Free Covert One 2 - The Cassandra Compact by Robert Ludlum Page B

health-care workers in the Third World, Bauer-Zermatt had a dark side that its well-paid spinmeisters and glossy brochures never alluded to. During World War I, the company had developed a particularly noxious form of mustard gas that was responsible for the slow deaths of thousands of Allied soldiers. A quarter century later, it supplied German companies with certain chemicals that were then combined to subsequently create the gas used in the death chambers throughout Eastern Europe. The firm had also closely monitored the ungodly experiments of Dr. Josef Mengele and other Nazi physicians. At the end of the war, while other perpetrators and accomplices were rounded and hanged, Bauer-Zermatt retreated behind the Swiss cloak of anonymity while quietly extrapolating on Nazi medical research. As for Bauer-Zermatt's owners and principal officers, they disclaimed any knowledge of what might have been done with the corporation's products once they'd left the alpine borders.
     
    In the second half of the twentieth century, Dr. Karl Bauer had not only kept the family firm in the forefront of legitimate pharmaceutical research, but had also broadened its secret program of developing biochemical weapons. Like a locust, Bauer went where the fields were most fertile: Gadhafi's Libya, Hussein's Iraq, the tribal dictatorships of Africa, and the nepotism-infested regimes of Southeast Asia. He brought with him the best scientists and the most modern equipment; in return, he was showered with largesse that was transferred by computer keystroke into the vaults beneath Zurich.
     
    At the same time, Bauer maintained and upgraded his contacts with the military in both the United States and Russia. A prescient student of the global political condition, he had foreseen the breakup of the Soviet Union and the inevitable decline of the new Russia struggling to adopt democracy. Where the twin streams of Russian desperation and American ascendancy met, Bauer fished.
     
    Bauer stepped forward to greet his visitors. “Gentlemen.”
     
    The three men shook hands, then fell in step to the two-story, Colonial-style command building. On both sides of the gracious, wood-paneled lobby were the offices of Bauer's hand-picked staff, who looked after the administrative duties of the facility. Farther along were the cubbyholes where the scientists' assistants toiled, inputting data from the laboratory experiments. At the very back were two elevators. One was hidden behind a door that could be opened only with a key card. Built by Hitachi, it was a high-speed unit that linked the subterranean labs with the command building. The second elevator was a beautiful brass birdcage. The three men got in, and in a few seconds were in Bauer's private office, which occupied the entire second floor.
     
    The office might have belonged to a colonial governor from the nineteenth century. Antique Oriental rugs graced polished hardwood floors; mahogany bookcases and South Pacific art filled the walls. Bauer's massive partner's desk stood in front of floor-to-ceiling windows that overlooked the entire compound and the ocean below the cliffs, straight across to the black lava fields in the distance.'
     
    “You've made a few improvements since the last time I was here,” Richardson commented dryly.
     
    “Later, I will take you to the staff and quarters and recreation area,” Bauer replied. “Life here is not unlike on an oil rig: my people have leave only once a month, and then only for three days. The amenities I provide are well worth the expenditure.”
     
    “These furloughs,” Richardson said. “Do you let your people go off by themselves?”
     
    Bauer laughed softly. “Not likely, general. We book them into an exclusive resort. The security is there, but they're never aware of it.”
     
    “From one gilded cage to another,” Price remarked.
     
    Bauer shrugged. “I've had no complaints.”
     
    “Given what you pay them, I'm not surprised,” Price