The Pages of Time

by Damian Knight

Sam placed his hand on radiator in the hall and felt warmth beneath his fingers. A breeze was blowing through the house. He opened the door to the kitchen. The vase that had been on the table now lay smashed on the floor, flowers scattered amongst broken glass. The French doors stood wide open and a small drift of snow was collecting on the floor. He stepped around the mess, locked the back door and returned to the hall.

  His grandmother was halfway down the stairs. ‘There you are!’ she said. ‘I was wondering where you’d all got to.’

  ‘We’ve been at the hospital,’ Chrissie said. ‘Mum’s woken up.’

  Grandma scampered down the last few steps and threw her arms around Chrissie. ‘Why didn’t you let me know? Can we see her yet?’

  ‘We’re going back tomorrow. She’s got amnesia and doesn’t remember anything about the accident. You tried to ring home from the hospital, didn’t you, Sam?’

  ‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘Several times. Where’s Grandpa?’

  ‘Having a lie down upstairs,’ their grandmother said. ‘Why do you ask?’

  ‘The door to the garden was wide open. Snow’s been blowing in and the wind knocked the vase off the table. Did you forget to close it or something?’

  She frowned. ‘Not me, pet. I made a cup of tea when we got back, but that was a couple of hours ago and it was closed then. You know what your grandfather’s like, it must have been him.’

  ‘Yeah,’ Sam said, ‘I suppose it must’ve been.’

  Chapter VI

  Retribution and Remorse

  1

  December 1969 – January 1970

  Lara stood at the edge of the party, twisting her diamond ring as she watched other couples slow dance. Christmas had come and gone, the decade in its final throes. They’d spent the holiday with Isaac’s parents in Santa Barbara, staying in his childhood bedroom for three nights before driving back to San Francisco. Lara had been consumed by anxiety at the prospect of meeting her soon-to-be in-laws, but in the event they turned out to be a delight. Judy Barclay stood at just five feet zero, making her one of the few people Lara could look down upon. Judy was infectiously optimistic, kept her home immaculately clean and had the same wide grin as her son. The rest of Isaac’s looks came straight from his father, Donald, who apart from the greying temples and potbelly could have been his twin.

  Lara had found she had something in common with both Judy and Donald, namely increasing concern for Isaac. In the weeks since their engagement, he had become ever more secretive and withdrawn, working longer and longer hours. His hair was limp and greasy, his skin sallow and covered in pimples. Most of the time he seemed jumpy and nervous, often muttering to himself and casting furtive, darting glances about the place.

  The short stay in Santa Barbara almost proved too much for him, and Lara had needed to draw on all of her powers of persuasion to convince Isaac not to leave a day early. In the days since their return to San Francisco, she had hardly seen him, apart from when he stumbled into bed in the small hours of the morning only to leave again before dawn.

  The band finished a tune and left the stage to a rapturous applause. Lara scanned the hall for the thousandth time that evening. No matter how much she wanted to throttle Isaac on sight, she would have forgiven all had he walked in right then. Instead she caught the eye of Dr Hamilton, Chair of the Board of Trustees at Stribe Lyndhurst. Smiling widely, he sidled over, a canapé in one hand and a martini in the other.

  ‘Ah, Dr McHayden,’ he said and popped the canapé in his mouth. ‘So glad you could make our little shindig. May I say how ravishing you look this evening?’

  ‘Thank you, sir,’ Lara said, noticing there was a stain on his shirt and that his hairpiece was askew. ‘You scrub up very nicely too.’

  ‘Too kind, too kind,’ he said, showering Lara with crumbs and fish eggs. ‘And where is Dr Barclay, might I inquire?’

  Lara felt her cheeks burn. ‘He was supposed to…well, I’m sure he’ll be along any minute.’

  Dr Hamilton nodded in feigned sympathy. ‘Between you and me, dear, I think he’s working too hard. There’s a fine line between dedication and overdoing things.’

  ‘If you’ll excuse me, sir, I need to visit the little girl’s room.’

  ‘But of course.’ Hamilton spied a waiter passing by and snatched another canapé from his platter. ‘Tell Isaac I’d like a word when he gets here, will you?’

  Lara slipped away while Dr Hamilton snared another guest and made her way to the bathroom located in the foyer just outside the main banqueting hall. Two middle-aged ladies were adjusting their lipstick in the gilded mirror above the basins. Lara recognised one as Dr Hamilton’s wife, Mary-Anne, but managed to dart into a cubicle before she was forced to endure another Q & A session on her fiancé’s whereabouts. She sat down, pulled off the expensive stilettos she had bought especially for the occasion and rubbed the back of her aching heels.

  Lara had reminded Isaac about the party on numerous occasions. She had even rented him a tux, polished his good shoes and left everything neatly laid out in the bedroom. Tetradyamide and his consultancy at Bereck & Hertz were becoming an obsession that was threatening to pull them apart.

  ‘Ladies and Gentlemen!’ a voice boomed over the loudspeakers in the main room. ‘It is now one minute to midnight! Please fill your glasses and make your way to the dance floor.’

  ‘Hurry, Susan. I don’t want to miss it!’ Lara heard Mary-Anne Hamilton say.

  ‘Just a minute,’ her companion said.

  ‘We don’t have a minute! Here let me fix that…there, you look fine.’

  Lara heard the door swing shut. Alone, she lifted her feet onto the seat, wrapped her arms around her legs and rested her chin on her knees. The bang of an early firework sounded far away in the distance.

  ‘Ten…nine…eight…seven…six,’ the loudspeaker announced.

  She let out a sob. Where the hell was he? It was inexcusable. Was this what their marriage would be like, a lifetime of missed engagements while she made excuses for him? How could he? How the bloody hell could he?

  ‘Five…four…three…two…one…Happy New Year!’

  Lara entered the new decade alone, hiding in a toilet cubicle and crying into her hands.

  2

  Present Day

  Sam, Chrissie and their grandparents went to visit his mother on Sunday, and Sam went again by himself the day after. He’d longed to see an improvement in her condition, no matter how small, but if anything she seemed even worse. She couldn’t remember them visiting the day before and kept asking to see his father. It soon became too much for Sam to tell her the truth and see her heart break all over, only for her to forget and repeat the process a few minutes later. Eventually he resorted to telling her that Dad had popped out and would be back soon. The lie was a torture he could take so long as she didn’t have to share it, but the possibility of having to go through this act for weeks, months or even years terrified him.

  After leaving St Benedict’s, Sam made his way directly home. Because he’d undone being late for Dr McHayden on Friday, he now had no recollection of how their last meeting had panned out, or if and when they had arranged another, but shortly after arriving back at the house he looked through the living room curtains to see her car pull up outside. The snowfall over the weekend had only lasted a few hours, but it had settled and the temperature outside had hardly risen above freezing point since, leaving the ground a lethal sheet of trampled ice. Sam let himself out of the house and picked his way down the path, over the pavement and across the road.

  When he climbed into the car he found McHayden sitting beside him, but instead of Steele there was a man with short grey hair and stubble in the driver’s seat.

  ‘Good afternoon,’ McHayden said. ‘And how are you today, my dear boy?’

  ‘Very well,’ Sam said. ‘I’ve had some good news – my mum has woken up.’

  ‘How marvellous! I am delighted for you. I also want to congratulate you on your outstanding work la
st week.’

  ‘Thanks,’ he said. Whatever had happened on Friday had gone well, from the sound of it. ‘Where’s Agent Steele today?’

  ‘I’m afraid Mr Steele is elsewhere engaged. Instead, we are in the capable hands of Mr Clarke here.’

  The man in the front seat glanced at Sam in the rear view mirror with eyes the colour of a stormy sky. A chill shot down Sam’s spine. Steele may not have been the friendliest person in the world, but Sam suspected he was going to like his replacement even less.

  * * * * *

  They arrived at the Tempus Research Facility an hour later. Instead of coming in with them as Steele always had, Clarke waited in the car. As McHayden and Sam walked towards the building together, snow crunching beneath their feet, she turned to him and said, ‘You should know that, for the time being at least, your training is over.’

  ‘Already?’

  ‘Needs must. Today will be your first assignment.’ She paused before the double doors. ‘I know it may seem like a rush, Sam, but you’re ready for this. After last week, I have every confidence in you.’

  Arnold was behind the front desk, but there were two men Sam had never seen before seated in the waiting area. Both looked roughly McHayden’s age. The nearest was short and plump, with rolls of fat beneath his chin that bulged over his shirt collar. He had bushy eyebrows and the skin of his bald head was all rumpled and splotchy. Next to him was a much taller man with thick grey hair, tinged faintly yellow. He sat crooked in his chair, a cigarette with a finely balanced column of ash drooping from his fingers and his long, spindly legs crossed at the knee.

  ‘Gentlemen, my apologies for keeping you waiting,’ McHayden said. ‘Sam Rayner, may I introduce Montague Phelps of the Ministry of Defence,’ she gestured to the fat man, ‘and Clive Lanthorpe of Clearwater Industries, one of the principle stakeholders in the Tempus Project.’

  Sam grinned and waved, then felt instantly foolish.

  Lanthorpe poked his cigarette in Sam’s direction, causing the long column of ash to crumble to the floor. ‘So this is the young man, eh?’ he asked in a voice like grinding stones.

  ‘Indeed,’ McHayden said with unmistakable pride. ‘If you’d like to follow me, we can begin.’

  She led them to the concealed lift on the other side of the room, pressed her hand to the black plate and selected the bottom button.

  They were greeted by complete darkness when the doors reopened. It was only after McHayden had stepped out that the overhead lighting flicked on and Sam saw the lab was deserted, the caged monkeys nowhere to be seen. They followed McHayden to the small room off the back and took a chair each around the wooden table. Lanthorpe lifted the leather briefcase he’d been carrying to his knees, opened it and took out a large black and white photograph.

  ‘Tell me,’ he said, pushing it across the table to Sam, ‘do you know who this is?’

  The photo showed a man with a round, egg-shaped head devoid of hair. There was a large but faded scar on one side of his face where, long ago, the skin must have bubbled and melted. Sam pushed the photograph back. ‘No. Should I?’

  Lanthorpe coughed, a deathly rattle that reverberated in his chest, and then reached into his pocket for another cigarette. ‘His name is Michael Humboldt.’ In one slick motion he produced a silver lighter, lit the cigarette and breathed out a thick plume of smoke. ‘This man, Sam, is responsible for the death of your father.’

  3

  Lanthorpe pulled on his cigarette, the ember blazing as a new column of ash grew.

  Sam’s throat clenched and his legs started to shake under the table. ‘This is who turned Esteban Haufner?’ he asked.

  ‘The first item on our agenda,’ McHayden said. ‘As promised.’

  ‘But how?’

  ‘We’ve traced components from the smart phone used to trigger the electronic jamming device that brought down Flight 0368 to a company owned by Humboldt,’ she said. ‘He’s a US national, an extremely wealthy individual who made his fortune trading pharmaceutical stocks. During the 1970s he diversified into the hospitality and leisure industry, starting a successful chain of luxury hotels before finally turning his hand to drugs and arms trafficking. Since the 1980s he’s been close to the top of Interpol’s Most Wanted list. We came close to catching him a decade ago, after which he dropped off the radar completely.’

  ‘That is until yesterday,’ Phelps said. Given the size of his body, his voice was improbably high and squeaky. He folded his arms and leaned back, the chair creaking under his weight. ‘Our sources indicate that Humboldt is in South America at present, somewhere in Bolivia, Southern Peru or Northern Chile, where we believe several cells of his organisation are based. Word is that a rendezvous is planned in coming weeks, but we don’t know exactly when or where. The whole area is under satellite surveillance and we have drones capable of delivering an explosive device on standby, but all that is rather messy. We want to bring the bugger in alive, if possible.’

  ‘And that’s where you come in,’ McHayden said. She passed Sam a sheet of paper containing two lines: an email address and, below it, a password – a random string of letters and numbers. ‘This is an encrypted email address. We have a team of operatives monitoring satellite footage around the clock. A daily report and clips of any relevant footage will be sent to this address at 8 o’clock each evening. All you have to do is log in, read the report and study any relevant video footage, then relay back and let us know when the target is in place so that a ground team can be mobilised in advance. You don’t even need to leave the comfort of your own home to do it.’

  ‘All you want me to do is read daily reports and watch video clips?’ Sam asked, thinking it sounded too easy.

  McHayden got up, walked over to the metal cabinet in the corner of the room, unlocked it and returned with a brown pill bottle. ‘It’s even simpler than that, my dear boy. At the moment, all you have to do is agree to check the email account each evening. That will set up the conditions whereby you can travel forward from this point in time to tomorrow night and see if Humboldt sticks his neck out. If not, try the next day, and the day after, and the day after that and so on. He has to show his ugly face at some point and, when he does, I need you to tell us exactly when and where.’

  She poured a glass of water, popped the lid of the bottle and handed Sam a pill. He placed it on his tongue and washed it down with a long swig.

  Phelps raised his bushy eyebrows. ‘So?’

  ‘It normally takes a while to kick in,’ Sam said.

  The four of them sat in an uncomfortable silence, broken only by the faint hum of the fluorescent lighting above. After several minutes Sam felt the familiar jolt of adrenaline that signalled Tetradyamide taking effect.

  He closed his eyes. Coloured shapes sprang from the darkness, twisting and morphing until they blended together to form the scene he’d witnessed just before shutting his eyes. He concentrated on the time when the first report would be sent: 8 p.m. tomorrow. Instantly the image skipped forward to another and another and then, like the fluttering of pages, they sped up to the point where each image was no more than a flash of colour. The whole process was smoother and faster than ever before, as Sam’s control improved with practice.

  Eventually the images slowed until he was left with the viewpoint of the computer in his bedroom, his hands on the keyboard under the light of his desk lamp. He blinked and flexed his fingers. Rain was beating against the window and he could hear the sound of the television downstairs. The piece of paper McHayden had given him was next to the keyboard. Sam nudged the mouse, brought up a new window and keyed in the email address and password.

  A message with a single attachment was waiting in the account. The subject was tomorrow’s date: 24th December. He opened the attachment and found a document containing only two words: NO SIGHTING.

  Sam leaned back, closed his eyes and focused on the same time the following day. Images leaped forward once again, passing in a blur. When they slowed to a stop h
e was presented with an identical point of view: his hands resting on the keyboard of his computer. For a second he thought something had gone wrong and he hadn’t moved, but then he noticed that he was wearing a Christmas jumper with a snowman on the front. He got up and pulled back the curtains. The night sky was clear and without a drop of rain, so returned to his chair and logged in.

  A new message was waiting with Wednesday’s date – Christmas Day – in the subject bar. He opened it and found another document with the same two words: NO SIGHTING.

  Sam kept going, travelling forwards a day at a time. On one occasion he noticed that his fingernails had grown long and rattled against the keys as he typed, but after the next jump they were neat and trimmed. Before long, he’d counted fifteen emails in his inbox, the last few dating from January of next year. All had a single document attached stating that no sighting had been made.

  On the next jump Sam discovered that his nose was suddenly blocked and he had a sore throat. The symptoms of a head cold worsened for a couple more days before gradually clearing. By now the dates on the emails were approaching mid-January. Sam would have started at Fraser Golding College and Eva would have returned to Montclair. He jumped forward another day and suddenly found an email with two attachments – a document and a video file – waiting in his inbox.

  Sam opened the video and, while it buffered, read the document. It contained several paragraphs of text under the heading:

  TARGET AQUIRED

  10:37, 18TH JAN, ATACAMA DESERT, CHILE.

  LAT: 23° 7' 56.8812" S, LONG: 68° 15' 45.0720" W.

  He grabbed a pencil and scrawled the time, date and coordinates on the back of the piece of paper McHayden had given him, which was becoming increasingly grubby and torn. Suddenly it dawned on him how pointless this was; there was no way he could bring paper back with him to the present, or any other solid object for that matter. The only way to carry the information was in his head, and the purpose of the memory exercises he’d completed during his first week at the Tempus Research Facility became clear.