chapter twenty nine

Star Wars

At an extreme point on the perimeter of Logan Airport there were still a few flowers flicked by the breeze at the foot of the monument that commemorated World Airlines flight 30. The pilot had heroically steered the plane manually off the runway when it had overshot the iced strip, and guided it into Hudson Bay to avoid a catastrophic encounter with the light pier. All had survived bar a father and son. The memorial seemed to be unsure whether it was mourning the two lost lives or celebrating the skill of the brave pilot. Frank turned away from the cutting April wind and waited for the limousine to collect him. Nearly three years of a clandestine relationship with the United States government had made the Iglesias organisation enormously wealthy, and Frank had an important role in that relationship that had brought him considerable financial reward. Of course he was not paying for the limousine, or indeed the private jet that had carried him here from Brasilia; that was provided by the Americans through the company that disguised the real nature of their business: Driscoll Biochem.

The Cadillac Fleetwood paused, rather than stopped, a few feet from him and the door was thrust open from the inside. He was to have a fellow passenger. Frank fingered the titanium chain that connected his case to an armed bracelet at his wrist. He did not welcome having to share his journey to the factory, and any departure from the normal arrangements set the nerves of a person at his level, in his business, on edge. He slid into the car and discovered Michael Driscoll himself shuffling his overweight frame across the sumptuous leather to make room for him.

“Sorry to surprise you, Mr Kørner, but I need to brief you before we reach the facility.” Driscoll was sweating, despite the air conditioning and the low temperature outside. “The President could be about to make some changes in his priorities; some changes that could have a negative impact on our current projections.”

“Is this something to do with the assassination attempt? I thought that was nothing to do with the global issues. Surely he hasn’t changed his views on the Communist threat?” Frank was speaking the language of the political press, but he had already detected the real problem. His career had been built on exploiting human greed and having unique technology; if something had changed it was certainly not the American appetite for narcotics or the President’s hatred of Communism: it had to be technology.

“I’ll be brief; there are two factors that concern us,” Driscoll caught Frank’s glance towards the driver. “It’s OK, we can speak openly here; probably only here. Those factors are the Lady President and some changes in budgets.”

“I know the United States is supposed to be democratic on several levels, but how can Nancy be a problem?”

“She sees our business as having a cost in terms of health care, productivity, that kind of thing. She doesn’t like the way teenagers are shaping up,” Driscoll tapped a Cohiba from its metal tube. “She wants them to ‘Just Say No’. Jesus!”

“Americans habitually say no and then indulge to the maximum. Look at prohibition. What’s the problem? I might think you were over reacting.”

“I agree. Normally official attempts to squeeze us can be engineered to take out the amateurs and give us an even larger slice of the pie; but this time it’s different.” The rich smoke filled the cab, reminding Frank of the first time he had met Iglesias. He craved a glass; no, a bottle of Vega Sicilia. His profound enjoyment of the memory of the warm wine was dissipated by Driscoll’s edginess and the offered coffee. Now he was going to hear about the technology.

“The President is ordering massive, really massive increases in NASA’s budget. He thinks he has some way to beat the Commie’s using satellites. He wants to go to war on the big scale and win. I tell you Frank, my wife is expecting, and I’m not going to let my kids grow up here. London, Paris, Berlin; there all going to be targets too. I don’t trust any defence in a shooting war. NATO is fucked. I’m sending her back home to Ireland; if Europe is trashed I’ll get them to New Zealand.”

“I’m happy you have contingency plans, but why are we having this conversation here? What about our business?”

“Our business is big; very big. If Reagan wants to make a show of cracking down on the trade, and doesn’t need to worry about how those chips fall, he’ll hang Iglesias out to dry, and we could; no would, hang with him.”

Frank studied his fingernails. He somehow felt that their inexorable growth represented his own immortality, and at this moment he realised that he was being offered a way to escape another death and create an even grander future. He visualised his embryo, infused with the nutriment in the cavern in Edgeøya, and already knew whose cerebral fluid would facilitate the next stage. Driscoll put his hand on Frank’s shoulder and a pile of Cohiba ash scattered over the perfect material of his suit. “I know that you made Los Cardales happen. Now I need you to get rid of Iglesias before he takes us with him.”

chapter twenty eight

Devonshire Rd

The public library afforded Frank the opportunity of internet access. That is, the local authority described it as an opportunity; he regarded it as a buoyancy aid in the ebbing waters of his life. He no longer had an appetite for research: where he had once carved through the oceans of knowledge like a shark, to extend the soggy metaphor, he now foundered, aimlessly waiting to desiccate, fragment and die like a jelly. Incapable of dedicating his attention to any one thing for more than a minute he followed random links that generally had a tenuous connection to one or other of his earlier lives. He did this for most of the hours the library was open to the public, his earphones providing him the programmes of NRK 1 or BBC Radio 3.

It was the case that the library emptied rapidly on Thursday afternoon, due to the arrival of Social Welfare payments which were quickly spent in the budget supermarkets, pubs and bookmakers shops that proliferated in this shabby patch of South-East London. Frank felt the lack of human activity about him as a calmness, an umbilical peace that took him back to Edgeøya, and so he began to read about snow; specifically the conditions that dictated the formation of the hexagonal molecular lattices of individual flakes. He was familiar with it all of course, and thought how little the physics had developed from his father’s discoveries. Just as Frank had never shared his work with the scientific mainstream, his father had kept his work to himself. The rejection of his lifestyle, and particularly his choice of wife, by the Norwegian hierarchy had cost the world dear both in terms of the scientific progress which father and son had made and in the malignity of Frank’s mercenary use of his own developments.

Modern research into snow crystal formation was hampered by the impurities now universally found in the water molecules. The snow in Edgeøya had been untainted by the waste products of the modern world. It was only now that scientists were discovering the modifications to growth that could be achieved with electricity. Frank remembered his father documenting the same thing by use of magnets and his own phenomenal microscopes in the late 1860s. For a moment he felt a twinge of excitement as he read that crystal growth was of fundamental interest to nanotechnology: in the past this would have been the beginning of another episode of personal enrichment at the expense of some egocentric and probably criminal entrepreneur, but now there was no point. He was waiting to die.

The shuffling of the librarian alerted him to the imminent closure of the library. He disconnected in the middle of a string quartet by Klaus Egge and made his way to a tobacconist where he purchased a pack of Senior Service cigarettes, and then made his way along Devonshire Road towards his dismal bed-sit. His stained charity shop raincoat flicked in the unseasonably drizzly breeze, and he again found the relentless rise in the road difficult to manage. He stopped by the bright red post box and opened the pack of Seniors, lit one and deposited the match and cellophane into the letter slit. This was a Victorian post box; probably as old as himself. He considered the box, noticed the corrosion, over-painted in dozens of scarlet tones. The sharply cut lines of the angles and the letters VR gradually being absorbed into the organic flow of red.

It occurred to him that there was a further similarity between himself and this box: they were equally redundant, 21^st Century dinosaurs. These days hardly anybody wrote letters, the post was reserved for bills, and these would soon be all delivered by e-mail. It would not be long before this box was removed to a scrap yard or a local museum, just as had been the fate of the telephone boxes outside the library. He was likewise heading to a scrapheap, albeit one that the rest of humanity accepted as a natural end. Frank had gone beyond that; he had transcended mortality; until Kay had smashed him.

Well, it was too late to do anything about that now. Even his recent attempt at revenge had failed. There was no time to grow another Frank, even if he could get back to the cavern in Edgeøya that housed the nutriment. He could keep his organs together with small doses for a few years, but he knew enough about medicine to know that even a year was a generous estimate of the time he had left. He dropped the Senior into the box and, hoping it would incinerate the contents, continued the difficult trudge to the bed-sit.

The sound of an ersatz tango informed him that the landlady was rehearsing with her ballroom partner. He recoiled at the music and the thought of their debilitated guilty couplings, silently climbing the stairs. To his astonishment he found a letter tucked into the crack between his door and the frame. He snatched it, crushing it in his fist, and entered the room. He sat on the creaking bed and smoothed out the envelope. The stamp was Irish. He smelt the paper and recognised Kay. He tore it open and found a voucher for a seaweed bath in Ballybunion. He had no idea what it meant, but it was not a joke.

chapter twenty seven

75a Great Britain Street

They passed through the shop with the aid of the weak gas-light filtered in from the street. O’Connell led the way past the counter and he gave a triple tap at the door behind it. Frank heard the stairs beyond creak under the feet of whoever descended, and then the quiet breathy question: “Who is without?”

“Professor O’Connell. I have brought the friend of whom we spoke.”

The door was opened and Clarke appeared; a spectral shadow against the rusty wallpaper. “The others are in attendance above. You were not followed?”

“No, the Constabulary believe that our friend is a dangerous lunatic and accompanied us to the adjacent Magdalane Asylum. I can assure you they have no intelligence as to our purpose,” replied O’Connell as they made their way up the narrow flight of stairs. They entered a room dominated by a large mahogany dining table. The committee were seated around it, studying a large Dublin street map. Clarke sat down and pushed a plug of orange tobacco into his pipe. A younger man stood and offered the newcomers chairs. Frank was impressed by his intelligent eyes under a firm brow.

“Padraic Pearse,” he introduced himself, “you are Mr Kørner, I believe. I wonder if you might address us on the subject of your weapon.” Frank had considered this interview for a number of days and had already decided upon his policy. He realised that their revolutionary zeal would make them want to believe whatever he said, but he was going to tell them nothing but the truth. He even had a sample contained within a die in his pocket. He had previously arranged with O’Connell that an anonymous madman could be made available should they require a demonstration. As it turned out Connolly, Ceannt and Griffiths favoured a demonstration in order to be sure about the military reliability of the gas, but the others, led by Pearse thought the sacrifice of an innocent unwarranted.

It was nearly eleven o’clock before they returned to O’Connell’s apartment in the asylum. They had proceeded from the tobacconist’s shop in silence, but as O’Connell shut the door against the groans and mutterings of the patients a broad smile suffused his features. “Splendid work Mr Kørner; you have given us the heart and the advantage to bring forward the day of liberation. I am now sure that it will happen within days, possibly soon after Easter. Have you sufficient quantities of the gas to hand?”

“Did I not assure the committee of that very fact?” Frank despised the Professor for his naivety. He managed a polite smile of complicity to mask his rapid recalculation: he might not return to Galway before it was time for O’Connell to die. He did not welcome having to prepare the foam without his instruments; however this asylum was a type of hospital, perhaps he could find something that could serve his purpose. “I find the prospect of contributing to your just cause very stimulating and I fear I shall not sleep. May we inspect the facilities here to settle my thoughts?”

“Now? It nears midnight.”

“I’m sure you are equally excited by the outcome of this evening’s meeting, and I know you are an expert in this field of medicine,” Frank hoped that flattery would encourage the professor to accede to his request. O’Connell’s hand hovered over the whisky bottle and then fell to his side.

“You are correct, it would help me sleep. Let’s go, there is an excellent collection of special tools and some fine samples of trepanned skulls.” Frank was delighted; the oaf was going to introduce him to the means by which his brain would be soon liquefied. The moment could not come soon enough.

Chapter Twenty Six

T4

White expressionless faces, black uniforms, gleaming Schmeisser MP-40 submachine guns, slips of scarlet on arm-bands formed a flat abstraction which Frank actively composed in order to distance himself from the terror threatening to coalesce from the air in his lungs. Herr Handkerchief paused before a mahogany door, the heavy wood made heavier by a sheet of black iron that was bolted to it, covering most of the surface. A rectangle slid aside in the matt area, revealing for a moment an intense synthetic light within. A figure intervened and then Herr Handkerchief stepped away as the door opened.

The room was an operating theatre, furnished with the latest medical technology. The intense illumination was produced by two large banks of lights suspended over a pair of tables. Both tables were occupied by male patients, one of whom was receiving the attentions of a surgeon; working on him with the aid of a nurse of indeterminate gender.

“Just one moment, Herr Kørner,” said the surgeon as he deposited something pink and bloody into a metal tray held by his assistant. He turned and peeled away the mask covering the lower half of his face. “These, Herr Kørner, are degenerate testicles. To be precise they are homosexual testicles. Our friend on the operating platform is an abomination to the Lord, of course, but he is in all other respects pure Aryan. The Fuhrer has decreed that he be given a chance for redemption; therefore I am grafting a pair of heterosexual testicles to his body. It has been shown by my research at the Institut für Sexualwissenschaft that such a procedure will remove the hormones that cause this vile perversion. Our friend will be able to play his proper role in the triumph of the Master-race. There will need to be psychiatric work to help him overcome the self-disgust he will feel; but in all life is good for him. The Fuhrer has offered him a second chance.”

“I was under the impression that the Institute was recently closed, Doctor...?”

“Mühsam, Professor Mühsam. It was closed; in fact Hiller, the administrator, is an enforced guest of this very camp. It was found that those in charge of the Institute were promoting vile practices. Their library of so-called ‘scientific research’ has been burnt. The director has fled the country. I have been entrusted by the Fuhrer himself to carry forward the good work that was done there.”

Frank glanced at the contents of the tray and felt his scrotum tighten around his own degenerate testicles. The professor’s ideas about hormones were absurd, but given the fact that Frank was surrounded by miles of barbed wire and dozens of armed guards he felt it wise to appear to take him seriously. “I am impressed; but I wonder why you have summoned me here. My work takes place at a molecular level.”

“I am aware of this, and I will explain; but you will excuse me if I attend to my presently incomplete patient.”

“Of course.” Frank stood back as Mühsam moved to the other table. With terrifying speed and a precision that was impressive he removed the donor testicles and tied the vas deferens. He neglected to close the scrotum, instead quickly moving back to the recipient and carefully grafting the testicles using minute stitching. Equally fine needlework closed the scrotum and the nurse was entrusted with managing his resuscitation and removal to a recovery ward.

Frank considered the anonymous donor and Mühsam seemed to sense his thought. “A mental defective and of impure race. You are probably aware that this camp has a hygienic function. We harvest that which has value before... before disposing of the body. We are men of science and need not concern ourselves with these matters of house-keeping.” The surgeon leant against a shelf that carried an array of surgical saws. “That last case neatly demonstrates the manner in which we believe you can assist us, Herr Kørner. That young man’s parents are very good people; active in the party and the father has an important position in munitions. Even such exemplary Germans can unfortunately produce a diseased child. Obviously the Aryan race is much less prone to such mutations as others, but sometimes imperfections develop.

“Herr Kørner, we want you to screen the cells of good Germans who fear they may conceive defective children; screen the cells and eliminate the cause of such imperfections. We are primarily concerned with male homosexuality and mental defects. Female homosexuality does not exist, of course. I could make this work attractive to you by stressing the quality of the tools you will be given and the accommodation we will provide here, but we do not require your agreement. The work will commence immediately.”

They left the theatre. The guards no longer trained their guns on him as he passed by, but that made him no less a prisoner. He would have to work on his own liberation as well as Aryan cells. Cologne could have been a mistake.