Immortal

by Dean Crawford

  ‘That’s ridiculous,’ Lopez snorted.

  ‘Marie Stopes,’ Oppenheimer replied, ‘was one of the leading proponents of eugenics. Her abortion clinics were deliberately established in poor neighborhoods in order to prevent the so-called undesirables from breeding through unwanted pregnancies. Today they’re upheld as a model of progressive support for the vulnerable, but eugenics was the driving force behind them. Marie Stopes called for undesirable men to be sterilized by surgery and women by X-rays to prevent them from weakening the human stock.’ Oppenheimer studied the tip of his ivory cane as he went on. ‘The American Eugenics Society only changed its name in 1972, to the Society for the Study of Social Biology. Britain’s Eugenics Society waited even longer before becoming the Galton Institute.’

  Ethan shook his head.

  ‘It doesn’t make any difference. The human right to decide always comes above any philosophical or theological demands on society. It’s not up to us, it’s up to the mother.’

  ‘Agreed,’ Oppenheimer said, ‘but in many countries parents breed children in order to send them out to work. The more children they have, the more they can earn, but at a price: they have more mouths to feed. There are only so many jobs available, so such countries end up with endemic unemployment, crime and poverty. These people, Mister Warner, don’t know how to help themselves.’

  ‘They’re not retarded,’ Lopez muttered. ‘They don’t have a choice.’

  ‘But they do!’ Oppenheimer insisted. ‘In the West our populations have stabilized. In fact, they’re aging because we don’t have as many children as we used to, a direct result of sensible family planning and abortion facilities for those who require them. Our populations are sustainable. But those in the developing world are growing at a trimetric rate and they all want to live like Americans, with large houses, pools, plasma televisions and five meals a day.’ Oppenheimer looked at her seriously. ‘Our planet cannot support them, no matter how advanced our technologies become. Something has to be done.’

  ‘You’re wasting your time,’ Ethan said. ‘A man who needs children in order to earn enough to eat doesn’t care about anything you might have to say about it.’

  ‘Which is why,’ Oppenheimer said, ‘we must endeavor to make the decision for them. It isn’t pretty, politically correct or even necessarily possible, but we must try because if we do not, within sixty years we’ll no longer have a choice. Society will collapse, either through lack of resources or the conflicts resulting from them. Do you know what the greatest likely cause of war is in this day and age?’

  Ethan shook his head.

  ‘Water,’ Oppenheimer said. ‘Wars over water are already being fought in the Middle East at a local level, but they’re spreading fast. Before long, the tribes fighting for water will be nations fighting for control of rivers and aquifers, the first of the resource wars I’ve been predicting for decades.’

  Ethan began to get a picture in his mind of Jeb Oppenheimer, a man whose basic observations were astute but whose mind had been twisted into that of the fundamentalist.

  ‘What’s all that got to do with Tyler Willis?’ Ethan asked.

  The abrupt change of subject seemed to catch Oppenheimer off guard. Ethan noted the rheumy eyes wobble as the old man sought a way past the question.

  ‘Tyler Willis? He was a biochemist of some kind, researching aging.’

  ‘Was?’ Ethan repeated. The change of tack had unsettled Oppenheimer’s train of thought, and he could almost see the old man cursing himself before he spoke.

  ‘He used to work at the Los Alamos Laboratories,’ Oppenheimer said finally. ‘I’m not aware of his current research or location.’

  ‘He’s had several papers published in the major journals recently,’ Lopez said. ‘I’m surprised you haven’t seen them.’

  Ethan noticed that Oppenheimer’s stance had not changed for several moments, as though he were a granite statue rooted to the spot. A classic sign, he recognized, of someone entirely caught up in their own desperate thought processes.

  ‘I don’t have time to read all of the journals,’ the old man snapped, and then shifted his position as though suddenly aware of his rapture. ‘There are literally thousands published every day.’

  ‘Willis worked for a rival laboratory to yours,’ Ethan said, not giving the old man time to think. ‘Strange that Saffron would hit its vivisection laboratories instead of attacking your operations.’

  ‘She learned her goddamn lesson the last time she tried to attack my operation,’ Oppenheimer shot back with a scowl. ‘One of her grubby little friends got himself killed. He was dead by the time they got him to Santa Fe.’

  ‘And you have no idea of the whereabouts of Tyler Willis now, or of a medical examiner by the name of Lillian Cruz?’

  Oppenheimer peered at Ethan.

  ‘Who the goddamn hell is she?’

  ‘New Mexico ME,’ Lopez said. ‘Vanished two days ago, along with the remains of a man named Hiram Conley.’

  ‘What the hell would I want to abduct a morgue attendant and a corpse for?’

  ‘Who said they were abducted?’ Ethan asked, raising an eyebrow.

  Oppenheimer’s leathery skin rippled with frustration, his hand wobbling on top of his cane as his temper frayed.

  ‘What do you two actually want?’

  Ethan, enjoying the old man’s discomfort, shrugged.

  ‘The truth, which we’ll get before long one way or the other. I think you’re a successful man with powerful friends who believes he can do anything he likes. I’m here to tell you that’s not the case.’

  Oppenheimer leaned forward and glared down at Ethan.

  ‘Now you listen to me, you sniveling little shit. I can have you out of this office in ten seconds and out of the goddamn county in thirty. You don’t come in here talking down to me! You come in here on your goddamn knees and beg for my assistance and cooperation!’

  He jabbed the cane in Ethan’s direction. As he did so, Ethan noticed the edges of his shirt cuffs were lightly splattered with bloodstains. He looked at the lab coat draped over the back of Oppenheimer’s chair. A pair of fashionable-looking spectacles were poking out from one pocket, black-rimmed with burgundy frames. He knew immediately where he had last seen a pair of spectacles like them: at Los Alamos, worn by Tyler Willis.

  Ethan leapt out of his chair, grabbed the cane halfway down and spun it in his grasp before thrusting it up under Oppenheimer’s chin. The old man pivoted awkwardly backwards and sideways, slamming down onto the glass desk with his own cane pinning him down.

  Ethan leaned in close. ‘Where’s Willis?’

  He saw a flash of fear in the old man’s eyes and then a flame of outrage. Oppenheimer let go of the cane, reaching out and fumbling for an alarm button concealed out of sight under the desk. Ethan grabbed the frail wrist easily and held it like a vice.

  ‘I can snap you like a twig,’ Ethan said. ‘Where’s Willis?’

  ‘I’ll have you for this, Warner,’ Oppenheimer growled, spittle flecking his dry lips. ‘Government or not, I’ll have you gutted from bow to stern.’

  ‘Not before I have the entire Santa Fe police department tearing through this building,’ Ethan said, pressing down on the cane and causing Oppenheimer’s labored breathing to lodge painfully through his throat. ‘Where’s Willis?’

  Oppenheimer began shuddering, his chest heaving as a cough erupted from his ruined lungs. Ethan leaned back as strings of mucus splattered from the old man’s mouth to drool in loops from his cheek. Oppenheimer rolled away off his desk, collapsing beside it and coughing uncontrollably.

  ‘Take it easy, Ethan,’ Lopez said in alarm. ‘Jesus Christ, and you say I’m reckless.’

  ‘Willis is here, those are his glasses,’ Ethan said, pointing at the spectacles in Oppenheimer’s lab coat before glancing at the opaque windows to check that nobody could see in. ‘Come on.’

  30

  Ethan dashed out of Oppenheimer’s office, and strod
e to where the secretary was still sitting behind her desk. Ethan leaned on the desk.

  ‘Tyler Willis, about twenty-eight years old, five nine, black. Have you seen him?’

  The secretary stared with wide blue eyes at Ethan and reared back in her chair.

  ‘No, I haven’t seen him.’

  Lopez pushed Ethan aside.

  ‘Jesus, give her a break,’ she said before looking at the girl. ‘What’s your name?’

  ‘Claire,’ the girl said, one hand on her chest as though her heart was about to burst out.

  ‘Okay, Claire. Your boss has bloodstains on his shirt and Tyler Willis has been missing for several hours. We think that Oppenheimer may have done something to him. This is a criminal investigation and if a crime is discovered, every single employee in this company will be implicated. Do you understand?’

  Ethan watched as the girl nodded slowly, her gaze steady now.

  ‘Do you know where Tyler Willis is?’ Lopez repeated.

  ‘No,’ Claire said, and cast a glance at Oppenheimer’s office door. ‘But when I buzzed Mister Oppenheimer to inform him of your arrival, I heard someone screaming in the background.’

  Ethan stared at her.

  ‘Where was he?’

  Claire’s face blanched with fear.

  ‘If Mister Oppenheimer finds out that I’ve said anything, he might do to me what he’s been doing to—’

  ‘No, he won’t,’ Lopez said firmly, ‘because he can’t now that we’ve been here and seen you alive and well. Go and help him when we’re gone, he’ll never know. Where was he when you heard the screaming?’

  Claire took a breath and pointed down the hall.

  ‘The quarantine labs, two floors down, third on the right.’

  Ethan didn’t wait for Lopez, launching himself down the hall.

  Jeb Oppenheimer gagged as a thick soup of mucus lodged in his throat, his face aching as he coughed, his lungs burning for air. He struggled onto his side on the thick carpet, his stomach heaving as his vision began to sparkle with stars of light. He was about to pass out when a pair of glossy black heels appeared before him. He swiveled his gaze upward to see Claire standing over him, her legs apart and one hand on her hip as she held in her other hand a small plastic chamber with three twelve-inch rubber tubes hanging from it.

  Oppenheimer clawed with one hand for the device, but Claire lifted it out of his reach.

  ‘Double my salary,’ she said. ‘And if it’s sex you want, get some other poor bitch to do it, understood?’

  Oppenheimer’s eyes widened with rage and he shook his head.

  Claire squatted down beside him, the tubes still out of reach, and considered him for a moment.

  ‘Do you realize how hard it is for a girl to get ahead these days?’ she asked conversationally as Oppenheimer’s terminal breaths gargled somewhere deep in his esophagus. ‘It’s as if we’re just pawns in rich men’s games. Tell me, Jeb: how much is your life worth?’ Claire’s gaze turned stony and cold. ‘How much is it really worth?’

  Oppenheimer’s vision began to darken and his heartbeat pulsed weakly through his skull as he finally nodded frantically. Claire knelt down beside him and shoved one of the tubes into his cold, bony hand. Oppenheimer grabbed it and shoved it as far down his throat as he could. Claire took a second tube, put it in her mouth and sucked hard.

  A thick green sludge poured from Oppenheimer’s throat into the tube. The old man dropped the tube and sucked in an immense whistling breath as Claire stood up, the mess now contained in the chamber between the tubes. Oppenheimer lay for a moment before slowly struggling to his feet.

  ‘Where . . . did . . . they go?’ he whispered to her.

  ‘Quarantine,’ she said, then raised the plastic tubes and chamber to his face. ‘Back-date my salary from when I started, or I’ll sell out quicker than you did when I sucked this shit from your lungs, understood?’

  Oppenheimer glared at her, but he nodded before hitting the concealed button on his desk.

  ‘Security to quarantine, arrest and detain Ethan Warner and Nicola Lopez immediately.’

  Ethan rushed down the stairwell, leaping four steps at a time, with Lopez just managing to keep pace behind him. He came to the bottom and barged through a set of double doors into a corridor, just in time to see two large, suited men running side by side toward him, their combined shoulders almost as wide as the corridor itself.

  A fist flashed into Ethan’s vision. He let his own momentum keep him moving toward the fist as he nipped sideways, a thick arm shooting past his face. He folded his own arm over it as the big security guard stumbled past him, and drove one knee deep into the man’s belly. The guard folded over at the waist with a grunt of pain and sprawled onto the ground beside him. Ethan released his grip as the second guard whipped a nightstick from his belt and flicked it open, stepping over his fallen comrade and lunging at Ethan with the point of the nightstick while reaching out for his throat with his other hand.

  Ethan dropped instinctively and pivoted on his right foot, coming up under the nightstick and driving his fist into the guard’s groin. To his surprise the guard was quick, jerking himself away from the blow that glanced across his thigh and whipping the nightstick down toward Ethan’s head. Ethan raised an arm to block it, only to see Lopez catch the man’s wrist in one hand and whip her elbow into his eye like a slugger sending a ball out of the park.

  The guard staggered backward and away from her as Ethan leapt to his feet, fists up and ready. Lopez pulled her baton from beneath her jacket, prowling forward as Ethan covered her, forcing the guard back toward the door he was protecting.

  ‘You’re not under arrest yet,’ Ethan said, ‘but you try to stop us getting into the laboratory and you will be, understood?’

  The guard wavered but stood his ground, switching his gaze nervously between them. He was a big man but he was cornered, outnumbered and uncertain of his chances. Any bravado he might have harbored had deserted him in a hurry. Quite suddenly, he turned and dashed through the laboratory door. Ethan lunged after him, slamming into the door as it closed and a heavy locking mechanism slipped into place on the other side.

  Ethan turned and strode toward the fallen guard, seeing keys hanging from his belt, but before he could reach for them the double doors at the far end of the corridor opened and a dozen more security guards blundered through.

  ‘Stay where you are!’

  Ethan backed off, watching as they moved to block his access to the laboratory. Lopez held her baton close by her thigh, ready to lash out at anyone who dared touch her. Behind them, standing silently, was Jeb Oppenheimer. He looked at them for a long moment, then raised one hand and wagged a crooked finger at them.

  ‘Now, that wasn’t very nice, was it?’ he asked.

  ‘Let Willis go,’ Ethan hissed. ‘You’ll only make it worse for yourself if we report back that he’s being held here.’

  Oppenheimer’s features creased into a soulless grin.

  ‘Who says that you’re leaving?’ he asked. ‘Ever?’

  Ethan was about to open his mouth to reply when half of the security guards rushed him at once, smashing into him like a freight train and driving him to the ground. He heard Lopez cry out as she too was overpowered. Within moments, they were dragged to their feet with their arms yanked up around their shoulder blades.

  Jeb Oppenheimer walked slowly toward Ethan, leaning on his cane with each stride.

  ‘It would appear we have three subjects for dissection this evening,’ he murmured in delight.

  ‘State police will be in here within minutes,’ Ethan snapped. ‘You’ll be in jail by nightfall.’

  ‘For what?’ Oppenheimer asked, looking deep into Ethan’s eyes. ‘Where is your evidence? And there’s no reason for the county sheriff to obtain search warrants, no matter how much you cry foul. Corporate privilege, my unfortunate young friend.’

  Ethan was about to speak when a disembodied, digital voice interrupted them.

/>   ‘Mister Oppenheimer?’

  Ethan recognized the voice of the old man’s secretary, Claire. Oppenheimer made his way to a panel on the wall and pressed a button.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘The state police are here looking for Warner and Lopez. What should I say to them?’

  ‘Tell them we’re down here!’ Ethan shouted. ‘Tell them Tyler Willis is here!’

  Oppenheimer smiled at Ethan. No reply came from the intercom.

  ‘Money, Mister Warner, provides far greater loyalty than morals.’ Oppenheimer’s smile disappeared as he considered his dilemma, and then he keyed the microphone again. ‘Tell them that Warner and Lopez are just leaving.’

  Ethan felt a wave of relief as Oppenheimer stepped away from the speaker and approached him, glowering with fury.

  ‘Rest assured, Mister Warner, that by the time this is all over I will enjoy watching you die.’

  ‘If so, I’ll be sure to take you with me,’ Ethan growled.

  The guards pushed and shoved Ethan and Lopez out of the corridor, maintaining their grip on them as they rode the elevator back down to the foyer. The robotic receptionist didn’t even glance up as they were manhandled out of the glass doors, where a pair of squad cars and two USAMRIID vehicles were parked.

  Ethan saw Enrico Zamora, his arm in a sling, standing beside one of the squad cars, and called out to him, ‘Tyler Willis is inside. We need a warrant right away.’

  Zamora offered Ethan an apologetic look, as Butch Cutler approached Ethan with disdain etched on his face.

  ‘You’re to leave this property immediately and not return. You’re also to report to your commander at the Defense Intelligence Agency immediately before returning to Illinois right away.’

  Ethan stared at Cutler in disbelief.

  ‘There’s a man inside this building being held against his will. He needs our help to—’

  ‘There’s also a burning apartment in Santa Fe, forensics teams on site examining bullets and a wounded officer standing right behind me. I don’t know who the goddamn hell you think you are, Warner, but your time here is done. If you’re not out of this county by sundown I’ll have you both arrested and locked down, is that understood?’