by Malhar Patel
As he suspected, they were two of the names of the five suspects he had already. He took a disc with the unidentified prints and said he would run them tomorrow to double check.
The conversation now turned to the five boxes. Each one contained what seemed like a random object but Kim was at home right now trying to piece them together. One box had the blue crystal. Another had some kind of metal coil in it. The third had a rounded vile of lightly fluorescing green liquid. The next one along contained a complicated looking circuit board and the final one had an encrypted FLD. They had slightly chipped the circuit board while removing it but apart from that, all the items seemed undamaged.
Frank scratched his stubbly chin, sporting the same confused expression as Jack and Kim a few hours earlier when they had liberated the items.
It was Frank's turn to share information and he told them what he knew about the five ex-thieves. He also had a theory about the metal coil. “There was a newly invented quantum coil that was being housed in a vault at a technological safe house. I remember the facility reported a theft a short while ago after discovering the item missing but with no alarms having gone off.”
“So what makes you think this is the coil?”
“The area the coil was stolen from is the same area Green met the five criminals.” Jack was intrigued and continued listening.
“Anyway, when we checked out the theft of the coil, we found that its vault had been accessed by one of the previous owners. We looked him up but then he had disappeared so we assumed he had stolen the item and gone on the run. Of course by the time anyone noticed the coil was missing, there were no longer any surveillance logs left, so we never found him.”
“So what do you think now?” asked Anisha, following the pattern of his story and predicting where it was going.
“I think that someone had him killed and extracted his eyeballs for the retinal scan to the vault. Mr Winchester, did you put every item back into the same box you got it from?”
“Yes we did, why?”
“Well if we know what box the coil or whatever item came from and we know the fingerprint on the box, we can work out which crook stole which items.”
Kim woke up to the smell of stale coffee and glanced around. She was on her cream coloured couch, part of a black and white set. All the boxes sat on the floor beside her. Shaking her head, she remembered lying on the couch to rest her eyes for a few minutes. It must have turned into a few hours.
She looked over at the notes on her desk and yawned. Yesterday had been the hard part and all she had to do today was piece it all together. She got up and walked over to the study to look through all of her papers laid out on the desktop. She had just woken up but was as alert as ever.
Rearranging the papers and jotting bits and bobs over them, she booted up her laptop and began comparing them to the schematics she had got from Dr Lewis. As her eyes darted from pad to pad and back to the laptop screen it all slowly dripped into place, like water seeping through a sponge.
There was a device in the schematic that had almost no details associated with it, and on closer examination she saw that it was some sort of generator. As best as she could tell it caused some kind of temporal flux and needed four specific components. Each of which were among the contents of the five boxes.
Looking across it now she saw more clearly what kind of device it was. It wasn't a laser or a bomb, but instead some sort of time machine accessory. She checked her watch and decided it was too early to be worrying Jack. She would call in a few hours when he was definitely awake.
Jack stirred as he heard Green senior snoring. Jack had fallen asleep before the old man had got back home. Looking across the room, Jack saw a document folder on the chair, which wasn't there before, and assumed it was the fruit of Green's labours. This morning was a particularly frosty one, but the sky was clear and it looked as if the day was going to get warmer and more pleasant later on.
Jack struggled out of his makeshift bedding and immediately felt a chill. He quickly popped on a sweater, and sauntering over to the folder, he pulled it open to reveal a single sheet of crisp cartridge paper.
Written in ink were a few random words, none of which meant anything to Jack. He was too awake to try falling back to sleep so instead he went into the kitchen and made himself some coffee. As he sat on the counter drinking it, his phone vibrated loudly. Cradling it to dampen the sound, he saw it was a message from Frank to confirm the names of each thief and which item they stole. He wasn't exactly sure how it helped him but once Kim rang him up with more details it might do.
For now he planned to enjoy a quiet Saturday morning. With almost no-one having to work today, it was clear that everyone intended to enjoy a lie-in. There was still some work to be done but mainly it was everyone's frayed nerves that were the problem now.
As he slowly made his way to the shower, he couldn't help but wonder what had taken Green senior the whole of yesterday to do. He didn't want to complain, since Green had helped them out a lot so far, but there was still some doubt in the back of his mind.
Washing his mug in the sink, he started wondering how he could exploit the people that were threatening him into this whole plan. Now that he had something of Green's he had some leverage. The only problem was that his leverage was against Green.
Since whoever was intimidating him clearly didn't like Green, it made sense that they would only be too happy to see Jack blackmail the politician. Jack rubbed his eyes with the palms of his hands, his fingertips massaging his scalp. He knew had to find a way to use the objects: they were the only real power he wielded right now.
Frank normally had Saturday off but this whole week he had been pulling double and triple shifts every chance he got. This case was his greatest puzzle yet, and he was determined to rise to the challenge. On a personal note, he wanted to prove to everyone that detectives were still needed, and that there was still a place for reasoned thinking rather than just endless video monitoring.
Tony was next to him right now, dressed in his usual slick pinstripe suit, with a charcoal shirt and ivory tie. As Frank looked over all of the records on his computer, he couldn't help feeling like he was going round in circles. He had a list of names, dates and items stolen, but only a few tenuous connections. As of yet, nothing had pieced together in that machine-like brain of his.
Tony scratched his head, also seeing nothing new as of yet. While Tony stared at the screen, looking for a connection, Frank rubbed his chin and walked over to his partner's desk to grab some notes. Tony was so focussed he didn't even notice him leave.
Something had been niggling at Frank since yesterday. Green looked likely to reach the role of Prime Minister within a few months. He would lead all of England, so why did he feel he had to jeopardise all of that to build a weapon. The inevitable conclusion Frank drew was that Green had some sort of global interest.
He looked back at the information Bob had been working on and noticed that Bob's research had mainly been restricted to the British sector. As he flicked through the pages, he saw several connections come up to one man: Russell Mason.
The name normally wouldn't have made Frank look twice; it seemed like a typical financial transaction for a political advice service. But as he read the codes on the heading of the table, he saw that the money was deposited to an account in America. It was the only foreign account on the whole list.
He called Tony over and asked him to work his magic with computers to find out what he could about the man. Tony tapped some keys and pulled up the NJD list. It was a combined list of criminals, terrorists and other assorted felons, which was made up of lists from Interpol, the FBI, OSS, CDI and individual police records.
Frank and Tony watched as the computer flashed its searching banner. It was a special search that Tony had devised, which checked the name, the account and any similar or possibly linked transactions.
Tony was sat down and Frank was leaning behind him, and as the progress bar moved along, Frank
began drumming his fingers on Tony’s shoulder. He was getting impatient. The search came to a close and on the screen a box popped up with the words NO RESULTS FOUND.
Frank let out a stifled grunt of annoyance and Tony turned around to him. “It's possible this guy is clean.” Frank shook his head.
“No this has to be a link to something.”
“Well then it's a false name. It's going to be hard to trace,” said Tony slowly. Frank smiled a little.
“If police work was easy it wouldn't be any fun.” With that Frank walked back to his desk, leaving behind his pondering partner. ‘Police work is easy’, thought Tony. Maybe Frank was making some kind of joke or maybe it was a reference to something. Either way it wasn't important, so he turned back to the screen to try and find a name.
Kim tried phoning Jack again and after a few tense rings he picked up. She heard him answer, “Hi there mum,” and realised straightaway that he had company. After some shuffling sounds he explained he was in the bathroom and was free to talk. She detailed what the five objects were, and Jack listened absorbedly and thanked her for calling.
Pete was home today so he had to watch him, and he also had a lot of planning to do to make sure Monday went off without a hitch. Kim sympathised, and saying goodbye, hung up to let him get on with it.
After a second of pondering, she went back to the schematics to try and work out what this machine Green was building actually did. As far as she could tell it made a high energy beam that seemed to fire outwards, and that coupled with all the mystery surrounding it made her think it was a weapon. But now she had seen this new generator component more clearly, she wasn't entirely sure how it fit in and the weapon theory was looking shaky.
She still had some information from Dr Lewis that she didn't fully understand, and she sat down on the couch reading it, hoping that, in context, it would be the key to solving the conundrum. Getting out a grotty old pad, she wrote down the key facts that she knew so far. It was only just reaching lunchtime but her mind had already started wandering.
She started doodling randomly on the corner of her page. It was a nervous habit she had had from when she was very young. It was never pictures of any kind, just lines and swirls arranged to look pretty, almost building up a picture frame around the page.
Zoning out, she let her pen wander into the middle of the page now and absently began writing, not paying attention to what she was doing. After a few seconds she snapped out of her weary trance and looked down to see CONSPIRACY: THE ADVENTURES OF KIM AND JACK written on the page. She laughed at the random comment and wondered if her sub-conscious was trying to tell her something
With her mind now relaxed, she turned back to the files and her face lit up as everything snapped into place. She knew what Dr Lewis' notes meant and turning back to the device schematics, she instantly figured out what the device did. If she was correct, it was more powerful than she could even contemplate.
Chapter 21
Jack and Anisha stood in front of the huge glass window, overlooking London from thirty floors up. The view was amazing, and the city almost looked like a small model and the people were little more than small, coloured blobs. Jack turned slightly and looked at Anisha. She was also staring out of the window, an expression of awe on her face.
The last of the people shuffled out of the computer room and it was free at last. Jack wanted to be watching Pete, especially in these crucial few days before the party, but Anisha wanted to show him something. A quick train journey and here they were.
Anisha's floor was supposed to be closed on weekends, but a lot of people would succumb to sloth, leave some work from Friday, and then have to make it up in their spare time. So it was no surprise to see a few faces as they walked in.
It was an ordinary office floor in every way, from the drab grey carpet to the two hundred or so identical desks. Still, the furniture and equipment were in good condition and the place was clean, so it had the edge over Bob's place of work.
Finally, with almost everyone having departed, Anisha logged onto one of the computers and began pulling up video files. Jack watched, wondering where all of this was leading. Anisha eventually selected the correct ones and showed Jack. It was the videos of Pete watching the game. She pointed to the screen and pulled up two dialogue boxes. “Look right there.”
“What am I looking at?” he asked in a confused tone of voice, secretly growing slightly sick of watching the same video again and again.
“That's the refresh rate for the television screen.” Jack frowned. He had already told her this and wondered what extra information she could have to offer.
“Yeah okay. What about it though?”
“It's two hundred. Now look at another comparative log.” Jack nodded along. “This is another log from a few days beforehand, showing live TV. Look at the refresh rate.”
“It's two hundred. That doesn't make any sense,” said Jack, almost whining.
“The rate doesn't change for re-recordings. It's like that every time you record something. So there must be a fault with the television. It's showing live programs and recordings at the same refresh rate. That's why it came up as two hundred on the camera and not four hundred. My TV won't actually play anything at four hundred. So Pete was telling the truth.”
“But doesn't that mean that we can't prove whether it's a recording or a re-recording?” asked Jack; afraid of having to admit he was wrong about Pete twice.
“Look at the time stamp on the file. It's the date Pete said and I don’t think it's been altered. The game was on late that night so there wouldn't have been any time to record a new video afterwards.” Jack gulped guiltily, knowing that Pete was innocent but also that Anisha was becoming more and more irate with him.
Luckily he wouldn't have to apologise to Pete this time, since he didn't even know he had been accused. Even so, a cocktail of worry and confusion leaned down on his shoulders and his head became clouded and muddled.
He continued talking to Anisha, simultaneously wondering whom he could trust and who might be unreliable. As she logged off of the computer, she turned to Jack and they shared a worried look. Up until now, Jack had been optimistic about this coming Monday. He knew who was out to stop him and he knew what he had to do. But with this new information everything had changed.
How long until another one of his friends was accused? How long until they were then found innocent? Everything kept taking him in circles and he felt like a dog chasing its tail; he was going nowhere.
The afternoon was dull and gloomy, but the sky had yet to grow too grey. Frank's bloodshot eyes were firmly on the computer screen, the same as they had been all through the night and the same as Tony's were now. Whoever this Russell Mason was, he was good at covering his tracks. The bank's records contained copies of his passport and driver's license, both of which were in his name and looked genuine.
The numbers on the two identity documents came back as valid, so it was Frank's guess that they were created using a faked birth certificate, which was the easiest thing to copy. This was a time when everything possible was kept as a computer record and just one hack would be enough to set you up with a new identity. Frank was at a loss for what to do next.
Tony yelled out to him and he quickly pried himself off the desk and over to his partner. On Tony's screen was a computer program cycling through what looked like a random chain of letters and numbers. It was complete gibberish to him and as Frank watched, Tony explained it all clearly.
“Okay I had a hunch that with all the safeguards on wire transfers there would also have been some sort of cash pickup at some point. Now for a large payout, you're not going to send someone to pick it up for you.”
“Right,” nodded Frank. He was smiling, and had already worked out where Tony was going with this.
“So I traced back the bank records to find any large cash withdrawals from the account. The latest one was two weeks ago. Now the bank only keeps records for a week.”
; “So it's a dead end?”
“No,” smiled Tony. “This program extracts deleted data from a disc, even when it's been re-written. The Bank granted me remote access to the partition of the server that housed our suspect's file. I'm running the program now.” Even Frank understood that and his face lit up.
“Good work slick.”
Tony had had great computer skills for most of his life but had opted out of higher paid jobs to go into the police because he wanted to help people. As Frank saw him work now, he could see that the young lad was turning into a fine detective.
As Anisha and Jack walked home, Jack's phone began to play the breakneck distorted chords of The Moral Lepers' “When I was a Lad”. Anisha smiled at the interesting choice of ring tone while Jack picked it up. He mouthed out that it was Kim and Anisha flashed a plastic smile.
There was something about Kim that didn't sit too well with her. The way she was always clamouring over Jack, always in trouble and needing help over the smallest things. Anisha scoffed at the girl in her head.
She had been shot at so far, and had already done enough to have the police lock her away for life. From her perspective, Kim was just being a drama queen. Then again she had the support of all the others and Kim was alone. She barely knew her and it was unfair to judge too hastily.
Eventually Jack hung up the phone and turned to her, a look on his face of shock and puzzlement. Anisha asked what was wrong and after a few seconds of staring at her with his dazed look, he finally answered. Kim had worked out what the device did. It wasn't exactly a weapon but it could certainly be used as one. It was a machine that disrupted the rules of time.
He explained it to her the way Kim had to him. Normal time machines worked by using several of twenty small, rare crystals. A beam fired through the crystals and created a time field. The smaller the crystal, the larger the field that was created and so the further back the subject went.