"Huang. Calls himself Dr. Ted no less."
"I've met him. He's brilliant, but maybe a trifle socially awkward."
"Socially awkward and rich as Croesus." That was how Rick blew his cover. With all the back-slapping and steaks, rednecks from Texas didn't know who Croesus was. "Married one of the employees a few years back. Younger. Much younger. Supposedly very smart. Former Miss Idaho to boot."
"Sounds too good to be true."
"Too true to be good," he said. He set his knife and fork on the table. She could tell it was a joke because he laughed until she thought he was going to choke.
"So let me guess. She found a younger man?"
Rick shook his head. "Not a younger one." He leaned forward. She flinched, but the wedge of steak stayed on the end of his fork as he shook it at her. His smile at the folly of other old men making fools of themselves with young women lit up his face. Like a bad actor watching someone else stink in a lousy play. "Supposedly his partner..."
"Pruitt," she said dully.
Rick nodded. So caught up in the story he missed that she wasn't just keeping up, she was running ahead. What kind of a spy could he possibly be? The kind who looked through plants in hotel lobbies. He waved his knife and fork while he talked, eyes darting around the room conspiratorially. Somebody deaf, blind, and stupid might miss the fact that they were talking about something secret, but then again might not. Rick was no spy. He was Secretary of Homeland Security. His qualification that he'd built a home security company into an empire and bankrolled a big part of the last campaign.
"This Pruitt, never met'im, but he's supposed to have a way with the ladies. So," he went on, back to staring at his food so he didn't notice the set to Agnes's jaw. "I hear he, Root that is, was havin it on with his, Huang that is's wife. So Huang, he travels back in time to catch'em at it. When he knew he'd been out of town. Broke all kinds of rules. Need all kinds of permission to use the time machine or whatever it is."
"You seem well informed."
"I keep my eye on things," he said modestly, sawing his steak. So Rick has a spy there. That's something to keep in mind.
She nodded. "And so they're pushing him out."
He nodded. "He was goin anyways. Just gave'em the excuse. Seems that a few weeks ago one a the board members swung a deal with someone there to help a friend. Like anyone might do."
He looked up and she returned his smile. "What kind of deal?"
"Oh some gal accused this friend's boy of rape," he said with a dismissive wave. After all, boys will be boys. "Was gonna get him thrown outta school. Maybe sent to jail. Just high spirits." He shook his head back down at his steak as if it were arguing with him. Agnes stared at him and shook hers at something completely different. "Got the kid off alright. Sent him to the hospital though. Hit'im in the balls with a baseball bat. You like that huh?"
Agnes'd tried but couldn't fight back the laugh. "Served the bastard right."
"So Huang," Rick went on, the corners of his own lips twitching, "...he finds out. You think he feels bad? About the boy bein hurt I mean?" He looked up and she arched an eyebrow. He shook his head. Frowned. "No. He goes and makes a federal case outta it. Like they shouldn't'a been tryin to help in the first place. Starts making threats. So he had to go." His frown lightened into a smile and he looked up at her. "He just made it easy for'em by being a horse's ass. Can you believe that?"
"Why not?" she sighed. "It's a story as old as the hills."
She sat watching Rick chew for a while, turning it over in her mind. Time travel. Pruitt. Rick. If this were a movie she'd have her eyes closed by now.
Rick jammed some meat into his mouth and looked at her plate. "Not hungry?"
"That's all very interesting Rick," she finally said, lifting her fork and picking at her salad. "But what does any of it have to do with me?"
"The boss," he said, so occupied with his steak he'd missed the grim edge to her voice, "...wants you to go out there and take over for ole Dr. Ted." He didn't even bother to look at her when he said it.
"Me? Why would they want me? I suppose you twisted their arms."
"Me?" he chuckled. "Nobody cares what a ole country boy like me wants. But bein President does still get you some attention."
"You mean he talked to them? Personally?"
"He doesn't know anythin about it," he said, putting on his business face and jabbing his fork at her. At least it was empty this time. "That's one thing we've all got to be clear on." He glanced around the room as if making sure none of the other diners wanted to stop their subdued conversations and object.
"I thought they were careful to stay out of politics."
"I thought you didn't know anythin about'em."
"Who said that?"
He thought about that a minute. Set down his knife and fork. A server appeared and pulled away his grease-smeared plate. Another hovered over Agnes aiming an arched eyebrow accusingly at her full plate. She nodded and he whisked it away. A third ran over and began scraping non-existent crumbs off of the white tablecloth.
"There're rumors," he went on after they'd been left alone. "Too many rumors. They can't stay out of politics. They need cover. Even Congress is gonna figure it out. Once they start tryin get ahold of it MITCo's gonna need protection. I mean can you imagine Congress gettin itself ahold of a time machine? They'll be lined up around the building wantin to rerun elections. Redo interviews with new haircuts after they get their focus group results."
"And that's what the president wants? To protect time travel from Congress? And if that means giving him control of it..."
"So much the better," Rick agreed. "Coffee?" She nodded and he signaled the waiter. He looked over her shoulder. "That's part of it."
"Part of it?" Rick frowned uncomfortably. Now we're getting to it. "What's the rest. What are you really looking for Rick?" she asked as he craned his neck.
"Where the hell's...ah. There he is."
The young man was already pulling out the empty chair by the time Agnes had turned. He smiled at Agnes and started to introduce himself, but Rick's voice ran over him.
"This's Justin. Justin Case."
"You're kidding."
"No," the young man smiled weakly and Agnes reminded herself that he was Rick's creature and warmed to at her own risk. What was it about him? Strangely familiar. She let her glance rest on him a second before shaking off the thought. Just another unremarkable face. A type like half the young men she'd ever seen. "Unfortunately not."
"My favorite person in the world to introduce," Rick chortled, but his smile faded and he leaned across the table looking back and forth between the two of them, the coach getting ready to send in the second string. Hopefully he wouldn't pat her on the ass. Rick didn't bother to introduce her to Justin, which meant that one of them'd been briefed, and that Rick wanted her to know it. "Sampson," he went on in a lowered voice.
"Sampson? Surely he isn't worried about the reelection? Especially not to her."
"He's obsessed about the reelection. And she's more popular than you think."
"She's a huckster in evangelical clothing. She sells anointed wrinkle cream that works by divine intervention. She calls herself Delilah Sampson for God's sake."
"You gotta like that," Rick chuckled and shook his head in admiration. If there's one thing easier to sell Americans than security it's God.
"Surely you can find something on her. With the technology you've got you could've found something on Mother Theresa if she were still around."
"Crawled all over every inch of her and up every orifice for a year, more'n a year, with everything we got and nothin," he said in disgust. As if Sampson'd let him down. "Absolutely nothin. Ooh she's careful alright. Then the other day. Right outta the blue." He snapped his fingers, leaned closer, then sat back as the coffee team came to the line, rattling cups, saucers, spoons, creamers, and sugar bowl into an attractive display then standing back to admire their work fo
r a second before disappearing. Rick picked up his cup, had to pinch the tiny handle between a thick finger and thumb, and watched her steadily over the rim of the cup. Agnes shot a look at Justin, who didn't appear to notice he hadn't been offered coffee, then picked up her own cup. "This falls in our laps."
"This being?"
"An that's why we needed to talk to you so fast." He leaned back as if he'd given her some idea as to what the hell he was talking about. She glanced at Justin who wore that impassive stare that government flunkies on the make practiced in front of mirrors.
"Rick. What are you talking about?"
"Buffalo Two thousan twelve. That's what I'm talkin about. Shootin at a hotel at a young scientist's convention. Ring any bells?"
"Buffalo two thousand twelve," Agnes repeated and felt the blood drain out of her head. The guilt she spent every waking hour of every day pushing out of her mind's eye leered at her around Rick's bulk. She stared back at the earnest eyes, but Rick was so focused on what he had to say that he didn't seem to notice that she was about to faint. She didn't look at his acolyte, just in case he had a different reaction. Ouch. Being in shock evidently didn't stop bad jokes.
"Oh yeah," he said, nodding. "You was there, right?"
"Yes," she said carefully, and was surprised at how steady her voice sounded. "I remember. How could I forget? They caught one of them didn't they? I believe the rest were either killed or got away. I think it's time you got to the point Rick."
"The point is they never found the person let'em in the building."
"No," she almost whispered. "They didn't."
"Didn't have much security," he said with the professional's disdain for amateurs. "Accordin to the police reports they came in the back door. But that door was supposed to be locked. Was locked. The idiot guard left his post and they stole the surveillance video." He shook his head. Not if his firm'd been on the job. "That was back in the days when those things were on tapes." He held his palms apart in front of him. "Like that. Old technology even back then. Had to change'em every twenty-four hours, somethin like that. But you know all that. You collect those old things, don't you?"
"I'm sorry Rick," she ignored the question. "But I still don't get it. What does the President care about that? It was a tragedy but it's ancient news."
Rick's bulky frame wiggled, shaking the table in his excitement. "What if Sampson was the one let'em in. Would you get it then?"
"Sampson?" The conversation seemed to be tilting on its side. As if she were losing her grounding to earth. She had to grip the seat of her chair to keep from falling off of it. "What on earth makes you think that?"
"The one they caught? Been in jail ever since. And from that day to this he's never said a word." Rick paused for dramatic effect. His big head wagged back and forth between the two of them and his eyebrows lifted. "Til now."
"And he said Delilah Sampson let them in?" At least her voice wasn't shaking. She stole a glance at Justin but he was following Rick with rapt attention.
Rick shook his big head and some of the excitement deserted him. "No dammit. Won't say who. Won't even say he knows who let'em in. Just says he saw'er on the screens. Tol that cop."
"Cop?"
"One who arrested him."
"And you're talking to the cop as well?"
"No. He's the incorruptible type," Rick said in disgust. "Retired when the police forces were nationalized."
"Then how do you know..."
Rick's withering glance cut her off, as if he were insulted by the insinuation that they wouldn't've recorded the conversation. "He, this killer, he tol him, that cop, that he saw someone on the screens, recently, that made'im rethink his options. Decided he had to tell someone. Who's on the news more than Sampson? She's on all the time. And," he leaned across the table and swept the room theatrically with his eyes, coffee sloshing over the sides of the cup he waved it like a conductor's baton. "Sampson was at that conference."
On the screens. When would she've been...The ribbon cutting. The scene flashed in front of her eyes like the replay of the seconds before an accident. The technical school she'd put so much into and had gotten the President to dedicate only a couple of weeks ago. It hadn't gotten much coverage. Just enough.
"Sampson was at the young scientists' convention?" she finally said.
"That's right. Name was Francine Hurrle back then. Before she found the Lord and his cornucopia of sacred beauty products and realized science and medicine are an affront to him Sampson studied chemistry. And she was at that conference. We're workin on a list'uv names'a people who were there and who've been on the screens. She's on it."
The beginning of the end for how many thousands, millions of people since man invented writing? Your name's on a list. Death by bureaucrat. The various versions of Homeland Security through history, Cheka, Gestapo, Mukhabarat, showing up at your door with a piece of paper, crossing off names. Reducing human beings with years of history and relationships to a couple of scrawled words then drawing a line through those words. Your name's on a list. Vaguely insulting and ominously frightening. "As am I." She girded herself for the answer. "And they have a record of what he's been watching?"
"No," Rick almost spat in disgust. "Can you believe it? To save space they wipe the memory every night."
"That's unfortunate," she said, trying to sound as if she meant it.
He nodded and set down his coffee cup and stared across the table at her. "Musta been pretty rough, goin through that."
"It was horrible," she said with a shudder. One thing she'd never have to fake was that shiver down her spine. "I wasn't anywhere near the actual shooting, thank God. But still. Horrible." She shook her head. "But come on Rick. You can't be serious about this. You've strung together a daisy chain of coincidences and innuendo and you're trying to hang a battleship from it. This is almost delusional."
"Cmon now Agnes," he chided. "The boss didn't get where he is by bein a wishful thinker. We've thrown all the department's resources at this. Programmers, hackers, statisticians, psychologists, probly even a tea leaf reader or two. Even brought in a private security company to help," he added with a wink. "Or so I hear." He glared at Justin. "You didn't hear that." He turned back to Agnes. "They figure the probability that it was her's about eighty percent. Somethin like that."
"Eighty two point three," Justin added in case she still hadn't figured out he knew more than she did.
"Did you torture him?"
"Thought about it," he said with a shifty look around the room. "Lawyers sent us a memo said they didn't think it'd be efficacious. That's lawyer for they didn't think it'd work." Rick shook his big head vehemently and held up a hand. A waiter scampered over to refill his coffee. Agnes picked hers up and took a sip. Cold. Like the blood sitting in her veins.
"Before the primaries nobody'd heard much about Sampson outside'a pig country where she has that church. An suddenly she's all over the screens. Front'n center. Accordin to the police reports they know it was a woman let'em in. Someone saw her coming back upstairs but not close enough to identify. I mean," he held out his hands, palms up. "Who else could it be? Who else'd be that crazy?"
Who else indeed?
"So what do you do?" she asked slowly. "Try to get this prisoner to identify her?"
"What goddamn good'd that do?" he snorted and swatted at the air as if there were a fly buzzing around him. "Some terrorist twenty-four years after the fact claiming Sampson let'em in so's he can get out of jail? I wouldn't even believe that and I'd pay good money to believe it." He shook his head emphatically.
"That's what he wants? Out of jail?"
"He ain't said," Rick admitted with the frown he reserved for people without obvious motives. "But what else can he want? Anyways." He inched forward to the edge of his chair. "We got somethin cooked up better'n identifyin Sampson. Much better. You know Lincoln Wyatt?"
"Lincoln Wyatt? Finance guy?"
"Finance guy? The
finance guy. Big supporter of the boss. He's also a big shareholder in MITCo. Has a pretty good idea what goes on there. Has a lot of pull on the board. Thinks he can get you put in to replace Huang without a search. Claim the need for continuity, move quickly, put a woman in charge, someone politically connected, yadda, yadda, yadda. Easy to do with you Agnes. You're the whole Magilla."
"I'm flattered but what good would that possibly..."
Rick had started to pick up his coffee cup again and dropped it with a clatter. "Don't be obtuse Agnes."
Like a lot of things, when it finally hit her she wondered how she could've missed something so obvious. "You want to send someone back," she said dully.
"We're gonna send someone back. To get proof. And we've gotta do it after the convention and before the election. Think about it. Sampson arrested. No time to do anythin about it. Throw their whole damn show into chaos," he chuckled and rubbed his palms together. Democracy in action. "We both know we can't let Sampson get elected. She's a lunatic. She'll destroy what rights are left in this country. We hafta do it for the good a the country. You'n me."
"But why me?" she asked weakly.
"Why you?" Rick raised his eyebrows at Justin who looked compliantly unbelieving. "Who else? You got a Ph.D. in physics. You've run businesses and agencies. Turned around dysfunctional organizations," Rick ticked off Agnes's assets on fingers like white sausages. "You got credibility. You're well liked. Connected. And most important," he almost growled, dropped his hand and leaned across the table. "You can be trusted."
The most important trait for a dog, a hit-man and a Washington insider. She could be trusted. Honor among thieves. The room, Rick's big, square face, Justin's smaller round one, all receded into the background. Without thinking about it, she found herself nodding in agreement. Of course. It had to be her. Didn't it?
"When will they announce it?"
"They're announcin it to the management team tomorrow."
"Tomorrow? Without asking me? Pretty sure of yourself, aren't you?" It'd serve them right if she said no. Didn't do it. But she knew better. She had to do it. More than they knew.
Soul Source: Back and There Again Page 8