TimeRiders: City of Shadows (Book 6) (34 page)

‘Sir?’

‘See the sheriff back to her
car.’

‘Yes, sir.’

Cooper pushed the door of the diner open and
Faith followed him inside.

The doorbell
dinged
as the door swung
shut. It was quiet inside. Empty except for the waitress watching a small TV set sitting
on the end of the counter. Cooper walked up the aisle between check-cloth tables. He
watched Mallard leading the sheriff back to her squad car and getting in the front with
her. He noted the sheriff watching things intently from there.

Let her watch
. He smiled. Cooper
had authority enough to shut her up, to lock the whole town down behind an impenetrable
ring of road blocks if need be.

The waitress finally responded to the sound
of their approach and turned from the television to offer Cooper a warm, friendly smile.
‘Help you guys?’ She noticed Faith behind him. ‘Table for
two?’

Cooper pulled out his badge and flipped the
wallet open with one smooth flick of his wrist. He loved doing that; he felt like
Captain Kirk flipping open a communicator. One of the many little perks of the job.
‘FBI. I’d like to have a talk with you, Kaydee-Lee.’

She looked at his ID. Her eyes widened.
‘Did you just say FBI? Like on the TV?’

‘I’m Agent Cooper,’ he
replied and stepped to one side. ‘And this is Agent Faith. We just want to ask you
some questions.’

‘Am I … am I in trouble?
Have I –’

Cooper shook his head.
‘No … not at all. The sheriff says you’re a good girl.’ He
grabbed a stool and perched on it. ‘And, you know, I’m inclined to believe
her. I just wondered if you could help us out with something?’

Kaydee-Lee’s face relaxed a little.
‘Uh … OK, I’ll try.’

Cooper pulled a sheet of printer paper out
of his pocket. The image on the face-down glossy side had been a nightmare to obtain.
He’d had the devil of a time extracting it from that futuristic touch-screen
mobile phone they’d recovered in that
bridge archway in New
York. He’d ended up having to draft some tech-heads from the Bureau’s
research division to open the phone up and extract the solid-state data-storage chip. Of
course they’d first tried one of the data cables supplied with the single
pre-release ‘iPod’ that Apple had begrudgingly released to them. It appeared
to have the same connector, and, given this device from the future was manufactured by
the very same company, Cooper had been hoping they were going to be able to access its
data storage.

But that would have been too easy,
wouldn’t it? The futuristic mobile phone was using a different data-communication
protocol.

The next step – something of a last resort –
was pulling the damned thing to pieces and getting their hands on the data-storage chips
inside. At which point, before they completely destroyed the thing, one of the Bureau
nerds suggested simply getting the image up on the device’s screen … and
just photographing the screen.

Obvious really.

Cooper turned the photograph over on the
counter. ‘You’ve been talking to this guy recently.’

Kaydee-Lee leaned forward and scrutinized
the image more closely. Her breath caught involuntarily. ‘Errr … not
sure … I …’

‘It’s best to just be straight
up and honest with us, Kaydee-Lee,’ he said. ‘This is serious
stuff.’

Her cheeks turned a mottled pink.
‘OK … he’s been in here for coffee a coupla times. That’s
all.’

‘And you’ve been talking,
haven’t you?’

‘Sure … he’s kinda
friendly, I guess.’ She looked up at him. ‘What’s this
about?’

‘Terrorism, Kaydee-Lee. The worst kind
of terrorism.’

She laughed. More a strangled giggle.
‘Oh no … not him. No.’ She bit her lip and shook her head until
her face straightened. Nerves.

‘No, he’s not a
terrorist.’ She looked at the TV. Fox News was showing images of cranes pulling
apart the mound of debris. ‘Hang on … is this anything to do with
that
?’

‘I’m not at liberty to
say.’ Cooper paused. Enough of a pause to be sure she understood that, yes, it
actually was very much to do with that. ‘All I can tell you is that we need you to
be one hundred per cent honest with us. To be a good, patriotic American citizen and
tell us what you can about this young man.’

She nodded. ‘OK … he’s
called Liam, I know that much.’

‘Liam O’Connor,’ said
Faith. ‘We already know this.’

‘And he’s from Ireland,’
added Kaydee-Lee.

‘Tell me, Kaydee-Lee … is he
alone? Or perhaps with some others?’

Her hesitation gave her away. She was
holding something back. ‘Come on, Kaydee-Lee, we need to know about this young
man. Lives … a lot of innocent lives could be at stake.’

‘Lives?’ Her face was flushed
fully crimson now. ‘Seriously?’

Cooper decided to buy a little of her trust.
‘I’ll level with you, Kaydee-Lee. What I’m about to tell you is top
secret and goes no further, do you understand?’ She nodded.

‘We have reason to believe this Liam
is part of a terror cell that was based in New York and quite possibly involved in some
way with what happened there in September. Do you understand? Perhaps they were part of
a planning team, or coordinators or a back-up team. We don’t know precisely what
their involvement was yet.’

‘But … but … he … doesn’t look like one of
them
.’

Them
. By that she meant an Arab. A
Muslim.

‘We have enemies that come in all shapes
and sizes these days, I’m afraid.’ Cooper recalled a rather colourful turn
of phrase he’d heard President Bush use during a press conference the other day.
‘There’s an
axis of evil
out there, Kaydee-Lee, a coalition of bad
groups all working together to topple our country: the Taliban, Al Qaeda, Iran, Iraq,
China, North Korea. Even the IRA. Bad guys, Kaydee-Lee, all of them. Hell, we’ve
even got our own American citizens working against us … White Supremacists,
Nation of Islam, Anti-capitalists, Anarch–’

‘Did you just say
IRA
?’
She swallowed anxiously. ‘IRA? That’s those Irish ones, isn’t
it?’

‘That’s right.’ Cooper
nodded slowly. ‘That’s exactly right. So … he may have been using
you, Kaydee-Lee.’

A tear began to well up in one eye, then
spilled down her cheek. ‘I thought he was being friendly.’ Her mouth began
to quiver. ‘I … I thought he, you know, actually
liked
me.’

Cooper reached for a napkin further along
the counter and passed it to her.

‘It’s possible he was
using
you, Kaydee-Lee. Using you to get some local information.’
Cooper reached for her hand and guided the napkin to mop up some mascara that had
smudged.

‘And listen …’ His voice
softened. ‘Maybe he also liked you, Kaydee-Lee. He may be a terrorist, but that
doesn’t stop him being human, right?’

She dabbed at her eyes miserably, nodded.
She sniffed, her chin dimpled and her bottom lip curled as she tried to stifle a sob.
‘But I really like … 
liked
him. He wasn’t like the others
that come in. Truckers, creepy old men … always trying to hit on you an’
stuff. He’s, like,’ she corrected herself, ‘he
was
, like,
a … well, a real
gentleman
.’

‘That is men for you. They are all the
same,’ said Faith without a hint of warmth or empathy in her voice. Cooper
turned to look at her. Where the heck did she get that from? She was
a robot, wasn’t she? Not some agony aunt. He figured she must have picked it up
from some daytime TV show. Oprah or something.

Kaydee-Lee whispered pathetically,
‘Everyone ends up using me.’

‘Kaydee-Lee.’ Cooper held her
hand. She didn’t flinch at that. It was vaguely comforting to have someone reach
out for her, even if he did look like some kind of pale-skinned lizard wearing a
Men
in Black
suit.

‘Kaydee-Lee … we need to
know a little bit more about Liam. Was it just him? Were there others? Can you tell
me?’

She dabbed at her eyes, wiped her nose dry,
straightened her shoulders and did her best to put on a calm, totally-in-control face,
just like the scary-looking FBI lady over the counter from her. She wondered what it
would be like to be like her, so incredibly ice-cool. Kaydee-Lee could only imagine how
wonderful it would be to be just like this agent lady: elegant, confident, disciplined,
ruthless. She bet no one
ever
used her.

‘Miss?’

The woman stirred. ‘Yes?’

‘Is it, like, really hard to become an
FBI agent? Could someone, you know, someone like me ever become one? Could I end up like
you?’ she asked hopefully.

The woman exchanged a glance with her
partner. It looked like he was giving her permission to go ahead and answer the
question. Her grey eyes disappeared for a moment behind flickering eyelids, then finally
she answered. ‘No. That is extremely unlikely.’

That figures
. Kaydee-Lee sighed.
I’ll be a waitress till the day I die.

Cooper looked like he was getting impatient.
‘Kaydee-Lee? Were there others? Can you tell me?’

She nodded. ‘Oh yeah, I can tell you.
There were others all right. They wanted a place to go an’ hide up. They said they
wanted somewhere quiet and private.’ She raised two pairs of fingers and
air-quoted. ‘Somewhere where they could go and do their stupid
science
experiments
.’

9 October 2001, Green Acres Elementary
School, Harcourt, Ohio

Liam and Sal vanished from their
tape-marked squares with a soft pop. They were now back in Victorian London on 14
December 1888 with Bob and SpongeBubba. At least Maddy
hoped
they were.

She was a hundred per cent sure the recently
rewritten displacement software was error free. OK, perhaps not a hundred per cent, but
gosh-darn as close as it’s possible to be with hastily written computer code.

Just the three of them left here in the
derelict school classroom now: her, Rashim and Becks. She looked round the room one last
time. There was nothing left that they’d forgotten to send through. All
they’d be leaving behind was a small pile of empty tin cans, plastic noodle pots
and polystyrene coffee cups, a cheap sleeping bag that had popped its seam and spilled
white stuffing, and a pair of extra-large size trainers for Bob that had proven to be
still too small for him.

‘This is it, then,’ she said.
‘Goodbye, 2001.’

‘You sound sad,’ said
Rashim.

‘Guess I am … a bit. This
place has been my home, hasn’t it? Well, at least this
time
,
this
year
, has been my home since …’ She smiled, stopping herself.
‘I was going to say, “since I got recruited”. But actually 2001 has
been my
only
real home. It’s the
year in which I was
grown and birthed.’ She laughed. ‘It’s the year in which I’ve
lived my entire false life so far.’

Rashim shook his head and tutted. ‘You
shouldn’t think like that. It does you no good, Maddy.’

‘Relax. It’s not
self-pity.’ She shrugged. ‘I think I’ve got used to the idea I’m
nothing but a meat product.’

‘You are not a product. You are Miss
Madelaine Cartwright …’

‘Carter.’

‘Sorry,’ he said, wincing,
‘
Carter
. Even if someone
invented
you, came up with your
life story, conjured up your name … you’re still a real person. You are
a person. Just as real as any other, as real as I am. Do you see?’

Her eyes moistened. ‘Oh, that’s
a
really
beautiful thing to say, Rashim.’ She bit her bottom lip.
‘So very beautiful.’

He looked surprised. Perhaps even hopeful.
‘Really?’

‘No.’ She put her hands on her
hips. ‘Slightly cheesy if anything.’ She punched his arm playfully.
‘But it was nice of you to say it.’ She turned round. ‘How are we
doing over there, Becks?’

The support unit was studying a display on
the monitor. ‘The displacement machine is nearly ready to discharge again, Maddy.
Ninety-six seconds.’

‘You understand what to do once
we’re gone?’

‘Affirmative. I will move the
displacement machine into one departure marker, and I will stand in the other. I will
displace alongside the machine.’

‘And?’

‘And?’ Becks cocked her head.
‘And … if there is a translation error I will ensure the machine and
myself are destroyed.’

Maddy wandered over to the school desk and
leaned over. ‘And what about you, computer-Bob?’

> I will erase all data on this
machine once the last time displacement has been completed.

Effectively that was suicide for
computer-Bob, a software self-termination. She patted the top of the monitor.
‘That’s a good boy.’

Agent Cooper regarded the SWAT team,
huddled against the side of the unmarked van. A dozen of them in Kevlar pads, helmets
and flak jackets. He’d called in an armed standby team from the ATF, the Bureau of
Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. They looked the business: stern-faced and
relentlessly trained for this kind of thing – narcotics raids, gang busts. That’s
what Cooper was telling them this was. The squad leader tapped his throat mic and
checked each of his team had a clear comms line before locking off the command channel
and giving his full attention to Agent Cooper and Faith, standing beside him.

‘Carry on, sir.’

‘We believe there are six of them. A
male, late teens, perhaps early twenties. Caucasian, dark-haired. One female, red-ginger
hair, late teens. One female, Asian-Indian, possibly a minor. Try not to kill her. We
can do without the press calling the Bureau a bunch of child-murderers. There’s
another Caucasian male, very big … I mean
huge
. And
very
dangerous. You’ll want to be sure to take him down first.’

‘Understood.’

‘Another female, Caucasian, small,
most definitely another minor. She seems to be drugged or under some kind of sedation.
Quite possibly she’s a hostage. Again, be careful not to kill her. Lastly, another
male, Asian-Indian, late twenties, long hair and beard. We believe he may be this
terrorist cell’s technician, quite possibly their bomb-maker.’