"Exactly," Garwood nodded. "There's no possibility of changing the past if my machine can only take me into the future."
Davidson looked up at the machine. "How did you manage that?"
"As I said, it was your idea. Remember when I balked at flying back here and you suggested putting a bomb under my seat to make sure a crash would be fatal?" Garwood pointed upwards. "If you'll look under the seat there you'll see three full tanks of acetylene, rigged to incinerate both the rider and the machine if the 'reverse' setting is connected and used."
Davidson looked at the machine for a long moment, eyes flicking across the tanks and the mechanism for igniting them. "And that was really all it took?" he asked.
"That's all. Before I installed the system we couldn't even load the modules into their racks without them coming apart in our hands. Afterwards, they were still touchy to make, but once they were in place they were completely stable. Though if I disconnected the suicide system they'd probably fall apart en masse."
Slowly, Davidson nodded. "All right. So that covers the machine. It still doesn't explain what's happened to your own personal Garwood Effect."
"Do you really need an explanation for that?" Garwood asked.
Davidson's eyes searched his. "But you don't even know how well it'll work," he reminded Garwood. "Or if there are any dangerous side effects."
That thought had occurred to Garwood, too. "Ultimately, it doesn't matter. One way or another, this is my final ticket out of Backdrop. My equations go with me, of course—" he pointed at the secured wastebasket—"and all the evidence to date indicates Saunders and his team could work till Doomsday without being able to reproduce them."
"They know how to make the modules for this machine," Davidson pointed out.
"Only some of them. None of the really vital ones—I made those myself, and I'm taking all the documentation with me. And even if they somehow reconstructed them, I'm still convinced that assembling a fully operational machine based on my equations will be impossible." He paused, focused his attention on the cameras silently recording the scene. "You hear that, Saunders? Drop it. Drop it, unless and until you can find equations that lead to a safer means of time travel. You'll just be wasting your own time and the taxpayers' money if you don't."
Turning his back on the cameras, he climbed once again up into the seat. "Well, Major," he said, looking down, "I guess this is good-bye. I've... enjoyed knowing you."
"That's crap, Doctor," Davidson said softly. "But good luck anyway."
"Thanks." There were a handful of switches to be thrown—a dozen strokes on each of three keypads—and amid the quiet hum and vibration of the machine he reached for the trigger lever—
"Doctor?"
He paused. "Yes, Major?"
"Thanks," Davidson said, a faint smile on his lips, "for helping me quit smoking."
Garwood smiled back. "You're welcome."
Grasping the trigger lever, he pulled it.
The President's Doll
It started—or at least my involvement in the case started—as a brief but nasty behind-the-scenes battle between the Washington Police and the Secret Service over jurisdiction. The brief part I was witness to: I was at my desk, attention split between lunch and a jewelry recovery report, when Agent William Maxwell went into Captain Forsythe's office; and I was still on the same report when they came out. The nasty part I didn't actually see, but the all-too-familiar glint in Forsythe's eyes was only just beginning to fade as he and Maxwell left the office and started across the crowded squad room. I noted the glint, and Maxwell's set jaw, and said a brief prayer for whoever the poor sucker was who would have to follow Forsythe's act.
So of course they came straight over to me.
"Detective Harland; Secret Service Agent Maxwell," Forsythe introduced us with his customary eloquence. "You're assigned as of right now to a burglary case; Maxwell will give you the details." And with that, he turned on his heel and strode back to his office.
For a second Maxwell and I eyed each other in somewhat awkward silence. "Burglary?" I prompted at last, expecting him to pick up on the part of the question I wasn't asking.
He did, and his tight lips compressed a fraction more. "A very special burglary. Something belonging to President Thompson. All I really need from you is access to the police files on—"
"Stolen from the White House?" I asked, feeling my eyebrows rise.
"No, the doll was—" He broke off, glancing around at the desks crowding around us. None of the officers there were paying the least bit of attention to us, but I guess Maxwell didn't know that. Or else mild paranoia just naturally came with his job. "Is there some place a little more private where we can go and talk?" he asked.
"Sure," I said, getting to my feet and snaring my coat from the chair back as I took a last bite from my sandwich. "My car. We can talk on the way to the scene of the crime."
I was very restrained. I got us downstairs, into the car, and out into Washington traffic before I finally broke down. "Did you refer to this burglared item as a 'doll'?" I asked.
Maxwell sighed. "Yes, I did," he admitted. "But it's not what you're thinking. The President's doll is—" He broke off, swearing under his breath. "You weren't supposed to know about this, Harland—none of you were. There's no reason for you to be in on this at all; it's a Secret Service matter, pure and simple. Left at the next light."
"Apparently Captain Forsythe thought differently. He gets like that sometimes—very insistent on having a hand in everything that happens in this town." I reached the intersection and made the turn.
"Yeah, well, this one is none of his business, and I'd have taken him right down on the mat if time wasn't so damn critical." Maxwell hissed through his teeth.
"So what files do you need?" I asked after a minute. "Professional burglars or safecrackers?"
He glanced over at me. "Nice guess," he conceded. "Probably both. We've checked over security at the—office—and it took a real expert to get in the way he did."
"Whose office?"
"Pak and Christophe. Doctors Sam and Pierre, respectively."
"Medical doctors?"
"They say yes. I say—" Maxwell shook his head. "Look, do me a favor; hold off on any more questions until we get there, okay? They're the only ones who can explain their setup. Or at least the only ones who can explain it so that you might actually believe it."
I blinked. "Uh..."
"Right at the next light."
Gritting my teeth, I sat on my curiosity and concentrated on my driving.
—
Dr. Sam Pak was a short, intense second generation Chinese-American. Dr. Pierre Christophe was a tall, equally intense first generation Haitian. Pak's specialty was obvious; the lettering on their office door proclaimed it to be the Pak-Christophe Acupuncture Clinic. It wasn't until the two doctors led us to the back room and opened the walk-in vault there that I found out just what it was Christophe supplied to the partnership.
Believing it was another matter entirely.
"I don't believe it," I said, staring at the dozen or so row planters lining the shelves of the vault. Stuck knee deep into the planters' dirt were rows of the ugliest wax figures I'd ever seen. Figurines with bits of hair and fingernail stuck on and into them... "I don't believe it," I repeated, "Voodoo acupuncture?"
"It is not that difficult to understand," Christophe said in the careful tones and faint accent of one who'd learned English as a second language. "I might even say it is a natural outgrowth of the science of acupuncture. If—"
"Pierre," Pak interrupted him. "I don't think Detective Harland came here to hear about medical philosophy."