Narov turned to Kammler. ‘You lied to me,’ she began, in a gentle whisper. ‘I warned you that if you lied, it would get much worse. Now I need you to tell me where your INDs have been sent, and how we stop them.’
She pulled her chair closer. ‘I am going to enjoy this next bit. And trust me, you will answer.’
85
Kammler stared back at Narov through the gaffer-tape mask, his eyes burning with hatred.
She delved into her daysack, pulling out a small medical pack. She removed two syringes – the same ones with which she had recently threatened Isselhorst – and held them up where he could see them.
‘Two syringes,’ she announced. ‘One full of suxamethonium chloride, a paralytic. The other contains naloxone hydrochloride, an anti-opioid. I will spare you the complex science. The first is a respiratory depressant: it stops you breathing. Completely. The second reverses the effect.’
She stared into Kammler’s eyes. ‘Too long under the first, and you suffocate to death. Not enough of the second soon enough, and the effect is irreversible. But you know the best part of it? You are fully conscious the entire time, and you get to experience in clarity what it feels like to suffocate and die.’
She pulled her commando knife from her sheath, bent to Kammler’s forearm and began to slice away enough tape to attach a tourniquet, searching for a usable vein.
‘I insert a two-way valve so I can pump in both the chemical and the antidote. That way, I can make you experience what it is like to die over and over and over again.’
She reached up with the knife and cut an opening where Kammler’s mouth had to be. She smiled. ‘If you don’t want me to go ahead, now is the time to talk.’
She had partially freed Kammler’s lips. They were surrounded by a ragged rosette of torn and sliced tape. His expression was a mixture of fear and rage, as he turned his bile on his son.
‘You always were a filthy little commie shit! A traitor of the worst sort!’ he spat, the words mixed with gobbets of blood. ‘You bring shame—’
Narov’s pistol hand whipped around in another blow, the vehemence behind it throwing Kammler to the floor once more. In an almost involuntary action, Konig reached to help his father, but Narov stopped him.
She dragged Kammler up by his hair.
‘Is that the answer to the question I asked? No.’ Her voice rose an octave, the trace of a killer rage burning in her eyes. The effect was utterly terrifying. ‘Your son has more honour and integrity than you could ever wish for. So, answer very carefully, or keep your mouth shut.’
She turned to Falk. ‘You don’t need to see this.’
Falk shook his head. ‘I should have done more to stop him. I could have done more to stop him.’ He paused. ‘I am staying, at least until we have the information we need.’
Wordlessly, Narov turned back to Kammler. ‘So, I insert the first shot. This will stop you from breathing. During that time you can think about how you want to answer. The question is: where are your INDs dispersed and how do we stop them? After one minute without oxygen, your brain cells start to die. After three, you will suffer serious brain damage. Better have your answers ready.’
She held up the first syringe and carefully flicked any air bubbles to the top. The last thing she needed was to inject air into Kammler’s veins and kill him. She pushed the syringe until the first drops of liquid spurted out of the end.
That done, she reached out and inserted it into the valve hanging out of Kammler’s vein.
She plunged the syringe home. For a second there was no visible reaction, and then it was as if the top half of Kammler’s body just seemed to cease functioning. The regular rise and fall of his chest cavity, the intake and outflow of breath, even the movement of his eyes – all had stopped.
But his eyes remained open. Frozen wide with terror.
She checked his pulse. It was there, beating away. He had simply stopped breathing, and was utterly helpless to do anything about it.
Kammler was alive and conscious, yet experiencing what it was like to die.
86
Jaeger eased his head around the concrete support beam, his flashlight probing the darkness.
Kammler’s bunker appeared to be designed in a T shape. At the lower terminus of the T lay his command cell; at the right-hand end was the entranceway. It was when he’d cleared the left-hand arm that Jaeger had discovered Falk Konig, locked in a side room.
It had made sense for Raff to take the right arm, moving towards the entrance. As for Jaeger, he felt driven by a burning need to find his wife – and Peter Miles. He figured they would be in a room positioned somewhere off this dark corridor, as far from the entrance as possible.
But more haste, less speed: he couldn’t rescue them if he got himself killed.
He stole along inch by inch, balanced on the balls of his feet.
Up ahead he spotted movement. A hint of a dark patch of shadow braced against a doorway. He swung his weapon around just as the figure showed himself. Or rather, herself. Suddenly Jaeger was face to face with his wife.
She stepped forward, further into the light. No denying it – she was still beautiful. His finger hovered bone-white over the trigger, but his brain felt utterly paralysed.
‘You wouldn’t,’ she whispered. ‘Kill the mother of your own child? After all we’ve been through… You and I, Will Jaeger, we’re a team.’
Silence. Jaeger was utterly lost for words. He kept his gun in the aim, though he knew in his heart that no matter what she might say, or do, he didn’t have it in him to pull the trigger.
She gestured at a pistol she had gripped in her hand. ‘I was waiting. For you. In good cover, just like you always taught us. I could have taken the shot. I didn’t. I wanted to talk.’
Jaeger found his voice at last. ‘Then talk. Like for a start, what the hell are you doing here?’
‘It’s obvious, isn’t it? Kammler – he’s our coming saviour.’ A glazed expression came into Ruth’s eyes. It was one that Jaeger recognised from having come face to face with extremists the world over. Call it brainwashing. Blind fanaticism. Whatever. It always had the same look.
‘We humans, plague-like, are eating up this precious earth,’ Ruth continued. ‘Devastating it. Destroying it. Kammler plans to put a stop to all that. He’s an eco-saviour for our times; for the new age.’
She glanced at Jaeger imploringly. ‘I tried talking to you back in London. Tried to share this. But you wouldn’t listen. No time. Never any time. Nature needs protecting – from us. Wipe out half of humanity to save it: it has a simple and beautiful logic to it, don’t you see?’
Jaeger felt punch-drunk. Narov had been right, all along. Kammler and his wife – there always had been that bond between them. They shared one, overarching belief: wildlife and environmental protection. She had run here, to him, to join forces in some kind of unholy alliance. Some kind of save-the-world-via-Armageddon death cult.
‘Nothing to say?’ she probed, a hint of emotion choking her up now. ‘Can’t you see, this is the right – the only – thing to do. Can’t you see that?’
‘I can’t,’ Jaeger countered. ‘All I can see is someone who is desperately lost.’ He paused. ‘One thing you are right about. I should have been there when you needed me. I wasn’t. Which makes this my fault.’