Elixir. Part 45

"Maybe you should write the detective stories."

"You were going to blackmarket it," Roger continued. "Quentin's little dream of getting around the FDA-sell it to high rollers."

"So disrespectful to speak ill of the dead."

"Without him you'll have to find another lab. Or somebody who knows how to make it."

"You may be immortal, but you're not indispensable," the Frenchman said. "That's not our interest."

The American in the black jacket tapped his watch to end the foreplay.

"You're right," the Frenchman said and nodded for the second gunman to fetch the empty box for the jar.

But Roger blocked their move. "Then what is your interest?" All he could think of was stalling as long as possible for Brett to escape. His eye fell on the machine pistol.

"Are you really so concerned?" the Frenchman asked.

"Yeah."

The American clearly wanted to get it over with. "Antoine."

But Antoine disregarded him. "I have no care to capitalize on your little miracle, if that's what worries you. My life is full. I have all I can ask-all but more time to enjoy it. N'est-ce pas? Now I've got that."

This was how it would end, Roger thought. Shot to death in a remote cave by nameless gunmen. The perfect crime: Elixir gone, and Number One and Two fugitives mysteriously murdered.

"You have what you want. Just leave us be."

"It's not that simple, my friend. To live indefinitely, one must be invisible-as you well know."

"So?"

"You saw my face."

"You b.a.s.t.a.r.d," Laura said.

That made the American smile.

"You people killed Betsy Watkins," Roger said. "Then bombed the plane."

Antoine checked his watch. "Enough."

But Roger pushed. "You killed Betsy and blew up the plane."

"The box, please."

"Say it. Say it!" Roger shouted.

"I f.u.c.king heard enough of you," the American said, and rammed his gun to Roger's forehead.

Laura screamed, and Roger waited for his head to explode.

But Antoine stopped him. "Why is that so important I say these things?"

"You're going to kill us anyway."

Antoine made a what-the-h.e.l.l shrug. "Yes, we are. And, yes that was us."

The silent gunman made a side glance to Antoine for the cue.

"Your name," Roger insisted. "What's your name?"

"Your last wish, my friend. A man about to die deserves to know his dispatcher. Antoine Ducharme, my friends. Something to take with you."

Then he turned to Laura. "Author Wendy, you know what my favorite line in your book is? No? Then I'll tell you. It's at the end when your Detective Kate Krueger captures the killer in his own bedroom. She says, 'People are like salmon, they go home to die.'"

The cue.

"No-o-o," Laura cried.

As the American raised the gun to her head, Roger grabbed the shovel and swung it like a baseball bat. The blade caught the jar at the midline in Antoine Ducharme's hands, shattering it instantly.

An uncontrollable gasp escaped the man's throat as fluid and gla.s.s shards sprayed him. Pathetically he tried to cup the Elixir which seeped through his fingers with his own blood and onto the dirt.

By reflex one of the men took aim at Roger's head, but thought twice and whipped him across the mouth.

"That was very stupid," the Ducharme said, looking at his fingers dripping red. "Very stupid."

He picked some gla.s.s out of his palm, still trying to save some mixture.

Roger spit some blood. "Now you have nothing but us."

"You have more," Ducharme said, trying to compose himself. "You have more. It would be insane to store it all in a jar."

Antoine muttered something in French, and the silent gunman dropped to his knees and put the barrel of the pistol to Laura's forehead.

"I am going to count to three, and when I do your wife's brains will be all over these walls. I will not f.u.c.k around any longer. Three seconds and she's dead."

Ducharme had no idea about the cabin. For all he knew, the two of them had camped out in the Subaru all night.

"One..."

Laura's face was shocked in terror.

"Two..."

Roger looked at the gun to Laura's head. "No! Don't. I'll take you."

"Then do so quickly. I'm cold."

The gunman pulled back.

"There's a cottage about a mile from here," Roger began. But he never finished.

Out of the shadows, a figure flew at the gunman.

Brett.

He seized the man in a headlock from behind and pulled him to the ground, all the while with his free hand yanking away the pistol. It had happened so fast, the man was stunned.

In the flurry of movement, Laura b.u.t.ted the American in the genitals with her head. With a pained grunt, he folded in the middle but not before taking aim at Laura. Roger leaped to block her, when an explosion rocked the cave.

The American fell face-forward.

Brett had shot him with one hand, his other still in a chokehold on the first man.

Brett jumped to his feet with the pistol raised. The American was not dead. But his arm landed in the flames, and he rolled away yowling. The bullet had caught him on the elbow.

"Don't friggin' move," Brett screamed.

The American rolled in pain, but n.o.body else moved. Brett grabbed the machine pistol off the ground so that he had a weapon in each hand fanning Antoine and his men. He looked wild. He looked like he wanted them to make a false move so he could blast them to hamburger.

Laura pulled herself up and helped Roger to his feet. His lip was bleeding.

He got his own gun from the American's belt. "And you wanted basketball," he said to Brett.

But Brett did not laugh, nor did he regard Roger.

"Up! Up!" he shouted.

The American with the ruined elbow and smoking sleeve stumbled to his knees. When he hesitated, Brett kicked him in the b.u.t.t.

"f.u.c.king kid!"

Brett kicked him again.

He looked half-crazed. Days of fear and anger had come to a ballistic head.

Antoine muttered something vicious in French, and Brett sent the toe of his boot into Antoine's s.h.i.+n.

He would have filled him full of lead had Roger not pulled him back.

"Outside!" Brett yelled.

"Brett!" Roger said, holding his hand out for the guns.

But the boy would not respond to him. He was locked into marching the men outside himself.

What cut across Roger's mind like a shark fin was that Brett's mind had snapped. That the sheer horror of seeing his parents about to be executed had momentarily deranged him, and that once outside in the daylight he would line them up and blast them dead.

Laura tried to reason with him, but he stonewalled her too.

Brett stuck the nine-millimeter into his belt. The machine pistol he gripped in both hands like a movie cop. He then rammed the back of one men. "Hands high."

The man raised his hands.

He stabbed the man in the skull with the gun. "Higher!"

The man reached as high as he could. With one hand Brett reached around and tore the man's belt off his pants and tossed it to Roger to tie his hands. He then whipped the belts off the others and tossed them to Laura.

When the men were bound, Brett pushed them toward the entrance, still moving under that weird autopilot.

"Wait," Roger shouted. He picked up one of four notebooks. He looked at it for a moment, then opened it and tore out the pages and fed them to the fire.

"What are you doing?" Brett screamed. "We need those."

"No, we don't."

Brett said nothing, remembering the ampules back at the cabin.

Roger tore out another handful of pages and tossed them on the fire. Then another and another.

While the fire flared, he tried not to think of the years of drudgery they represented-the meticulous around-the-clock record of everything he had done since returning from Papua New Guinea-Methuselah's first year, his weight, chemistry; maze test results; the molecular diagrams, equations, diagnostics; the primates, Molly, Fred, Jimbo-seven years' worth. Work that had consumed his waking hours, that had filled him with inestimable dreams. Page after page.

It was like self-amputation in razor slices.

When he was done the fire roared.

Laura took his hand as they watched for a moment. When he was satisfied, he said, "Let's go."

As the others started out, he yanked the golden ampule from his neck and tossed it into the fire.

He then he fell behind Laura, pa.s.sing Brett who hadn't seemed to notice and who waited to close up the rear as they all moved out of the cave.

Brett did not shoot them. He was more interested in returning to the cottage.

They had parked the Subaru in the woods out of sight from the road. But the men had found it. The seats were slashed, the ceiling vinyl torn out, glove compartment cover pried off, the floor trap opened. They had even gone through the engine compartment looking for containers of the serum.

Luckily, the engine still worked. Brett rode in the rear with the machine pistol trained on the three men. Laura drove, and Roger nursed a bleeding mouth beside her.

As they headed back to the cottage, Roger tried to get Brett to come out of his daze, but to no avail. It crossed his mind that he might have to overpower his own son when the car stopped. It also crossed his mind that the men might try something desperate to escape.

"Brett, that's not a regular gun. Squeeze the trigger and thirty rounds will come out."

Brett didn't respond, but Roger was certain he got the idea. From the way the men sat frozen, they got it too.

They drove the rest of the way without another word. Yet Roger couldn't help but feel irrational pride in his son.