‘Straight bourbon,’ Eloise said, setting his tumbler down in front of him on the bar. ‘Mine’s a Coke.’
‘To y’health,’ Carson said, raising his glass and clinking it against hers.
He knew she was watching as he tilted his head back and downed the shot in one, closing his eyes as the bourbon seared the back of his throat and then sank warmly to the pit of his stomach. He exhaled the fumes noisily and set the glass down again.
‘Damned if I didn’t need that,’ he said.
‘Hard day at the ranch?’ Eloise inquired, leaning further forward on the bar and providing him with a vertiginous view of her creamy breasts.
‘Up an’ down all day,’ Carson replied. ‘I’ve done got me all beat out.’
Eloise chuckled.
‘I guess that means that you’re tired,’ she said. ‘Shame. Guy like you needs to keep your strength up.’
‘For what?’ Carson smiled.
‘You never know.’ Eloise shrugged. ‘Just got to be ready for anything.’
Carson leaned a little closer to her.
‘Y’mean I might be up an’ down all night too?’
Eloise threw a hand to her mouth and giggled as her eyes opened wide.
‘Damn you, mister, you don’t know nothing about manners.’
‘What’s them?’ Carson asked. ‘And it’s Lee, Lee Carson.’
Eloise extended her hand over the bar, and he shook it gently.
‘Pleasure to meet you, Lee Carson.’ She held on to his hand for a moment longer than was necessary. ‘Will you be staying a while?’
Carson nodded. ‘Just as long as you’re here, ma’am.’
‘You’ll be needing another drink then.’
Carson watched as Eloise made her jaunty way back down the bar, and then he slipped out of his tasseled jacket, hanging it carefully on one of the bar hooks beside him. Carson had, he knew with absolute confidence, slept with more women than any other man in the history of the human species. He possessed something of an unfair advantage of course, in the fact that he hadn’t aged a day since his twenty-seventh year. He thought for a moment. One hundred and forty-one years ago. Damn, it got harder with each passing decade to keep track of time and the things he’d seen over those years, those decades. He shook his head, smiling to himself again. The rest of them, damned fools, had lived their lives in seclusion, had chosen not to take advantage of what God, if He existed, had given them: a gift, a blessing. Or maybe just some damned fine luck. Lee Carson had grabbed that gift with both hands and made full use of it.
He had no need to work. Over time many of his belongings had become antiques, earning him cash whenever he needed it. His home of the last twenty or so years, a simple farmhouse out on the very edge of Santa Fe, had no outstanding mortgage. Carson simply traded up from time to time as the market favored him, and occasionally used his contacts to arrange the purchase of a property under an assumed name, the paperwork leaving the property to him in a ‘will’. As long as he left about fifty years between each will, nobody was around to remember the last one. He worked only to stay fit, occupied and healthy, and to avoid any awkward questions from the IRS or nosey locals.
He watched from the corner of his eye as Eloise poured his drink, and saw her surreptitiously looking at him from time to time. The expressions, the body language, the tone of voice: Carson had studied young women for over a century, and knew a sure thing when he saw it.
Tonight was going to be a good night.
Lee Carson once again thanked whatever lucky star he’d passed under all those many years ago and reached down, pulling off his gloves.
A lance of shock pierced the very depths of his stomach and he let out a loud yelp of alarm. As he yanked off the glove, thick chunks of skin spilled from within to sprinkle the surface of the bar. Carson gagged as he looked down at his hand, the stench of decaying flesh acrid in his nose. His skin was crumpled like canvas, pallid gray in color and sagging from the bones he could see within, like white poles propping up a limp tent.
‘Jesus!’
Carson stood abruptly, as though doing so could get him further away from his own disintegrating hand. He stared at it in alarm as Eloise returned, her face tight with concern as she looked at his hand.
‘What’s wrong?’
Carson slapped his good hand over the other and shot her an embarrassed look.
‘I… er… I’ve gotta go, ma’am. Real sorry, an emergency.’
Eloise looked crestfallen.
‘You’ll come back, right?’
Carson barely heard her as he grabbed his hat, gloves and jacket and rushed out of the bar into the cool evening air. He stood outside for a moment, taking in long deep breaths to steady himself.
‘Be cool, Lee,’ he whispered, and looked down at his hand again.
The gnarled, bony fingers were like those of an old crone, reminding him of his grandmother from a century and a half before. The muscles within his fingers had wasted and the tendons sagged uselessly. He tentatively wriggled his fingers and felt a dull ache throb through the joints as though he were…
Old.
A fresh wave of panic swept through him as he realized he was suddenly running out of the one thing he thought he’d never have to worry about again.
Time.
25
‘Ladies and gentlemen, I’d like to thank you for coming here tonight and for giving me this opportunity to address you directly.’
Donald Wolfe stood before a small lectern overlooking an array of dining tables in the Mandarin Ballroom, each delicately arranged with wine glasses, champagne bottles on ice, dinner plates and elaborately illuminated bouquets of flowers. Along an entire wall, tall windows looked out across the glittering nightscape of the Manhattan skyline. Each table was occupied by smartly dressed men and women, each of whom was potentially worth millions or billions of dollars, depending on which pharmaceutical company they happened to own. Yet none of them was important, at least not to Wolfe. The focus of his gaze rested instead on the small handful of Bilderberg Committee members who were worth trillions of dollars, sitting unobtrusively at tables far from the stage.
Wolfe’s vision of the future was shared by such men: streets devoid of the wearisome crowds and their gluttony for material wealth. The parasite would soon be eliminated, the infection cured, and what would be left of humanity would proceed onward into a brighter future.
The thought provoked in Wolfe a sense of well-being that was further amplified by the knowledge that his efforts at the annual Bilderberg Conference, a three-day event that had taken place a month before, had come to fruition. It had been a close-run thing, but his determination and dedication had paid off, and he knew his revelations had been laid before the Bilderberg steering committee and discussed at length by its members as a matter of global importance. Their decision, which he was sure would be aligned with his plans, would change the face of humanity forever.
Few people knew of the existence, let alone the importance, of the Bilderberg Group.
Members of the Bilderberg, the Trilateral Commission and the Council on Foreign Relations had been charged by global corporations with the post-war takeover of the democratic process. The measures implemented by this group provided general control of the world economy through indirect political means. The meetings were held annually and attended by most prime ministers and presidents in the developed world. It was not a conspiracy, for attendee lists were available to the public. But its meetings were screened from the public domain and the prying eyes of the media for one simple reason: so that every attendee could speak their mind without fear of public reprimand. No journalist was ever invited to attend the Bilderberg meetings. If any leaks occurred, the journalists responsible were discouraged from reporting them. The group took its name from the location of the first meeting — the Bilderberg Hotel in Oosterbeek, Holland, in May 1954. The concept of Bilderberg was not new. Groups such as Bohemian Grove, established in 1872 by San Franciscans, had played a significant role in shaping post-war politics in the US. The Ditchley Park Foundation had been established in 1953 in Britain with a similar aim.