Immortal

by Dean Crawford

  The big man stood out like a sore thumb among the hundreds of troops, standing head and shoulders above them as he dashed for the edge of the field.

  Ethan kicked the horse’s flanks, hanging on as the animal dug in and accelerated across the field as though possessed. Ethan bellowed at bewildered re-enactors to get out of the way as the palomino thundered toward them. He saw Lopez and Zamora appearing from the hordes, their faces flushed with exhaustion and surprise as Ethan rode up to them and hauled the horse to a halt.

  ‘Call for police and an ambulance,’ Ethan said to Zamora. ‘Carson’s been shot.’

  ‘Where’s the shooter?’ Zamora asked, pulling out his radio.

  Ethan pointed across the field.

  ‘That way, a real big guy.’ He reached down to Lopez. ‘Coming along?’

  Lopez took two paces, grabbed Ethan’s proffered hand and swung herself up into the saddle behind him.

  ‘Who the hell are you now?’ she asked over his shoulder. ‘The Lone Ranger?’

  Ethan didn’t answer, driving the stallion forward again. The horse thundered across the field through veils of cordite smoke as Ethan pulled the reins to avoid trampling oblivious re-enactors lying in the grass clasping their various imagined wounds. Ahead, he saw the big man duck under a rope partition separating the spectators from the battle, and flee through the crowd toward the exits.

  ‘Can you jump that?’ Lopez shouted above the thundering hooves and wind.

  ‘I’m not worried about the fence,’ Ethan replied. ‘I’m worried about the crowd.’

  Ahead, lines of excited faces clapped and nudged each other, pointing at the palomino with its Union rider galloping toward them. Ethan swung his arm at them, trying to get them to move. Several parents and children started waving back at him.

  ‘Get out of the goddamned way!’

  Faces started falling as the spectators became dimly aware that the horse bearing down upon them wasn’t showing any signs of slowing down. Suddenly there was a parting of the crowd as people stumbled over each other to get out of the way. Ethan lifted the horse up, the stallion clawing the air as it hurled itself over the partition and landed safely on the other side, angry spectators bellowing at Ethan as they galloped past.

  ‘A touch more realistic than they would have liked,’ Lopez shouted.

  Ethan concentrated on guiding the horse as they reached the edge of the fields, where the big man was running toward a beaten-up old Crown Victoria parked by the sidewalk. Ethan saw him clamber in and the car pulled away.

  ‘Hang on!’ he shouted, and yanked the reins to the left.

  The stallion responded eagerly as it followed the car, the thunder of hooves on grass giving way to the clatter of iron on asphalt as they burst out onto California Street between lanes of traffic.

  40

  ‘Great move, Zorro!’ Lopez shouted over Ethan’s shoulder as a pair of SUVs swerved to avoid them and clashed fenders with a whine of rending metal. ‘What the hell are you going to do now, head ’em off at the pass?’

  Ethan’s attention was focused entirely on the road ahead, where the Crown Vic was struggling to pass a slow-moving line of traffic filtering its way past Sedillo Park and north toward the intersection with Interstate 25.

  ‘We’ve got to stop them escaping. That man’s got Carson’s murder weapon!’

  Lopez gripped him tightly around the waist as he wove the stallion between the lines of traffic, car horns wailing and people cursing as vehicles swerved to avoid the unexpected horse galloping past them. Lopez shouted something back at him just as he saw the face of the big soldier leaning out of his window, his rifle tucked into his shoulder.

  Ethan yanked the reins to one side, the palomino jerking out of the shooter’s view as the rifle crackled and spat a thick funnel of gray smoke. He felt the shockwave as the musket ball smacked through the air inches from his ear, and beneath him the horse flinched.

  A large red truck swerved alongside them, and Ethan glimpsed a pair of panicked eyes beneath a baseball cap as the truck veered off to one side to avoid a collision. Ethan let the stallion pick its own course past, the truck missing them by inches as its driver fought for control of his vehicle.

  ‘Jesus, we need cover!’ Lopez shouted.

  Ethan guided the stallion between the two lanes of traffic, accelerating again in the flow just two cars behind the Crown Vic. He glanced at the dense traffic and made a decision.

  ‘Can you ride?’ Ethan shouted to Lopez above the wind and the sound of the vehicles honking their horns and incredulous drivers shouting insults.

  ‘Sure, I rode ponies back in Guanajuato! Why?’

  Ethan hauled the stallion out of the line of traffic and alongside the car in front of them, a navy-blue Taurus driven by a nervous-looking soccer-mom with two kids in the back. He grabbed the reins in one hand, tossing them over his shoulder as he hefted his right boot up onto the saddle and launched himself at the Taurus. For a brief, vertiginous moment it felt as though he were hovering in the void between the palomino and the car and then he thumped down onto the roof of the Taurus.

  Lopez shouted something at him and he glanced to see her untangling the reins with a look of disbelief on her face. He turned to face forward, realizing that the terrified soccer-mom beneath him was already slowing down. Ethan lunged forward into the wind buffeting his shirt, strode down onto the bonnet of the Taurus and launched himself at a run into the back of a battered old pick-up in front. The weary suspension on the truck sagged as he landed hard on the metal surface, and he saw the driver look back over his shoulder and shout as Ethan dashed forward and leapt up and over the cab.

  ‘What in the name of God d’you think you’re doing?’

  Ethan scrambled onto the bonnet of the pick-up and with a single stride launched himself through the air before slamming down onto the rear of the Crown Vic even as the big man was struggling to get his reloaded rifle out the window again. Ethan jumped forward and landed flat on the roof of the car. He grabbed the rifle’s stock with one hand as it appeared out of the window, twisting it up toward him and then pulling with all his might to keep the weapon pinned upright, the fingers of his other hand grasping the opposite edge of the roof. He saw the soldier stare at him in shock, and got his first good look at the face. Broad and craggy, with blue-gray eyes sheened with that curious glaze. He recognized the man instantly, not just from the elevators at Hilary Falls. The photograph. The big man in the center. The leader.

  Ellison Thorne.

  Ethan instinctively ducked as an overhead road sign flashed past, emblazoned with directions for the I-25 south for Las Cruces.

  Thorne tugged at the rifle and yanked Ethan toward him. Ethan kept his grip, desperately trying to stay on the roof. Thorne was immensely strong, but his awkward angle, half out of his window, prevented him from pulling on Ethan with all his weight. He stopped trying and instead glared at Ethan, the wind tugging at his thick gray hair and long moustache.

  ‘You’re walkin’ a road that leads to your doom, boy,’ he rumbled, his voice so deep it sounded as though he were under water.

  ‘So are you,’ Ethan shouted above the wind. ‘You’re being hunted. You can’t hide forever.’

  Ellison Thorne’s moustache curled across his face in the wind as he smiled grimly up at Ethan.

  ‘Yes, we can.’

  Ellison Thorne suddenly ducked out of sight. Ethan was about to try to yank the rifle out of the car when it jinked hard left and before he could respond, he felt something smash the door of the sedan open. Ethan’s precarious grip on the roof was wrenched painfully free and he flew sideways, one hand still clasping the rifle stock as he was propelled off the roof into mid air. In a moment which would be seared into his brain for life, Ethan plummeted beside the car and saw Ellison Thorne sitting sideways in the passenger seat, having turned to open the door and then booted it open with one almighty kick. Then the desert slammed into Ethan’s back with enough force to drive the air from h
is lungs. As he slid across the loose dust at the side of the road he had a brief sight of the Crown Vic turning hard right onto the I-25 and accelerating south toward the endless scorched deserts vanishing into a milky blue-white horizon.

  And then everything went black.

  And then everything went a perfect, flawless blue.

  Ethan squinted as the light seared his retina, heard sounds reaching his ears again, voices and the sound of car doors slamming. Then a horse clattering to a halt nearby. The palomino appeared above him against the hard blue sky and looked down at him with an almost quizzical expression.

  ‘You just don’t know when to quit, do you?’

  Ethan blinked and then saw Lopez peering around the palomino’s head from the saddle. He tried to lift his head, a deep ache throbbing throughout his body. Lopez jumped down and helped him up into a sitting position and searched with her hands beneath his thick hair.

  ‘Well, you haven’t damaged your head, leastways not any more than it already was. You were lucky you hit the dust and not the asphalt, and you missed that streetlight by inches.’

  People were gathering around now, staring down at Ethan and the big rifle he still held in his hands, which were now bloodied where his knuckles and knees had scraped across the stony ground. He tentatively moved his legs and then his arms, wriggling his fingers and toes.

  ‘Any sign of Zamora?’ he asked Lopez.

  ‘The police aren’t here yet,’ she replied. ‘They’re probably busy sorting everyone out back in town. Carson got shot, remember, and you just rode a horse straight through a crowd then down the goddamned highway. First thing they’ll probably do when they get here is arrest us both.’

  With an effort, Ethan struggled to his feet. Lopez slipped the heavy uniform jacket from his shoulders and turned it in her hands. The thick fabric was torn where Ethan had landed on his back, but it had protected him from injury. She showed it to him.

  ‘You realize that luck does run out, eventually,’ she said.

  Ethan nodded, looking up as a squad car pulled up nearby with lights ablaze and sirens wailing. Ethan limped toward them with the rifle in his hands, relieved to see Zamora climbing out of the car.

  ‘They went south in a silver Crown Vic,’ Ethan called out, and gave Zamora the registration number before handing him the rifle.

  ‘This the murder weapon?’ Zamora asked.

  ‘Yeah.’

  Zamora turned and tossed the rifle into the back of the squad car.

  ‘Hey, that’s evidence,’ Ethan protested, pointing at the rifle and then wincing as pain bolted up his arm.

  ‘Yes it is,’ Zamora agreed. ‘It has fingerprints on it and we’ll have them analyzed, but as evidence for homicide it’s useless. You’re thinking about ballistics, aren’t you?’

  ‘The barrel’s rifled,’ Ethan said. ‘It may have a distinctive effect on the ball, if you’ve recovered it from Carson’s body.’

  ‘USAMRIID has Carson’s body,’ Zamora said. ‘They’re on the scene already, arrived within a few minutes of the shooting. What you’re forgetting is that these weapons all have rifling, and that means it’s not enough to prove that this weapon fired the ball that killed Carson. More than that, the ball isn’t fired like a modern weapon – it doesn’t have an imprint like a modern bullet so it can’t be connected to any one rifle.’

  ‘I know,’ Ethan said. ‘But having the weapon is better than not having it. The fingerprints are evidence enough.’

  Zamora sighed, rubbing his temples with one hand before gesturing them to join him in his squad car. Ethan sat in aching silence and watched as Zamora recovered the palomino and had it transported back to Sedillo Park before he drove back in silence. They arrived to see ranks of re-enactors filing en masse from the field which, in its center, now had a police cordon.

  Butch Cutler was there already, directing his staff with bellowed commands. He turned as Ethan limped across to the cordon, Zamora and Lopez either side of him. Cutler looked at Ethan’s bedraggled, bruised and bloodied form, and smiled.

  ‘You look like shit, Warner, but I’m pleased to say it’s the last time I’ll have to see you at all because if I do, I’ll arrest you on sight.’

  ‘We’re leaving,’ Ethan said without emotion. ‘We captured the murder weapon, it’s in Officer Zamora’s patrol car.’

  Cutler raised an eyebrow in surprise.

  ‘What of the perpetrators?’

  ‘Escaped,’ Zamora replied. ‘We’ve got their license plate out, one of the patrols will find them soon enough.’

  ‘Not if they go into the deserts,’ Ethan said.

  ‘Either way,’ Cutler growled, ‘it’s none of your business now, Warner. Once again you’ve brought chaos to New Mexico and now you’ve outstayed your welcome. Get off this field, get cleaned up and then get the hell out of here or I’ll have you in a cell by sundown.’

  Ethan said nothing as he turned his back and walked away, trying not to limp.

  ‘How the hell did they get here so damned fast?’ he asked out loud.

  Lopez walked alongside him. ‘They’re up to something. Question is, what are we going to do about it?’

  ‘We’ll do what Cutler wants, and stay out of Santa Fe,’ Ethan replied. ‘Tell Zamora to let us know when his men find that car. We’ll go pick up some equipment, and start taking the fight to the enemy.’

  41

  SKINGEN CORP

  SANTA FE

  2.53 p.m.

  ‘What news, Donald?’

  Jeb Oppenheimer sat behind his desk, the windows around his office opaque once again and his monitor showing an image of Donald Wolfe at the USAMRIID headquarters at Fort Detrick, Maryland.

  ‘We’ve got a USAMRIID team working in Santa Fe and Socorro counties, trying to keep up with everything that’s going on down there. So far we haven’t recovered any useful material from the apartments or from any of the crime scenes.’

  Oppenheimer leaned forward on the table keenly.

  ‘What about the body, the one found at Sedillo Park?’

  Wolfe smiled.

  ‘Perfectly preserved – we had the corpse on ice within an hour of death. So far the level of decay is minimal. However, the acceleration is irreversible once death has occurred. Sooner or later the remains will also be useless to us.’

  Oppenheimer leaned back in his chair and sighed with relief, still unable to believe that he had finally obtained what he had searched for for so many decades.

  ‘How could they have known about this man before us?’ he demanded. ‘Lee Carson? I’ve been searching for these people, chasing legends and stories for thirty years or more, then Ethan Warner and Nicola Lopez stroll down here and identify one of them within two days.’

  Wolfe shook his head, his hands raised in a gesture of helplessness.

  ‘I don’t know, but it must have had something to do with Tyler Willis. We know that Hiram Conley was talking to him. He could have identified the survivors to Willis, who then told Warner and Lopez.’

  Oppenheimer shook his head slowly.

  ‘No, Willis was too afraid of what I would do to him to have held anything back. They must be coming out of hiding for some reason. Willis didn’t know where Conley and Carson had gained their longevity, but he did say it must have been bacterial.’

  ‘If you hadn’t damned well killed Willis we could have asked,’ Wolfe murmured.

  ‘It was an accident,’ Oppenheimer replied. ‘I had no intention of killing him. Tyler Willis was one of the finest researchers into the field of senescence, far too valuable to simply eradicate.’

  ‘So what do we do now?’ Wolfe asked.

  ‘I need to have a chat with Warner and Lopez, how shall I say, more discreetly this time.’

  ‘That could be a problem. According to reports, Warner and Lopez have gone off the radar.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘They’ve left Santa Fe and Socorro county. My men on the ground don’t know where they are
right now.’

  Oppenheimer struggled to comprehend what Wolfe was saying.

  ‘Then goddamned find them again!’

  ‘It’s not that easy,’ Wolfe countered. ‘New Mexico is huge. If they’ve gone out into the wilderness it could take an entire army to locate them. Warner is a former Marine. If he wanted to, he could hide out there for years and we wouldn’t find him.’

  Oppenheimer closed his eyes, sitting back in his chair and forcing himself to think clearly. It had for years been a major problem in his quest that the individuals he sought were almost certainly spending large amounts of time living out in the Pecos wilderness, or under pseudonyms in small towns scattered all over the state. Tracking them down was almost impossible as they moved regularly to avoid detection, and they seemed to always have some kind of support from within the towns – people who supplied them with medicines or money or clothes. Oppenheimer had never identified these mysterious benefactors any more than he had the extremely aged men he sought.

  ‘We’ll have to go after them,’ he said finally. ‘If they make contact then this whole thing will be for nothing.’

  ‘Perhaps not,’ Wolfe said, ‘depending on how we play it.’

  ‘How so?’

  Wolfe’s expression hardened as he spoke.

  ‘It would appear that whatever afflicts these men, it isn’t permanent.’

  Oppenheimer’s heart seemed to skip a beat in his chest.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Lee Carson’s hands and lower forearms were decaying before he was shot,’ Wolfe replied. ‘It may be that this condition of theirs was starting to recede and that they were looking for help. It would explain why Hiram Conley came out of hiding and approached Tyler Willis in the first place.’ Wolfe took a breath. ‘They may be dying.’