Flashback (The Saskia Brandt Series Book Two)

by Hocking, Ian

  ~

  For lifetimes, she was wind across an empty steppe. Then, one day, she settled as dew on the grasses and coalesced to a watery archipelago. She disappeared, trickle-clean, into the roots of trees whose branches were bald and crooked. She grew glassy and cold.

  Solid.

  Wake me.

  Baba Yaga: the witch who moved through eastern minds. Baga Yaga: the witch who travelled in a mortar with a pestle rudder that scored the forest floor. A silver birch to sweep her track, to erase all but a sense that something had been and gone. Saskia looked at her translucent finger. Blood dripped from the tip.

  Wake me.

  A forest grew and night fell upon it, moonless and still. Saskia felt her body sublimate. With this, she understood that the forest was a fiction. It had been cut from her memories like a string of dancing silhouettes. Now it folded and halved, folded and halved again, folded and vanished.

  This way.

  Wake me.

  This way comes.

  ‘Something wicked,’ she said at last.

  ‘Don’t try to talk. I put a tube in your throat. In the army, I was a medic.’

  ‘Who are you?’ she asked the darkness.

  On the wall.

  ‘You fell from the sky. I wrote down what the mirror said.’

  ‘What did the mirror say?’

  Mirror. Mirror.

  ‘I wrote down what the mirror said.’

  ‘There was a girl next to me.’

  ‘Don’t try to talk. There is a tube in your throat and I had to pin your tongue to your cheek.’

  ‘Help the girl. There may be time.’

  ‘I have what the mirror asked me to buy.’

  ‘What did it ask you to buy?’

  Stars moved in the darkness. Her constellations. The shadow. The heroine. The villain. Beer bottles and ball bearings. She remembered a child’s game that used a tray and a cloth.

  ‘Memory,’ she said.

  On the wall.

  ‘Really, don’t try to talk. The mirror told me about the Ghost. I won’t ever let him find you. Don’t be scared. My name is Tolsdorf.’

  ‘Where am I? I don’t understand.’

  ‘Sssh,’ he said. ‘Sssssh.’

  Over time, Saskia came to know that she lay on a cot, the type with a sprung mesh. Her wetware chip had rebooted since Cory’s attack and she felt whole. The chip blocked her pain and conducted unspoken information as certainties: she was smashed; she should not move – soon her tissues would swell. She had to let Tolsdorf take care of her. On and on the fiction wove. The husk on the device – the afterglow of her mind’s heat – had drawn upon the paranoia of this man, probed his needs and promised to fill them, and in return the man had taken Saskia to this anteroom in this hut and assembled the pieces of a desperate defence against someone called... what... yes, Cory, who was chasing something not easily destroyed.

  An idea.

  Jennifer’s Huckleberry.

  Chapter Thirty

  To Jem, Cory seemed older. His eyes were shadowed and bloodshot. His breath twirled white. ‘You were waiting for me.’

  ‘We were waiting for you,’ said Saskia. ‘Tolsdorf and I.’

  The woman stood braced, as though leaning into a wind. The truncated wrist was behind her. She was covered by the jacket that Danny had slipped across her shoulders halfway through the story. Danny, like all of them, was in thrall to Saskia. He leaned against the table with his arms folded. Hrafn stood next to him. His bony face was thin and bloodless. He had jammed the gauze between his neck and his shoulder, and Jem might have mistaken him for a man on the phone. The inspector, for his part, sat at the table with his hands pressed between his knees. His mouth was open.

  ‘Well, Cory?’ asked Saskia, her love.

  ~

  He watched snow crystals stir in the draught beneath the door. Questions burned. Was this fiction? If so, was it designed to misdirect him? Why would Saskia want him to give up the idea of the diamond? He considered the advantage this might lend her. If she was also in pursuit of it, then the advantage was considerable. It would leave her free to obtain it. But Cory did not view Saskia as a competitor. She was a bystander, or a player late to the game. And she was from the past. She had travelled in time fifty years before him. Had she lost her will too? Like Jackson?

  Think, Georgia. Is she telling the truth?

  Cory shifted his grip on the gun. If she is telling the truth... He would not permit that thought to complete. Its implication might undo him.

  ‘What now?’ asked Danny.

  ‘You know what,’ said Saskia.

  ‘He’s going to kill us?’

  ‘According to him, we’re already dead.’

  Cory smiled. ‘You’re getting with the programme, finally.’

  ‘The paradox,’ said Saskia, straightening her back. ‘Test it.’

  Cory drank the data from her body. She was serious. He switched his gun from Jem to Saskia. The answer to his unspoken question – can Saskia be killed? – came in the utter calm of her expression and the absence of any physiological changes that should have accompanied the threat of the gun. Yet he paused. If he killed Saskia with a bullet to the head, would the ichor he had donated be sufficient to rebuild her? He didn’t think so. He pointed at her head. And if this did not kill her, what then? Did that mean her entire story was correct? Was Cory a patsy? The impact of the truth of her words was too much.

  He cut off his thoughts by squeezing the trigger.

  The weapon did not discharge. Instead, it flexed like a muscle and jumped from his hand. Cory felt the psychic frisson of the smart matter’s software as it crashed. The mishandled kinetic energy split the device in two and its spinning halves clattered to the floor.

  So she is connected to Jennifer. So she really is the second time traveller. What would she care about the Cullinan Zero?

  Saskia grinned. Her remaining teeth were cracked, bloody.

  ‘Well, what now?’ she asked.

  The wooden floor amplified her footsteps – heel-toe, heel-toe – until Saskia stood within the reach of his fist. The uncertainty churned within him. But he did not strike. Saskia raised her gun. Still he did nothing.

  ‘I can shoot most of what matters out of your skull,’ she said. ‘Maybe you’ll be rebuilt by your nanomachines, but it won’t be you.’

  ‘I’ll know your intention before you do. You aren’t fast enough.’

  ‘Begin at the beginning. Think. Jennifer sent you back to recapture an item, but the item was not her prize. She wanted Harkes. She wanted revenge. Think back, whoever you are.’

  He looked at the men and considered their murders once more. Then he looked at the broken factor.

  ‘When I was young,’ he began, ‘my father called me ‘the Ghost’. He was blind, and I crept around the house because I was scared of him. Kind of funny, because I became a spook. My father was right. I spent my life elsewhere. My physical body is here, at the turn of the century, but my soul could not cross the bridge.’

  Chapter Thirty-One

  August, 1947, Buenos Aires

  Cory walked to the airport at Morón. Once, an intellectual called Jurado had taken him through the difficulties of selecting the correct verb for travelling on foot through The Great Village, as he called Buenos Aires. Callejear must be rejected. That was clear. Pasear would not do. Never in life. One must plump for vagar, to wander. One wanders the labyrinth. One considers the changing street names as the retelling of Argentine history. These are golden threads to be plucked as strings to the past.

  Cory, vagabundeo, arrived at the drab industrial estate just as the early afternoon sky was darkening. The offices of the British South American Airways Corporation was an unremarkable block with a striking emblem: an art deco star man. It reminded Cory of Hermes. Ancient Greek god of boundaries and those who cross them. Of the orator, the poet, and the shepherd. Of the core of thieves: their cunning.

  He removed his hat and touched his for
ehead with a handkerchief. On the forecourt, a glorious, cream-coloured Packard was being washed by a chauffeur. Cory used his best Rioplatense Spanish to compliment the Packard. The two spoke for five minutes, during which Cory discovered that the Packard would be parked here until the early evening, and thus perfectly placed for hijack.

  He raised his hat to the man and walked into the offices. He felt alive and happy. His grip was about to close on Harkes. The crushing sensation would be sweetness itself.

  ~

  The waiting room outside the office of Air Vice-Marshal Bennett was empty. Cory sat in a low leather chair with his hat on his knee. He looked at the wall opposite. There was a painting of a tiny gaucho riding across a stylised representation of the South American continent. An aircraft-shaped shadow had fallen across him. He had turned his face upwards. The strapline read: ‘In South America To-Morrow!’

  The window was north-facing and dull. To his right, in the office, two men were talking. Cory was looking at his knees, but he was listening to the men.

  The younger man said, ‘About this weather, sir. We’re clear out to Mendoza, but it’ll be no fun over the bumps. The visibility is zero.’

  The older man replied, ‘You’ve got the top seat. Tell me what you need.’

  ‘I should like to up the fuel load. Thirteen-hundred gallons would give us a cushion.’

  ‘Very well. What will that make your weight?’

  ‘A whisker off fifty-one thousand.’

  ‘Tell Pilkington I gave the word. Then tell him he can even put some fuel in the aircraft, instead of peeing it halfway across the hangar floor. But Reggo?’

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘This isn’t BOAC. Keep that juice for a rainy day.’

  ‘Sir.’

  The door opened and the younger man emerged. He was no older than thirty and had a lightness in his movement. He wore a captain’s uniform and carried a clipboard. In an instant, Cory read all he could from the topmost sheet. The information was not useful. Just some figures and statistics associated with the flight plan. It was not, crucially, the passenger manifest.

  The man smiled from the corner of his mouth and said, ‘How do you do?’

  As Constantin Wittenbacher, Cory smiled back and said, ‘Very well, thank you.’

  Then the young pilot was gone and Bennett called, ‘Mr Wittenbacher, is it? Do come in.’

  The Air Vice-Marshal’s office was bright and spacious. The window overlooked the runway. An Avro Lancastrian was chocked up and gleaming in the sun. Men were standing on its wings. In groups of three, they were directing a fuel hose into the tanks.

  Don Bennett was a short man who wore a suit with slightly baggy trousers, the English style. He was underweight, too, and Cory had no difficulty imagining him as an anxious and strict director. As Cory approached, Bennett switched from placing his knuckles on his desk to putting his hands on his hips until finally he reached out to shake hands. He was about forty, but his eyes were cynical and the constant motion of his body suggested a man bothered by time.

  ‘Constantin Wittenbacher,’ said Cory. ‘I am entirely at your service, Air Vice-Marshal.’

  ‘Please sit down.’

  Cory tapped his cane against his shin. ‘I would prefer to stand.’

  With an abrupt, interrogative tone, Bennett said, ‘German, are you?’

  Cory knew that his worth was being weighed. There was an openness about Bennett’s expression that suggested this was nothing more than, say, an enquiry about Cory’s eligibility for a drinking club. Cory’s augmentations offered a numerical index of Bennett’s credulity by combining blink rate, vocal stress, and skin conductance, but he ignored these data. This came down to tradecraft. He had to win his support. He wove his words from the fictional threads of Wittenbacher, whose half-memories informed his own.

  ‘Air Vice-Marshal, my name is Colonel Constantin Martin Wittenbacher. I was formerly with fighter squadrons 26, 27 and 44.’

  Bennett tipped his head back and opened his mouth as though this exactly confirmed his suspicion. He walked around the desk and stood next to Cory.

  ‘What did you fly?’

  ‘The Henschel H-123, Bf 109, and the Messerschmidt Me 262.’

  Bennett leaned forward. ‘The 262? There’s a plane I’d like to fly.’

  ‘I flew it under Nowotny,’ said Cory. ‘It was a beautiful machine.’

  ‘How many successes, Colonel?’

  ‘Ninety-nine.’

  ‘One off a century.’

  ‘I suppose so.’

  ‘Well,’ said Bennett. The interest in his eyes had begun to fade. He walked around his desk and collapsed in his reclining chair. ‘What brings you to Buenos Aires?’

  ‘Some friends connected me with Peron’s associates in Berlin. Apparently, the man wants to build an air force. I was invited here to act as a consultant.’

  ‘A bit ruddy late for Peron to start up,’ Bennett said. He checked himself, looked for Cory’s reaction, and continued in a more confidential manner. ‘For all the favours we’ve done Argentina over the years, they were too bone idle to help us out when we needed them. Peron is a tricky customer, though. I’ve met him. He needs to learn some manners. Our problem is that Peron is well aware of our island’s taste for Argentine beef.’

  ‘Indeed.’

  Bennett stood. Cory let the haughty eyes of the AVM sweep him from brogues to oiled hair-parting. Bennett did not blink easily. Just as Cory began to fear his Plan B had not worked – perhaps, after all, he would have to fight his way to Harkes and damn the consequences – Bennett opened a drawer and took out a bottle of Glenkinchie and two shot glasses. He poured two fingers’ worth in each.

  ‘What shall we drink to?’ said Bennett.

  ‘How about the elephant in the room?’

  ‘I don’t know the expression.’

  ‘It means that I hope you will help me with something very important as-yet unsaid.’

  ‘Go on.’

  Bennett looked over his tumbler as he tipped it back. Cory sank the whisky too and released a contented breath. He put the glass on the desk and turned it, absently, one quarter. He drew upon a notion of Harkes, his quarry. Empathy came with surprising ease.

  ‘A man has followed me from Lisbon. He wishes me dead.’ How fluently the lies ran. How closely they brushed the truth. ‘He is working for a woman, a widow, who believes I killed her husband during the war.’

  ‘Well?’ asked Bennett.

  Cory looked up. Bennett’s eyes had resumed their interested twinkle.

  ‘We scrapped over Leiden. Both our aircraft were hit, and we made landings less than a mile apart. I found him first and shot him, but not before he had put a bullet in my leg.’ Cory tapped his shin with his cane once more.

  ‘British?’ asked Bennett.

  ‘A Pole.’

  Bennett sipped his whisky. ‘Tell me more about your pursuer.’

  ‘The private detective? He is a... a schrecklich... a formidable man. He found my hotel this morning. I fled in the clothes I stand in. My one hope is to escape to Chile.’

  ‘Do you have your passport?’

  ‘I do not, sir.’

  ‘Money?’

  ‘Gold sovereigns inside my belt. I have enough for whatever I need.’

  Bennett waved his hand. It was enough to dismiss the thought of a bribe. Clearly, he considered himself above this. He collected the glasses and returned them to the desk drawer.

  ‘Paperwork is the plumage of bureaucrats, Colonel, and I don’t intend to spend my life preening it for them. A phone call to our Chilean office will work the requisite wonders. Are you prepared to help me in return?’

  ‘If I can.’

  Bennett opened his blotter. He placed a sheet of headed paper on it and began to write.

  ‘When you reach Santiago,’ he said, not looking up, ‘you will be met by a man called Jack Leche. He’ll take care of you. Nobody, officially, needs to know of your presence aboard CS-59.’

&
nbsp; ‘Jack Leche?’

  ‘Let me be quite clear,’ said Bennett. He stopped writing, looking up this time. ‘His Majesty’s government has an interest in Chile. If you were to work for the Chileans in an advisory capacity, perhaps within their military, I’m sure any information you might pass back to us would be viewed appreciatively. I’m aware that you could disappear over there, even buy your way to Brazil, but I judge you to be a man of honour who will consider himself much obliged.’

  ‘Do you think a man of honour would spy?’

  ‘That,’ said Bennett, returning to his blotter, ‘is an excellent question.’

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Miss Evans was a capable, pretty young woman in a uniform that reminded Cory of the British WAAF. Her designation ‘Star Girl’ - the BSAA equivalent of stewardess - did not match her countenance, which was part matron, part butler. The impression she made on Cory was striking, to be sure, but this impression faded as the pair approached the passenger lounge. Harkes had to be inside. Cory knew that he carried enhancements that were rudimentary compared to I-Core. All things being equal, Cory would best him. But Harkes knew this, and unless he was stupid – which, as a scientist, Harkes was not – he would assume the advantage by other means.

  As Miss Evans opened the door to the passenger lounge, Cory rose to the balls of his feet. He made a flash-bulb inventory of the passengers and referenced the passenger manifest he had glimpsed on the rack in the Star Girls’ office.

  Miss Evans said, ‘Ladies and gentlemen, we will be boarding in a few minutes’ time. This means a slight delay, but Captain Cook is confident we can regain the time during flight. Please may I introduce Herr Wittenbacher?’

  With a perfect recollection for names, Miss Evans presented each of the passengers. First was a Middle Eastern man silhouetted against the glass wall. His hands were clasped at his back and he nodded to Cory without expression. ‘Mr Casis Said Atalah,’ said Miss Evans. At an upright piano, stroking notes, was a gentleman with playful eyes. ‘Herr Harald Pagh.’ She turned to another who sat in a wicker recliner smoking a drooped pipe. ‘Mr Jack Gooderham.’ A fourth man, ‘Mr Peter Young,’ was playing cards with an elderly woman, ‘Frau Martha Horniche.’