Ripples of the Past

by Damian Knight

  Hinds opened her eyes and glared at him.

  ‘It’s been a blast,’ he said, ‘but it looks like you’ve outlived your usefulness. The question remains, however, of what to do with you. Any suggestions?’

  She muttered something too quiet to be heard.

  ‘What’s that?’ Humboldt asked, and stooped to bring his ear closer.

  As he did so, she yanked her free hand out of the knot, reached up and grabbed the wrist of his knife hand. Humboldt staggered back, his mouth open, and bumped into the chair behind him. In that split second Hinds was up and out of her chair. Still gripping Humboldt’s wrist, she raised her knee into his groin. He doubled over with a grunt. The dagger wavered back and forth between them. For a moment it looked like Hinds might wrench it from his grip, but as the surprise of her unexpected attack subsided, Humboldt began to regain the upper hand, using his superior weight to twist the blade back towards her.

  Sam had to do something, but with his hands tied he couldn’t reach the buckle of his seatbelt. Instead he tried using his elbow to gain a purchase. The buckle opened halfway and then snapped shut with a metallic clunk. Gritting his teeth, he tried again. Inch by inch the clip scraped down the sleeve of his hoodie towards his elbow. It was about to slip again and then, at the very last moment, the catch released and the buckle clicked opened.

  He shot out of his chair and charged across the aisle, piling into Humboldt’s side. Both Humboldt and Hinds slammed against the curved wall of the cabin. Hinds’s head connected heavily with the rim of the window and she slumped to the floor. As Humboldt dragged Sam down with him, the dagger tumbled from his hand and went bouncing across the floor before disappearing under a chair on the other side of the aisle.

  Sam thrashed his arms and legs to disentangle himself from Humboldt’s flailing grip and began slithering across the carpet on his elbows and knees. He could just make out the glint of the blade in the shadows beneath the chair when a voice from the rear of the cabin shouted, ‘Stop!’

  Rolling onto his side, he looked up to see Sebastian step through the door to the kitchen, followed by Donna with Steele’s pistol in her hand.

  15

  Sam lay stretched across the floor of the cabin, Humboldt’s dagger tantalisingly out of reach.

  ‘That’s enough,’ Donna said, and tightened her grip around the handle of the pistol. Her posture was rigid and there was a new edge to her voice that he had never detected before.

  Humboldt grinned and drew himself up. Adjusting his prosthetic arm, which had become twisted during the scuffle, he stepped over the unconscious body of Sergeant Hinds, into the aisle and around Sam.

  ‘Good work, Donna,’ he said, and bent to retrieve the dagger from under the chair. ‘Just in the nick of time.’

  ‘Put it down, Michael,’ she said.

  Humboldt’s grin faltered. ‘Say what?’

  ‘Put it down. It’s over.’

  ‘Damn right it’s over! I’ve won, Donna. We’ve won. Sebastian, tie the cop up properly this time, then give the kid his antiserum, would you?’

  The small man didn’t budge but stared back blankly, his face ghostly pale.

  ‘No, Michael, you haven’t won,’ Donna said, digging the barrel of the gun into Sebastian’s ribs. ‘I can’t let you go through with this. What you’re doing ends here.’

  Humboldt blinked several times in rapid succession. ‘What are you talking about, Donna?’

  ‘My name isn’t Donna,’ she said. ‘It’s Nora Rutherford.’

  He lowered the dagger, his eyebrows bunched in confusion. ‘Am I missing the punch line or something? Your name is Donna Buxton. You’ve been on my payroll since 1970. I probably know you better than I know any living soul.’

  ‘I’m sorry to tell you this, Michael, but the person you think you know is a fabrication, a character I assumed on my father’s orders. After the press coverage of your winning streak in 1969 alerted the family to your existence, he sent me to keep an eye on you. My role was initially to gain your trust in order to ascertain whether or not you could be transformed into a useful asset.’ She sighed and shook her head. ‘You had the potential to do so much good, but instead you devoted your life to greed and the pursuit of power.’

  Although Sam couldn’t make sense of what he was hearing, it sounded a lot like the direction of proceedings had just swung in his favour. He rolled onto his backside and, taking advantage of the distraction, shuffled away down the carpet.

  Humboldt was studying the dragon’s-head handle of his dagger with a dazed look on his face. Several seconds passed before he looked up again. ‘So what, you’re a spy?’

  ‘I suppose that would be an accurate description,’ Donna (or Nora) said. ‘After I realised you possessed neither the personality nor the moral compass to make a viable ally, we decided it was best that I maintain a watch over you, subtly manipulating your activities in order to limit the damage you could do.’

  ‘And the family you speak of?’

  ‘Our family, Michael. Yours, Rayner’s and mine. The man you think of as Gerhardt von Humboldt was in fact my long-lost uncle, Joseph Rutherford.’

  ‘Rutherford? Garbage, I’ve never even heard of the name!’ Humboldt took a step towards her, his knuckles white around the handle of his dagger, but she levelled the pistol at his chest. He pulled up and forced an uneasy chuckle. ‘C’mon, you’ve seen the documents, Donna or Nora or whatever-you-say-your-name-is. You know as well as I do that my grandfather was a German immigrant.’

  ‘He was born Joseph Rutherford, brother to Stephen Rutherford, my father. Both men were sailors on the Northern Star, a British merchant vessel sunk by a German submarine attack in 1916. While my father suffered a cranial injury and developed powers similar to those of young Mr Rayner and yourself, Joseph was presumed lost at sea. It was only years later when you first showed me your grandfather’s photograph that I realised you were descended from a previously unknown branch of the family.’

  ‘I don’t believe you,’ Humboldt said, although his shoulders had sagged and his fingers gone limp around the handle of the dagger. ‘You’re making this up. Must be.’

  ‘Think about it, Michael – the reason we never found any of your grandfather’s relatives during our search last year is because he never had any. It appears Joseph must have lost his memory and been washed up in northern Germany. Due to his fluency in the language, he was probably taken for a local sailor fallen overboard. It seems he made his home in Ottendorf and began a new life under the name von Humboldt, later marrying your grandmother. We have no reason to believe he ever learned his true identity, even after moving to America in the 1930s.’

  Humboldt scowled, his face darkening. ‘You betrayed me,’ he said flatly. ‘I trusted you like family, and you betrayed me.’

  ‘We are family, Michael. You, me and the boy.’

  Humboldt glanced back, halting the progress of Sam’s slow bum-shuffle towards the cockpit door.

  ‘You aside, he’s the last living male that we know of in Joseph’s bloodline,’ she went on. ‘Rayner’s importance to the family is therefore paramount, and once I’d learned of his existence I needed you to lead me to him. I had hoped that your plan to find a cure would fail and you would pass away as nature intended without me having to break cover. There was even still some hope of that when the police showed up at the airfield, but it seems you now leave me no choice but to intervene.’

  ‘All these years I trusted you. We ran my operations side by side. You had your finger in every pie and…and you were actually my enemy? I don’t get it, why not just kill me years ago and be done with it?’

  ‘That was my suggestion,’ she said, a gleam in her eye. ‘Fortunately for you, my father was a man of faith and adhered to a strict moral code. It is not our way to take life, Michael, even one as corrupted as yours. Besides, it was through you that we first learned of Dr Barclay and his work on Tetradyamide.’

  ‘Barclay!’ Humboldt yelled, the veins in his
forehead popping. ‘What the hell’s he got to do with any of this?’

  ‘His work on Tetradyamide helped revolutionise what we do, allowing my brother, Marcus, to massively upscale the project our father started. In that respect, I suppose you could call him an honorary member of the family.’

  Humboldt looked fit to burst. ‘I…I’ve spent my life searching for Tetradyamide,’ he spluttered, ‘and you’re telling me you’ve had it the whole time?’

  ‘Not the whole time, just since Isaac’s escape from Sandstone Springs in ’76. Really, you should see the advances he made towards the end of the last millennium! The drug you persuaded the unfortunate Mr Steele to thieve for you is barely deserving of the same name.’

  Humboldt let out a low growl and raised his dagger again, but she shoved Sebastian aside and stepped forward, the pistol aimed at his head.

  ‘What is it you want then, traitor?’

  ‘As I’ve explained, it is not our way to take life. But my father always stipulated that if you were to die of natural causes, or the consequences of your own misdemeanours, it should not be prevented.’

  ‘My brain tumour?’

  ‘It is your destiny, Michael, and you must not be saved from it.’ She took another step towards him, the pistol unwavering. ‘This timeline cannot be allowed to continue in its current trajectory. It must be reset to prevent you from finding Tetradyamide, Rayner and a cure for your tumour. I need you to instruct Captain Litchfield to divert the flight.’

  ‘No chance! Without the kid I won’t live to see April.’

  ‘Then I’ll shoot you and do it myself,’ she said. ‘The end result is the same.’

  ‘Really?’ Humboldt sneered. ‘Ever heard of decompression? Miss and you’ll kill us all, the kid included.’

  ‘If you think this is the first time I’ve held a gun, Michael, you’re sorely mistaken. I’ll shoot if I have to, and I won’t miss. Now, I won’t ask you again, put the dagger down.’

  Sam held his breath as he visualised being sucked from an aeroplane tens of thousands of feet above the ocean. The moment seemed to drag on and on as Humboldt weighed his options.

  ‘So die now or die later?’ he said eventually. ‘It’s not much of a choice, is it?’

  ‘It’s the only one you have,’ the woman who called herself Donna said.

  At that moment a pocket of turbulence rocked the cabin and, as she staggered back a step, Sebastian sprang forwards, knocking the gun from her hand.

  16

  What happened next seemed to take place in slow motion. As Sebastian and Nora Rutherford tangled, Steele’s pistol tumbled to the floor. It hit the carpet barrel-first and bounced, cart-wheeling down the aisle before coming to a rest a few inches before the toes of Humboldt’s shoes. He let out a bark of laughter, transferred his dagger to the plastic hand of his prosthetic and bent to lift the gun.

  Sebastian and Nora both froze as he straightened up and took aim at them.

  ‘Looks like we won’t be diverting the flight after all,’ Humboldt said, his voice rich with glee. ‘Sebastian, move out the way, would you?’

  Sebastian released Nora and turned, his body positioned between them. ‘Sir, don’t do it! Remember what you said about decompression.’

  ‘You think I’m going to let her live after what I’ve just heard?’

  ‘Please,’ Sebastian pleaded, ‘you don’t need to kill her. Think about everything we’ve been through together!’

  ‘All the more reason. Now get out the way, damn it!’

  Sam clambered to his feet, his heart hammering. If he was going to act, it had to be now.

  ‘Do what he says, Sebastian,’ Nora said, her head held high.

  Sebastian glanced at her over his shoulder, then looked back at Humboldt. ‘No,’ he said. ‘I don’t care what she’s done, she’s been my friend for over forty years and I’m not going to let you shoot her like a dog.’

  ‘Fine then,’ Humboldt said, and pulled the trigger.

  The sound of the gunshot was deafening in the confined space of the cabin. Sebastian lowered his arms, took a step back and gawped down at the bullet wound in his chest. After a moment he looked back up, opened his mouth as if to say something and then toppled sideways onto the sofa at the rear of the cabin.

  ‘I told you to move,’ Humboldt said with a sorry shake of his head.

  Sam charged forwards, all thought of his personal safety absent. He dipped his shoulder and, as Humboldt took aim again, barged into him from behind.

  The old man expelled a loud huff as the impact drove the air from his lungs and then, as he crumpled under Sam’s weight, the gun sounded again.

  17

  Sam lay over Humboldt on the cabin floor, waiting for the roar and tug of pressurised air escaping the hull. But as the ringing in his ears subsided, all that remained was the hum of the aircraft’s engines.

  He lifted his head to see Nora Rutherford staring back at him, her eyes stretched wide. The bullet had carved a graze along her cheek before ending its short journey embedded in the frame of the kitchen door.

  ‘Are you okay?’ he asked.

  She raised a trembling hand to her cheek and inspected the dabs of blood on her fingertips. After a quick glance at Sebastian’s body, she nodded, heaved herself up and then helped Sam to his feet.

  Humboldt was still face down where he had fallen. An expanding circle of blood was beginning to soak through the cream carpet beneath him. Nora crouched and rolled him over. The dragon’s-head handle of his dagger protruded from his stomach, the blade buried deep within his abdomen. She rested her fingers on the side of his neck and then shook her head.

  ‘Is he dead?’ Sam asked.

  ‘It wasn’t supposed to end like this,’ she muttered, and closed Humboldt’s eyelids.

  ‘What was that?’ Captain Litchfield asked as he burst from the cockpit. He stopped in his tracks, his gaze darting from where Hinds lay unconscious by her chair to the scene at the rear of the cabin, and then removed his hat and pressed it to his chest.

  Nora eased the pistol from Humboldt’s lifeless grip and drew herself up. ‘There’s been a change of plan, Captain,’ she said. ‘I’m going to need you to plot a new course.’

  Chapter VIII

  Reset

  1

  Frances blew into her steaming mug of coffee as she gazed at Rayner across their corner table in the café of the near-deserted terminal of Kuujjuaq Airport, Quebec. The place wasn’t much bigger than the airfield in Dorset where, several hours earlier, George had tried to kill her before being felled by a police marksman’s bullet. Through the glass wall to her left, she could make out the tail of the private jet against the dark sky. Somewhere onboard, covered by blankets, lay the bodies of Michael Humboldt and his scientist, Sebastian.

  After being knocked unconscious, Frances had missed the moment Sebastian had snapped and tried to stop his boss. Apparently Humboldt had wrenched the pistol from Donna’s grip and shot Sebastian before Donna and Rayner had managed to tackle him, causing him to fall on his own dagger. Although the exact details remained hazy, Frances had been so relieved to escape with her life that she hadn’t really pushed the matter, and after touching down forty-five minutes ago she’d gladly deferred the responsibility of alerting the local authorities to Donna. In any case, the deaths had occurred in international airspace, far outside Frances’s jurisdiction, and although she would provide a witness statement if required, the question of whether any blame was to be attributed to the pair was a matter for Interpol to decide.

  ‘How are your wrists?’ she asked, and took a sip of her coffee.

  Rayner swallowed the last mouthful of his cheese and ham croissant and glanced down at the two red bands where the cable tie had cut into his skin. ‘A bit sore,’ he said, and then looked up and smiled, ‘but I don’t think there’s any permanent damage. So, I was wondering, what now?’

  ‘Between you and me, you mean?’

  He nodded.

  ‘Listen,
Sam, I know you didn’t kill Malcolm Fairview, if that’s what you’re asking. As for what happened at Knotsbridge, I think we both know who was responsible for that. Once we get home I’ll help you clear your name through the correct channels, you have my word.’ She paused and flattened her hair, which still contained the odd clump of dried blood in spite of her best efforts to make herself look presentable in the mirror of the airport toilets. ‘After that, I think I’m through with policing.’

  ‘Really?’ he asked.

  ‘For a while at least. I’ve put my job before everything else for so long that the rest of my life is a mess.’ She laughed and shook her head. ‘I suppose our brush with death just put that into perspective. I could do with a break, a chance to re-evaluate what’s important.’

  He nodded again. ‘Actually, talking of home, I should probably ring and, you know, let them know I’m alive and everything. Have you got any of that Canadian money left?’

  Frances dug into her pocket and pulled out the remaining dollars that Donna had given her. ‘I saw a payphone over by the entrance,’ she said, pressing the loose change into Rayner’s hand. ‘Just don’t go running off anywhere, okay?’

  ‘Wouldn’t dream of it,’ he said.

  2

  Chrissie lay dozing on the living room sofa, the telephone in her lap and her feet propped on a cushioned stool. She still wasn’t sure whether or not Sam’s escape from Knotsbridge had been part of his plan, but one thing was for certain: if her brother were free, he would make contact at the first opportunity.

  Since starting her vigil over the phone, it had rung a total of eleven times. The first had been a reporter asking if Chrissie would like to comment on Sam’s escape (to which she had promptly slammed the phone down). This had been followed by calls from Lewis and Auntie Laura, both wondering if Chrissie knew what was going on (which she didn’t, obviously). The day after, three more reporters had contacted her in addition to an automated call saying that there was still time for her to claim back her mis-sold PPI. The trend had continued into Tuesday, when, as well as another automated call about seeking compensation for her injuries in a car accident that had never happened, four more reporters had rung.