Enigma

by Catherine Coulter

  Lister shrugged. “I didn’t want you bothering them.”

  Connie said, “Cargill, are there any other security guards in the house or on the grounds?”

  “No, ma’am, Agent.”

  Sherlock slipped her Glock back into its belt clip. She walked to where Dr. Maddox stood unmoving, except for his worry beads. “We have news, Dr. Maddox. The man and woman you hired to kidnap Alex Moody from the hospital were stopped in a white van, fleeing a building called the Annex after they set fire to it.” He didn’t need to know they weren’t in custody yet, they would be soon enough. “The FBI found some interesting medical equipment and a freezer that fell out of the back of the van. I’m sure you know exactly what was in that van, Dr. Maddox, given what an agent who interviewed Dr. Zyon at Badecker-Ziotec was told about the research you ordered them to do three years ago on compounds that affect aging. Dr. Maddox, we’re expecting a warrant any minute. We believe there are more people in the house, in particular, that missing baby, Alex Moody.”

  “That is ridiculous.”

  Sherlock continued, “Dr. Maddox, you can either speak to us here, or you can contact your lawyer to meet you at the Hoover Building in Washington.”

  Lister froze. Then he shook his head, “I can’t imagine why you think I would burn down my own building, and a useful one at that. If the Annex is burning, I should see to it, but of course you won’t let me do that, will you? As for Zyon, he doesn’t know much, hardly anything about my research or my results, and that means you don’t, either.”

  Sherlock plowed on, ignoring him. “You’d be surprised, Doctor. We know the man who drew Kara Moody’s blood more than nine months ago looks amazingly like the same man who kidnapped Alex Moody on Monday, though he looks fifteen years younger. Would you like to see a sketch Kara Moody made of the man who drew her blood and compare it to the photo of the man at the hospital? Can you tell me I’m wrong?”

  Lister stared at the young woman with glorious red hair and eyes as blue as the summer sky, eyes that were boring into him, condemning him. Kara Moody had remembered Quince well enough from nearly a year ago to draw him? He’d never considered anyone would make that connection. He looked straight at Sherlock and smiled, and for once, his worry beads stilled. “Agent, I have no idea what you’re talking about. I resent your barging in here once again and throwing around your absurd accusations. I want you to leave.”

  Sherlock said over him, “I told you we’re not going anywhere, Dr. Maddox. As I said, Alex Moody’s kidnapper looks at least fifteen years younger than the man from about ten months ago. Does that mean you succeeded in your research? Managed to turn back the clock for him by fifteen years? That would be quite an accomplishment.” She paused a moment, then said, “Dr. Zyon must be a genius.”

  Lister leaped to the bait. “Zyon, a genius? That’s a joke, that posing bore gave up, said we shouldn’t go on, that it was impossible, the compounds were too toxic, the cost too high. I had to continue the experiments on my own. I was the one who made the discoveries, not he!” He was panting hard. It took him a moment to realize what he’d admitted. He straightened, pulled his shoulders back, and thrust his chin up, now the man in charge, the leader. “There is nothing wrong with my doing research, Agents. I have worked for a laudable goal. You are police officers, you reduce everything to prosaic black-and-white. You are being shortsighted, ignoring what you have seen with your own eyes. Open your minds, consider possibilities you never dreamed of, consider the amazing results standing before your very eyes.”

  Sherlock said, “Dr. Maddox, I do appreciate what you’ve accomplished, it seems remarkable. Perhaps you’ll tell us who else you’ve experimented on?” Sherlock waited a beat, then turned to Cargill. “How old are you?”

  Cargill looked at Lister. “Sir?”

  Lister waved his hand. “Tell her, she can find out your age easily enough.”

  “I’m fifty-seven.”

  She wouldn’t have believed him, but Sherlock had seen Kara’s drawing and she’d seen the kidnapper. “You look about thirty-five.”

  “Yes,” Cargill said, throwing back his head. “I owe the man I am now to Dr. Maddox.”

  Connie said, “Dr. Maddox, why haven’t you given yourself any of your magic drugs? You look every one of your fifty years.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. It’s too early, I must perfect the treatments first. I’m the only one who understands the drugs and how to use them safely. If any problems develop with the test subjects, I’m the only one to fix them. The entire project depends on my staying healthy.”

  Cargill was staring at Maddox. “Dr. Maddox, I never thought of Quince and me as your test subjects before. Is that what we are? Like lab mice?”

  “Cargill, I’ve rolled back time for you and Quince, extended your life by at least fifteen years. You’re not stupid, you knew there were risks. You should be grateful.”

  So Quince was the name of the kidnapper? Suddenly, it came to her in a flash. Sherlock said, “We want to speak to your father, Dr. Maddox.”

  “No! You have no reason to bother him. I told you, he is too ill for visitors, much less law officers who would browbeat him. He wouldn’t understand in any case. Look, I realize this is all quite unusual, seeing Cargill, it is no doubt a shock to you. I’m perfectly willing to discuss my research with you. I will go with you to your Hoover Building. We will join my lawyers there, and I will tell you what it all means. But leave my father alone.”

  “He’s seventy-eight years old,” Sherlock said slowly. “I presume you’ve given him your drugs as well, like Cargill and Quince, isn’t that right?”

  Lister said nothing.

  “Of course you have. So why can’t we see him? Or did your experiments on him go wrong? Did you put him in a coma, like the young man at the hospital?”

  Lister Maddox leaned back against the wall, his shoulder touching a picture frame. He was frantically working his worry beads, weaving them through the fingers of both hands. It was a mesmerizing sight. “Of course not. You don’t understand.”

  “Then explain it to me. Make me understand.”

  He remained silent. Sherlock realized they were still standing in the entrance hall, but that was fine with her until the others arrived. Push him, she thought, keep pushing him. “Tell me what I don’t understand, Dr. Maddox.”

  “I’m a scientist, Agent. I didn’t expect to reverse my father’s illness, but still, I had to try. I failed.”

  “What went wrong, Dr. Maddox? What happened to your father? Why can’t we see him?”

  It seemed to Sherlock he was going to burst into tears. He looked defeated. He waved his hand, his worry beads swinging. “Very well, why not? It seems I can’t stop you. When you do meet him, you’ll see I’ve treated him as well, that I’ve managed to restore much of his muscle mass, fat and bone, but for my father, simply restoring him to a man of fifty years old again wasn’t my ultimate goal. Some fifteen years ago my father suffered a catastrophic neurologic event that smashed his brain like a hammer. It left him an empty husk, a man who isn’t even aware of what I’ve done for him, what I’m still trying to do.” Lister paused, his face twisted. “When I show him his reflection in a mirror, he doesn’t even know it, doesn’t even realize it’s a mirror! I had so hoped my treatment would eventually restore and heal his injured brain tissue, bring back that wonderful mind of his.” He swallowed, looked at Sherlock with pain-filled eyes. “But it appears I’ve failed him; I’ve failed my father.”

  The entrance hall was silent until the worry beads started clacking again.

  Sherlock didn’t turn when she heard footsteps near the front door open behind her, she knew it was Dillon. She kept her focus on Dr. Maddox. “So, to be clear, Dr. Maddox, you admit you’ve given a number of human subjects your experimental drugs, without any oversight or approval, without any review of their safety? Do you consider that ethical?”

  Lister straightened again, barely glancing at Savich, outrage pouring off him. �
��You break into my house, and then you expect me to listen to you condemn what I’ve accomplished? Outside review? Come now, Agents, don’t tell me you’re surprised I’ve tried to avoid that kind of interference. Do you think I would let those faceless idiots at the FDA dictate whether my father dies, how long it will take before all of us standing here will die, because I was afraid to flout some of their rules? And this is the same bureaucracy happy to let charlatans and hucksters peddle every kind of worthless snake oil to the desperate and dying, who will pay them anything to live just a little longer. The FDA scoff at them, yes, but they continue to let the scam artists rob people with their outlandish claims that their magical herbs, their absurd apricot pits, their pseudoscience diets will cure them of their diseases, extend their lives. Those are the people you should prosecute, those are the people you should arrest, Agents, those liars, not me!

  “Most of our important medical advances were discovered outside the bounds of accepted constraints. It was Quince’s and Cargill’s choice to take the treatments, they gave me their permission. And so I moved forward, and I’ve succeeded, given these two men fifteen years of life! Can you begin to imagine what that means? Fifteen more healthy years they wouldn’t have had!”

  Sherlock said, “And when they stop taking your magic pills? What will happen to them?”

  “I assume they’ll simply resume natural aging.”

  Cargill said, “Dr. Maddox, you told me I’d stay young forever!”

  “With the treatments, of course. But without it? I don’t know—how could I?” He drew himself up. “I know I’ll probably have to answer to the authorities for breaking their rules. So be it; I am prepared for that.”

  Sherlock said, “Tell us about your fountain of youth, Dr. Maddox.” She paused, added, “And tell us what you’re prepared to answer for.”

  Lister Maddox nodded, obviously pleased to be asked these questions. “The sought-after fountain of youth. People have tried to slow aging since the beginning of recorded history. The Taoists may have been the first to strive for immortality by following their magical diets and leading what they termed tranquil lives. They invented acupuncture and tai chi to help them, and those are still with us today.

  “You want to know why I have succeeded? In short, the genomic revolution, Agent. We age because our bodies have evolved to keep us alive and vigorous long enough to reproduce and nurture our young. Sooner or later, our cells stop dividing, become senescent, or die. We suffer dwindling strength, disease, debility. Since the beginning of time, we’ve had no choice but to submit to our own decay even though we fight it every step of the way.

  “We only recently started to see aging as a genomic illness, like cancer, activated by genomic pathways. It is our master regulatory genes that set the aging clock back to zero when each of us is born, the same genes that build and repair us. I’ve been lucky enough to stumble onto a small part of that programming and alert enough to appreciate what I’ve found. Imagine curing all the diseases of aging, all the tortures of frailty. Imagine the joy you’d feel at being rejuvenated! Talk to Cargill, see how he feels and you will hear wonder in his voice. And yet you stand there proposing to stop me?”

  Savich said, “Dr. Maddox, the rules are there to protect all of us from people who value the answers they seek more than they care about who they might hurt to get them. Consider the Nazi human experimentation. Undoubtedly, they justified their every action. And you, I notice you seem to be carefully avoiding talking about the crimes you’ve committed to develop your treatments.” Savich counted off on his fingers. “You haven’t mentioned your attempted murder of the young man in the hospital, or your kidnapping Kara Moody’s baby for some reason we still don’t understand. Tell us, what did you do to that young man lying in a coma? Can you show us his consent to be your test subject? Or did you kidnap him as well? Please do not throw out that old chestnut that the ends justify the means.”

  “I did only what I had to do.”

  Connie said, her voice vibrating with anger, “And kidnapping Alex Moody, a one-day-old baby? How does he fit in with your grand philosophizing? Were you planning on using him as a test subject as well?”

  He said nothing.

  Sherlock said, “It’s past time we see your father now, Dr. Maddox. We can wait for the warrant to arrive, but I see little point. Do you?”

  57

  A woman yelled, “Lister! Help me!”

  Sherlock looked up at the landing to see an older woman doing her best to support a man who was mumbling to himself, waving his arms, trying to pull free of her.

  “Lister, B.B. woke up. He raised his head when he heard the shouting, and he actually turned his head to the bedroom door. He started struggling to get up.” She wrapped her arms around him and said in a voice filled with wonder. “He looked at me, Lister, and said, ‘Help me, Hannah.’ I think he’s trying to get to you.”

  Lister seemed unable to move. He simply stared at the man and woman above him.

  Sherlock said, “Is that your father, Dr. Maddox? Is that Dr. B. B. Maddox?”

  Lister shouted over his shoulder as he ran up the stairs. “Yes, it’s my father! It’s worked, it’s worked! Hannah, it worked!”

  B. B. Maddox managed to pull free of Hannah and stagger toward the stairs to his son, leaning heavily against the wall to keep him steady.

  Lister couldn’t believe what he was seeing. His father looked confused, but there was cognizance in his eyes, awareness of what was around him. Lister’s heart leaped. It wasn’t that his father couldn’t walk, with help, thanks to Hannah’s incessant exercises, massages, and stretching, and to Cargill’s holding him up and walking with him every morning. But that flicker of light, that awareness, was it real?

  Lister was so elated he was dizzy. He reached his father, pulled him against him. “Father? You’re here? You’re really here?” He stopped short when he heard his father’s once-dominating voice say slowly, as if finding words was difficult, “All these voices, who are these people?”

  Lister caught his father as he sagged against him. “It’s all right, sir. You’re here, with me. These people don’t matter, ignore them.”

  His father pulled back and stared down at him. He cocked his head, a gesture from long ago. “What’s happened to you, Lister? You look old.”

  “I have aged, Father, fifteen years. Let me help you back upstairs, and I’ll tell you everything. Don’t worry about the agents, it’s a misunderstanding. I’ll clear it all up, don’t worry.”

  B.B. said, “I’m hungry.”

  Hannah said from behind him in her soothing voice, “I can get you some of your favorite poached salmon, B.B., how would that be?”

  He looked back at her, frowned. “Hannah? Why do you look so old?” He looked down uncertainly at Sherlock and Connie and Savich, showed no recognition of Cargill. His mouth worked, but only a moan came out. He collapsed into his son’s arms. Savich let Cargill run up the stairs and the three of them lifted B. B. Maddox and carried him down the hall, his head resting on his son’s arms.

  Savich, Sherlock, and Connie followed slowly. Connie paused a moment, to look into an antique gold-framed mirror. “I wonder if he’d be even more surprised to see himself now, if he looked.”

  Savich said, “I’ll keep an eye on them, Sherlock, you and Connie go find Alex Moody.”

  Sherlock and Connie walked down the long corridor, looking into guest rooms, a movie room, a gym. They heard a mewling sound and looked up to see a door open and a woman standing there, a baby in her arms.

  Sherlock said, “We’re FBI. Is that Alex Moody?”

  The woman looked back and forth between them, slowly nodded. “I’m very glad you’re here. I’m Ella Peters. Dr. Maddox is having me take care of the baby. He wanted me to hide him in the laundry, pretend I was a housekeeper, but I couldn’t do that. When I heard your voices, I knew help was here.”

  Sherlock took the baby from the woman’s arms. She looked down at the perfect little fa
ce and blurry blue eyes looking back at her. He was sucking on his fingers. “Is he well?”

  “Of course,” Ella said, patting his head. “He’s perfect. I’m a nurse.”

  Sherlock smiled down at him. “It’s good to see you again, Alex. Your mama’s going to be very happy.”

  Sherlock and Connie turned at the sound of Dr. Lister Maddox’s voice. “Take him back to the nursery, Ella! What are you doing?”

  “His name is Alex, Dr. Maddox, and he’s not staying here, not with you. He belongs with his mother.”

  Lister took a step forward, stopped, and sagged against the hallway wall. “You betray me, Ella? You betray my father?” Tears sheened his eyes. “He’s gone again, my father is gone.” He waved his hand toward Sherlock and the baby. “I suppose you will take him, like everything else.”

  “Dr. Maddox, we have the baby now, and we have Ella and the others to tell us everything we need to know. And we’ll soon find Sylvie Vaughn. Isn’t it time for you to admit to us what you’ve done, for you to help us put some lives together? Who is the young man in the hospital? Where is his family?”

  He only shook his head, said nothing.

  Ella said, “His name is Arthur Childers. I did my best for him as well. And there was another one before him, another subject. Dr. Maddox called him Enigma One. His name was Thomas Denham. He died.”

  “You stupid woman! After all I’ve accomplished! My work must continue, it must go on!”

  Connie said, “Cut the crap, Dr. Maddox. You used those men like lab rats. This nightmare is over, and you are going to jail. I pray for a very long time.”

  “How can you be so blind? You’ve seen Cargill! You’ve seen my seventy-eight-year-old father. Why can’t you understand I had to use human subjects?”

  Sherlock gave the baby to Connie, pulled flex-cuffs from her belt, walked over to Lister, and jerked his arms behind his back.

  “But the baby! Someone must study him! He could hold the answer for all of us!”

  Sherlock fastened the flex-cuffs around his wrists. “I thank the Lord none of that will ever be up to you again.”