скачать книгу бесплатно
His lips moved, but no sound came out. He tried to cling to consciousness, but staying awake was beyond his ability, and he drifted away to another reality. To a time long ago.
He was an eleven- or twelve-year-old boy named Edmond George, crying and wandering through a squalid little village. Everyone else was dead from the great pestilence. That’s what they called it then. Not the black death.
He was weak from starvation when a group of friars came through the area, praying for the victims.
“A miracle. It’s a miracle that God spared this boy’s life,” the leader of the group proclaimed as he laid his hands on Edmond’s head.
They took him to their monastery and nursed him back to health.
His memories leaped twenty-five years ahead in time. He was a lean-bodied, dark-haired man who never caught the passing illnesses that plagued the rest of the brothers. And he was no longer an uneducated lout. He was a well-read man, versed in all the important disciplines of his time, highly respected by many in the monastery. Except for the ones who whispered that his health and good fortune came from the devil.
Those were violent times, even in the church. He was in line to be the abbot when a rival poisoned him. When he didn’t die, the devil whispers became a chorus.
One night he fought off a savage attack and fled, bleeding from a host of stab wounds.
Staggering into an abandoned hut, he prayed to God for a favorable reception into heaven and waited to die. Instead, he awakened in the morning, amazed that he was still breathing and that the holes in his flesh had closed themselves. Another miracle.
He was alive. He didn’t know why, but he felt a burning desire to stay that way. The monks had taught him scruples, but they had tried to kill him, too.
Quickly he realized that his situation called for desperate measures. With no money and no place in the world, he stole a horse from the stable at a nearby inn, then robbed the occupants of a coach that was making a rest stop along the road.
While the Earl of Bradford was relieving himself behind a tree, Edmond acquired the man’s trunk full of clothing and also enough money to live on while he figured out his next move, which was to one of the Italian city-states.
With his classical education, his dark good looks and the political savvy he’d acquired at the monastery, he set himself up as an expert on religious artifacts, which he exported to England at very advantageous prices. He’d also acquired his first mistress and discovered the pleasures of the flesh.
His mind took another leap—this time skipping a hundred years.
He was Miguel Santana who had made a fortune in the wine trade and was one of the backers of a Spanish expedition to the new world. He’d funded three ships and a crew with the proviso that he traveled with the explorers across the Atlantic and then inland across a vast continent, looking for gold and trading with the natives they met.
The party found no gold and turned around, but Miguel Santana slipped away from the explorers and stayed in the new world, where he eventually set himself up as an apprentice to an Indian shaman.
His mind bridged another wide gap.
He was Justin Glasgow, a rich San Francisco settler who had moved south and bought a piece of backcountry property in the hills north of Santa Barbara, where he’d built himself a comfortable estate. Then Justin had “died” and left the property to “his nephew,” William Emerson, who had eventually passed it on to his own nephew, Noah Fielding, the man he was now.
He should have another twenty or thirty years before he had to change his name again.
As that thought settled in his mind, he opened his eyes. When he turned his head, he saw Thomas sitting in a chair beside the bed.
“How are you?” his chief of staff asked.
“I’ll live,” he answered, then barked out a laugh. “I always live.”
“Is that so bad?” Thomas asked in a low voice.
“What’s worse, do you think? Dying with everyone else when global warming or some man-made plague kills the population of the planet or still being here?”
Of course, there was no answer to the riddle. Just as there was no answer to the riddle of Edmond George or Miguel Santana or Justin Glasgow.
After seven hundred years on earth and millions of dollars spent on research, he still didn’t know why he never got sick and his body was blessed—or cursed—with the ability to heal any injury.
He stopped thinking about himself as he took in Thomas’s weary countenance.
“You look like you’ve been up for days.”
“I’m fine.”
“What did you tell the gawkers?” he asked. “That Simon was using blanks. That the wounds looked worse than they really were.”
“Did they buy it?”
“If not, they’re keeping quiet about it.”
Noah thought for a moment. “Maybe it might be a good idea for me to take up Dr. Hemmings on his offer to attend that New Frontiers in Longevity conference in Las Vegas. Getting away from the estate for a week or so might be prudent.”
“Yes.” Thomas cleared his throat. “Simon is back at Grayfield Sanatorium.”
Noah blew out a breath.
Thomas continued with his explanation. “I, uh, bound him and confined him to his room before they got here to pick him up.”
“That must have been…difficult for you.”
“Yes, but it was necessary. When they got here, I told them the story about the blanks. They have him back in the locked wing and back on medication. He was sounding pretty confused. If we’re lucky, maybe he will even buy the story that he didn’t really want to kill anyone.”
Thomas made a frustrated sound. “He’s been obsessed with you for a long time. I used to catch him sneaking into the warehouses you have on the estate, looking through your memorabilia.”
Noah laughed. “Warehouses packed with stuff I should have thrown out long ago.”
“I understand why you want to keep things from your past. They’re your continuity.”
“Yeah, but someone may get the idea that I’ve been doing a brisk business in stolen Anasazi pots and Maya stelae. Maybe it’s time for some housecleaning and some discreet donations to a couple of deserving museums.”
Thomas shrugged. “Do you want some help?”
“I’ll leave it until after the conference.”
Thomas turned the conversation back to his son. “Simon was always jealous of our relationship. He always knew there was something special about you.”
Noah nodded. “I’m sorry you have to go through this.”
“Not your fault. The bad genes are just surfacing after all these years.”
Noah pushed himself to a sitting position and winced as a healing scar pulled. “Stop. You don’t have bad genes. Or at least no worse than anyone else. You’ve read the articles on what’s happening to American kids. Simon’s probably just a victim of pesticides or air pollution or heavy metals in the water.”
Thomas nodded.
“You’ve proved you’re my friend over and over.”
“And you mine,” Thomas said. “You’ve done so much for my family over the years.”
The Northrop family had worked for Noah since the seventeenth century. Thomas’s ancestor had arrived in the New World as an indentured servant, worked for a time on a plantation in Virginia, then escaped a cruel master. Noah had been on a trip east to find out how civilization was progressing on the coast. He’d been posing as a trapper when he’d saved Wade Northrop from a slit throat after the master had caught up with him, and he’d had the loyalty of the family ever since.
Thomas had been born right here on the estate. Noah had known him from birth, watched him toddle around the family quarters, tutored him at home until he was ten, then sent him to a top prep school, where he was already ahead of the other pupils. He’d earned a place at Stanford and graduated with honors. And he’d been in charge of Noah’s estate ever since his father, Philip, had turned over the reins to him.
“Maybe Jason can take on the responsibility,” Noah murmured.
Jason was Thomas’s second son. He was still a little young to be trusted with the family secret. They’d have to watch him and see how he shaped up.
Noah reached to adjust the pillows more comfortably behind himself and winced again.
“You should rest,” Thomas said.
“I should get out of bed and go down to the lab to prove that story about the blanks.”
When he heaved himself up and grabbed the bedpost to keep from falling over, he saw Thomas’s lips firm. He knew the man wanted him back in bed. But he had far more experience with his recuperative abilities than his chief of staff. Hundreds of years of experience, and he knew that whether he rested or went back to work, the outcome would be the same. The only difference was in the level of discomfort. Maybe he was after discomfort—as payment for the miracle of his life.
JARRED Bainbridge clenched his fist and waited for the spasm in his rib cage to pass. He had always had a high pain tolerance, which was why he was able to get through most days without a heavy dose of medication. At night, he let himself drift away in a narcotic fog and dream of a cure for the very nasty disease that had its hooks into him.
Multiple myeloma. A cancer of the bone marrow where malignant cells replaced healthy plasma-producing cells and left the patient weak and susceptible to infection.
Thirty years ago, Jarred had inherited the Bainbridge manufacturing fortune and had diversified into a host of other business ventures—from computer software to upscale dog food—to ensure the growth of that wealth.
Unfortunately, money hadn’t kept him healthy. He’d done extensive research and he knew there was no cure for multiple myeloma—only stopgap measures, the most drastic of which was bone marrow transplant. Jarred wasn’t willing to take that risk yet. He’d be letting himself in for more pain, with no guarantee he’d prolong his life.
He wanted a cure. He wanted to be healthy and vital again—like the eight children he’d fathered. None of them was worth a bucket of warm spit, as far as he was concerned. He was leaving each of them a million dollars, which they’d probably squander away in a couple of years. But he certainly wasn’t leaving any of them control of his investments. That was going to various animal organizations, because animals made no claim to intelligence and they were at the mercy of their owners.
But he didn’t plan to let his fortune go to the dogs until absolutely necessary and he figured his best hope was some new medical research—or some life-giving secret that only a few people on earth possessed.
When the pain gripping his ribs let him function again, he reached for the folder on his desk. It held worldwide newspaper articles and wire service reports that his clipping service sent him on a regular basis.
Most of it was routine stuff. A boy had been trapped in a storm sewer in Suzhou, China, and suffered hypothermia before rescuers reached him. He was expected to make a full recovery. A sailing ship had gone down in the Pacific, and the two-man crew had been rescued from a rubber raft after drifting for almost a month at sea.
But two articles were of particular interest. A man in Nairobi, Kenya, had been caught in a factory fire and been overcome by smoke. While being prepared for burial, he’d awakened and started asking for his wife and children. That incident was worth investigating.
And so was a story about an experimental submarine that had gotten fouled up in a rock formation at the edge of the Atlantic trough near Grand Cayman.
The research foundation running the operation had kept it as quiet as possible, but a small article had appeared in the local George Town paper.
The sub had been down long enough for everyone to die from lack of oxygen, but when the craft was brought up, one of the expedition members had miraculously revived. A guy named Noah Fielding.
According to the article in the local paper, Fielding had apparently financed the development of the sub, but he’d left the expensive craft on Grand Cayman and headed back to the States. Address unknown.
Jarred reached for his laptop and sent an e-mail to one of his special assistants, asking the man to find out everything he could about Noah Fielding.
Was the guy hiding some secret? A secret that could cure Jarred of his deadly disease.
Jarred had to know. He’d try charm and persuasion first, but if Fielding didn’t want to talk to him, there were ways of getting the information out of him.
A man might escape death, but he couldn’t escape pain—not at the hands of the right practitioner.
LAS VEGAS REMINDED Noah of the Middle Ages. Of course it smelled a lot better; you didn’t have to worry about someone dumping garbage onto your head as you walked down the street, and penicillin was a reliable cure for the surge of syphilis. But life in this desert playground was reduced to basic human emotions. Desperate people risked a fortune on the roll of the dice or the turn of a card. And other people waited to pounce on their vulnerability.
He had encountered every one of these types before and he had experienced all the emotions they displayed. From love and triumph to desperation and despair. He’d tried to kill himself more than once. It had never worked, of course, and finally a French woman named Ramona had made him see the light. Maybe that was too strong a way to put it, but he knew she had changed him. When he’d met her, he’d lived too long and seen too much to feel anything but contempt for the human beings who thought they were better than slugs and worms.
Ramona had convinced him that humans had a core of goodness, and if he helped them expand that core, his generous spirit would be rewarded.
He wasn’t sure how well he’d done in changing the equation for humanity. The world was simply too big and too complex for one man to make an enormous difference. At least where good was concerned. Evil was another matter.
Still, over the last two centuries, Noah had poured money into various charities and had reached out to many individuals on a personal level.
He wandered through the casino of the Calvanio Hotel, watching old women with dyed hair, cups of quarters and glazed eyes trained on the spinning symbols of slot machines. He knew the odds on the machines, so he bought five hundred dollars worth of chips and won a thousand at blackjack, then quit while he was ahead.
He strolled toward the bar in the front of the building, where he could watch the dancing waters of a fountain in the artificial lake that fronted the strip.
As soon as he walked into the bar, he spotted a curvy blonde wearing a shimmery gold dress that dipped low over her cleavage. The short skirt revealed long, tanned legs. Her wavy hair brushed her shoulders, and her makeup enhanced her natural attributes.
She was well-proportioned and attractive but not beautiful. Yet something about her features drew him. Her eyes were light and set wide apart. Her face was rectangular, with a jaw that spoke of strength. But the haunted look in her eyes and something about the way she held her full lips told him she was in a world of trouble.
Could he help her? Did she want his help? And would starting something with her count as giving back to Ramona?
He’d loved Ramona and lost her two hundred years ago. She hadn’t even lived into old age in normal human terms. She’d died of what he later found out was breast cancer before she reached her fiftieth year.
Her last days had been full of pain. Hers and his, as well. He’d wanted to flee the inevitable, but he’d stayed by her bedside, giving her what comfort he could and taking comfort, too. Since her death, he hadn’t gotten close enough to anyone to fall in love.
The blonde sitting at the table looked nothing like Ramona, who had been a striking brunette. Yet some indefinable quality of this woman called to him.
The sudden attraction he felt toward her reminded him that he hadn’t taken anyone to bed in a long time. If he got emotionally involved with a woman, leaving her would be painful, and if his emotions weren’t engaged, then the sex was meaningless.
Sometimes he was lucky enough to find a middle ground.
While he was debating whether to cross the room, she glanced up and their eyes met. A smile flickered on her lips, only to vanish almost as soon as it appeared, the bleak veil descending again.
Even more intrigued, he started toward her, but the sound of someone calling his name interrupted him.
“Noah Fielding?”
He stopped and turned to find himself facing a portly man with wiry salt-and-pepper hair. He was wearing chinos and a slightly rumpled Hawaiian shirt.
The man’s face registered confusion. “Sorry,” he said, “I must be mistaken. The concierge said you were Noah Fielding, but you can’t be.”
“I am,” Noah answered.
The other man shook his head. “You’re sure?” He laughed and slapped his palm against the side of his head. “What kind of question is that? I’m Sidney Hemmings.”
Ah. Hemmings. Actually, the man looked older than the picture he had on his Web site. Apparently vanity had frozen his image.
“We’ve been corresponding for years,” the doctor continued. “I expected you to be my age.”
