Immortal

8

‘Hell of a place,’ Lopez said.

Ethan nodded, looking around at the ranks of buildings and the names of the roads as he drove through the complex, which looked like an oversized industrial park. The 502 East Road had led them onto Trinity Drive, named after the famous atomic tests. Ethan had already spotted various signs such as Bikini Road, named after Bikini Atoll where further nuclear tests were made in the 1950s. Run by the Department of Energy and with an annual budget of $2.2 billion, it was one of only two places in the United States where research into classified nuclear programs was performed.

‘It’s the largest employer in northern New Mexico,’ Ethan said as he drove the Mercury into the parking lot outside the Bio-Science Division building. ‘Whatever Tyler Willis is up to in here, it almost certainly has something to do with Hiram Conley.’

Lopez nodded, scanning the file that Douglas Jarvis had handed them back in Chicago.

‘Tyler Adam Willis, born 1978, Modesto, California. Studied microbiology at the University of California before joining a research team at Los Alamos. Recently published several papers detailing the results of studies into senescence.’

‘In English, please,’ Ethan said as they parked.

‘Another term for aging,’ Lopez said. ‘Looks like our boy knows his stuff when it comes to cheating death. According to this he’s considered one of the brightest talents in the field of cellular senescence.’

Ethan killed the engine and looked up at the imposing building before them.

‘You really think that’s why he was shot?’ Ethan asked her. ‘Something to do with his research?’

‘Why not? Maybe this isn’t just a freaky ghost story and he found some kind of potion that extends lifespans.’

Ethan got out of the car and walked toward the entrance, followed by Lopez. A clean, sparse entrance hall greeted them, occupied by a narrow desk and a bored-looking receptionist. Ethan walked up to her, leaning against the counter and flashing a smile.

‘Hi, we’re here to see Tyler Willis.’

‘Do you have an appointment?’ the girl asked, taking in Ethan’s rough-edged appearance and apparently liking what she saw.

‘We’re here on behalf of the Santa Fe Police Department, Lieutenant Enrico Zamora,’ Ethan said smoothly. ‘Nothing to worry about: Tyler was injured in an incident a couple of days ago and we’re just here with some follow-up questions and to make sure he’s doing okay.’

The girl smiled again and picked up a phone, dialing an extension number. When she’d finished speaking and put the phone down, she directed them toward a nearby elevator.

‘Second floor, third on the right. Just call me if there’s anything else you need.’

‘I’ll be sure to do that.’

Ethan flashed another grin at the girl and followed Lopez into the elevator. She rounded on him as the door closed.

‘You ever been able to talk to a girl without hitting on her?’

Ethan stood with his hands behind his back, watching the numbers change on the digital display above the doors.

‘I was just being polite.’

‘Polite? You’d leaned any closer to her you’d have been dribbling into her blouse.’

Ethan looked down at Lopez in amusement. ‘What’s the problem?’

Lopez shrugged. ‘It’s just not professional, is all.’

‘Like breaking into strangers’ cars is?’

Lopez rolled her eyes but said nothing as the doors opened and they turned right into a corridor. Rows of pictures adorned the walls, bizarre, kaleidoscopic images of what looked like microscopic bugs and spores and fungi.

‘Welcome to geek heaven,’ Ethan said as they made for the third door on the right.

Lopez looked up at one of the grotesque images, portraying what looked like a slug with eight legs tucked up close to its head.

‘What the hell is that?’ she wondered out loud.

Ethan was about to hazard a guess when another voice answered for him.

‘Demodex folliculorum.’

They turned to see a young black man standing behind them with a cup of coffee in one hand and his other arm in a sling. He smiled from behind fashionable square-lensed spectacles with distinctive burgundy frames as though almost embarrassed, and gestured with his cup to the picture on the wall.

‘It’s a tiny mite, less than half a millimeter long.’

Ethan glanced at the picture. ‘The image is magnified.’

‘Yes. The demodicids just look like worms with legs that are tiny stumps.’

‘Is it dangerous?’ Lopez asked curiously.

‘Not at all,’ Willis said. ‘You’ve probably got a few hundred of them on you right now. They live in the pores and hair follicles on your face, and often in the roots of your eyelashes. Women get more of them because of the cosmetics they use. Those little critters just love the chemicals.’

Lopez blanched, staring wide-eyed at Willis. Ethan, trying not to smirk, stepped forward.

‘We’re here on Lieutenant Zamora’s behalf.’

Willis’s smile faded and his shoulders seemed to sag. He nodded, and gestured ahead to the open door of his office. Ethan led the way inside, followed by Lopez who was tentatively touching her face. Willis closed the door behind them and slumped into a swivel chair behind a small desk, upon which sat a computer and several paper trays. The office had a small window that looked out over a parking lot, the distant green hills tinged with blue in the hazy sunlight beyond.

‘I suppose this is about what happened at Glorietta Pass,’ Willis said sulkily. ‘I’ve told the police everything I know.’

‘Maybe you have,’ Ethan said, ‘but then again maybe you haven’t.’

Willis opened his mouth to protest but Lopez cut across him.

‘We don’t have time to mess around, Tyler. This man, Hiram Conley, shot you after an argument in which you were every bit as involved as he was. We have a dozen witnesses and all of their statements correlate. You knew this guy and you know why he shot you. Speak up, and this will all be a lot easier.’

Willis’s feeble defiance crumbled, but he shook his head. ‘It’s not that easy. You don’t know what’s been happening here.’

‘Then maybe you should fill us in,’ Ethan suggested. ‘This isn’t about local law enforcement anymore, Tyler. The government is taking an interest in what happened down here, and what you tell us will get back to them. If they think that you’re lying…’

Ethan let the loaded statement hang in the air between them. Willis digested its meaning, and set his coffee cup down on the desk before him.

‘I’m not lying about anything,’ he said. ‘The government wouldn’t have any interest in me at all if it weren’t for what Hiram Conley showed me.’

‘Go on,’ Lopez encouraged.

‘What happened to Hiram Conley’s corpse?’

‘We were hoping you could tell us,’ Lopez said, folding her arms and gesturing out of the small office window. ‘Theft of state-controlled corpses is a federal offense. If you’re charged, you can get used to a view of the outside world just like that one but with bars.’

‘I never saw what happened to Conley after the ranger shot him, I swear!’ Willis yelped.

‘Take an educated guess,’ Ethan said, picking up on Lopez’s attempts to entrap Willis into revealing whatever it was he was trying to hide.

‘It’s too dangerous!’ Willis snapped.

‘Tell us what you safely can,’ Ethan suggested, ‘at least then we’ll be able to see where it might take our investigation.’

Willis sighed and rubbed his forehead.

‘It started a few weeks ago, when I was coming to the end of a two-year study into an illness known as Werner syndrome.’

‘What’s that?’ Lopez asked, already scribbling notes.

‘It’s a very rare disorder characterized by premature aging, more so than any other segmental progeria. The disease is caused by a mutation in a gene that causes excessive telomere attrition.’

‘So, people with this disorder die prematurely?’ Ethan hazarded.

‘They normally develop without symptoms until they reach puberty,’ Willis said, ‘upon which they age rapidly, often appearing decades older. Other symptoms include loss of and graying of hair, thickening of the skin and cataracts in both eyes.’

‘Is it curable?’ Lopez asked.

‘That’s what I was working on,’ Willis said. ‘A recent study found that mice which were genetically modified to express the genes thought to cause Werner syndrome in humans were restored to normal health and lifespan when vitamin C was put in their drinking water. The work was incomplete but the potential for study was immense. I’d also been studying cellular defense proteins in humans called sirtuins. Drugs that boost these proteins have already been shown to extend the lifespan of mice by about fifteen percent.’

Ethan thought for a moment.

‘So how does Hiram Conley tie into all this?’

‘I was working on a number of cellular senescence papers,’ Willis said, ‘trying to understand how Werner syndrome worked and whether it could be reversed in order to slow aging. I’d published a few when Hiram Conley showed up here, real quiet like. He said he had something to show me, and handed me a vial with what he claimed was spinal fluid in it, from a lumbar puncture. It’s not every day that somebody wanders into your lab with spinal fluid, so I agreed to culture it to see what emerged. A few days later I looked at the fluid under a microscope and realized that it was filled with microscopic fauna that I recognized.’

‘From where?’ Lopez asked.

Willis gestured to a small photograph tacked to the wall of his office that appeared to show tiny bacterial cells suspended in solution, imaged with a powerful microscope.

‘Back in 1999, scientists working in a cave complex extracted bacterial samples from sodium-chloride crystals formed from prehistoric sea salt. The microscopic organisms were revived in a laboratory after being in suspended animation within the crystals. They couldn’t identify the species and referred to it as strain 2-9-3, or Bacillus permians. What was special about it was that the organisms were two hundred fifty million years old.’

Ethan blinked.

‘The dinosaurs were still around then.’

‘The dinosaurs had only just got started back then,’ Willis corrected him. ‘Bacillus permians represents the oldest living organism known to man. In May 1995, forty-million-year-old Bacillus sphaericus were found in the stomach of a bee encased in amber. They were also in a state of suspended animation and were revived in a laboratory.’

‘How did Hiram Conley get these bacteria, and from whom?’ Ethan inquired.

‘I don’t know. He refused to tell me, except to say that the spinal fluid was his own.’

‘I don’t believe that,’ Lopez said. ‘You need to tell us everything, Tyler.’

‘Do you have any idea what you’re getting yourself into?’ Willis burst out. ‘This is far bigger than any of us. It isn’t about Hiram Conley or any of the others.’

Willis stared at them for a moment, and then realized his mistake.

Ethan pushed himself off the wall, his arms folded across his chest.

‘What others?’