TimeSplash

by Storrs, Graham

  Growing annoyed with this at last, Jay turned on him to tell him to shut up and bugger off, but Joe was just one pace behind and walked straight into him, knocking Jay backward into a dancing couple. The couple, both men as it happened, went sprawling into others and, by the time they had been pushed and shoved and sworn at a few times, the larger of them rounded on Jay—who had just begun to stutter out a profuse apology—and pushed him in the chest so hard he went flying into Joe, who barely managed to keep them both on their feet.

  “Hey, it was an accident,” Jay complained, untangling himself and glaring at the big dancer. The dancer squared off against Jay, shouting insults at him in a language that could have been Walloon for all Jay knew. All around them, the other dancers moved back, giving them space. Jay noticed this with annoyance. What did they think was going to happen? Jay wasn’t going to start a fight with a stranger in a club. Besides, he thought, the big guy was about twice his size and looked like he might be made of rock.

  He was about to make some kind of pacifying gesture and back off when Joe came to stand in front of him, putting his hands on Jay’s chest as if trying to hold him back.

  “Now, now, my friend,” the Spaniard said. “You must not lose your temper. You must…”

  And in a move so fast Jay could barely follow it, Joe spun around and whacked the big guy in the jaw with a beautiful roundhouse punch. There was a moment of stunned silence as everyone watched the guy pirouette and fall to the ground like a felled redwood. Even as his victim toppled, Joe turned to Jay with a happy grin. Over Joe’s shoulder, Jay saw the big guy’s dancing partner launch himself at Joe’s back.

  Then everything erupted into shouting and movement—mostly directed at Joe, whose attack on the big guy was clearly not popular with the locals. Jay reached for his badge. Time to assert his authority and calm the situation. But it was not there. It was in his jacket, which he had left behind at the bar.

  As Joe went down under the weight of several angry Belgians, Jay cursed all crazy young men, and dived into the fray to save him.

  * * * *

  Marie Vermeulen met Acting Superintendent Jacques Bauchet in the cavernous foyer and led him up in the lift. She noticed him eyeing her discreetly as they went up. A woman of about his own age, she prided herself on having a good figure and dressing well. She made a point of holding herself with a certain poise which she believed men admired. Her face was attractive, with prominent cheekbones and large dark eyes. She was fairly sure her new boss would like what he saw. When she reached out to press the button for their floor, he took the opportunity to sneak a quick look at her left hand, no doubt looking for a wedding ring. She smiled to herself. Men were so obvious when they tried to be circumspect.

  She was less guarded in her inspection of Bauchet. She looked him over quite blatantly in the lift, seeing a tall, angular man in his mid-forties, not especially handsome but with a striking look, broad brows and a beaked nose, deep-set eyes, and thin, ascetic lips. His hands were large and bony. He could have looked mean, even cruel, except that the smile he gave her when he saw her studying him revealed something warm and gentle within. She smiled back, partly in relief. She showed him his office and watched as he put both hands on his desk and leaned heavily on them. It was eight-thirty in the morning and he had come straight from the airport. Since the announcement of his new assignment—and temporary promotion—he had had two dozen meetings and only whatever sleep he could snatch on flights and train journeys between European capitals. She knew that because, as his new PA, she had arranged his schedule. Now, at last, he had reached his office and he could get down to work, although he looked as if he might not stay awake long enough.

  His colleague, Sergeant Colbert, was attending a meeting elsewhere, she told him when he asked. She brought him coffee. She produced the personnel files for his senior staff. She explained building security. She gave him the keys to an apartment nearby and to the car that was waiting for him in the garage below. She showed him how to access the unit’s file system and comms and informed him that Chief Superintendent Kohl would be happy to see him for lunch.

  “Is that all?” he asked. He sounded so weary her heart went out to him.

  “You’ve had enough, Superintendent?”

  “My head is reeling,” he said. “You’ll probably have to tell me everything again, I’m afraid. But some other time.”

  “That won’t be a problem, sir.”

  She felt a sudden urge to flirt with him, to say something teasing or suggestive, but clamped down on it immediately, shocked at herself. Unprofessional conduct had never been one of her vices.

  Marie saw a frown come down like a blind over what until then had been an open and friendly expression, and puzzled at it. Had he seen something in her own expression? She must be more careful.

  “There is just one more thing that I do need to bring up, sir. A staff discipline matter.”

  “What? Already?” He looked down at the coffee half-drunk on his desk. She could almost hear him thinking, not one cup of coffee into his first day and there was trouble with his staff!

  “The local police arrested two of the new recruits last night in a club in town. It seems there had been a—”

  A roar of laughter from the big open-plan area beyond the office door interrupted her. Bauchet glanced enquiringly at her and she shrugged. A man’s voice could be heard from the direction of the laughter, apparently telling a story.

  “Detective Inspector Moretti dealt with the Brussels police and the two young men in question have been released. DI Moretti thought you might like to have a word—”

  Another outbreak of laughter from the people outside stopped Marie again. This time, Bauchet rose from behind his desk and went out through the door. Marie followed close behind.

  “Set up a meeting for me, would you, Marie,” he said pleasantly as they crossed the room.

  “Everyone on my team, from Detective Sergeant upwards, in about half an hour.”

  A small crowd of people, mostly young, mostly male, were gathered around a good-looking olive-skinned young man who was grinning and talking animatedly.

  “And then, what do you think?” he asked his cheerful listeners in a strong Spanish accent. He had a bruised face and a bandage around his right hand. “My saviour, the great hero Jay Kennedy, he finds he has left his badge behind in his jacket at the bar!” He threw up his hands in an exaggerated gesture of incredulity and his audience laughed appreciatively. A second young man, blushing hotly, began protesting but this only caused more laughter. This one had a cut above one eye and a red, swollen ear.

  Bauchet stepped up to the edge of the group looking stern. “What is going on here?”

  Everyone stopped and stared at him with expressions of curiosity, wariness, or, as they noticed Marie standing at his shoulder and put two and two together, alarm.

  “Allow me to introduce myself,” Bauchet said in measured tones, his hawk-like gaze moving from one to another of the little gathering. “I am Superintendent Jacques Bauchet, lately of the Paris Préfecture de Police, and, as of two days ago, head of the Temporal Crimes Unit of Europol.”

  Marie could see people unconsciously edging away from the Spanish speaker and his embarrassed companion. “Perhaps you would do me the favour of returning to your desks and continuing with whatever work you have? I will be talking to everyone quite soon.”

  People hurriedly removed themselves from Bauchet’s vicinity.

  “Not you two,” he said quietly, fixing the perplexed Joe and the white-faced Jay with his gaze. “It is these two, is it not?” he asked Marie over his shoulder. She nodded, watching the young men with disappointed eyes. “Very well. In my office, right now.”

  He turned away and they followed him, Jay looking daggers at his new-found friend and Joe acting as if he were being unjustly accused.

  Marie closed the outer door and went to her desk in the adjoining office. She could see them through the glass walls and hear everything
that was said perfectly clearly.

  “All right,” Bauchet said. “Names.” They gave him their names, Joe reciting his with his usual flourish.

  “Well, Constables Kennedy and de la Peña,” he said, impressing Marie that he could remember even part of Joe’s name after a single hearing. “Let me tell you what the worst part of this new assignment is for me.” He went to sit down in his big, leather chair, leaving the two young men standing.

  “I can explain,” said Jay.

  “Shut up!” The anger in Bauchet’s eyes silenced him immediately. Marie looked across at her new boss with keen interest.

  “You see, I have been pushing for the creation and funding of a team like this ever since Ommen. Two years, tracking down bricks and all the lowlifes that surround them, and learning every day a little more about what might happen if their activities were left unchecked. I had hoped for a strong international force, focused on the problem. I had hoped it would be in place in time to stop catastrophes like Beijing. But, in the end, it took Beijing to wake people up to what was happening.

  “So I got my team and I got my funding and that is good. But what I also got—” And here an angry growl came into his voice. “—was every intelligence agency in Europe wanting to have one of their own people attached to my team so they have someone on the inside. People like you, messieurs.” He turned his glare on Joe. “You’re Spanish, yes?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Servicio de Información?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  He swivelled his aquiline nose toward Jay. “And you?”

  “Five, sir.”

  Bauchet nodded to himself. “I don’t care what kind of stupid, juvenile scrape you two got yourselves into last night. But I’ll tell you this. Beijing could have been Madrid. It could have been London. And one day it will be if we don’t do our jobs well. People will die. Tens of thousands of people.

  “You might think this is some cushy little assignment, a trip abroad, occasional reports to your home agencies about how we’re doing.” Jay blushed again and Marie guessed that someone had asked him to deliver just such reports. A flash of Bauchet’s eyes told her he too had seen Jay blush.

  “But this is not a game!” Bauchet’s voice was suddenly hard as iron. “This is not a vacation. This is the most important assignment either of you will have in your entire careers. We are fighting a foe with the capacity to bring down our entire civilisation. So you will stop being stupid children and you will take this assignment seriously, or by God you will be on the next plane back to wherever you came from with my recommendation for a dishonourable discharge on your record. Is that clear?”

  Jay seemed to be struck dumb as he attempted a response. Joe’s “Yes, sir” was just as feeble.

  “Is. That. Clear?” Bauchet almost shouted.

  “Yes, sir!” they both snapped back in unison, standing to attention as if they were back on parade at the academy.

  Bauchet regarded them steadily for several seconds. “Get out,” he said at last, turning his back on them.

  For a long time, Marie watched him as he stared through his window at the high-rises and motorways of Brussels. She was beginning to understand the kind of man she would be working for.

  Chapter 9: Hide and Seek

  “Good afternoon, Mr. Sniper, sir.” The man in the white three-piece business suit spoke with an American accent. He was short and round and looked cold.

  “It’s just Sniper, okay?” Sniper himself was wearing a floor-length, fur-lined leather coat, fur-lined boots and a fur fedora. The morning’s ice still lingered in the shadows, and the American stood out like a banjo player in a symphony orchestra. “You must be McGarry. Nice suit.”

  They had arranged to meet in the Gendarmenmarkt, a large public square big enough to have two cathedrals fronting it and popular enough, even in late November, to be full of people. Even Europe’s most wanted man could feel anonymous in a place like that, or so Sniper had thought. But he hadn’t expected his guest to turn up dressed as Colonel Sanders.

  “I seem to have dressed for the wrong season,” the American said. “It’s a little bit warmer back home in Louisiana, I’ve gotta say.”

  “Well, at least everyone will be looking at you and not at me.”

  McGarry smiled, weakly. “Perhaps we could find a coffee house or somewhere out of the wind.”

  Sniper regarded him with contempt. “We’re not courting, McGarry. This is not our first date. I don’t want to know your favourite band and what posters you have on your bedroom walls. Let’s just get our business done and say good-bye.”

  McGarry’s face lost its smile and became a blank mask. “Sure. Let’s do business. I have the target details in my briefcase. In return, my associates need proof of progress.”

  “Just who are your mysterious associates, McGarry?”

  “Now you know I can’t tell you that. It’s all part of our agreement. We supply the money. We pick the target. You get to do your timesplashing thing.”

  Sniper looked away, habitually scanning the crowded square for police. “Yeah, yeah. Whatever. So leave your case and fuck off, eh?”

  McGarry’s voice grew a little firmer. “We need that proof of progress, first, Sniper.”

  Sniper thought briefly of taking the case anyway and telling McGarry and his bosses to get stuffed. He had a quick mental image of that bright white suit splattered with the fat man’s blood. But he quickly thought better of it. He needed the money to keep flowing. And why should he care who he had to deal with to get it?

  “How do I know you’re not a cop?” he asked, more out of mischief than any real concern. Klaatu had vetted all their communications and nobody slipped anything past that boy.

  “I figure you’re just gonna have to trust me on that one, son.”

  Sniper’s head whipped around to face McGarry. The man’s accent had yanked up a memory Sniper had buried long ago. For a moment he felt the heavy shotgun in his hands, felt the power of his own muscles surging, the sound of the stock hitting flesh and bone, the jarring in his wrists as Hal’s head snapped back and away. Was there a connection here? Was somebody telling him they knew? Could this ridiculous little man be a warning? A threat?

  “What?” the American asked, unnerved by Sniper’s wide-eyed stare. “What’d I say?”

  Paranoia. That’s all it was, he told himself. He’d been on the run too long. Hal hadn’t even been from Louisiana, had he? Somewhere else. He couldn’t remember now. He saw McGarry’s eyes flick nervously down to his hands and realised he had reached into his coat pocket without thinking about it. Already his fingers were curling around the stock of his Chinese-made QSZ-99, all-polymer, 9mm handgun. Deliberately, he pulled his hand out of his pocket and let it fall at his side.

  “You want proof of progress?” he asked. McGarry said nothing, just swallowed hard and licked his lips. Sniper gave him the address of the warehouse in Neukölln-Südring. “Be there at eight,” he said and walked quickly away into the crowd.

  * * * *

  “Hey, I know you!”

  The club shook to the music, dimly lit except where the lights pulsed and circled on the dance floor. Sandra danced in sinuous rhythm to the hard beat. An old acquaintance from her pre-Sniper days danced with her.

  “You’re Patty, right? You used to come in here. Long time ago.”

  The guy who had just interrupted them and was now shouting in her face was someone she didn’t recognise. She peered at him. He was fair-haired and gangly and smashed out of his head on something.

  “Hey, dickhead,” her dance partner shouted in the stoned guy’s face. “Fuck off.”

  Taken aback and definitely not keen to argue the point, the guy backed away and lost himself in the crowd.

  “Who was that?” Patty asked. She wasn’t in the club for old times’ sake—or to dance with this guy all night. She was there to renew her old contacts and gather information.

  “Said he knew you.”

  �
�Yeah. Everybody knew me. Who was he?”

  “A guy called Cooke. Stephen Cooke.”

  “What was his tag?”

  Her partner lowered his voice. “People don’t use their tags any more. The cops are always sniffing around now. You never know who to trust.”

  “Yeah, but what was it?”

  “I dunno, Zorro or something. Zaphod, that was it.”

  “So you’re right out of that scene now.”

  “Damn right! It’s a mug’s lark. Anyway, what’s the point now? The bricks are more like terrorists these days. Not my idea of fun. Back then they used to be cool, you know?”