The Methuselah Project (38 page)

“Of course we can,” Katherine said. “I need to talk to you as soon as possible.” She explained their approximate location. “I know this sounds bizarre, but we were planning to attend a ceremony for military veterans downtown. I’ll explain later.”

Roger cringed. Although Katherine held her uncle in high esteem, the man remained a wild card. Surely someone who had spent years in this so-called organization couldn’t be totally naive about it. An additional concern: could these portable telephone signals be traced with radio-finding equipment? If so, cunning people could be zeroing in on their location right now, even though he’d disposed of the chip from his arm.

Katherine balanced the road atlas on her knees while talking. “White River State Park? Yes, I see it. Just west of downtown. All right, we’ll rendezvous there. Love you!”

“So he wants to meet at a park? Just like that?” Roger couldn’t conceal the mistrust in his question.

Katherine swung to the defensive. “Roger, you can be suspicious of anybody else in the Heritage Organization, but please don’t doubt Uncle Kurt. He’s a compassionate man. He reared me from childhood and loves me.”

“Sorry. Present company excluded, I haven’t met many people I could trust lately. What’s the shortest route to the park from here, navigator? We’ll skip the veterans’ ceremony and go see your uncle.”

At 9:20 a.m., Roger steered into the parking lot of White River State Park. Only four other cars and one rusty pickup dotted the lot this early on a nippy morning.

“I wonder if any of these cars are his.”

Katherine shook her head. “None of these looks like a rental. But there might be other entrances to the park.”

Roger glanced in all directions. “Come on. Let’s walk around. This parking lot makes me feel like a duck in a carnival shooting gallery.”

The two locked the car and strolled to the park entrance.

“You’ll see, Roger. Uncle Kurt is as clever as he is warmhearted. He’ll know what to do once we explain the situation and convince him the HO is involved.”

Roger held his tongue. His own knowledge of this HO and modern America were so sketchy that he simply didn’t have enough information to develop a decisive plan of action. Could Uncle Kurt be insightful enough and trusted enough to advise a solid plan?

The two meandered in the park, both thinking their own thoughts without speaking.

“There you are, my sweetie.”

“Uncle Kurt!”

Katherine ran into the embrace of a tall man with thinning gray hair. Kurt Mueller wore a double-breasted camel coat that reached nearly to his knees. His right arm hung in a sling. But the most striking feature about him just now was his blissful smile. A department store Santa with a cute tyke on his knee couldn’t look less threatening. Maybe Roger had worried about this guy for nothing.

“Your arm. What happened?”

“Only a hairline fracture. I was running to get a second shot into a wildebeest when I tripped over a root and tumbled into a ravine. It’ll be back to normal soon, but since I couldn’t hold the rifle anymore, I decided to pack up and return home early.”

“I’m so glad you’re here.”

Katherine quickly introduced Roger. Uncle Kurt shook with his left hand, smiling nearly as generously for Roger as he had for Katherine.

“Nice to meet you, sir, but this is no time for socializing. We have problems. Giant-sized problems. Katherine thinks you can help.”

Uncle Kurt’s face went serious. He motioned to one of the rectangular slabs of stone provided as benches for this park. “Let’s have a seat. Tell me everything.”

At first, Roger let Katherine do most of the talking. She explained about the communiqué she’d received from the HO and her supposed assignment of finding and trailing Roger. When she finished, Roger filled in parts of the story concerning himself, his background, his long captivity, and the escape. Periodically the man cocked his head or raised an eyebrow, but his eyes stayed fixed on Roger. Would the old gentleman believe Roger was who he said he was?

The presence of Uncle Kurt absorbed Katherine’s attention, but not Roger’s. While she recounted their cross-country trek, he scanned the park and the far side of the river to make sure no enemies with guns skulked about. He watched in vain. A middle-aged brunette walking a Scottish terrier sauntered past. In one hand she grasped an open paperback, and she appeared engrossed in its pages. Moments later, a thirtyish man with blond, curly hair jogged along in a navy-blue sweat suit and sunglasses. The man paid no heed. More important, he carried no weapons.

Jealousy bubbled in Roger’s heart.
I’ve been an American for longer than these people have been alive. Yet they get to enjoy the fresh air and morning sunshine of a jaunt in the park, while I keep my head low for fear of thugs bearing guns. God, when will this end?

Roger studied Kurt Mueller. What thoughts went through his head while Katherine poured out the rest of their story? The man owned a terrific poker face. Katherine’s mention of Roger’s remarkable recuperation after being shot elicited little more than a glance at Roger and lifted eyebrows.

Odd. He’s barely showing any reaction. Then again, she says he’s the analytical, intellectual type. Like a chess player …

When Katherine wound up the narrative, she concluded by saying, “We decided to go to the police tonight if we couldn’t find any of Roger’s old acquaintances. What do you think, Uncle? What would you do?”

Uncle Kurt clasped both her hands between his. “First, let me say again how very relieved I am you’re all right, Katarina.” Turning to Roger, he added, “Thank you for taking such good care of my little lady, Captain Greene. I can never repay you enough.”

“Katherine has taken as much care of me as I have of her. She’s a remarkable girl.”

“Yes. That she is.”

These last words rang with a slightly less cordial tone, almost as if other considerations were distracting Uncle Kurt. Then again, who wouldn’t be distracted after hearing such a bizarre tale?

Still holding Katherine’s hands, the elder Mueller turned his gray eyes to Roger. “I’ll confess—everything I’ve just heard is extraordinary. It boggles the mind. So forgive me if I ask you bluntly: is everything you and my niece just recounted the absolute, total truth, so far as you know?” Those penetrating eyes bored into Roger and didn’t let go.

“One hundred percent true, sir. I know it sounds incredible, but every word is accurate.”

Uncle Kurt inhaled, as if he were coming to a decision but unsure how to express it. A skinny woman wearing tiny headphones marched along the sidewalk pumping her arms to an unheard rhythm. Katherine’s uncle waited for her to pass.

“It’s a fascinating saga, Captain Greene. No doubt about that. Since you declare it’s the truth, I’m sure we can find ways to verify it—or at least the most important points. But let me clarify. You haven’t gone to the authorities yet? Or to the news media?”

“No. I realized how absurd my testimony would sound without evidence of what the organization did to me. That’s why we waited.”

“That was wise.” Kurt Mueller stood up. “It would be foolish of me to suggest a course of action immediately, right after learning the full scope of the situation. I need a few minutes to assimilate it all before I make my recommendation. Meanwhile, I wonder if you could excuse Katherine and me for just a few short moments? I have a vital matter I need to discuss with her.”

“Uncle, I have no secrets from Roger.”

“Of course not. However, this issue concerns me—it’s personal. You know what a private man I am, Katarina. Will you excuse us for a couple of minutes, Captain?” He tugged his niece to her feet.

Roger stood too. Couldn’t Kurt Mueller’s personal “vital matter” wait a few minutes? What could he say, though? No, I don’t give permission for you to talk to your niece outside my presence? “All right. I’ll stroll around the park. With gun-toting goons hunting for me, I don’t want to end up in someone’s crosshairs. Please don’t take too long.”

“Thank you, Captain. Don’t wander far. We’ll be back shortly. Then the three of us can put our heads together and lay plans.”

The blond jogger passed a second time as Kurt Mueller placed an arm around Katherine’s shoulders and led her away. For some reason, Katherine seemed to give the curly blond head a prolonged stare as the figure trotted away. The glimpse became an invisible knife in Roger’s heart. Just when he believed she might actually have feelings for him, she was giving other guys the eye. He stuffed his hands in his pockets and looked away. Maybe she did see him as an old fogey.

“Uncle, please tell me you believe me about these men chasing us with guns. I’m not hallucinating.”

“Of course you aren’t. In fact, I knew something about it already. That’s why I rushed here so urgently.”

She halted in her tracks, stunned that he could know the organization was capable of such things. “You knew? Then, why?”

He hooked his elbow, the one not in a sling, around hers and tugged her into motion once more. “Katarina, until a short time ago, I’d heard nothing about this man you know as Roger Greene. Since my return from Namibia, I’ve learned a great deal about him. Now I need to tell you as gently as I can that his background isn’t exactly the way he painted it to you. His real name isn’t Roger Greene, and he’s not an American pilot from the Second World War. Most of what he told you is a fabrication.”

Katherine halted a second time and released her uncle’s arm. His words made no sense in light of all she’d lived through the past several days. “What are you saying?”

Uncle Kurt’s eyes flitted left and right. They were alone. “Nuts and bolts of the man’s story are factual, but he has twisted them, rewritten the past to suit his purposes.”

“How can that be? Yesterday morning I saw him take a bullet with my own eyes. Today you can barely see the wound.”

“This will be difficult,
Schatz
,” he said, employing his favorite German term of endearment for her. “Let me explain. As you know, the Heritage Organization exists to better mankind, to leave a better world as a heritage for the next generation. Some of our members are skilled physicians and brilliant scientists. Many years ago, HO scientists began experiments with cloning.”

“Cloning?” Where was Uncle Kurt headed?

“Yes, and I don’t refer to replicating a silly sheep or a pig. Back during the war years, men of science who first envisioned our organization were compelled by the politics of the day to feign loyalty to the Nazi regime. They opted to make the best of a horrible situation in order to accomplish something beneficial for mankind. When an American bomb killed Allied prisoners on a train car, our early HO scientists requested and received some bodies for cloning experiments. They froze the corpses, intending to use them for research. One of those unfortunate victims was the original Roger Greene.”

Katherine’s mind reeled. The Captain Roger Greene who had flown for the Army Air Corps was dead? Did this mean the man she’d been traveling with was a genetic duplicate created from a frozen corpse?

“But the shooters? His recuperative powers? And I saw a photo of Roger in a World War II museum.”

“As I told you, small chunks of his story are true, Katarina. Just not in the way he wants you to believe. You see, the organization scientists I mentioned weren’t interested in merely recreating a living, breathing human who resembled the man from whose cells they fashioned him. Not at all. Rather, they hoped to improve human biological functions for the good of all mankind. You can’t repeat what I’m telling you, but I need to let you know they were partially successful. The metabolism of their seventh subject proved remarkable, giving him near-miraculous recuperative abilities. They nicknamed their creation Roger Methuselah, partially in honor of the deceased American whose cells they harvested and partially in hopes of an improved species of human. In a top-secret experiment, they educated him and prepared him to conduct a responsible role, both in society and in the organization.”

“But the HO sent him to Atlanta. They assigned me to trail him as a training exercise.”

“Yes, they did. They intended for the excursion to be as much a training exercise for the clone as for you. This is his first trip outside Germany. But what his handlers didn’t realize was their test-tube offspring was becoming mentally unstable. Evidently he now believes he truly is the original Captain Roger Greene. I saw as much in his eyes. Perhaps his twisted subconscious mind concocted that nonsense about being shot down and imprisoned to explain his youthful appearance. Worse, as soon as he got his hands on the airline ticket to fly to America, he murdered the HO member who drove him to the airport. A pleasant young scientist named Sophie, I’m told.”

“Roger mentioned a woman named Sophie. He said the organization assassinated her for helping him.”

Uncle Kurt sighed. “The clone is delusional. I suppose he actually believes everything he told you. As you can imagine, this whole affair has shaken the organization to its very core. Just think: we exist to benefit mankind, and here is a prototype of HO research committing murder! Of course, the scientists involved had to inform the authorities in Germany of this catastrophe. With the blessing and assistance of the American FBI, plainclothes lawmen have been dispatched to pull the plug on this inhuman menace once and for all.”