The Immortalist

by Scott Britz

  Hank rammed his fists together. “Charles is to blame for this. All of it.”

  “The police are out in force looking for him, everywhere from here to New York.”

  “You heard what Cricket said. He could spread this disease if they don’t lock him up fast.”

  “He’s not on campus. We’ve searched and searched again.”

  “They ought to shoot him on sight.”

  Freiberg was taken aback by Hank’s savage tone. He lifted his hand to Hank’s shoulder. “I know it’s hard. Emmy . . . Emmy—such a beautiful and spirited girl.”

  “It kills me that there’s just . . . nothing I can do.” As Hank’s eyes started to tear up, he buried his face in Freiberg’s shoulder. He was embarrassed to find himself weeping out loud. Freiberg wrapped his arms around him, holding him up.

  Both men were jarred when Freiberg’s cell phone went off. Freiberg broke away to answer it. “Freiberg here. Yes? . . . No, I don’t know who’s in charge of the institute. Probably Jack Niedermann. . . . I’m sorry, I have no idea where he is. . . . What’s that again? It looks like what? . . . Bring them at once to the BSL-4 lab. . . . Use strict biohazard precautions. . . . No contact. . . . Better yet, don’t do anything until I get there.”

  Freiberg clicked off the phone. “Well, it looks like you’re about to get some company. Two of the houseboys from Weiszacker have taken sick. It’s Nemesis, all right.”

  “Here it comes. Just like Cricket predicted.”

  “I’ve got to go, Hank. I’d better try to organize some kind of response. Niedermann’s not answering his phone and no one knows where he is.”

  “I’ll walk you to your car.”

  “No, no. I’ve kept you from Emmy as it is.”

  “It’s okay. I . . . I can’t bear to go back in there just yet. Maybe some fresh air . . .”

  It wasn’t fresh air he needed and he knew it. The instant Freiberg drove off in his boxy old Mercedes, Hank went to his pickup and opened the passenger-side door. He reached under the papers in the glove compartment until his fingertips felt the smooth touch of glass—a half-pint of Jack Daniel’s, kept for emergencies.

  He was having an emergency now. He unscrewed the cap and smelled the oak and licorice smell as he touched the bottle to his lips. He had a right to a sip. Nothing beat losing a child. It was against nature. Emmy was the one who was supposed to go on living. It would have been easier—better—if he were the one dying.

  Tears again filled his eyes as he thought about all the battles he and Emmy had fought over school grades, skimpy swimsuits, late parties, rude friends. It was all so trivial now. He’d give anything to have those problems again, instead of . . . instead of . . . this.

  He held the bottle against his lips but did not drink. Not that he was afraid of being found out. No one would know. Certainly not Emmy or Jean. Not with those oxygen masks you had to wear in there. But . . . he wanted to be sure of what he was doing.

  Jack and Johnnie and Jim Beam had always been there for him. Consolation—fast, simple, and effective. He wondered why everybody didn’t reach for it. Was his need different from theirs? Or was it really consolation that he was looking for? He’d asked himself that a million times. There seemed to be no answer. He was born to drink—that was all he could figure.

  Hell, he didn’t even like the taste of liquor. It was like pouring Drano down your throat. Only after the fourth or fifth shot did it go down smoothly.

  He got ready to take the first pump-priming swig, and for an instant in his mind he could already feel the burn running down his gullet. But the rim of the bottle didn’t pass his lips. A thought stopped him.

  He’d heard that sometimes the dying woke up just before the end. What if—even for just a moment—Emmy’s mind was clear, and his wasn’t? He risked losing something. Something he could never replace.

  He lowered the bottle and slowly screwed the cap back on. No, that’s not enough. You’ve got to get rid of it. He wound up his right arm and pitched the flask into the darkness. It fell with a crash against the rocky hillside.

  Hank felt relief at the sound of shattering glass. It brought him to his senses. He looked at the light that came from the two small windows of the brick facade of the BSL-4 lab. A few drops of rain hit him in the face. Better get back in there. It’s time to see this through.

  Ten

  YOU!” CRICKET GRABBED THE BACK OF a chair, poised to swing it like a baseball bat if Niedermann took a step toward her. “What are you doing here?”

  Niedermann looked furtively about the interrogation room. “Have you said anything to them about me?”

  “You bet I did,” said Cricket, curling her lips back. “They didn’t believe me. Everybody thinks I’m nuts, you know. But if you want to try that pen trick again, I’ll scream bloody murder and we’ll be swarming with cops in seconds. That video camera up in the corner will catch every bit of it.”

  “No need for alarm.” Niedermann offered a weak smile. “I’ve come to drop the charges.”

  “Like hell you have.”

  “We need you back at Acadia Springs,” he said solemnly. “I just got a page that a couple of Charles’s houseboys have taken sick. They’re in the BSL-4 lab. It’s an epidemic. Everything you said would happen is happening. We need you, Doctor. Staff are starting to panic. I’m starting to panic.”

  “Call CDC. Tell them what you just told me. They’ll send someone.”

  “There isn’t time. I need you to come back. With me. Now.”

  Cricket felt her nostrils grow taut. “Are you out of your mind? I’m not going anywhere with you.”

  “I . . . I understand your misgivings, but—”

  “Do you?” She laughed at him. “You did just try to kill me, you son of a bitch.”

  Niedermann took a step forward. Cricket took a matching step backward, dragging the chair with her and letting its back legs screech against the floor as a warning.

  Niedermann raised a hand in a gesture of peace. “Do you want to save your daughter—or not?”

  “Go to hell.”

  “It’s not a trick, Doctor.” He glanced back at the video camera. “Does this thing carry audio?”

  “How would I know?”

  Niedermann studied the camera, and then carefully positioned his back toward it, hiding his face. “Look, it’s true—I . . . I did try to kill you,” he said quietly. “The pen . . . it had something in it.”

  “Where is it now?”

  “In my office. In safekeeping.”

  Cricket’s fingers went white clenching the chair. “I don’t believe you.”

  Slowly, demonstratively, Niedermann opened the flap of his jacket, exposing his shirt pocket. Cricket saw the glint of his gold Cross pen—nothing more. “You can search me if you like.”

  “No, thanks.”

  “I’m not going to hurt you, Doctor. I need you.”

  “And why is that?”

  “There, uh, was something you said back in Erich Freiberg’s lab. Something about Hannibal’s blood. Something in it.”

  “Antibodies. Antibodies to the Nemesis virus.”

  “You said you could make some kind of a serum from it.”

  Cricket nodded. “Hannibal was fighting off Nemesis. His body was pouring trillions of antibodies against it into his blood. Those antibodies would work just as well in a human patient as they did in him. If we could purify them, they might buy enough time for someone with the virus to mount their own immune response. It could make the difference between life and death.”

  “So that’s true? Really true?”

  “Yes.”

  “Wouldn’t it work, uh . . . at least as well . . . on someone who, uh, was infected by the virus, but not yet sick?”

  “Even better. But who cares? Charles destroyed everything. Hannibal was cremated.”
/>   “No. No, he wasn’t.”

  Cricket felt the muscles of her face tense up with surprise. Is he lying? Or is there still hope?

  “I locked him up in one of the cold rooms. I meant to cremate him, but after I heard what you said about his blood, I thought better of it. I mean, it isn’t smart to throw away a potential bargaining chip.”

  “Oh, you are a shifty little weasel, aren’t you?” As much as she was disgusted by him, she had to fight to conceal her joy. Remember, he’s playing you. At the same time, an unpleasant thought occurred to her. “Don’t tell me you’ve frozen him? It could take hours to thaw him out.”

  “No, just the cold room. About forty degrees Fahrenheit.”

  Okay, that’s good news. Damned good news. But remember—this is Niedermann you’re talking to. “So what do you want, Mr. Niedermann?”

  “You can have Hannibal back, all the records and samples—everything. Take every drop of blood. Whatever you need. There are Eden people on campus who take orders from me. They’ll protect you. Go on and make your antiserum. Use it to save your daughter. Spend what’s left to save anybody else who gets sick. Put an end to this epidemic.”

  “What do you want?”

  “I’ll call Eden and advise him to call off the Lottery. I don’t see how it can go on anyway. Not after your little prank in the production lab. I’ll tell him there’s a major glitch, and human trials should be discontinued until we can figure out what’s going on. Until you can figure out what’s going on.”

  “Mr. Niedermann—”

  “Please call me Jack.”

  “Well, Jack, to put it bluntly, you’re about the most selfish prick I know. You wouldn’t do any of this if there weren’t something in it for you.”

  “Think of your daughter—”

  The way he beat around the bush was driving her nuts. “What the fuck do you want, Niedermann?” she shouted.

  Niedermann froze. He stared at her a long while, his body hunched like that of a cat that had heard a gunshot. “The first treatment,” he mumbled.

  “Are you out of your fucking mind?”

  Niedermann smiled wanly. “I never did touch you with that pen, did I?”

  “No. I checked a couple hundred times. No.”

  “Well, here’s the irony of it. I, uh . . . in the struggle . . . as I tried . . . uh, swung—” He looked at the floor as he struggled for words. “Somebody up there must be laughing at me, huh?” He chuckled nervously. “As I, uh . . . slipped . . . scratched . . . oh, fucking hell . . . I . . . I . . .”

  “You stuck yourself.”

  He nodded and touched his hand to a red line on his cheek. “Just a scratch. But . . . yeah.”

  “So what was in that pen? Poison?”

  “No. Something Wig Waggoner purified out of Yolanda’s blood.”

  Cricket’s breath stopped. How could anyone who knew what had happened to Yolanda even think up such a thing? “That’s shitty luck, Jack,” she said through clenched teeth.

  “I’m a dead man, aren’t I?”

  Cricket nodded. “It would have been better if it were poison.”

  Niedermann pulled out a white silk handkerchief with a gold monogram and blew his nose into it. His eyes glistened with tears. “I’ve got a lot of fucking nerve asking you to help me. Of all people, you. I deserve this. I don’t deny it. But I don’t want to die.” His head wobbled as he looked up at her. “Please help me, Doctor.”

  “All right, I will.” She would have helped him without his asking—in spite of what he had done. No matter that the pricking of this prick was divine retribution, karma, payback—whatever you wanted to call it. She was a doctor and it was her job.

  Emmy was what mattered, anyway. Niedermann had given her hope. She’d have made a deal with the devil himself if it would have saved her daughter.

  “Remember—I want the first treatment. Whatever you give your own daughter, you will give me. The same dose—everything.”

  “My daughter is sick. You’re not—yet.”

  “It’s the only thing I insist on. I get mine first.”

  “You really are a bastard, Niedermann. You know, there’s no guarantee the antiserum will even work on you. Yolanda’s form of the virus is different from my daughter’s and Hannibal’s.”

  “I accept that risk. Do I speak to the watch commander or not?”

  Cricket let go of the chair. “Yes. And get me my cell phone. I’ll need to call ahead to Wig and get him started immediately. Every minute is vital.”

  Niedermann knocked on the door, which was promptly opened by a guard outside, and then locked again after he left to see the watch captain. Cricket paced up and down. Her stomach felt like an old rag wrung dry. Her hands were shaking. From fear? A premonition? Or just the residue of her panic attack? Niedermann could be lying to me. If he wanted to kill me, there’s no better place than in the dark, alone in a car speeding along the cliff road.

  But she had to take the risk. Ten minutes ago, Emmy’s case was hopeless. Now her girl had a chance at life. That was all that mattered.

  Eleven

  NIEDERMANN LOVED THE TIGHT FEEL OF the BMW Z4. The rain and wet pavement seemed made for it. The summer tourist traffic, still heavy at this hour around Bar Harbor, cleared away after Main Street turned into Route 3, leaving the road to him and his little blue coupe. He could easily crack ninety on the 45 mph straightaways, and he knew how to hug the turns to max out that centrifugal-g feeling that gave him such a rush. If he could have put the top down, letting the wind scrub his face to a tingle, it would have been finer still.

  But Cricket was a wet blanket. Considering her wild-girl reputation, it was disappointing to hear her kvetching about car sickness as she sat next to him, looking out the side window with her hand over her mouth.

  “It helps if you look straight ahead, not to the side.”

  “It helps if you drive the speed limit.”

  Hah! He shrugged her off. She was in his pocket. She wouldn’t dare renege on their antiserum deal—not as long as he controlled access to the BSL-4 lab. His only concern was whether the serum would work. It had to. Cricket and Waggoner and that Nobel Prize–winning kraut bastard Freiberg all seemed sure of it. Of course their lives weren’t on the line. His was. He could feel his heart racing, and the ulcer pain made it feel as if his midsection were on fire. Could these be the first signs of infection? He tried not to think about it, but the more he tried, the more he worried. Was the skin on his face tingling? Was his mouth dry? If he was getting sick, how much longer did he have?

  Of course, Charles was going to go apeshit once he saw Cricket back on campus. So Niedermann knew he would have to go all in. Stage a palace coup. Lock Charles away. Keep him from telephones that he could use to call his lawyers and scientific friends—or worse yet, Phillip Eden.

  Cricket would be a big help there. She wanted Charles put in quarantine, and that was indisputably the best place for him. She could help with Eden, too. She could testify that Charles was crazy, unstable, sick. That he had lied about data and had ordered evidence to be destroyed. She could help make Eden see the silver lining in all this shit happening now—before it had gone too far. Eden could cut his losses and come out looking coolheaded and responsible. The proxy fight was a lost cause, of course. No cause for celebration there, but Niedermann knew that if he could salvage Eden’s interests in this fuckfest, he might save his own job, too.

  He felt so good about probably not dying and probably not having his career flushed down the toilet that he punched the audio console under the dashboard and cranked up Led Zeppelin’s “Over the Hills and Far Away” to a hundred decibels on the CD player. Each time Robert Plant came on with his solo, Niedermann would throw in his own dubiously harmonized baritone:

  Many dreams come true and some have silver linings

  I live for my dream and a
pocketful of gold.

  And then it happened. From out of nowhere a red Dodge pickup with a hood like El Capitan came barreling up behind him doing over a hundred, and in a second it had passed him and doused his windshield with an infuriating spray of rain slick from its rear wheels. A miserable pickup truck, built for carrying freight, no less. Niedermann would never have let him pass if he hadn’t come up so suddenly. He would have taken back the lead then and there, too, except that they were just coming into Seal Harbor, where a notorious radar cop kept watch over the town’s 25 mph speed limit. Niedermann had already been caught twice there and didn’t need strike three.

  So the Dodge got a stay of execution this time.

  And then there he was again. Only now it was on that stretch of highway between Seal Harbor and the turnoff for Acadia Springs, where the road clung to the edge of the sea cliff and got as skinny as a supermodel’s left arm. Two lanes, built for Model T’s, with nary a guardrail in most places—just some small boulders placed here and there for mostly aesthetic effect. The heights must have spooked the driver of the pickup because he had slowed to thirty-five, the speed limit, and he was taking the curves watchfully.

  Niedermann didn’t really mean any insult. It’s just that he knew this stretch of cliff road pretty well and didn’t plan to creep around. So he flashed his lights once and started across the double line—it was a double line for the next five miles—intending to pass the truck quickly and move on. C’mon, he can see I’m in a BMW. He can’t expect me to drag my keister down this road like a Hyundai or an Amish buggy. But the guy in the truck got miffed. Incredibly, as soon as Niedermann started to pass, the truck sped up. Niedermann went faster; the guy matched that, too. Gimme a break. Either press some metal or get out of the way. They were up to fifty or fifty-five before a pair of headlights showed at the curve ahead. Niedermann had no choice but to hit the brakes and pull back into his own lane as the headlights whooshed by.

  “What are you doing?” asked Cricket.