embarrassment.”
“But Karen’s free now.”
“Like you, she escaped,” he said, giving me a tight smile. “So there’s nothing to worry about.”
“You better not have harmed her or our child,” I said, raising a fist over his bloodstained thigh. He ignored it and kept looking straight ahead.
“I’ll tell you something I don’t understand,” I continued. “Why did the Star Reporter pay so much attention to the occult murders? You suspected one of your own people was the killer, but your own rag was full of the story every day.”
Rothmann gave me a look that suggested I was mentally deficient. “Woodbridge Holdings owns numerous newspapers. Do you imagine we would censor such a major story from all of them? Murders mean major earnings for papers like the Star. Besides, we knew the investigations were going nowhere.”
“You had your niece on the spot. Shame about Dana’s career.”
“She successfully framed you and bought us time. Besides, we have plenty more like her. But you, you should have kept quiet after we took your partner,” Rothmann went on. “We had no specific interest in you.”
“I love Karen. She’s carrying our son.”
He blinked slowly. “That was what Lister said would be your weakness.”
A cold finger ran up my spine. “Lister?”
“You didn’t think he was just a pawn, did you?
“Gordy Lister is involved in all our plans. He masterminded the kidnappings, both Karen Oaten’s and your own.”
We really had blown it when we let Lister go, but I couldn’t do anything about that now. “What about Joe Greenbaum?”
“He had long been a thorn in the sides of companies such as ours.”
“Lister set the bomb?”
He looked at Gwen again. “No, he did not.”
I let my head drop. The sick fuck. “You used her?”
“Yes, we did. And her brother. They have turned out to be excellent operatives. The Jew Greenbaum’s work has been atomized for good.”
I felt the blood boil in my veins. The bastard was wrong there, but I wasn’t going to tell him about the data stick yet. I wanted to get off the boat alive and it might be a useful bargaining tool.
I looked at Marion Gilbert. “The double weapons for each victim referred to you and your bother?”
“And to the…the Fuhrer and the professor, and power of two. They were an inspiration to me for a long time…but not…not anymore.” She stepped closer and I realized she had reached the end of her tether-her eyes were wild and her hands were shaking. She raised the skewer high.
“No!” Rothmann screamed. “Barbarossa! Barbarossa!”
This time, the instant I heard the name, I felt my knees give way. My mind filled with clashing images and sounds, but beneath them I felt a strong will that I could no longer resist. I knew it was foreign to me, I knew it was evil, but I was completely in thrall to it. The clamor ceased and I opened my eyes, ready to defend the man who had spoken the word.
Gwen had advanced on Marion Gilbert, who was bleeding from her right hand. Marion slashed at the younger woman. That was when I realized Gwen was holding a combat knife very similar to the one I had acquired during my escape from the camp.
“Now, my Fuhrer?” she asked, her eyes bright.
Rothmann saw that I had moved closer to them. “So, Wells… Are you ready to do your duty?”
I was looking down on myself, as if I were a spirit floating free. I had no control over the self that was in my body.
“Yes, my Fuhrer,” I heard myself say.
“It seems the process advanced further into your brain than we thought.”
The disembodied part of me was trying to understand what was going on.
“You see, Marion?” Rothmann was saying. “Things have changed since your time. We are now able to master even the most difficult subjects without prolonged treatment. Sometimes it just takes several repetitions of the trigger to prompt a response.”
The doctor took another swipe at Gwen, but the younger woman easily avoided the weak blow.
“You…you don’t control him,” she gasped. “He got out of the camp, he’s been working with the police…”
Rothmann laughed hoarsely, his face white as he clutched his wounded thigh. “If I tell him to attack you, he will do so.”
Marion Gilbert looked at me and I saw that she was wavering.
I sensed that my eyes had gone as blank as Gwen’s.
“Wells!” the Fuhrer yelled.
I watched as my body immediately tensed.
“Give him the knife!”
Gwen looked at the Fuhrer dubiously.
“Go ahead!” he roared.
I took the blade from her and weighed it in my hand. It felt comfortable there.
“Stop it,” Marion Gilbert said, her voice faint. “I can’t…I can’t take anymore.”
Rothmann gave her a triumphant look. “Gut her, Wells,” he ordered.
Watching in horror, I saw my body take up a combat stance, knees bent and arms in front of the chest. I tried to take control, but I had no access to the part of my being that was wielding the knife. But my victim was too quick for me.
Marion Gilbert was against the bulkhead, holding the remaining skewer vertically. The steel shaft was closer to her body than it had been. “I hope all your plans come to nothing,” she said in a low voice. Then she took a deep breath and pressed the point against her throat. With a desperate wail, she shoved the skewer upward to its hilt. A few seconds later, she crashed lifeless to the floor.
I felt my separate self slip back into my body and the knife drop from my hand. “Did you…did you make her do that?” I stammered feeling more like myself again.
He grunted in pain. “No, I’m afraid I didn’t. Unlike you, she didn’t respond to the default trigger word. She was beyond direction… It would seem she may even have regained contact with her conscience.”
I felt a surge of anger. “Fuck you.”
Rothmann looked up at me, and then smiled. I turned and saw that Gwen had picked up the combat knife. “You know, Wells, I think your reliability is questionable. At the current advanced state of our operation, that is inappropriate.” He ran his tongue across his lips. “Kill him, my dear.”
I’d been waiting for that. “Gwen, do you know that your father is dead?” I looked over my shoulder and saw that the knife had stopped a few inches from my back.
“What?” Her voice was suddenly that of a child.
“I suppose Gordy Lister made sure you didn’t see the papers.”
“No newspapers or TV are allowed without authorization,” she said emptily.
“Don’t listen to him,” Rothmann said, his voice was wavering.
“It happened here, didn’t it?” I said. I was going out on a limb, but the fact that Richard Bonhoff’s body had been dumped in the river was suggestive. “On board the Isolde.”
“No,” Rothmann said, “of course it didn’t.” But the fear on his face gave him away as a liar.
Gwen stepped up to my side. “Why?” she asked, her eyes damp. “He loved us. You should have let us contact him. We could easily have reassured him.” She leaned forward. “Why?”
“Stop!” Rothmann ordered, edging along the sofa. “Put down the knife!”
“Why?” Gwen moaned again. “He loved us…” Then she pushed past me and grabbed her Fuhrer’s collar. “If the river was good enough for Daddy, it’s good enough for you,” she said, then dragged him forward with surprising strength. When he was clear of the furniture, she put the knife to his throat and hauled him to the cabin door. “Don’t get in the way,” she said to me, over her shoulder.
I kept my distance, and then followed them out into the pale morning light.
Gwen forced Rothmann along the side of the boat till they were both standing at the bow.
