The Methuselah Project (34 page)

Shock registered on Katherine’s face.
So it was true—she didn’t mean for me to see this gadget.

“It’s not mine. It belongs to my uncle Kurt. He’s the one who adopted me after my parents died.”

“Go on.”

For a fleeting moment, the look of a cornered animal sprang into Katherine’s eyes. Just as quickly, she exhaled in exasperation and slumped against the headrest. “Okay, I confess. I really, honestly don’t know if this whole thing is a super elaborate HO field exercise, or if I’m trapped in the
Twilight Zone,
or what. But if it’s a field exercise, then I’m calling it quits right here, right now. The game is over.”

Roger heard the words, but understood nothing. “What are you talking about? What’s an HO? Or a field exercise?”

Inexplicably tears sprang into Katherine’s eyes. “You know good and well we’re not supposed to talk about it. I swore an oath. Don’t try to trick me.”

Roger grew more confused. “Look, Katherine, I don’t know beans about any oath or about exercising in a field. All I know is that yesterday a guy holding one of these gray thingamajigs tried to nail me into a coffin. You carry one too. That makes you look like you’re on his side, not mine.”

She snatched a tissue from the holder on the car’s dashboard and dabbed both eyes. “Okay, I’ll talk. But if this is some sort of trap, then spare me the grief and kick me out of the HO this minute.”

“I’m not tricking you.”

“The HO—it’s a kind of secret society. Sort of like Masons or Shriners, but it’s all behind the scenes, aimed at improving individuals and society in general. The goal is to raise the level of achievement, morals, and ethics in each country where members live.”

“So what does ‘HO’ actually stand for?”

“The full name is Heritage Organization, but hardly anybody says the whole thing. Sometimes we say, ‘HO,’ sometimes just ‘the organization.’”

At the word
organization,
a chill gripped Roger’s heart. Sophie had said the same thing about the Methuselah controllers. “And you’re a member of this organization?”

She nodded and dabbed her eyes again. “I’m just a newbie. Barely above Kadett, which is a first-level beginner. Ever since I was old enough to keep a secret, Uncle Kurt has told me story after story about the HO and how much my parents cherished it. In fact, my dad headed up a team of HO scientists working on a cure for diabetes. Mom was his assistant. The Heritage Organization funded the whole project. Uncle Kurt says the team felt close to success when a terrible fire broke out, killing them all. When Uncle invited me to continue the family tradition and enlist, it seemed the right thing to do. I mean, the HO funded my parents’ life’s work, and after the fire, they gave Uncle a huge sum of money to raise me, all in memory of my parents. I felt obligated.”

“How much do you know about this organization?”

She shook her head. “Nobody gets in without an invitation, usually from a higher-ranking friend or family member. Quite a few seem to come from a Germanic ancestry, but not all of them.”

“I mean, what do you know about their specific activities, their projects?”

“That part is fuzzy in my mind. Like I said, it’s a behind-the-scenes type of society. The lower ranks don’t know exactly what happens at upper levels. It’s all aimed at challenging individuals to higher levels of achievement, improving the world with inventions and positive influences, then passing on a stronger heritage to the next generation.”

He hefted the gray device. “Is this some sort of tracking mechanism?” Even as he spoke, he gave the rearview mirror a glance. No one trailed them.

“It’s nicknamed a Pigeon. I recently received a promotion. In light of my new rank, some sort of field exercise was next on my agenda. It’s a challenging experience to heighten intuition and problem-solving skills. I’ll show you what they sent me.” She dug to the bottom of her handbag and pulled out the printout of her assignment, complete with photos of Roger.

Listening while she read the instructions to locate and trail the “HO member,” Roger felt a tide of anger rising in his chest. “What a devil’s pack of lies! In other words, they needed some innocent patsy to keep tabs on me until their killer could move in. They used you as a chump to do their dirty work.”

Roger began connecting the dots for her, explaining that “higher levels” of the group who’d sent the Griffin after him were the ones who had imprisoned him for so many decades. They financed the Methuselah Project. Even Sophie had referred to them as “the organization.” He also recounted his first escape attempt, but this time elaborating on the conversation in which Hans claimed to have planted some sort of homing device in his arm to track him down, evidently with one of these same gizmos.

“A locator chip inside your arm? I figured you had one, but I assumed you carried it in your pocket to let me find you as part of the exercise. Still, my uncle would never get tangled up with the kind of people you describe. Neither would my parents. I don’t have all the answers, but—”

“I tell you, this organization is wormy to the core.”

“But Uncle Kurt—”

“Look, I don’t know your uncle, and I have nothing against him. Maybe he’s a jolly good fellow who doesn’t realize what the uppity-ups do. But don’t you think it’s a little fishy he just happens to own one of those Pigeon gadgets? What do you think he uses it for?”

“We treated it like a sport, a mental challenge. He would plant a locator chip somewhere around Atlanta, and then I had to find it. When I got better, he made the game more challenging by becoming a mobile target. It was all in fun.”

Roger appreciated Katherine too much to argue. But the impression of Uncle Kurt developing in his mind was less than stellar. He grunted. “Some games can be practice for real life. Even the army stages war games.”

“Roger, my uncle isn’t a Nazi ogre with some psychotic obsession about racial purity and superiority. He’s got his shortcomings. He’s too strict, for one thing. But he’s a respectable businessman. He uses the Pigeon to track jewelry shipments, among other things.”

“I didn’t say he’s not a nice guy, but evil minds can manipulate nice people. Including nice girls,” he said, with a significant glance in her direction. “Maybe he got sucked into something he doesn’t understand. They could be using him like they used you.”

Instead of retorting, she jumped to a different topic. “If you have a GPS chip embedded in your body, someone could be tracking you this very minute.”

“No fooling? Even while we’re driving down the highway?”

“Moving objects are harder to trace, but a hunter could get a general fix on the direction and travel the same way.”

“All right, I believe you’re innocent. I need surgery. The sooner, the better. Do you have a knife?”

“A knife? No, not with me. We might be able to find a store—”

Roger shook his head and pulled the car to the side of the expressway. “No time for shopping. Because of the experiment, I drop into a deep sleep every night. Almost like a coma. Flying in from Europe has messed up my sleep patterns, but I can tell I’m on the verge of conking out. My thinking gets fuzzy, and I hear a little whine in my head. You have to drive. In the morning, we’ll buy something sharp and cut this thing out of me. If you spot any bandits on our six, try to wake me up.”

“Bandits on our six? Wait, let me guess. It’s a pilot thing. Ground pounders wouldn’t understand, right?”

He patted her shoulder. “Sorry. Air Corps jargon. It means hostiles on your tail. If you see danger, punch me or kick me, whatever it takes to wake me up. If I’m going to get shot, I want to be awake when it happens.”

Roger’s cockpit was shaking. The P-47 he piloted was disintegrating, spinning, tumbling out of control.
Bail out!

He jerked upright and popped open his eyes. His airplane, the sky, and the Focke-Wulfs vanished. Instead, Katherine gripped his shoulder, worry etched into her features.

“Roger, are you all right?”

He rubbed his eyes. “Yeah, I’m fine. What’s wrong?”

“Nothing’s wrong. You’ve been asleep all night. You weren’t exaggerating about being a sound sleeper. When I tried to wake you, it was like you were drugged or something.”

He nodded and blinked his eyes again. Morning sunlight bathed the car. “Yeah. I used to be a light sleeper, but Methuselah changed that. Doc Kossler noticed right away. He theorized that whatever biological process keeps my body young and in good repair shifts into super high gear when I sleep. Maybe it uses those hours to fix and refresh every cell.”

He glanced around to get his bearings. The Passat sat in the large parking lot of some sort of shopping complex. Katherine had parked in a distant corner, far from all other vehicles.

“You stopped?”

“The sign said we’re in a place called Greenwood, just south of Indianapolis. I’ve been driving every which way to give you more time to rest, but my eyes are tired. I had to stop.”

The pair traded seats. Roger continued the drive north, but found himself rubbing his eyes. “I don’t know if it’s the stress or what, but I’m just not thinking straight. I don’t usually need this long to perk up.”

Katherine spoke with closed eyes. “Want to stop for a coffee?”

“Not yet. We’ve already been stationary too long. I want to move, blend in with the thousands of people in the big city.”

When they reached Indianapolis, he followed the exit from I-65 onto Market Street and toward the downtown district. Even without coffee, the sight of his old stomping grounds filled Roger with fresh excitement. “A lot of new buildings, but I recognize some of the old ones. Feels bizarre being here again—but it’s a good kind of bizarre, you know?”

Katherine sat up and took in their surroundings.

At the heart of the city, he maneuvered the Passat onto the red bricks of the Monument Circle roundabout, where traffic revolved around the towering Soldiers and Sailors Monument. Rather than exiting into a side street, Roger circled several times while admiring the two-hundred-foot obelisk rising from the center of Monument Circle.

“Boy, is that a sight for sore eyes. They built the monument back at the start of the twentieth century in honor of all Hoosiers who had died in wars. Every time I think of Indianapolis, I picture this spot. I nearly gave up hope of seeing it again.” Then, as an afterthought, he said, “Ironic thing is, in school they taught us the monument was designed by a German. Bruno somebody. Funny how little details can stick in a person’s brain.”

“I see a door in the base.”

“Yeah, it’s hollow. There used to be steps and an elevator going up to observation windows.” On a whim, he turned and braked at the curb. “Come on. I know we should keep moving, but let’s spare ten minutes. I want to celebrate my homecoming. We can look out the top, if they still allow tourists.”

A couple of minutes later, they were rising in the cramped elevator. When the doors slid open, Roger and Katherine exited to a narrow, enclosed platform, then mounted a twisting metal stairway the rest of the way up. At last they reached the glass-enclosed walkway encircling the peak.

“Not exactly roomy up here,” Katherine said. “It’s stuffy.”

Roger slipped off his flight jacket and draped it over a forearm. “It’s more cramped than I remember. But it’s home. I used to love coming up here when I was in high school.”

They walked around the four sides of the monument, gazing down on the surrounding streets and buildings. “Plenty of changes, but it’s still good old Indy,” Roger said when they had seen the fourth side. “Okay, my holiday is over. Let’s head down and figure out our next course of action.” They clumped back down the metal steps to the elevator landing.

Katherine pushed the elevator button, but the doors remained closed. Evidently it had been summoned to the bottom by more sightseers. “Where do you suggest we try first? It’s your hometown.”

“I’ve been thinking. This might sound like a harebrained idea, but I’d like to head for the closest newspaper and—”

The clunk of the returning elevator interrupted him.

Roger stepped in front of the opening door just in time to see the Griffin leveling a pistol at him. “No!” Roger tried to dodge, but the leering killer pulled the trigger at pointblank range.

The silencer muffled the blast, but not the bullet’s effect. Roger staggered back, struck his head against the limestone wall, and collapsed even before the white-hot pain erupted in his chest.