The Immortal

Ben has located a man named Jason Richards who once lived in an orphanage. Ben may have found his brother, but before he can introduce himself Fletcher shows up. Because he has researched Jason and knows about his money problems, the first thing Fletcher offers is $20,000 in exchange for a six-month stint at the National Research Institute. Jason, concerned about Ben's actions (forcing his way into his house, taking his car to escape from Fletcher), quickly agrees. He has a change of heart when he gets a taste of life at the National Research Institute: locked doors, no outgoing phone calls, and men who strong-arm him if he persists in his requests. Ben helps Jason and his wife escape. Ben and Jason seek refuge at a remote fishing camp where they can talk about a past that Jason cannot remember because of a head injury, and about the prospects of the blood that they might both share. When Fletcher shows up holding Jason's wife captive, Ben must try to talk Jason out of surrender

Fletcher has Ben. Trapped in a cabin during a snowstorm, Ben and his captor have nothing to do but talk. Ben is curious about Fletcher's desire to work for people like Maitland, which leads the two to recollect about Jordan Braddock, Fletcher's previous employer. Braddock's last encounter with Ben was in Florida, where a ""friend"" of Ben's notified Fletcher of Ben's whereabouts in exchange for money. Ben manages to escape in the limousine with the critically ill Braddock. Ben offers only to get Braddock to a doctor, a task that proves difficult because of the country locale with lack of phones.

""Keep out -- this means YOU!"" reads the sign on a chain blocking the coastal road to the town of Paradise Bay. Ben drives around the barricade because he has a lead on his brother, Jason. The sheriff gives Ben an unfriendly welcome. After prompting from the manager of the company that owns the property, the sheriff shows Ben a tombstone with Jason Richards' name on it and claims Jason died in a scuba diving accident. The town has been sold to a developer to be turned into a resort, and most of the town's 900 residents have left. The few that remain stand to make a lot of money from the resort project, and they don't appreciate a stranger like Ben asking questions about Jason's death. Ben is not satisfied with the answers -- more precisely, the lack of answers and downright lies -- that he gets when he mentions Jason's name. He is worked over and driven off the property, but he returns. Even though he discovers Jason is not his brother, Ben is determined to find out the truth ab

While hiding out in a Mexican border town Ben is shot in an alley altercation. Fletcher shows up in the alley moments after a fellow American gets Ben off the street. The two return to America as part of a group of illegal workers. They are put to work on a tomato farm run by a cruel foreman. Ben recovers quickly from his gunshot, but the foreman has already had a visit from Fletcher and he assures Ben that he will call Fletcher if Ben causes any trouble. The foreman stands to gain half the farm from the widowed owner if a good crop of tomatoes gets to market on time. He will stop at nothing to accomplish this, including endangering the workers by exposing them to an illegal pesticide.

Ben, one of a number of hired laborers on a farm, witnesses a sheriff accidentally shot by a couple of workers who are upset over withheld wages. The farm owner organizes an ""Honor Posse"" to hunt down the men. Ben runs, not because he had part in the shooting but because he got word that Fletcher is nearby. The posse captures Ben and the man who shot the sheriff. The farm owner, a friend of the sheriff, implicates Ben in the crime because Ben worked on the getaway motorcycles just before the incident. When the sheriff dies Ben is charged with the murder, which temporarily keeps him out of Fletcher's hands. Ben's options are to allow Fletcher to take him from the posse and into Maitland's custody, or to face the angry posse leader who is more than happy to kill to ensure the dead sheriff receives ""justice"".

A dishonest sheriff jails Ben on trumped-up traffic charges. In order to work off the $50 fine imposed on him, Ben will have to spend 25 days on a work detail building a lodge for the sheriff. A woman befriends Ben after he fixes her car (on the sheriff's orders), and she offers to help him escape if he will retrieve a file the sheriff has on her. Ben gets the file, but the woman backs out of her end of the deal after Ben witnesses an inmate's murder at the hands of the sheriff. When Ben refuses to leave the town forgetting what he saw, the sheriff decides to make Ben the next ""accidental death"" victim at the work site.

Dr. Walter Koster has spent 20 years researching his theory about the connection between hemoglobin and the aging process. Ben sees him on TV and gets a job at the clinic where Dr. Koster and his daughter, also a doctor, work. Ben believes that if Dr. Koster is successful Arthur Maitland will no longer hunt him, so he confides in the doctor about his blood. Dr. Koster attempts to synthetically reproduce the unique qualities in Ben's blood but the experiment fails. Frustrated and tempted by Maitland's offer of a multimillion dollar grant, Koster turns Ben over to Maitland. Koster's daughter, who has become romantically interested in Ben, seeks to help Ben escape from Maitlaind's men, who have Ben in a straight jacket and guarded in a locked office while Maitland prepares for his coveted transfusion.

Sylvia, Ben's one-time fiancee, is engaged to marry another man. She has taken the step not because she loves the man -- she is still helplessly in love with Ben -- but because she thinks her marriage will get Fletcher out of her life once and for all. Fletcher, positive that Ben will not be able to allow Sylvia to marry without seeing her one last time, stakes out the reception in hopes of catching Ben.