Chapter Five:
Claire walked
through the rotunda of the building glancing quickly at the building directory
to find the floor she wanted without drawing attention to herself.
“This is where
being a spy really comes in handy,” she told herself. “The blend in
factor.” She and a small group worked their way in an orderly fashion on
to the elevator. A tall handsome young man excused himself to her and
reached around to hit the button for number 4, the same floor Claire
wanted.
“Let’s see where
he leads me to,” she mused as the car began to rise.
Four
people got out on 4, two went left and two right, Claire and the man went
right, she following at a respectable distance behind before pretending to
enter the woman’s washroom. She watched his journey in the mirror of her
compact until he unlocked the door right at the end of the long hallway.
Claire smiled, she chosen well. She checked her face in the mirror,
replaced the compact in her purse and proceeded down the hallway drawing closer
to the office door of The Director of Internal Security, Clark Eddings.
She knew they’d be along for two
reasons, one the early hour of the day and two that he had unlocked the
door. If his Administrative Assistant. “Check that Claire!” she
thought. “They’re still called secretaries and paid like slaves! If
his secretary was in the door would have been unlocked already.”
This time there was no hesitation
on her part; she turned the doorknob and walked into the outer office waiting
area. It was like stepping into a time capsule, the secretary’s desk
complete with a side typing table on which sat a monster size Smith-Corona
typewriter occupied the exact centre of the room. On either side of the
waiting area, each complete with waiting benches were the doors to Clark
Eddings office on the left he being the Deputy Director and that of his boss,
Jonathan Gatehouse, the Director on the right. Along the back wall
were rows of wooden filing cabinets all locked with enormous sized padlocks?
All the furniture was solid wood, a kind of knockoff Mission and Arts and
Crafts combination that you still saw being sold in used furniture places even
in 2003. Claire turned left, placed her hand on the door turned and
confidently entered.
“Ah, I was hoping I’d see you
again!” Clark said looking up from the pile of papers spread out before
him. “You must be new here I haven’t seen you before?”
Claire took this as a good opening
sign and decided to play along, for a while anyway. “Why were you
hoping?” she questioned in a combination coy and confident tone as she moved to
the chair on the opposite side of the desk and sat down.
Clark smiled at her, not a
lecherous smile but one of happy resignation. He was no card player; he
preferred to be straightforward in his dealings. Bluffing and posturing
weren’t in his lexicon. “Perhaps I deal with facts too much and that’s
why I’m this way?” he once told himself, but it had served him well so he kept
at it. “Except of course with women. Very few of them liked the straight
forward, they liked the roundabout, it all ended up in the same place, but it
was the getting there that was the major difference. They enjoyed the
game more than he did and that’s why you’re still single!” he constantly
reminded himself. This woman appeared to be a game player as well, and
yet there seemed to be a sense of urgency in her that made game playing, at
least at this point in time, for her anyway, frivolous.
Claire had him pegged from the
start as a logical fact driven non-game player, but with a passionate heart
buried under it all unable to escape because of the position he held.
Claire starred at him just for a second as he’d stood up when she took her
seat. Clark was thirty or thirty-one, trim, fit and as she’d noticed
before handsome. Thick neatly combed black hair, large questioning brown
eyes, a perfect Roman nose, a beautifully sculpted jaw, very kissable lips and
no wedding ring were just a few of the things her training took in. She
also noticed his height, which she guessed at about 6’2” and his diploma
hanging on the wall behind his desk, Lehigh University Class of 1937 Bachelor
of Engineering in Mechanical Science. Claire smiled back and waited for
his response to her question while she pondered her next move.
“Because I didn’t want to go
looking all over the building to find you!” he answered.
“Find me why?” she asked in a
started tone.
“You’re not going to make this
easy for me are you Miss?
“Yates, Helen Yates,” Claire
answered. “And no I’m not, but I suspect you’re motives in looking for me
are not the same as mine are in searching you out,” she added not wanting to
lead the man astray and disappoint him.
“Oh,” he said trying to hide his
disappointment as best he could. “Then what can I help you with?” he
continued no sense of coolness or distant professionalism in his demeanour
which just made Claire want to get to know him better.
She took the manila folder from
underneath her arm and unwound the string from the clasp before pulling out the
pictures and placing them on the desk before him. She watched Clark’s
forehead furrow just for a fraction of a second and then return to normal, it
was alarm and she knew it. She also knew something else and got up from her
seat and walked around the desk on the pretence of shuffling through the
pictures with him as she bent close and smiled. The smile froze him for
just the second she needed as her hand slid under the desk and closed around
his which was closed around a switch. Gently her lips smiling a true
honest smile she pulled his hand and the switch back to the off position.
“I’ll talk fast I know security
will be here shortly just please don’t interrupt and consider all I have to say
before you decide. That man in the picture Dr. Trumaine Black is not only
a threat to National Security, but also the very future of the entire
world. Let me guess that beyond say 15 years ago your agency or any other
agency cannot find anything on this man. It’s as if he just showed up, no
school records, pictures, friends who remember him, bank transactions,
nothing! Yet in that 15 or so years he’s gone from nothing to being a
billionaire through a series of seemingly brilliant stock market plays!
His timing has been perfect; no question of inside or outside help, everything
always appears to be above board. It’s like he knows what’s going to
happen before it does! He’s reclusive, values his privacy, to a maniacal level,
shuns the public and the spotlight and I’d say lives within a private compound
in the Cascade Mountain’s of Northern Utah, mostly likely inside a highly
guarded complex.”
“I got these pictures from a Los
Angeles Times photographer. I wasn’t sure what was upsetting me about
them until last night when it suddenly hit me!” Claire said frantically
spreading them out on Clark’s desk.
“Take a look and tell me..”
At that moment the door burst open and a very
large man bounded across the room straight at Claire determined to take her
down! The spy reacted with even greater determination, her instinct
driving her forward! Claire, hands pressed firmly on the desk vaulted up
and over the startled Clark Eddings landing next to the chair she had until
recently occupied. She stepped up on the chair, sprung forward and
twirled executing and spinning back heel kick followed immediately by a roundhouse
back hand, both catching the man flush on the jaw! Two quick thrusts to
the stomach and a chop to the neck send him to his knees ending the one sided
affair.
“Damm!” Claire yelled in
frustration. “Here hold this!” she said. “It will give you a
matched set!” handing him the gun of the man on his knees before her that she
had somehow managed to relieve him off during the two or three seconds of the
fight. Clark who by this time had his own gun out from the desk drawer
and ready to fire took it with a somewhat stunned look on his face.
“Look at my Skirt, ripped right up
to my thigh!” she said holding it open for a second so all could see before
returning to her fallen opponent as she helped him lightly to his feet.
“Sorry about that hope I didn’t
hit you to hard?”
The room went silent for what
seemed an eternity and for Claire’s future it was until Clark spoke.
“Sorry about that Joe, just a
security test, I’m afraid Agent Trainee Yates got a little carried away.”
Claire breathed a sigh of immense
relief then played along with the charade just to cement it totally. She took
the gun back from Clark and handed it to Joe. “If you placed the gun
behind your back it makes it harder for your opponent to get at it and also
conceals it from them longer giving you more of the element of surprise.”
“I’ll keep that in mind Miss,” he
said somewhat groggily but adding. “Anything else sir!” in an agitated
tone. Clearly he didn’t like being used as a punching bag no matter what
the circumstances and wanted his boss to know it in no uncertain terms!
Clark apologised again and when
Joe had left he closed the door and turned to Claire and was just about to
start on question one of one thousand before she held up a hand, cupped it to
her ear then pointed to the wall. Clark got ‘the walls have ears’ charade
and the two left the office. He scribbled a note to the secretary,
grabbed his coat and the two were off.
The two left the building, crossed
the street into the park and sat down on a bench Clark bursting with questions
that he summarised into three.
“One, where the hell did you learn
to fight like than! Two, How the hell do you know so much about a classified
topic, namely Dr. Black and three, who and what the hell are you!”
Claire laughed a little took his
hand in hers and began. “Remember when I said consider all I have to say,
well it counts double here, because from this point forward the story gets even
more fantastic. My name is really Claire Baxter, not Helen Yates, she
unfortunately died in a car accident earlier this year and I just assumed her
identity.” Claire filled in the background on how she did it to Clark
knowing he’d check it out. Complete honestly was the only and most
powerful card she had. “Make notes if you like, it will make things
easier when you check me out later,” she said encouragingly.
“All right Claire Baxter, where do
you come from?” he asked pen poised.
“Then same place Dr. Trumaine
Black does, the future! The year 2003 to be exact,” she said looking into his
rapidly turning ash white face. “I work for an organisation called
C.O.I.L. (Counter Operations Intelligence League). Think of it as a
League of Nations on a covert level. We protect and defend, as stupid as
that sounds, the better interests of the world. They recruited me out of
College and trained me, that’s where I learned to fight like that and a whole
lot of other things I can’t tell you about.”
“This is beginning to sound like a
bad pulp fiction spy novel! Time travel according Einstein is
impossible!” Clark Eddings said shaking his head with a slight chuckle.
“Einstein’s Theory I’m afraid to
say is incomplete he did not factor into his equation the small but significant
force of gravity in space and that’s how time travel is possible!” Claire
answered. Seeing the intrigued look on his face she continued. “Can
I use that pad and pen to demonstrate?”
Clark handed her the paper and pen
and bent a little closer to watch. “This is earth and this is another
planet you want to get to,” Claire said as she put two small circles on the
paper. “Now we both know the shortest distance between to points is a
straight line,” she said as he nodded in agreement. “But that assumes the
space is linear when in fact it is curved,” Claire said as she ripped the piece
of paper from the pad and formed it into a tube. “Now what’s the shortest
distance between those to plants I drew?” she asked.
“It's’ still a straight line,” he
answered. “You just have to traverse the arc of the curve and the
distance doesn’t change nor the effort to get there.”
“That’s were Einstein left the theory, but,” Claire
said. “What if I do this?” The spy placed a finger on each side of
the paper covering the two dots and squeezed the tube together. “That’s what
gravity can do! You harness it; direct it and you can travel through space and
time in the blink of an eye. There’s much more to how the theory actually
works, things like the Event Horizon and stability within the Wormhole I can
explain it some more if you’d like?”
“No,” Clark said his head somewhat
filled with childhood memories of Flash Gordon and Weird Science Magazines. “I
think I get but it all seems like some kind of crazy dream.”
“I’ve been living this nightmare
since February 18 of this year in Los Angeles. That’s where I landed
after travelling through time with Dr. Black. We had a fight during our
trip and I was pushed out of the time stream before he was. The reason I
know all about him is because he used to work for C.O.I.L. before we found out
what he was conducting experiments into time travel and for want of a better
word appropriating resources for his own means. He was expelled
from our group, but found financing to continue his research and as you can
tell quite successfully given that we are both here!” Claire finished then
waited for more questions.
Clark thought for a few moments,
it all seemed much too fantastic but still he wanted to know more. “How
do I know you’re not some sort of Russian spy sent to plant this information to
lead us astray from some place you don’t want us to look at.”
“You don’t and I’ll tell you I do
speak fluent Russian but that doesn’t make me a communist no more than speaking
German makes you a Fascist. But let me ask you if I was a communist spy
why would I be telling you anything about a man you obviously regard as a
threat so that you would now regard him as a bigger threat and put more
resources into watching him? Wouldn’t his have the exact opposite of what
I and my communist brothers and sisters would desire the weakening of the
United States of America? The more logical path would be for me to keep
my mouth shut and let events, whatever they may be unfold.”
Clark Eddings had no reply to
this, simply because as far as he could tell what she was saying was all true
even it if all seemed way too fantastic to be so. He decided to set this
aside and ask his next question.
“What does Dr. Black assuming he
is under investigation by the United States want?”
“Only he knows that I’m afraid and
unless I have access to all the information you have on him I really can’t give
you a better answer, I’m not sure I can even after I’ve seen it,” she said
resignation in her voice. “But what I can tell you is its going to happen
much sooner than later and those pictures in your office are the best clue so
far.”
“You know one of my engineering
professors in school used to tell us the according to Einstein time travel as
impossible simply because the amount of energy needed to achieve the speed of
light increased could never equal the resistance to forces acting upon your
momentum. But he also said just because something is impossible doesn’t
mean it can’t be done by someone at sometime.” He got up, straightened his coat
and looked down at her. “If you are a communist spy, you’re the prettiest
and most convincing one I’ve ever had the pleasure to meet,” he said as he
offered her his arm. “Let’s go back to my office and look at the pictures
you brought Claire Baxter. This is either going to get me fired or
promoted but I can resist the challenge of not knowing.”
“If you are promoted don’t go into
the CIA take the job at the NSC when congress approves the creation of the two
new security/intelligence services later this year,” she said taking a tight
hold on his arm.
“I was thinking of CIA.. how did
you know about the two agency names, that’s classified!” he said his voice
raised in sharp surprise.
“Remember to me this is all the
past! Tell me would you like to know who wins the World Series this
year?” Claire said with a giggle and a gentle shake of his arm.
“I think I’ll stick with the
present I can only cope with one reality at a time,” Clark answered as they
left the park.
* * * * * * * * * * *
“Tell me what strikes you strange
about these pictures?” Claire asked as Clark studied them carefully.
She watched his mind work, after
10 minutes he came up for air a look of defeat stamped on his face.
“Sorry, you’ll have to help me I see nothing out of the ordinary in any of
them,” he answered.
“That’s what I got time and time
again as well so I asked myself what’s going on in the picture Claire, describe
it out load to yourself and concentrate on the words you’re saying and their
significance. Go ahead try it?” she encouraged.
“Ok, I see a picture of a group of
men smoking standing in a circle around Dr. Black,” he answered. Clark
ran the words over in his mind and then began to scan the picture referencing
each word until he saw it! “They hold their cigarettes like Europeans,
but that doesn’t mean anything, they may be new immigrants.”
“Really!” said Claire. “In
the great melting pot where people arrive everyday and immediately want to be
Americans and fit it would they continue to smoke like Europeans and stand out
and draw attention to themselves! As they say in police investigations
follow the trail of the smoking gun or in this case the smoking men and what do
you see some of them have in common.”
“That’s not enough to go on and
you know it Claire!” Clark answered. “But it does raise some interesting
questions about our Dr. Black and his trips abroad. I think we need to
carefully and cautiously keep a closer eye on him! And as for you Miss
Baxter I think I need to keep a closer eye on you! How about dinner
tonight?”
* * * * * * * * * * *
Somehow dinner had turned into a
job interview, then a salary negotiation and finally into a training session
for women agents, which Claire had completely opposed at first but then,
buckled, gave in and said she’d take one woman and teach her the basics.
Clark’s cost was her salary and fee for training, $10,000.00 in advance tax
free and access to all the data so she could help with the investigation.
He was leery given that he hadn’t checked out her story but agreed for no other
reason than he stupidly believed she was telling the truth. Clark also
made no promises regarding being able to keep this between just the two of
them. “I may have to bring in bigger guns if we need to move on this,” he
said. Claire understood and assumed that he meant his boss, Jonathan
Gatehouse.
Clark dropped her at her cheap but
affordable hotel and promised to pick her up at 7 am the next morning for work.
* * * * * * * * * * *
Before Claire knew it the time had
flown by and it was the 4th of July. She and Clark, despite reviewing all
the data they had still had nothing and it was beginning to look like they
wouldn’t find anything. Claire’s spirits began to sink fast once more as
the realisation told hold that she may have miscalculated. She knew Clark
clearly had thoughts about her, but she’d always been careful to resist the
temptation of him. Her life at present and her past experiences all added
up to a big no in that area and she was determined more than ever never to let
her heart be broken like that again
* * * * * * * * * * *
“I think we need to put this thing
on the back burner for a while Claire and move onto something else. We
value all the work and time you’ve put into this but it just appears as if it’s
going nowhere.” Jonathan Gatehouse said from behind his desk as Claire and
Clark Eddings listened.
Clark had long ago told his Director the
fantastic tale of Claire and he like Clark had at first thought it
preposterous, but the more the pieces of her story fit into place the more you
had to consider that maybe it was true. They had however kept it just to
themselves, just in case.
“You’re a member of this office and a very
valuable one at that. I don’t want you to think this is the end of line
for you as well. You have a job here in whatever capacity you want, field
agent even if that is your wish?”
Claire glanced at Clark knowing
what his wish for her would be if he had one and she had to admit that it was a
sweet wish. Instead she glanced at the Washington Post that lay open on
the corner of Jonathan’s desk before getting up and walking around his large
spacious office finally coming to rest as she placed her head against his wall
map of the United States.
“Why can’t I see this!” she said
out load as she slammed her head again into the state of Arizona.
They both started to make excuses
for her, she appreciated the gesture but it still didn’t change the fact that
Dr. Trumaine Black had outsmarted her once again and that more than being stuck
in the past was what really bugged her now!
“Relax Claire; at least you know
he doesn’t have a time machine or the technology to get back to 2003.
He’s stuck here the same as you.” Clark offered in a somewhat feeble attempt to
cheer her up.
She opened her eyes and replied.
“Yes, but at least he’s rich and
SHIT!” she screamed. “That’s what he’s after!”
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