The night before he died, Griggs had been on edge. He’d also been drinking. Joseph didn’t get much sense out of Frasier other than he’d told Waldstein he’d finally decided he was going to leave this project, that he didn’t want to have anything more to do with ‘this madness’.
The next day Frasier Griggs was found dead several miles outside W.G. Systems’ Pinedale, Wyoming campus. The official verdict was that some ‘flood migrants’ must have ambushed him. There were plenty of them out here now — the displaced, the desperate, the hungry — millions of them from the various east-coast states partially or completely submerged by the advancing Atlantic Ocean. The lucky rich lived in fortified urbanizations. The rest in large displacement camps. That’s how it was. The haves and the have-nots separated by coils of razor wire and private security firms.
It could have occurred as the official verdict stated: that poor Frasier had just set his Auto-Drive to take him home along the wrong road at the wrong time and the hastily erected roadblock, the subsequent murder and vehicle theft were just another sad sign of these dark times.
But then Joseph discovered something that made him suddenly very frightened of Waldstein. Griggs’s personal digi-pen — a very expensive one modelled to look like an old-fashioned fountain pen — was sitting in Griggs’s Real G mug like some carelessly discarded biro. Something he never did. He had a brass holder for his digi-pen and it always nestled there when not in use — one of his obsessive-compulsive habits. He’d never leave it like that, poking out of his mug.
So that’s why Joseph picked it up and thumbed the control nub.
A memo. It wasn’t even password-locked. It was the last entry recorded on Griggs’s digi-pen. He must have recorded it not long after he’d rowed with Waldstein. He sounded angry still. Perhaps even frightened.
‘ He’s insane. The man’s completely insane, Joseph.’ Griggs’s words were badly slurred. He must have carried on drinking after Joseph had bid him goodnight.
‘ I think he wants the whole world to die, Joseph. That’s what Pandora is. It’s the end of the world. Roald knows all about it. When it happens, how it happens. And you and I… and those poor clones back in 2001… we’re here to make sure it happens that way. ’
A pause. Joseph heard the slosh of liquid, the clink of a glass. The sound of a gulp.
‘ You know… that first time he used a time machine? Back in ’44. I don’t think he went back in time to see his wife, his son, like he always claimed. No. I think he went forward. I think he discovered how mankind finally kills itself off. And all this… everything… his campaign against time travel, this little project, those poor lab rats back there in New York in that archway, you and me… it’s all been to make for certain it damn well happens that way. We’ve been played for fools, you and me, Joseph. Fools! ’
Another pause.
‘ You can stop this, Joseph. I… can’t. He won’t let me back in after what I said. He won’t trust me anywhere near this project. I should’ve shut my mouth. I shouldn’t have confronted him. But it’s done. I’m out of the circle of trust… and that’s how it is. But you can do something. You’re all he has now. He trusts you. You could derail this thing! Sabotage it! ’
The sound of heavy breathing, rustling across the mic.
‘ Joseph. History has to be changed. Do you understand? Not preserved… but changed. You have to do it! You’ve got to steer us all away from wiping ourselves out!’
Another pause.
‘ God forgive me for my part in all of this… ’
Chapter 27
12 September 2001, North Haven Plaza, Branford, Connecticut
‘We’re going to have to pull in a lot of favours to keep the lid on this, Agent Cooper.’
‘That’s what favours are for, aren’t they? Rainy days like this.’ Cooper looked around the entrance foyer of the shopping mall. It looked like a thousand other malls, all pastel plastic fascias and plastic plants. Faux Greco-Roman columns and Doric archways. Only this one was decorated with icing-sugar granules of glass scattered across the fake marble floor, shopping bags discarded in the stampede to exit. Several drops and smears of dried blood dotted here and there.
‘What cover story are we putting out?’
‘Armed robbery that went wrong.’
‘Good.’ Cooper nodded. Keeping it simple. If there’d been a whiff of ‘terrorist’ to it, the press would be all over this story. That had been his first instinct, a ‘terrorist’ cover story that some conspirators involved with the Twin Towers incident — some of the press were calling it 9/11 now… a catchy term for it — had been identified and put under surveillance: the men had been a terrorist cell attempting to lie low for a while, until things settled down and vigilance levels dropped once more and they could have a go at slipping past immigration and out of the country, but they’d been followed and caught as they headed upstate from New York.
If Cooper had gone with that cover story, this car park would have been crawling with news-station broadcast vans and reporters doing pieces to camera. Instead, a simple ‘armed robbery gone wrong’ story didn’t have the same pulling power right now. They had the mall to themselves for a day or two. A crime scene: every entrance taped off and guarded by a uniformed officer.
‘We got CCTV coverage of most of the incident.’
‘That’s all been confiscated?’
‘Yes, sir.’
Cooper had already seen some of it. Digitally copied and enhanced to make it a little clearer. There was no mistaking the fact that the two armed people, one man and one woman, had been hit several times in the opening crossfire. And yet they’d walked on as if nothing had happened, leaving an easy-to-follow trail of blood droplets in their wake.
Cooper looked up at the escalator, one glass side of it shattered. Then at the railing running round the horseshoe-shaped balcony of the floor above. A twenty-foot drop down to where they were now standing.
Incredible.
‘The female really jumped down from up there?’
‘That’s what the eyewitnesses said.’
‘They’ll need to be informed they were mistaken, or that the woman shattered her legs and spine on impact.’
‘They saw her get up and take several steps.’
Cooper looked at Agent Mallard, one of the few FBI agents his limited budget allowed him to deputize into The Department. Mallard was young, eager to impress. Ready to do as he was told. ‘That’s what they thought they saw, Mallard. Do you understand? What they thought they saw in the heat of the moment. The mind plays tricks on what you think you’ve seen in a situation like this.’
‘Right, yes… sir.’
‘The male one?’
‘Preliminary autopsy’s already been done.’
‘And?’
Mallard hesitated. ‘The report says he sustained thirty-seven separate gunshot wounds.’
‘Thirty-seven?’
‘Yes, sir. The police officers who were interviewed said they only managed to bring him down after four or five successful head shots.’
Cooper kept his face impassive, his response measured. This wasn’t the place for outbursts of incredulity. He also needed to be sure his new recruit fully understood the situation. ‘Mallard?’
‘Sir?’
‘You’re going to see some things, learn things that — I’ll be frank with you — most Presidents don’t even get to know about. You understand, once you’re in The Department, you’re in it for good?’
‘That was made clear to me, sir.’
‘Good. Now… take me to where they’re holding the other one, the female. I want to talk with her
