Immortal (32 page)

“I’m not much for scientific papers,” I said.

“Ah. Well, you’ll meet him soon enough. He’ll tell you all about it. Fascinating stuff.”

“Where’s Clara?” I asked by way of changing the subject.

“Safe.”

I stepped closer. He still didn’t appear particularly concerned. “Get her,” I demanded.

“Adam, look around you. Did you think I didn’t know you were capable of overpowering a two-man security detail?”

I chanced a few sidelong glances and realized that, yes, I’d misjudged the situation rather seriously. What had been a big empty clearing a minute earlier was now a perimeter of armed men. They must have been in the buildings when we drove up.

“They can’t stop me from killing you,” I insisted. “And I’m pretty sure they’re not going to kill me.”

“Why not?”

“The bounty hunters were told to take me alive, and so were the men you sent for me just now. Whatever you need me to do, I’m of no use dead.”

“That’s true,” he admitted. “But if I’m dead . . . that’s a different situation, isn’t it?” He smiled. “You can’t kill me without killing yourself. I’d call this a stalemate.”

“You’d make a decent hostage,” I said. “Now once again. Where is Clara?”

He sighed heavily. “You seem to be under a certain misapprehension. Ms. Wassermann isn’t here as a prisoner. She’s a volunteer.”

I blinked about six times. When you’re holding two guns and watching a closing circle of armed men in your peripheral vision, this is about the only way to record surprise. “You’re lying,” I insisted.

“I’m not. She contacted me shortly after you left. I guess the reward money was too much to pass up. She’s a few buildings behind me, having a nice meal and probably contemplating how to best spend it. She’s even asked if she can stay on. This is a very exciting project, you see. Once I explained it to her, she was quite interested.”

“I don’t believe you,” I said, even though I sort of did.

“Why not?” he asked. “If she’s the only reason you came here in the first place, why would I tell you such a thing, if it wasn’t true?”

He had a point. “All right. Then you and I are leaving. Right now.”

“Adam,” he said patiently, as if I’d disappointed him terribly. “We have her here.”

“Who?” I asked. “Clara? You just told me—”

“Not Clara. Can I show you something?”

“Maybe later,” I said. “I’m a little pressed for time right now.” The perimeter had closed to about fifteen feet, which was really more of an intimidation thing than anything else, because if they all started firing, they’d probably shoot each other. They hadn’t cut off my access to the car yet, though.

Grindel said, “I’m going to reach into my jacket pocket for a small device. Looks like a miniature television set.”

“Slowly,” I said.

“Of course.” He slipped his left hand into his pocket and emerged with what looked to be a PDA. He held it out. “Take a look.”

I dropped the Uzi to free up my hand—I only needed one hostage at this point—took the device, and looked at the image captured on the screen.

“That’s a live local video feed,” he said. “I know it doesn’t seem like a video image, but that’s only because she rarely moves.”

It was the red-haired woman.

She was sitting cross-legged on the floor of a white room next to a cot, looking directly at the camera. There was no way it could have been anybody else.

Grindel said, “We have a few tests we need to run on you. That’s all. And when we’re done, I’ll let you meet her. I know that’s something you’ve been waiting a long time to do.”

“She’s here,” I said dully. “She’s
alive
.” I couldn’t take my eyes off the screen.

“Yes, on both counts, although I’m not about to tell you precisely where. I’m sure you understand why.”

I wavered. “Bring her here,” I muttered. “I’ll . . .”

“I’m not going to do that, Adam. I was never going to give you Clara, and I’m not going to let you have your red-haired friend either. Not until after we’re done.” He leaned in closer, which he could do as I’d apparently lowered my gun. “A minute ago you were willing to die before surrendering. Do you still think it’s worth it?”

I dropped the gun. “You win.”

*
 
*
 
*

And that was my final mistake. Bob isn’t going to let me walk out of here when we’re done, and I don’t think he’s going to grant me my audience with the red-haired woman either. It’s just not in his nature.

I remember reading an article about how the big drug companies don’t tend to pursue experiments on herbal remedies because it’s impossible to patent a substance that can be found in nature. Well, I can’t be patented either. But there’s only one of me, and I can be destroyed.

It’s the only way he can possibly protect his investment.

I’ve been staring at a keyhole for two hours. Or maybe it only feels like two hours. I can’t tell for sure, because the passage of time is one of those things I need the sun or the moon for, and I can’t see either of them from where I’m sitting. A watch would do the trick but they took mine away a long time ago, which I’m convinced they did just because they knew it would annoy me. My own fault for becoming attached to the concept of time. Back in the African bush I didn’t care what day it was, and the concept of seasons was fairly dim in a region where the seasonal change was minimal. Right about now, with every day beginning and ending more or less the same way, I’m finding myself envious of that particular mindset.

   
Anyway, my point—two hours is probably a generous estimate. Let’s just say it’s been a while and move on.

The keyhole is attached to the only door to my padded cell. There is nothing extraordinary whatsoever about the room aside from the padding, the lack of a window, and the fact that I have been stuck inside of it for a fairly long time. I’ve certainly checked. The most interesting thing about the room is that on the other side of the padding is a layer of concrete, which came as something of a surprise when I first discovered it because from the outside the standalone building looks like a basic Quonset hut with old wood plank walls and a couple of windows that didn’t used to be fake. If there was only the padding and the wood planks in my way, I would have been out of here a long time ago. Clearly, Bob had the interior redone in anticipation of my arrival.

Bob’s a good details man. A quick look at the outside of the second hut, which is about five feet away from mine, illustrates that point fairly well. Unlike all the others—there are four prison huts altogether, in a row, near the center of the compound—the second hut is reinforced on the inside with steel rather than cement. Whatever is inside of it is considerably stronger than I am and would probably look longingly at a cement wall the same way I look at wood planking. It’s also a whole lot stronger than Ringo, my demon guard, based on the damage it’s caused from the inside. The door and all of the walls have been pounded on mercilessly, to the point where metal can be seen bursting through the wood planks, like a balloon popping out of a papier-mâché shell. Things have been quiet in cell number two for a long time now. It’s either dead or it’s hoping somebody with a key comes to that conclusion and opens the door.

I’m pretty sure the red-haired woman is in hut number four, because I heard some very unladylike moaning coming from the third cell a couple of weeks ago. I never heard the red-haired woman speak, but I’m pretty positive she wouldn’t sound like that if enticed to moan. She seems more of the mezzo-soprano type and this was something of an alto. Being castrated, maybe. God only knows what actually made that noise.

I am trying to get used to calling her Eve. That’s what Viktor and the lab techs call her. It’s a bit hokey, and probably only given to her because I’m going by the name of Adam—I think if I’d been using Othello they’d be calling her Desdemona—but as I’d never seen fit to assign any name to her after ten millennia, it’s about time I started trying one out. Repeatedly referring to her as “the red-haired woman,” after all, is a little unwieldy, and makes me sound a bit like a
Peanuts
character. (I didn’t know Charles Schulz, but I like to think sometimes that Charlie Brown’s obsession with the red-haired little girl was the universe’s homage to me personally.)

These are the things I think about when I have nothing else to do outside of staring at keyholes. And I’ve had nothing else to do for some time now. Aside from the daily trips to the lab. Those barely count.

*
 
*
 
*

Underneath me, between the cot mattress and the springs, is a folded up sheet of onion paper, and on the sheet of onion paper, drawn in black magic marker, is a scale map of the entire compound. I could stare at the map instead of the keyhole, except that the map is the closest thing I’ve had to reading material this whole time. I have thus committed it to memory several times over and am prepared to argue that the keyhole is more interesting.

I have by now translated the contents of the map into a mental three-dimensional construct that I think is accurate enough to bet my life on, which is exactly what I’ll be doing, provided something exciting happens involving the keyhole somewhat soon.

Just by counting paces, I could navigate the whole compound with my eyes closed. It’s exactly ninety-seven paces from the door of my cell to the door of the lab. I verify that every day. (It is also either sixty-three or sixty-five demon paces, depending on Ringo’s mood. Not relevant, but collecting useless data is a good way to pass the time, so there you go.) Knowing the paces between two points on the map, I was able to extrapolate distances to other buildings fairly easily, even though I’ve never been to any of them.

The administrative building, for example. Never been there. Hope to soon. It’s across the way from the laboratory and it is where Bob Grindel works. He’s got an office right above the central awning that covers the front door. Nice big picture window and everything. I look up every day and stare at that window, and even though nine times out of ten the sunrise makes it impossible to look through the glass—the admin building faces east and we’re in Arizona, which has so much sun I’m starting to miss New England—I’ve been able to get a couple of glimpses of him looking down at me. Even flipped him the finger once. Didn’t change my situation at all, except that it made me feel better.

I haven’t had many chances to talk to Bob. He stopped by a couple of times to lay on the bullshit about how he’s going to be setting me free just as soon as Viktor is done in the lab. On neither occasion did I have an opportunity to do much more than sneer and try out a few old insults in some dead languages. This is mainly because Bob tends to travel around with Brutus, the other demon of the inner compound. He and Ringo constitute the only security in the inner circle of buildings, which is pretty much exactly how my security force hostage described it when I first arrived. The human security—I believe there are about twenty-five of them, if Clara’s count is accurate—cover the perimeter, the demons roam the center, and ne’er the twain shall meet. That may be because Bob doesn’t want any of the guards to see a demon, and to thus declare loudly, “sweet Jesus, what is that thing?” as this can be awkward. More likely, Bob doesn’t want any humans to notice he’s keeping prisoners, as this is generally considered illegal if one is not an actual government. And sometimes not even then.

Speaking of Clara, I’m still not sure what to do about her. She did smuggle Iza into the place, for which I’m enormously grateful. That she even knew Iza existed meant she eavesdropped on me while I was on the roof of her building, but that’s a minor indiscretion, all things considered. Far more serious is the fact that I probably wouldn’t be sitting in this cell staring at a keyhole if Clara hadn’t tricked me into rescuing her in the first place. So I don’t know why she sent me Iza, or drew the map (which Iza carried in, hence the onion sheet) or gave me all the information about the size of the security force. I don’t like trusting someone only because I have nobody else around to trust.