Immortal

by Dean Crawford

Ethan rushed into view at the edge of the firelight and stared at Lopez in alarm.

  ‘What the hell’s going on?’

  Lopez gestured out into the night.

  ‘Saffron and I had a difference of opinion,’ she replied. ‘Mine was stronger.’

  Ethan looked out into the darkness and Lopez felt an unexpected dismay as she noticed a disappointment in his expression.

  ‘Damn it, Nicola, we needed her help.’

  ‘She’s a liability,’ Lopez shot back. ‘We can’t trust her. For all we know she’s reporting everything that we do back to dear old Grandpa.’

  Ethan sighed and rested his hands on his hips for a moment before speaking.

  ‘We need to get out of here and down to Carlsbad by dawn,’ he said. ‘DIA can’t help us right now, until Doug’s done some digging on who’s helping Oppenheimer at USAMRIID.’

  ‘Can we make it that far by dawn on foot?’ Lopez asked.

  ‘It’s a fair way,’ Ethan admitted, ‘but we don’t have much choice.’

  At that moment Ruby Lily appeared, her wide, dark eyes looking at Ethan as she held something out to him. Lopez watched as Ethan took a set of keys from her.

  ‘The van,’ Ruby said. ‘It’s an ancient beat-up old GMC Suburban, but it’ll get you there a lot quicker than walking.’

  Lopez looked at her. ‘Must be the van they switched to after the attack on the Aspen Center. I thought the van was Saffron’s?’

  ‘It was,’ Ruby said softly, ‘but I don’t think she’s coming back after what Lopez did.’

  Lopez caught Ethan’s questioning gaze.

  ‘We had a fight,’ she said. ‘She fell and grazed her arm in the fire, then took off. Wasn’t my fault. She’ll be okay. My guess is she’ll head for a hospital, at which point the police will get involved and she’ll be forced to ’fess up.’

  She saw Ethan almost laugh. ‘You serious?’

  ‘She’ll tell them where we are and where we’re going,’ Lopez said. ‘She’ll want revenge, on me. That way we get some support instead of USAMRIID on our ass, but we’ll have to move fast. If they get to us before we reach the caverns it’s all over.’

  Lopez watched Ethan weigh up the situation in his mind for a moment.

  ‘I hope to hell you’re right. Come on, let’s go.’

  52

  BRICE

  NEW MEXICO

  11.48 p.m.

  Ellison Thorne stood beside the crumbling walls of an old powder magazine and scanned the darkness with his eyes and his ears for the sounds of his compatriots. Despite the scratches of nesting animals in the rafters of ancient buildings, the whisper of the wind and the distant sounds of the desert beyond, a dozen decades of living out in the wilderness had tuned his ear sufficiently to be able to pick out the sound of a human footstep from a hundred yards.

  Which was just as well, because he was no longer in any condition to run far, should he be surprised by an enemy action. He yearned for the comfort of his pipe but refrained from lighting it until the others arrived. The smell of burning tobacco would be detectable from a hundred yards, the light from the pipe twice that far.

  He shifted his weight onto his other foot and felt a brief respite from the weariness aching through his bones. He was dying, of that he felt certain. Whatever blessing, or curse, God had bestowed upon him was fading and his time was coming to an end. Not before time, some might say, but then . . .

  ‘Who goes there?’

  Ellison aimed his rifle into the darkness. The sound was small, a shifting of weight on loose soil, but to Ellison’s ears it may as well have been a herd of cattle moving through the ghostly silent town.

  ‘Copthorne, standing to!’

  ‘Come for’ard,’ Ellison called back, ‘make yourself known.’

  From the night came Edward Copthorne, limping from a leg injury he’d sustained in 1936 when one of the newfangled automobiles had almost run him off the road near Mescalero. He would have heard it coming, as the earliest vehicles clattered along like runaway horses, but he’d lost the use of one ear after a mortar had exploded alongside him in 1861. As Copthorne approached, he called out.

  ‘Company, stand for’ard!’

  From the darkness appeared three more men whom Ellison recognized from their shape and gait alone: Kip Wren, a forty-two-year-old sergeant during the conflict; John Cochrane, late thirties and a corporal; and Nathaniel McQuire, a private aged twenty-nine. Each carried a long-barreled Springfield rifle at port-arms. Ellison himself had been a sergeant promoted to first lieutenant, and commander of the small unit trapped into a fateful flight south after the Battle of Glorietta Pass in 1862.

  ‘I see you,’ Ellison called as the four men made their weary way up the steps of the powder magazine and stood in the darkness. ‘Anybody snoutin’ your trail?’

  ‘Not a soul out there,’ Copthorne said. ‘We diverged thrice south of the mountains since our encounter with the out of towners. We’re alone.’

  Ellison nodded, and gestured to the men.

  ‘Stand down.’

  They gratefully turned their rifles around and slung them over their shoulders before Ellison led them across the street to where the dilapidated remains of the Nannie Baird mine office crouched against the darkness. He led the way in through the open doorway, the aged timbers creaking beneath their boots as they sought the relative concealment within the building.

  Ellison sat on an old upturned barrel and lit his pipe, most of the others following suit or pulling tumblers of liquor from jacket pockets.

  ‘You got any spare Lucifers?’ Copthorne asked him, and Ellison tossed him his box of matches.

  Kip Wren drew deeply on a cheroot, the glowing tip briefly lighting his rugged features and tight gray beard. He exhaled a cloud of smoke and coughed before speaking.

  ‘I take it we’re all still sufferin’ the same affliction?’

  A murmur of agreement drifted through a darkness punctuated by brief flares of light from the pipes and cigars, ghoulishly illuminated spectral faces watching each other.

  ‘We were always on borrowed time,’ Ellison said. ‘We knew that to a man.’

  ‘But this way?’ Nathaniel McQuire, the youngest of their number, said in horror. ‘It ain’t natural. I don’t bear to think what might’n happen to us next.’

  John Cochrane, his drooping moustache framing his pipe, pointed at Ellison Thorne.

  ‘It weren’t right to shoot poor Carson neither. He was one of us, no regard to what you thought he might be doing in Santa Fe.’

  ‘Carson was likely to endanger us all,’ Ellison growled. ‘It wasn’t my desire to take his life but he left me no choice. You all saw who he was talkin’ with, the police and those hired hands from out of town.’

  ‘He was as likely lookin’ for help as trouble,’ Copthorne pointed out reasonably.

  ‘So was poor old Hiram,’ Ellison replied, ‘and look what happened to him.’

  ‘He was the first with symptoms,’ Cochrane said. ‘Ain’t no surprise he was panicked. God knows, I’d have done the same if’n it were me.’

  ‘Which raises the point,’ Nathaniel said, ‘as to what the hell we’re going to do. We can’t keep runnin’, not like this. Every time I move I’m compelled to look behind me in case somethin’s fallen off.’

  A ripple of grim chuckles fluttered through the darkness, but Nathaniel shook his head.

  ‘I’m done jestin’. We need to do something.’

  In the silence that followed the soldiers looked at Ellison Thorne, who drew thoughtfully on his pipe before speaking.

  ‘We do the only thing we know,’ he said finally. ‘We go back, and see if’n we can’t make it happen again.’

  There was a long silence before Kip Wren spoke.

  ‘Ain’t no guarantee of that.’

  ‘Even if Lechuguilla’s still there,’ Nathaniel said, ‘Misery Hole could have been sealed off by now. Its location’s been protected by the government for years.’

&
nbsp; ‘It’s well concealed,’ Ellison agreed. ‘The scientists that found it in 1986 are long gone. Nobody got no business snoutin’ around it.’

  ‘Nobody got no business hunting us down either,’ John Cochrane said, ‘but it’s happenin’. And what do we do now without our supplies? We can’t last more than a day or two out here before this affliction takes a turn for th’worse.’

  ‘Not to mention those damned flying machines,’ Kip Wren said. ‘It’s getting’ harder to stay hidden out here, Ellison.’

  Ellison nodded slowly. In the decades that had passed, they had seen remote frontier outposts become thriving towns and cities, empty wilderness skies filled with contrail streams from flying coaches that seemed as big as entire cattle ranches, and all manner of computerized gadgets that seemed able to find a man in even the most remote corners of the desert. He himself had seen some such devices: keypads attached to boxes of strange lights on the counters of stores in Santa Fe, and moving pictures on panels in shop windows that showed distant lands so realistic it seemed he could reach out and touch them with his hand.

  ‘We stick together,’ he said finally.

  The men nodded to themselves in the brief glows from their pipes, eyes fixed expectantly on his. It didn’t matter that the army was long gone, or that the war was long over. Maintaining their discipline as a unit had kept them alive and their secret safe for well over a century, and Ellison had led them both by rank and by merit these long decades past. Only Hiram Conley’s fear, his panic, had broken their seal of silence and started them on the path to destruction.

  ‘We’re on our own now, boys, just like before,’ Ellison added.

  ‘We’re even following the same trail,’ Cochrane noted. ‘That there’s irony for ya.’

  Ellison stood up from the barrel, breathing deeply on the night air as he tapped the remaining embers from his clay pipe and slipped it into his jacket pocket. There was no other way, and nowhere else to run.

  ‘Let’s move out.’

  ‘Hold on a second,’ Nathaniel said. ‘What about those two out of towners who followed us? They might’n be allies, not foes. They din’ shoot until we did.’

  ‘We don’t know who they are,’ Ellison said, ‘and they ain’t our concern.’

  ‘One of them moved like he was a soldier,’ Copthorne said, standing to join Ellison but his tone conceding Nathaniel’s point. ‘He kept our heads down with his pistol but he din’ shoot to kill. The other one din’ shoot at all. It was only that damned fool girl who let fly with her shotgun, damned near blew my ass off.’

  ‘Yeah,’ Nathaniel said, ‘and did you see him out of Sedillo Park, ridin’ that goddamned horse like a bat outta hell? He almost had us but he never shot no gun. I don’t reckon he was bearing arms at all.’

  Ellison shook his head, picking up his rifle from where it was propped.

  ‘It’s too risky to talk to them.’

  ‘My guess, for what it’s worth,’ Cochrane said, ‘is that they’ll keep coming. Whoever they are, they were willing to trek out through the Pecos after us and that ain’t something a tenderfoot does lightly.’

  Ellison turned to face his men four-square, and his tone brooked no argument.

  ‘Either we reach the caves and are saved, or we reach the caves and we disappear. Whatever happens, as long as I’ve a breath left in my body I ain’t letting Jeb Oppenheimer or anybody else touch my bones.’ He checked his weapon and gestured to the door. ‘An’ if anyone else comes after us, I’ll give ’em the good news from the end o’ my rifle.’

  53

  HOLLOMAN AIR FORCE BASE, NEW MEXICO

  17 May, 3.10 a.m.

  Doug Jarvis stepped off the boarding ramp of a gigantic C-5 Galaxy transport aircraft onto the floodlit service ramp, listening to the huge aircraft’s engines whine down as he sniffed the mixture of aviation fuel and desert air. The vapors reminded him of a dozen other similar airbases across the Middle East he had seen when serving with the Marines.

  ‘Mister Jarvis?’

  A tall, robustly built man extended a hand to Jarvis.

  ‘Butch Cutler,’ the man said as they shook. ‘Can I ask why I’m here, sir?’

  Jarvis gestured to a waiting USAF bus.

  ‘Best we get ourselves inside first,’ he said cryptically, refusing to be drawn.

  Cutler asked no further questions and led Jarvis to the bus that drove them across the vast servicing pan past ranks of razor-sharp F-22 Raptors, the latest air-dominance fighter to join the United States Air Force. It pulled up alongside a row of administrative offices, where a young subaltern met them and led them to a small room where a table, two chairs and two Styrofoam cups filled with steaming coffee awaited. Jarvis thanked the subaltern and closed the door behind them, then joined Cutler at the table.

  ‘You have powerful friends, whoever you are, Mister Jarvis,’ Cutler said. ‘It’s been a long time since someone’s been able to drag me out of my bed at three in the morning.’

  ‘Bad habit of mine,’ Jarvis said, feigning humor in order to draw Cutler in. ‘Never was able to sleep more than four hours at a time since leaving the corps.’

  Cutler raised an eyebrow. ‘Marines?’

  ‘Fourth Marines,’ Jarvis confirmed. ‘15th Expeditionary.’

  ‘Not another one,’ Cutler said. ‘Is there a corps retirement home down here or something? I’ve been chasing another ex-Marine all over the state, someone named Warner.’

  ‘Ethan,’ Jarvis confirmed. ‘He works for me.’

  Cutler’s casual manner seized as he looked at Jarvis.

  ‘Well, your man is a world-class pain in the ass. Wherever he is people die, vehicles crash and things blow up. If he shows up in Santa Fe county again while I’m still there I’ll have him in irons.’

  ‘He’s not in Santa Fe,’ Jarvis said. ‘In fact, that’s why I’m here. He’s heading south toward the border with Texas, and he’s acting alone. Ethan’s got a troubling habit of putting himself in danger to achieve his objectives and he may be biting off more than he can chew.’

  ‘What the hell’s that got to do with dragging me here?’ Cutler asked.

  ‘I needed you somewhere we could talk freely,’ Jarvis replied. ‘Put plainly, there’s something going on behind the scenes at USAMRIID and I suspect you could be compromised.’

  ‘Like hell,’ Cutler shot back as he slammed his cup down, spilling coffee across the table. ‘My unit’s tight.’

  ‘I didn’t say your unit was compromised,’ Jarvis pointed out.

  ‘What then?’

  ‘You called USAMRIID headquarters a few hours ago, trying to reach Colonel Donald Wolfe.’

  ‘How the hell would you know about—’

  ‘We work with the National Security Agency,’ Jarvis explained.

  ‘You’ve been watching me?’ Cutler shouted, standing up.

  ‘We’ve been watching USAMRIID as a whole,’ Jarvis said, raising a placating hand. ‘We know that you were approached by Jeb Oppenheimer, who has offered a bribe for you to obtain materials on his behalf.’

  Cutler slowly sat down, his gaze fixed on Jarvis’s.

  ‘He came to my hotel room with four of his heavies,’ Cutler said. ‘I reported it in as soon as they left.’

  ‘An act I admire immensely,’ Jarvis said. ‘There aren’t many people I know who’d turn down half a million bucks for such a minor indiscretion.’

  ‘I serve my country,’ Cutler replied with a sigh and a shrug of his heavy shoulders. ‘Doesn’t mean I enjoyed turning down enough money to retire on.’

  ‘How often do you speak to Colonel Donald Wolfe?’

  ‘Most days.’ Cutler frowned. ‘He’s my boss. Why?’

  ‘I need you to tell me how it was that your unit was called down here to New Mexico, specifically to Santa Fe.’

  Cutler glanced upward in thought for a moment.

  ‘The call came in from Donald Wolfe himself, I guess maybe three days ago at USAMRIID. They had some concern th
at there was a danger of unspecified bacterial agents being released from a site in or near Santa Fe. We were asked to secure the relevant areas and provide support to the engineering and clean-up teams.’

  ‘They didn’t tell you what the supposed agents were?’ Jarvis asked.

  ‘We often don’t know what we’re looking for,’ Cutler explained. ‘Most times we’re searching domestic premises being used by enemies of the United States to produce toxic chemicals or so-called dirty bombs. Our engineers go in fully protected against any airborne pathogens like anthrax, and then identify the agent at work.’

  Jarvis took a sip of his coffee and eyed Cutler with interest.

  ‘So you’re brought down here, and you head for where?’

  ‘An apartment block, downtown Santa Fe. The only lead we had was that of a man named Tyler Willis, some kind of big-shot brain out of Los Alamos.’

  ‘Why was he mentioned as a target?’ Jarvis asked.

  ‘It was pretty vague,’ Cutler admitted. ‘Something to do with experiments outside his remit or something, general suspicion but no probable cause. We’d been told it would be a discreet operation, but your man Warner rolled up and then the apartment was blown sky-high just before we got there.’

  ‘And what was it that you were looking for, specifi-cally?’ Jarvis asked. ‘They must have had some idea in order to send you in there in the first place. Was it a vial of something, or maybe vats of chemicals?

  Cutler shook his head.

  ‘No, mostly just a directive to be prepared to encounter toxic substances. Wolfe did mention that I should keep an eye open for any blood I might find.’

  Jarvis raised an eyebrow.

  ‘Blood?’

  ‘Yeah,’ Cutler said. ‘He briefed me verbally that Willis might have been tinkering around with a pathogen that infected people through the mixing of bodily fluids, specifically blood. He said that if I was to find any, I should have it sealed and sent directly to his office in Maryland.’

  Jarvis leaned back in his chair and looked out the window between the gaps in the blinds at the rows of aircraft parked beneath the twinkling lights.