Authors: Graham Storrs
“What?” he asked. But he was smiling too, well aware of the way her eyes were shining. Slowly, they let the moment drift past.
“I’d better make a call,” he said, pulling one of the compads out of his pocket. “The police will be here soon and we’re going to need Bauchet’s help explaining all this.”
Samana Karim was wishing she’d never volunteered for this. That guy Sniper and his mates were psycho, and she wasn’t too sure about Klaatu either. It gave her the creeps the way he kept staring at her. But she wanted to get into field work and this was her big break. The section head, Overman, had been so keen to get volunteers who were experienced tekniks he’d have taken anybody. And he did. He took her. Straight out of Aldermaston and into the heart of this operation with barely a moment to reprogram her compatch with her call signs and encryption keys.
They’d tagged her too, with a Galileo global positioning chip injected into her abdominal cavity. It had seemed exciting at the time. She’d gone to the bar they told her about. She’d seen the guy they’d showed her pictures of. Had started a conversation with him. Had said, “Yeah, okay,” as casually as she could when he asked if she was looking for a job, ’cause he knew a guy with a big project on and he could make a few calls for her if she liked. She’d gone to the ladies’ while he made the call, and she’d made a call of her own, telling the MI5 operator that her aunt Najmah was feeling better and she’d be home soon. It wasn’t until she saw the lashed-up field dampener in Klaatu’s van that she realised the operation had stopped going according to plan. There was another one at the warehouse they took her to. So no calls, and no tracking. And now they wouldn’t let anybody out—not for anything—until the job was over. How the hell was she going to tell Overman where she was? For that matter, where the hell was she?
“Nice work,” Klaatu said, leaning over her as she adjusted wave envelopes, tuning the wave guides to the exact specifications the young Pole had given her. She’d heard of Klaatu—who in her line of business had not? In some ways, it was a real buzz to work with him. But she never expected him to look like such a creep, or to keep touching her and “accidentally” brushing against her the way he did.
“It’s going to be a big lob,” she said, “judging by these power figures. I hope we’re a long way from the splashtarget.” She tried to make her voice sound light but, even to her, it sounded strained and nervous.
He put a hand on her shoulder. “Don’t worry, we’re well away from any danger here.”
She tried not to flinch. “We’d have to be at least five kilometres away, maybe ten. Where’s the target?”
He looked at her but said nothing. It made her jittery and flustered.
“I’m only saying… I mean, it’s like, we don’t want to get caught in the backwash, right?”
He stared at her for a few more seconds and said, “You’d better hurry up with that. We’ll be putting the field assembly together in an hour or so.”
She nodded and tried to force a smile. “Yeah. No problem.”
He walked away, leaving her feeling wrung out and frightened. God! What an idiot she was, asking him like that. He had to suspect her now. Didn’t he? The way he’d looked at her. She glanced about the warehouse, not really taking in the high, dirty walls and the piles of equipment. Sniper and his brick friends were out, fetching some stuff they needed. If they’d been there, maybe Klaatu would be talking to them by now. Maybe the big German would be walking over to her with that horrible smirk of his.
She tried to calm herself down. She needed to think. She needed to stop her hands shaking and slow down her racing heart and think. When Sniper got back, she was as good as dead. She was so sure of it, it made every muscle tense. Klaatu had sussed her. He’d have to be an idiot not to. And, whatever he was, he wasn’t that. Which meant she had to get out of there fast.
Once the bricks got back, she wouldn’t stand a chance. But right now, there was only Klaatu. He carried a gun. She’d seen it, tucked into the belt of his trousers. And the other tekniks, of course. They weren’t like her. They were here for the money and the kicks. They’d be on Klaatu’s side if she tried anything. But they weren’t armed. They weren’t psycho creeps like Klaatu, either. It was him she had to worry about.
Without thinking about it, she put down the test equipment she was carrying and stood up. There were three doors in the warehouse: the big sliding doors by the loading bay, a small metal door in the side, and a wooden door at the far end that led to a little office and probably out onto the street. She walked toward the office door. The bathrooms were next to it and she hoped it would just look like she was taking a toilet break.
She tried not to look left or right as she neared the office but, at the last minute, as she turned toward its door, she glanced over her shoulder to where she’d last seen Klaatu. The young teknik was standing with his hands on his hips, watching her. A grim smile was on his face. Yet he hadn’t reached for his gun and he wasn’t running to catch her. She grabbed the handle of the door almost overwhelmed with panic. What did it mean? Why wasn’t he doing anything?
It could only be that there was no way out through the office. Stifling a cry of anguish, she let go of the handle and ran flat out for the little side door. It bounced in her vision as she raced toward it. Her feet slapped against the concrete floor, making a god-awful racket. Everyone must be looking. Klaatu must be chasing her by now. Why couldn’t she hear his footsteps? Why wasn’t he shouting? She daren’t look. She didn’t want to see his face. She had to reach the door first. She was so close. The only way he could stop her now was to shoot her. The idea made her skin crawl as she anticipated the noise, the hot metal slamming into her body. She hit the door with an explosive crash, shoving at the bar-push release, frantically grabbing it and pulling, pushing, yanking at it. But the door didn’t open. The door was locked. The bastards had locked the doors! Of course they’d locked the doors! Only an idiot wouldn’t have expected that. Fear and defeat clamped down on her. It really felt like they were crushing her from the inside. She sagged against the stubborn metal. Her legs were weak and couldn’t hold her any more. Tears flowed down her cheeks as she slumped to the oily concrete floor. Now she could hear Klaatu’s footsteps. He approached her slowly, with all the time in the world.
* * * *
Overman played the recording for Holbrook and Porterhouse in Holbrook’s office. It was a close-up of Sniper’s grinning head, with only a brick wall behind him. The timestamp was just thirty minutes old.
“So you see, Mr. Overman, you’re going to have to do better than that if you want to catch me. Or is your real name Bond, James Bond? Little Samana told me all about you and your sad little spy games before she died. You really shouldn’t have sent out such an inexperienced young thing to do your dirty work. Maybe you’ll have bad dreams tonight thinking about what you’ve done.”
The face in the recording grinned maliciously. “But if you have any more hot little chicks like her, don’t you hesitate to send them right along. Let me tell you about some of the sexy fun we had together before she died—”
Overman cut the playback. Sniper’s face remained frozen on the display, cocky and malevolent.
“Fucking bastard,” Porterhouse growled, looking like he’d tear Sniper’s throat out with his teeth given the chance.
“Bond was Six, wasn’t he?” Holbrook said, absently.
“You think it has any significance?” Overman asked.
“Probably not. Just ignorance, or a careless attitude to the truth.”
Overman looked at his boss, trying to weigh up his response, but gave up. He said, “They found her body twenty minutes ago in Vauxhall Park, just two minutes away from where we are now.”
“He thinks it’s all a fucking game!” Porterhouse snarled.
“We didn’t manage to insert any other agents, did we?” Holbrook said. Overman shook his head. “No. She was the only one.”
“You’ll have that analysed, of course.” Holbrook glanced toward the display.
“We won’t find anything.”
“No. Quite.”
There was a short silence while Holbrook seemed to consider all the options he no longer had.
“Where’s that bloody girl? That’s what I want to know.” Porterhouse glared at Overman as if the section head was deliberately hiding her. “And the little pansy who’s supposed to be minding her.”
Holbrook grimaced. He seemed wounded, a little lost, not at all his usual self. He turned his gaze on Porterhouse. “You’re right to remind us of our failings, of course, but I think a more positive attitude is what we need right now.” He lifted his head and straightened his back, as if taking his own advice.
“Overman, get your SAS friends over here and suited up. Put them on round-the-clock readiness. You never know, we might get some good news. Meanwhile, your top priority is to locate Sandra Malone—and Jay, if you think it will help.” He touched a paper report on his desk. “I see you raided the house in Surrey this morning, Porterhouse, but all you found were two dead bodies.”
“That’s right. Both hired guns. Local muscle. Also plenty of forensics to suggest that one other person was injured there, probably tortured. DNA matches a local prostitute. Specialises in sadomasochism. Went missing three days ago. And they found Sandra Malone’s DNA all over one of the dead men, so she’s in the frame for at least one of the killings. There was other stuff too. Another woman. Several other men. The labs are still going over it.”
“Nothing actually useful then?”
Porterhouse glared at Holbrook. “No folder marked ‘Top secret plan to kill Winston Churchill’s mother,’ if that’s what you mean?”
“That’s exactly what I mean.” He shook his head and drew a deep breath. He turned to Overman. “The analysts are considering Winnie’s mother, I suppose?”
Overman knew that half the service was working on identifying the most probable splashtargets. Assuming it was going to happen within Greater London any time between 1880 and 1920, they’d narrowed it down to just fifteen hundred possibilities. “I’ll ask them,” he said, dryly. Holbrook ignored the hint of insubordination. “The girl was at the house. I think that means we need to have a word with her, don’t you?”
“Oh yes.”
“On your way then.”
He let the two men leave, then swivelled his chair to face the big window and its panoramic view across the Thames and south London. He could see Vauxhall Park quite clearly from where he sat. He could even see the police cars and the crowd of onlookers at the spot where the body must have been found. He needed to make some calls. The Royals were safely away. So were the politicians. A more general evacuation was now essential. No one was going to like that idea. Yet the way things stood, Sniper could not be stopped. Unless the girl knew something, and they could find her in time, it was all over bar the shouting.
* * * *
Bauchet finished his call and turned his sharp, hooded eyes on Jay and Sandra. “That was Five,” he said. “Their agent inside Sniper’s team has been found and executed.”
Jay knew immediately what this meant. So did Sandra.
“We should go,” she said.
“I will go with you,” said Bauchet. “There is still the mole to think about.” He spoke to Sandra. “If you reveal your information too soon, it will be worthless. Sniper will find out that we know about his plans and he will call off the lob. Then he will simply disappear and try again somewhere else.” He paused as if checking his own reasoning. “No, no. We must be there at the moment Sniper makes his move. It is our only hope now to send people back in time to stop him. I suspect you will need help in keeping your knowledge from Jay’s friends at Five until the last moment. And there, I think I can help.”
He excused himself and made some more calls. Sandra took Jay aside.
“What’s he talking about? They still can’t go back in time and stop Sniper unless they know just when he’s going to make his lob. And that’s not something Camilla knew. Just when he does the lob is down to Sniper.”
“I know. Even if she had known, Sniper’s changed his plans by now, brought the lob forward.”
“So how does us knowing the splashtarget help? If we jump back now and Sniper hasn’t gone already, the timestream will be smooth. He won’t be there. If we jump even a few hours after he’s been and gone, the timestream will have smoothed out again. It will be just like he’d never been back. A timesplash doesn’t change history, you know. It just messes it up for a short while. Bricks are still anchored in the present. That’s why they get yanked back, why the splash doesn’t affect them much while they’re there. If it wasn’t for the backwash, you’d never know a splash had happened.”
“You have a good grasp of metatemporal physics, Mlle. Malone.” Bauchet joined them, his calls done.
“I don’t know metatemporal physics from a hole in the ground,” she snapped back. “But I talk to a lot of bricks.”
Bauchet smiled. “You should talk to a few more tekniks then, because they would tell you we can now detect a temporal displacement field when it is activated.”
Jay and Sandra looked at him in astonishment. Bauchet shrugged. “It is only a prototype, and it runs only at CERN, but a field as big as the one Sniper hopes to create can be detected from anywhere in the world. Or so I am told.” He held up his compatch. “As soon as the lob starts, I will know about it.”