City of Shadows tr-6 Page 5

  Faith pointed at the computer cases, unscrewed and exposing the innards of wires and circuit boards. ‘The hard drives have all been extracted.’

  ‘There may be residual data in the system’s motherboards. Recently stored data.’ He looked at her. ‘This is system architecture that is fifty-three years old. There will be data packets still on any solid-state circuitry. We can query each circuit board with a small electrical charge.’

  Faith nodded. It was a place for them to start. Very much a case of looking for a needle in a haystack, though.

  ‘This will take many hours.’

  Abel nodded. ‘Do you have an alternative plan?’

  She shook her head.

  ‘Then we should begin immediately.’

  Chapter 8

  21 August 2001, Arlington, Massachusetts

  Joseph Olivera held the digital camera in front of him and panned it around the tree-lined avenue. Such a beautiful place. Long, freshly clipped lawns leading up from a wide avenue to generous whiteboard houses. Suburbia. It was mid-afternoon and peaceful and the sun was shining with a warm, mid-August strength, dappling the road with brushstrokes of light and shade through the gently stirring leaves of the maple trees.

  Beautiful.

  As a child Joseph had dreamed of living in a place like this. He used to watch old programmes from this time, family dramas they used to call ‘soap operas’, with healthy, tanned people always smiling, happy families, driving nice cars and worrying about nothing more important than high school proms, or who was dating who or who was going to win a thing called the ‘super bowl’.

  Joseph walked slowly down the avenue, panning his camera left and right. In the viewfinder an elderly woman was kneeling among a bed of flowers with gardening gloves and pruning shears. A postman walked cheerfully by with a nod and a smile for Joseph. Some chestnut-coloured Labrador was frolicking on a lawn, chasing a frisbee. He could hear the lazy buzz of a lawnmower somewhere.

  Suburbia. Beautiful suburbia.

  Joseph had only ever known cities. All his life, cities. Towering labyrinths of noise and chaos that seemed to contract on themselves, getting tighter and more choked and crowded with each passing year. His early school years he’d lived with his family in Mexico City, then, later on, as a student in Chicago. He’d been working in London in the 2040s, during which time large portions of that city had begun to be abandoned to the all-too-frequent flooding of the River Thames. Finally, he’d ended up in New York. They’d been building up those enormous flood barriers around Manhattan then. Hoping to buy the city another couple of decades of life.

  But always… always he’d dreamed of a place like this, mature trees, lush green lawns, sun-drenched porches and white picket fences. The perfect place to grow up. The perfect place to spend one’s childhood.

  He passed a driveway with a Ford Zodiac parked in it, stunning paint job. Pimped with skulls and flames to look like it had driven bat-out-of-hell style right out of Satan’s own garage. Joseph grinned.

  Some young man’s first car, of course.

  Joseph looked around. One of these houses would be hers. He panned his camera left. Then right. The viewfinder settled on a grand-looking home. Mock colonial with a covered porch that fronted it and wound round the side. There was even a rocking-chair on there.

  Perfect.

  Joseph crossed the avenue. The house’s driveway was empty. Presumably no one home. Just as well. Better that he didn’t attract the attention of anyone inside.

  His digital camera still filming, he walked up the tarmac drive, sweeping the camera gently in a smooth panning motion, taking in every little detail, finally reaching the bottom of three broad wooden steps. He took them one at a time. Now standing on the wooden boards of the porch, freshly whitewashed. He let the camera dwell on the rocking-chair for a moment, the hanging baskets of purple and pink Sweet Carolines, on several pairs of gardening boots and gloves, a small ceramic garden gnome holding a chainsaw. Somebody’s idea of a joke present for Mom or Dad. The camera recorded all those small, important, personal details.

  And finally he panned the camera on to the door of the house. Mint green with a brass knocker in the middle. Joseph smiled wistfully. What a wonderful childhood home to have. What wonderful childhood memories to have.

  ‘I envy you, Madelaine Carter from Boston,’ he said softly. ‘To have all of this…’

  He had enough to use now, and turned the camera off.

  Chapter 9

  12 September 2001, New York

  Faith was picking through the scattered circuit boards on the desk. They were specifically querying the motherboards first. That’s where the cache memory was, lodged in these ridiculously bulky chips of dark silicon on tiny hair-thin metal seating pins.

  They had both been meticulously teasing small charges of electricity into the circuits, stirring them to life and diverting the random nuggets of dormant information to a connected monitor. What they were getting mostly was useless gibberish: random packets of hexadecimal, every now and then punctuated with snippets of English. Faith’s internal clock informed her they had spent nearly twelve hours on this process. Twelve hours during which their targets must be putting a healthy distance between them.

  She picked up the motherboard of a yet unchecked computer and prepared to hand it to Abel to jury-rig a connection to the monitor when her eyes settled on a pad of lined writing paper half buried beneath the mess on the desk. She reached out and picked it up. The last used sheet had been torn away roughly, leaving a few tattered paper shreds attached to the glue binding at the top, the tops of several letters in biro. That’s all.

  But that wasn’t what Faith was focusing on.

  It was the shallow indentations on the page that had been directly beneath the torn-away page. She held the pad close to her face, tilting it so that light from the desk lamp fell obliquely across the paper. She could make out the faintest lines of indentation… the hard tip of a biro pressed too heavily, too quickly on the page above. The scrawl of someone in a hurry. Perhaps someone thinking, making a desperate decision. Writing lists, pros and cons.

  She could make out a word, very faint and not entirely complete. But her mind quickly produced a very brief shortlist of possible word variables. Only one of them had any relevance to the data she’d been uploaded with for the mission.

  She put the pad down. ‘The team leader, Madelaine Carter, is taking the team to her childhood home.’

  Abel looked up from the soldering iron in his hand and a curl of blue smoke twisted in the harsh light of the desktop lamp as he put down the motherboard he was working on. ‘Why do you conclude that?’

  Faith handed him the pad of paper. He squinted at it. And, just as she had, his eyes picked out the faintest markings of writing.

  ‘Boston,’ he said.

  Faith nodded. ‘She is going home.’

  They emerged from the archway. As they paced swiftly towards the intersection between Wythe Avenue and South 6th Street, a Bluetooth conversation passed quickly between them. They needed a vehicle. They needed a vehicle now. They needed to make up for the lost twelve hours.

  Abel stood at the entrance to the alleyway. It was dark now, an hour after midnight. Street lights bathed the Brooklyn intersection opposite with sickly neon, punctuated by the regular circular blue flicker of police lights.

  An NYPD squad car was parked diagonally across the intersection, impeding the flow of traffic in both directions. Cones placed out to help make the point. No traffic was being allowed on to the slip road and up the ramp on to the Williamsburg Bridge. No traffic, that is, except emergency vehicles: fire engines, mobile cranes and diggers heading over into Manhattan, the occasional solitary ambulance heading slowly back out. No sirens. No horn. No rush.

  Even now, at this late hour, there were still a few pedestrians out, craning their necks to get a look past the towering supports of the bridge at the apocalyptic haze on the far side. Manhattan glowed with a million office lig
hts as usual, but tonight the light pollution was enhanced by powerful halogen floodlights towards the south end of the island that leaked an unstinting glare into the night sky like an unnaturally early dawn.

  Faith stood beside Abel, both of them now evaluating the situation. Both of them staring covetously at the NYPD squad car, parked across South 6th Street. Two policemen stood guard ready to wave back any non-emergency traffic trying to pick through the cones to cross the bridge. Not that anybody was trying to get across.

  The support units exchanged a cursory glance.

  Perfect.

  Abel led the way towards the nearest of the two policemen.

  The policeman noticed Abel’s strident steps approaching him. ‘Sir, you need to step back!’

  Abel drew up a few steps short of the cop. ‘Why?’

  ‘We’re keeping this access-way across the river clear for emergency vehicles.’ He waved his hands at Abel. ‘Please step back now, sir. There will be more fire trucks and heavy vehicles passing through at any time.’

  ‘Please give me the ignition key to your car.’

  The cop ignored him. ‘Just step back off the road, sir.’

  Abel reached out and grabbed one of the cop’s fingers and twisted sharply with a flick of his wrist. ‘Please give me the ignition key to your car.’

  ‘Hey! Ow! Hey!’ His other hand — clearly not his gun hand — fumbled around his ample waist to find the leather flap of his holster.

  ‘I will break your finger,’ said Abel politely. ‘This is a warning. Please comply to avoid further discomfort.’

  The cop lifted the flap and grabbed hold of the gun’s grip. He pulled the weapon out and levelled it at Abel’s face. ‘Let go! Now! Let go and get down on the ground!’

  Abel snatched the gun out of his hand as calmly as a toad lassoing a passing mosquito with its tongue.

  ‘Jesus!’ The cop’s jaw dropped open.

  The other cop challenged Abel from across the street. ‘Drop that weapon! Now! ’

  ‘I require the ignition key to your vehicle,’ said Abel calmly. ‘Please provide this.’

  ‘Drop the weapon now or you will be fired upon!’ the other cop barked, a gun levelled at Abel, taking slow steps towards him. His voice was shrill. High-pitched. Warbling with fear.

  Abel swung the gun in his hand quickly. A microsecond to aim, then three shots fired in rapid succession. The first shot killed the approaching cop, the other two were unnecessary. Faith immediately paced over towards his prone body ready to frisk his pockets and belt pouches.

  ‘Hey… p-please! Don’t sh-shoot, man!’ the other cop pleaded, his hand and finger still twisted in Abel’s firm grasp.

  ‘Do you have the vehicle ignition key?’

  ‘It’s in the c-car, man!’ He grimaced in agony. ‘It’s in the car!’

  Abel shot a Bluetooth instruction to Faith and she changed direction towards the squad car.

  ‘You will not discuss this intervention with anyone,’ said Abel.

  ‘Whuh?’ Then the cop understood and nodded vigorously. ‘No! OK! Sure… I… I won’t d-discuss this. I promise.’

  ‘Your promise is not required,’ said Abel. Then he calmly shot the second cop dead.

  He noted the pedestrians nearby staring at him. Frozen with shock. It would take too much valuable time to pursue them all and kill them. He decided so many eyewitnesses were an unfortunate collateral contamination, but nothing that could be helped.

  The squad car rattled to life as Faith settled into the driver’s seat. Its siren squawked for a second before it was turned off. Abel made his way over, pulled the passenger side open and got in beside Faith. The car rocked under his weight.

  ‘Boston,’ she said.

  He nodded. ‘Please proceed.’

  Chapter 10

  11 September 2001, Interstate 95, south-west Connecticut

  Liam had watched as the Bronx became a suburban carpet of gradually more expensive homes interspersed with out-of-town superstores fronted by acres of car park as the RV crawled north-east along Interstate 278, then along 95. It was slow progress for the day, bumper to bumper past slip-road after slip-road; police blockades and random vehicle searches had reduced the traffic to a crawl. They’d stopped once for petrol at lunchtime then finally hit some clear road beyond New Rochelle.

  ‘It’s all new to me too,’ said Foster quietly. ‘All I’ve ever seen of this world is New York.’

  Liam nodded. ‘You never been tempted to take yourself off and have a look around?’

  Foster looked at him. ‘Have you?’

  ‘I’ve not had any time. Feels like we’ve been dealing with one problem after another since you pulled me off the Titanic.’

  He realized, though, that the old man’s question was an invitation for him to talk about what they now both knew but had yet to talk to each other about.

  ‘She told me,’ said Liam. ‘Maddy told me you’re… me.’ He shook his head. ‘Or I’m you, or however I’m meant to say it.’

  ‘I’m how you’ll become, Liam. We’re the same person on either end of a number of years, lad.’

  ‘That’s what I can’t get me head straight about, Mr Foster. It’s…’ He paused. ‘Or do I call you Liam now?’

  ‘Just Foster,’ he answered with a smile. ‘I’ve been used to that name for some time now.’

  ‘So…’ Liam looked out of the scuffed perspex window at a Greyhound bus, its windscreen striped with the reflected glow of street lights passing overhead.

  ‘Do you remember all the same things as me?’

  ‘Up to a point.’

  ‘Cork? St Michael’s School for Boys?’

  Foster nodded.

  ‘Sean McGuire and that stupid party trick of his with the three apples?’

  The old man grinned. ‘He was never very good at it, was he?’

  They both laughed. Liam felt odd. Memories, personal memories that he hadn’t shared with anyone, and yet this man knew them as intimately as he did. It was like talking to himself. Yet hearing a wizened, croaky version of his own voice coming back at him.

  ‘You remember getting the steward’s job with the White Star Line?’

  ‘Yes,’ Foster replied. ‘We got the job only because that other Irish lad was caught drinking on duty before the ship set sail. Remember his name? Oliver, wasn’t it?’

  ‘Aye.’ Liam smiled. ‘Stupid fella didn’t realize he was breathin’ his fumes all over the Chief Steward.’

  The RV halted in traffic, causing everyone inside to lurch gently as Bob applied the brakes a little too keenly. A plastic bag full of unlaundered underwear slid off a seat into the cluttered aisle.

  ‘So you remember that night as well?’

  Foster closed his eyes. ‘The night the Titanic went down? Of course I do. How does anyone ever forget something like that? I think what stays with me, Liam, what has stayed with me, was the calm before all the screaming. When everyone was certain there’d be lifeboats for all; that it wouldn’t come down to the type of ticket you’d bought.’

  ‘Aye.’

  ‘It came suddenly, so it did. The panic. You remember that?’

  Liam nodded. It had. One moment there’d been order and calm across the promenade deck, even the calming sound of a string quartet playing. People talking excitedly about how this was going to be the news story of the day tomorrow; how their eyewitness accounts — from the comfort of their bobbing lifeboats — of the Unsinkable Ship slowly, gracefully surrendering to the sea would be in every newspaper around the world. No panic. Not yet.

  And then word had spread among them like wildfire. Chinese whispers. Not enough lifeboats for everyone. Not nearly enough.

  Then the panic. The horrible panic.

  A thought occurred to Liam. ‘So, Foster… were you recruited just like me? The same way?’

  He could see a glint of light reflected in Foster’s eyes. The glare of passing headlights on his drawn face. ‘Yes. Yes, of course. I was down check
ing on the second-class cabins.’

  ‘And you were young, like me?’

  ‘A bit younger than you are now, Liam.’

  Of course. Liam knew that. Felt that now. No longer a young lad of sixteen, but subtly older in a million barely noticeable little ways. A man, prematurely.

  ‘And was it an older version of you… that recruited you?’

  Foster hesitated. ‘Yes.’

  ‘But does that mean I’m in some kind of a loop that goes on and on? That I’ll get old like you, change my name to Foster, and then one day send myself back to 1912 to pick up another me? Is that it?’

  ‘No. Not a loop exactly.’

  ‘Then what?’

  Foster looked at Maddy sitting up front in the passenger seat beside Bob. ‘She’s going to find out soon enough. If we keep heading this way.’

  Liam turned to follow his gaze, looking at the back of her head. ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

  Foster reached out to Liam and rested a fatherly hand on his shoulder. ‘Liam, it’s all going to come clear for you soon enough. Perhaps far too soon.’

  ‘Oh, come on, Foster! Will you just tell me — ’

  ‘She’s going to learn.’ Foster lowered his voice just for Liam to hear. ‘And so is Sal. They’re both going to learn the truth. And it’s going to be hard for them. Much harder than it will be for you.’

  ‘Why? What do you mean? What’s going to be hard?’

  ‘Liam, you’ll cope… because I know I coped. And I carried on the agency’s work. I carried on doing the work Waldstein needs us to do.’

  ‘Jay-zus, you’re annoying!’ Liam hissed. ‘Just tell me! What are you talking about?’

  Foster shook his head. ‘Maybe it’s best for the girls if they find out this way.’ He patted Liam’s arm. ‘Trust me… I think it’s for the best. You’ll learn the truth together.’