Trout leaned forward. “Why would you go to jail?”
Instead of answering, Volker said, “And, there needs to be a record of this. For … after. ”
“After…?”
Volker shrugged. “If there is an ‘after. ’” He said it more to himself than Trout, but the words hung in the air.
“Okay, Doc,” said Trout, “if you’re fishing for the award for Best Cryptic Speech you’re a shoo-in. ”
There was no trace of a smile on the old doctor’s mouth, but he nodded. “Very well. But I suppose I need to give you a little of my history so that you’ll understand the context of what I need to tell you. ” He sipped his coffee. “I am not a very nice man. I am deserving of no compassion. I have done many questionable things in my life, and I make no excuses for them. All I can do is provide a reason. ”
Trout nudged the recorder an inch closer. A passive gesture with just a touch of “hurry the fuck up” in it.
“I never wanted to be a prison doctor,” Volker said. “That is a side effect. I detest criminals and I have a special hatred for a certain kind of criminal. Serial murderers, especially those who prey on families. I have a … personal connection to that kind of person. My sister and her two children were the … targets … of such a person. This was in East Berlin, years ago. During the Cold War. Your news services always concentrated on the politics of that era, but there were other stories, other … horrors. The restrictive and oppressive nature of life under the Soviet heel tended to cultivate the worst qualities in people. Paranoia, of course, but hatred, suspicion, ruthlessness, lack of sentimentality, avarice, and a kind of anger fueled by such deep resentment that it struck to the core of who we were. Many people, even those who appeared to live a normal life since the destruction of the Wall harbor the fruits of those emotions. The incidence of spousal abuse, child abuse, and sexual deviance is shockingly high, even today. Back then … back when crimes were committed wholesale but never—never—admitted to the non-Soviet world … we were breeding monsters. So many monsters.
“Here in the United States you create a media circus around serial murderers. They are celebrities. They get book deals. There are people who collect their possessions. Murderabilia, it’s called. In your cinema, they are presented as charming and charismatic. Hannibal Lecter. ” He shook his head in disgust. “In East Germany, when a serial murderer was caught, he disappeared forever. Sometimes it was a family member, perhaps a war veteran who understood how to kill, who hunted the monster down and did what was necessary. More often it was the police
who removed the person. Justice was swift but it was unpleasant. And it was inconsistent. However, Justice was not always served. Many times a skillful and practiced murderer was taken to prison and then recruited into the secret police or the Red Army. There was always a need for a skilled killer in both. And don’t cock an eyebrow at me,” Volker said, directing the comment to Goat, “I was there, you were not. How old were you when the Berlin Wall fell? Six? Eight? I was already a medical doctor and a major in the army. By then I had seen death in every imaginable form, and I had become familiar with every possible permutation of human and institutional corruption. The Soviet machine ran on corruption. ”
Goat held up his hands. “Didn’t mean any offense, Doc. ”
Volker grunted.
“You were talking about your sister,” prompted Trout. “She was killed?”
Volker’s eyes swiveled toward him in a way that reminded Trout of the dead eyes of a crocodile. It was a strange blend of hostile potential and bland disinterest.
“Killed,” Volker said, tasting the word. “Yes. She was killed. And believe me when I tell you that ‘killed’ is so pale a word, so inadequate a description of what was done to her. She was destroyed. Her humanity was stolen from her, torn from her. Dear Kofryna. My only sister. My last blood relative, except for Danukas and Audra, her twins. Three years old. Babies. Too young to grasp politics or even the concepts of good and evil. All three of them … destroyed. ”
“I’m sorry,” said Trout.
Volker’s lip curled in a sneer. “This was forty years ago. I was a young man then. A doctor, newly transferred from my hometown of Panev?žys in Lithuania. A medical officer stationed in East Berlin. Idealistic, a dedicated communist. A dedicated doctor. ”
“And then your family was taken from you,” Trout said quietly.
“Yes. His name was Wolfgang Henker. You will not have heard of him. He was a sergeant in the Nationale Volksarmee. I did not know it at the time—how could I ?—but Henker was one of those monsters who had been arrested for heinous crimes and given over to the military as an asset. A tool. A weapon. ” Volker shook his head. “Even after all these years, even after all that I know of the world, it still amazes me. ”
“I get that,” said Goat, and when Volker cut him a sharp look, the cameraman explained. “After World War Two, after the Allies dismantled the death camps, they found tens of thousands of pages of research material culled from the experiments performed on Jews and Gypsies and other prisoners. You’d think that we’d just chuck all that shit right into the fire. You’d think that we wouldn’t want anything that came from that, um … process, but that’s not what happened. Our government … and everyone else’s, I guess; Russia, England … they took the research on the basis that, despite its source, it was valuable to the overall body of medical research. ”
“Yes,” agreed Volker, his stern demeanor toward Goat softening by a few small degrees. “That decision is frequently defended at medical conferences and in papers, because there is strong statistical proof that it has since saved many lives and advanced medical science as a whole. ”
“End justifies the means,” said Goat.
“That is the logic. ”
“But you disagree with that?” Trout prompted.
“Of course. Or … I did,” said Volker. “It’s confusing, because I have made some questionable choices of my own in order to accomplish my goal. ”
“And what is that goal, doctor?”
Volker smiled thinly. “To punish the monsters. ”
“How?” asked Trout.
“It became clear that I could not get to Henker. He was very much a prized soldier, and I was a simple army doctor. He was much more important than I was. His specialty was interrogation. Imagine it, gentlemen. Being strapped to a table so that you are entirely at the mercy of a monster such as this. A person who delights in your pain. A person to whom your screams are more delicious than a lover’s whisper. A creature who knows how to keep you alive while he skillfully and meticulously deconstructs those things that define you as human?”
Trout swallowed. As Volker spoke he found that he could imagine it, and it was horrifying. He was one of the people who collected murderabilia. His desk chair once belonged to a mass murderer. He had followed the Homer Gibbon case more out of fascination with the man than empathy for his victims. Now, another window in his mind opened up and he looked through it into the horror Volker described.