one arm covering his closed eyes. He banged into a pair of display tables en route, and their fragile contents tumbled to the floor. A third table nearest the closet pitched over entirely on impact. McCracken spun toward the door, Tessen hanging back.

The first of two figures whirled into the room, as the hissing wound down and the White Death filled the air. Blaine instantly noticed the shiny black steel extremities that they had for hands. Some sort of razor-sharp prostheses, he realized.
So that’s how they had pulled it off, not just now but forty-five years ago as well. …