by Jaxon Reed
Or conversely, if Kruger ever said anything about hiring a hit man to take her out.
Wilcox doubted Kruger would ever mention such a thing to his lover. Montoya seemed smitten by him, but at the same time Collier did not think the older AD would approve of murdering anyone at the agency. She as much as said so in that last discussion.
After half an hour of studying everything and double checking with PLAIR, she was sure. Montoya never mentioned the contract. Maybe they had discussed it in private, but never on the neural net.
“PLAIR, cross check Montoya’s locations with Kruger’s, from that date to present. I want to know if they’ve seen each other face to face in that timespan.”
“They have not, Detective Wilcox.”
Then she remembered something Griff Goodman told her when he was walking out of HQ after they raided his mansion.
Dermot Kruger called for the hit on her.
Goodman said, “You won’t find a recording of him discussing it with me . . .”
No, she thought. I probably won’t. But I wonder if this is the next best thing?
18
The trio waited in front of the Bainers’ door. It swished open, and the attractive young woman looked at Jamieson first.
“Yes? Have you found my husband?”
“Well, we did see him briefly,” Jamieson said. “Then he assaulted Agent Boggs here and ran away.”
Her eyes grew round and she covered her mouth with a hand.
“Oh no! Is he alright? What’s going to happen?”
“We’re not sure. This is Agent Collier, both she and Agent Boggs are with AOJ, they’ve been asked by their superior to assist me in this case. May we come in?”
Stephanie Bainer stepped back and made a motion for them to enter. The door swished shut behind them.
“Come in, sit down. Can I get anyone anything to drink?”
They all declined, taking seats on a round leather sofa in a spacious living room.
Boggs looked up and noted crystal chandeliers for lighting. White shag carpet and marble countertops on the coffee table also spoke of a considerable investment in the flat’s interior decorations.
Jamieson came right to the point.
“Mrs. Bainer, we found your husband inside the Republican Shipworks compound. He was engaged in a . . . I guess you would call it a project of some sort, which left him off the grid for a while.”
“Oh. Is he going to be okay?”
“Well, last we saw him he seemed okay. Panicked, maybe. He was running away from us at full speed after he punched Agent Boggs in the face.”
“I am so sorry about that. It doesn’t sound like Holland at all. I don’t think I’ve ever heard of him hitting anyone.”
“We need to know, Mrs. Bainer, did your husband show up here last night or this morning? Have you seen him?”
“No. No, I wish I had. I’ve been so worried.”
Boggs spoke up.
He said, “You don’t mind if I ask PLAIR to check on your doorway from yesterday to now, do you Mrs. Bainer?”
“What? No, of course not. I’m sure AI queries like that don’t require my permission.”
Boggs nodded and stepped to one side where he could converse with PLAIR in private.
Collier, who had been watching Stephanie carefully all this time, decided to ask a question of her own.
“How long have you known your husband, Mrs. Bainer?”
“Known? Well, I suppose . . . I suppose since we’ve been married and a little before. We knew we were the right ones for each other right away, you see. Shakespeare said a hasty marriage leads to disaster. But in our case, he was wrong.”
“Shakespeare said that?” Boggs said, his ears pricking up as he rejoined the conversation.
“Yes. I majored in English in college, you see. I specialized in British literature. You pick up a thing or two. Little quotes and sayings that stick with you. I always remembered that line. ‘Yet hasty marriage seldom proveth well.’ It’s from King Henry VI, the third part.”
“From the third part of the play?” Boggs said.
“No, no. He wrote three plays about Henry VI. That line was from the third one, King Henry VI Part Three.”
“Oh. Okay.”
“Hey, I read something about that,” Jamieson said. “Years ago some researchers ran those plays through a word analysis routine. They decided that Christopher Marlowe actually co-wrote the three Henry VI plays with Shakespeare. How about that? Your line about marriage might have actually been written by Marlowe!”
Stephanie Bainer visibly tensed. Her expression grew hostile, as well as her tone.
“No! It was Shakespeare. Shakespeare wrote all the plays attributed to him, I don’t care what some old technologists say.”
“Okay, okay,” Jamieson said, making a calming gesture. “I just read that somewhere, that’s all.”
He shot a glance at Boggs who made a sympathetic face at him.
“Anything on the door?” Collier said to change the subject.
Boggs said, “According to PLAIR, the door shut when Mrs. Bainer came home yesterday, and did not open again until we walked in just now.”
“So unless Mr. Bainer climbed in the window or something,” Jamieson said, “he hasn’t been here.”
Stephanie said, “Our windows don’t open. Nor do we have a balcony.”
Collier said, “Tell me more about how you met Mr. Bainer. What made you decide to marry him?”
“Well, it was before the war. I had recently graduated from college and I was looking for a job. We ended up at the same party thrown by mutual friends and we just hit it off right away. We were married a month later. I moved in with him and we’ve been here ever since. He makes a wonderful salary at Republican Shipworks. It lets me pursue volunteer work with the Women’s Club and the food pantry.”
“No kids?”
She shook her head.
“No. The war started, and we just decided now wasn’t the right time. I was meaning to talk with him about that since it’s over but . . .”
A single tear slid down her cheek. She brushed it away.
“I’m sorry. I’ve just been so worried about him.”
Jamieson said, “Well, like I said we have actually seen him. It was just concerning that he ran away like that. If he comes home, will you please contact me?”
“I will. I will. Please bring him back. Will you do that for me, Mr. Jamieson?”
“Of course. Don’t worry, we’ll find him again.”
Collier’s head twisted back and forth between the distraught housewife and Jamieson.
Her eyes narrowed.
They said their goodbyes, reassuring Mrs. Bainer they would contact her if they learned anything.
Collier stayed quiet until the elevator opened and they stepped into the pod.
When the door shut, she said, “That woman was playing you, Jamie.”
“Mrs. Bainer? She’s nice. What do you mean?”
“She plucked an emotional harp, tugging on all your heart strings. You guys didn’t notice it because you’re men, and men don’t always think or act rationally, thanks to your sex drive. But I could see how she was manipulating both of you.”
“Men are irrational?” Boggs said, sounding shocked. “I thought women were the emotional types.”
“I didn’t say emotional, I said irrational. A pretty woman starts crying and men will trip over themselves to make her feel better. She was being manipulative.”
“Mrs. Bainer was?” Jamieson said, a note of incredulity coloring his voice.
The elevator door opened.
Thoop! Thoop! Thoop!
“Hit the deck!”
All three crashed down, drawing their side arms.
Boggs saw blood on the elevator floor and looked into Collier’s eyes. She squinted in pain.
“I’m fine,” she said between clenched lips.
He nodded and fired back.
Thoop! Thoopah!
Som
eone dodged the bolts and ran out the door of the apartment building to the street.
Jamieson scrambled to his feet and took off running after them.
Boggs stood up and looked down at Collier again.
She said, “Go get him.”
He shook his head and said, “Jamie’ll get him. PLAIR? I need an ambulance ASAP.”
-+-
Jamieson raced out the door and looked both ways. He saw a figure running pell-mell down the sidewalk to his right, carrying a gun. He chased after the man.
The fugitive dove to the right, running down a side street.
Jamieson slid to a halt at the intersection, his gun coming around the corner first. He looked down the street at the racing figure and carefully squeezed off a shot.
Thoop!
The bolt slammed into the man’s back and he lost his balance, stumbling forward then flying flat on his face.
Jamieson ran toward him, keeping his gun aimed at the prone figure.
As he neared, the man rolled over on his back and weakly lifted his own gun. He fired off a shot
Thoop!
Jamieson jumped to the side and the bolt went wide. He returned fire, aiming at the man’s middle. He could see Bainer’s face clearly now.
Thoopah!
Bainer jerked as his chest absorbed the bolt. He dropped his gun and lay splayed out, arms and legs wide, blood pooling around him.
Jamieson approached warily, keeping his gun out and his finger on the trigger.
Bainer smiled as Jamieson drew close, a trickle of blood coming out of his mouth.
“You’re . . . too . . . late.”
He took a wet, raspy breath and coughed. More blood came out of his mouth in droplets.
“What do you mean, Mr. Bainer? Why were you shooting at us? What’s going on?”
“You’re . . . too late. I already . . . fixed things . . . before the war . . .”
He coughed again, longer this time, until his entire chin speckled over with blood.
“PLAIR, I need an ambulance at this location.”
“One is en route from Octavia General Hospital, Mr. Jamieson. ETA three minutes.”
“You’re too late . . . I . . . I warned her . . .”
Bainer’s eyes closed, and the coughing stopped as his life slipped away.
19
The sun had set by the time Jamieson poked his head into a hospital room.
Collier was evidently trying to wrap up a long distance call with her family on Pearl.
“I’m fine, Mom. Honest. The doc bot says a few days bed rest, and the nanobots will have reconstructed everything that was lost.”
She motioned to Jamieson to come on in, giving him a big smile.
Boggs stood to one side, out of the holo. He nodded a greeting.
“Are you sure you don’t need us, Ethie dear? Your father and I will jump on the next ship to Diego. There’s one leaving in a few hours.”
“I’m positive, Mom. By the time you got here, you’d never know I was shot. They say there won’t even be a scar.”
“Well, you were lucky. I thought once you got out of the Marines that nobody would be shooting at you anymore! Why did you choose to go into law enforcement? Why can’t you get into something safe, like farming?”
“I know, Mom. Don’t start. Maybe I can come home and visit this Christmas and you can try to set me up with one of those nice farm boys down the road.”
She winked at Jamieson as she said it. He blushed.
“Well, you should! There’s nothing wrong with that Wilson boy you grew up with. His father has given him some hectares of his own to grow whatever he wants, and he’s doing quite well. I hear he’s looking for a bride. He’s established!”
“Well, send Bertha after him. She needs a man.”
“Oh, she’s interested in some other fella at the moment, somebody at the university. I think you and the Wilson boy would do well together.”
“Mom, I gotta go. Tell her, Dad.”
A man’s voice came over the speakers, off camera.
“Let her go, dear.”
“I will let her go! You two quit ganging up on me!”
“We’re not ganging up on you. She’s busy.”
“She’s in a hospital bed! There’s nothing to do!”
Collier said, “Bye, you two! Love you!”
She waved at her parents in the holo then cut the connection as the two older people continued quarreling.
She immediately switched the holo to the news, with the Zeitung’s anchors sitting side by side and delivering the latest information.
Collier said, “Whew! I love ’em but they worry too much. Dad pretends to be all stoic and everything, but you can tell he’s concerned too.”
“So don’t tell them anything,” Boggs said with a shrug.
“That doesn’t work. They find out about stuff one way or the other. It’s better to get the bad news out of the way up front, then my next call home will go smoother.”
She turned to Jamieson and smiled again.
He pointed to her middle and said, “What’s the diagnosis?”
“The bolts took out part of my stomach, some blood vessels, and made a hole in my liver. Good as new in few days. I’m supposed to minimize movement until then. They’re actually letting me go home soon, as long as I promise to stay in bed.”
“That doesn’t sound bad. Lay off the booze and you should be alright.”
Collier snorted, then dropped her smile as a stab of pain ran through her middle.
She added, “And no laughing, the doctor said. No sudden movements, either.”
She glanced up and noted both of the men’s concerned looks.
To change the subject she said, “You gave Mrs. Bainer the news?”
“I did,” Jamieson said. “I explained everything that happened. Except for the part, you know, about time travel. She took it pretty hard, with her husband dying and all. I just left there, in fact.”
His face grew red as Boggs raised a single eyebrow.
He lifted a hand and said, “She just lost her husband. There was nobody there to comfort her. Don’t look at me like that.”
“Well, it’s case closed for you, right?” Collier said. “You found her husband. Of course, then you shot him. But still, it’s case closed.”
“I shot him after he shot at us and hit you. It was justified, even if the first one was in the back while he ran away. Not proud of that, by the way. But there was no other way to stop him at the time. And he was armed.”
Boggs said, “Did he say anything before he died? Did you get any clues as to why he came after us?”
“As a matter of fact he did. He kept saying we were too late. Something about . . . he already warned her. Or something.”
“Warned who?”
“I didn’t get that part. Just that he wanted to make sure I knew we were too late.”
Collier said, “We? You mean, you were too late.”
“No. When I asked him why he shot at us, he kept saying, ‘You’re too late.’ I got the distinct impression he was using the collective ‘you.’ You know, in response to the word ‘us.’”
Boggs said, “Well, we weren’t too late. Obviously. Because he only winged one of us and you killed him.”
Jamieson nodded as they all looked at one another.
Collier said, “Unless, of course . . . he meant, we were too late in the past.”
Boggs said, “But then, that would mean he did something while in the time machine. Maybe . . . before the war started?”
“Well, it didn’t work,” Jamieson said. “We still won the war. That hasn’t changed.”
Collier said, “Could he have done something in the past that would change things now? After the war?”
Jamieson said. “If he wanted to avoid a . . . what did you call it?”
Boggs said, “A paradox. Where you go back in time and kill your parents or something.”
“Right. If he wanted to avoid something
like that, maybe he tried to change the outcome of something now, in the present. Or in the near future. You know how they say you can’t change the past but you can always affect the future.”
“Well, what could that be?” Boggs said. “What’s coming up? The outcome of the war is the same. We won. The League lost. What’s about to happen now that would be worth traveling into the past to try to change?”
Collier said, “In the present, or in the near future?”
“Either one.”
At that moment, the anchors on the holo changed topics.
“In other news, Chancellor Cole will be making an important speech at the first political rally of the season in two days from now. The Chancellor has officially set a date for elections and will kick off the campaign for her replacement in Anderson Stadium.”
The female anchor took over.
“That’s right, John. Chancellor Cole is expected to formally announce her retirement in this speech and the selection of her successor candidate, Admiral Frederick Severs. This will be a major event, and possibly the last time we will see Chancellor Cole in public before she retires.”
Collier made a motion in the air, muting the volume.
She said, “He went back in time to tell someone that Cole would be anointing Severs as her successor. I bet he gave dates and information that would be valuable to someone looking to cause harm.”
“For what?” Boggs said. “Killing Cole? Severs? Both of them?”
“I don’t know. But I think I know what we need to do.”
She looked up from her hospital bed at both men. Comprehension seemed to be dawning on Jamieson’s face. Boggs seemed a little slower.
Collier said to him, “We need to go back in time and find out what Bainer did. We need to know who he talked to and what he told them. And the only way to do that is to use the machine again. We’ll pop in shortly after he got there, and either stop him or find out what he was up to.”
“You keep saying ‘we’ as if you had any chance of going with us,” Boggs said.