Killing Time

CHAPTER 22

Such, apparently, was the sobriquet long ago given to the little archipelago that was collectively known as St. Kilda. Protected most of the year by waters so rough that ships did not even attempt to approach it, St. Kilda seemed the perfect haven for Malcolm and his team. It had been uninhabited by humans since 1930 and was now home primarily to a fantastic assortment of seabirds — gannets, kittiwakes, puffins, and the like — which flocked so densely at various points that they changed the very color of the landscape. But what was most striking about the islands was their air of almost palpable mystery: the sea-sculpted rocks, remnants of an ancient volcano, bespoke a shielded past full of dark secrets and perilous adventures. A romantic assessment, perhaps; but then, by the time we landed I had become possessed by every kind of romance.

On the main island of Hirta, Malcolm had constructed the base of his operations near the decaying remains of a small village that was centuries old. The buildings that made up his facility were cleverly designed to match those older stone ruins, though the technology that the newer structures housed could not have belonged any less to the past. All maintenance and operative systems were so fully automated that there was no need for any human presence at all; the island could be left deserted for weeks or even months at a time. As to style, the interior of the compound echoed the marked contrast aboard ship: functional minimalism in the laboratories and control rooms, inviting antiques in the living and lounging areas. Housed in one mock church was the projection unit for the ozone weapon, which apparently could also be used to adjust conditions on the island temporarily when the climate of the North Atlantic became too severe. As Larissa and Colonel Slayton got Malcolm settled into his regimen of rest, self-treatment, and self-medication (he had an understandable aversion to doctors), the others showed me to a room that had a truly striking view of an eerie cove and the sea beyond. During the next two weeks or so, as Malcolm privately regained his strength and then went to work in a lab that he reserved as his sanctum, I passed the time with the rest of the team, investigating the islands, learning more about the technologies the group had developed, and pondering the effects of our recent escapades. It was an energizing time, and as it passed I became aware that I was speaking and acting not like Dr. Gideon Wolfe of Manhattan, professor at John Jay University and respected member of American society, but rather as someone who, like the others, had renounced his native citizenship and become a man without a country. When I'd boarded Malcolm's ship in the Belle Isle prison, I'd become an outlaw — in the finest sense of the word, I told myself, but such distinctions would matter very little if I crossed paths with the authorities. And so I dived headlong into my new role, discussing potential new hoaxes and learning about new weapons and technologies during the day and becoming ever more passionately fascinated by Larissa at night.

It seems a dream now, a dream to which I would gladly return if only I could forget the horror that woke me from it.

That horror was not without its warnings, though in those early days I was far too swept up by emotional and intellectual excitement to recognize them. The first still stands out vividly: one evening, with the sun bouncing off the cove outside the leaded bay window in my room (at that time of the year it became truly dark on St. Kilda for only about three hours each night), I happened to be going through the jacket I'd been wearing during the jailbreak just days earlier and found the original computer disc that Mrs. Price had given me. Staring at it, my first thoughts were of Max: not as I'd last seen him, with much of his head removed by a CIA sniper's bullet, but alive and as full of banter and laughter as he'd always been. Then, slowly, I recalled the information that was on the disc—all the information. I'd been so focused on matters surrounding the Forrester assassination that I'd completely forgotten that Max had managed to crack the encryption of a second set of images: the old footage of a Nazi death camp, through which wandered the digitally inserted silhouette of an unidentifiable figure.

Popping the disc into a computer terminal that sat at a rustic desk by the bay window, I called up those images and reviewed them once again.

"Anything good?"

I started a little at the sound of Larissa's voice and turned to see her striding quickly through my open door. I let out a small, pleased groan as she threw herself into my lap, kissed me quickly, and then turned her dark eyes to the monitor. "What in the world is that? Trying your hand at a little revisionism, are you?"

"You mean you don't recognize it?" I said, surprised.

Larissa shook her head. "Doesn't quite look finished, whatever it is."

"No," I said, replaying the images. "Max found it on the disc that Price's wife gave us. I'd forgotten about it — and when I saw it again I assumed it must have been another job Price did for your brother."

"If it is, I've never heard anything about it." Larissa leapt up and went to a glowing keypad by my bed. "Maybe Leon knows something." She touched a few of the keys. "Leon, come over to Gideon's room, will you? He's found something odd."

In a few minutes Leon Tarbell came shooting in, a cigarette hanging out of his mouth. "Well, what is your mystery, Gideon?" he said. "I was rather busy when you—" He stopped suddenly when he saw the images on the screen. "What the devil is that?" As I explained the origins of the disc once again, Tarbell's gaze focused ever more intently on the gray figure on the monitor.

"I know who that is," he said, fascinated yet frustrated. "Yes, I'm certain I know who that is, but I can't seem to — there, you see? When he turns in profile. I know I've seen that silhouette somewhere before."

"That's exactly how I felt the first time I watched it," I answered with a nod. "But I couldn't place—"

"Wait!" A look of sudden recognition came into Tarbell's satanic features, and then he rushed around to the computer's keyboard. "I believe I may be able to…" His words trailed off as he went to work on the keyboard. Then a new succession of images began to rapidly appear and disappear on the screen.

"What is it, Leon?" Larissa asked. "Was Price doing something other than the Forrester job for Malcolm?"

Tarbell shrugged. "If he didn't tell you, Larissa darling, he certainly wouldn't tell the rest of us. But as for this mysterious fellow—" He pointed to the screen, where the footage of the concentration camp reappeared, frozen on one frame. Tarbell tapped at the keyboard a few more times with a bit of a flourish. "Here… he… is!"

The mysterious silhouette was suddenly filled in perfectly by a photograph of a man whose name we all knew well:

"Stalin," I said, more confused than ever.

"Yes, it's Stalin, all right," Larissa agreed, looking as perplexed as I felt. "But what interest could Price have had in placing him at a Nazi death camp?"

Tarbell only shrugged again, while I asked, "Do you think it's important? I mean, maybe we should ask Malcolm—"

"No, Gideon," Larissa said definitively. "Not now. I've just come from him. He worked all night and drove himself straight into another attack."

My attention diverted to Malcolm's condition, I wondered aloud, "What does he do in that lab, anyway?"

Larissa shrugged in frustration. "He won't say, but he's been at it for months. Whatever it is, I wish he'd drop it — he needs rest desperately. As for this business—" She reached over to shut off the terminal screen, then removed the disc and tossed it to Tarbell. "I'd say it was just some movie that Price was working on. Forget it, Dr. Wolfe." She turned my face toward hers and moved in to kiss me. "Right now I require your full attention."

Tarbell cleared his throat. "My cue," he said, pocketing the disc and leaving as quickly as he'd come. "I told you once, Gideon— you're a lucky man…"

Perhaps I was. But luck is, of course, transitory; and had I known how close mine was to changing at that moment or how much the disc I'd rediscovered would have to do with that change, I would never have let myself be distracted, even by Larissa. For a completed version of the images we'd been watching would all too soon trigger a crime so incomprehensible that it would bring even our senselessly hyperactive world to an astonished, bewildered halt. It would also propel me into this, my jungle exile in Africa, where I await the arrival of my former comrades with the most profound confusion and dread I have ever known.