Wilhelm, Kate Winter Beach

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bad actually.
Wearily she leaned her head back and closed her eyes. You've been so smart, she said. If I did what
you asked and no more, I was safe enough. Hand over the prints, get my story on the eagles, forget the
whole thing. If I poked around and learned anything more than that, you could always point to my
medical record and say I'm just a nut.
A plum, he said, connecting her. You're a plum. I reached in and pulled out a real plum. You know
there aren't any plums in plum pudding? Boy, was I ever disillusioned when I found that out. He had
broken his eggs into a frying pan; he watched them closely, turned them, and then flipped them onto a
plate. He poured his sauce over them. No tortillas, he said regretfully. Toast just isn't the same, but
them's the breaks. Toast popped up in the toaster and he buttered it quickly, then brought everything to
the living area. He pulled out another table and put his breakfast down. Look, are you sure you don't
want something, toast, a plain egg?
No.
Okay. He reached under the table and flipped something and extended another section. Presto
chango, he said. Then he pulled a briefcase toward him, rummaged in it, and brought out an envelope,
put it on the table. While I eat, take a look at the stuff in there.
There were photographs. Lyle glanced through them and stopped when she came to one that had Saul
Werther along with several other men, all looking ahead, as if they were part of an audience.
Start with the top one, Hugh Lasater said, with his mouth full.
She looked at it more closely. It was an audience, mostly men, all with an attentive look. She studied it,
searching for Saul, and finally found him, one tiny face among the others. Two other photographs were
similar, different audiences, but with Saul among the others. There was a photograph of four men
walking; one of them was Saul. And there were two blown-up pictures of the larger audiences.
Lasater had finished eating by the time she pushed the photographs aside. You recognize him without
any trouble?
Of course.
But in one his hair's almost white, and in another one it's dark brown. He had a mustache in one, didn't
you notice it?
I assumed they're over a period of time. People change.
Two years, Lasater said. He removed his plate and leaned back in his chair once more, holding coffee
now. One of those conferences was in Cold Spring Harbor, one's Vanderbilt, the last one's Cal Tech.
He gets around to the scientific meetings. And at each of those conferences there was an incident. A
young scientist either vanished or died mysteriously.
Lyle closed her eyes. Don't tell me, she wanted to plead, but no words came; she realized her head was
pounding in time with the booming of the surf. The booms meant another storm was coming. When the
waves changed from wind waves to the long swells that formed a thousand miles offshore, or at the
distant Asian shores, and when the waves did not dash frantically at random intervals, but marched with a
thunderous tread upon the land, there would be a gale or worse. Saul had told her about the difference,
and her experience here had confirmed it, although she had not been aware of the difference before his
mini-lecture.
I'm leveling with you, Lasater said now. I want to wrap this up and be done with it. You must want to
be done with it too. Lyle, are you listening to me?
Yes. My eyes hurt, my head aches. I told you, I'm sick.
Okay, okay. I'll make it short. Picture Berlin back in the thirties. You seeCabaret ? She shook her
head slightly. Oh. Well, Berlin's recovering from the worst economic slump in history, expanding in all
directions under Hitler. At the university they're developing the first electron microscope. And at the
university is Herr Professor Hermann Franck, who is one of the pioneers in biochemistry. He's using the
prototypes of the electron microscope fifteen years before anyone else has it. Right? Franck has a Jewish
graduate student working under him and the work is frenzied because Franck is tired, he wants to quit,
go back to his family estate and write his memoirs. Only he can't because the work they're doing is too
important. He's on the verge of something as big in his field as Einstein's work was in his, maybe bigger.
How do you know any of this? Lyle asked.
There were Gestapo stooges throughout the university. One of them tried to keep up with Franck and
his work, made weekly reports that are mostly garbage because he wasn't being cut in on any of the real
secret stuff. But enough's there to know. And, of course, Franck was publishing regularly. Then,
something happened, and, I admit, this part gets shady. His grad student was beaten and left for dead by
a youth gang. The professor applied for permission to take the body home for burial, and that's the last
anyone knows of either of them. Obviously the kid didn't die. He survived, maybe killed the professor,
maybe just hung around long enough and the old guy died of natural causes. He had a bum heart.
Anyway, the student ended up with the papers, the notes on the work, everything. We know that
because it all vanished. Eventually when Franck didn't show up at work, the Gestapo got interested
enough to make a search, and found nothing. The war thickened, things settled, and Franck was
forgotten, another casualty. Then twenty years ago the Gestapo reports came to light and a mild flurry of
activity was started, to see if there was anything worth going after. Nothing. About twelve years ago a
bright young scientist working on his thesis dragged out Franck's articles, and there was an explosion that
hasn't stopped sending out ripples yet. Bigger than Einstein, they're saying now.
What is it?
I don't know. Maybe three people do know. But for twelve years we've been looking for that student,
now an elderly gentleman, who makes it to various scientific conferences and kills young researchers. We
want him, Lyle, in the worst way.
Lyle stood up. It's the best story yet. They keep getting better.
I know. I can't top this one, though. He's crazy, Lyle. Really crazy. His family was wiped out without a
trace, it must have done something to him. Or the beating scrambled his brains. Whatever. But now he's
crazy, he's systematically killing off anyone who comes near Franck's research. He's able to keep up with
what's going on. He can pass at those conferences. Maybe some of the time he actually works in a
university somewhere. But if we can get a set of prints, we'll know. The Gestapo had them on file, they
fingered every Jew in the country. All we want to do is see if they match. Maybe they won't. We'll step
out, go chase our tails somewhere else.
And if they do match?
Honey, we'll be as gentle as a May shower. Somewhere there are a lot of notebooks, working notes,
models, God knows what all. He can't keep all that junk in his head, and besides, he was just a student.
Franck had been on it for years. It's on paper somewhere. We want him to lead us to it, and then he'll be
picked up ever so carefully. There's a real fear that he'll suicide if he suspects we're anywhere near him,
and he's too important to let that happen. He'll be better treated than the Pea Princess, believe me.
She went to the door. Her eyes were burning so much it hurt to keep them open; she was having trouble
focusing. She still did not believe him, but she no longer knew which part of the story she could not [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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