Immortal (45 page)

Oppenheimer gave a brief shrug.

‘The world’s full of winners and losers, the haves and the have-nots,’ he replied with a cold smile. ‘I’m just going to ensure that the losers are bred out of
existence, leaving only the haves and the have-mores.’

Kip Wren felt a surge of hatred mix violently with the pain seething through his body, and with a cry of vengeance that echoed through the chamber he lunged forward and grabbed Oppenheimer with
both arms, whirling him around as he pulled the old man against his chest. His hands met across Oppenheimer’s waist, the dynamite stick and the cigarette lighter clear for the mercenaries to
see.

‘Stand down!’ Kip Wren shouted. ‘Or I’ll blow this bastard sky-high!’

Oppenheimer squirmed in panic as he struggled to free himself from Kip Wren’s grip, his rheumy eyes fixed on the explosive held against his belly. Five soldiers rushed in to try and prize
him off even as Oppenheimer shouted at them.

‘Get back!’

Hoffman waved frantically at his soldiers.

‘Don’t shoot! We need him alive!’

Kip watched as the mercenaries fell back, then turned to look over his shoulder. Lillian Cruz was already in the shadows of Lechuguilla Cave, almost out of sight.

‘Come on out, Ellison!’ Kip yelled with a maniacal chuckle. ‘I got ’em surrounded!’

He was about to manhandle Jeb Oppenheimer toward the ladder when a voice yelled out at him.

‘No!’

Saffron Oppenheimer leapt out of Lieutenant Zamora’s patrol car before it had even stopped rolling, sprinting away up the hillside track toward Misery Hole at a terrific
pace. Butch Cutler and Enrico Zamora labored after her in pursuit, but she gave them no quarter as she raced ever upward and then came to a sliding halt at the dizzying edge of Misery Hole.

She spotted the rope-ladders hastily rigged at the edge of the shaft nearby, and rushed around the edge before clambering onto the nearest one and hurriedly climbing down into the shadows. From
her vantage point high above the floor of Misery Hole, she could see what was happening. Some kind of gunfight had filled the floor of the cavern with thick smoke that boiled up around her,
stinging her eyes and choking her throat, but it also concealed her presence as she slid the last few feet to the ground behind the massed ranks of Oppenheimer’s mercenaries, all aiming
assault weapons at a low cave slicing across one wall of Misery Hole.

Saffron didn’t wait for Lieutenant Zamora or Butch Cutler to reach her. Instead she charged at full sprint past the crouching ranks of soldiers toward where her grandfather writhed and
twisted in the hands of an old man with a thick moustache, a stick of dynamite grasped in one bony-looking hand.

‘No!’ Saffron shouted, her arms outstretched as she ran. ‘Don’t kill him! There has to be a better way!’

Jeb Oppenheimer’s crinkled jaw fell open as he stared in amazement at Saffron.

Kip Wren yelled, ‘Stay aback, ma’am! I ain’t bluffin’!’

‘What the hell are you doing down here?’ Oppenheimer said. ‘This isn’t your business, Saffy, get out of the way.’

‘It’s my goddamned business now, Grandpa,’ Saffron shot back, ‘ever since I went to the police. They know everything.’

Oppenheimer stared at her for a moment longer.

‘You wouldn’t.’ He smirked. ‘You wouldn’t risk the jail time.’

The voice that answered came from behind them all. ‘Yes she would.’

Oppenheimer, Hoffman and the mercenaries turned to see Zamora standing behind them in full uniform, his pistol aimed at Oppenheimer. ‘It’s over, Jeb, no matter what happens. The
entire New Mexico Police Department is on its way here right now.’

Butch Cutler stood alongside Zamora, clearly not intimidated by the mercenaries as he aimed a large Colt revolver at them.

‘So is USAMRIID,’ he reported. ‘This whole thing’s been blown sky-high.’

Oppenheimer appeared completely overwhelmed, unable to speak. Saffron stared at him in horror.

‘How could you do it?’ she asked. ‘All those millions of people? You’re planning to kill them all.’

Oppenheimer’s features hardened again as he took his eyes off the dynamite at his belly.

‘It will happen sooner or later all on its own,’ he spat back at her. ‘I’m just controlling the situation.’

‘You can’t control nature!’ Saffron wailed. ‘It’s not possible!’

‘Either way,’ Butch Cutler said, ‘it’s not going to happen. No pandemic, no population control, no nothing. It’s over. The police will be here any
moment.’

Hoffman peered suspiciously at Cutler.

‘If so,’ he asked, ‘then where the hell are they?’

Neither Cutler nor Zamora replied.

Saffron looked at the old soldier holding her grandfather hostage. His face was twisted in upon itself in agony, sweat thick on his brow and his legs trembling with the effort of staying
upright. She took a careful pace forward.

‘I can help you,’ she said. ‘Let him go and we can get you to a hospital.’

Kip Wren glared at her, but his strength was failing and she saw in his expression the realization that he was out of time. He smiled at her, almost regretfully.

‘Apologies, ma’am,’ he said through gritted teeth, ‘but I can’t do that.’

The old soldier’s hands twisted, and she saw him light the dynamite stick’s fuse in a flash of sparks and smoke.

Saffron hurled herself at Kip Wren and threw a fast right jab that drove her fingers into Wren’s eyes. The old soldier shrieked and jerked backwards, and as he did so Saffron smashed her
hands down across the smoldering dynamite stick and yanked it from Kip Wren’s hands. Instantly, half a dozen soldiers plunged down onto Kip in a frenzied tangle of limbs and shouts, binding
his arms and legs.

Saffron hurled the hissing dynamite stick into the depths of Lechuguilla Cave and whirled toward her grandfather.

‘Get down!’

To her surprise, the mercenaries and Jeb Oppenheimer ignored her and fled away from the entrance to Lechuguilla Cave in a chaotic tumble. Confused, Saffron turned and saw the dynamite stick come
whirling back out of the darkness to land at her feet.

‘Oh shit.’

Saffron turned and ran hard, hurling herself flat to the ground behind scattered rocks as the dynamite exploded with a deafening boom and hurled the severed body parts of dead mercenaries in all
directions to land with soggy thumps around her. She staggered to her feet, her ears ringing and pink blood spots staining her white T-shirt. She heard a laugh echo around the chamber as Jeb
Oppenheimer struggled to his feet from behind a boulder and slapped his spindly thigh with one hand as he looked down at the cave entrance.

‘We’ve got our man!’ he shouted, and turned to Hoffman. ‘Kill them all.’

Hoffman, his M-16 rifle once again cradled in his grip, grinned and strode toward Jeb Oppenheimer. One huge hand reached out and gripped the old man by the throat with enough force to bulge his
eyes. Oppenheimer gagged in shock as he was lifted onto his toes, his cane still dangling from his wrist.

‘Your time, old man,’ Hoffman hissed, ‘is over.’

With a heave of effort, Hoffman turned and hurled Oppenheimer toward Lechuguilla Cave, the old man’s limbs flailing as he tumbled through the desert dust to land in a heap near the
entrance. A ripple of grim laughs from Hoffman’s men followed him.

Saffron stared in disbelief at Hoffman. ‘What the hell are you doing?’

Hoffman ignored her as he turned to Cutler and Zamora.

‘Drop your weapons and get in that cave or we’ll blow you away right here and now.’

Half of the mercenaries whirled and trained their assault rifles on Cutler and Zamora. Cutler looked at them and then glanced across at Zamora.

‘Fancy going down in a blaze of glory?’

‘Not so much.’

Cutler slowly lowered his revolver as he called out to Hoffman.

‘Whatever Wolfe is paying you, it won’t be nearly enough to get you out of this.’

Hoffman appeared unimpressed. ‘I don’t really care,’ he said with a grim smile that conveyed an utter ruthlessness. ‘Because neither of you will be around to report
anything, and we’ll be gone within minutes.’

Hoffman gestured to his men, and they disarmed Cutler and Zamora and shoved them down toward the depths of the cave. They stumbled in the darkness as they struggled to see their way. Saffron
hurried down with them and took her grandfather’s arm. Oppenheimer struggled to his feet, steadied himself with his cane and turned to glare up at Hoffman.

‘I’ll pay you double,’ he shouted, ‘triple, whatever you want!’

Hoffman shook his head.

‘You’re a damned fool, old man,’ he shouted. ‘You think that you’re powerful because you’re rich, but you’re a small fish in a very big pond and I work
for the sharks. You’re nothing, Oppenheimer, a nobody compared to who I work for!’

Hoffman turned away, and looked at one of the soldiers next to him.

‘Don’t shoot any of them. We need this to look like an accident. Get the explosives out and blow the cave. It’ll hide any evidence that they were here at all, and if we need
anything in the future we can come back when they’ve all rotted to hell.’

Ethan, along with Lopez, Ellison Thorne and the remaining soldiers had watched the entire exchange in amazement, from Saffron’s unexpected wrecking of their plan to
Oppenheimer being hurled toward them to land at the mouth of the cave.

‘What the hell?’ McQuire uttered in disbelief.

Ethan replied grimly, ‘Looks like Oppenheimer’s finally getting what he deserves.’

Beside them, Lillian Cruz scowled at the mercenaries.

‘They’ve got one of your men now,’ she said. ‘He’s still alive. Whatever you all planned hasn’t worked.’

Ethan looked across at Ellison Thorne. ‘You sure Kip’s not going to make it?’

Ellison Thorne shook his head.

‘Can’t see how, even with all of those clever sawbones and new-fangled contraptions they’ve got today in hospitals. He’ll have mustered out by noon.’

‘None of it matters a damn,’ Saffron snapped, and pointed at Lopez. ‘You were all doomed when she cut herself a deal with my grandfather.’

A silence descended within the cave, even the breeze from the depths seeming to hang listless as Ethan stared at Saffron for a long and disbelieving moment before he turned to look at Lopez.
Everyone in the cave was staring at her, and Ethan watched her glaring back at them defiantly like a cornered wildcat.

‘What the hell, Nicola?’ Ethan asked, staring at her.

Lopez glared back at Saffron.

‘And we had a ticket out of here until you dropped in and screwed everything up saving that worthless old bastard,’ she shot back, pointing at Jeb. ‘Nice work.’

Ellison Thorne glowered at Lopez from the shadows.

‘What trickery has she gone an’ done on us?’ he growled. ‘We wondered how the old man found us so swiftly.’

‘She betrayed all of you,’ Saffron said, and looked at Jeb Oppenheimer. ‘How much did it cost you, Grandpa, for another traitor to join your ranks?’

Oppenheimer was not looking at them, staring instead with interest into the dark depths of the cave, but he answered her question.

‘A quarter million bucks,’ he muttered as he hobbled off into the darkness of the caves behind them. ‘Cheap at twice the price.’

Ethan stared at Lopez in horror. To his surprise, Lopez smirked as she leveled Saffron with a cold gaze.

‘Predictable, to the last,’ she said coldly. ‘You’re damned right I took his bribe, and you’re damned right he paid me to guide his mercenaries to this cave. Gave
me a GPS tracker to reveal the location of Lechuguilla Cave. If you’d thought about it, you’d have also guessed that I’d tossed the GPS tracker long before we got here.’

‘Not long enough to avoid a bloodbath!’ Saffron shouted. ‘People are dying because of what you did!’

Nathaniel McQuire turned his rifle to point at Lopez. ‘Well if that don’t beat the Dutch! You sold out on us!’

Ethan leapt forward between Lopez and the weapon. He looked at her and saw a glimmer of shame in her dark eyes.

‘Why?’ he finally managed to ask.

‘We needed a way to get support here quickly,’ she snapped back at him. ‘I figured if I dropped the tracker somewhere close by, Jarvis would be able to locate it if he had the
IP address of the device.’

Ethan eyed her uncertainly.

‘That’s a hell of a risk, Nicola,’ he said. ‘It could have backfired on us.’

‘You’re goddamned right there!’ Saffron hissed, reaching out for Lopez.

‘Cut it out!’ Ethan snapped, blocking Saffron’s way. ‘We can sort this another time, right now we need to get the hell out of here.’

‘There ain’t no way out,’ Ellison Thorne said. ‘We searched plenty.’

Ethan turned to Butch Cutler and Zamora.

‘Some rescue you’ve pulled off here. Any other great ideas?’

‘We were too late,’ Cutler said, ‘couldn’t get in front of them in time.’

‘Where’s the cavalry?’ Lopez asked them.

McQuire laughed at her. ‘You can’t get horses down here, ma’am.’

Cutler looked at McQuire oddly before replying to Lopez.

‘They can’t move unless your man, Jarvis, can prove Donald Wolfe’s involved. I haven’t heard from him and our damned cell phones won’t work down here, so now all
we’ve got is the tracker you’ve supposedly dumped somewhere in the deserts.’

Lopez smiled coldly.

‘They got here real fast, so they almost certainly found it,’ she said. ‘Which means that Oppenheimer most likely picked it up, being the scrooge that he is.’ Lopez
looked across at the old man. ‘He won’t have left it behind.’

Oppenheimer stared at Lopez in horror and then reached into his jacket pocket. He pulled out a small black device that lay in the palm of his hand, his face twisted with rage at Lopez’s
betrayal. The old man hurled the device into the darkness and turned away, hobbling deeper into the cave.

Ellison Thorne looked at Lopez for a long moment as he realized what she had done.

‘I’ll be damned,’ he murmured, his eyes twinkling with suppressed admiration.

Saffron shook her head.

‘You’ve risked all of our lives on a gamble, and made a profit to boot!’