The Immortalist

by Scott Britz

  Then Hank slipped. He fell back against the railings, bracing himself with his arm. Loscalzo was on him instantly. Only now it was face punches—left-right, left-right, left-right-left. Loscalzo’s hands were a blur. Hank was bleeding from his nose and eyes. He seemed too dazed to put his hands up in defense.

  “That’s enough, Dom,” said Gifford. “He’s finished. Time to go.”

  But Loscalzo was mad for the kill. Left-right, left-right, left-right-left. In between face punches he would kick Hank in the ribs. Left-right, left-right, left-right-thunk.

  Then, just when he seemed done for, Hank gave a terrific groan, grabbed Loscalzo in a bear hug, and hurtled with him down the steps. Down they rolled against the hard marble, flopping like a strange, land-going octopus. When they hit the landing, Hank scrambled to his feet. Groggily, Loscalzo got up, too. But Hank was waiting. Eight inches taller, eighty pounds heavier, he let fly an enormous punch, like Babe Ruth slamming one for the record books, right onto Loscalzo’s pointy little chin.

  “You fu-u-u-uck!” shouted Loscalzo. He toppled so hard his feet went up in the air. Cricket heard a crack as the back of his skull smashed against the solid brass of the newel. Then he dropped to the floor—out cold.

  Hank stood triumphant, looking down on Cricket and Gifford, panting with an open mouth and licking a stream of blood that trickled from his nose. His red, swollen hands looked like sledgehammers. To Cricket he had never seemed more frightening—or more magnificent.

  Gifford held the gun on him. “Just what did you think to accomplish by that?”

  “Pawn takes pawn,” said a breathless Hank. Heedless of the gun, he kept descending toward them, fists at the ready.

  “No, Hank!” shouted Cricket. “Stay back!”

  “I’m not letting him take you.”

  But when Gifford pointed the gun at Cricket’s temple, Hank stopped in his tracks.

  “He’s standing down, Charles,” Cricket said. “He’s no threat to you. He won’t come after us. Right, Hank?”

  Hank stood panting and glaring, saying nothing.

  Gifford slowly let down the hammer. “If I so much as see your shadow, Hank, I’ll let both of you have it.”

  Hank, still a little punch-drunk, watched through squinted eyes as Gifford pushed Cricket out onto the concourse.

  After the pandemonium on the Plaza, Cricket was astonished by the normalcy underground. Lunching businessmen, smartly dressed midtown matrons, and tourists drifted from shop to shop in carefree Friday shopping mode. But with one glimpse of Gifford’s face, all that changed. Diners dropped food out of their mouths. Shoppers retreated into doorways. No one dared come near them.

  Just ahead of a dry cleaner’s, Gifford jerked Cricket to a stop in front of a metal door that led to a service area.

  “This is where Mr. Loscalzo and his locksmith’s kit would have come in handy.” Gifford fired his gun at the lock. A woman coming out of a drugstore shrieked. Ignoring her, Gifford tried the lock, then fired another round. This time it opened.

  “Hurry now.” Gifford moved in double time down a wide, green-tiled corridor.

  “Where are you taking me, Charles?”

  “We’re going . . . we’re going to undo the damage you caused, Cricket.” When she looked back at him, she saw his thin cadaver’s lips stretched in a grimace, the naked risorius muscles twitching at the corners of his mouth. “I’m not going to let you or anyone else stand in the way of the greatest scientific achievement in history. In history!” He shouted these last words so forcefully that droplets of his saliva sprayed the back of her neck. “You are an insect on the rails of an express train. You will not stop the train. You will be crushed.”

  Gifford prodded her forward with the gun. They went up a stairwell and came to a tan metal door marked EMERGENCY EXIT. ALARM WILL SOUND.

  Gifford shoved the door with his hip. A bell-and-hammer alarm began to ring. As they came out into the bright light of Fifty-First Street, Cricket was startled to see both sides of the street lined with police cars. But Gifford was unconcerned—they were all empty. No doubt every available cop had been called in to control the raging mob on the Plaza. That the fracas was still going on was obvious from the dozens of people Cricket saw running farther down the block.

  The alarm died away as the tan door swung shut. Gifford marched Cricket across the street, toward a white Grand Marquis parked in a loading zone. Opening a rear door, he unslung the ice chest and gently transferred it to the backseat.

  “You drive,” he said, opening the front door for her. “Remember, I’ll have a clear shot if you try to make a run for it.”

  Gifford went around and got in on the other side. Leaning over, he turned a key that had been left in the ignition. As the engine began to purr, Cricket edged out onto the street and started past the row of police cars.

  “At Sixth Avenue up ahead, take a right.”

  Driving past Radio City, Cricket once again heard the bell-and-hammer alarm of the emergency door. Turning her head, she was just able to spy the door swinging back shut. In her rearview mirror, she saw the dwindling figure of someone running out into the street—a tall, dark-haired man in a flannel shirt.

  Hank?

  Four

  AFTER A MAD HUNDRED-YARD DASH TO the police barricade on Sixth Avenue, a panting Hank Wright could barely get a word out.

  Patrolman E. P. Kohl, a portly, middle-aged veteran in a dark blue uniform and eight-point cap, looked at him perplexedly. “Are you all right, mister?”

  “H-H-H-Hank Wright . . . scientist . . . Acadia Springs . . .” His swollen lips made him sound not only breathless but drunk.

  “Take your time.”

  “Gifford . . . Ch-Charles Gifford . . . fugitive . . . d-do you . . . know about him?”

  “Yeah, there’s an APB out on him. Armed and dangerous.”

  “Just seen him . . . he’s taken my wife . . . ex-wife . . . hostage.”

  “Where?”

  “There!” Still doubled over, Hank pointed up Sixth Avenue, in the direction of Central Park. “Just went by . . . white sedan . . . dark blue C-C-Connecticut plate . . . 877-XVZ.”

  “You saw him?”

  “Yeah . . . Hurry! . . . Can’t be more than a few blocks away.”

  “Okay. Let’s grab my car.”

  They left the barricade and hustled back down Fifty-First Street, to a blue-and-white Crown Victoria parked among dozens on either side of the street.

  “Get in,” said Kohl. As soon as he had pulled out, he picked up his radio microphone, which squawked with a burst of static. “This is One-Four Officer F. Need to run a ten-fourteen on a white sedan, Connecticut plates, Eight Seven Seven X-ray Victor Zebra. This is a ten–thirty-nine, possible kidnapping in progress, hostage may be present in car. Over.”

  They turned up Sixth Avenue and had already reached the Hilton two blocks away before the radio squawked back.

  “One-Four Officer F, that’s a ten-seventeen on that vehicle.”

  Kohl held the mike to his mouth. “Uh, do you have registration data?”

  Another squawk. “White Mercury Grand Marquis, registered to Vonda L. Loscalzo, 10299 Wappinger Road, Reiverton, Connecticut. Over.”

  Loscalzo. Hank felt pain shoot through his jaw at the name. “Reiverton—is it far?”

  Kohl studied his GPS navigation screen. “Forty minutes.”

  “Do they have an airport?”

  “Not that I can see. Looks like farm country. Danbury’s the closest airport.”

  “Don’t they sometimes land airplanes on farms? Crop dusters, things like that? Gifford flew out here on his own plane. I’m certain he’s trying to get back to it.”

  Kohl picked up the mike again. “Can you send out an APB on that vehicle? Include all city, New York State, and Connecticut State units. Notify that suspect vehicle may
be headed to that Reiverton address. Approach with extreme caution. Armed kidnapping in progress. Hostage in vehicle. Driver is Charles Gifford, subject of existing APB.”

  “Ten-four.”

  At a stoplight, Kohl looked at Hank. “How sure are you about Reiverton?”

  “Damned sure. It’s the only destination that makes sense.”

  Officer Kohl clicked the mike. “Dispatch, contact Precinct Fourteen captain. Tell him I’m requesting permission to leave jurisdiction in active pursuit of said vehicle. Husband of kidnap victim is with me.”

  With the light still red, Officer Kohl gave a whoop of his siren and edged out into the intersection. “Hold on,” he said, as he made a squealing left turn. “You and I are about to make a little trip to the Nutmeg State.”

  Five

  CRICKET FELT AS IF SHE WERE in a speeding coffin, driving 40 mph on northbound Route 9A, with the Hudson shimmering black as the river Styx.

  She knew the very air she breathed was poison. Even with the window down, she smelled the same sickening-sweet nail-polish odor as in Yolanda’s bedroom—a sign that Gifford, too, had gone into metabolic ketosis. He couldn’t have had much time left.

  Gifford swore under his breath as he fumbled to unbutton his trench coat through his thick leather gloves. Giving up, he tugged the gloves off, finger by finger. Cricket almost fainted at what she saw. It was as if he had removed his own skin. His hands were raw and bleeding, and she could see shiny white cords—the naked extensor tendons of the backs of his hands—working themselves up and down.

  When Gifford at last managed to open his coat, Cricket was astonished to see his shirt glistening with blood. With perfect clinical detachment, Gifford unbuttoned it and exposed a wad of bloody gauze pads taped against his stomach.

  “What happened?” she gasped.

  “Jack shot me.”

  Jack? Cricket thought of Niedermann’s body as she had found it in Gifford’s lab. Jesus, even with a bullet in him, Gifford had strength to snap Jack’s spine in two.

  Gifford carefully pulled off the dressing. A small spurt of blood came with it, staining his pants and the car seat between his legs. From the glove compartment, he grabbed a new bunch of gauze pads, tore open their wrappers, and pressed them against the wound.

  “You need to get to a hospital, Charles.”

  “This wound is nothing. Clean entry and exit. I just need a few minutes to rest while you drive. I’ll be fine to take over once we reach the plane.”

  “The plane? Where do you think you’re going, Charles?”

  “Anywhere I like. My Cessna has a flight range of over twelve hundred nautical miles. What I have in the backseat will guarantee me asylum anywhere.”

  Gifford closed his eyes and leaned back against the headrest. A small rim of skin remained around his eyelids, like eyeliner in reverse, grotesquely encircling his ruby-red eyes. In repose, he looked like the first cadaver Cricket had dissected in medical school. It was hard to believe he wasn’t dead.

  I can’t let him reach that plane.

  Gifford had once been like a second father to her. But this man beside her wasn’t Charles Gifford. He was holding a gun on her. He had murdered a man and shot a cop. She shuddered to think what he might be capable of.

  Then she saw a glint of hope.

  In the rearview mirror, she spied the roof lights and white-and-blue markings of a New York City police car, nudging its way through traffic in the left-hand lane.

  With a trembling hand, she reached under the steering wheel and slowly edged out the emergency-flasher switch, bracing it with her fingers to muffle any snap at the end. Immediately the signal lights began to blink—silently.

  A check of the mirror. A semi came up in the next lane and blocked the view. Oh, hell. I’ve got to force that cop car to notice me. She pressed the floor pedal. Just enough room ahead to veer in front of the truck . . .

  And then, with her brain almost comatose from exhaustion, conditioned reflex took over. Just as she was about to make the lane switch, she did what she had done a thousand times before: she hit the turn signal. And unlike the flasher, it immediately gave out a clocklike tick.

  Gifford opened his eyes, lunged forward, and slammed the flasher back in.

  “Stupid prank!” he roared in his rasping, mechanical voice. “You want to get us both killed?” Training his gun on Cricket’s midsection, Gifford kept an anxious eye on the next lane. The police car hovered in view for a moment, then accelerated out of sight.

  As soon as the cop car was gone, Gifford doubled over with a hacking cough. Cricket could see droplets of blood standing fresh against the half-dried smears on his shirt cuff.

  “Charles, you’ve got to get help. It might not be too late. The antiserum Wig made worked on Emmy. It might work on you.”

  “I’m not sick.”

  “Are you crazy? Look at your face. Your hands.”

  “You don’t understand. The Methuselah Vector—it changes you. I see that now. I’ve moved on to the next step in human evolution. There had to be changes. Yes, they’re grotesque to the uninitiated, just as the nakedness of man must be revolting to the ape. But we’ll get used to them. There’s beauty in anything once you see it in context.”

  She felt like screaming. How could he be so blind? But she had to find a way to get through to him. “Listen—if you die, the Methuselah Vector d-d-dies with you,” she stammered. “It’s flawed, Charles. But it might be p-possible to fix it. Only you can do that—and only if you live.”

  “Take exit four, Cross County Parkway east,” he said matter-of-factly. “It’ll turn into Hutchinson River Parkway. Follow it into Connecticut, where it becomes Merritt Parkway.”

  “Wake up, Charles. Look in the mirror. You need help. Help!”

  “Enough! You’re getting on my nerves. Do I need to shut your mouth?” He held his bloody, skinless cadaver’s hand in front of her face, poised as if to muzzle her. It was so close she could smell the rot of his flesh.

  “Please . . . don’t touch me,” she gasped. She pushed her head back as far as she could against the headrest.

  “Then drive. Stop talking and drive.”

  Six

  THE BIG NYPD CROWN VICTORIA WAS going so fast that it went airborne whenever the road took a dip. Still, it wasn’t fast enough for Hank.

  His mouth had a salty taste. His left eye was swollen shut, his lips were like overinflated inner tubes. The broken ribs in his side knifed him with every breath. His knuckles were a bloody, black-and-blue mess.

  None of it mattered. Cricket was all he could think about. He felt like an idiot for letting Gifford get away with her. An idiot and a coward.

  Traffic was light on the four-lane parkway, as it curved left and right through the rolling hills of Connecticut. The road had a manicured look. Maples and white oaks were planted along the median and joined their roadside counterparts to make twin dark green canopies. Every few miles, quaint stone bridges arched overhead, no two alike.

  The radio crackled with a tense voice on the Connecticut State Police band. “Dispatch Troop A. This is car One-Five. Advise that I have a visual ID on suspect vehicle Eight Seven Seven X-ray Victor Zebra, white, late-model Mercury Grand Marquis. Vehicle is eastbound on state Highway Fifteen, seven miles east of state line. Suspect vehicle is accelerating to evade contact and I am in pursuit. Request backup from all available units.”

  “Jesus,” said Hank. “That’s around here somewhere. We must be right on top of ’em.”

  “You might want to make sure you’re buckled in,” said Kohl. With the bright eyes of a hound catching scent of the fox, he turned on the siren and rammed the accelerator to the floor. “Car One-Five, this is One-Four Car F of the NYPD, Officer E. P. Kohl. Am also in pursuit of suspect vehicle, not more than a mile from your location.”

  “Welcome to the party, New York.�
��

  Within minutes the chase had left the parkway and worked its way onto Wappinger Road. The landscape here was open, the highway straight enough for Kohl to push a hundred. On either side, little white and gray frame houses whizzed by, along with the occasional antique barn, church spire, or farmstead. Hank clutched a handle on the door pillar and tried to fight off a growing tide of motion sickness.

  Then, on one of the longer straightaways, Hank saw the flashing blue lights of car One-Five a quarter mile ahead—ten seconds away at their present speed. The Crown Victoria began to shimmy as Kohl hit the gas even harder, trying to close the distance. By then the radio was popping with calls from a half dozen converging cruisers. A blue ring was closing in on Charles Gifford.

  Hank felt like a coiled spring, ready for anything. I won’t let Cricket get on that plane, he resolved. Cops or no cops. I won’t let it happen. I’ve got enough regrets.

  Then Kohl slammed on the brakes and made a wild squealing turn into a farmyard on the left. Hank saw a big white house and barn go by in a blur. Yards ahead were the lights of car One-Five, racing down a dirt path. Dust was everywhere. Hank caught a glimpse of the Grand Marquis through the dust cloud as it turned sharply to the right. Then red lights—brake lights—dead ahead. Pain, fucking pain, as the seat belt dug into his broken ribs and the Crown Victoria came to a brick-wall halt, almost slamming into car One-Five as, blinded by the dust, the lead car dived nose-down into an irrigation ditch just beyond the intersecting road.

  Without waiting for Kohl, Hank popped off the seat belt and sprang out, while the rear wheels of car One-Five were still spinning in the air. He tore across the rows of waist-high tobacco plants with one thing and one thing only in his mind—a small, blue-and-white, single-prop Cessna poised at the end of the side road.