“I will have to put my experiments on hold so that we can work towards the Fuhrer’s goals for Germany.”
“No, it is far more sinister than that.”
“It is?” At such a young age, Walter failed to understand the harsh realities of where the world was headed.
“You must now decide. On one hand, you have the key, which will almost certainly provide the Fuhrer with the means to win this war, but on the other hand, in so doing you may end up destroying more lives than would be lost in a hundred years of fighting.”
“Is that really the right question to ask?” Walter, even in his idealistic youth, was not wholly immune to the loyalty and might of the Fascist movement.
Professor Ribbentrop watched him carefully, without betraying his hand. “Go on son, what would be the right question to ask?”
“How can we protect our own troops from this virus?”
“Yes, of course,” the Professor continued. Only the slightest hint of hesitation could be detected in his voice. “Prepare your viruses. Tomorrow, we start developing a vaccine. Collect your notes, and I will send them on to the Fuhrer himself. He would want to be personally informed of a matter of such this importance.”
John made a copy for himself, and then sent his original notes to Professor Ribbentrop, who had assured him that he would personally bring them to the attention of the Fuhrer.
Two weeks passed, yet Walter had still not received any message from the Fuhrer.
He talked to Professor Fritz Ribbentrop about it, but the man seemed undeterred, and reminded Walter that the Fuhrer was a very busy man.
At first, Walter assumed that it was their academic professionalism which was causing the friction, but as time went by, he started to doubt Fritz’s loyalty. The problem was, he had no idea how to create a vaccination against the horrid virus. Fritz was possibly the only man alive who had the ability to develop it. Besides, it was ridiculous of him to question Fritz’s loyalty. The two of them were ardent supporters of the Third Reich, and Fritz specifically had supported and was a strong ally of his friend, Adolf Hitler.
At the end of the two weeks, Walter decided to send a secret letter to the Fuhrer, containing his findings and their potential in the field of biological warfare.
The next day, Walter was picked up by the SS Police, who took him to a secret location, where Adolf Hitler himself greeted him warmly. Hitler reassured him of Fritz’s loyalty, but pointed out that a matter of such great importance required redundancies to ensure that the plan came to fruition. The Fuhrer also reminded Walter that he was counting on him to make sure that Fritz maintained the undying loyalty he had always displayed to Germany.
Two weeks after that, Professor Fritz Ribbentrop disappeared.
All traces of the virus with him.
When the Gestapo told Walter that Professor Ribbentrop had boarded an airship and escaped, he was certain that Germany would now lose the war.
As a punishment for this failure, he was conscripted and given the rank of private in the infantry.
It was a death sentence, and a total waste of an intellect such as his, which could have been put to better use in so many other war efforts.
Despite the punishment, Walter remained true to the regime’s core values, proudly believing that he was doing his part to win the war for Germany.
Despite the highly improbable chances of his survival, Walter did succeed in living through the war, but, unfortunately, a remaining high-ranking official leaked the information that Walter’s mistake had resulted in Germany losing the war.
In the starving depression of postwar Germany, Walter was treated with contempt, and he was unable to gain employment as anything better than a common street cleaner. His wonderful mind was utterly wasted for the second time by Germany’s remaining leaders.
In spite of everything that had befallen him, Walter married a woman in 1950, named Alda. Notwithstanding living in socialist Eastern Germany, and although they were both poor and famished, the two were happy, and their son, John was born in 1952.
Despite it being a new world, many members of the East German leadership still blamed Walter for his part in the loss of their pre-war living standards. He found it hard to get a job, and harder still to keep one. In 1962, when John was age 10, his mother died during a particularly bad winter.
John asked the question that his father had been dreading.
“Why are we hated so?”
Walter then told him the story about the missing Magdalena, which he discovered had never made it to her destination in Switzerland. He explained that if they could just find the Magdalena, he could forever change the course of their lives.
In 1961, East Germany had become so frustrated by the mass exodus of its citizens to the west, they erected a wall between the two in order to prevent people from fleeing into West Berlin. Walter became infatuated with the dream of discovering the resting place of the Magdalena, and consequently, the virus, which he still saw as being the source of all of his misfortune.
John, on the other hand, excelled at all his studies and dreamed of becoming a scientist someday. He ended up working at Humboldt University. It was the one bit of good luck the family had had since Walter discovered the virus.
When the Berlin Wall came down on the 9th of November, 1989, John was 38 years old, and had become one of the leading microbiologists in the world, with little chance of achieving any financial security.
He wanted, more than anything, to rekindle his father’s pharmaceutical company, but it would be another five years before he was given the opportunity to do so.
In 1994, five years after the Berlin Wall came crashing down, a man approached John. He appeared to be of Mediterranean descent, but he might just as easily have been from England, based on how perfectly accented his English sounded. The man offered him five million American dollars, a fortune, to support the development of his pharmaceutical company on behalf of his client, if John would be willing to help his boss find the Magdalena, and provide him with a usable virus. His boss remained the legal owner of the company on secret papers, but all profits were John’s to keep.
It seemed so simple at the time.
A deal with the devil, perhaps — but what a deal!
Why not take the chance? If the Magdalena, and the virus she carried hadn’t been discovered in 55 years, why would it be discovered in his lifetime?
Since then, his business had exceeded his every dream. He was rich, he had married a movie star, and they had produced a beautiful daughter. His wife had left him once she’d extracted enough of his money, but she left him with his daughter, so what did he care? His professional dreams were achieved when he won the Nobel Prize.
He never once heard from his benefactor.
There was never a request for a dividend or repayment of any kind.
Until a week ago, he had all but forgotten about his humble beginnings and about his deal with the devil.
When he was greeted by a much older man with olive skin and a pompous English accent, he didn’t immediately recognize the man. It was his accent that sounded completely out of place, which finally triggered his recollection.
The Lear Jet banked to the left, and John settled in for a landing, dragging him out of his memories.
A long time ago, he had indeed made a deal with the devil himself.
Might a deal with another devil save me?
John considered the question which he had turned over repeatedly in the past seven days, and for the first time, reached an answer.
Yes. But to do that, I’ll have to be the first to find it.