Rebel in Time

Chapter 16

The colonel had got there first.

Troy looked down at the slip and knew that their suppositions must have been correct. McCulloch had been here, had found what he had wanted, then had covered his tracks.

'What about the period just before or after this?' Troy asked. 'Could I see them?'

'This is really your bad day, man, because you are still shit out of luck. We get about four months of newspaper on every reel of film. The date you want is somewhere right in the middle of that spool.'

'But — this can't be the only copy you have. Don't you have permanent records on file?'

'We got the master in the vault, for a back-up. People got no respect for property these days. These public prints get scratched and torn and thumb-printed to death. So we make new ones whenever they're needed. But that takes time. I put the order in now, be at least three days before we get it back.'

'I don't have the time. Would it be possible to look at the master?'

The clerk shook his head in a slow no. 'No way. We got rules here. The masters stay in the vault. No way I can let one out. You'll just have to keep your cool and come back when the new print is ready.'

They were alone in the room. Troy took out his wallet and extracted a twenty dollar bill. He placed it on the counter; the clerk's eyes followed it. 'Couldn't we make an exception just this once?' Troy asked. The clerk took a step backwards and looked around.

'Man, you trying to bribe me?'

'Yes.'

'It's a deal. I don't like the mothers that run this place.' The bill vanished and fifteen seconds later the film appeared in its place. The clerk touched his finger to his lips. 'This is going to be our secret. Use the first viewer there and let me have the film back before you split.'

'Thanks. This shouldn't take long.'

But it did. He could find nothing on the tenth of December, no matter how he searched, that might possibly be relevant. He went through this issue of paper three times to make sure. All right then, keep searching, Bob Kleiman had said that he couldn't be certain of the exact date. He would just have to keep looking.

An hour later he found the item.

This was it. It had to be; it fitted perfectly. A small article on the second page.

INVASION SCARE IN MARYLAND

Mysterious Explosion and Lights Cause Great Alarm

The possibility of a German invasion alarmed hundreds as a series of explosions and flaring lights near Clewerwall broke the silence of the night. Police and firemen were called out and found the site easily since the explosions continued for over two hours on a rocky prominence close to Saunders Farm. It was the work of pranksters, reported Police Chief O'Sullivan. A metal box was recovered that had been filled with flare launchers of the kind used at sea in time of distress. The perpetrators of the hoax were not found.

There it was. This had to be it. Troy returned the roll of film and had a photoprint made of the page. When he left he found himself in the middle of heavy traffic as the civil service employees poured out of the offices in their endless waves. By the time he had returned to the project it was after six.

'Message for you,' the guard at the gate said. 'Doctor Kleiman says for you to meet him in the director's office.'

'Thanks, I'm on my way.'

Roxanne Delcourt had the bar open and was stirring a mixer full of gibsons when Troy came in. Bob Kleiman was already sipping a large one.

'Any luck?' he asked.

'A lot,' Troy said. 'McCulloch stole the original newspaper record, or at least someone did. But I got hold of a duplicate — here's a copy. With the exact date,'

'A drink?' Roxanne asked, while Kleiman read the clipping. She passed it over. 'Bob caught me before I left for the night, told me what you two had found out. He thinks that you're a better detective than Dick Tracy.'

'I am. Thanks, just what I needed.' Troy drank deep. 'It was just a matter of persistence. McCulloch left a trail — and we followed it.'

'That's easy to say now. But none of this would have been discovered if you hadn't been here. Aside from the McCulloch matter, what you have found out will have the most tremendous impact on our work. I suppose we would have eventually worked out the reverse tau, but we hadn't even scheduled experiments in that direction. What we have here is a whole new ball game. Thanks to you.'

'Please — I'll get a swollen head. I'm glad that this has helped you in your work, but I still have my own to do. McCulloch is a thief and a murderer and I am staying with this until I find him.'

Kleiman handed the copy of the newspaper article to Roxanne. 'Not much chance of that if your quarry has slipped away through time. If he's done that — forget it.'

'Why?'

'Well, for one good reason, if he went back more than fifty years, why then he is surely dead by now and the case is closed.'

'What if he went back only a few years, taking the gold with him? If he did that, why then, he is still out there somewhere. If he is — then I intend to find him. Therefore my next question, the important one. If he did use the machine to move back in time — can you find out exactly how far he went? Do you think that the last big experiment you found in the record, that this was really him?'

'Don't know. I got sidetracked after you left and didn't work out the figures. This whole breakthrough became so important that the reason for the entire investigation vanished from my pointed head. Sorry. I'll get onto it.'

'Finish your drink first,' Roxanne said. 'What's done is done. Part of history. It will wait.'

'True enough,' Troy said. 'But I would still like to know the date. It might reveal the motive.'

'I gave the motive to you, remember?' Kleiman said. 'Shlep that gold back in time, invest it, pop back to the present, then walk around to the bank and collect it and you are an instant millionaire.'

'Wrong,' Roxanne said. 'You're forgetting the most important thing.'

'I am,' Kleiman agreed. 'It won't work, of course. Time travel is a one-way trip. You can go — but you can't get back. Maybe you could if you took all of Lab Nine with you. If you didn't do that, then you are just not going to return. But that still doesn't destroy my theory. Take that amount of gold back to nineteen-thirty, during the Depression when there were no liquid assets, and you would be a rich man. I bet that's what he did.'

Troy shook his head. 'It just doesn't ring true. The motive doesn't fit the man. As far as we can tell McCulloch had everything material that he wanted right here. So the simple explanation of going back in time to be wealthy, that doesn't fit. It doesn't explain the books that he read, or all of the research he did. And what about the stolen blueprints and the gun? He had something in mind, some sort of motive that we have yet to discover.'

'I'm with you now, Sherlock,' Kleiman agreed. 'Find the motive and you'll find the man. Therefore I put my rusty-trusty pocket calculator to work. I've still got the readings here. It could have been a man who was sent back. The mass of the object was ninety-five point four five kilos.'

'The colonel couldn't-have weighed that much,' Roxanne said.

'No,' Troy agreed. 'But that weight would be right if he were carrying a bag — along with a quarter of a million dollars' worth of gold.'

'Of course. Let's see what Bob comes up with.'

'I've got to make a correction first,' Kleiman muttered, working away at the keys. 'The arrival date was a good deal distant from the one that I predicted. So we put the difference into seconds, good enough for a rough estimate now, divide the difference into the time…'

They watched him in silence, each deep in thought. Roxanne Delcourt found it hard to even consider the colonel who had started all this, because the impact of the discovery was too great. The project that she had devoted so much time and energy to was opening out in new and exciting ways.

Troy could not forget McCulloch that easily. A killer. There was a very sick man locked away inside the smooth exterior, hidden so well that no one had ever suspected him. Could he be found and brought to justice? There was no telling. This entire matter was getting too deep.

'Got it,' Kleiman announced, waving the calculator over his head. 'Now this is not exact, since I have rounded out the figures to simplify the equation for the moment. But there can't be more than just a few days error, say a week at the outside, either way. Of that I am pretty sure…'

'Robert,' Roxanne broke in. 'Enough of the lecture. The date, if you please.'

'Yes, sorry. Allowing for the variations I just mentioned, the ninety-five kilogram-plus mass was sent back in time over one hundred and twenty-four years. So, Troy, you don't have to worry about finding Old Snarly any more. He's been long since dead and buried. But that still leaves the basic question.'

'I know,' Troy said. 'Motivation.'

'Absolutely correct. The question that lies behind everything. Why on earth did he want to leave the pleasures, pains and antibiotics of the twentieth century to go back to the year of our Lord, eighteen fifty-eight?'