John Schettler - Touchstone

“Well,” said LeGrand, a bit disconcerted. “It’s been my experience that the British usually leave things better off than they find them.”

“Chin, chin old boy,” Maeve winked at him, unyielding. “Yes, when the natives get restless there was always the Martini & Henry rifle and a bayonet to set things right. England created the situation that led to unrest and division in the Middle East for decades. The Sykes-Picot agreement just drew arbitrary lines in the sand here after the First World War, irrespective of cultural and ethnic differences. It created pacific little countries like Iraq, a gross conglomerate of Shiite, Sunni, Kurdish and Turkomen tribes, and all the misery that has resulted. Then, seeing the mess they’d made, Britain calmly withdrew ‘East of Suez’ and left it all to their new friend to sort out—the good old U.S.A. Now, don’t get me started on how that turned out.”

“Oh, I know exactly how it turns out, madam. You forget, it’s all history to me.”

“Spare me the details,” said Maeve, realizing she could not fight in that corner. “I can see where it’s heading quite well, thank you.”

“Come, come,” said LeGrand, trying to diffuse the situation. “If I didn’t know better I would have to ask myself who’s side you are on here.”

Maeve fixed him with a riveting stare, but LeGrand met her gaze with heavy lids, a look of suspicion settling into his fleshy features.

“Well, Doctor,” she said with an air of finality. “You didn’t invite us to tea to quibble over politics. Suppose you tell us what your real mission is here, and why you were warned to be on the lookout for two Americans on the road west of the city? Be quick about it, sir. The morning is wearing thin.”

Le Grandseemed taken aback by Maeve’s remark. The fire in her eyes seemed to surprise him, and he took a guarded posture, eying Nordhausen as though to see where he came down in the argument that had been unfolding. “Madame,” he said at last, “you make it sound as though there is some nefarious plot in the works.”

“You said it yourself, Doctor,” Maeve went on. “You received a message telling you to be on the lookout for two Americans on the road. You were kind enough to return my purse, but you, and your people, have had a good long look at my notes in the bargain, and this Order you speak of certainly knew what we were about here.”

“That you were about here,” LeGrand corrected. “Yes, we knew that much. The Touchstone database also indicated that there was a variation concerning the Rosetta stone as well. To put it bluntly, it was lost, as far as history was concerned. It’s significance as a key to the hieroglyphics was completely undone. We assumed you were interested, even as we were, but we did not know why.”

The ire in Maeve’s eye had not diminished. “Really? Even with a century or more to think it over? Don’t be coy, Doctor. From your perspective in the future this Order of the Temporal Knights knows very well what we are about—and why. If you will not at least grant me the courtesy of honesty, then I’m afraid I will have to insist that we leave here at once. We’ll find our way to the discovery site on our own.”

“Now, Maeve…” Robert touched her shoulder.

“Be quiet, Robert.” The tone of her voice made it quite plain that she was in no mood for compromise.

LeGrand squinted and pursed his lips, deciding. “Very well,” he said. “I forget who I’m dealing with: Maeve Lindford, head of Outcomes & Consequences, and the bane of research for…” he caught himself briefly, “an eternity,” he concluded.

“And what outcome will we have here, Doctor?” Maeve waited, chin up, eyes unyielding.

“Yes,” LeGrand said slowly. “We knew you were coming. We’ve had time enough to determine that much. The clues in that purse you dropped made the research easy. And I must warn you, Madam—warn you both.” He looked at Nordhausen as well. “They know you are here as well—the other side. You know who they are. Your friend, Mr. Dorland, made their acquaintance in Castle Massiaf. What a stroke of luck that was—a perfect example of his Pushpoint theory. Oh, Research predicted that you would try and retrieve your Ammonite fossil, Professor. Still, that little affair in Wadi Rumm was quite interesting. It’s amazing that you stumbled on the well like that.”

“You mean to say you knew about the well all along?”

“Quite the opposite,” said LeGrand. “We knew nothing at all. They set the Oklo reaction up with great secrecy, and used it sparingly so as not to reveal its location to our sensors. You see, Time war is a rather delicate business. You don’t fight any battles. There are no sweeping maneuvers and heavy blows against the enemy. It’s all subtlety, subterfuge, misdirection. It’s the little things that count, after all, the Pushpoints. So you can imagine our concern when we got a variation alert just as you were trying to slip out of Jordan for your surreptitious rendezvous with the Arabesque. ”

“You knew about that?” Nordhausen seemed a bit flustered. “But I took the greatest care to conceal my plans. Why, not even Paul knew what I was up to until I had him in the helo over Wadi Rumm! How did you learn about the ship?”

“That’s irrelevant,” LeGrand waved him off. “The point is, we were caught off guard by a hidden Pushpoint at the edge of that well. When Mr. Dorland stumbled in the dark, and took his fall, it set off quite a stir back in operations. We had a mission into the very same milieu where he manifested—a rather delicate mission—and he upset the proverbial apple cart with his arrival at Castle Massiaf.”

Maeve smiled. “Let me guess,” she said with a slight edge of sarcasm. “The Horns of Hattin…”

LeGrand gave her a penetrating look. “Indeed, Madam. Do you think we would allow something like that to stand if we could prevent it? The entire Christian army was slaughtered. A hundred Templars were lined up and beheaded, one by one, with that Moslem flair for the dramatic.”

“The hostage executions were all over the Internet during the second war in Iraq,” said Maeve.

“Then you can understand our motives easily enough. The battle of Hattin set back Christian plans in the Middle East for generations. It undid ninety years of painful consolidation in the kingdom of Outrémere, and caused a great deal of misery and suffering for decades thereafter.”

“Yes,” said Maeve. “The third Crusade was the answer, but Richard The Lion Heart failed to deliver Jerusalem and met an unseemly end in a German prison. The Fourth Crusade gets diverted to Constantinople by greedy Venetian Merchants. Lots of pain and suffering there, I suppose.”

“We had our reasons,” said LeGrand, then caught himself, realizing that he had said a bit too much. “But in the matter of Mr. Dorland’s visit to Massiaf, we could not quite figure out if you were running a deliberate mission or if it was mere happenstance.”

“Yes,” said Maeve, “there are always reasons…” she let the phrase dangle, looking LeGrand square in the eye. “Tell me, Doctor. Were you trying to kill Reginald?”

LeGrand jumped at the accusation, then narrowed his gaze, somewhat determined. “That would be quite unseemly,” he said. “Did we want him dead? Certainly. Did we think we could be so bold as to… assassinate him? Absolutely not. There are rules in the game, my dear. Violations are severe. Reginald was a Prime, as you well know. Without his headstrong influence, poor Guy never takes the crown from Baldwin’s daughter. Without his lust for vengeance and his greed, Saladin is never provoked to muster the Moslem armies. Without his brazen insults and bullying ways, the Christian army never sorties out to confront Saladin at Hattin, and things turn out… quite differently.”