After leaving the main road, it wasn’t long before they reached their destination. Entering an exterior fence through a military-style checkpoint, they drove for a good ten minutes through more rolling countryside before they pulled up in front of a small pillbox-style building. Michael was more than a little disappointed.
“Is this it?”
“Don’t let outward appearances deceive you, Herr Hofmann.” Von Klitzing gave Michael one of his superior faces. Michael was tempted to reprimand him, but thought better of it.
Give him his moment, he thought.
They entered the flat whitewashed building through a large heavy steel door, to be greeted by a single table and chair. A young man in a dark grey military uniform welcomed them with a nod. His hand had hovered over his sidearm until recognising Von Klitzing. Now, he stood at ease with a swift kick of his heels. Von Klitzing nodded back and led Michael around the youth towards a door at the back of the room. Michael looked back at the young guard, who seemed remarkably similar to the one he had dispatched at the club in Munich.
At first glance, the door looked like it led to a back room in the building. Only when an audible ping alerted them to the arrival of a lift, did Michael’s heart start to beat faster. The wooden door slid back into a wall recess, and an enamelled steel door took its place before also sliding silently to the side, letting the men enter the elevator. The machine was state of the art, a mirrored interior and four black backlit floor buttons hinted at the size of the Meyer-Hofmann research centre. Von Klitzing punched in the fourth underground floor and leant back against the elevator wall. He tried to hide it, but Michael could tell that Von Klitzing was inspecting him. The man’s eyes bored into Michael’s face, searching for the truth or a sign of Hofmann’s acceptance. Michael decided to give him the praise that he craved.
“This is impressive, Von Klitzing; is it all your work?”
Von Klitzing nodded, a sly smile creasing his face.
“Tell me, what have you got down here?”
“I would rather show you, sir. If that is all right?”
“Yes, that’s fine.”
Michael wanted anything other than a surprise, but his sense was that he needed Von Klitzing’s trust, and stroking his ego could not hurt.
The fourth-floor button lit up simultaneously with the customary ping, and the elevator door swished open. Other than that, any change in their location had been imperceptible, until the open door revealed a brightly lit white corridor. Michael was all too aware that escaping this place would be almost impossible. Pressing his right heel firmly down in his leather boot, he sent a message to Hofmann. The drawing pin Lisa had attached to his heel pressing deeper into his foot’s hard skin sent a painful message to his opponent. Von Klitzing moved deliberately down the hall to another waiting guard, whilst Michael did his best not to limp after him. It was the identical guard from the facility entrance. He stood in front of two pea green swing doors, and the faint smell of vinegar permeated from behind them. When one burst open, Dr Ecker rushed towards Michael with a boisterous greeting.
“Great to see you, Herr Hofmann!” Ecker clicked his heels and nodded his greeting.
“The pleasure is all mine, Dr Ecker. I hear you have lots to show me?” Michael also nodded, but felt unsure about the heel clicking. He could feel Von Klitzing’s eyes on him and wondered if that was a mistake.
“You have already met the guards, I take it?”
Michael was puzzled by the answer, turning to take another look at the young man standing at attention against the wall. The doctor followed his gaze.
“This is Klaus. He is one of our 240 second-generation clone soldiers.”
“The boy upstairs as well?”
The doctor nodded, a satisfied look on his face. The information took Michael by surprise, but he tried not to show it.
“I started a full-blown cloning process over thirty years ago. I wanted to create a super soldier, stronger, quicker, more obedient. This young man is part of the second generation. He is only eighteen years old, but can already take on and beat the first-generation soldiers, like Heinz, your chauffeur. There is also now a third generation, who will top the second, and a fourth in the pipeline.”
“How many do you have in total?”
“Over 600, 50 first generation, 240 second, and more than 300 third generation.”
“That’s amazing, Dr Ecker, and you are able to do this while our enemies struggle to clone sheep!”
“It wasn’t easy, Herr Hofmann. The 600 are the result of more than 3,000 attempts. When we started, only one in one hundred was successful. Now we have a success rate of one in twenty. “Come, let me show you where it all happens. In here, we have our prospective mothers.”
Ecker turned and held one of the swing doors open for the men to pass through. Following Von Klitzing into what appeared to be a vast hospital ward, Michael found himself staring down rows of beds, all occupied by young women. The men made their way down the middle aisle, the doctor gesturing right and left as he walked, explaining the process. The women seemed to be strapped in their beds, the bed sheets tucked so tightly around them, only their heads were showing. An occasional nurse would move from one to another, administering tablets or tucking an unruly mother deeper into her soft jail.
“All of the mothers are artificially inseminated before being moved to a ward. They remain on the ward for the entire gestation period. It’s the best way to control the pregnancy.”
Michael looked at the pale faces in the beds before him, hardly one over the age of twenty. They all watched him go past with undisguised contempt.
“Where do the women come from?” He struggled to keep the emotion from his voice.
“Care homes, orphanages, the streets. You would not believe how difficult it is to find ethnically acceptable candidates.” Dr Ecker sighed. “Eastern Europe has opened us more opportunity, but we have had to compromise some of our beliefs in the interests of the project’s success.”
There were over twenty beds in the ward, which ended with another double swing door. The men pressed on through into another long hall. Electric sliding doors on both sides allowed entry into small laboratories, visible from the hall through large windows. Technical staff in lab coats busied themselves around test tubes and microscopes. In one room, an operating theatre lay dormant, the stirrups attached to the bed painting a clear picture of its purpose. Leaving the hall and entering another hospital ward, Michael could see that the patients here were more heavily sedated than in the first room.
“We are farming stem cells here, Herr Hofmann. The women have also been artificially inseminated, but we take out stem cells before the eggs become fully formed embryos.”
“Stem cells? I thought your expertise was DNA, Dr Ecker?”
“You have been away for a long time, Herr Hofmann. Stem Cell research is a natural extension of my work on DNA.”
The majority of the women slept in their beds. It couldn’t be much after midday outside, but it was unlikely that any of them knew that. All were being fed a mix of drugs intravenously, and none of them noticed the men’s presence.
“Isn’t it dangerous?”
“The embryos do not survive, but most of these women would be able to reproduce without trouble, were they given the opportunity.”
“We keep them here for six months to a year before disposing of them,” Von Klitzing informed him.
The brutality of Von Klitzing’s comment shocked Michael and again tested his metal. He fought the need to scream out loud and run around the ward, releasing the poor souls. The need to protect them struggled with the knowledge that he could do nothing.