Immortal (31 page)

Lopez was about to speak when suddenly three rifle shots rattled out across the valley, one after the other. Bullets zipped past them, rustling through the bushes or snapping over their heads.
Ethan flinched, throwing himself forward and flat onto the earth as Lopez did the same alongside him.

‘Great,’ she whispered as the reports echoed away down the valley behind them. ‘Now they’re all shooting at us.’

Ethan got up and fired two more shots, one each at two of the enemy positions, and then began advancing toward them in a low crouched run.
Eight
. He dropped down and let fly two more
shots, hoping against hope that the enemy would have fallen back in retreat.
Ten
.

Two more answering shots crackled across the valley, close enough to leave a ringing in his ears, and Ethan saw a larger spurt of flame and a puff of blue smoke less than thirty yards away. A
second, from lower down, was forty yards distant and right on target as the shot split the air above their heads. Ethan realized he had a problem: the enemy was now advancing on him.

‘They’re coming back at us,’ Lopez whispered. ‘We need to fall back.’

Ethan shook his head. If they gave ground now they’d end up in a running retreat, and with night now fallen it would be doubly hard to track their quarry. Despite the risk, it was better
to remain within range and know where they were.

‘We need the high ground,’ he replied. ‘Otherwise they could flank us and pin us down here.’

The rifles cracked again, the muzzle flash now close enough to illuminate the ground around Ethan. A bullet smacked into the ground five feet from where he and Lopez lay flat against the earth.
Ethan rolled sideways, bringing his pistol up and firing back.
Twelve.

‘Goddammit, we need to get out of here!’ Lopez snapped.

Ethan looked about desperately in the darkness as a series of rustling noises through the bushes both above and below them betrayed the presence of an enemy-flanking maneuver. Ethan clambered up
onto one knee, firing three shots at the nearest shapes moving through the shadows.
Fifteen.
He reached down to the webbing pouch at his waist, closest to his right hand, grabbing a second
magazine. As he yanked it free of the pouch a shout rang out over the hillside.

‘He’s out of rounds! Pig-stick him!’

A burst of noise from the bushes to his right startled Ethan, and he turned to see a figure leap out of the undergrowth and sprint down toward them with a cry of fury. Ethan glimpsed a dark blue
coat with yellow arm-stripes, a kepi hat, khaki pants and a bearded face, the man’s mouth agape as the flash of a metal bayonet raced toward Ethan’s face.

‘Get down!’

Ethan shoved Lopez toward the ground as he leapt up, dropping his pistol and magazine and dodging the bayonet as he drove his shoulder into the charging man’s chest. The attacker’s
impetus smashed Ethan backward down the hillside, crashing through bushes and scrub in a cloud of dust and sand. The soldier landed on top of Ethan, his heavy musket pinned between them as they
rolled over each other. Ethan slid to a halt with the soldier kneeling on top of him with one hand on his musket across Ethan’s chest. As the man raised a fist to punch him, Ethan saw that
his kepi hat had fallen off to expose a scalp half decayed, chucks of matted hair spilling out across his shoulders, strips of desiccated skin hanging from the bone.

Ethan shot one hand out as the bony fist flashed down toward him, catching the soldier’s hand and twisting it hard. The soldier cried out as his wrist was wrenched to breaking point, and
Ethan smashed his knee up into the man’s back and then hit him hard enough to send him sprawling across the dusty ground. Ethan leapt up, looking desperately for his pistol. The soldier
struggled to his feet and whirled to face Ethan, the musket and its wicked bayonet pointing at him once again. Ethan lunged forward to grab the weapon, but as he did so the soldier twirled it over,
the bayonet vanishing as the butt whipped up and smacked Ethan under the jaw with a crack that sent sparks of light flashing across his eyes. Ethan staggered backward and collapsed onto the dusty
earth as a voice called down the hillside from the darkness.

‘Copthorne? You got ’im yet?’

The bearded soldier grinned down at Ethan with a smile full of gaps, the bayonet hovering above his chest.

‘He ain’t nothin’ but a new piece o’ history, Ellison!’ The man glared down at Ethan and smiled. ‘Time you took a taste of my Arkansas toothpick,
boy!’

The soldier took a deep breath and then lifted the bayonet to plunge it into Ethan’s body.

A gunshot shattered the night, louder than all the muskets and pistols, and Ethan saw the soldier above him cry out and leap for cover into the bushes. Another shot followed, gouging a plume of
dust up under the soldier’s feet. He leapt up, fleeing down the hillside. There was another gunshot from below and Ethan stayed flat on his back as round after round blasted across the
hillside, rattling the bushes further up where the voices had come from. Ethan heard a scattering of panicked cries, and then the sound of boots pounding soft earth receding down the hillside into
the distance.

Slowly, Ethan clambered up onto one knee and peered into the darkness.

‘Who’s there? Identify yourself.’

Lopez rushed up alongside Ethan, the pistol now loaded and aiming into the darkness.

A figure stood upright from the bushes, not more than ten yards from Ethan, and in the starlight he could just make out the figure’s long, thick blonde hair and a shotgun.

‘We meet again, hero,’ came Saffron Oppenheimer’s voice as she strode toward them. She looked at Lopez and the pistol in her hands. ‘I’d put that down if I were
you.’

Lopez didn’t move. Saffron grinned and clicked the fingers of one hand. From around them in the bushes half a dozen people rose up, each holding a gun of some kind.

‘You’re the ones who were sky-lining yourselves, not the soldiers,’ Ethan said.

Saffron nodded once as Lopez, hopelessly outgunned, lowered the pistol. Saffron walked forward and took it from her before looking at Ethan.

‘A lot’s happened since we last met,’ she said simply. ‘We need to talk.’

Saffron Oppenheimer led Ethan and Lopez down to the valley floor. On Ethan’s advice, she sent her colleagues moving along the top of the valley, deliberately making
themselves visible to deter any further attacks from the soldiers he knew must be somewhere ahead of them. After a mile Saffron changed direction and moved down a different canyon. Within ten
minutes Ethan spotted the glow of camp fires nestled in the canyon’s depths. Above them the sky was ablaze with trillions of distant stars glowing amid the sweeping veil of the Milky Way.

The last time he had really looked at such a panorama had been deep in another desert landscape, searching desperately for Joanna Defoe among the warrens of Gaza City. Ethan watched Saffron Oppenheimer
as she led them toward the camp fires ahead, and was struck by the similarities between the eco-warrior and Joanna; the same determination and drive, the same disregard for danger, and an almost
identical passion for justice. It was that passion that had almost gotten Joanna killed in Bogotá, Colombia, long before she finally vanished from the streets of Gaza City. Ethan felt a
sudden surge of compassion for Saffron as he realized that her unwavering determination could also only lead to tragedy.

‘Is this where your band of merry men hide out?’ he asked her as they walked.

‘We move around,’ Saffron explained, ‘never the same place twice and always concealed. The rangers spot us occasionally but they don’t bother us to speak of. We
don’t cause any trouble.’

‘Except when you’re shooting at people,’ Lopez pointed out.

‘Saved your ass, didn’t it?’ Saffron lobbed back and stopped on the track. ‘And you speak when I tell you to, not before.’

Ethan stared in surprise at Saffron. He was aware of her dislike of Lopez, but her reaction was excessive. ‘You nearly killed that man,’ Ethan said, impressed and yet appalled at the
same time. ‘You didn’t hesitate.’

Saffron sighed as they walked.

‘That wasn’t a man,’ she said with what sounded to Ethan like pure contempt. ‘Leastways not as far as I’m concerned. They’ve lived out here for a long time
and they’ve chased us out of camps more than once and stolen our supplies. They’re usually armed and they’re as cunning as wolves, but we’ve generally avoided each
other.’

‘You’re armed too,’ Ethan said. ‘Sooner or later someone’s going to get hurt.’

‘Have they killed any of your people?’ Lopez asked.

‘No,’ Saffron replied coldly, not looking at Lopez, ‘but they’ve shot at us often enough. My people aren’t armed as a rule, I just brought them along because I
wanted those guys to think they were outnumbered
and
outgunned.’

‘You said it wasn’t a man,’ Ethan pointed out. ‘What do you mean?’

‘I’ll tell you later.’

The camp was small, with two fires and Saffron’s questionable comrades arranged in a figure of eight around them, variously cooking, smoking and drinking beer. They looked up and watched
silently as Saffron led Ethan and Lopez through the camp and beyond, to a small outcrop of rock overlooking the valley some thirty feet above the camp. She sat down cross-legged and wrapped a shawl
around her shoulders.

Lopez sat down as far from Saffron as she could get. Ethan gestured to the camp.

‘You don’t want to sit down there by the fire?’

‘I don’t want them to hear this conversation,’ she replied. ‘They don’t really know what’s going on.’

Ethan sat down beside her.

‘And what is going on, exactly?’

‘Do you know where Tyler Willis is?’ Saffron asked him, not looking him in the eye but staring down toward the flickering camp fires below.

‘He’s dead,’ Ethan said, seeing no sense in skirting the issue. ‘He was found yesterday.’

Even in the faint glow from the fires, Ethan thought he could see Saffron’s features turn pale. He heard her take a deep breath, then let it slowly out before speaking.

‘And Lee Carson?’

Ethan felt a jolt at the mention of Carson’s name and stared at Saffron for a long moment.

‘You knew him?’

Saffron’s eyes closed and her head sagged, and Ethan realized he’d spoken about Carson in the past tense.

‘What happened?’ Saffron asked, finally looking at Ethan. ‘I heard rumors that something bad went down in Socorro. I went to the town and friends filled me in on what little
they knew. That’s why I came looking for you out here. What happened to Lee?’

‘He was shot and killed, probably by one of his own,’ Ethan said. ‘Saffron, I need to know what’s going on here. Things are already out of hand, people are dying and we
can’t solve this until somebody starts talking.’

Saffron nodded, swatting a tear from her eye with her sleeve. Her breathing was ragged, but she seemed to Ethan to be holding herself together.

‘There’s something about the men who live out here,’ Saffron said finally, ‘something that my grandfather wants to use. He’s willing to do anything to get hold of
them, including kill.’

‘How do you know all this?’ Lopez asked as Ethan saw her hand move inside her pocket, keying a button on a recording device.

‘Lee Carson,’ Saffron said to Ethan, ignoring her. ‘He and I . . . we were friends.’

‘For a long time?’ Ethan asked.

‘A few months,’ Saffron said. ‘It wasn’t serious, and I figured out long ago that Lee wasn’t the kind to settle down or anything. We had fun, but he kept
disappearing for days on end, no contact. In the end, I decided to follow him and find out what was going on.’

Saffron hugged her legs, pulling her knees up under her chin against the chill night air as she went on.

‘He came out this way, right out into the deserts to a place called Golden. You ever heard of it?’ When Ethan and Lopez shook their heads, Saffron went on. ‘It’s a ghost
town, one that’s stood empty for decades. Lee went there and met with other men who seemed to be his friends. But there was a shouting match, a lot of pushing and shoving, and eventually Lee
took off with some other guy, an old man with a gray beard.’

‘Hiram Conley,’ Lopez guessed. ‘He’s also dead, and his body was taken from a morgue in Santa Fe along with the medical examiner working on him.’

Ethan reached into his jacket pocket and produced the photograph of the old soldiers around the wagon. He held it out to Saffron, who pulled out her cell phone and illuminated the photograph
with the screen. Ethan saw her eyes widen at the image as she recognized faces, and then she saw the dates.

‘It’s got to be some kind of fake,’ she said.

‘It’s not,’ Ethan said. ‘I checked through the public records and found the original image, correctly dated. This is a copy, but of a genuine 1862 photograph.’

Saffron stared at the image for a moment longer, and then out into the darkness where small free-tailed bats were just visible fluttering across the star fields.

‘You’re saying Lee Carson was about a hundred fifty years old?’

‘Give or take,’ Lopez said. ‘And so are all the others.’

‘How is that possible?’ Saffron asked.

‘According to Tyler Willis,’ Ethan said, ‘it’s something bacterial that must have evolved to reside within humans. These men must have at some point been exposed to that
bacteria and ingested it in some way.’

Saffron thought for a moment.

‘So that’s what Jeb’s been after,’ she realized. ‘Something like this would be worth more money than exists in the whole world. He’d do anything to get his
hands on it.’

‘It’s worse than that,’ Ethan said. ‘Jeb’s plan isn’t just to provide the elite with biological immortality. He wants to make sure that the rest of the world
is effectively bred out of existence by the fortunate few. He’s a eugenicist, determined that only the best and brightest human beings should have the right to breed.’

Saffron looked as though she were about to throw up.

‘And I’ve been helping him,’ she gasped in horror.

‘Why though?’ Lopez asked. ‘Why did you attack the Aspen Center? Why not attack SkinGen instead and do us all a favor?’