The Timekeeper Conspiracy

7

Finn and Lucas followed the carriage to a house on the Rue St. Honore. It took some effort on their part, because although the carriage could not travel very fast through the crowded streets of Paris, it nevertheless proceeded at a fairly brisk pace. Twice, they almost lost it. As it pulled up in front of the elegant home on the Rue St. Honore, Finn and Lucas watched from an alley across the street, trying to regain their wind.

"I just hope this doesn't turn out to be a wild goose chase," Lucas said, breathing heavily. "I'll feel like an awful sap if it turns out to have been nothing more than my memory playing tricks on me."

"I don't think there's anything wrong with your memory," said Finn. "Take a look at what that old man's carrying in his hand."

As the couple got out of the carriage, the old man glanced nervously up and down the street. It was getting late, but there was still enough light for them to see the slim metallic tube that the old man was holding in his hand.

"A laser," Lucas said. "And he's not even trying to hide it. He's holding it out in plain sight."

"Sure, why not?" said Finn. "Who'd know what it was?"

"That's just the point," said Lucas. "Anyone who would know what it was would be in the wrong place at the wrong time. The way he's waving it around, it's as if he wants someone to see it. Why would anyone be so obvious with a weapon unless he wanted whoever was watching to know that he was armed? You think maybe he knows we followed him?"

"It's possible," said Finn. "But why wave a laser around to scare off some would-be 17th-century muggers? I just had a rather nasty thought, old buddy."

"You think Mongoose blew our cover already?"

"I'm open to any other explanations."

They watched the chests being carried into the house. "All right," said Lucas, "let's try and think this through. The woman's the one who rang a bell with me, but the old man's got a laser. So that means that both of them aren't what they seem to be. They could be Timekeepers, but then I've never run across any of the Timekeepers before, at least not to my knowledge. I recall that face from a mission, I'm certain of it."

"A renegade soldier?" Finn said. "Right, Darrow said the terrorists made contact with someone in the underground."

"The only person in the underground we know is Hunter," Lucas said.

"That we know," said Finn. "We could've run across someone in the underground and not known it. Or the woman could be someone we've worked with before who's joined the underground since then. Or who's joined the Timekeepers. Come on, think, where did you see her face?"

"I just can't place it," Lucas said, exasperated. "It's driving me crazy, but there's something wrong about her and I can't figure out just what it is."

"Okay, leave it for now. It'll come to you. Let's get back to Mongoose. If he didn't blow our cover, then why's the old man waving a laser around?"

"Well, he wasn't waving it at us," said Lucas. "I don't think he knows we're watching him. But he thinks someone's watching him, someone from the future. Suppose Mongoose didn't blow our cover? What other explanation can there be?"

"That he blew his cover," Finn said. "Or that one of his people got careless and the Timekeepers know that someone's onto them."

"We're going to have to have a serious talk with him," said Lucas.

"Assuming that he's still alive," said Finn. "Damn spooks. They're going to make a mess of it, I just know it. They've got agents all over the place back here and the only one we know is Mongoose. And not only don't we know how to get in touch with him, we don't even know what he really looks like, with those damn disguises. All we can do is go back to the Luxembourg and wait to see if he or one of his people gets in touch with us."

"That does seem to be our only course of action," Lucas said.

"Maybe not," said Finn. "We could always push the panic button and see what happens."

The men exchanged glances. Pushing the panic button was always a last resort. It meant activating the implant that would send out a signal to be picked up by any members of the Observer Corps who might be in the area. It was standard operating procedure for the referees to send teams of observers out into any time period being used as a battle scenario. These observers, acting as undercover overseers, seldom got involved in direct action themselves. Their duties were primarily operational. They were equipped with chronoplates to enable them to quickly move about in time if need be and they generally functioned as supervisors over the Search and Retrieve teams and as the eyes of the Referee Corps in the field. The only thing was, this wasn't a typical scenario. Officially, it wasn't an adjustment, at least not yet. It was still a TIA mission.

"You're thinking that we'd be in a hell of a mess if we pushed the button and nobody answered," Finn said.

"Actually, that hadn't occurred to me, although now that you mention it, I see where that could be a problem. No, I was thinking that, officially, we still don't have any standing on this mission. If we pushed the panic button, we'd have to come up with some pretty convincing answers and we haven't got any. Not to mention the fact that activating the implant signals would enable the Timekeepers to trace us through their chronoplate."

Both men recalled only too well their last mission, when a similar situation, a stolen chronoplate in the hands of the opposition, had resulted in the enemy's being able to trace their movements through their implants. The technology was necessary to be able to trace the movements of Temporal Corps soldiers in battle scenarios. However, since their last mission, there had been a change in procedure. The implants of soldiers in commando adjustment squads had been modified so that they could not be traced through chronoplates. Commandos on an adjustment mission were completely on their own unless one of two things happened. If a commando was killed, then his implant would automatically be activated, sending out a termination signal that would enable the S amp;R teams to locate the body, unless it were destroyed and the implant along with it. Otherwise, a commando could "push the panic button," activating the implant to signal the Observers, in which case, as Lucas had pointed out, any chronoplate would be able to pick up the transmission.

"Looks like we're caught between a rock and a hard place," said Finn. "We've had the deck stacked on us again. These people have lasers and a chronoplate and God only knows what else, while we're equipped with nothing but swords and daggers and a couple of horses. Anything else we'd have to draw from Mongoose, only we don't know where he is or if he's still alive. If he is and we act on our own, he blows our cover. If he's bought the farm and we call for help, we blow our cover. You know, that still leaves us one other option."

"What's that?"

"Chucking it all and heading for the hills. I hear the Mediterranean is real nice this time of year. Now that we've got these fancy new implants that can't be traced unless we activate them, we could just disappear and take early retirement."

Lucas chuckled. "It's a tempting thought," he said. "There's only one thing wrong with it. Neither you nor I would last a month without going crazy. Besides, suppose the terrorists achieve a split and it turns up a future in which we were never born?"

"Can't happen," Finn said. "We've already been born. Our past is absolute. Mensinger proved-"

"Mensinger didn't prove anything when it came to temporal splits," said Lucas. "All he could do was theorize. No one's ever been affected by a split before. If it's all the same with you, I'd just as soon not be the first."

"Yeah, well, I'm too young to retire anyway," said Finn. "It was just a thought."

"I think our best bet is to head back to the Luxembourg and wait to be contacted," Lucas said. "There's not much else we can do now, except find out who lives in that house across the street. You never know, we just might learn something."

They learned that the house on the Rue St. Honore was occupied by Doctor Jacques Benoit and his two servants, Marie and "Old Pierre," an elderly married couple. No one seemed to know anything about "the mademoiselle." In fact, the question raised more than a few eyebrows in the neighborhood. Doctor Jacques, it seemed, was a paragon of virtue, the soul of kindness, a giant among physicians. No one had a bad word to say about Doctor Jacques, but their inquiries did yield one or two interesting points.

Unless Doctor Jacques had some secret source of income that no one knew about, he could not possibly be supporting himself as a physician. So far as anyone knew, he did not number anyone of the upper classes among his clientele, serving the common, working citizens of Paris exclusively. His methods of charging for his services were erratic, to say the least. From one man, he took whatever he felt he could afford to pay. From another family who were down on their luck, he took nothing whatsoever. The owner of a local business, whose mother he had treated, was allowed to pay "in trade" and another man's fee was the princely sum of three chickens. It was widely assumed that Doctor Jacques was independently wealthy as the result of a large inheritance.

From time to time, Doctor Jacques left Paris for parts unknown. Sometimes, he simply left word that he was "going to the country" for a few days. At other times, he left no word at all. During such times, Marie and Pierre filled in for him to the extent that they were able.

Doctor Jacques made house calls. So far as Finn and Lucas were able to ascertain, no one had ever been inside the house on the Rue St. Honore except for the good doctor himself and his two servants. Except, occasionally, Doctor Jacques received visitors. These visitors seldom stayed for very long. No one had ever seen them before and only rarely were they ever seen again.

Doctor Jacques had been in residence in the house on the Rue St. Honore for at least ten years, possibly more.

"That blows the terrorist angle," Finn said, as they walked back toward the hotel. "So our friend is underground."

"Either that, or he's a phony, having killed the real doctor and taken his place."

"I don't think so," Lucas said. "This Doctor Jacques obviously has medical knowledge."

"Easily acquired by implant education," Finn said. "The terrorists are not without the means to-"

"Yes, that's true," said Lucas. "You can teach the mind, but the hands are another thing entirely. Have you heard anyone say that he had ever failed to treat a patient? That, in itself, makes him stick out like a sore thumb. A doctor in this time period could be expected to have some patients die on him, if for no other reason than that he wouldn't possess the knowledge to treat diseases for which there would be no cure for years. If he's a terrorist, then he's very sloppy. No, Finn, he's underground. He just never expected anyone to be looking for him."

"Until now."

"Yes, until now. I think we've found our underground connection with the Timekeepers. That chronoplate might very well be in that house on the Rue St. Honore."

"If it is, then we're making a mistake by not moving in," said Finn.

"And if it isn't?" Lucas said. "Either way, we're poorly equipped to handle the situation. Mongoose wants to call the shots, I say we let him. Or whoever takes over for him if he's been hit. Working at cross purposes with the TIA is going to buy us nothing but trouble."

"And if they blow the mission, it's going to buy us even more trouble."

"Yes, well, that's what we're here for, isn't it?"

"I was beginning to wonder."

There was the sound of running footsteps up ahead and shouting. Then the unmistakable clangor of steel upon steel filled the quiet night air. As they turned onto the Rue Dau-phine, Finn and Lucas were greeted by the sight of a melee in progress. A young woman was pressed flat against a wall, her fists clenched at her mouth to stifle a scream. Two men were being hard pressed by seven of the cardinal's guard.

"Isn't that-"

"It's D'Artagnan," Lucas said, "and it looks like he's in trouble."

"Seven against two," said Finn. "Shall we make it seven against four?"

They drew their swords and waded in. No sooner had they joined the fight than the other man with D'Artagnan took advantage of their intervention by grabbing the woman and taking off at a dead run down the Rue Dauphine, disappearing into an alley.

"Who's your loyal friend?" Finn shouted, while doing his best to keep two of the cardinal's swordsmen at bay. Lucas engaged another two.

"Dumas!" D'Artagnan shouted. "And his Irish friend! I thought I'd seen the last of you!"

"You may yet," said Lucas, giving ground before his two opponents. "I see you're finally following your father's advice."

"I am not certain this is… quite what he… had in mind," D'Artagnan replied, engaging his opponent's blade and hooking it out of his hand. However, that left two more men to press in upon him and he was unable to follow it up with a killing thrust, so that the guard was able to retrieve his sword and rush to the attack once more. But just as he was about to come up on the Gascon from behind, a concentrated beam of light shot out from an alley and dropped him in his tracks. None of the combatants noticed it. Finn, using his superior strength, pulled one of his opponents away from him, then slashed his sword viciously across the face of the other. The man dropped his rapier and screamed, bringing both hands up to cover his face. Blood seeped between his fingers. Finn ran him through.

Lucas was backed against a wall, fighting a frantic defensive action against his two opponents. Confident in the odds of two against one, the guards grinned, spreading out to either side and moving in on him. Their maneuver gave Lucas the time to reverse the dagger in his hand and, holding it by the point, he hurled it at one of the guards, even as the other lunged. The dagger buried itself to the hilt in one guard's chest while Lucas parried the lunge of the other, then delivered a spinning back kick to his temple. The guard fell to the street, unconscious.

D'Artagnan, meanwhile, killed one of his men with a quick thrust while directing the lunge of the other past his side with his dagger. From the alley, Bruno Freytag kept a close watch on the combat. He was intrigued by the two strangers who had arrived to help the Gascon and he had not failed to notice that one of them had dropped an opponent with a move that marked him as an expert in Okinawan karate. His orders were to make certain that Buckingham got away and that nothing happened to D'Artagnan. His finger tensed on the firing stud of the laser, then relaxed as D'Artagnan delivered a brutal kick to the groin of his one remaining attacker, following it up with a sword thrust through the abdomen. As Finn easily disarmed the final remaining swordsman, the guard gave up and ran, leaving his rapier lying in the street behind him. Finn let him go. Seeing that D'Artagnan was safe, Freytag slipped away through the alley, heading toward the home of Camille de Bois-Tracy. He would keep a discreet watch over Buckingham until the prime minister was safely on his way across the channel.

"Well, I am fortunate, indeed, that you gentlemen happened by," D'Artagnan said, bending down to wipe the blade of his rapier upon one of the bodies. "And to think that I thought you had deserted me back in that tavern. I see now I was wrong." He indicated the wound on Delaney's cheek. "Was that received in Meung?"

"It was received on your account," said Finn, dryly.

"Well, then I am doubly indebted to you, Monsieur Finn."

"It's Francois now," Finn replied. "Francois D'Laine. Since we are in Paris, I-"

"Say no more," D'Artagnan said. "You are free to choose whatever nom de guerre you wish and I owe you a debt of gratitude, Monsieur, that I may never be able to repay. If not for you, that one there would have surely done for me."

He indicated one of the corpses with his sword.

"I didn't kill him," Finn said.

"Ah, then Monsieur Dumas-"

"I didn't kill him, either," Lucas said, frowning.

"Well, one of us must have killed him," said D'Artagnan. He turned the body over with his foot. "See? Run clean through the heart!"

Finn and Lucas exchanged glances. They knew that neither of them had killed the guard. What was more, they knew that D'Artagnan hadn't done it, either. The Gascon didn't have a laser.

Old Pierre took charge of the chest, dragging it away and showing a great deal more energy than his appearance would have indicated. Andre glanced at Jack with some concern.

"Don't worry," Bennett said. "He won't look inside. He won't even inquire as to why it stinks so much of perfume. Pierre's been with me for years and I trust him implicitly."

"What will he do with it?" Andre said.

"Incinerate it."

"Incinerate?"

"Burn it."

"But how? Surely it is too… damp to burn?"

"I have a fire that is more than sufficient for the task," said Bennett. "It's hardly a proper burial or even a proper cremation, but

… Would you like to say some… words for Hunter or…" he trailed off, lamely.

"Prayer, you mean?" said Andre. She shook her head. "I do not think that Hunter was a man of God. And I do not think that any prayers from me would do much good. I have left behind too many bodies unattended and unprayed for."

Jack stared at her. "Yes, I believe you have," he said. "And so, for that matter, have I."

"What will happen now?"

"I don't really know," said Jack. "They'll be looking for me. They'll probably be looking for you, too. They've had me watched. They'll try to kill us now. We can't stay here for long; this will be the first place that they'll look. I am not without defenses here, but still, the sooner we leave, the better."

Simon Hawke

The Timekeeper Conspiracy

"Why did we come here at all, if they know this place?"

"Because there are things here I can't leave unattended," Bennett said. "Things that don't belong to this time. I must see to it that they're all destroyed. That will take some time. Meanwhile, I have to get you out of here to where it's safe. There's a way out of here the Timekeepers don't know about. I've kept it a secret for just such an emergency. It will take you out under the street. You'll go with Marie; Pierre and I will join you as soon as I've taken care of what must be done here."

"What about your machine for traveling through time?" said Andre.

"They've taken that, I'm afraid." His eyes suddenly lit up. "Hunter's chronoplate! My God, I'd forgotten all about it! Where.. " his voice trailed off when he saw the expression on her face.

"It was gone when I found him dead," she said. "But it will not do your friends much good. Only Hunter knew the proper way to make it work. If they attempt to-"

"Yes, I know, he'll have failsafed it to self-destruct if it should fall into the wrong hands. Mine works the same way. Unfortunately, I showed Taylor the proper sequence to… God, I was a fool. Taylor will guess that Hunter will have failsafed his chronoplate and he won't tinker with it. It just gives him that much more of a reason to take you alive."

"But I do not know how to operate the machine," said Andre.

"Taylor won't know that. He thinks you're an agent from the future, someone sent to stop him."

"I still don't understand," said Andre. "Stop him from doing what? To what end is all this intrigue?"

"It would take far too long to explain it all now. I must get you to safety. Ah, Marie, this is Andre. We must-"

"Yes, I know, Doctor," said Marie. "Pierre told me that we must flee. What has happened? Who would want to-"

"There's no time for that, Marie. Take Andre and go through the secret passageway. Immediately. Can the two of you manage her chest?"

"We shall manage," said Marie, her wrinkled face grave with concern. "Where must we go?"

"Take her to your sister's. Take care that you're not followed. Have Marcel send word to Moreau asking him to meet us there. Say that there is trouble; Moreau will come. Tell him to take care that he's not followed."

Marie looked frightened.

"It's all right, Marie," said Jack, taking the plump little woman in his arms. "Everything will be all right. Now, go, please."

The two women picked up the chest containing Andre's belongings and went into Bennett's library. Andre was amazed to see so many books. Hunter had had books in his cottage in the forest, but Bennett had hundreds of them, arrayed upon shelves that covered all four walls. Marie had her put down the chest and then she went to one of the shelves and pulled out several volumes. She stuck her hand into the space where the books had been and fumbled around for a moment; then Andre heard a clicking sound and the entire shelf swung away to reveal a door, which Marie opened with a key.

"Come, Mademoiselle," the old woman said, "we must hurry."

"Wait," said Andre. "There is no need for us to be burdened with this chest. I do not need all these things."

"I have a bag," Marie said. "You will need at least a change of clothing. Wait here, I will go and fetch it."

As Marie ran off, moving like a pigeon trying to get out of the rain, Andre bent down and opened up the chest. She removed her rapier and her dagger, laid them down on Bennett's desk, then began to strip. When Marie returned, carrying a bulky cloth bag, she found a young cavalier waiting for her in the library. She took one look at the black-clad swordsman and gasped, bringing her hands up to her mouth.

"It's only me, Marie," said Andre.

"Mademoiselle Andre? But how-"

"They'll be looking for a woman," Andre said. "They won't look twice at a gentleman escorting an old woman home. Come, we'll pack just these few things. I will not need the rest."

Moments later, they were descending the stone steps down into the tunnel.

Simon Hawke

The Timekeeper Conspiracy

"Buckingham's away, then," Taylor said. "Good. We can now put our plan into motion. Did you have any trouble with the cardinal's guards?"

"No trouble," Freytag said, sipping from a glass of wine. "In fact, I hardly had to do anything at all. When the guards moved in, two men came to D'Artagnan's rescue."

"Ah, that would be our friends the musketeers," said Taylor.

"I don't think so," Freytag said. "Not unless one of them knows karate."

"Karate?"

Freytag nodded and took a big swallow of wine. He wiped his mouth with the back of his beefy hand. "One of them laid a spinning back kick on one of the guards," he said. "Dropped him with a heel right to the temple. Very pretty. I couldn't have done it better, myself. Their swordsmanship was very interesting. Textbook perfect. Unless I miss my guess, they've both had experience with swords other than rapiers. They showed some interesting variations. I'll lay odds that the big guy would be a mean man with a katana."

"What's that?"

"A large Japanese sword. Used by the samurai."

"Samurai! Are you certain?"

"Weapons are my specialty, Adrian. You know that."

"Do you realize what that means? They've sent in commandos!"

"Well, you did say you liked a challenge."

"Not a word of this to Tonio or Jimmy, you understand? Jimmy already seems a little shaky to me. I think we'd best keep an eye on him."

"What does it matter?" Freytag said. "We don't need either him or Tonio. They were both expendable, right from the beginning, just like Silvera."

"They must never suspect that," Taylor said. "It's essential to the plan that they believe…" His eyes seemed to glaze over for a moment. In a second, they became animated once again and a slow, sultry smile spread across the face of Milady de Winter. "You're quite right, Bruno. It doesn't really matter, does it? The more people they send in, the greater the risk of temporal contamination. That plays right into our hands. Would you know these men if you saw them again?"

"It was dark. I'm afraid I didn't get a very good look at them. I couldn't say if I'd recognize them again."

"Well, no matter. I want you to take a letter to my good friend, the cardinal. After all, he has an interest in the Buckingham affair and it's time to prod him into the next stage of our operation."