TW02 The Timekeeper Conspiracy NEW (3 page)

"None whatsoever," Forrester said. "But this one's got full priority. I can't say that I like the arrangements, though. You'll be loaned out to the agency for this one."

"The TIA?" said Lucas. "That's a bit unusual, isn't it, sir? They don't normally use outsiders."

"No, they don't," said Forrester. "That's why I know that it's a hot one. If Temporal Intelligence figures they need help, it's got to be a bad one."

"I'm not crazy about working under some spook," said Finn. "Those guys are a bunch of psychos, if you ask me."

"I didn't ask you," said Forrester. "And for your informa-tion, you've got those psychos to thank for saving your bacon. They specifically requested the team that pulled off the 1194 adjustment. Or what's left of it, anyway. And that's you two."

"I suppose we should be flattered," Finn said. He raised his glass and toasted Lucas. "Welcome back to active duty, kid. Looks like you've got perfect timing."

"While we're on that subject," Forrester said, "I wouldn't make it a late one if I were you. The mission briefing is at 0700, so get some rest. You're clocking out tomorrow." He pushed his chair back and stood up. "Enjoy your drinks, gentlemen."

Lucas grimaced. "Hey, Finn," he said, "what was that you said about 'hurry up and wait'?"

Delaney poured himself another shot. "I don't know," he said. "What was it you said about 'You can always get in deeper'?"

Lucas tilted his glass toward Finn. "Cheers."

Finn raised his own glass. "Confusion to the French."

The briefing took place in a secured area on the sixty-second level of the TAC-HQ building.

Normally, this was a floor oc-cupied by the administrative personnel working directly under the local office of the Referee Corps, but this morning they had all been assigned to other office space, on other floors. There was no one allowed on the sixty-second level who had not been cleared and checked through by the TIA. They had taken over the floor the previous night and even while Finn and Lucas sat drinking in the lounge, agents had been securing the area, failsafing it against surveillance.

Finn and Lucas walked together down the empty corridor, having been checked through by the agents at the lift tube.

"These people give me the creeps," said Finn.

"You might as well get used to it," said Lucas. "This is going to be their ballgame."

"Oh, I'll get used to it," said Finn, "but I won't like it."

They came to the briefing room and were checked through again, their papers verified and their retinal patterns scanned for positive identification.

"Bunch of paranoid assholes," mumbled Finn.

Forrester was waiting for them in the briefing room, along with a referee, one other man, and a woman seated at a desk terminal.

"Gentlemen, please be seated," said the referee. He waited until they had taken chairs and until one of the agents outside brought them coffee.

"That was thoughtful," said Lucas.

"I'll wait until you taste it first," said Finn.

"All right," said the referee. "Let's begin, shall we?"

"Sir?" said Lucas.

"Captain?"

"Aren't we missing some people? Like, the rest of the team?"

"No, Captain, we're not."

"You mean, we're it?"

"Not exactly, Captain. I don't know how much Major For-rester told you, but this is a TIA affair.

You'll be on loan to the agency for the duration. We have an adjustment on our hands, or a potential one, at any rate. It's a unique situation, one in which the functions of the TIA and those of the corps overlap.

Frankly, they're more qualified to handle this one, but as the case could develop into an adjustment, they've re-quested commandos to supplement their effort. Your role in this mission will be defined as you go along, but it will be defined by the agency. Therefore, I am turning this briefing over to Mr. Darrow, of the TIA."

The ref turned to the agency man and nodded. Darrow was a slender man whose hair was graying.

He was dressed in a nondescript clingsuit. He was of average height and average weight. A man who would not stand out in a crowd.

"I'll bet it's not even his real name," said Finn, softly.

"No, it isn't," said the man called Darrow. He stretched his lips into a mirthless smile. "I have excellent hearing, Mr. Delaney. And there's nothing wrong with your coffee, by the way. You can drink it safely. If you have any other pertinent comments, I'd like to hear them now, so we may proceed."

Finn cleared his throat uneasily and shook his head. Lucas grinned.

"Very well, then," Darrow said. "Are you gentlemen familiar with a group calling itself the Timekeepers?"

"Terrorist organization," said Lucas.

"Correct, Captain. Specifically, they are the terrorist fac-tion of the Temporal Preservation League."

"Mensinger's group?" Finn frowned. "I had no idea they were in any way connected."

"Supposedly, they're not," said Darrow. "The league has formally disassociated itself from the Timekeepers, con-demning their actions and branding them fanatics. A case of the pot calling the kettle black, but be that as it may. We believe that the league is still funneling funds and providing other means of support to the Timekeepers."

"I can't see that as being consistent with Mensinger's aims," said Finn.

"Yes, well, he's dead, isn't he?" said Darrow. "And pol-itics, especially the politics of fanaticism, makes for strange bedfellows. But not so strange, perhaps. The league functions openly, lobbying and agitating, all perfectly legal and above-board. The Timekeepers prefer a rather more extreme means of persuasion, but their goals are still the same. Cessation of temporal warfare and the cessation of time travel. That last is a somewhat more extreme position than the late Dr. Men-singer's, but it's still roughly consistent with his ideas, wouldn't you say, Mr. Delaney? You're the expert."

"All right, so you know I studied Mensinger's research," said Finn. "You probably also know when I spoke out of turn as a kid and when I wiped my ass for the first time. Mensinger was still far from a fanatic. Get to the point."

"Delaney, shut your mouth!" said Forrester.

"That's quite all right, Major," Darrow said. "I'm well aware of the fact that Private Delaney has a rather low opinion of the agency. That's of no consequence, unless it were to interfere with his performance on this mission."

"It won't," said Finn.

"Yes, I know," said Darrow, giving him his mirthless smile. "Your record is particularly impressive.

I'm not especially in-terested in your disciplinary problems. Some of our finest operatives have spent time in military prisons, a singular dis-tinction which you have been spared. So far. But you wanted me to get to the point.

"We had succeeded in infiltrating the league some years ago. However, it wasn't until recently that we were able to infiltrate the Timekeepers. They've been escalating their terrorist campaigns lately and we had a feeling that they were building up to something big. In point of fact, we underestimated them.

"They're more clever than we thought. They managed to penetrate our agent's cover and eliminate him. However, he managed to leave behind a message. He didn't live long enough to complete it, unfortunately. Pity. As a result, we don't know the full extent of their plans. What we do know doesn't make us very happy.

"Our agent had reported earlier that the Timekeepers had made contact with someone in the underground. One of your old people gone bad. The logical assumption was that, since they made this contact in Plus Time, this deserter was obviously one of those having access to a stolen chronoplate." He glanced at the referee briefly. "It's bothersome to us how those things have a habit of walking away from time to time. At any rate, we assumed that the connection had been made in order to allow them to escape to Minus Time to avoid detection following their terrorist acts, but they evidently have something much more ambitious in mind.

"Terrorists are not the most logical of people. They see their goal as being to tear down an established system and they often don't think much past that point. To date, their activities have been limited to the more traditional methods. Bombing, kidnapping, assassination, etc. They're especially fond of taking hostages to use as leverage for their demands. Well, this time, they've outdone themselves.

They've taken time itself hostage.

"They now have a chronoplate in their possession and they're using it to blackmail the Referee Corps.

Their demands are that the apparatus for fighting the time wars be dismantled, that the Referee and Observer Corps be disbanded, along with our agency, and that time travel cease. Otherwise, they will create a timestream split."

"They're bluffing," said Delaney. "The threat of a time-stream split is the sole reason why the league came into being. What you're saying is that they're threatening to create the very thing that their whole aim is to prevent!"

"Mr. Delaney, if there's one thing that we've learned in our efforts to break the Timekeepers, it's that they never bluff. I told you, they're fanatics. Fanatics are not rational human beings. They have no reason to bluff; they're holding a hell of a hand. Look at your history. There have been terrorist organizations in the past who have had peace as their goal, and yet they didn't hesitate to use violence in its pursuit. There is no logic to terrorism, there's only the very unpleasant reality of its existence."

"Jesus, it's just like the last time," Finn said. "It's going to be hell trying to stop someone with a chronoplate."

"Not necessarily," said Darrow. "Remember, they don't know that our agent had a chance to communicate their plans to us. They will be proceeding on the assumption that we won't know where they'll be in time nor what they'll try to do to effect the split in the event we refuse to meet their demands.

And, obviously, meeting their demands is unthinkable. Well, we don't know exactly what they're going to do or how they'll do it, but we do know where they'll be. And unless something occurs to change their plans at the last minute, we've got a chance to stop them.

"We know that they have selected as their operating time the month of April in the year 1625. We know that they'll be operating out of Paris, France. And we know that was a particularly volatile time period. Can we have a brief readout on that, please?"

The woman seated at the desk terminal began to speak in a monotone.

"France in the period 1610 to 1643, reign of King Louis XIII, regency of his mother, Marie de'

Medici, 1573 to 1642. The king was declared of age in the year 1614, the year of the Summons of the States-General. The queen mother was banished to Blois in the year 1617, with the king under the influence of the Duke of Luynes. 1619, Armand Jean du Plessis, Cardinal-Duke of Richelieu, mediated a treaty between the queen mother and the Duke of Luynes. Civil war. Marie de' Medici and Richelieu in control following death of Luynes in 1621. 1624 to 1642, administration of Cardinal Richelieu, who became the man behind the throne in France. 1625, the Huguenot Revolt under the Dukes of Rohan and Soubise. Siege of La Rochelle in 1627 to 1628. England dispatched three fleets to the aid of the Huguenots, but the city surrendered on October 28, 1628 after a fourteen-month-long resistance. War in Italy with Spain, Richelieu in command of army. Treaty of Cherasco in 1631, beginning of French participation in the Thirty Years' War. Foundation of the
Academie Franqaise
in—"

"Thank you," Darrow said, "that will do. As you can see, gentlemen, it was a violent time, full of intrigues, conspiracies, wars, and alliances. They couldn't have picked a better milieu within which to function. Nor, we believe, could they have picked a more difficult time period in which to effect an adjustment, if it came to that."

"So you believe their target to be Richelieu?" said Lucas.

"We don't know for certain, Captain. Our agent died before he could complete his message. But we're assuming that Cardinal Richelieu will be involved, either directly or indirectly. He was without a doubt the most influential man in France at the time and he's a pivotal character in history. However, our research department has brought out yet another factor which we find extremely significant.

"The month of April in 1625 was when a young man named D'Artagnan arrived in Paris."

The last time she had been in France had been almost five hundred years earlier. Her name had not been Andre de la Croix then. It was not her real name, but her real name no longer mattered to her. That had been another time, another life.

She had not belonged in 12th-century England any more than she belonged in 17th-century France.

She had been born in the western Pyrenees, Basque country, but she often felt that she did not belong in any time or place at all. The feeling of being different, of not fitting in, went back almost as far as she could remember.

It had started when her parents died, leaving her to take care of her little brother. She had been just a child herself. It had not taken her very long at all to find out just how vulnerable a young girl could be, so she had learned to act the part of a young boy. That deception had constituted the first major change in her young life.

She had continued the masquerade into adulthood, having learned that being a man offered far greater opportunities than being a woman. Her breasts were small and easily, if uncomfortably, concealed and the hard life she had led as a "young boy" had given her a body that was lean and strong. After years spent as itinerant thieves and beggars, she and her brother had been taken in as squires by an aging knight-errant whose brain had been befuddled by one too many injuries. The old knight had never learned her secret and he had trained her in the martial arts of chivalry. That had been the second major change in her life.

She had known that living free in a time when freedom was a commodity in scarce supply meant becoming strong and self-reliant. She worked hard, developing her body into an efficient fighting machine. She was taller than most women of her time, broad-shouldered, and long of limb. Her drive and physical characteristics combined to give her a body and a degree of fitness that would be unknown to women for several hundred years. She became the physical equal of most men in strength and the superior of most in endurance and reflexes. After the death of her mentor, she took her own brother as her squire and became a mercenary knight, a "free companion" with the fictitious name of Andre de la Croix. She chose for her device a fleury cross of white on red. Guarding her secret with her life, for that was what exposure as a woman would have cost her, she entered into the service of Prince John of Anjou. Shortly thereafter, she met a man she took to be a sorcerer and he had brought her to the third and greatest change in her young life.