Chapter 18 - Home
Everyone assumed Russell meant Vance Tower.
Elias knew better.
"Home" was the old research estate where Lazarus began.
A mountain property Catherine Vance had once used as a family retreat.
Elias had not visited in twelve years.
The FBI surrounded it before dawn.
Russell was inside.
So were explosives.
He demanded Elias come alone.
Nobody liked that part.
Elias went anyway, wearing a vest and carrying no weapon.
This time he walked through the front door.
Slowly.
Painfully.
On his own legs.
Russell sat beside the fireplace.
Older than Elias remembered.
Smaller too.
"You look good," Russell said.
"You look arrested."
Russell smiled.
"You always needed the last line."
Elias stayed standing.
"Why here?"
"Because this is where Catherine ruined everything."
"My wife tried to stop you."
"Your wife feared ambition."
"My wife recognized cruelty."
Russell's eyes sharpened.
"Grace could have changed the species."
"She's learning to say banana."
"Don't reduce her."
"I'm humanizing her."
Russell laughed.
"You think you've become moral because you discovered consequences late?"
"No."
That surprised him.
Elias continued.
"I think I became responsible because consequences finally had names."
Russell looked toward a steel case wired to the explosives.
"The original Lazarus cultures are here."
Elias's stomach tightened.
"Destroy them."
"I won't."
"Then what do you want?"
"Your company back."
"It's not mine to give."
"Your name still moves markets."
"Not anymore."
"Then die useful."
Russell reached for a trigger.
Agents breached.
Russell grabbed Elias around the neck.
They fell.
Pain exploded through Elias's spine.
For one horrible second, his legs went numb again.
Russell reached for the trigger.
Then a gunshot cracked.
Russell screamed.
Elena stood in the doorway beside an agent.
The agent had fired.
Not her.
Elias almost laughed at his own dramatic imagination.
Russell was arrested.
Bomb technicians secured the cultures.
Outside, Elias tried to stand.
Nothing.
His legs did not answer.
Elena knelt beside him.
"Dad?"
He looked at her.
Then at the wheelchair being brought from the van.
Six years of grief rose like an old ghost.
Mateo ran toward him.
"Grandpa?"
Elias looked at the chair.
May you like
Then at the boy.
And realized the final test of the miracle had nothing to do with walking.
