The Immortalists (14 page)

Richard Draman twisted around in the bed of the pickup and squinted through its back window into the cab. The two men inside were having an animated conversation, laughing and jabbing at each other as the vehicle sped along the dark road. They seemed to have completely forgotten the two American hitchhikers they’d rescued from the side of the road an hour earlier.

Satisfied they weren’t being watched, Richard turned back to the computer on his lap. Carly was pressed up against him despite the fact that the heat of the day still lingered in the wind.

“I’m right,” she said. “You know I am.”

He focused again on the photograph filling the screen. With the exception of the man’s hand, which had blurred as he tried to cover his face, the image was surprisingly sharp. Richard examined every detail—the wavy gray hair, the pale skin, the unique slope of the nose.

“Maybe it’s a relative. A cousin or something.”

“So they kidnapped his cousin too?”

He didn’t answer, instead clicking on the video they’d downloaded of August Mason making a speech in the mid eighties. To say that the resemblance was uncanny would be a gross understatement. It was staggering.

“See how his fingers look white in the picture?” she said, raising her voice to overcome the sound of the driver accelerating around a farm truck.

“Yeah. Why?”

“They’re bandages.”

It took a moment to put meaning to her words. “Altered fingerprints?”

“How else would you injure every fingertip on both hands without hurting anything else?”

“No,” he said, turning away from the computer and staring into the dark landscape rushing by. “There has to be another explanation.”

“He spoke to me, Richard. It was his voice—the voice of the man on the video. I’m telling you, it’s him. It’s him, and he’s younger now.”

“I can’t—”

“Are you telling me it’s scientifically impossible?”

“Yes!” he blurted, but then thought better of it. “No. It’s not impossible. It’s just that—”

“So it could be done,” Carly pressed. “It’s feasible.”

He thought about it, sorting through everything he knew about the biology of aging, which was more than just about anyone on the planet. Or so he’d thought.

“Yesterday, I would have said that we were a hundred years from reversing the aging process. Now, I’m not sure.”

“But you were working on curing Susie. You didn’t think you were a hundred years from that.”

“She only has one genetically driven aspect of aging, Carly. That’s why kids like her don’t suffer from things like osteoarthritis and dementia. I wanted to fix the genetic defect that causes her symptoms, but that’s a million miles away from reversing the aging process.”

“Because some other aspect of aging would eventually kill her like it does everybody else,” Carly said, picking up his thought.

“Exactly. Most people don’t know it, but not all animals get old. Lobsters for instance. Barring accidents or predators or disease, they seem to just keep going. But we
do
age—all mammals do.”

“Why? What benefit is it to get old and die? How does that serve evolution’s purpose?”

“The most important thing to remember about evolution is that it doesn’t
have
a purpose. It’s just about passing on more genes than your competitors at any given moment. Mammals first cropped up during the time of the dinosaurs. They were small and stuck on the bottom of the food chain. So, it was best for them to reproduce young—before they got eaten, or stepped on, or whatever. Having the ability to live a long time wasn’t under strong selection because something else was going to kill them anyway. That was true of humans too. It wasn’t long ago that living to be thirty-five was the exception, not the rule.”

“But some mammals live a long time, don’t they?”

“Sure. Whales are an example. They might live as long as two hundred years, but their lives have been extended by small, incremental changes that take into account they aren’t likely to die from other causes like our common ancestors. Mortality is still there, though. It’s programmed into all mammals on a fundamental level.”

“Maybe not so fundamental,” Carly said.

He didn’t answer, mentally ticking off the myriad causes of aging and trying to come up with a feasible method to not only solve them but reverse their course.

“I know what I saw, Richard. That was August Mason, and he’s not much older than we are now.”

He leaned his head back against the cab and stared up at the unfamiliar stars for a long time before speaking again. “Most biologists are like me, Carly. They’re detail people. But not Mason. He was looking at the big picture. Not to sound melodramatic, but he was looking for the secret of life. Something new, something fundamental that no one had thought of before.”

He felt increasingly short of breath as his mind grappled with the enormity of Mason’s discovery. Richard remembered telling his daughter that Mason was like Newton or Darwin. But he’d been wrong. While they may have seen into the mind of God, Mason had figured out a way to step into God’s shoes.

“What do we do now?” Carly said.

“I…I don’t know. Do you understand what this means? What’s at stake here? We’re talking a paradigm shift on the same order as the invention of agriculture. I mean, if it’s possible—”

“We should assume that he’s going to figure out who I am,” she said in an obvious attempt to keep him focused on the here and now. “If they didn’t already know we’re alive, they will soon.”

Richard barely heard her. “He did it, Carly. He translated the language of life. He must be able to model the genome in a way that allows him to make changes and see what the outcome is. Can he engineer something completely new? Something that nature has never even considered? Jesus—can he
create
life? What—”

“Richard!” she said, grabbing hold of his shoulder and giving him a shake. “There’ll be time to think about all that later. Right now, we need to figure out how we’re going to stay ahead of one of the most brilliant men who ever lived and one of the richest and most powerful. We need to find a phone. Call Burt. Warn—”

“It’s not Xander,” he said, cutting her off.

“What?”

“Think about it, Carly. He’s got one foot in the grave. Why would he be rolling around in his wheelchair funding aging research and pestering Mason’s assistant? No, if he had access to this, he’d have disappeared and would be well on his way to youth again.”

She thought about that for a moment. “OK, it’s not Xander. But it’s somebody. And based on what we’ve seen, they’re just as powerful. We need to figure out how we’re going to stay ahead of them.”

He shook his head. “We can’t run anymore.”

“What? You’re not suggesting we just give up. There—”

“You don’t understand,” he said, turning to her. “He’s reversed aging, Carly.
All aspects
of aging. Including the one killing Susie.”

“Are you telling me that this could help her? That it could cure her?”

He nodded, eyes glowing with reflected light. “I’m never going to be able to do research again—if the cops don’t get me, these people will.
This
is Susie’s chance. Her only chance. I don’t care who these people are. I don’t care how powerful they are. I don’t care how violent they are. We’re going to get on a plane back to the States, and we’re going to hunt them down. We’re going to
make
them help her.”

Richard eased the car Seeger had rented for them along the winding driveway, glancing over at his wife as she nervously scanned the dense trees lining it. The only things keeping her going at this point were adrenaline and determination. He’d stitched up the gash in her leg, and it was beginning to heal, but the long flight back to the U.S. had been incredibly painful for her. Dark circles were distinct beneath her eyes despite the sunburn she’d suffered in Argentina.

Chris Graden’s house emerged as they crested a small hill, and Richard reflected on the time they’d spent there over the years— dinners, backyard barbeques, late-night drinking sessions. Now all he could think about was how similar the secluded location and over-the-top security were to August Mason’s home—as though they had been designed with the same goals in mind. Ironically, it was their phony, toxic friendship with Graden that had defeated all those defenses. They still had the gate code.

Richard rolled to a stop beneath the portico and turned the engine off.

“Showtime.”

Carly stepped from the car and walked up to the door, pausing while he pressed himself against the house’s stone façade in an effort to stay out of sight.

What was on the other side? Coming there was an act of desperation, and they both knew it. Mason would be a thousand miles from Argentina by now, and their realization that Xander wasn’t involved left Chris Graden as the only thread left for them to pull.

Richard tensed when the door began to swing open, but it was only Chris, wearing a pair of jeans and an old Penn State sweatshirt. For a moment, it felt like none of this had ever happened. Like they were there for lunch.

He seemed confused for a moment, but then recognition registered on his face. “Oh my God! Carly, you’re alive!”

He opened his arms to throw them around her, but before he could, Richard stepped out and shoved him back hard enough that he nearly fell to the floor of his foyer.

They entered, and Carly slammed the door shut before taking a position by a window with an unobstructed view of the driveway.

“Jesus,” Graden said. “Where the hell have you two been? Everybody thinks you’re dead.”

Richard slipped one of Burt Seeger’s pistols from his waistband and aimed it at his old friend. The regret and nostalgia he’d worried would paralyze him didn’t materialize. In fact, the idea of pulling the trigger had a certain undeniable appeal.

“
I’m
asking the questions.”

“What are you doing? It’s me. Chris. We’ve been—”

“Shut the hell up,” Richard said. “Is anyone working here today?”

“What? No. It’s Sunday.”

Richard motioned with the pistol. “Go.”

“Where?”

“The den.”

“Put the gun away, Richard.”

“If you don’t turn around and start walking, I’m going to shoot you. I’m planning to start with your leg and work my way up.”

Graden just stared at him for a moment but then started obediently toward the back of the house. Richard glanced back at Carly as he followed, and she rewarded him with a weak smile. It looked like it was about all she had left.

“Seriously, Richard. Put the gun down. You’re acting crazy.”

The den was just the way he remembered it—a dusty explosion of books, old newspapers, and antique furniture. Strangely, most of the photos on the walls depicted Graden alone, but a few included what appeared to be friends. Richard wondered if he was spying on them too. If he would send someone for their children one day.

“Where have you been all this time?” his old friend said, keeping his eye on the pistol.

“You tried to kill us,” Richard responded.

“What are you talking about? The jet? That was—”

“I called Ray Blane. He was looking into some of the same things Annette and I were. You stopped his research too.”

“Ray Blane? I got him a huge grant. The people supplying the money wanted him to concentrate. And what do you mean ‘too’? I
supported
your research, remember? Shit, I wrote you a personal check for it and then got you out of jail.”

It was an incredibly convincing performance, made stronger by their long history together. But it was too little too late.

“You’ve been trickling in just enough money to keep your eye on me—to make sure I was staying focused on progeria and not looking into anything broader. Then I ended up with Annette’s research notes, and you got worried. Worried enough to try to kill my daughter.
My daughter
, Chris.”

“Kill Susie?” he stammered. “Are you listening to yourself, Richard? For God’s sake—”

“Where’s August Mason, Chris?”

“What?”

“The papers say he was on your plane when it went down. But we both know that isn’t true.”

“I…I don’t know.”

“Really? I do. We tracked him down in Argentina. And South America must really agree with him. He looks great.”

“You’re babbling,” Graden said, sweat beginning to glisten on his upper lip.

Richard tossed a hard copy of the photo Carly had taken onto a side table, and Graden looked down at it, his face melting into an emotionless mask.

“Don’t move!” Richard said, holding the gun out in front of him as his old friend started toward a wet bar in the corner.

Graden ignored him and poured himself a scotch. “Can I get you one? For old time’s sake?”

Richard suddenly felt a little weak. He’d come there blind with anger and tormented by hope, but somewhere deep in the back of his mind he’d expected Graden to have an explanation. A series of unlikely but plausible coincidences that they’d missed. Something that didn’t involve their best friend being a spy and a genetic therapy that could reverse millions of years of evolution.

But it was clear that no explanation was forthcoming. This wasn’t a paranoid delusion dreamed up by a desperate mind. It was real.