She said, in embarrassment, “I read about it in the
“Oh?” Evidently, he had been taking on airs, thinking the girl had come in hopes of seeing Quint there. “As a scientist or as an advocate of One World government?”
“Both,” she said.
“Well, so our Hungarian’s got a follower. All he needs is two billion more people, and that World Government of his will become reality. But what I want to know is, why should every cloak and dagger man in this part of Europe be interested in Ferencsik?”
She stared at him.
He explained to her the presence of the various operatives, and the fact that Ronald Brett-Home had evidently set up the whole situation. He didn’t mention the theory that Bormann or any of the other missing Nazis might be hiding out in Spain. It wasn’t that he didn’t trust her with the information. It was just that he realized that the fewer persons in on a secret the better chance it had of not becoming open rumor. It wouldn’t be fair to Mike Woolman to let his potential story get picked up by some rival newsman, by way of gossip that Quint started.
“You knew Ronald, didn’t you?”
“Why, yes. He wasn’t very much of a gentleman.”
“Ronald? Good grief, pet, you can’t be any more of a gentleman than Ronald Brett-Home. Old school tie, all that claptrap. Eton, Oxford, the King’s service, a good regiment, what else do you want?”
He thought he was being obviously sarcastic, but she answered in all honesty, her voice stilted. “I was alone with him at a party once, and he tried to… to spoon with me.”
He looked at her in wonder. “
“He… he kissed me and tried to…” She broke it off, flushed still deeper and said, “He wanted to spoon, and I had to slap his face.”
Quint took another sip of his wine, even as he stared at her over the glass rim. Remembering the strength of her hand when she had squeezed his arm a few minutes earlier, he muttered, “I’ll bet you nearly broke the poor guy’s neck.”
She remained in embarrassed silence.
He had a last bite of the roast pork and pushed the plate away, feeling considerably better. There’s nothing like fat pork and bread to kill an edge. Aside from being a little wobbly, it was as though he had never been tight.
He said, “But I kissed you last night. Was it only last night? It seems like a week ago, so much has happened.”
She looked down at her hands, which were clasped and sitting on the table now. “That was different,” she said lowly.
He knew better than to ask her to develop on that question, and looked about for something to which to switch the subject. He said, “You’re more up on the science bit than I am. What’s Ferencsik’s special claim to fame?”
“Oh, everybody knows of Nicolas Ferencsik. He’s absolutely most prominent in his field.”
“Yeah, but I’m ignorant All I know about him I read in
“Well, he transplants organs. His successes have been startling.”
Quint was impatient. “But everybody’s been getting into that act lately. I even read about a Philadelphia dentist whose been transplanting teeth ever since 1959.”
“Doctor Mezrow?” she nodded.
“He takes a healthy tooth from someone whose mouth is too small to hold the usual quota and needs an extraction, and transplants it into the mouth of someone who’s had an extraction.”
Marylyn nodded. “But teeth are simple, compared with organs. Nicolas Ferencsik has been successful in transplanting, first in animals, and now in human beings, just about every organ in the body. Oh, others have done it too. American doctors have been successful in taking a diseased kidney from one person, and replacing it with a healthy kidney from another person. It works quite often between identical twins, but only in a few instances otherwise. You see, Quentin, the body has an… well, instinctive tendency to reject any foreign tissue that’s been grafted into it, unless it’s from an identical twin. But Ferencsik has startled the world by combating this body instinct. He utilizes azathioprine, a new immunity suppressor, actinomycin C, an antibiotic which is sometimes used against cancer, a cortisone-type hormone, heart stimulants, diuretics, and so forth. And he’s been successful in practically rebuilding people hurt in accidents. Of course, in the Iron Curtain countries, especially Russia where he did a lot of his work, they’ve gone further than we have in establishing banks of not just blood but hearts, kidneys, livers and other organs as well.”
“You’re getting beyond my depth,” Quint said. “At least beyond my depth with my head feeling the way it does now. However, I picked up the idea recently that he’s been able to even transplant brains. At least on an anthropoid ape level.”
She frowned, as though that went beyond either her belief, or at least her approval, but she said, “Yes, you mentioned that the other night.”
A new party was descending the brick steps which led down to the cellars from the restaurant proper on the ground level. There were four of them, all men, and one of the four was Bart Digby. Quint hoped the other wouldn’t recognize him, and then realized there was fat chance of that. The alleged former C.I.A. man’s eyes swept the ten or fifteen tables of the cellar dining rooms with a professional glance, landing on Quint immediately.
When the party had been seated by the captain, Digby evidently excused himself and came toward Quint and Marylyn Worth.
Quint came to his feet, without over-much trouble, and made introductions, which were routinely responded to, including an appreciative laying-on-of-eyes by Bart of Marylyn.
Without invitation, Digby took an empty chair and said to Quint, “Look, I wanted to talk to you some more.” His eyes went back to Marylyn.
Quint said, wearily, “Miss Worth is a teacher out at the Air Force school. She comes from Nebraska and is very sincere and probably very patriotic and believes in true values and things like that which I don’t understand. What her security rating is with the F.B.I., I don’t know, but I suspect you can talk in front of her at least as freely as you can in front of me. And besides, I’ve got a hangover, confound it. I would have said damn it, instead of confound it, but Miss Worth forbids me to swear.”
Digby looked at him. “Are you swacked?”
“Miss Worth calls it
“You must have kept going since I saw you at lunch,” Bart Digby growled unhappily. “Look, I want to talk to you some more. But it’ll keep until tomorrow.”
“About what?” Quint said.
Bart shot another look at Marylyn.
Quint said, “Oh, for crissake…”
Digby said, “Remember my mentioning Bormann, Mueller and Doktor Stahlecker this morning?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, I’ve done some backchecking on this Doktor Stahlecker who was evidently one of Hitler’s most fervent from way back when the Nazi party was first getting organized. Remember when the German generals tried to knock him off, planted a bomb in his bunker when he was having a staff meeting?”
“Yeah, Along in 1944. Half the general staff was in on it, even Rommel.”
“That’s right. Well, it was our friend Doktor Stahlecker who kept Hitler alive at that point. He was blown half to pieces, but the good doctor patched him up.”
Quint was irritated. He wasn’t up to much in the way of thinking right at this point. “So,” he said.
“So, it seems that Doktor Stahlecker was the top authority in Germany at that time on such items as organ transplants, grafting of limbs, and such like. There evidently
