Ripples of the Past

by Damian Knight

  Ripples of the Past

  The Pages of Time Book 2

  Damian Knight

  Copyright © 2018 Max Thomas Porter

  This book is a work of fiction. Any resemblance between the characters portrayed and actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other non-commercial uses permitted by copyright law.

  For my parents

  Not read A Trick of the Light yet?

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  The story so far…

  After suffering a traumatic brain injury in the crash of Flight 0368 – a shocking terrorist attack that killed his father and left his mother in a coma – sixteen-year-old Sam Rayner wakes in hospital to discover that he has developed seizures during which he is transported into the body of his past or future self.

  Sam collapses at his father’s funeral and suddenly finds himself flung several hours ahead, where he learns of a bomb blast at Thames House, the headquarters of the British Security Service. Upon returning to the present, he tips off the police, thereby preventing the atrocity and inadvertently drawing the attention of Lara McHayden, head of the Tempus Project, a secret government organisation investigating people with alleged time-travelling capabilities.

  McHayden offers Sam the chance to control his ability and help track down rogue MI5 agent Esteban Haufner, the man responsible for both the foiled Thames House bombing and the sabotage of Flight 0368. Using Tetradyamide – a drug originally developed during the Vietnam War by McHayden’s long-lost fiancé, Isaac Barclay – Sam begins training at the Tempus Research Facility, a subterranean complex outside of London.

  He is not, however, the only person to have developed such abilities. In 1969, Michael Humboldt, a horrifically injured soldier, escapes from a secure military hospital in California under mysterious circumstances. After almost half a year in hiding, Michael embarks on a murderous rampage and returns to San Francisco intent on coercing Isaac Barclay into providing him with a continued supply of Tetradyamide. In a desperate bid to escape Michael’s clutches, Isaac destroys his research into the drug before going on the run himself.

  Back in the present day, McHayden believes Humboldt is responsible for corrupting Haufner, and asks Sam to help confirm his location prior to a missile strike. Unwilling to become responsible for the destruction of an innocent village, Sam tries to leave the Tempus Project and is sucked into a bloody conflict with McHayden and her foot soldier, George Steele, which threatens everyone and everything he holds dear. On the night of Christmas Eve, Sam travels back to the day of his father’s funeral and reverses his decision to alert the police to the Thames House bombing, creating a new timeline in the process.

  Now, in Ripples of the Past, we rejoin Sam as he struggles to adapt to a reality in which he has no recollection of the last month, and journey back to 1970s California as the game of cat and mouse between Michael Humboldt and Isaac Barclay comes to an explosive head.

  Table of Contents

  Chapter I: The Homecoming

  Chapter II: Harsh Realities

  Chapter III: Easy Money

  Chapter IV: Rough Justice

  Chapter V: Dead End

  Chapter VI: A Wanted Man

  Chapter VII: Fight and Flight

  Chapter VIII: Reset

  Chapter I

  The Homecoming

  1

  November 1916

  Stephen Rutherford’s dream of a lazy afternoon in the garden of the family cottage was shattered by a distant thunderclap. He twisted in his hammock to see the rusted walls of the cabin shakily illuminated by a lantern swinging from the ceiling. Joseph, his older brother, was already up and on his feet in undershirt and breeches, his eyes like pools of shimmering liquid in his oil-streaked face.

  ‘What the devil was that?’ Stephen asked.

  Joseph wiped his forehead with the back of his hand, smearing muck about. ‘You don’t suppose we’re under attack, do you?’

  ‘No. Fritz wouldn’t dare, not with the escort we’ve got.’

  ‘What about U-boats?’

  Stephen swallowed the lump in his throat. Hoping that the fear spreading through his gut wasn’t also painted across his face, he threw his blanket back and dropped barefooted to the floor. Over the last year or so U-boats had become an ever-growing threat to British merchant vessels as the German navy sought to tighten the stranglehold of its blockade, but before he could take measures to reassure his brother, the ship was rocked by a swell that sent the pair staggering. Stephen’s tankard slid along the ledge by his hammock and clattered to the floor, while Joseph lost his footing and toppled onto his backside, landing with a huff.

  ‘No time for rest,’ Stephen said, and reached down to haul him upright. ‘Come on, let’s take a gander up on deck.’

  For a moment Joseph remained seated, his brow creased as he prepared to voice some objection or another.

  ‘Would you rather stay down here?’ Stephen asked. ‘It’s no safer if we are under attack, I can promise you that.’

  Joseph nodded his reluctant consent, gripped Stephen by the wrist and clambered to his feet. Once the pair had pulled on their oilskins and boots, Stephen paused to snatch his father’s fob watch from the hook beside his hammock before bundling his brother through the cabin door.

  The dank, dimly lit corridor echoed with shouts and cries as they made their way to the stern of the ship. A volley of heavy gunfire sounded somewhere nearby, shaking the hull as though they had run aground. On reaching the far end, they ascended the treacherously slippery metal steps and emerged into the biting cold of the main deck.

  ‘Look,’ Joseph said. He was pointing to the north side of the convoy, where the darkness of the blackout was broken by a pillar of fire that cast reflected flames onto the water as it rose high in the night sky. ‘The Earl of Sussex, I wager.’

  ‘Poor bastards.’

  Joseph swallowed, his bottom lip quivering. ‘I’m scared, Stevie.’

  ‘Don’t be,’ Stephen said, and laid a hand on Joseph’s shoulder. ‘I’m right here with you. I won’t let anything happen.’

  Although younger by two years, to Stephen it often felt as though he were the older of the brothers. Their father had been killed in an industrial accident in 1903, leaving Stephen, who was only three at the time, with little more than a handful of hazy memories and the gold fob watch bequeathed to him. Growing up, Joseph had suffered a series of ailments that had stunted his growth and left him permanently short of breath, and as a result Stephen had had little choice but assume the role of man of the household, taking on a variety of errands and odd jobs in order to supplement their mother’s meagre income while his brother stayed in bed, mostly reading. By the age of thirteen, Joseph was fluent in five languages, including Latin and ancient Greek, and spoke both French and German without the trace of an accent (a talent that had already earned him the suspicion of their crewmates). Coupled with his slight frame, Joseph’s preference for the company of books over that of people had made him an easy target for the other boys at their school, and Stephen, who by then had already developed a reputation as a fighter, had habitually returned home sporting the cuts and bruises earned defending his older brother.

  As they watched The Earl of Sussex burn, Stephen’s hand on Joseph’s shoulder, a bar
rage of fire erupted from the guns of a nearby cruiser, throwing further light onto the scene. No more than three hundred feet from where they stood, the turret of a German U-boat broke the surface of the water.

  As the full bulk of the enemy vessel emerged, Joseph let out a whimper. Gripping him by the collar, Stephen began tugging his brother towards the row of lifeboats positioned along the port side of the deck.

  Suddenly Joseph’s body went rigid, his feet scraping over the deck. ‘T-torpedo!’ he stammered.

  Stephen glanced back to see a long, thin shadow carving through the waves towards them, a wake behind it that lead back to the bow of the surfaced submarine. He yanked Joseph’s collar hard enough to lift him clean off his feet and, dragging him along like a dead weight, made for the nearest lifeboat.

  After only a couple of steps there was an ear-splitting boom, followed by the screech of tearing metal. The world inverted on its axis, and Stephen briefly found himself bouncing head-over-heels.

  He came to lying on his back, seemingly unscathed. Thick, tarry smoke choked his lungs and stung his eyes. His ears were filled with screams of dying men.

  ‘Joe?’ he called out, and rolled onto his knees, groping blindly over the surface of the rapidly tilting deck. ‘Where are you?’

  There was no reply.

  At that moment a gust of wind blew a hole in the smoke, granting Stephen a fleeting glimpse of the moon shining down overhead. Calling his brother’s name over and again, he scrambled to his feet and staggered to the handrail. The torpedo had struck two-thirds down, severing the bow from the rest of the ship. Directly below where he stood, Joseph’s oilskin hat bobbed on the surface of the sea.

  Stephen laid his head on the handrail and began to weep, rendering him unaware as the U-boat launched a second torpedo.

  2

  July 1976

  It was a warm summer’s day with only the faintest of breezes to the air. Rapping the tip of his white cane along the edge of the path, Isaac approached the hulking concrete monstrosity that was Stribe Lyndhurst Military Hospital. The building and surrounding grounds seemed somewhat shabbier than he remembered, as though the significance of the events played out there had coloured his recollection, making his memory of the place more impressive than it actually was (although the funding cuts since Nixon had pulled out of Vietnam three years earlier might have also contributed to the flaking paintwork and weed-clogged flowerbeds).

  Yesterday he had reached San Francisco buried among a heap of muddy potatoes in the car of a freight train, thus re-entering the city for the first time since the small hours of New Year’s Day, 1970. On that fateful night Isaac’s life had been altered beyond all recognition, dividing the time before from everything that had followed like a line in the sand. With smoke from the fire he had started choking his lungs, he had stumbled from the Bereck & Hertz building to the sound of fireworks. Tetradyamide still burned through his veins, turning the world into a flickering, disjointed imitation of itself. Glancing down, he’d realised that his tuxedo was spotted with Michael Humboldt’s blood, so he had climbed directly into his car, dropped Michael’s briefcase and the paper bag containing the last batch of Tetradyamide in existence on the passenger seat and then driven through the night.

  The first day of the new decade had passed in a meandering blur of changed clothes and snatched sleep. At some point he’d glimpsed the front page of a newspaper on the rack at a gas station. There were two photographs beneath the headline ARSONIST DOCTOR WANTED FOR DOUBLE HOMICIDE, one of fire fighters tackling the blaze the night before and the other of Isaac at his graduation from medical school in ‘65. Without bothering to collect his change from the attendant, he had jumped back in his car and continued east, only stopping when the dial on the fuel gauge hit empty again.

  During more than six years on the run, Isaac had travelled the length and breadth of the continent several times over. Much had changed in that time, not least his appearance. The tailored suits and expensive Italian shoes had been replaced by stained corduroy pants, a ripped overcoat and a pair of scuffed army boots. A thick, scraggly beard now covered his chin, and his hair, which at thirty-six years of age was streaked with grey, hung in a matted clump that stopped halfway down his back. Over time he had learned to whittle his possessions down to a bare minimum, carrying everything he owned – a dented aluminium canteen, a rolled blanket and an eight-inch hunting knife for protection – in a drawstring bag over his shoulder.

  There had been times of abject hardship along the way, but his new lifestyle was also liberating, making him realise that, once you stripped everything back to the essentials, all a person really needed in life was food in their belly, a warm and dry place to sleep and, most importantly, a purpose.

  It had taken Isaac close to four years of exile to rediscover his. While working as a farm hand in Montana during the fall of ‘74, he had stumbled upon an article in the business pages about a merger between Bereck & Hertz Pharmaceuticals, his former employer, and a company called Harrison Industries. All innocuous enough at first glance, but then he’d scanned down and found the owner listed as Michael Harrison, a man in his twenties who had apparently overcome extensive childhood injuries to make a fortune betting on sports results before diversifying into business and property acquisition. It was all too much of a coincidence and, after some digging, Isaac’s worst fear was confirmed: not only had Michael survived the fire at the Bereck & Hertz building but, in the years since, had somehow found a way to utilise his ability without Tetradyamide, assuming an alias and setting up what by all accounts sounded like a thriving young business empire, while Isaac himself remained on the run, wanted for the other man’s crimes.

  Isaac hadn’t stopped moving in the two years since, rarely staying more than a week in any location. Evading the charges against him was no longer his priority, for he had a new purpose in life: stopping Michael Humboldt.

  Although almost completely unrecognisable from the man he had once been, he wasn’t taking any chances on his long-overdue return to California. He hadn’t bathed in two weeks and had picked up a white cane and dark glasses while passing through Phoenix four days earlier, which, when combined with a tin cup containing a handful of change, created a convincing blind beggar disguise.

  As he got closer to the hospital entrance, two young candy-stripers approached from the opposite direction, so absorbed in conversation it seemed they might walk straight into him.

  Rather than break character, Isaac continued on his course, rattling his cup a little louder and muttering, ‘Spare some change?’

  One of the pair glanced up just before crashing into him. ‘Ewwie, gross!’ she exclaimed, wrinkling her nose and yanking her friend out of the way.

  Isaac allowed himself a wry smile.

  As a result of his previous employment he knew the building as well as anyone, and had already decided entering through the front lobby was too risky. Instead he cut around to the service entrance at the rear. On turning the last corner he found Thomas, one of the orderlies on the Lincoln Ward and a man with whom he’d shot the breeze during many a slow night shift, leaning against the wall, a half-smoked cigarette dangling from his lips.

  Isaac just about managed to suck back a gasp before it escaped his mouth. Staff turnaround had always been high at the hospital, and although he’d expected to encounter a familiar face or two, to run into one so soon into his venture was a sizeable slice of bad luck.

  Hoping his reaction hadn’t betrayed his surprise, he continued on his way, tapping his cane with his head tilted toward the sky.

  ‘You lost, old timer?’

  Isaac straightened up, recalling that Thomas was, in fact, three years older than him. ‘You tell me, son,’ he said, and turned to gaze roughly a foot to the side of his former colleague’s face. ‘This the main entrance?’

  ‘Nope.’ Thomas took a step closer, then grimaced and recoiled as Isaac’s stench assaulted his senses. ‘Jesus! Look, man, you can’t be back here, oka
y? It’s staff only. Just go back the way you came, you can’t miss it.’

  ‘Much appreciated.’ Isaac rattled his cup again. ‘Care to help a veteran out? I lost my sight in a bomb blast in ’72 and—’

  ‘Yeah yeah.’ Thomas dropped his cigarette, pulled a handful of change from his pocket and deposited it in the cup. ‘Get yourself something to eat on me. And a bath while you’re at it.’ With that he disappeared through the service door, kicking away the brick he’d used to wedge it open.

  Isaac sprang forward and caught the handle just before the latch closed. He counted to thirty and slipped through, finding himself in a deserted corridor where several trolleys of dirty bed linen had been lined against the wall, awaiting collection.

  Dropping the blind-man act, he hurried ahead, taking a left turn and then a right and then a left again before shoving open the door to the emergency stairwell. Here he removed his dark glasses, folded his cane away and started to climb.

  The air-conditioning system didn’t extend to the stairwell, and although Isaac was in the shape of his life, perspiration flowed freely down his face by the time he’d reached the sixth floor. He wiped his brow with his sleeve, eased the door open and peeked out through the crack and onto the Lincoln Ward. There was a nurse barely old enough to be out of school at the main desk, plus a few other medical staff milling about near the office, none of whom he recognised.

  He let the door swing shut, then climbed the next two flights, arriving on the eighth and final floor, home to the Hoover Ward, a specialist plastic surgery unit that had still been under construction during his time at the hospital. Once again he stopped and opened the door a crack. Finding the main desk unoccupied on this occasion, he snuck out and crept down the corridor to his left. There was a public restroom halfway down. On the wall next to the door was a fire alarm. After a quick glance about to check that the coast was clear, Isaac drove his elbow into the glass panel and tugged the lever.