The Immortalists – Kyle Mills

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Kyle Mills, thriller

What would you pay for the secret of immortality? What would you do for immortality?

Microbiologist Richard Maran’s goals aren’t that high. He’s in a race against time. You see, his daughter Susie suffers from a rare genetic abnormality called Hutchinson-Gilford Syndrome, more popularly known as Progeria, which causes rapid aging in children. They rarely live past twelve and Susie is already eight. His research is geared toward finding a solution that will save her and the fifty odd others that suffer the illness. He begs and grovels for every dime he gets. It’s just not a high priority when so many other diseases take more lives.

Then he comes into possession of a thumb drive loaded with data courtesy of a grieving husband. His scientist wife had committed suicide, only he didn’t believe that. He wants Richard to look over the drive data and see if it’s something for which murder might be done. Richard agrees, putting it down to a husband who just doesn’t believe in the suicide.

He’s astounded at what he finds. Though early, it looks like something that could help Susie and the other Progeria sufferers, a genetic resequencing. He takes it to another in his field more suited to the material. Though he has an IQ of 170, this other scientist puts him to shame.

And that’s when things start to go downhill.

His home is suddenly invaded by the police, he’s accused of industrial espionage, and the policeman in charge doesn’t want to hear anything he has to say. All his computers, at work and home, are seized, all file work, everything of his research. His best friend bails him out. His next problem is coming home from a late run, he spots a shadow in his daughter’s room, to big to be Susie or his wife, Carly, and he busts through the open window to confront a man with a gun in one hand and a syringe in the other. In the wrestling around, the syringe falls to the floor, the man is about to shoot him, when he scoops up the syringe and plunges it into the assailant’s thigh, emptying the contents. The man staggers away, climbs through the window, and as he disappears through the brush, Richard sees the syringe drop from his thigh.

The same cop is back and is as uncooperative as ever. He claims there was no syringe out there and starts to speculate that the whole thing is made up, that Richard might want to kill his daughter for the insurance money, and get out from under the burden that’s been driving him for years. Richard runs a bluff, saying he can check the soil where the syringe fell and probably figure the contents and perhaps get a DNA sample of the man. After the cops leave, he goes out to look himself and finds a shovel from his garage and a clod of dirt gone from where the syringe had lain.

That’s when he packs his family up and goes on the lam. With a giant corporation after him and, perhaps, the cops in their pocket, what chance does he have. it looks like that woman hadn’t committed suicide as her husband had surmised. And a few days later when he hears the husband had died in a car accident it reinforces that notion.

Where to take his family? Any friends would be to easy to trace.

He decides on a man he barely knows, a man he hadn’t seen in a dozen years, a man who professed to owing him a favor for his kindnesses during his wife’s cancer battles when Richard was a young doctor doing cancer research. He’d taken the time to politely explain everything asked of him, unlike most other doctors at the hospital. That his wife couldn’t be saved didn’t matter. He owed Richard.

Burt Seeger was retired special forces, serving in Afghanistan with distinction. Older now, and limping from wounds, he agrees to help, taking to Susie right away. And she to him.

And so begins the chase. Richard is determined to find out what’s going on, why someone is willing to kill anyone and everyone connected with this information, unfinished as it is, and who precisely is behind it all.

Kyle Mills writes in a nice style, the pacing keeps one flipping the pages, and I finished the book during a single day. I was able to put it down, I have other obligations after all, but it wasn’t easy, The book goes on sale December 6th

Worth a look if one likes a good thriller.

Overlooked Movies: Two Flags West(1950)

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Cornel Wilde, Jeff Chandler, Joseph Cotten, Linda Darnell, Overlooked Movies, Robert Wise, western

Robert Wise directed this 1950 western just the year before the release of his seminal THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL. Joseph Cotten as Confederate Colonel Clay Tucker and Jeff Chandler as Major Henry Kenniston are the main protagonists here, constantly battling with words. Cotten comes off as the more reasonable as Chandler has a deep hatred of Rebels and Indians in pretty much equal measure. Linda Darnell is Elena Kenniston, widow of the Major’s brother, killed in the battle at Chancellorville. Cornell Wilde is Captain Mark Bradford, a man who harbors a secret love of Elena.

An order by Abraham Lincoln in 1863 provides captured Rebel forces a chance for freedom. Because of the need for troops in the war, Union forces in New Mexico are short, a lot of them considered unfit for duty in a full out war. Major Kenniston is one of them, having taken a bullet in the leg, leaving it stiff, in his first battle of the war. He’s consigned to command the fort in New Mexico.

Colonel Tucker commands the Rebel prisoners in one northern prison. He’s a man of Georgia and word is that Sherman is laying waste to the south, headed for the area. The offer is made to him and his men that if they swear allegiance to the north, they will be given their freedom and sent west. Cavalry is needed to fight the Apache. Captain Bradford is the officer who makes the offer, Tucker accepts(and is reduced to Lieutenant) on the promise they won’t have to do anything against Southern people, and the two men become friends on the ride. Also accompanying them is the widow Kenniston, her year of mourning over and headed for California where she has family(she’s Hispanic).

They arrive at the fort and the war of words begins between Kenniston and Tucker. Kenniston is bitter over his brother’s death and his being so far from the war. Things aren’t made any better when Tucker reveals he was with Stuart at Chancellorville and had led the patrol at the front of the charge. He makes it plain he expects them to desert at the first chance, not even convinced when Bradford points they had plenty of opportunity on the ride west when he was the only genuine Union officer.

Things come to a head in the uneasy alliance when Kenniston orders Tucker to form a firing squad to execute and then bury two civilians accused of selling whiskey and guns to the Apache, only for them to learn after the fact that they were, in fact, Rebel agents. Kenniston says he sees no difference in gun/whiskey runners and traitors.

Tucker’s next mission with his men is to escort a wagon train to a river west where they are to turn them over to a California Union company. They plan to head back into Texas after that. Plans begin to come unraveled when they find the widow hiding in a wagon, defying her brother-in-law’s edict that she stay at the fort. He claims a desire to protect her as she’s family, not admitting to himself what his real reasons are for the order.

Also, there’s a civilian traveling with them who reveals himself to be a Rebel agent, part of a plan to link with Southern sympathizers in California, and their gold, in a bid to save the South. He wants Tucker to return to the fort where he can keep an eye on Kenniston. And to get in the good graces of the commander, he must force the widow Kenniston back with him.

He’ll be gotten word when to make a move, It could be months or next week.

Patrols keep finding wagon trails, but no wagons. Kenniston splits Tucker’s forces and sends them out under command of Bradford and another lieutenant(he still doesn’t fully trust Tucker) to find those wagons.

Then a patrol brings in a prisoner, the Apache chief’s son. Kenniston wants him questioned and sends for the scout that “understands that stuff.” Tucker receives word to get his troops and link up with a Rebel force of wagons, slips out of the fort to find one group, sends to the Lieutenant back to the fort to assist in the questioning of the Apache, then finds the other, taking Bradford prisoner. He sends a couple of men to get the captain near the fort.

The fort…it suddenly finds itself surrounded by 1500 Apache. Under truce, Kennsiton rides out with his scout to meet the chief, who demands his son back. Incensed at being ordered by an Indian and sends the young brave out…after shooting him in the back and tying him across his horse. The battle is on then.

Tucker gets the three back and has to make a decision then. Continue on or return to help the fort.

The cavalry charge and the defense of the fort is beautifully filmed. Women and children join the fight, some loading, one scene of a small boy poking a big rifele through a hole and cutting loose. It finally comes down to the Apache wanting only one man and Kenniston knows it. The scene of him walking out the gate, unarmed, in the nighttime, a haze ahead, the gates swinging shut just as you hear a horrible cry of pain.

Filmed in black and white, this was one of the best westerns, cavalry branch, I can remember seeing. Nice performances all around and this one was loaded with those faces one recognizes, but can’t usually figure a name. Arthur Hunnicutt is Rebel Sgt. Pickens, Jay C. Flippen as his Northern counterpart, Sgt. Terrance Duey, even a young Dale Robertson has a small part.

For other overlooked films, go to Todd Mason over at Sweet Freedom.