McCracken gazed at Wareagle, who had taken up a position by the window to watch for the possible approach of Holliday and his men.
“What if it were 1945?” Blaine asked the old man.
The creases of Bechman’s face relaxed. “Then I’d have my work.”
“What was your work, doctor?”
“I was a traitor to my country, you know. I could have given my discovery to them. We would have won the war. But, but … Wait, I know you now. You’re the gestapo! You’ve come to take me away. I won’t go, I tell you, I won’t!”
Bechman’s last words emerged in a shrill scream, and Blaine had to grasp the side of his wheelchair to keep him from rolling it away.
“I’m not the gestapo,” McCracken told him calmly. “Listen to my voice. I’m American. The Americans saved you from the gestapo. We brought you to the United States and gave you a new life.”
Bechman’s face turned quizzical again. “What year did you say it was?”
“1990.”
He shook his head. “What happened to the years? Where did they all go? There is a hole in my mind and the years keep slipping out. What can I do to plug the hole?” he uttered pleadingly. “Tell me what I can do!”
“You can remember.”
“But where to start?”
“In 1945 when the Americans gave you a new life.”
“Not a new life. No, just an extension of the old one. It was my own fault. I was scared. I wanted them to accept me. So I told them the secret I had hidden from the Nazis.”
“What did you tell them?”
“About my experiments. Hitler’s people never realized what I had happened upon. They wouldn’t have understood it even if they had. Years ahead of its time, generations! It was brilliant. Brilliant, I tell you! But I didn’t give it to them.”
“You gave it to the Americans.”
“Because I wanted no more wars, no more innocent people to die. The Americans could wield the weapon with judgment, with prudence. Yes, I gave it to them. All my research was completed. It was a simple matter of production, just a few additional tests from that point.”
Blaine posed his next question calmly. “What exactly was produced?”
“When?”
“In 1945, Dr. Bechman. By the Americans.”
The old man’s features turned mad again. “How do you know my name? I don’t know you. I’m sure I don’t know you.”
“I’m here to help you.”
“Did you bring my towels?”
“Already put them away.”
“Then why are you still here?”
“To listen to you. You like to talk, don’t you, doctor? You like to speak of your past.”
Bechman’s expression grew dreamlike. “Yes, I suppose.”
“What was the weapon you gave the Americans, Dr. Bechman?”
The old man’s eyes focused suddenly again. “They didn’t believe me at first you know. Thought I was crazy to insist such a thing could exist. But I knew it existed because I created it.”
“In Germany. During those last months of the war.”
“Yes! Yes! Hitler was obsessed with the United States, had been from the beginning. He hoped to delay their entry into the war long enough for the team I was part of to finish a weapon that could destroy them, wipe out their entire nation suddenly and swiftly.”
“And your research was on the genetic level.”
Bechman gazed at him condescendingly from his wheelchair. “Of course it was. Before anyone else even knew the terms, we were splitting cells, working with the DNA itself.”
“You found something.”
“Yes, but purely by accident, believe it or not. A chance coincidence arrived at from all our tinkering. We were working with viruses in pursuit of the ideal form of germ warfare. We wanted to alter the DNA of the virus so it would behave in a different way. But the altered DNA produced an enzyme which had properties that were terrifying, awesome in their implications.”
“An enzyme?” Blaine asked, embarrassed for his lack of scientific knowledge.
“An enzyme is the biological catalyst for a reaction. We were working at the cellular level. All human life is based on cells dividing, reproducing, splitting. How? How?”
“I—”
“Glucose!” Bechman blared, a scientist again. “Sugar metabolism is the basis of life at the cellular level and thus life in general. Cells digest glucose at metabolic level to supply the most basic function of life. The process is called phosphorylation. Picture this now. Once introduced into the system through the virus, our enzyme penetrates and alters the DNA of the stem cells from which all other cells originate. The enzyme produces a more efficient pathway to metabolize sugar and produce life, the DNA of the stem cells altered to the point where they can no longer utilize their usual pathway. The cells immediately become dependent on this new pathway and can no longer metabolize without it. All because of our enzyme. My enzyme!”
McCracken found himself going cold, his limited scientific knowledge no longer insulating him from the impact of what he was hearing. “You’re saying whoever became exposed to your virus would become dependent on it to survive, wouldn’t be able to live without being exposed further to it.”
“Precisely! One exposure was all it would take to produce total dependence. The process becomes irreversible after that. If exposure to more of the virus containing my enzyme is not maintained, life degenerates at its most basic level. All bodily functions cease because phosphorylation cannot occur within the stem cells.”
“The ultimate form of biological warfare,” Blaine muttered, looking at Wareagle, starting to grasp what the gamma cannisters Bart Joyce had seen loaded onto the Indianapolis had contained. “The virus invades the body and the host dies if he doesn’t get more of the enzyme it contains.”
“A disease that breaks the spirit as well as the body, Blainey. Worse than death. The ultimate form of control as well.”
“You can see why I couldn’t let Hitler have it,” Bechman broke in. “Imagine him able to destroy the military capacity of the United States while retaining its vast production capabilities and resources for his own use! Slavery is what it would have come down to.”
“But how would you contain it, doctor? Stop it from spreading beyond the borders of your enemy?”
“Many means were discussed. Aerosol release into the air was ruled out as too uncontrollable, as was the ethnic factor of infecting a specific food or finding a virus that attacks a single ethnicity. We settled on infecting a nation’s water supply. The virus containing the enzyme would live in water for two or three days, programmed to survive for only that many generations. By then the cells of the victim would be dependent at the DNA level, and more of the enzyme would have to be introduced to avoid certain death. The effects would show up after only a few days. My estimates indicated that five hundred German agents could accomplish the entire task quite adequately. Germany or another attacking country could then issue its ultimatum: surrender or die.”
“Listen to what he’s saying, Indian,” McCracken urged Wareagle. “That’s what Rasin has in his possession. That’s what he’s going to release into the Arab world.”
“To deny them death is a worse fate than death itself, Blainey.”
“Right up Rasin’s alley.” And Blaine felt suddenly chilled. “But we had this enzyme in our possession and didn’t use it. And then we sunk the Indianapolis because the cannisters containing it had to be buried forever. Why, doctor, why?”
Bechman looked confused. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“Remember, you’ve got to remember!”
“Remember…. remember what?”