The Immortalists (24 page)

Richard Draman pulled away from the microscope and looked up at the cameras bolted to the ceiling. For the better part of a week, he’d been a full-time resident of the temporary lab Xander had sealed him up in—allowed only a few short conversations with Carly and Susie. A subtle reminder that his life was no longer his own. That they existed only to carry out the old man’s wishes.

He went back to the microscope, knowing that it was critical to maintain the appearance of deciphering August Mason’s life’s work. That’s all it was at this point, though—a pageant designed to convince an increasingly desperate Andreas Xander that immortality, and not death, waited for him just around the corner.

The vial they’d found contained various viruses and bacteria, some of which he could identify and others that he couldn’t. Their function was clear, though—to invade cells and deposit tiny strands of genetic material that would transform the subject’s genome in a way never intended by nature.

But how? What sections of DNA were targeted? From what creatures were the replacement strands taken or were they entirely engineered? How would the patient’s immune system react to the carrier germs? Those were just a few of the thousand questions he hadn’t been able to answer.

The bottom line was that it was hopeless. Even with an army of the top people, it would take them years to understand what Mason had done—maybe decades. But he didn’t have years, or even months. The carriers in the serum were starting to die. It seemed likely that this dose had been created for someone specific and that long-term storage hadn’t been the goal.

Based on his best estimate, the serum would lose enough of its potency to be ineffective in another week. Seven days and it would be over. For everyone.

Richard stood, trying to move naturally beneath the cameras. He opened the refrigerator and used a key hanging around his neck to pull the vial from a strongbox inside.

His hand shook as he put it in a centrifuge that contained an identical vial quietly planted there that morning. Since his arrival, he’d spent more time studying the security procedures than he had Mason’s elixir. He’d eaten lunches with the guards, charted their shift changes, calculated every camera angle.

There were a number of places in the lab that the monitors outside couldn’t display—the most useful being the centrifuge he was now standing in front of. Richard pressed a button, gave it a brief spin, and then removed the decoy vial, returning it to the lockbox in the refrigerator after putting a small drop on a slide. He didn’t allow himself to look at the door, but listened intently, half expecting the guards to burst in, aware of his deception.

But there was nothing. Just the incessant hum of the ventilation system.

By the time he returned to his microscope, the shaking in his hands had worsened significantly, and the sweat had turned frigid across his back.

It was more than just fear. The brush of his clothes against his skin was starting to feel like sandpaper, and the cramps in his stomach were becoming powerful enough to cause him to jerk forward a few inches when they struck.

The men watching him weren’t stupid, and it seemed unlikely that he could fake a situation dire enough to cause them to disregard their orders to keep him there, so about an hour ago, he’d poisoned himself.

It had been a bit more complicated than he’d thought. In college, no classes had been offered on how to make yourself look like you’re going to die without actually crossing the line into reality. When the room started to turn vaguely liquid, he wondered if he’d pushed too far. It was his one chance, though, and a little indigestion wasn’t going to convince Xander’s minions to defy his godlike wishes.

Richard’s first attempt to stand produced no result at all, and for a moment, he felt panic overcome his growing nausea. He closed his eyes and saw his daughter—her birth as a healthy baby, the first signs of her disease. Her unwavering belief in him.

His second attempt was more successful, and he lurched across the room toward the centrifuge, starting to fall a few feet short of it but managing to catch himself on the counter. Reaching up in a way calculated to look like he was steadying himself, he managed to get a sweaty palm around the vial containing Mason’s serum before he slid to the floor.

A moment later, the door behind him was thrown open, and he rolled onto his side, letting his lab coat fall across him as he slid the delicate vial into the pocket of his jeans.

“Doc! Are you all right?”

Richard looked into the face of the man hovering over him. Behind, another guard had his gun out and was looking intently around the room for danger.

“No.”

“What’s wrong? What happened?”

“I was—” Richard started, but a wave of cramps forced him into the fetal position. He didn’t know what dying felt like, but he was pretty sure this was it. He’d taken too much.

“I was handling a dangerous chemical earlier,” he said through short gasps. “I dropped some, but I didn’t think any got on me…”

“It’s poisonous?” the man said. “Are you telling me you’ve been poisoned?”

Richard nodded weakly. “You need to get me to a hospital.”

The man’s expression turned from one of alarm to one of uncertainty. “There are people out there trying to kill you, Doc. Mr. Xander made it clear that—”

Richard clamped a hand over the man’s muscular forearm. “If I don’t get to a hospital now, their job will be done for them.”

The heat and steepness of the slope finally became too much, and Oleg Nazarov was forced to stop. The bugs he’d been barely keeping ahead of immediately swarmed, and he struggled not to suck them in with every ragged breath. Above, the jungle canopy shut out the sky and reverberated with the light rain that had enveloped the island for the last two days.

“Are you all right, sir?”

The security guard sent to escort him on his hike had stopped at a respectful distance, the only sweat visible on him a dark outline beneath his shoulder holster. He peered into the jungle, keeping up the halfhearted appearance that he was there to protect Nazarov when they both knew he was there to watch him.

The Russian put his hands on his hips and bent at the waist, losing himself for a moment in memories of his early days at the KGB. He’d always been the strongest and fastest—able to continue on tirelessly after the other recruits gave up. The instructors had acted unimpressed while quietly designating him as someone with a future.

The past was something that had never interested him, but he found himself thinking about it more and more as he got older. His victories and defeats. His regrets. In some ways, those long-dead images were beginning to feel more tangible than his future.

“Sir?” the security man prompted. “We should turn around now. We’re getting close to a restricted area.”

Nazarov didn’t immediately respond, instead watching the guard in his peripheral vision. He was typical: mid thirties, seemingly chiseled from stone. Like he himself had once been.

“All right. Just let me rest for another moment.”

He nodded and looked back the way they’d come, undoubtedly anxious to end the tedium of marching through the jungle at an old man’s pace. Nazarov’s attention fell to the rock that had inspired him to stop. It was about eight inches long and shaped like a blunt arrowhead.

When the younger man had turned fully away, Nazarov scooped it up and strode toward him, covering the distance as quickly as he could without allowing his footsteps to sound unnaturally rushed.

He thought the kill would be simple and clean, but at the last moment, his victim craned his neck. “Are you read—”

He threw up a tattooed arm, but it was too late. The point of the rock came down just above the right side of his forehead, crushing the bone and penetrating his brain.

He didn’t immediately fall, instead standing frozen, the blood running thick into his eye and then fanning out across his damp cheek.

Nazarov unsnapped the shoulder holster and relieved him of his gun as he sank. Allies could be so much more dangerous than enemies—an important lesson that would be this young man’s last. One that he himself was now forced to act on.

There was a long and perfectly legitimate list of reasons for his failure to resolve the Draman issue. But Karl—and indeed he himself—were not men interested in reasons. One performed or one did not. And for the first time in his life, Nazarov found himself in the latter category.

He had been backed into making guarantees that his plan to capture Susie Draman would succeed, and a few hours ago it became clear that things had once again not gone according to plan. It was, as the Americans were so fond of saying, his third strike.

Nazarov dragged the body into the jungle and then continued up the trail. The area ahead was restricted for a reason—it contained the island’s hangar and airstrip. Something Nazarov very much needed to avail himself of.

The air coming through the open back window felt as though it were slashing through the skin on his face, but it was something to focus on—something to keep him from throwing up.

“You gonna make it, Doc?” the driver said, staring at him in the rearview mirror while his partner spoke urgently into a phone.

Richard didn’t respond, trying unsuccessfully to determine who the man in the passenger seat was talking to and what he was saying.

Beyond their headlights and the headlights of a chase vehicle fifty feet behind, there was nothing but darkness. Richard hung an arm on the windowsill, using it to keep himself upright enough that he could see out. His stomach cramped and he bit down hard, barely managing to hold down its contents. Next time, he knew, he wouldn’t be so lucky.

The easily described landmark he was hoping for hadn’t materialized. The terrain rolled monotonously, carpeted with wild grass and bordered by a wire fence gleaming in the circle of light they were generating. No trees, no houses. No nothing.

“Doc? We’re not too far from the hospital. No more than twenty minutes. Hold on for me, OK?”

Richard wasn’t sure which one of the men had spoken, but he registered for the first time emotion in the voice. Not concern for him as much as fear for themselves. Andreas Xander wouldn’t be happy if the man he was counting on to conjure him a future expired in the backseat of one of his Yukons.

“Doc?”

The lights reflected off a sign ahead, and Richard squinted through watering eyes at it. As they drew nearer, the white numbers grew in prominence. He leaned farther out the window, ignoring the increasing force of the wind lashing him.

It was a mile marker. Number forty-eight.

“Stop the car,” Richard said, his voice carrying more force than he expected. He was running out of time. And so was Susie.

“What?” the man in the passenger seat said. “Take it easy, Doc. We’re not fa—”

Richard grabbed the handle and pulled it, unlatching the door.

“Shit!” he heard the driver yell. They were probably traveling close to eighty, and Richard was in no condition to anticipate the effect of the sudden deceleration. The door swung outward with his arm still hanging through the open window dragging him toward the speeding asphalt below.

His mind couldn’t react fast enough to follow what was happening, and he didn’t fully grasp that he hadn’t fallen until the vehicle had come to a complete stop. When he glanced back, he saw that the man in the passenger seat was on his knees with a hand tangled in his lab coat.

Richard swung a foot out of the vehicle and stretched his arms behind him, slipping out of the coat and stumbling across the gravel shoulder toward the scrub brush beyond. He heard a door being thrown open behind him, but he kept going, not dropping to his knees until he had escaped the lights of the chase vehicle that had skidded to a stop behind them.

His stomach cramped again, and this time he let his dinner flood out into the bush in front of him. The man who had kept him from falling from the car was hovering about fifteen feet back.

“Doc, we can’t stay here. We’ve got to get going.”

Richard signaled for him to keep his distance and turned away again, convulsing uncontrollably for a few moments before managing to look back. There were four men in all, and with the exception of the one directly behind him, all were focused on the surrounding darkness and the army it might contain.

The way he’d seen it in his mind, he’d had more distance, more darkness, and the cover of his lab coat. But none of that was going to happen. There would never be another chance.

When the man behind him briefly turned his attention to his companions, Richard pulled the vial from his pocket and tucked it beneath the branches of the bush in front of him. He was brushing some dirt toward it when he was grabbed from behind.

“All right, Doc. That’s it.”

He fought weakly, certain that he’d been found out, but no one made a move for the vial, and he felt himself being dragged toward the car.

“Shit, man. Relax, would you? We’re gonna get you to the hospital and everything’s gonna be fine, OK?”

Oleg Nazarov considered ducking into the jungle and creeping up on the hangar from behind, but almost immediately discarded the idea. Those types of operations were long behind him. What little fitness he had left was solely the result of his fondness for young women. Hardly sufficient preparation.

What he did have—all he had—was the illusion of authority. And so that’s what would be used.

He increased his pace as the edge of the hangar came into view, trying to dig the details of flying from the fog of his memory. It had been almost a quarter century since he’d piloted a plane, and as he recalled, his ability had been only barely above average. None of that mattered, though. He preferred to hang his future on those questionable skills than Karl’s mercy.

The hangar bay door was open, and Nazarov entered, his eyes struggling to adjust to the lower level of light. There was only a single plane inside, a small Lear similar to one he’d owned in the mid nineties. He regretted now sitting in the back drinking vodka while his pilots chauffeured him around the world, but he was confident he had gleaned enough to get into the air. Landing was something he could worry about later.

He continued forward cautiously, looking for security but finding none. It seemed too easy, and he moved a hand closer to the stolen gun tucked into his waistband.

“Hello?”

Nothing. Just the sound of the rain on the roof and the distant calls of tropical birds.

“Is anyone here?” he said a bit louder, continuing toward the open hatch of the Lear.

Again, nothing.

He started up the steps thinking that his luck might have finally changed, but that illusion disappeared when he entered the cabin.

“Oleg. I was starting to think you’d lost your way.”

Karl was sitting in the seat at the back, his hands resting on the table in front of him.

Nazarov reached for his gun, but then felt the barrel of a pistol make contact with his temple. He’d let Karl distract him from the man pressed against the wall next to the hatch. An amateur’s mistake.

His weapon was taken from him and tossed out into the hangar. The clack of it skittering across the concrete floor sounded very much like his last hope disintegrating.

“I was out hiking,” he said, stammering perceptibly. “The man I was with fell. He…”

“I completely understand,” Karl said, standing and motioning toward the hatch. “We appreciate you coming here to try to find help. Unfortunately, it’s too late. My understanding is that he’s dead.”

Nazarov descended the steps obediently, finding that the security people so conspicuously missing when he arrived were everywhere now. They watched silently as Karl came alongside him and angled toward the open hangar door.

It had been a plan born entirely of desperation, Nazarov recognized now. The idea that he would just stroll onto Karl’s plane, taxi it to the runway, and take off unchallenged seemed almost laughable. And even if he had succeeded—where could he have gone that would be beyond the group’s reach?

They walked in silence, turning onto a steep trail that led toward the coast. “It’s my understanding that Burt Seeger wasn’t acquired at the pharmacy and that he killed one of our men,” Karl said finally.

“That’s correct.”

“I also understand that Xander had people there.”

Nazarov was having a hard time holding the pace Karl’s newfound youth allowed him, and he struggled to speak evenly. “We dealt with the body and haven’t had to do anything to cover up the gunfight. Xander used his influence to deal with that for us. The public will never know any of it happened.”

“Yes, but
I
know.”

Silence once again descended on them, lasting until they exited the jungle onto a flat expanse of stone. Karl walked straight to the edge and looked down the hundred meters to the ocean. The sun reflected off the water, contrasting deep blue with frothing white as it impacted the cliffs. Under other circumstances, it would have been startlingly beautiful.

“Do you know how Seeger knew your men were waiting for him?”

“It’s impossible that he saw any of them,” Nazarov said, not quite coming up alongside Karl. The height and the chaos of the waves only added to his sense of dread.

“All evidence to the contrary, Oleg.”

“It was a perfect operation. I can show you. It was meticulously planned. It was —”

Karl reached into his pocket and held out an envelope.

“What is this?” Nazarov said, accepting it and looking down on the shaky scrawl across the front.

The Immortalists.

He unfolded the sheet of paper it contained and began reading, the words draining what little strength he had left.

“Xander left it at our property in Canada yesterday,” Karl said.

“Yesterday? But how—”

“The car you destroyed was a decoy. Xander is still alive. Still dismantling our networks. Still in possession of the contents of Mason’s lab.”

“He won’t find any of our people. I’ve—”

“You’ve done what?” Karl shouted. “What is it exactly that you’ve done for us, Oleg?”

“Xander’s health is deteriorating,” Nazarov responded. “He’s dying. He may not last the month.”

“Or he may live for another decade,” Karl said. “We didn’t bring you in so that we could hope our problems die of natural causes.”

Nazarov took another step away from the precipice, spotting two armed men hovering at the edge of the jungle. “These things were beyond my control. They—”

“I know,” Karl said, plucking the letter from his hand and holding it up. “But with this in my possession, I have to wonder what purpose you serve.”

Nazarov waited for the security men to pull their guns, but they just stood there. Watching.

He was so focused on them, he didn’t see Karl’s foot swing toward his knee. The joint, already weakened by arthritis, broke easily, and Nazarov screamed as his leg collapsed beneath him. Pain consumed his mind, blurring the image of Karl as he moved behind him.

“I had hoped for more from you,” he said, threading an arm around Nazarov’s neck. The Russian clawed uselessly at the damp stone beneath him as he was dragged backward.

Lack of oxygen and panic weakened him, but he didn’t allow himself to stop fighting. He managed to get hold of Karl’s ankle as he felt himself being spun to face the cliff. His legs dangled over it, buffeted by the salty wind coming up from the water.

The pressure around his neck disappeared, and he gasped for air as Karl began prying his fingers from his ankle. Nazarov heard one of his fingers snap, but this time he didn’t feel anything. His mind had reached its limit and couldn’t process any more.

He went for a tiny sapling growing from a crack in the rock, missing it by less than a centimeter. A moment later, everything faded away—the tropical heat, Karl, gravity. He was floating, spinning, surrounded by the roar of the ocean.

Karl leaned out over the precipice and watched the waves pound Oleg’s mangled body, finally dislodging it from the boulders and pulling it under. The letter had fallen to the ground, and he picked it up, tucking it carefully back into his pocket.

It was time to end this.