True Path

by Graham Storrs

  Her mother saw, though, and led her over to the chair and sat her down. Then Sandra turned to Polanski and said, “OK, I’ve had the bullshit version. Why don’t you tell me exactly what the lob is, what the target is, and who’s going? Then I can program this thing so that you don’t get shredded to atoms by tidal forces when the field kicks in.”

  Polanski nodded then shooed everybody out of the room except a single guard with a semi-automatic rifle. “If she tries anything, shoot the girl,” he told the guard, who then pointed his weapon straight at Cara. It made it hard to concentrate on what her mother and Polanski were saying, knowing she was just a twitch of a finger away from death.

  “Here,” Polanski said, and went into the adjoining room where the big plastic spheres were. “Help me with this.” Together, he and Sandra,rolled one of the oversized beach balls across the floor and up a ramp onto a broad platform with heavy coils under it. They settled it on its little plastic legs, the white marshmallow seat at the bottom. They turned it so that the oval hatch faced the console.

  Polanski led Sandra back to the other room and tapped a sequence into the lock of a big, black safe—the kind they have in cartoons and old westerns, Cara thought. He swung open the heavy door and reached inside. She couldn’t really see what was going on but she heard her mother say, “A mortar? What the hell?”

  “Give me a hand,” he said again. He took a long, heavy tube from the safe and slung it over his shoulder. Sandra reached in and picked up what seemed like a meter-long pair of dividers. It took Cara a moment to realize it was a pair of legs for the mortar tube. They carried these to the sphere with Polanski talking all the while.

  “This is an eighty-one millimeter, Venezuelan copy of a European Defense Force K29 mortar.” He gently eased it through the hatch and set it down inside the sphere, careful to keep the ball’s balance. Sandra did the same with the legs as he went on. “It fires a range of shells, from simple, high-explosive rounds, which it can lob up to seven miles, to sophisticated, radio-guided, rocket-assisted rounds, that can go fifteen miles.”

  “So, you’re going to lob a mortar bomb at the White House? Had it even been built three hundred years ago?”

  “No, it hadn’t.” They were back at the safe again. Polanski reached in and pulled out a heavy metal disc that Cara guessed was the base plate for the tube. “Can you get the bag and the shell? You probably want to be careful with that.”

  “What’s in the bag?”

  “The sights and the remote control unit. The shell will definitely explode if you drop it, so treat it like a holy relic, huh?”

  “You’re putting a lot of trust in me.”

  He glanced at Cara but said nothing. He lugged the base plate over to the sphere, with Sandra cradling the bomb behind him. “This place we’re in right now, Alley Shanty, used to be the city of Alexandria. It was part of the original gift of land by the States of Virginia and Maryland to the nation to establish the District of Columbia so that our capital city could be built. That was in 1790. Virginia got its land back later on but that’s by the by. Alexandria was a tiny little settlement at the time. Most places were back then. Now it’s just another suburb in the mighty Washington Metropolitan Area.” They gently placed the final parts of the mortar in the plastic bubble.

  Sandra looked at it and then at Polanski. “You know that, if you have a rough landing—and you will—this contraption is going to be torn to shreds by all that heavy metal.”

  “Can’t be helped,” Polanski said.

  Cara felt a frisson of shock as she realized what a torn sphere would mean for the return journey. Polanski intended to die on this lob.

  “You could pad it,” Sandra said.

  “What’s the point? When I get back here, I’ll only have a few minutes before the backwash hits.”

  “I can tune that to some extent. I could get you ten, maybe more.”

  Even though Polanski was the enemy, Cara could see why her mum didn’t want to let him just kill himself. The idea was horrible.

  “Could you get me fifteen?” he asked.

  Sandra seemed doubtful. “Maybe. I could trade it off for time at the target.”

  Whatever brief hopes he’d entertained, Cara could see that they evaporated instantly. “Padding would add mass,” he said, dismissing the idea. “And I need the full twelve minutes.”

  Sandra considered a moment. “Fifteen minutes, eh? If you drove like a madman, you could get quite a long way in that time. How far do you need, exactly?”

  “Fifteen miles, maybe. That’s what Matthew reckoned.”

  “To cause a splash with a fifteen-mile radius you need to do a bit more than kill some distant ancestor of yours. Even in 1736.”

  “In 1735,” Polanski said, continuing his history lesson, “Lawrence Washington had a house built on a family property called Mount Vernon. He moved his young family there the next year, including his four-year-old son, George.”

  “Jesus.”

  “Mount Vernon is about eight miles from here. Well within the range of my Venezuelan mortar with its rocket-propelled shell.”

  “Even so, the chances of killing a particular person … even if you scored a direct hit on the house …”

  “That’s why I had a very special warhead made. In the late Twentieth Century, the Brits came up with a particularly nasty range of nerve gases called the “V” range. Of these, VX was by far the worst. Not only is it extremely lethal, even to the touch, but it persists in the environment for a long, long time. The US army actually deployed munitions containing VX—landmines, missiles, airplane spray tanks—and my people happened to come into possession of a small stockpile. So I don’t have to hit little George directly with that thing, If he’s anywhere in the neighborhood—or if he visits even years later—he’s dead.”

  “Christ Almighty. You’re going to kill George Washington, before the War of Independence, before the founding of the United States. And you think the radius of the of the backwash will be just fifteen miles?” She jumped off the platform and ran to the control console.

  “What is it, Mum?” Cara asked. Her mother looked anxious as she worked the interface field of the computer.

  “I don’t know yet. I just need to do some calculations.”

  Polanski came over and joined them. “It doesn’t matter how big it is, as long as it covers DC itself.”

  “Do you know how many millions of people are in that radius? At least three million. But I think Matthew is talking a load of bollocks. I think fifteen miles is the minimum likely radius. I think we could be looking at the biggest damned timesplash ever.”

  “Mum?” Cara felt the fear rolling over her like cold air. Her mother had rarely spoken about timesplashes. It was a topic that, by silent agreement, was taboo in their household. Even though time travel was Sandra’s business, avoiding the creation of a timesplash was at the core of her mother’s expertise. Those few times that Sandra had opened up about her past had filled Cara with dread. It was clear to her, even as a very young child, that nothing in this world scared her mother the way a timesplash did. And when the strongest, bravest, smartest person you know—the person you rely upon for your own security, for your very survival—fears something so much, it becomes your own dread, your own bogeyman.

  There must have been something in Cara’s tone, because Sandra dragged her attention from the computer display to look at her. For a moment their gazes met and Cara saw her own fear reflected in her mother’s eyes. It sent a shudder through her. The splash was going to be big, the backwash terrible. It wasn’t the first time in the past few hours that Cara thought, “I’m going to die,” but it was the first time she also thought, “and no-one can save me.”

  And then she saw her mother’s expression harden, saw again that fierce determination she had seen at Duvalle’s mansion. A spark of hope kindled into flame. Her mum was going to do something. She could see it. Her mum wouldn’t let anybody hurt her. Relief and gratitude surged inside her and
forced a sob from deep within. Her mother gave her a quick smile and turned to Polanski.

  “All right. I’ve got your parameters. And, frankly, why should I care how many of your own people you kill? I need to work now. Cara stays with me. Fill the place with your armed acolytes if you like, but Cara stays.”

  Polanski shrugged and walked away. He seemed distracted and strangely emotionless. Aware that the man planned to kill himself in a few hours, Cara really didn’t know how he should behave. How would she feel if she were going to make the same sacrifice? Could she kill herself for the sake of her country? It was creepy and disturbing. For the millionth time, she wished she and her mum were back home and away from all these crazy, horrible people.

  -oOo-

  Jay checked the map on his commplant again and again, but it was of little help to him in the Shanty. His clothes were wet and caked in mud and the chill of the autumn morning was seeping into his bones. Even in this slum where scarecrow ghosts haunted the tumbledown dwellings, he was stared at and shunned.

  He clutched his aching shoulder and limped from the pain in a twisted knee. He had no money and no comms. His only hope of finding his way out of there was by dead-reckoning based on maps no-one bothered to update anymore. He avoided the gangs of men and youths who hung about in broken-down shanties, on street corners, and around the husks of rusted vehicles. Nobody seemed to have work to go to and, from the territory markings and body art, he supposed that gang membership was the norm. As much as Jay sympathized with their condition, he did not want to help them through their purposeless days by providing a few minutes of idle entertainment. He still had the gun, of course, but it was cold comfort. He didn’t want to use it to defend himself against some uneducated kid, someone who didn’t know any better than to try to shake the ennui by pushing around a derelict stranger for the amusement of his friends.

  When the challenge came—“Hey, gimp!”—Jay screwed up his eyes, clenched his jaw, and pressed on, hoping against hope that whoever it was would be too lazy to do anything but shout.

  “Hey, I’m talkin’ to you, gimpy.”

  Jay kept moving. He heard footsteps splashing in the mud nearby. A young man ran in front of him, blocking his path. Jay looked at him, dreading what he might have to do. His challenger was a boy, really, seventeen perhaps, short and broad, with a shaved head and very bad teeth. Despite the cold, the boy wore only jeans and a khaki vest. Up one side of his face and down one arm he had poorly-executed tattoos—words and symbols, snakes and chains, a prominent crucifix with a Death’s Head impaled by it.

  Jay heard more footsteps coming up behind him. Two sets.

  “Maybe you can help me,” he said to the boy.

  “Hey,” the boy said in a voice intended for his gathering friends to hear. “Gimpy wants a handout.”

  Jay raised his own voice. “I am Detective Chief Inspector Jay Kennedy of Europol and I’m here working with the FBI.” Well, that would either get him killed or scare the shit out of everybody. From the way the boy’s face fell and his lips twitched, Jay couldn’t be sure. He took a step towards the boy and the lad’s head twitched sideways in a kind of flinch, but he kept his eyes on Jay through narrowed lids. The footsteps behind Jay had stopped.

  “What’s your name, boy?”

  “Fuck you, I ain’t tellin’ you my name.”

  He sounded surly but uncertain. Jay pressed his advantage. “You’d do best to cooperate fully. I need a compad. Do you have one?”

  “What the fuck you think I’d do with a compad, call my stockbroker?”

  Jay heard a snigger from behind. Not so good. He took another step forward. The boy looked nervous but didn’t retreat. “Then tell me how to get out of this shithole before I take you in for being a moron in a public place.”

  “Who’re you callin’ a moron? I bet you ain’t even a Fed anyway.”

  Jay spoke louder, so that everybody around him could hear. “Keep talking like that and you’re going to bring down a whole mountain of trouble on your pointy little head. And not just yours. I will make sure your friends get it, and your family, and this whole stinking neighborhood.” What was the good of being a cop in a police state if you couldn’t throw your weight around a bit? “Do you really want to piss me off, boy? Do you really want an FBI tactical unit in here rounding up this nest of atheists and blasphemers?”

  Jay heard the footsteps behind him again, only this time they were retreating. The boy noticed it too. “Hey! Where the fuck do you think you’re going? He’s not a Fed. He’s just some fucking …” But the young man’s imagination seemed to fail him in explaining what Jay might actually be.

  Jay lowered his voice again. “Look, kid, just tell me how to get to somewhere where I can find a phone and a taxi and I’ll forget the whole thing. You’re on your own, now. No-one’s going to risk helping you. You turn this into fight and everybody you know is going to blame you for the consequences. I’m only guessing, but I suppose you know one or two people who would kill you for bringing them that kind of trouble.”

  Jay saw the boy look around him. People were watching. Nobody was smiling. When he looked again at Jay, he was visibly shaken. Jay supposed that the lad was very unhappy to be standing out there all alone. Yet he was still unwilling to back down.

  “I want those directions,” Jay said so that only the boy could hear. He had begun to feel sorry for the kid. It wasn’t his fault he lived in this miserable excuse for a society. “Here’s what’s going to happen. I’m going to point a gun at your head.” The boy’s eyes widened. “But it’s OK, I won’t shoot you. You’ll just back off, call me a couple of names, and I’ll walk on by. You’ll look like a brave little punk, and I won’t have to come back here with my friends. OK?”

  The boy didn’t speak for a moment. Then he made his decision. “You go on the way you’re headed ‘bout three blocks. Then turn left and keep goin’ ’til you hit the fence. You’ll see the gate.”

  “Thank you.” Jay pulled his gun and pointed it at the boy’s head. The boy raised his hands and the two of them circled around each other until they had swapped places in the road.

  “Don’t you come ’round here again, Fed,” the boy shouted in his face. “I’ll be ready for you next time.” Jay turned and walked away, keeping the gun in his hand, just in case. “That’s right. Get back to DC, cop. Back to Fucking Bastards Incorporated. Faith Before Intelligence, right?”

  Jay tightened his jaw. Damn, the boy was overdoing it. Still, he kept walking, and nobody followed him.

  He found the gate without difficulty and without further challenge. Another fifteen minutes’ walk brought him to a strip mall where he surprised a pair of Sons of Joshua eating stew in a dingy café. They told him to clear off and threatened him with their night sticks until he did a “take me to the FBI right now or I’ll have the pair of you executed” routine on them. It worked so well that they got him a bowl of stew and a coffee to have while he waited for the black SUV sent by an astonished Special Agent Simmons.

  Chapter 24: Cara

  The lob was set to happen at noon and Sandra’s commplant showed that she had less than four hours. She worked steadily at the command console to fix up the sloppy, indecipherable code. Sometimes she would spot a physical cause for noise in one of the signals and dive into the rig itself to pull out some component, clean a contact, or tighten a screw. It was a hopeless task, especially given the time available. The equipment was old and mismatched and much of it had begun its life as cheap, low-quality hardware. But Sandra worked through the diagnosis and tune-up of the rig and its mare’s nest of control software with the care and rigor she’d spent more than a decade acquiring. When this rig lobbed Polanski back into the timestream, it would do so with as much efficiency and effectiveness as she could squeeze out of it.

  Not that it would do Polanski any good. She would be sending him to the year 1796, not 1736, and the would-be martyr could bomb Mount Vernon to smithereens for all she cared, because George W
ashington would be dead by then. Whatever backwash Polanski created by poisoning Mount Vernon in the mid-1790s would be nothing compared to the one he hoped to create by eradicating Washington’s legacy. The backwash might not even hit the Shanty. Most likely it wouldn’t. People might die—but possibly just tens, or hundreds of people, not the hundreds of thousands or millions that Polanski planned to kill.

  Most importantly, Cara would be safe. In which case, Sandra could be generous and spare Polanski’s life by making the rig work well enough not to shred him.

  She looked across at her daughter. She now saw so much of Jay in her. Somehow the strain of this terrible adventure had brought it out in her, or perhaps Sandra had not noticed it so strongly before. Like Jay—like Sandra too, of course—Cara was tall and willowy. She was beautiful too. So beautiful it made Sandra’s heart ache. But her daughter’s beauty was not the same as her own at that age. Her own looks had been the sort that every man wanted to possess, the kind of looks that could get you anything and anyone you wanted. The kind of beauty that had given Sandra enormous power. The kind of beauty that was a curse. It had led her into the clutches of powerful, dangerous men who had used and abused her. She had thought at the time that it was a fair deal: she got what she wanted and they got her. But she had been a child, and a disturbed one at that. The deals she’d made were never fair and the things she got from them had never been worth having.

  So often these days, Sandra examined her daughter for that insidious self-destructiveness that she herself had possessed as a teenager. She was terrified she would find it, she looked and looked. And now she saw things so clearly. Cara wasn’t like Sandra at all, she was like Jay—kind, sweet, serious, reliable Jay. She was generous and loving and morally strong, like her father. Easy-going, dependable, loving, and, when necessary, even courageous …