by Rachel Ford
Just like that, the tables had turned. Dixon and Caspersen were convinced of the secretary’s involvement. Even Alfred had to admit that it looked bad. Rodriguez had interviewed Dianne the very morning before he died, and the day before someone killed her boss – and she disappeared. The why’s didn’t make sense to the taxman; but he couldn’t ignore the obvious, either.
Caspersen relayed the findings to Harlow, and the chief promised immediate action. Then the director sent them all home for the night. “There’s nothing more we can do for now. They’re going to check the coffee shop’s surveillance footage, and pull her phone logs, and so on. For now, we need to sit tight and let them work. So you all might as well go get some sleep. I’ll see you tomorrow morning.”
Justin glared at Alfred as he and Nance headed out but said nothing. That was alright with the taxman. He’d been awake going on twenty hours now, factoring in his time with Li. He’d found a dead colleague, been investigated by the police, and completely misread the facts of the case. In short, his day had stunk. He didn’t need anyone making it worse.
“I still don’t understand,” he admitted as they headed to their car. “What deposits could Rodriguez have found? I didn’t see anything.”
“No. But he had weeks to look at the files, babe. You just got started.”
That was a good point, but it didn’t entirely quiet his discomfort with the situation. Whatever the facts implied at the moment, he had a kind of gut feeling that they were chasing a ghost – quite literally, in Dianne’s case.
“A good night’s sleep will clear both of our minds,” she told him.
Which, again, was true; but again, not much comfort, since sleep didn’t await them. Winthrop did. And the IBTI agent was nothing if not exasperated by their late hours. He stalked into the kitchen in his socks, a tub of ice cream in one hand and a spoon in the other. “For the love of God, there you are.” He proceeded to berate them for keeping him waiting, informing them that he’d been half distracted wondering about what might have gone wrong, and driven half mad by Satan. “Who likes to steal ice cream, by the way.”
“He’s not the only one, I guess,” Alfred said, a bit crossly and with a pointed look at the tub in the other man’s hand.
Winthrop didn’t deign to acknowledge the comment, though. “Well? What did you learn? Are they going to help us?”
So the pair relayed the details of their time on GJ-273b. The IBTI man nodded his approval when they mentioned wanting to report to him before jumping to the rendezvous. “Good plan. But, our hands are tied until we know what they decided. So you might as well get back there now.” Then, he threw a critical glance over the pair. “Or, maybe you should sleep first. We don’t need any injudicious comments that could spawn intertemporal incidents.”
“Right,” the taxman said sourly, “especially when you guys do such a great job at that already.”
“As I was saying…”
“We can do what we did this morning,” Nance decided. “Sleep late, make the rendezvous, and jump back to the morning so we’re at work on time.”
Which is precisely what they did, adjusting the spatial arrival coordinates to take them to the premier’s office rather than the field on the outskirts of the city. Nancy set the temporal coordinates to two days after their arrival, at the hour Ki’Altan had chosen.
The alien was waiting for them, seated behind the great glass desk. They started a bit as Alfred and Nancy materialized in the room, then laughed. “That is a most curious mode of transport. I do not know that I will ever be quite comfortable with it.”
Nance laughed, remarking that she was still working on it herself. Then she added, “Thank you for receiving us, Premier.”
Alfred, meanwhile, threw a glance around the room. He half expected to see Litri lurking at the window as before. But the young alien was nowhere to be seen. Nor, for that matter, was Li Muldan. They were alone with Ki’Altan.
The premier nodded benevolently. “I thank you for returning. And I have tentative good news. Not, perhaps, all that you were hoping, but enough, I think, to please you.
“The council has agreed to allow your scientists to review our research.”
“That’s fantastic,” Nancy agreed.
“Yes. But there are caveats. No IBTI personnel shall be granted access to the planet, excepting yourselves. And you will only be allowed onsite so long as you are fulfilling business directly related to our joint venture: closing the rift.
“Which, I’m sorry to say, does preclude you from visiting Councilor Muldan.” Perhaps seeing Alfred’s crestfallen expression, they added, “Until this crisis is resolved, anyway. I very much hope that a successful resolution will incline the council toward a more charitable mindset. And, if we do not reach that resolution…well, I suppose none of us will worry about anything after that, will we?”
“You are right, Premier,” Nancy said. “It is not all that we hoped, but it is enough. How do we begin?”
Ki’Altan lifted a strange oblong device from the desktop. “This is all the data we have. I believe your IBTI will be able to access it.”
Alfred hoped so, because he’d never seen any kind of drive that looked like this one. There seemed to be no ports or access nodes at all. Still, he took the device. “Thank you. We will–”
At that moment, a booming sound ripped through the air – something like a tremendous explosion. A shadow passed over the premier’s expression. “It’s beginning again,” they said ominously. And a moment later, flashes of red and orange blazed outside the glass walls.
Alfred turned to see what was happening, and he froze to the spot. Great fiery balls arced through the sky, racing toward the planet’s surface. Some seemed to be heading toward remote regions, but some came straight for the city.
The taxman watched in transfixed horror as one of the meteors careened into a glass building some several blocks away. A cloud of dust and fire and glass shards filled the air.
Premier Ki’Altan got to their feet. “I must go. And so should you. Bring this to your people. If they have anything useful, come back to us with it, as soon as you are able.”
“What’s going on?” Nancy wondered “What’s happening here?”
“It’s all on that drive, Miss Nancy. But it’s the multiverse collapsing. Our planet is being bombarded with solar flares and planetary fragments from other dimensions. Last night, a spaceship crashed north of here. We have no idea where it came from, or what manner of creature manned it; they were like nothing we have ever seen before.”
They shook their head. “Go, and may your IBTI find something that we have overlooked.” Then, though, the alien paused. “Oh, and one more thing.”
“What?”
“In our human studies classes, when we are but younglings, we learn your languages, as we learn the languages of all sentient races. We study the cultural programs my partner’s progenitor brought back. We learn all about your tumultuous race, and its bloody history.”
Alfred wasn’t sure where this was going, but he felt it couldn’t be any place good. He glanced at Nance, whose expression conveyed similar worry.
“But among all that we learned, your names, and your dealings with Li Muldan, are well known. You are, to the people of this world…how do you say it? Folk heroes, I think. I do not believe that the council would have agreed to work with the IBTI, not even if the rift was knocking at our door, if they had sent anyone but you.
“I hope very much that your belief in Mr. Winthrop’s scientists is not misplaced.”
Chapter Fifteen
They returned home to find Winthrop waiting for them, very much awake this time. “Well?” he demanded.
So Alfred relayed the council’s decision and handed over the device. The IBTI man nodded excitedly. “Good. Excellent. You’ve done well. I will get this to our labs.”
That seemed to be the end of it. Nancy headed to the bathroom to change. They’d brought their work clothes downstairs the night before,
so they wouldn’t risk waking their earlier selves.
Alfred headed to the kitchen, and the coffee pot. He’d just poured himself a steaming mug when Winthrop’s voice sounded behind him. “Ah, good: I could use a nice, strong cup of coffee myself.”
Alfred spun around. “What the…where did you come from?”
Winthrop regarded him like he might a rather foolish child. “Headquarters, obviously.”
“But you just left.”
“No. I left a week and a half ago, actually. At least, I spent a week and a half away.” Now, the Englishman pulled a long, silver object out of his suit jacket. It looked remarkably like the drive Ki’Altan had sent back with them. “This is our data – everything we have on the rift. We need you to get it to the Geejayan Ministry of Science.”
“We just got back,” Alfred protested.
“Stop thinking like a linear, Favero,” the other man chided, employing the term IBTI agents used to refer to people who experienced time in the standard, linear fashion, without jumping back and forth through it. “You can come right back to your coffee. But we need to get this data to them.”
Alfred scowled. “Fine. As soon as Nance is out, we’ll go.”
Winthrop nodded, pressed the device into Alfred’s hand, and helped himself to a mug of coffee – specifically, the mug the taxman had taken out for Nancy. “I’ll wait here for you. You’ll be back before I finish my coffee, I’d imagine.”
Alfred drank his coffee in silence for a long moment. Then, he asked, “Your people had the data for a week? Did they find anything?”
“Not yet. Nothing definitive, anyway. There’s one chap whose got an idea, something to do with reversing fields or…I don’t know. It’s all Greek to me. But anyway, he’s got an idea. Whether it pans out or not remains to be seen. In the meantime, we want the aliens to take a look at what we have, just in case they come up with any ideas of their own.”
Alfred nodded, and kept drinking his coffee. Nance emerged a few minutes later. “You know what I’m thinking, Alfred?” she was saying. “If you’re right about Dianne, then maybe whoever killed Rodriguez killed her for the same –”
She cut off suddenly, though, as she stepped into the kitchen. “Oh. Agent Winthrop, you’re…back?”
The Englishman nodded. “That’s right. With our data, this time, for Ki’Altan and his boys to take a look at.”
“Oh. You mean, we’re headed back to GJ-273b?”
“Exactly. The sooner the better. We want them on the same page as us about this.”
So Alfred and Nancy jumped back to the same moment they’d left. Ki’Altan was at the door, stepping into the hall. “Premier?” Nancy said.
The alien started, spinning around in surprise. “I thought…you left already?”
“We did. But we just came back. Winthrop wanted you to have this.”
Alfred handed over the data storage unit, and Ki’Altan took it with a puzzled frown. “What is it?”
“It’s the IBTI’s data on the phenomenon.”
“Already?”
“It’s not…I know it’s two seconds for you. But he was gone for a week or so. He just jumped back to us, and we jumped back here. So we didn’t lose any time.”
The alien nodded slowly. “I see.”
“Well…I suppose we will let you go, then.”
The premier nodded, and for the second time in a few seconds, they took their leave of the alien. He vanished into the hall, and they returned to Winthrop.
“Well?” the Englishman asked.
“Well what?”
“What did he say?”
“Nothing.”
“Nothing? What do you mean, nothing? When are you due back?”
Alfred realized, too late, that he hadn’t asked that question. He shrugged now. “I don’t know. He was a little preoccupied, with chunks of flaming debris falling out of the sky and all.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. Turns out opening giant rifts through time and space isn’t great for planetary stability.”
Winthrop frowned at his sarcasm, but said only, “Well, you’ll need to check in with him. Give it four hours.”
“We’ll check in tonight,” Nance said. “We’ve got to get to work.”
The IBTI man sighed in a disappointed fashion. “You really need to stop acting like linears, the pair of you. You can blink four hours ahead right now. And then, when we’re done saving all life everywhere, you can jump back to your tax case.”
But Alfred and Nancy wouldn’t be persuaded. Time didn’t have to be linear to them, so it made no difference if they jumped forward now or waited until they got home from work. And she had an idea about Dianne Godsey. “I want to check it out. The end of the world can wait.”
“You hope.”
“We all hope. Come on, Alfred. Let’s leave Mr. Winthrop to his coffee and get going.”
Nancy’s idea was simple. “Let’s say you’re right, Alfred, and she isn’t the killer. Let’s say she’s one of the victims, and we just haven’t found her yet.
“Why would Rodriguez want to meet with her?”
“No idea,” the taxman admitted.
“For the same reason anyone would kill her – or Rodriguez, for that matter: what they knew. And in this case, we can do better than a vague ‘what did they know?’ Because the calendar meeting mentioned it: deposits.”
He nodded excitedly. He’d been so nonplussed by finding out about that unknown meeting that he hadn’t been thinking straight. But Nancy was right. Nothing about his theory had changed. Dianne had still been killed for what she knew. The meeting just provided the link between her and the dead agent. “And it also explains why no one offed Dixon: because whatever she knew, she told Rodriguez. Not Dixon.”
“There’s just one problem with that: how did our killer know Rodriguez hadn’t told Dixon already?”
That stumped the taxman for a bit. “He interviewed Dianne Monday morning, right?”
Nancy nodded. “Seven AM.”
“And then our killer cut Rodriguez’s throat Monday evening. Which leaves what, about a ten-hour window between the interview and the killing. What was Dixon doing Monday?”
“No clue.”
“Me either. Which means I’m going to have to ask him.” The taxman shook his head. “That’s going to go over well.” He still hadn’t forgotten the incident in the SUV the day before.
Nancy laughed. “I can ask him, if you want. He may be less hostile if it comes from me.”
Alfred, though, shook his head. “I don’t think Dixon knows how to do less hostile. Anyway, I’m already on his list. It can’t get worse.”
A statement that very nearly earned its place in the annals of famous last words, a good ten minutes later when Alfred strolled into the conference room turned war room and put the question to Special Agent Dixon.
The other man’s eye twitched, and he got so red so quickly that Alfred feared he’d bust a capillary. And his hasty attempts to assure, “I’m not accusing you of anything,” were promptly and rudely interrupted before he even got to the, “I’m just trying to establish a timeline,” bit.
“What in God’s name are you saying, Favero? It’s one thing to field questions like this from those idiots at the PD, but from you too?” Dixon turned on Caspersen now. “I am done working with this guy. Finished. I’m not going to have someone on my investigative team accusing me of murder.”
“I’m not accusing you of anything,” the taxman repeated.
Which earned him another round of venom, and a forefinger jabbed into his sternum for good measure. At the same time, Caspersen said, “Dixon, stand down, dammit.”
He rounded on her a second time but stopped short at the icy stare she fixed him with. “I’m not going to be accused of killing my partner by someone on my own damned investigative team,” he growled.
“It’s my team,” she said. “And I didn’t hear an accusation from Alfred. I didn’t hear anything, because you were too
busy yelling. Now, I get that this is important to you, and personal, and that’s why you’re still on the case. Even though, by rights, I should have pulled you for being too damned near the situation.
“But so help me, Dixon, you put another finger on anyone else, you’re on a one-month suspension. You understand me?”
Dixon clenched his jaw and said nothing.
“I asked, do you understand me?”
“Yes, Director. I understand you. Now, are you going to –”
She raised a hand, though. “I’m going to hear Alfred out. And so are you. Like professionals, Dixon. We owe Rodriguez nothing less.”
So Alfred got out his full question, and the reason why. Dixon’s purplish-red color receded a little. “Son-of-a-bitch,” he said.
“Biscuit,” Alfred murmured.
“I was out of state most of the day Monday, interviewing one of Donaldson’s national customers. I didn’t get back until four something. Dropped my stuff off at the office. Rodriguez wasn’t there.”
Caspersen nodded. “He’d been following up on the Kaspersky case in the afternoon.”
“I figured I’d see him in the morning, and we’d compare notes. Except, of course, he never showed up. But you’re saying I would have ended up dead too if I’d been around?”
Alfred nodded. “I think so, yes. I think whoever killed Rodriguez killed Dianne too. And they would have killed you, except they didn’t have to.”
“They didn’t have to kill anyone,” the agent said with a scowl.
“You know what I’m saying.”
“I do,” he conceded. “But how does he know Rodriguez didn’t phone or text or email whatever it is he learned?”
“He doesn’t,” Caspersen said. “Which means either the risk was low enough that he wasn’t worried – or you’re still in danger.”
“Or, I was out of state, and Dianne Godsey killed Rodriguez and got the hell out of Dodge.”
“She didn’t, though,” Alfred pointed out.