so obsessed with achieving that unrealistic — some would call it irrational and impossible — goal. In spite of all his education, in spite of his ability to reason, he was illogical about this one thing: in his heart he believed that he would go to hell when he died, not merely because he had sinned with his uncle but because he had killed his uncle as well, and was both a fornicator and a murderer. He told me once that he was afraid he'd meet his uncle again in hell and that eternity would be, for him, total submission to Barry Hampstead's lust.”
“Dear God,” Julio said shakily, and he unconsciously made the sign of the cross, something he had not done outside of church since he was a child.
Turning away from the window and facing the detectives at last, the professor said, “So for Eric Leben, immortality on earth was a goal sought not only out of a love of life but out of a special fear of hell. I imagine you can see how, with such motivation, he was destined to be a driven man, obsessed.”
“Inevitably,” Julio said.
“Driven to young girls, driven to seek ways to extend the human life span, driven to cheat the devil,” Solberg said. “Year by year it became worse. We drifted apart after that weekend when he made his confessions, probably because he regretted that he'd told me his secrets. I doubt he even told his wife about his uncle and his childhood when he married her a few years later. I was probably the only one. But in spite of the growing distance between us, I heard from poor Eric often enough to know his fear of death and damnation became worse as he grew older. In fact, after forty, he was downright frantic. I'm sorry he died yesterday; he was a brilliant man, and he had the power to contribute so much to humanity. On the other hand, his was not a happy life. And perhaps his death was even a blessing in disguise because…”
“Yes?” Julio said.
Solberg sighed and wiped one hand over his moonish face, which had sagged somewhat with weariness. “Well, sometimes I worried about what Eric might do if he ever achieved a breakthrough in the kind of research he was pursuing. If he thought he had a means of editing his genetic structure to dramatically extend his life span, he might have been just foolish enough to experiment on himself with an unproven process. He would know the terrible risks of tampering with his own genetic makeup, but compared to his unrelenting dread of death and the afterlife, those risks might seem minor. And God knows what might have happened to him if he had used himself as a guinea pig.”
What would you say if you knew that his body disappeared from the morgue last night? Julio wondered.
25
ALONE
They did not attempt to put the Xerox of the Wildcard file in order, but scooped up all the loose papers from the cabin's living-room floor and dropped them in a plastic Hefty garbage bag that Benny got from a box in one of the kitchen drawers. He twisted the top of the bag and secured it with a plastic-coated wire tie, then placed it on the rear floor of the Mercedes, behind the driver's seat.
They drove down the dirt road to the gate, on the other side of which they had parked the Ford. As they had hoped, on the same ring with the car keys, they found a key that fit the padlock on the gate.
Benny brought the Ford inside, and as he edged past her, Rachael drove the Mercedes out through the gate and parked just beyond.
She waited nervously with the 560 SEL, her thirty-two in one hand and her gaze sweeping the surrounding forest.
Benny went down the road on foot, out of sight, to the three vehicles that were parked on the lay-by near one of the driveway entrances they had passed earlier on their way up the mountainside. He carried with him the two license plates from the Mercedes — plus a screwdriver and a pair of pliers. When he returned, he had the plates from one of the Dodge Chargers, which he attached to the Mercedes.
He got in the car with her and said, “When you get to Vegas, go to a public phone, look up the number for a guy named Whitney Gavis.”
“Who's he?”
“An old friend. And he works for me. He's watching over that rundown motel I told you about — the Golden Sand Inn. In fact, he found the property and turned me on to its potential. He's got keys. He can let you in. Tell him you need to stay in the manager's suite and that I'll be joining you tonight. Tell him as much as you want to tell him; he can keep his mouth shut, and if he's going to be dragged into it, he should know how serious this is.”
“What if he's heard about us on the radio or TV?”
“Won't matter to Whitney. He won't believe we're killers or Russian agents. He's got a good head on him, an excellent bullshit detector, and nobody has a better sense of loyalty than Whit. You can trust him.”
“If you say so.”
“There's a two-car garage behind the motel office. Make sure you put the Mercedes in there, out of sight, soon as you arrive.”
“I don't like this.”
“I'm not crazy about it, either,” Benny said. “But it's the right plan. We've already discussed it.” He leaned over and put one hand against her face, then kissed her.
The kiss was sweet, and when it ended she said, “As soon as you've searched the cabin, you'll leave? Whether or not you've found any clue to where Eric might've gone?”
“Yes. I want to get out before the feds show up.”
“And if you find a clue to where he's gone, you won't go after him alone?”
“What did I promise you?”
“I want to hear you say it again.”
“I'll come for you first,” Benny said. “I won't tackle Eric alone. We'll handle him together.”
She looked into his eyes and was not sure if he was telling the truth or lying. But even if he was lying, she could do nothing about it because time was running out. They could delay no longer.
“I love you,” he said.
“I love you, Benny. And if you get yourself killed, I'm never going to forgive you.”
He smiled. “You're some woman, Rachael. You could rouse a heartbeat in a rock, and you're all the motivation I need to come back alive. Don't you worry about that. Now, lock the doors when I get out — okay?”
He kissed her again, lightly this time. He got out of the car, slammed the door, waited until he saw the power-lock buttons sinking into their mountings, then waved her on.
She drove down the gravel lane, glancing repeatedly in the rearview mirror to keep Benny in sight as long as possible, but eventually the road turned, and he disappeared beyond the trees.
Ben drove the rental Ford up the dirt lane, parked in front of the cabin. A few big white clouds had appeared in the sky, and the shadow of one of them rippled across the log structure.
Holding the twelve-gauge in one hand and the Combat Magnum in the other — Rachael had taken only the thirty-two — he climbed the steps to the porch, wondering if Eric was watching him.
Ben had told Rachael that Eric had left, gone to some other hiding place. Perhaps that was true. Indeed, the odds were high that it was true. But a chance remained, however slim, that the dead man was still here, perhaps observing from some lookout in the forest.
He tucked the revolver into his belt, at his back, and entered the cabin cautiously by the front door, the shotgun ready. He went through the rooms again, looking for something that might tell him where Eric had established another hidey-hole comparable to the cabin.
He had not lied to Rachael; it really was necessary to conduct such a search, but he did not require an hour to do it, as he'd claimed. If he did not find anything useful in fifteen minutes, he would leave the cabin and prowl the perimeter of the lawn for some sign of a place where Eric had entered the woods — trampled brush, footprints in soft soil. If he found what he was looking for, he would pursue his quarry into the forest.
He had not told Rachael about that part of his plan because, if he had, she would never have gone to Vegas.
