‘I only ever wanted to help you, Michael.’
‘And you will. Now, much as I’d love to stay and talk, it’s been a long night and I need my beauty sleep. I suggest you get some rest too, we’ve got a busy day ahead of us.’
6
Isaac woke to the sound of birdsong. The idea briefly crossed his mind that it had all been a bad dream, but then he lifted his head and opened his eyes. The chirping and tweeting were canned, played in a loop over the speakers built in to the walls of his expensively decorated cell. Emitting a groan, he let his head flop back to the pillow. His gamble had failed and, for the most fleeting of glimpses at Michael’s medical records, the game of cat and mouse was at an end, with the mouse – Isaac – trapped between the cat’s jaws.
As he lay there, stretched out on the undeniably comfortable bed, staring up at the ugly stucco ceiling, he considered the events of the last twenty-four hours. He had been apprehended immediately after running into Betty Mclean outside the hospital, which meant Michael must have already known where he would be. The only logical conclusion was that Betty had reported their encounter to Michael, and Michael had somehow managed to send that information back to an earlier version of himself in order to have his hired thug waiting in position. Obviously Isaac had catastrophically underestimated Michael’s ability to travel through time in the absence of Tetradyamide.
After several more minutes he climbed out of bed. A beam of slanting light shone in through a gap in the drapes covering the window on the other side of the room. He went over, drew the drapes back and gazed out onto a desert landscape roasting in bright sunlight far below. There didn’t appear to be any way of opening the window from inside, but, even if Michael had been lying about the bulletproof glass, the drop on the other side would surely kill anyone foolish enough to try and escape that way.
Turning back, he saw that a tray holding a pot of coffee, a sliced grapefruit and a plate of French toast had been left on the table. For some reason there were two chairs round the table, as though he was expecting company. Tempting as it was to reject anything Michael provided, Isaac hadn’t eaten since before boarding the train to San Francisco yesterday, and for the time being his best option was probably to play along and pretend to accept the olive branch Michael had offered until he could figure a way out of this thing. And if he was planning on biding his time, it might be wise to keep his strength up.
After wolfing the whole lot down, Isaac showered and then brushed his teeth for the first time in two weeks. Feeling much refreshed, he returned to the bedroom to find that the door onto the corridor had been opened while he was in the bathroom. His tatty hobo’s outfit had mysteriously vanished, so he perused the wardrobe before selecting a cream turtleneck sweater, flared jeans and a pair of brown ankle boots. Aside from his hair and beard, which no amount of shampoo or combing could untangle, the reflection looking back at him in the mirrored door vaguely resembled the man he had once been.
Dressed, Isaac poked his head into the corridor. The sound of voices drifted out from the open door to the lab on the other side. Instead of following it, he crept up the corridor toward the entrance to the tunnel through which they had entered. The door was approximately eight feet tall and six feet wide, and looked like something one might find in a nuclear bunker. There was a keypad on the wall.
He stared at it for a moment. Although he had tried to sneak a glimpse on the other side last night, Michael had deliberately positioned his body in the way while entering the code, making it impossible to make out which buttons he’d pressed. Each button had, however, created a tone, and that had been enough for Isaac to deduce that the number was six digits long. Unfortunately, this meant there were close to a million possible combinations, and, since electronics had never been his strong point, there wasn’t much hope of cracking the code that way. But if Isaac were to apply a light adhesive to each button – something that left a faint mark when it came into contact with human skin – he might then be able work out which numbers the code contained. Of course, he still wouldn’t know the order in which they needed to be pressed, but it would significantly lower the odds of—
‘Isaac, you’re up! How did you sleep?’
He turned to see Michael waving him over from the door to the lab and felt his skin crawl. His captor was wearing a checked suit and boots with a slight heel. The neck of his shirt was open halfway to his navel, revealing a patch of chest hair under a gaudy gold chain. In addition to a new glass eye, the crude metal hook of Michael’s old prosthetic arm was gone, replaced by a rubber hand so lifelike that, at first glance, you could almost mistake it for the real thing. But the most striking change in Michael’s appearance was to the scars on his face, which were so diminished from six years earlier that they were difficult to make out. Obviously he’d had some expensive cosmetic work done – from the looks of things he could easily afford it – but, then again, Isaac remembered Lara using the phrases ‘tissue regeneration’ and ‘extensive healing’ in the glimpse of her initial report he’d snatched back at Stribe Lyndhurst.
‘I slept surprisingly well,’ he said, and forced a smile. ‘I’ve got to say, that bed is something else.’
‘The mattress was imported from Italy,’ Michael told him. ‘I believe we’re the only hotel this side of Milan to stock them. Oh, and I wouldn’t bother with the keypad. It’s the same model used in most high-security military facilities and is, I’m told, completely tamper-proof.’
Isaac glanced at the door one last time and turned back, stretching his smile a little wider. ‘Can’t blame a guy for trying, can you?’
Michael paused, a faint frown the only indication that this was anything but the good-natured conversation they were acting out. ‘No, I guess not,’ he conceded. ‘But, like I said, you’re wasting your time. Only Donna and I know the code, so I’m afraid your movement about the place will be somewhat restricted when we’re not here. Anyway, have you given any more thought to my offer?’
‘I have, as it happens,’ Isaac said as he followed Michael back down the corridor. ‘A good night’s sleep can do wonders for a person’s sense of perspective and, after careful consideration, I accept.’
‘You’ll give me the formula for Tetradyamide?’
‘It doesn’t seem like I’ve got much choice.’
‘So you’ve finally seen sense. I was beginning to fear we might have to resort to more persuasive methods, if you catch my meaning.’
Isaac caught it all too well. ‘I do,’ he said, flinching, ‘and I can assure you, there’ll be no need for that. I’m not so foolish I can’t see how the cards are stacked. And besides, Michael, after six years living like a bum, I’d almost forgotten how good a few creature comforts can feel.’
‘That’s a relief,’ Michael said. ‘And I think you’ll find the rewards for helping me make it most worthwhile. Follow me, Sebastian’s dying to meet you.’
Isaac descended the metal steps to the lab. Standing beneath a giant extractor fan in the middle of the room were Donna, who was clutching a stack of paperwork to her chest, and a slight, sandy-haired young man with sideburns and a wispy moustache. Bruno, Michael’s bodyguard, was lurking by the door with his arms folded, his right hand strapped with a fresh white bandage.
‘Sebastian,’ Michael said, striding over, ‘allow me to introduce Dr Isaac Barclay.’
The young man stepped forward, clasped Isaac’s hand and gave it a vigorous shake. ‘It’s an absolute honour, Dr Barclay.’
‘Yeah, sure,’ Isaac said, attempting to prise his hand away. ‘Pleased to meet you too.’
Sebastian let out a nervous giggle. ‘I’ve spent the last twelve months studying your work for Bereck & Hertz. Or what was left of it, at least. Some of the advances you made were truly pioneering.’
‘Gee, thanks.’
‘Sebastian also helped design and equip the lab,’ Michael said, gesturing about. ‘I was able to dig up the roster of original equipment supplied to your lab at the old the Ber
eck & Hertz building – fortunately those records remained untouched by your fire – and you should have everything necessary to begin work this afternoon.’
‘Seems you’ve been very thorough,’ Isaac said, scratching his chin through the bristles of his beard. ‘But not everything in my old lab would’ve been on the roster. A few bits and pieces were my own and, given the classified nature of the project, it’s possible a few items were intentionally left off. Mind if I take a look at the inventory?’
‘Of course.’ Michael turned to Donna and clicked the fingers of his left hand. ‘Find Isaac a copy of the inventory, would you?’
She nodded submissively, laid her stack of paper on a worktop and began flicking through. After several seconds she withdrew a sheet and passed it over.
Isaac plucked it from her fingers and supplied a series of agreeable murmurs and nods as he made a show of scrutinising the list.
‘Very good,’ he said, looking up at last. ‘You’ve got almost everything, but what about the dissolution apparatus?’
‘Dissolution apparatus?’ Sebastian repeated.
‘You were planning on quality checking the final product, weren’t you?’
‘I…I…’ Sebastian gulped and lowered his head. ‘I must have overlooked it, Dr Barclay.’
‘No big deal,’ Isaac said and passed the sheet to Michael. ‘It shouldn’t take more than a few days to order in a new set, but I don’t really see much point in starting production without it.’
‘I’ll call the suppliers right away,’ Sebastian mumbled.
‘Oh, and I also noticed there’s no methyl acetoacetate listed?’
‘Why, should there be?’
‘Definitely. But it’s not your fault, it was probably one of the items left off the roster.’
‘Right, I’ll order some of that too.’
Michael, whose face had grown progressively redder throughout the exchange, turned to Bruno. ‘Take Dr Barclay back to his room, would you?’ he asked, struggling to keep his voice level.
‘Yessir,’ Bruno grunted. He grabbed Isaac by the shoulder and steered him up the stairs and out into the corridor.
As the door to the bedroom slid shut behind him, Isaac could make out Michael yelling at Sebastian back in the lab, and allowed himself a genuine smile.
7
Isaac devoted the remainder of the day to searching his room for a means of escape. The window was a nonstarter – he knew that much already – which left finding a way into the corridor and the tunnel beyond as his only option. He tried pulling furniture away from the walls, emptied the wardrobes so he could search behind each, checked the bathroom for vents and even peeled back the carpet in one corner of the bedroom to inspect the floor below, which turned out to be seamless concrete.
Eventually he wilted to the bed and sat there, his elbows propped on knees and his chin in his hands. Although he may have bought some time with his request for new equipment, it was probably no more than a day or two, and before long he would run out of excuses not to begin work. Once that happened he was in no doubt that Michael’s talk of partnership would evaporate and his ‘persuasive methods’ would come into play.
As Isaac sat there, staring despondently at his feet, he suddenly became aware of a cool breeze against his skin. Glancing up, he spied a wire gauze about a foot and a half across embedded in the ceiling: an air-conditioning vent.
He slapped his palm against his forehead, jumped up and then dragged one of the dining chairs over from the other side of the room. Standing on the seat, he traced the edge of the gauze with his fingertip and discovered it was fastened around the perimeter with a series of flat-head screws, the kind he should have no trouble removing with a screwdriver or, at a pinch, a knife.
* * * * *
When Donna and Bruno arrived to deliver his dinner that evening, Isaac had already restored the room to its previous state and was sitting with his back against the gilded headrest of his bed, ostensibly watching a rerun of I Dream of Jeannie on the home cinema. Despite his attempts to initiate small talk, the duo only supplied one-word answers to his questions before leaving him to his meal: a T-bone steak large enough to feed two. Isaac ate less than half before returning to his bed for another episode of I Dream of Jeannie, where he remained until Donna and Bruno returned to collect his tray an hour later.
The moment the door was closed for a second time, he withdrew the steak knife he’d secreted up his sleeve and positioned a dining chair under the air-conditioning vent once again. The knife was just about fit for purpose, and after twenty minutes of scrabbling and an impressive collection of cuts and scratches to his hands, he was able to prise the gauze away.
He poked his head into the cavity above and was greeted with a blast of cold air and darkness on all sides. The duct was only just wider than his body, and creaked under his weight as he pulled himself up. Wriggling forward like a worm, his shoulders brushing either side of the narrow metal tube, he thanked his lucky stars he hadn’t eaten the whole steak.
It was slow going, although the pitch-blackness all around made it hard to judge the passage of time, or how far he’d come. Every now and then he twisted his head to look behind and caught a glimpse of the diminishing square of light shining in through the vent in his bedroom.
After a while he reached a section where the duct bent sharply to the left. Rolling onto one side, he squirmed through with only minor scrapes to his knees. The airy darkness on the other side was broken a few yards up ahead by another square of light. Isaac wriggled toward it and found himself looking down through another wire gauze onto the corridor between his bedroom and the lab. The gauze wouldn’t budge when he pushed against it with the heels of his hands, and he realised it must be fastened with screws on the other side like the one back in his room.
Another dead-end then. But if Isaac continued in the same direction, at some point he should reach the lab. And if he could squeeze between the giant rotor blades of the extractor fan, he might then be able to drop down and search the place for an adhesive to apply to the keypad in the corridor, should he somehow find himself back there.
The plan was tenuous at best, but it was all he had. He was just about to push on, when, through the gauze, he heard the keypad in the corridor beep. Someone was attempting to enter from the other side.
Without waiting to see who it was, Isaac began wriggling back the way he had come. As he rounded the bend, his body contorting in ways that would make an Olympic gymnast wince, the sound of Michael’s voice reached him: ‘Isaac? Iiii-saac? I hear there was a knife missing from your tray. I do hope for your sake you’re not planning anything rash, otherwise there’ll be hell to pay!’
Isaac glanced over his shoulder. The vent in his bedroom was only a few yards behind him. If the noise of his hurried retreat hadn’t already given him away, there was a chance he could reach it before they had time to punch in the code and enter his room.
Moving like a sea snake in reverse, he squirmed his way back up the duct until he felt his socked feet slide through the gap of the vent. Pushing against the metal walls of the duct, he slid his legs out. He was about to drop down when the buckle of his belt snagged against the lip on the inside edge of the vent, leaving him stuck there, his top half in the air-conditioning duct while his legs and ass dangled from the bedroom ceiling.
Thrashing about, he began rocking his body from side to side, when suddenly the buckle gave and he was sent tumbling. The dining chair broke his fall and splintered under his weight, sending him crashing to the floor in an ungainly heap.
Blinking, he rolled onto his back. Michael, Bruno and Donna were all staring down at him.
‘What a shame,’ Michael said, tilting his head to one side. ‘So my offer of partnership is a no-go then?’
8
‘The cutlery will be plastic from now on,’ Michael said, examining the buckled steak knife. ‘Remind me, Isaac, you right or left handed?’
‘Right,’ Barclay told him. ‘What’s
it to you?’
Michael turned to Bruno and gave a single nod of his head, at which his bodyguard removed his jacket, rolled up his sleeves and stepped forward, grabbing Barclay by the left wrist.
‘Hey, what do you think you’re doing! Get your stinking hands off m—’
The doctor’s words were cut off by a crunch of breaking bone, followed by a cry that tailed off in a stomach-churning gurgle as his head slumped forward and his body went limp against the rope securing him the remaining dining chair.
Bruno glanced back, a puzzled look on his face. ‘Uh, I think he blacked out, boss.’
‘Thank you, Bruno,’ Michael said. ‘That hadn’t escaped my notice. Next finger, would you?’
Bruno shrugged and seized Barclay’s middle finger, yanking it sharply back like the first. There was another crunch of breaking bone and, with a gasp, Barclay shot upright, his eyes stretched wide as he stared down at his mangled hand, the first two digits of which now stuck out at grossly unnatural angles.
‘M-my fingers!’ he stammered. ‘You’ve broke my goddam fingers, you bastard!’
‘Ten out of ten for diagnosis,’ Michael said. ‘Glad to see all those years of medical school weren’t wasted. Bruno, next finger, please.’
‘Wait, you don’t have to do this!’ Barclay blurted out. ‘Please, give me a chance to explain.’
Michael let out a weary sigh. ‘Really, Isaac, there is nothing to explain. It’s quite obvious you’ve been leading me on a merry dance here.’
‘Okay, okay! From now on I’ll cooperate, you have my word.’
‘Unfortunately your word no longer holds much weight with me, Isaac. But you’re right about one thing – you will cooperate. Next finger, Bruno.’
Ignoring Barclay’s pleas for mercy, Bruno grabbed him by the wrist again and snapped the third finger of his left hand.
After a minute or two the doctor’s wails were replaced by a gentle sobbing.
Michael went over, placed his hand on Barclay’s shoulder and eased him back in the chair. ‘As I’m sure you’re aware, there are over two hundred bones in the human body, of which the hand contains a mere twenty-seven. Sebastian has ordered the dissolution apparatus you requested, which should arrive tomorrow. After that I’ll break another bone for every day you hold out on me, starting with this.’ He bent to squeeze the tip of Barclay’s left pinkie, then released it and straightened up. ‘Donna will be down in a minute to strap your hand. While we wait for the equipment to arrive, I suggest you give your next move some serious consideration.’
Ripples of the Past Page 4
