The Tomorrow Heist Read Online Free PDF Page B

different angle, but this was the image Per had seen on the Internet that had first drawn his interest to the mystery.
    â€œWhat am I looking at?” Per asked, willing to play whatever game Harcourt was selling. To a point.
    â€œHow much do you know about me, Broden?”
    â€œNot much,” Per lied. If he hadn’t known everything there was to know about Harcourt, he never would have gotten on the plane to come here.
    Harcourt had made his money like most millionaires in Texas—­in oil. But he’d gotten out of the black-­gold business years ago. Since then, he’d been interested in one thing and one thing alone—­life extension. In every capacity.
    Toward that interest, he had created the Crystasis Foundation. The rumors in the life-­extension chat rooms Per had frequented before coming here were that, in truth, Harcourt was only interested in finding ways to extend his own life. Per thought it made sense that someone who was business savvy wouldn’t experiment on himself but find a way to experiment on others until he found what he was looking for. And Per thought the influx of capital from ­people willing to pay hundreds of thousands for even a shot at more life wouldn’t hurt either. But the facilities where Harcourt stored frozen corpses with the hope that one day they could be thawed and cured of what killed them was just part of his longevity empire.
    â€œLook around you, Broden. It looks like I have everything a man could want, doesn’t it?”
    â€œSome men.”
    â€œI’ve been lucky. I have enough money for several lifetimes. The problem, of course, is that I don’t have several lifetimes. Like everyone else, I have just one. I can’t change that. But I can make the one life I do have long. Really long.” He took a long pull on the bottle and wiped his mouth with his forearm.
    Per just looked at him.
    â€œThat used to be one of my life-­extension facilities. There used to be seven of them around the world. Here, South Africa, Europe . . . even had one in Russia. Most of them are just repositories, but I’ve got a research lab up in Toronto too.”
    â€œYou used to have seven?”
    Harcourt tossed three more photos on the desk in front of Per. “Over the past few weeks, there have been bombings at three of my facilities. No warning, no explanation. Just that goddamn message on the bricks in front of the ashes.
    â€œI’ve beefed up the security at my other facilities, but I don’t want to just be safe. If a coyote is taking your herd, you don’t build a bigger fence; you kill the mongrel.”
    Per looked at the photos for a while longer, then put them down in a neat pile on the desk. He leaned back and brushed some hairs from his suit.
    â€œThe only leads we’ve got are this man and this security camera picture.” Harcourt handed Per two final photos.
    Per examined the first photo. It was of a thin, bearded man in a lab coat. The word “Crystasis” C RYSTASIS was embroidered across the lab coat’s breast. Beneath was a name tag: “Dr. Reese.” He put the picture with the others.
    â€œUp until six months ago, Dr. Chris Reese worked out of my lab in Toronto on special projects,” Harcourt said.
    â€œWhat happened six months ago?”
    â€œHe just up and disappeared. Poof. He didn’t resign or, as far as my inquiries could tell, take a job anywhere else. He emptied his bank account and walked away from his house. No mortgage payments or other bills have been paid since then. A few months later, the attacks started.”
    Per turned his attention to the final picture. It was dark, the only source of light the flames from the burning building in the background. He squinted and could just make out a figure on a motorcycle. The shape of the skintight leather and the hair splaying back from the rider’s helmet told him the rider was female, and probably