Blackout

by Meredith McCardle

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  Text copyright © 2015 Meredith McCardle

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

  Published by Skyscape, New York

  www.apub.com

  Amazon, the Amazon logo, and Skyscape are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates.

  ISBN-13 (hardcover): 9781477827123

  ISBN-10 (hardcover): 1477827129

  ISBN-13 (paperback): 9781477827116

  ISBN-10 (paperback): 1477827110

  Cover art by Cliff Nielsen

  Jacket design by Cyanotype Book Architects

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2014912445

  For my family. Thank you for always believing in me.

  Contents

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  CHAPTER 21

  CHAPTER 22

  CHAPTER 23

  CHAPTER 24

  CHAPTER 25

  CHAPTER 26

  CHAPTER 27

  CHAPTER 28

  CHAPTER 29

  CHAPTER 30

  CHAPTER 31

  CHAPTER 32

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  CHAPTER 1

  I’ve watched my father break the law three times already this month, and let me tell you, it’s nothing like in the movies. On the big screen, the bad guys always seem to meet with shady associates in the back rooms of crowded Chinese restaurants, glancing over their shoulders while being slipped a padded envelope under the table, but that’s not how it works in real life. At least, that’s not how my father does it.

  Once there was a clap on the back at gate C14 at Logan Airport. That was in 1975. Another time there was a handshake in the Capitol Hill offices of a junior Illinois congressman. That was in 1902. And now there’s the clinking of two beer mugs at McSorley’s on Seventh Street in Manhattan. It’s 1939.

  I keep my head down as I check my gold watch before tucking it back in the pocket of my vest, along with the chain. It’s just another part of the costume. I pick up one of my own mugs. There are only two drink choices at this bar—dark ale or light ale. I opted for dark, and they plunked down two mugs in front of me. I have no idea why they gave me two. I didn’t even want one, but I had to get something. The glass is warm on my fingers, so I set it down, still untouched from a half hour ago, as I lean into the corner of the bar.

  The bartender sets down his rag and nods at my mug. “What’s the matter, buddy? Not to your likin’?” There’s no friendly camaraderie in the way he says it, no “Hey, pal, why don’t you try the light ale instead?” It’s more of a threat hiding behind a simple question. I need to get out of here soon.

  I start to shake my head but stop myself. The bobby pins keeping my hair tucked under my hat feel a little loose. The last thing I need is for my hair to tumble down past my shoulders. I’d certainly be the center of attention—my dad’s attention included—and I’d have a lot of explaining to do. After all, it’s going to be another thirty-one years before women are allowed in this bar.

  “It’s fine,” I mumble in a heavy Romanian accent I throw in for the hell of it. “Not thirsty.”

  At a table a few feet away, my dad stands and extends his hand to the man with him. I’m not sure who this guy is, but based on precedent, I’m going to guess he’s upper-level management at a company that manufactures war goods. Guns, tanks, bombs, airplanes. Turns out war is extremely profitable if you get the right person to sign on the right dotted line. Life lesson courtesy of my absentee father.

  The man hands my dad a business card, and he tucks it inside his inner jacket pocket. Dammit. That’s going to make things more complicated. My eyes snap back to my mug as my dad saunters past me, but I don’t feel him give me a second glance. Just like in 1975 and 1902. I wonder if my dad would be ignoring me if he were still alive in the present, whether he’d be drawn to me in the past by some inexplicable parental force or something. I don’t know. He died when I was a baby, and I never learned how normal parent-child relationships are supposed to work.

  I give my dad a head start before I fish out a couple of coins and plunk them down on the wooden bar. The bartender jerks his head at me in a “Glad you’re finally getting the hell out of here and freeing up some bar room on a Friday night” kind of way. I don’t give him any sort of gesture in return.

  I follow my dad out onto the street. I need to get that card before he projects back to the present. Well, his present. He left for this mission in 1991. I left decades later.

  A woman walks past wearing a sweater that’s probably two sizes too small and a tight pencil skirt that leaves very little to the imagination. Please don’t, my mind begs, but sure enough my dad’s head turns to follow the lines running up the back of the woman’s stockings as she walks away.

  You have a wife at home, I think. But at least it gives me an opportunity. I grab a rumpled copy of the New York Times off the top of a trash bin and hustle over to my dad. I unfurl the paper and pretend to stare at the headline:

  GERMANY AND RUSSIA SIGN 10-YEAR NON-AGGRESSION PACT

  And then I snort. Because that was a waste of paper.

  I lift my head at the last moment to see my dad turning around, then focus my eyes back on the paper. My dad runs smack into me.

  “Oh, sorry!” he says as I slip my hand into his jacket pocket and take out the card. His smile is warm and friendly. And entirely phony.

  “My mistake,” I say in a gruff voice. I’ve dropped the accent. I’m sure my dad would recognize it, and we are so not having the “Hey, are you from Romania? My wife’s mother is Romanian” conversation. If there’s one thing I’ve learned from these past months I’ve been tailing my dad, it’s that he’s the kind of guy who talks to everyone about everything. Lots of small-talk schmoozing, just like a politician.

  I tuck my chin and keep walking, so he won’t have the chance to recognize me from the bar, accent or not. I duck into the next street and toss the paper into another bin. Then I whip out the card.

  HENRY GRAHAM

  VICE PRESIDENT

  IBERIA HOLDINGS

  Iberia Holdings. This is a new one. Iberia. That has something to do with Spain. Crap, I hope that doesn’t mean it’s a foreign company. Those records are so much harder to trace. The Narc will not be pleased.

  I repeat the man’s name and title in my mind a few times, then peer around the corner. My dad is jogging down the stairs into the Eighth Street subway stop. He’s on his way to Penn Station. I follow him down to the platform but leave about twenty feet between us. The train rumbles forward, and I watch my dad get on before I jump into the same car, different door.

  During the ride, my dad grins and ogles at least three more women. He strikes up a conversation with a young blonde with a bad root job, and I hate this. I hate everything about this.

  The subway pulls into Penn Station, and my dad takes the young woman’s hand and kisses the top of it. Actually pu
ts his lips on her skin, which makes my own crawl. I roll my shoulders back once, twice, like I can shrug off this feeling. But it lingers, wrapping around me like a scarf I can’t take off. Or won’t.

  I hop off the car and spot my dad several paces ahead. The station is packed with evening commuters, which makes this a helluva lot easier. Then again, after I had to sneak a briefcase away from my dad in a not-crowded Logan Airport, photocopy the entire contents, then sneak it back without him noticing, anything looks like a piece of cake.

  I pick up the pace and fall in line behind my dad as he makes his way toward the stairs. He’s trying to get to Boston to project, which is exactly where I’ll be heading myself soon. On a different train. There’s a backup of commuters ahead, a throng of people pressed together, fighting one another through the turnstile. Perfect. I position myself to the right of my dad, then step toward the turnstile at the same moment he does. My dad elbows me out of the way to go first—nice—and I slip the card into his pocket before stepping away to let him through.

  Done.

  This mission is freaking done.

  I turn and fight my way against the mob of people anxious to get home on a Friday night, then plop myself onto a bench. I have a ticket for a train that departs at 7:15, but I’m really in no hurry. I know what getting back to the present means. For a second, I let myself imagine I “accidentally” miss the train and spend a night in New York, but then the thought pops like an overinflated balloon when I realize the amount of paperwork that would create.

  Plus, I want to see Abe. It makes me feel a bit codependent, but I crave Abe’s company whenever I finish one of these missions. Like my brain can finally recognize how dysfunctional my old home life was, and now that I’ve had a taste of normalcy, of stability, it’s become a part of me.

  One train ride home and I’ll have my fill. But first I’m starving. I’d kill for a soft pretzel. Something full of carbs, with no nutritional value. I’m not sure when pretzels were added to America’s snack vocabulary, but a quick lap around the station tells me it wasn’t 1939.

  I sigh, buy myself a hot dog for ten cents, and park myself on a bench. And then I take a bite and remember why I don’t eat hot dogs. They smell like sweat and taste only marginally better.

  I chuck it in the nearest trash can and stand. I’ve given my dad plenty of lead time. He’s probably on his train already.

  It’s well after eleven when my train pulls into South Station. I hail a cab. It looks like a prop from a movie. The car is long and shaped like a bubble, and painted this yellow-orange color with bright red fenders and a black-and-white checkerboard trim running the length of the doors. I ignore the driver’s wrinkled nose when I toss myself into the backseat. Look, dude, I just spent almost five hours on a train. I know I smell like cigarette smoke and other people’s body odor. No need to remind me. I’ll never get used to how people in the past smoked everywhere they went and didn’t let a silly thing like transportation or other people’s health get in the way. Nope, the world was one giant ashtray.

  “Thirty-four Beacon Street,” I tell the driver before settling into the seat. The trip is short, and before I know it, I’m standing on the side of Annum Hall, staring at the door that leads into the gravity chamber, where I can project to the present without feeling like I’m getting stretched on the rack.

  I unlock the door and step into the tiny broom closet. Then I tug on the chain hanging around my neck until a small, circular pendant pops out of the top of my shirt. An owl is etched on the front of it. I press the top button, and the pendant opens, revealing a watch face. This is my Annum watch, which is what allows me to travel through time. I press the button again, and the hands automatically fly around the dial. I’m going back to the present.

  Peace out, 1939.

  As soon as I shut the watch face, I’m yanked up like a reverse bungee jump. A few seconds later, I land on my feet inside the gravity chamber. It’s hard to believe I used to find these jumps challenging. But I guess after you spend several days on the run, making dozens of unassisted jumps, your perspective changes.

  I slip the watch over my head and take a breath. I can already hear the impatient tap-tap-tap of a pair of well-worn, sensible heels coming from the other side of the door. Time to get this over with.

  I open the door with my left hand while holding out the watch with my right. Almost immediately, a tall woman in a pastel-green sweater set with frizzy brown hair pulled into a low ponytail takes the watch from me and places it into an open aluminum attaché with such care you’d think she was placing a premature baby into an incubator. Then she clicks the case shut and locks it. An electronic beep echoes in the hallway, and the woman withdraws from the attaché a security token bearing a set of numbers (which just changed and will continue to change every thirty seconds), then tucks the token into her pocket. The only way you can open the case is by entering her own personal password and the combination from the security token, which she never lets out of her sight. She holds up a tablet, and I dutifully place my hand on top, although I have to refrain from rolling my eyes.

  “Obermann, Amanda. Code name: Iris. Annum Guard employee number 0022,” an electronic voice states.

  Yeah, security’s changed just a bit around here lately.

  I withdraw my hand. “Am I done?”

  She narrows her eyes at me. “You know you’re not,” she says with all the patience of a post-office employee. “The memo I sent around on Monday has already gone into effect. I expect you—all of you—to begin your reports immediately upon your return.”

  I don’t point out that it’s nearly midnight on Wednesday. I left for this mission at one p.m. on Monday. I don’t tell her that I’m so freaking tired, any report I’d try to write now would be a jumbled mess. I don’t say anything. Instead I nod once and wait for her to spin on those beige heels and march back up to her office. The Annum Guard leader’s office. What used to be Alpha’s office but is now hers.

  Jane Bonner. She’s our interim leader, plunked here by the secretary of defense until the investigation into the Eagle Industries mess is completed. Forget making sure that every i is dotted and every t is crossed; Bonner expects—no, demands—that every i is dotted with a perfect circle, and you’d better whip out a ruler to make sure those crosses are exactly perpendicular.

  I wait a minute to make sure she’s gone and there’s no chance of running into her. My eyes are drawn to the chipped paint above the gravity room door—to where the “Enhancement, Not Alteration” plaque used to hang. Our old motto. That plaque got ripped off the wall a few months ago, after everyone finally admitted there’s no difference between enhancing the past with a small tweak and materially altering it with something huge.

  Enough stalling. I trudge up the stairs into the grand foyer. The chandelier is still there, but the marble table with the flowers is gone, replaced with two back-to-back desks, each with a computer. A rotating team of initials sat there every day for months. FBI, CIA, NSA. Everyone wanted a crack at us. They haven’t removed the desks, so I wonder if they’re coming back.

  I’m tempted to flip the bird toward Bonner’s office, but I know that she’s probably watching me on camera right now, so instead I keep all my fingers where they should be and head up the stairs to my room on the third floor. She can’t stop me from taking a shower before she forces me to start this damned report.

  There’s a yellow Post-it stuck to my door.

  Come find me when you get in.

  It’s not signed, but I’d recognize Abe’s handwriting anywhere. I glance two doors down, to my boyfriend’s room. I want to go now, but I just need to get out of these clothes and scrub my father’s corruption from my skin with a loofah. Five minutes, Abe.

  I pull my keys out of my pocket and open the door. A figure leaps off my bed, and I jump back into the hallway, crouching down and readying myself for a fight. Then I see who it is. Yellow.

  “Whoa there, Bruce Lee, simmer down with the judo mov
es,” Yellow says.

  I take a breath and relax my shoulders. “I don’t think Bruce Lee did judo.”

  Yellow cocks her head. “You know what? I don’t think so either. Darn it. Witty line fail.”

  “What are you doing in my room, Yellow?” I shut the door behind me and plunk my keys on the dresser.

  “Waiting for you.”

  “The door was locked.”

  “And I am totally insulted that you think I’m not capable of picking a simple lock. How did it go?”

  I fling my hat across the room, where it lands on a pile of dirty clothes in my closet, then I free my hair from the last few bobby pins holding it in place. A wavy mess of dark-brown hair tumbles around my shoulders. “I got the information I was looking for, if that’s what you’re asking.”

  Yellow pauses before plopping herself back down on my bed. “It wasn’t.”

  I sigh and take off my vest before tossing it sideways into my closet. It lands on top of the hat. Now all I’m wearing is a men’s white dress shirt and itchy brown trousers. “I swear to you, that woman keeps sending me on missions my dad was involved with on purpose. It’s like she has a personal vendetta against me. She enjoys turning that screw as tightly as she can.”

  “She’s heinous,” Yellow agrees.

  I laugh bitterly. “Yeah? She seems to love you.” I pull a pair of comfy sweatpants and a tank top out of my dresser, then toss them on the bed, next to Yellow.

  Yellow grins and brushes a lock of pale-blonde hair from her shoulder. “What can I say? Everyone loves me.”

  I kick off my shoes and pull off my socks and leave them at the foot of the bed. I have to get out of these clothes.

  My mom blessed me with strong bone structure, and I got broad shoulders and narrow hips from my dad. The flat chest is all me. Put all these features together, and it’s easy for me to pass as male with the proper accessories. And while my old Peel professor, Samuels, assured me this was a definite plus for my future CIA career plans, it never really sat right with me. I crane my head toward my shower.