Elixir

21

The kid with the blond ponytail under his cap was good.

He was from Pierson Prep where they had an experienced team and a dedicated coach who trained his wrestlers as if they were heading for the Olympics.

Wally Olafsson had watched the kid's last match earlier that afternoon. He had pinned the captain of Appleton Tech in a mere thirty-nine seconds. He wasn't too tall, but he was well-built, fast, and balanced. Worse, he knew some fancy moves Wally's son, Todd, hadn't experienced before, including a cunning reverse cradle. Unfortunately, Todd was facing the kid for first-place finals in the 135-pound weight class for the region. If Todd won, he'd go home with a two-foot-high trophy. If he lost, he'd take second and a fourteen-incher.

It was after seven, and the gym was packed with wrestlers and spectators filling the stands and pressed five deep around the three mats where the matches had been running continuously since ten that Saturday morning. Parents with cameras were squatting on the edges, hooting and hollering for their boys.

Wally sat high in the stands so he could get an overhead zoom of Todd through the video cam.

All around him were wrestlers-young hardbodied Zeuses smelling of Gatorade and testosterone. The heat of their presence took him back to his own high school days when he played varsity baseball at Buckley High in Urbana. Now he was fat, bald, and grossly out of shape. His joints cried out just watching the boys twist each other into crullers. Yet, there was a time when he, too, was lean and made of hard rubber. But, sadly, at fifty-seven, Wally Olafsson had decided that he was beyond physical fitness and had settled into middle age ripeness. George Bernard Shaw was right: Youth is a wonderful thing; too bad it's wasted on the young.

Because Marge had moved to the other side of the state with Todd after their divorce, Wally saw his son wrestle only at these weekend tournaments. And this was the biggest-a three-state regional. Wally could barely steady the camera as Todd faced off with the kid in the green Pierson tights. First place would mean everything to Todd.

The ref blew the whistle, and instantly the Pierson kid dropped to a predatory crouch, dancing to keep Todd at bay. It was the same strategy he had used in his last match-start low, jig a few seconds, then springing to take his opponent off guard and pulling him down like a cheetah on a gazelle.

Tiring of the sparring, Todd made a move to get the kid in a headlock. But he missed. And the Pierson boy flew up, catching Todd around the shoulders and pulling him down on his back with a hard thud. In a reflexive squirm, Todd rolled onto the kid's back which through the viewfinder seemed like a smart move but proved fatal-a ploy the Pierson kid had used on his last opponent. In a lightning flash, he whipped his right arm around Todd's neck, turned 90 degrees to his body, and pressed his back to Todd's front, brilliantly arching him into a reverse cradle. The ref dropped to the floor, and a moment later smacked the mat with the flat of his hand. It was over. Todd had been pinned in fifty-seven seconds.

Instantly, the Pierson crowd exploded and jumped in place. Wally's heart sank as he zoomed in. The disappointment on Todd's face was palpable. He shook hands with the Pierson kid who pulled off his cap and waved at the crowd.

In the split instant as the kid turned full-face into the camera, something jagged through Wally's consciousness. It was too fast for him to process the experience-like trying to recompose a television image after the set had been turned off. But something tripped his mind.

He climbed down from the stand and cut through the crowd, hoping to console Todd who sat on the bench with his head in his hands. He muttered a few words of consolation, but Todd wanted to repair on his own.

The big green Pierson team was on the far side of the gym. Although Wally was toxic with resentment, he decided to congratulate the winner. He also wanted to dispel something he had picked up through the viewfinder.

He cut behind the gallery until he spotted the blond ponytail, then aimed the camera. The kid was taking slaps and high fives from teammates. Wally thumbed the zoom button until he had a tight shot on the kid's face. He was handsome, with a tight muscular jaw, finely etched features, a thin straight nose, high forehead. Somebody put his arms around him in a bear hug, and Wally froze.

The man in the blue sweatsuit and baseball cap was clearly the kid's father-the same build and facial structure. What stopped Wally's breath was not the strong resemblance to his son but to somebody else… the guy who lived upstairs from him at Harvard back in 1970.

Christopher Bacon.

A thrill of recognition shot through him. The last he had heard, Chris had taken a job at some chemical lab around Boston. He must have relocated.

Wally cut through the crowd for a closer look. The man turned. Except for the dark beard and long hair, it was Chris Bacon.

Sweet Jesus, the guy had kept himself in good shape. Through the zoom, he pulled the man in all the way and hit the record button.

If it was Chris, he must have had some plastic surgery-lots of guys did these days-because he didn't look any older than he did in grad school when Chris was doing a post-doc in biochem, and Wally, a doctorate in economics. They had both been freshman proctors at Pennypacker House, Chris on the second floor-a corner room, and the center of all-night bull sessions.

In a flash, Wally was back in Cambridge: in that room, at the Wursthaus in the Square, clinking glasses (and under the warm glow of the alcohol swearing "Friends for life!"), partying at tight Garden Street apartments, protesting Dow Chemical recruiters on campus, storming Harvard Square over Nixon's carpet-bombing of Hanoi, getting maced by Cambridge cops after Kent State, Harvard-BU hockey games, double dating at the Orson Welles Cinema, and the King of Hearts marathon in Central Square… (What was his girl's name? Brenda…? Wanda…? No…Wendy. That was it: Wendy.)

As Wally peered through the zoom, it all rushed back as if he were looking at a kinescope through a time warp.

While he told himself that the guy just looked like a young Chris Bacon, that he was somebody else completely, Wally felt himself flush with emotions, as if trying to hold onto a make-believe moment-not wanting the guy in the viewfinder to be anyone other than Chris Bacon of 1970. It was irrational and pathetic, but for one shimmering moment Wally slipped through the lens to a greener day.

A buzzer went off, and he was back in the gym.

He moved to the wall where the elimination matches were posted. On the 135 weight-class sheet, Todd's final opponent was listed: BRETT GLOVER, Pierson Prep.

Glover, not Bacon.

Wally's heart sank. Not Chris Bacon, but, God, what a resemblance!

He made his way to the knot of green uniforms. "Great job out there."

The Glover boy thanked him.

At the same time, the boy's father glanced over his shoulder. And Wally's mind jogged in reflex. Chris Bacon!

"That was my son he just pinned." His held out his hand. "Wally Olafsson. By the way, you look very familiar."

"Roger Glover," he said. "I don't believe we've met before." But something flitted across his eyes.

"You didn't, by any chance, do a post-doc at Harvard, did you?"

"Nope."

"…or date a girl named Wendy?"

"Sorry, wrong guy." Glover made a move to get away.

Too young-tight smooth face, no wrinkles, no eye pouches, no paunch overhanging his belt, no thinning hair or receding forehead. None of the assaults of time and gravity that made Wally look his fifty-seven years.

But Mother of God! It was uncanny-like looking through a tear in the time-space continuum.

The wrong guy, Wally told himself.

(Those eyes. Something about those eyes.)

wrong guy

coincidence

"Guess not." Wally apologized. "Your son knows some good moves. Hell of a wrestler. Congratulations." He mumbled, feeling foolish.

Glover nodded and turned his back.

But Wally was transfixed, his mind still stuck on details long forgotten. Like stumbling on your first Little League glove decades later, amazing how it all comes back-the leathery smell, the way the shiny rawhide ends curled, the company logo magically incised on the wrist strap, your name proudly lettered in ballpoint. Little lost oddities that rush into place at first glimpse. The same with faces. The set of the mouth, the widow's peak, the way the nostrils flare, the slightly asymmetrical eyebrows.

Coincidence, he told himself.

(The eyes.)

Just a resemblance.

As Glover moved off with his son, Wally could not suppress a dumb impulse. "Hey, Chris!" he shouted.

The man did not flinch or even peer over his shoulder.

A childish test, and the guy had passed, leaving Wally wondering what he would have done had the man looked back.

Imperfect memory, Wally told himself, born out of nostalgia and an aging mind. And I made a thundering asshole out of myself to boot.

Later that evening after he had driven Todd back to his mother's place and returned home, Wally lay in bed and replayed the encounter over in his head, fixing as best he could the look that flitted across Roger Glover's eyes at the moment he saw Wally.

Yes, it was fast and nearly imperceptible, but for one split instant Wally would have sworn that what he saw in Roger Glover's eyes was recognition.

"He recognized me."

"How do you know?"

"I introduced myself as Roger Glover, but he called me Chris as I walked away. He didn't believe me."

Laura's expression froze. "What did you do?"

"Nothing. I kept walking."

"Then he'll conclude it's a case of mistaken identity."

"Let's hope."

They had considered plastic surgery, but back then his face was too recognizable to risk walking into a surgeon's office. Nor could he leave the country with their photographs at every immigration checkpoint. So he had dyed his hair, grown a beard, and wore tinted contact lenses which combined with the initial rejuvenation created a sufficient cover until Brett reached the age to ask questions. By then they had moved to Eau Claire where nobody knew their faces. Chris kept the beard and hair, but put away the tinted contacts.

What Chris had not counted on was stumbling into somebody from his deep past. And, yet, it was a possibility that had sat in the back of their minds for thirteen years.

He stood at the mirror touching up his beard and sideburns with whitening makeup. Laura was in her nightgown ready for bed, her face glistening with her nightly cold cream. "Besides, you look half your age even with the gray."

"That's what bothers me." In college his hair was sandy, not black, and he didn't have a beard.

"Honey, it's been thirty years. I can barely remember what my roommate looked like from college, let alone some guy downstairs," Laura said. "Christopher Bacon is dead, so is Wendy."

After thirteen years that was the virtual truth.

All they had wanted was to become normal people again-to blend into the scenery, to remake themselves so nobody thought twice. So, early on they had engaged in regular psychodramas, playing out the deaths of their former selves until they were nearly convinced they had always been the Glovers. For hours on end, day after day, they recited their new names, dates of birth, and social security numbers like mantras, writing them out until they were second nature. They always addressed themselves as Roger and Laura, resorting to sneak tests until they had conditioned away all the old reflexes. They even took trips to Wichita and Duluth to visit the neighborhoods and schools of Roger and Laura. It was difficult, but like immigrants desperate to learn English, they eventually strip-mined their old identities until they fell for the artifice.

"I know that. But Wally Olafsson doesn't," Roger said. "I look more like I did in 1970 than 1988."

Silence filled the room as they considered the risks.

"I'm not about to drop our lives and go into hiding again," she said. "I'll stop him first if he tries anything. I swear to God I will."

Roger could feel the heat of her conviction. They had been wrongly convicted by the media of monstrous crimes, and nobody had risen to their defense. Nobody! Short of murder, Laura Glover would not allow Brett's life to be upset. It was what a dozen years of meticulous fabrication and maternal love had produced-a good, happy life for their son and the protective instinct of a mother bear.

Roger folded his makeup kit. "Laura, Wally was an old friend."

"So was Wendy Bacon," she said, and snapped off the light.

The dark silence of the bedroom took Roger Glover back. Back before his wife was Laura Glover, mother of Brett Glover and owner of Laura's Flower Shop on South Street in Eau Claire, and he was Roger Glover, co-owner.

Chris Bacon did not age and die that night in the Adirondack woods. On the contrary, Elixir not only had frozen his cellular clock but created restorative effects that had stabilized at a level where even with the beard he looked no more than thirty-twelve years less than his age when he first injected himself, and twenty-five years less than the number of years he had been alive. And the reason why his body did not waste away and his mind did not gum up was diabetes.

It took him some time to work out the logic, but he concluded that the tabulone steroid had attached itself to a hitherto unknown receptor in his cell makeup-one of the dozens of "orphan" receptors whose purpose science still did not understand. As Betsy Watson had long ago explained, once attached the new shape caused the manufacture of a protein which turned off the telomerase aging effects. It had also turned off other inhibitors that disrupt normal regulation of enzymes so that one would fast-forward die once off tabulone.

But being a diabetic meant that the extra glucose in Chris's system somehow signaled biochemical changes that activated the enzyme even without tabulone. In other words, some combination of tabulone and Chris's diabetes rendered the receptor active for long periods without the need for regular boosts. Apparently the same was true for Iwati, also a diabetic-which explained why he didn't need frequent shots, just an occasional smoke.

That was why Wendy had not found a shriveled, freeze-dried mummy in Chris's clothes when she returned from Lake Placid that night all those years ago. And why after three days of Chris's disorientation and fever, she had managed to nurse him back to health. In time he had worked out a treatment schedule, discovering that he could go as many as three months without a booster. Fortunately, his body signaled when it was time. Just in case, he wore around his neck an emergency ampule that was hidden in a simple tubular gold case with a tiny spring-release button. It looked like a piece of jewelry, but contained a three-year supply of Elixir.

At fifty-six years of age Roger had plateaued at the health level of an athlete half his age. His blood pressure was 110 over 70; his cholesterol hovered at 160; and he had 10 percent body fat. Essentially Roger Glover nee Christopher Bacon was immortal. The only way for him to die was accident, murder, or suicide.

Of course, he had told Laura what he had done-how in a drunken moment fraught with grief and terror he had injected himself. As expected, she reacted with disbelief and anger. There was no turning back. Her first concerns were the unforeseen complications-potential cancers from messing around with his DNA and hormones. Those fears faded when in time he had stabilized. Besides, he felt extraordinary. Gone were arthritic twinges in his back and knees. Gone also were those frightening lapses in recall and memory.

Laura, however, refused to join him. Every instinct had told her Elixir was wrong. Nonetheless, the temptation reared its head higher as the years passed. It was there where she applied makeup to her face each morning. It was there every time she considered the porcelain smoothness of Roger's skin, or felt his hard-body vigor and sexual heat. Or when she considered the impossible anachronism they became by the day. It was there in his entreaties, in sometimes desperate reminders that she was prone to lumps in her breast.

Yet Laura held firm because of Brett. It was bad enough they would someday have to explain Roger. One freak parent was enough.

Because she kept in shape, nobody knew her exact age. They both looked about forty-Roger painting himself older, Laura painting herself younger. The problem was that Laura was fifty-five and Roger was biologically nearly half that. In ten years she could pass for his mother. His encounter tonight only brought that home.

"We're the same people," Roger said. He put his arm around her, hoping she'd sidle up to make love. As always he was primed, but she wasn't interested.

"But we're not the same."

There it was, he thought, the one sure measure of the distance separating them. With so much anguish and grief they had shared over the years, he wondered if he could go it alone when the time came. She would never agree to take Elixir as long as Brett was young, but he hoped that in time she'd change her mind-and before she was elderly. He loved her too much to watch that happen. He also did not want to spend the next century without her. She was the only one who knew who he was.

Until tonight.

"How did it feel to see him?" she asked.

"Strange. I wanted to hide and embrace him at the same time."

While he had stonewalled Wally, the encounter had touched the old Chris Bacon, setting off eddies of bad feelings. Wally had been a good friend, a funny guy he had shared laughs and good times with. Denying him tonight had killed a chance to connect to a past that had nothing to do with Roger Glover. Yes, he and Laura had acquaintances and business associates; but there was a permanent divide that left them alone in an uneasy claustrophobia. It would be nice to connect with Wally again. But that was impossible.

The divide that was closing was Brett. They had told him nothing about Elixir or their past. Yet they were reaching the point of explanation. He was a bright, perceptive kid who believed his parents were in their late thirties. And they looked it. But he would eventually wonder why his father didn't age in family photos, and why he was younger than his friends' fathers. For the time being, it was still cool to have a dad who could sprint around the track and wrestle and who still got carded in restaurants. But the day would come when it would change: When Brett would close in on him. When they would appear like siblings. When Roger would be younger than his son.

It was a day that thus far had lain out there-in the general blur of tomorrow. A day they dreaded, because it meant sharing a secret not possessed by any other human being in the history of the species-or any species.

A federal warrant had estranged Roger from outsiders; Elixir had estranged him from his own blood.

But how do you tell your child that you will not age or die? It would be like announcing you were an alien: When the laughter died, you braced for the screams.

22

The eyes.

Wally shook himself awake. Like a Polaroid photo developing, it all came back in vivid color-and with it, the thing that had nibbled at his mind all night: Roger Glover had the same weird two-tone eyes as Chris Bacon.

And that was no coincidence.

Chris had been born with two different-colored eyes-one brown, the other green. It was a feature one does not forget. As he once said, looking at Chris Bacon was like looking at two faces superimposed. And he had joked how Chris had been born to see the world from an either/or perspective.

(Hey, Chris, are you ambivalent?

Yes and no.)

But why the denial? They were once close friends. He was an usher at Chris and Wendy's wedding and had given them a fancy piece of calligraphy as a gift.

Wally got up and went to the cellar and tore through boxes of memorabilia-stuff he hadn't looked at in years, stuff his ex-wife had been after him to dump. Stuff that always made him a little sad-old letters, concert ticket stubs, baseball cards, Woodstock photos, school newspaper pieces he had authored, record albums of the Mamas and Papas, Joan Baez, the Beatles, Jefferson Airplane, even 45s of Buddy Holly, Elvis, and the Dell Vikings. Stuff that he just couldn't throw out.

It must have been an hour before he located the old album of photos taken at Cape Cod-of him and an old flame, Jane Potter, and Chris Bacon and Wendy Whitehead. Most were shot at a distance. Except for two-the group of them sitting on rocks with the water in the background.

The same facial structure and sinewy physique. Except for the lighter hair and sunglasses, it looked like Glover.

Back upstairs he poured himself some port and watched the short segment of video he had shot of the man who called himself Roger Glover. The resemblance was remarkable. Beyond coincidence. Maybe it was a younger brother of Chris. But identical twins weren't born twenty years apart. Even if it were a younger sibling of striking resemblance, why deny the name?

And if it were Chris, why deny an old friend?

What sent a chill through him was that Glover looked exactly like Chris Bacon in the photographs from 1970. It did not make sense. None of it.

For a minute he sipped his drink and let his mind run down some possibilities. Then he turned on his computer, got onto the Internet, and accessed a search engine. He typed the name CHRISTOPHER BACON.

Instantly he got a long list of old newspaper abstracts of articles from the winter of 1988, beginning January 30 with an obituary:

SCIENTIST MURDER SUSPECT KILLED IN PLANE CRASH

EASTERN FLIGHT 219 CLAIMS DARBY

MURDER SUSPECT

Four days later a Boston Globe headline read:

"FBI: BIOLOGIST BACON NOT ON PLANE"

Then the next day from papers around the nation:

MAN CHARGED IN MURDER MAY BE AIRLINE BOMBER

SCIENTIST TURNS MASS MURDERER

ALL-OUT HUNT FOR SABOTEUR BACON

POLICE AND FBI INTENSIFY SEARCH FOR BACON & WIFE

BOMB SUSPECT, WIFE, INFANT DISAPPEAR

Wally was trembling with disbelief as he clicked on one of the articles. Christopher Bacon had been accused of killing a coworker in his lab, then planting explosives aboard a commercial airliner heading for Puerto Rico. He didn't remember the incident because he and his family had been living in Japan at the time.

Wally scrolled down the articles. Following the sabotage, Chris had dropped off the face of the earth with his wife and infant son. As the years went on, the articles thinned out, occasionally producing pieces such as "Is Mass Murder Suspect Among Us?" and theories that Bacon and family had moved to Mexico or Canada. By 1991, the articles had stopped coming, the latest listing Christopher Bacon as the FBI's Number One most wanted fugitive.

Whatever the claims, these were crimes Wally could never imagine his old pal committing. Accompanying the articles was a color photograph of Chris and Wendy. It was grainy and had lost something in transcription, but recognition passed through Wally like a brick. Take away the black beard and it was the same man.

But it didn't make sense, since the Chris Bacon in the 1988 Internet photos looked older than he did in person. Older by a decade or more!

Wally didn't get it. He didn't get any of it.

Either Roger Glover was some astounding lookalike, or Roger Glover was Chris Bacon who had undergone a stunning makeover.

Confused and baffled, Wally downed the rest of his wine. Then he went back upstairs and went to bed, wondering what the statute of limitation was on the million-dollar reward.

"He's so big for his age," Jenny said.

"He's only a year younger than Abigail," Laura said.

In the photo, Brett was in his wrestling outfit, standing tall and straight, square-shouldered, his young body firm and rippled with muscles. The image filled Laura with love.

"He looks like Roger, except for the eyes." Brett had Laura's brown eyes. Both of them.

It was at these secret hotel trysts where she and Jenny shared family news. Today it was the Milwaukee Marriott just up the street from the annual flower show-Laura's cover for the rendezvous. Although Jenny was no longer under FBI surveillance, Laura still insisted on meeting surreptitiously-never in public, and never at each other's homes. This was their first meeting in four years.

Laura wished the rooms came with VCRs so she could show Jenny the tape of Brett's winning match from yesterday. Ironically, he had wanted to go out for basketball, but felt he was too short and signed up for wrestling reluctantly.

"How they change. I would never have recognized him."

Jenny had not seen Brett since he was baby Adam. Sadder still, Brett knew nothing of Jenny. Laura had told him that she was an only child of two parents who themselves were only children-like Roger. That he had no other family. Laura hated deceiving him, but if they announced he had other relatives, he'd want to visit them, and that could put the authorities on their trail. Plus it would open that awful can of worms. Not until he was older. Not until he could handle the entire, lunatic truth.

"I wish you'd brought pictures of Abigail," Laura said.

"Oh, you know these teenagers. She's camera-shy." Jenny hadn't brought photos of her for years. "She's something else, though, smart as a whip. We're studying French together." Jenny prided herself in being cultured, of rising above crass TV values.

"What a nice thing to share. Maybe you could take her to France someday."

Jenny smiled noncommittally. "That's another thing: She doesn't like to travel."

Laura saw Jenny infrequently, but she knew how devoted a mother she was, funneling all her energy into raising Abigail and schooling her at home. It was her way of making up for Kelly. Laura swore that without Abigail, Jenny would have lost her mind given the turmoil in her life. Nine years ago, she and Ted got divorced. It was a stormy breakup but she won custody of Abigail and a large settlement. Two years later, Ted was sent to prison for eight years for operating a car-theft ring. Then in 1993 real horror struck. Kelly, age twenty-nine, committed suicide.

It was impossible to gauge the effects by phone or a meeting every few years. But some weird denial had set in, because Jenny never mentioned Kelly's name again. She had moved to a suburb of Indianapolis with Abigail where she started life all over as a first-time mother.

Jenny flipped through photos nervously, distracted. Something was up. Laura had sensed the tension the moment Jenny walked into the room. Even in her voice when she called to schedule this rendezvous. Finally, Laura asked her point-blank what was wrong.

For a moment Jenny tried to dissemble. Then she blurted out, "I need help."

"What kind of help?"

"Elixir. I want some Elixir. Simple as that. I need some, and you can't say no."

The intensity of her expression startled Laura. "Jennifer, I can't do that and you know it."

"Laura, I'm fifty years old, and aging fast. Look at me, I'm putting on weight and fleshing out. I'm feeling older and I hate it."

"So am I. That's life."

"But Mamma was my mother, too. I carry the same family thing for cancer, and you said that stuff prevents cancer cells-"

Laura cut her off. "You don't know anything about the stuff. It's forbidden. Everything about it is forbidden."

"But Roger-"

"But Roger nothing! Yeah, he doesn't age, but do you want to end up like him-cut off from your kid? From your friends? Living in a state of biological schizophrenia-graying your hair and not knowing who the hell you really are or what generation you're from? That's what it's like for him. That's what it's like for us, and I'll be damned if I'll let you do that to yourself."

What she didn't mention was what had happened to them as a couple. She still loved Roger, but their widening biological gap had set off a flurry of confused emotions-from sheer envy to anger to something akin to repugnance at the unnaturalness of his condition. Even sex was a perverse throwback experience-as if she were making love to Chris Bacon, the horny ever-ready grad student. Except she was a post-menopausal fifty-five and feeling like a cradle-robber. Elixir had thrown time and love out of joint.

"I can live with that," Jenny pleaded. "I'm willing to take the risk. Please. I'm begging you." She began to cry.

Seeing her weaken touched Laura, but she could not let the crocodile tears sway her. "You're not a hermit living in the woods, for god's sake. You've got a daughter to think of."

"That's who I'm thinking of," Jenny shot back.

"Then ask yourself what you'll tell her in ten years?"

"What about Brett? What are you going to tell him?"

Laura didn't answer.

Jenny made no effort to stop her tears. She was bordering on hysteria. "You have to help me. You have to let me have some. I'm not asking for much. Just a few ampules. You can't let this happen, after all I did for you-protected you, lied for you, got you passports and IDs. If it weren't for me you'd be in prison for the rest of your lives."

"And I'm very grateful. But Elixir is lousy with horrors."

"You don't understand," Jenny said.

"What don't I understand?" Laura shouted. "I've lived with it for fifteen years."

"But Roger's managed. He's fine. You've got the power to prolong life, and you won't give me a drop. Your own flesh and blood."

"Jesus, Jenny, live the years you have, and stop whining about the ones you don't have."

"I'm afraid of getting old. I'm afraid of becoming wrinkled and decrepit. You're my sister."

"It's because I'm your sister I won't let you." Laura put her hand on Jenny's. "And you're not old and decrepit, for god's sake. You're making yourself crazy. You look ten years younger."

It wasn't false flattery. Jenny did look younger. Her skin was smooth and shiny-the skin of somebody who took proper care and avoided sunlight. But more than that, she dressed young: not in teenie-bopper flash, but jumpers and flats and plastic beads. She looked like a Catholic-school girl.

"If I didn't know better, I'd say you were already taking the stuff."

Jenny looked at her with a start, then gathered her stuff to leave.

The tryst was over. And a disaster. For the first time they had fought over it. Yes, in phone talk Jenny would hint how she wished she could go on indefinitely like Roger-if only it were safe. What Laura had discounted as idle musings. But Jenny had meant it, and it shocked her to see how much festered below the surface.

Laura tried to hug her goodbye, but Jenny pushed her away and opened the door.

"I don't want you to leave hating me."

Jenny gave her an icy stare. "You don't understand," she said through her teeth. "You don't, don't, don't"

Laura watched her walk down the corridor to the elevator, thinking they were more like strangers than sisters. Thinking that Jenny's desperation went beyond fear of fifty. Something else was going on. She was over the edge. Maybe she'd recommend psychiatric counseling.

Laura stepped back inside and closed the door. She still clutched a photo of Brett. She stared at it for a moment, taking in his young colt beauty.

"What are you going to tell him?"

On Monday morning, Wally Olafsson walked into the resident agency office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation in Madison and reported his encounter the other night and what he had discovered on the Internet, producing the downloaded articles, photos copied from news stories gotten at the UW La Crosse campus library, the Cape Cod snapshots, and the video taken of Chris Bacon at the Wisconsin Regionals.

The complaint duty agent, Eric Brown, took notes as Wally outlined his past acquaintance with Christopher Bacon. On his computer, Brown checked the Bureau's database and located the outstanding warrant. He reviewed the charges, comparing screen file photos of Bacon with those Wally had brought and the video segment he ran on a VCR.

"There's a resemblance," Brown admitted, "but the guy looks on the young side. According to files, he should be fifty-six. This guy looks about thirty."

"He's not. He's my age." Wally suddenly felt self-conscious of his big fleshy head and bulging gut. "His kid must be about fourteen like my son, which means there should be over a forty-year difference between them. You saw the videos. They look like brothers."

"That's what I'm saying, Mr. Olafsson: You've got the wrong guy." Brown made a flat smile to say he's wasting both their time. "It's not Christopher Bacon, it's Roger Glover."

"I hear what you're saying, but I'm telling you, it's Chris. What convinced me was his eyes. You can't tell in the photos, but they're two different colors. I didn't remember until I got close."

"Sounds like you studied him pretty good."

"I did, and I'd bet my life it's Chris Bacon."

"Except he's about twenty-five years too young."

"Maybe he found good plastic surgeons. Criminals do that I hear." Brown's dismissal had put an edge in Wally's voice.

"Yeah, but when they want a change-over they get their faces restructured, not just a lid lift and tuck."

He ran the tape a couple more times. Glover had on a tight-fitting pullover that revealed a trim physique. "It's not just the face. Look at his body, and posture, the flat gut…"

"Some guys preserve well," Wally said.

Brown, who was himself trim and about forty-five, glanced at Wally without expression. But Wally could read his mind: If you're the same age, how come Glover looks like the poster boy for Geritol, and you're a middle-aged Tweedle Dum in wingtips?

Wally made a sigh of impatience. "Look, instead of dickering around, why don't you just bring him in and do a fingerprint check? Isn't that what you guys do?" Wally stopped short of an "I'm-a-taxpayer" harangue.

"Yeah, when we have probable cause."

"Christ, man, look at the photos! How much more probable cause do you need?"

"We can't arrest someone because he vaguely resembles a fugitive."

"Vaguely!" He pushed a photo at him. "Shave the beard and cut the hair, and these are the same goddamn guy."

"In your mind maybe, but he's got sunglasses on here, and the wire photo is fuzzy. And if he's the same guy, he's Peter goddamn Pan."

Wally felt his face flush. "Listen to me, Agent Brown. I'm not some jerk groupie of America's Most Wanted. I lived with the guy for two years. We were drinking buddies, we double-dated, we studied together. Roger Glover is Christopher Bacon. And if you don't do your job and investigate, you will be negligent in apprehending a federal fugitive wanted for mass murder."

Brown's eyes hardened, but he did not lash back. He gathered the photographs and stood up. "We'll look into it."

Wally got his briefcase and moved to the door. He felt wracked. Outside the window a light rain was falling. It was a three-hour ride back to Eau Claire. He'd stop on the road for a sandwich.

To clear the air before he left, he said, "Look, I'm sorry for the outburst, but this has put me on edge for the last two days. I just can't reconcile the guy I knew with these crimes. He was not some crazy or political fanatic. He was a good guy, a biochemist working to cure cancer. He wanted to save lives. It just doesn't jive."

Brown opened the door. "What can I say? People change."

"Did they ever prove he did it?"

"According to the files, he's the only suspect."

"Well, I hope to God I'm wrong."

Brown frowned. "You do?"

"Of course. We were old friends."

"Mr. Olafsson, if you hoped you were wrong you wouldn't be in here."

"I don't think I follow."

"The first question you asked when you called this morning was if the million-dollar reward still held. So much for auld lang syne."

23

At 12:10, Wally left the Madison FBI offices, and crossed the lot to his big gold Lexus-not the vehicle of a guy who had once had a golden mane down the middle of his back and who had headed up the Cambridge chapter of the SDS. But time had a way of changing things. A high-paying establishment job, a house in the heartland suburbs, and three decades of taxes would turn the pinkest radical into a Republican.

Driving a black unmarked Dodge Caravan, Roger Glover followed Wally north on Route 90 to his home in La Crosse. It was the same car Wally drove yesterday to the UW library where he photocopied microfilmed articles in the periodical room. After Wally left, Roger checked the reshelving box deposit: The Boston Globe, February 1988.

The parking sticker on the Lexus said Midland Investment Company, which confirmed in a telephone call that Wally was Senior Marketing VP. It was not a professional post that lent itself to personal visits to the FBI. Nor was it just a casual drop-in to see a friend-not at prime time on a Monday, and not on a five-hour round trip of 250 miles. Wally had come to file a report on Christopher Bacon.

It was a fear that he and Laura had lived with but could never fully prepare for. If they did nothing, the authorities would show up at their doorstep asking for evidence that they were Roger Glover born in Wichita and Laura Gendron Glover from Duluth. They would want documents and take prints. While they had birth certificates, a deep check would reveal that Roger Glover and son Brett had died in a car crash in 1958, and Laura Gendron Glover had died in 1968, age twelve.

Fortunately, Chris and Wendy had never been officially printed. And even though their prints were all over their home in Carleton, Mass., there was no way of distinguishing them from each other's or those of the cleaning people, friends, and guests who had passed through their place.

As Roger drove back to Eau Claire he considered his options. The first was do nothing and wait for the knock at the door. The second was to turn themselves in as a demonstration of their innocence. Either choice would result in long public trials. Since the odds were against him, he could end up convicted. Even if he didn't receive the death sentence, it would, under the grimly ironic circumstances, be far more preferable than life in prison without parole.

There was also Brett. Even if Roger plea-bargained for a lesser charge, he could still serve time for fleeing federal and state warrants; Laura, too, as an accessory. That would leave Brett parentless-an unacceptable option. So was a witness protection program. Whoever had framed them could still be out there and still thirsty for Elixir.

The third option was flight. Over the thirteen years on the lam, Roger and Laura had devised contingency plans should they be recognized. They had established several different identities with different cars, business cards, bank accounts, and credit cards, as well as alternate residency in Minneapolis. Because Brett knew nothing about this, they would leave him with friends a couple times a year and, under their alias, would spend a few days at the condo and role-play with local business people and neighbors. It was schizophrenic, but it worked. It also made their return to the Glovers of Eau Claire like going home. The Bacons were a couple who died a long time ago.

The money for their alternate lives came from trust funds Sam had set up for Chris when he was in college. Before they disappeared, Roger had transferred the full content to a blind account. Several months after establishing residency in Eau Claire, he again transferred the funds into a new account-a little over $1,200,000-some of which they used to become the Glovers, the remainder of which he converted to cash and buried for an emergency getaway. That was his third option.

The fourth required a gun.

Roger was in the back room working on a funeral arrangement when an agent from the FBI entered his shop.

He knew the guy was a Fed because earlier that morning he had spotted him through field glasses sitting with another man in a green Jeep Cherokee with tinted glass across the street. His suspicions were confirmed when they later followed him across town on deliveries.

The man who looked in his thirties was of average build and dressed in jeans and a Chicago Bulls jacket. He did not identify himself. Nor was Roger surprised. Unless they had probable cause, he could not be arrested on resemblance to a fugitive. And unless they had an arrest warrant for Roger Glover, they could not bring him into custody. For the time being, he was safe. This was a reconnaissance check to verify any resemblance to file photos.

The agent pretended to examine the Boston ferns, but Roger caught him studying his face, knowing full well that his appearance was too young for a matchup. After several minutes, he brought a plant to the counter. Hanging conspicuously on the wall by the cash register was a large blowup of a smiling Roger at a surprise party three years ago. A banner hanging over his head said HAPPY 35TH BIRTHDAY. In the photo Roger was displaying a copy of an old Life magazine.

The man peered at it as he got his money out. "Looks like John Glenn in his space capsule."

"Yes, it is," Roger said brightly. "It was the issue that came out the week I was born."

The man nodded. "Must have been '62 or '63."

"Sixty-two."

"Nice birthday gift."

"Yes it is. Will that be it?"

The man nodded, and Roger wrapped the plant.

All throughout the transaction, Roger wore his tinted lenses and surgical gloves. When he finished, he placed the plant on the counter and removed the gloves. While the man fished for his money, Roger lathered his hands with lotion from a dispenser by the cash register. Then he slipped the gloves back on. "Chapped hands. A real drag in this business," he said and gave the man his change.

The man left, but not before he helped himself to a business card.

Through the windows Roger watched him go to the car and drive away.

He would tell his partner about how Roger had worn gloves because of a skin condition. They would have the pot and wrapping paper and business card dusted for fingerprints. It was possible his or Laura's could be on them, as well as those of any number of customers, assistants, distributors, and manufacturers. But they had nothing on file. The agent would also tell his partner about the photograph-how in spite of any resemblance, Glover was too young to be Bacon, even with the graying hair.

Roger did not go home that evening. Instead, he slipped out the back and let the air out of a tire of his van so it looked like a legitimate flat. He then cut through some back lots to a street several blocks away where he caught a cab. When he was certain he wasn't followed, he had the cab leave him off at a municipal parking lot where he had a rental spot for a black Jeep registered under one of his aliases, Harry Stork. He then left town without being followed, and drove for over an hour.

The house at number 213 Chestnut was a handsome modern structure with a two-car garage. A car was parked in one of the bays. The lights were on and the television pulsed against the curtains.

Roger drove up and down the road twice, then parked under a tree. He approached the house. In his right hand he carried a briefcase. In the inside pocket of his jacket he carried a Glock nine-millimeter pistol.

When he was certain there was nobody else inside, he stepped up to the front door. There was no peephole, just narrow side windows along the door. But the hat and scarf hid much of his face.

Roger rang the doorbell. In a few moments the door swung open.

"Hi, Wally. It's me, Chris Bacon."

24

Wally's face drained of blood. "I'll be damned."

"Can we sit down?" Roger asked. "We have a lot to talk about."

"Yeah, thirty years worth." Wally caught his breath and nodded. "Heck, I knew it was you the moment I saw you." He tried to sound neutral. "But how come I'm fat and bald and you look like you did back in school? Must be the genes, huh? Man oh man, don't you wish we were back there again?" He was struggling to maintain a casual reunion air.

Roger followed Wally into the living room but did not take a seat.

"Can I get you a drink?" He inched toward the doorway leading to the kitchen.

"No, I'm fine."

"How did you find me?"

Roger did not answer.

"Well, make yourself at home. I'm going to grab myself a beer. Jeez, it's good to see you."

Roger knew what he was planning-go to another room and punch 911. He put his hand up to block him. "Wally, I'd prefer if we talked first."

Wally stared at him for a moment. "That's what gave it away. You're the only person I'd ever seen with two-tone eyes."

Roger smiled, feeling a flush of warmth for his old friend.

Hey, Chris, are you ambivalent?

Yes and no.

Wally's manner suddenly shifted. "Chris, what's this all about-this Roger Glover stuff?"

He was playing dumb, and Roger couldn't blame him. "Let's sit down and talk a bit, then you can get us the beers."

Wally moved to the couch, and Roger took a chair by the doorway. He lay his briefcase on the floor. The gun inside his jacket pressed against his ribcage. If Wally tried to make a run for it, Roger would pull it. Too much was at stake.

As they faced each other, it struck Roger how much Wally had aged. Most of his hair was gone except for an apron around the back of his head and a few strands plastered across his scalp. His gut bulged over his belt like a sack of flour. His shoulders were broad but thin like his arms from lack of exercise. His face was gray and fleshy and the skin was pocked on the nose and cheeks-looking like old melanoma scars. His eyes still held the reef-water blue Roger remembered, but they looked tired and unhappy. It was sad to see what the years had done to his old friend-a guy who had been lean and handsome like a young Alan Ladd.

"Wally, I have just one question, then I'll explain things."

"Okay."

"What did you tell the FBI?"

Wally flinched. "The FBI? What FBI? What are you talking about?" His sincere bug-eyes weren't convincing.

"Wally, I'm here to be straight with you. And for old time's sake I want you to be straight back. You visited the Madison office two days ago at ten-thirty and spoke for an hour and forty minutes with agent Eric Brown."

Wally looked nonplussed. More mock-shock. "He's an old friend."

"No, he's not."

"What the hell do you mean, 'No, he's not…'?" Now he was playing the indignation card.

"Because when I called your office later and told your secretary I was Eric Brown, she asked from what company. Any executive secretary worth her salt knows the names of the boss's old friends."

Wally tried to hold the indignation in his face, but it slipped.

"Furthermore, you photocopied some microfilm articles from The Boston Globe the other day. February 1988. And don't tell me you were checking old Beanpot scores."

After a long silence Wally said, "You seem to have all the answers."

"I want to hear it from you."

He looked scared. "What are you going to do?"

"Talk."

"And if I don't?"

"I think you should."

Wally wiped his mouth and stared at the floor for a moment. "The papers said you murdered a colleague and blew up a jetliner with a hundred and thirty-seven people."

"Thank you," he said. "Now let's get those beers, then I'm going to explain how I was framed for those crimes."

As they walked into the kitchen, Wally looked at Roger. "By the way, you look damn good for fifty-six."

"Because I'm not, and I'll explain that too."

They got the beers and returned. Then over the next two hours Roger told his story, leaving out very little. Without getting too technical, he explained how the tabulone molecule worked on the DNA sequence to prolong cell life. As documentation he showed Wally the old Elixir brochures from Darby and the videos of Methuselah and Jimbo.

Wally was astounded, of course, and asked lots of questions. Every so often he'd examine Roger's face and hands, amazed at their condition. At one point he even tugged at Roger's hair to see that it wasn't a wig.

"You've discovered the mother of all miracle drugs," he said. "But, man, I'm looking at you and seeing something that shouldn't be. It's goddamn creepy. If I were religious, I'd say you'd been touched by Jesus."

A long silence passed as Wally nursed his drink and let it all sink in. Finally, he said, "What's it like not to age?"

Roger smiled. "Mirrors no longer depress me."

"I've conquered that myself. I avoid them."

They both laughed. It was the same old Wally, the same self-deprecating wit. And it came back to Chris why he had been so fond of him. Yet, despite the renewed warmth, Roger reminded himself that Wally could still think him a killer.

"Why are you telling me all this?"

"Because I was framed. It's the truth, and I want you to believe it. I did not kill anybody."

"There's got to be another reason you're here."

Chris nodded. "I want you to go to back to the FBI and tell them that you were wrong. That you checked old photographs and it wasn't Christopher Bacon you had spotted, just a guy who resembles him. He's too young to be Bacon."

Wally listened without response. "I want them off my tail, Wally. I've got a kid and a wife, and they don't deserve to be put on the run again. We have new lives and we want to continue living them out."

"Well, I guess my head is still spinning."

"I understand, but a lot of people have already died."

Wally's face hardened. "What does that mean?"

"It means that if I were a guy who blew up a hundred and thirty-seven family people heading for vacation, I would have little compunction eliminating anybody else."

"You mean me."

"And your son. Instead I'm drinking beers with you in your living room."

"Aren't I grateful!"

"Of course, if you do it you'll be out the million-dollar reward."

"Well, there's that."

"A lot of money. Could make for a nice early retirement."

Wally's face darkened. Roger picked up his jacket, feeling the comforting weight of the pistol. He reached his hand into the right inner pocket, firmly gripping its contents. "I hate to spoil things, but so will this."

Wally made an involuntary gasp as Roger whipped out his hand and aimed it straight at him: A long glass ampule. "Elixir."

"What?"

"Elixir," Roger repeated. "Earlier you asked did it work for anybody. To my knowledge, two people in the world today. You could be the third. Compensation for forfeiting the million dollars: perpetual life."

Wally stared blankly. It was too much to absorb all at once.

"You don't have to make a decision now, but it has to be soon. They're watching us. I'm offering you an unlimited supply of Elixir to keep you alive indefinitely. In return, I ask that you retract your claim."

Wally contemplated the offer. They both knew he was the perfect candidate-divorced, lonely, overweight, aging all too fast, and looking at maybe ten years at best before he died.

"You don't have to take it, of course."

Wally rolled the ampule of tabulone in his fingers, studying the promise locked in glass. Outside the night wind had picked up, and someplace in the dining room a banjo clock chimed midnight.

"Run by me the side effects again."

"There are no side effects in the ordinary sense-just a rejuvenation surge that sets you back about ten years. It's hard to measure. But it takes place over six weeks to three months. Once stabilized, you would need injections infrequently-once every two weeks. Eventually, once a month. But once you start you can't stop or you'll die. That goes for me too."

"What about cancer cells? What if I've got a spot on my lungs or something in my liver?"

"The stuff holds them in diapause. They don't replicate but sit there, while normal cells continue to divide."

"So, it's like a kind of chemotherapy-the good cells grow while the bad ones are held in check."

"Something like that, except the good cells go on indefinitely."

"What happens when the Elixir stops coming?"

Roger could still see Jimbo dying, his body exploding in carcinoma gone wild. "You die."

"What about your organs-heart, kidney and liver? Don't they eventually wear out?"

"Theoretically, they shouldn't as long as you take care of yourself. And if they do, there are always transplants-every ten thousand miles or fifty years, which ever comes first."

Wally laughed. "As we kids say, 'Holy shit.'"

He got up for another beer. Roger escorted him, though he no longer expected Wally to go for the phone.

When they returned, Wally said: "You've lived unchanged for nearly fifteen years. Are you happy?"

Are you happy?

While Chris hadn't expected it, it was a legitimate question. But the answer was far from simple.

His impulse was to declare, Of course I'm happy. Never aging. Never growing weary, depressed, infirm. Not watching your body fall apart. Never having to die. Being around to see all the great changes-manned rockets to Mars, nano-engineering, controlled fusion, a cure for AIDS. To go on indefinitely learning and doing the things you enjoy. To prolong your time with those you love. Hell! Who wouldn't be happy?

But it was more complicated than that. Yes, he loved his wife and son. They were the fundamental conditions of his life. But all that came at a price. When Chris Bacon took his first injection, they were on the run trying to become strangers. That was behind them now, but he could never go back to the man who wanted to live forever to do his science. Without credentials, he could never step foot in a lab again.

Likewise, Laura had abandoned her dream of becoming a full-time writer, nor could she go back to teaching without college degrees as Laura Glover. When that all came to an end bitterness and boredom set in. What saved them was Brett. His existence relieved them from the claustrophobia of their secrets. He provided them love and cause outside themselves. He kept them from depression and divorce.

While flower arrangements didn't do it for Roger, he threw himself into fatherhood, and not just the male stuff-baseball, wrestling, and fishing. He took charge of monitoring Brett's schooling, setting up piano lessons, doctor exams, shopping. To keep the rust off his brain, Roger tutored neighborhood kids in biology, chemistry, and math, sometimes performing simple experiments in a makeshift lab in his garage.

"Are you happy?"

But Wally wasn't asking about the joys of parenting and playing Mr. Wizard. He wanted to know if there was happiness in being stuck in the moment.

Roger still wore a watch and saw life in segmented chunks, shaped by schedules and deadlines. Yet, biologically speaking, time was what other people experienced. He was a mere spectator, living with clocks, but impervious to their movement. Except for Laura who got older and Brett who grew up.

Like an exile on an island in the timeflow, Roger was unable to determine which was worse-watching his wife drift off or his son pull toward shore.

"Are you happy…?"

Roger knew what Wally meant. But he'd lie because, in part, he missed his old life and his wife and the tick of the clock.

"Yes."

"You're not bored with the sameness?"

"The alternative is watching yourself grow old."

"Been there, done that," Wally said. "So, it's like being thirty-something forever."

Roger had to admit to himself a selfish impulse to his offer. If Wally agreed, he would have someone else to share vast stretches of slow time with. Laura, of course, had no interest. "Yes."

"My God!" He again grinned in wonder at Roger. "If you can't lick 'em, join 'em," he said.

"I don't follow."

"Just that I've reached the age when it's finally hit me that this ride isn't forever. I'm beginning to think like an old man even though part of me still feels twenty-one. As a result, I find myself resenting the younger set because I'm not one of them anymore. I don't even go to movies anymore because nobody in them is over thirty. Worse still is TV which is a nonstop puberty fest. Christ, I sit here sometimes wishing there was an AARP channel. Instead, I rent Randolph Scott videos or listen to the Russian Five. Sure, laugh, but every morning I go to work expecting to find some kid who hasn't started shaving yet sitting at my desk. I'm telling you, we live in a culture that eats its old."

Roger smiled, recalling the familiar passion that thirty years ago had rallied protests against the Vietnam War. "I hear what you're saying, but it won't change your chronological age."

"But when they retire me I won't go home to die."

"No, you won't. But keep in mind that this is for real. It works, and there's no turning back. You will not age, yet your son and everybody else you care for will. In time, that will be a problem without precedents. Think these things over very carefully before you decide."

"I hear you."

Roger removed a new syringe from his shirt pocket. He put the needle through the rubber septum, extracted 1.2 ccs, and injected it into his own arm. "A booster shot. In three days I'll call you for your decision. If you accept it, you'll have an endless supply available to you."

Roger then asked for a candle and a match. He lit the candle and dripped some wax over the septum and had Wally press his finger over it as a seal. "I can't leave this with you, but if you decide you're Go, we'll inject you from the same batch just so you know that you're getting the same stuff. You can check the seal that it's not been tampered with."

"What if I reject your offer?"

"Then I will assume one of two possibilities. First, that you went to the Feds and called them off. Or, that you didn't which means we're still under surveillance. Since I cannot with certainty assume the best, I will consider my status and that of my family in peril."

"And…?"

"And you'll never see a dime of the reward money."

"You mean you'd kill me."

Roger did not respond.

"You have a gun in there." Wally nodded at Roger's jacket. "I heard the thud."

"Yes."

"Look, Chris-sorry-Roger, I think you've been straight with me all night. I think what you've told me is real-at least as real as what I'm seeing. I also believe that somebody tried to screw you. I'll do what you say. I'll go back to the Feds and retract my claim. I swear on it for what it's worth since you'll probably follow me anyway."

Something in his manner said he was as good as his word. "You won't be able to reach me for the next three days," Roger said. "But I'll call you. If you decide on treatments, I'll give you instructions where we can meet to begin."

"How much of this Elixir did you say you had?"

"Enough to keep you alive until the middle of the thirty-seventh century."

Wally let out a squeal. "The thirty-seventh century? My God! But who'd want to live that long?"

"Probably no one, but it beats three score and ten."

"I'll say. But what if you get tired of living?"

"The treatment comes with a cyanide cap."

The next morning Wally drove to the Madison office of the FBI.

Agent Eric Brown was out of town at a conference and wouldn't be back for a week. An agent named Mike Zazzaro was taking Brown's calls. He knew about the case and had read the report. When Wally explained that he wanted to retract his claim, Zazzaro asked permission to videotape the interview for Brown. Wally agreed and signed a form. Then Wally took a seat beside a table sporting a Boston fern in a gold pot and explained his retraction.

"I made a mistake. It was the wrong guy. I went back and checked on some old photos and realized my error. Roger Glover is not Chris Bacon. There's a resemblance-what had caught me off guard-but it isn't the same man. Besides, he's about thirty years too young-you can tell that just looking at him. I don't know what got into my head. Early senility I guess. So I'm here to apologize for sending you guys on a wild goose chase, and I guess I should hope this Roger Glover didn't get into any trouble. Jesus, I should call him and apologize. I met the guy for the first time a couple weeks ago at my son's wrestling tournament, and now I've got the government on his tail for mass murder. I feel terrible, really terrible. I mean, how do you apologize for that? He hasn't been arrested has he?"

"No."

"But he's still being investigated, right?"

"We're still looking into it."

"Well, that's got to end. He's the wrong guy…"

Wally rambled on. Zazzaro asked him some questions, and Wally answered, trying to affect woeful regret. When he left, he felt drained, as if he had just pleaded for his own life.

He had.

Wally spent the next two days replaying the interlude with Roger/Chris in his head. It wasn't that he didn't believe him. On the contrary, he was convinced, and what did it was the video of the lab animals. He had Roger replay them several times to dispel any suspicions of trick photography. Wisely, Roger had documented each sequence by affixing that day's Boston Globe front page to the animals' cages, occasionally closing in on the date. Also, there was no switching of younger animals for older ones since they were nearly as distinguishable as people up close. Jimbo had a missing left incisor, a hole on his left ear, and a scar above his right eye-none of which could have been faked. Furthermore, the animals clearly became younger-looking and more vigorous as the newspapers became more current. And, of course, there was Roger, or Chris. Every visible aspect of the man's being denied his chronology. Even the youngest-looking fifty-six-year-old man has some giveaway-wrinkles, hair, skin, flesh, musculature, posture, stiffening body movement-a feature or combination that verifies his fifth decade of life. Roger Glover had none.

At fifty-seven years of age, Wally Olafsson saw himself as a rapidly aging organism, living out the rest of his life alone. He was overweight, his cholesterol was 312 at last checkup, he had high blood pressure, he drank and ate too much, and he got no exercise. Much of his decline came with the breakdown of his marriage. His wife had won custody of Todd and moved two hundred miles away. Wally had a few male friends, but he did not feel desirable to women, especially younger ones. While he tried not to think about death, he envisioned his future as a featureless tunnel, constricting like an occluded artery.

Now, he had an option to push back the clock and jam its mechanism.

Suddenly he began to think young again. About getting back into life, in the words of the old Depends ad. He could join a health club, get into shape, maybe meet some nice fortyish women. There was golf-a game he had always wanted to take up, and a good way to enhance business contacts. (All he had for a social life now was a men's book group.)

And maybe he'd take up skiing again. He had hung up his poles ten years ago when he took a bad fall. Todd had been after him to return to the slopes, take refresher lessons so they could do something fun together besides an occasional movie or UW football game. He might even go off on one of those discovery vacations, an Earthwatch expedition. And with Todd-a father-and-son high-adventure getaway.

He didn't think too long-range-like how he'd explain to his son and friends why he didn't grow old. But it crossed his mind that he could make a killing on the stock market. He could sell out in twenty or thirty years and take on a new identity while investing his earnings for another twenty years. Keep that up for a while, and he'd be as rich as Bill Gates by the end of the twenty-first century. And still only fifty-seven years old, and looking thirtyish.

By Friday, Wally had made up his mind: He was Go on Elixir.

He would live his life all the way up.

He would make up for lost time. Would he ever!

At 1:30 on Friday afternoon, Roger called Wally at the office and instructed him to drive to the empty parking lot of St. Jerome's Roman Catholic Church on Preston Street where he would find a shopping bag behind the statue of the Virgin Mary. Inside was a cell phone.

Wally did as he was told and retrieved the bag with the phone. The lot was empty and nobody followed him.

At two o'clock, Roger called him with instructions to drive to the Silver Pines motel on Route 61 and to keep the line open all the way so that Wally could not make a quick call to the police before arriving. Roger was a man devoid of trust. Thirteen years on the run would do that, Wally guessed.

At 2:36, he arrived at the motel and entered room 217 with the phone line still open.

Roger was waiting for him, phone in hand. Wally's face was shiny with excitement. "What do you think?" Roger asked him.

"You know what Woody Allen said: 'I'm not afraid of dying; I just don't want to be there when it happens.'"

Roger smiled. "So, you're on?"

"Yeah, but on one condition-that I get my own supply to draw from."

Chris shook his head. "Nope, I can't do that."

"Why not?'

"The entire supply stays with me. That's the way it is."

"You afraid I'm going to blackmarket the stuff?"

"No, but if something should happen to you and it falls into the wrong hands, it could be duplicated. And that can't happen."

"Then I'm dependent upon you for my life."

"As I am with you. It's what'll keep us honest."

"Hell, Chris, I'm not going to turn you in. You were framed, and I believe you. I went back the feds as I said. There's no way I'd betray you."

"Maybe in a few years when things have settled, but for the immediate future, I will dole it out. And the name's Roger."

"But what if something happens to you-you know, you get into an accident, a car crash or something?"

"I'll leave instructions with people I trust to send you a key to a locker containing enough serum to last for centuries. That key and the serum's location will be sent to you if and only if I die by accident."

"Who are these people?"

"Blood relatives and trustworthy."

"What if you're caught by the feds?"

"Let's hope that I'm not. But if that happens and it's clear you had nothing to do with it, you'll be sent the key. On the other hand, if I learn you were instrumental in my capture or the capture of my wife or son, you'll never get any."

"Then what?"

"Then you'll die."

"Jesus, you don't trust anybody."

Roger grinned. "It's how I'm going to live to a ripe old age." He produced the ampule and lay it on the table. Wally took a long look at it. He then picked it up and inspected the wax seal on the septum with his finger print deeply incised in it. It was clean and unbroken.

"Was the FBI convinced?"

"I think so. I gave it my best shot." Wally rolled up his sleeve.

"Before we do this, I want you to understand that if you tell anyone, I'll cut you off and you'll be dead in a matter of weeks."

"Gee, that's comforting."

They both chuckled, and Roger felt something pass between them-an inviolable trust of his old friend.

For a second time Roger explained that the first shot would be of high concentration to be followed up in three days. Then three days after that, followed by a fourth shot on the tenth day. The idea was to build up a plateau in his system. In a few days he would begin to feel the first rush of rejuvenation. The follow-up shots would be administered at different motels. In an emergency-any unexpected side effects-he gave Wally the number of an answering machine whose messages Roger would check periodically.

Wally took it all in, then he opened his arm as Roger applied a tourniquet. He wore surgical gloves. In fact, he had arrived with them on so as not to leave prints.

Roger removed the protective wrapper from a new syringe then scraped away the wax seal. He inserted the needle through the septum and extracted four ccs of Elixir.

"Ready?"

"Forever and ever," he chuckled nervously. "Famous last words."

Then Roger injected the contents into Wally's arm.

"Now what?"

"Now we're friends for life."

25

The woman bounded like a gazelle. She was a sleek, long-limbed creature whose silver Spandex highlighted the muscles and curves of her body. Her face and shoulders glistened with sweat, her eyes fixed on herself in the mirror as she pounded the treadmill in a strong, clean stride at eight miles per hour. She was pretty in a gamine kind of way with short, swept-back hair and sweatband. But she wasn't very friendly, projecting an air of cool superiority.

Wally had tried to strike up a conversation at the water dispenser, but she was too busy timing her pulse. When he said that he'd just joined the club and wondered if she'd explain the treadmill program, she reluctantly stabbed a few buttons and suggested he hire a trainer. Then she snapped on her headphones and proceeded to stretch elaborately, never once looking his way, but making certain he got to appreciate the full wonders of her body. When she was through, she jumped onto her machine and into a brisk run.

Meanwhile, in his new white shorts and tank top, Wally Olafsson looked like the Pillsbury dough boy waddling on the treadmill beside her. His joints squeaked and clanged as he slowly turned up the pace to a pathetic 3.5 MPH walk, hoping he could keep it up. He had a mental flash of himself stumbling off in cardiac arrest as Wonder Woman continued to bound away, refusing to break stride to administer CPR and-God forbid!-mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.

At one point he caught her studying herself in the side-wall mirror, no doubt admiring what a perfect specimen of womankind she was-firm in body and mind, worshipped by men of all ages, the envy of the entire female breed. When she caught him smiling at her, she flashed a disdainful look and snapped her head forward.

Wally felt a fleeting pang of remorse. He was nearly inured to female rejection. Not only was he out of the league of young good-looking women, but he had convinced himself that they were a different species: porcelain goddesses whose siren smiles were reserved for Alpha males-those young studs bench-pressing half the building at the other end of the room. In her mind Wally was some fat bald middle-aged creep gawking up the Great Chain of Being.

But that was okay, he told himself. His body cells were humming with renewal. In the week since his first shot, he had dropped three pounds to 218. At this rate, he'd be down to his target weight of 180 in a few months. Except for high blood pressure, also correctable with diet and exercise, he was in general good health. He had never been to the hospital and only once sought medical care-for actinic keratosis, a condition besetting fair-skinned Scandinavians, which had been remedied with the removal of a few frecklelike papules on his forehead and nose, the consequence of too much sun as an adolescent.

Even though he was nearly as bald as a honeydew melon, Roger had said something about the possibility of hair regeneration. It had happened with lab monkeys. Even if not, he could always check out hair clinics. Wouldn't that be something-a head full of hair again? Why not? Miracles were happening in his body by the minute. He swore he could glimpse signs of lost youth in the mirror-the fading of the wrinkles around his eyes, fleshier lips, smoother complexion, the sharpening of his jawline. He looked better by the day. And, best still, he could feel it inside.

It had begun on the sixth day with an odd euphoric lightness as Roger had predicted. Then strange fluidy sensations throughout his muscles-sensations that peaked in nearly uncontrollable urges to move about, to exercise, to feel his blood race. Sensations that led him to his membership here at UltraFit, the in yuppie health club in La Crosse. Sensations that kept him marching to the oldies on his headphones, determined to turn his body into a temple of health.

For the first time in his adult life Wally Olafsson looked forward to the passage of time. For the first time in years he no longer had old-man thoughts. He couldn't wait to see what the next weeks would bring-how his body would harden and his face thin down. How his mind would sharpen. How his will to live would heighten.

As he jacked up the pace to 4.0, he could not help but be amazed at how a chance encounter at the wrestling tournament last month had brought him to this machine with a head full of tomorrows.

The plan was to meet at different motels over the next several weeks. They were entering the critical stage of stabilization, Chris explained. And timing was everything. Soon only a one-day window would be allowed before reversal patterns set in. This meant, of course, that Wally could not leave town nor be late for treatments.

On his headphones the Beach Boys were celebrating the special charms of California girls which took him back but without the old sad longing. He turned up the volume.

A few minutes later Wonder Woman got off her treadmill. "Have a good run?" he asked pleasantly. She mopped her brow with a towel and guzzled some chi-chi water from her bottle. "Always do," she said smartly, and walked away to join her Alphas.

Wally smiled to himself as he admired her chrome-plated buns in the mirror. When you're old and gray, he thought, and covered with liver spots and hanging on a walker, I'll still be doing eight-point sprints, my child.

"I'd say he's lying."

Mike Zazzaro had seen the tape twice already in the last few minutes, but Eric Brown punched the play button again. It was his first day back from the conference.

"Look at his face and hands. His eyes."

"I'm looking," Zazzaro said. "What about them?"

"The big innocent Orphan Annies," Brown said. "And the way his voice picks up. He's too loud, and his hands keep moving too much. He's all exaggeration. He protesteth too much." He switched to slow motion. "There: See how he wipes his mouth when he says it's only a resemblance?"

"Yeah?"

"An unconscious gesture, like trying to rub off a lie."

"A one-week conference on cult psychology, and you come back Sigmund Freud. Maybe he spit on his chin."

"He's faking."

"Eric, the guy's nervous and feeling like a horse's ass for fingering an innocent man. That's what's going on."

"Maybe, but I've got a hunch there's another agenda behind that guy's face."

"Like what?"

"Like fear. Like he's scared something will happen, or he's been threatened."

Zazzaro pushed his face to a foot from the monitor again. "He's embarrassed, not scared," Zazzaro said. "Besides, you saw his video of Glover. He's twenty-five years too young-plain and simple. The wrong man."

But that's what didn't make sense to Brown. He paused the tape on Wally Olafsson with his hands floating in front of him, his face full of remorse. When Brown had interviewed him, there was nothing ingenuous in his manners or expression. He looked convinced that Glover and Bacon were one and the same. In fact, he was belligerent about it. Now he's a bundle of nerves, insisting they call off the investigation.

"I know that face, the hairline, body movements, the gestures."

Zazzaro and Bill Pike had gone into the shop two days later. Pike drove the surveillance car. In his report Zazzaro had noted the birthday photo of Glover with the Life magazine that would make him thirty-eight, not fifty-six.

"What color were his eyes?"

"Brown."

"Both of them?"

"Yeah."

"He said one was brown, the other green."

Eric nodded, thinking that he could have been wearing colored contacts. But without due cause, they couldn't bring him in because no judge would grant a warrant on the possibility of tinted lenses.

Mike crossed the room and poured himself some coffee from the Braun machine.

"We get a good print on the guy?" Brown asked.

"Yeah. He had on the gloves when I went in, but Billy walked by earlier and saw him handling the fern pot bare-handed. Prints were all over it."

But there was nothing in the Bureau's database for either Roger Glover or Christopher Bacon.

"I have no opinion of this Roger Glover," Brown said. "But it's possible our friend Wally is a flake. He looks good on paper-marketing VP of Midland Investments, active in civic circles, on the hospital board, blah blah blah. But he could also be running around in his mother's undies and insisting the Midas Muffler guy down the street killed JFK."

"So, it's case closed."

"Not yet. I want you and Billy to stay on him a little longer."

"Come on, man. We've got a Net memo to check out the Fiskers. This is going to eat up our time."

Yesterday a directive from central headquarters in Clarksburg alerted all offices to keep watch over followers of a Maryland based group called Witnesses of the Holy Apocalypse. Ever since the millennium, they had gotten such alerts a few times a month. Most were just fire-and-brimstone preachings. But people in this group had ties with paramilitary organizations. The danger was that its leader, a Colonel Lamar Fisk, had a warlord mentality and exhorted his followers to take an active part in the battle of Armageddon. What concerned the Agency was that Fisk knew guns and preached violence.

"That can wait a day," Brown said, staring at the freeze frame of Olafsson in a broad gesture. "Just to get the bug out of my ear."

Because the case was thirteen years old, nobody was actively working on it. The Boston agent in charge had retired from service, which meant that it was Brown's case now.

"So, what do you have in mind?" Mike asked.

"Have the prints sent to Clarksburg for a hand check on the Bacon file. It's possible there might be some unidentified latents they can cross-ref with what you got."

"That could take months."

Because the Bureau did not database unidentified prints, the likelihood was small that any latent prints lifted from the Bacon's home, car, and office were in any evidence file. And if any were, it meant somebody in the West Virginia headquarters had to go ferreting through boxes and evidence bags in the warehouse, removing unidentified strays, recording and classifying them, then comparing what they had with those of Roger Glover on the fern pot. Mike was right. It would tie up lab people for weeks and cost thousands of taxpayer dollars, most likely for naught. Eric knew all that.

"All because of a hunch," Zazzaro said.

Brown made a what-are-you-going-to-do shrug.

Zazzaro shook his head. Then he mouthed the words: "THE WRONG MAN."

"Probably."

"TOO YOUNG."

"Probably."

"YOU'RE AN ASSHOLE."

"Probably."

26

"Happy birthday, Dad." Roger opened his eyes to a large ice cream cake blazing with candles and inscribed in pink sugar script: Happy 38 Roger.

It was March 15, and, according to his birth certificate, Roger Glover's birthday.

He made a big happy face. "What a nice surprise!"

Their house, a modern two-floored structure, was built with a side-attached garage that led into the kitchen. The moment Roger had returned from work, Brett met him and made him close his eyes as he led him into the dining room with the cake in the middle of the table and streamers draped across the ceiling.

Brett and Laura broke into "Happy Birthday to You." When they were finished, Brett insisted that Roger make a wish and blow out the candles. He was enjoying himself, and Roger surprised well.

"I don't know what to wish for," he said.

"A million dollars would help," Laura joked.

"I tried for the last two dozen birthdays-it doesn't work."

"You could wish to live to a hundred," Brett said.

"Yeah, that's a good one."

Laura felt a small ripple of discomfort, but let it pass.

"In a few more years," Brett said, "there won't be any more room on the cake."

"Ho, ho, funny man." Roger blew out the candles. Birthdays always made them uncomfortable, but they played along because they had taught Brett that family occasions were important. There would be gifts after which they would go out to celebrate at Gino's on Altoona Avenue. Roger's name was on the cake, but the party was really for Brett.

That was the most important thing, Laura told herself-the love of your son and your husband. It's what she drew from during moments when she couldn't sort out reality from masquerade, when she had to remind herself who they were or what time and space they occupied. On occasions like this, she felt a little like Alice stuck halfway through the Wonderland mirror-part of her in the ordinary world, the rest of her in mad make-believe.

Roger took the knife to the cake. Its center was still frozen solid.

While it thawed, Laura handed him his gift. As usual, he teasingly drew out the moment. It was a small thin package, but he shook it to guess its contents. "New running shoes. No, golf clubs." When Brett complained, Roger finally unwrapped two CDs-a Creedance Clearwater album and the latest Bob Dylan release.

Brett made a face. "Dad, how come you like that old sixties stuff?"

"The Dylan's a new collection."

"Yeah, but he's an old hippie."

"So am I," he slipped, "…kind of."

"Thirty-eight's not old."

Laura forced a bright smile. "Brett has something to give you, too," she said, wishing this were over.

Brett then handed Roger his gift wrapped in paper covered with cartoon bouncing babies trailing balloons.

"Hey, nice macho paper!" Once again Roger weighed and shook the box. "Not a CD… Too small for a new car…"

"Dad, we haven't got all night. Open it." He was more excited than his father.

But Roger continued teasing-feeling its heft, sniffing it, shaking it vigorously. "Tropical fish?"

"We have reservations at seven o'clock, and it's six-thirty," Laura reminded him.

"You guys are no fun." Roger finally removed the paper. Inside was a large framed picture of some sort with a wire attached for hanging. Still prolonging the foreplay, he kept the back side up and the picture face down so neither he or Laura could see it.

Brett was now percolating. "Daaad!" But Roger closed his eyes and turned the picture to his face.

"Dad, will you open your eyes? I'm starving."

"Does Mom know what it is?"

"Not a clue," Laura answered. "But I think it's you naked on a bearskin rug with a rose in your mouth."

"Gross, Mom."

"By the way, Gino's closes at ten," Laura laughed.

"Oh, okay," Roger said and opened his eyes.

His smile froze on his face. It was a blown-up photograph of him holding one-year-old Ricky in the backyard of their Carleton, Massachusetts home.

"I found it in your old wallet in the basement," Brett said proudly. "I didn't tell Mom, but she gave me the money to get it enlarged. It's you and me. Like it?"

"Yeah."

"How about you, Mom?"

Laura stared at the photo, and felt her mouth twist into a rictus of a grin. "It's lovely."

She had forgotten the photo. Ricky at fifteen months, the summer of 1983. He was wearing Chris's cap and sunglasses so that his eyes weren't visible. But the shape of his baby face could be taken for Brett's and he was wearing red Oshkosh overalls like Brett's. In his hand was the red and black stuffed Mickey Mouse doll.

They had fled Carleton in such a fury that Laura was staring at the only photograph of Ricky they had seen in fourteen years. What ripped at Laura's heart was how Brett thought it was himself in Chris's arms.

"Do you like it?"

Laura held her breath and nodded. "Yeah." The syllable caught in her throat.

"How old was I then?"

"About a year and a half," Roger answered.

"And you were twenty-five. Don't get mad, Dad, but you looked a lot older back then."

Laura handed Roger the knife. "I think it's ready now."

"But how come your hair was lighter?" Brett asked.

"The sun," Roger replied, thinking fast. "I spent a lot more time outdoors. The sun bleached it out. Oh, good cake." He pushed a slice to Brett.

"And my hair looks brown in the photograph," Brett continued.

"Well, it got lighter as you got older."

"It did? I thought if you were born brunette you stayed the same, but if you were born blond your hair sometimes turned darker."

"Not always," Roger said.

"But who had blond hair in the family?"

"Your grandfather."

"So I got his hair?"

While Brett and Roger talked, Laura tried to lose herself in tidying up the table, removing wrapping paper, cutting more cake.

"Yes."

"What was his name?"

"Sam."

"Sam Glover?"

"That's right."

"And where's he buried?"

"Wichita, Kansas."

"Maybe on Memorial Day we can visit his grave."

"Uh-huh," Roger nodded. "We'll see."

"And who were my other grandparents? And where are they buried?"

But before Roger could answer, Brett said, "Mom, what are you doing? There are only three of us here. You cut eight pieces."

"Oh." She looked up stupidly and lay the knife down.

She felt crazy. Brett's questions and Roger's made-up responses were almost too much to take. Lies and more lies. They were poisoning their son with them. And the photograph sitting there on the table. Ricky laughing, his two bottom teeth poking up, and Brett thinking it's his teeth and his hair, his life. How could they tell him? How could he ever accept the truth or forgive them?

"At first, I didn't even think it was me," Brett said. "I also don't remember that Mickey Mouse doll."

"You were only a baby," Roger said.

"But I still remember Opus. And I still have him."

"I guess Mickey got lost."

"It's getting late," Laura said, but nobody paid her attention.

"But whose house were we at?" Brett continued.

"Friends'," Roger said.

"What kind of a car is that?"

It was then Laura recognized Roger's yellow 240Z in the background.

"It's a Datsun."

"What's a Datsun?"

"They're called Nissan now."

"It looks pretty old. What year is it?"

Laura looked to Roger for help. "I think it's a '72 or '73. My friend collected sports cars."

Brett accepted that. But with a shock Laura made out the license plate and the green-on-white Massachusetts registration. Wisconsin plates were yellow. Gratefully, that hadn't registered with Brett. But something else had.

"What's Darby Pharms?"

Laura felt as if she were sinking in quicksand.

"My hat. It says 'Darby Pharms.' I can just make it out, but they spelled it funny."

Roger squinted at the photo, pretending to make sense of the letters. "Oh yeah. But I'm not sure what that was exactly."

"Here, have some cake, honey." Laura felt desperate.

"Mom, you're crying."

She made a dismissive gesture. "You know me," she said with a forced smile.

"No, you don't like it," Brett said. His face began to crumble.

"No, I do. I love it. It's just I'm such a sentimental sap, you know. It's been so many years. You'll understand when you're a parent."

Brett's shoulders slumped. "You don't like it." His eyes filled up.

"No, honey, I love it… I do, I really do," she insisted. "It's getting late. I better get ready." And she ran upstairs leaving Roger to console Brett, who stood there wondering what had gone wrong with his big surprise.

"'Younger than springtime am I. Gayer than laughter am I, blah blah blah blah blah BLAH blah blah blah blah am I… with youuuuuuu.'"

Wally stepped out of the shower. It was March twenty-second, and he felt every bit of it.

He toweled off, then stepped on the scale. "Yes!" he hooted.

One hundred ninety-nine point four.

The first day of spring, and the first time in sixteen years Wally Olafsson had tipped in at a weight below two hundred pounds. That made it a twenty-one pound loss in six weeks. It was also the first time he could read the scale without his glasses, or sucking in his gut. Still naked, he bounded out of the bathroom and examined himself in the floor mirror he bought a few weeks ago.

It was happening: His belly had lost that explosive bulge, his thighs had shrunk, and his neck had reappeared. No longer did he look like a giant pink bullfrog. Even the beer wings had begun to melt despite the suspicion that he had been born with beer-wing genes.

All the weight machine activity had given definition to his arms and shoulders. His breasts began to give way to pectorals, and, remarkably, he could make out the physique he had inhabited as a younger man.

Even more remarkable, he could fit into 36-waist pants-down three inches. In another month he'd be a svelte 34. And maybe by summer, a dashing 32-his college waistline. The speculation sent a thrill through his loins.

There is a God! And He/She dropped Roger Glover into my lap.

The best part was how he felt: confident, light-hearted, funny, and quick with the old wit. He had also stopped thinking old. In a word, Wally felt happy. Happy, as he hadn't known since the early days of his marriage to Marge. Or even earlier, because this form of happiness was the kind reserved for the young who drank life to the lees from bottomless cups. When friends and colleagues remarked how good he looked, he simply told them that he'd joined a health club and gone on a diet.

Of course, only Roger knew the truth-and Roger's wife. Wally wished he could see Wendy again; it had been thirty years. Roger admitted it would be fun to share old times, but it was dangerous. Even though the Feds had apparently called off the investigation, were they to spot the three of them whooping it up in a bar, they would smell a rat. You don't accuse a people of mass murder, then retract your claim only to become drinking pals.

Wally opened the window. Cool just-spring air flooded in. Amazingly, it even smelled different-the way it did when he was a kid. Elixir was like a transfusion of new blood. Heightened vision, brighter eyes, smoother skin, higher energy level. And a blazing libido. "A couple more injections," he had told Roger, "and I'll probably grow another penis."

Last week Wally had leased himself a second car-a shameless look-at-me-red convertible Porsche Boxster. And next Tuesday he had his first appointment at a hair transplant clinic. He also put his lonely-guy divorce house on the market and planned to move into a city condo next month. And that afternoon he had converted three hundred thousand dollars in bonds to aggressive-growth mutual funds.

Life was good. And getting better by the day.

He got dressed. Although he had designs on the kinds of outfits old rockers wore to the Grammys-a black pullover under an unstructured black sportcoat-he needed to drop another few pounds. Soon enough, he told himself-Keith Richards, Paul McCartney, and Wally Olafsson.

Tonight he would suffer tradition in a dark pin-stripe by the Brooks Brothers. As a concession to impending youth, he shocked his white shirt with a here-I-come polychrome Jerry Garcia tie. The final touch was an expensive pair of slick black dress boots. He hadn't had a pair since the Roy Roger specials when he was nine.

When he finished, he looked in the mirror and in his best Jack Palance voice said, "Shane, this town ain't big enough for the two of us!" and he snapped off the light.

He headed out to the garage and hopped into the Porsche. He checked himself in the mirror then drove across town feeling like Tom Cruise in Top Gun.

They were going to dinner. Le Bocage, the fanciest new restaurant in town. He and Sheila Monks, aka Wonder Woman.

"So you like older men? Heck, you had me fooled."

"It was a bad day. I had just broken up with a guy and had sworn off the entire male race."

"You mean that densely wadded dude I used to see you with?"

"Yeah, that's him. Tory. After we broke up, he joined another club."

Tory: The beefcake Alpha with the baseball biceps, bumped by middle-aged-but-on-a-comeback Wally Olafsson. "If you don't mind me asking, what exactly came between you and old Tor?"

"His snowboard."

Wally looked at her blankly. "His snowboard," he repeated, as if taking an oath.

"Yeah, and his Roller Blades, tennis racket, golf clubs, shotgun, and mountain bike."

"This guy some kind of sports-equipment fetishist?"

Sheila chuckled. "Kind of. All we ever did was some form of athletic competition. He was a nice guy, but he was more committed to his hunting dog than me. When he joined a rugby team, I cashed in. I lacked the leather balls."

Wally smiled and sipped his champagne. Beauty, brains, and wit to boot. Sheila was the producer and host of a local cable TV program with dreams of moving to the networks. Her latest show was on the failure of America to adopt the metric system. It wasn't a barn-burner, but next week she was interviewing Mikail Gorbachev who was coming to UW Madison to accept an award.

"I know how corny this sounds, but, frankly, I prefer older men. Men in their forties."

Wally smiled. Thank you, God. December-May rapidly becoming November-May. It crossed his mind that if things continued with Sheila, they would eventually reach May-May.

Yikes! Then what?

But Wally was savoring life from moment to moment. And at the moment, it was very sweet.

"So how old are you exactly?"

Wally had expected that. Even though this was their first official date, they grew friendly at the club and had gone for coffee. He looked about ten years younger. But he couldn't lie because if their relationship continued, she would meet his friends and son and learn his real age. If they became "serious," he'd have to explain the "cell plateau" down the road. Fifty-seven would shock; forty-seven would be a lie. Already he was sensing dilemmas.

As they sat there smiling into each other's eyes over champagne and trout amandine with white asparagus, Wally had to remind himself that although Sheila was a delightful young woman, there were many other delightful young women in the world-and so much time.

It was hard to comprehend, but Wally Olafsson's life was becoming an infinite moment.

Suddenly Wally saw himself from afar, sitting in this elegant room full of other couples sipping from each other's eyes, and it occurred to him just what a strange and wondrous thing he was becoming. They were mere mortals, while he was experiencing an apotheosis. He felt like an extraterrestrial sitting among them. No, like some kind of secret deity.

"Well?" Sheila said.

Wally giggled to himself. "I've never had a problem converting to metric."

She frowned. "I don't follow you."

"You asked my age."

"Yeah?"

"Twenty-nine Celsius."

Sheila laughed and dropped the subject.

27

Something told Roger that he was being watched. Call it a sixth sense or psychic powers or conditioned paranoia, but he was like one of those delicate seismographic devices that picks up tremors just below the threshold of human perception.

It didn't go off very often, but when it did he knew it-like that time last month when the two Feds had put the shop under surveillance. They dropped out of sight a couple days later, probably convinced they were tailing an innocent all-American family going about its business of being unremarkable.

Now the needle was jumping again while he and Brett stood in a line of other runners at the registration table for the 7K Town Day Charity Race.

He looked around, trying to determine the epicenter. Lots of people milled about-runners, spectators, photographers-but nobody seemed to be paying them particular attention. No one but Laura who waved from the gallery at the start and finish line.

False alarm, he thought.

It had happened before in crowds. And this one was alive with nervous energy. Runners were jumping in place, pacing, stretching, getting in some last carbo kicks from PowerBars and O. J. Just the collective electricity of the mass, Roger decided, and got back to the moment.

As Brett exchanged his form for a numbered bib, Roger quietly admired his son. He had grown into a handsome, well-proportioned young man with sculpted musculature, a wasp waist, and hard round glutes. He looked like a young Greek god.

I love you, beautiful boy, Roger whispered to himself. The registration form asked for the usual data: Name, address, past running meets, and the like. It also asked to check off your "Age Group" because at the end they gave out trophies for each category: Twelve to eighteen years, nineteen to twenty-nine, and so on. Like weight classes for wrestling. The idea was to keep victory relative and not embarrass older runners. But it always created a dilemma because he felt like a cheat-like Rosie Ruiz, who in the 1980s took the women's first place in the Boston Marathon until it was discovered that she had ridden partway on the subway.

Roger was riding Elixir. He checked the 30-39 box and was given a number.

Roger liked to run. On weekends he and Brett would do some miles on the track at Pierson. Brett once commented how cool it was to have an athletic dad. Lots of other kids' fathers were out of shape and did little more than return a baseball. But his dad could wrestle, ski, lift weights, and run a six-minute mile.

They did their stretches and took their places. There were maybe three hundred runners. Because it was a charity race, the protocol was a matter of etiquette. The faster runners were up front, while kids and older joggers took the back field.

Brett and Roger took places about three or four deep from the front string, made up of members of the track teams from North and Memorial High and the UW campus as well as people with no body fat and all legs who took town races very seriously.

At the gun, the front wall bolted away, Roger and Brett stayed in the field just behind, keeping up a steady and comfortable pace. This was for fun, so there was no need to push themselves.

The weather was cool and overcast, perfect conditions for the race which would make a large circle from the head of Carson Park, along the river and down some streets, then back to the starting point.

By the end of the fourth kilometer, many who led the pack had fallen back, letting Brett and Roger through. Older runners felt the distance and the younger ones lacked the stamina of a steady high pace. In fact, Brett himself was becoming winded. So Roger slowed down.

As they passed the sixth kilometer mark, the feeling was back-like a magnetic tug at the rear of his brain. Roger looked over his shoulder. A few runners were scattered behind them-a young couple in identical running outfits. A wiry black male. Two white women. All looking intensely absorbed in their running.

His attention fell on a white male. Number 44. A tall guy, in his twenties, who wore a headband, white tank top, and blue shorts and who held steady about ten paces back. He had been pacing Roger and Brett since the beginning.

Then it came back. At registration. Roger had first dismissed it as idle curiosity. But suddenly Number 44 did not seem like just another runner gauging the competition. He was studying him and Brett. Roger caught his eye-an eye made for watching-but he looked away. From all appearances he wasn't struggling. He could easily take them, but held his place instead.

Then Roger remembered something else. Earlier he had spotted him milling about the registration area with an older man in a windbreaker and shouldering a camera with a telephoto lens. Roger didn't like cameras, especially ones with big zooms.

They rounded First Avenue to River Street with less than a kilometer left. Brett was tiring, so Roger cut his pace even more.

Immediately 44 pulled ahead with a hard glance. Roger felt better. He wasn't a cop after all, just a runner with an attitude. Trying to give you the Evil Eye. Whatever it took to psyche down the competition.

Brett didn't like Roger dropping his pace. "Keep running," he cried. "Don't slow down."

Roger shook his head. "I'm fine."

"No. Do it!" Brett was struggling, but he wanted Roger to open up.

"You sure?"

"Yes!"

But he didn't want to leave Brett behind. Brett must have read his mind because he gasped, "Burn him, Dad. Burn him!"

That was all Roger needed. For you, Brett, he whispered, then kicked into a sprint that no other fifty-six year old could possibly summon-and very few thirty-eights.

In a matter of seconds he closed the gap on 44. Someplace behind him he heard Brett let out a howling "Yahoo!"

At about a three hundred meters before the finish, Roger pulled to approximately five paces behind 44, so close he could see the shamrock tattoo on his right shoulder.

Roger kept that up for several seconds as he readied to pull away. Then he moved until he was neck-and-neck with the guy about ten feet on his left. Ahead the road was wide open. They ran in formation like that for awhile. A couple times the guy looked over to Roger. Roger hooked eyes on him, and in that flash something passed between them. Roger didn't know what it was, nor did he care. All his concentration was on that bright yellow finish line a hundred meters ahead.

Cheers from the huge gallery rose up as a small knot of local track stars crossed the finish line first.

At about sixty meters, Roger pushed his throttle to the limit. Straining with everything he had, he moved past 44 without a glance and pumped down the road to the fat yellow finish, crossing a dozen paces ahead.

The crowd went wild not because they knew Roger, but for his breakaway. From over a hundred meters they had watched the two run in perfect stride until Roger made his stupendous sprint to the finish.

Laura ran out to Roger as he panted and stumbled around to catch his breath. She embraced him and gave him some water.

He knew it was irrational, what he had just done-yielding to testosterone. But, Jesus, it felt good to take that guy.

Standing on a bench in the Park across from the finish, Agent Eric Brown shot off two dozen frames from the Nikon with the black zoom and motor drive as Roger flew across the yellow line and into the cheering crowd.

He takes a cup of water from someone. He bends over to catch his breath. He raises a pained face to the sky. He takes a hug from his wife, who looks older than he in the zoom. He dumps a cup of water over his head. He towels off. He downs more water. He high-fives his son. He gives a wave to Bill Pike when he crosses the line.

And Brown caught it all.

"Olafsson's right," Pike said when he finally made his way to Brown. "The wrong guy." He was still panting and mopping his brow with a towel.

"Yeah, but for thirty-eight, the bastard can run."

"Tell me about it." Pike's face was drained and his lungs still burned. "I don't know what his secret is, but he must have rocket fuel for blood, is all."

"Roger, I'm sorry to call you at the shop, but it's extremely important."

Jenny tried to disguise the desperation in her voice, but he heard it.

And, yet, he still turned on her harshly. "If it's about the orchids, m'am, I can't help you. They're not available."

That was their code word. Whenever they discussed Elixir on the phone, her sister and Roger had referred to it as the "orchids."

It was so unfair, Jenny thought. So unfair. And Laura was to blame. She had poisoned his mind. Her own sister! "But you must," Jenny pleaded. You have to. If you don't-"

"I'm sorry, m'am, I can't help you," he said, and hung up.

For a startled moment Jenny stood there with the dead phone to her ear. He had cut her off because he was afraid their lines were tapped, which was why he never even addressed her by name.

But that was ridiculous after all these years. Roger and Laura had new lives, and Jenny had moved out of Kalamazoo years ago. Even Ted didn't know where she and her daughter were living.

Jenny put down the phone, thinking how selfish and inconsiderate of him. Her own brother-in-law. And after all she had done for them.

The music still wafted down from Abigail's room. Thank goodness she hadn't heard the conversation.

Jenny felt the panic grip her again. The last injection of serum could not hold her much longer. Any day now she could begin to change. Laura had said it was awful what happened to the monkeys.

What will happen to me? Jenny's brain screamed. They said you turned old and died in a matter of hours. It was too horrible to contemplate.

I can't leave her like this.

"Mother!" Abigail called from upstairs.

"Yes, darling?"

"How do you say kangaroo in French?"

"I don't know," she yelled, "but I'll look it up."

As she made her way for the dictionary, Jenny looked at her face in the mirror. "God, help me," she whispered.

"It's the second time this week she's called. She sounded a little crazy," Roger said from the bathroom.

As usual, Wendy was in bed propped up with a book. It was what she did every night before going to sleep.

Jenny had turned fifty a few months ago, and Wendy knew it had hit her hard. She had called them several times about Elixir, to the point of begging. Having been a registered nurse, she assured them that she could administer needle injections to herself, that she would be no problem to them at all, that they could even Federal Express a few vials to her. But they had flatly refused.

Roger snapped off the bathroom light and headed for the bed. He had touched up his beard and grayed his sideburns.

"She wasn't just irrational," he continued. "The way she talked. Her tempo was all off. She took long pauses before responding. I wasn't even sure she got what I was saying. At one point she called me Mr. Bigshot and threatened not to be my friend anymore. It was like talking to a child."

Laura didn't want to get into more Jenny-bashing. "She's been through a lot," she said.

"But I don't think she'll let it go. She sounded almost threatening."

He got into bed beside her.

Tonight Laura was reading a mystery novel. For years she had avoided the genre because they reminded her of her own lost career. Ironically, her fugitive status had made If I Should Die a best-seller years ago. She had thought about getting back into writing under a pseudonym, but there were too many risks in going public. They still lived in fear of seeing recognition flicker in a stranger's eyes. Also, some hawk-eyed reader might picked up on quirks of style and connect her to Wendy Bacon. So, sadly, she had abandoned her passion and became just another reader.

Roger reached over and pulled the book out of her hand and gave her a kiss. He had that goatish look in his eye. He rubbed his hand down her thighs.

"Not tonight." She could see the disappointment in his face. Brett was already asleep in his room, so that was no excuse. She just didn't feel like it. She gave his hand a conciliatory squeeze. "I'm sorry."

"Not as much as I am."

There was a time he would have protested-when they were both younger. When they were biological equals. But he had become resigned to rejection. These days they made love just a couple times a month. He took her face in his hands. "I love you, you know."

"I know," she said. She still liked hearing that, but she no longer took refuge in the words. "And I love you. Tomorrow night, I promise."

Roger nodded. "Sure," he said and kissed her lightly on the mouth.

She dimmed the light and lay quietly against him for several minutes. The silence was charged with bad feelings. Several times when they were out she'd catch him looking at younger women. And how could she blame him? Even though she kept up aerobics, ate right, colored her hair, used vitamin supplements and all the hot anti-wrinkle creams on the market, a quarter century of biology separated them. Technically, she could be his mother.

"We don't have many more years left for this," she said.

"Left for what?"

She wished he wouldn't play dumb. "For charades."

"Do we have to get into that now?"

It scared him when she brought it up because the inevitable was happening-to her, not him. Between fake identities and the makeup, he had almost fallen for the artifice. Once a few years ago she had let the roots of her hair grow out, and he was shocked at all the gray. He had nearly forgotten she was growing old.

"Well, when exactly do you want to talk about it?" she asked.

"How about tomorrow night after jumping on each other's bones?"

"Roger, when are you going to face the obvious? I'm fifty-five years old. In four years I'll qualify for senior citizen discounts."

"You're in great shape."

"No, I'm not. I'm older and heavier. I don't have your energy level, nor your sexual hunger. I've changed. I've slowed down."

"That's bull. You're fine, and you look terrific."

"Roger, will you please stop it?"

"Stop what?"

"Stop patronizing me. Stop this pity sex."

"It's not pity sex. I want to make love to you."

"No, you want to make love to Wendy Bacon."

He started to protest, but fell flat. He looked away, but she could see the tears in his eyes.

She felt the tears well in her own eyes. She took his hand. "I'm sorry, but it's not like it was."

After a long moment's silence, he said, "You have an option."

"That's not an option, and you know it."

"Don't you like being alive? Don't you want to be with me?" For a second, he looked like a little boy begging his mom for understanding.

Laura sighed. Yes, she felt the temptation. More than her sister or any other woman alive, she heard the siren call every day. But she had made herself a promise long ago.

"How about when he's older?" He was still holding out hope that when Brett matured she would give in. "In seven years he'll be twenty-one."

"And I'll be sixty-three."

Already their sex was bordering on the bizarre. In seven years it would be sick. She'd feel like a cradle-robbing old hussy, and he'd have to fake it.

"But you'd retrogress to fifty or younger."

"You mean Laura would be as young as Wendy."

"If that's the way you want to look at it."

"Maybe I won't want to be."

"But maybe you will."

They were silent for a long spell, and Laura felt the old anger burn itself through the sadness. Roger had brought this upon them himself. In a monumentally stupid act he had injected the stuff into his veins thirteen years ago and forever infected the very fabric of their lives. While she understood all the forces that had driven him to that act, she could never forgive him. More than anyone else alive he was able to foresee the consequences but had chosen to disregard them instead. And while she felt pity and compassion for him, there were moments she hated him for what he had done.

"Laura, I need you. I don't want to go this alone."

Laura closed her eyes and remained silent. She knew the panic he was beginning to feel. Aside from Wally, who still remained on the sidelines of things, she was the only person in the world who knew who and what Roger was. She was his sole intimate. His life had come to a standstill, and the future appeared some vast and empty stretch. It might take another thirty years for her to die. Toward the end he might even care for her like an aged parent. But after she was gone, could he go on without her? Could he live alone with his secret? Would he take another lover?

With Brett in her life, these considerations were no longer priorities. She didn't say this, of course. Nor did she mention a third option that had crossed her mind: divorce.

Brett was still too young. He was crazy about his father and splitting up would scar him permanently. Nor could he comprehend the rationale: not for the lack of love, but time.

When he was older, she told herself. After they had explained all the other awful stuff.

"Laura, promise me just one thing," he pleaded. "That you'll keep open the option-okay? Maybe after Brett's off and on his own?"

She sighed. "I'm out of promises," she said and turned off the light.

And as she lay in the dark, she wondered at the extraordinary muddle of their lives.

God Almighty, how was it going to end?

Eileen Rice was only half-conscious at how the coffee had turned cold in her cup. She was too lost in what she had discovered on her computer monitor.

The image was of partial loops with a count of eleven ridges on a bias from the triradius to the core of the inner terminus. Her best guess was the right index, although that made no difference since the morphologies were identical across the digits.

What set off the alarm in her head was the nearly full loop found on the latent print coded "Mark (4)-137-left II."

On the split screen, she enlarged the image and clicked on the base print. With the pivot ball, she rotated the axes until they were in alignment. Then she tapped a few keys and brought the two images into superimposition.

A perfect match.

The image on the left was the print lifted from the Carleton, Massachusetts premises in 1988. It was the same print found on household objects including a coffee mug at the same premises. The image on the right had been lifted seven weeks ago from a flower pot in a shop in Eau Claire, Wisconsin.

It had taken that long because it was an old case and no prints were on file in the database. That meant Eileen had to conduct a hand search of all the latent prints from door handles, clothing, and household items included in the evidence files. And because of their recent move to new headquarters, boxes of old cases had been misplaced. Eventually she found dozens of different prints, scanned and entered them into the database, then classified and compared them to the nine different latents found on the Eau Claire fern pot, wrapping paper, receipt, and business card which also had to be scanned and classified.

That meant running over three hundred comparisons, carefully tabulating each elimination. Also, of the 43 million individuals in the National Fingerprint File/Interstate Identification Index, none matched any prints in the case.

But identifying the prints was not Eileen Rice's problem. With the mouse, she clicked the terminal to print out the matching prints-one for her own files, and one to the terminal of the field office in Madison, Wisconsin. She then picked up the phone and dialed the number of Agent Eric Brown.

Wally didn't quite know how to ask her.

It had been so many years since he had last dated-twenty-five, counting two years of cohabitation, nineteen of marriage, and four of celibate divorce-he wasn't quite sure how it was done. This was their sixth formal date and they had not yet been sexual. How exactly did you word such a request to the Now Generation?

"Say, are you feeling romantic?"

Or: "Gee, Sheila, you know it's been a hundred and four days since we met, and we've exchanged six hello-and-good-night kisses. It's all been nice and innocent, but isn't it time we moved to Phase Two?"

Or: "So far this has cost me twelve hundred and thirty-nine dollars, and I still haven't scored yet. What about it?"

Or simply: "Want to fuck?"

They were driving back from a movie in Wally's Porsche with the top up because it was unseasonably cold. But the stars were out, the traffic was light, and the cotton was high.

And Wally Olafsson felt as happy as Tinkerbell.

It was especially momentous since that morning he had dropped below the 185-pound mark into territory he hadn't known since college. He was also down to a thirty-four-inch waist and 15 1/2 shirt. Even more remarkable, his hair had started growing back. Somehow the tabulone stuff had restimulated the follicles, producing a new golden growth that had covered a once-vast dead zone. It looked like fine silk, like that of a newborn's hair. Already an inch long, he had actually fashioned a part. He told Sheila that he was taking hair-growth stimulants.

"You look like a different person."

"The same Wonderful Wally, just less of him."

"You should patent that diet you're on. You could make millions."

"You can't put willpower in a bottle, lady," he said in his best John Wayne. In the mirror he patted his new hair, still in disbelief. God, it felt good to be alive!

"If I didn't know better, I'd say you were getting younger."

Gulp! he thought.

"I mean it. It's amazing."

"It's you, my dear. You bring out the boy in me." Then he broke into a few bars of "You Make Me Feel So Young."

"Bull! It's ninety minutes a day on the StairMaster and old Menudo tapes you've been hiding."

He laughed happily. "Aw, she saw through my cover."

"So, how old did you say you were?"

It had become a game: He, the coy older companion; she, the insistent young inquisitor.

"Why is knowing my age so important?"

"Just curious. Besides, it's women who don't tell how old they are, not guys."

"I'm liberated."

"I'd say forty-four."

"Forty-four!" He slapped his chest in mock horror.

She laughed. "Okay, forty… maybe thirty-nine."

"That's better," he sniffed.

"You're going to hate me, but when you first joined the club I thought you were about sixty."

He made a sharp swerve of the car.

She chuckled again. "Surely, I erred, but you know what I'm saying-the weight and the hair."

"Yes, I do," he smiled. Tomorrow he would meet Roger for his next shot-the first of three large dosages spaced a day apart. The high critical period, Roger had said. "I'll make a deal with you."

"Try me."

"I'll tell you my age if we can let the evening extend beyond a simple bon soir at your doorstep."

"Wally Olafsson, that's bribery."

"Or sexual harassment, depending on how badly you want to know my age."

She smiled and thought about it for a few moments.

In the rearview mirror he fixed his hair again and noticed the same big SUV behind him, its headlights like twin suns bearing down on him. These days every other car on the road was some kind of sports utility vehicle. He felt like an immigrant in his Porsche.

As he flipped the mirror to night mode, he felt Sheila's hand rest on his leg.

"Your place, or mine?" she asked.

The rush of joy returned Wally from the mirror. The big Jeep Cherokee could have driven over his car and he wouldn't have noticed. "Which is closer?" he gasped.

She laughed and gave him a great big kiss on his part. "Yours."

28

Roger had just turned down Margaret Street for his next delivery when he spotted a green SUV two cars back.

He couldn't see the faces of the two men, but it looked like the same Jeep Cherokee. If it was, then this was no casual surveillance. They had come up with evidence and had a warrant to take him in.

His first thought was Laura. She was shopping for food and a present for Brett whose graduation from Pierson middle school was in three weeks. He pulled out his cell phone. It would be a call he dreaded almost as much as getting caught.

The SUV kept a couple cars back. Traffic was light on the main roads so he could hold them in the mirror. If it was the Feds, they had come up with something. Something Wally had nothing to do with. He was far into treatments and having too good a time playing New Age Playboy. Something else.

On the floor sat a cooler containing four dozen ampules of Elixir. Since the day the Feds first dropped by, he had stashed the supply in the Igloo under a layer of ice, some insulin, and a couple cans of Pepsi. Another thirteen dozen ampules were in the freezer of their Minnesota condo. Except for the three year supply in the emergency tube around his neck, the remaining supply was buried miles from here. The Igloo went wherever he did, just in case. Even a man on death row is allowed his medicine.

Roger made two turns through the heart of town. And they stayed on him.

He slammed the wheel with his hand. This was not supposed to happen.

He punched Laura's number on the cellphone. They each had one registered under aliases. In thirteen years this was the second Red Alert. The first was a false alarm. God, that this was another.

He heard her voice, and muttered a prayer of thanks. "Where are you?"

"In the car. I just finished shopping."

"Where are you exactly?"

She told him the street. "Why?"

"I'm being followed. I think it's the Feds."

"Oh, Jesus, no."

He tried to keep his voice even, soothing. "Laura, don't panic. It may not be the real thing. But just in case, pick up Brett."

The first place the Feds would check was their house. They'd ask around and one of their neighbors would remember that Brett had a game at Pierson. He could hear her fighting the terror. "Laura, do you understand? Get Brett and head for the condo."

No matter how measured he kept his tone, the mention of their safe house made it more real. Their condo was in Minneapolis, a hundred miles from here.

"Laura, do you understand?"

He heard the catch in her voice. She took a deep breath to steady herself. "Yes. I'm okay. I'll get him." The thought of Brett being left parentless had steeled her resolve. "What about you?"

"I'll be there tonight."

"Tonight? Why tonight?"

He wished she hadn't forgotten. "I told you, I'm meeting Wally in Black River Falls."

If it weren't critical mass, she would blast him. From the start she had resented his treating Wally, even if it meant buying him off. She resented the very sight of the ampules. It was what had gotten them into this nightmare twenty years ago.

Before he hung up, he said, "Laura, we'll be fine."

But she clicked off.

For a moment, his mind was lost in the silence of the open line-a silence crackling with frightened disbelief that it was happening again. What they code-named the Awful-Awful. But all he heard was fear and anger.

The light at Fenwick turned yellow, and Roger floored the accelerator. The van careened across the intersection and made the first left down a side street. The Jeep must have pulled out of line and run the red light, because it appeared in Roger's mirror about a hundred meters back. He took three more turns then crossed the river and headed for the airport. The Jeep stayed with him several cars back.

He cut to an access road, weaving his way through traffic, then pulled into an industrial park consisting of rows of warehouses separated by long driveways where trucks pulled in for deliveries. Because it was Saturday, there was no traffic in the complex.

The streets were potholed from all the trucks, yet the Jeep barreled after him as if on the Interstate.

Ahead, Roger spotted the familiar yellow sign that hung over the narrow alley separating Triple E Sheet Metal from DeLaura Display.

He floored the accelerator until he was maybe a hundred feet short, then slammed the brakes and cut the wheel, sending the van into a screeching slide that flung him into the alley. Luckily it was clear, so he floored it. A couple moments later, the Jeep turned in behind him. The alley was wide enough for a single truck. Behind it lay a spacious lot with trucks and half a dozen cars including a 1992 dark blue Toyota Canary which he stored for just such a contingency.

At a point near the alley's end, Roger slammed on the brakes and cut the wheel, sending the van into a sideways rest. Even if the Jeep decided to ram through, the van was too heavy for a single shot to clear. It might also incapacitate itself.

Roger grabbed the cooler and bolted across the lot to the Toyota.

He heard no crash as he sped out the rear exit. But he could see the agents run after him in frustration. The one with a cell phone to his ear he recognized. Number 44 from the Town Day Race.

He was a fed, after all!

Roger had only a few moments reprieve before every cop car in a twenty-mile radius was alerted, so he raced across town to the municipal lot off Jefferson where he kept the black Blazer registered to Harry Stork. Over the years he had rehearsed these runs, hoping in his heart of hearts not to hear the curtain call. In the glove compartment was a stage makeup kit including mustaches, wig, and glasses.

In less than ten minutes, he was on the ramp to highway 94. Every atom of his physical being urged him to turn north to Minneapolis. Laura would be in a terrible state trying to make things seem perfectly normal to Brett. It was the worst possible time to be separated.

Yet, he knew what he had to do and turned up the south ramp that would take him to the Best Western Motel in Black River Falls to give Wally his stabilizing shot.

Laura was on the way back from the grocery store when she got the call.

As rehearsed, she drove to a city parking garage where they kept a dark blue Subaru Outback registered under an alias. The police would be looking for her in a maroon Volvo. If this was the Awful-Awful, her face would be all over the media which meant she couldn't walk into a grocery market within hundreds of miles. So she unloaded the groceries from the Volvo, then raced out of town to Pierson.

Years ago she had pledged to stay with Roger all the way. But things were different today. They weren't the same people. If it weren't for Brett, she would turn them in and dump all the serum but what Roger needed.

She approached the school, frantically hoping not to find the place jammed with flashing blue squad cars. It wasn't. But if the police were after them, she had small window before they showed.

The parking lot was full of cars for the game. As she pulled in, she felt under her seat for the box containing a loaded.38-caliber Smith and Wesson. Roger had taken her out to the woods to practice shooting until she felt comfortable. It made no sense to have a gun if you didn't know what to do with it.

She parked at the far end of the lot and slipped the gun into her shoulder bag, praying it wouldn't see the light of day. She cut through the cluster of small buildings to the playing fields. The good news was that the white Pierson team was at bat. The bad news was that Brett, number 33, was on second base.

A large boisterous crowd filled the grand stands and spilled along the baselines. Laura was active in the Pierson PTA, so she recognized many people. But the game was tied with two outs, so nobody paid her much attention as she cut behind the crowd. Brett spotted her and nodded.

Coach Starsky and his assistants were clustered by the Pierson bench. She didn't know how long before the sides retired. If there were hits or walks, it could go on for another twenty minutes. She waited, with her heart pounding, under a tree, thinking that she might suffer cardiac arrest if she didn't get Brett out of here.

The batter was walked, and she nearly screamed in frustration. The next batter took two balls then cracked the third high to center field. Thank God, it was caught.

While Brett trotted off the field, she approached Starsky, telling herself it had to be sure and quick.

Starsky, a guy in his late twenties, was barking batter lineup when he saw her. "He's having a great game." He nodded toward the Scoreboard. "Three of those runs have his name on them."

She tried to look delighted. "Look, Star, I'm sorry, but I'm going to have to take him out."

He looked at her in disbelief. "What?"

"It's a medical emergency. Roger. He's in the hospital." She began to choke up.

Starsky's face fell. "Oh, jeez, I'm sorry. Yeah, sure. Jeez, I hope he's going to be okay. Christ, he's so young."

Brett came over.

She took a deep breath knowing how rotten this was. "It's Dad. He's in the hospital. We have to go."

Instantly Brett's face darkened. "What's wrong with him? What happened?"

"I think he'll be okay, but we have to go."

Thankfully, Brett didn't protest. "Sorry," she said to Starsky.

"Jeez, good luck. Nice game, Brett."

Laura hustled him toward the parking lot. She could feel the eyes rake her. People were thinking that it had to be pretty bad to pull him out of a game. She hated herself for the sham. She hated depriving him of the glory. This was a high point in his young life. And in a few short hours the television would blare out the story that he had been pulled from the game because his parents were mass murderers disguised as just-plain-folk Laura and Roger Glover.

She led him to the Subaru. Brett was fighting tears and asking her for details. "In the car," she growled.

They were nearly at her car when a police cruiser pulled into the lot. Laura nearly started screaming. But it turned the other way. She fumbled in her handbag for the keys. Her hand was shaking so badly, she could barely get the key into the lock.

Suddenly the cruiser pulled directly behind the Subaru.

"Mom, whose car is this?" Brett asked loud enough for the cop to hear.

Goddamn you, Brett.

"Hey!" the cop shouted.

Laura froze. In the next minute their lives would change forever. Laura slipped her hand in the bag and gripped the gun, still not looking at the officer.

The cop called again, and Laura flicked the safety off. She knew she would shoot him dead if he tried to stop her. She knew that as sure as night followed day. It made no sense and somewhere down the road she'd wish she had exercised better judgment, sorry she hadn't settled on a less brutal alternative. But at the moment she was operating on pure mother-bear adrenaline, thinking only of saving her son from a life of foster homes.

"Mom, it's Mr. Brezek."

"You pulling out?"

Gene Brezek was the father of ace pitcher Brian, and Brett's good friend. Laura gasped a yes.

"I just got off duty," Brezek said. He still had his uniform on. "Who's winning?"

"Tie six-all," Brett said.

Brezek moved the cruiser so she could back out. "How come you're leaving?"

Laura was still fumbling with the key. "Not feeling well."

"Get a new car?"

She nearly said a rental, but caught herself. Rental cars all had coded license plates. "A friend's."

"Where's Roger?"

She opened the door without answering and let Brett in. In any second his radio would start squawking an all-points bulletin for their arrest.

"Hope you're feeling better," Brezek said, giving up on friendly chat.

She nodded and backed out, concentrating on not hitting anything or squealing away.

"Why did you say I wasn't feeling well?"

It was like Brett to pick up on a lie. They had made honesty a centerpiece in raising him. Trust is what kept families whole and healthy.

She pulled the car out of the grounds and took off up the road away from town.

"You lied to him, Mom."

"It was too much to get into. We've got to go."

"Mom, you're doing sixty. The sign said thirty-five."

They were on a residential road heading for the highway. She didn't know how long before the police showed and Brezek learned that she'd gotten away under his nose. Her only hope was that he didn't notice which way she headed from campus. She cut her speed.

"What's wrong with Dad?"

"Chest pains."

Another lie, but their lives were infested with them.

"Where is he?"

"In the hospital."

"Memorial's the other way."

"Another hospital."

"There are no other hospitals this way. You're heading for the Interstate."

"Minneapolis."

"Minneapolis? That's a hundred miles from here."

"He was on business there."

And another, she told herself. But at the moment survival was all that mattered, not truth. That might come later when she heard from Roger. If it turned out to be a false alarm, they could stall a few more years.

If it was the Awful-Awful, her son's life as he knew it was over.

The meeting was set for two P.M. Wally was on the highway by noon and heading for their rendezvous.

He had awakened that morning a little before nine with Sheila beside him. The real measure of attraction was gauged by how you felt about that person in the morning-before the mouthwash, shower, and brush worked their wonders.

And she had looked beautiful asleep-the small perfectly straight nose, long feathery eyebrows, a ridge of tiny freckles across her nose, full pale lips, shiny brown hair pooled on the pillow like liquid chocolate. He wanted to kiss her awake and make love again. But he felt out of phase. Maybe it was all the champagne they had drunk. And the fact he had gotten only five hours sleep. They had made love four times until Sheila fell asleep from exhaustion.

Wally stepped into the bathroom. He felt lousy and looked it. The bloom was missing from his face. His eyes were glassy and red. Maybe the alcohol. Maybe he needed the stabilizing shot.

After a long shower, he felt a little better and made coffee and breakfast. By the time he drove Sheila home, the slump was back. But he took refuge in recollections of the night. And what a night it had been.

They had driven to his new pied-à-terre high on a bluff overlooking the Mississippi. He had moved in three weeks ago after the furniture arrived, including a king-size bed and an elegant entertainment unit that housed a state-of-the-art sound system. For the occasion he had on ice a bottle of Grand Dame Veuve Clicquot.

It had started on the white leather couch in the dim light of the living room overlooking the boats on the river, and rapidly proceeded to the bed in the next room, leaving a Hansel-and-Gretl trail of clothing.

He could still see her sitting on the bed with her legs up to her chin, waiting for him to select a CD from the rack. And while he did, all Wally could think was Thank you, God. Thank you, God.

Sheila had jokingly suggested Ravel's Bolero as in the movie 10. Wally didn't have that, thinking that there was a time when "Old Man River" would have been his speed.

"Will you settle for 'The Sabre Dance'?"

"My God, what am I in for?"

Sheila's musical laugh still chimed in his heart.

This was heaven, he had told himself, and he put on some vintage Sinatra which seemed about right. Sheila agreed.

And somewhere in the middle of "In the Wee Hours of the Morning," she put her arms around Wally's neck, and he knew he had found forever.

Around one-thirty, he pulled into the parking lot of the Black River Falls Best Western Motel on Route 94. As usual, he had made the reservation once Roger had called in the time.

As with all previous meetings, Wally phoned from the room to Roger's safe number and left a cryptic message signaling that he had arrived without notice. To kill time, he inspected himself in the bathroom mirror. He still looked like the image of himself from maybe twenty years ago, although tired, pale, and a little full-faced. Excessive consumption and debauchery, he told himself. The scourge of a Puritan God.

He lay on the bed and closed his eyes, thinking of Sheila Monks. Also Barbara Lopez, the new marketing manager at work, Cyetta McCormick, the condo agent who sold him his place, Julie Goodman, whom he had met at the Black Swan last month, and Barbara Fleishman, Todd's foxy English teacher.

All single, all available.

So many women, so much time.

At 1:50 the telephone rang. Paranoid that he was, Roger always called to check that all was well before arriving.

Wally answered, but there was nobody there. Just the sound of the open line, then a click and the dial tone.

An hour later, and Roger still had not shown, nor called. It was not like him to be late. They had met nine times over the last three months and he had always shown up at the agreed hour.

By four o'clock, Wally had grown anxious and was feeling worse. Roger was two hours overdue, and timing was critical.

Wally's mind raced over the possibilities. Maybe he had hit traffic-but on a Saturday? Or his car could have broken down. Or maybe there was an emergency in his family.

Or maybe he suspected a plot to trap him.

Then an even darker thought shot up: What if Roger had decided not to show? Sure, get him dependent on the stuff then abandon him when critical-a convenient way to eliminate the one person who knew his secret. But why? Did he suspect Wally would leak? Was he afraid he might tell Sheila or his son?

But Roger wouldn't do that. Not his old pal. Their bond was too special. Friends for life.

But, what if?

Wally was nearly breathless with panic when he heard a knock at the door. A rush of relief shot through him as he leapt off the bed and threw it open.

"What the hell…?"

Standing there were Agents Eric Brown and Mike Zazzaro. They walked in and closed the door, Zazzaro keeping his body against it.

"Who were you expecting?"

"Who said I was expecting anybody? And what the hell you doing following me?"

"Mr. Olafsson," Brown said, "we'd like you to come down to headquarters."

"What for?"

"We've located other photographs of someone we think is Christopher Bacon, and we'd like you to identify them."

"I thought we cleared that up weeks ago," he protested. "It was all a mistake. Ask him." He nodded at Zazzaro.

"I saw the tape, and frankly, we think it was Bacon you saw."

"I don't believe this."

"They're one and the same man, as you'd said," Zazzaro replied. "So we're asking that you come down to the office."

Things were backfiring horribly. Roger had probably picked up their tail. "You mean you're calling me a liar?"'

"We didn't say you were lying, but if you are you could be covering for him."

"Covering for him? That's bullshit." For good measure he added, "If you're so interested in who Roger Glover is, why don't you go ask him?"

Zazzaro flashed a look at Brown, and Brown took the question. "He's missing, and that's another thing we want to talk to you about."

Wally suddenly felt faint. "Missing?"

"So are his wife and son. I won't go into details, but they appear to be evading apprehension. We found that telling. We also found it telling that two days after you filed your original complaint you showed up to retract it."

Wally was nearly frantic. The clock radio read 4:22. The window was shrinking by the minute.

"We have fingerprint matches. They're the same man."

Roger was on the run, which meant he could be anywhere in a three-hundred-mile radius. JESUS CHRIST!

He had to get these guys out of here so he could call in a message. "Maybe the prints just look alike."

Brown sighed. "They're identical."

"But he's too young." It was all Wally could think to say.

"If you have knowingly been in contact with this Christopher Bacon, you'd be liable to charges of aiding and abetting a fugitive of a federal crime which if convicted is punishable by life in prison."

"Now I've heard enough." It was a last-ditch effort at righteous indignation. "This is pure bullshit. You have nothing on me. Even if it is the same guy, you can't threaten me with a federal indictment. I know my rights. You've got nothing on me. Nothing."

"So far we haven't."

"What the hell does that mean?"

"We're not threatening you. We're simply asking you to come down to answer some questions."

Wally felt himself heat up. "Do you have a warrant for my arrest?"

"No, but-"

"But nothing!" He shot to his feet. "Get out of here," he said and opened the door. He hoped that someplace out there Roger was keeping watch-that as soon as they were gone he'd appear.

But the agents did not move.

"Get out, goddamn it. You have no right to detain me. Get out."

And before he could stop himself he grabbed Zazzaro's arm and pushed him outside. When Brown tried to restrain him, Wally lost control. He swung at Brown, belting him on the side of the head. With a chop to the neck, Zazzaro brought Wally to his knees and slapped cuffs on him. "Now you have no choice, asshole."

Wally let out a cry of agony. "Please let me go. You don't understand."

They pulled him to his feet. "You can explain it to us at the office."

The FBI agency office was in Madison-three hours away.

They arrived around nine-thirty.

Because there was no holding cell on the premises, they had summoned a U.S. marshall's car to take Wally to the Madison County jail where he would officially be booked for assaulting a federal officer. As Brown explained, he would be held for the next two nights until sometime Monday when he would be taken to the courthouse for formal arraignment.

That could mean a minimum of forty hours before he'd be granted a bail release. Possibly days before he was free to see Roger again.

While he waited for the car to arrive, Brown said he could call his attorney. They uncuffed his hands to dial, while Brown remained in the room.

The wall clock said 10:20.

It was almost funny how the ironies piggybacked each other, he thought. Here he finally had a chance to leave a message at Roger's safe number, and it was on an FBI phone with an agent just ten feet away. Even if he left a cryptic code, the call would be traced with all their fancy technology, and wherever it was, authorities would swarm down on Roger like vultures on a zebra carcass.

Instead, Wally called his attorney, briefly explaining the situation, telling him to meet him in court tomorrow.

They drove him across town to the U.S. Marshall's office where he was uncuffed and locked in a single cell with a toilet bowl, sink, and bunk. He took to the bunk.

He let his mind drift to Todd. Would he ever see his son again?

He thought of Sheila. At long last he had emerged from the oppressive despair of the last years to discover love, happiness, and a state free of the universal condition of mortality, only to find himself cut at the knee on the very threshold of paradise.

It was funny.

He blanked his mind, trying to determine if he were entering any form of withdrawal. Except for the itchiness of the bedding and a headache, he felt nothing unusual. Nothing but fear wracking his bowels.

Fear which an hour later began to make him drowsy. His hope was that the judge would dismiss charges as a spontaneous misdemeanor and release him. Then he could contact Chris and arrange a quick rendezvous.

Chris/Roger. Where was he?

Evading apprehension.

He could be in Mexico by now.

The cell was quiet and sometime a little after midnight, still not registering any problems, he fell into a deep sleep.

He was awakened the next morning about seven by the guard delivering his breakfast. He still felt weak and only nibbled on the wedge of toast.

By midmorning, his arms and legs were beginning to ache. He also had developed a strange sensation in his head, like a migraine but in the frontal lobe.

By eleven, his skin began to itch even worse, as if he had come down with a case of the hives.

Sometime before noon, the guard came in to tell Wally that his lawyer, a Harry Stork, wanted to see him.

The name meant nothing to Wally. His lawyer's name was Michael Craig. But Wally said to show him in.

Wally waited on his cot with his head propped up on the pillow and stared through the bars while he scratched his arms and chest, his eyes fixed on the security camera over the barred door.

The sound of footsteps made his heart quicken. A moment later the guard unlocked the door. "Fifteen minutes," he said, and let in Harry Stork. It was Roger.

"It's about time," Wally protested. "I'm paying you bastards good money."

"You're not my only client who spends his weekends in a cellblock."

The guard left.

"Harry Stork?" Wally whispered.

"Don't ask."

"Christ, you have a name for every occasion."

"Something like that."

"What's happening to me?"

"You'll be okay," Roger whispered.

Although this was a low-security holding cell, they had a ceiling mounted security camera for suicide watch. And Roger felt it gawk at him.

The guard had frisked Roger thoroughly and checked his briefcase. But he had missed the syringe and vial of Elixir which were wrapped in gauze and wedged into his crotch under his underwear.

Somehow with his back turned Roger had to unzip his fly and reach into his pants and extract the packet without drawing attention. He tried not to imagine what his movements would look like from the rear, but if the guard were watching the monitor he would become suspicious.

"I feel like hell," Wally whispered. "Weak, blurry vision, itching all over."

"We'll get you back."

Roger pretended to converse softly while Wally lay on the cot with his head propped up. He looked jaundiced. His eyes were out of focus and glassy, and his mouth was white and dry. His fingers were trembling. He was in pain. But he had to hide it or they would call in a doctor. What he needed were the four cc's of what rested uncomfortably in Roger's pants. He had to be quick.

With his back to the camera and pretending to huddle, Roger undid his fly and slipped his hand into his pants. With a clean motion he pulled out the packet, and unfolded the contents. There was no time to swab Wally's arm and tap for his vein.

He pulled the cellophane wrapper off the syringe with his teeth and in one clean motion, stabbed the needle into the septum, sucking out all 4 ccs of fluid.

Somebody shouted something, and Roger froze. Sudden commotion from down the corridor.

Shouting and the sound of feet. The guard. Jesus! He had been watching the whole time.

"What the hell you think you're doing?"

The guard was at the door, fumbling with his keys. Roger glanced to see the man throw open the door and charge at him with his baton raised.

"What the hell you doing? What've you got there? You guys shooting dope?"

But Roger didn't stop. He dove at Wally to plunge the needle into him, hoping to hit flesh and not end up on a rib or collarbone before the baton came down on his skull.

But that never happened. The guard caught his arm and slammed him into the wall. The syringe flew out of Roger's hand.

Then Roger felt the baton smack the back of his knees, instantly folding him. Then a vicious blow across his shoulders that pancaked Roger to the floor.

A moment later he heard a sickening crunch as the guard's foot came down onto the needle. It was the only needle he had.

Wally let out with a cry-the kind of sound an animal makes when it's been treed for the kill.

The guard pulled Roger up by the shirt. His pants were wet from the puddle of Elixir on the floor.

As the guard went for his cuffs, Roger chopped him on the windpipe. Instantly he fell backward and landed on the toilet bowl, gasping for air.

The cell door was still open. Roger looked at Wally and held open his hands to say there was nothing he could do. He had the emergency supply around his neck but no way of getting it into Wally's bloodstream.

The expression on Wally's face said that he understood. "You tried," he whispered. Then he noticed the guard catching his breath. "Go! Go!"

Roger had only a moment before the guard was on his feet and calling for help. It sickened him to the core to leave Wally but he was in no condition to run.

The guard stumbled to his feet when Wally reached for the keys and tossed them to Roger who bolted through the door, locking it behind him.

Before he dashed out, Roger gave Wally a last look. "Sorry."

Wally shrugged weakly. "All rock and roll while it lasted."

The guard reached for a remote control switch on his belt. Before he could trigger it, Wally rolled off the cot full-body onto him.

By the time the alarm went off, Roger was out the front door and into his car, feeling as if his heart would break.

They moved Wally to another cell in the basement of the building. He did not let on how bad he felt. Even if they brought him to a hospital, they could do nothing for him. The antidote for his condition lay in a dried up puddle on the floor upstairs.

He slept most of the afternoon. At suppertime a different guard brought him a tray of food. He didn't touch it. When the guard asked if he was feeling okay, Wally nodded that he was fine, just tired. The guard asked if he wanted to call anybody-his lawyer, friends, wife-but Wally grunted no. He just wanted to be left alone to sleep.

In a semi-dozing dream state, he imagined Roger had returned, this time disguised as a guard and quietly giving him his stabilizing shot. So convincing was the dream that he fell into a deep peaceful sleep. And for several hours, nobody again disturbed him. Sometime the next morning, which was Monday, he would be taken to the Madison courthouse for arraignment. Then he would be released on bail.

A little after midnight, Wally shook himself awake from an awful dream of being eaten alive by lice. He woke up clawing his face and ears. He pushed himself up. His whole head felt inflamed and swollen including his eyelids, which were so thick he could barely open them. And when he did, his vision was fragmented, as if looking through cracked lenses.

Worse, his ears were filled with a high-pitched tinnitis that over the minutes became louder, as if somebody were turning up the audio.

Soon the sound was unbearable, condensing into hot filaments of pain shooting through his brain; yet he could not stop it with his fingers. It was coming from inside his skull-as if a million insects were filling his head with mad music.

What's happening to me?

He heard himself yell, but it seemed to come from somebody else.

In his mind he floated high above the cell. He banged his head so hard against the ceiling that he was sure his skull was crushed. But it wasn't, nor did the cluttering stop. Nor did he pass out as hoped.

He dropped to the floor screaming. Blood trickled over his brows and into his eyes from where the skin split. He rolled around the floor as a strange hot pain twisted the muscles and tendons of his limbs, throbbing in agony as if turned on a rack. Voices yelled at him.

"Cut the fucking noise."

"The sumbitch woke me up."

"Somebody shut him the fuck up."

His brain was a noisy animal thing that couldn't hold awareness. He'd focus on a thought, and suddenly it was gone as if holes were opening up in his brain like bubbles in cheese.

Help me.

For an instant, he was in his dorm suite at Pennypacker, playing bridge and drinking a Haffenreffer because it was the cheapest stuff at the package store, and when you're low on cash a good beer is whatever you can afford. And the Beatles were singing "When I'm Sixty-four," and Wendy and Chris were dancing naked, and Sheila was sitting on his lap kissing his new hair.

Somebody opened the window, and hot yellow pus poured over the sill.

His mind screamed, Help me. Chris gotta help me.

Lungs filled with wet air. He was having trouble breathing, flushing out the sacs. As if the old tissue had lost its suppleness.

Drown. You 're going to drown.

He rolled to his side and spit up stringy fluid. His lungs were filling up. He couldn't get air.

More yelling.

Then hands were on him. Turning him. Wiping his forehead.

"It's only superficial. Put a Band-Aid on it."

"Chris? That you?"

"What he say?"

"He wants to know if you're Christ."

"Yeah, J. Christ himself at your service."

"We get a screamer once a month, which is why we got this."

Somebody pulled his arm and pushed up his sleeve.

"His buddy came in yesterday and tried to shoot him up. Bopped Clint in the throat, and this one held him down while needle man got away. Want a little fix?" he asked Wally. "Well, here you go."

Wally could barely feel the prick of the needle.

Thank you, Chris… Roger.

He heard his mouth mumble something.

"What he say?"

"Thislicksa?"

"He wants to know if you lick it."

"Yeah, lick this, pal."

Jab.

"A lick sir?"

"Yeah, a lick, sir, and a promise, buddy boy. Now go to sleep."

"Frensfalife."

"Yeah, friends for life. You'll feel better in the morning."

Monday morning came six hours later.

Outside a cold sun rose over the horizon and sent shafts of light through the window of the guard's office.

The Monday day deputy was Lenny Novak. On the docket filled out by Clint Marino, a weekend night guard, was the name of the men being held. In cell number four was one Walter P. Olafsson, age fifty-seven, brought in two nights ago for assaulting a federal officer. He was to be taken to the courthouse in the center of town by 9:30 where he would be arraigned.

Every morning Lenny would slip in a breakfast tray. He was a new guy who made an effort to say good morning to the inmates. At cell three, he said, "How you doing this morning, Tom?"

Tom shuffled to the tray slot. "Be doing a lot better if that asshole didn't keep me awake half the night." He nodded to the cell on the other side of his wall.

"Happens sometimes. The walls close in, and they flip out."

Lenny pushed the cart down to the next cell. "Hey, Mr. Olafsson, breakfast." And Lenny pushed the tray into the transfer slot.

No response.

"Time to get up. I'm taking you to courthouse at nine."

Nothing.

Lenny called again. Still no response. Not even a stir. It must have been the sedative they'd given him.

He checked his watch. It was 7:38. He had to be fed and ready to go in little over an hour.

"Hey, pal. Rise and shine."

Nothing.

Because Olafsson was sleeping on his side against the wall, Lenny could not see his face.

He took out his keys and unlocked the door, automatically dropping his hand onto the handle of his baton. It was an unnecessary precaution in this case, because the guy was probably still dopey from the shot. Lenny put his hand on the man's shoulder and shook it. "Come on, guy, time to get up."

Still the man did not stir.

What hit Lenny first was the odor. A sweet sick smell of dead meat. An instant later it registered that Lenny had felt no heat from the man's body.

In one smooth movement he tore off the blanket and pulled the man onto his back.

The man was dead, all right. Lenny's first thought was that he had the wrong prisoner. The docket said the man was supposed to be Caucasian. But this guy was black.

He flicked on his pocket flash. "Jesus Christ!" Gooseflesh spasmed across his scalp.

The man's head did not look human. It was twice the size of normal and covered with dark red lesions. The eyes were swollen balls. His nose looked like a huge deformed black potato covered with lichens. One exposed ear had doubled in size-a fat ragged leaf with dark liquid running out of the canal.

What nearly stopped Lenny's heart was the realization that those scaly lesions were moving. No trick of the light-the skin on the man's face-if you could call it skin-was actually rippling as wet new growths continued to bud off from the man's flesh like some alien organism.

The next moment, Lenny was bounding down the hall for the phone, concentrating all his might to hold down the scream pressing up his throat.

29

Laura tried to conceal her panic so Brett wouldn't think Roger's condition was critical. Yet she did a feeble job of it.

When he turned on the radio, she snapped it off, fearful there would be a police report on their escape. Brett protested, saying he would keep it low, but she refused. When he asked what the problem was, she exploded. "'No' means NO! I don't want to listen to the damn radio, okay?"

A moment later she apologized. He had never seen her so anxious.

"Mom, tell me the truth. Is Dad going to die?"

She looked at him. His gorgeous tawny eyes were so wide with fright that she nearly burst into tears. So damn unfair. "No, honey, he's going to be fine. It's probably just muscle spasms. They're doing tests."

It was the best she could do. To elaborate would thicken the lie and make her feel worse. Her objective was simply to minimize his fear.

He didn't respond, and she wasn't convinced he believed her.

Someplace near Hudson on Route 94, she pulled into a gas station to fill up. Before the attendant stepped out, she stuffed a twenty into Brett's hand and dashed into the restroom.

Inside she dialed Roger. The sound of his voice filled her with relief.

He was just approaching Black River Falls. She told him how she had picked Brett up and the excuse she used to get him out of the game. He listened, then trying to sound calm, he told her that it was the feds and he had gotten away in his safe car.

When they clicked off, she threw up into the toilet. The Awful-Awful had begun.

"Whose house is this?"

"A friend of Dad's."

"What friend?"

"Nobody you know. One of our growers. He uses it for business associates when they're in town."

Brett seemed to buy the answer. Laura thought grimly how good she was getting at deceiving her son. She could now do it by reflex.

But there was no way she could tell him that it was their place or he'd want to know why they never mentioned it or brought him before. She also couldn't pass it off as a rental or he'd wonder why Roger didn't save money and get a hotel room. They had always treated Brett with respect, so he trusted that they held few secrets and never dissembled. He accepted her explanation without question.

When eventually he learned that the last thirteen years had been a grand lie, she wondered if he'd ever trust them again.

She also wondered how long she could maintain the illusion before cracking up.

The condo was located on the west end of Minneapolis-a five-room place in a large, anonymous complex occupied by young business couples. They had selected it because its residency included few retirees who might be around all day to keep tabs on them.

"Why can't we see Dad?"

An expected question, and she was ready. "Visiting hours aren't until tomorrow."

"Aren't you going to call the hospital at least?"

He was still in his baseball outfit. She looked at her watch. "In a few minutes. Why don't you take a shower and I'll get dinner ready, okay?" Reluctantly Brett agreed.

She waited until he was in the bathroom and the water was running to call Roger again. He was still in his car but now on his way to Madison. But the news was bad.

Through field glasses he had watched federal agents escort Wally from the motel to a waiting car. Either he had put up resistance or the Feds had dug up incriminating evidence. Whatever, he was in custody and probably on his way to be booked and jailed until arraignment next week.

Laura groaned. "What are we going to do?"

"Hold tight."

"Hold tight? Brett's worried sick you're in a hospital bed."

"I'll be back tomorrow."

"What are you going to do?"

"I want to see where they're taking him. He needs his next shot."

"And what do I tell Brett?"

"That I'm okay and will be home tomorrow."

"He's scared."

"Let me talk to him then."

"I hate this."

"Me too. Put him on."

She tapped the bathroom door then handed Brett the phone. "It's Dad, but you'll have to make it short."

A few minutes later Brett handed her the phone back. "He sounds pretty good," and went back to showering.

Laura closed the bathroom door. Another lie well done.

When Brett was out of the shower and dressed, he looked around the rooms. The place lacked any personal character reflecting real inhabitants. It was furnished with generic sofas, chairs, and tables sitting on beige wall-to-wall carpet and displayed reprint art on the walls. It could have been Motel 6, but it was the best they could afford. The bureaus and closets contained a few items of clothing, some with tags still on them.

While Brett explored the place, Laura put together some dinner. She felt better since Roger had eased Brett's mind. But she wished he were here because being so far made her feel all the more vulnerable.

Was this how they would be living again-in hiding? And how were they to explain that to Brett? He had finals next week and was to graduate middle school in three, then go to overnight camp in the Dells with Brian. How could they tell him that all that was over? That he would never see his friends or go home again? That his parents were not who he thought they were?

Roger's attitude was that they would manage. He had withdrawn $65,000 cash the day he first spotted the tail just in case. They had more money buried with the other half of the Elixir supply. They could move to places far from urban centers. It meant sacrifices-changing their names again, buying more IDs, home schooling, and disguises. But Brett was young enough to adjust.

"Chris, we're not the Unabomber family," she had said.

"The alternative is life imprisonment for us and foster homes for Brett. Which would you prefer?"

She was halfway through cooking the pasta when Brett appeared at the kitchen doorway.

"Feel better?" she said looking up.

He was still in his uniform because it was the only outfit he had. But his hair was wet from the shower and his face was shiny.

He held a book in his hand. "Is this you?"

Laura nearly fainted on the spot.

If I Should Die.

The copy Jenny had given her years ago. She had forgotten it was on a shelf in the other room. Brett was staring at the black and white dustjacket photo.

Of all the nightmares Laura had lived with, this was the one she had dreaded the most. They had thought about making up a story about Roger stumbling upon a bank robbery one day, and how because he had seen the face of the man who killed a teller, they had entered a witness-protection program and taken on new identities. Brett's eyes shifted form the photo of Wendy Bacon to Laura, reading the author's bio on the inside. She knew she could not mouth another lie. "Yes, it's me."

Confusion clouded Brett's eyes. "But it says Wendy Bacon."

Laura felt the press of tears but tortured her face into a smile. "Well, honey, that was the name I used back then."

"Back when? When did you write it?"

She took a deep breath and put her arm on his shoulder. This was not how she wanted to break it to him. "A long time ago."

"It says, 'Ms. Bacon makes her home with her husband and son in Carleton, Massachusetts.'" He looked up at her for an explanation.

"That's where we used to live."

"But you said I was born in Kansas."

"We moved."

Brett glanced back at the photograph. "But you look so different. Your hair…" The look in his face was utter bafflement. "The license plate said Massachusetts in Dad's picture I gave you."

"Why don't we sit down inside and I'll explain."

She walked him into the living room. Brett did not take a seat, but stood facing her with the dustjacket photograph of a brunette Wendy Bacon beaming out into the world from a simpler time.

Laura cupped his face in her hands. "Honey, I first want to say that we love you very much, and that it was because we love you-"

"Mom, cut the crap!" He dropped the book on the table. He looked scared. "It's Dad. He's dying, or something."

"No, that's not it. We're both perfectly fine. You just talked with him. He'll be here tomorrow. Believe me."

"I thought he was in the hospital." There was a frantic look in his eyes. "Where is he?"

She took a deep breath. "Madison."

"You lied."

"Honey, you asked about the book-"

"I don't care about the dumb book. What are we doing here? What the hell is going on? Where's Dad?"

"I'm telling you Dad's in Madison. And he's not in a hospital. I swear to it."

Brett wiped his eyes. He didn't have a clue.

It was obscene. This is the worst moment of my life, she told herself.

"Honey, there are some things we've not told you, so I wish you'd sit down-"

"I not going to friggin' sit down!"

"Okay," she said trying to find a center. "I'm going to start from the beginning, and everything I'm going to tell you is the truth, I swear to God. I swear on my life."

He looked scared.

God, give me strength.

"Long before you were born, we used to live in Massachusetts where Dad had a job as a biologist. About twenty years ago, he went to Papua New Guinea where he discovered a very rare flower that…"

And she told him the story.

At first, Brett didn't believe her, thinking it was some roundabout tale to say how Roger had picked up an exotic disease that was killing him. When it was clear that she was not making it up, he sat in stunned bewilderment.

"But Dad's hair is turning white."

"Because he uses makeup."

"No, he doesn't," he protested angrily.

"Brett, I know how scary this all sounds, but he's perfectly healthy. Elixir keeps him from aging. The only problem is that there were some bad people who wanted to get hold of it and sell it illegally-people who blew up that airplane so we would be killed; but because we weren't on it, they blamed it on us."

Brett's eyes filled up. "What's my real name?"

"Brett's your real name."

"But you said I was born before you took off and got new IDs. When you lived in Massachusetts." His voice was trembling.

"We had named you Adam, but after seven or eight months we… you were… Brett." She just couldn't tell him that Brett was the name off some dead boy's Social Security card.

"Adam what? What's my whole name?" he demanded.

Laura summoned every last bit of strength to keep from breaking down. "Adam Bacon."

"What?"

"Adam Bacon."

"Adam Bacon?" He spoke his birth name for the first time in his life.

"But that was only while you were a baby."

"I'm adopted. That's what this is all about. You adopted me and my real parents want me back."

"No, no, that's not it."

"Yes, it is. That's why I'm short."

She felt the absurd impulse to laugh. "Brett, honey, I've told you the God's honest truth. You're our son. I gave birth to you. Please believe me. You can see your resemblance in Dad, the shape of your face, your eyes and features… and you're not short."

Brett looked as if he were suddenly trapped in a whirlpool and grasping for low-hanging branches. "How old am I? For real," he shouted. "How old am I?"

"You're fourteen. You'll be fifteen in November. You were born in-"

"That's not me in the photograph I gave you, is it?"

"No… it was your brother who died before you were born. His name was Ricky."

"I knew that wasn't me, but you said it was. You lied. You lied!"

Before she could explain, he jumped to his feet and cried out, "I don't believe this." His face was flushed and beginning to crumble.

"I know how hard it is coming at you all at once-"

He turned toward her, his face wild. "Dad's a freak," he cried. "He's a freak. He can't grow old like everybody else. He's a freak, and you're criminals."

Laura came toward him with arms, but he recoiled. "Don't friggin' touch me!" he screamed. "I don't even know who you are."

"I'm your mother. I've always been your mother."

Frantically he looked around the room again as if for the first time. "We're going to be put in prison. Dad's probably already in prison."

"You just talked with him. He'll be here tomorrow."

Then Brett snapped his head toward her again looking at her as if she were alien. "How old are you? The truth! How old?"

She knew this would scare him even more than Roger's condition-that his mother was suddenly fifteen years older than he had believed. "Fifty-five. For real."

She barely got the words out when he dashed into his room. The door slammed like a gunshot through her heart.

Inside she heard the muffled sounds of him crying into the pillow.

Roger returned late the next night in sleeting rain. For the last week, unseasonably cold air had poured down from Canada and turned spring into winter.

After leaving Madison, he had driven to a wooded area and waited until nightfall for his drive to Minneapolis.

For most of that day Brett had stayed in his room, sleeping on and off, refusing to interact with Laura. He was in bed when Roger arrived.

The look on Roger's face made Laura shudder.

"Wally's in jail," he said. He knew that she could not care less about Wally at the moment. He was somebody from thirty years ago. He was somebody associated with Elixir.

But she bit down on all that. "Is there anything you can do?"

"I tried." And he told her.

"You could have been killed."

"I couldn't leave him."

"What does that mean?"

"It means he's going to die if he already hasn't."

"Oh, God. Can't something be done?"

"No."

"But he's your friend. You got him into this. You got him on the stuff, now he's dead or dying."

"Look, I feel shitty enough about this. I did what I could. And don't talk to me like I'm some dope peddler."

She walked to the window. A hard white moon sat in the eastern sky setting the last of the storm clouds in motion. "I'm sorry," she said. "I'm just scared."

"So am I."

"What do we do?"

"Nothing." It wasn't a good answer, but for the time being the condo was as safe as anywhere. Until that changed, they could hole up for a couple weeks, with Brett doing the food shopping and running errands. It was their faces that would be all over the media, not his. "How much did you tell him?"

"Everything."

He nodded. "I suppose it's best."

Silence filled the room.

"Roger, I want us to turn ourselves in. I told you that I would not go on the run again. I will not put him through this."

"Would you prefer Brett grow up with his parents on death row?"

"You don't know that. We might get off. Even so, Brett can live with Jenny."

"Jenny isn't emotionally stable enough to handle another teenage kid."

"She is his aunt, after all. And it's better than moving from place to place in the middle of the night. Think of him."

"I am thinking of him." Once the media got hold of this, the same people who bombed the plane could get back on their trail. People more interested in Elixir than justice-people who could use Brett to get to it. "We stay here for a week or two, then move out."

"No, we're going to find a lawyer."

"And put our fate in the hands of the judicial system?"

"It's better than what we've managed on our own. We're innocent, and we just need to find the right people to believe us."

"We can't prove a negative."

"Their job isn't to prove Quentin and his people are guilty. It's to make a case that we're innocent. And they have no evidence that links us to explosives."

"For thirteen years we've fled prosecution, stolen property, forged credentials, and violated every mail-fraud law on the books."

"They can't execute us for that."

"No, but they could give us life in prison. Wouldn't that be the ultimate irony?"

"If you don't do this I will."

He looked out into the black and thought about it. "It could mean a witness protection program-new names, new locale, new identities."

"What else is new? But at least we won't jump at every cop car."

"That's if we could make a case."

"We have no other choice. He's not growing up undercover."

She was right: Brett needed his parents, but more than that he needed the semblance of a normal life.

"And what about the stuff?"

She looked at him in dismay. "I don't care about it. Take what you need and dump the rest."

"I meant the scientific benefits."

"There are no scientific benefits!"

He said nothing.

"We have to get out of here," she said. "Even if nobody noticed, I'd go nuts cooped up like this."

"For a few days till things cool down. Then we move out and find some good lawyers."

"And what do we do for a place to stay?"

"There's always Aunt Jenny's, after all."

30

"I don't know how he died. I've never seen anything like it before. It was like hypertrophic melanoma accelerated a hundred times."

"In English," Eric Brown said.

"Skin cancer gone wild." Ben Friedman was Madison's chief medical examiner. "There was squamous cell carcinoma all over his body and tumors in his stomach and intestines. It was like he exploded in cancer."

"The guard said his head didn't look human, that it was twice the size and covered with growths."

Friedman shook his head in total bafflement. "I don't get it either," he said. "My best guess is a speeded-up form of Werner's syndrome."

"What's that?"

"A chromosomal defect that causes people to age abnormally fast and die before they reach forty. Except this guy appeared to have aged literally overnight."

"You're saying that's impossible."

"I'm saying that whatever happened to him has to my knowledge never occurred before. Besides the wildfire cancer, his body was riddled with diseases associated with advanced aging-arteriosclerosis, malignant neoplasms, osteoporosis, cataracts, liver and kidney morbidity. If I didn't know better, I'd say the man was in his ninth or tenth decade of life."

Brown had laid out the fingerprint matches of Wally Olafsson taken when he was booked the other day and after he died. "It's the same man, birthdate February 13, 1943."

"That's the impossible part," Friedman continued. "Because that would mean that in a matter of hours his body experienced a total and cataclysmic decline. Just how beats the hell out of me."

"What about one of those cell-eating bacteria?"

"Negative. Besides, no known bacteria is that virulent."

"How about some unknown bacteria?"

"Bacteria doesn't work that way." He glanced at a photo of the dead man's head. "This guy died from some monstrous genetic catastrophe."

Ben Friedman's bewilderment sent a cold spike through Brown. He was an unflappable professional who in three decades had seen every grisly form of human death. He was a man who was beyond shock. And now he was at a total loss.

But medical anomalies were not Brown's charge. "Any evidence he had been in contact with Glover?"

"We questioned his colleagues, ex-wife, and girlfriend. Nobody ever heard of Roger Glover," Zazzaro said.

According to the Glovers' neighbors, they were nice normal people. They had a son, Brett, a terrific kid. They owned a flower shop. Nothing unusual. No known relatives. And no friend named Wally Olafsson.

"And they disappeared into thin air."

But the fact that Glover had led them down an alley to a getaway car was a well-thought out emergency plan. The bastard was clever, Brown thought.

"I don't know how Olafsson died or if it has anything to do with Roger Glover," Zazzaro said, "but the son-of-a-bitch knew we were after him. He knew we had connected him to Eastern 219. Why else the chase? You don't set up an elaborate escape just to shake tailgaters."

"I want a cross-reference to anything connecting Glover, Bacon, Olafsson, the wife and kids," Brown said. "Keywords, names of places, people, birthdates, anything."

Zazzaro nodded. "We checked the house. Looked like they left at a moment's notice. Closets were full of clothes. Toothbrushes still in the rack in the bathroom. Books in the kid's backpack. Empty suitcases in the cellar. He must have spotted the tail and called his wife."

That was Brown's guess too. The Pierson baseball coach had said she appeared anxious to pull the kid out of the game. Something about her husband at the hospital. They checked and, of course, no area hospitals had a listing for either a Roger Glover or Christopher Bacon. "Anything connecting them to the Bacons?"

"Not yet, but we're still going through letters, old bills, stuff like that. But we found this." From an evidence bag Zazzaro held up a pouch. "Hair coloring-blond for the wife, black for him. What's interesting is, the small jar is theatrical makeup paint. White. For his beard and sideburns."

"Why make himself look older? With a thirteen-year warrant on my head, I'd go the other way, like the wife."

"You'd think," Zazzaro said. "What also doesn't make sense is that the black hair dye and white paint were stored in a box on the back shelf of his closet, but the Clairol was on a shelf in the bath. Like he was hiding the fact he colored his hair."

"Women can spot these things in the dark."

"I mean from the kid."

"It doesn't make sense," Zazzaro said.

According to files, Christopher Bacon was fifty-six years old. And in his shop Glover told Zazzaro that he was born in 1962 which would make him thirty-eight. Why, wondered Brown, would a fifty-six-year-old man posing as a thirty-eight-year-old need aging makeup? Mike was right: None of it made sense.

"How old does the wife claim she is?" Brown asked.

"Thirty-eight."

Brown checked the shots he had taken of her at the Town Day Race. She could pass for thirty-eight, although in a couple closeups she looked older. He slid one to Friedman. "How old would you say she is?"

The phone rang and Zazzaro took it while the others talked.

Friedman studied the photo for a moment. "Mid-forties."

"How about thirty-eight?"

"Possibly, though time's not been generous with her." He studied the other photos. With a pencil he pointed things out. "Look at her neck here. The skin shows creases and folds of an older woman. I'm not saying she is, but it's one giveaway. That's why women with facelifts wear scarves. You can stretch a seventy-year old face like Saran Wrap, but it'll be sitting on two inches of chicken skin."

Zazzaro jotted something down then hung up. "We got a background ID," he said. "Roger and Brett Glover of Wichita, Kansas died in a car accident in 1958. Laura Gendron Glover, age twelve, died ten years later. Three bogies."

"Big goddamn surprise," Brown said.

Friedman picked up the photographs of Roger Glover and Christopher Bacon and studied them. "And this is the same guy?"

"We got a print match."

Friedman held them side by side in the window light. "I see the resemblance. But if it's the same guy, how come this Roger Glover looks younger than Christopher Bacon?"

"I don't know how come," Brown snapped. "And I don't give a damn. But I want these photos printed and flashed everywhere in the universe. We're going to get this son-of-a-bitch no matter what."

31

At the bottom of the front page of The Boston Globe was a photograph of Roger Glover made from the video shot by the late Walter Olafsson. It was in color and slightly fuzzy, though recognizable. Beside it sat the familiar 1988 media photograph of Christopher Bacon. The caption read: "Same man? FBI claims that Roger Glover of Eau Claire, WI, is Christopher Bacon, a 'most-wanted' fugitive who allegedly blew up Eastern flight 219 in 1988."

On an inside page where the story continued was an additional photograph of Glover doctored by FBI artists to resemble the original of Christopher Bacon. The hair had been electronically cut and lightened and the beard removed. The men looked identical.

An all-points bulletin had been issued in the mid-western states for Glover, who was believed to be armed and dangerous.

The morning television led with the same story. The comment raised most was how Roger Glover appeared younger than when he was Christopher Bacon nearly fifteen years ago. The consensus was that Bacon had undergone facial surgery.

But Quentin Cross knew otherwise.

Sitting in the president's office of Darby Pharmaceuticals, Inc., he felt the old billion-dollar fantasies quicken his heart again.

Even after all these years, the company had not fully recovered from Bacon's sudden disappearance. For five of those years Quentin had gone into great personal debt paying off Antoine and Consortium investors. Even more capital was lost trying to duplicate Elixir from memory.

By 1991, he had given up trying to locate Bacon, assuming he had moved to a foreign country or died. He had also abandoned all attempts to reproduce the compound.

Until that morning.

The news was like a transfusion.

Besides all the financial promise, Quentin at fifty-one was feeling the ever-sharpening tooth of time. And Christopher Bacon had defied time.

But locating him would be impossible on his own. Especially with an army of Feds after him.

Quentin got up and walked around his suite. It had been years since he had thought about Antoine Ducharme. The last he knew, the man owned a string of health clubs and other legitimate businesses. He probably still trafficked in narcotics, and had an assumed identity. Quentin had no idea where he was or what name he went by or if his real name was even Antoine Ducharme. The man lived a layered existence.

But Quentin did have an old telephone number. It had probably been changed long ago. His heart racing, he dialed.

Remarkably, he heard Vince Lucas's voice. "Your old buddy's been spotted," he said right off.

"That's why I'm calling."

"You on-line?"

He was concerned about phone taps.

"Yes."

"Good, turn it on, I'll find you."

Quentin went on-line. In a matter of minutes Vince sent him an e-mail. What do you have in mind?

Quentin wrote back: I think we should resume our former plan.

Sounds good. A's already got people working on it. We'll keep you posted.

Quentin was amazed. They didn't miss a beat. A. Antoine. Still in power. Still in command. And he had come to the same conclusion about Bacon's condition.

Quentin tapped the keys: He'll need to be tested. Call.

A few minutes later Vince called from a cell phone. "What's this 'tested' stuff?"

"If his system has stabilized, we'll need to know his body chemistry, the dosages, side effects, stuff like that."

"You mean, you want him alive?"

"Yes! Absolutely. Nothing must happen to him or his wife if she's on it too."

They had to understand that this went beyond making the stuff for high-rolling clients. It was a quest for godhead. Christopher Bacon was the most valuable specimen in the universe. Once found, they'd strip him down to his atoms.

President John Markarian remembered the bombing of Eastern 219, but knew nothing about Elixir.

Before departing for a speech in San Diego, aides had dredged up memos from the Reagan White House and spoken to members of that administration intimate with the efforts to locate Christopher Bacon.

As he listened to a summary of the report, his thoughts were not on the efforts to solve the first case of domestic sabotage in recent times, but the implications of the serum.

"Do people really think he had something?" he asked an aide, Tim Reed.

"Apparently Mr. Reagan did." Reed handed the president a report of the meeting between Ross Darby and Reagan.

The language was not very technical, but detailed enough to convince Reagan that Bacon had manipulated the DNA sequences to stop the cellular clock.

When he was finished, the president was shown that morning's Washington Post with the side-by-side wire photos.

"It's the same guy," he said.

"Which would you say looks younger, sir?"

"Except for the white hairs, the guy with the beard."

The aide nodded. "That was taken four months ago, the other in 1985."

"No retouching?"

"None."

"Is Darby still with us?"

"No, sir. Coincidentally, he died in his sleep of cardiac arrest a few days following his visit."

"What are we doing to find Glover?"

"Everything possible."

"And alive and unharmed."

"We'll try."

While the Republic rolled by thirty-seven thousand feet below, the president's mind considered the same implications that had fascinated Ronald Reagan. Given recent medical advances, the populace was growing older. The downside was the ballooning of the age-related diseases. He envisioned a great graying future of Baby Boomers on walkers and in wheelchairs, collecting social security and Medicare checks that totaled in the trillions.

Already, more than half of federal spending-beyond defense and the interest in the national debt-went to pensioners in some form. In ten years when the last of the boomers had retired, more than half of the next generation's taxable income would be used to pay the costs. By 2020, the nation would go bankrupt. It was a crisis too monstrous to resolve for any administration.

However, Markarian speculated, if this Elixir actually prolonged life for a decade or two, it could solve the Social Security crisis and save the nation. If people lived longer, they would work well beyond sixty-five, which would mean a phenomenal reduction in health care as well as a greater tax base.

Of course, the Reagan report mentioned mice living six times their lifespan. Nothing about humans. So his speculations were demographic fantasies.

Yet his mind kept coming back to how much younger Roger Glover looked today than fifteen years earlier. Was it possible the guy had tried it on himself? Sounded like something right out of some sci-fi tale.

But it got him thinking about hereditary averages, averages that suggested John Markarian had about ten years left. Were he to serve a second term, that would leave him three wee years to write an autobiography, work on his golf game, and spend time with his grandchildren.

As he stared out the window into endless blue skies, all he kept thinking about was "biological retrogression" and how he wanted to see this Christopher Bacon/Roger Glover guy up close and personal.

The large white jet touched down a little after one in warm California sunshine. The president and his entourage were picked up on the tarmac.

When he was settled into the limo, Tim Reed slipped beside him to say that CNN and had just announced that an unnamed former employee from Darby Pharmaceuticals was spreading rumors that Christopher Bacon had discovered some kind of "fountain-of-youth" drug.

"Great! Now everybody and his cousin will be gunning for him."

"We can squelch it."

"You can try like hell, but it'll be like getting toothpaste back into the tube. What I want is to bring this Roger Bacon guy in."

"Glover. Roger Glover."

"Whatever. But get him. It's like having Jesus on the loose."

By the time he reached his suite atop El Coronado, the television was blaring nonstop reports of the anti-aging drug.

By early evening, the networks were airing testimonies from unidentified former employees of Darby about animals living far beyond their lifespan, even rejuvenating.

Countering the rumors were biologists who claimed that prolongevity breakthroughs were highly unlikely. Such advances were decades away, unless, of course, Bacon and his group had made some truly miraculous discoveries. Even then, the scientific world would have known about it. Great discoveries don't happen in a bell jar.

One geneticist said he wished he knew what the compound was. "We've known about the telomerase enzyme for years. But if what you're saying is true, then he's found the silver bullet."

Another researcher declared that such a discovery would be the greatest in human history.

One religious leader went so far as to claim that Elixir would make possible a new order of human existence-something akin to the angels.

But others took a darker view. A spokesman of the Witnesses of the Holy Apocalypse, a fortyish-year-old man identified as Reverend Colonel Lamar Fisk, proclaimed that if Elixir could prolong life indefinitely, it would be a sign that Judgment had arrived, closing the long cycle that began with the Fall and to end with the Savior's return. When asked what that meant in human terms, Fisk happily proclaimed that the world would end in conflagration.

"This would not be a war between Arabs and Jews, Serbs and Muslims, black and whites," he said to the camera. "But a war between those who live forever and those who die. This is the handiwork of the Antichrist himself."

Then he lapsed into passages from Revelations: "'Woe unto the inhabitants of the earth for the devil is come to deceive you with false miracles…' Only through Jesus Christ the Lord shall men live forever."

Markarian hit the mute button on the remote. "Didn't take them long to plug in the old equations," he said to Reed. "They yapped the same lines when Galileo discovered sunspots and Morse invented the telegraph."

"Except he's no harmless Luddite. His sermons are heard on a hundred different stations."

"Where did the 'Colonel' come from?"

"Desert Storm."

The scene shifted from Lamar Fisk to public opinion polls. According to the announcer, a survey conducted that afternoon showed 79 percent of those questioned would take the Elixir were it safe; 14 percent said they wouldn't; the remaining 7 percent had no opinion.

In another poll, only 9 percent said there was no government coverup, while a whopping 81 percent said they believed the government was not telling the truth.

One man even speculated that the original project was intended to grant prolonged life only to "the chosen." It reminded him of Dr. Strangelove where only top government officials, military brass, and scientists were allowed into bomb-proof shelters. "The public be damned."

Somebody else complained about how the government always kept secret "the really good stuff" like Roswell, New Mexico, and Area 51.

Markarian shook his head. "This makes one yearn for Oliver Stone."

"When asked again today about a government coverup, the president flatly denied the claims, saying that the media is to blame for the wild rumors. 'Democracy survives on honesty, not deceit,' the president said."

The scene switched to a reporter in Lexington, Massachusetts, trying to get a statement from Quentin Cross, president of Darby, on way to his car.

Cross acknowledged that Christopher Bacon was a former employee wanted for murder but that there was no substance to the Elixir rumors. "It's all nonsense. We never had any fountain-of-youth drug." And he got into his car and drove off.

"Get somebody on this guy," Markarian said.

"We already did. He knows nothing."

Antoine Ducharme checked his watch.

He knew it was around six-thirty because the news was on and the sun was slanting on the sea. He also had a finely tuned internal clock that was always within a few minutes of the actual time.

He lay down the mystery he was reading. He had loved mysteries ever since he was a boy in Marseilles, where he exhausted the library's collection of Georges Simenon. It was how he now filled his time when he wasn't at one of his health clubs or at the computer.

He clicked up the volume on the television.

"A goddamn feeding frenzy," Vince Lucas said.

"And it's going to get worse."

They were sitting in the entertainment salon of his estate located on a bluff overlooking Caliogny Bay. Called Vita Nova, the stunning structure in stone and glass enjoyed hundreds of feet of ocean frontage. Out the window spread the Atlantic, behind them a lush garden grotto with flowers in outrageous bloom. Beside the gazebo he had constructed a waterfall that filled the backyard with a cascading rush. The place was his own private little Eden.

Antoine was wearing a green workout suit that he had designed himself for his HealthWays Clubs, a large chain spanning eleven states. He had selected green because it was the color of nature and money.

At sixty-one, he would not go gently into that long night. So, he maintained a vigorous workout schedule and abandoned old eating habits for a miracle Hawaiian diet consisting of taro, poi, and seafood. He had also bought himself an industrial-strength juicer with which he made all sorts of healthful concoctions. At the moment, he was sipping a seaweed-broccoli-mango cocktail.

Vince flicked off the television. "We'll be stumbling over every law agent in the country."

"What do we know about the wife's sister?"

"Divorced, daughter age sixteen. Her ex got out of Marion Federal last year. She moved out of her place in Kalamazoo."

The Glovers could not have managed to disappear without her help. "But you don't know where."

"We're working on it. We figured it's the Midwest still." He picked up a sheet of paper. "We've got nearly a hundred Jennifer Kaminskys in a four-state area we're running down."

"So are the feds, if they haven't already found her."

And when they did, they'd wring her dry. The difference was that the authorities were bound by democratic measures in arriving at the truth. Antoine wasn't.

He walked to the sliding glass door and pressed a button so that it hummed open.

Fresh cold sea air rushed into the room before he closed the door again.

He loved the sea. He had lived by it all his life in France, and then in the Caribbean. It was in his blood, which was why he could never settle in Chicago or Las Vegas or any inland locale. He needed that view, its constant rhythm, the fishy brine.

Since the news of Glover had broken, Antoine had played the videotape of the elderly Jamaicans rejuvenating. He almost wished he hadn't because it heightened his urgency to find the compound. And toward that end he had summoned every resource at his command including technicians who could worm their way into banks and corporate databases. But the wife's sister Jennifer had eluded them. He looked out across the shimmering blue, thinking how he possessed more than any mortal being could make use of in a lifetime. He owned estates on Hilton Head, Jamaica, and Corsica. He owned every mode of transportation. He owned an array of businesses plus a percentage of the cocaine coming into North America from Columbia. At last count his net worth was over 2.8 billion dollars. He had the fortunes and power of King Midas.

There was nothing in the material world that he did not have. Nothing he needed. Nothing he envied in another man, now or ever.

Except one.

It was 6:55, but he checked anyway. "I'd like to meet him face-to-face, this Roger Glover."

"How come?"

"I want to meet the man who stopped wearing watches."

32

The media confirmed his parents' story. But, understandably, Brett was still in shock.

For two days he did not talk to them. He felt betrayed, even a little scared. They were not the parents he had thought they were. Not the parents who had brought him up. They were Wendy and Christopher Bacon who were sought by the FBI for mass murder. They had lived a dozen years of make-believe.

At one point Brett asked Roger point-blank, "Did you blow up that plane?"

"No, we did not."

"Then who did?"

Laura had been through this with him the first night, yet Roger felt compelled to let Brett hear it from him. "I think a guy named Quentin Cross had something to do with it." He explained who he was and told him about Betsy's death and the drug connection.

"But why didn't you tell the police?"

"We never got the chance. We were afraid we'd be next, so we took off. Then they bombed the plane we were supposed to be on and blamed it on us. Now we had the police and bad guys after us, and no one to turn to. You were just a baby, and our only concern was keeping you safe."

Roger did his best to assure him of the truth of his words. But past truths did little to ensure a future.

What helped Brett come around were the TV news reports. Before his eyes perfect strangers made horrific pronouncements about his parents-pronouncements that had nothing to do with the mother and father who had raised him lovingly for fourteen years. When Quentin Cross denied reports of an eternal youth drug but claimed that Christopher Bacon had committed murder, Brett exploded. "That's a lot of crap, you friggin' idiot. You did it."

The outburst was music to Roger's ears.

Brett was also impressed to hear Wendy Bacon described as a "promising new mystery author" and Chris as a "brilliant scientist."

When one geneticist said that Bacon might have discovered "the silver bullet" of human mortality, Brett gave Roger a pat on the shoulder. "Way to go, Pop!"

The center still held, Roger thought, at least for the moment.

On the fifth day, following Roger's suggestion, Laura called Jenny who now lived in Prairie, Indiana. "Jenny, we need help."

"Help. What kind of help? I don't have any money, if that's what you mean."

"We need a place to stay for a few days."

Instantly Jenny was flustered. "A place to stay? You don't mean here? That's impossible. Why do you need a place to stay?"

Jenny hadn't heard the news, which would have been incredible but for the fact that she didn't own a television or radio, nor, apparently, did she read newspapers. "The police are after us."

After a pause, Jenny said, "I see, but, frankly you're asking an awful lot. I mean, really! Besides, it's far too small here for all of you."

There were only three of them, but she was afraid of getting involved again, Laura guessed. And that was understandable since she was the single mother of a teenage girl. To harbor known fugitives could send her to jail. "I understand. I'm sorry to even ask, really, Jen. It's just that things are getting pretty dicey."

"Well, I really hate to say no," Jenny added. "Don't you have any friends someplace?"

"No."

"I see. Well…"

Jenny was not good at dissembling, nor was she good at thinking fast when confronted with crises. As expected, she was flustered by the revelation, and Laura could hear her struggling.

"If it means that much to you," she began, then seemed to catch herself. "But if the police find out you're here… well, that would be awful. I mean, we'd all be caught and sent to prison."

"You're right. Forget it," Laura said, not wanting to put a guilt trip on Jenny. "Really. It's okay. We'll be fine, I mean it." And she said goodbye and hung up.

"So what happens now?" Brett asked.

While the condo complex was fairly anonymous, somebody would soon wonder why the perfectly healthy teenage kid from C7 was running errands and not in school. And where were his parents?

"We'll hole up here for maybe another week," Roger said. "In the meantime, we'll look for a good lawyer. Do you think you can take a few more days?"

"Yeah, but what about you and Mom?"

"What do you mean?"

"You can't grow old like Mom."

The Gordian Knot, thought Roger-what lay at the core of it all. The one inevitability they did not want to ponder. Laura would not yield, and Roger's condition was irreversible. Their heads would not grow old on one pillow. Someday she would die, and he would go on without her indefinitely and unchanged. The prospect tore at him.

The signs were already visible-age lines in her face, loosening flesh, slowing down. And, worse, beneath the skin of things, disaffection had crossed with resentment. They were pulling apart.

Brett sensed none of that. But when Laura came into the room, he asked, "Are you going to take Elixir?"

"No, honey, I'm not." She said that as if announcing the sky is blue.

Brett's eyes filled up. "Why not? I don't want you to die."

She took his hand. "Brett, I'm not going to die, at least not for a long time. Meanwhile, you'll grow up and go off on your own like every other kid."

She had a knack for making things sound so normal. Brett thought about her words. He was not consoled. "How come Dad took it?"

"It was a mistake," Roger said. "I wish I hadn't. I wasn't thinking clearly at the time. I did a stupid thing. What's important is that we're still a family, and we're going to be a family for a lot of years. And right now we need you to be strong so we can beat this rap."

Brett stared at Roger for a long moment with an unreadable expression. Then he said, "What's so stupid about living forever?"

Eric Brown had hoped that Sally Johns, the Glovers' shop assistant, knew of relatives or friends who might put them up.

She didn't. She also never heard mention of a vacation home or favorite getaway. She had no idea where they went. Nor could she dispel the shock at the claims.

"He tutored kids in the back room. He had a blackboard and used the plants for show-and-tell. The kids loved him. And she was great-friendly and warm-and did fund-raising for the schools. I can't believe it."

Brown scribbled on his notepad. It was the same report he had gotten from neighbors: boringly nice people. Not even a fucking parking ticket.

Zazzaro stepped into the room with his cell phone. "Ben," he said and handed Eric the phone.

Brown moved to the far side of the room.

Four days ago, Ben Friedman had requested a priority cross-check of files at the Center for Disease Control in Atlanta regarding the death of Walter Olafsson. An extensive autopsy revealed no odd biologies. However, the CDC did have in its files a similar case of death by accelerated senescence dating from 1986 in Canton, Ohio.

"A sixty-two-year-old male named Dexter Quinn," Friedman said. "You'll be interested to know that, according to the Office of Social Security, Mr. Dexter Quinn from 1970 to 1986 worked as a biologist for Darby Pharmaceuticals of Lexington, Massachusetts."

"Oh my."

On the evening of the sixth day the cell phone rang.

Brett was in the shower while Laura and Roger were going through attorney names from photocopies of the Boston directory Brett had made at the local library. It made sense to seek counsel at the epicenter of their case.

They looked at each other anxiously. Only two other people in the world knew that number. And Wally was dead. Roger picked up.

It was Jenny. Thankfully, she remembered to use a nontraceable phone they had bought her years ago.

"I've thought over your request to stay," she announced with odd formality, "And I think we can help you."

"Well, that's very nice of you, but are you sure?"

"Yes, I'm sure."

"You know that the authorities are looking for us," Roger cautioned.

She must have bought a newspaper because she said, "I know that. But you'll be careful not to get caught driving down."

"We'll do our best."

"You have to," she said with forced solicitude. There was a long pause as she muttered something to herself. "It's just that I need a favor in return."

"What's that?"

No sooner were his words out, when like a half-glimpsed premonition he heard her say, "The orchid medicine. I want you to bring me some when you come."

Christ! She had reduced it to barter. "Jenny, we've been through this before. You know I can't do that." He tried to be gentle with her so as not to scare away her offer.

"You can do it if you want to."

"But I'm not going to."

"Then you can't stay here!"

"Then so be it."

He heard her voice change pitch. "Don't you hang up on me, Christopher!"

He didn't know if she had called him that out of hostility or if she was just out of it.

"If you don't bring me some, I'm going to call the police. And I know where you are."

Roger took a deep breath. They didn't need this. He looked over to Laura. "She's threatening to call the cops unless we bring her some Elixir."

"Shit!" Laura grabbed the phone from him. "Jennifer, what the hell is this all about?"

There was a long gaping silence. For a moment she thought Jenny had hung up, except she could hear some odd sound in the background. A tinkling, like broken glass. "Hello?"

Then in a strange girlish voice Jenny said, "Laura, I need my medicine. And I'm not taking no for an answer."

She sounded crazy. "Jenny, we've been through this-"

But Jenny cut her off. "I know where you are, and if you don't bring it, I'll have to tell them. I have their number right here. Minneapolis Police Department." And she rattled off the number.

"I don't believe you're doing this, Jen. I don't believe you'd betray us."

"It's you who's betraying me," she said in that weird singsongy voice.

Laura had never heard her sound so desperate. She had obsessed so much that she had pushed herself over the edge. "Jenny, listen to me, you haven't called them yet, have you?"

"No, but I will. So you better be here tomorrow with it. I'm not fooling."

"Please wait a moment, and don't hang up." Laura put her hand on the mouthpiece and glared at Roger. "We'll have to bring her some. She means it."

Roger nodded and threw his hands in the air to say "promise her anything."

"Okay, we'll be there," Laura said. "But, Jennifer, don't you dare call anybody, or we'll be arrested and you'll never get it. Do you understand?"

"Yes, but you better be here, or else I will." Then she gave her address. "It's a pink house with green shutters." And she hung up.

Laura dialed her number, but the power had been turned off. "What do we do? She sounds nuts."

"We don't have much of a choice."

All Roger could think was that Jenny would be the last person in the world to entrust with Brett.

Jenny lived five hundred miles from Minneapolis by Interstate. Under normal circumstances, the trip would take about ten hours.

But circumstances were anything but normal. Roger Glover alias Christopher Bacon was everybody's prime fugitive, which meant he'd have to take back roads and drive at night to play safe. The round trip would take days, and there was no way he would put that distance and time between him and Laura and Brett. They were in this as a family. They'd go together as a family.

The plan was to stay with Jenny for a night or two and give her a few ampules and a syringe.

Of course, they didn't know what a safe dosage was; nor would they know what to do should she have a toxic reaction. Too much could kill her; too little could cause her severe damage. And Jenny was damaged enough. Laura could not live with that. The only solution was to fake it.

So, before they left, she filled six ampules with saline solution. Jenny would never know, and when she caught on weeks later, they'd be working out their defense. Besides keeping her quiet for a few weeks, the visit would give Jenny the opportunity to meet Brett in the event their defense failed. They made no mention of this to Brett. It was too unthinkable.

After leaving Jenny's place, they would continue east and find the best lawyers they could buy.

"It's hard to believe anybody would take us on," Laura said when they were alone.

"Even Timothy McVeigh had a lawyer," Roger said. "Besides, we have a bargaining chip." He patted the emergency vial under his shirt.

"Going to try to bribe a judge like Wally?"

"Laura, I didn't bribe him, and you know it. He had the option not to go on it." Then he added, "Like you."

They explained to Brett that for a day or two they were going to visit Laura's sister Jenny who lived alone with her sixteen-year-old daughter. And that while they were being processed through the judicial system, he would stay with them. But that wouldn't be for a while. Maybe weeks.

They would take Laura's Subaru and another set of IDs-Peter, Ellen, and Larry Cohen.

"Dad, when it's all over, you going to go back to your old names again?"

"We've been Roger and Laura for so long, it might be kind of confusing. What do you think?"

"Yeah. I don't have to change to Adam, do I?"

"Of course not."

"No offense, but it sounds kind of dumb-you know, Adam and Eve. Running around naked and naming the animals. I'd rather stick with Brett."

"Besides, no one named Brett would be caught dead in a fig leaf, right?"

"I'm glad you see my point."

Laura wore a dark wig and tinted glasses, also tanning lotion which turned her a few shades darker. Meanwhile, Roger shaved off his beard and cut his hair to a whiffle. He looked eerily young. So much so that Brett commented, "You could be my older brother," and looked away unnerved.

Roger also carried cotton absorption wads-the kind dentists used-to be packed in his mouth to alter the shape of his face when they stopped for tolls and gas.

In the middle of the night they loaded the car undetected.

Amidst suitcases of clothes sat the cooler containing chopped ice and two hundred vials of frozen Elixir serum. The remaining supply and notebooks were miles from here, buried nearly a decade ago. And with them, one hundred and twenty thousand dollars in cash.

Before they left, Brett asked to see a sample, so Roger removed the emergency supply from around his neck. He snapped open the tube and extracted the long glass ampule.

Brett held it up to the kitchen light. He had heard about it all week, but this was the first time he had actually laid eyes on what all the world was howling about.

"Looks just like water," he said and handed it back to his father without further comment.

They left just before midnight.

Using secondary roads, Roger calculated the trip would take about seventeen hours. Jenny had insisted on their arrival tomorrow afternoon-as if she held them to some deadline.

As the lights of the condo disappeared in the mirror, the thought circled Roger's mind that there were hordes of people under that black sky who would do anything to lay hands on them. Anything.

To help Laura and Brett doze off, he put on a tape of "Swan Lake" and turned the volume low.

Laura was too anxious to sleep, although Brett spread out on the rear seat with his pillow and a blanket. In the mirror Roger had flashes of that night thirteen years ago when in another car and under different names they drove northward to Black Eagle Lake. Another night, another flight of fear.

By the time they reached Faribault, Laura was asleep against headrest. And Brett was a long lump under the blanket.

At this hour traffic was sparse. Even though U.S. 35 was indirect, it avoided Madison and any police checkpoints.

It was odd, but being on the run made Roger feel closer to Laura than he had in a while. They were doing something together, as a family, bizarre as it was. At one point, she woke up and took his hand. Nothing was actually said in words, though the gesture warmed him. He needed to believe in them still, and in her love. Yet, when he tried to imagine their future, it came up blank.

Someplace in the middle of Odette's transformation into a cygnet, Brett sat up.

"Dad, what would happen if I took Elixir?"

The question came out of the dark like an icepick. He was about to answer, when Laura cut him off. "Don't even think about it," she said, suddenly awake. She spun around to face him. "Everything we've ever warned you about the dangers of drugs-this is far worse. One shot and your body is instantly dependent. And if you go off it, you die a horrible death."

So startled by her reaction, Brett chuckled. "You're just saying that."

"Only because it's true. We told you about the animals."

"Can that happen to you, Dad?"

"Monkeys and humans have the same reaction."

"Has it ever happened to anyone?"

"Yes, but no one you know."

"Then why did you take it?"

"I told you it was a mistake."

"But you'll live forever, right?"

"Not forever. Just longer. But it was still a mistake."

"If you could go back, would you do it again?"

It was like Brett to hammer away. "No, I wouldn't."

"You're just saying that."

There was no reason for Roger to play up his regret or Brett would pursue that. "I'm not. It was wrong."

"How about when I'm older?"

"Brett, you've got a long life ahead of you. You don't need the stuff."

"But someday…"

They were caught between minimizing and maximizing the dangers. "We can't think that far ahead."

"But you're going to live a long time, why not both of us? You too, Mom."

"We've already been through this, Brett," Laura said. "I'm not going to take it. And you're not going to take it. It's unnatural and dangerous, simple as that. End of discussion."

But Roger could hear the turn of Brett's mind. Laura had protested too much. "Brett, listen to me," he said, summoning his best voice of fatherly reason. "If you took it now, you would never get older. You would never fully grow up. You would never age but stay fourteen for good. Is that something you'd really want?"

There was long silence.

"Well?"

"Maybe."

"I don't believe this."

President John Markarian turned up the sound on the TV console in the Oval Office. Tim Reed and two other aides had come in to inform him of the latest. With them was Kenneth Parrish, director of the FBI.

As feared, Elixir rumors had snowballed and were barreling down on the White House like an avalanche. On the screen were videos of laboratory mice and rhesus monkeys.

"What you're seeing are the same animals, just a few weeks apart," the commentator said. "According to former Darby employees, the animals had been treated with Elixir, a secret compound that allegedly had the capacity to prevent aging." The screen split with a BEFORE and AFTER caption under each.

"Sources who had once worked at the Darby labs claim that treated animals on the right had actually rejuvenated over the period."

The split screen gave way to another pair of still photos, that of Christopher Bacon and Roger Glover.

"Speculation holds that Dr. Bacon may have used the serum on himself…"

On the president's desk sat faxes and e-mails from scientists, religious leaders, and government officials from around the world demanding to know if the rumors were true, and, if so, to share the secret with the rest of the human race. There were also entreaties from the heads of AARP frantic for the government to find this Christopher Bacon and his secret of prolonged life.

Everywhere White House disclaimers were rebuffed. One commentator declared the Oval Office might be either the stupidest place in the world or the most deceitful.

The television scene shifted to anti-American rallies in Cairo.

How the hell do people mobilize so rapidly? Markarian wondered.

People were toting signs proclaiming "Death to America" and "Markarian is Saten." And "Elixir is Devel's Potion." "Elixir-American/Israeli Plot." And "ELIXIR: Genetic Imperialism."

"Middle East spokesmen view Elixir as a threat to international peace," the reporter continued. "One diplomat warned of possible military conflict unless the U.S. admits to hording the compound and makes it available to all people…"

The scene shifted to a fiery preacher addressing a congregation from a church pulpit in Baltimore.

"Meanwhile, here at home, religious leaders are calling for calm while others see Elixir as a Pandora's box. In the words of Reverend Colonel Lamar Fisk, the anti-aging drug is a 'hellish violation of the dominion of God.'"

"'Ye know neither the day nor the hour wherein the Lord doth come!'" Fisk shouted. "'And in that hour when the seventh seal is broken the armies of the lord will lay waste the evil that is Babylon…'"

The camera panned devoted followers as they howled and hit the air with fists and sticks.

"Goddamn field day for the nutcakes," Markarian said.

"Except this one's dangerous," said Parrish. "They're Heaven's Gate with fangs."

"Meaning what?" Markarian asked.

"Meaning they're not going to pop suicide pills and wait for the flying saucers to whip them away. This Fisk guy has warlord mentality. He preaches that they'll take an active part in Armageddon. A lot of wham-bam, and while they get beamed up to heaven, the rest of us fry."

"Nice religion."

"What's scary is that he knows guns and preaches violence. He's also charismatic and uses mind control and physical abuse to keep followers in line. He's like Charles Manson and David Koresh rolled in one, except he hasn't broken the law yet. I'm just worried when he does."

"What's the latest on Glover?" the president asked Parrish.

"Every airport, bus terminal, and train station in a four-hundred-mile radius around Eau Claire is covered. Highway patrols have been beefed up. We don't know what they're driving because he seems to have a fleet of vehicles. Or he's stealing one after another. But the local police are checking all leads."

"You mean you haven't got a clue."

"I'm afraid not."

"We're already frying."

33

Roger did all the driving, kept alert by adrenaline. They ate in the car and stopped only for fuel and rest rooms. He preferred the self-serve stations to avoid attendants.

But there were no self-serves in Fairfield, Iowa, and they were on empty. Roger pulled into a Mobil station. A guy about twenty came out and put in twenty-four dollars worth of gasoline.

It wasn't until it was time to pay that Roger spotted the hand-written sign in the window: "SORRY. No Fifties or Hundreds."

Big bills were all they had left, which meant having to pay by credit card. Roger was not too worried the attendant would recognize him out here between endless corn fields, especially in his disguise. But he had not counted on an overdue balance.

The kid returned from inside to say that payment was denied.

While Brett slept and Laura tried to doze off, Roger got out of the car and returned the card to his wallet then pulled out another.

But as the guy headed back into the station, Roger suddenly realized that the second card was made out to Peter Cohen, while the first said Harry Stork.

If the attendant was alert, he'd catch the discrepancy and wonder why two names. If he reported it, that could prove disastrous since Harry Stork was the name Roger had used as Wally's attorney-a name that was surely in the police network. In fifteen minutes every road within fifty miles would be blockaded.

Roger had about ten seconds before the guy reached the credit card machine.

If he jumped into the car and took off, the kid would pounce on the phone. If he did nothing and the kid caught on, there'd be a flag on the field. Even if the discrepancy were missed, there would be an American Express record of Harry Stork traveling east into Illinois.

Roger dashed into the office and snatched the card from the kid's hand just as he was about to run it through the machine.

"Hold it, but I'm overdue in payments on that too. You know how it is." He flapped a fifty in the kid's face. "I know it's against company policy, but it's all I've got, and it's real." He held the bill up to the light to point out the water mark and the hidden thread. "See? can't duplicate that."

The kid inspected the fifty, then looked at Roger, wondering if that beaming smile was the front of a fast-talking counterfeiter.

"And, I'll tell you what. For being such a good guy, you can keep the change."

"You serious?"

"You betcha."

The kid inspected the bill in the light again, thinking about the twenty-six dollar tip, weighing that against the manager finding a fifty in the till. The tip won.

"Thanks, mister," he said. And Roger was out the door before he could change his mind.

For the next couple miles his insides felt like gelatin. He was losing his grip, he told himself. That was a double slip-up-pulling the wrong card, and not keeping up with account balances. He should have been more careful.

What made it worse was that Roger Glover had now gone the way of Chris Bacon-right to the top of the wanted lists. So had Harry Stork. He was down to three different cards-under three different aliases, different addresses, different birthdates. Christ! He was beginning to wonder who the hell he really was. Peter Cohen? James Hensel? Frank D'Amato?

He rode into the graying light feeling schizophrenic.

A few hours later, they stopped at a truck stop where Brett bought them breakfast. They ate in the car then took turns using the rest rooms. Roger was dying for a hot shower. They all were.

At about ten, Laura called Jenny to double-check directions. Laura could hear the relief in Jenny's voice that they were only a few hours away.

But when she said they were bringing Brett, Jenny's reaction turned bizarre.

"Oh, no. That won't do. No visitors. We can't have visitors."

Laura didn't want to spell out the importance of their meeting, not with Brett in earshot. "What's the problem? You said we can stay for the night."

There was a pause as Jenny muttered something inaudible. Then she seemed to find herself. "Some other time. Abigail is sick in bed, and the doctors said no visitors because her resistance is low to infection."

"What's wrong with her?"

"Ooops. I have to go," Jenny declared and hung up.

So Brett wouldn't suspect anything, Laura continued to fake conversation. "I see, well I'll drop by myself then. I hope she gets better soon. We should be there about three. Bye-bye."

Roger looked at Laura for an explanation.

"Abigail's sick."

"So where we going to stay?"

"I don't know."

Around two-thirty they reached the driveway of number 247 Farmington Road, Prairie, Indiana.

Roger drove by, then circled back looking for signs of police. The nearest house, about a quarter mile away, looked dead. But that didn't satisfy Roger. He found a back road behind Jenny's place to check for signs of a stakeout. There were none. It was farming country consisting of open fields of low-growing corn and wheat, and devoid of human life.

Roger pulled into the driveway. From a distance it looked like a Jenny place-a neat little farmhouse in pink and green located at the end of a long drive set back in some trees from the main road and miles from the festering social diseases of big-city America.

But up close, shutters were broken, shingles were missing, half the chimney had lost bricks, and the paint had faded to a yellowy flesh color and was peeling badly. The place looked diseased. The lawn hadn't been cut in weeks. Yet, beside the garage was a small power mower-one that looked manageable by Jenny or a teenage girl.

The plan was for Laura to find out what the story was with Jenny while Roger drove Brett to a store for provisions. If there was a problem, they had a police scanner and cell phones. Jenny was irrational, but not enough to blow the whistle on her own private savior.

Roger pulled up to the front door. All the shades were drawn. No sign of Jenny. No sign of life.

Laura got out and went to the door. A small handwritten note on the bell said OUT OF ORDER. Another said NO SOLICITORS.

Taped to the door was an envelope on which in small fastidious script was the name "Wendy."

Furious that Jenny had posted her name, Laura tore open the envelope. Inside was a note in tiny meticulous handwriting done in pink: "Please leave orchids in mailbox. Good Luck."

That was it? Laura thought. Drive sixteen bloody hours with every law enforcement agency on their ass, and what Jenny wanted was for them to drop the stuff off then beat it. Find a motel someplace or hole up in a cornfield. No way! If Jenny was dumb enough to plaster her name up, what else would she pull?

Laura banged on the door.

Nothing.

And standing in the open like this only heightened her anxiety. She waved for Roger and Brett to wait in the car, then went around back.

The kitchen door was also locked. But one window was open and the screen was up a few inches so she could get her fingers under it.

Laura slid up the window. Then she went around front and waved Roger and Brett off. Around back again, she climbed inside.

The immediate impression was how dark and lifeless the place was-like a house whose occupants were away on vacation.

Although the curtains were drawn, the small kitchen appeared tidy. It was done in white and pink. Magazine pictures of kittens were magneted to the refrigerator. Also some baby photos.

On the table sat a bowl of overripe fruit with some tiny black flies buzzing around it. Beside the bowl was a small pile of mail. On the top sat an electric bill addressed to Jennifer Phoenix, 247 Farmington Road. Under that were other bills and some toy catalogs all made out to Jennifer Phoenix.

Jennifer Phoenix?

Laura was shocked. Jenny had changed her name and never told them. How many years had it been? And why?

Feeling a hum of uneasiness, Laura moved to the dim front foyer to call upstairs when she glanced into the living room. Her heart nearly stopped.

It was decorated for Christmas.

By the fireplace sat a large artificial tree fully decked with bulbs, icicles, and lights. Opened presents lay in boxes on the floor. By the fireplace sat a large pink doll-house, its rooms neatly laid out in miniature furniture and figures. It was a vague replica of Jenny's own house. The fireplace mantle was decorated in colored candles and artificial pine and big red Santas. Over the mantle hung a pastel portrait of Abigail as a young child.

Across the foyer, the dining room was decorated for a birthday party, but it must have been from a while ago because some of the colored streamers criss-crossing the ceiling had come loose and most of the balloons had deflated. A partially-eaten cake sat in the middle of the table around which were several chairs, all but two occupied by large stuffed bunnies, bears, and kangaroos.

A sick chill rippled through Laura.

From the second floor she heard a faint sound. A tinkling, barely audible.

She moved toward the stairs and froze. She had heard it before. The same high metallic plinkings, almost like windchimes.

Music. Background sounds in their last telephone conversation. "Frere Jacques." The tune was "Frere Jacques."

An irrational sense of dread gripped her as she began to climb the stairs. The music box Jenny had bought in Boston years ago.

"Her first Christmas present."

A few more steps, and she could hear Jenny singing softly.

"…Morning bells are ringing. Morning bells are ringing. Ding, Dang, Dong. Ding, Dang, Dong."

She reached the door.

Inside Jenny said: "Now in French…"

"'Frere Jacques, Frere Jacques, Dormez vous? Dormez vous?…'"

The door was decaled in cartoon animals. A porcelain plaque in big happy letters said ABIGAIL'S ROOM.

A second voice sent a shard of ice through Laura's heart. A voice small and thin and singing along with Jenny.

Laura swung open the door.

"'…Sonnez les matines. Sonnez les matines. Din, Don, Din. Din, Don, Din.'"

Jenny looked up, her face in a radiant smile. She was sitting in a rocking chair holding a small child.

In a telescoped moment of awareness, Laura registered the silky blond hair, the brown liquid eyes, the ruddy porcelain cheeks. The pink flowered dress from the photos.

"We're singing in French," Abigail proudly announced.

Horror surged through Laura. The room was a mausoleum of little girlhood: Bunny wallpaper, pink lace curtains, stuffed animals, dolls, a big pink toddler bed, pillows mounded with stuffed kittens and Raggedy Anns. A white decaled bureau with ballerina figurines and the big red music box that filled the room with its soulless ditty.

"Ooooo, look," Jenny sang out. "It's Auntie Wendy. How nice. And she brought you your medicine."

"Jenny!" Laura gasped.

"Oh, of course: And this is Abigail. I forgot how long it's been." Jenny beamed.

"Hi, Auntie Wendy. You look like your picture," the child said. She opened a small photo album from the shelf. "Your hair is different, but it's very flattering. I like it better." Her pronunciation was perfect.

"We have lots of pictures," Jenny piped in proudly.

"Do you know how to speak French?" Abigail asked.

Laura's mind scrambled to land on something that made sense: The girl was somebody else, not Jenny's daughter.

No, Jenny had adopted another child but had not told her for some reason.

No, it was Abigail, but she had some growth disorder-some awful disease that had stunted her limbs.

"Well, do you?"

Laura made an inarticulate sound and shook her head.

"Well, I do." And she rattled off a string of words, none of which registered. "And Spanish." And she said something in Spanish. "I haven't learned to read yet, but Mommy says that's for older children. Don't you think I'm old enough to read?"

"Now, let's not be silly," Jenny said. "You're always in such a hurry to do this and that."

There was nothing in Jenny's manner that betrayed the appearance that she was anything other than a sane, willful, and rational woman going through the motions of indulging her toddler daughter.

"You must forgive me," Jenny said. "We're not used to company, so we don't have extra chairs."

Laura's eyes fell to the table beside the bed and bit down on a scream. On it sat a syringe and an empty ampule of Elixir. Roger had said some were missing but had blamed it on faulty memory.

"Jenny, what did you do?" Laura whispered.

But Jenny paid no attention. "Just as well," she sang out. "We were just getting ready for our nap, weren't we?"

Her voice had the musical lilt of a woman at ease with her life.

Laura looked for signs that she was playacting for the child's sake, that beneath the conditioned facade of a mother's loving patience lay some awareness. That Jenny knew what she had done to her daughter.

There were none.

"Can't I stay up, Mommy? Please?"

Nothing was as it seemed. Jenny was out of her mind. Her daughter was a sixteen-year-old in a toddler's body. Roger was frozen at a half his age.

For a moment Laura felt as if her own mind would go, that without warning she would hear a sickening snap and all the freakshow horrors would be perfectly normal.

"It's already past your bedtime, Little Miss."

"But I want to stay up. I never get company."

"You have lots of company." Jenny waved at all the stuffed animals.

"I mean real company."

Abigail looked at the wall clock. "Oh, Mommy, it's time for my medicine."

The clock was a big plastic pocketwatch like what the White Rabbit toted to Wonderland. Except the numbers were reversed and the second hand was running backward.

Good God! The child had memorized positions of the hands without a clue.

"Now give Auntie Wendy a big kiss good night." Adoringly Jenny watched the child climb off her lap.

Abigail's body was tiny, like an anemic dwarf, with newborn skin and hair, but with older movements. She looked like some alien replica of a human child. She opened her arms, but Laura didn't want to touch her.

"How old are you?" Laura asked, her voice rasping.

Jenny tried to cut her off. "No more chit-chat, please. Time for bed."

"Six."

"Six?"

"Almost seven. Then I can go outside."

"Why can't you go out now?"

"Enough, enough, you two," Jenny sang out. "Time for good little girls to go bed."

"Because I'm sick," Abigail answered.

"What's wrong with you? How are you sick?"

"I'm sick, that's all. But Mommy says the medicine will make me better. And then I can go to Boston. Do they speak French in Boston?"

Jenny got up. "Now I'm getting cross." She picked Abigail up and lay her on the bed to change her diaper. "If you don't mind," Jenny said and shooed Laura out of the room.

The door closed, and Laura leaned up against it with her eyes pressed shut. All her instincts were keyed to be as far from here as she could possibly get.

"You fucking bitch!"

Laura's eyes snapped opened.

A man stood before her with a gun at her face.

"What the hell did you do to my daughter?"

"Ted?" She barely recognize him.

"You made her into a freak." He jammed the gun under her chin.

"I didn't know," she gasped.

"She's the same age she was ten years ago. The same fucking age. She never grew up." His expression shifted as he studied her face. "She gave her your shit then kept her locked up in here for ten years. And nobody knew. Nobody. The neighbors thought she was a widow living alone. She never let her out of the house. Never."

All Laura could do was shake her head.

"She's never seen another kid." His voice cracked and tears began rolling down his face. "How did she get it?"

"She took them."

She explained how Jenny must have stolen some ampules years ago when they were at the cottage in the Adirondacks.

Ted listened and lowered the gun. "It took me a year to find her. I didn't know where they'd moved. She once said she liked the name Phoenix, so I checked the listing. For a whole year." His body slumped. "She still remembers me. Just like before I went away. She should be sixteen years old."

From inside Abigail was protesting something.

Ted put his gun inside his jacket as Jenny stepped out. She looked at him, and the grin slid off her face and her eyes instantly hardened. "I told you her next visiting hours were tomorrow, not today. Doctor's orders."

Ted looked at Laura. "She's out of her mind."

"Mommy, is that Daddy?"

"Now she heard you," Jenny snapped. "It's time to take her medicine." Then she turned to Laura. "The refills, please."

"Mommy, I want Daddy to give me my medicine. I'll show him how to do it," she shouted.

Laura fumbled in her shoulder bag for the packet of ampules.

"Please, Mommy? Daddy hasn't seen me since I was five."

"Just this once," Jenny said and opened the door. She made a face at Ted. "Make it brief," she snapped.

Abigail was propped up on her bed with her dolls and holding a hypodermic needle. "Then Daddy can tell me about the army."

Jenny led the way, and through the closed door Laura heard Abigail. "Don't cry, Daddy. It doesn't hurt at all."

Laura was trying to decide what to do when her cell phone rang.

It was Roger. The police were coming. He didn't know how they got tipped off, but his scanner had picked up a dispatch call for number 247 Farmington Road. She had to get out immediately. He'd pick her up in a minute.

Ted had called, she told herself. Yes, he had called the police to get help for Abigail.

Laura shot down the stairs and ran outside just as Roger pulled up. Roger flung open the passenger door. "Whose car is that?"

"Ted's. Roger, we have to give her the real stuff," Laura cried. It was packed in the trunks buried in the back of the van.

"Hurry up," Brett shouted. "They're right behind us."

"No. She gave it to Abigail."

Roger looked at her not knowing what she meant. "Get in!"

"She gave Elixir to Abigail. We have to give her more."

But Roger disregarded her and pulled her into the passenger seat.

They could send her a supply, she told herself as she closed the door. Yes, they'd mail some ampules from the road. Laura locked the door. The only problem was that she didn't know when her last injection had been.

They were just pulling away when from inside the house three sharp sounds rang out.

"Omigod!" Laura screamed. "Nooooo!" She started to open the door but Roger pulled her back and screeched out the drive and onto the main road. "Go back. For God's sake go back!"

Laura was still screaming as the police in several vehicles turned into Jenny's driveway and poured into her house.

"He killed them. He killed them."

Antoine lay the book on his lap and looked out the window of his Lear jet.

He was two chapters from the end, and he still could not figure out how the protagonist was going to slip the peril. That bothered him because he had always prided himself in second-guessing authors. Only Agatha Christie could throw him. This one was a close second. So far.

"Finished yet?" Vince asked.

"Another twenty pages."

"You can knock it off while they refuel."

Vince double-checked the sheets of specs downloaded from the various databases they had penetrated. He passed a copy to Antoine and the other men in the cabin.

Antoine studied the material. They had narrowed it down, but it was still not enough to pinpoint them. There was a missing element, and timing was critical.

The aircraft descended into the Atlanta airport where they would refuel for the trip to Indianapolis. The unseasonable cold front had left a blanket of snow in the northeast but, gratefully, they would not be heading that far north.

Such bizarre weather for this time of year, Antoine thought. While meteorologists pointed to La Niña, El Niño's cool sister, one religious quack went so far to proclaim that it was "the wrath of God"-the same man who claimed that Roger Glover was the "hand servant of Satan" and Elixir "the Devil's brew."

While the authorities were hot after the Glovers, they did not have the data that sat in Antoine's lap. Data that but for one detail would point to where they were heading.

He checked his watch though he knew it was about four-fifteen.

4:09. He was losing his touch. Age, he told himself. It was mucking up his internal clockwork.

The plane landed.

While the ground crews filled the tanks, Antoine sipped his wine and finished his book.

He reread the last few pages in keen delight. A very interesting twist, he thought. Ingenious, in fact. He had not seen it coming at all. Not at all, even though, of course, there were enough clues-but nothing trite like planted buttons or pipe cleaners. It was in the character of the protagonist herself. So obvious, in retrospect: The yearning for the past. Like Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz. Three clicks of her heels.

Character, he told himself. And what is that, but the illustration of incident? And what is incident but the dramatization of character? Henry James, that one.

Antoine licked his lips the way he did when he got excited and picked up the phone to explain to the pilot that there was a change in plans. They would be heading northeast after all. And prepare for a descent in the snow.

34

The Glovers were about three hours into Ohio when the story came over the airwaves: a double murder and suicide that shocked the small farming town of Prairie, Indiana. Information was still scanty, and authorities were not disclosing the names of victims until notification of next of kin.

Laura snapped it off. "Next of kin," she repeated, her voice ragged from crying. "We're next of kin."

Roger said nothing. Gratefully, the hysteria was gone.

Earlier she had been so frantic to turn around that getting caught meant nothing to her. Even if she couldn't have saved them, Jenny was her sister, and Abigail was still her niece. She had to be there, she demanded. She had to be certain their bodies were cared for properly, that they would get decent funeral and burial arrangements-if for nothing else, to draw closure to the madness. Besides, they were responsible for their condition.

"Laura, if we go back, we'd be arrested." Roger had said. "We could also be implicated in their deaths."

"I should have known," she said. "He had a gun. It's why he came. I should never have left."

"He might have killed you, too, Mom," Brett added.

But Laura did not respond to him. "My family is dead," she cried. "Look what we did to them."

For miles she said nothing else but lay her head against a pillow and receded into a silent grief. Every so often she'd weep quietly.

Exhausted, Roger drove on.

More than anything else, what ate at him was what all this was doing to Brett. First, the terror of his parents wanted by every law enforcement agency in the country. Then the horror of Jenny and Abigail's murder. Adding to that was how spent Roger and Laura were. She had always been a brick and he, the voice of reason. Now they were tottering on the edge of defeat.

When they passed signs for the Interstate to Pennsylvania, Brett asked, "Where're we going?"

"Upstate New York," Roger said.

"Who's there?"

"Nobody, I hope. But there's a safehouse we used to live in," and he told Brett about the cottage on Black Eagle Lake. "Think you could handle living in the woods for a few weeks?"

"Sure. It'd be like going to camp."

Brett was putting things in a good light, as if this were some backwoods adventure. And Roger drew some encouragement from that. Brett was at an age when he was expected to assume some responsibility for their fate. Likewise, his opinion and strength of purpose mattered.

Unconsciously Roger fingered the tube around his neck.

The religious loonies had called him the Antichrist. At first he had been humored by the absurd accusation, but as he drove on it struck him how those claims made some kind of sense. Rather than new life, every human and animal he had touched with Elixir had suffered afflictions that were almost biblical.

They passed through Ohio and the northwest corner of Pennsylvania and into the western end of New York state.

While Brett slept through the night, Laura dozed fitfully or just gazed numbly out the window. She said very little.

Roger had thought about stopping at a motel for the night, but that was too risky. Besides, he wouldn't have slept, given the news.

According to the radio, anti-government protests were growing everywhere. People were demanding the White House come clean with the coverup. Others wanted Elixir released to the public. Meanwhile, a siege had taken place at the U.S. embassy in Cairo by fundamentalists. Some people were dead and hostages were being held by a group of men who had declared a holy war against the U.S. for "genetic imperialism." And Roger was its evil leader.

But his demonization did not stop there. Jewish cabalists to Christian millennialists saw Elixir as a sign that the Messiah would descend and wind things up. To some, Roger was simply a neutral harbinger. To others he was the devil incarnate.

There were other stories. One was a followup report about the murder/suicide tragedy in Prairie. Roger tried to turn it off, but Laura heard it and stopped him. She had been hoping against hope that it was somebody else's tragedy.

"We now have confirmed reports that the victims were a middle-age divorced couple, Theodore Kaminsky, age sixty-three, and his wife, Jennifer, age fifty. Jennifer Kaminsky is the sister of Wendy Bacon, alias Laura Glover, wife of biologist Christopher Bacon who…" The announcer went on to explain the bizarre twist that linked the crime scene to them.

But what summoned a gasp from Laura was the end of the report.

"…As reported, there was a third victim who had died later at County Memorial Hospital, but authorities have still not been able to determine the age or identity because of unusual condition of the victim's body. According to Prairie police, it appeared to be a very elderly woman dressed in children's clothing."

"Oh, God!"

"What happened?" Brett asked, waking up. Laura looked toward Roger, her face bloodless. She tried to talk but couldn't.

"A news report about Jenny," Roger explained. Then he took a deep breath. "What Mom didn't tell you was that Jenny had given the stuff to her daughter to keep her a child."

"What? How come?"

"I'm not sure, but I guess she felt like a failure with Kelly. Whatever, when Abigail died she must have aged."

"You mean she turned really old?"

"Yes."

"Is that right, Mom?"

But she didn't answer him. "Pull over," she said to Roger. "I want you to pull over."

They were on a country road of farms. It was mid-morning and traffic was sparse, and a cold rain fell. "Why?"

"I want you to take what you need, and dump the rest. Please."

She had that wild, desperate look in her eye that for a moment made Roger think he was looking at Jenny.

"Mom, calm down."

"Stop here."

"Laura, I think we better talk this over first."

"Roger, I beg you. Take what you need and destroy the rest."

"And what will that do?"

"It will spare others." Her voice was oddly flat, her manner controlled. But he knew she was at the edge, that if he refused her she would crack. "There's a clearing there," she pointed.

Roger pulled onto a soft shoulder by a field of corn.

"Let's talk this over," he said.

"There's nothing to talk over."

He knew what she was thinking: The substance had killed everything in her life. The world was threatening to explode. She wanted it eliminated. She didn't care how he did it-dump it off the next bridge, smash the vials with a rock. She just wanted the stuff to be gone from existence.

At the moment, Roger cared nothing about the world or even going on indefinitely any more. What was certain was that he could not ask her to hole up for a few weeks in the cabin. Either she would go mad or take Brett to the police herself.

He stared through windshield, the only sound filling the car was that of the rain pattering dismally on the roof. He thought for a moment.

"Okay, but give me twenty-four hours. Then I'll get rid of it. I promise, no matter what. You can do it yourself."

She turned her head toward him. "Twenty-four hours? Who knows where we'll be in twenty-four hours, or who might get hold of it?" She took his arm. "Roger, please do this for me." Her eyes were pooled with tears again. "Please."

"Give me a moment," he said and from his jacket he pulled out the cell phone and a portable tape recorder from the glove compartment. When he was properly connected, he called Information in Washington, D.C. When he got that, he said, "The White House, please."

"What are you doing?" Laura asked.

"Cutting a deal."

"What kind of a deal? What are you talking about?"

"Trust me."

Laura looked at him blankly.

"Dad, don't do anything dumb."

"I've already done that."

Several transfers later and minutes of waiting for a live operator, he announced who he was and asked to speak to the president.

"I'm sorry, the president is busy. If you would like to leave a message, one of his aides will get back to you." She said that as if common citizens called all the time to be put through to the Oval Office.

"Listen to me," he growled. "This is Roger Glover, formerly Christopher Bacon, aka Jesus or Satan depending upon your spiritual persuasion. If you don't recognize the name, turn on your goddamn television."

There was a long pause. Then, "One moment, please."

Two more transfers and he was switched to man who claimed to be the Deputy Chief of White House Security and who asked, "Why exactly do you want to speak to the president, Mr. Glover?"

Exasperated, Roger said: "Because he's the biggest man in the world, and I have the biggest drug in the world. Now do you want to continue haggling, or should I call AARP?"

Two more clicks, and another long wait, then Roger heard the familiar voice. And his heart jogged in his chest.

"This is John Markarian."

Roger nodded to say he got through.

While Laura just stared at him in numbed disbelief, Brett's eyes saucered. "Friggin' cool, Dad," he whispered.

"Mr. President, this is Roger Glover."

"How do I know you're Roger Glover?"

"Because anybody else would have given up trying to get through." To convince him, he outlined some details about Elixir that only the president had been made privy to, including Ross Darby's friendship with Ronald Reagan.

"Okay, what can I do for you?"

"It's what we can do for each other."

Roger explained that he, his wife, and son were ready to turn themselves in and release to the proper authorities the entire supply of Elixir and the scientific notebooks on its manufacture.

The president listened, then said he was pleased to hear that. Then Roger proclaimed his innocence in the murder of Betsy Watkins and the sabotage of Eastern flight 219.

"What I can do for you is help dispel all the mystical garbage that's been flying. And beginning with the fact that I'm still mortal.

"But the important thing, Mr. President, is that Elixir stops cancer cells from growing. It turns off their genetic switches. And one of the side effects is prolongevity." Briefly he explained that and the senescence limitations.

The president listened intently. "A chemical that prevents cancer while prolonging life indefinitely has astounding implications for health care and the economy, I need not tell you."

"I'm familiar with the hysteria," Roger said. "That's another reason why the compound must be monitored." Then Roger listed his conditions for the surrender of themselves and the serum.

So far, it was their word against the authorities' that they were innocent of the charges. But Roger did request a presidential pardon for fleeing prosecution and immunity for Laura and Brett. The president agreed. As for his defense against the charges of murder and sabotage, Roger requested the best legal representation. He also asked for witness protection for Laura and Brett. The president agreed again.

Finally, he asked that the entire supply of Elixir and scientific notebooks be turned over to the medical research arm of Public Citizen with the caveat that it be used exclusively in oncology studies, not human prolongevity. Roger did not personalize, but he warned that the potential dangers were unimaginable.

He glanced at Laura who nodded approval.

"But that's what all the excitement is all about," Markarian responded.

"Mr. President, the nightmare possibilities far exceed those for human cloning which, as you know, is also banned. I must have your consent to nongovernmental regulation, or I will destroy the substance."

"Oh, don't do that."

"I need your word."

"Well, I'll do what I can to aid your requests."

"Including a federal ban on prolongevity studies." He had phrased that as a statement not a question.

Markarian sounded hesitant. He no doubt viewed Elixir as the centerpiece to the economic salvation of the republic.

"Mr. President, imagine your grandchildren growing older than you. Or a child six years old forever."

There was a pause as the president pondered the scenarios. "I see. Well, it will have to meet with the approval of the House and Senate, of course, but I'll do what I can. I give you my word." Then he said that he would turn their surrender over to Kenneth Parrish, Director of the FBI. "So where are you?" the president asked.

"I'm as anxious to end this as you are, sir, but I can't tell you that just yet."

Roger said that he wanted another twenty-four hours before surrendering themselves and Elixir. They did not want the authorities storming their quarters on their last night together for a while. Around 8 A.M. tomorrow, Roger would call to name the exact time and place. And he insisted that it take place in an orderly fashion.

"After I hang up, Mr. President, I'm calling the editorial offices of the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the Boston Globe, as well as the editorial headquarters of all the news networks."

"Mr. Glover, I see no point in turning this into a media circus. This is a matter of national security."

"Something about keeping democracy honest."

The president chuckled. "You've been listening."

"Yes, and two more things. First, I'm taping this conversation. Secondly, I'm calling from a phone that cannot be tracked."

"You've thought of everything."

Roger then asked the president for a direct number to reach him tomorrow. Markarian rattled off the telephone numbers of Ken Parrish and the Oval Office.

Roger repeated them as Laura jotted them down.

He then thanked the president.

When he hung up, Brett slapped him a fiver. "Awesome, Dad. Friggin' awesome."

He looked to Laura for a response. Her face had softened. "That was smart," she said and squeezed his hand. "I just pray it works."

Me too, he thought.

As they drove on, Roger played the tape he had made.

When he got to his request for a ban on the substance, he thought he heard something hiding in the hedges just behind the president's pledge-a shadowy speculation that Roger recalled had once danced for him many years ago.

Eric Brown was thinking about bed when the fax came through from the Indianapolis field office. It was the Medical Examiner's report on Abigail Kaminsky. He made a copy for Zazzaro, and they read it over another pot of coffee.

It was seventeen pages long and thick with medical lingo, but he absorbed the essentials-and they made his skin stipple.

She was small like a child, dressed as a child, but looked like an aged woman.

After pages discussing discrepancies between photographs of the child at the scene and her condition, the report concluded that the victim was physically and mentally retarded, and, thus, had been treated as a young child by her parents. As for the condition of her corpse, medical examiners drew a blank. Abigail Kaminsky Phoenix had died three hours after being shot through the chest, but in that time she had experienced an anomalous mutation of genetic material that resulted in hyper-accelerated senescence. "Causes, unknown. Pathology, unknown."

For a long moment Brown stared at the concluding paragraph.

"You thinking what I'm thinking?"

"Walter Olafsson," Zazzaro said.

"Yeah."

You didn't need to be a Nobel laureate to connect the three cases. Jennifer Whitehead Kaminsky Phoenix was the sister-in-law of the man who invented Elixir; Walter Olafsson was the man who first reported him; and Dexter Quinn once served as his assistant at Darby Pharms years back.

"But why give it to a kid?"

"Beats me."

So far they had seen photos of four individuals on Elixir-the three who died had turned into genetic monsters. The other had rejuvenated.

"This is bad shit," Brown said. "Very bad shit."

Brown could not get his eyes off the autopsy photos of the Kaminsky girl. "Christ, she looks like one of those Egyptian mummies in a Little Bo Peep dress."

35

They arrived at Black Eagle Lake around six that night.

Roger did not head directly to the cottage but for the dirt access road across the lake to a sheltered spot in the trees.

He didn't think the authorities could trace the property to them. Twelve years ago, Roger had purchased the place under an alias and took over paying the taxes by cashier's checks. Unless Jenny had leaked, there was no way the feds could know. Nonetheless, he insisted they watched for signs of a stakeout.

The weather was cold, and this far north there was snow on the ground and more in the forecast.

They waited until sunset, watching the cabin through field glasses. An elderly couple, probably renters from one of the other waterfront places, was fishing from a boat on the lake. But that was the only movement. No planes or helicopters. No SWAT team vehicles.

Night fell, and the only lights came from a summer place half a mile down shore. Otherwise, the lake was an opaque black.

When they decided it was safe, they drove to the cabin. Roger wore his pistol in his belt.

The place was dark and lifeless. They had not been back in nearly a decade. In the headlights it looked the same, but for some missing shingles. Still sitting in the front yard was the old fountain Laura's father had put in when she and Jenny were kids. It had once been electrified so that water poured out of a vase held aloft on the shoulders of a naked boy. The figure was long gone, and the pool was a shabby basin full of rotted leaves and icy water.

As he pulled the car up, Roger felt like ghosts of their own past returning. In thirteen years they had come full circle.

The key still worked, though the door needed to be shouldered open.

The inside looked untouched from the last time they were here. No signs of a break-in. No vandalism. Nothing out of place. Just cobwebs, dust, and damp frigid air that smelled of neglect. For a second Roger ticked off a fantasy of restoring the place to its original cozy charm and living out their days here. But that wouldn't happen.

The good news was that the electricity and water still worked. The bad news was that the refrigerator did not. That meant he would need to find a cold safe place for the ampules.

While Brett and Laura unpacked their clothes, Roger found one. Then he fired up the furnace to give them heat and hot water for three long showers.

Laura brought Brett to her old bedroom. It was musty, but neat. Laura had packed fresh linens, and while Brett took a shower she and Roger made the beds.

When they were through, she collapsed against his chest. "Almost over," he said.

"Thank God."

He kissed her and held her in his arms for a long time.

Laura showered and got ready for bed while Roger lay down with Brett. It was a ritual that went all the way back to his first big-boy bed. In the early days, they would read to him and chat before he dozed off to sleep.

Roger lay down next to his son and wondered how many more nights they had left.

"Remember what my favorite book was?"

"I sure do, I read it often enough. Jack and the Beanstalk."

They had bought him a large hardbound edition, intricately illustrated. The pictures that fascinated Brett the most were of the giant chasing Jack, and the last page showing Jack walking hand in hand with his mother toward a castle, the golden egg-laying goose waddling beside them.

"What happened to Jack's father?"

"Maybe the giant got to him for stealing his treasure."

"But Jack got him back in the end. Must be kind of neat to have a goose like that. I'd have him lay eggs forever."

There was a moment's silence and he heard Brett sniffling.

"You all right?"

"Yeah. I'm fine." After more silence Brett cleared his throat. "The one thing I didn't like about that story is that Jack's father never made it back."

"It's just a story."

Brett reached over and touched the tube around Roger's neck. "What's going to happen, Dad?"

"We're going to turn ourselves in tomorrow. And they'll use the Elixir for cancer research."

"I mean about us. How can we keep going?"

Roger leaned over and kissed Brett on the forehead. He could smell the lavender shampoo in his hair. "Love is how we go on, not youth potions."

A few moments passed in silence. "Brett, if something happened to me, do you think you'd be okay?"

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, if they put me away for a while…"

"How long?"

"I don't know, probably not long. But if we end up with a dope for a lawyer and I got, say, five years, do you think you could take care of yourself and Mom?"

"Yeah, I guess."

"Just what I figured."

Brett said nothing.

"I love you, big guy."

"I love you too."

Long into the dark silence Roger held his son's hand until Brett fell asleep.

When he got up, he checked on Laura in their bedroom.

The light from the hall spilled onto her sleeping figure alone in the bed. She was wearing his old Legion T-shirt from when he coached Brett's Little League team a few years ago.

For a protracted moment he watched her sleep. He wished she were still awake. He wished he could hold her one more time.

He wished he could turn back the clock to that night thirteen years ago when in a fit of fear and self-pity he stumbled down to the cellar and shot himself up.

He wished these things because he knew the day would come when Laura would wake up one morning and over breakfast would announce that although she still loved him she thought it best they live separately because they no longer could fake living by the same clock.

Roger pushed down the sadness and closed the door.

He was exhausted but too wired to sleep. So, he went downstairs and stretched out on the couch.

After a few minutes he flicked on the television just to fill the place with noise. They could still get only a couple stations.

At first he thought it was a movie. People were running in the street, fires were burning, guns were popping in the background. But it was breaking news.

"…stopped firing. I can't see them from where we are," the announcer said, "but the embassy appears secure again." The scene shifted back to the anchor. "Once again, the siege of the American Embassy in Cairo is over. But not before four people were killed and several others injured.

"The incident began late last evening when Islamic fundamentalists held a rally decrying the alleged youth-serum Elixir as a U.S.-Israeli plot…"

Roger sat shocked before the screen. He hadn't even handed it over yet, and the world was insane on rumors.

"Earlier, leaders demanded that the American government make the alleged youth-miracle drug available to all people of the world or risk a Holy War.

"…In response to the spreading unrest, security has been beefed up at U.S. military bases overseas as well as American-owned corporations involved in genetics research.

"Meanwhile, Quentin Cross, president and CEO of Darby Pharmaceuticals in Lexington, Massachusetts, continues to deny his company's past involvement in Elixir. When asked earlier about the now-infamous videos of laboratory animals rejuvenating, he said that the tapes were fakes produced by disgruntled former employees." The scene shifted to Quentin Cross rushing to his black Mercedes in the Darby parking lot.

"How could they have faked the change in the animals, and the front page of The Boston Globe?"

"You can get old newspapers from the library," Quentin said, hustling to his car. "And monkeys all look alike."

"What about how young Roger Glover looks?"

"How am supposed to know? Maybe he knows some good plastic surgeons," he said and drove away.

"Meanwhile, in a White House press conference the president pledged an all-out effort to apprehend Roger Glover, who has so far eluded law enforcement officials in spite of an intensive search."

Roger got up to turn off the set, when something the announcer said stopped him.

"The call for a 'Holy War' is not just coming from the Middle East. The most ominous threat came from a hitherto unknown group calling itself the Witnesses to the Holy Apocalypse."

The scene shifted to a still of Lamar Fisk preaching to his followers.

"According to Professor Dennis Hadlock of the University of Connecticut, an expert on religious cults, such extremist groups view the Elixir serum as the beginning of the end." The camera switched to Hadlock. "Even if Elixir represents an actual scientific breakthrough, to the apocalyptic way of thinking it's blasphemy, a false gift from the devil. A grand lie, and the supreme sign to many that Judgment Day has arrived."

"What are the other signs?" asked the reporter.

"Well, for the Rapture-ready, they're all around us. There's the weather, for one. In the winter it was floods and mudslides reaching biblical proportions in California. Likewise the devastating drought in Africa and recent volcano eruption in central New Guinea. Closer to home, the strange arctic weather that's killing the spring. For those looking for them, these are sure signs of God's wrath. Not to mention the growing global chaos over this. The real danger is-"

Suddenly the scene cut back to the anchor. "We just received word from Cairo that an agreement has been reached and that the hostages will be released momentarily. We're switching live to the U.S. embassy…"

Roger watched as several men emerged with assault rifles on the rooftop of the embassy. On the street below Egyptian troops were shielded behind barricades. Smoke rose from piles of tires and burnt out cars.

"From this vantage, we can see Ambassador Boyle and seven staffers being escorted by their captors. They appear to be awaiting the U.S. helicopter…"

Another camera pulled in the large helicopter gunship approaching the embassy. While the blades whirled, the captors released the seven staff members who ran to the opening where U.S. soldiers helped them aboard.

When the last was aboard, the captors waved the chopper to leave, holding behind the ambassador, still in handcuffs.

The camera closed in on the lifting craft when suddenly the captors opened up with machine guns and grenade launchers. Instantly the rear end of the helicopter exploded, sending the vehicle into a tipsy angle toward the ground.

"Oh my God!" cried the announcer.

At the sound of the explosion, the group of gunmen cheered. Then as the camera closed in, the leader led the ambassador to the edge of the building, shot him in the head with a pistol, and pushed him off the roof.

Sickened, Roger snapped off the set.

"I have become death."

36

"I don't know how the videos got out. It's been thirteen years. People steal things," explained Quentin Cross. "No one's left from the old lab. They're all gone-some retired, some dead. I don't know how they got out."

"It was still careless," Antoine said. He was calling from his Lear jet. "You should have had those locked in your vault."

"Duplicates were made. What can I say?"

"The important thing is, can you still reproduce the compound if you had samples?"

"Of course we can. You know that."

It had taken years to pull themselves out of the debt Chris Bacon had left them in, but Darby had a first-rate laboratory with all the necessary technology to determine molecular composition of most compounds. And what they lacked, they could buy.

"All we need is a few cubic centimeters and we can make the stuff by the gallon," Quentin said.

"What about the technical staff?"

"We have the right people."

"People we can trust, not just clever technicians?"

"Trust can be bought. All you need is enough capital."

He could hear Antoine chuckle. "You're getting cynical in your old age."

"I have every reason to be," he said, tasting the sourness in his own voice. "Do you have any idea where they are?"

"I have ideas, yes."

Vince had boasted about an extensive computer network and ace hackers who could infiltrate the file systems of major corporations, departments of motor vehicles, local hospitals, the Social Security Administration, even a few banks. "If you've got a pulse, we'll find you," he had said.

"May I ask where?"

"You may, but I'm not going to tell you. Your job is geniuses and test tubes. Stay well, my friend. Bon soir."

Quentin hung and recalled why he disliked Antoine. He was a slick, arrogant thug. Other people were just rungs on his ladder. But that was not why Quentin needed him. His Consortium was an aging lot of multimillionaires who were hankering for the promised land.

And they needed him and not just to reproduce the stuff. He had people ready to get their hands on the body fluids and brain tissue of Roger Glover to see what made him tick.

It was a little after nine when Quentin got off his office phone. For the last six days, Darby Pharms had been crawling with media and protesters. Twice he had to call the police to break up fights between factions trying to break inside the plant.

He had even hired armed security guards to patrol the premises night and day. That and an enhanced monitoring system had cost him thousands.

But it would be worth it when they brought Glover in. And it wasn't just a cash cow come home. Every time Quentin looked at the photo of Robyn on his desk he saw in the glass the reflection of a tired middle-aged man, grown heavy in body and spirit, and weighted by the same dull routine of running a midsize pharmaceutical company. Perhaps it was a decade of struggling to get back on his feet, but he had lost his old belly fire. He missed those days when they were scrambling about for their great bonanza, pushing out walls and buying fancy staff and equipment. No, it wasn't the old man he missed. Ross was a prick who dismissed his ideas as pipe dreams, who never showed him respect as an equal. The only reason he had made him CFO was to keep the company in the family. The old bastard had deserved to die. No, what Quentin missed was a younger Quentin, so full of dreams and fight and years.

What passed for belly fire these days was the yearning to get his hands on Chris Bacon for what he had done to those dreams.

He glanced at the clock. Maybe there was hope still.

As he gathered his stuff to leave, Quentin noticed the red security light flash silently on the far wall.

His back had been turned to it while talking to Antoine, so he had no idea how long it had been flashing. It had gone on and off all day, but with the full security contingent to hold back the crowds there was no reason for alarm.

Motion sensors that rimmed the building had apparently picked something up earlier but had not been cleared.

Quentin cut to the security office across the hall. He flicked a switch to light up a panel of twelve surveillance monitors which gave him a full sweep of the property in real light and infrared. Maybe it was a stray dog or raccoon, because the lights showed nobody anywhere around the building.

The security guard sat conspicuously out front in a black vehicle. He would drive around the grounds through the parking lot periodically.

Another light flicked on.

Movement in the storage room at the rear of the building.

That was odd. At night, the security guards patrolled only the outside of the building. Even during the day, that area was a restricted zone of high-security substances. Also, that end of the building was a cinderblock-and-steel structure essentially impregnable. There were no windows, and the only doors were the service bay for trucks and a single entrance made of steel and wired to an alarm. The only way inside was a battery of keys or an infantry tank.

Quentin left the office area.

He walked down the long corridor to the storage area. With his keys, he let himself inside. The heavy steel door closed behind him with a loud snap of the lock sliding into place.

The place was dim but for the night lights. And quiet. The only sound was the soft hum from the air circulation system.

Quentin slowly walked past the long aisles where they stored thousands of chemicals in bottles and boxes. The heels of his shoes snapped on the clean cement floor.

Nothing out of the ordinary.

Overhead he spotted the security cameras and motion sensors that lit up red as he moved by. In the security office the silent red lights would be blinking wildly.

Because the place was so tightly sealed, there was no way an animal could have gotten inside. Unless it was a pigeon that had strayed in through the delivery bay during the day. That had happened occasionally. But he could see none. If it were perched in the rafters, they would have to get it out tomorrow or the red lights would never go off.

With his key Quentin let himself into the restricted area set off behind a thick steel mesh. Against the back wall was the dark vault of specialized compounds.

He checked behind the vault and the various shelves. Nothing. He also opened the vault to be certain nothing was missing. In the rear he removed a small brown jar containing tubarine chloride. He looked at it, thinking of Ross and that bastard Bacon.

Clink.

Quentin froze in place, the tubarine clutched in hand.

Clink. Clink.

Quentin turned.

There was somebody behind him, on the other side of the steel grating. A man wearing a black Minuteman Security uniform.

"You startled the hell out of me," Quentin said. "H-how did you get in here?"

The man did not answer, and his face was shadowed by the brim of his cap.

"I asked you how you got inside the building."

Clink.

"I'm the president of this company. I hired you people. Will you please answer me?"

Clink. Snap.

"What are you doing?"

The man had padlocked shut the door with his own lock.

Quentin crossed to the grating. "What are you doing? Take that off. Let me out of here."

The man said nothing.

Quentin closed his fingers through the steel mesh and shook the gate. It was fastened shut. "Let me out of here. I own this place. This is my company. Who do you think you are?"

The man raised his head so that the security light caught his face.

A familiar face.

A television face.

"You're going to hell, sinner."

Reverend Colonel Lamar Fisk.

It was his people who had camped out on the grounds outside for the last week. The fanatics with the signs calling for Armageddon.

"Who the hell do you think you are coming in here like this?"

"Who?" Fisk's eyes were perfect orbs. "A soldier of the Lord is who. You've bitten into His forbidden fruit for the last time."

"What the hell are you talking about?" Quentin shook the door again. "Let me out of here. Let me out of here."

Fisk did not respond but glared at him with such an intensity that Quentin backed away.

He then shot to an emergency phone on the wall near the vault. He raised it to punch 911 but could not get a dial tone. The line was dead.

Fisk raised his hand. "And I heard a voice from heaven saying, 'Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from henceforth,'" he shouted. The veins of his neck stood out like thick cords of rope.

From behind Fisk half a dozen others in black uniforms appeared. One held a torch in his hands.

No, not a torch. A Molotov cocktail.

"What do you think you're doing?"

But Fisk moved back to the others. The man with the torch passed the flaming bottle to him. Then in a booming voice that reverberated in the steel chamber, Fisk raised his torch hand high and bellowed forth:

"'And I saw the beast was taken and with him the false prophet that wrought miracles before him with which he had deceived them that had received the mark of the beast and them that worshipped his image. And they were both cast alive into a lake of fire.'"

Then he threw the torch toward Quentin. With a shattering whoosh, the floor erupted in a spreading pool of orange flame.

In the light Quentin saw two men rush into the interior of the building, to the labs and offices. A moment later he heard loud explosions.

It was then the remaining men let fly incendiary grenades into all corners of the storage chamber and down each of the aisles.

Quentin screamed as if his throat were shattering.

But he was drowned out by the sound of the grenades and exploding chemicals, the rage of flames, and the wailing alarms.

In mere moments, the place was a thick vortex of smoke and fire. All along the shelves containers of chemicals blew up, spreading more flames and noxious fumes until the chamber was a roaring toxic inferno.

Inside the security cage Quentin shook the gate and howled until the smoke choked his lungs and filled his eyes with killing heat, and he fell to the floor, his fingers still clutching the small brown jar of tubarine.

37

According to the thermometer outside the kitchen window the temperature was 30 degrees the next morning. Fresh snow covered the yard. The lake remained unfrozen, however the water in the old fountain was iced over and pillowed in white.

But a warming trend was in the forecast. In a few hours the world would be green again. In a few hours the place would also be swarming with police and media people with vans surmounted by radio dishes. And by early afternoon it would be all over, Laura told herself. There was a strange roundness to it all. The saga had been born in the wilderness half a world away, and it would end in the wilderness of her old backyard.

Laura had gotten up before Roger and Brett. She made some coffee to get her heart going. She felt lousy and she looked it in the mirror. The skin of her face was a loose gray dough and her eyes were puffy. She had slept soundly until about four o'clock when she woke up with a bolt of panic at the bargain Roger had cut with the president.

It had crossed her mind yesterday, but she was so wracked with horror and grief that the realization had not registered. But two hours ago it hit her. In the effort to save her and Brett, Roger had signed his own death warrant.

He came down a little before seven.

Laura gave him a mug of coffee. On the television in the living room the "Elixir Unrest" story continued. Over the last few days it had become so prominent and widespread that CNN created its own graphics and crash chords.

Laura sat next to Roger and took his hand.

The news was worse than last night. Another rash of bombings of American corporations in foreign countries. More cries for a holy war. "An Elixir Jihad," someone had called it.

What particularly shocked them was the story of the torching of Darby Pharms and the death of its president. Some lunatic fundamentalist group had claimed responsibility. The same group that proclaimed Christopher Bacon a false prophet attempting to conjure the devil.

Meanwhile, a huge rally was scheduled in Washington that day at noon in protest of the government coverup. All efforts by the White House to downplay Elixir had failed miserably. A whirlwind of madness was whipping across the world, and it had Roger's name on it.

Laura turned off the set. "What's going to happen to you when you turn it over?"

"I guess I'll be given a regular supply to keep me going. Probably administered by some medical clinic wherever we end up."

She knew that even without the notebook protocol, the compound could be broken down into its molecular constituents which meant that it could be duplicated. All one needed was a lab and good organic chemists. "You won't be safe."

"Why not?"

"People will be after you as long as you live."

He had used the compound as a bargaining chip, but she knew it meant more anxiety. As long as he was on the stuff, they would remain forever prey to every maniac wanting a sample. Just as bad, he would be the number-one infidel on top of every religious crazy's hit list.

She squeezed his hand. "It scares me."

"But we'll have federal protection."

His answer was too pat and resolve was missing in his voice. It would be the first time the compound was out of their hands. The agreement was for Public Citizen to assume full responsibility for the compound. But who knew where that could lead? If some got out, it could be like one of those renegade nukes from the old USSR floating around on the black market.

"I pray we're not making a mistake."

"We're not," he said.

But she didn't believe him.

About seven-thirty Laura woke Brett. While he got dressed, Roger put the call to the White House.

They were expecting him, and instantly he was transferred to the office of Kenneth Parrish. The rendezvous was to be one o'clock at the Black Eagle Lake lodge. Roger gave the location. Then he placed calls to the major television networks as well as The New York Times, the Associated Press, UPI, Reuters, and CNN.

One o'clock. That gave all parties over five hours to assemble. The last remaining step was unearthing the solitary backup stash of Elixir.

They packed a few things into a duffel bag. Roger stuffed his pistol inside his jacket.

When Brett came down, he asked, "So, what are we doing?"

"First, you're going to have a good breakfast," Roger said. "Then we're going to visit a cave."

The call to Eric Brown's home phone came while he was in the middle of his morning shower.

His wife handed him the portable. It was Assistant Deputy Director Richard Coleman in Washington. Brown dried his hands and face and took the phone.

"We got him," Coleman said. "He's in upstate New York."

"What was the break?"

"He called the White House direct to cut a deal."

"Shit."

"Yeah, well, can't always corner them at the 7-Eleven. The legal stuff will be worked out, but the long and short is that they're turning themselves and the Elixir in for immunity."

"Couldn't get better leverage."

"Yeah, the fountain of youth."

Coleman said that an agency jet was waiting for Brown and his men at the Madison airport. They should be airborne within the hour. The rendezvous was at one P.M. and it would take three and a half hours to touch down at Lake Placid, New York, where a car would be waiting.

"And what happens to the stuff?"

"That's what we've got to talk about, Eric. We're up to our earlobes in religious crazies, so we're asking you to act as liaison to the FDA."

"You mean courier the stuff to Washington?"

"We'll have a chopper waiting for you in New York."

He knew it was out of line to ask but he did anyway. "Why exactly do you need agency courier service?"

There was a slight hesitation before Coleman responded. "It's possible there may be a conflict with Glover over the exact disposition of the stuff. His stipulation is that it goes directly to Public Citizen."

"What's that?"

"One of those consumer medical advocacy groups. I guess he's trying to keep it out of federal control."

"But that's not the plan."

"Eric, I'm only reporting the news, not making it."

"Sure." It was not Eric's place to dispute government agenda. "Dick, I don't know if you saw the autopsy photos of Olafsson and the Kaminsky kid. The meddies don't know if the victims overdosed, underdosed, or what, but the stuff did a number on them."

"I saw them, and the old animal videos," Coleman said.

"Then you know what I'm saying."

Elixir wasn't exactly the Ebola virus, but what bothered Brown was that Glover knew the downside of the stuff better than anybody else. He wanted it quarantined even though it had turned him into some kind of modern-day Methuselah.

"Yeah, I know," Coleman said. "I also saw the shots of Glover. He looks like an Olympic athlete."

"Right."

"One more thing," Coleman added before hanging up. "The Glovers are carrying an audio tape he made of his conversation with the president. Retrieve it and any backups."

"You mean unofficially."

"Correct."

When they clicked off Brown finished his shower, trying to dispel the uneasy flutter in his gut.

38

Andrea's Cave was located in the hills on the far side of the lake about a mile from the cabin. Roger parked the car in a clearing in the woods and the three of them hiked for maybe twenty minutes to the cave.

Although its interior was commodious in places, the entrance was no gaping mouth but a passage constricted by boulders and covered with scrub that made it invisible until you were on top of it.

The cave was known to the locals, and was listed in spelunker's guides. Because of its remoteness and lack of distinguished formations, the place was not a draw. But to the Whitehead girls who came up every summer from Albany, it was a magical place-the entrance to Middle Earth, a Kraken's den, the home of one-eyed giants-a great hideaway just a bike ride from their family cabin. It was also where, nine years ago, Laura and Roger buried the Elixir notebooks and a two-liter container of the serum.

They led Brett inside. The interior was dark and raw, and much colder than outside. They could see no signs of recent disturbance. The ring of stones of their old fire was still in place.

As if in some old pirate tale, they had a hand-sketched map pinpointing the location. Because the soil was full of large rocks, it had taken Roger hours to bury the two polyvinyl chests. But it would be easier coming out.

Using an army shovel and hand pick, he and Brett dug while Laura made a fire with some newspaper and kindling. The smoke curled up but did not fill the place because further inside was a natural vent that acted as a chimney. It was also Laura and Jenny's secret escape hatch.

It took them maybe half an hour to clear the containers, each constructed of rugged polyvinyl and sealed with stainless-steel locks. They were intact, and still sealed.

For the first time in nine years Roger used the key. The lock gave easily. And he snapped open the first container.

The large jar still sat in the plastic foam mold-and still full. Remarkably, the seal of the box had kept out all moisture so that the original Darby Pharmaceuticals label was as crisp as the day it went under. The container was the original motherlode from the production lab and once destined to be subdivided into hundreds of glass vials and ampules for freezer storage.

Roger held it up to the light.

"How much is that good for?" Brett asked.

"For one man, about a thousand years."

Brett's face lit up. He pressed his face toward the container. "Wow!" he said. "A thousand years from now people would be living like in Star Trek I bet, flying around to other planets and stuff. There probably wouldn't even be any cars. People would just teleport themselves around." He lowered the pitch of his voice.

"'Beam me to Brian's house, Scotty.' Awesome! Probably wouldn't even have to go to school, just plug your head into some kind of machine and you'd know everything."

Laura sat on a stone breaking twigs and tossing them onto the fire. She said nothing, but Roger could feel her uneasiness as Brett's mind reeled at the possibilities.

Roger snapped open the second container.

The entire collection of Elixir notes he had consolidated into four thick folders. Buried with them and bound in plastic was $120,000 in fifties and hundreds. Survival money in case it got to that.

Brett looked at the money. "Cool."

While Roger thumbed through the notes, Brett wandered off to explore the cave with his flashlight.

For several minutes they sat silently as Roger let himself roll back through the years when he had pursued Nature to her hiding place, as Laura had said. How when the ink on these pages was still wet he had believed without doubt in the lightness of that pursuit.

He glanced up from the pages only to find Laura staring at him across the fire. In the capering light, she looked so far away, but he could make out the sadness in her eyes. She made a flat smile but said nothing.

In the dark Roger heard Brett poking around. He checked his watch. Maybe it was time to get it over with, he thought. He had given the police and media five hours, but Albany was only three hours by car, and, of course, they'd arrive early. They were probably beginning to assemble while they sat here. He glanced down at the Elixir notes for the last time. On the open page was a funny little cartoon he had drawn of Methuselah in a muscle-man pose. It was dated December 13, 1986. His sixty-sixth month, and Wendy's forty-second birthday.

He closed the notes. "What do you say?"

"I guess," Laura replied. But she didn't make a move to leave. She reached her hand across the fire for his. "Sorry," she said.

Her hand felt warm. He gave it a squeeze, then began to close the containers.

"That won't be necessary."

Laura gasped. The voice came from behind them.

Three men had appeared from nowhere, one holding a light on them, the other two, raised weapons.

The older man dropped the beam onto the glass container. "You saved us a great deal of difficulty." He spoke in a lilting French accent.

The others said nothing but trained their weapons on Roger.

"Who are you?" Laura said.

They didn't look like religious fanatics. Nor police. One of the gunmen, a guy about fifty with slick salt-and-pepper hair, was dressed in an expensive fur-collared black leather jacket.

"Doesn't matter who we are," he said in unaccented English.

"What's important," the Frenchman continued, "is who you are and what's in your little treasure chest which we will unburden you of, thank you very much."

Roger started to move away with the bottle, but the American jammed the barrel of his gun into Laura's ear. Roger went for his gun, but the second gunman jabbed his pistol to the top of Roger's head.

The Frenchman removed the pistol from Roger's hand and passed it to the American. "No silly heroics please," he said, and gently he took the jar from Roger's hand. He smiled charmingly. "So, this is what all the noise is about." He peered into the clear liquid. "Half the mortal world would love to have this in its veins, the other half in the sewers."

While he talked, Laura flashed Roger a look and tipped her head toward the cave's interior.

Brett.

He was deep in the cave, and for some reason the men did not seem to know.

But if he heard the voices, he'd come stumbling out.

Roger made a silent prayer that he'd sense the danger and find the chimney vent. Just follow the trail of smoke, and keep his light low.

The Frenchman raised the torch to their faces. "I must say it is very exciting to see you in person. Very. You are world-famous. And so well preserved. Quelle merveille! I feel like Ponce de León."

"What do you want?" Roger asked. He tried to speak loud enough for Brett to hear.

Don't come, his mind screamed. Get out.

"What do I want? You have to ask? I want what you have in this jar."

"You followed us," Roger said.

The Frenchmen frowned at the statement. "We didn't have to. But we found your car."

The men had emerged from the entrance, Roger thought, which meant that they had not been hiding in wait for them. So they did not know about Brett.

"How did you find us?" Laura asked, picking up on Roger's cue. They would stall for Brett to catch what was going on and get away.

The Frenchman cradled the jar in one arm and with the other and pulled something out of his back pocket.

He smiled broadly. "I read your book." In his hand was the paperback edition of If I Should Die.

Like a schoolteacher, he opened the book to a page mark. "'Ceren Evadas.' It's where your 'plucky' little sleuth hides in the end from the villains. Ceren Evadas-the make-believe little hideaway that she and her sister invented when they were children-safe haven from the bad guys, yes? And where she takes off to at the end. Andrea's Cave. It took me some time to figure it out then find it, but even cave hunters have websites.

"Then we cross-checked your ISBN number with the Library of Congress and learned that your maiden name was Whitehead and that you were born in Albany, New York. Our guess was that you had another childhood home up here, but we found no records. But the big clue was that you put your cave in Black Eagle Lake, Ohio. That confused us at first because there is no Black Eagle Lake, Ohio. Nor did it make sense to have a summer home in Ohio while living in Albany. Then we discovered a Black Eagle Lake, New York, and an Andrea's Cave. And voila! The two lines cross-and here you are.

"A good thing the police aren't better readers."

Neither his cultured manner nor accent diminished the primitive menace of the man. As he spoke, he kept licking his upper lip like an animal, finding chilling amusement in how he had cornered them.

"They say that one should write from what one knows. Perhaps that is not always the best strategy. But, I suppose, all you famous authors are narcissists, no? Every tale is an autobiography of sorts. So impossible to escape the self or the longing to go home again." He looked around. "I must say that you described this to a T, as you Americans say."

"Who are you?" Roger asked.

He peered down at Roger with that same smug grin. "The shark in your fountain of youth, my friend."

"Fair Caribe," Roger said. "Fair Caribe. You're the guy from Apricot Cay."

"Maybe you should write the detective stories."

"You were going to blackmarket it," Roger continued. "Quentin's little dream of getting around the FDA-sell it to high rollers."

"So disrespectful to speak ill of the dead."

"Without him you'll have to find another lab. Or somebody who knows how to make it."

"You may be immortal, but you're not indispensable," the Frenchman said. "That's not our interest."

The American in the black jacket tapped his watch to end the foreplay.

"You're right," the Frenchman said and nodded for the second gunman to fetch the empty box for the jar.

But Roger blocked their move. "Then what is your interest?" All he could think of was stalling as long as possible for Brett to escape. His eye fell on the machine pistol.

"Are you really so concerned?" the Frenchman asked.

"Yeah."

The American clearly wanted to get it over with. "Antoine."

But Antoine disregarded him. "I have no care to capitalize on your little miracle, if that's what worries you. My life is full. I have all I can ask-all but more time to enjoy it. N'est-ce pas? Now I've got that."

This was how it would end, Roger thought. Shot to death in a remote cave by nameless gunmen. The perfect crime: Elixir gone, and Number One and Two fugitives mysteriously murdered.

"You have what you want. Just leave us be."

"It's not that simple, my friend. To live indefinitely, one must be invisible-as you well know."

"So?"

"You saw my face."

"You bastard," Laura said.

That made the American smile.

"You people killed Betsy Watkins," Roger said. "Then bombed the plane."

Antoine checked his watch. "Enough."

But Roger pushed. "You killed Betsy and blew up the plane."

"The box, please."

"Say it. Say it!" Roger shouted.

"I fucking heard enough of you," the American said, and rammed his gun to Roger's forehead.

Laura screamed, and Roger waited for his head to explode.

But Antoine stopped him. "Why is that so important I say these things?"

"You're going to kill us anyway."

Antoine made a what-the-hell shrug. "Yes, we are. And, yes that was us."

The silent gunman made a side glance to Antoine for the cue.

"Your name," Roger insisted. "What's your name?"

"Your last wish, my friend. A man about to die deserves to know his dispatcher. Antoine Ducharme, my friends. Something to take with you."

Then he turned to Laura. "Author Wendy, you know what my favorite line in your book is? No? Then I'll tell you. It's at the end when your Detective Kate Krueger captures the killer in his own bedroom. She says, 'People are like salmon, they go home to die.'"

The cue.

"No-o-o," Laura cried.

As the American raised the gun to her head, Roger grabbed the shovel and swung it like a baseball bat. The blade caught the jar at the midline in Antoine Ducharme's hands, shattering it instantly.

An uncontrollable gasp escaped the man's throat as fluid and glass shards sprayed him. Pathetically he tried to cup the Elixir which seeped through his fingers with his own blood and onto the dirt.

By reflex one of the men took aim at Roger's head, but thought twice and whipped him across the mouth.

"That was very stupid," the Ducharme said, looking at his fingers dripping red. "Very stupid."

He picked some glass out of his palm, still trying to save some mixture.

Roger spit some blood. "Now you have nothing but us."

"You have more," Ducharme said, trying to compose himself. "You have more. It would be insane to store it all in a jar."

Antoine muttered something in French, and the silent gunman dropped to his knees and put the barrel of the pistol to Laura's forehead.

"I am going to count to three, and when I do your wife's brains will be all over these walls. I will not fuck around any longer. Three seconds and she's dead."

Ducharme had no idea about the cabin. For all he knew, the two of them had camped out in the Subaru all night.

"One…"

Laura's face was shocked in terror.

"Two…"

Roger looked at the gun to Laura's head. "No! Don't. I'll take you."

"Then do so quickly. I'm cold."

The gunman pulled back.

"There's a cottage about a mile from here," Roger began. But he never finished.

Out of the shadows, a figure flew at the gunman.

Brett.

He seized the man in a headlock from behind and pulled him to the ground, all the while with his free hand yanking away the pistol. It had happened so fast, the man was stunned.

In the flurry of movement, Laura butted the American in the genitals with her head. With a pained grunt, he folded in the middle but not before taking aim at Laura. Roger leaped to block her, when an explosion rocked the cave.

The American fell face-forward.

Brett had shot him with one hand, his other still in a chokehold on the first man.

Brett jumped to his feet with the pistol raised. The American was not dead. But his arm landed in the flames, and he rolled away yowling. The bullet had caught him on the elbow.

"Don't friggin' move," Brett screamed.

The American rolled in pain, but nobody else moved. Brett grabbed the machine pistol off the ground so that he had a weapon in each hand fanning Antoine and his men. He looked wild. He looked like he wanted them to make a false move so he could blast them to hamburger.

Laura pulled herself up and helped Roger to his feet. His lip was bleeding.

He got his own gun from the American's belt. "And you wanted basketball," he said to Brett.

But Brett did not laugh, nor did he regard Roger.

"Up! Up!" he shouted.

The American with the ruined elbow and smoking sleeve stumbled to his knees. When he hesitated, Brett kicked him in the butt.

"Fucking kid!"

Brett kicked him again.

He looked half-crazed. Days of fear and anger had come to a ballistic head.

Antoine muttered something vicious in French, and Brett sent the toe of his boot into Antoine's shin.

He would have filled him full of lead had Roger not pulled him back.

"Outside!" Brett yelled.

"Brett!" Roger said, holding his hand out for the guns.

But the boy would not respond to him. He was locked into marching the men outside himself.

What cut across Roger's mind like a shark fin was that Brett's mind had snapped. That the sheer horror of seeing his parents about to be executed had momentarily deranged him, and that once outside in the daylight he would line them up and blast them dead.

Laura tried to reason with him, but he stonewalled her too.

Brett stuck the nine-millimeter into his belt. The machine pistol he gripped in both hands like a movie cop. He then rammed the back of one men. "Hands high."

The man raised his hands.

He stabbed the man in the skull with the gun. "Higher!"

The man reached as high as he could. With one hand Brett reached around and tore the man's belt off his pants and tossed it to Roger to tie his hands. He then whipped the belts off the others and tossed them to Laura.

When the men were bound, Brett pushed them toward the entrance, still moving under that weird autopilot.

"Wait," Roger shouted. He picked up one of four notebooks. He looked at it for a moment, then opened it and tore out the pages and fed them to the fire.

"What are you doing?" Brett screamed. "We need those."

"No, we don't."

Brett said nothing, remembering the ampules back at the cabin.

Roger tore out another handful of pages and tossed them on the fire. Then another and another.

While the fire flared, he tried not to think of the years of drudgery they represented-the meticulous around-the-clock record of everything he had done since returning from Papua New Guinea-Methuselah's first year, his weight, chemistry; maze test results; the molecular diagrams, equations, diagnostics; the primates, Molly, Fred, Jimbo-seven years' worth. Work that had consumed his waking hours, that had filled him with inestimable dreams. Page after page.

It was like self-amputation in razor slices.

When he was done the fire roared.

Laura took his hand as they watched for a moment. When he was satisfied, he said, "Let's go."

As the others started out, he yanked the golden ampule from his neck and tossed it into the fire.

He then he fell behind Laura, passing Brett who hadn't seemed to notice and who waited to close up the rear as they all moved out of the cave.

Brett did not shoot them. He was more interested in returning to the cottage.

They had parked the Subaru in the woods out of sight from the road. But the men had found it. The seats were slashed, the ceiling vinyl torn out, glove compartment cover pried off, the floor trap opened. They had even gone through the engine compartment looking for containers of the serum.

Luckily, the engine still worked. Brett rode in the rear with the machine pistol trained on the three men. Laura drove, and Roger nursed a bleeding mouth beside her.

As they headed back to the cottage, Roger tried to get Brett to come out of his daze, but to no avail. It crossed his mind that he might have to overpower his own son when the car stopped. It also crossed his mind that the men might try something desperate to escape.

"Brett, that's not a regular gun. Squeeze the trigger and thirty rounds will come out."

Brett didn't respond, but Roger was certain he got the idea. From the way the men sat frozen, they got it too.

They drove the rest of the way without another word. Yet Roger couldn't help but feel irrational pride in his son.

At the head of the logging road was a clutch of police and news vehicles. Uniformed officers waved them to stop.

As Laura braked, Brett shouted, "No! Don't stop!"

Laura leaned on the horn and motioned frantically that they were coming through. The police recognized them, but before they could force Laura to pull over, two agents of the FBI glanced inside.

"It's them," one of them shouted.

Roger recognized Number 44 from the Town Day race.

"Pull over." Guns drawn, the two agents tried to open the locked doors. They wanted them to surrender right here and get into the waiting black Hummer.

But that was not the agreement. Nor was Brett going to let them. "Keep going!" he shouted to Laura.

Laura lowered the rear window so the agents could see Brett with a TEC-9 machine pistol trained on the three men.

"They tried to kill us. We're not stopping."

Number 44 wore an FBI photo ID: William Pike. The man with him was Eric Brown. Roger recognized the name. Brown sized up the situation, then shouted for the police to let them through.

Instantly three motorcycles pulled out to escort them to the cabin, several vehicles pulling behind.

At the bottom of the road was an even larger swarm of people and vehicles-unmarked cars, news vans, police cruisers, people with cameras, even some locals with kids. Maybe a hundred or more people.

On the lake floated two pontoon TV helicopters and a seaplane. It was insane, Roger thought. How the hell did they assemble so fast? And up here in the middle of nowhere! The nearest major town was Lake Placid.

Somehow the word had leaked, no doubt from the broadcast people to keep the story breaking from minute-to-minute.

Roger would bet his life they were here not to clap eyes on the FBI's most wanted man but the guy who wouldn't die.

What bothered him was all the people moving in and out of their cabin. Men in uniform and in plainclothes. They had probably torn the place apart for Elixir. He scanned the front yard and whispered a thanks the old fridge had broken down.

As Laura pulled near the broken lawn fountain, one reporter kept up a monologue into his microphone as he trotted alongside:

"The lakefront house was deserted, and wild speculation was that the Glovers had either taken off or were abducted. But as we speak, they are returning in a black Subaru Outback…"

The police waved them into the drive, and the crowd made a path. In the distance Roger spotted a frontend loader waiting in the event that he announced the Elixir supply was buried.

People were shouting and pressing around the car with cameras while the police tried to keep them back. But it was impossible. They had not expected the media blitz.

Laura parked as police and FBI jackets made a wall around them. Agent Brown carried his gun low but he wanted Brett to surrender the weapons.

Roger pushed his way to Brown. "Get these people away."

He didn't know what kind of trauma Brett was suffering, but he was not responding to him or Laura. And the charge of the crowd might make him start firing. "Don't touch him, and he won't hurt anybody," Roger shouted. He was smeared with blood. "These are the bad guys." And he pulled Ducharme and the others out of the car.

Brown barked some orders for the police to clear a path.

Reporters shouted questions and cameras were jamming for shots. Brett looked at the breaking point. His eyes were still wild, yet he stuffed himself behind the men and pushed them to the steps of the cottage.

Somebody made the mistake of pushing into Brett. He flashed the pistol at him in reflex, and the guy jumped backward. Nobody else interceded.

The crowd parted like a school of fish for the three bound men and the boy in the weird trance with both hands gripping the large black gun.

Without a word, Brett marched the men single file to a step shy of the porch where he commanded them to turn and face the crowd.

He then climbed onto the porch behind them and held the gun to the back of Ducharme's head.

"Brett, no! Don't do it. Please!"

But he did not hear Roger. Nor his mother's cries.

Nor did he see the marksmen on the old woodpile, their high-powered rifles trained on him.

"Tell them," Brett said to Ducharme.

The crowd hushed and pressed in, a wall of humming cameras and directional microphones all gawking at the boy and his hostages.

"Tell them!"

"Tell what?" Ducharme asked.

"Tell them how you killed Betsy Watkins and blew up the plane."

Ducharme made a bemused smile. "If I don't, are you going to kill me in front of the whole world?"

Brett pushed the barrel of the gun to the base of his skull. "You bet your friggin' life I am."

Ducharme looked over his shoulder. When he saw Brett's face his smile fell.

"One…" counted Brett.

The crowd gasped and police marksmen raised their guns, not certain where to aim, or what to do. They couldn't shoot a boy on global broadcast.

"Two…"

"Brett, don't," Laura pleaded. "Not this way."

"Three!" And he rammed Antoine's head with the gun again.

"Okay," he said and swore in French. "What do you want me to say, you crazy kid?"

"The truth. Tell them the truth."

"Christopher Bacon did not kill Betsy Watkins…"

"Keep going," Brett warned. "The plane…

"He did not plant a bomb on flight 219. It was associates of Quentin Cross."

"And you."

There was a long pause.

"And you!"

"And me."

"Louder."

"And me."

"Louder."

"And me!"

The crowd exploded, reporters jabbering all at once. Brett looked over to his father and for a second he flashed his father a smile.

"Friggin' cool," Roger said.

Ducharme ignored the questions and looked over to Roger. "So you have a boy do your bidding for you."

"Like his dad, he's older than he looks."

39

The FBI was humming to get its hands on the compound. But the crowd was restless for Roger to come to the mike.

After Brett surrendered the guns and the police took away Antoine Ducharme and his men, Brown and his agents tried to corral the Glovers into the house to retrieve the last of the Elixir, wherever it was. But that was not the deal.

Roger had promised a news briefing, and they were going to get one. And live cameras guaranteed that.

Roger moved onto the porch with Brett and Laura by his side. Behind them stood several uniformed police, Brown, and his agents. Brown held a hand radio that kept him in moment-to-moment communication with unseen superiors.

That bothered Roger. He sensed conflicting lines of awareness. This was not protocol. It was sloppy. It had gone public. It set forth conditions the Feds were reluctant to address.

Shortly Brown moved to the top step and waved his hands to quiet down the crowd.

"I'm Eric Brown of the FBI, Madison, Wisconsin Field Office. Mr. Glover has agreed to make a few brief statements before we leave. When he's through, we ask that you please return to your vehicles and depart the premises."

"What about questions?"

"This is not a press conference."

There were shouts of disapproval. Roger turned to Brown. "I can take a few questions."

Brown cocked his head to hear whoever was in his earpiece. He muttered something into his phone. "Just a brief statement," he said flatly.

Roger moved to the mike. "I had originally intended to give a statement of our innocence of the charges, but fortunately that's been established.

"I don't know who those men were, but the fact that they intended to kill more people underscores the dangers inherent in the substance, including some misconceptions the media's latched onto.

"In spite of all the claims, I am not immortal. If you cut me I'll bleed. If you shoot me I'll die. There's no way of knowing how long I'll go on, but it's not indefinitely because eventually my internal organs will give out. Whenever is anybody's guess."

People tried to stop him with questions, but he held his hands up and continued.

"Second, for all its appeal, Elixir is fraught with terrible dangers-personally, medically, socially, and morally. I need not go into details, but I cannot stress enough that the substance presents more problems than it solves. And I speak from experience."

"What kinds of medical problems?"

Brown tried to cut in, but Roger took the questions. "You've seen videos of animals fast-forward aging. That's the consequence of withdrawal."

"Is that what would happen to you?" shouted a red-haired woman.

Brown who was back-and-forth on his radio phone cut in. "There will be no more questions. Otherwise we will terminate this briefing."

The crowd did not like that, but quieted down.

Roger continued. "A key term of our agreement is that the entire supply of Elixir be turned over to Public Citizen for research into its cancer-fighting properties exclusively. Second, that research protocol and data be closely monitored to prevent application to human prolongevity.

"For the record, the government understands and agreed to those conditions."

"Finally, contrary to reports, there are no hidden caches of the substance. The world's entire supply is at this site."

Another stir rippled through the crowd.

"Where?" somebody shouted.

Brown and his men closed around the Glovers.

"Where's the rest of it?"

"How much is left?"

Suddenly the crowd was restive and firing questions.

The police started to push back the reporters, until a tumult rose up and people began shoving. A line of uniforms pressed against the crowd.

Things were nearly out of hand. In a moment batons would start swinging and heads would be bloodied.

"I'll take questions," Roger said to Brown.

"No, you won't." Brown's men began corralling them inside.

Roger didn't like that. They were doing all they could to separate them from the media, to get their hands on the compound and haul them to headquarters in Manhattan. Another agenda had taken over.

Roger grabbed the microphone from a uniformed cop. "Hold it. I'll take your questions."

Brown made a move for the mic. But somebody squawked something in his ear. Whoever was calling the shots wanted this over with peacefully.

Brown pulled Roger aside. "Those aren't my orders."

"You've got a hundred million people in those lenses. They are your orders."

Brown's resolve cracked as he motioned the police captain to pull his men off the crowd.

When the place settled, Roger spoke: "I'll take your questions, but orderly and with a show of hands, please."

The crowd pressed to the porch again.

When they calmed down, Roger said, "Okay."

The place erupted, hands flapping like cornstalks in a wind. A wall of directional mics and camera lenses poised on him.

"Dr. Glover, you said you may not live indefinitely, but is it true you haven't experienced any effects of aging since you began taking Elixir?"

"True."

"How old are you?" another shouted.

"Fifty-six."

A stir of amazement passed through the crowd.

"What about Mrs. Glover?"

Roger took the question. Laura had wanted no part of this. "We're the same age, but only I've taken the serum."

"Mrs. Glover," another reporter shouted. "Can you tell us why you decided against it?"

Again Roger took the question. "Just that she did."

But the reporter persisted in his attempt to engage Laura. "Do you regret that decision?"

"No," Laura answered.

"Has it caused problems for you as a family?" shouted the woman with the red hair and a TV 4 cameraman.

"Yes," Roger said without explanation.

"Dr. Glover, I'm wondering about the long-range effects of Elixir," shouted another. "If it doubles or triples the lifespan, wouldn't that mean you've invented a higher order of the human species-a kind of superman?"

Before he could answer, two other reporters blurted out questions. When they calmed down to hear his answer, more questions followed. Brown flapped his hands to tell them one at a time.

Roger was beginning to regret this. "You're missing the point. The compound will not be researched for longevity. Even if the side effects can be eliminated, it's dangerous and wrong-like human cloning, which is also banned…"

But nobody was listening.

He looked at Laura. She looked frightened. Brett stood beside her, numbed by the spectacle.

"If someone were to have a transfusion of your blood, would they live forever too?"

"Is it true the Elixir will prevent diseases?"

"Would the substance make anybody younger?"

Roger suddenly understood what Jesus must have felt like after raising Lazarus. Probably everybody in the village came after him with a laundry list of dead relatives.

He tried to answer, but the questions were coming rapid-fire. And the answers weren't registering. It was impossible.

"How much do you have to take for it to work?"

"Does it work on children, too?"

"What about very old people?"

They weren't getting it. They didn't have a bloody clue. And the millions catching it all would hear only eternal youth.

And tomorrow Larry King would call, and Barbara and Oprah. And he would be hounded by publicists and agents. And movie and book offers would come flooding in. And pharmaceutical companies would be calling with fabulous contract offers. And telephone calls in the middle of the night: "Hey, Rog, it's Charlie from Swanson's Steak House. Whaddya say, just a little eternity juice for your favorite waiter?"

As he stood there before the foaming crowd, the future lay its lurid self out in front of him. Laura was right. They would hound them like jackals. No matter if he didn't have more than two cc's in his possession, they would be after him for samples.

Worse, they would go after Brett because he was young and vulnerable. Kids cornering him in the schoolyard. Mom's getting really old and depressed, can you help me out? Steal a little of your old man's stash. He'd never know.

And, if you don't, we'll blow your head off.

They'd be on the run again. New names, new IDs, new escape plans.

He glanced at Laura and Brett looking in fright at the crowd. People were screaming at once.

How much would it cost?

Could it come in tablet form?

Would it work on the family dog?

What about population problems?

Does it bother you that some people view you as the devil?

What if it gets out?

They're not going to live like that, Roger thought. Not on his life.

"That's it," Roger said to Brown.

Brown nodded and took the mic and announced the press conference was over.

A roar rose up, but the uniforms poured out from the sidelines to clear the area. Brown and his agents started to move the Glovers inside when Roger shouted, "It's not in there. Out here."

Brown turned to the state police captain. "Clear them out of here. All of them."

The captain was about to pass the order on to his men when Roger grabbed Brown. "Clear the place of the cameras, and rumors will fly that you're holding back on the stuff. Just move them back."

"You're not calling the shots," Brown snapped.

"How badly do you want it?"

Brown stared at him for a moment. "What's your problem, Glover?"

"The people in your ear."

Frustrated, Brown snapped around and told the captain that the media would stay, just push them back to make a path.

Then with Laura and Brett by his side and three dozen cameras locked on them, Roger moved down the steps and across the open yard to the snow-covered fountain which had stood there unnoticed and undisturbed by the mob.

Beneath the skim of ice and melting snow lay 204 ampules of Elixir, cool and safe.

Brown looked at him to ask if he was joking-the fountain?

"Pun intended," Roger said.

And he poked his hands through and removed a clutch of glass ampules.

A wave of dismay rose from the crowd as they watched Brett and Roger load the ampules into two black plastic containers, then seal and affix the locks.

As they walked away, reporters scribbled notes and jabbered away into their microphones as the cameras zoomed after them and the federal agents on their way to the Hummer. The Hummer would take them to helicopters, which would transport them to FBI headquarters in New York City for processing.

When they got to the vehicle, a man in a dark suit appeared from nowhere. He was surrounded by several others, including FBI jackets.

"Mr. Glover, I'm Ken Parrish, Director of the FBI. And this is Dr. Janet Jamal of Gordon Medical School and Dr. Warren Castleman."

Castleman held out his hand. "It's a pleasure to meet you finally, Dr. Glover."

Parrish had left out Castleman's affiliation because Roger would recognize the name. He was the FDA commissioner. Roger did not release his grip on the carriers.

"We'll unburden you of those," Parrish said.

Zazzaro stepped forward, but Roger pulled back. "That was not the agreement. It's going to Doctor Nathan David of Public Citizen."

Parrish's face hardened. "What agreement?"

Roger felt as if a tremor had passed underfoot. "The agreement I made yesterday with President Markarian."

Parrish's face did not crack. "I can assure you that they will be in safe hands."

"I give you my word," Castleman added. Jamal agreed.

They were trying to pull a fast one, Roger thought. Like most medical research universities, Jamal's lab at Gordon Medical was funded almost entirely by the federal government and overseen by the FDA whose commissioner, Warren Castleman, had been personally appointed by the president. They had no intention of turning Elixir over to the Public Citizen. They didn't give a rat's ass about determining the enzymes that prevented cancer cells from replicating. What they were thinking was social security and demographics and avoiding huge tax increases for younger voters, and who knew what else. Maybe the foreign crazies were right about genetic imperialism.

"I don't give a damn about your word. It stays with me until I see Nathan David in person." Roger could feel Laura nudge him toward the car.

Parrish's face flushed in anger, but he was also aware of the wall of cameras humming at them. He made his best conciliatory smile. "Fine." And he backed away to allow them to get inside the Hummer.

Brett jumped in with Laura.

But Roger did not follow. Instead he walked across the yard by himself to the media people. He found the TV 4 woman with the red hair. While the feds stood waiting by the cars, he pretended to shake her hand while slipping her the audiotape of his conversation with the president.

Discretely she closed her hand around it. She pressed toward his ear. "What's this?"

"Protection for my wife and son."

"Gotcha," she said.

Then Roger went back to the Hummer and got in the back seat between Laura and Brett, the two carriers in hand.

Brown took the front seat beside the driver. Zazzaro, Pike, and another agent took to the rear.

Outside Parrish and his men stood stonefaced as they pulled away. Laura took Roger's hand. "If looks could kill," she whispered.

Roger nodded.

He was sitting directly behind Brown with the other agents behind them. Nobody said anything, but all he could think about was the firepower under the jackets of the men in back, and the naked vulnerability of their own three heads.

The Hummer fell behind police motorcycles and three escort vehicles. Behind them pulled two more FBI vehicles, and tailing the procession were several press vans forming an extensive caravan. Roger wondered how far the authorities would allow the press to dog them.

With the escorts, the trip to the heliport on the Vermont side of the Crown Point Bridge would take less than an hour.

Outside, the blanket of snow had already begun to melt.

As they proceeded to Route 10, Roger considered his gut instincts: What if, when they arrived in New York, the Feds decided to prosecute in spite of the promise? Who would stop them even with the news footage about an agreement? All they had to say was that such matters would be determined in a court of law, which had outstanding warrants for their arrest on a battery of charges beyond murder and sabotage.

What if Janet Jamal and associates apply for a patent of some production process and market Elixir?

Or if some sleazeball creep like the late Quentin Cross decides to process a few hundred ccs of his own on the side?

Or if the stuff got out like Laura's renegade Russian nukes scenario? The Antoine Ducharmes of the world were a dime a dozen.

Where was the control? Where were the watchdogs? Who would prevent the horrors from becoming global?

Then he began to raise some hard questions regarding their own future. He knew in some primitive way that he was a liability. The Feds would have to monitor a sustaining supply for him indefinitely. That was inelegant. And it was risky. It made the three of them vulnerable. And him expendable.

What if the Feds had a.38-caliber slug with his name on it-one to be put through his brain one evening while walking to his car? The papers would momentarily lament just-another-senseless-act-of-violence.

Worse-and the question he kept coming back to, the one that had been snapping at him for days: What if somebody decided to go after Brett and Laura to get at his dole?

The brutal conclusion that Roger reached as they made their way to the FBI choppers was that he was as much a liability to them as was Elixir. That Laura and Brett were in danger for their lives as long as he remained alive.

The realization was stunning. And, yet, it had been squatting there all the time licking its chops.

From a back pocket of his mind he heard a familiar voice. The treatment comes with a cyanide pill.

An even worse punishment for them, because he wouldn't just die. They'd find him one morning like Wally and Abigail.

Roger put his arms around his wife and son and tried to blank his mind of all but thoughts of them.

Because the local police had been alerted, the traffic was stopped at the few intersections for the motorcade to pass without sirens.

While Brett checked out the scenery through the windows, Laura relaxed her head against Roger's shoulder. He kissed the top of her head.

Her hand slid to his shoulder as she kissed him on the mouth. Suddenly her head picked up. She could not feel his emergency ampule. Her eyes widened for an explanation. Before she could say anything, he pressed his finger to his lips and shook his head so Brett wouldn't know.

But she wanted to know why it was missing. He hadn't removed it all these years. Never. Even when he showered.

He shook his head to say he'd explain later.

But what would he say? That he did it for Brett's sake, a gesture of closure? A renouncing of temptation? He could always get more. There were 204 amuples between his feet. They would arrange regular maintenance dosages with medics from Public Citizen to keep him alive.

Or was it motivated by some darker impulse he was only beginning to understand?

"I love you," he whispered.

Laura nodded and kissed him.

There were age spots on the back of her hand.

The caravan rolled through small villages to Port Henry. Outside people looked in wonder at the motorcade this far upcountry, and the long line of news vehicles dogging them.

In the distance they could see the high arching steel bridge spanning the southerly end of Lake Champlain from Port Henry to an open field on the Vermont side where several helicopter transports waited. The bridge was a high steel structure of two generous lanes. Two New York state cruisers waited by the side to keep the lane open.

They were halfway across the bridge when the driver slowed.

"What's the problem?" Zazzaro asked.

"Those trucks. There wasn't supposed to be any oncoming traffic till we got across."

Through the windshield they could see two eighteen-wheelers in the oncoming lane. One continued pass them, but the other slowed and turned a sharp left coming to a stop, blocking both the lanes on the far side of the crest.

"What the hell?" The driver checked his rearview mirror. "Aw shit!"

Behind them the other truck screeched into a jack-knife, cutting off the trail of cars about five back.

They were trapped.

Before they knew it, the rear doors of both trucks opened up and out poured dozens of people with automatic weapons firing.

A screech of tires and the motorcycles skidded sideways. Two drivers were thrown to the side, the other ended up with his leg pinned under the machine. As he rolled in agony to pull free, somebody shot him dead. A chatter of guns and the others were killed.

Laura's scream filled Roger's head.

Zazzaro and Brown instantly had their weapons drawn, and behind them the men produced Uzis. But they were far outgunned.

From behind came a volley of automatic weapons as men from the rear truck unloaded their magazines at the escort vehicles and at the first press cars. Windshields shattered and people screamed as the bullets sprayed the convoy.

"They're killing everybody," Brett cried.

Ahead Roger could see a wall of people with guns marching slowly in formation toward the Hummer. They were all wearing white jumpsuits. And red shoes. All holding weapons.

And in the lead wearing a flowing white robe and clutching something to his chest was Lamar Fisk.

Brown was on his radio phone calling for support. But they didn't have a chance to get here in time.

Zazzaro opened the door with his Uzi raised.

"Don't!" Roger shouted. "They'll wipe us all out." From the dashboard he snatched the mouthpiece to the outside loudspeaker flicked it on.

"Fisk, this is Roger Glover. Stop shooting," he shouted. "Hold your people back. I've got what you want. I'll bring it, just stop shooting."

Laura grabbed him. "Roger, they'll kill you."

Through the windshield they could see Fisk raise his hand. The mob stopped. So did the gunfire.

Roger pushed open the door and gripped the two carriers.

"No, Roger," Laura screamed.

"Dad, don't go!" Brett begged.

"It'll be a bloodbath otherwise," he said.

Zazzaro pressed in front of him. "I can't let you do that."

"Then you're going to have to shoot me," he said and pushed his way out.

Laura and Brett were still screaming for him to stop as he moved away from the vehicle.

Brown jumped out after him. He had explicit orders to get the serum into federal protection, no matter what.

Roger knew that now, but it was no time for anybody to play cop. "There's an army of them with more firepower than you've got in fifty miles," Roger said. "Go tend your wounded."

Brown heard the cries of the men behind them. He saw the wall of white uniforms and the weapons. It wasn't worth the sacrifice. "Just give them the shit and haul ass."

"Dad," Brett cried. "Daaaad."

Roger looked back. I love you, beautiful boy.

A quick glance at Laura. Her face was twisted in horrid realization.

Then he turned and walked toward Lamar Fisk and his army in white.

From behind him, the dozens from the first truck closed around Roger, leaving in cars the dead and wounded, and those who had been spared. The Witnesses had no more interest in them. Nor in the distant sounds of sirens. Nor the media people cowering with their microphones and cameras running.

Nobody tried to stop Roger as he approached Fisk. But all their weapons were trained on him-automatic weapons stolen from military arsenals.

As he approached, he noticed the looks on their faces. A wild intensity. Perhaps rapture, perhaps drugs. Men and women, young and old, mostly white, but with some blacks and Asians. Some women holding babies.

"It's all here," Roger said. "Please let the others go. There's been enough killing."

Fisk raised his bible as Roger had seen him so many times on the news. The look of bloodless piety in his face. "'And one by one the Angel of the Lord opened the vials and poured forth the plagues upon the earth…'"

Roger stopped a few feet before the man. He raised the twin cases. "It's all yours."

But Fisk disregarded his plea. "This is the one true elixir," he shouted, holding up the bible. "This is the only way to eternal life. Not your snake oil."

The creep was going to preach to him first, Roger thought.

In unison the Witnesses cried "Alleluia."

Roger said nothing. The man was not to be reasoned with. He was beyond reason. He was beyond the moment. Beyond this bridge. Beyond the here and now. His eyes were huge glazed orbs. He looked insane with mission.

Roger's eye fell on Fisk's other hand, half-hidden in the folds of his robe.

"Lay them down," Fisk said.

Roger set the two boxes between them.

"Open them."

Roger unlocked the boxes and opened them.

He then stepped back as Fisk inspected the contents. When he was satisfied, he nodded at a woman who overturned the contents making a large pile of glass ampules.

"Vials of abomination," he said.

All around him guns poked angrily in the air. For a moment, Roger saw the Okamolu warriors. "Fisk, please let the others go. You have what you want."

Roger braced himself to be shot dead. That was also what they wanted. Death to the Antichrist. He just wished it didn't have to happen in front of his wife and son.

Fisk shook his bible at him. "'And I heard the voice of a great multitude, and as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of mighty thunder saying "Alleluia, for the Lord God omnipotent reigneth."'" And he stomped his foot onto the vials, the contents splattering.

That was the cue. Instantly others began to smash the vials under their shoes.

As Roger stood there, they crushed each of the ampules until all that lay on the tartop were shards of glass and wetness.

When they were through, they dropped their weapons and embraced each other across the shoulders, forming a circled wall around Roger and Fisk.

It was insane: They had just killed a bunch of people, and now their faces were glowing with beatific light as if at any moment Jesus Himself would materialize.

Spontaneously they broke into a chant of "Alleluia" and kicked and stomped the smashed glass.

It was then Roger noticed the red backpacks they were wearing. Fisk, too.

"Alleluia."

"ALLELUIA."

The chant got louder, and the Witnesses began to jerk as if the syllables were being pumped out of them by unseen forces.

"AL-LE-LU-IA."

"AL-LE-LU-IA."

"AL-LE-LU-IA."

Over the chanting, Fisk's voice rose: "'And I saw the beast and the kings of the earth, and their armies gathered together to make war against Him that sat on the horse and against His army…'"

"ALLELUIA."

"ALLELUIA."

While Fisk bellowed on, his people looked to the sky with beaming faces and jabbering mouths, all locked in unison, impervious to the police gathered on the banks of the lake and the media people behind them and the sound of sirens approaching from both sides.

"'And the waters shall run red with blood…'"

"ALLELUIA."

"ALLELUIA."

Fisk's face was huge with intensity, the tendons of his neck swelling, his long red hair flowing like tongues of flame as he recited the doom and gloom and pumped with the rhythm of the chant.

In the movement Roger noticed something small and black in his hand.

"'…and death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. And whosoever was not witness was also cast into the lake of fire…'"

"ALLELUIA."

"ALLELUIA."

Some kind of remote control device.

Of course, Roger thought. Of course.

THIS is how it will end.

This is my death.

In a feverish pitch, his tongue slashing out the words with a spray, his eyes bulging in their sockets, his body appearing to swell into its huge white folds-Fisk reached his crescendo:

"I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last."

As Fisk raised his left hand, still howling in verse, Roger considered bursting through the Witnesses to make a flying dive off the bridge. He saw an opening between some women and children-a fast sprint could do it. He might even survive the sixty-foot plunge. In a flash he ran through the moves in his head.

No.

He looked back over the heads to the Hummer.

Laura and Brett were out of the car. Brett started to run toward him, but Brown caught him. He, too, saw what was coming.

Thanks, thought Roger.

"DAAAAAD."

Laura was holding onto him, crying for Roger to get away.

His eyes locked on them. For a brief moment, all time seemed to stop, as if the world had turned to a still-life.

"I love you," Roger said.

Before the final syllable was out, the moment exploded in a brilliant concussion of light.