Day of the Predator - Alex Scarrow [104]
‘Yes.’ The man’s eyes narrowed curiously. ‘Yes, you do look genuinely surprised at that. What were you going to say?’
She shook her head. ‘Nothing.’
He studied her silently for a few moments. ‘This is someone you lost, isn’t it? Someone you’ve been unable to retrieve? To find? Some kind of mistake? Is that it?’
‘May I see the message, please?’ she replied.
‘You didn’t think time travel that far back was possible?’ he said, fishing for a reaction on her face. ‘Am I right?’
‘We lost someone, all right? Now, can I see the message?’
‘Where are you from?’ he asked, then shook his head. Comically, he gently slapped his forehead. ‘Stupid, stupid me … it’s when are you from I should be asking, isn’t it?’
Maddy couldn’t help a smile and a dry laugh. ‘It does that to you, this business … makes you want to slap your head.’
The old man shared the smile. ‘I can imagine.’ The smile eased away. Business again. ‘You’re American, that much I’ve worked out. Boston?’
She nodded. No point trying to hide that. ‘Yes.’
‘When?’ He looked at her T-shirt, the faded Intel logo on the front, her jeans, her pumps. ‘Not too far into the future is my guess.’
‘Maybe.’
‘You want to see this?’ he asked, unfolding the message.
She nodded.
‘Then can we start having some precise answers from you?’
She shrugged. ‘OK.’
‘Your name is?’
‘Maddy. Maddy Carter.’
‘Hello, Maddy.’ He nodded politely. ‘And what year are you from?’
‘I’m from 2010,’ she replied.
The answer seemed to stun him. His eyes widened involuntarily and beneath the folds of his wrinkled skin above the crisp white collar of his shirt, his jaw worked as teeth ground. Finally he pursed his lips. ‘2010 you said?’
‘Yup.’
‘You actually know the future? The next nine years of it?’
‘Of course.’
His face drained. ‘Then you … you’re saying you know, for example, what this government’s foreign policy goals might be? Long-term strategic plans? Those kind of things?’
She smiled. ‘Oh yeah, I know what’s round the corner.’
That silenced him for a long while. She watched the folded paper flutter in his hand.
‘Do you know just how dangerous that makes you to certain people?’ he said softly. ‘I can think of quite a few colleagues in my line of business who’d want to put a bullet in your head right now. Quite a few more who’d want to torture every last little fact out of that head of yours … oh, and then put a bullet in it.’
‘The message?’
He nodded his head absently and then handed it over. ‘It might amuse you to know,’ he said, ‘I can recite every word and every last number of the coded section. I’ve known off by heart what’s written down on there for the last decade and a half.’ He laughed humourlessly. ‘Like an old poem drummed into your head at school and you never ever forget.’
Maddy reached for it and unfolded the paper. She saw handwriting. She presumed it was the old man’s handwriting.
Take this to Archway 9, Wythe Street, Brooklyn, New York on Monday 10 September 2001.
Message: -89-1-9/54-1-5/76-1-2/23-3-5/17-8-4/7-3-7/5-8-3/12-6-9/23-8-1/3-1-1/56-9-2/12-5-8/67-8-3/92-6-7/112-8-3/234-6-1/45-7-3/30-6-2/34-8-3/41-5-6/99-7-1/2-6-9/127-8-1/128-7-3/259-1-5/2-7-1/69-1-5/14-2-66. Key is ‘Magic’.
Oh my God, Liam … you’re alive. You made it.
‘Now, the first bit makes sense to me … clearly designed to make sure the message finds its way to you –’
She cut him short. ‘Where did you get the message from?’
He cocked a wiry grey eyebrow. ‘A fossil, would you believe? A fossil discovered by some boys in 1941. The second of May, to be precise. Along a river near a town called Glen Rose in the state of Texas. It nearly caused a sensation, but … the wartime secret service worked quickly to hush up the find. And, of course, people were far more concerned about the war then than silly rumours about mysterious fossil finds.’
He smiled. ‘The place was taken over by secret service goons, and guess what else they found?’
Maddy shrugged.
‘A few months after the message was discovered, they found a human footprint.