The Reluctant Assassin (10 page)

I was deserted and so have a fear of desertion, concluded the creature that was Albert Garrick. I know this but still feel it.

But there was more to this current pursuit than a fear of desertion. Wherever Riley was, there too would be Chevron Savano. Garrick had an urgent desire to make contact with that young lady, for she possessed the final remaining Timekey, and with that he could return to his own time and be its master.

Garrick knew that in this world he was something of a prodigy; there was much he could achieve, but he would always feel the scrutiny of satellites, crouched like electronic spiders in high Earth orbits. And with enough resources, his enemies could find him and kill him, as there were many with his knowledge in this era. But back in his own time, Albert Garrick could be godlike. In Victorian London, a man with his knowledge and foresight could be a prophet in his own land.

I could lead a revolution against the government. I could discover antibiotics and invent the solar panel. I could build the first working airplane and drop hydrogen bombs on my enemies. There is nothing I could not do.

But first I must open the wormhole. This is where my efforts must be concentrated.

Given ten years, unlimited funds, and the backing of a large government, Garrick knew that he could possibly construct a Timekey, but there was already a key in existence and it hung around the neck of Special Agent Chevron Savano.

That strange and stupid girl, thought Garrick. She will follow procedure and I will trap her in the Bureau’s own red tape. Once I have the key, all I need is five seconds with the WARP pod.

Garrick quickly posted out a Be On the Lookout report to the Bureau network for Chevron Savano, and tested the extent of his new computer skills by inserting her on the FBI’s most wanted list. The hazmat team was gone, so why not make Miss Savano responsible for killing them?

Hazmat, thought Garrick. What a delightful word.

Garrick removed his own bowler, plucked Smart’s softbrimmed hat from the stand by the desk, and, tip-tapping his spidery fingers along the brim, put it on.

Only six people in the Bureau have met Felix Smart since he came to London. Four are dead, one is on the run, and the last is on assignment in Iraq.

“Hello, Waldo,” he said, trying out Smart’s voice. “I’ve heard a lot about you.” He cleared his throat and tried again. “Agent Gunn. At last we meet face-to-face. I believe you’ve got a couple of fugitives for me in the penthouse?”

It was a fair approximation of the Scottish agent, and perhaps there was more he could do to bolster his impersonation. He was the master of illusion, after all, and the world’s first quantum man.

Garrick checked his appearance in the hat-stand mirror. His face had always been plain as tapioca, which was a boon in his line of work, as people tended not to notice him, or to forget him instantly if they did. During his theater days, he would literally paint a personality onto his face, changing it to suit the illusion.

Garrick stared into the mirror and watched as his skin began to bubble.

For Garrick had come by more than knowledge in the wormhole; he had gained control of his own workings, right down to the smallest particle. Where most men operated on a small slice of brain, Garrick had the choice of the whole pie. This did not lead to telekinesis, but it meant Garrick could communicate with his own fibers more efficiently. He could control the whorls of his own fingerprints, or the balance of his thyroid to turn hair gray. Or, with a little effort, he could communicate with the marrow in his bones or the layers of fat under his epidermis to entirely change his appearance. He could not become just anyone, nor stray too far from his own mass, but he could certainly allow a physicality that was already inside him to emerge.

Chevie took a quick shower, strapped a gel-mask across her eye to bring down the swelling, then checked the closet for something to wear other than the workout gear, which seemed to scandalize Riley. There were numerous outfits to chose from, all draped in plastic, including several pairs of crime-scene overalls, a leopard-skin dress, and a puffy cartoon character mouse costume.

Some of these people were deep, deep undercover, she thought, selecting an Armani suit and a pair of black Bally loafers that would have cost her more than a month’s pay.

The suit fitted well, and after Chevie had checked herself in the full-length mirror, she sat down to compose a report on the bedroom computer, trying to make the day’s events read more like real happenings than an episode of a sci-fi miniseries.

Found out I was guarding a time machine in case the inventor happened to pop in from the nineteenth century.

Nope, there was no way to make it sound like a serious report, even by using bureau buzz terms like
unsub
,
asset,
and
AO
.

By the time she had pounded out five hundred words on the keyboard, Chevie was developing a headache behind her right eye and was glad to hear the doorbell ring. She pulled off the gel-mask.

The cavalry, finally.

Riley was still stuck in front on the TV when she passed by, stuffing his face from a platter of cold meats.

“I hope you’re not drinking brandy,” said Chevie.

“Absolutely not,” said Riley, waving a brown bottle. “Beer only, Agent. I do as I am told, I do.”

Chevie deviated from her course to snag the beer bottle. “No alcohol, Riley.” She nodded at the screen. “How are you liking the twenty-first century?”

Riley burped. “The Take That are most melodic. And God bless Harry Potter is all I can say. If not for him, all of London would have been consumed by the dark arts.”

“Keep eating,” said Chevie, thinking that she would have to watch the videos with him next time. “And you can stop worrying, kid. Help is here.”

“We need all the help we can get, Agent. You should fill your belly, so we can face the challenges of the day with full bellies and without weevils in our shirts, eh?”

Chevie was not sure what a weevil was, but she was pretty certain that she did not want one in her shirt.

“No weevils,” she said. “I’m with you on that one.”

She left Riley by the TV and walked to the door, flattening herself to the wall as she had been taught, drawing her weapon, and pointing it at the spyhole. There was a small video intercom mounted on the wall beside the door, and Chevie was relieved to see Waldo on the screen, looking even grumpier than last time, which was somehow reassuring. The security camera showed that the hobbit-like liaison officer was alone in the corridor.

Chevie pressed the talk button. “Has the Bureau team arrived?” she asked.

“They are on the way,” replied Waldo. “I am to debrief you, apparently. Though that is not in my job description. What do they think I am, a secretary?”

“Don’t get your baggins in a twist,” said Chevie. She holstered her Glock and opened the door. “This is an important case. We need to work together.”

Waldo stood in the hallway, hands behind his back, not looking remotely in the mood for cooperation.

“Work together, you say? Like you worked together with the hazmat team?”

Chevie felt her stomach lurch and reached for her pistol. She even managed to get it clear of the holster before Waldo whipped a stun gun from behind his back and fired two needletipped darts into Chevie’s chest, sending 50,000 volts sizzling through her frame. Chevie felt the shock like a thousand hammers pounding on every inch of her skin, forcing her to her knees and then onto her back.

“I got the BOLO from Agent Orange,” she heard Waldo say. His voice was thick and slow, floating from far away. “You killed those men, and one of them owed me money.”

No
, Chevie wanted to say.
It’s a trick. You’re being tricked.

But her tongue felt like a pound of raw steak in her mouth, and her limbs were slack, like half-filled water balloons. She saw Waldo loom over her, and the view reminded her of a Godzilla movie where the monster stepped over a bridge.

“I’ve got one more charge,” said the harmless-looking hobbit in that faraway, underwater voice.

Run, Riley! Run!
Chevie wanted to scream, but all that came from her mouth was a hiss of dry air.

Garrick! he thought, and sprang to his feet on the sofa. He wanted to help, but that would seal his own fate as well as Chevie’s.

I must hide, he realized. But there was no time for such tactics, as Waldo stepped briskly into the living room brandishing a metal tube.

“I will only use this,” he said, “if you attempt to flee, if you attack me, or if you insist in speaking in that ridiculous accent.” Riley tested the spring of the cushions underneath his feet.
With my training, I could jump clear over that little man’s head, like

Riley bounced twice, then threw himself into the air, arcing over Waldo’s head, leaving the FBI agent no choice but to shoot him in the stomach with the second charge from his stun gun.

Riley’s head hit the floor with a thump, and in his dream the thump was Albert Garrick rapping him on the forehead with sharp knuckles during a lesson.

“Attention, son,” he said. “This is one of the basic principles of stage magic, which is the kind we are stuck with presently.”

They were on stage at the Orient, where Riley’s lessons were conducted. On these boards he studied fencing, marksmanship, strangulation, and poisons, as well as the more exotic skills of escapism and camouflage.

Riley stared at the three cups on the boards where he knelt and hesitantly pointed to the center cup, already knowing that the coin would not be his.

“No, Riley,” said Garrick. “Though you were a step closer this time.” He lifted the cup on the left, revealing a shining coin beneath. “I gave your eyes the slip on the second-to-last switch with a tap of my nail on the center cup. Misdirection, you see? I sent you toward what was not there.”

I understand, thought Riley, wishing that somehow he could use misdirection to escape from Garrick.

Someday, I will send you somewhere that I have never been. And then I will give you the slip for good.

Chevie woke up with plasti-cuffs around her ankles and wrists securing her to the toilet. Her head throbbed with dull pain, and drops of blood plinked into a pool between her feet from the tip of her nose.

She was about to unleash a string of swear words when she noticed Riley in the bath, cuffed to the safety rail.

“Are you hurt?” she asked, the sentence’s final
t
stabbing her brain on its way out.

Waldo! That moron. I will shave him while he sleeps for this!

“No, miss,” said Riley. “Though that lightning rod knocked the stuffing out of me. These cuffs have me baffled. They are slimmer than a shoelace, but I can’t even get a stretch on ’em.”

Riley talked a little more about the cuffs and their fantastic strength, but Chevie zoned him out. What she needed was a moment or two of quiet time so her mind could settle down a bit after the Tasering Waldo had surprised her with.

I wasn’t expecting that. And how was it possible that Felix Smart had put out a Be On the Lookout for me on the network when he never made it back from the past?

Unless he did come back and holds me responsible for all the mayhem?

It didn’t sound likely or plausible.

Orange was with the hazmat team. He knows I didn’t kill them.

Riley was saying something. His tone was insistent, urgent even.

Chevie blinked the stars from her vision. “What? What is it, kid?”

“Your nose is bleeding, miss. Snort it up and hawk the lot out in one go. That’s the best thing for it.”

Snort it up and hawk it out.

Chevie did as she was told, spitting a ball of blood into the sink, and was surprised to find that the bleeding stopped immediately, though the snorting did make her head hurt a little more.

“Did Waldo shock you?”

“He did,” said Riley. “That electric pistol of his had me dancing the dotard’s jig on the floor. I woke just before you.”

“We need to get out of here, kid. You opened your cuffs back in Bedford Square. You got any more magic tricks down your sock?”

Riley glared at his own tethered wrists as though he could free them with mind power. “Not one, miss. How do you open a set of bracelets that don’t have no locks?”

You don’t
was the answer to that question.

Chevie followed the logic of her train of thought, ignoring the waves of pain.

“Okay. We’re secured but safe. Waldo has the wrong end of the stick, but the cavalry are on the way, and we can clear things up when they get here. It doesn’t matter how long it takes. So long as we’re in this room, we stay alive.”

Riley frowned. “So this being trussed up like market fowl is a good thing?”

“In a way, yes.”

“No offense, miss, but maybe you being a female has clouded your judgment. If we dangle here for much longer, Garrick will slit our throats and watch us bleed. He won’t even need to mop up after me, for heaven’s sake, seeing as I am already in the tub.”

Chevie glanced sharply at the boy, surprised that he would make a joke, even a gruesome one, at such a time, but then she saw the fear in the boy’s eyes.

The poor guy lives with terror on a daily basis, she realized.

From the suite came the distinctive clatter of armed men entering a room. Chevie heard footsteps padding across the carpet and the oily clicks of pistols’ safety catches being engaged. Muted orders were issued, and Chevie imagined agents taking up positions at entrances and other possible breach points.

Seconds later an agent appeared at the bathroom door, dressed in the FBI’s version of Casual Male, which had been thirty years out of date when they thought of it twenty years ago. Tan chinos, blue Windbreaker, button-down shirt, and rubber-soled shoes. This guy might as well have had FBI written on his back in big yellow letters, which, in fact, he did have if you ripped away the Velcroed patch. The agent could not suppress a smile when he saw Chevie on the toilet. He drew a switchblade from his pocket and pressed the catch, releasing the blade, as if he were about to cut the plasti-cuffs, then retracted the blade with a touch of the button and pocketed the weapon.