Alex Scarrow - City of Shadows

‘Expendable?’ Liam shook his head. ‘She’s not expendable… she’s…’ He studied his flapping hands for something to back that up. Then he had it. ‘She’s got that big secret in her head, so she does.’

‘We’ve also got that same secret on a hard drive, Liam. And now we know her AI is pretty stable.’ Maddy pursed her lips. ‘Despite that crush she seems to have on you… it means we can either run her mind on the network, or upload her AI into Bob if worst comes to worst and we lose her.’

‘It’s a relatively low probability,’ added Rashim assuredly. ‘I have run some calculations on this. Severing the power to the machine should have no effect.’

‘Aye, says the genius fella who beamed three hundred people seventeen years too far into Roman times.’

‘Now that was not my fault! I had to make too many guesses without any preparation! I had to — ’

Maddy waved them both silent. ‘Forget it, guys. The point is one of us has to babysit the displacement machine through the last window. And Becks is going to be the one to do it. Aren’t you?’

‘Affirmative.’

‘Like Rashim said, it’s a low probability anyway. But… if it does happen then we need her alongside to trash the machine then self-terminate so there’s nothing left for anyone, anywhere, to make use of.’

Maddy had toyed with nominating Bob, but she was pretty sure that it was unlikely that they were going to be able to grow any new support units where they were setting up base. If they did end up marooned in Victorian London forevermore then she’d rather have that big ape by their side to protect them than this small-framed female. A child. And yes, stronger than a fully grown man, but still nowhere near as lethal a weapon as Bob.

‘I want us to get this done this morning. I think we’ve pushed our luck hanging around here for weeks on end… and God knows if those support units are still out there looking for us. They’re not stupid. They’ve managed to track us down twice already.’

‘No one’ll find us here,’ said Liam. ‘Surely?’

‘There’s no knowing what sort of a breadcrumb trail we’ve left behind us. I think we’ve got very lucky so far. We don’t want to push it, right?’

Liam and Sal nodded.

‘We’ve got power-tap established and a nice new place we can call home. So, let’s pack up the last of our gear and get this thing done.’

9 October 2001, Harcourt, Ohio

‘That’s the girl,’ said Sheriff Marge McDormand. ‘The waitress. Her name’s Kaydee-Lee Williams.’

Cooper caught a glimpse of her through the diner’s broad glass window, dotted with fading yellow cardboard stars with handwritten assurances on them: ‘All Day Breakfast — we’ll fill you up like a truck!’, ‘Freshly Brewed Coffee — unlimited refills!’

They crossed Harcourt’s main street, quiet at this hour. Cooper put a hand on the door.

‘Go easy on her,’ said Marge. She glanced at the other agent — ‘ Agent Mallard… like the duck,’ he’d joked as he’d presented his ID — and the young woman with Agent Cooper. She’d not offered to show any kind of ID. Not even given a name. She had an icy face, the calm, lifeless look of a serial killer if truth be told.

‘Just go easy on Kaydee-Lee,’ said Marge. ‘She’s no troublemaker. She’s certainly no terrorist.’

Cooper nodded and smiled politely. ‘Thank you for your assistance, Sheriff, we’ll take it from here. Mallard?’

‘Sir?’

‘See the sheriff back to her car.’

‘Yes, sir.’

Cooper pushed the door of the diner open and Faith followed him inside.

The doorbell dinged as the door swung shut. It was quiet inside. Empty except for the waitress watching a small TV set sitting on the end of the counter. Cooper walked up the aisle between check-cloth tables. He watched Mallard leading the sheriff back to her squad car and getting in the front with her. He noted the sheriff watching things intently from there.

Let her watch. He smiled. Cooper had authority enough to shut her up, to lock the whole town down behind an impenetrable ring of road blocks if need be.

The waitress finally responded to the sound of their approach and turned from the television to offer Cooper a warm, friendly smile. ‘Help you guys?’ She noticed Faith behind him. ‘Table for two?’

Cooper pulled out his badge and flipped the wallet open with one smooth flick of his wrist. He loved doing that; he felt like Captain Kirk flipping open a communicator. One of the many little perks of the job. ‘FBI. I’d like to have a talk with you, Kaydee-Lee.’

She looked at his ID. Her eyes widened. ‘Did you just say FBI? Like on the TV?’

‘I’m Agent Cooper,’ he replied and stepped to one side. ‘And this is Agent Faith. We just want to ask you some questions.’

‘Am I… am I in trouble? Have I — ’

Cooper shook his head. ‘No… not at all. The sheriff says you’re a good girl.’ He grabbed a stool and perched on it. ‘And, you know, I’m inclined to believe her. I just wondered if you could help us out with something?’

Kaydee-Lee’s face relaxed a little. ‘Uh… OK, I’ll try.’

Cooper pulled a sheet of printer paper out of his pocket. The image on the face-down glossy side had been a nightmare to obtain. He’d had the devil of a time extracting it from that futuristic touch-screen mobile phone they’d recovered in that bridge archway in New York. He’d ended up having to draft some tech-heads from the Bureau’s research division to open the phone up and extract the solid-state data-storage chip. Of course they’d first tried one of the data cables supplied with the single pre-release ‘iPod’ that Apple had begrudgingly released to them. It appeared to have the same connector, and, given this device from the future was manufactured by the very same company, Cooper had been hoping they were going to be able to access its data storage.

But that would have been too easy, wouldn’t it? The futuristic mobile phone was using a different data-communication protocol.

The next step — something of a last resort — was pulling the damned thing to pieces and getting their hands on the data-storage chips inside. At which point, before they completely destroyed the thing, one of the Bureau nerds suggested simply getting the image up on the device’s screen… and just photographing the screen.

Obvious really.

Cooper turned the photograph over on the counter. ‘You’ve been talking to this guy recently.’

Kaydee-Lee leaned forward and scrutinized the image more closely. Her breath caught involuntarily. ‘Errr… not sure… I…’

‘It’s best to just be straight up and honest with us, Kaydee-Lee,’ he said. ‘This is serious stuff.’

Her cheeks turned a mottled pink. ‘OK… he’s been in here for coffee a coupla times. That’s all.’

‘And you’ve been talking, haven’t you?’

‘Sure… he’s kinda friendly, I guess.’ She looked up at him. ‘What’s this about?’

‘Terrorism, Kaydee-Lee. The worst kind of terrorism.’

She laughed. More a strangled giggle. ‘Oh no… not him. No.’ She bit her lip and shook her head until her face straightened. Nerves.

‘No, he’s not a terrorist.’ She looked at the TV. Fox News was showing images of cranes pulling apart the mound of debris. ‘Hang on… is this anything to do with that?’

‘I’m not at liberty to say.’ Cooper paused. Enough of a pause to be sure she understood that, yes, it actually was very much to do with that. ‘All I can tell you is that we need you to be one hundred per cent honest with us. To be a good, patriotic American citizen and tell us what you can about this young man.’