Immortal

by Dean Crawford

  The person who recognized him stopped at the entrance to his suite, their dark gray suit immaculate, shoes highly polished, hand extended.

  ‘Thank you for agreeing to see me.’

  Hampton shook the proffered hand.

  ‘I must ask: how did you know where to find me?’

  His visitor smiled.

  ‘I’ve watched you for many years, Mister Hampton, long before you chose to recede into anonymity. I suspected that if it was not you that I needed to see, then you would at least know where to send me.’

  Hampton’s eyes narrowed.

  ‘And you are approaching me now, after all that has happened to you. Why?’

  Again, the calm smile.

  ‘Can we speak inside?’

  Hampton nodded and gestured into the suite, following his guest in and closing the door. Inside the suite, four more men waited patiently, each wearing suits that cost as much as some cars and cautious expressions as they surveyed their visitor.

  ‘I hope,’ one of them said to Hampton, ‘that this is worthwhile. We’re taking an awful risk here.’

  ‘As am I,’ the visitor said, ‘after what happened to Donald Wolfe.’

  Gregory Hampton gestured to their guest.

  ‘Gentlemen, please do me the courtesy of listening to what our new associate has to say. I feel certain that you will appreciate it.’

  ‘Who are you?’ one of the men asked the guest.

  The guest sat down, crossing one long leg over the other.

  ‘My name is Lillian Cruz,’ she said, ‘and I was born in Montrose, Colorado, in the year 1824.’

  A silence descended upon the men in the suite as they looked at her.

  ‘Go on,’ Gregory Hampton prompted her. ‘My associates here are familiar with the basic potential of human longevity.’

  Lillian Cruz regarded the men for a long moment before speaking.

  ‘I am the last survivor of eight soldiers of the Union army who took sanctuary in a place called Misery Hole in New Mexico in 1862, just after the Battle of Glorietta Pass.’

  ‘What on earth were you doing in an army?’ one of the younger men asked.

  ‘I was one of many women who served alongside their countrymen in the Civil War,’ Lillian said hotly. ‘In my case, I met my husband within the ranks, an officer named Ellison Thorne. He died recently after being pursued for years by a man named Jeb Oppenheimer, so that I might still live today.’

  Lillian took a moment before continuing.

  ‘I have been alive for a hundred eighty-seven years, and in that time I have seen this country, and this planet, gradually destroyed by the parasite that we call humanity. We are the only species that consumes without replenishing, that takes more than our fair share without giving anything back. For over one hundred forty years, five of the seven men who had sheltered with me in Misery Hole lived in a small area of the New Mexico desert with barely anybody knowing they were even there. They took only what they needed, and in doing so were a part of their environment, not a predator upon it.’

  Lillian reached into the pocket of her jacket and produced a small vial filled with a clear liquid that caught the light streaming in through the suite’s broad windows. She held it up to the men demonstratively.

  ‘I have tested this serum,’ she said, ‘because we were dying of old age. The bacteria that infected us when we were in the caves began dying because they were unable to sustain themselves indefinitely on the iron we consumed in our food, perhaps because of our physical size compared to other, smaller mammals such as bats who I believe may have originally harbored them. I myself have not yet suffered any symptoms, possibly because females tend to live longer than males in many mammalian species. This serum has corrected the deficiency in the bacteria Bacillus permians, allowing them to sustain cellular senescence indefinitely within the bodies of large mammals such as ourselves.’

  ‘How?’ one of the younger men demanded. ‘How can you be sure that the bacteria will work this time?’

  ‘The degradation of our bodies was being caused by a hemoglobin deficiency,’ Lillian said, ‘itself caused by the bacteria’s demands for iron, effectively making us permanently anemic. Hemoglobin deficiency decreases blood-oxygen carrying capacity, causing loss of blood, nutritional deficiencies, bone-marrow problems and kidney failure - the red blood cells in iron deficiency anemia become hypochromic and microcytic. Hemolysis, the accelerated breakdown of red blood cells, follows and jaundice is caused by the hemoglobin metabolite bilirubin, which can cause renal failure. The increased levels of bilirubin improperly degraded the hemoglobin and clogged small blood vessels, especially in the kidneys, causing kidney damage and muscular breakdown. We were essentially falling apart. The same quorom sensing that caused the infection to extend telomere life in us eventually also caused us to become anemic and then began to break down our bodies at the cellular level. The reason for all of this was that our immune systems were finally overpowering the bacteria as they gradually died off over the years due to lack of iron. The bacterial population reduced sufficiently that quorom sensing ceased, and we aged rapidly. The bacteria within us simply had not evolved enough to exist in symbiotic harmony with human beings.’

  ‘I take it,’ one of the men asked, ‘that you have overcome this unfortunate flaw?’

  She shook the vial in her hand.

  ‘This serum is the result of my work since: it is still not perfect, but it’s already more effective than the naturally occurring bacteria. It no longer causes anemia and, as you know, lasts for at least a hundred fifty years. By that time, we’ll have worked out how to make it last a lot longer, producing a bacterium that exists in perfect harmony with our own bodies.’

  Gregory Hampton looked at her for a long moment.

  ‘Your colleagues died to protect that,’ he said. ‘Why would you now betray their memory?’

  Lillian sighed.

  ‘Because they had not really lived in the modern world,’ she said. ‘They hadn’t seen what it has become. And because you are all already wealthy beyond avarice and I suspect your interest in this is not financial. I take it that you wish for there to be a world for humans to live in in a hundred years’ time, a thousand?’

  The men regarded her with respect for the first time. Hampton spoke softly for them.

  ‘The Bilderberg Group has a greater cause than merely acting as an annual reservoir for political discourse,’ he said solemnly. ‘Unless there are major technological breakthroughs in the fields of energy generation, farming and pharmaceuticals in the next ten years, it is highly likely that civilization as we know it will collapse, the burden of our population too great for even human ingenuity to support it. It has already begun, as fossil fuels are now running out and fresh water is becoming increasingly scarce. We exist as a think tank dedicated to preserving human endeavor after the coming apocalypse, and rebuilding it in the future.’

  Lillian nodded in understanding.

  ‘Then this serum could help extend your leadership, should the need arise.’

  ‘How much do you want for it?’ one of them asked.

  Lillian shook her head.

  ‘I don’t want money,’ she said. ‘What I want is to be protected, so that I don’t have to spend my life hiding from people like Jeb Oppenheimer. I want this serum to be used only by those who earn it, and I want the reduction of the population of this planet to be achieved humanely over time. If there’s one thing that we absolutely agree on, it’s that if either our population or our rate of consumption is not reduced then humanity is ultimately doomed. Any species that becomes too numerous eventually suffers a collapse, and I fear that ours is well and truly overdue. In that, at least, Jeb Oppenheimer was right.’

  Hampton looked at his accomplices, and they all nodded together.

  ‘Security is the one thing that we absolutely can guarantee,’ he said to her finally. ‘You will be safe amongst us, I can assure you.’

  Lillian stood and handed the vial
to Hampton. She fixed her gaze onto his.

  ‘This serum can be cultured and grown. As a bacterium, it will by its very nature divide and propagate without limitation. You have in your hands the fountain of youth,’ she said, ‘the elixir. Use it wisely.’

  78

  SANTA FE

  NEW MEXICO

  ‘Lillian Cruz is the eighth soldier?’ Lopez said in disbelief.

  Ethan nodded as he leaned against a squad car.

  ‘It was staring us in the face all along and I never realized it,’ he said. ‘I even read about women serving as soldiers during the Civil War in the records office, but didn’t make the connection.’

  ‘When did you figure it out?’ Zamora asked.

  Ethan shrugged.

  ‘Too late. We were all pretty sure that Ellison and his men needed someone on the inside to handle things, but we assumed it would be somebody they had befriended. It only crossed my mind when I thought about Hiram Conley. He had accrued injuries throughout his life, some of them serious enough to have required hospitalization, maybe even surgery. I’d wondered how his great age could have been covered up if he’d died in some other way, in an operating theater surrounded by surgeons and nurses or similar. There had to be a plan in place to cover that eventuality.’

  Lopez caught on quickly.

  ‘Like a coroner,’ she said. ‘Damn, somebody even mentioned that Lillian Cruz had worked there for longer than they could remember.’

  ‘Lillian could get them in and out of a laboratory without attracting attention,’ Ethan said. ‘She could administer medicines to them, possibly even perform surgery. Hard to make friends like that over decades as the faces would keep changing, and the secret would be too hard to keep. But if Lillian took on a medical role, an official position, then they’d be in good stead to survive just about anything. All she’d have to do is move occasionally, or change her name and such like, to avoid exposing herself.’

  ‘So she was the one who took the photograph?’ Zamora asked.

  ‘She must have fought alongside the men during the Civil War,’ Ethan said, ‘maybe been married to one of them. Lillian could have taken her maiden name when she took up residence in Albaquerque, to hide their connection. Lillian came back to work very soon after the gunfight at the caves, didn’t she?’

  ‘Yeah, within an hour or two,’ Zamora said. ‘That’s why we put a guard on her, just in case. How’d you know about that? You were in hospital.’

  ‘Because she would have needed to use her laboratory to check that the bacterial samples she’d gotten from Lechuguilla Cave were alive,’ Ethan said. ‘She went after Jeb Oppenheimer when we were trapped underground, and when I caught up with her she’d tried to drown him in the water. She was drenched herself, and only Saffron Oppenheimer’s arrival just before me had stopped her from killing him. But she didn’t care whether Jeb Oppenheimer lived or died, she just needed a sample of the fluids in that pool.’

  Lopez frowned.

  ‘But I thought that wasn’t enough, that the infection doesn’t last forever in the body?’

  ‘No,’ Ethan agreed, ‘but by having a sample that she could test, and samples of the remains of both Hiram Conley and Lee Carson, she could experiment. Lillian must have known that it was something to do with iron. When Doug Jarvis’s team went into the SkinGen labs they found Conley’s and Carson’s remains, but in both cases tissue had been removed from the area surrounding the bullets that killed them.’

  Enrico Zamora thought for a moment.

  ‘The iron kept the tissues alive?’ he asked.

  ‘It stopped the tissue samples from decaying,’ Ethan said. ‘So by comparing the bacteria in the living tissue and the raw bacteria from the cave, Lillian may have been able to understand how to develop a method to genetically modify the bacteria to survive indefinitely within a human body. The perfect elixir.’

  Ethan had finally realized what had been happening all along, perhaps even before he and Lopez had arrived in New Mexico the previous week.

  ‘Lillian hasn’t been abducted – there’s just no need for her to hang around anymore. She’s taken everything she’s got now that Ellison and his men are dead, and has probably sold it off to the highest bidder.’

  Lopez shook her head thoughtfully.

  ‘No way,’ she said. ‘Lillian may have taken off with whatever she’s gotten from that cave, but I don’t believe she would have done that, not after Ellison gave his life so we could escape from the caves.’

  ‘I wouldn’t be so sure of that,’ Enrico Zamora said. ‘We got the autopsy reports back this morning for Tyler Willis. It turns out that he died not from a beating or at the hands of Jeb Oppenheimer. He died from blood loss caused by the severing of an artery in his left thigh, a tiny cut that was almost missed by the coroner.’

  ‘Oppenheimer had him killed though,’ Lopez said. ‘He was holding Willis hostage.’

  ‘Yes,’ Zamora agreed, ‘but Willis died when Oppenheimer was nowhere near him. Claire Montgomery, his assistant, confirmed that for us, and despite her earlier indiscretions she has no reason to lie now that Oppenheimer’s dead. The only person in the room with Willis with the skill and knowledge to make an incision like that was Lillian Cruz, and Willis would never have known as she’d just hit him with shots of morphine after Oppenheimer had finished torturing him.’

  ‘Let me guess,’ Lopez said. ‘The morphine shot went into his leg.’

  ‘He bled out right there and then,’ Zamora nodded. ‘Never knew a thing about it.’

  ‘As don’t you,’ Ethan said. ‘You stick to the nondisclosure policy from this point on, okay? I don’t want the DIA hounding you out of a job down here or something.’

  ‘I ain’t got nothing to say,’ Zamora replied. ‘Been a pleasure, in a weird kind of way.’

  Ethan shook Zamora’s hand, and Lopez gave the cop a hug before he turned and walked back into the facility.

  Ethan turned for their car, knowing deep inside that wherever Lillian had gone it was highly unlikely they would ever see her again.

  ‘Well, whatever happens, I hope she knows what she’s doing. It’s likely the last time that anyone will ever hold the fountain of youth in their hands again.’

  Ethan climbed into the car, Lopez joining him in the passenger seat. They sat for a long moment in silence before he looked across at her.

  ‘You ready to go home?’

  Lopez stared into the middle distance for a long moment before replying.

  ‘I’m not sure where home is right now.’

  Ethan glanced south toward the Pecos and the endless deserts beyond that led to the border with Mexico and her distant hometown, Guanajuato.

  ‘Can I ask you something?’ Ethan said finally.

  ‘Shoot.’

  ‘Do you trust me?’

  Lopez looked at him but did not respond immediately, and Ethan realized that she was thinking seriously about it.

  ‘Yeah, I do,’ she said finally.

  ‘Then why not confide in me?’

  Lopez held his gaze for a long beat before turning away again. One hand played idly with her long black hair.

  ‘Because I don’t want to go through what happened to my last partner again,’ she said finally. ‘Ever.’

  ‘Lucas Tyrell,’ Ethan said, recalling Lopez’s detective partner from Washington DC who had died the previous year.

  ‘He was a good man,’ Lopez said, ‘who didn’t deserve to die the way he did.’

  Ethan leaned back in his seat. Fact was, he also had avoided close relationships since losing Joanna. The fear they both carried, veiled just beneath a thin veneer of normality, was that anybody could lose anyone at any time and never see them again. Be it by a bullet, or accident, or just plain stupidity, people died all the time. Only those left behind grieved for their loss, and all too often were unable to let go.

  ‘I take it you got all of the money that you swindled out of Jeb Oppenheimer,’ Ethan said. ‘And that now he�
�s dead, there’ll be no comeback.’

  ‘No sense in crying over spilt milk,’ she said with a brief smile.

  ‘Doug and the DIA won’t have missed something like that,’ Ethan warned. ‘They’ll know what you’ve pulled.’

  ‘Let them,’ Lopez said. ‘Every last dime’s been taxed. There’s nothing they can do about it. You’re welcome to half, seeing as we’re partners.’

  Ethan shook his head. He couldn’t resist a wry sense of admiration for Lopez’s sheer audacity, but it was that same recklessness that had almost gotten them both killed.

  ‘I can’t do this, Nicola,’ he said, ‘unless I know for sure that you’ve got my back.’

  Lopez nodded.

  ‘I know.’

  ‘Then make your call. Are you in, or are you out?’ he asked.

  ‘Of what?’

  ‘Of this, of Warner/ Lopez Incorporated, bail bonds and investigations. Where’s home, Nicola? It’s your call, you can do anything you want. Do you want to head north back to Chicago with me, or south for Mexico?’

  ‘What would you do if I went back over the border?’ she asked.

  ‘I’d carry on,’ he replied without hesitation. ‘Probably get more work done without you in the way, and Warner Inc. rolls off the tongue nicely anyway.’

  Lopez smiled faintly.

  ‘I just need time to figure everything out,’ she said. ‘It’s only been a year since I left the police and we started this little venture. You lost Joanna four years ago, and you’re still not quite who you were before, are you?’

  Ethan couldn’t bring himself to meet her gaze, but he shook his head briefly.

  ‘Then let’s just take this one step at a time, okay?’ she suggested.

  Ethan sighed again, knowing he could hardly pressure Lopez when he was barely over Joanna himself. Lopez and Tyrell hadn’t, as far as he knew, been an item, but they’d been partners and sometimes that bond could be just as strong. Ethan had experienced just such camaraderie in the Marine Corps: men who had faced death together tended to face life together as well, a brotherhood forged in shared hardship that felt as though it could last for an eternity.