Immortal (12 page)

‘Okay,’ Lopez conceded finally, ‘thanks for your time.’

Lopez walked out of the foyer, pausing on the sidewalk and breathing deeply in the warm air. The mountains in the distance, faded as they were in the haze beneath the flawless blue sky, reminded
her again of home, as did the occasional road sign in Spanish and the little stores selling Aztec-style trinkets.

She sighed as she cut across a street to where she’d parked. Almost a third of her meager salary went on supporting her increasingly frail parents. She knew that the rest of her family
were doing their best, but there was no substitute for American dollars in Guanajuato. Sometimes she’d even thought about . . .

She froze. A man walking down Camino Entrada toward a nearby steakhouse caught her attention. He was sauntering along the sidewalk with his face shielded from both the sun and from observation
by a baseball cap pulled low over his eyes. Lewis Delaware III. Twenty-nine. Possession with intent to supply. Released on an eight-thousand-dollar bond signed by his own legal representative, the
creep had vanished right after he’d walked from Cook County Jail.

Lopez turned, letting her long black hair fall half across her face in the breeze as she walked across the street, deliberately not walking toward Delaware but veering to one side to avoid
attracting attention – forgetting that she was wearing leather boots and a black vest that hugged her breasts above a pair of tight jeans. It was like trying to hide candy from a kid: any guy
within a hundred yards couldn’t miss her.

Sure enough, Delaware turned his head and glanced across at her, lifting his chin to check her out. A flare of alarm panicked his features as he stopped mid-stride twenty yards away. Lopez
covered her dismay at having been spotted with a cheerful smile.

‘Morning, Lewis,’ she called brightly. ‘Don’t run or I’ll kick your ass.’

Delaware flashed her a nervous grin, whirled and took off down the sidewalk.

Lopez launched herself in pursuit, wishing once again for the comforting feeling of a pistol by her side. Cans of pepper spray and nightsticks were handy, but they weren’t so hot against
bullets. Lopez watched as Delaware, scrawny and out of shape, ran with a gangly gait past an automobile trader, barreling past a BMW pulling out in front of him. Lopez dodged past the vehicle with
a single bound, lithe as an antelope as she bore down on the frantic Delaware, who glanced over his shoulder at her, his eyes wide with panic.

Delaware aimed for an old Lincoln parked at the end of Camino Ortiz, clearly hoping to make a break for it before she caught him. Lopez gave her all and accelerated as she yanked her collapsible
baton from her jeans and flicked it open before hurling it at Delaware’s legs. The baton span through the air and sliced neatly between his calves, interrupting their passage enough to send
the kid sprawling face down onto the hot asphalt in a tangle of limbs, his cap flying from his head. Lopez reached him as he scrambled back to his feet and yanked his fists up defensively in front
of his face, glowering at her as he panted for breath.

‘I told you not to run, Lewis,’ she said.

‘I ain’t goin’ to jail,’ he gasped. ‘You ain’t takin’ me.’

‘No?’

Lopez reached out with her left hand to grab his left wrist. As Delaware pulled it back and exposed his face, Lopez jabbed a fast right straight into his eye. He yelped, staggered backwards and
collapsed to his knees with his face in his hands.

‘Jesus Christ!’ he cried as Lopez yanked him to his feet, flashing her bondsman badge as curious citizens watched them from the parking lot of a Saab dealership, and cuffed
Delaware.

She dragged him, still whimpering, across the street to a narrow alley. Delaware turned, unsteady on his feet, real fear starting to spread like an infection across his face.

‘What the hell is this?’ he uttered. ‘I want to speak to my—’

Lopez strode forward and drove one knee into his groin. A strangled gasp later and the kid was on his knees. She moved around behind him, squatted down and whispered in his ear.

‘Listen good, Lewis. I’m going to empty your pockets and anything I find that I don’t like, I’m going to borrow, okay?’

Delaware opened his mouth to reply, but only a faint whistling squeaked from his throat.

Lopez emptied his pockets, finding two hundred bucks in cash, a small wrap of what looked like marijuana and two crumpled packs of cigarettes.

‘You’ve got weed,’ she hissed. ‘Both know what possession means, right, Lewis?’

‘Don’t tell ’em,’ Lewis whined pathetically. ‘Please don’t tell ’em.’

‘Get up,’ she ordered, gripping his cuffed wrists and yanking them into his shoulder blades, eliciting another squeal of pain. ‘What they don’t find you won’t miss,
understood?’

With more force than was necessary Lopez pushed Delaware back to where she’d parked her car outside a nearby mall. She was in the process of wedging him into the rear seat when she saw
Ethan walking toward her. He glanced at Delaware as she booted him aboard the car.

‘Busy afternoon?’ he asked.

‘Productive.’ Lopez nodded, shutting the door and handing him Lewis’s packets of cigarettes. ‘Saw him jaywalking back there, easiest pull we’ve had in months. How
about you?’

Ethan took the cigarettes from her. ‘This all he had? Thought he’d be dealing, all the way out here.’

‘Nothing on him,’ Lopez said calmly with a shrug. ‘Doesn’t mean that wherever he’s been staying is clean.’

‘We don’t have time to get search warrants,’ Ethan said, and handed her the printed copy of the photograph from the town hall. ‘Recognize anybody?’

Lopez scanned the image and gasped.

‘I’ll be damned. Willis was right.’

‘You found him yet?’

‘No,’ Lopez admitted, swiping a strand of hair from out of her eyes and noticing Ethan watching her as she did so. ‘Nobody has any leads on either Tyler Willis or Lillian Cruz.
Which means we’re left with trying to find either Saffron Oppenheimer or Colin Manx, both of whom probably have nothing to do with the disappearances.’

Ethan filled her in on Saffron Oppenheimer’s family history, both illustrious and tragic at the same time.

‘There’s a motive for her hitting laboratories all right,’ Ethan said, the hot wind moaning down the street tousling his light brown hair. ‘And it may explain her taking
such care to hit the computer servers before she left.’

‘Industrial espionage?’ Lopez murmured. ‘You think that she’s actually working for Grandpa?’

‘It fits if Tyler’s work in any way conflicts with SkinGen’s,’ Ethan said with a shrug. ‘Saffron hits labs working in similar fields to slow down their research.
Right now, we don’t have much else to go on. Local police have searched Tyler Willis’s apartment and found nothing out of the ordinary. Enrico suspects that whatever he was working on,
the details are being held elsewhere.’

Lopez nodded.

‘Which means that somebody else was looking for them, or at least Tyler suspected that they were, and hid his work.’ Ethan smiled at her, teasing her along. ‘I’m not
Sherlock Holmes,’ she said, ‘but I guess it does tie Jeb Oppenheimer to both Saffron and Tyler Willis. Still, it’s a long shot.’

‘Not so long that we shouldn’t pursue it,’ Ethan said. ‘Time to go and join the natives.’

Lopez jabbed a thumb at Lewis Delaware.

‘We can drop this asshole off along the way.’

Ethan nodded as he walked around to the passenger door. Lopez waited until he was on the other side of the car before discreetly tossing the small wrap of marijuana into a nearby trash can.

‘What the hell were you thinking?’

Colin Manx’s face was taut with rage, his frizzy hair trembling as he glared at Saffron Oppenheimer.

‘I
was
thinking,’ Saffron said without concern. ‘That’s the difference between you and me.’

Manx struggled for a response, glancing at the thirty or so people gathered round them and an aged NAPCO GMC Suburban. A mixture of hippies, college drop-outs and petty criminals with nowhere
else to go, they represented a small army of individuals who didn’t possess the sense to realize that their actions against the state and science would get them nowhere except jail. They
stared wide-eyed at Saffron Oppenheimer, and for a moment she thought that they might go down on their knees and prostrate themselves before her. She, alone, had led them to what they considered
their greatest ever victory since casting themselves out from society into the Pecos Wilderness.

Saffron Oppenheimer, for her part, despised each and every one of them.

‘Is that what you call it?’ Manx raged. ‘
Thinking?
You fired a shotgun, put several scientists in hospital, stole all the animals and then you blew up the computers in
the goddamned laboratory.’

‘Go, Saffron!’ Ruby Lily squealed from nearby. A ripple of delighted chuckles fluttered through the watching groupies as Ruby pointed at Saffron. ‘You should have seen her, she
was awesome!’

Manx scowled.

‘Yeah, awesome enough that we’ll likely have the FBI hunting us down now!’

Saffron sighed, examining a small cut on her finger from her escape out of the laboratories.

‘If only you were that important, Colon,’ she murmured to another round of sniggers from behind them.

‘We were supposed to make a statement and free one of the chimps,’ Manx snapped, his bluster losing conviction in the face of her disinterest. ‘Not blow the place
sky-high!’

Saffron shrugged.

‘If a job’s worth doing . . .’

Manx glared at her while occasionally peering sideways, seeking support from the crowd. Saffron could tell that none was forthcoming as Manx pulled himself up to his full height, building up to
something.

‘You’ve gone too far,’ he snarled. ‘It’s time to cut you down to size.’

With a startling howl of what Saffron presumed was rage, Manx lunged toward her. His big, dirty hands shot out to her wrists in an attempt to force her to the ground. Saffron acted without
thought or worry, stepping not away from Manx but toward him, turning sideways and ducking down as his hands shot past her face. With a heave of effort she drove her right elbow deep into his
stomach just beneath his ribs. The howl was cut short as Manx gagged and a blast of foul air rushed from his mouth. He doubled over, just in time for Saffron’s knee to jerk up and smash
across the bridge of his nose with a dull crunch like an eggshell crushed beneath her boots. Winded and blinded in less than a second, Manx flipped over and collapsed gasping onto the hot desert
sand. Saffron looked down at him.

‘Good work, Colon,’ she murmured without pity.

The group around her laughed openly now. They were hers without a doubt. Manx struggled to his knees, coughing and spluttering, tears staining his dusty face as he squinted up at her.

‘You’re insane!’ he bleated.

Saffron turned her back to him, walking away toward the camper van. ‘And you’re pathetic. Get lost.’

Another round of laughs followed. Saffron saw in the windows of the GMC the reflection of Manx staggering to his feet, clutching his face and stomach as he made his unsteady way toward the main
road, a quarter of a mile to the south. She waited until he was out of earshot, busying herself with cleaning her shotgun. From behind, she heard the groupies tentatively approaching, and the
gentle noises made by the chimpanzees in the back of the GMC as they guzzled from recently refilled water bottles.

Ruby Lily’s voice squeaked again.

‘Let’s free the monkeys!’

A chorus of delighted cheers burst out as Ruby Lily dashed to the rear of the vehicle to open the main doors, where the cages were stacked. She had almost reached them when Saffron took two
paces toward her, gripping her wrist in one hand and twisting it sideways. Ruby Lily cried out in alarm as she dropped onto one knee, trying to get away from the pain. Saffron glared down at
her.

‘Are you a complete idiot?’ she demanded.

Ruby Lily looked up at her in confusion as Saffron released her and looked at the rest of the crowd.

‘These are Bonobo Chimpanzees from West Africa. They were raised in captivity and have learned to trust humans.’ She paused. ‘To a point. They have also been experimented on,
kept in cages, and watched members of their troop go into operating theaters and never return. Chimpanzees have a muscle density far greater than ours, and are easily capable of tearing a human
being to pieces with their bare hands.’ She let the point sink in. ‘What do you think they’ll do if they get out and can run free?’

Saffron waited until they realized that an answer was expected.

‘They’ll hurt people,’ someone said in a voice that sounded thin, as though they’d been up all night smoking dope.

‘Well done, Einstein,’ Saffron mocked. ‘They can also carry diseases that can kill, Ebola Zaire being the most lethal. We have no idea what was being done to them in the
laboratories, therefore we don’t know what dangers they pose to us. We’ll take them to the nearest zoo in the morning and leave them there.’

Dismay soured the faces of everyone in the group, and Saffron slammed the GMC’s door shut.

‘Okay then,’ she said. ‘What do
you
think we should do with them?’

Silence enveloped the group and the desert around them. Saffron waited, feeling like a teacher in front of a kindergarten class. She doubted that the thirty of them could muster an IQ of a
hundred between them, doped, drugged and mindless as they were.

‘Maybe I should put all of you in the van and let the chimps decide?’ Saffron snapped. ‘Get their water bottles refilled, and then get the van covered with brush and whatever
else you can find. It’s going to get hotter and they need shade, understood? I’m going to scout the area, make sure it’s secure. We don’t want the FBI searching for Colon
out here, do we?’

With a mixture of chuckles as well as some discontented mumbling, the group dispersed. Saffron turned and aimed for the nearest hill, hiking up through thick brush along a ridge that lined one
of a series of gullys descending down into the valley floor behind her, where the Jemez Reservoir glittered. The blue water was formed by the Jemez Canyon Dam, built in 1953 and owned by the US
Army Corps of Engineers. It took almost twenty minutes to reach the high point she sought, where the hot desert winds rumbled. She surveyed the surrounding terrain and fished in her pocket for a
cell phone, then dialed a number from memory, waiting for the line to connect and watching the windows of distant vehicles flashing silently in the sunlight on the distant I-25.