Michael Palmer: Side Effects

Mecklenburg, Germany August 1944.

Wirli Becker leaned against the coarse wood siding of the officers' club and squinted up at the late afternoon sun, a pale disk rendered nearly impotent by the dust from a hundred allied bombings of industrial targets surrounding the Ravensbriick concentration camp for women. He closed his eyes and for an instant thought he heard the drone of enemy planes somewhere to the south. "Not a moment too soon, Dr. Becker, " he muttered. "You will be leaving this hellhole not a moment too soon." He checked the chronometer his brother, Edwin, had sent him from "a grateful patient" in the Dachau camp. Nearly fifteen-thirty. After months of the most meticulous preparations there were now only hours to go. He felt an electric excitement. Across the dirt courtyard, clusters of prisoners, their shaved heads glistening, worked on bomb shelters, while their SS guards jockeyed for bits of shade beneath the overhangs of barracks. Becker recognized two of the women, a tall, awkward teenager named Eva and a feckless Russian who had encouraged him to call her Bunny. They were but two of the three dozen or so subjects whose examinations he was forced to omit in the interest of escape. For a minute, Becker battled the urge to call the two scarecrow women over and tell them that fate had denied them their parts in the magnificent work that scholars and generations to come would hail as the start of the Beckerian population control. Beckerian. The word, though he spoke it daily, still had a thrilling ring. Newtonian physics, Shakespearean drama, Malthusian philosophy, upon so very few had human history bestowed such honor. In time, Becker was certain, this immortality would be his. After all, he was still six weeks shy of his thirtieth birthday, yet already acknowledged for his brilliance in the field of reproductive physiology. Adjusting the collar on the gray-green SS uniform he was wearing for the last time, the tall, classically Nordic physician crossed the courtyard and headed toward the research buildings on the north edge of camp. The Ravensbriick medical staff, once numbering more than fifty, had dwindled to a dozen. Himmier, bending to the cry for physicians in military hospitals, had suspended the experiments in gas gangrene and bone grafting, as well as those on battlefield cauterization of wounds using coals and acid. The doctors responsible for those programs had been transferred. Only the sterilization units remained, three of them in all, each devoted to the problem of eliminating the ability to procreate without impairing the ability to perform slave labor. Becker strode past the empty laboratories-another sign of the inevitable-and turned onto "Griinestrasse, " the tarmac track on which the officials and research facilities of his Green Unit were located. To the east, he could see the camouflage-painted chimney tops of the crematorium. A gentle west wind was bearing the fetid smoke and ash away from the camp. Becker smiled thinly and nodded. The Mecklenburger Bucht, fifty kilometers of capricious Baltic Sea between Rostock and the Danish island fishing village of Gedser, would be calm.

One less variable to be concerned about. Becker was mentally working through the other incalculables when he glanced through the windows of his office. Dr. Franz Miiller, his back turned, was inspecting the volumes in Becker's library. Becker tensed. A visit from MWIER, the head of the Blue Unit and director of reproductive studies, was not unusual, but the man was considerate to a fault and almost always called ahead.

Was Miiller's visit on this of all days a coincidence? Becker paused by the doorway to his office and prepared for the cerebral swordplay at which the older man was such a master. He congratulated himself for holding back the documentation, however scant, of Blue Unit's deception.

Miiller's blade might be as quick as his own, but his own had poison on its tip. Miiller, he felt certain, was a sham. The Blue Unit work concerning the effect of ovarian irradiation on fertility looked promising on paper. However, Becker had good reason to believe that not one prisoner had actually been treated with radiation. The data were being falsified by Miiller and his cohort, Josef Rendl. Whether they had gone so far as to assist prisoners in escaping, Becker was unsure, but he suspected as much. His proof, though skimpy, would have been enough to discredit, if not destroy, both men. However, their destruction had never meant as much to him as their control. In an effort to gain some tiny advantage, Becker opened the outside door silently and tiptoed up the three stairs to his office door. Not a sound. Not even the creak of a floorboard. Becker opened the door quickly. Miiller was perched on the corner of his desk, looking directly at him. "Ah, Willi, my friend.

Please excuse the brazenness of my intrusion. I was just passing by and remembered your mentioning that Fruhopfs Reproductive Physiolog was among your holdings." First exchange to the master. "It is good to see you, Franz. My library and laboratory are always yours, as I have told you many times." A perfunctory handshake, and Becker moved to his seat behind the desk. "Did you find it?"

"Pardon?"

"The Fruhopf. Did you find it?"

"Oh. Yes. Yes, I have it right here."

"Fine. Keep it as long as you wish."

"Thank you."

Miiller made no move to leave. Instead, he lowered himself into the chair opposite Becker and began packing his pipe from a worn leather pouch. Not even the formality of a request to stay. Becker's wariness grew. Hidden by the desk, his long, manicured fingers undulated nervously. "Sweet? " he asked, sliding a dish of mints across the desktop. It was Miiller's show, and Miiller could make the initial move.

"Thank you, no." Miiller grinned and patted his belly. "You heard about Paris?"

Becker nodded. "No surprise. Except perhaps for the speed with which Patton did the JOB."

"I agree. The man is a devil."

Miiller ran his fingers through his thick, muddy blond hair. He was Becker's equal in height, perhaps an inch or so more, but he was built like a Kodiak bear. "And in the east the Russians come and come. We wipe out a division and two more take its place. I hear they are nearing the oil field at Ploesti."

"They are a barbarous people. For decades all they have done is rut about and multiply. What our armies cannot do to them, their own expanding population will eventually accomplish."

"Ah, yes, " Miiller said. "The theories of your sainted Thomas Malthus.

Keep our panzers in abeyance, and let our enemies procreate themselves into submission."

Becker felt his hackles rise. Cynicism was the finest honed of Miiller's strokes. An irritated, angry opponent left openings, made mistakes. Calm down, he urged himself Calm down and wait until the man declares himself. Could he know about the escape? The mere thought made the Green Unit leader queasy. "Now, Franz, " he said evenly, "you know how much I enjoy discussing philosophy with you, especially Malthusian philosophy, but right now we have a war to win, yes?"

Miiller's eyes narrowed. "Quatsch, " he said. "What?"

"I said Quatsch, Willi. Absolute nonsense. First of all, we are not I'A k going to win any war. You know that as well as I do. Secondly, I do not believe you care. One way or the other."

Becker stiffened. The bastard had found out. Somehow he had found out.

He shifted his right hand slightly on his knee and gauged the distance to the Walther revolver in his top left drawer. "How can you impugn me in this way?"

Miiller smiled and sank back in his chair. "You misunderstand me, Willi.

What I am saying is a compliment to you as a scientist and philosopher.

Surtout le travaille. Above all the work. Is that not how you feel? On second thought, I will have that sweet, if you please."