Day of the Predator

CHAPTER 59

2001, New York

‘I’m not saying another thing to you!’ snapped Sal.

Cartwright shrugged. ‘Well, OK. But then I guess I’m not going to show you what I’ve got.’

It was silent in the small interrogation room, except for the soft hum of an air-conditioner. It was warm and stuffy. He casually loosened his tie.

Sal’s narrowed eyes softened, piqued with curiosity. ‘What? What have you got?’

He smiled. ‘Hmm… now there was me thinking we weren’t going to be talking to each other.’

‘Oh shadd-yah! Please. Just tell me!’

He pursed his lips, giving it some thought. ‘And are you going to tell me the things I want to know?’

She clamped her mouth shut, said nothing.

‘You know? I suspect you probably will,’ Cartwright relented. ‘After all, you, me and Maddy all want the same thing: to bring your friend back home safely.’

‘He’s alive? Liam’s alive?’

‘I believe so.’ He nodded and reached into his breast pocket. ‘He decided to write home.’ He passed her the folded sheet of paper and she quickly began to scan the handwriting.

‘Your colleague Maddy and I were discussing it just a few minutes ago. She’s really rather keen to bring him home too. And you know I’m prepared to help you girls do that. Whatever you want, whatever you need. But…’

She looked up. ‘But?’

He splayed his hands almost apologetically. ‘That technology in the arch. I’m afraid that’s going to be US government property now. And we’re going to need your help in figuring out how it all works.’

‘We can’t do that,’ she started. ‘We can’t just let you have it. It’s too dangerous!’

‘Too dangerous for the government? But apparently not too dangerous for a pair of kids to mess around with?’

‘We were recruited. Specially recruited.’

‘Recruited by?’

Sal hesitated. ‘I can’t really say.’

He shrugged. ‘Well, that can wait until later. It’s not so important. The fact is somebody needs to take charge of what’s in that archway.’ He cocked a questioning eyebrow. ‘I mean, somebody’s got to be in charge, right? Making sure there aren’t loads of other time machines and people running around when and where they shouldn’t be.’

‘And what… that someone’s going to be you, is it?’

‘Me for now, perhaps. In time I’ll brief the current president on what we have. But believe you me, far better you have someone like myself looking after this on behalf of the American people than some terrorist group or some mad dictator looking for a world-beating weapon, a madman like Saddam Hussein or Osama Bin Laden. Hmm?’

She shrugged a ‘Whatever’ at him.

‘Now,’ he said, nodding at the paper in her hands. ‘There’s a code there. Maddy seems to think you might know how to decipher it.’

She looked down at the numbers, a meaningless jumble of digits that meant absolutely nothing to her at first glance. But then, very quickly, the pattern began to speak to her. Groups of three numbers, the first into the hundreds, the second being numbers no greater than thirty-five and the last seeming to peak at numbers no greater than fifteen, sixteen. She knew exactly what that was.

‘It’s some kind of a book code.’

‘Clever girl. But now, here’s the sixty-four thousand dollar question. Which book?’

She scanned to the bottom of the numbers and saw the last word of the message.

Magic.

Magic? What the jahulla sort of a clue was tha-?

She looked up at him, a smile slowly spreading across her face. Of course, if Bob had it in his database, so the duplicate AI in the female support unit would also.

‘You know, don’t you?’ said Cartwright.

‘Uh-huh.’ She was almost tempted to tell him the book’s title anyway, since it wasn’t going to be published for another few years yet. Instead she attempted to suppress an irresistible urge to giggle.

The old man sighed patiently. ‘Well, you could, of course, just tell me. Which would be far more pleasant for the pair of us. Or we have a medicine cabinet full of interesting drugs I can pump into you. Some of them with some quite horrific side effects. And failing that there’s always the old-fashioned way.’

‘You take us back to the archway,’ she said, ‘and I’ll decode the rest of this message for you.’

He shook his head. ‘Hmm, now see, my concern is that we get back into that archway of yours and one of you kids’ll shout out something else, and — pop! — you and all that machinery vanishes in a puff of twinkly time travel sparkles and smoke.’

‘She hasn’t told you yet, has she?’

He frowned. ‘Told me what?’

Sal’s smile widened, a nervous twitchy smile. ‘That’s actually really funny.’

‘Funny?’

She nodded. ‘Funny.’

‘Why? What’s funny?’

‘She’s playing with you. How long have I been in here?’

‘Why?’

‘Please… tell me how long?’

He looked down at his watch. ‘A few hours. Why?’

‘Exactly. Please.’

‘Five hours… five and a half hours.’

She giggled again. ‘You don’t have much time left, then.’

The last of the congenial expression was lost from his rumpled face. ‘Stop messing around and tell me what the hell you’re talking about!’

‘Sure,’ she said amicably. ‘Our computer system is locked down for six hours. After that, it’s got orders to totally brick itself if Maddy doesn’t give it another codeword.’

‘Brick?’

‘Fry all the data. All the machinery. Everything.’

His bushy eyebrows both arced, and beneath his jowls his jaw began grinding away again.

‘You ready to take us back now?’ asked Sal politely. ‘I’ll even say “please”.’