Skeeter Jackson wasn't in jail.
And that was so overwhelming a shock, he wasn't entirely sure what to do with himself. The one thing he didn't want to do was hang around the infirmary, where Bergitta lay in the recovery room after emergency surgery and where Senator John Caddrick sat bellowing like a wounded musk-ox, threatening to shut down the station around their ears. So he ducked past crowds of shaken tourists, wounded in the riot at Primary, slithered past news crews and the irate, fuming senator—who was still taking up a valuable medical technician's time to wash tear gas out of his eyes—and headed out into the vast crowds thronging the Commons.
He didn't really know where he was going or what he intended to do, once he got there. He didn't have a job any longer, and wasn't likely to find a soul on station to hire him, particularly not with the kind of trouble Time Terminal Eighty-Six had brewing. Skeeter threaded his way through the jostling crowds, ignoring the shocked gossip flying loose through Commons, and wondered for perhaps the fifteen millionth time what had become of his friends, young Julius, who'd been born in ancient Rome, and—far more devastatingly—down-time refugees Ianira and Marcus and both their little girls. Ianira was the leader of the entire community of down-timers stranded on the time terminal, Speaker for the Found Ones' Council, and the inspiration for the fastest-growing up-time religion in the world. Not only major VIPs in anybody's book, but very nearly the only friends Skeeter possessed. They'd all disappeared in the middle of a riot, the first of many to hit Shangri-La Station during the past week, and despite massive searches, not a trace of them had been found. Either they'd managed to escape down one of the open time-touring gates or they'd been kidnapped and smuggled out. Or—and he had to swallow hard, at the thought—somebody'd cut them into small pieces and dropped them down an unstable gate. Like the Bermuda Triangle, maybe . . .
"Skeeter!"
He looked around, startled, and found Kit Carson homing in.
Panic struck.
"Don't bolt!" The retired time scout held up a hand as he hurried through the crowd. "I just want to talk."
Skeeter paused, gauging the expression in Kit's eyes—a surprisingly friendly look—and decided not to run. "Okay," he shrugged, waiting. After all, Kit had stood up for him in the station manager's office high above Commons floor, when Security Chief Mike Benson had been chomping at the bit to toss him into the nearest jail cell—or maybe through the aerie's glass window-walls. A long shiver caught Skeeter's spine at that too-recent memory. Mike Benson had dragged him up from the station's subbasement battleground in cuffs, facing murder charges. Neither he nor the station's down-timer refugees had really had any choice but fight to the death, trying to wrest Bergitta away from her kidnappers, a group of Islamic jihad fighters.
The Ansar Majlis had styled themselves after the original Ansar, the religiously motivated nineteenth-century "dervishes" of the Sudan, famed for routing British forces and killing General Gordon at Khartoum. The terrorist members of the Ansar Majlis had dragged Bergitta down into the station's sub-basement, where they would've beaten her to death, after raping her. But that hadn't mattered a damn to Mike Benson.
If not for Kit's support . . .
He didn't even know why Kit had come to his rescue.
So he shoved his hands into his pockets, suppressing a wince where the cuffs had dug into his flesh, and waited for Kit to catch up. The world-famous time scout actually clapped him on the shoulder, startling Skeeter considerably.
"Come down to Edo Castletown with me," Kit said over the roar of voices on Commons. "I need your help."
Skeeter blinked. "My help? What for?"
Kit grinned at his tone, but the smile faded too quickly. "After you left the aerie, Ronisha ran computer records checks for everyone who entered the station today. I'm afraid the databanks are a mess, thanks to that riot Caddrick started." Kit shook his head and made a derisive sound of disgust. "Half the arriving tourists haven't even scanned their records in properly yet. But Ronisha thinks she's got a line on the Ansar Majlis leadership. A couple of businessmen, seemed legit enough. Came to open up a new outfitter's shop for the Arabian Nights sector. They checked into their hotel, nice and quiet, then tried to contact some of your pals from that murderous construction crew. By radio, mind."
Skeeter's brows rose. "Don't tell me, they tried to contact those little radio handsets Benson took off those bodies we left downstairs?"
One corner of Kit's mouth twitched. "You got it. Mike intercepted the call. That down-time kid, Hashim, who helped you with the rescue? He helped us out again, in a big way. He answered the transmission, told them there'd been trouble, but he'd meet them, bring them up to date." Kit thinned his lips. "They're in my hotel, Skeeter. I want them out."
"Alive?" Skeeter asked softly.
Kit's eyes blazed, giving Skeeter a dangerous, top-to-toes assessment that left Skeeter sweating despite the bravado of his return stare. "Preferably," Kit said in a low growl. "With as little damage to young Hashim as possible."
"No argument, there. Where'd he agree to meet them? At the Neo Edo?"
Kit nodded.
"When?"
The retired time scout checked his watch. "About fifteen minutes from now."
Skeeter swore. "I'll need a good disguise. Get me somebody's headdress. And a tool belt." He paused. "You're sure you've got the right assholes? Not just a couple of innocent Arab businessmen looking for long-lost relatives?"
"We're sure," Kit said grimly. "They asked Hashim to bring schematics of the station's brig, so they could plan an attack. They aim to break their buddies out of jail."
Skeeter whistled. "That's bad."
"You're not kidding, that's bad. Right now, they're in room Four twenty three, waiting for Hashim to show up with his pals."
Skeeter nodded. "All right, let's get this over with."
A quarter of an hour later, Skeeter and young Hashim ibn Fahd were walking softly down a carpeted corridor on the fourth floor of the Neo Edo hotel, the latter in Neo Edo livery. Skeeter wore a long headdress shrugged down across his shoulders and a toolbelt at his hips. The toolbelt hid an eight-inch Bowie knife and a snub-nosed revolver shoved into a paddle holster inside his trousers. Kit, too, wore a disguising headdress and tool belt, and carried a sleek little semiautomatic pistol. Security had closed off the corridor at either end, stationing officers in the stairwells and elevator. The fourth floor was as secure as they could make it without evacuating innocents from adjoining rooms, which they couldn't do, not and keep the element of surprise. A bad situation to be sure, but letting terrorists like the Ansar Majlis continue to operate was a good deal worse. Five minutes earlier, security had reported the arrival of three additional men from the Time Tripper Hotel, also newcomers to the station. At a guess, the leadership of the Ansar Majlis had gathered for a high-level pow-wow. Once inside the room, Skeeter and Kit would probably have only moments before the leadership realized they were meeting with decoys. As Kit knocked, Skeeter told his hands to stop shaking.
The door to room 423 opened just a crack and a low voice spoke in Arabic. Skeeter's heart was pounding. He hoped like hell those incarcerated construction workers in the brig had given Hashim the correct code word to respond with. Hashim answered the challenge, his stance cocky and belligerent. A chain rattled, then the door opened wider. Hashim slipped to one side, out of the line of fire. Kit shoved the door open and strode in. Skeeter followed at his heels, raking the room with his gaze. He found only three men in sight. The door to the bathroom was partially closed. At least one in there, maybe another in the closet . . .
A well-dressed man of about fifty stared at them through narrowed eyes. He spat out something that Kit responded to with a gutteral monosyllable. At the doorway, Hashim let loose a voluble flood of Arabic, drawing attention to himself. Then the closet door opened and a new voice spoke sharply. The effect was electrifying. Weapons appeared with terrifying swiftness. The man in the closet grabbed Kit by the arm, clearly demanding to know who the hell he was.
The next instant, he was airborne, flipping arse about head past the end of one bed. A gunshot cracked as Skeeter dove toward the bathroom door, drawing his Bowie knife and slamming it into the unprotected thigh of the man between him and Kit. The man screamed. Another gunshot blasted loose, but Kit wasn't where the bullets impacted. He was across the room, then somebody else screamed and went flying into the mirrored closet. Skeeter kicked in the bathroom door, coming in low to the floor, and heard a yell of pain just as bullets tore through the doorway at head height. The door caught the shooter full in the face and sent him reeling back against the john. Skeeter kicked his feet out from under him. The man went down hard, struck his head against the toilet tank, reeled face-first into the shower stall and lay still. Skeeter disarmed him swiftly, then lunged back out into the hotel room.
Hashim stood on top of the man Skeeter had stabbed, grinding his wrist into the carpet and holding a gun he'd clearly just liberated. Out in the main room, the fight was over. Three men, dazed and bleeding, lay in crumpled heaps where Kit had tossed them. Kit was breathing hard, eyes narrowed down into slits, then let out a bellow that shook dust loose. "Security!"
Officers flooded into the room.
Kit stepped aside as handcuffs appeared and dazed men were wrestled into restraints. "Check the room next door," Kit said curtly. "Make sure nobody was hurt. Bastards got off several shots that went through the wall."
Skeeter stood breathing hard in the bathroom doorway, hardly able to believe it was over so quickly. He turned over his own prisoner from the shower stall, gratefully stripped off the headdress and tool belt, handed over the borrowed weapons, and gave Security his statement. "Do me a favor, will you?" he asked in a tight, controlled voice. "Find out what they know about Ianira's disappearance." Then, far too wound up from the adrenaline rush to just hang around, he headed out into the corridor, away from the stink of gunpowder and blood, wishing mightily for a glass of something cold to swallow.
"Skeeter."
He glanced up and found Kit heading his way, sans disguise. The prisoners were being dragged—or carried—out of room 423. The door to room 425 was open as officers checked the frightened occupants for injuries and reassured a sobbing woman that the danger was over. "Security will take it from here," Kit told Skeeter. "Hashim's going down with them to translate. Good work. If you hadn't taken those two out, I might've ended up with a bullet in my back. I don't know about you, but I could do with a good, stiff drink and a plateful of hot food. How about I treat you to supper at the Silkworm Caterpillar while we talk?"
Skeeter swallowed surprise—and an involuntary rush of saliva—and was overwhelmed by a sudden flood of hunger, accompanied by a spreading sense of euphoria that he was still alive to be hungry. He couldn't recall when he'd eaten his last real meal and didn't want to remember too closely what it had consisted of, either.
"Okay," Skeeter nodded, meeting Kit's gaze. "Thanks."
He wondered what the retired time scout had in mind as they crossed the world-famous Neo Edo lobby, heading for the Kaiko no Kemushi, the Silkworm Caterpillar. Kit's restaurant, at least, appeared to have survived the riot at Primary intact, but the hotel lobby bore mute testament to the tear gas and the panic. Hotel employees sponged down silk wallpaper in an attempt to remove the residues. The snarl of an industrial carpet shampooer broke the elegant hush. Workers were masked against fume exposure to the whitish, powdery film of chemical irritants left behind. What the cleanup would cost . . .
Beyond the lobby, decorative bridges across Edo Castletown's ornate goldfish ponds had been shattered, their railings smashed to splinters during the riot Senator Caddrick and his goons in uniform had instigated. Before the infamous politician's arrival, Edo Castletown had been one of TT-86's most picturesque sectors, with its Shinto Shrine and graceful pagoda-style rooflines. Skeeter clamped his lips as he traced the path of battle scars, broken shrubbery, and smashed ruin that had marred Edo Castletown's fragile beauty.
Too many of his few friends were missing, as a result of station riots.
Kit stood at Skeeter's shoulder, silent and grim as they watched cleanup crews trying to clear away the debris. Shopkeepers sorted through the wreckage of their merchandise. Rachel Eisenstein's medical triage teams, staffed mostly by volunteers since the trained medical personnel were all down at the infirmary, treating the seriously wounded, ministered to those suffering from tear gas exposure and minor injuries. Sue Fritchey's Pest Control crews huddled over a few small, dark shapes lying on the floor, trying to keep prehistoric birds and pterodactyls alive where they'd been teargassed, trampled, and almost drowned in the goldfish ponds. Sue, tears streaming down both cheeks, was setting the broken wing bones of a crow-sized flying reptile while one assistant held the wing carefully stretched taut and another administered anesthesia and monitored the animal's life signs.
"Zigsi," Skeeter muttered under his breath, using one of his favorate Mongolian curses. "Doesn't Caddrick know it's against the law for anybody to discharge tear gas on a time terminal? Even law enforcement agents?"
Kit shot him a sidewise glance, mouth hard as marble. "Men like John Caddrick don't care what the law says. And neither do the kind of agents who'd come to Shangri-La with him."
Skeeter shivered, afraid of Senator John Caddrick in spite of—or maybe due to—his rough Mongol upbringing. He recalled with satisfaction trading assaults with Caddrick, back at the leading edge of that riot, but . . . One of these days, Caddrick was going to calm down enough to remember what Skeeter had said and done.
Skeeter knew about powerful men.
Apparently, so did Kit Carson.
"Come on, I need that drink." Kit steered Skeeter past sliding rice-paper doors into the softly lit Silkworm Caterpiller, with its smooth, polished wood floors and delicate porcelain vases and its priceless bonsai cherry trees, bathed in their full-spectrum grow lights and grafted—rumor had it—from cuttings taken from the National Cherry Trees of Washington. The scent of expensive cuisine relaxed Skeeter a degree as he followed Kit toward a private cubicle near the back, threading his way past half a dozen Asian billionaires, two instantly recognizable international singing stars, and a haphazard collection of the merely wealthy, all of them discussing the riot and Senator Caddrick's presence in hushed, worried tones.
Kit motioned him into a chair. "Sit down, Skeeter. You look exhausted." At his signal, a waitress glided up, silent and lovely in a silk kimono and delicate geisha's coif. Kit ordered for them both—in Japanese. Moments later, a steady parade of silk-garbed waitresses materialized, bringing an avalanche of delicate porcelain dishes heaped with the most fabulous food Skeeter had ever smelled and—more importantly—several glassfuls of liquid stress relief. Skeeter upended the first and felt better immediately. As attentive servers brought more whiskey and poured steaming green tea into tiny cups, Kit smiled, the corners of his eyes crinkling into weatherbeaten folds. "Dig in. Enjoy. You've earned it."
Skeeter had no idea what he was eating, but it was all fabulous. Even the stuff that was raw. He'd certainly eaten stranger stuff as a kid, stranded in twelfth century Mongolia. Kit let him eat in silence, paying attention to his own meal, then glanced up when a bellboy in Neo Edo uniform delivered a heavy leather briefcase. Kit nodded toward a chair and tipped the young man. "Thanks."
Skeeter frowned. "What's with the briefcase?"
"The real reason I asked you here," Kit said, his glance intent.
"Oh, great," Skeeter groused, toying with his chopsticks. "Make me feel better, why don't you?"
"Actually," Kit chuckled, "I hope to do just that."
Skeeter looked up from the dripping bite of whatever wonderful concoction was dangling from his chopsticks and waited, abruptly wary. He did not expect what came next.
"I want to talk about your future," Kit said, sitting back and toying with the edge of his plate. When Skeeter just stared, the grizzled former scout gave him that world famous jack-o-lantern grin and chuckled. "All right, Skeeter. You've been remarkably patient. I'll end the suspense." He dug into the briefcase and dropped a sheaf of computer printouts onto the table. Skeeter looked curiously into Kit's eyes, but the retired scout merely stuffed more of his expensive lunch into his weathered face, so Skeeter picked up the stack and riffled through it. And discovered he was holding copies of the arrest reports for each of the thirty-one crooks Skeeter had put out of business in the last seven and a half days.
Skeeter had, during the past week, managed a feat even he hadn't thought possible. He had stunned the entire 'eighty-sixer population of Shangri-La Station virtually speechless. He'd only had to make citizens' arrests of seventeen pickpockets, five grifters, eight con artists, and a bait-and-switch vendor to do it, the latter peddling fake copies of an inertial mapping system that kept track of a person's movements away from a known point of origin, like a time-touring gate. The real gizmos had saved lives. Substituting fake ones could kill an unwary tourist, fast.
Once La-La Land had recovered the use of its stunned, multi-partite tongue, of course, rumor had run wild. "It's a new scam," went the most popular version, "he's up to something." And so he was. Just not what the rumor-mongers thought he was up to. Skeeter had taken his new "job" far more seriously than either of the ones he'd lost, thanks to his frantic search for clues to Ianira's disappearance. To his own surprise, Skeeter Jackson made a profoundly diligent undercover detective.
Judging from the printouts Skeeter now held, that fact was not lost on Kit Carson. He just didn't know what Kit had in mind to do about it.
Kit was grinning at him, though. He leaned forward, still smiling, and tapped the printouts in Skeeter's hands. "Mike Benson, bless him, has been glowering for days over this. If he hadn't been so busy trying to keep this station from exploding into violence, I expect he'd have called you in to explain by now."
Belatedly, Skeeter realized he'd made the head of Shangri-La security look . . . Well, if not outright incompetent, downright foolish. Thirty-one arrests in seven and a half days was a helluva haul, even for TT-86. Kit was studying Skeeter intently, eyes glinting in the indirect lighting. "I must confess to a considerable curiosity."
Skeeter sighed and set the reports down. "Not that I expect you to believe me," he met Kit's gaze, "but with Ianira and her family gone . . ." He blinked rapidly, told himself sternly that now was not the time to sniffle. His reputation for playing on a rube's emotions was too well known. "Well, dammit, somebody's got to make this place fit for the down-timer kids to grow up in! I was thinking about Ianira's little girls the other day, right about the time I saw a pickpocket snatch that Chilean lady's wallet. It made me so flaming mad, I just walked over and grabbed him. Maybe you haven't heard, but Artemisia and Gelasia call me `Uncle Skeeter.' The last time I was anybody's uncle . . ."
He shut his mouth hastily, not wanting to talk about the deep feelings he still harbored for little Temujin. He'd seen the child born nine months after he'd fallen through an unstable gate, the one that had dumped him at the feet of the khan of forty-thousand Yakka Mongol yurts, or gers, as the Mongolians, themselves, called their felted tents. Yesukai had named Skeeter his first-born son's honorary uncle, effectively placing his heir under the protection of the bogdo, the sacred mountain spirit the Yakka clan had believed Skeeter to be. He didn't talk about it, much. It was a deeply private thing, standing as honorary uncle to the future Genghis Khan. Skeeter's rescue by the time scout who'd pushed TT-86's Mongolian Gate had caused Skeeter to lose that "nephew." And now the Ansar Majlis had deprived him of his honorary neices.
Ianira's beautiful children . . .
Kit's eyes had darkened; he spoke very quietly. "I'm sorry, Skeeter. We've all searched."
He nodded, surprised Kit had believed him, for once.
Kit pointed to the arrest reports with a lacquered chopstick. "What I'd really like to know is how you managed to catch thirty-one criminals in such a short time."
"How?" Skeeter blinked, caught off guard by the question. "Well, jeez, Kit, it was dead easy." He felt the flush begin at the back of his neck and creep up his cheeks. "I mean, I was good at that kind of thing, once. It's not hard to spot the tricks of the trade, when you know 'em as well as I do. Did."
"You realize," Kit said slowly, "a lot of people are saying you pulled the jobs yourself, then planted part of the 'take' on those people, so there'd be a fall guy to blame?"
Skeeter's flush deepened, angry this time. "Doesn't surprise me. Although it's the stupidest thing I've heard in a while. One of those jerks had a stolen money roll with ten thousand bucks in it. If I were still in the business, do you honestly think I'd've turned over ten grand to station security?"
Kit held up both hands. "Easy, Skeeter. I didn't say I agreed with them."
"Huh. You must be the only up-time 'eighty-sixer who doesn't."
"Not quite," Kit said softly. "But I have noted the problem. I've also noticed how hard you've been trying to get another honest job. At the same time you've been hauling in all these petty thieves and swindlers." He tapped the sheaf of arrest reports again. "And I know why you've been turned down, too." Kit sat back, then, studying him once more. "Tell me if I'm wrong, but it seems to me you're mighty dedicated to this, ah, new crusade of yours."
"Damn right, I am," Skeeter growled, looking Kit square in the eye. "Mopping bathroom floors never did exactly challenge me. And I don't want the kids on this station growing up where somebody with light fingers can walk off with everything they've worked hard to earn." He added with a bitterness he couldn't conceal, "I never did roll an Eighty-Sixer, you know. Family's family, whatever you think of me."
Kit didn't respond to that, not directly. "So you intend to keep up the vigilance? Continue making citizens' arrests?"
"I do."
The former scout nodded sharply, as though satisfied. "Good. It occurs to me that your, ah, unique talents could be useful, very useful around here. How much did that ridiculous maintenance job of yours pay?"
Skeeter blinked. "Five bucks an hour, why?"
"Five bucks? That's not a salary, that's slavery! Barely enough to pay station taxes, let alone rent. What were you eating, sawdust?"
Skeeter refrained from pointing out that a good many 'eighty-sixers subsisted on less. "Well, I didn't eat fancy, but I got by."
The retired scout snorted. "I can just imagine what you were living on. Tell you what, young Jackson. You take yourself upstairs to my office, fill out the paperwork, I'll put you on payroll for a month, trial basis. Special roving security consultant for the Neo Edo. Set your own hours as you see fit, minimum eight a day, starting at, say, twenty dollars an hour. At the end of a month, if your arrest record justifies it, we'll see about making it permanent."
Skeeter tried to scrape his jaw off the carpeted floor and failed utterly.
Kit's sudden, glittering grin was terrifying. "Know of a better way to catch a con artist than send one of their own kind after 'em? My God, Skeeter, thirty-one arrests in a week? That's more than Security caught last year. I'm not faulting Mike or his people, but you've got a damned fine point about it being easy to spot the tricks when you've used 'em, yourself."
Kit shoved back his chair and stood up. "Come on, Skeeter, I'll take you upstairs, introduce you to the personnel clerk. Robby Ames is a good kid, he'll show you the ropes. Then go home and get some sleep. Tomorrow morning, I'd appreciate a guided tour of Commons. I want to let things cool down out there, before we take a look-see at what we're up against, with Caddrick on station. And frankly, I'd like to watch you work. Maybe we could hit the Britannia crowd when the gate opens in the morning? There's sure to be a pile of pickpockets on hand for that. We'll figure out strategy while we're at it, stuff like should you stick to the Neo Edo proper or follow potential thieves off premises when they follow hotel guests?"
Skeeter still hadn't managed to scrape his lower jaw off the floor.
"Oh, and you'll need a squawky with all the Security frequencies and a training class on codes and procedures. I'll talk to a friend of mine in security about it." He chuckled wickedly. "When Mike Benson finds out, he'll eat nails and spit tacks."
Skeeter Jackson suddenly realized that Kit was not only enjoying this, the offer was serious. For the first time since his return from Mongolia, somebody other than a down-timer trusted him. For a long, dangerous moment, he was blind, throat so tightly closed he could hardly swallow. Then he was on his feet, clearing his throat roughly. "You won't regret this, Kit. Swear to God, you won't regret it."
"I'd better not!" But he was grinning as he said it and for the first time since Skeeter had known Kit Carson, the threat didn't terrify him. Kit stuck out a hand and Skeeter grasped it hard, suddenly finding himself grinning fit to crack his face in half.
My God, he thought as he followed Kit Carson out of the Silkworm Caterpillar.A private eye! Working for Kit Carson, of all people, the man who'd once threatened to shove him down the nearest unstable gate, minus his privates.
La-La Land would never be the same again.
He wasn't entirely sure Shangri-La Station would recover from the shock.
Jenna Nicole Caddrick had spent a full eight days trapped in a little room at the top of a scrubbed, wooden staircase, staring out the window into the grimy, soot-filled working world of Spitalfields, London. She was too ill to travel even as far as the kitchen. Dr. Mindel's tinctures left her woozy and afraid for the tiny life growing inside her, but the gunshot wound to her head required treatment and she was too deep in shock to protest necessity.
Her strength began to return, however, as the wound healed, and with healing came the restless urge to do something. She couldn't spend the rest of her life sitting beside a window, disguised as a Victorian man in a world she scarcely understood. And Carl's blood called out for vengeance, Carl's and Aunt Cassie's, both, murdered by her own father's hired killers. When Jenna woke early on the morning of her eighth day in London, she knew she had to do something to stop her father. She lay staring for a long time at the ceiling, stained where rainwater had seeped through the roof at some point before Noah had paid to have it repaired, and considered where she might begin.
The first thing they had to do, of course, was survive.
But there was plenty she could do, while surviving. And the first thing to enter Jenna's mind was the need to find Ianira Cassondra. The tug of bandages across the side of her head, where Dr. Mindel had shaved the hair close to treat the grazing path of a stranger's bullet, brought a deep shiver. It hadn't been one of her father's hired killers, who'd shot her. A down-timer had done that. A native Londoner who'd saved Jenna's life, then realized what Ianira could do, with her gift for prophetic clairvoyance. Her erstwhile rescuer had calmly shot Jenna in cold blood, then had disappeared into the drizzling yellow rain with the Cassondra of Ephesus.
Eventually, footsteps thumped up the wooden steps outside her bedroom. Jenna sat up, grateful for the lessening of dizziness from concussion, as Noah Armstrong pushed open the door with her breakfast tray. "Good morning." The detective smiled.
"Good morning, Noah." She didn't know, yet, whether the enigmatic private detective was male or female; but it didn't really matter. She owed Armstrong her life, several times over. If Aunt Cassie hadn't hired the best, before the Ansar Majlis had shot Cassie Tyrol dead in New York . . .
"You look better this morning," Noah smiled, grey eyes warm and friendly. Dresssed in a Victorian woman's long skirt and a plain brown bodice ten years out of fashion, its perenially high collar obscuring Noah's throat—and therefore any hint of whether or not Noah possessed an Adam's apple—the detective wore what might've been a wig or real hair pulled back into a bun at the nape of the neck. "Are you hungry?"
She nodded. "A little."
"Good."
The cereal was hot and filling, the toast nicely buttered, the bacon fried crisp. Steaming tea sent up a fragrant cloud of steam. "Noah?" Jenna asked softly a few minutes later.
"Yeah?"
"We have to find Ianira."
"Marcus and I are taking care of it," Noah said firmly. "You're staying right here. Where you'll be safe."
"But—"
"No." The detective held her gaze, grey eyes hard as marble, brooking no disagreement. "You're far too valuable to risk, Jenna. And you had a damned close call, the last time you were outside this house." Noah touched the side of her head. "This is nearly healed, thank goodness. And without infection, which is a small miracle."
Jenna's lips twitched. "I thought it was all the carbolic you keep pouring over my scalp."
The corners of Noah's eyes crinkled slightly. "Cleanliness is next to godliness, they say, particularly around here. Be that as it may, I won't risk seeing you shot dead, next time."
She considered arguing. Then realized she was still too weak and shaky to do much of anything physical, anyway, so she subsided, at least for the moment. Maybe she could think of some way to help that didn't require leaving this house? "What are you and Marcus doing?" she asked, instead. "To find her?"
Noah sighed, sitting in a chair beside the window. The corners of the detective's mouth had drawn down slightly. "We know the man who took her is a doctor, and a man of means. Wealthy enough to wear a silk top hat and a good frock coat. He frequents the area of the Royal Opera and Covent Garden, yet he clearly knows the streets of SoHo. Well enough to lose himself in that maze of nasty little alleyways. If I have to, I'll check out the identity of every physician, every surgeon in London." Noah leaned forward in the chair and touched Jenna's cheek gently. "Don't worry, kid. We'll find out who he is and we'll get her back."
Jenna bit her lip. If—no, when, it had to be when—they finally did rescue Ianira, she would come to this house expecting a joyous reunion with her family, only to learn that three years had passed in her children's lives . . .
Jenna, herself, wasn't over that shock, yet.
Noah had been forced to stay down the Wild West Gate's timeline long enough to catch up to the Britannia Gate's timeline, which ran three years later than Denver's 1885. Would Ianira's little girls even remember their mother? If they could even find Ianira . . . London was a depressingly immense and sprawling city, teeming with more than five million people crammed in cheek-by-jowl, inhabiting everything from spacious palaces to ramshackle staircase landings and stinking gutters. The number of places to search would've overwhelmed even a die-hard optimist.
Outside, angry voices in the street were shouting what sounded like abuse at their neighbors. Jenna's startlement gave way to the beginnings of alarm as she stared from the window to Noah. "What's happening?"
The detective moved to look outside and scowled. "Bastards."
"What is it?" she asked sharply, trying to rise.
"A gang of unemployed dock rats, hassling Dr. Mindel."
Ugly taunts and anti-Semitic slurs slammed against the window like hailstones. At least it wasn't the pack of up-time killers looking for them. Jenna sank back down against the pillows and shivered. "But why? Dr. Mindel's one of the kindest men I've ever met."
Noah's jaw tightened above the collar of the outdated dress. "Annie Chapman was just found murdered, over in Hanbury Street. Along with a leather apron in a basin of water. Half the East End now thinks a Jewish boot finisher killed her this morning." The detective glanced around at Jenna's involuntary sound and met Jenna's shocked stare. "Get used to it, kid. The East End is set to explode. Anti-Semitism's running wild, because everyone's convinced it has to be a foreigner killing these women. Which is another reason I don't want you outside. You're disguised as a man, Jenna, a foreign-sounding man. Those dock rats down there are going to make life damned dangerous for foreigners in these parts during the next several months. Believe me, it's just too risky out there."
Jenna swallowed hard, listening to the ugly shouts in the street. She wasn't accustomed to such hatred, such naked prejudice. She touched her abdomen, where Carl's baby grew, and realized she couldn't risk herself. Not yet. Someday, her father would pay for what he'd done, wrecking her life, ending Carl's and Aunt Cassie's in a bullet-riddled pool of blood. But for the moment, she had to survive.
She had never hated necessity more.
Ronisha Azzan was a woman with a major-league problem.
Seated in Bull Morgan's office high above the snow-choked valleys of the Himalayan mountains, with her boss in jail and terrorists loose on station, she was preparing for a face-off with the most influential—and dangerous—politician of the era. Ronisha studied Granville Baxter, TT-86's Time Tours CEO, with whom she shared a Masai heritage, and wondered whether or not she had just made the biggest mistake of her career.
"Are you out of your mind?" Bax demanded as the aerie's elevator hummed upwards with its first load of reporters. "Letting a pack of newsies into a meeting this critical?"
Ronisha held the Time Tours' executive's gaze steadily, one of the few souls in Shangri-La Station tall enough to meet Bax's gaze eye to eye. "This is one meeting that has to be public. And you know why."
The tall executive's lips thinned. "Bull's meeting was public, too!" It came out understandably bitter.
"Yes, it was." She was only too aware of her precarious situation. "Bull's meeting was public. But I'm not Bull Morgan. And Bull Morgan is not me."
Almost absently, she flicked invisible lint from her brightly colored suit, its rich African patterns reproduced in silk, rather than plain and ordinary cotton, and shook back over her shoulder three solid feet of intricate braids, most of them her own. Ronisha favored four-inch spike heels to go with her African textiles and elaborate coifs. She hadn't yet met the man she couldn't intimidate, given half a minute's time and a chance to crush his fingers in a handshake while she outmaneuvered him at his own game—whether that game involved matters of the bedroom or the boardroom.
Ronisha Azzan was deeply proud of her Masai heritage and at the moment, that heritage was very nearly her only weapon. The Masai were famed as lion hunters. And the biggest, nastiest man-eating lion in the universe had just strolled into her kraal. Ronisha smiled, not at all nicely. As Shangri-La Station's Deputy Manager, Ronisha Azzan was nobody's assistant anything—a fact Senator John Paul Caddrick had yet to learn. If she could manage to keep her knees from shaking visibly while she taught him.
Granville Baxter stared hard at her for a long moment, brows furrowed. Then her meaning struck home and he started to grin. A weak grin, given what they had yet to face, but a grin, nonetheless. "Woman, you are wasted in station management. You ought to be a tycoon someplace, rolling in money."
"Oh, I don't think so. Somebody's got to do this job." The elevator doors opened with a faint ping, disgorging a cluster of reporters, most of whom stared up at her for a long, disconcerted moment. Newly arrived from up time with the senator, they hadn't yet met her. She rose from her half-leaning seat against the corner of Bull's desk.
"Welcome to TT-86. Ronisha Azzan, Deputy Station Manager. Yes, set up right there, that's fine, anywhere along here. Glad to assist you. If you have any questions about power connections and cables, my administrative assistant can help you out. Bernie, see to it our guests have what they need. No, I'm sorry, we'll have to wait for the senator's arrival before I make any official statements . . ."
From a corner of her eye, she saw Bax shake his head and mutter, "Ronnie, I hope you know what we're doing."
Deep inside, where she wouldn't have let anyone see, Ronisha hoped so, too.
Senator John Caddrick arrived ten minutes later. The elevator doors slid open with another soft ping! to reveal the red-faced enemy, eyes nearly scarlet from the aftermath of the tear gas. Ronisha Azzan narrowed her own eyes as Caddrick halted for just a fraction of a second at the threshold between elevator and office, taking in the glare of lights, the shining camera lenses, and the small forest of microphones. Clearly, the senator had planned on intimidating a suitably cowed and trembling assistant manager, rather than walking into a live press conference.
As he swept his startled gaze toward Ronisha, the elevator doors attempted to close automatically. He had to jump forward in unseemly haste to avoid the embarrassment of being carried all the way down to Commons again. Behind him, a staffer caught the doors and reopened them as Caddrick stalked forward in silence, leaving his legislative aides and a whole pack of armed, stone-faced federal marshals to trail into the aerie behind him. The senator made a visible, valiant, and not very successful effort to ignore the electrifying presence of the press corps.
She took that as her cue to launch an offensive of her own.
"Senator Caddrick," she said coolly, "welcome to Time Terminal Eighty-Six. Ronisha Azzan, Deputy Station Manager. This is Granville Baxter, Shangri-La Time Tours CEO. On behalf of Shangri-La Station, please allow me to extend our heartfelt condolences regarding your recent losses. However . . ." and she let a hint of steel creep into her voice, "in accordance with up-time laws governing the safety of time terminals and their official residents and guests, I need to remind you of a few laws regarding conduct on time terminals."
Caddrick's eyes widened slightly, then narrowed with a dangerous glint.
Ronisha plunged ahead. "It is against inter-temporal law to incite riot, or to aid and abet the illegal discharge of chemical agents banned from use on any time terminal, whether by a private citizen or by a member of law enforcement." She flicked a gaze at the marshals, who carried short-barreled riot guns and stared straight through her as though she were vermin. Clearly, they didn't give a damn about breaking inconvenient laws on the other side of a time terminal's Primary.
She faced Caddrick again. "It is illegal, as well, to willfully endanger the lives and property of station guests and residents. Senator, your actions here have put at risk the lives of several hundred innocents on Shangri-La Station. You have also violated several endangered species protection acts by putting at risk the only living population of prehistoric birds and pterodactyls in the world. If any of those animals dies, you can be charged with several serious felonies. This station cannot and will not risk a repeat of the incidents you have created since your arrival. Have I made myself clear on these points?" Without giving him time to respond, she added, "Now, then. What, exactly, brings you to my time terminal? Please bear in mind that your answers will be recorded for posterity. Or the courts." She nodded pleasantly toward the utterly enchanted newsies and tried to ignore the terrifying presence of those cold-eyed marshals and their wicked riot guns.
Speaking very softly, which in no way disguised the menance in his voice, Senator John Caddrick said, "Am I to understand you're going to put me in jail?"
Ronisha drew herself up to her full height, augmented by stiletto heels, and forced a smile down the full seven inches of her superior stature to the senator's furious grey eyes. "Not at all, senator. But you do realize, I hope, that my first concern must be the safety of this station and its residents and guests. I cannot permit any situation to threaten human or protected animal lives on TT-86, no matter how well intentioned the action. Surely you, of all people, must understand that?"
She could see it in his eyes, the look of shocked fury that said, You devious, black bitch . . . and coldly loathed him. Then he passed a hand across his eyes, a hand that visibly shook, and said in an unsteady voice, "Forgive me, Ms. Azzan, I'm not quite myself today . . . You see, I just received word that the Ansar Majlis brought my little girl onto this station. And with the press broadcasting riots and murders on TT-86, naturally we thought it prudent to bring along federal marshals . . ."
Oh-oh. Silent alarm klaxons sounded. If Jenna Caddrick had been dragged through one of TT-86's gates by her up-time kidnappers, Shangri-La Station was in more serious trouble than even she had realized. A man like John Caddrick wouldn't need any additional ammunition to shut them down for good. And he was damned effective at playing to the press.
So she played his game to the hilt, taking the senator's arm solicitously and guiding him to a chair. "Senator, please, sit down. There's no need for armed warfare between us. Everyone on TT-86 is in deep sympathy with your pain and loss." John Caddrick wasn't the only person in this room who knew the tricks of playing to the press. She wasn't Coralisha Azzan's grandchild for nothing. Ronisha glanced over one shoulder, looking for her executive assistant. "Bernie, a glass of scotch and soda for the senator, please." Her assistant handed it over and Caddrick sipped, hand still trembling visibly. Ronisha waited for just a moment longer, keeping her expression carefully concerned, then said quietly, "Now, then, senator, why don't you fill us in on exactly what you've learned that's brought you to us? Tell us how we can help."
She seated herself in Bull Morgan's chair and composed herself to listen, switching on the digital pad that would send her handwritten notes directly to her computer, as well as turning on the room's meeting-recorder system. Cameras near the ceiling tracked silently, mirroring the swing of press cameras as Senator John Caddrick began to speak.
"Ten days ago," the senator said heavily, "tragedy struck my family. Again. You must be aware that I lost my wife several years ago to a drunk driver? She was killed trying to get home to my daughter's birthday party. Jenna . . ." He blinked rapidly, eyes reddened and wet. "My daughter and I never got over it, particularly poor little Jenna, she was so young when my wife died. My wife's sister, Cassie Tyrol, became a second mother to her. Jenna Nicole adored her aunt. Wanted to follow her onto the stage, was studying film . . ." He paused, wiped his eyes distractedly with unsteady fingers. "Jenna met her aunt the day Cassie died, at a restaurant in New York. Cassie had flown in from New Hollywood to see her. There was an atrocity . . ."
Ronisha knew all about the terrorist hit in New York. "Yes. I know. The Ansar Majlis."
"This crazy damned Brotherhood!" Senator Caddrick bit out, voice harsh. "They've declared open warfare on the Lady of Heaven Temples. I've tried for years to warn Congress something like this was bound to happen, letting down-timers onto the time terminals in wholesale droves . . ." He shook his head. "Cassie was heavily involved in the Temple, you see, very public in her support. Her last film was about the Temple. It was a smash success and she donated the proceeds to the Templars . . . and now this Brotherhood . . ." his voice was breaking up, his eyes wet.
John Caddrick fought himself under control again with visible effort. "They sent a death squad after poor Cassie. Murdered her, right in the restaurant. Jenna disappeared. Kidnapped by the Ansar Majlis. The FBI has been working on it, of course, trying to track down Ansar Majlis ringleaders in New York, but I hired a detective, a good one. Sid Kaederman's been trying to trace my daughter's possible movements after that attack in the restaurant. Mr. Kaederman believes Jenna was forcibly brought to TT-86 by her kidnappers. Jenna's bank account and bank box were emptied, the same day her aunt was murdered."
He looked up, finally, and met Ronisha's gaze. "Some of her friends at college thought Jenna and her roommate had been planning a trip down time, against my express wishes, of course, but they thought she'd made arrangements to buy tickets and a false identity through some underworld mobster, so I wouldn't find out. Jenna's been hyped on film-making all her life, same as her aunt, wanted to make historically accurate films. God knows, it was something she might have done, buying a time-tour ticket to make some idiotic film. So I put Sid Kaederman to work on the lead.
"When the Ansar Majlis forced Jenna to empty her bank account for them, they discovered her tickets and her false identification papers. They forced her to come here, to use them, so they could get out of New York without being detected. But even though we know they came here, and we know the names on the false identities she purchased in New York a year ago, we don't know which down-time gate they might have gone through. None of Jenna's friends knew which gate she planned to visit and we couldn't trace the mobster who sold her the time-touring tickets. She used a different source than she'd used to buy the phony identities and we never traced the ticket-scalper."
John Caddrick drained the rest of the scotch in his glass, then leaned forward in his chair. "What I want, Ms. Azzan, is simple enough. I want my daughter back, alive and unharmed, whatever it takes." The rasp of steel in the senator's voice sent a chill of genuine terror down Ronisha's spine. "You may believe I've followed the reports of riots, kidnappings, and murders on this station with keen interest. If anything has happened to my little girl on this god-forsaken time terminal or down one of its gates, I will use my authority and influence to shut down this entire station. And you may rest assured, Ms. Azzan, these federal marshals will shut you down, if the situation warrants it."
Ronisha slipped a hand into her lap and pressed the buzzer under the lip of Bull's massive desk, the one that alerted security headquarters trouble was brewing in the station manager's office. She wanted Mike Benson up here, stat, and kicked herself for not having summoned him sooner.
"Senator," she had to force her voice to steadiness, "I think everyone in this room realizes how serious the situation is. Fortunately, we've obtained a very solid lead on the terrorists you came here hoping to trace. We have several of their henchmen under arrest and are fully informed as to the Ansar Majlis' plans. My chief of security has men acting on this information right now, sweeping the station to arrest several of the Ansar Majlis' key ringleaders, who arrived through Primary today."
Caddrick's eyes shot wide. "You have information on their plans?" he echoed, voice flat with surprise.
"Yes, we do. Several of the station's resident down-timers discovered the plot and fought a pitched battle against the terrorists, subduing them. Thanks to the down-timers, we have enough information to arrest the entire Ansar Majlis operation."
Shock detonated behind Caddrick's eyes. "My God! Why, that's—that's incredible! But that still doesn't tell us where Jenna is." Shock gave way to calculating hostility.
"No, it doesn't," she agreed, stalling for time while thinking fiercely, Shag your butt, Benson, I need you up here, and played what she hoped would not prove to be her final trump card. "Because we're dealing with international and inter-temporal terrorism, I don't think it's unreasonable to call in an uninterested third party. To oversee the investigations which will have to be launched. I certainly don't want to give the impression this station has anything to hide. And I'm certain you don't want the investigation to take on the appearance of a personal vendetta."
A few of the reporters suppressed delighted gasps.
Senator Caddrick glared at her while a slow red flush crept up his neck.
"Of course," Ronisha added, "we know it isn't anything of the kind. But surely you, of all people, must know how appearances can be deceiving. The public has a right to the truth, obtained in a fair, unbiased manner. Thank you, senator, for insisting on an independent investigation by an unbiased team. If I recall inter-temporal statutes correctly, that kind of fact-finding mission would fall under the jurisdiction of the Inter-Temporal Court of the Hague. I propose we send a representative of the Bureau of Access Time Functions through Primary at its next cycle and request immediate assistance from an independent team of evaluators appointed by I.T.C.H."
She and Senator Caddrick locked gazes across the desk. She'd just made an enemy for life and knew it; but John Caddrick had walked into this room already a mortal enemy, so no ground was lost by insisting on an unbiased review team. Under normal circumstances, the very last thing anyone on station would want was an investigation by the Inter-Temporal Court. Zealous I.T.C.H. officers had been known to shut down station operations over minor violations, putting stations under direct Court control until new management could demonstrate its willingness and ability to comply with the last dotted "i" and crossed "t" of the law.
But these weren't ordinary circumstances.
She was fighting for the life of the station.
Senator Caddrick nodded slow agreement, despite the fury seething in his eyes. "Of course, Ms. Azzan. It was never my intention to conduct an official investigation personally, although I certainly will demand that one be launched immediately. I shall, of course, conduct a fact-finding mission of my own while I'm here."
There being nothing she could do to stop him, short of throwing him into the brig—which would not improve the station's image—Ronisha simply nodded graciously. "Now, then, senator, you said your daughter had obtained forged identification papers? She and her kidnappers are travelling under assumed names, then. What names? Any information you can give us will be critical in tracing them."
"Yes, of course." The senator was digging into a pocket for a CM disk, which he held out. Ronisha accepted the disk just as the emergency phone on the corner of Bull's desk jangled, its tones shrill in the hushed office. Ronisha glanced at it with a sinking sensation in her middle. Whoever was on the other end of that line knew what Ronisha was in the middle of, up here, how serious this meeting was.
"Excuse me, please," she said, picking up the phone. "Aerie, Azzan speaking. This had better be good."
"Mike Benson, reporting in!" The security chief had to shout above the roar in the background. "We've got the Ansar Majlis ringleaders under wraps."
"Fabulous," she said with a rush of relief.
"Do you still need me to answer that silent alarm?"
"Yes, please."
"On my way."
She hung up the phone and faced the expectant crowd in her office. "Now, then," she said pleasantly, "where were we, senator? You were about to give us the information on your daughter's forged identifications, I believe."
Caddrick stared at her for long moments, clearly expecting her to explain the interruption. When she didn't, he glowered for a moment, then said coldly, "This disk contains the data we've gathered so far. Mr. Kaederman believes the Ansar Majlis ringleader, a notorious intersexual using the alias Noah Armstrong, used one of Jenna's forged identities to bring my daughter here. Jenna's kidnapper was probably travelling under the name of Benny Catlin."
Across the room, Granville Baxter came out of his chair to tap commands into the nearest computer terminal, pulling up Time Tours' records of gate departures.
"Perhaps, senator," Ronisha suggested, "you might give us some insight into your daughter's interests and habits? Anything we can learn about Jenna, about the way she thinks, what she might do under stress, will increase our chances of locating her."
"Yes, of course. I brought some things with me, besides that disk." Senator Caddrick turned to an aide who hovered nearby. "Hand around those biographical packets, would you? And those photos of that bastard, Armstrong."
While Bax worked at the computer, a sweating senatorial aide passed dossiers around the room, first to Ronisha and the Time Tours CEO, then to the newsies, who struck like piranha. There were several photographs of Jenna Caddrick, all of them recent, as well as a photograph of the Ansar Majlis terrorist, Noah Armstrong. Ronisha realized with a start of surprise why the senator had mistaken Skeeter Jackson for his daughter's kidnapper. From a full-frontal view, they didn't closely resemble one another, but there were distinct similarities of bone structure and coloring. From behind or at an oblique angle, the resemblance was strong enough to understand the mistaken identity. The brief document attached to the photos outlined Jenna Caddrick's habits, manners, routines, interests, and hobbies.
At the other end of the crowded office, Granville Baxter glanced up from the computer screen, looked over the photos, then cleared his throat. "I found Benny Catlin's tour records, but I'm afraid we still have a serious problem facing us—more serious than tracing Benny Catlin in London."
John Caddrick's glare was lethal. "What could possibly be more serious than locating my daughter's kidnapper?"
Bax held up the photograph of Noah Armstrong. "This."
"What about it?"
The Time Tours executive paused. Then sipped air and looked like he wanted to bolt for the nearest exit. Ronisha Azzan wasn't sure just what the bad news would be, but she was already quite certain she wasn't going to like it.
Granville Baxter didn't disappoint her.
"Well, senator, you see . . ." He held up a snapshot. "This photograph of your daughter's kidnapper . . . This isn't Benny Catlin."