The time gene, p.29
The Time Gene, page 29
“The Patiala necklace?” he croaked, greed nascent in his rheumy eyes.
“Very substantial sections thereof. And the celebrated de Beers jewel.” Canute quickly stowed the necklace back into his jacket. “This I give you, if you win.” He marvelled at his own masterstroke. It had taken all his diplomacy skills to persuade Slater to lend it to him. Dirk had purchased the necklace from a street hawker in Delhi, who had had no idea of its true worth, because Spez thought it was ‘pretty’.
III
Cardwell frowned at the posh Kraut secret agent. Or whatever he was. Old Ronnie had practiced espionage, concealment and duplicity all his life. So much was he a world leader in detecting treachery in others that they called him the Judas Catcher. A genius at blending into the background, he mollified and lulled informers. Who dreaded to confide in a crusty gambling addict who lived in an attic with newspaper for wallpaper and took a bath once a week? And as they spilt dangerous beans, Old Ronnie sniffed out their foulest character traits and stripped them of their darkest secrets. Body language, eye movements and personal tics that looked so authentic were often fake. Ronnie saw through it every time.
Yet the teutonic apparition bamboozled him. Too aloof for a conman, too suave for a terrorist, too unsociable for a padrino, too volatile for a spy. Ronnie was tearing his hair out over it.
“An’ wot’s my stake?”
“I ask no remuneration,” the Bosch enigma answered. But, when I win, you will enact to the letter the instructions I have given you. You will instruct the world’s superpowers to ratify Operation Houdini. You will build the Tempus Tunnels.”
Ronnie twitched. Was he an agent sent to blackmail the British government? But then why the disregard for financial reward? Could these ‘tunnels’ he was banging on about be intended for drug-smuggling or people-trafficking? But the letter stipulated blueprints for tunnels through time, not space, for ‘chronomotives’ that only an elite would be able to control. Their alleged purpose was benevolent – the prevention of an apocalyptic war. An elaborate hoax, surely? Yet years of planning and preparation had been invested in this hoax. What benefit was it to any man to blow billions on an engineering project that violated all known laws of physics? And why did this man’s demeanour not follow the psychometrics of a skilled liar? How could he ask the impossible, claim the fantastical, stake the unattainable and yet look morally unimpeachable? This German was unclassifiable. He was ill-attuned to his location, to his environment, to his position in the cosmos. It was as though he existed on a different plane.
“If you don’t mind me askin’, what exactly are we bettin’ on? ‘Orses? Dogs?”
“The arrow of time itself.”
Ronnie spluttered into his hip flask. “I need a stiff brandy.”
“Excellent idea. Let us partake of refreshments, whilst finalising our little wager,” the German said. “The Waterside, I believe, is close by.”
Ronnie mimed barfing into his hipflask. “Hell, no. I’m off for a pint wi’ the lads.”
The thrice burnt-down Phoenix bore a crooked sign, and graffiti smudged on the door. Inside, it was dark and smoky, and the chipped stools, threadbare seats and greasy tables gave it a homely feel that Ronnie revered. A slimy pool table almost blocked the entrance. Solace poured into him. This was divine.
Shouts from a raucous darts match rose from the back of the room. At the bar sat two shrivelled old men fighting an arm-wrestling contest (to the death by the looks of it), whilst a rock-paper-scissors tournament kicked off in the left-hand corner. Ragged cheering rent the smoky air. They all knew Ronnie – but the posh Kraut stuck out like a sore thumb. Workmen in overalls nudged each other and sniggered at his designer gear, which incensed him. Cardwell, however, heartily ordered a large brandy and “whatever his friend was having”. The Kraut asked for a Spaetburgunder and the barman burped into his Holsten Pils and said “whassat?” The Kraut settled ill-graciously for sparkling apple juice and toyed with ordering a meal. But when he saw the pub’s large chip platter being handed to one of the arm-wrestlers, he crinkled his nose. Ronnie ordered a large fish supper and tucked in with relish. The Kraut spy leaned over and said, sotto voce: “They must be paying you a millionaire’s ransom, yet you frequent plebeian alehouses and consort with society’s dregs. Why?”
Ronnie chuckled. “This is me true home, son.”
The teutonic stared around him in supercilious disgust. Instead of sitting on his stool, he squatted, in constant peril of falling off. Ronnie had to keep leaning into him as he couldn’t hear him over the darts game. Bloody nuisance when you were trying to have your chips in peace.
“My stake says...”
“Pass the ketchup, Bert!”
Poor Bert. He’d had a hard day. His string vest was molting and his tattoos looked blotchier than the paintwork on the gents’ loos in a country railway station. Ronnie’s mouth was watering as he eked out the last dregs of the ketchup. “Cheers, mate.” He turned to the German. “Sorry, whassat, mate?”
The Kraut was fixing on an overhung television with the sound muted, set to a grainy news report on the GIA in Algeria. “My stake says April will be a bloody month.”
Cardwell chortled into his batter. “That’s the safest bet tha’ ever was.”
“Dobster, go get ‘em, mate! Dobster! Dobster! Dobster!” the darts players chanted. Cardwell grinned. He hadn’t hit a bullseye in months. Maybe tonight would be his lucky night. The German hissed sharply in his ear: “But what if I told you that there will be three village massacres this calendar month? That on Thursday all but one of 53 inhabitants of Thalit will be butchered by guerrillas? Further slaughters will follow – one at Haouch Khemisti on the 22nd and the second at Omaria. What if I foretold that on the 14th, 343 pilgrims will perish in a fire near Mecca?”
Cardwell regurgitated a mouthful of chips. The suave spook was prophesising bloodshed with a velvet caress that bordered on relish.
“Ro Sham Bo!” Cardwell’s rheumy eyes darted in the direction of a raucous Rock Paper Scissors game. He’d forgotten that was on tonight. Maybe tonight wouldn’t be so dull.
Then the Kraut went and spoilt it. He whipped out what looked like a silver Visa. “Here. I’ve written my predictions on this card. What if a serial killer who struck first on 27th...?”
Cardwell spewed a mouthful of ketchup onto the counter. “Stop it! This is nonsense...dangerous nonsense. Ain’t no man can tell the future; Christ forbid ‘e ever could.”
“Then you will bet me?”
Cardwell wiped his nose with his ketchup-smeared hand. He scrutinised the German through his watery grey eyes. He needed to crack the code. Was he a madman? A prankster? He froze like a condemned man in the electric chair. Could any agent be so powerful he could order mass killings like entrées in a restaurant? Yet, that still did not explain why this man was so intent on making a bet he could not win. The preciseness of his claims belied any possibility they could be actualised. No terrorist organisation could predict casualty numbers prior to an attack. Cardwell sensed a radar of danger around the German, but also hunger. Why were his deep green eyes so pleading?
“I...I don’t gamble on life an’ death,” he stuttered. “Ain’t no bookie gonna buy that.”
The rock paper scissors match raged on. “’E’s cheatin’… I swear ‘e’s cheatin!”
The German looked Ronnie hard in the eye. “Since when did we play by the rules? Your darkest fear is that I am right. Yet logic dictates that I am wrong. Your path is clear. If one of my predictions is out, even minutely, you may call me a madman. I’ll check into Bedlam. But first I will give you my weight in gold, plus the Patiala necklace. You have my word. If I win, you will lose nothing. You only have to give Houdini the green light. This is a win/win situation.”
Cardwell’s grimy plate fell from his hands, hit the floor and cracked, spewing chips everywhere. “’Oo gave you the right to play God? Are disasters, wars an’ massacres your tools?”
The German patted his nose with a satiny handkerchief. “I do not engender them, engineer them or enjoy them. They simply are, such is the brutality of man on man. But lest you think me so steeped in malevolence that I can contrive these figures at will, I offer you one final indemnity clause. I present to you the result of the parliamentary election of 1997.”
Cardwell snorted. “That don’t take no psychic powers. New Labour are 20 points ahead in every poll...”
“Hang the polls!” The Kraut toff took from his pocket what looked like a newspaper article, although the identity of the rag had been redacted. It showed a seat-by-seat map of the state of the parties on May 2nd. To its right was an alphabetical list of constituencies. All 659 returned MPs were listed, alongside their parliamentary majorities. “If this errs even in the minutest detail, I lose the bet.”
Cardwell fingered it gingerly. “Impossible! Insane!”
“Naturally,” replied the German. “Then you will wager me?”
All Cardwell’s instincts rebelled against conceding to this man an inch. “I ain’t wagerin’ nothing. This is a trap to hoodwink the government into fundin’ crime lords. Else you’re an illusionist.”
The German sat perched on the stool, grinning like a ventriloquist’s dummy in a slick tuxedo. “Illusionists ‘predict’ events by concealing data in a closed envelope. They hide stooges, who doctor the content before the reveal. But I open the envelope at the outset. I lay the cards on the table, plain as day. I cannot win, you say. I cannot foreknow, you say. You declare my victory impossible. Which presupposes my defeat is inevitable, and your triumph a certainty. Why, then, would you refuse?”
Cardwell let the brandy warm his limbs like fire, and his eyes drooped. “You’re a rum one.”
The German bought him another plate of chips. And two more brandys. Still Cardwell held out.
“Ol’ Ronnie, ain’t you playin’ tonigh’?” old Sid bawled across from the rock-paper-scissors table.
“Not tonigh’, Sid, not tonigh’,” Cardwell mumbled, wheezing on a cigarette.
“Whassamatter, scared o’ losin’ your crown?” jeered Lanky Lou.
“I’ll take you any time!” bragged Fred the Fella, mid darts-throw.
“No you won’t, Fred,” Sid scoffed. “’E ain’t been beat in ten year’.”
“Ooooh…Ronno’s runnin’ scared…”
Cardwell grinned. “Come meet my new friend,” he said, clasping the posh teutonic’s shoulder – to the latter’s ill-concealed disgust. What had he said his name was? “Cute, wasn’t it? ‘E’s a fortune teller.”
“A’ righ’, Mr. Cute? Gonna tell us Saturday’s lotto numbers?”
The Kraut scowled. But then an ominous smirk unfolded on his lips. “You are unbeaten in rock paper scissors?” he put to Cardwell.
“Oh, ‘e is, mate,“ Sid pitched in. “He’s blinkin’ psychic! Unbeaten in ten years.”
Fred continued to demand a match, and at length Cardwell loped across and bumped down on the cracked stool across from him. His senses were numbed from the brandy, but as soon as he sat down, he re-animated like electrified frog limbs. Cardwell out-manoeuvred Fred every time, reading his next move in the jerks and spasms of his broken opponent’s face. He flummoxed Fred so much that he fell backwards off his stool. The punters cheered and patted Cardwell on the back. Bert even bought him a pint. “I’ll stand a pint to any bloke who can beat Ol’ Ronnie.” Cardwell knocked back most of his pint back in one gulp, laughing. “’To the victor, the spoils.’ A round of drinks to all an’ a hundred quid to anyone who beats me tonight.”
“If I beat you, will you do as I have asked?”
Cardwell froze.
The German stood by the bar, upright and self-possessed, while Cardwell slouched in his shaky stool, his face sagging and his eyes unfocused. He groaned, burped and slurped down the rest of his pint.
“Will you?”
Fred smirked: “Oho, look ‘oo’s chicken now!”
His mates ribbed him with chicken impersonations.
Cardwell’s eyes darkened. He wagged a chiding finger at the German. “This puts a lid on this nonsense once an’ for all. When you lose (as you will), you walk out that door an’ never come near me again. Got that? The Kraut nodded.
“Ooo...ooo...ooo!” Bert sniggered. “You tell ‘im, Ronno.”
“Go get ‘im, Cutie,” said Fred.
“I’m warnin’ you, mate,” Sid whispered to Canute as he took the stool opposite. “You ain’t got no chance. I seen him way more bladdered than this an’ ‘e still won.”
The match was tight. Most rounds reached a tie-break as the two men sized each other up and second guessed their opponent’s move. But at length Cardwell fell apart. At first, he had been able to read the German, just as he could others. But as the game wore on, the Kraut grew more and more steely; and his face ever more illegible. It seemed as if this man were synched to a remorseless machine that churned out millions of random gigabytes every second. Cardwell began to make mistakes; and the more mistakes he made, the more his sweaty hands trembled. This man was shredding the annals of his mind. Canute erred sparingly; he was pitiless and methodical. Cardwell himself mentally changed his gesture up to fifty times before making his move. But he had the odd sense that his adversary was following his thoughts closer than a train guard. Cardwell could only conclude, ludicrous as it sounded, that the German knew his chosen gesture before he did.
“Ro Sham Bo!” Sid bawled for the final time.
The German spy’s rock blunted Cardwell’s scissors.
The pub erupted as the news filtered through. Two men even ran out to tell their mates in Burger King. Another called his wife on his mobile. The German, to his consternation, was lifted high onto the shoulders of Bert and Fred, who paraded him across the aisles and even on top of a table, cheering him like a new king.
“Cute! Cute! Cute! Cute! Cutesey! Cute! Cute! Cute!” they chanted.
First he recoiled, and squirmed away, but then played along. He punched the air and issued a low, guttural laugh.
When they set him down, he ran straight to Cardwell, and embraced him like a brother. Such intimacy from this android surprised Cardwell, but he good-naturedly returned the hug. “Well done, mate.”
Cardwell winced as something cold, hard and painful penetrated his left shoulder. In a brief, terrifying glance, he saw the glint of a needle.
He froze. “What’ve you given me, you bastard?”
“Shut up,” the spook hissed. “An insurance policy. Completely harmless. A simple tracking device. Sub-molecular. Too minute to be detected by current medicine, so you needn’t bother dobbing me in. I have to know whether or not you have kept your promise. Now, listen well. The Tempus Tunnels will be constructed. I shall know if they have not been.”
The German grasped his violin case, and slithered out of the door, ignoring pleas from his cheering fans, and countless offers to stand him a pint.
Still reeling, Cardwell hobbled to the door. “Quick – after him!” He staggered out into the cold, wet night. He could see no-one, but heard the faint lilt of a violin. The sound epicentred in a dark side alley. The Kraut did not see Ronnie at first. He was standing in the hazy light, immersed in his music, yet something was wrong. He was hunched awkwardly over the instrument, and he couldn’t seem to prevent the chin rest from slipping. Cardwell was no expert, but his seven-year-old granddaughter was learning, and this was no way to hold a violin. The German continued to play with ardour; even a longing and hunger, before casting one final disgusted glance upon Cardwell.
Ronnie, frozen through from the hard rain, crawled back in to the pub and related his story.
“You’re drunk as a fuckin’ Lord, mate!”
“Yeah, go ‘ome, Ronnie,” the barman said. “You’re pretty far gone.” “Last orders, folks.”
Cardwell was writhing in pain and shock. The incision in his shoulder was tiny, and invisible, but he had never known pain like it; not when he’d had gallbladder stones; not when he’d had appendicitis; not when he’d been shot in the neck during the Second World War. It was agony. Yet he was lucid enough to know the night’s revelations were not alcohol-induced. To grasp that the planet was sleepwalking into a great peril.
Chapter Thirty
Date with Death
Whitehall, gates of Downing Street, 24th August 1997
Canute stood mid-pavement, tapping into his mobile, oblivious to the commuter hordes. A cyclist, zigzagging around the crowds, swerved into a lamppost. Five businessmen with briefcases shuffled past. A gang of teenage girls in cropped tops and skimpy shorts elbowed their way through. A mother with two buggies battled past. A harassed civil servant squeezed through.
Canute focused hard. With meticulous care and precision, he angled his phone towards the top floor of 10 Downing Street. Leaking from the phone was a beam of eerie pink light, though it was hard to discern in daylight. Canute clutched the telephone to his chest. The beam expanded and dissolved his body. He vanished.
He’d banked on most of Whitehall’s commuters being too busy to notice. But he heard a loud bang. Canute later read in the court annals that the bus driver blamed the lamppost collision on “a fellow disappearin’ in broad daylight”. But he served eighteen months because the only person backing his story was a heroin addict living in a cardboard box.
Canute crash-landed atop a flight of stairs. He brushed himself down, wondering whether all his atoms had correctly reassembled. He heard a gruff male voice from the adjoining room.
“Bonkers. Completely cuckoo. It must be senility. I suppose at his age it’s to be expected...but it’s so sudden. But, don’t worry, I have an excellent shortlist for the successor...talk later over a glass of wine. Bye.”
