The Kafir Project

by Lee Burvine

  Amsel came onboard from that moment forward.

  Later that day, the two men walked the grounds of Fermilab together. They were strolling by the bison field when Fischer revealed his ideas for what he called extending the project.

  Amsel had just gestured to the grazing animals. "Is it true, Dr. Fischer, that the bison are meant as canaries in a coal mine? In case something goes terribly wrong here one day?"

  Fischer gazed out at the small herd. Two bison calves played a game of chase across a carpet of green grass. "Oh, I think they're far too robust for that. We frail, hairless apes should start dropping long before they would. No, they have no hidden purpose."

  "But you do." Amsel didn't look at Fischer when he said it, giving him the option to ignore the comment. Pretend it never happened, if he so chose.

  Fischer responded by laying everything out in great detail.

  When he finished, Amsel gave his reply. "I'm an old man, Dr. Fischer. I have no family. I've given my life to illuminating the past. Trying to answer the question of how history has shaped our collective identity. You want to know if I'm willing to seek answers to questions not asked. Answers our government benefactors might not like to hear."

  Fischer placed a hand gently on Amsel's shoulder. "We won't be living in the same world afterwards. And some very powerful people like things just as they are. They won't be at all pleased. So, I'm really asking ... are you willing to die for those answers?"

  Amsel's answer took the form of a question. "Well, let me ask you something. Say an advanced alien race abducted you, and told you they could explain the mathematical structure of the universe. In comprehensible terms. But there's a catch. Immediately afterwards they might kill you. Wouldn't you want to know anyway?"

  Fischer smiled.

  * * *

  AMSEL EMERGED FROM his reverie to see Osborn step out of the elevator carrying a small valise. The bug-out-bag and its precious cargo.

  Osborn walked across the lobby with his usual uneven gait and a cheery smile. "Good morning, Josh." He glanced down at the valise. "Thought I might need to bring some documents back tonight, so-"

  "If we're being watched at this moment, it's too late to put on a show," Amsel interrupted. "It's time to execute the exit strategy. I received a text, this morning, just before I called you." Amsel fed Osborn the news about Fermilab and the so-called accident, and added, "I'm afraid Fischer may be dead. Most likely it's all a cover for his assassination, and a way to destroy the time-recordings in the same stroke. Which means we've been compromised."

  Osborn nodded. "I agree."

  "They're going to assume I was involved. But they won't know who else if anyone on the team assisted me. Between Fischer and myself, you and Professor Kazemi were only ever referred to by your aliases."

  Osborn's nostrils flared and he lifted his chin. He looked like he was bracing himself. "Did we lose the time recordings?"

  "I don't think so. Fischer created a backup. If Kazemi doesn't have it yet, he will soon. The goal now is to bring the recordings together with our artifacts." Amsel glanced at the valise. "You have it all there?"

  "Yes. Except for the materials already in storage, of course."

  It flashed again through Amsel's mind that-depending on who had stolen his journal-those artifacts might already be gone. The storage locations were all recorded in there. No need to bring that up now.

  He set down his bag and unzipped the main compartment, removed a fat roll of hundred dollar bills and handed that to Osborn. "You'll need this."

  Osborn quickly tucked the money in a pants pocket where it made a conspicuous bulge. "Why give all this to me? You're coming too."

  Amsel shook his head. "No, not yet. You know where to go and what to say. If I'm not there in an hour, leave without me. I'll see you in San Francisco."

  Amsel checked that Osborn remembered how and where to contact Kazemi. They said their brief good-byes, and Amsel watched the other man walk away. A fragile figure, carrying the world's future gripped in one hand. When Osborn was out of sight, Amsel promptly turned back and took the elevator up to the top floor.

  He exited the elevator alone. Then, taking great care that no one saw him, he walked to the stairwell at the end of the hall.

  * * *

  AMSEL SAT ON the roof of the Arthur Hotel, in the shade of a taller building, and smoked.

  A little over a half hour later, the door to the roof opened. Three men dressed in street clothes and dark sunglasses came out.

  This much was good. No one had witnessed him coming up to the roof. Assuming they looked elsewhere for him first, these three had burned up precious time and manpower. All of which improved Osborn's odds of getting out with the artifacts.

  And that was the modified plan in a nutshell.

  Amsel believed his own chance to leave Israel alive had long since passed. Probably even before they killed Fischer.

  He stood up, and began to walk toward the roof's edge as he spoke to the men. "I know who you are and why you're here."

  They advanced across the rooftop on a course to intercept him.

  He tried to judge the point where he and they would intersect if neither changed speed. Just about at the roof's limit, it seemed.

  But he would get there first.

  Amsel continued walking toward the roof's edge. "Of course, I don't know who you gentlemen work for. Not exactly. But then neither do you, would be my guess."

  The lead man drew a handgun from under a light jacket. "We need you to come with us." He kept the weapon pointed upward, not at Amsel.

  So, they weren't here to kill him. He'd suspected as much. He continued walking. He had already cut the distance to the roof's edge in half. "Do you know why you're supposed to bring me in alive?"

  The men didn't answer.

  The lead man's features-dark hair and eyes, olive complexion-suggested he might be an Israeli. Not that it mattered. What was happening here far exceeded the realm of governments and nations, whether these men knew it or not.

  "Are you armed?" the lead man asked him.

  Amsel needed maybe twenty more steps to reach the edge of the roof. "In a sense, yes. And I am dangerous. I might be the most dangerous man in the world at this moment. I asked you, do you know why you're supposed to bring me in alive?"

  "Keep your hands where we can see them." The lead man had stopped now.

  The other two were fanning out. Trying to flank Amsel.

  Amsel watched them in his peripheral vision, and kept walking. "You see, the people you work for want something. They want me to tell them where they can find it. They will torture me, drug me, cut pieces from me as I watch. Until they have what they need. I don't suppose that matters to you."

  The lead man didn't respond. His companions continued to move in on both sides.

  Amsel had reached the edge of the rooftop. He stopped and turned around. "I wonder. If I said you're jeopardizing the world's best chance to end thousands of years of bloodshed, how could you know I was telling you the truth?"

  The two men on his flanks broke for Amsel at the exact same moment. He was ready for them. He'd positioned himself just inches from the edge.

  Amsel stepped back off the roof, out into space. He felt his foot keep going down, down. He began to fall.

  A hand caught his shirtfront.

  Another snagged his belt.

  Amsel felt his momentum stop, then reverse. They were pulling him back in. They had him.

  No! No, I can't let them take me. They would make him give up the information. He had no doubt of that. Everything would have been for naught. All ruined. All lost forever.

  Both of the men who grabbed him had their full attention focused on preventing Amsel's fall, on trying to pull him back in. It's not the first thing that crosses your mind, after all, that a man trying to jump off a building might still be a lethal threat.

  Amsel saw the holstered gun inches from his face. He
grabbed it.

  The man who held Amsel's belt must have felt that. Instinctively he released the belt and lunged forward for his gun. The other man continued pulling back on Amsel's shirtfront.

  Time stopped.

  The three of them hung there on the lip of the hotel's roof, frozen. All the forces at work against each other, cancelling out.

  To nothing.

  In the next moment, the symmetry broke.

  And time began.

  Like a door opening downward, the three men slowly hinged out and away from the roof. It seemed to take minutes, but could only have been a second or less.

  Someone screamed.

  They began to accelerate. All of them together.

  From Amsel's perspective, the top of the hotel flew up and away from him. Soaring off into the cool blue morning sky of Jerusalem.

  A strange and lovely sight on which to end a life.

  CHAPTER 43

  DISORIENTED, BUT THE sound and smells, footsteps on shattered safety glass, spilled gasoline and oil. They were so familiar to Rees. Wasn't he just here a moment ago?

  But where was here?

  And then he understood.

  Fischer's work. Time travel.

  He must have travelled backwards in time. Of course. That was it. He'd travelled back to...

  That horrible day in his youth.

  But why? Why this day, of all the important or even forgotten days of his past?

  Once again he was being hauled from the wreckage. Alive.

  Once again his sister lay dying. Without him.

  "Do you believe in fate?"

  Someone speaking to him then. The Good Samaritan. The man who had stopped and pulled him out of the twisted and smoking metal.

  Rees tried to focus. He couldn't. Nearby someone moaned.

  "Naturally, I concluded the explosion at Livermore last night was related to the one at Fermilab. That meant you were there. Or nearby. I needed a safe place from which to surveil the Livermore facility." The voice was accented. Unfamiliar.

  Rees couldn't make any sense of it. But he had to get to the hospital. He had to find Anna.

  "A construction site is always handy for a stakeout. Strange cars coming and going that the locals don't recognize, but don't concern themselves with. Yes, always a good spot."

  Rees sensed himself being dragged backwards now. He could feel the heel of one shoe pulling loose.

  Receding in his vision ... a woman. Lying still against a small blue car. Sleeping? Dead? Who was that?

  Morgan.

  He almost had it. Then it slipped away.

  "I was preparing to go in there searching for you," the Good Samaritan was saying now. "But instead, out you walked from an empty building that no one had any business being in. I must say, you rather stood out. And of course, I knew your face."

  Rees felt himself being lifted into another car. But that wasn't right either. It didn't happen like that. An ambulance had taken him to the hospital.

  "What would you call that, Dr. Rees?" the voice asked. "Chance? I call it fate. We were fated to meet. And I will not let you down. After you give me what I require, I will repay you with a gift few have ever known."

  The fog in Rees's vision lifted a bit. He could see the Good Samaritan now. Except ... this wasn't him. Complexion too dark. And the bright green eyes. Not right.

  He felt a strong hand take his arm, push up his sleeve. A sting. Then someone turned down the lights.

  Am I time travelling again?

  Back. He had to go back further. Back before the phone call. He would defy his parents this time. Go to see Anna. Tell her she was all right. Tell her he would always be there. That he would never leave her alone again.

  He could reach her now. Reach her in time. He felt such gratitude for Fischer's work, for making this possible, that he wanted to cry.

  He was lying down now.

  A wonderful warmth flowed through him. A tear pooled in the corner of his eye.

  He was drifting. Drifting back, back farther through time.

  Anna, I'm coming. I'm sorry it took so long.

  CHAPTER 44

  MORGAN OPENED HER eyes. She was sitting on the ground on some little back street in the City. Leaned up against the rear tire of the blue Fiat ... or what remained of it.

  Danni crouched in front of her. Blood and tears streaked her face. "Are you all right, Kerry? Are you hurt?"

  She squinted up at Danni. Shook her head no. She shouldn't have done that. It hurt something awful. Morgan felt jangled up, but her clarity was creeping back.

  Louis's car had been hit. Slammed. A big-ass BMW. She'd climbed out of the wreckage. She remembered going for her gun. Seeing the Taser...

  The goddamn bastard zapped me. That's why her body ached and tingled like this. She looked around. "Rees. Where's Dr. Rees?"

  "He took Rees." Louis was standing behind Danni. "The guy in the Beamer. He had a gun."

  Morgan tried to stand and immediately slipped back down, painfully bumping her tailbone. "Shit." She tried it again, pushing off the car this time, and managed to get to her feet. But a new pain shot up from her right knee then. She looked over at Danni. "Your face. You're bleeding."

  Danni touched a spot on the top of her head and inspected her finger. "It's just a cut. I'm okay. You're hurt, though."

  "My knee. It's all right, just banged up."

  "I'm fine, by the way," Louis said. "Or I think I am." He explored his face, tentatively. "Is my nose broken? The airbag really smashed it."

  Morgan retested the injured leg, gently settling more weight on it. It held, but she wouldn't win any foot races anytime soon. "I didn't get a good look at him. But it wasn't the man from your house, Danni. At least I don't think it was."

  Danni shook her head. "Definitely not. I saw him clearly. This guy wasn't blond. He was dark. Like, Mediterranean maybe. And much taller."

  "He had a gun and he didn't shoot you." Louis looked bewildered. "Why didn't he shoot you?"

  "You don't sound too thrilled about it," Morgan said.

  Louis threw up his hands. "No. Jesus, no. It's just, how weird is that? One second it's pow, pow, pow. All those dead guys at Livermore. The next second it's like, 'Hey, I don't want to really hurt you guys, sorry.'"

  Morgan didn't know what to make of that either. It was weird. No time to think about it right now though.

  She limped over and pulled Fischer's leather pouch out of the car. Fischer's notebook and the flash drive were in there. All of it evidence that they needed to hang on to.

  She limped back over to Danni and Louis. "We have to get out of here." She held both arms out. "Get on either side of me. I think I can go faster if you help."

  They did, and she could.

  Louis pointed off to their right. "We passed a park, a block or so back there. There'll be bathrooms and water. We can clean up. Figure out what to do."

  Morgan nodded. "Sounds good. Let's go."

  * * *

  TWO POLICE CRUISERS with lights flashing passed them as they walked to the park.

  Morgan knew SFPD would run Louis's license plate. With an abandoned car at the scene of an accident, they might figure it as being stolen. They'd try to reach Louis. In the end, though, the heat on the three of them wouldn't really be any higher. Not as a result of this crash.

  Rees was the one in real trouble here. Morgan had already turned his situation over ten ways in her head and didn't see a whole lot of options.

  The walk to the park had been mercifully short. After she and Danni washed up, they sat down at a wooden table near the bathrooms. Louis came out of the men's room a minute later. His nose was red and swollen, otherwise he looked fine.

  Louis sat down on the bench next to Danni, and scoped out the park in a quick 360. Then he said, "Well, what the hell do we do now?"

  "The same thing we were already doing," Danni offered. "Right, Kerry? We find Kazemi and the ti
me-recordings. He leads us to the other guy and the lectionary. Then we make it all public as fast as possible. And screw these bastards."

  "And then what? They just cut Rees loose?" Louis wore a humorless smile. "Nah, I don't think so. He's seen people, you know. They can't just let him go."

  "No they can't," Morgan agreed. "So we're going to have to take him back."

  Louis held his palms up toward Morgan. "Whoa, hey, slow down there. I respect the guy, but like, I'm not a commando. Anyway how would we even find him now?"

  "Remember," Morgan said, "whoever grabbed Rees wants to get Herodotus too. And Rees knows where that man is."

  Danni put a hand to her mouth and spoke through it. "Oh my god, they're going to torture him."

  "They might," Morgan agreed. "But they won't kill him. Not yet. They have to confirm whatever Rees tells them." A new idea suggested itself to her right then. "The man who rammed us-was anybody with him, or was he by himself?"

  Danni and Louis looked at each other.

  "He was driving," Danni said. "There wasn't anyone else. Was there?"

  "No, he was alone," Louis answered.

  That's what Morgan had hoped. "Good. If he's on his own, he'll probably tuck Rees away someplace safe while he confirms that Professor Kazemi really is Herodotus."

  Danni's eyes blazed with determination. "So he'll be coming to the university for Kazemi. Right! That's where we'll get him."

  "Right," Morgan said. "We get that man, we get Rees back." She turned to Louis, to check his reaction to all this. He didn't look like he was exactly on fire about it.

  "Yeah," he said. "It's scaring the shit out of me, but yeah. Let's do it. But, you know, carefully."