Split Second (16 page)

“Good thing we can only go back
half a second, then,” said Blake with a smile.

Jenna laughed. “Yeah. Even mice can’t breed
that
fast,” she said wryly.

“There is also a possibility that is basically the
opposite of this,” continued the physicist. “That time absorbs changes, big and
small. That it has an inertia, and it absorbs blows and quickly returns to its
course. Like throwing a large rock into a raging river. The rock might change
the course of the river slightly, and briefly, but its effect downstream is
virtually zero.”

“So what about branching timelines?” asked Blake. “I think
I have a feel for them from the movies, but I’d like your take.”

Walsh paused in thought. “It seems to me that there are
two major possibilities,” he began. “One, there is only one timeline. If you
change your past, you change events after this, either dramatically or with
great difficulty. In this case, provided the universe lets you change things,
you get endless paradoxes, which is why this one is the more interesting for
time travel stories. You can get all kinds of cool circular stuff. Man A sends
instructions for an invention to man B in the past. But the only reason man A
knew the instructions is because B had already invented it. But the only reason
B invented it is because he received instructions from A. So how was it
invented in the first place?”

“So the cleaner alternative is the multiple timeline one,”
said Blake.

“I think that’s right,” agreed Walsh. “Because you really
can’t get any paradoxes. The moment you change the past in any way, at that
point, time splits, and you have two different universes. One in which the
change happened and one in which it never did. So if you kill your mom before
you were born, a new timeline branches off. You went back in time and killed
your mom, but
not
the mom on
your
timeline—so you could still be
born. You killed your mom at the very start of a
different
timeline. On this new branch, most everything in the
universe is the same, except you aren’t born. Still, as far as you, the murderer,
are concerned, the original branch remains intact, and your life and timeline remain
unchanged.”

“So how could Nathan’s discovery be used to differentiate
between the two possibilities?” said Blake.

Walsh opened his mouth to reply when he noticed that Jenna
had lost her battle and was dead asleep on the chair, her head lolled to the
side.

“Maybe we ought to finish this discussion another time,” said
Blake, being careful to keep his voice to a whisper, although, given Jenna’s
state of exhaustion, he probably could have screamed this out without waking her.

Walsh nodded. “We all have a lot to sleep on. Maybe while
we’re sleeping one of us will have an epiphany and figure out what we’re
missing.”

“Maybe,” said Blake, but he said it in such a way that it
was clear he didn’t believe it for a moment.

24

As the ground continued to
streak by far below him, Lee Cargill had out an old-fashioned college-ruled
notebook and jotted notes with an actual pen that spread ink, something that
was increasingly rare in the digital age.

He needed to be well prepared
for his meeting with President Janney. He had to report what had happened and
insist that a new base be built just for Q5, one designed to his strict security
specifications, ensuring they wouldn’t need to scurry from underground base to
underground base like cockroaches after a light was turned on.

Having Q5’s Palomar Mountain
headquarters blown, his people temporarily scattered, and their semis hurriedly
relocated, was humiliating. So he also needed to recommend a temporary
headquarters, knowing he would need to decapitate the remaining snake in the
weeds before the move to a more permanent location.

And he had to get Janney to
agree to let Q5 become the blackest of Black Ops organizations. Which meant
that Janney would be the last president to know of it. Whoever followed him
into the White House would not be read in.

Presidents could be fickle and
arbitrary. Each new one with wildly different visions and priorities. And when
all was said and done, they were nothing more than civilians who managed to get
donors excited enough to give them money, and then win a popularity contest.
They weren’t the smartest or best trained that humanity had to offer, and they
didn’t have the best judgment. The truly brilliant, truly gifted, wanted little
to do with politics.

Cargill scowled. Besides, this was
his
ship.
He
was the captain. Which meant he was the ultimate authority, certainly
not a flavor-of-the-week president.

So far, he had let the current
resident of the White House maintain the illusion that he was in control,
making pilgrimages to the man like a supplicant, a beggar, dancing for coins. Cargill
had too many other worries to let this illusion lapse at the moment, but he
wasn’t about to assent to letting another politician interfere, another
commander in chief who knew less about the realities of actual command than the
greenest new recruit.

Cargill was still organizing his
thoughts for his meeting the next morning when Joe Allen swiveled his chair around
to face his boss once again. Cargill looked up from his notepad. “Yes?”

“Someone did pull video footage
from street cameras near Wexler’s home,” reported Allen. “A woman named R. Sylvia
Tagert. She’s CIA. Reporting through the Directorate of Intelligence. She’s a civilian,
but has considerable field experience. Was stationed in Yemen, Afghanistan, and
Syria as part of counter-terrorism operations there. Worked with select spec
ops individuals and groups when necessary. Excellent performance reviews.” He
paused. “I’ve already sent her full dossier to your computer so you can read in
whatever depth you’d like.”

“She sounds like the type our
guy might know. So who did she send the video to?”

Allen frowned. “I woke up a top
computer guy at Langley, since you wanted me to stay away from our own people. He
hacked into her computer, but she had left no traces of where she sent the
video. We tried to get her phone records, but she’s high enough in the CIA pecking
order to have a phone that shields this information.”

“So you’re telling me she left
no traces, and you don’t have any idea who she pulled the video for?”

Allen nodded unhappily. “Yeah,
I’m afraid that’s what I’m telling you.”

Cargill digested this for
several seconds. “Is
she
stationed at
Langley?”

“No. She’s currently based at a
facility at Palm Springs, California. One disguised as a think tank.”

“California?” said Cargill,
rolling his eyes. “Really?”

Allen shrugged. “The CIA has a
number of offices in California.”

“I know that, Joe. I was just
thinking this was bad luck for you.”

“How so?”

“I needed you for a few projects
in DC, but this takes priority. And until I have more confidence in the
trustworthiness of our current team, I need to lean on you more heavily than
ever. I need you to get the information from her.
Yesterday
. And we can’t be sure that pulling rank over the phone
will do it. We need you to be in her face, an intimidating presence who won’t
take no for an answer.”

He gave Allen an apologetic
look. “I’m afraid when we land in DC, I’ll need to have a jet standing by to
take you back to California immediately.”

Allen sighed. “Not a problem,”
he said. “I can get a few hours sleep on the way back. And it isn’t exactly as
though I’m flying coach with a screaming infant behind me.”

“I know I’m losing time by
sending you there instead of one of our team already in California, but this is
too important to send someone whose loyalties aren’t absolutely certain. I need
you to find out who she was helping, and get the information to me immediately.
I don’t care if I’m in the powder room with the fucking president—interrupt me.”

“Roger that,” mumbled Allen.

“While you’re flying back, I’ll
randomly activate a team on the West Coast. One we haven’t worked with before,
so we’re sure they haven’t been contaminated by Knight. I’ll have them standing
by so I can field them at a moment’s notice.”

“Can I assume you’ll want me to
lead this team on whatever op you end up assigning them to?” said Allen.

“Yes. And one more thing. Once
you have the identity of our private eye, or private eye impersonator as the
case may be, you obviously can’t let this Sylvia Tagert tip him off that we’re
coming.”

“Obviously,” repeated Joe Allen
grimly.

25

“Jack Rourk is at the outer
perimeter of the property,” said the deep, masculine voice of Edgar Knight’s
personal digital assistant, responding to his command that he was to be
informed when this happened.

“Throw him up on the monitor,” said
Knight to his PDA, which he had named Lazlo.

Lazlo did as requested, and a
car appeared on a three-dimensional screen that filled up an entire wall of Knight’s
twenty-second-floor penthouse office.

“Welcome back to Lake Las Vegas,
Jack,” whispered Knight excitedly under his breath. The flash drive couldn’t get
there fast enough.

Security around Knight’s
spectacular Lake Las Vegas headquarters was as impenetrable as it was
invisible. The sprawling campus appeared harmless, even tranquil, but it was
anything but.

Even the outermost perimeter,
miles from the island and its numerous buildings, was secure. If this was
crossed without the proper wireless signal having first been received from a
bracelet or ring that his people all wore, indicating whoever was crossing was
authorized to be doing so, electronic and human eyes would lock onto the
trespasser immediately. Cameras were everywhere, and facial recognition was
state of the art.

And this was only the beginning.
Once through the second perimeter, even those whose jewelry had broadcast the
proper codes were scanned for authenticity. Knight’s Brain Trust had recently
come up with dramatic advances in biometric scanning that would have been worth
billions if Knight had any interest in sharing this technology with the world.

Like highway scanners that could
collect tolls electronically as cars rushed by, these biometric scanners could
detect retina prints, heart rate, and even brain activity from passengers in
closed vehicles moving at up to five miles an hour. Since cars proceeding to
the island were forced to slow to a crawl to pass a series of the most
treacherous speed bumps ever constructed, this wasn’t an issue.

If security ever had a question
about an approaching person or vehicle, the interlopers could be stopped and
queried by other people and vehicles that would seem to appear as if by magic. Friendly
people, driving friendly vehicles.

But security also had a
decidedly less friendly side, and the street could be made to come alive. Steel
beams could punch up from the pavement to send cars tumbling, and automatic
munitions emplacements could be made to reveal themselves.

Finally, there was only one
approach to Knight’s island in the middle of the desert—a quarter-mile land
bridge that crossed the lake Knight thought of as his personal moat. While this
route over the lake wasn’t a drawbridge of old, which could be raised to protect
a castle, the land bridge concealed the heaviest armaments of all. It was also
mined, and could be rendered impassable by a single command.

While security had been forced
over the months to shoo a few strays away, there had been no major incidents
and they had always been able to discourage unauthorized visitors with a smile.
They hadn’t yet had to bare their teeth, or deploy weapons systems that could
take down a small army.

Knight wanted to keep it that
way, taking great measures to be sure suspicions were never aroused. Their
security was intended to be used as a measure of last resort, since turning
their little stretch of heaven into a war zone would raise more than a few
eyebrows, although having unlimited money to throw around would certainly help
induce amnesia if such a situation did arise.

Lake Las Vegas had the most checkered
of pasts, and had died and been reborn several times before going into yet another
death spiral in 2020, enabling Knight to swoop in a few years later and
purchase his island headquarters for a song.

In 1980, Transcontinental Properties
had acquired over three thousand acres of land and associated water rights,
seventeen miles east of the Vegas Strip, adjacent to the Lake Mead National
Recreation Area. This would later become the Lake Las Vegas Resort, an
audacious and fantastically expensive project.

In September of 1988,
construction began on the Lake Las Vegas dam, an eighteen-story structure
almost a mile long that had required more than two years to complete. The lake
itself was created by filling a canyon in the high desert countryside with
three billion gallons of water, an eight-year ordeal that had resulted in a
lake that spanned three hundred and twenty acres, by far the largest man-made body
of water in the state, running to a depth of one hundred and forty-five feet.

The concept of a vast lake
resort community this close to the Vegas strip had attracted billions from
giddy investors, most of whom eventually lost their shirts. And while the developers
had grossly overestimated the allure and potential of such a resort, they
hadn’t skimped on vision or shied away from massive construction projects.

Once completed, the Lake Las Vegas resort featured ten
miles of shoreline, premier residential facilities, golf courses, luxury hotels,
spas, a full-service marina, a large retail enclave,
fifty acres of open
spaces with hiking and biking trails, and numerous other fabulous facilities
and amenities.

But when demand fell far short of
expectations the resort community failed in spectacular fashion, and quickly
fell into disrepair. The Ritz-Carlton and other premier tenants shuttered their
doors. The area became a ghost town, and lawsuits abounded as everyone pointed
fingers at everyone else for this catastrophic failure.

The resort experienced several
rebirths over the years, but the 2020 bust was perhaps its most profound. When
Knight was considering headquarters locations he learned about this debacle and
realized this could be the perfect location. He had snapped up the entire
resort for only two hundred million dollars nine months earlier, through third
parties that couldn’t be traced to him. He had moved quickly to park his shell
corporation in the center of the resort, on the island, while leaving all other
properties abandoned.

So here he sat, in desert splendor,
while Lee Cargill continued to search for him underground, in all the wrong
places.

Not many of the buildings were
currently occupied, as Knight’s group was still fairly small. The ones that
were occupied were in the center of the island, ringed by outer buildings that
contained sensor outposts, electronics, security personnel, and more armaments.
Even if scores of attackers somehow managed to reach the island, they would
have to fight their way to its center.

In the brief time since he had
split from Cargill, he had assembled the greatest collection of human ability
the world had ever seen, what he affectionately called his
Brain Trust
, a group so important he insisted these words be
capitalized. He provided these geniuses with unlimited funding, the ability to
interact with the best people in the world, state-of-the-art equipment, and
treated them like gods. Not surprisingly, his Brain Trust had paid dividends
already, and the prospects for a steady stream of game-changing breakthroughs
were excellent. And this had all been accomplished in only nine months.

It was spectacular progress if he
did say so himself. If he had been God, he dared say he would have been able to
rest on the fourth or fifth day instead of the seventh, which would have really
screwed up the calendar.

Rourk finally passed through the
security gauntlet fifteen minutes later and entered Knight’s penthouse floor, looking
like shit. Bloody, dirty, and bleary-eyed. But Knight didn’t care about Rourk’s
appearance. All he cared about was the flash drive he had brought, which the returning
soldier produced from his front pocket and handed to him.

“Well done, again, Jack,” said
Knight, holding the flash drive up to the light with such euphoria it could
well have been the Ten Commandments handed down from Mount Sinai, rather than a
simple memory stick handed down from Mount Palomar.

“I’m guessing Dr. Jackson can
crack this in minutes,” said Rourk.

“Actually, I won’t be using Jackson
or anyone else from the Brain Trust. I’ve hired a consultant who is due to arrive
in two hours.”

Rourk squinted in confusion. “I
don’t understand. Isn’t Gary Jackson the most accomplished computer expert in
the world?”

“Yes, but this won’t require his
level of brainpower. Why use a nuclear missile to swat a fly? Also, Jackson
claims he’s completely loyal to us, but this is too important to take any
chances. I can’t risk sabotage. So using someone who doesn’t know why this is
important makes the most sense.”

“Understood,” said Rourk.

“I’ll keep you posted on our
progress,” said Knight, gesturing toward the door. “In the meanwhile, a doctor
is waiting for you in the infirmary. A new hire, Dr. Susan Schlesinger. She’ll
take good care of that arm.”

“That would be nice,” replied
his injured subordinate. “It’s been a long night.”