Immortal (25 page)

Both of the guards, who had been staring straight ahead with blank expressions, now turned their heads in unison and focused on Lopez. She met their gazes steadily.

‘Laurel and Hardy here won’t stop me either,’ she added.

Oppenheimer chuckled, a noise that to Lopez sounded like any normal person drawing their terminal breath. The old man waved his bodyguards down, patting the air before him with one skeletal
hand.

‘Calm yourself, Nicola, you’re in no danger here.’

‘It’s Ms Lopez to you,’ she said hotly. ‘And I’m sure you made the same promise to Tyler Willis.’

Oppenheimer shifted position in his seat, resting his hands on his cane and leveling a serious gaze at her.

‘We have a mutual purpose here, Ms Lopez. Yours is to discover what happened to Hiram Conley. So is mine. Everything else is irrelevant, mere distractions obscuring a much greater
goal.’

‘Which is?’ Lopez asked.

‘The very thing which Hiram Conley possessed,’ Oppenheimer said. ‘A mutation, caused by bacteria, that causes human cellular senescence to cease entirely, rendering the
infected individual biologically immortal.’

Lopez took a moment to digest what she’d heard.

‘That’s why Hiram Conley hadn’t aged in a hundred fifty years or more,’ she said, deciding not to mention the possible presence of others likewise afflicted, ‘a
biological infection. But it was your men who took the remains from the morgue, along with Lillian Cruz. Your men who destroyed Tyler Willis’s apartment.’

Oppenheimer shook his head.

‘My men have done no such thing,’ he snapped. ‘They went nowhere near that apartment.’

Lopez lost her momentum for a moment as she looked into Oppenheimer’s rheumy gray eyes and realized that he was almost certainly telling the truth.

‘Then who did?’ she asked.

‘Rival companies, most probably,’ Oppenheimer said. ‘You don’t think that I’m the only one in this race, do you? There are literally dozens of major corporations
out there who would gladly arrange an
accident
for me in order to capitalize on the years of research we’ve achieved at SkinGen. Why the hell do you think I travel with bodyguards in a
bullet-proof vehicle?’

Lopez shook her head.

‘Not everyone on the planet thinks like you, Oppenheimer,’ she said. ‘Some people are decent enough to work things out on their own, not steal them.’

‘Quaint,’ Oppenheimer observed with a smile that reminded Lopez of a basking alligator. ‘The assumption that other people are of good intent is what most often gets one
killed.’

Lopez glanced out of the tinted window at the early-morning shoppers strolling past.

‘You’re boring me, Jeb,’ she said. ‘What’s your point?’

‘That we each have something that the other needs,’ Oppenheimer said smoothly. ‘I want to know where the bacteria that infected Hiram Conley can be found.’

Lopez slowly turned in her seat to face the old man.

‘We don’t know. All we’re interested in right now is finding Lillian Cruz.’

‘Really?’ Oppenheimer muttered. ‘Let me put it to you this way, Ms Lopez. You and your partner, Ethan Warner, are right now achieving absolutely nothing. You’re down here
working for the government because they daren’t get their hands dirty themselves, being paid next to nothing to investigate an anomaly that could potentially make all of us wealthy beyond our
wildest dreams. Finding out what has happened to Lillian Cruz is an irrelevance compared to that.’

Lopez peered at Oppenheimer.

‘Attempting to bribe a law-enforcement officer is punishable by—’

‘You’re not a law-enforcement officer, in case you’ve forgotten,’ Oppenheimer cut across her. ‘You’re a two-bit bail-bond bounty hunter on a lousy salary with
mouths to feed south of the border and not enough left over to buy a third-hand car.’

‘How the hell would you know—’

‘I make it my business to know
everything
,’ Oppenheimer interrupted. ‘You think that I’m doing all of this for profit but you’re wrong. I’m doing what
the politicians and governments of this world haven’t got the guts to do: finding a way to stop humanity from turning our world into a desolate wasteland.’

‘You’re such a hero,’ Lopez uttered.

‘So would you be, if you would only listen to what I have to say. All I need is that one bacterium, a tiny, insignificant life form that could change our lives. That single bacterium is
worth more than all of the jewels and fuels on the face of our planet. If you find where it lives, there is nothing that I would not pay to obtain it.’

Lopez raised an eyebrow.

‘If I found it, I’d have an auction.’

‘If you auctioned it, two things would happen,’ Oppenheimer said. ‘Firstly, nobody would believe you if you tried to tell the world what you possessed and your auction would
fail, because it would take too long to verify your claims to all but a handful of the world’s top pharmaceutical companies with knowledge and expertise in senescence. Secondly, those
companies would pay handsomely to arrange a particularly nasty accident for you before obtaining the bacterium for themselves, or at the very least preventing anyone else from obtaining
it.’

Lopez thought for a moment.

‘Tyler’s apartment.’

Oppenheimer nodded. ‘I genuinely had nothing to do with it, but somebody who knows what’s happening here decided to prevent anyone else from grabbing any materials that Tyler Willis
may have left behind. This is a situation, Miss Lopez, in which you either help me to obtain those samples or you walk away with nothing.’

Lopez looked out of the windows of the vehicle for a long moment, at the passers-by variously struggling to control children, shopping bags or pets. Hundreds of them, millions, all working their
forty hours a week, struggling to pay the bills, being hit with ever more taxes that were then frittered away by the incompetence of successive governments. There were, it seemed, just a handful of
very wealthy people for every few million ordinary citizens, and Lopez was more than tired of struggling on a daily basis just to stand still.

She looked at Oppenheimer.

‘And if I agreed? What would you want me to do?’

Oppenheimer looked at one of his bodyguards, who silently produced a small black box no larger than a cigarette packet. Oppenheimer took it, and showed it to her.

‘This is a full service GPS tracker,’ he said, handing her the glossy black device. ‘With this, I can track your movements with its pre-installed and activated SIM
card.’

Lopez nodded, familiar with such surveillance devices. Usually attached to cars, they could be used together with the Google Earth service in order to monitor the device’s movement in real
time. A GPS assist function via a network was used to boost sensitivity in the event of the GPS signal being temporarily lost. It was accurate to within fifteen meters. No antennas, entirely
self-contained and barely three inches long. Perfect.

‘You need do nothing more than carry it on your person at all times,’ Oppenheimer said. ‘If you or your partner, or anyone you have contact with, should locate the source of
the bacteria, you place this marker there and call me. That’s all there is to it.’

‘There’s no way I can trust you,’ Lopez countered. ‘You once bought an entire company just to shut it down in revenge for a deal gone bad.’

‘It was I who was wronged,’ Oppenheimer muttered, ‘but in a show of good will, perhaps I could transfer some funds for you this afternoon, call it an appetizer? How does fifty
thousand dollars sound?’

Lopez’s stomach flipped but she forced her face to remain impassive.

‘I won’t do it for less than two hundred fifty thousand for starters,’ she said. ‘Wire transfer, for services rendered, all taxes paid. You do the paperwork and send
copies to me. I don’t want the IRS climbing up my ass after this is all over.’

Oppenheimer forced a tight grin across his features. ‘You’ll do it then?’

Lopez looked at the tracker in her hand as conflicting thoughts flashed through her mind: Ethan; her penniless family back home; her pathetic apartment in Chicago; the endless search for money
to make ends meet. She looked at the hordes of people outside the car, and made her decision.

16 May, 12.30 p.m.

‘Are you sure about this?’

Ethan clambered out of Enrico Zamora’s personal vehicle, an old Lincoln Town car, his new jacket and kepi pants feeling alien and awkward. Lopez got out of the other side, looking equally
uncomfortable in her new attire, her hair tied up and concealed beneath her cap.

Zamora looked at them both as he handed them a fake Springfield rifle each.

‘You both look damned fine, if I say so myself. You’ll pass unnoticed here, at least until the show wraps up.’

Ethan looked down at the markings on his uniform. ‘Private? You couldn’t have found anything with rank?’

‘All greenhorns have to be privates at these events,’ Zamora explained. ‘Just the way it is.’

Ethan looked over the roof of the car to where Sedillo Park was spread before them, a large open space lined with dense thickets of trees. Around the edge were large tents and marquees, various
flags flying above their entrances in the hot wind. None of them were emblazoned with banners or adverts in the usual manner. Nearby were old wagons, carts and horses, and on the warm air he could
smell the fumes of a hundred camp fires.

A single, broad banner arced over the park entrance, emblazoned with bright red, white and blue text.

Ethan could see hundreds of people mingling around the fires and the horses, rank upon rank of fully uniformed Confederate and Union soldiers, all drinking coffees or Cokes and chatting
amiably.

‘You
really
think they’ll use this as a place to meet up?’ Lopez asked Zamora as they began walking into the park. ‘They can’t be held that often.’

Zamora nodded.

‘Just a few every year. Santa Fe’s come earlier, in February and March, to coincide with the anniversary of the actual battles. Out here near Arizona the re-enactment groups from
south of the border team up with Socorro groups for larger displays. Hiram Conley was heavily involved in many of the re-enactments and was considered an expert.’

‘I’ll bet,’ Ethan replied as they strolled into the park between two large wagons and onto the field proper.

Ethan reckoned that he could see maybe two thousand soldiers, roughly split between Confederates in their smart gray uniforms and the Union troops in dark blue. Enrico gestured to the massed
ranks, the bayonets of their rifles glittering in the hot sunlight.

‘Back in the day when these battles were fought, the men wouldn’t have worn such identical uniforms. They’d have been all beaten up and modified, not to mention the fact that
Valverde was fought in the winter so they’d have been huddled up in greatcoats if they were lucky enough to own them.’

Ethan nodded, surveying the scene.

‘Hiram Conley and his comrades were Union soldiers. Most likely they’ll stick with what they know and be among those troops.’

‘Could take a while to find them,’ Lopez said, looking at her copy of the old photograph and Lee Carson’s mugshot. ‘Half of these enthusiasts have grown long moustaches
and beards to look more authentic.’

Ethan thought for a moment.

‘Let’s focus on Lee Carson,’ he said. ‘He’s the one we know has a good reason to find help – his hands are falling off. If we’re lucky, where we find
him we’ll find the rest of them.’

Ethan watched as Lopez and Zamora, armed with their photographs, struck out for the Union lines while he headed for the furthest flank of the army. Since arriving, he had noticed the ranks of
speakers lining the edges of Sedillo Park, from which issued the voice of a commentator that rose and fell with flukes in the wind. It had crossed Ethan’s mind that they could just put out a
call for Lee Carson to come in: he had, after all, been known to live amongst ordinary people during his very long life. The problem was, he might now live under a pseudonym. Any call-out for the
wrong name would alert him instantly.

Ethan approached the Union lines and decided on a different tack. He slipped his cell phone out of his pocket as an idea hit him, and dialed Lopez’s number. She answered on the first
ring.

‘Look for men wearing gloves of any kind,’ Ethan said. ‘If Carson’s here, he’ll have to keep his hands out of sight.’

‘Good call, will do.’

Lopez rang off, and Ethan was about to pocket his cell phone when a voice thundered out across the field.

‘You there! Have you absquatulated your senses?! What the blazes do you think you’re doing?’

Ethan stopped dead in his tracks as a portly man bearing the uniform of an officer sitting astride a magnificent golden-coated palomino with a white mane vaulted down from his saddle and strode
up to him. The officer wore a silvery moustache as long as a canoe, bright blue eyes wide as dinner plates and skin flushed with apparent outrage. He jabbed a thin black cane at Ethan’s cell
phone, various medals and tasseled ribbons on his shoulders vibrating with the sudden movement. Ethan lowered the cell phone.

‘I’m making a phone call.’

‘A phone call?!’ the officer thundered in disbelief. ‘This is 1862, God damn your hide, man!’

The ranks of troops amassed behind the officer had fallen silent, watching the exchange with interest. Ethan blinked.

‘No, it’s not.’

The officer seemed to rise another inch in height, eyes widening even further as he sucked in more air to shout with.

‘You dare defy your commanding officer?’ he bellowed. ‘By Satan’s breath, I’ll have you in irons by sundown, you insolent little tick!’

‘You really take everything this seriously?’ Ethan asked, holding his own temper in check.

‘This is the army, boy, not a weekend away!’ the officer boomed. ‘Where’s your bivouac? Where’s your commanding officer?’ He raised his cane as though to swat
it at Ethan.