The Gemini Agenda Page 3

  People talked about the impatience of the populace but sound historians knew that most tyrannies had been possible because men moved too late. It was essential, his father had told him, to resist tyranny before it gained a foothold. A blow from a hatchet, Cockran knew, could only be parried while it was in the air. Cockran’s seemingly Quixotic defense of women facing forced sterilization was his effort to parry the hatchet while it was still in the air. Was it working? He didn’t know. All he knew was that people like Lothrop Stoddard were still wielding the hatchet of “science” to further their political agenda.

  As Cockran entered Carnegie Hall’s main auditorium, he was encouraged to see that it was only three-quarters full. Maybe civilization still had a chance. Stoddard’s slicked-down dark hair and mustache beneath his hawk-like nose were a distinct contrast to the other man on the stage. Harry Laughlin was the bald, clean-shaven chief of the Eugenics Record Office research facility and clinic at Cold Spring Harbor, Long Island, fifteen miles up the road from Cockran’s own country home in Sands Point. Neither Stoddard nor Laughlin fit the fair-haired Nordic stereotype. Laughlin had a round, moon-shaped face while Stoddard’s nose had a Semitic cast to it. In contrast, the Irish Cockran, six feet two inches tall with sandy hair and green eyes, towered over them. No one would have called him handsome but there was a rugged angularity to his Celtic features, a long face and aquiline nose, which more approximated the Nordic ideal than either Stoddard or Laughlin, an irony which neither would appreciate.

  Stoddard slapped the podium with his left hand for emphasis: “Our particular job is stopping the prodigious spread of inferiority which is now going on. We may be losing our best-stocks, but we are losing them much more slowly than we are multiplying our worst. Our study of differential birth-rates showed us that if these remain unchanged, our most intelligent stocks will diminish by one-third to two-thirds in the next hundred years; it also showed that our least intelligent stocks will increase from six- to ten-fold in the same time.”

  Cockran smiled. Obviously, Stoddard considered himself to be among the most intelligent stocks and positive eugenics encouraged them to breed more than their less intelligent brothers. He wondered if Stoddard used this line to pick up women in bars—blondes, naturally.

  Stoddard had more in mind, however, than the most intelligent stocks simply outbreeding their inferiors. He paused for effect: “Obviously, it is this prodigious spawning of inferiors which must at all costs be prevented if society is to be saved from disruption and dissolution. Race cleansing is apparently the only thing that can stop it. Therefore, race cleansing must be our first concern.” The crowd burst into applause.

  Who were these people? Unfortunately, Cockran knew all too well. Did the science of heredity support what they were doing? To Cockran, it didn’t matter. One didn’t need to deny the science of heredity in order to resist legislation mandating sterilization any more than one needed to deny the spiritual world in order to resist an epidemic of witch-burning.

  With the cheers of the audience now fading, Cockran wanted nothing more than to go home and take a long, hot shower to cleanse himself from having spent so much time among people who could applaud what he just heard. And, as soon as he had found the bar; had a stiff drink; and talked with Ingrid Waterman – in that order – he intended to do precisely that. Halfway to the bar, Cockran felt a big hand suddenly clamp down hard on his right shoulder.

  “Cockran! We need to talk.” A deep, masculine voice cut through the noise of the crowd.

  Cockran turned and looked up at the face of the Chairman of I.C.E., Wesley Waterman, III. Waterman was a big man. Six feet, four inches tall and easily two hundred and forty pounds. He did have those Nordic blue eyes but his light brown hair was thinning at the crown. Cockran wondered if this were a genetic defect from which future generations should be spared. A moral obligation perhaps? Right now, however, he needed a drink. Maybe two.

  ”You cost me a lot of money in Germany last year. I’ve not forgotten,” Waterman said as he tightened his grip on Cockran’s shoulder.

  Cockran tensed. He did not like Wesley Waterman. “Take your hand away. Now. Or I’ll return it with a broken wrist.” Coming from a former MID agent, it was not an idle threat.

  Waterman smiled broadly as if they were old fraternity brothers and released his grip. “Don’t make the same mistake twice.”

  “Buzz off, Waterman. I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Cockran replied, disappointed at being deprived of an opportunity to break the man’s wrist.

  “My wife,” he hissed. “Who. Not what. Don’t even think about becoming her lawyer. You’d live to regret it.” Waterman paused and smiled. “Or maybe not. The choice is yours.”

  “To become her lawyer?”

  Waterman shook his head and smiled. “To live.”

  Cockran didn’t reply and resumed his journey to the bar, shouldering Waterman aside with perhaps more force than was really necessary. In addition to manners, Waterman needed to learn not to stand in the way of an Irishman and his drink. As he ordered a martini at the bar, Cockran noticed lightning flash outside, the sound of thunder immediately following, rain pelting the window. He turned to watch. The threatening thunderstorm had entered with a vengeance. He was relieved. Mattie would have had his chauffeur Jimmy take her in the Packard to Long Island. Even experienced pilots knew better than to fly in weather like this.

  3.

  Thanks For Leaving The Lights On

  Long Island, New York

  Monday, 9 May 1932

  MATTIE McGary was thoroughly frightened. She used the sleeve of her leather flying jacket in a vain effort to wipe her goggles. She had flown at night before and she had flown in rain. But never both at the same time, let alone in the middle of a thunderstorm and into the teeth of gale-force winds which slowed her forward progress to twenty-five miles per hour, fifty miles per hour less than the cruising speed of the Pitcairn autogiro. Its four giant blades rotated above her head, providing lift as the propeller of the Wright Whirlwind engine pulled her forward and she ruefully reflected that Cockran once had told her it was the world’s safest aircraft.

  Normally, the flight from Manhattan to Sands Point in Long Island would have taken less than thirty minutes and five more minutes after that to reach Hearst’s mansion. She had been aloft for nearly sixty. She took a deep breath. No aircraft was safe from pilot error.

  Mattie could not recall the last time she had been so scared. Well, actually, she could. It had been the previous summer on the Graf Zeppelin. Three hundred feet above the Atlantic Ocean. From the safety of a hatch on top of the immense airship, she had been taking spectacular photographs of four riggers as one of them stitched up a tear in the silvery fabric of the dirigible’s outer shell. The other three riggers were braced on top, holding the ropes from which the fourth dangled halfway down the side of the ship. But Mattie’s field of vision had been blocked by one of the riggers and she had climbed onto the top of the dirigible, away from the safety of the hatch in order to take better photographs, clutching onto what she mistakenly believed to be a safety line. It wasn’t. Mattie nearly died but had been saved by the strong hands of the man she was to take as a lover a few short weeks later in a moment of vulnerability following an unfortunate misunderstanding on her part.

  The guilt she felt for that brief affair was with her still. Cockran was the best thing that had ever happened to her and she had almost screwed it up. Fortunately, that big, beautiful Irish bastard still loved her and things were back on track. Or at least she hoped so. To bring them both closure, she had tried to tell Cockran how it had happened but he had put her off. Did that mean he loved her but hadn’t forgiven her? She didn’t know. Thank God the man with whom she had the affair was an ocean away and out of their lives forever if she had anything to do with it.

  Mattie had taken off at 7 p.m. from the skyport on the lower tip of Manhattan and she had seen the storm clouds building in the east over Long Island. But, to t
he west over New Jersey, the sky had been gloriously clear, and she could tell the sunset would be stunning. And the meteorologist’s report said that landfall for the storm was a good hour away, more than enough time to make it safely to Sands Point. What the report hadn’t said was how soon and how strong the winds would be.

  Mattie was literally flying blind now, using only the compass to keep her headed due east. She nosed the stick forward in an attempt to break below the cloud cover and hopefully pick out some local landmarks. She was grateful for the autogiro’s inability to stall, even at the slowest speeds, but right now she would have given anything to be safely on the lawn at Hearst’s beachfront mansion, followed by her sipping a very large singlemalt scotch in front of a roaring fireplace, listening to the details of the newest adventure Hearst had in store for her.

  Lightning flashed again very close, quickly followed by the crack of thunder just as she broke free from the cloud cover, barely 100 feet from the ground. She could smell the ozone, so close had the lightning passed. Then, blessedly, less than a mile ahead, a blazing circle of storm lamps nearly 50 yards in diameter appeared in front of a castle-like structure that looked as if it had leaped from the pages of Ivanhoe.

  Mattie wiped her goggles once more and pushed the stick forward as she headed for the safety of Hearst’s estate. She banked gently to her left until the huge circle was barely 100 yards away. Lightning flashed again and Mattie saw she had been coming in too low, heading straight for the electric wires on the road in front of the mansion. Quickly, she pulled back on the stick to regain altitude, the aircraft’s wheels barely clearing the wires. She cut power to the engine and the autogiro floated safely towards the ground.

  Mattie breathed a sigh of relief, unbuckled her seatbelt and climbed out of the cockpit onto the wing. She hopped down to the ground and saw the tall figure of William Randolph Hearst dressed in oilskins and a nor’easter hat, followed by six similarly clad servants moving toward her. She took off her white leather flight helmet and shook out her hair. Hearst was carrying another set of oilskins which he wrapped around Mattie’s shoulders as she embraced him and kissed him on the cheek as the others tethered the autogiro.

  “You’re a sight for sore eyes, Chief,” she said. “Thanks for leaving the lights on.”

  Hearst embraced her in return. “Let’s get you inside, my dear, and out of those wet clothes. You’ll catch your death of cold.”

  MATTIE, bundled into one of Hearst’s old flannel robes, held the crystal tumbler in both hands as she sat in a leather armchair on one side of the fireplace, savoring the heat from the fire and the warm glow the single-malt scotch produced. Hearst stood beside the fireplace, sipping from a cup of hot apple cider. He was a big, shambling bear of a man and, even in his late sixties, several inches taller than the six foot two inch Cockran. His face was long and when it spread into a smile, Mattie could still see more than a trace of the handsome young man he once had been, his blue eyes as clear and sparkling now as they must have been then.

  The fire provided the only illumination in the room as Mattie sat there, naked beneath Hearst’s flannel robe, her feet tucked under her. Hearst’s wife Millicent rarely ventured out to the castle, he had explained, so none of her clothes were kept there that Mattie could have borrowed. Mattie had smiled at this because Hearst’s wife Millicent rarely ventured out to his other castle as well. San Simeon, California, Hearst’s pride and joy, was presided over by Hearst’s mistress, the smart and beautiful young actress Marion Davies, with whom Mattie had become good friends.

  “So, I’ll make you a deal, Chief” Mattie said.

  “What’s that, my dear?” Hearst asked as he sat down across from her.

  “I won’t tell Marion that we had drinks together in front of a roaring fireplace with me wearing only your robe, so long as you don’t tell Cockran that I got caught up in the thunder storm and barely made it here in one piece. You know how he feels about my taking risks.”

  Hearst chuckled. “Of course, my dear. You have my word. It’s bad enough that Marion is jealous of Millicent. We certainly can’t have her suspicious of you as well. Besides, you always get your way with me, my dear. The only other person who does that is Marion.”

  Mattie smiled back. “She’d better, Chief. She’s the best thing that ever happened to you. So, fill me in. What’s so important?”

  Hearst’s smile faded as he placed down his cup of cider. “I have a new assignment for you,” he said in a voice oddly high-pitched for such a large man as he reached for a large sheaf of newspaper clippings on the side table and handed them to Mattie.

  Mattie took them and began to read. They were from Hearst papers all over the country. Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Detroit, Chicago, St. Louis, Milwaukee, Portland and San Francisco. The stories varied in size and location within the paper. Some were small, three or four paragraph matter-of-fact stories buried on page eight or nine. More than half were given this treatment. A few more were on page three, with bigger headlines and a few more paragraphs. Two were actually front page stories, but below the fold.

  Mattie was horrified. What the stories had in common was that they involved murder victims whose naked bodies all had been discovered in a similar condition in remote locations near major metropolitan areas. Their throats cut from ear to ear. Their collapsed bodies virtually drained of all blood. Their eyeballs missing.

  “There’s no detail in any of these stories about the eyeballs” Mattie said. “Don’t you think it’s strange? I can understand how some of the bodies were missing eyes. Rats or other small animals could do that. But all of them with no eyeballs?”

  Hearst nodded. “Good girl. I thought of that myself. So I had my editors send their reporters back to read all the coroners’ autopsy reports on the victims.”

  “And?” Mattie asked.

  “Animals weren’t to blame. All the victims had their eyes surgically removed. Clean incisions.”

  “Oh my God!” Mattie gasped. She took a healthy sip of scotch and picked up the last article she had read, the front page story in The Chicago American with what was clearly the most lurid headline:

  VAMPIRES? POLICE BAFFLED BY EYELESS CORPSE ON THE SOUTH SIDE

  “Vampires? What’s going on here?”

  “Ignore that. That particular editor has always had an overly active imagination.” Hearst said in an annoyed tone, “but, taken together, those articles show that most Hearst editors only read their own paper and not the other Hearst papers. I read them all, of course. Cover to cover.”

  “So you picked up this pattern, Chief?”

  Hearst looked away and then back at Mattie. “Not exactly. In all fairness to my editors, I didn’t spot the similarities at once. These eight murders occurred over a six month period.”

  “So how’d you figure it all out? Did you have a source?”

  Hearst waved her off. “Yes, but that’s not important now. What’s important is to get to the bottom of this. Alert the authorities to common threads among these crimes,” Hearst paused and smiled. “And, of course, supply us with an exclusive story. The usual priorities apply.”

  “Come on, Chief,” Mattie said. “Don’t keep me in the dark. If you trust me with the story, you’ve got to trust me with your source.”

  Hearst frowned. “This is most sensitive. He swore me to secrecy but I believe he would not object if you knew,” he said as he paused and took another sip of cider. Then, he looked directly at her and spoke one word. “Winston.”

  “My godfather? Really? And who were his sources?”

  Hearst shook his head. “He wouldn’t tell me except to say that they were reliable. And German.”

  Mattie grinned. “Okay, that sounds like Winston. But let’s make sure I have your priorities straight. The exclusive story is paramount. You want me to go vampire hunting and investigate these crimes but I only let the police in cities who cooperate with us know that there were similar crimes committed elsewhere.”

  “That’s my
girl,” Hearst said. “How soon can you start?”

  “Give a girl a break, Chief. I just got back from Bolivia a week ago. I haven’t seen Cockran in over a month. Can’t it wait a few weeks? What you’re talking about could take me months, and I still might come up with nothing.”

  “Our competitors aren’t stupid, Mattie, and Winston may well decide to tip off Pulitzer or Scripps-Howard. We can’t have that happen.”

  “That won’t happen, Chief. If Winston knows it’s my story, he’d never do that.”

  “Perhaps but I’m not willing to take that risk. I’m putting my two best reporters on this and I want you and Ted Hudson to start at once.”

  Mattie was startled and nearly spilled her drink. Ted Hudson? Or, more precisely, Theodore Stanhope Hudson IV? This was a big problem. An extended assignment in the field with Ted Hudson was not a good idea. She and Ted had dated a few times in the 20s. OK, well… more than a few times and they were more than just dates. Tall, blond, handsome and rich, he was a good guy, if a trifle self-centered. But he also had a dark side that sometimes flashed across those all-American good looks. Before she got him an interview with Hearst in ‘29, he had been in the U.S. Army’s Military Intelligence Division just like Cockran once had been. In fact, she later learned, the two MID agents had worked on several assignments together before she had met either man. But Hudson wasn’t the problem. The problem was Bourke Cockran and it long predated her relationship with both of them. Cockran couldn’t stand Ted Hudson.

  4.

  The Assassin

  Hotel Continental

  Munich, Germany

  Monday, 9 May 1932

  KURT von Sturm looked good in black. He knew this in a matter of fact way like a man knows how tall he is or how fast he can run. His blond hair, combed neatly back from his forehead, was in sharp contrast to his black dinner jacket, crisp white wing-collar shirt, and formal black bow tie. Only a two-inch scar on his left temple marred what was otherwise a classically handsome face which most woman found attractive and some even irresistible.