The Brain Eaters

Chapter 5

Dr. Frederich Kitzmiller shifted his weight from one buttock to the other in the deep leather swivel chair behind the carved mahogany desk. He tried unsuccessfully to find a comfortable position. The soft, cushiony seat was simply not made for his narrow rear end. The rest of the furnishings were equally unsuitable. The framed woman and two children smiling at him in Kodachrome were strangers to Kitzmiller, a bachelor. The prints on the wall were warm, summery landscapes. The carpet was a rich, figured burgundy.

To his left a window overlooked the rolling green mall of the Biotron complex. On the wall to his right was an antique hat rack and mirror with a polished oak frame. Kitzmiller detested the room. He spent as little time there as he could manage.

It was Dr. Kitzmiller’s “friendly” office. The one where he greeted visitors to the Biotron plant when he could not get out of it. And where he held the rare briefings for the media. Kitzmiller much preferred the bare, windowless room that was part of the biochem building. Cold and austere, no distractions. He was comfortable there.

For that day’s purpose, however, the “friendly” office was more suitable. The theory, with which Kitzmiller was not completely in agreement, was that the interviewee should be placed as much at his ease as possible. It was foolish, he thought, to be so ginger in the treatment of an employee, especially considering the circumstances. But the decision, alas, was not his to make.

Kitzmiller swiveled the chair to look into the oval mirror. His thin, bony face looked back at him, the ice-blue eyes bright in their deep sockets.

“I fail to see why someone else cannot handle this sort of thing,” he said to the mirror. “I am a researcher, not a personnel man.”

He thumbed a switch on the desk-top intercom, and a filtered voice spoke to him through the speaker. “Your name is the only one that carries enough respect, doctor. This Ed Gault is not so likely to lie to you.”

“Perhaps. I am still not convinced that we are following the right path.”

“It’s the best possibility we have. The pilots were no help.”

Kitzmiller’s mouth tightened. “Speaking of the pilots, there is a difficulty.”

“What’s the problem? The wife was relocated, wasn’t she?”

“The problem is related to the other one, Anderson. It seems he was seeing one of my people socially. Since his, ah, disappearance, she has been asking questions.”

“She works for you?”

“She is in my department, yes. Quite a talented biochemist. Her name is Dena Falkner.”

“Can’t you transfer her? Fire her, even?”

“Not without raising still more questions.”

“Stall her, then.”

“That is what I have been doing. However, this woman is no fool, and her inquiries persist.”

“If it gets too sticky, my people will take care of her.”

Dr. Kitzmiller started to say something but changed his mind. He drummed manicured fingers on the polished desk top. His icy gaze shifted away from the mirror, toward the office door. “Do you think Mr. Gault has waited out there long enough?”

“Give him a few more minutes,” said the filtered voice.

“Let him worry a little about what’s going to happen to him.”

Kitzmiller looked back into the mirror. “It is very disconcerting, talking to you without seeing your face.”

“You know what I look like.”

“That is not the point.”

“I know, I know. For our purposes it’s important that Gault thinks he’s alone with you. It gives me a chance to watch his reactions without distracting him from the interview.”

“Do you really believe he knows more than he has already told us?”

“That’s what I want to find out.”

“Have you followed up on the Russians?”

“You mean the agricultural mission that came through here?”

Kitzmiller made a noise in his throat. “Agriculture, bah! One of them was Anton Kuryakin. Do you know who he is?”

“Doctor, I don’t think we have to — ”

“He is the Soviet Union’s foremost expert on biochemical warfare. And why was he here masquerading as a simple farmer? To spy on us and learn how far we have advanced; that is why.”

“We know about Kuryakin,” said the voice on the intercom. “The State Department is on top of the situation.”

“The State Department.” Kitzmiller’s voice dripped contempt.

“Yes, I know. I feel the same way about them. But we can’t afford to step on their toes. The Russians’ toes, either, for that matter.”

“Of course,” said Kitzmiller. “The Russians are our friends now, are they not?”

“They are,” said the voice from the speaker. “That is the official posture of the administration.”

“This week,” said Kitzmiller.

“Doctor, are you maybe letting your personal feelings influence your judgment here?”

“What do you know of my personal feelings?”

“You’ve been thoroughly backgrounded, naturally.”

“Naturally.”

“Your experiences in Germany were not, shall we say, pleasant.”

“Let us say that.”

Berlin. 1945. The Russians came down his street in the morning. Larger than life, their tunics unbuttoned, rifles slung carelessly over their shoulders. They were loud, swaggering, flushed with victory and drink.

Frederich was sixteen. He had escaped conscription into the ragtag end of the German army only because of his father’s standing with the Nazi party. When the Russians came in, his father was already dead, the back of his head blown out by a bullet from his own pistol.

His mother was to live another year under the Russians after Frederich had escaped to the United States to be raised by an aunt and uncle. But of all the horrors he remembered of that time, the one that caused Frederich the continuing nightmares was the last time he saw his brother.

An infantry lieutenant, Rudy had returned home with an arm shot off at Bastogne. He had refused to flee toward the American lines when the Russians approached, choosing to stay with his mother and younger brother. They came in the afternoon and took him away. No time for good-byes. The next day everyone was ordered to the tiny neighborhood park. There Frederich, along with his mother and many of their neighbors, were forced to stand and watch. Rudy and three other young soldiers were hung by the wrists, their bodies wrapped like mummies with celluloid film and set afire. The crackle of the flames, the screams, the burned meat smell, never left Frederich Kitzmiller.

“All that was forty years ago,” said the filtered voice, as though reading his thoughts. “It is a different world today. Different wars, different enemies. We all have to change with the times.”

“I suppose so,” said Kitzmiller, willing his mind back to the present. “I shall try.”

“Let’s bring in Gault,” said the voice. “He ought to be sweating enough by now.”

Kitzmiller nodded and touched a button on his desk.

The door opened, and Eddie Gault looked into the office. He stood uneasily at the edge of the burgundy carpet, blinking rapidly.

“Please come in, Mr. Gault. Have a seat.” Dr. Kitzmiller’s precise manner of speech did not achieve the intimate effect he was trying for.

Gault came forward and sat on the edge of a chair across the desk from Kitzmiller. He was a thin man with reddish hair that had retreated halfway back his head, exposing a pale, freckled scalp. His long limbs seemed to have been hung on the torso without regard for symmetry.

“Have you had a chance to do some thinking since our last discussion?” Kitzmiller said.

“It’s just like I told you then,” Gault said, blinking. “It was an accident. I don’t know how it happened, but it did. My fault. I don’t deny it.”

“Eddie …” The first name did not roll easily off the doctor’s tongue. He had a strong sense of the order of things, and it was not orderly for the chief of biochemical research to call a worker by his first name. However, he had received pointed suggestions on how to conduct the interview, and he would make an effort to follow them.

“Eddie, you have been an employee of Biotron for, what is it, three years?”

“Four. Almost five.”

“Yes, just so. Your record until now has been exemplary.”

“I’ve always tried to do my job.”

“I know. You are a conscientious man. Which makes it all the more difficult to understand how you could confuse a canister clearly and unmistakably marked for disposal with one containing purple dye.”

“A mistake, Dr. Kitzmiller. I’m sorry. What else can I say?”

“A most unfortunate mistake. And rather a costly one.”

“Costly?”

The response, Kitzmiller thought, came too quickly. He studied the boyish, freckled face but could detect no hidden emotions. Perhaps the man behind the mirror was doing better.

“Several cows had to be destroyed.”

“There was nothing in the paper.”

“Fortunately, the cows were the property of our research department, and we were able to avoid publicity. Nevertheless, considering the price of dairy products today, the loss was not inconsiderable.”

It was an attempt at humor that failed miserably.

“You do understand,” Kitzmiller went on when there was no response, “that anything you tell me here will be confidential.”

“There’s nothing more I can tell you,” Gault said. “Somehow I mixed up the labels on the canisters. It was a clumsy mistake, and I’ll do whatever I can to make up for it.”

Kitzmiller pressed his long, graceful hands together and touched the tips of his forefingers to his lips. “That is not for me to determine.” He stole a glance at the mirror. “You will call me if you should, ah, remember any point you might have overlooked?”

“I’ll do that,” Gault said.

Yes, you will, Kitzmiller thought, on the day pigs fly. Aloud he said, “Thank you for coming in, Eddie. We will talk again.”

Ed Gault pushed himself out of the chair and walked carefully across the carpet, his shoulders hunched as though he expected an attack from the rear. When he had gone out and the door had closed silently behind him, Dr. Kitzmiller sighed heavily. He swiveled around to the antique mirror and flipped on the intercom speaker.

“He’s lying,” said the disembodied voice.

“I know,” said Kitzmiller wearily. “I know.”

Eddie walked out of the building, across the green lawn, past the unobtrusive guard gate, and into the employees’ parking lot. His spirits soared when he saw Roanne waiting for him in the van. Her straight milky hair shimmered in the afternoon sun.

Eddie could never quite believe his luck in finding a girl like Roanne Tesla. At thirty-six, he had been deeply involved with a woman only once before. That was with a fat, sullen girl he married in hopes it would keep him out of the army. He was drafted anyway, and when he finally got back from Nam, he found his slob of a wife seven months pregnant by God knows who. After that, he pretty much swore off women, until Roanne came into his life.

When that happened, Eddie could hardly believe his luck. She could have had a lot of guys, but for some reason she chose him. He decided it was part of her general rebellion against most everything, which she lumped under the Establishment, and against her father in particular. She rarely spoke of the father, but Eddie gathered he was a square, conservative Republican and would probably not have chosen Eddie Gault for his daughter. That was fine with Eddie. If Roanne’s rebellion against her father put her in Eddie’s bed, he hoped the two never made up.

She stepped out of the van and ran toward him, her leather sandals slapping on the blacktop of the parking lot. He gathered her in, savoring the feel of her warm young body under the granny dress. She smelled like fresh-baked bread.

“How did it go?” she said.

“Okay. They didn’t fire me or anything.”

“That’s good. Who was there?”

“Just me and Kitzmiller.”

Roanne looked disappointed. Eddie felt he had let her down. He thought hard for something else to tell her.

“He said the cows died.”

“He did?”

“Yeah. Or had to be killed, or something.”

“I wondered what happened to them.”

“They belonged to the company is why we never heard. Took them back to the labs, I guess.” Eddie felt his mood beginning to sag again. “Honey, I wonder …”

“What?” she prompted.

“I wonder if maybe I shouldn’t tell them the truth. This whole thing might be a lot more serious than we thought.”

Roanne pulled back a step and looked at him. “Eddie, do you think that what’s happening to the earth, the air, the water we drink, is serious?”

“Well, sure, but — ”

“What you and I have done will help make other people, millions of them, aware of what is happening to our environment and who is to blame for it. I know it isn’t easy. You and I are going to have to be strong and love each other and always remember how important the work is that we’re doing.”

Eddie chewed on his lip as he digested Roanne’s words.

“Poor darling. They’re putting you through a lot, aren’t they.” She touched his flat stomach. Her fingers moved down over his belt buckle and found the bulge of his penis. She squeezed him gently, rhythmically. “Let’s go home. I’ll make you feel better.”

All the anxiety and tension that had been building in Eddie throughout the afternoon drained into his crotch. He let Roanne take his hand and lead him to the van.