In the course of the afternoon, Marx also talked a bit about himself and some of his plans. He was writing for an anti-government newspaper in Cologne, as well as other essays and critical articles for a variety of places. He was thinking of a university career and was shortly going to Bonn to see his closest friend and contact, a professor at the university there. In the meantime, he was staying not with his family but with the Westphalens, the family of the woman he intended to marry.
Moosic wondered if Sandoval knew that. The mysterious woman had said that the radical had landed far from Trier and had to make his way here. The setting for a quick panic jump would not be easy to do without a computer. He remembered his own problem in reading any sense into location on the time suit’s readout.
Over the next few days he contrived to meet with Marx here and there, and also was introduced to Jenny, a really pretty young woman. It was very hard to repress the cold, sheer hatred Neumann felt for her. Although he was cautious enough not to be a leech, this shortened considerably his stakeout time, divided as it had to be between various key points in the city. The most important of those, however, was the hotel itself. If Sandoval was to be a stranger, he would need a place to stay while here.
Late on the second night, he retrieved the time suit from its hiding place near the ancient Roman gate to the city and managed, with the aid of a very large laundry bag he’d purchased earlier, to get it up to his hotel room. There he sat down with it, opened the pouch, and was surprised to see some more material in it. Then he remembered that his mysterious savior had told him that things of interest would be there.
What there was was a very modern-looking pistol with one full clip and a note saying, “Peter’s Fountain, 2 A.M., the 22nd,” and nothing more. The note was written in a terse and unfamiliar female hand.
It was now Saturday the nineteenth. He replaced the pistol in the pouch and put the whole thing back in the suit, which would at least give it the energy protection from time’s ravages. He would not like to need it and find it turned into a flintlock.
He’d prefer to stick Sandoval with one of those and take his chances. With this gun, he couldn’t miss.
MORE PLAYERS IN THE GAME
He didn’t see Marx during the weekend; this was a time for personal matters, although he knew, too, that Marx had fallen behind in his writings and wanted a little bit of time alone to catch up.
He was most interested in the Monday morning coach from Cologne, which brought three newcomers to town. One was a middle-aged man who apparently sold barber and surgical equipment. Moosic tentatively dismissed him, although one could never be sure. If Sandoval had undergone assimilation a hundred miles or more from Trier, he was not likely to have a profession that would normally take him here. The other two, however, were equally improbable—a man in his early twenties in Prussian military uniform accompanied by a pleasant-looking young woman who could not have been out of her teens and was introduced at the desk as the military man’s wife. It didn’t seem to fit the pattern—both young and attractive-looking, and newly married. He began to wonder if Sandoval had yet to arrive.
He had a quick lunch with Marx, who was effusive about finally being exempted from the obligatory year of compulsory military duty. He’d been fighting the battle for some time with the bureaucracy, and he’d finally won. “The first and only time these sickly lungs of mine ever did me any service,” he told Neumann.
To avoid problems, Marx had most of his mail sent to the post office for pickup, and they walked over to it, Marx hopeful that a couple of articles he’d submitted long ago to two journals had finally seen publication. He was disappointed, though; there was, in fact, only a single letter, with no return address. Marx opened it, still talking cheerily, and glanced at it, then stopped talking and just stared at the pages.
“Something wrong?” Neumann asked him, concerned. “Bad news?”
“No, no. But someone, somewhere, is playing tricks with my privacy and I will have to get to the bottom of this.” He frowned and handed a page of the letter’s contents to Neumann. “What do you make of this? It appears to be handwritten, yet it has something of the appearance of a photograph of some kind.”
He looked at the page, which seemed to be a fragment of a letter. Moosic realized with a sudden thrill what had disconcerted Marx so much.
It was unquestionably a photocopy. And the copier would not be invented for almost a hundred and twenty years.
He handed the sheet back to Marx. “Very odd. I see what you mean about the photographic quality, but I can’t imagine how such a thing is possible to do. Is the text of any importance?”
“It is a personal letter of mine to my father from some years back,” Marx responded angrily. “A letter I am certain I personally destroyed.”
“Even given the means as possible, which it must be, for there it is, who could have gotten their hands on such a thing, and why? The police?”
That was the obvious first thought, since Prussia was in most senses of the word a well-controlled police state.
“It is possible, for some of my writings have already made me less than popular with the authorities. But, somehow, I think not.” He seemed to be mulling over whether to go further, and finally made his decision. “What do you think of this?”
Neumann took it and glanced at it, and the effect was to heighten his already overbearing sense of excitement still further. It was a small, handwritten note which said, “I have the power but not the mind to change the history of the world. If you would be that mind, come to Peter’s Fountain, alone, at 2 A.M. on the 22nd.” It was unsigned.
He handed it back to Marx. “This sounds like the rantings of a maniac. You are not going, of course?”
“I am thinking about it. Otherwise, I shall never know how this letter was acquired, and I shall spend my life wondering if my most private moments are someone’s public business.”
Neumann frowned. “Let me go instead. If this person is truly insane, he will betray it to me, not you, and we will know. If he is not insane, then a subsequent meeting could be arranged.”
“I have never put much faith in dueling, my new friend, but if I were to have a duel, I would never permit my second to stand in my place. No, I must think on this some more, but whatever I do, I must do alone. I thank you for your counsel and your kind offer, but if you value our friendship, you must forget that you ever saw or heard this.”
“I will come with you, then. …”
“No! You will get a good night’s sleep, and tomorrow I promise you I shall describe the results in glorious detail. But you must swear to me that you will forget it now, on your honor.”
“I… value this friendship above all things,” Neumann waffled, hoping Marx would not press further.
The younger man considered it sufficient, and they parted soon after.
A Xerox copy had lasted at least a day, perhaps more, out of this time frame. That, at least, was to the good. It meant his pistol would probably work as advertised.
The central square of Trier looked eerie and threatening in the early morning hours, lit only by a few huge candles in the street lights, their flickering casting ever-changing and monstrous shadows on the cobblestones and the sides of the now-dark buildings.
Moosic gave the square a professional going-over between midnight and one, noting the rounds of the local policeman. He wanted no repetition of the debacle in London. This time there would be one target and one target only, and that target would be taken out as soon as positively identified. That should not be too difficult, he thought, if he could shoot straight. He already knew the policeman, and he knew Marx, so anyone else likely to be here at two almost had to be his quarry.