"Right," he went on. "Now, let's see what we've got and where it gets us. There's that posse warrior with his head blown off at the eyebrows. Weapons are a hobby of mine, and there's nothing that could do it. Some sort of energy gun might. That's what the spooks said. They also said you'd need an eighteen-wheeler load of equipment. Our suspect had something no bigger than a rifle. From the later reports, I'd say it was the size of a handgun, small enough to carry concealed."
Chen pursed her lips. "I can think of several technologies that could produce a knife as thin and sharp and rigid as the one that inflicted the injuries in the warehouse," she said. "And was used to dismember Stephen Fischer. None of them available today, or will be for some time."
"When we've eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be true," Finch said. Henry looked at her blankly. "Classical reference, sorry. What I mean is, I don't think it's aliens here. The—not exactly the MO—the stuff surrounding the incident is wrong. And the genetic material is human. Human, and animals from Earth."
"We sure of that?"
Chen tapped her own folder. "Extremely. Henry, the odds of a separate evolution producing that type of genetic correspondence is . . . well, getting hit by lightning is a dead certainty, compared to that."
"Time traveler," Finch said.
The words lay heavy in the pause that followed. Henry sighed deeply and ran a hand over his scalp, acutely conscious of the thinning hairs.
"Oh, shit," he said. He held up a hand. "Yeah, I know it's logical, I know it's probably true, but we've just bought ourselves a ticket to the funny farm if this ever leaks out to our respective superiors."
The idea lay like lead in his mind. I've been chasing my own ass on this for three and a half years, he thought. There simply wasn't any other explanation, nada, zip. Either he forgot the whole thing, or he went with this. And he just couldn't walk away from it. Like Jesus said, the stakes were too high.
"Something else," he said thoughtfully. "Okay, we've got a time traveler." He held up his copy of the Canadian RCMP fax. "A woman. One woman, armed, calling herself Gwendolyn Ingolfsson. And we got the arm of some thing with her. What's that suggest?"
"Something went wrong," Jesus said, flicking at his teeth with a thumbnail. "Accident, fuckup, de nada."
"Not a woman," Chen corrected. "A female, yes. Related species, but not human. Probably from, ah, the future."
Henry sighed and loosened his tie. "Whatever."
"And she responded with a killing frenzy," Finch said. "That tells us something about the, the time and place she came from."
"Dropping into the middle of Marley Man's posse could send anyone into a frenzy," Henry said thoughtfully. "But the two apartment killings, yeah. Our Ingolfsson is seriously bad in both senses of the word."
Silence fell again. Finch broke it.
"Why buy the warehouse?" she said. "That seems to be important, somehow. Twenty million dollars worth of important. That's more than sentimental-souvenir money."
"We can't tell for sure, but it certainly looks like Ingolfsson needs the warehouse somehow."
"I've got—" Henry began.
"—a bad feeling about this, si" Jesus completed the sentence. "Unless she just wants to go home."
"Could we count on that?" Henry said. "No, I didn't think so. Let's think about the latest ingredient."
"Mystery Man," Finch said. "He's contacted you several times, me once, and several people at this firm, Primary Belway Securities. He certainly doesn't seem to be operating with Ingolfsson. Trying to screw up her plans, evidently."
"Cop chasing perp?" Jesus said. "They sent someone back here to clean up the accident?"
"That's my gut feeling," Henry agreed. He looked over at Finch; the Medical Examiner wasn't in the same business, but the FBI agent was. "Mystery Man's got some gadgets too."
"Cop is a possibility," Finch said. "Or spook and counter-spook. He isn't necessarily a good guy."
"So far he's made a lot less in the way of footprints," Henry observed thoughtfully. "No trail of bodies, and no fancy gadgets apart from messing with our computers. Assuming he was sent back, you'd expect him to have more fancy stuff."
"But perhaps is more reluctant to use it," Chen said. The others looked at her. "If we have a time traveler, they could be—probably would be—careful about changing the past. And we would be the past, to them."
"Ingolfsson doesn't seem too concerned about that," Henry said. "Left a pretty heavy blood trail, and—"
He smacked himself on the forehead. "All that fancy high-tech stuff her company's been selling! That's where it came from!"
The future. The theory was starting to look convincing, not just to his head but to his gut, the place where ideas came from. He didn't know whether to be reassured or frightened. Either I'm adjusting or going nuts.
"Perhaps she is some sort of criminal under pursuit, then," Chen said, pulling at her lower lip.
Henry made a chopping gesture. "Let's not let the speculation get completely out of hand," he said. "You get too many preconceptions, it can foul up your ability to see things that don't agree with the theory you've built."
The others nodded. "What should we do about it?" Finch said.
"First, Mystery Man indicated he's willing to meet. Yes or no?"
Chen started to speak, but Finch cut her off. "Lieutenant, I don't think we can run this as a democracy. I think you should be in charge."
Christ, on point again, Henry thought. The others nodded.
"All right then. I will set up a meet with Mystery Man. When we've got more information from him, you'll all get to know. Which leaves us with the question of what to do about Ingolfsson."
Silence fell. "Right now, we watch," Henry said. "Right now, we can't pin any of the killings on Ingolfsson. Maybe she'll just vanish in the warehouse, maybe Mystery Man will get her, maybe she'll turn into a good citizen."
"And maybe the horse will learn to sing," Finch said.
Henry did recognize that one. He shook his head. "No, there'll be more killings, all right. And then we move in. Fuck national security; we'll blow this thing wide open and call in the artillery and nail Ms. Time Traveler to the wall. Fuck the consequences, too. Everyone with me on this?"
A circle of nods. He went on: "You all know what happens to whistle-blowers, don't you? Still willing?"
Nobody spoke. "All right, here's how we'll set it up. We keep everything word-of-mouth; and no more phone calls than we have to. Nothing on computers, absolutely nothing, and that includes notes to ourselves.
"When we move, we'll have to be able to move fast and big. Finch, you get onto your boss and bring him in on this. Chen, get me a list of those friends you've been doing the discreet research with, and we'll talk to a few of them. Jesus and I will sound out a few guys we know in the NYPD. Then we'll—"
***
"Hello," Carmaggio said.
The other man ducked his head in a nod and extended his hand. "Kenneth Lafarge," he said.
Henry gave him a once-over. Early thirties, he judged. Close-cut blond hair, blue eyes, a farmboy face—snub-nosed and tanned, square chin. Jock's build, broad shoulders and narrow waist. The hand fit that, slightly callused and very strong. Dressed in a suit and carrying an attache case; sort of like a Norman Rockwell painting of an up-and-coming small town lawyer. Not heeled to Henry's experienced eye . . . but he might be carrying a mininuke in a tie clip, for all I know. Christ, I wish I wasn't here. For that matter, he wished all this wasn't happening, period.
Behind them the Mall was nearly empty, bleak and lifeless with winter. It smelled of wet earth, cold water, and traffic. Carmaggio had never liked Washington much: a marble veneer over a cesspit. Which was, he thought, sort of appropriate, all things considered.
"Detective Lieutenant Henry Carmaggio," he replied. What do you say to a time traveler?
"Thank you for agreeing to meet me, Detective Carmaggio," the younger man said. "A great deal depends on wh
at we can do."
He spoke ordinary general American, but there was a hint of something underneath it; a formality of phrasing, that indicated it wasn't quite his native speech.
"Yeah," Henry said, hunching his shoulders. They turned and walked beside the gray surface of the Reflecting Pool. "Why here?"
"I'm apprehensive about what capabilities it may have in place in New York," Lafarge said. "A little extra caution never hurts."
"Look, let's be upfront." At the other man's lifted eyebrow: "Let's lay our cards on the table. You're from the future, right?"
The words hung heavy in the air. Me and the Saucer People, Carmaggio thought.
Lafarge nodded. "In a way."
"In what fucking way?"
The other man made a soothing gesture with both hands. "Four-hundred-forty-odd years in the future, yes. But the future of a different past."
"What?" Henry felt a dull ache begin between his shoulderblades and creep up his neck.
"I'm sorry . . . you know the concept? A battle turns out differently, a war, someone important isn't born, and things are changed?"
Henry nodded. "Lee wins the battle of Gettysburg, something like that?" There was no end to the weird shit.
"Yes, exactly. In my case . . . the differences start about 1779. By 1900 my world was very different from yours. By the 1990s, unrecognizable."
"What happened in 1779?"
"The Dutch Republic declared war on the British," Lafarge said. He ran a hand over his hair. "It's a long story. The British lost the war against us—against America—at about the same pace they did here, maybe a little slower. But they won the war against the Dutch, and that's where everything started to go wrong. They took the Cape Colony."
"South Africa?" Henry said. He'd done some research on Africa a few years back, when two branches of the Black Muslims had started killing each other over doctrinal points.
"Yes. After the war, they used it to settle the Loyalists—mostly the ones from the Southern colonies—and their Hessian mercenaries. The settlers they sent enslaved the locals. And they grew, and they grew. A century later the Draka—the colony was renamed after Francis Drake—were already a major power. In the Great War they took most of Asia; then in the Eurasian War, something like your World War Two, they took the rest of Asia and Europe. There was a long cold war between them and us, the Alliance for Democracy, the U.S. and South America and the British, the Australasians, some others. The Final War happened in 1999."
"Wait a minute." Henry squeezed his thumb and forefinger on the bridge of his nose. "Okay, these . . . Draka?" Lafarge nodded. "They were seriously bad, right? Sort of like Nazis?"
"Worse. Smarter. In our world, the Nazis were a poor-man's copy of the Domination—the Domination of the Draka, that's what they called themselves. Call themselves." Lafarge shook his head. "I'm surprised your Nazis were so much like ours. We even had a Hitler, although he didn't look much like yours. Ours was taller, blond, and had an eyepatch . . . never mind."
"Wait a minute," Carmaggio said again. The tension in his neck was worse. "These supernazis, Draka, whatever, they won this World War Three, is that what you're saying?"
Lafarge nodded.
"Then who the hell are you, the French Resistance?"
"Space travel was commonplace by the time of the Final War," Lafarge said. Henry gritted his teeth at the heavy patience in the younger mans tone. "My ancestors escaped to Alpha Centauri in an experimental interstellar ship—slower than light, of course. There's a habitable planet there, you'll discover it yourselves as soon as you get some really powerful telescopes into orbit."
"Wait a minute—wait right here," Henry said.
He wheeled away, working his shoulders, then stopped and looked up at the spire of the Washington Monument. From the future, from another dimension, and from another fucking planet, too, he thought. Jesus wept. Wasn't someone like Arnold S. supposed to handle this sort of thing? Or a big-titted actress with a pair of glasses on to make her look like a scientist? Some morphing from Industrial Light and Magic to wow the kids, popcorn and Diet Coke. Shit. He remembered Stephen Fischer's head in the freezer of his refrigerator. That was all too real. So were the lab reports, so was the arm of that God-knew-what.
"Sorry," he said as he rejoined Lafarge.
"I realize this must all be a considerable shock."
"Do you? Do you realize how fucking consoling that is and how much better it makes me feel?" Henry jammed his hands down into his pockets and walked in silence. "By the way, how do I know you're a good guy yourself? You realize you've got absolutely no proof of anything you've said."
Lafarge shrugged. "If you can match what I'll show you anywhere in 1999," he said, "I'm the greatest liar since Judas Iscariot. As to who's the good guy . . . I'm not the one who left a trail of bodies through your city."
"There is that. There is that. What are we up against?"
"A drakensis. The Draka were . . . slavers, degenerates, mass murderers, but they were human. They didn't want to be, that was the problem—and they were very, very good at molecular genetics even then, it's how they won the Final War. A hundred years ahead of where you are now, by our 1970s. They created their own version of the Master Race, and it replaced them. Replaced true humanity entirely, here in the Solar System."
"Nothing left but the supermen?"
"Homo drakensis and homo servus."
Henry winced. Servus. Slave. "That mean what I think it means?" Lafarge nodded grimly. "Tell me about the . . . whatever it is we got."
"It was an accident, if that's any consolation to you. We—the snakes and Samothrace—are developing a . . . faster-than-light drive. But if you do it wrong—and they haven't got the control down yet—you end up with temporal instead of spatial displacement. I can't explain it to you, I'm a covert-action operative, not a physicist. And you're at least three paradigm shifts, three equivalents of Newton or Einstein, away. Could you explain a computer to a tribesman from New Guinea?"
"I can't even understand the goddamned manuals for PCs myself. Okay, what about our bad lady? What can she do?"
"It. Never forget that. It's not human. Do?" Lafarge shrugged. "For a start: it's fast, fast and very strong, with hyperacute senses. Very resistant to damage, reinforced bones, redundant organs, high radiation tolerance, tissue regeneration if it is hurt. Strong enough to rip a human limb from limb, hearing and sight and sense of smell like an animal. Utterly ruthless, fearless, and aggressive, with an inbuilt drive to fight and to dominate everything in its environment. A tiger with the mind of a man. Oh, and it's immortal—doesn't age."
Henry nodded to himself. Something in him wanted to add what about the blue tights and the cape? but the scene in the warehouse kept getting in the way. The memory of the heavy stink of blood, and the bodies tossed about like dolls, mangled the way a dog does a rat.
"That's for a start?" he said. "Make me even happier, Lafarge."
"Genius-level intelligence; in your terms, IQ of about 200, 220. Perfect memory. Idiot-savant mental abilities."
"Counting all the spilled matchsticks?" Henry remembered the movie well, although he doubted the killer was anything like Dustin Hoffman.
"Yes. They seem to be a little short on real creativity, but they're extremely smart. And then there's the control mechanisms. For controlling others, that is."
"Wait . . . you mean they can read minds? Hypnotize people?"
"Not quite. It can read body language and sub-vocalizations well enough to make it seem like a mind-reader, though. The control comes from pheromones . . . . You know what they are?"
"What makes the dogs howl when the bitch is in heat?"
Lafarge nodded. "They're more versatile than that. In us, in humans, they're becoming vestigial. The effects are subliminal. A drakensis has pheromones that are overpoweringly strong. Their serf race, the servus, are completely vulnerable. But on unprotected, unprepared normal humans, the effects can be devastating too. You wouldn't even notice them
consciously; you'd just be bowled over by what feels like overwhelming charisma. Pretty soon you'd want to do anything the drakensis told you to. You'd stay awake nights thinking up ways to please."
"Shit." Henry stopped and sank down on a bench. Would all this go away if I just hopped the plane back to New fork and forgot about it? Unfortunately, he knew the answer was no. He'd never been good at hiding his head in the sand.
He looked over at Lafarge on the opposite end of the bench. "Why do I get this really shitty feeling about all this? You going to offer us advisors and military aid? Like us and Moscow back in the old days? And sure, it's true we were telling the truth when we said some Third World schmuck was better off taking our guns. But by the time the elephants are finished their proxy war across his back garden, it's squashed pretty fucking flat."
"It's worse than that. We can't help you directly. The Domination holds the Solar System too firmly. Moleholes—it's the physics, I can't explain it. If the drakensis succeeds in making a beacon, they can open a gateway and flood through. You'll have about as much chance as . . . in your terms, as much chance as Australian Aborigines with stone-tipped spears would against helicopter gunships and tanks. The Domination . . . they'll reduce you to domestic animals, playthings, and they'll gene-engineer you into liking it. That's one alternative."
"I hope there are others."
"If the drakensis can't establish a lock-on beacon here, it'll try to take over the planet by itself."
"Hell, there's only one of her. It, whatever."
"It's immortal, remember, unless it's killed. And it's a female."
"With no males, and a breeding population of one."
Lafarge shook his head. "They don't reproduce the way we do. They implant their fertilized ova in slave wombs—humans will do as well as servus."
Henry winced. Jesus. "Without a man—"
"Cloning. This is a cancer, an infestation, like maggots in your flesh. You have to get it all, no matter how deep you must cut." Lafarge grinned. "That's the bad news."
"You're the good news, right?" Carmaggio said.
"A big part of it. Myself, my equipment. And it has weaknesses. They tend to arrogance and over-confidence, and they're parasites, dependent on their slaves. Not really creative at all. And it's under-equipped, with nothing but its equivalent of street clothing."
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