The Doomsday Box (9 page)

Carradine shook his head. “I'm afraid your chances of success here in the eighties would be as slim as your survival in the Middle Ages. What do you think would happen if the four of you turned up unannounced in a super-secret underground government project in the middle of the Cold War?”

“They'd cut our hands off?” Danny asked, deadpan.

“Maybe not, but it might take you a few years to get out of jail. Besides, even if you managed to reach Cobra, you have to remember he was in the middle of a black op, one he thought was vital for the future of the free world. He'd want to protect himself, and things could easily turn rough. At best, he wouldn't be very likely to believe you.”

“Isn't that a problem whenever we meet up with him?” Opal asked. “Not believing us, I mean?”

“Yes, it is. Frankly, I'd be far happier if we could pick a year closer to the time he got involved with the germ warfare thing, but I don't have access to CIA records at the moment, so I don't know where he was stationed at any given time. Except I happen to know he was at Langley in 1962 because his son was born that year. But sixty-two could be good, even though it isn't perfect. He was more open-minded in the sixties,” Carradine said. “With the proper backup in sixty-two, he's likely to believe you.” He hesitated. “I think.”

Fuchsia hadn't spoken much. Now she did. “What do you mean by backup, Mr. Carradine?”

“We have a man in 1962.” Carradine sighed. He'd already revealed so many official secrets, the big one hardly seemed to matter. “All right, here's the situation as I see it. You four may be working for the Shadow Project, but we're now in the world's greatest all-time god-awful mess, so I think I'm justified in officially co-opting you into the CIA. Project Rainbow was CIA, Cobra was CIA even though he was acting illegally, and it's up to the CIA to clean things up now, so I can justify that decision. As members of the CIA, you're bound by American secrecy laws just as tightly as you're already bound by the British Official Secrets Act. Pass on anything I've told you, anything I'm about to tell you, and you'll come out of jail about in time to draw your old-age pensions. Clear?”

“Clear,” Michael said calmly. After a moment, the others murmured their assent.

“When we finally got a reliable time gate working at Montauk,” Carradine went on, “senior management decided it would be a good idea to establish CIA stations at critical points of history. To keep an eye on things, so to speak, nudge events in the right direction. Obviously these stations had to be kept secret, so what most of them amounted to was one, maybe two agents in deep cover. Each functioned as our man on the spot in a particular time period. The CIA itself was set up in 1947 with headquarters in Washington. But in 1961, it transferred to Langley, Virginia. It was a hell of a move, lots of confusion, which gave us an opportunity to plant a temporal agent there: we had him safely in place by early sixty-two.”

“You mean,” Danny said incredulously, “the CIA infiltrated the
CIA
?”

“Essentially, yes,” Carradine told him soberly. “We thought it was important to have him in place in the light of subsequent events. Where better than CIA headquarters, where he could pose as an ordinary agent and have access to the intelligence materials of his day? But the important thing is, the setup gives you a point of contact if you're looking for Cobra in 1962.”

“I don't understand this, Mr. Carradine,” Opal said.

“It's simple enough,” Carradine told them. “I can send you to 1962, somewhere close to Langley. From there—”

Danny asked, “Why not into Langley itself, since that's obviously where we're going?”

“There's no way we want you appearing suddenly where you're likely to be seen—people would start to ask too many questions,” Carradine explained. “Standard procedure is to transport you to a remote spot within reach of your ultimate target. You make your way from there. Once you reach Langley, I want you to go directly to CIA headquarters. When you get there, ask for Jack Stratford. You got that name?”

“Jack Stratford,” Michael murmured.

“Since you've no valid credentials, he'll refuse to see you. At that point, you should instruct the receptionist to give him this.” He tossed a folded slip of paper onto the table. Opal picked it up and hesitantly opened it. The others leaned forward to see. On the paper was written the single word
Chronos.
“Then leave and make your way to Pete's Pies and Coffee. It's only a couple of blocks away; anybody will give you directions. Order yourselves coffees and anything else you want. Jack Stratford will join you inside fifteen minutes and pay the bill.”

“Jack Stratford is our man in 1962, right?” Danny put in.

“Right,” Carradine confirmed.

“What happens then?” Opal asked.

“Stratford will set you up to function in 1962, provide you with everything you need for your mission.” He hesitated, then added, “Providing you're willing to undertake it.”

O
kay,” said Carradine briskly when the rest of the briefing was finished, “get back to your individual quarters and get yourselves ready, then join me in the transportation chamber.” He caught the blank looks and added, “Where you saw the time gate: we called it the transportation chamber. For obvious reasons.” As they pushed their chairs back, he said casually, “Danny, would you hold up a minute?”

“Sure.”

As the door closed behind the others, Carradine said thoughtfully to Danny, “You were brought up in a particularly rough area of London—right?”

“Rough enough,” Danny muttered tersely. He disliked talking about his past, even though he was aware Carradine knew all about it from his file. The question was, why was Carradine bringing it up now?

“Must have met some hard men,” Carradine said.

“A few.” Danny watched him suspiciously, wondering where this was going.

Carradine parked his backside on the edge of the conference table, the picture of relaxed confidence. Except he was neither relaxed, nor particularly confident. If Danny was reading him right, the casual pose was just an act. There was something on Carradine's mind. Danny waited. Carradine glanced toward the strip light in the ceiling, looked back at Danny, then asked, “How did you deal with them?”

“Kept out of their way, mostly.”

“And when you couldn't keep out of their way?”

Danny took a deep breath. “What are you asking me, Mr. Carradine? What are you asking me
really
?”

“Ever use a knife?”

“
Cripes, Mr. Carradine!
What's this about?”

Carradine licked his lips. “Did it occur to you to wonder what will happen if we can't persuade Cobra to abandon his plans?”

“Sure it did. But you said he's not a mad dog.”

“He's not. He's not going to send the samples if they lead to the deaths of millions of Americans. I'm certain of that. What worries me is that he may not believe us.”

“That we've come from the future?” Danny asked. He supposed it did sound a bit far-fetched.

Carradine shook his head. “That could be tricky, all right, although I think the chances are he'll buy it. The Montauk complex wasn't built until 1967, but by sixty-two Cobra would have heard rumors about Project Rainbow, even though he wasn't working for it then. No, my worry is the time element. We're asking him to commit to something that won't happen for more than twenty years. Think about it, Danny. I ask you to do something in twenty years' time and you could be happy to promise today, but you've got two decades to change your mind. You're a different person in twenty years. And even if he accepts your approach as genuine, he may not believe what we tell him about the outcome of his germ warfare mission.”

“Why wouldn't he believe us? Why would we go to the trouble of traveling through time”—and speaking of belief, Danny couldn't believe he'd just said that—“to tell him lies?”

“You could be working for the Russians. Or the Chinese. Or somebody who wanted to sabotage America's biological weapons program.”

“What about your note?”

“I could be working for the Russians too.”

“So he may not trust you either?”

Carradine shrugged. “This is the CIA. We're trained not to trust anybody.”

Danny stared at Mr. Carradine briefly, then said, “When you were talking to us, when you were telling us about Cobra, you kept saying
we.
Like,
we did this
and
we did that
.”

Carradine stiffened visibly. “What's your point, Danny?”

“You seemed to know an awful lot about it. I was wondering if you were part of it.”

“Part of what?”

“Part of Cobra's nasty little undercover team. You said there were others involved. Were you one of them?”

He thought Mr. Carradine might get angry, but all that happened was he stayed silent for a long moment, then said slowly, “No, Danny. No, I wasn't. I didn't agree with what they were doing and I wasn't a member of the black-op team.”

“But you knew what they were up to?”

“Yes.”

“In detail?”

“Yes.”

“Why didn't you blow the whistle on them?”

To his astonishment, Mr. Carradine gave a wan smile. “Good question, Danny.”

“What's the answer?” Danny pushed.

Carradine said, “Agent Cobra is my father.”

Danny suddenly became aware of his heartbeat, ticking off the seconds. Eventually he said, “I'm sorry.”

Carradine sighed. “I suppose I should have come clean right at the start. You can tell the others when you see them. Or not. I don't suppose it matters, really. I was just . . . You know, it was just that . . .”

It had been a while since Danny felt sorry for anybody in authority, but he felt sorry for Mr. Carradine now. “I understand,” he said. “Blood thicker than water and all that, never mind the regulations.” Frankly, he'd have done the same if Cobra had been his old Nan.

“I let him go too far. I know that now. But we all have twenty-twenty hindsight.” He slid one hand into his jacket pocket. “Danny,” he said, “you're different from the others. They've never had to survive among the lowlifes like you did. You couldn't trust them with something like this, could you?”

“Something like what?” Danny asked.

“Danny,” Carradine said. “I want you to do your best to persuade Cobra—your very best. But if you can't persuade him, or even if you have any doubt in your mind that he's really, genuinely persuaded, I want you to kill him.”

Danny stared, saying nothing.

“You can do the math, Danny. If Cobra sends the samples through, millions die. One life; millions of lives.”

Danny still didn't speak.

“You're the only one capable,” Carradine said. “The others couldn't. I wouldn't even ask them. But you're a realist. You'll know if it has to be done.”

Danny felt so cold inside he was positively numb. Suddenly he found his voice and, to his intense surprise, it sounded calm. “You're wrong, Mr. Carradine. I couldn't do it either.”

It was as if Carradine hadn't heard him. He drew his hand from his jacket pocket, and Danny saw it was holding a small, scuffed, leather-covered box, looking for all the world as if it might contain an engagement ring. “I want you to take this,” Carradine said, holding it out to him.

“What is it?” Danny asked suspiciously. He drew away from the outstretched hand. Somehow he didn't think this was a marriage proposal.

Carradine flicked the box open with his thumb. Inside, nestling on the worn velvet padding, was an antique gold ring set with a large polished amethyst. He put the box down and took out the ring. “See this catch?” He used his thumbnail to press on what looked like a decoration in the setting. The amethyst sprang open like a lid, revealing a depression filled with powdery white crystals. A faint smell of almonds filled the air. “Two hundred fifty milligrams of potassium cyanide,” Carradine said. “It's what the Nazis used to kill themselves after the war. Fastest-acting poison known. Swallow this and you'll collapse immediately. You'll lose consciousness in ten to twenty seconds. A minute or so after that and you're dead from cardiac arrest.” He pressed down to close up the amethyst. “It's soluble in alcohol or water, or you can sprinkle it on food.”

Danny stared at the ring in horrified fascination. “You want me to feed this poison to your father?”

“Hopefully you won't have to,” Carradine said. “I pray to God you won't have to. But there are millions of lives at stake. Literally millions. Call it insurance.”

Danny had started to feel sick to his stomach, sick and dizzy. “You're asking me to kill
your own father
!” he hissed.