Convergence Point

by Liana Brooks

  “Tragic,” Gant said. “Won’t his boss be looking for him?”

  “Not for a few more days, and by then we’ll be long gone.” He tossed a roll of lock picks to Gant. “Open the door while I get my gear.”

  Amateur hour. Gant hadn’t had much time to research Donovan and his crew, but what he’d found was enough to keep him from slitting Donovan’s throat while he slept. He walked the back of the house once, kicked over a rock, and picked the key and security code up. Honestly, sometimes he despaired at the intelligence of his fellow humans. A shiny plastic rock from the Peso General garden center wasn’t how you hid a spare key. He grabbed the doorknob, and the door swung open.

  “Depressing, isn’t it?” Donovan said from behind him. “Company villages like this make ­people sloppy. They don’t stop to think.”

  Donovan was wrong. ­People never even started thinking. “I’m beginning to be insulted you asked for my help,” Gant said. “At this point, I could be replaced by a toddler with a toothache.”

  Donovan’s mouth twitched up in a one-­sided grin. “We haven’t started yet.” He pulled two sets of binoculars out of the bag and handed one to Gant. “Come upstairs.”

  The house was everything Gant hated about southern Florida: mold, mildew, alarming shades of green on the walls mixed with unnatural orange tiles on the floor. All the furniture was a knockoff from the set of La Usurpadora. All that was missing was for a beautiful woman in a tiny bikini to come screaming about how her husband had betrayed her.

  That’s pretty much all everything is missing, Gant thought.

  The stairs creaked under his weight as they climbed to the second floor.

  Donovan opened a door bringing in a gust of jasmine-­scented night air. “The roof was never properly fixed. We can get a good view of the target.”

  Gant followed him into the tiled balcony that had once been a bedroom, perhaps, and onto the roof. Donovan looked north to the glow of Bahi Corsario. Gant took out his binoculars and did the same. “What am I looking for?”

  “Security guards.”

  “I don’t see any.”

  “Now you know why I need you.” Donovan jumped down to the floor. “A building made of glass, and we can’t do a smash and grab. Shame really.”

  Gant didn’t say anything to that. From what he’d learned, Donovan’s crew specialized in brute-­force maneuvers. All of them were former Fuerzas Especiales, FES. Men trained by the military to do the impossible. Their war record was impressive, and most of it was available for public perusal. The socially acceptable rescue missions, at least. What puzzled Gant was that the record of Donovan’s last year in ser­vice, and his reason for leaving the military, were classified to the point even Gant couldn’t break the encryption. He had yet to find out how a decorated war hero had become the leader of one of the better heist crews in the northern territories.

  Donovan hadn’t been in a sharing mood.

  “Coming down?” Donovan watched him. With good reason. His last job had ended when his second-­in-­command betrayed them. Two of his men had died, the rest went to jail. Donovan had escaped, his former friend hadn’t.

  Gant climbed back down. “When do we go in?”

  “Two hours. The guards are behind bulletproof glass while they’re on shift. Everything locks down if anything moves. Not a gnat gets through the building. Except during shift change. There’s an eleven-­minute window where the motion sensors are off. Six minutes of debrief when the sensors are on, and a ten-­minute window where we can move again.”

  “More than enough time for you to get to the Timeyst Machine. Alone.” Gant raised an eyebrow. “I’m your diversion, Donovan.”

  Donovan chuckled. “If I needed a salsa dancer, I’d have bought one off the streets in Miami. There are two things needed to make the machine work. Do you know what they are?”

  Gant shook his head.

  Donovan motioned for him to follow as he walked back downstairs to the kitchen, where their gear was waiting. “You know how all their ads end?”

  “Yeah: ‘Book now!’ ”

  “Exactly. Book now is the key,” Donovan said. “The machine only works sometimes. Something about stars aligning or some nonsense. You can’t just punch in the date you want to go visit, there’s math involved.”

  Gant closed his eyes. “Math? You hired me to do your math homework?”

  “I hired you to get the key. The machine is locked behind several doors and three layers of guard posts. It’s in the inner sanctum of the church of gratuitous wealth. The key is kept on the far end of the building in the offices of the operators. Director’s name is Juana Carlisle. You’ve seen her on TV.”

  Gant narrowed his eyes as he tried to put a name to the face. “Blond hair, low-­cut v-­neck lab coat, plastic tits?”

  “That’s the one.”

  “She can’t be the brains behind this.”

  “Doesn’t matter. She’s the face. Her office is in the south campus near the Fountain of Aphrodite.” Donovan smiled. “I cased the place a few weeks before I found you. At first I thought a long con might get me in. Get myself hired, work on security, butter up Dr. Carlisle.” Donovan shook his head. “There was a hiring freeze. Couldn’t get in.”

  And I don’t see you having nearly enough butter. “Why didn’t you go in as a buyer?”

  “Not enough dinero. It’s two million up front to plan the trip. Another eight on top of that to go. Putting the funds together would have put me back on the federales’ radar. And Dr. Carlisle was too well protected for me to kidnap her. This way’s quicker. I neutralize the problems on my side, you get the key, we both skip town and go to a place where no one’s ever heard of us.” Donovan held out a laminated square of paper no bigger than Gant’s palm. “That’s your route. My pace count is a little longer than yours, so watch for the landmarks.”

  Gant nodded as he looked over the tiny map. Donovan had him breaking through a sealed door and several computerized locks. That made sense. Electronics and locks were his strong suit.

  He’d started as a second-­story man lifting jewels and smart watches. The murder had come later, an expansion of his repertoire as he chased larger dreams and embraced a simpler life. Breaking a neck was so much more efficient than talking himself out of a sticky situation. “How far between the south campus and the machine room?”

  “Three-­quarters of a mile, at most. You can run, can’t you?”

  “Ha-­ha,” Gant said dryly. “How close to the entry point can we get before go time?”

  “Less than a block. There’s a wrought-­iron fence. Pretty, decorative thing. Don’t touch it if you don’t want to be electrocuted.”

  Skulking was never a necessity. Running between bushes looking like a hunchback only drew attention. Walking sedately down the road was the best way to approach a mark, be it a house full of priceless art or a gentleman who had failed to pay a debt. A person walking down the street had many reasons to be out, even at half past three in the morning. Anyone seeing an early-­morning walker would make an excuse.

  Early-­morning skulkers got the police called on them.

  So Gant walked, calm and relaxed, along the well-­maintained sidewalk next to the terrifying wrought iron. Inside the grounds of Bahia Corsario, floodlights illuminated multiple fountains. Donovan had been wrong: the fountain wasn’t Aphrodite. The artist had re-­created Botticelli’s Birth of Venus with luminous marble. The divine Venus Anadyomene seemed to glow with inner light, hinting at serenity and hidden knowledge with a cheeky nod to lust and power, impossible to miss.

  No doubt the gift shop had postcards of this very scene, the fountains at night.

  Perhaps he’d take one for himself. A memento of the night he escaped Detective Rose for good.

  He slipped a handheld acetylene blowtorch from his pocket and poked it into a nearby bush. There was a thunk
and sizzle of torch meeting iron bars. He moved along, stopping here and there, always tracking the distance to Venus’s fountain. Every fence had a weakness. This time he had to turn a corner to find it.

  In a narrow alley between a shop selling gourmet dog biscuits and the business park, there was a small gate and a hedge-­lined walkway. Of course. It wouldn’t do to have the wealthy elite see the maintenance crew removing the trash. And this close to the coast, the tunnels inland cities used to hide their workers were problematic, if not entirely out of the question. The answer was naturally the concealed walkway.

  Gant checked his watch. Thirty seconds to go. He peered down the walkway. There were no cameras marked on Donovan’s map, but he didn’t trust the other man completely. He scanned the bushes and eaves of the building until he satisfied himself that Donovan’s information was good. Zoetimax was trusting to their reputation to keep ­people out.

  Idiots.

  And then it was time to go.

  Gant pulled his blowtorch out and pressed the little red button. Searing hot flames poured out, melting the gate’s lock. Copper oxide, magnesium, and aluminum—­such simple things, but in the right quantities, they made a metal vapor torch that was the devil’s gift to thieves. He ran down the walkway, pressed the button again, and cut away the lock of the metal security door. There was no handle, but he was able to nudge the door open with his foot. He squirmed past the still-­cooling metal and looked down the back hall of Zoetimax Industries’ temple to filthy lucre.

  His heart leapt with unadulterated joy. If he’d only known this place existed as a younger man. Forget a smash and grab, he’d have gotten a job and taken this place apart. Art restorer maybe. Lift the real masterpieces and replace them with elegant fakes.

  Gant walked down the hall, admiring the paintings. Rare masterpieces. The Storm on the Sea of Galilee by Rembrandt. View of the Sea at Scheveningen by Vincent van Gogh. Waterloo Bridge, London by Claude Monet. There was a king’s ransom hanging here by the janitor’s door. Those three paintings alone would get him out of the country and to a life of ease in any place he cared to name. He stopped, eyeing the frames. No. Anywhere he went, Detective Rose would follow. Better to go with Donovan into the past and come back to lift these paintings off the walls then.

  The sound of heavy footsteps along the adjacent corridor propelled him forward. He took two more halls in haste, only realizing he’d lost his bearings when he nearly walked into a domed room with a gilt fountain. There was a map of the facilities on the wall, and Gant quickly reoriented.

  Curse Donovan and his rushed endeavors—­he’d left out a hallway.

  Gant was certain he was going to miss his turn until he found the life-­size painting of Juana Carlisle hanging on one wall next to a tasteful Degas. The director was no Dancer with a Bouquet of Flowers, but she certainly had an ego meant for center stage and the spotlight. He knelt, unlocked the office door in record time, and walked into a rotunda with a panoramic photograph of a pastoral scene printed on the walls. The place was familiar, but the artist’s name escaped him (if the photograph was indeed meant to be the work of a classical artist, that is).

  Each door in the office was discreetly hidden within the painting, but only one door was locked. Gant checked his watch, unlocked the door, and scowled at the director’s office. It was lined with white binders on white shelves.

  “Needle in a haystack.”

  He was going to kill Donovan. Rushed jobs were botched jobs.

  Growling, he took a steadying breath and used an asset Donovan couldn’t match: his brain. The plethora of binders had to be for show, they were out of fashion in the computer age. Gant did a quick search of the ornate rococo desk. The thin legs and elegant scrollwork hid nothing. There wasn’t even a computer in the room. If Director Carlisle had taken her tech home, their chances of success had dropped to nothing. No, wrong way to think. He tried to think like a businessman. A wealthy, paranoid businessman.

  There had to be a safe.

  He scanned the walls, looking for a break in the monotonous wall of binders. No one was perfect. No one kept secrets. Not from him.

  In the left corner, a shelf down from eye level, Gant found what he was looking for. Knowing the director was left-­handed would have helped, but it was too late for regrets and dithering. He grabbed the binder, flipped it open, and skimmed the contents.

  Dates and times of regressive jumps. Dates and times of lateral iteration jumps. Dates and times of future jumps. Well, that was interesting. Worth considering in ten years’ time when he’d stolen enough money to visit as a customer. He snapped the binder shut and walked out the door. Three minutes until he had to hide from motion detectors.

  Donovan put a lot of faith in Gant’s ability to run a six-­minute mile.

  The first guard who crossed his path was lucky enough to only get the cold blowtorch upside his head. Cracked skulls were uncomfortable, but the second guard got a faceful of flame, his own private hell for the last moment of his life. Gant smiled at the thought of the superheated air cooking the man from the inside out as he slid into place behind a statue.

  Six silent minutes ticked past.

  Gant stood still, staring out the window at a fountain with dancing satyrs and an excellent view of the parking lot. Angry voices at the end of the hall signaled a break from the motion sensors as police cars filled the parking lot.

  “Donovan.” Gant swore creatively under his breath. He ran headlong down the halls, through a very broken door, and into the inner sanctum, where Donovan stood waiting next to a row of prone bodies. “You tied them up?”

  “I like to give them the illusion of hope. Being tied up means they might escape.”

  Gant looked at the executed guards. “Seems like a waste of time.”

  “I was bored.”

  “A waste of ammunition then.” Sloppy.

  “I can always find more bullets. Did you find the right binder?”

  Gant tossed the book at him. “This is the one. Carlisle has today marked as an ILJ. Do you know what that means?”

  “That the machine will get us out of here.”

  “It better do it with requisite alacrity. Detective Rose is outside.” And he wasn’t going back to prison. He’d make a deal with the devil and testify against Donovan first.

  Donovan frowned. “Impossible.”

  “Then stay here.” Gant took the binder back. “I’m leaving.” He turned through the pages, looking for instructions. There was a timetable, but he could only hazard a guess at what it all meant. “We should have grabbed Carlisle.”

  Donovan grunted agreement but stopped to dig things from his bag.

  Gant rolled his eyes. Double doors led to a wide theater that reminded him of a scene from The Wizard of Oz. All the showmanship to mask the simplicity of the truth: A single machine with the power to change time.

  He looked from the machine to the instructions. There was math, and an ON button, and very little programming. “Donovan, this is not a well-­thought-­out plan.”

  “Doesn’t matter. The machine works, ‘aight?”

  “Yes . . .” Gant hesitated. “But we can’t set it for a specific day. The machine uses a mathematical formula for a predetermined place and time based on when you turn it on.”

  “So, where are we going?”

  “The year 2070, and Florida, if this is correct.” Gant frowned. “What is an ‘iteration’?”

  “Who knows,” Donovan said. “Do you think it matters?”

  A muffled explosion sounded outside the room. Gant looked at Donovan as he slapped the ON button.

  “I left a few surprises for your fan club,” he said with a shrug, as smoke poured through the door. “But that won’t keep them off us forever.” An ethereal blue light twisted out of the machine. “You ready?”

  “More than ready.”

  �
�Nialls Gant, you are under arrest.” Detective Rose’s voice boomed across the atrium.

  He turned to see another flash of light and smoke tear the detective from his view. Smiling, Gant ran toward his past.

  CHAPTER 8

  Everything seems inevitable in the moment. Momentum, the weight of consequence, pushes on you like a tidal wave. It’s only looking back that you can see with the clarity of hindsight and understand you should have made a different choice.

  ~ private conversation with Agent 5 of the Ministry of Defense

  Thursday March 20, 2070

  Florida District 8

  Commonwealth of North America

  Iteration 2

  Mac woke to the predawn Florida light and stared up at the popcorn ceiling of Sam’s apartment. It was funny how the little things always got him. His loft in Chicago had vaulted, square ceilings that the Realtor showing him the listing insisted was a classic art deco design. He didn’t know enough about architecture to quibble, but he knew it looked wrong.

  Ceilings were meant to be plain. Beds were meant to be soft. Apartments were meant to smell of lavender candles and vanilla hand soap and Sam.

  Taking a deep breath, he drank in the smell of home. The underlying unwashed-­dog smell of Hoss, the aroma of roasted chilies from last night’s dinner, and the scent of Sam.

  He rolled out of bed, checked the small hallway to see if Sam’s light was on yet, then headed to the kitchen for breakfast. Chicago had taught him two very valuable lessons, first, take the pedway during the winter, second, if Sam wasn’t around, he was going to have to feed himself something other than frozen breakfast burritos.

  There was little chance that he’d ever reach her level of gourmet wizardry in the kitchen, but by the time she woke up, he had a small stack of fluffy pancakes and a bowl of scrambled eggs waiting.

  She rested herself against the entryway to the kitchen, wisps of black hair curling loose from her braid, a sleepy smile caressing her face . . . Mac wanted nothing more than the right to lean over and kiss her.