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  Oppenheimer shook his head vigorously.

  ‘No, that’s not possible. You know for yourself now, it’s true. These men are some two hundred years old and haven’t aged since they encountered whatever it was that caused this.’

  Wolfe leaned back in his chair, seemingly unperturbed by the revelations.

  ‘I doubt, Jeb, that your clientele would appreciate discovering that their elixir of youth would only extend their lives by a few decades.’

  Oppenheimer cracked his cane down on his desk, pointing a finger at Wolfe’s image on the screen.

  ‘It makes no difference. What nature provides we can improve. Once we know how the bacteria work we can make the necessary genetic alterations to enhance performance. By the time my clients realize that they’re vulnerable we’ll have had another fifty, sixty or seventy years to research improvements.’

  Wolfe grinned coldly.

  ‘But the price, Jeb,’ he said. ‘It will suffer.’

  Oppenheimer felt his throat constrict. His voice gurgled as he struggled to control himself.

  ‘You worry about ensuring that what happens in New Mexico stays in New Mexico. Let me worry about who’s paying for what. Right now we’re selling a concept that alongside global population control will enhance the quality of the human race a hundredfold in just a few decades, and the glory of it all is that we’ll still be around to see it.’

  Wolfe examined his fingertips as he spoke.

  ‘And if any one of those clients were to see the state of Lee Carson’s arms in the meantime?’ he suggested offhandedly.

  Oppenheimer growled his reply.

  ‘I take it that your silence on this matter is required once more.’

  ‘As you like to say,’ Wolfe replied, ‘everybody can be bought. And my price just doubled.’

  Oppenheimer ground his teeth.

  ‘So be it.’

  Wolfe’s demeanor instantly changed. He held the cards now, and Jeb knew it. For as long as Wolfe was the only security against Oppenheimer’s exposure, he could call the shots.

  ‘Good. I’ll see what can be done this end to ensure Lee Carson’s body remains in our possession. In the meantime, I suggest that you carry out your search as quickly as possible.’

  ‘What’s the rush?’ Oppenheimer asked. ‘They’ve been out there for decades and they’re not going anywhere.’

  ‘No,’ Wolfe smiled, ‘but Lee Carson was reputedly killed by one of his friends, a man who fled the scene with several accomplices. That suggests discord within their ranks. Their vehicle was found abandoned in the wilderness seventy miles south of Socorro. If Carson was killed by his own companions – the men that you seek – how long before they wind up taking themselves out altogether?’

  Oppenheimer grimaced. ‘I don’t possess an army to conduct the search.’

  ‘No,’ Wolfe conceded, ‘but I have connections with ex-soldiers, people willing to work without asking questions. I will send a hundred of them down to New Mexico under the guise of a civilian survival-training course. They will be at your disposal from when they arrive, and I will ensure they are equipped to deal with your little problem.’

  With that, Wolfe disconnected their video link. Oppenheimer sat in impotent silence for a moment, cursing Wolfe’s apparent stupidity. A hundred men might take a decade, even a century, to find two fugitives in the desert. But of course, Oppenheimer had an advantage that he would not share with Wolfe, one that would ensure that once the bacteria were in his hands, Wolfe could go sing for his payment.

  Oppenheimer tapped a few keys on his computer, accessing Google Earth and zooming in to New Mexico, then typed in an Internet Protocol address. Moments later, a tiny flashing dot appeared deep in the desert, and Oppenheimer smiled.

  ‘Hello, Ms Lopez.’

  USAMRIID

  FORT DETRICK

  MARYLAND

  2.58 p.m.

  Donald Wolfe stared at the now blank screen of his monitor for a long moment, thinking about what Jeb Oppenheimer had said, before he looked up at the pockmarked face of the soldier standing before him. Red Hoffman had a round, pale face and fiery ginger hair that gave him his name, and his eyes were like narrow slits pinched between his puffy features. He stood to attention wearing all-black combat fatigues festooned with radios, pouches and a pistol holster.

  ‘Gather your men,’ Wolfe ordered. ‘They’ll be tasked with a search and destroy training mission concerning some potentially lethal carcinogens being carried by suspected terrorists.’

  Hoffman nodded, saluting smartly.

  ‘Can we expect resistance from the targets?’ he asked with military efficiency.

  ‘From one of them at least.’ Wolfe nodded. ‘Ethan Warner. The rest are nothing that should concern you. I feel certain that with odds of one hundred to eight in your favor, victory should be assured.’

  Hoffman smiled, saluted again, then marched out of Wolfe’s office.

  42

  GLENCOE

  NEW MEXICO

  5.20 p.m.

  ‘You sure about this?’

  Lopez’s voice sounded tiny in the immense silence of the wilderness surrounding them. Ethan stared out across the barren landscape and took a mouthful of water from his bottle before pushing it back into his webbing. His limbs and joints still ached after his earlier unplanned flight from Ellison Thorne’s car, but not enough to hold him back.

  ‘Only way to get to the bottom of this is to find these people and figure out what the hell’s happening to them.’

  Lopez was wearing a rucksack like Ethan’s, a military-issue Bergen containing a bedroll, sleeping bag, supplies and a webbing belt with water bottle, ration packs and medical kit, all picked up in Albuquerque on the journey south. The load weighed almost as much as she did, a burden she would never have carried as a detective in DC’s Metropolitan Police Force.

  Since boldly handing in her badge and founding Warner/Lopez Inc. with Ethan, Lopez had come to realize that working for herself was not all it was cracked up to be. A steady, predictable salary in the force had been replaced with an endless succession of good months and bad months, traveling expenses and now hiking through ninety-degree heat in a desert. To top it all, they were not armed.

  ‘Maybe,’ she said, taking a drink from her own water bottle as they walked across open ground toward a vast mountain range ahead. ‘But we’re blind here, Ethan, following a hunch that could lead us further from the truth, not toward it.’

  Ethan shook his head, jabbing a thumb over his shoulder toward the small town of Glencoe now far behind them on trail Fs443, beyond the rolling hills trembling in the heat haze.

  ‘Ellison Thorne and his men abandoned their car a mile outside of Glencoe on this track. That means they were heading south, and they’ve obviously decided to do so on foot. There must be a reason for that and it can’t just be about getting away from SkinGen and Jeb Oppenheimer, or anyone else for that matter. These guys are good at staying out of sight: they’ve done it well enough for the last hundred forty years. They must be heading in this direction for a good reason.’

  Lopez looked about her in disbelief.

  ‘Well, they couldn’t have picked a worse place to go. There’s nothing out here but shrubs, dust and scorpions for a hundred miles.’

  Ethan smiled.

  ‘You’d be surprised what you can find out here to survive on, if you know where to look.’

  ‘Thanks, oh Great White Hunter,’ Lopez said. ‘I assume that all you ex-Marines can mix up gravel, flowers and a chunk of horse crap to make a bomb or something.’

  ‘Something like that.’

  Lopez shrugged, looking down at her feet as she walked. ‘You think we’re doing the right thing?’

  ‘Sure we are,’ Ethan replied. ‘We’ll catch them up in no time.’

  ‘I didn’t mean that,’ Lopez said. ‘I mean everything, bail-bonds, the DIA, the whole nine yards?’

  Ethan slowed in his walk, scanning the horizon thoughtfull
y as he did so.

  ‘You getting cold feet?’

  ‘Just thinking, that’s all. We’re not making much out of the bonds we’re tracking down – too much competition. It’s getting hard to make ends meet, and now we’re out here sweating ourselves to death for the DIA with no guarantee we can earn our fee.’

  Ethan stopped walking and looked at her.

  ‘Without the DIA we’d only have bonds and bounty hunting. Things would be a lot worse then.’ He sighed. ‘I know things are tight for you right now, but you’ve only got to ask.’

  Lopez looked away from him toward the lonely mountains in the distance.

  ‘I got it covered,’ she lied.

  ‘That’s what you always say,’ Ethan pointed out. ‘If you’ve got it covered, then why are we having this conversation?’

  Lopez started walking again. ‘I’m just worried about tomorrow is all.’

  ‘Would you have asked Lucas for help?’

  Lopez stopped in mid-stride, her head flicking round with a swirl of long black hair and her dark eyes glaring at Ethan.

  ‘The hell’s that supposed to mean?’

  ‘That maybe you’d rather be back in the force. Maybe this venture of ours isn’t enough for you, and you need the stability you had before.’

  Lopez stared at him for a long time as though unsure of what to say.

  ‘What about you?’ she retorted. ‘The only reason you got into all of this was because you were looking for Joanna.’ Truth was, Ethan had rarely spoken of his fiancée to Lopez, and whenever it had come up he had avoided the issue. ‘We’ve both got our reasons for being here, even if they aren’t what we’d want them to be.’

  ‘I got cleaned up,’ Ethan replied, not taking offense. ‘People change. Fact is I’m not the one who’s been breaking the law for a quick buck.’

  ‘It’s for my family,’ Lopez shot back, ‘who are poor and who I see maybe once a year, if that. Yours are wealthy, living in the same goddamned city and yet you haven’t spoken to them in years.’

  ‘That’s different.’

  ‘Sure it is. But I’m not the one questioning your loyalty.’

  A silence descended upon them as they walked, Lopez feeling somewhat disappointed but unsure why. Maybe she’d been alone for too many years, self-reliant, self-sufficient and yet lonely all the same. Next to the late Lucas Tyrell, Ethan was the closest thing to a real friend that she’d had since arriving in America twenty years before. The realization tempered her mood slightly.

  ‘So, when do you think you can pick up their trail?’ she asked.

  Ethan scanned the horizon, checked the angle of the sun and finally looked at his watch with a smile that told her their argument was over, for now at least.

  ‘Well, best guess would be about five minutes ago.’

  ‘My ass.’

  Ethan pointed at the dusty earth beneath their feet, just to the right of where Lopez was walking.

  ‘They’re smart guys, wearing flat-bottom boots to minimize impressions and they’re weaving between bushes to avoid snapping off twigs. But they were in a hurry to get away from the Interstate after the shooting, so they’ve had to move fast. You can see the occasional scuff here and there, definitely human, not running but walking real fast.’

  Lopez squinted at the dusty, stony earth, unable to see a thing.

  ‘Can you tell what color pants they were wearing?’

  ‘They’re heading directly south,’ Ethan said, ignoring her. ‘And are unlikely to be trying to throw us off the scent. They won’t be expecting the police to follow them out here, even with dogs. They left nothing of any use behind at the scene to track them from. I’m hoping they’ll keep running until they get right away from inhabited areas, and that’s where we’ll catch them up.’

  ‘Supposin’ you’re right,’ she said cautiously. ‘What do we do then?’

  Ethan blinked the sweat out of his eyes, and shrugged.

  ‘Before Lee Carson died, he mentioned Saffron Oppenheimer’s name. She’s obviously got something to do with all of this.’

  ‘What did he say about her, exactly?’ Lopez asked.

  ‘It was weird,’ Ethan replied. ‘He said “Let you kill her”. I don’t know what he meant.’

  Lopez said nothing, and together they hiked out further into the wilderness, the sun rising high into the burning blue sky above them and beating relentlessly down on the parched barren land.

  It had been some years since Ethan had pushed out over rough terrain, carrying weight on his back, in pursuit of the unknown. In Iraq and Afghanistan, his platoon had found itself under fire from Taliban soldiers intent on driving American forces from their lands or dying in the process. Now they had only the wilderness itself to fear, but Ethan felt strangely certain that they were not alone as they trekked further away from civilization. He looked up at the hills around him, peppered with thorn scrub and bushes, perfect places for their quarry to hide out with a rifle and check their tail. Tactically, he and Lopez were sitting ducks following the trail in the depths of the valley, but Ethan guessed that Ellison Thorne and his mysterious companions would be trying to put distance between themselves and law enforcement before placing sentries.

  They walked for another three long, hot hours, resting every now and then in what shade they could find, rationing their water and consulting the map Ethan had brought with him to ensure they were not drifting off course or too far from water. The sun was starting to sink toward the horizon, filling the valleys with deep shadows, when Ethan paused to kneel over a patch of dirt between the bushes. Lopez stood beside him, looking down at the same nondescript area.

  ‘What? You think one of them had a crap here?’

  Ethan looked over his shoulder at her in bemusement.

  ‘No, but they’ve split up somewhere behind us. I can only see one track right now, not the three we had before.’

  Lopez squatted down alongside him, glancing around her nervously.

  ‘These guys have got rifles, Ethan, and all we’ve got is matches,’ she said. ‘You think they’re trying to ambush us?’

  Ethan looked at her, and then moved closer, their faces only inches apart as he spoke.

  ‘Don’t move a muscle.’

  43

  Lopez’s dark almond eyes were fixed on Ethan’s as he turned slowly to face her, and although she did not move he saw a flicker of amusement twinkle behind her eyes.

  ‘Are you hitting on me?’ she whispered.

  Ethan leaned in even closer to her. ‘Getting excited?’

  Lopez looked at him furtively for a moment.

  ‘Not just yet.’

  Ethan’s hand shot down to her right foot and snatched something that flashed past her face in a writhing mass. She saw his hand gripping the neck of a colorfully banded coral snake that had been coiling itself across her boot.

  ‘Jesus!’

  Lopez leapt backwards and landed on her ass as Ethan tossed the snake away into the bushes. He made sure the snake was gone before looking at her.

  ‘Sorry, had to do something subtle else you’d have freaked.’

  ‘Christ, Ethan, you think?’ she said as she got back to her feet. ‘That damned near scared me half to death.’

  ‘The hitting on you or the snake?’

  She looked at him, and managed a brief smile. ‘Both.’

  ‘Come on,’ he said, ‘we need to find out where we are.’

  Lopez squatted back down beside him and pulled out their map from one of her webbing pouches. In the fading light the map was not easy to read, but Ethan did not use his flashlight.

  ‘We’re here, southeast of these hills,’ Ethan said. The map showed where a series of long dried-out streams had joined another, larger flow where they now were, which then split once again ahead of them. ‘They’re probably following a track each, all still heading roughly southeast.’

  Lopez traced a finger along the map.

  ‘Dammit, Ethan, there’s nothing out here at al
l until Artesia, and that’s seventy miles away. We’re going to be a long way from any supply line.’

  Ethan nodded, looking up toward the horizon. New Mexico was divided into life zones: lower Sonoran, upper Sonoran, transition, Canadian, Hudsonian, and arctic-alpine. Each contained its own vegetation and terrain, with shrubs and grasses giving way to piñon, juniper woodland, sagebrush and chaparral then ponderosa pine and oaks mixed with conifers, aspen and spruce forests on the higher ground. And their quarry could be hiding out in any one of those varied terrains.

  ‘We’ll have to move quickly,’ Ethan agreed. ‘As you just found out, we’re not the only living things out here.’

  Ethan had already spotted pronghorn antelope and ring tails. He knew that black bears roamed the higher ground too, formidable creatures not averse to attacking humans if hungry or provoked. Tarantulas, coral snakes and rattlers infested the deserts wherever one traveled, and could end a life in a flash of fangs.

  Ethan scanned the map directly south of their position.

  ‘There’s the town of Hope, but that’s almost as far. The rest of it’s just wilderness.’ He squinted up at the sun now setting behind the seemingly lifeless hills and valleys. ‘They must have another vehicle stashed out here, or horses perhaps.’

  Lopez nodded.

  ‘Or they’re really hard core, and intend to stay on foot and take their time getting to wherever they’re going.’

  Ethan was about to reply when something caught his eye, a flicker of movement up on one of the valleys, stark against the bright orange sky. He didn’t move, slowly folding the map and slipping it into his webbing pouch while looking at the ridge above with a fixed gaze. Lopez sensed his sudden tension.

  ‘You got something?’ she whispered, as motionless now as he was.

  ‘Something just sky-lined itself up there to the right of us,’ he whispered. He was about to write it off as an animal or bird of some kind when it moved again, the unmistakable shape of a human head bobbing as it hurried down the hillside.