"But when they retire me I won't go home to die."

"No, you won't. But keep in mind that this is for real. It works, and there's no turning back. You will not age, yet your son and everybody else you care for will. In time, that will be a problem without precedents. Think these things over very carefully before you decide."

"I hear you."

Roger removed a new syringe from his shirt pocket. He put the needle through the rubber septum, extracted 1.2 ccs, and injected it into his own arm. "A booster shot. In three days I'll call you for your decision. If you accept it, you'll have an endless supply available to you."

Roger then asked for a candle and a match. He lit the candle and dripped some wax over the septum and had Wally press his finger over it as a seal. "I can't leave this with you, but if you decide you're Go, we'll inject you from the same batch just so you know that you're getting the same stuff. You can check the seal that it's not been tampered with."

"What if I reject your offer?"

"Then I will assume one of two possibilities. First, that you went to the Feds and called them off. Or, that you didn't which means we're still under surveillance. Since I cannot with certainty assume the best, I will consider my status and that of my family in peril."

"And…?"

"And you'll never see a dime of the reward money."

"You mean you'd kill me."

Roger did not respond.

"You have a gun in there." Wally nodded at Roger's jacket. "I heard the thud."

"Yes."

"Look, Chris-sorry-Roger, I think you've been straight with me all night. I think what you've told me is real-at least as real as what I'm seeing. I also believe that somebody tried to screw you. I'll do what you say. I'll go back to the Feds and retract my claim. I swear on it for what it's worth since you'll probably follow me anyway."

Something in his manner said he was as good as his word. "You won't be able to reach me for the next three days," Roger said. "But I'll call you. If you decide on treatments, I'll give you instructions where we can meet to begin."

"How much of this Elixir did you say you had?"

"Enough to keep you alive until the middle of the thirty-seventh century."

Wally let out a squeal. "The thirty-seventh century? My God! But who'd want to live that long?"

"Probably no one, but it beats three score and ten."

"I'll say. But what if you get tired of living?"

"The treatment comes with a cyanide cap."

The next morning Wally drove to the Madison office of the FBI.

Agent Eric Brown was out of town at a conference and wouldn't be back for a week. An agent named Mike Zazzaro was taking Brown's calls. He knew about the case and had read the report. When Wally explained that he wanted to retract his claim, Zazzaro asked permission to videotape the interview for Brown. Wally agreed and signed a form. Then Wally took a seat beside a table sporting a Boston fern in a gold pot and explained his retraction.

"I made a mistake. It was the wrong guy. I went back and checked on some old photos and realized my error. Roger Glover is not Chris Bacon. There's a resemblance-what had caught me off guard-but it isn't the same man. Besides, he's about thirty years too young-you can tell that just looking at him. I don't know what got into my head. Early senility I guess. So I'm here to apologize for sending you guys on a wild goose chase, and I guess I should hope this Roger Glover didn't get into any trouble. Jesus, I should call him and apologize. I met the guy for the first time a couple weeks ago at my son's wrestling tournament, and now I've got the government on his tail for mass murder. I feel terrible, really terrible. I mean, how do you apologize for that? He hasn't been arrested has he?"

"No."

"But he's still being investigated, right?"

"We're still looking into it."

"Well, that's got to end. He's the wrong guy…"

Wally rambled on. Zazzaro asked him some questions, and Wally answered, trying to affect woeful regret. When he left, he felt drained, as if he had just pleaded for his own life.

He had.

Wally spent the next two days replaying the interlude with Roger/Chris in his head. It wasn't that he didn't believe him. On the contrary, he was convinced, and what did it was the video of the lab animals. He had Roger replay them several times to dispel any suspicions of trick photography. Wisely, Roger had documented each sequence by affixing that day's Boston Globe front page to the animals' cages, occasionally closing in on the date. Also, there was no switching of younger animals for older ones since they were nearly as distinguishable as people up close. Jimbo had a missing left incisor, a hole on his left ear, and a scar above his right eye-none of which could have been faked. Furthermore, the animals clearly became younger-looking and more vigorous as the newspapers became more current. And, of course, there was Roger, or Chris. Every visible aspect of the man's being denied his chronology. Even the youngest-looking fifty-six-year-old man has some giveaway-wrinkles, hair, skin, flesh, musculature, posture, stiffening body movement-a feature or combination that verifies his fifth decade of life. Roger Glover had none.

At fifty-seven years of age, Wally Olafsson saw himself as a rapidly aging organism, living out the rest of his life alone. He was overweight, his cholesterol was 312 at last checkup, he had high blood pressure, he drank and ate too much, and he got no exercise. Much of his decline came with the breakdown of his marriage. His wife had won custody of Todd and moved two hundred miles away. Wally had a few male friends, but he did not feel desirable to women, especially younger ones. While he tried not to think about death, he envisioned his future as a featureless tunnel, constricting like an occluded artery.

Now, he had an option to push back the clock and jam its mechanism.

Suddenly he began to think young again. About getting back into life, in the words of the old Depends ad. He could join a health club, get into shape, maybe meet some nice fortyish women. There was golf-a game he had always wanted to take up, and a good way to enhance business contacts. (All he had for a social life now was a men's book group.)

And maybe he'd take up skiing again. He had hung up his poles ten years ago when he took a bad fall. Todd had been after him to return to the slopes, take refresher lessons so they could do something fun together besides an occasional movie or UW football game. He might even go off on one of those discovery vacations, an Earthwatch expedition. And with Todd-a father-and-son high-adventure getaway.

He didn't think too long-range-like how he'd explain to his son and friends why he didn't grow old. But it crossed his mind that he could make a killing on the stock market. He could sell out in twenty or thirty years and take on a new identity while investing his earnings for another twenty years. Keep that up for a while, and he'd be as rich as Bill Gates by the end of the twenty-first century. And still only fifty-seven years old, and looking thirtyish.

By Friday, Wally had made up his mind: He was Go on Elixir.

He would live his life all the way up.

He would make up for lost time. Would he ever!

At 1:30 on Friday afternoon, Roger called Wally at the office and instructed him to drive to the empty parking lot of St. Jerome's Roman Catholic Church on Preston Street where he would find a shopping bag behind the statue of the Virgin Mary. Inside was a cell phone.

Wally did as he was told and retrieved the bag with the phone. The lot was empty and nobody followed him.

At two o'clock, Roger called him with instructions to drive to the Silver Pines motel on Route 61 and to keep the line open all the way so that Wally could not make a quick call to the police before arriving. Roger was a man devoid of trust. Thirteen years on the run would do that, Wally guessed.