He led her from the room and down a hallway identical to the others she had passed through. They all looked the same to her, and it was not until he ushered her into his private gallery of horrors that she knew where she was. She tried not to react to the macabre displays, and Tyndareus did not seem interested in showing any of them to her. Instead, he brought her to the trophy case.
“You are a remarkable young woman,” he said. He did not turn to face her, but after a moment, she realized he was staring at her reflection in the glass. She gave an involuntary shudder when she realized he was smiling.
Great. Ten minutes ago, he was trying to kill me. Now, he’s hitting on me.
“I was hasty in dismissing you because of your mixed bloodline. Old habits, you know. The Amerindians are descended from Asian stock, as were the original Aryans, so it’s little wonder that you manifest such extraordinary intelligence.”
He might have meant it as a compliment, but Fiona had no answer for him. After an uncomfortable moment, he extended a hand, pointing to something in the display case. Arranged on a swatch of red velvet, like precious gemstones, were several small ivory-colored objects that Fiona recognized immediately as bones. The way they were assembled left little doubt that they were a human hand and a foot.
“This is my brother,” Tyndareus said. Despite his wheezing delivery, there was a note of reverence in his tone, as if he was sharing a sacred mystery with her.
Fiona did not recall if Josef Mengele had any siblings, but she sensed something more than just familial affection. The old man confirmed this with his next statement.
“My twin,” he continued. “You were wondering, I’m sure, how I was able to fool the world into believing that I was dead.” He gestured to the bones again. “Castor died and was buried in my place.”
“You had a twin brother?” Given his infamous obsession with twins, Fiona felt certain that, if Mengele really did have a twin, she would have heard something about it. But it was the name that got her attention. She had been wrong about his motives for choosing the name Tyndareus, the father of twins. In Greek myths, Castor and Pollux were often called the Tyndariads. Tyndareus was meant as a family name. “He’s Castor. I suppose that would make you Pollux. The immortal son of Zeus and Leda, who begged the gods to make his human twin brother immortal, too.”
As soon as she said it aloud, more of the pieces fell into place. “You think you can bring him back. That’s what you’re really after.”
The strange blue eyes narrowed until they looked like mismatched sapphires. “As I said, remarkable.”
He drew in a raspy breath. “You will have heard stories I imagine, fanciful tales of how I planned to clone der Fuhrer and establish a new Reich.” He snorted. “Ridiculous. Why would I want that when the post-war world had so much to offer me?
“Of course, I did continue my research, and slowly I built my fortune, but as the years passed, I focused my efforts on the one thing that I did not have in sufficient quantities. Time.
“I was not the only one doing research into artificial gestation and replication—cloning, in the common parlance—but I had the freedom to pursue the matter unfettered by tedious ethical considerations.” He spat the last two words out like a curse. “The practical application for such a technique was obvious. If I could produce clones of living humans, it would solve the most troublesome side effect of tissue transplants.”
“You wanted to clone yourself so you could have an endless supply of organ donors. Replacement parts to extend your life indefinitely.” Fiona spoke without emotion. Given the man’s past crimes, it was almost exactly what she would have expected from him. What surprised her was the fact that he was being so forthcoming. Did he actually believe that she would just forget that he had tried to kill her? Or that she would be impressed by these revelations?
Of course he does. He’s a narcissist and a sociopath.
Tyndareus nodded, but his expression was subdued. He stared into the glass, looking past the reflection, gazing at the skeletal remains. “That is what I believed, when I began. The procedure was successful. The embryo was created in the laboratory and transplanted into a surrogate. After the child was born, however, I began to feel differently toward him. You see, he was not only my offspring—and a far better son than the ungrateful spawn of my own loins—but also my genetic twin.
“In my early research, I had mistakenly attributed the bond between twins to shared experiences in the womb, but as time passed and the child grew to maturity, I recognized that it is a genetic bond. A bond that I shared with Castor.”
Fiona gave a nod. “Must have really sucked when you finally had to cut him up for spare parts.”
“I did no such thing.”