Soon after her father’s disappearance and the brutal killing of his two business associates, Maria Scmitt, terrified by Arkady Demitriev’s sudden appearance at the family’s law firm in Belize City, decided there was no time to lose, it was time to get out, and get out quick.
The next morning she slipped her passports into her handbag, dropped a file containing the papers she had prepared in case of such an eventuality into a small carry-on with a few other essential items, and quit her apartment. She walked a couple of blocks, ditched her cell in the Haulover Creek, then hailed a passing cab and instructed the driver to drop her at Goldson International Airport, there she boarded a flight for Panama City.
Late that same afternoon Maria checked-in on a transatlantic flight, her destination Ibiza, Spain.
Her plan was to find Pat Kennedy, a rich banker, and claim payment for the rare 16th century codex her father had discovered hidden in one of the many strongroom at the Geneva Freeport in Switzerland.
Demitriev suspected Maria and her aunt, May Grafton, were hiding valuable works of art, bought by her father’s associates with money skimmed from the offshore accounts they’d set-up for a clique of corrupt Kremlin insiders. It was money Igor Vishnevsky, a former Russian banker, should have been ploughing into speculative real estate investment schemes in Belize, Cancun and other tourist destinations in the Caribbean on behalf of the Kremlin racketeers.
Unknown to Maria and Demitriev, the codex, compiled by Aztec healers under the supervision of Franciscan friars, soon after the fall of Moctezuma’s empire, described how certain medicinal herbs and plants were prepared for the use of the emperor and his high priests.
Research by Anna Basurko, a historian and archaeologist, friend of Pat Kennedy, reveals that the Franciscan monks, who supervised the compilation of the codex, lived to unusually great ages, in a time when life was short, very short.
Kennedy instructs his scientific team at LifeGen, a research centre specialised in gerontology and longevity, to study the plants described in the codex. Their work identifies an unknown molecule which in the course of tests demonstrates its capacity to regenerate cells and reverse senescence in laboratory animals.

Kennedy, diagnosed as suffering from potentially debilitating side-effects following a brief Covid-19 infection, insists he participate in a clinical trial of the molecule, the results of which are astonishing, within a few weeks not only does his general well-being improve, but visible signs of rejuvenation appear.