Zazzaro jotted something down then hung up. "We got a background ID," he said. "Roger and Brett Glover of Wichita, Kansas died in a car accident in 1958. Laura Gendron Glover, age twelve, died ten years later. Three bogies."
"Big goddamn surprise," Brown said.
Friedman picked up the photographs of Roger Glover and Christopher Bacon and studied them. "And this is the same guy?"
"We got a print match."
Friedman held them side by side in the window light. "I see the resemblance. But if it's the same guy, how come this Roger Glover looks younger than Christopher Bacon?"
"I don't know how come," Brown snapped. "And I don't give a damn. But I want these photos printed and flashed everywhere in the universe. We're going to get this son-of-a-bitch no matter what."
31
At the bottom of the front page of The Boston Globe was a photograph of Roger Glover made from the video shot by the late Walter Olafsson. It was in color and slightly fuzzy, though recognizable. Beside it sat the familiar 1988 media photograph of Christopher Bacon. The caption read: "Same man? FBI claims that Roger Glover of Eau Claire, WI, is Christopher Bacon, a 'most-wanted' fugitive who allegedly blew up Eastern flight 219 in 1988."
On an inside page where the story continued was an additional photograph of Glover doctored by FBI artists to resemble the original of Christopher Bacon. The hair had been electronically cut and lightened and the beard removed. The men looked identical.
An all-points bulletin had been issued in the mid-western states for Glover, who was believed to be armed and dangerous.
The morning television led with the same story. The comment raised most was how Roger Glover appeared younger than when he was Christopher Bacon nearly fifteen years ago. The consensus was that Bacon had undergone facial surgery.
But Quentin Cross knew otherwise.
Sitting in the president's office of Darby Pharmaceuticals, Inc., he felt the old billion-dollar fantasies quicken his heart again.
Even after all these years, the company had not fully recovered from Bacon's sudden disappearance. For five of those years Quentin had gone into great personal debt paying off Antoine and Consortium investors. Even more capital was lost trying to duplicate Elixir from memory.
By 1991, he had given up trying to locate Bacon, assuming he had moved to a foreign country or died. He had also abandoned all attempts to reproduce the compound.
Until that morning.
The news was like a transfusion.
Besides all the financial promise, Quentin at fifty-one was feeling the ever-sharpening tooth of time. And Christopher Bacon had defied time.
But locating him would be impossible on his own. Especially with an army of Feds after him.
Quentin got up and walked around his suite. It had been years since he had thought about Antoine Ducharme. The last he knew, the man owned a string of health clubs and other legitimate businesses. He probably still trafficked in narcotics, and had an assumed identity. Quentin had no idea where he was or what name he went by or if his real name was even Antoine Ducharme. The man lived a layered existence.
But Quentin did have an old telephone number. It had probably been changed long ago. His heart racing, he dialed.
Remarkably, he heard Vince Lucas's voice. "Your old buddy's been spotted," he said right off.
"That's why I'm calling."
"You on-line?"
He was concerned about phone taps.
"Yes."
"Good, turn it on, I'll find you."
Quentin went on-line. In a matter of minutes Vince sent him an e-mail. What do you have in mind?
Quentin wrote back: I think we should resume our former plan.
Sounds good. A's already got people working on it. We'll keep you posted.
Quentin was amazed. They didn't miss a beat. A. Antoine. Still in power. Still in command. And he had come to the same conclusion about Bacon's condition.
Quentin tapped the keys: He'll need to be tested. Call.
A few minutes later Vince called from a cell phone. "What's this 'tested' stuff?"
"If his system has stabilized, we'll need to know his body chemistry, the dosages, side effects, stuff like that."
"You mean, you want him alive?"
"Yes! Absolutely. Nothing must happen to him or his wife if she's on it too."
They had to understand that this went beyond making the stuff for high-rolling clients. It was a quest for godhead. Christopher Bacon was the most valuable specimen in the universe. Once found, they'd strip him down to his atoms.
President John Markarian remembered the bombing of Eastern 219, but knew nothing about Elixir.
Before departing for a speech in San Diego, aides had dredged up memos from the Reagan White House and spoken to members of that administration intimate with the efforts to locate Christopher Bacon.
As he listened to a summary of the report, his thoughts were not on the efforts to solve the first case of domestic sabotage in recent times, but the implications of the serum.
"Do people really think he had something?" he asked an aide, Tim Reed.
"Apparently Mr. Reagan did." Reed handed the president a report of the meeting between Ross Darby and Reagan.
The language was not very technical, but detailed enough to convince Reagan that Bacon had manipulated the DNA sequences to stop the cellular clock.
When he was finished, the president was shown that morning's Washington Post with the side-by-side wire photos.
"It's the same guy," he said.
"Which would you say looks younger, sir?"
"Except for the white hairs, the guy with the beard."
The aide nodded. "That was taken four months ago, the other in 1985."
"No retouching?"
"None."
"Is Darby still with us?"
"No, sir. Coincidentally, he died in his sleep of cardiac arrest a few days following his visit."
"What are we doing to find Glover?"
"Everything possible."
"And alive and unharmed."
"We'll try."
While the Republic rolled by thirty-seven thousand feet below, the president's mind considered the same implications that had fascinated Ronald Reagan. Given recent medical advances, the populace was growing older. The downside was the ballooning of the age-related diseases. He envisioned a great graying future of Baby Boomers on walkers and in wheelchairs, collecting social security and Medicare checks that totaled in the trillions.
Already, more than half of federal spending-beyond defense and the interest in the national debt-went to pensioners in some form. In ten years when the last of the boomers had retired, more than half of the next generation's taxable income would be used to pay the costs. By 2020, the nation would go bankrupt. It was a crisis too monstrous to resolve for any administration.
However, Markarian speculated, if this Elixir actually prolonged life for a decade or two, it could solve the Social Security crisis and save the nation. If people lived longer, they would work well beyond sixty-five, which would mean a phenomenal reduction in health care as well as a greater tax base.
Of course, the Reagan report mentioned mice living six times their lifespan. Nothing about humans. So his speculations were demographic fantasies.
Yet his mind kept coming back to how much younger Roger Glover looked today than fifteen years earlier. Was it possible the guy had tried it on himself? Sounded like something right out of some sci-fi tale.
But it got him thinking about hereditary averages, averages that suggested John Markarian had about ten years left. Were he to serve a second term, that would leave him three wee years to write an autobiography, work on his golf game, and spend time with his grandchildren.