Immortal

41

‘What news, Donald?’

Jeb Oppenheimer sat behind his desk, the windows around his office opaque once again and his monitor showing an image of Donald Wolfe at the USAMRIID headquarters at Fort Detrick, Maryland.

‘We’ve got a USAMRIID team working in Santa Fe and Socorro counties, trying to keep up with everything that’s going on down there. So far we haven’t recovered any useful material from the apartments or from any of the crime scenes.’

Oppenheimer leaned forward on the table keenly.

‘What about the body, the one found at Sedillo Park?’

Wolfe smiled.

‘Perfectly preserved — we had the corpse on ice within an hour of death. So far the level of decay is minimal. However, the acceleration is irreversible once death has occurred. Sooner or later the remains will also be useless to us.’

Oppenheimer leaned back in his chair and sighed with relief, still unable to believe that he had finally obtained what he had searched for for so many decades.

‘How could they have known about this man before us?’ he demanded. ‘Lee Carson? I’ve been searching for these people, chasing legends and stories for thirty years or more, then Ethan Warner and Nicola Lopez stroll down here and identify one of them within two days.’

Wolfe shook his head, his hands raised in a gesture of helplessness.

‘I don’t know, but it must have had something to do with Tyler Willis. We know that Hiram Conley was talking to him. He could have identified the survivors to Willis, who then told Warner and Lopez.’

Oppenheimer shook his head slowly.

‘No, Willis was too afraid of what I would do to him to have held anything back. They must be coming out of hiding for some reason. Willis didn’t know where Conley and Carson had gained their longevity, but he did say it must have been bacterial.’

‘If you hadn’t damned well killed Willis we could have asked,’ Wolfe murmured.

‘It was an accident,’ Oppenheimer replied. ‘I had no intention of killing him. Tyler Willis was one of the finest researchers into the field of senescence, far too valuable to simply eradicate.’

‘So what do we do now?’ Wolfe asked.

‘I need to have a chat with Warner and Lopez, how shall I say, more discreetly this time.’

‘That could be a problem. According to reports, Warner and Lopez have gone off the radar.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘They’ve left Santa Fe and Socorro county. My men on the ground don’t know where they are right now.’

Oppenheimer struggled to comprehend what Wolfe was saying.

‘Then goddamned find them again!’

‘It’s not that easy,’ Wolfe countered. ‘New Mexico is huge. If they’ve gone out into the wilderness it could take an entire army to locate them. Warner is a former Marine. If he wanted to, he could hide out there for years and we wouldn’t find him.’

Oppenheimer closed his eyes, sitting back in his chair and forcing himself to think clearly. It had for years been a major problem in his quest that the individuals he sought were almost certainly spending large amounts of time living out in the Pecos wilderness, or under pseudonyms in small towns scattered all over the state. Tracking them down was almost impossible as they moved regularly to avoid detection, and they seemed to always have some kind of support from within the towns — people who supplied them with medicines or money or clothes. Oppenheimer had never identified these mysterious benefactors any more than he had the extremely aged men he sought.

‘We’ll have to go after them,’ he said finally. ‘If they make contact then this whole thing will be for nothing.’

‘Perhaps not,’ Wolfe said, ‘depending on how we play it.’

‘How so?’

Wolfe’s expression hardened as he spoke.

‘It would appear that whatever afflicts these men, it isn’t permanent.’

Oppenheimer’s heart seemed to skip a beat in his chest.

‘What do you mean?’

‘Lee Carson’s hands and lower forearms were decaying before he was shot,’ Wolfe replied. ‘It may be that this condition of theirs was starting to recede and that they were looking for help. It would explain why Hiram Conley came out of hiding and approached Tyler Willis in the first place.’ Wolfe took a breath. ‘They may be dying.’

Oppenheimer shook his head vigorously.

‘No, that’s not possible. You know for yourself now, it’s true. These men are some two hundred years old and haven’t aged since they encountered whatever it was that caused this.’

Wolfe leaned back in his chair, seemingly unperturbed by the revelations.

‘I doubt, Jeb, that your clientele would appreciate discovering that their elixir of youth would only extend their lives by a few decades.’

Oppenheimer cracked his cane down on his desk, pointing a finger at Wolfe’s image on the screen.

‘It makes no difference. What nature provides we can improve. Once we know how the bacteria work we can make the necessary genetic alterations to enhance performance. By the time my clients realize that they’re vulnerable we’ll have had another fifty, sixty or seventy years to research improvements.’

Wolfe grinned coldly.

‘But the price, Jeb,’ he said. ‘It will suffer.’

Oppenheimer felt his throat constrict. His voice gurgled as he struggled to control himself.

‘You worry about ensuring that what happens in New Mexico stays in New Mexico. Let me worry about who’s paying for what. Right now we’re selling a concept that alongside global population control will enhance the quality of the human race a hundredfold in just a few decades, and the glory of it all is that we’ll still be around to see it.’

Wolfe examined his fingertips as he spoke.

‘And if any one of those clients were to see the state of Lee Carson’s arms in the meantime?’ he suggested offhandedly.

Oppenheimer growled his reply.

‘I take it that your silence on this matter is required once more.’

‘As you like to say,’ Wolfe replied, ‘everybody can be bought. And my price just doubled.’

Oppenheimer ground his teeth.

‘So be it.’

Wolfe’s demeanor instantly changed. He held the cards now, and Jeb knew it. For as long as Wolfe was the only security against Oppenheimer’s exposure, he could call the shots.

‘Good. I’ll see what can be done this end to ensure Lee Carson’s body remains in our possession. In the meantime, I suggest that you carry out your search as quickly as possible.’

‘What’s the rush?’ Oppenheimer asked. ‘They’ve been out there for decades and they’re not going anywhere.’

‘No,’ Wolfe smiled, ‘but Lee Carson was reputedly killed by one of his friends, a man who fled the scene with several accomplices. That suggests discord within their ranks. Their vehicle was found abandoned in the wilderness seventy miles south of Socorro. If Carson was killed by his own companions — the men that you seek — how long before they wind up taking themselves out altogether?’

Oppenheimer grimaced. ‘I don’t possess an army to conduct the search.’

‘No,’ Wolfe conceded, ‘but I have connections with ex-soldiers, people willing to work without asking questions. I will send a hundred of them down to New Mexico under the guise of a civilian survival-training course. They will be at your disposal from when they arrive, and I will ensure they are equipped to deal with your little problem.’

With that, Wolfe disconnected their video link. Oppenheimer sat in impotent silence for a moment, cursing Wolfe’s apparent stupidity. A hundred men might take a decade, even a century, to find two fugitives in the desert. But of course, Oppenheimer had an advantage that he would not share with Wolfe, one that would ensure that once the bacteria were in his hands, Wolfe could go sing for his payment.

Oppenheimer tapped a few keys on his computer, accessing Google Earth and zooming in to New Mexico, then typed in an Internet Protocol address. Moments later, a tiny flashing dot appeared deep in the desert, and Oppenheimer smiled.

‘Hello, Ms Lopez.’

Donald Wolfe stared at the now blank screen of his monitor for a long moment, thinking about what Jeb Oppenheimer had said, before he looked up at the pockmarked face of the soldier standing before him. Red Hoffman had a round, pale face and fiery ginger hair that gave him his name, and his eyes were like narrow slits pinched between his puffy features. He stood to attention wearing all-black combat fatigues festooned with radios, pouches and a pistol holster.

‘Gather your men,’ Wolfe ordered. ‘They’ll be tasked with a search and destroy training mission concerning some potentially lethal carcinogens being carried by suspected terrorists.’

Hoffman nodded, saluting smartly.

‘Can we expect resistance from the targets?’ he asked with military efficiency.

‘From one of them at least.’ Wolfe nodded. ‘Ethan Warner. The rest are nothing that should concern you. I feel certain that with odds of one hundred to eight in your favor, victory should be assured.’

Hoffman smiled, saluted again, then marched out of Wolfe’s office.