Immortal (31 page)

It was a shock to go from a snowy day in the middle of New Jersey, to a hot salt flat in the heart of Arizona, in just under two days. And I was wearing equal-opportunity clothing, in the sense that it wasn’t appropriate for either climate. Especially my shoes, which might have made sense in a mall or an office building. A desert? Not so much.

   
But I didn’t have far to go. There was some risk I’d start walking in the wrong direction—a fairly common occurrence in deserts, if memory served—but I was aided greatly by the occasional reflection I saw on the horizon. Somebody out there was watching me through a pair of binoculars. I headed toward them.

I’m not a huge fan of deserts. They’re hell for my memory, for one thing, because I’m just old enough to remember when a couple of the smaller ones were bodies of water. And there’s nothing more upsetting than to think you’re about to come up on a nice cool lake, only to discover that the beach has taken over the place. Historically, I tended to stick to the more fertile regions—coastlines and the like—with Egypt being a notable exception. There are lots of ways to end up dead while living near the sea, but at least then it takes an exceptional event (volcanoes, floods, severe storms) to do it. In a desert, surviving the day is the exceptional event.

The ground was reasonably hard—good for walking—but entirely flat, so it never felt like I was making any progress at all, right up until I was close enough to see who was waiting for me. Two men standing next to a Humvee. At first, I thought the clothes they wore were army-issue gear, which introduced a whole slew of problems. I knew Grindel had private financial backers, but if one of those backers was the United States Government, I was in serious trouble. Because no matter how powerful a person or company in the private sector might be, they’re still limited—theoretically—by laws. Governments don’t have that kind of problem. But they weren’t army-issue at all, as I realized when I got closer. No insignias of any kind. It was more like hunting gear, or an outfit you’d find for sale in the back of
Soldier of Fortune
.

Both were armed and made no effort to disguise this. The guns weren’t army-issue either.

“Hello, boys,” I said, once in earshot. The first one—a squat, deeply tanned man with an entire can of chewing tobacco in his cheek and a set of binoculars around his neck—had the business end of what looked to be a fully automatic Uzi pointed at my chest. I added, “I know I don’t really keep up with all the gun laws, but aren’t those things illegal?”

The other guy was a tall, rail-thin black man who appeared to be much more relaxed in demeanor than his counterpart. I got the idea that he was in charge. He was holding a handgun at rest at his side. In his other hand he had a radio. “State your name,” the tall one barked.

“Adam,” I said. “Mr. Grindel is expecting me.”

He nodded. “Delivery confirmed,” he said into the radio.

“Why’d you walk?” the short one asked.

“Seemed like a nice day for one,” I said. “Got any water?”

He glanced at the guy with the radio—definitely confirming for me who was in charge—and, gaining assent, pulled a bottle of Poland Springs from his back pocket. He tossed it to me. I drank the whole thing in a few seconds. Never ever take clean water for granted. Just trust me on this.

I tossed the empty back to him, which he swatted away to the ground. Litterer. “Please tell me that thing behind you has air conditioning.”

He spat some black spittle on the ground and stepped aside, pulling open the back door. “Get in,” he said, a trail of spit still on his lip, which was moderately disgusting.

The tall one hooked the radio to his belt. “Come on, we’re on a schedule.”

I stepped to the open door and prepared to climb in.

“Bag,” the one with the Uzi and the spittle said.

“What?”

“Hand over the bag.”

I did. He tossed it over his shoulder to the second man, who zipped it open.

“Wow,” he said. “You got a lot of cash in here, pal.”

“I’m not big on credit.”

Tall black guy fished the gun from the bag. He fixed me with an arch look and then tossed the gun as far away from the Humvee as he could. He did the same with the tape recorder and the cell phone—I had mailed Grindel’s no-longer-utile phone, along with dead John’s unused one, to Tchekhy from the motel the night before—and then shoved the bag into the front seat through the open window. “You won’t need the money where you’re going,” he said, “so we’ll be hanging onto it for you.”

“Can I get a receipt?”

Shorty shoved the barrel of his gun into my ribs. “Shut up and get in.”

I was going to do just that, largely because I wanted to get out of the sun. But then another option occurred to me.

“Hey,” I said, “you know what I just realized?” I slammed the door. “You guys can’t shoot me.”

With my right hand I pushed the barrel of the Uzi into the side of the Humvee, spun around and swung my left elbow into tobacco boy’s ear. He got two impacts for one when the other side of his head hit the roof of the truck. He sagged to the ground. His partner, rather than fire on me, did just about what I was expecting him to do. He tried to club me with the gun. If he was smart about it, he would have tried to wound me with a shot to the leg or something, but no doubt his orders specifically forbade such an act. I ducked his swing, and he hit the car instead. So far the Humvee was getting the worst end of this deal.

I jabbed my fingers into his solar plexus—his midsection was exposed—which effectively reduced the amount of oxygen he had to work with to zero. Then it was just a matter of pinching the right spot on his wrist to get him to release the handgun. I spun him around, wrapped my arm around his neck, and shoved the barrel of the gun into his ear.

“The radio,” I said. “Toss it to the ground.”

Still gasping unpleasantly for air to the extent he was having trouble standing up straight, he fumbled about until the radio was freed. It landed a few feet from the front tire. I fired a bullet into it. He flinched just a bit with the report, as he should have.

“Does he have one?” I asked, meaning the unconscious guy at his feet.

He nodded.

“Get it.”

I released him so he could pat down his partner and unearth the second radio. He held it up.

“Put it on the ground and stomp on it,” I suggested.

“They’re expecting us to radio in on the way,” he said, having reclaimed most of his wind.

“No, they aren’t,” I said. “You already told them you were en route, and we can’t be that far. Now destroy it. I don’t want your buddy to wake up and tip off anybody.”

He complied, reluctantly. “Now what?” he asked. “You gonna drive there yourself?”

“No,” I said. “You’re driving. But first, why don’t you bend down and get that Uzi for me?”

*
 
*
 
*

The Humvee was indeed air conditioned, which was a truly marvelous thing. Would that someone had invented it earlier, Khufu would have never left the palace if it had central air. I certainly wouldn’t have.

I sat in the back and kept the Uzi pointed at the driver’s seat while my tall friend drove us to wherever the hell it was we were going.

“I don’t see the point in this,” he said calmly as he steered. He had decided I wasn’t planning to shoot him, which was approximately true for the moment. “You’re going to end up in the same place either way.”

“True,” I agreed, “but I always like to be the one holding the gun. I’m quirky like that. So what are you, a merc?”

“Private security detail,” he said. “We guard the whole compound.”

“You don’t strike me as a security guard.”

“It’s a pretty high-end company,” he said. “We do a lot of overseas work. Middle East, mainly.”

“Hence the hardware.”

“Yeah. First job I’ve been on where everybody spoke English.”

“Tell me about the compound.”

He smiled and rubbed the back of his neck. The gesture said,
oops, did I say compound?
“It’s an old army base.”

“Uh-huh. And what goes on there?”

“I dunno.”

“Excuse me?” I poked his lower back through the seat. This did almost no good at all, as it appeared the back of his chair had some metal in it. I would have to remember that in the event I needed to actually shoot him.

“Seriously,” he said. “I’m pretty new to this assignment.”

“All right, what do you
think
is going on there?”

He hesitated briefly, deciding whether there was any point in being unhelpful. “I think it’s a laboratory. But everyone involved is very Manhattan Project about it. I honestly couldn’t tell you what they’re working on.”

He shot a look back at me. “Do you know?” I wondered if this was what all the security team members did with their free time—sit around and guess what they were guarding.

“Would I be asking if I did?”

“I figured . . . I don’t know what your deal is with all of this, man. All we were told was to pick up a hostile. But I didn’t see anybody holding a gun to you when you walked up.”

“Do I seem hostile now?”

“Hey, I guess you have your reasons.”

We’d been driving along the salt flats for a good twenty minutes. Up ahead I could see the beginnings of an actual hill.

“Seen anybody else lately?” I asked. “New people brought into the place in the past day or two?”

“Yeah. Early this morning. They brought in some woman by helicopter.”

“Cute?”

“Didn’t see her myself. Guy who told me about it seemed to think so, but you spend enough time out here and that could mean anything. Male-female ratio’s about forty to one. Couple a cooks, that’s it. And they’re old.”

We drove around the hill. Up ahead, surrounded by a tall fence, was our destination.

Considering the whole place was in the middle of a mess of nothing, the fence seemed superfluous, unless it was designed more to keep people in, than keep people out. To that extent, it did have a sort of prison-like feel to it. I could only see a couple of buildings past the entrance and a small guard booth at the gate. The buildings looked like old Quonset huts that had arrived straight from a black-and-white war movie.

“Just how old is this base?” I asked.

“Real old.”

“And you all stay here 24-7?”

“There’s a barracks building up and to the right. It sleeps a lot more than what we have, but that’s where we’ve been staying. The mess is there, too.”

“What about the other buildings?”

“On the perimeter, not much else is in use. And we mostly stick to the perimeter.”

“There’s no security in the middle?”

“I didn’t say that. We just don’t cover that territory.”

The guard at the gate opened the tollbooth arm for us and waved us through. We were most definitely expected. He didn’t seem to notice we were short a passenger.

From the gate, the driver took a left on a fairly well-defined road that skirted along the outside of the compound. To our right it was nothing but one drab, one-story gray building after another. This was definitely a place designed by someone from the Army Corps of Engineers.

“So, these are what, more barracks?”

“Some. We just passed the officers’ club. Not in use.”

“And you’ve been here how long?”

“Personally? Only four months. Guess the contract is older.”

“How old?”

“Three years or so.”

That was curious. The way I had it figured, Grindel had only been actively looking for me for about six months. Whatever this project was, he didn’t need me for the first thirty months of it.

The driver slowed and took a right, and then we were negotiating our way between two of the similar huts. Ahead, I saw a lone individual standing and waiting for us. He was wearing a three-piece suit and sunglasses and did not strike me as all that physically imposing in general. But he did look like he was born to wear the suit. It had to be Robert Grindel.

“Here we are,” the man behind the wheel announced, coming to a stop a few feet from Grindel and turning off the engine. “Now what?”

“Now I pick up the lady you described and get the hell out of here,” I said, adding, “you’ve been very forthcoming. I appreciate that.”

“No problem. It’s not the first time I’ve been in a hostage situation. I find it’s best to just answer the questions.”

“Good advice. Now I’d like to get out of this car without having to shoot you, seeing as you’ve been so nice about everything so far. We’re going to get out of our respective doors on the count of three, and if you do anything stupid I’m going to cut you in half. Got that?”

He nodded.

“Leave the keys in the ignition. We go on three.”

I counted to three and the two of us slid smoothly out of the Humvee with nary a bump. Clearly, he really had done this before. I shut my door and pressed the Uzi into his side, holding it in my left hand.

“Adam!” the man in the suit said. “Glad you could make it. I’m Robert Grindel.”

“I gathered.” After three steps toward him, I pushed the driver to the ground and drew the handgun from where it was stuffed in my belt. I pointed it at Grindel. The Uzi I kept trained on the driver, who wisely stayed down on his knees.

Grindel’s expression clouded, but he stood his ground. “There’s no need for that,” he said, in a tsk-tsk sort of voice one reserves for children.

“Sure there is,” I said. “What did you think, we’d have a nice chat? I’m here for the girl and then I’m leaving.”

“Oh, I don’t think so,” he said, smiling. There was something particular about him that bothered me, and it was around then that I realized exactly what it was.

“We’ve met before,” I said.

“Very good,” he said. “I looked more classically nerdish back then. And you were a drunk who spent the evening talking about immortality. I didn’t take you seriously, not until much later when I discovered such a thing as yourself was theoretically possible. And here we are.”

Inwardly I was kicking myself. All this time wondering who had told this guy about me and all I had to do was look in the mirror.

“Have you read any of the speculative work of Doctor Viktor Kopalev?” Grindel asked. “It’s very enlightening.”