Cherenkov radiation, then it disappeared.
“Let’s get out of here.” he said, nervously glancing up at the surrounding windows. It had all taken merely seconds, and fortunately, there hadn’t been much noise. “Come on. We’ll have to take him with us,” he said, nodding toward Johnny as he adjusted his warp disc to a wider pattern.
Johnny didn’t understand what had happened. The stringer had fired his peculiar pistol four times, with astonishing accuracy and impossible speed, all without reloading, and it had barely made a sound. And then he had somehow made the dead man’s body disappear without a trace in that strange blue glow that came from that even stranger, second weapon. He was still trying to take it all in when Hunter brought him up to stand close beside Neilson and the wounded man and the next thing Johnny knew, he was no longer standing in the middle of the street outside Ebenezer Macintosh’s house, but in the center of a room somewhere, in a completely different place, and he was feeling nauseous and dizzy. He gasped and looked around him wildly, and then his eyes rolled up and he fainted. Hunter just barely managed to catch him before he hit the floor.
Moffat was missing. Drakov didn’t have to wonder where he was. He would never have had the nerve to take all somewhere on his own without first asking permission and saying precisely where he was going and when he would return Both he and the female were like servile dogs in that respect, thought Drakov, falling all over themselves to attend him. Moffat’s disappearance could only mean one thing. The Time Commandos had him, which meant there was no question of returning to the house on Newbury Street. It was no longer secure.
Moffat would hold out against interrogation for a while, but they were sure to break him, as Drakov had intended that they should. He knew that people always valued something a great deal more when they had to work for it and they would have to work to break down Moffat, but break him down they would, and then they would believe him when he talked-as Moffat would, of course, believe himself-when the fact was that neither of the hominoids knew what the real mission was. They believed the plan was merely to kill Samuel Adams, the revolution’s Grand Incendiary, as Thomas Hutchinson had christened him, but if the Hellfire Club succeeded in assassinating Adams, which was entirely possible, it would only be an added bonus. But though it was part of what Drakov intended to accomplish, he did not need Adams dead to achieve what he had planned.
The hominoids had served their purpose. Moffat would distract the Time Commandos and by the time they realized their mistake. it would be too late for them to do a thing about it.
Steiger heard the door open and, slowly raised his head, staring at the newcomer through swollen eyes. He was dressed in well-tailored, elegant colonial, clothing with a silk brocade waistcoat and lace at the throat and cuffs. He heard the man expel his breath sharply as he saw him.
“Jesus Christ.” he said, staring at Steiger. “What the hell is going on here? What did you do to him?”
“Softened him up a little,” said the other man, still wearing the black leather gloves he’d donned to administer the beating.
“What for?’ said the man who’d just come through the door.
“What for? What are you, crazy? Don’t you know what’s going on? Don’t you know who this guy is?”
“Do you?”
“You’d damn well better believe I do.” the gloved man said. “He’s Col. Creed Steiger, head of the goddamned I.S.D.”
“You didn’t have to do this.” said the newcomer, his mouth tight. “There was no call for this.”
“No call for it? Are you nuts? The son of a bitch is lucky he’s alive! There’s a contract out on him, in case you didn’t know. You know what he’s worth dead?”
“Is that what it’s come, to, Stevens?” said the newcomer.
“We’re taking contracts now? We’re hitting our own people’?”
“Shut up, you stupid bastard! Don’t use my name in front of him!”
“What difference does it make? Do you intend to let him live?”
“Only as long as necessary.” Stevens said grimly. “They got Carruthers. They took out Stiers and Aaronson, as well. Left no trace of them, not even a wet spot on the floor. This bastard’s our security. They come after us, we got a hostage.”
“How much is he worth dead?” asked the newcomer.
“A smooth five mil.” said Stevens. “Five million fucking dollars.”
“And you’d kill one of our own people for it,” said the newcomer.
“He’s not one of our people, you damn fool! He’s I.S.D.!”
“And what the hell is the I.S.D.?” the newcomer snapped.
“It’s the internal security division of the goddamn agency, you moron!’
“Don’t talk to me that way!”-Do you even realize what you’re doing?” the newcomer said. “It’s one thing to run a few illegal operations to make some money, but what you’re talking about now is murder!”
“They took out Carruthers and the others,” Stevens said harshly. “What do you call that?”
“Carruthers must’ve forced their hand. He went too far. When I heard what he was planning, I thought he had gone crazy. We’re supposed to be helping these people, for God’s sake! There’s a temporal disruption going down! We’re supposed to be on the same damn side!”
“Is that so?” said Stevens. He jerked his head toward Steiger. “Is that why this son of a bitch is trying to nail us? Because we’re on the same side? Don’t make me laugh. He sold out, the bastard. He was a field agent, just like us, and he sold out!”
“To whom?”
“To the goddamned bureaucrats and politicians, that’s to whom! Jesus, will you wake the hell up? This isn’t some game we’re playing here! This isn’t the goddamned Boy Scouts! Forester sent this guy to take us out. He’s out to bust the whole damn Network! We’ve gotta take them out before they get us first!”
“Them?” said the newcomer. “Wait a minute, let me get this straight. Are we talking about assassinating the director of the T.I. A.?”
“You’re damn straight!” said Stevens. “And the bounty on the old man’s been set at ten million! Where the hell you been? Me. I’m not crazy enough to try for Forrester. but Steiger here fell right into our laps. You don’t want a share, just say so. You can go back to Virginia and plant tobacco for all I fucking care. Go anywhere the hell you want, but I’m telling you right now, you get in my way. I’m gonna roll right over you.”
“That’s the way it is. huh?”
“That’s the way it is.”
“And what about the disruption?”
“Who gives a fuck about the damn disruption? We send this jerk to the cell commander in a bag and we can all retire. Especially now that Carruthers and the others have been taken out. We don’t have to cut the pie as thin.”
“I see, I guess that does make for an incentive.”
“You better believe it.” Stevens said.
The newcomer walked over to where Steiger sat, firmly tied down to a stout chair. He took him by the hair and pulled his head back so that he could look down into his eyes. Steiger squinted up at him. The man’s face was expressionless.
“He’d really take us out, wouldn’t he’?” the man said.
“In a minute.”
“I suppose that would make it self-defense, then.”
Stevens grinned. “Yeah, I guess it would.”
“Five million dollars is a lot of money,” said the man in front of Steiger. “And I suppose if a temporal disruption did go down, we could always clock back further, where we wouldn’t have to worry about it. Go underground. kick back and take it easy… “
“Now you’re talkin’.” Stevens said.
“I mean, between the rest of us in this section, we’ve already got a tidy sum salted away. Then there’re the goods in the warehouses in Boston, Philadelphia, and Charleston, we could easily liquidate those at a fat profit. wouldn’t have to cut that pie as thin, either… “
“Now you’re getting the idea.” Stevens said.
“You know, when you look at it that way. I suppose it does make a lot of sense-the man said, still looking down at Steiger with no expression on his face. He let his head drop and turned around to face Stevens. “Personally, I never cared much for Carruthers anyway.”
