Immortal

28

‘This guy has more money than God.’

Lopez was sitting beside Ethan in the passenger seat of the Mercury, the screen of her handheld showing an Internet page detailing SkinGen Corp.

‘Major pharmaceutical chiefs often do,’ Ethan said as he pulled into the heavily manned gates of the company’s headquarters and showed his identification to the guardsmen.

Lopez scanned down through the Internet entry as they waited for access to the site.

‘True, but this one’s special,’ she said. ‘SkinGen’s annual turnover is measured in billions, and Jeb Oppenheimer has a reputation for extreme corporate ruthlessness. Says here that he once bought an entire company and then shut it down, in revenge for a deal several years previously that had gone against him. Almost three hundred people lost their jobs overnight, and the shut-down cost Oppenheimer fifteen million dollars.’

‘Let me guess,’ Ethan said as the barriers lifted to allow them through. ‘He took the hit happily.’

‘By then fifteen million dollars was small change to him. He owns yachts worth five times that, which he doesn’t visit for years. Properties in Manhattan, London, Paris, Sydney and Rome, none of them worth less than ten million, and also a fleet of private jets on permanent standby in each of those countries.’ Lopez shook her head. ‘Seriously, how many private jets can one person need?’

‘I’d have just one for business and one for pleasure,’ Ethan said. ‘No sense in being greedy. What’s his line of work exactly?’

Lopez scrolled through a few pages before reading slowly.

‘SkinGen’s current research involves the manipulation of cellular transdifferentiation in mammalian species.’

‘Thought so.’

‘Sure,’ Lopez smiled. ‘Something to do with aging, but most of the research has been done behind closed doors under great secrecy. For whatever reason, the government is either unable or uninterested in monitoring whatever old Jeb’s up to in his labs.’

Ethan parked the car in front of the colossal building with ranks of glossy-black windows set into aluminum. The whole place was as perfectly arranged as an operating theater, and seemed completely silent as they climbed out of the car, as though everything was artificial and devoid of life.

‘Sterile,’ Lopez remarked in the hot silence.

Ethan led the way into a vast yet virtually empty air-conditioned lobby, where an immaculately dressed woman sat stranded behind an elaborately sculptured desk of metal and glass, dwarfed by the empty space around her.

‘Ethan Warner to see Jeb Oppenheimer,’ he said cheerfully and with a bright smile. ‘We called ahead…

The receptionist did not return the smile, simply looked down at what he presumed was a concealed computer screen and tapped a few keys.

‘You didn’t book an appointment,’ she intoned robotically.

‘We’re here on behalf of the Santa Fe Police Department,’ Lopez cut in. ‘Either inconvenience Mister Oppenheimer right now or we’ll come back with warrants and tear this place apart.’

The receptionist stared at Lopez in surprise, then picked up a telephone and dialed an extension number. After a brief conversation, she set the telephone down.

‘Mister Oppenheimer is waiting for you,’ she said without looking up from her screen. ‘Top floor, end of the corridor. You can’t miss it.’

‘Too kind,’ Ethan replied, turning for a bank of elevators about a quarter of a mile away across the lobby.

Lopez walked alongside him, smirking. ‘Losing your touch, eh?’

‘I don’t think this guy’s staff are human,’ Ethan said as they reached the elevators. ‘She was probably just plugged into the mains.’

Lopez said nothing as they rode up to the top floor and walked down a long corridor to where another attractive girl sat behind a desk, a blonde this time. Ethan watched as she put down the telephone she was holding and smiled awkwardly, as though someone had surgically attached the grin to her face.

‘Mister Oppenheimer will see you now.’

Something about the way she said the name, and how she immediately looked away from him having done so, struck an uncomfortable chord with Ethan as he opened the door to the office and walked inside.

The office was spartan; broad windows to Ethan’s right letting in the sunset through opaque glass, thick carpet underfoot and a long glass-topped desk ahead. Behind the desk sat Jeb Oppenheimer, engrossed in something on a monitor. Ethan closed the door behind Lopez, and they walked together to stand before him.

‘Sit down,’ Oppenheimer said without looking at them.

Ethan exchanged a glance with Lopez before taking a seat before the old man. He realized almost immediately that Oppenheimer’s seat was positioned on a raised platform, so that no matter how tall his guests the old man would still be able to look down at them. A white lab coat was draped over the back of his chair.

Oppenheimer had a face like a large roasted walnut that had been smashed flat with a shovel. Deep, wide gullies and canyons wrinkled his face so heavily that it was hard to figure out where his features actually began. Feeble strands of silvery-gray hair were smeared thinly across a scalp sprinkled with liver spots, and the light from the windows shone on his thin skin and rheumy eyes with their blotchy sclera.

‘Thank you for seeing us,’ Lopez said.

Oppenheimer finished whatever he was doing on his monitor, before turning to regard her with a cold expression.

‘I don’t have much time,’ he said. ‘Say your piece and then leave.’

Ethan instantly changed attitude, matching Oppenheimer’s tone in a manner he’d learned when interrogating Al-Qaeda members in Iraq. Sound like them, and they’ll be more inclined to speak.

‘Saffron Oppenheimer. Tell us about her.’

Oppenheimer’s eyes swiveled to probe into Ethan’s.

‘Since when do you tell me what to do?’

‘Since now,’ Ethan replied coolly. ‘We have questions regarding several incidents involving laboratories in the Santa Fe area. You can either answer our questions or we can return with warrants to search this entire premises. Your call.’

The eyes narrowed, brimming with a mixture of fury and bemusement.

‘Search for what?’

‘Whatever we decide is of interest,’ Ethan replied, maintaining an uncompromising expression. ‘I have experienced first-hand that your granddaughter has a nasty habit of shooting first and asking questions later, so believe me I don’t care how much resistance you might think you can put up. Sooner or later you’ll tell us anything we need to know, understood?’

Jeb Oppenheimer shuddered. One hand grabbed an ivory cane leaning against the desk beside him and he slammed it down across the glass surface between them with a crack like a gunshot.

‘Goddamn your hide, boy!’ He leaned forward across the table, and peered deep into Ethan’s unflinching gaze. ‘You’ve got balls, and I like that!’

Ethan managed to remain impassive, and Oppenheimer leaned back and slapped his thigh in apparent satisfaction.

‘You know how many spineless, effeminate faggots I get coming in here each day groveling for money?’ he asked rhetorically. ‘At least half a dozen. No more than two a year could I give a damn about, creeps the lot of them.’

‘You’re all heart,’ Lopez muttered.

The old man grinned, peering at her.

‘And I suspected that you might be a little spitfire too. Tell me, what would you like to know about my dear little granddaughter?’

‘She’s one fatality away from becoming a homegrown terrorist,’ Ethan said. ‘She hit the Aspen Center and blew up their computer servers, not to mention stealing about a dozen primates. State police are on her case as we speak.’

‘Doesn’t surprise me,’ Oppenheimer said, resting his hands on top of his cane. ‘She’s been in and out of trouble since she got out of diapers, and this isn’t the first time she’s been involved in violence. She was in court just a few years ago.’

‘So we heard,’ Ethan nodded. ‘Makes me wonder who’s been looking out for her all her life. Or not.’

Oppenheimer held Ethan’s gaze for a moment before levering himself out of his chair, walking slowly out from behind his desk and sitting on its edge.

‘Saffron’s parents died in an automobile accident when she was eight years old,’ Oppenheimer said, looking at his cane as he spoke. ‘My wife and daughter died with them.’

‘I’m sorry to hear that,’ Lopez said.

‘Life,’ Oppenheimer murmured, as though lost in his memories, ‘has a well-evolved capacity for biting us in the ass no matter how hard we try to avoid it. My advice, Miss Lopez, is to take everything you can from it, give as little as possible back and enjoy the ride, because there’s not a goddamn thing waiting for us when it’s over.’

Ethan raised an eyebrow. ‘It’s your optimism I admire.’

‘Optimism is for dreamers and losers,’ Oppenheimer said. ‘Realism is all that matters. Yet a man can’t so much as call a spade a spade these days without being dragged through a court for causing offense. Offense! How can someone be offended by truth, especially if they’re as stupid as so many people are?’

‘That’s a sweeping statement if ever I’ve heard one,’ Lopez said.

‘Indeed it is,’ Oppenheimer said, ‘but no less true for it. Do you know how SkinGen began? My father, Jeremy Oppenheimer, marketed a cosmetic skin cream in the 1920s for women, which he claimed would reduce wrinkles. Called it Everyoung. When most face creams contained lead, mercury and ethanol that wouldn’t so much smooth wrinkles as burn them off your face, his marketing genius was that the cream was basically dyed Vaseline. It sold out across the country, made him a multimillionaire.’ Oppenheimer smiled. ‘Every face cream out there today is exactly the same, just rebranded and remarketed and resold to a gullible and stupid population of self-obsessed women who spend billions on the same crap that SkinGen and others supply them year after year with new labels. You could call that a con, but then what about bottled water? An entire industry built on something that nobody in the developed world actually needs — it’s no better than tap water, which we have in abundance anyway. Or vitamin pills? Money for nothing, all of them, billions of dollars spent by people on things they already have.’

‘Saffron,’ Ethan said, pushing the old man back on topic. ‘She opposes your work.’

‘She hates it,’ Oppenheimer confirmed, ‘and wants none of her inheritance. Good riddance to her, the ungrateful little bitch. If she could only get over herself and realize that the real science we do here is the future, she could have a proper life instead of living in a flea-ridden shack in the Pecos with a bunch of slack-jawed tree-hugging losers who’d be afraid of soap if they knew what it was.’

‘We heard that Saffron has an entitlement to SkinGen,’ Lopez said.

Oppenheimer looked at her with an expression of absolute disgust.

‘Entitlement? I’ll say. My wife and I agreed her inheritance when she was five years old, but the damned fool turned down everything when she turned eighteen.’ He sighed deeply. ‘As she is now my only remaining relative, she is the only heiress to SkinGen.’