Time Frame (Split Second Book 2)

by Douglas E. Richards

  The colonel found himself alone in the center of a large, well-lit room, about twenty-five yards on a side, with a low, unfinished granite ceiling. This was the room in which time travel had been demonstrated to him, when his wallet had been beamed fifty-eight feet away.

  He had pretended to be amazed. And he truly had been. It was just that after Knight’s more outrageous demonstration of the effect, a teleported wallet didn’t get him as excited as would normally be the case for the completely uninitiated.

  Vargas’s right eye was throbbing, and while he could still see, it had surely suffered minor trauma. As his mind became more awake, the nature of this trauma became clear: someone had removed the smart contact from his eye, probably just pinching it off with their fingers, and not doing a particularly delicate job of it. He felt tenderness in a small spot on his back, as well, as if someone had stabbed him viciously with a horse needle, or had shot him with a tranquilizer dart, which was more likely. He slept on his stomach, so his back would be an easy target.

  All of this added up to Lee Cargill. Who else? Even if Vargas imagined there was a rogue element in one of the other groups housed within Cheyenne Mountain, only Cargill would know that he was wearing a smart contact lens capable of activating hidden weapons with a pattern of blinks.

  Sure enough, seconds later, just as his mind returned to full wakefulness and alert, Cargill entered the room, with Blake and Allen in tow. Cargill walked over to where Vargas was bound and ripped the duct tape from his mouth.

  The colonel fought to stay calm. “Can’t say I love your initiation rites, Lee,” he said. “Do all new members of Q5 get hazed like this?”

  Cargill smiled wearily and shook his head. “No, Hank. You’re special.”

  “What the fuck is this about?” demanded Vargas. “Have you lost your mind? The president wants me to share command with you. Yet I went out of my way to assure you the group is still yours. And this is the thanks I get?”

  “Yeah, I’ve already ordered your medal,” said Cargill. “Should arrive any day.”

  Vargas ignored the sarcasm. “I didn’t say backing off from command was heroic, Lee. I was just trying to make a peace offering. So why assume I’m an enemy?”

  “Because I don’t trust a word you say,” replied Cargill. He motioned to Allen, who walked around the colonel’s chair and took up a position behind him. Vargas struggled to turn his head to see what he was up to, but failed.

  “So what now?” snapped Vargas. “Are you going to kill me? Yeah, that won’t make Janney more suspicious of you. Big mistake.”

  “I’m touched that you’re looking out for me,” said Cargill. “But why don’t you let me worry about that.”

  Vargas shot upward, intending to lift the steel chair he was tied to and use it as a bludgeon to wipe the smirk from Cargill’s face.

  But the chair had other ideas. It was somehow firmly affixed to the floor, and he was lucky his attempt didn’t tear muscles in his legs or damage his bound wrists.

  Seconds after his body slammed back into the chair, he felt a sharp stabbing pain in his arm.

  As he was trying to process what had happened, Allen reappeared in front of him holding an empty syringe, whose contents had no doubt just been emptied into his arm.

  “What did you inject me with, you piece of shit!”

  No one replied. Blake and Allen both studied him with great interest while Cargill checked his watch.

  “Relax, Hank,” said Cargill. “Take deep breaths. Let’s pause our conversation for a few minutes.”

  “What was in that syringe?” shouted Vargas.

  “That’s the opposite of relaxing,” noted Cargill calmly. “Another word and I’ll duct tape your mouth shut again. Your choice.”

  Vargas’s mind raced. There was no question he and Cargill were slated to be antagonists, but he hadn’t expected a move like this. He had been assigned by the president, and had done nothing to threaten this man or his team. Nothing yet.

  Cargill must have seen through Vargas’s assurances, clearly enough to make a bold, reckless move from which he would never recover, whether he let Vargas live or not. Either way, Cargill had to know that Janney’s suspicions would now be confirmed, and the president would seek out an immediate, permanent solution to make sure that a rogue wasn’t in charge of the most powerful technology in history.

  Vargas had always liked Cargill—as much as he allowed himself to like any of the men under his command. He had trusted Cargill where he had never trusted Knight. Knight was a narcissist and borderline psychopath. Brilliant, but uncontrollable.

  Cargill was also brilliant—in his own way. Absent Knight’s corrosive influence, Cargill’s people tended to be fiercely loyal to him. And he had a genius for assembling teams that were astonishingly productive and cohesive. Unlike Knight, however, Cargill had always been straight-laced, more a Boy Scout than a ruthless dictator capable of calling any play to advance the ball, regardless of the ethics or consequences.

  But based on what Knight had told him, and what he was now witnessing, Cargill had changed dramatically.

  The longer Vargas sat in silence, reflecting, the more he regretted the current turn of events. He liked Lee Cargill. He liked all three of these men. A lot. Admired them even. Wanted to be closer to them. He realized he was willing to do anything to gain their acceptance, make them happy. So why were they doing this to him?

  Cargill checked his watch and smiled. “Congratulations, Colonel,” he said at last. “You’re still alive. If you were going to drop dead, this would have happened several minutes ago.”

  “What was in that syringe?” repeated Vargas. But this time he said it calmly, without a hint of malice.

  “I removed your contact lens, as I’m sure you know,” said Cargill, ignoring the question. “But this didn’t disarm the weapons you have hidden. Can they be activated in other ways?”

  “Yes, I made sure to bring newer versions that can be activated manually if the contact lens is confiscated or fails. But I need my hands. To be honest, when you first came in the room, my plan was to wait a while and then ask you to untie me to pee. Once you did, I planned to trigger one or more of them manually.”

  “Good to know,” said Blake. “So where are your booby traps and weapons hidden?”

  “In my belt and watch,” replied Vargas helpfully.

  Cargill considered. “That makes sense,” he said. “Explains why you were sleeping in your clothes.” He nodded at Allen who removed these items from the prisoner and set them well beyond his reach.

  “Why did I just share all that with you?” asked the colonel.

  “You couldn’t help yourself,” replied Cargill.

  Shit, thought Vargas feebly as he realized what was happening to him. He knew he should have been far more outraged, but his concern was more academic than actual. He trusted that his friend had done the right thing. “You injected me with T-4,” he said aloud, “didn’t you?”

  “Developed by one of your own teams,” replied Cargill. “As you know, if you’re among the half who can tolerate it, and survive past the first minute or two, you’re home free.”

  Vargas nodded. He didn’t know all the intricacies of the development of this chemical, but he knew the basics. The research team responsible had studied how both truth serums and oxytocin affected the brain, and created a potent drug that substantially amplified and intensified the effects these chemicals brought about. Oxytocin was a hormone that acted as a neurotransmitter in the brain, with powerful effects on human behavior. It was released when a woman breastfed to promote a strong emotional bond with her baby. Its level increased in both men and women after a hug, kiss, or orgasm. It was thought to play a significant role in pair-bonding. Thought to increase empathy, trust, love, and generosity.

  No wonder he had suddenly realized how much he admired the men in the room with him. How much he trusted them. How much he wanted their approval. No wonder his rage was now gone, replaced by a desire to
please.

  The drug was extraordinarily effective. It managed to take the edge off, to reorient a subject, but without dulling their intellect. He could carry on as coherent a discussion as ever, only with an irresistible desire to please and tell the truth. Even knowing that his trust in these men was false, was drug-induced, Vargas realized he didn’t care. He still couldn’t stop himself from revealing anything they wanted to know.

  “Didn’t you take a big gamble using T-4?” said Vargas, genuinely concerned for the welfare of his friend Lee. “What if it had killed me?”

  “A risk we were prepared to take,” replied Cargill. “And a necessity. Since I know how much of a ruthless, hawkish, lying asshole you are, the bigger risk would be not learning what you’re really up to.” He leaned in toward the colonel. “So now that you’re being cooperative, let me ask again, why did Janney send you here?”

  “Because I came to him and told him you had gone off the reservation. That you were probably mad. That you had destroyed Lake Las Vegas for absolutely no reason, using octa-nitro-cubane. And that you and I remained close after Q5 split off, and that you had told me all about time travel.”

  “What?” said Cargill. “I thought Janney summoned you.”

  Vargas shook his head. “I arranged for the first meeting. I practically forced it on him.”

  “And you knew about time travel before the meeting?” said Blake.

  “Correct.”

  “How?” said Cargill. “Who told you?”

  “Edgar Knight.”

  “How long ago was this?” asked Cargill, stunned.

  “Less than a week ago.”

  “You must have the timing wrong,” said Joe Allen. “Knight was already dead at that point.”

  Vargas shrugged. “For a dead man, he sounded very healthy when I spoke to him last night.”

  54

  Cargill felt the room spinning around him and he reflexively put a hand on Blake’s shoulder to steady himself.

  Knight was alive?

  Impossible. He couldn’t have survived. He was at Lake Las Vegas. Nathan Wexler had confirmed as much when Blake had teleported him out of there. Which left only one possibility.

  There was now no doubt that they had made the right choice in interrogating Vargas, and in using T-4. It had paid off even better than they had thought it would. He, Allen, and Blake had discussed this move at length, and all had agreed. O’Bannon and TenBrink had done a masterful job of paving the way, preparing Vargas’s quarters to perfection. Not only had they made sure that his lock could be readily defeated, but had seen to it that this could be done, and the door opened, without making a sound.

  “Did Knight tell you there had been more than one of him?” asked Cargill.

  Vargas shook his head. “No, just the opposite. After I had seen multiple copies of one of his men, I asked him point-blank if there were more copies of him. He told me no. That you could have many arms, but you could only have a single brain.” The colonel paused in thought. “He also told me he wasn’t at Lake Las Vegas when you attacked.”

  “He was lying,” said Cargill. “He was there all right. Which means he did have extra copies of himself generated. I didn’t think he’d ever allow that.”

  “Why don’t we back up,” suggested Blake. “Start at the beginning.” He nodded at the prisoner. “Why don’t you tell us when you first spoke to Knight. And under what circumstances.”

  Vargas proceeded to do just this, thoroughly and precisely.

  He described how Knight had brought him to his farm in Maryland, at gunpoint, and the events that had unfolded there. He didn’t leave out that Knight had demonstrated time travel by sending him back in time, and then ruthlessly killing his double in front of him, or the three copies of Jack Rourk he had dispatched.

  The mention of Jack Rourk brought scowls to all three interrogators. This man was once a trusted member of Q5’s Inner Circle, but had become one of Knight’s moles. He had shot another member of the Inner Circle, Mark Argent, on Palomar Mountain, in cold blood, so he could get a copy of Wexler’s work he had thought Blake was carrying.

  But Blake had gotten the better of him, wounding him and ending up with his phone. Then he had tricked him in such a way that he was made to look the fool in front of Knight, humiliating him.

  The colonel went on to detail the titanium capsule Knight wanted implanted in his head, and how Knight had pretended to leave the farm, drawing Vargas out and outsmarting him, not watering this down in the least. Even if he were to tell this story to a trusted confidant, he probably wouldn’t have admitted that Knight ultimately knocked him out and implanted a time-bomb in his head against his will.

  The disclosure left no doubt of two things: Edgar Knight was alive. And T-4 was an interrogator’s dream, if only it didn’t kill half the subjects before they could talk.

  Vargas also detailed Knight’s goals and plans for the future. Knight wanted to get his hands on Wexler’s work, on his fabled half-second time travel capability. He wanted to extract revenge on Q5 for attacking his headquarters as they had. And he wanted to bring about a global hegemony, with him sitting on the throne, dramatically reshaping the world. In exchange for Vargas’s help, Knight had promised to make him the number two man in his new world order.

  “So where do things stand now?” asked Cargill when he had finished. “You managed to convince President Janney to send you here. But you learned I wasn’t about to give you Wexler’s work. So what’s the plan going forward?”

  “My plan or Knight’s plan?”

  “Aren’t they one and the same?” asked Blake.

  Vargas shook his head vigorously. “Not at all. Although, now that I think so highly of you, I’d never think of carrying mine out.”

  “Why don’t you tell us what your plan was,” said Cargill, rolling his eyes. “As of last night. But tell us about Knight’s plan before you do.”

  “Of course,” said Vargas helpfully. “Originally, he hoped you’d give me a legitimate password, so he could get Wexler’s work the easy way. Now that he knows this won’t happen, Plan B is for me to deliver the entire management team into his hands. He’ll then force Nathan Wexler or Daniel Tini to recreate Wexler’s breakthrough from scratch. He’s convinced these are the only two physicists on the team capable of doing it. Then he plans to kill the rest of the team and destroy all time travel technical specs, so that Q5 can never rise again. Meaning he’ll be the only one left who can wield time travel.”

  “Sure,” said Cargill. “Leaving the world defenseless against him.”

  “Exactly,” said the colonel. “But before Q5 is destroyed, he wants to torture and kill the three people he believes were responsible for the attack on his Lake Las Vegas headquarters.”

  “And who does he think that is?” asked Cargill.

  “You, Aaron Blake, and Jenna Morrison.”

  Blake frowned. “Surprisingly accurate,” he noted.

  “Is that his entire plan?” asked Cargill.

  “In the near term, yes. You already know his long-range plans, which haven’t changed.”

  “And your plan?” asked Blake. “You know, as of last night?”

  “I planned to destroy Q5 and kill its key players myself, including the three of you. But instead of forcing Wexler and Tini to reveal how to extend time travel to a half second, they’d be the first ones I’d kill. I also planned to kill Edgar Knight and purge all time travel technology from the face of the planet.”

  Cargill blinked in confusion. “Didn’t you just tell us that Knight has a booby trap in your head? If he dies, you die.”

  Vargas sighed. “I was as good as dead when he implanted the capsule. It’s only a matter of time. A year at the outset. But even if this weren’t true, I’d be willing to sacrifice my life to stop him.”

  “To stop him?” said Cargill in disbelief. This had to be total bullshit. Except that it couldn’t be. The T-4 was working too well. “Why would you want to do that?”

&nb
sp; “When I realized just how dangerous time travel is, how it could be used as the ultimate weapon, I knew it had to be stopped. Knight’s wild, psychopathic ambition to transform the world to his twisted ideal is horrific. But even if Knight were a pacifist, my plan would have been to kill you and bury this tech, no matter what the cost. It’s too powerful a weapon to be allowed to exist.”

  “What?” said Cargill, as if he was certain his ears had failed him. “Too powerful a weapon? No weapon has ever been powerful enough for you. You’re more hawkish than Knight. So how can what you say possibly be true?”

  “I was hawkish,” replied Vargas. “Many years ago. I did some terrible things in the name of defending our national interests. But as time passed, I saw too many wars, too much bloodshed. And for what? Over the years, I lost too many friends, saw too many good men die.”

  The colonel shrugged. “So I changed,” he continued. “Had an epiphany. I became horrified by the nature of humanity. Convinced that we had to find a way to uncock the gun we were holding to our own head. So I maneuvered to be put in charge of black weapons. So I could control things from the inside.”

  Cargill had never been more stunned, never more at a loss for words. He couldn’t believe what he was hearing. He glanced at this watch, confirming that the T-4 wouldn’t wear off for several hours. “Control things, how?” he asked.

  “Let me back up for a moment,” said Vargas. “To get my current position, I had to appear appropriately hawkish. This isn’t a job you give to a dove. Once I was in, I began to shift as many projects and resources as I could from offensive applications to defensive. Not that I’m a pacifist. I still make sure we stay ahead of the enemy. I still support weapons we can give our men and women in the field to enhance their battlefield effectiveness. Relatively small stuff that can save individual lives. Powered exoskeletons, smart contact lenses, sonic weapons, and so on. But I killed off all WMD programs, and the worst of what was left. Because once we develop these weapons, it’s only a matter of time before others do too. So we haven’t gained an advantage, we’ve just brought our species that much closer to the brink.”