"You know, life has been good to me," Bartlett declared as though thinking out loud. "I've done and seen things most mortals can only dream of. I'm sixty-seven, but I feel as though I've only just begun to live. And that's what I intend to happen." He turned back to Stone. "Whether I have a son to share this with remains to be seen." A son? Stone glanced back at the man Bartlett had called Ken, who was now shutting down the McDonnell Douglas. Maybe he was a surrogate son for Bartlett. He was clearly a lot more than a bodyguard. He'd been the one who nabbed Kristen and returned her to the reservation. So what did he think of whatever was going on? Or what about Ally's brother, Grant? He'd claimed he was the son Bartlett longed for and had never had. Winston Bartlett already had a surfeit of sons. When they walked through the door and into the hallway of the third floor, it was milling with the breakfast crowd, nurses and patients, but no one took any special notice of Winston Bartlett, the man who had made it all possible. Did they even know who he was? Stone wondered. "We're going downstairs." Bartlett directed him toward the elevator. "I'm still offering you a choice. You can be part of the biggest medical advance in human history, or you can be just another impediment." Stone glanced at his watch. The hour was just shy of nine. Where is Ally? What kind of procedure has she undergone? Is she okay? He had to find her. As they headed down, he felt like it was a descent into some pit of no return. Winston Bartlett had not elaborated on what awaited down there. It was as though he couldn't bring himself to face whatever it really was. What was the worst-case scenario at this point? What he had to do was figure that out and then plan a countermove. Chapter 32 _Friday, April 10 7:48 P.M. _ There are sounds of doors opening and closing, with whispered words that are like alien hisses. She senses she is in motion, on a bed that is gliding past powerful overhead lights. She doesn't know where she is, but that doesn't matter, because wherever it was, she knows it surely is a dream. All she remembers is that Karl Van de Vliet had told her he wants her to undergo a second procedure with the telomerase enzyme, which possibly might create sufficient antibodies to reverse . . . It's all a jumble now in her mind. Or had she just dreamed all that? Now her life seems a flowing river that has no beginning and no end. Her mind is drifting, a cork bobbing helplessly in the current. Then her brother, Grant, drifts alongside her. At least she thinks it's Grant. She recognizes his voice. "Ally, can you hear me?" he seems to be asking. "Is there anything you want to tell me? Do you still want to go through with this?" It's the kind of dream where she can hear things around her, but when she tries to speak, no sounds will come. Instead, she's talking inside her head.