13

Every morning at five, Betsy Watkins would drive to the Cambridge Y and swim fifty laps in the pool before going to work.

At forty-eight years of age, she would do her regimen in forty leisurely minutes, letting her mind free-play, while her body kicked into autopilot, guided by the lane lines.

At that hour, especially in the winter, the place was nearly empty but for the lifeguard. By six-thirty a few people would dribble in. But this morning with a sleeting rain, she did her laps alone.

As she swam, she thought about the new position she was taking at the National Cancer Institute in two weeks. She would have started the day after Jimbo's death had Chris not pleaded for her to delay her departure so he could find a replacement. She agreed on the condition that no more animals be sacrificed. Chris swore to it, and no more animals were withdrawn.

At the NCI she intended to study how tabulone deprived cancer cells of the telomerase enzyme, which was not the interest at Darby. And before she left, she would approach Ross again in hopes of getting him to agree to a watchdog agency coming in to monitor the development of Elixir. Quentin was dead set against that, but Ross would appreciate the need for the assurance of ethical practice and accountability. Prolongevity was frontier science fraught with frontier dangers.

On lap forty-four, she thought about her approach to Ross should he stonewall her. It was not beyond her to let the FDA in on what they were doing.

She also thought about Chris-how he was a good man and fine scientist torn between ethical considerations and a near-personal appeal of Elixir. His wife held the opposite sentiment, yet they seemed very much in love. Betsy would miss Chris and those wonderful two-tone eyes.

On lap forty-five, she looked up to see the lifeguard step out for a coffee refill. She flashed the okay.

On lap forty-six, at midpool, she noticed some movement out of the corner of her goggles. Another swimmer was in the other lane moving toward her on a return lap. A man wearing a white bathing cap, snorkle and fins. Betsy preferred swimming unassisted.

On lap forty-seven, she felt a sudden blow to the top of her head. The pain was blinding, and instantly she slipped into thrashing confusion, sucking in water and feeling arms embrace her legs like an anaconda and pull her down. A flash of the white cap. Under the pain and choking anguish was utter disbelief. She was being attacked underwater.

On what would have been lap forty-eight, her mind cleared for a split second. She saw the bottom of the pool rise up, while her diaphragm wracked for air and her arms flapped against the grip.

On lap forty-nine, bubbles rose up around her… so many bubbles… and panic filled her chest… and the weight on her leg… so heavy… all so heavy and dark, and her lungs burning for oxygen against the water filling her throat… and a face in a mask… eyes staring back at her… and the glint of chrome from a SCUBA regulator… black hoses and bubbles… the leaden weights of her limbs… her mind filling with dark water… and she kept swimming… swimming… toward a man with two large black eyes…

On lap fifty, she was dead.

14

Vince Lucas handed Quentin a Chivas on the rocks as he stepped inside his Hampton estate-a building that the designers had fashioned after Monticello.

Dressed in an elegant double-breasted suit with a white shirt and white silk tie, Vince led Quentin inside where a large crowd of people spread throughout the rooms. At the far end of a large and opulent ballroom, a jazz combo played. Waiters and waitresses in black and white worked their way through the crowds with champagne and hors d'oeuvres.

Quentin kept his briefcase gripped in his right hand as he made his way. Every so often he would spot someone he recognized from magazines and television-athletes, entertainers, New York politicians.

At the rear of the building, under a glass ceiling, lay a serpentine pool in small groves of palm and other tropical plants-all fed by fountains and waterfalls that emanated from rock-garden formations leading off to a poolside bar at one end. It looked like a jungle-movie set. Several men and women cavorted in the water while patio guests sat in lounge chairs as waiters moved about with drinks and food. In the distance through the rear glass wall spread the vast black Atlantic, whitewashed by a full December moon.

Quentin had a drink and met some people, then at ten o'clock he was taken to a back room where they entered a private elevator that took them two flights down to a sub-basement where the sounds of the band and revelry could not be heard. They made their way down a corridor with several rooms including a mirrored gym full of exercise machines. At the end was a heavy oak door that Vince unlocked.

Quentin stepped into a room full of men and women around a huge oval conference table-people he had seen upstairs, some from the island.

"Long time no see." Antoine Ducharme.

Quentin shook his hand, thinking that if it weren't for Elixir Antoine would have eliminated Quentin and his family. Now they were partners again.

They chatted for a moment as the place settled down. Quentin asked how Lisa was, and Antoine made a rueful smile. After the bombing of Apricot Cay, she had left him for another man. "The flesh is weak," he added cryptically.

On the far wall was a screen for the slide and video projectors. They had discussed the proceedings several times, yet Quentin's heart was doing a fast trot. Some 30 billion dollars sat around the table. He knew very little about individual Consortium members except that they embodied an exclusive international coterie of power brokers-financiers, foreign government officials, sheiks, retired oil execs, and the like-people whose word could send ripples throughout the stockmarkets around the world or incite international incidents. An untouchable elite who got where they were by being consummate opportunists. And here they were assembled for the ultimate conquest.

Vince's job had been to assemble them with just enough bait. Quentin's job was to sell them the goods with everything he had. And he was well prepared. He stepped up to the small lectern and described Elixir, taking the group through the various stages. He showed them slides of medical charts and procedures, and a video of the mice and the monkeys. The crowd was amazed at the before-and-after scenes of once infirm elderly primates suddenly jumping around as if transported back in time. Quentin explained how the animals could go on indefinitely. About the consequences of withdrawal, Quentin was forthright-or nearly so. As with any patient dependent upon medication, the animals would eventually suffer adverse symptoms leading to death. He did not go into detail.

What sold the group was the video that Antoine had brought.

Vince dimmed the lights, and the screen came alive. The locale was not immediately clear, but several people were shown sitting in a room. Most were black. All of them were in their seventies or older. At first it appeared to be a hospital, but a quick pan of the camera revealed barred windows. An off-camera male spoke in a crisp Caribbean accent. Each of the eight patients wore a first-name tag around the neck. A large woman sat in a wheelchair. They were all dressed in white T-shirts and shorts to reveal their physical condition.

The narrator asked each patient to walk across the room. Three men were bald, one with a full white bush. Some had missing teeth. Skin was loose and wrinkled, eyes discolored and rheumy. Two women were quite frail; one large white woman could barely walk for arthritis and remained in her wheelchair. The rest hobbled a few times around the room as best they could. Two used canes. "Very good, very nice," said the narrator.