Elixir. Part 17

Chris spent the next few days listing lawyers' names from telephone directories and doing ch.o.r.es. He chopped and split wood. There was an old chainsaw in the cellar, but he feared the noise would draw attention.

Wendy, meanwhile, did the food shopping at a supermarket in Lake Placid. She wore a ski cap and sungla.s.ses even though n.o.body would know her. But it struck her how even the most mundane ch.o.r.e was fraught with anxiety that somebody would look into her face and recognize an accessory to murder.

She paid for everything in cash which Chris had withdrawn from accounts before they left-over $17,000. They had been listed as dead, so Wendy began to think of herself as nonexistent-a woman with no credit cards, checks, social security number. Or name. It was almost funny. She was a blank of herself.

Luckily, there was plenty of clothing at the cottage. And the utilities had been paid through June by a trust fund, again untraceable. The propane tank was over half full. They could survive for several weeks if need be, though Chris promised to contact a lawyer by week's end, then turn themselves over to the police.

But that wouldn't happen. Thursday night after Adam was down, they watched the evening news. The lead story was the crash of Eastern flight 219 once again. But this time it was not Chris's photo on the screen but a family portrait, and not theirs.

"...Relatives of the Foleys claimed that they were hoping to fly to Puerto Rico on standby. Authorities now believe that Thomas and Karen Foley had purchased their airline tickets for themselves and their young daughter, Tara, from Christopher Bacon."

The Foley family photo was replaced by that of Chris.

"According to authorities, security cameras captured Bacon talking to Foley and his wife...." In jerky black-and-white Chris could be seen huddled with the Foleys, then disappearing into the crowd.

"Meanwhile, friends and relatives have not heard from the Foleys. Nor is there any trace of them in Puerto Rico, leaving investigators to conclude that they were aboard flight 219 to San Juan, and the Bacons were not.

"In a bizarre twist to the story, an all-points bulletin has been issued for Christopher Bacon and his author wife in the death of Betsy Watkins and now the more serious charge of sabotage. According to the NTSB, preliminary a.n.a.lyses of debris show evidence more consistent with a bomb than lightning. Quoting an unnamed spokesman from Darby Pharmaceuticals, the FBI said that Bacon not only had the expertise to construct such a bomb but had apparently stolen the necessary chemicals...."

"Quentin!" Chris shouted. "He set us up."

Wendy let out a cry of despair. On the screen was a photo of Wendy and Chris from a Darby Christmas party two years ago.

"As for the whereabouts of the Bacons, police are not saying much about leads. However, the FBI has entered the case placing the Bacons on the Ten Most Wanted List..."

"My G.o.d," Chris said. "How much worse can it get?"

FEBRUARY 5.

THE WHITE HOUSE.

Ross Darby leaned toward the president. "Ron, he didn't do it. He wasn't the type."

"That's not what they're telling me at the Bureau. They're saying he planted a bomb to fake his own death."

Ross and the president were sitting alone in the Oval Office on facing sofas. Of all the visits he had made here over the years, this was the first time Ross did not feel the august thrill of history.

"I know what they're saying, but I also know this guy. I hired him. He's a dedicated scientist, not a ma.s.s murderer."

"Well, then, who did it?"

Ross felt a p.r.i.c.kly sensation in the back of his neck. "I don't know."

"Well, they've got the best people looking for him."

"That's what I want to talk to you about," Ross said, and he described the Elixir project while Reagan listened intently.

Ronald Reagan tipped his head and smiled. "Boy, could I use some of that."

"So could the republic," Ross said. "Consider the economic impact. Health care for the aging baby-boomers could bankrupt the government in twenty years. If we work out the bugs, Elixir could prevent that."

Reagan thought all that over. "How close are you?"

"Maybe a couple of years, but the problem is that he took it all with him. Cleaned us out of all the science and the compound itself."

"How come?"

"That's what I'm not yet sure about, but he's out there someplace with the secret of eternal youth."

Ross's guess was that Chris had acted on fears for his own life. What bothered Ross was Quentin. He was too anxious to pin the murder and sabotage on Chris. A man wanted for murder does not steal the world's hottest pharmaceutical secrets to set up shop elsewhere. First, he'd need unlimited resources to reproduce Elixir. Second, he'd be nabbed in no time since his face had been broadcast around the world. Besides, it wasn't in Chris's character.

Maybe Quentin's.

"Ron, I'm asking that you do what you can to bring him in alive. If you think your drug war is bad now, this would be Armageddon if the stuff fell into the wrong hands."

When they were finished, Reagan called Buck Clayman, FBI Director, and asked him to use every means necessary to bring in Christopher Bacon unharmed. It was a matter of national security.

"What does this mean for you?" Reagan asked. "Aren't you retiring next week?"

"I'm putting that off. He left us pretty high and dry with debts up to here."

The president walked Ross to the door. "Has this stuff been tried on people yet?"

"Not yet, but the effect on primates was incredible."

"Well," smiled the President, "I know a couple of higher primates who'd happily volunteer."

17.

Every morning Quentin would drive his daughter to the Sunny Vale Day School about a half-mile out of Lincoln center. He would then proceed down Main Street which narrowed to a lovely tree-lined road that took him to Route 2 and Darby Pharms just off of the Lexington exit. This morning began no differently.

He had just dropped off Robyn when a school van closed on his rear, flas.h.i.+ng its lights. In the mirror the driver waved him over. Quentin pulled into a clearing. Maybe Robyn had forgotten a book or something. Or maybe his rear tire was low.

The man came up to Quentin's door. He was wearing sungla.s.ses and a parka.

"Is there a problem?" Quentin asked.

Without answering, the man swung the door open. Before Quentin knew it, two other men pulled him out of the car and hustled him into the van.

"What's going on? Who-who are you people?" They strapped him in place. "Where're you taking me?"

n.o.body answered him.

The driver turned the radio to an oldies station. While the Bee Gees sang "I Started a Joke," Quentin peered out at Lincoln's Norman Rockwell-like center with its country store and white steepled church and red brick library-and he thought how this was the ideal little suburban town where nothing ever happened, and that this was the last time he would see it.

Quentin had never laid eyes on these men before, but he knew why they had been sent. He just didn't know how they'd do it. His only wish was to pa.s.s out or have a cardiac arrest first.

For half an hour they rode through back roads until the driver, talking into a radio phone, turned down an abandoned lane lined with dark evergreens. Soon the trees gave way to a frozen marshland. Quentin's eye fixed on a section of ice that had not frozen over, where reeds stood up. He thought about how cold that water was and what the ice looked like from underneath.

The door slid open and Quentin was pulled outside. He was cold and numb, hoping it would be quick. The men rubbed their hands and waited. The man with the sungla.s.ses removed a pack of gum and thumbed out a stick for Quentin. A few chews of Juicy Fruit to make him feel better about being shot in the head and dumped into a frozen swamp.

Then from nowhere came a fluttery sound as a small helicopter dropped to a nearby clearing. The pilot Quentin didn't recognize. But the pa.s.senger was Vince Lucas in m.u.f.fler phones. If they wanted him dead, they would have done it by now.

The c.o.c.kpit door opened and Juicy Fruit rushed Quentin inside behind the pilot, then pulled beside him. A moment later they were over the treetops and heading full throttle toward Boston.

Quentin settled in place. He didn't know why, but he was going to be spared.

As they approached the spires, the pilot cut over the North End. But instead of tilting toward Logan, he pulled to a thousand feet over the bay to open water. After a spell, Vince poked the pilot who nodded and zipped up his jacket. Then Vince put his hand on Quentin's door latch and began to jiggle it.

My G.o.d! Quentin thought. They were going to push him out. Everybody was harnessed in but he. They were going to bank hard at the same time Vince would throw open the door so Juicy Fruit could push him out.

It all happened with such a blur that Quentin could barely process the final moments: The pilot's hand pressing the steering mechanism, Quentin's body suddenly s.h.i.+fting to the door, his hands grasping for something to block the fall, the bright blue sea rising up in his face, the sudden plunge that sent his organs up his throat, the sudden frigid blast. The long agonizing scream in a final expulsion of air...

The chopper landed with a thud.

Very little had registered in Quentin's mind: Not Vince double-checking the lock on Quentin's door, nor the pilot's protest about a Cessna appearing from nowhere and sending them into a sharp turn, nor the fact that they had landed on the heliport of an eighty-five foot ocean cruiser, nor the fact that he had wet himself. All that registered through Quentin's gasps was the face staring at him through the hatch that Vince had swung open.

Antoine Ducharme.

Ross knew very little about computers, including the fancy new system installed a year ago. When he wanted to check financial records, he turned to Quentin to whom Accounting and the Legal Department answered directly. But Quentin was out, so he called his secretary Sally to access the quarterly earning reports for the last two years on his own terminal. She wrote out the access codes and called up the files.

Ross scrolled through tables of numbers and spreadsheets. He took note of certain figures, particularly losses in accounts with foreign pharmaceutical houses. Because Sally might say something to Quentin, he went to Accounting to check backup files with Helen Goodfellow, a confidante whom Ross had hired long before Quentin married his daughter.

She was riffling through folders when she remembered something. "Actually, they're not here. Mr. Cross took them. He was working on those personally and had a deadline, so he just gave me the numbers and said it was okay to sign." She looked at the empty file slots. "I guess he forgot to return them."

"I see," Ross said. "Helen, I'd appreciate it if you didn't mention this to Quentin. He's got a lot on his mind right now."

"Certainly, Mr. Darby."

At 10:30 Ross dialed the number for Werner Ackermann, president of Alpha-Chemie in Geneva, Switzerland where the time was 4:30 in the afternoon. They had been a.s.sociates for years.

Luckily Werner was in. Ross made small talk, then said, "Werner, I have a favor to ask. Our records are a little off." He explained something of the problem. "I'm wondering if you'd check the first- and second-quarter earnings last year and let me know what you have for a net loss on the R-and-D report." Twenty minutes later Werner called back with the requested figures. Werner asked if things were good, and Ross lied.

All project accounts were under Quentin's control. That may not have made good business sense since it left no checks and balances. But, after all, Quentin was family. What shocked Ross was that checks for over $3 million had been written to two corporations in the Caribbean: Global Partners Inc. in Grand Cayman and Fair Caribe, Ltd. in Apricot Cay.

"Either you're part cat, or that Elixir stuff's for real." Vince popped a wedge of honeydew melon into his mouth.

They were aboard Antoine's new yacht, a huge sleek craft named Regine after Antoine's mother. The interior was larger and more elegant than that of the late Reef Madness. But, like its predecessor, there were bookshelves stocked with mystery hardbacks. Quentin imagined Antoine moving from port to port making drug deals between P. D. James and Sue Grafton.

"They say he's hiding someplace," Antoine said. "Which means he has Elixir and the notebooks. Is that what you think?"

"Yes," Quentin said. "Absolutely."

Outside a cloud bank closed in from the west. There would be snow that evening. Quentin wondered where Antoine would sail to next. He was like a phantom, appearing and disappearing at will. He seemed to have unlimited power and resources.

"How long has he been working for you?"

"Fifteen years."

Antoine wore a forest-green fisherman's net sweater, but his face still sported a tropical tan. He leaned forward. "I am going to explain something to you in very simple terms, Quentin." The intensity in his eyes took Quentin back to that night when with the same heat of expression Antoine had held forth about loyalty and trust just moments before Marcel was hurled to his death. "Every man has one major mission in life-one that he dates the calendar from, understand? A turning point in the progression of his days-the point after which nothing will ever be the same again, and all things that came before are forever gone. Like birth and death, it happens only once. Do I make myself clear, Quentin? Do you understand?" Antoine's face had a rigid fixity. His eyes were like laser beams focussed to score the message on the back of his skull.

Quentin felt parched with fear. "Yes, I understand."

"A mission with no margin for error."

Quentin glanced at Vince Lucas, who stood against the windowed wall of the cabin dressed in black gla.s.ses and black leather, looking like the allegory of death from some medieval painting. "I understand."

"A mission whose stakes are beyond mortal. This is yours, Quentin Cross: To find out the names of this Doctor Christopher Bacon's intimates-friends, relatives, his wife's friends and relatives, where they go on vacation, what they do for hobbies and recreation-anything and everything and anybody that could lead us to him. Check your files, talk to your people. Do what you need to do to find him because everything you hold dear in life depends on it. Comprende?"

"Yes."

If the police weren't all over Jenny yet, they soon would be-interrogating her and Ted, tapping their telephone, reading their mail, tailing their every move.

From a call box in Lake Placid, Wendy phoned Ted's work number in Kalamazoo and made arrangements for Jenny to call her from a public phone as they had the other night.

It took nearly half an hour for Jenny to find a phone booth where she would not be noticed. When they finally connected, Wendy got right to the point: "I know what the news reports say, but it's all a setup," she explained.

"So, why don't you go to the police?" Jenny asked.

"Because we have no proof that Chris was out of town when Betsy Watkins was killed, nor that he didn't check a bomb on the plane." Security photos placed him in the crowd with a shoulder bag not shown in the shots with the Foleys. With Quentin's help, the media had already convicted Chris for murder and sabotage. "Jenny, we were meant to die in that explosion. It was meant for us, I'm telling you."

"That's awful! But who on earth would do that to you, and why?"

"I don't know. I don't know. Chris thinks it's his boss Quentin Cross and some criminal element he's tied up with."

"I don't believe it," Jenny said. "Why would he do something like that? I mean, this is unbelievable."

"That's another story," Wendy said, wanting to deflect the subject, wanting not to yield to the panic that she heard in Jenny's own voice. "It's not worth getting into. But we need your help."

"The reports said something about stolen company property."