TimeSplash (12 page)

Marie could see people unconsciously edging away from the Spanish speaker and his embarrassed companion. “Perhaps you would do me the favour of returning to your desks and continuing with whatever work you have? I will be talking to everyone quite soon.”

People hurriedly removed themselves from Bauchet’s vicinity.

“Not you two,” he said quietly, fixing the perplexed Joe and the white-faced Jay with his gaze. “It is these two, is it not?” he asked Marie over his shoulder. She nodded, watching the young men with disappointed eyes. “Very well. In my office, right now.”

He turned away and they followed him, Jay looking daggers at his new-found friend and Joe acting as if he were being unjustly accused.

Marie closed the outer door and went to her desk in the adjoining office. She could see them through the glass walls and hear everything that was said perfectly clearly.

“All right,” Bauchet said. “Names.” They gave him their names, Joe reciting his with his usual flourish.

“Well, Constables Kennedy and de la Peña,” he said, impressing Marie that he could remember even part of Joe’s name after a single hearing. “Let me tell you what the worst part of this new assignment is for me.” He went to sit down in his big, leather chair, leaving the two young men standing.

“I can explain,” said Jay.

“Shut up!” The anger in Bauchet’s eyes silenced him immediately. Marie looked across at her new boss with keen interest.

“You see, I have been pushing for the creation and funding of a team like this ever since Ommen. Two years, tracking down bricks and all the lowlifes that surround them, and learning every day a little more about what might happen if their activities were left unchecked. I had hoped for a strong international force, focused on the problem. I had hoped it would be in place in time to stop catastrophes like Beijing. But, in the end, it took Beijing to wake people up to what was happening.

“So I got my team and I got my funding and that is good. But what I also got—” And here an angry growl came into his voice. “—was every intelligence agency in Europe wanting to have one of their own people attached to my team so they have someone on the inside. People like you,
messieurs
.” He turned his glare on Joe. “You’re Spanish, yes?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Servicio de Información?”

“Yes, sir.”

He swivelled his aquiline nose toward Jay. “And you?”

“Five, sir.”

Bauchet nodded to himself. “I don’t care what kind of stupid, juvenile scrape you two got yourselves into last night. But I’ll tell you this. Beijing could have been Madrid. It could have been London. And one day it will be if we don’t do our jobs well. People will die. Tens of thousands of people.

“You might think this is some cushy little assignment, a trip abroad, occasional reports to your home agencies about how we’re doing.” Jay blushed again and Marie guessed that someone had asked him to deliver just such reports. A flash of Bauchet’s eyes told her he too had seen Jay blush.

“But this is not a game!” Bauchet’s voice was suddenly hard as iron. “This is not a vacation. This is the most important assignment either of you will have in your entire careers. We are fighting a foe with the capacity to bring down our entire civilisation. So you will stop being stupid children and you will take this assignment seriously, or by God you will be on the next plane back to wherever you came from with my recommendation for a dishonourable discharge on your record. Is that clear?”

Jay seemed to be struck dumb as he attempted a response. Joe’s “Yes, sir” was just as feeble.

“Is. That. Clear?” Bauchet almost shouted.

“Yes, sir!” they both snapped back in unison, standing to attention as if they were back on parade at the academy.

Bauchet regarded them steadily for several seconds. “Get out,” he said at last, turning his back on them.

For a long time, Marie watched him as he stared through his window at the high-rises and motorways of Brussels. She was beginning to understand the kind of man she would be working for.

“Good afternoon, Mr. Sniper, sir.” The man in the white three-piece business suit spoke with an American accent. He was short and round and looked cold.

“It’s just Sniper, okay?” Sniper himself was wearing a floor-length, fur-lined leather coat, fur-lined boots and a fur fedora. The morning’s ice still lingered in the shadows, and the American stood out like a banjo player in a symphony orchestra. “You must be McGarry. Nice suit.”

They had arranged to meet in the Gendarmenmarkt, a large public square big enough to have two cathedrals fronting it and popular enough, even in late November, to be full of people. Even Europe’s most wanted man could feel anonymous in a place like that, or so Sniper had thought. But he hadn’t expected his guest to turn up dressed as Colonel Sanders.

“I seem to have dressed for the wrong season,” the American said. “It’s a little bit warmer back home in Louisiana, I’ve gotta say.”

“Well, at least everyone will be looking at you and not at me.”

McGarry smiled, weakly. “Perhaps we could find a coffee house or somewhere out of the wind.”

Sniper regarded him with contempt. “We’re not courting, McGarry. This is not our first date. I don’t want to know your favourite band and what posters you have on your bedroom walls. Let’s just get our business done and say good-bye.”

McGarry’s face lost its smile and became a blank mask. “Sure. Let’s do business. I have the target details in my briefcase. In return, my associates need proof of progress.”

“Just who are your mysterious associates, McGarry?”

“Now you know I can’t tell you that. It’s all part of our agreement. We supply the money. We pick the target. You get to do your timesplashing thing.”

Sniper looked away, habitually scanning the crowded square for police. “Yeah, yeah. Whatever. So leave your case and fuck off, eh?”

McGarry’s voice grew a little firmer. “We need that proof of progress, first, Sniper.”

Sniper thought briefly of taking the case anyway and telling McGarry and his bosses to get stuffed. He had a quick mental image of that bright white suit splattered with the fat man’s blood. But he quickly thought better of it. He needed the money to keep flowing. And why should he care who he had to deal with to get it?

“How do I know you’re not a cop?” he asked, more out of mischief than any real concern. Klaatu had vetted all their communications and nobody slipped anything past that boy.

“I figure you’re just gonna have to trust me on that one, son.”

Sniper’s head whipped around to face McGarry. The man’s accent had yanked up a memory Sniper had buried long ago. For a moment he felt the heavy shotgun in his hands, felt the power of his own muscles surging, the sound of the stock hitting flesh and bone, the jarring in his wrists as Hal’s head snapped back and away. Was there a connection here? Was somebody telling him they knew? Could this ridiculous little man be a warning? A threat?

“What?” the American asked, unnerved by Sniper’s wide-eyed stare. “What’d I say?”

Paranoia. That’s all it was, he told himself. He’d been on the run too long. Hal hadn’t even been from Louisiana, had he? Somewhere else. He couldn’t remember now. He saw McGarry’s eyes flick nervously down to his hands and realised he had reached into his coat pocket without thinking about it. Already his fingers were curling around the stock of his Chinese-made QSZ-99, all-polymer, 9mm handgun. Deliberately, he pulled his hand out of his pocket and let it fall at his side.

“You want proof of progress?” he asked. McGarry said nothing, just swallowed hard and licked his lips. Sniper gave him the address of the warehouse in Neukölln-Südring. “Be there at eight,” he said and walked quickly away into the crowd.

* * * *

“Hey, I know you!”

The club shook to the music, dimly lit except where the lights pulsed and circled on the dance floor. Sandra danced in sinuous rhythm to the hard beat. An old acquaintance from her pre-Sniper days danced with her.

“You’re Patty, right? You used to come in here. Long time ago.”

The guy who had just interrupted them and was now shouting in her face was someone she didn’t recognise. She peered at him. He was fair-haired and gangly and smashed out of his head on something.

“Hey, dickhead,” her dance partner shouted in the stoned guy’s face. “Fuck off.”

Taken aback and definitely not keen to argue the point, the guy backed away and lost himself in the crowd.

“Who was that?” Patty asked. She wasn’t in the club for old times’ sake—or to dance with this guy all night. She was there to renew her old contacts and gather information.

“Said he knew you.”

“Yeah. Everybody knew me. Who was he?”

“A guy called Cooke. Stephen Cooke.”

“What was his tag?”

Her partner lowered his voice. “People don’t use their tags any more. The cops are always sniffing around now. You never know who to trust.”

“Yeah, but what was it?”

“I dunno, Zorro or something. Zaphod, that was it.”

“So you’re right out of that scene now.”

“Damn right! It’s a mug’s lark. Anyway, what’s the point now? The bricks are more like terrorists these days. Not my idea of fun. Back then they used to be cool, you know?”

“Yeah, I know. Look, I’m going to go and sit down for a while.”

“Yeah, I could do with a break myself.”

She put a hand on his chest to stop him from following. “I’ll be all right. I’ll see you later, okay?”

He watched her go with a puzzled frown.

As soon as she was out of sight, Sandra changed direction and headed for where Zaphod had gone. It took her several minutes but she finally located the gangly youth sitting beside a girl and shouting sweet nothings in her tattooed ear.

“There you are, Stevie,” she gushed, rushing up to him and kissing him on the cheek. He turned a blurry expression of surprise her way that quickly reverted to his normal sloppy grin when he realised who it was. But Sandra had already turned her attention to the equally surprised girl next to him. “And who are you?” she demanded, hands on hips.

The girl gave them both a seriously disbelieving look then got up and stalked off without a backward glance.

“Let’s go somewhere where we can talk,” Sandra said. She had to tug at him quite hard to get him to his feet, but he eventually got the message.

She led him out of the club and into the quiet, late-night streets. He kept up a constant stream of chatter to which she contributed the occasional “Uh huh?” and “Yeah, right,” until they were well clear of anyone who might see them or hear them.

“Don’t you miss the old days?” she asked him as they settled into a deeply shadowed doorway. He was fumbling at her and trying to kiss her in a clumsy, ineffectual way. She pulled him close, partly to make him feel he was getting somewhere, partly because she was freezing cold in her skimpy dance gear. “Are you still in touch with any of the old gang?”

“Oh yeah,” he mumbled. “See ’em all the time.”

“You mean, like, Buzz and Snoopy?” Buzz was the nearest thing to a hard-core brick she had known back then, and Snoopy had been his best friend.

“Snoopy’s around. Dunno about Buzz. God, you’re so beautiful. I always liked you, you know?”

“I always liked you too, Zaphod. Where does Snoopy hang out these days?”

He was slobbering on her neck and had a hand inside her short skirt and if he didn’t give her something useful in a minute, she told herself, she’d have to do something to cool him off.

“Remember the old Night Creatures Club?”

“Yes! Is that where he is?”

“Nah,” he said, taking a firm hold of her left breast. “Pulled it down. You know, I feel like we really connect. Y’know what I mean?”

She felt like thumping the spaced-out moron, but instead she nibbled his earlobe. “So where’s Snoopy then, if they pulled down the club?”

“Oh, that’s nice,” he breathed.

“Wonderful,” she agreed through gritted teeth. “What about Snoopy though?”

“Built a new club in the same place. Snobby sort of place. That’s where he goes now.”

She wriggled free of him and pushed him back against the door. “Sweetie, I’ve just got to go for a pee. Okay? I’ll be right back.” He looked at her as if she were speaking Icelandic, the combination of strong drugs and lust having left him more than usually out of it. “You wait here for me, all right? I’ll be back in a few minutes. Don’t go away now.”

He managed a grin. “No worries. I’ll be right here.”

“Sorry about this,” she said and ran off. She picked up her coat and bag from the club where she’d stashed them and rushed straight out to the main road to hail a cab. One more step up the food chain, she told herself. One step closer. Being out here, among people who knew her, was scary and dangerous, not because the cops might find her—she really wasn’t worried about that—but because Sniper might. Every night her old boyfriend hunted her in her nightmares. Every night the ground sucked her down, buildings fell and rose again, oscillating on the edge of destruction, and Sniper, his cold grey eyes fixed on her, struck people down as he made his way toward her. She had no doubt he was hunting her in the daytime too. Now that he could make a backwash that could level a city, she would never be safe from him. He would find her and turn her world into a bedlam of destruction and chaos. She would be caught again in the madness of causal anomalies and temporal switchbacks and this time it would destroy her body and soul.