The Methuselah Project (20 page)

What a tantalizing idea. If I play my cards just right, is there a chance
—
any chance at all—that Sophie might care enough that she would help me to escape?

He could already picture himself stepping through that despicable barrier and bounding up the steps he’d never laid eyes on. The very thought of bursting through the outside door and seeing genuine sunshine, green grass, and trees swaying in the wind set his heart pumping.

I wonder.

Even with this turning point in Roger’s thinking, Sophie Gottschalk lost none of her feminine beauty. However, a craving that overpowered even his longing for female companionship latched onto his heart and wouldn’t let go: the hunger for freedom.

In the course of the past seven decades, Roger had developed mental tricks to distract himself from the yen to be free when no way of breaking out of the bunker presented itself. But the mere concept of recruiting an accomplice released the genie from the bottle. Now that he’d finally found a strategy to follow, escape gained more urgency than ever before.

Yet was it proper to manipulate a girl’s heart for his personal goals?

Why shouldn’t I use her? I’m a prisoner of war. It’s my duty to escape. If I can coax one of the enemy to lend a hand, then why not?

Like a jeweler twisting a diamond in his fingers, Roger paced his cell and studied each facet of this new strategy, calculating his odds of winning Sophie to his cause.

They don’t let just anybody work on Methuselah. They have to be indoctrinated, totally loyal. Is it possible I can override her brainwashing?

He plumbed his memory, sifting for every fragment of information Kossler had ever let fall about Methuselah.
Sophie must have passed a test of Aryan integrity or some such hogwash. But she’s still a woman. Hopefully her female instincts run deeper than her fascist education.

On the other hand, wasn’t there a real danger of falling in love with this enemy scientist? The question halted his pacing. Yes, that was a danger. After all, she truly looked like a Hollywood starlet. He did relish opportunities to chat with her. Roger stood and probed his own soul for a long while. In the end, he dredged up one word: no. If he could get her to care for him, that would be helpful, but somehow—in a way he himself didn’t understand—he was positive Sophie wasn’t the girl next door he’d always dreamed of. He would be friendly, even charming, but he would keep his heart securely locked.

From that point on, Roger warmed to every opportunity for establishing a one-on-one friendship with Sophie. His social skills creaked with rust, but he dusted them off and played the role of the dashing-but-humble soldier. His chief fear was of overplaying the part, of pushing too hard in his eagerness to establish a relationship. This snail’s pace required all the self-restraint he could muster.

Roger devoted hours of evening mirror time to practicing his most becoming smiles. Later, during conversations with Sophie, he would flash the expressions he considered most endearing. Another tactic was to avoid all talk of escape.
Don’t be transparent. It’ll be better if she thinks that springing you out of here is her idea, not yours. Otherwise, the whole scheme will crash and burn.

Bit by bit, as the days dragged past, Sophie truly did pay more than casual attention to him. One day he was sitting in his armchair and daydreaming. The green-tinted aviators rested on his nose, but his eyes were closed. In his mind, he explored the sky, circling puffy cumulus clouds in his repaired Thunderbolt. He was so deep in fanciful flight that Sophie’s voice startled him.

“What are you doing, Captain Greene?”

Roger opened his eyes and sat up straighter. Through green tint he saw her standing just outside the bars, a coquettish expression gracing her face. He grinned and pulled off the aviators.

“Sorry. I didn’t hear you come in. To answer your question, though, I was piloting a P-47 high over the English Channel. It was an incredibly resplendent afternoon. Brilliant sunshine flooded my cockpit, so I had to put on my sunglasses. I had the entire sky to myself, and I could zoom as far as I wanted in any direction. It was magnificent.”

A delightful giggle escaped her lips. “Do you often pilot your armchair?”

“At least once a week. It’s part of my routine. A way of being free on the inside, even if not on the outside. I mentally run through all the preflight checks, and then the actual flights as I adjust the flaps and rudder and check the instrument panel. I never want to forget how to fly. Besides, it gets me out of this place and into the sunshine. It’s only a fantasy, of course, but everyone needs a castle in the sky. Without dreams … well, a person without dreams might as well be dead, I suppose.”

Even as the words spilled from his mouth, Roger berated himself. He’d cautioned his reflection against talk of freedom. Sophie might guess how an American prisoner would do absolutely anything—including manipulating her—to break free of this dungeon existence. Instead of backfiring, though, the comment enticed Sophie closer. She stepped within inches of the bars, an action she’d never done before.

Roger remained seated. The spell might pop if he budged. In a voice close to a whisper, Sophie said, “When was the last time you felt sunshine—genuine sunshine—on your face, Roger?”

Electricity streaked up his spine. One of the enemy had just tiptoed over an invisible threshold: she’d called him by his first name. Equally significant, it was the first time she’d openly shown sympathy for his plight.

He cleared his throat. Was this his chance? He couched his reply in the softest of tones: “The last time I saw sunshine, Sophie? Bona fide, natural sunshine from the sun in the sky and not from a sunlamp? By my best guess, I would say that happened at least thirty years before you were born.”

He scrounged the recesses of his mind for additional comments he might tack on. True things, like how sometimes he believed he would go insane if he remained cooped up much longer. About how torturous life became without even a glimpse of the blue heavens he longed to roar through. Instead of speaking, Roger bit his tongue. He gambled that a few well-chosen words would deliver more impact than a ramble.

A shadow of sorrow mingled with guilt passed over her face. Her head drooped. “I’m sorry you have to stay here.”

Roger longed to stand, to hug this woman right through the bars for her simple confession. But he didn’t dare. “Me too. I’ve been sorry about that for a long, long time. I’m the innocent victim of circumstances.”

A shadow flitted over her countenance.

“I can’t stay. Martin asked me to reanalyze some data. He’s expecting me.”

She crossed to the bank of file cabinets on the far wall, but not before Roger observed a motion that might have been her fingers wiping away a tear.

That’s sure what it looked like.

He studied the burgundy Persian rug under his feet while his mind replayed everything they had said to each other. He regretted nothing. To the contrary, the exchange had occurred more subtly than he could’ve scripted.

Sophie pushed shut the file drawer. “I’ll be going.”

“And I’d better get back to my airplane. Wouldn’t want it to spin into the English Channel. But thank you for the conversation. Thank you, too, for an inspiration you’ve given me.”

She paused at the metal exit. “An inspiration I gave you?”

He nodded and allowed a half-smile to slip onto his face. “You see, until today I always imagined myself flying alone. That daydream has worn itself threadbare. Now I’ll trade in my imaginary Thunderbolt for some kind of two-seater. Maybe an old Stearman biplane. It’ll be more fun to imagine myself giving my friend Sophie her very first ride in a single-engine airplane.”

With a barely perceptible nod of her head, she opened the door, then disappeared. This time, Roger definitely glimpsed a drop on her cheek.

Initial Point reached! Banking toward target.

F
RIDAY
, F
EBRUARY
20, 2015

T
HE
M
UELLER HOME
, D
RUID
H
ILLS DISTRICT
, A
TLANTA

K
atherine reached the top of the stairway in the Muellers’ Tudor revival home just as Uncle Kurt emerged from his bedroom. Slung over his right shoulder was a bulging black-leather travel bag. His other arm pulled a two-wheeled travel case. In contrast to his usual business attire, he wore brand-new jeans topped with a khaki shirt and a green polyester bomber-style jacket barely thick enough to deflect the February chill.

“There you are!” Katherine said. “I was starting to think you had fallen asleep up here.”

“Just tying up last-minute details. I can’t go on holiday without clearing my schedule.”

“Let me help.” She took the handle of his rolling bag. “Say, this isn’t very heavy. Especially considering that you’ll be in Africa for three weeks. And where’s your rifle?” She hoisted the bag and followed him down.

“I shipped my supplies ahead so I can travel light. An old acquaintance of mine lives in Botswana. He offered to receive my crates and let me spend a night at his villa, provided I take him hunting with me.”

“A friend in Botswana? Now why doesn’t that surprise me? Is there any corner in the world where you don’t know an old friend?” By the time she reached the bottom step, Uncle Kurt had the front door open.

“You exaggerate, Katarina. I can think of many places where I don’t have acquaintances: Antarctica, the North Pole, the Himalayan Mountains, the Gobi—”

Katherine raised a palm to cut him off. She’d accidentally sparked his routine. Every time Uncle Kurt stood on the verge of a new safari, his subdued excitement manifested itself in a ridiculously playful vein—at least, as playful as his straitlaced personality would permit. While he held the front door, she rolled the bag down the front walk to her sky-blue Passat and popped the trunk.

“This old friend of yours in Botswana, is he a business associate or a friend in the organization?”

Uncle Kurt lowered his shoulder bag into the trunk, then hefted in the rolling bag. “Both. No reason not to mix business and pleasure. Doubles the profits, doubles the fun.” He shot her a wink before heading to the passenger door.

Katherine slid into her seat behind the steering wheel. As soon as she had the Passat up to speed, her uncle said, “Speaking of the HO, have you heard anything from them lately?”

“Not a word. Why?” She glanced at his face. Her uncle didn’t ask idle questions for the sake of chitchat. As she expected, his bushy, gray eyebrows were lowered and protruding, the way they always did when he pondered some matter.

“Your field exercises. I would’ve expected the HO to contact you about them before now.”

At the stop sign, Katherine braked briefly, then rounded the corner and headed toward Buford Highway. Her eyes jumped to the digital clock on the dashboard. If traffic wasn’t too heavy, she could still drop him at the airport by the advised two-hours-before-flight time for international flights. “Maybe the HO leadership has more important things than field exercises on their plate. I’m pretty small taters, you know.” She offered a reassuring smile, but found him looking the other way.

“Yes, I suppose the exercises aren’t high on the priority list. Still, I can’t help wishing they had called before my trip overseas. I’m not superstitious, you know, but I still would’ve liked to wish you good luck on whatever assignment they give you.”

She stretched out an arm and patted his back. “I’ll take that last statement as a good-luck wish right now, you sweet ol’ uncle. Who knows? Maybe by the time you come home, you’ll have dangerous jungle-safari stories to wow me with, and I’ll get to tell you how I aced all the HO exercises with flying colors.”

This elicited a smile. “Do you think you’re up to it? No doubts? No fears?”

She laughed. “No doubts, no fears. After all, I was raised by Kurt Mueller himself. I have such a great heritage and training that I can handle any assessment test they throw my way.”

“That’s the spirit, Katarina. Show them what you can do. Make me even prouder!”

“I’ll sure try,” she replied in a chipper voice. Uncle Kurt probably wouldn’t leave the country if he had any idea of her personal plans.