The Immortality Factor (54 page)

No response.

I tried phoning her in Mexico and got only an answering machine with her voice promising to call back as soon as she possibly could.

No call back. Nothing.

I asked Darrell what he thought about the situation.

“Let me go down there and get her,” he said. “This must've hit her like an atomic bomb.”

“All right,” I said. “Bring her back here. I don't care what shape her program is in or what shape she's in. Bring her home.”

“Right,” said Darrell.

I tried to put Cassie out of my mind. I had work to do. Graves's idea of a science court was starting to get some support from key players in the field. I shuttled down to Washington several times and spent hours on the phone with scientists from some of the most prestigious schools in the nation.

Many of those academics were frankly skeptical of dealing with me. I was one of those big bad industrial guys who had turned his back on the purity of academic research. I was out to make a buck instead of pursuing pure research. It was an archaic attitude, ludicrous in the light of the modern scientific scene,
but it was uncanny how quickly some of the academics could climb up on their white horses and pontificate.

Graves was an invaluable help. He had wanted to try out this idea of a science court for years, he told me, and now I had given him the opportunity to make it real. So he ran interference with the stuffier academics and began to line them up—not on my side, necessarily, but on the side of giving my work a fair and rigorous hearing before a court of my peers.

The more I thought about it, the more sense the court made to me. I wanted the regeneration work to be assessed rationally. I had no intention of allowing it to be tried in the media, or by mobs of six-pack-swilling know-nothings whipped into a frenzy by the likes of Joshua Ransom or Reverend Simmonds over nonsense like mutant monsters.

Simmonds. Every time I thought of him I thought of Jesse. That made me simmer with anger. Yet Julia had told me that Jesse never knowingly tried to hurt me. And I knew she was right. At least I tried to convince myself she was right. In all honesty, I couldn't picture Jesse deliberately getting Simmonds on my back. It's just that Jess is so damned blind to everything and everyone except himself. He wouldn't ask Simmonds to attack me, but he'd blithely tell Simmonds all about the work I was doing without even thinking for one moment that Simmonds would be smart enough to latch on to that idea and use it as a rallying cry to draw more attention and bigger crowds to himself.

Simmonds wouldn't be allowed to testify in the science court, of course. But Jesse could. He was in at the start of this work, and if the opposite side in the court procedure had any brains at all they'd call on Jess to testify.

Would he agree to appear? And would he testify against me? I had to find out.

Somehow, dealing with my brother had become like walking through a minefield. Ever since Julia had come into our lives.

No, that wasn't right, I told myself. Jesse had always been irresponsible, self-centered, even as a kid. It just never bothered me before Julia. We had never wanted the same exact thing before. He had never stolen anything away from me.

But no matter how much trouble or pain, I had to find out what he'd do if he was asked to appear at the science court hearing. And, in the back of my mind, I could hear Momma telling me that it was wrong to be angry with my brother. And I heard Julia saying to me that I ought to take the first step in healing the breach between us.

I asked Phyllis to track him down on the phone. It took two days. Actually he called around midnight, just as I was getting ready for bed after a dinner out with Pat.

I was sitting on the edge of the bed when the phone rang. Somehow I knew it would be Jesse. Who else would call at this hour, unless it was Darrell with news about Cassie?

“Arby?” His voice sounded tired.

“Hello, Jess.”

“I got a couple messages that you've been trying to reach me.”

“Yes.”

“What do you want?”

“How are you?” I asked. “How's Julia?”

“We're both fine. What're you up to?”

It felt both good and painful to hear his voice again. I wanted to love him the way a brother should, I really did.

“It's been a long time,” I said.

He started to say something, then changed his mind and said simply, “Yeah.”

“Do you have any time for lunch in the next few days? I could come down into the city.”

“Breakfast would be easier,” he said. “I never know when I'll get a chance to break for lunch.”

“Okay. Breakfast.” That meant I'd have to get up very early, or go into town the night before and stay over.

“Tomorrow?” he asked.

“How about the day after tomorrow?”

He hesitated. “No good. Got a fund-raising breakfast with some investors group on Wall Street.”

“I could meet you afterward,” I suggested. “Pick you up and drive you to the hospital. We could talk in the limo.”

He laughed softly. “I don't think I ought to let those people see me get into a limo. I'm always poor-mouthing them.”

“I'll come in a taxicab, then.”

Suddenly his voice became suspicious. “What's so damned important?”

“I'll tell you when I see you.”

He had to think about that for a moment. At last he agreed, and gave me the address and time when he would be finished with his breakfast meeting.

“I'll see you then,” I said.

“Okay,” he answered guardedly. Then he brightened and added, “Oh, by the way, Julia's pregnant again.”

And he hung up.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I
wish I knew what's on those disks,” Arthur said to Pat.

“The DVDs Cassie made?”

They were having lunch at one of the little restaurants just off Capitol Hill, leaning together conspiratorially over the tiny, wobbly table. Neither of them recognized anyone else from the trial in the restaurant, yet still they talked in near-whispers.

“Yes,” Arthur said gloomily. “Cassie's legacy.”

“I still think Rosen should have allowed you to see them before they're introduced as evidence in the trial,” said Pat.

Arthur grimaced. “His position is that they're not scientific evidence. They're just a personal statement by a scientist who worked on the program.”

“We've come a long way from restricting ourselves to the scientific facts, haven't we?”

Nodding, Arthur replied, “And Graves is letting him get away with it.”

“She won't be helpful to you, will she?”

“Rosen wouldn't use the disks if they were helpful,” Arthur grumbled. “The only question is, how much damage can they do?”

Pat tried to change the subject. “You really demolished Ransom.”

“He had it coming.”

“I didn't think he'd be so easy to knock off.”

Arthur smiled grimly. “That sneaky little sonofabitch has never had to stand up to cross-examination before. Not in any way. He's always attacked through the media or through the courts, always arranged things so his victims are on the defensive and he's on the attack. Once he had to defend his own position, he crumbled.”

“No,” Pat said admiringly, “you crumbled him. And then you held out your hand to him, at the end. That was beautiful.”

Arthur looked surprised. “Oh, you mean when I said he'd need regeneration one day?” He shrugged. “Well, we all will, won't we?”

“Potter needs it now,” Pat said.

Arthur's face hardened. “I wonder what I'd do if we were ready for human trials and Potter came to me and asked for help.”

“You'd help him.”

“Would I? That man ruined my life.”

Pat laughed. “I wouldn't say your life is exactly ruined, Arthur.”

“No thanks to him.”

She grew more serious. “His testimony was pretty damning, though.”

Arthur huffed. “He made an ass of himself.”

“He sounded very convincing to me.”

“You're not a scientist. Anyone in the field who still has a few brain cells functioning will see that Potter's so-called scientific study is nothing but numerology.”

“Really?”

“I'll tear him to shreds when I cross-examine him.”

Pat smiled a bit. “Perry Mason attacks.”

“You'll see.” Arthur smiled back.

At least he's smiling, Pat thought as their waiter brought a pair of salads. Pat was drinking iced tea, Arthur a nonalcoholic beer.

“How much damage can Cassie do?” she asked.

Arthur's smile vanished. “Not much scientifically. But if her video is as emotional as I think it'll be, we're going to get lynched in the media.”

“I don't think there'll be all that many reporters back for the afternoon session. They got their story when you and Ransom squared off.”

“They'll be there,” Arthur said. “Let Cassie break into tears just once on her videos and they'll swarm around us like piranhas. She'll be on the six o'clock news, not Ransom and me.”

“Her and Max.”

“And we'll look like monsters.”

He picked listlessly at his salad, then looked up again. “I wanted this trial to go strictly on the scientific merits of our work. If we could just stick to the science we'd have no trouble whatsoever.”

“But Rosen won't do that, and Graves is letting him get away with it.”

“This isn't what Graves and I agreed to, at the beginning,” Arthur said bitterly. “I've been betrayed.”

“The trial hasn't been on the front page since the opening day,” Pat said, trying to sound optimistic. “Even Reverend Simmonds's pickets have thinned out a lot.”

“Senator Kindelberger tried to sabotage us,” Arthur said. “He's out to get us.”

“He's running for reelection,” said Pat.

“And appealing to the crazies.”

“I guess.”

“But where's Jesse?” Arthur wondered. “Why wasn't he here?”

“I don't know. Do you want me to find out?”

“And what's on Cassie's disks? What's she going to say? How bad is it going to get?”

 

L
aureen Jarvis skipped lunch. She went straight from the hearing chamber in the Rayburn Building to Senator Kindelberger's offices in the Dirkson Building, on the other side of the Capitol.

Inserting Ransom into the trial had been Kerry Tate's brilliant idea and it had backfired hideously. The little creep was totally outgunned by Marshak. As she headed for the senator's private office, Laureen saw that Kerry's door was closed tight.

He doesn't want any of us ragging him, she thought. Can't say that I blame him. But this next ploy is going to blow Marshak out of the water; it can't fail.

The senator was sitting at the conference table in his office, looking worried, one big hand wrapped around his luncheon glass of bourbon. Elwood Faber sat on the far side of the polished mahogany table, an attaché case opened on his lap. Laureen saw three plastic-covered DVDs inside the case; Faber seemed to be guarding them as if they were bars of solid gold. Reverend Simmonds stood over by the window, his head bowed over hands clasped in prayer.

Laureen complained, “The reporters won't be back after lunch. They got what they wanted from Marshak's takeout of Ransom.”

Kindelberger shot her an annoyed glance. Faber looked up from the DVDs. “You're wrong, honey. I've phoned every reporter in town. They're all going to be there, watching these videos.”

“You're certain of that?” Kindelberger asked.

“Depend on it,” Faber said, smiling.

Simmonds lifted his face and said, “God is on our side. He will provide us with victory.”

“He'd better,” Laureen said. “Another fiasco like Ransom and we'll be wiped out.”

Faber closed the attaché case tenderly, then patted its lid. “Listen, people: these videos are a godsend. Little Cassie's going to win this fight for us.”

Simmonds sat down and leaned his arms on the polished conference table.

“But Marshak tore Ransom to shreds,” Kindelberger grumbled. “That makes me look like a jackass.”

“It doesn't matter what the scientists say,” Faber said, putting both his loafer-clad feet on the tabletop. “Once little Cassie here starts blubbering on the TV screen about her monkey, the media's going to crucify Marshak but good.”

Simmonds's eyes narrowed slightly at the word “crucify,” but he said nothing.

“You stop Marshak and you're a national power, Reverend. A
national
political force. You'll get the senator here reelected. And then other politicians will come a-courting you. You'll see. They'll come to you with their hats in their hands and tell you that they've seen the light and they want your blessing on their campaigns. They'll beg you to let your followers work for 'em. And vote for 'em, of course.”

“I'm not interested in political power,” Simmonds rumbled.

“No, course not.” Faber jabbed a finger at him. “But you want to put an end to creating fetuses just so's some scientists can kill 'em and use their stem cells, don't you? You want the schools to stop teaching about sex, don't you? And stop teaching about evolution, too. You want dirty books and smutty Web sites taken out of circulation, don't you? You want families to be families again, you want to stop all these welfare sluts from getting free abortions, you want to make these United States dedicated to the power and glory of the Lord, don't you?”

Simmonds said nothing. He did not have to.

“Well, then,” Faber said, smiling broadly at him, “to get that done we've got to destroy Marshak. Not just beat him at this trial, not just stop his infernal scientific research. We've got to ruin the man, break him, crush him up so bad that nobody'll ever want to hire him even for janitor!”