67

We hunched over Karla Raven’s shoulders as she sat at the desk in our hotel suite. She had the hotel’s phone to her ear as she talked to Edwin and stared at the image on my laptop. The muffled roar of jets taking off and landing at Dulles rose and fell in the background.

Karla had suggested that Edwin might be able to hack into The Crab Shack’s website, access their computer, and—if it were linked to the security system—might be able to provide us with a video of the attack. Undoubtedly, the DC Police were poring over the same images we were.

The visual Edwin was feeding us appeared grainy. The camera covering The Crab Shack’s entrance had enough detail that we had no trouble recognizing General Grazier and Karla as the car service’s black Lincoln pulled up at the door. Unfortunately, the camera’s field of view didn’t include more of the lot.

Staring over Karla’s shoulder, Grazier, Savage, and I watched as the two entered. On the split screen we promptly picked them up stepping into view in the reception area. Grazier smiled at the hostess, then pointed in the direction of our table. The other views in the split screen were of the boat dock and kitchen.

Karla fast-forwarded to the arrival of the guy in the trench coat. He walked in from the upper corner of the outside image. His steps were long and purposeful, and he held his head at an angle, partially averted from the camera.

“He knows he’s going to be under surveillance,” Karla noted.

We watched him enter, coldly ignore the hostess, and push past a waiting knot of patrons. Then, angling to the left, he began scanning the room, fixing on our location.

Karla said into the receiver, “Edwin, can you give us a blowup on his face. Maybe refine it with a fractal program? Then apply face recognition software?”

She glanced up at Grazier. “He says he can. It’ll be coming in a minute.”

I stared transfixed as the gunman’s eyes narrowed. He grinned as he pulled back his coat to produce a black M4 carbine. At the edge of the image, the hostess’ face had frozen in disbelief, her mouth an O.

I watched the carbine buck against the man’s shoulder. Then he turned, coattails flying, as he strode purposefully out the door. A light-colored Toyota Camry pulled up. The gunman grabbed the passenger door, slipped into the seat, and the car roared away.

“Looks to me like the plates have been smeared with something,” Karla noted.

At the bottom of the split screen I could see the four of us careening down the stairs to the boat dock. Karla hunched in a combat crouch covering our evacuation. I looked like a clumsy oaf as I fumbled to cast off the lines.

Lines, that’s nautical, right?

The monitor flickered; an enlarged and grainy image of the shooter’s face filled the screen. Like a passage of waves, the image began to refine, coming clearer.

“My, but that man does good work,” Karla muttered.

“He ought to,” I told her. “He probably lifted this program from the NSA.”

“You don’t know their security,” Grazier growled.

“You don’t know ET.”

The face had refined, and now a series of dots and lines formed over it, marking the dimensions of the eyes, cheekbones, points of the jaw, lips, nose, eyebrows, and edges of the face. In the end, it settled on a specific geometric composition of lines and triangles.

Karla said, “Got it” into the telephone she’d propped against her ear. She leaned back and glanced up at us. “Edwin says if the guy’s in the database we’ll have him in less than thirty seconds. But if—” Her expression sharpened as Edwin told her something. “William James Toddman?”

A pause, Karla’s lips pursing. “Why is that not a surprise?” She was scribbling notes on the desk pad. “Let me ask.”

She glanced up at us. “The guy’s on Talon’s payroll. Retired Army sniper, did three tours in the Sandbox. Edwin wants to know if you’d like an anonymous tip to appear in the DC Metro Police BOLO system?”

Grazier grinned slyly. “Yeah! That would at least scatter a handful of tacks in the guy’s road.” Then his expression darkened. “Talon didn’t do this on a whim. It would appear that my old friends in Skientia have decided that I’m in their way.”

I studied Eli furtively. His psychopathic streak was in ascendance. I watched a cold cunning settle behind his eyes. He glared down at the screen for a moment, as if to burn Toddman down with the fire that was now filling him.

“Gentlemen, the gloves come off.”

“Define that, Eli,” I said softly, considering the ramifications. “Because we’re suddenly on very shaky ground. Skientia is a registered corporation. Unlike Al-Qaeda or Daesh, they pay taxes, hold government contracts. They have entire phalanxes of lawyers. When this comes out—and you know it will—we’re going to find ourselves spitting into the whirlwind.”

He nodded, chewed at his lip for a bit, and said, “My oath is to protect this country from all enemies, foreign and domestic. The NSC, for once, has actually anticipated a rogue multinational corporation acting in opposition to the safety and security of the country—and in this case, the entire world.”

Karla asked, “Sir, by allowing Gray to go back in time, won’t Skientia vanish along with this entire time line? Isn’t that part of the paradox?”

Savage’s head jerked up. “What do you mean, ‘vanish’?”

Grazier squinted down at the screen where Toddman’s face portrayed a fierce scowl. “We think time travel is impossible. But if Fluvium has done it, that assumption is in error. Gray knows something we don’t. They’re light-years ahead of us.”

He straightened. “Sam, I’m making a helicopter available to you first thing in the morning. Swink can fly you and the electrical device up to Harvey Rogers at Aberdeen. You worked with him on that Mogadishu op a while back. As soon as you’re done with Harvey, and Swink can get it airborne, I want you on that plane back to Grantham.”

He glanced at each of us. “Chief Raven, I sincerely appreciate that you saved my life tonight. You may have saved a whole lot more in the process . . . like our very existence.”

He paused, index finger pressed pensively to the side of his mouth. “So what do I call you and your team?”

“The ‘psycho babblers?’” Savage asked caustically. “The ‘lunatic gang’?”

I winced at the deadly narrowing of Chief Raven’s eyes; Savage was going to pay for that.

“How about Team Psi?” Grazier slapped the now horrified Sam Savage on the shoulder.

“And what are you going to be doing, Eli?” I asked, still achingly conscious of the fact that I was being played by a master manipulator.

“If you’ll loan me a hundred, I’m catching a cab downstairs, heading home to change, and going straight to the White House. I think the president and his security council are going to get one of those briefings they hoped they’d never get.” He looked genuinely frightened as he added, “And if I can’t make them understand, Tim, I’m probably going to be committed to your institution by the time you land in Colorado Springs tomorrow night.”