Chapter Sixteen
Emma woke up disoriented and stared at the ceiling, trying to recall where she was. A low rumbling purr next to her head brought her back to reality. She turned her head and came nose to nose with Gaucho. Golden eyes glinting, he tilted his head and placed a demitasse saucer sized paw on her chest, precisely at the spot where she’d been shot. He chirped and head butted her. “Is that your seal of approval?” He barked, and she swore he was laughing. One of these days, she’d figure out his language. But for now, she’d have to rely on Bronco to interpret. Speaking of the devil, where was he? She stood, stretched, and headed for the shower—where she found her missing man singing a tune about being happy. Damn, the man could whistle and carry a tune.
“Mind if I join you?”
He pulled her into the shower and dunked her under the warm water. “Time to lather up, Butter Cup.”
Laughing, she pushed her hair out of her eyes and pulled him into a hug. “Ready for an encore performance?”
“If you insist, but pretty soon, we’re going to run out of condoms.” He quirked a brow at her. “Still interested?”
Lower lip out in a pout, she said, “Given we might die at any moment, I’ve developed a very keen interest in sex.”
Mouth slanted over hers, he murmured, “I couldn’t agree more.”
An hour later, with clean clothes, dry hair, and at least one appetite satisfied, Emma dragged Bronco out the door following Leroy’s directions to the mess hall. Gaucho strolled along between them, alert and handsome. The few people out and about, stopped, stared at the trio, and nodded. “Ah, it appears word is on the street about us. Hard to miss us, I guess we make quite a sight in this place.”
“Or anywhere else for that matter,” Bronco murmured. “There’s the dining hall.”
Had it not been for the Asian servers wiping down tables, the space would have been devoid of human life. Emma glanced at her watch. “Noon, right?”
“Yup, on the minute.” He waved to a pale young woman in a white apron. “Can we get some food?”
She stared blankly until he mimed eating, then nodded and scurried off.
“Either she ran to get food, or she ran away. Either way, she’s in a hurry.”
A portly man with a light brown mustache in a cook’s hat and apron emerged from a swinging door. “You must be the new folks.” He extended a ham sized hand. “Welcome and thanks for coming, ma’am. What can I get you to eat?”
“Whatever everyone else was having. Leroy told us noon. Did we miss lunch?”
“Ah, no. Frau Obergruppenführer told me we had a measles outbreak. I used to work in a nursing home, I was the head chef. When we had any kind of outbreaks—norovirus was a big one for the old folks—we forbid communal eating and congregating of any kind. Just good public health measures, ya know?”
Astonished, Emma agreed, “Yes, exactly. Good thinking. But what about the servers?”
“I don’t have any say over those workers.” He shrugged. “Above my pay grade. I was told to keep ’em working.”
“The girl we saw didn’t look very well.” She bit her bottom lip. “She could be spreading the disease if she’s preparing food to be taken into people’s homes.”
“She’s an adult,” the man blustered. “Measles is a kid’s disease. She’s fine.”
Emma pressed on. “If she made the food for the Obergruppenführer’s twins, would that be okay?”
His blue eyes widened, and a look of sheer panic came across his face. He flew through the swinging door and shouting followed. “Get out! Go back to your rooms! Stop touching the food! Go, just go!”
Crying and weeping, a stream of young girls—some couldn’t have been over twelve years old—ran out of the kitchen. One stumbled, righted herself, and staggered out the door leaning on another girl.
“Happy now?” Bronco asked.
“Taking it one thing at a time.” She glanced around. “I’m still hungry. Let’s go in the kitchen.”
The chef sat at a large metal table with his head in his hands, moaning. “I’m a dead man, he’s going to kill me.”
“Who’s going to kill you?” Emma asked. “The Obergruppenführer?”
“Yes. You don’t know him. Any infraction, any disobedience and you can be the next one shot as an example to the rest of the camp.” A beseeching look on his face, the cook asked, “I obeyed the Untergruppenführer, his second in command. Please tell him I did what I was told to do.”
Incredulous, Emma asked, “What makes you think he’ll listen to me?”
“He foresaw your arrival and said you would save our children, help make things better.”
She took a deep breath. “I’m honored and will do my best to make his words come true.”
Bronco cleared his throat. “Not to be a nuisance, but if you have some canned soup, we’d be happy to take that to our cabin.”
The man leaped to his feet. “Yes, yes, of course. I have to toss all these sandwiches. Come, pick out what you want. I’ll give you a tote bag. You can take it all back with you.”
Ten minutes later, laden with canned goods, frozen bread, jars of peanut butter and jelly and coffee, Emma, Bronco, and Gaucho headed back to their cabin. The cat strained on his leash and chirped. “You sure you want to be loose?” Bronco said in a soft voice as he unsnapped the harness. Gaucho’s only response was to bolt into the underbrush.
“Must have seen a rabbit, his favorite fast food.”
Emma smiled, glanced up—and froze. “Honey, I’m worried Gaucho might get hurt. Could you please follow my medicine animal? I can’t do my work without him.”
Bronco shot her a puzzled look.
On the porch of their VIP cabin two large men in black uniforms with red armbands stood at either side of the door and glared at them.
“Please. You know how much I need him.” Under her breath, she said, “Just go, for God’s sake.”
He glanced at the men, back at Emma and said, “Of course, my little fender bunny. Happy to keep an eye on your pet.” He took off into the brush after the cat, calling, “Gaucho, where are you? Mommy’s worried about you.”
She muttered, “Fender bunny. Nice.” In a louder voice, she approached the porch and said, “How can I help you?”
The door flew open and the black shirts clicked their heels and snapped off salutes. “There you are. I’ve been anxious to meet you. My wife has told me how wonderful you are.”
Heart lodged in her throat, Emma nearly stumbled. There in the doorway stood a grinning, devastatingly handsome man in a black uniform with SS insignias on his collar and a death head on his peaked black hat. “Obergruppenführer, I presume?”
****
Watching from a discreet distance, Bronco saw his brother engaged in a lively conversation with his wife—lover—partner. Damn. He’d expected to see a wild-eyed lunatic, instead the man looked completely normal. No, he looked terrific. Handsome, dashing, he could practically feel his charisma pulsing at Emma, pulling her into his magnetic field with his smile. Jack took her heavy bag of food and led her inside the cabin. Was Jack planning to seduce her—or kill her?
Dream sharing with his brother had been traumatic, even at a distance. He hadn’t relayed the scenes of abuse his brother withstood to Emma, all his crazy father’s attempt to recreate MK Ultra, a top secret CIA project in the sixties and seventies. In the project’s heyday, hundreds of physicians and psychiatrists, universities, colleges, pharmaceutical companies, and prisons participated in the most immoral and unethical practices previously known only in concentration camps of World War Two, including using children as research subjects. One of the most shocking projects had been the administration of LSD to unsuspecting subjects in bars, brothels, and CIA safe houses. One man was given LSD by his supervisor, after which he leaped or was thrown to his death. Finally shut down in 1973 after a Congressional investigation into the ethics of the program’s brainwashing research, MK Ultra left a shameful stain on the history of the intelligence and medical community.
Bronco’s brother’s memories revealed that through the Freedom of Information Act, his obsessed, sicko father had tracked down all the publications and protocols related to MK Ultra and applied the same methods to his followers—and his son. The old man mixed and matched a psychotic cocktail of verbal abuse, sleep, and sensory deprivation, electroshock therapy, injections of psilocybin, and oral administration of LSD. His father’s participants, not surprisingly, responded in the same manner as the CIA’s research subjects. Some continued to have flashbacks, some died at their own hands, and others barely functioned above a vegetative level. How had his brother not only survived, but apparently seemed to have thrived, albeit in a Neo-Nazi world?
Emma had been in there a long time with Jack. What if he overpowered her? She was a smart, sassy, bold, beautiful woman. Any fool could see she was one of a kind, a keeper. Seething with jealousy and fearful for her safety, he rubbed the back of his neck. How could he rescue her without being seen? He needed ears in there. Where was his partner?
At the precise moment Bronco was about to whistle for him, Gaucho smacked his hand. “Oh, hey buddy.” He put his head to the cat’s forehead and asked him where he’d been.
Saw someone we know.
Out here in the middle of nowhere? Who the hell could that be?
He shot him an image of a short angry man in a uniform.
“Tommy Otterlegs?” Horrified that the little twerp would ruin everything, Bronco asked, “Are you sure?”
Gaucho hissed.
“Sorry. You’re right, I trust you. Where is he?”
Bronco stood and gazed around the compound. How had Otterlegs found them? He must have followed them, but how? He would have noticed if they’d been tailed out to the SS compound. How had he gotten in? They’d been given the third degree—until the Medicine Woman worked her magic. Were they all distracted by the measles outbreak? No alarms rang, no shouts of intruder alert, not a peep. What the hell?
A herd of horses, all branded with the SS logo appeared in his mind. And the little bantam rooster was skulking around the horse corral coming this way. The last thing they needed was for that guy to blow their covers. Bronco considered wringing his neck just for the joy of shutting him up, but he knew the woman he was rapidly becoming very fond of would never forgive him.
Could things get any worse?
“There you are!” Emma called and waved to him from front porch. “Come on over, darling, I want you to meet the Obergruppenführer.”
Apparently, they could get worse. And just did.
Stomach feeling like it was filled with a heavy stone, Bronco turned and faced his worst nightmare. From the black peaked cap to the tailored jacket with the oak clusters and SS bolts on his lapels, his twin brother was every inch the man he’d seen in his remote viewing session, right down to the shiny jack boots. And then he noticed the white stick with the red tip.
Jack was blind.