The Black Lizard Big Book of Black Mask Stories

Cameron’s teeth were gritted and his voice was fierce. “I’ve owed them this, the verdamnt Yankees, owed them it since April 1917. If they had stayed at home, tended their own business, we would not be at war today; we Germans would have won the first war, as it was intended we should! But you Yankees interfered; you did not defeat us, you tired us, and you postponed the war for twenty years. This time, I swore I would take care of you.”

He coughed. Nick stunned, said: “We Germans, did you say?”

“Yes. We Germans. I am a German. First, last, always. I saw the pattern of things to come so far back when my kin and friends were killed by American soldiers. I saw what would happen. The Armistice confirmed this. I knew at once I must work from within. The opportunity would come. I even assumed United States citizenship. Then the opportunity came. I saw what would happen — the same story again — but this time we had Japan with us. Oahu, the impregnable Pacific fortress — there was an objective to reduce!”

Nick grimaced at the sound of jubilance in Cameron’s hard voice.

“After the attack on Pearl Harbor, I knew more than ever that the base could not be taken from the outside unless first it was softened up on the inside. That was my task. Fortunately, I had been working on the premise long before the Japanese flew in from the west and decimated your fleet—”

“How in God’s name—”

Cameron raised his hands. “It took time and patience. I began a year ago, almost, with fifty rats, male and female. As you know, their gestation period is twenty-one days, and in three months, the newborn can also breed, so that by the end of the year when I reached a figure of five thousand rats, all mus rattus, the time had come to inoculate them. These rats had all been maintained in the lofts below in their cages, well fed and uninfected, as far as we could help. I imported cheopis and asta fleas from Haifa and Jaffa, from India and from Manila. In other words, under the seal of the Cardwell Institute I imported the bacillus pestis. The time had come. I proceeded to infect every rat in the loft with fleas, allowed a suitable incubation period for the vermin to sicken. Tonight they are alive with plague. In hours—”

“That’s over,” Nick said harshly. “Do you hear? Finished.”

Cameron said grimly: “It would have been ghastly, Nick. But it would have served its purpose. The Japanese did not have to take Oahu. They had only to reduce it to impotency, drive the U.S. fleet back to the coast, knowing it constituted no threat to their lines of communication... I could have accomplished that, almost alone. But it is finished, as you say, and I am finished. I am very tired.”

“What happened to MacFerson?” Nick said.

“Gone in the sea. That was Zeller’s department. Venner was Zeller’s department. There was another, an American sergeant. Kita shot him in the stomach. I don’t know where he died. You were Zeller’s department, he put Sze on you. But I forbade violence... In one way” — he spoke very slowly now — “I am glad that no cause contributed to my failure but the cause of friendship. The Jekyll frustrated the Hyde. There is something reassuring in the thought.” His voice hardened. “Rid the earth of malcontents, Nick, when you look for disease, for they are disease and while they exist, the meek shall never inherit the earth. Please leave me now, and I give you fair warning, don’t let me see you again.”

“You’re going to give yourself up, Paul. Don’t be a fool. You’re surrounded here, we’re sealing the building, you’re alone.”

“Get out, Nick. Tell Malta to try and take me. I’ve six bullets left in the pistol, good for six men.”