Immortal

6

The broad waters of the lake, surrounded by the soaring heights of the Jemez, Ortiz, Sandia and San Pedro mountain ranges, glittered beneath the sun.

Jeb Oppenheimer sat upon the quarterdeck of a vessel that dwarfed the tiny cutters and fishing boats in the nearby quay, the pearlescent white hull of his yacht almost painful to look at in the bright sunlight.

‘Cigar.’

His voice was gravelly from decades of smoking a dozen a day of Cuba’s finest, but as with everything else in life Jeb Oppenheimer didn’t give a shit. Likewise he didn’t care that the yacht upon which he sat was far too large for the lake or that there was no exit to the ocean, the lake itself being a mere aberration in the flow of the Santa Fe River. Jeb had bought the vessel and had it transported there so that he could enjoy the water without the cumbersome irritation of lakeside neighbors on the shore.

A white-suited crewman walked out of the shade of the yacht’s interior with an expensive-looking silver box. He opened it for Oppenheimer, who foraged within with a wiry hand laced with purple veins. He waved the crewman away and opened the cigar, lighting it and inhaling the aromatic fumes deeply. As he sat enveloped in a cloud of blue smoke another of his crew appeared.

‘Donald Wolfe is here to see you, sir.’

Oppenheimer polluted the air anew with a cloud of pungent smoke and waved impatiently. The servant bowed and turned, gesturing to a man waiting inside the yacht. The man walked out, his ink-black suit stark against the pure-white deck. Oppenheimer turned his head fractionally, acknowledging his guest with a barely perceptible nod and pointing to one of the chairs opposite.

Donald Wolfe was a full colonel who had been attached to the United States Army Medical Research Institute for Infectious Diseases, or USAMRIID. Wolfe sat down, regarding the old man from behind wrap-around sunglasses, the mirrored lenses reflecting the sky above.

‘Why do you wear those?’ Oppenheimer pointed at them. ‘You look like one of those teenage morons who waste their lives surfing and catching diseases from whores.’

Donald Wolfe’s smile betrayed no warmth.

‘Better to be young and stupid than crumbling with senility.’

Oppenheimer laughed, slapping one spindly leg beneath his white trousers. The effort provoked a sudden spasm of membrane-tearing coughs that caused Wolfe to wince. Oppenheimer brought what was left of his lungs under control, reached for a handkerchief on the table beside him and wiped a glob of mucus from the corner of his mouth.

‘If you weren’t so useful,’ Oppenheimer smiled, ‘I’d have you thrown overboard, you insolent pup.’

‘Why am I here?’ Wolfe asked.

Oppenheimer folded his skeletal hands under his chin.

‘The situation has not proceeded as we had expected. We were not able to extract viable biological samples from the remains.’

Wolfe leaned forward, plucking a grape from a nearby bowl. He popped it into his mouth before speaking. ‘That doesn’t surprise me, given the state they were in. We agreed that you needed to obtain a live specimen, not one with half its face blown off.’

As Oppenheimer chuckled throatily he saw Wolfe brace himself for another hacking broadside of coughs that fortunately did not materialize.

‘It may not come as a surprise that they are reluctant to expose themselves, Donald, for fear of what people like us may do to them.’

‘So you say. But then of course you would, if this was all just a charade of ghost stories.’

Jeb Oppenheimer’s wrinkled features hardened.

‘Two months ago you wrote me off as a madman chasing an illusion,’ he rattled, jabbing a gnarled finger in Wolfe’s direction. ‘Now you’re sitting on my yacht wondering what the hell happened in Santa Fe.’

‘Indeed,’ Wolfe nodded, ‘and what the hell exactly did happen in Santa Fe, Jeb? From what little I can gather, you’ve committed abduction and theft of state-controlled corpses.’

Oppenheimer squinted out across the rippling waters of the lake.

‘Needs must, Donald,’ he said quietly. ‘SkinGen has invested over eighty million dollars into the search for and the control of the genes that govern human aging. Those genes, once isolated, will be worth over thirty billion dollars to SkinGen over the next ten years, and I don’t intend to see either that profit or the investments I have already made compromised by a militia of illiterate peasants.’

The last word sent along a spray of spittle. Oppenheimer paused, reaching again for his handkerchief before regarding Wolfe seriously.

‘That material, wherever it can be found, is the future, Donald. Most companies are out there gene testing and spending millions, billions even, on research and development, completely oblivious to the fact that the genes controlling longevity have already naturally evolved. We worry now about our economic woes and climate change, about terrorism and Third World nuclear powers, but all of it is bullcrap. All that matters is who survives, how they survive and when the new world order begins.’

Wolfe frowned behind his sunglasses.

‘There are rules, Jeb, political as well as legal. Buying up the patents for specific genes could see you up in front of any number of courts. The United States Department of Health and Human Services will block you regardless of my influence if you try to define who gets what from any published research or medication.’

‘To hell with the goddamn rules!’ Oppenheimer roared, cracking one fist down on the table loudly enough to make Wolfe flinch. ‘This is about survival! How long do you think our world can continue to support six billion people? Seven billion people? Nine billion people? We’re at our limit now! Oil, gas and coal are running out — why do you think that petrochemical companies are having to drill in the bottom of seabeds? It’s because all the cheap stuff has been used, the wells are dry, gone up in smoke! Four fifths of the population live in poverty Donald, and they want to live like us. Well, they can’t, and they never will because the world cannot support it. The only solution is to reduce the population so that fewer people can live in greater material comfort. It’s as simple as that, and I intend to make it happen.’

‘If you can acquire the relevant strains,’ Wolfe said, ‘and if your wonder bacteria actually exist.’

Oppenheimer’s leathery face creased into a smile, one ancient line embedded amongst hundreds more.

‘Oh, they exist all right. I’ve spent the past thirty years searching for them, and I’ve seen enough to know that they do.’

‘But I have not,’ Wolfe stated simply. ‘You’re asking me to subvert entire departments of military research and medical health in order to ensure your discovery can be marketed only to the elite, and yet you’ve provided me with not a single biological example of a human compatible immortalized cell with acceptable telomere length.’

‘Patience, Donald,’ Jeb murmured. ‘The wait will be worth it.’

‘The government have their hands on the lab results from Hiram Conley’s autopsy, and they’re bound to investigate. I’m supposed to be here waiting for a scientific breakthrough not a jail sentence. What we’re talking about goes far beyond gene manipulation.’

‘My influence will prevent any unnecessary complications.’

Wolfe laughed. ‘Even you don’t have that kind of money.’

Oppenheimer’s smile withered, his rheumy old eyes turning hard as steel.

‘I have more money than you could dream of, Donald, and don’t you ever forget it. If it’s money that makes the world go around then I’m turning the fucking crank, you understand?’

Wolfe regarded the old man for a long moment. ‘Collateral?’

Oppenheimer’s pale lips leaked a dribble of blue smoke.

‘What will be, will be.’

Wolfe took off his shades, regarding them for a moment as his eyes adjusted to the bright sunlight flaring off the decks.

‘The President is opposed to corporate pharmaceutical control of patented genes. If he or Congress gets wind of this, the whole charade will be for nothing.’

Oppenheimer removed the cigar from his lips and turned it lit end down toward one calloused palm. He held the glowing tip millimeters from his skin and let blue coils of smoke writhe between his digits as he spoke.

‘American citizens do not own America. The White House does not own America. The President does not own America. We own America. The presidents of the United States live in the White House because people like us finance their damn political parties. That, my friend, is the glory of a free-market capitalist economy — we’re not just bigger than government: we own it. We pay for them to sit and spout crap to the world about how much better everything will be, even though everybody already knows it’ll just stay the same. The United States of America is a business, Donald, just like any other. We decide who does what, when, how and why, and what the President thinks isn’t worth a rat’s ass.’

Oppenheimer ground the cigar out on the palm of his hand, and with a flick of one hooked finger sent the smoldering remains spinning over the taffrail and into the crystalline water below.

‘Thank God for democracy,’ Wolfe murmured.

‘I will obtain these materials one way or the other, sooner or later, regardless of what anyone may try to do to stop me. You must ensure in any way you can that congressional and military oversight of the pharmaceutical industry is limited and that if we fail to achieve support from the United Nations, we take the necessary steps to achieve our goal alone. I take it that you’ll obtain the infected tissue before traveling to New York?’

Wolfe sighed, seemingly weighed down by the gravity of what they were considering.

‘Can you ensure secrecy?’ he finally asked.

‘Officially you will be staying here upon this vessel overnight as my guest,’ Oppenheimer replied softly. ‘However, I will have one of my private jets fly you north to Alaska immediately and then across to New York afterwards. Nobody need ever know you were there. What of your man at the site?’

‘He’s a freelance worker, and I will deal with him,’ Wolfe said, ‘for the greater good. By the time I reach New York every trace of his existence will have disappeared.’ Oppenheimer nodded slowly as though accepting the inevitable. Wolfe continued, ‘We must keep any deaths to a minimum, at least for now. Later there’ll be blood, one way or the other.’

‘There always is,’ Oppenheimer agreed, ‘but at least there’ll be profit, and nobody really cares about a handful of hobos in a pissy little backwater like the New Mexico desert. They’ll be better off with the revenue generated by SkinGen anyway, it’ll bring some light into their miserable lives.’

Wolfe stood, replacing his shades and walking away from the old man. Oppenheimer called after him as he disappeared into the interior of the yacht.

‘This is a good thing. It’s a brighter future for a county that has nothing to export but illegal immigrants and bird flu! They’ll thank us both one day, if there’s any of them left.’