Immortal

by Dean Crawford

  Donald Wolfe tried to answer but his jaw ached as he gaped and he couldn’t think of a single thing to say. Jarvis gave him no quarter, speaking before he could muster a reply.

  ‘You’re not here to convince the nations of this world to reduce their populations. You’re here to spread a lethal virus across the globe while trying to ensure the longevity of select groups of businessmen. You’re a eugenicist, using disease and genetics to shape the human population just how you think it should be, trying to remove those you deem to somehow be less worthy of life.’ Jarvis tapped his own forehead. ‘If I’m lying, hand your gun to these police officers and let them run tests on the blood residue that I know is on the handle. It will match mine!’

  Wolfe stared with wild eyes into the middle distance, as though aware of his exposure and yet unable to bring himself to focus upon his inevitable demise. Jarvis took another couple of paces toward the dais, his voice carrying across the entire amphitheater.

  ‘Sir, I do not care if you are innocent, framed, incompetent or just plain guilty. Right now, all that concerns me is that if you do not inform us of where those men are, right now, several citizens of this country that you swore to protect will die. Do you understand?’

  Wolfe swallowed thickly and then nodded once. As he did so, he saw one of the dignitaries watching the exchange discreetly reach into his pocket and retrieve a cell phone upon which he began typing.

  ‘Where are they?’ Jarvis repeated, getting Wolfe’s attention once again. ‘Where is Jeb Oppenheimer and the soldiers you sent into the desert?’

  The words fell from Wolfe’s mouth as if of their own accord.

  ‘Near Rattlesnake Canyon, Carlsbad,’ he uttered. ‘East of the Guadalupe Mountains.’

  A deep silence filled the hall as Wolfe’s guilt lay bare for all to see.

  Jarvis turned and called out to the police behind him, who immediately began running for the exits with radios to their mouths. Wolfe glanced up at the dignitary with the phone, a Bilderberg member, who was looking down at him with a disapproving gaze. Wolfe realized in that moment that it was all over for him.

  Jarvis turned toward him.

  ‘Sir, if you would accompany the police to . . .’

  Wolfe stepped down off the dais in one fluid motion and reached down, slipping the ceremonial pistol from its holster. He barely heard the cries of alarm from the chamber around him as he cocked the weapon, scarcely saw the security guards draw their own weapons with amazing speed to point at him. Wolfe turned to face the secretary-general, saluted once with his free hand, and then put the pistol’s barrel to his head.

  He saw Doug Jarvis rush toward him, his mouth open and his eyes wide.

  ‘Donald, no!’

  A deafening blast filled the hall and Wolfe’s world vanished into blackness.

  66

  LECHUGUILLA CAVE

  NEW MEXICO

  Ellison Thorne peered up from the shelter of the cave, and Ethan watched as his craggy face screwed up in fury, his big hands clenching and unclenching around the handles of his pistols as he bellowed back in reply.

  ‘You’re sure one cowardly tyke, Mister Oppenheimer.’

  A distant laugh rippled down toward them from far above, the old man obscured now by the mercenaries working their way down the ladder.

  ‘A determined one,’ Oppenheimer replied. ‘You’re the ones cowering in a cave.’

  ‘Why don’t you come down here and join us?’ Ellison Thorne thundered back. ‘If’n you’re hankerin’ so bad to be here?’

  No reply came, and Ethan turned to Ellison Thorne.

  ‘He’s already murdered one man,’ he said. ‘He’ll have no problem killing Lillian Cruz.’

  Ellison squinted up at their attackers for a long moment, and then made a decision.

  ‘We don’t take orders from you, Jeb!’ he boomed. ‘We’ll decide how this goes down!’

  Oppenheimer’s voice echoed down at them in reply.

  ‘You’ve got five minutes before we finish this for good!’

  Ethan and the rest of the soldiers withdrew into the cave to see Lopez hurrying to join them.

  ‘Kip’s not good,’ she said. ‘He’s bleeding out and there’s nothing I can do about it.’

  Copthorne, McQuire and Cochrane all looked to Ellison Thorne, who in turn looked at Ethan.

  ‘If’n that man gets hold of what’s in these caves, you say he’ll destroy the human race?’

  Ethan nodded.

  ‘He’ll only let a certain few people have access to the drugs he’s going to develop using the bacteria in your bodies. Those people will become biologically immortal, just as you are, while the rest of the world will be prevented from raising families. Oppenheimer, and people like him, will rule without end over the population.’

  ‘But we’re dying,’ McQuire said. ‘Whatever this thing is, it doesn’t last forever.’

  ‘It will, once Oppenheimer’s had his chance to genetically mess with it,’ Lopez said. ‘Imagine a man like Oppenheimer being able to rejuvenate himself: young, fit, immortal and in control of a drug that every human being on the planet would kill to acquire. The world will be ruled by a dictator class with him at its head.’

  Ellison Thorne turned away and rubbed his temples.

  ‘If’n we get deep enough into the caves they won’t be able to follow,’ he said quickly. ‘We can get ourselves sorted and come back out fighting.’

  ‘You’ll never be able to do it quickly enough to prevent Jeb from killing Lillian Cruz,’ Ethan said. ‘She’s innocent in all of this.’

  ‘So are we!’ Ellison shouted. ‘We didn’t ask for this, but how can we now surrender it just because of one man’s greed?!’

  Ethan spoke quietly.

  ‘Because this isn’t about just you, or us, or Lillian Cruz. The simple truth is that people like Jeb Oppenheimer think they can control everything and they can’t. Sooner or later, the science of this bacterium will be lost, or stolen, or leaked. No matter how hard they try they won’t be able to prevent it from reaching the public domain, through a disgruntled employee or maybe one of those heroic whistle-blowers who leaks these things to the public for no financial gain, or maybe even through a population-wide revolution. It happened in the Middle East, the people toppling their dictators one after the other.’

  Lopez stepped forward.

  ‘When that happens,’ she said, ‘and it will, then we’ll have an entire population of people who will never die. Can you imagine what will happen when the population rises so fast that the resources dry up, when there’s no more water, no more food, no more fuel? When people will kill each other for a morsel of food or a sip of water? One day, this will not result in a human population that lives forever. It will end our species, completely. We will all die.’

  Ellison Thorne stared at Ethan and Lopez for a long moment, and then looked at the other soldiers.

  ‘What the hell do you think?’

  McQuire, Copthorne and Cochrane exchanged glances, and then they nodded slowly. As they did, a voice came from behind them.

  ‘I agree too.’

  Ethan turned in surprise as Kip Wren limped toward them, using his rifle as a cane. His right thigh was bandaged with a makeshift tourniquet.

  ‘You’re in no condition to be standin’,’ Ellison said.

  ‘Well I am standin’,’ Kip Wren replied. ‘But I’m all played out, and I don’t intend to spend my last sweet seconds sitting on my ass back there. You ever remember that old sayin’ we used to live by during the war when we din’ know if we’d ever see our homes and families agin?’

  When none of the soldiers replied, Kip Wren spoke for them.

  ‘The greatest act of courage a man can make is the surrenderin’ of his own life for others, when nobody will ever know of his sacrifice.’

  Ethan felt a rush of emotion as he heard the words, thought of countless comrades in the Marines and in other units who had served and died to protect democracy and the way
of life that he and so many millions of others cherished. Through the world wars and countless other conflicts, souls far too young to die had sacrificed themselves upon the altar of freedom for the benefit of generations they would never meet. Ethan wondered briefly just how many heroes had anonymously given their lives throughout the history of mankind, their courage lost in time.

  A sound from Misery Hole caught his attention, and he saw dozens of black-suited soldiers drop into the floor of the chasm and dash for cover behind rocks and fallen branches around the mouth of Lechuguilla Cave. Ethan and his companions crouched down behind cover as they watched Lillian Cruz being manhandled by the soldiers nearby, and the white-suited Jeb Oppenheimer appear at the bottom of the ladder, protected by an honor guard of his men. Ellison Thorne watched the gathering troops for a long moment, struggling between the desire to live and the altruism that Ethan suspected ran strongly through his veins. The big man finally sighed and looked at Kip Wren.

  ‘What d’you propose?’ he asked. ‘That we bring the whole damned cavern down on top of ourselves?’

  Kip Wren grinned against the pain wracking his body, and from his pocket produced a stick of dynamite that looked almost as old as he did.

  ‘I’ve got me an idea, and I think you’ll like it.’

  67

  ‘We want to make an exchange!’

  Jeb Oppenheimer heard the sound of Ellison Thorne’s voice boom out of Lechuguilla Cave as though a god of the underworld were addressing him. He peered down at the darkened, ragged cavern entrance, unable to see where the big man was hiding. The entrance was littered with the bodies of eleven men, some writhing in delirium or agony, others motionless.

  ‘Of what?’ Oppenheimer called.

  ‘One of my men for your hostage!’ Oppenheimer looked at Hoffman, who frowned.

  ‘One of them was injured,’ he said. ‘I’m damned sure I got him in the leg before they ran into that cave.’

  Oppenheimer cleared his throat and shouted his reply. ‘I don’t want tainted goods!’

  Ellison Thorne’s reply thundered back from within the cave.

  ‘Your men can’t shoot for shit, Oppenheimer! He’s got a minor wound to his leg, nothing more, but he needs attention. We’ll send him up to you for treatment, you send us the woman. Everybody wins.’

  Oppenheimer heard Hoffman speaking from behind him.

  ‘Can’t hurt, and it gets us what we want real easy.’

  Oppenheimer peered at Hoffman.

  ‘If something looks too good to be true,’ he growled, ‘then it probably is. Their man is most likely mortally wounded and they’re looking to buy us off long enough to escape.’

  Hoffman appeared to consider this for a moment and then chuckled.

  ‘Well, we can’t storm their little hidey-hole there without incurring too many casualties, so I say we let them send their man up. We send this woman of yours down, and then besiege them just the same. We win, both ways.’

  Oppenheimer nodded.

  ‘For once, I’m in complete agreement with you,’ he said, looking back at Lillian Cruz where she knelt just out of sight behind them. ‘Bind and gag her so she can’t warn them, then arrange the exchange. We’ll fetch her back as soon as we’re ready.’

  ‘Looks like they’re goin’ forrit,’ Nathaniel McQuire said.

  Ellison Thorne snorted in the half darkness.

  ‘The hell they are,’ he rumbled. ‘That Oppenheimer’s as slippery as a rattlesnake and no less deadly. He’ll mean to kill us all, one way or another.’

  Ethan watched as Kip Wren concealed his dynamite stick up his sleeve and took a cigarette lighter from Nathaniel McQuire.

  ‘You sure about this?’ he asked the soldier, whose breath was labored and his brow sprinkled with sweat.

  ‘I am,’ Kip replied, ‘I can’t lose: either I die here or I die up there. But be quick about it. I ain’t certain how long I’ll be able to stand.’

  Ellison Thorne looked down at Kip.

  ‘Once you’re up there, light it fast and get a hold of Oppenheimer just as tight as you can,’ he advised him. ‘This thing’ll smoke like all hell once it’s lit, and they’ll try to get it off you.’

  Lopez frowned.

  ‘What if they shoot him before it goes off?’ she asked.

  ‘Then Oppenheimer will definitely die,’ Ethan said. ‘Kip’s body will seize and they’ll never get him off the old bastard in time.’

  Kip nodded, his teeth gritted in an awkward smile.

  ‘Damn straight,’ he said. ‘Then this will all be over.’

  A voice drifted down to them from beyond the cave entrance.

  ‘We’re ready, bring him out!’

  Ethan watched as, with surprising care, Ellison Thorne mopped the sweat from Kip Wren’s face and brow. Kip drank from Copthorne’s water bottle before turning to Ellison. The two men stared at each other for a long beat, and Ethan realized that they were parting company for the first time in a hundred forty years.

  Kip Wren, leaning on his rifle, held out his hand to Ellison. The big man took it, and then stepped in and briefly embraced his old comrade for a few moments before releasing him.

  ‘As you were, Corporal,’ he said finally, his gravelly voice taut.

  Kip Wren saluted once, and then began limping away toward the light.

  Ethan and Lopez followed, seeing Oppenheimer’s soldiers arranged behind rocks near the entrance, their rifles aimed at the old soldier limping toward them. Kip Wren, mastering his pain, strode out into the cavern.

  Ethan watched as Lillian Cruz, bound and gagged, was prodded toward the cave by two men carrying assault rifles. Carefully she descended toward them, her eyes fixed on the cave ahead and the old man making his way up toward her. The two glanced at each other as they passed, before Lillian reached the mouth of the cave, hesitated and looked back over her shoulder. Kip Wren strode toward their enemy, visibly favoring his left leg but valiantly reaching the spot where Oppenheimer crouched.

  ‘Do it,’ Copthorne whispered from behind gritted teeth, ‘do it now, Kip.’

  Ethan shifted his position and edged forward as Lillian Cruz stepped cautiously into the depths of the cavern.

  ‘I’ve waited a very long time for this,’ Oppenheimer said, looking at Kip Wren as though he were studying a work of art.

  ‘Not as long as I have,’ Wren replied, one hand closed around his cigarette lighter, the other holding the dynamite stick out of sight up his sleeve. Shafts of light shimmered down through the veils of cordite smoke swirling above their heads, the smell of blood and of scorched flesh staining the air.

  ‘I assure you that you will not be harmed,’ Oppenheimer promised. ‘I’ve already realized that you’re no good to me dead.’

  Kip Wren peered at Oppenheimer.

  ‘What are your intentions?’

  ‘To study you,’ Oppenheimer said. ‘To discover what makes you biologically immortal, and use it to enhance the quality of the human race, the better for all mankind.’

  ‘The better for you and your ilk, Oppenheimer,’ Kip corrected him. ‘You’re in this for yourself, not for anybody else, and always have been.’

  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!’

  68

  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.