Chapter Sixty-Three

The Warehouse, Baltimore, Maryland

Sunday, August 29, 5:33 A.M.

Time Remaining on the Extinction Clock: 78 hours, 27 minutes

“Life unworthy of life,” Bug said slowly. “Man, that has an ugly feel to it.”

“It’s the core of Nazi eugenics,” Church said. “It refers to those people—or groups of people—who they believed had no right to live.”

“If these assholes have their way,” Bug said softly, “half the people at this table won’t make the cut. We’re not ‘master race’ material.”

“Is anyone?” asked Church. “The idea of a master race belonged to the Nazis . . . it was not and is not part of the cultural aspirations of the German people.”

“So that’s why Haeckel was corresponding with an asshole like Mengele,” Bug said, putting it together now. “They were all playing for the same team.”

“But how did his records ever make it out of Germany?” demanded Grace. “Wasn’t Haeckel considered a war criminal?”

“No,” said Church. “His involvement with the Nazi movement was never fully established even after the war. He was supposedly a dealer in medical instruments and even did work with the International Red Cross. He was sly enough to stay off the political radar, and it’s very likely that he fled the country when things started going bad for Germany. A lot of Nazis were able to read the writing on the wall. They were losing the war, but many of them were so dedicated—or perhaps fanatical—that they wanted to lay the groundwork for their research so that it could start up again somewhere else. Haeckel might have gone to South America or even come directly here.”

“How the hell could he swing that?” asked Bug. “No way a Nazi could just come waltzing into the U.S. during the war.”

Grace shook her head. “Don’t be naïve, Bug. There was active communication and even some under-the-radar commerce between Germany and some U.S. corporations during the war. Very low-key, but definitely there. There are people who always have what they call a ‘big picture’ view that basically lets them justify anything because they know that wars end and countries usually kiss and make up. Nowadays you Yanks are chums with Germany, Russia, Japan, even Vietnam.”

“It can’t be that easy,” Bug said stubbornly.

“It’s not,” said Church, “but when there’s enough money on the table a way is always found. Heinrich Haeckel disappeared from the public before the end of the war. Either he never made it out of Germany and was among the nameless dead or he came here and set up under a different identity. I’d place my money on the latter. From the way things have played out, it’s likely he died here before passing along the records in his possession; otherwise the Cabal would have sought them out decades ago. My guess is that his nephew recently uncovered some reference to it among family papers and that started the race to Deep Iron.”

“I can see why Haeckel and his Nazi buds would want the records,” I said, “but who’s the other team? The guys I tussled with in Deep Iron?”

“Unknown. Possibly a splinter faction, or freelancers looking to steal the material and sell it on the black market. We don’t know enough yet to make a solid guess.”

“Was Gunnar a scientist, too?” Grace asked.

“No,” said Church. “He was muscle.”

“You thought you killed him,” I said, “but now he’s alive and well in Brazil, where he’s taking Rotary Club lunkheads on safaris for mythological animals.”

“Yeah,” said Bug, “how’s that stack up to a grave threat to humanity?”

“The unicorn,” I said, and Hu nodded agreement.

“Okay, I’m missing something, so spell it out for me.”

Church said, “Science has come a long way since the Cold War, and genetics is a booming field. However, there are limits to what can be discovered during modern research. International laws and watchdog organizations are moderately effective, and a master race research program would need a huge database, including a massive number of tissue samples and test subjects. That would be virtually impossible nowadays without the cooperation of an entire government.”

“Right,” Hu said. “The Nazis had the cooperation of an entire government during World War Two, and they had millions of test subjects. Everyone who passed through the camps. Those records you found probably include extensive information on ethnic background, gender, age, and many other variables. The boxes of index cards with brown fingerprints . . . those are blood samples. Thirty years ago DNA mapping wasn’t possible. The first DNA typing was accomplished in 1985 by Sir Alec Jeffreys at the University of Leicester in England. The Cabal had been torn down by then. What we stopped was a first step in gathering information that could be used when science caught up to the dreams of a master race.”

“Can we do DNA typing from dried blood?” Grace asked.

“Sure,” said Hu. “DNA typing has been done from Guthrie cards, which are widely collected at birth for newborn screening for genetic diseases and saved by many states. I read about a case where the paternity of a car accident victim was determined using blood from a seventeen-year-old Band-Aid.”

“So those cards and the records help them regain their info on bloodlines,” Grace said.

“Yes. Crafting a race of genetically perfect beings is the core ideal in eugenics,” said Hu, “but it isn’t quick. It’s extreme social Darwinism, which means that it’s a generational process. Quicker than natural evolution, but by no means quick. Unless, of course, you have access to genetic design capabilities that include transgenics. By remodeling DNA they could create more perfect humans in one or two generations.”

“Unicorns . . . ,” Bug prompted.

“Captain Ledger already sorted that out,” said Church. “It’s a moneymaking scheme not out of keeping with the Cabal mentality. Charge the superrich millions to hunt a trophy no one else can possibly have. It satisfies certain desires and it provides vast operating capital for a group like the Cabal. But more important, it demonstrates the advanced degree of genetic science they have at their disposal.”

“The bloodline information, the advanced science, the money,” I said. “It not only looks like the Cabal is back . . . but now they have a real shot at accomplishing what it took a world war and forty years of the Cold War to try and stop.”

“Yes,” said Hu. “These maniacs may well have the science to accomplish both challenges implicit in the eugenics ideal.”

“Which are?” Bug asked.

“Not only do you have to make one race stronger,” Hu said. “You have to make the other races weaker.”

Grace gave us a bleak stare. “Or you have to remove them entirely.”

We sat in horrified silence for a long moment before Bug asked, “How do we stop it? We don’t even know who’s involved, or how far along they are, or—”

Before he could finish, the phone rang. Church answered, and even with his typical lack of emotion I could tell that it wasn’t good news.