END OF THE ROAD
T HE AMAZON JUNGLE WAS hot and steamy that day. Though it was autumn in London, the weather here, just below the equator, rarely varied from the moist, languid heat that kept wise travelers far away. It was a day like any other for the scientists who worked on the project, with the urgency of Pearl Harbor still a month in the future.
In the very center of the compound was a large cement-lined pool with a plank across it. Two white men, stripped to the waist because of the excessive heat, were working on the plank, throwing food to their charges in the water below. A third man, also white, stood at the edge of the pool, one foot on its concrete rim, speaking to the others in English. From time to time one of the men on the plank would chuckle.
After a while the third man glanced at his watch. He knew that time was running short. He made some casual comment to the two on the plank and pointed to the sky—a tiny patch of blue in the overhanging trees. When they looked upward, the man on the rim of the pool kicked out with his foot, catching the edge of the plank where it rested against the cement.
The two men on the plank screamed as they fell, and, when they hit the water there was a sort of flash, and then another. It was as if someone were taking photographs with a flash bulb beneath the water. The man at the edge watched for some time, but there was no human movement in the pool. Nothing but the vague, shadowed motions of the creatures who lived there …
Colonel Nelson leaned back in his chair and sighed. “You have to realize, Rand, that the whole thing happened nearly twenty-five years ago.”
Rand lit one of his-American cigarettes. “Suppose you tell it to me from the beginning, Colonel.”
“The beginning? That would be way back somewhere, when Hitler put half the scientists in Germany to work on secret weapons. Do you know they had nearly a hundred different projects going?—everything from rocket planes to infra-red guns. But the one that concerned us the most—still concerns us, for that matter—was the Nazi experimentation with nerve gas. They had a factory at Dyhernfurth, near the Polish border, where they perfected a nerve gas called G.B. Unfortunately, the plant and the supply of gas both fell into the hands of the Russians after the war.”
“Do you really think they’d use it?”
Colonel Nelson thought about it for a moment. “I don’t know. Perhaps not, but the Americans have been quite concerned about G.B. ever since our agents discovered the Nazi research back in 1939. Two years later, just a few months before Pearl Harbor, the curator of the New York Aquarium and a doctor on assignment for the U.S. Army Chemical Corps started a unique project in the heart of the Amazon jungle. There they set up a research center and hired natives to capture electric eels from the shallow jungle tributaries of the Amazon.”
“Electric eels?” Rand stared in disbelief. “What in hell do they have to do with nerve gas?”
“The exact nature of the research is still highly classified, but it had to do with finding an antidote for G.B. Actually, a sort of antidote was developed—an automatic device for injecting atropine into the victim’s bloodstream—but it seems to be only partially effective. The research is still going on.”
“With electric eels?”
“With electric eels. They were secretly transported after the war from the jungle to the U.S. Army chemical laboratories at Edgewood, Maryland. Only recently we’ve set up a research center in Scotland as well, and that’s where you come in.”
“I do?” Rand’s business was communications, not ichthyology, but he was willing to listen. “How?”
“Two men—the curator and the doctor—died in the jungle back in ’41. Somehow they fell into the eel pool and were electrocuted. It was only one of a series of sabotage attempts aimed at the entire project, and it was the main reason for moving the eels to a research
T HE AMAZON JUNGLE WAS hot and steamy that day. Though it was autumn in London, the weather here, just below the equator, rarely varied from the moist, languid heat that kept wise travelers far away. It was a day like any other for the scientists who worked on the project, with the urgency of Pearl Harbor still a month in the future.
In the very center of the compound was a large cement-lined pool with a plank across it. Two white men, stripped to the waist because of the excessive heat, were working on the plank, throwing food to their charges in the water below. A third man, also white, stood at the edge of the pool, one foot on its concrete rim, speaking to the others in English. From time to time one of the men on the plank would chuckle.
After a while the third man glanced at his watch. He knew that time was running short. He made some casual comment to the two on the plank and pointed to the sky—a tiny patch of blue in the overhanging trees. When they looked upward, the man on the rim of the pool kicked out with his foot, catching the edge of the plank where it rested against the cement.
The two men on the plank screamed as they fell, and, when they hit the water there was a sort of flash, and then another. It was as if someone were taking photographs with a flash bulb beneath the water. The man at the edge watched for some time, but there was no human movement in the pool. Nothing but the vague, shadowed motions of the creatures who lived there …
Colonel Nelson leaned back in his chair and sighed. “You have to realize, Rand, that the whole thing happened nearly twenty-five years ago.”
Rand lit one of his-American cigarettes. “Suppose you tell it to me from the beginning, Colonel.”
“The beginning? That would be way back somewhere, when Hitler put half the scientists in Germany to work on secret weapons. Do you know they had nearly a hundred different projects going?—everything from rocket planes to infra-red guns. But the one that concerned us the most—still concerns us, for that matter—was the Nazi experimentation with nerve gas. They had a factory at Dyhernfurth, near the Polish border, where they perfected a nerve gas called G.B. Unfortunately, the plant and the supply of gas both fell into the hands of the Russians after the war.”
“Do you really think they’d use it?”
Colonel Nelson thought about it for a moment. “I don’t know. Perhaps not, but the Americans have been quite concerned about G.B. ever since our agents discovered the Nazi research back in 1939. Two years later, just a few months before Pearl Harbor, the curator of the New York Aquarium and a doctor on assignment for the U.S. Army Chemical Corps started a unique project in the heart of the Amazon jungle. There they set up a research center and hired natives to capture electric eels from the shallow jungle tributaries of the Amazon.”
“Electric eels?” Rand stared in disbelief. “What in hell do they have to do with nerve gas?”
“The exact nature of the research is still highly classified, but it had to do with finding an antidote for G.B. Actually, a sort of antidote was developed—an automatic device for injecting atropine into the victim’s bloodstream—but it seems to be only partially effective. The research is still going on.”
“With electric eels?”
“With electric eels. They were secretly transported after the war from the jungle to the U.S. Army chemical laboratories at Edgewood, Maryland. Only recently we’ve set up a research center in Scotland as well, and that’s where you come in.”
“I do?” Rand’s business was communications, not ichthyology, but he was willing to listen. “How?”
“Two men—the curator and the doctor—died in the jungle back in ’41. Somehow they fell into the eel pool and were electrocuted. It was only one of a series of sabotage attempts aimed at the entire project, and it was the main reason for moving the eels to a research
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