Shift (ChronoShift Trilogy) (31 page)

As it was, their bodies would still be living the equivalent of about two weeks for every week that passed in 2012.

Mark had created a relaxed atmosphere in ChronoShift's new and slowly evolving headquarters.  Comfortable leather couches and chairs were plentiful, cherry wood paneling and trim gave the place a homey look.  A pool table stood in the center of the large meeting room with an antique stained glass light fixture advertising some century-old beer suspended over it.  The refrigerators and food pantries were all well stocked.  There was even a separate apartment suite for each of them if somebody needed to crash during the day.

The TV was gone.  They’d lost their appetite for mindless entertainment once they’d begun making history.

It was like a supreme bachelor pad, but well done.  An ideal place to chill and hang out in between missions, yet formal enough to keep the importance of their work in the forefront of their minds.

“Pretty sweet set-up, man,” Hardy admired.

“Yeah, we could just live here instead of getting our own places.”

Mark laughed.  He and Hardy grabbed a couple of pool cues.  “You aren’t going to play, Ty?”

“Nah.”

Mark racked and Hardy broke, sending balls spinning to all corners of the table.  He sunk two solids on the break.

“Hey, Mark, I ran into one of those cases last week.”

“What ‘cases’?”

“You know.  Like your kids....somebody that couldn’t be saved.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah, it was this middle-aged guy, name of Pete Bradley.  Father of four.”

“What happened?”

“Drunk driver hit him.  Drunk guy was fine, but Bradley died from his injuries at the scene.  I tried at least seven different ways to save the guy, but nothing worked.  It was like....it was like there was this invisible hand over the event, keeping it from being changed.”

“I haven’t had one like that yet,” Ty said.

Mark concentrated on making his shots, saying nothing.

“Why do you think that happens, Mark?”

“How should I know?”

“It’s God, man,” Ty declared.

Mark cocked an eyebrow Ty’s way.  This wasn’t the first time Ty had indicated some kind of strong religious belief.

“Sorry, don’t buy that,” Hardy refuted, “It’s obviously some kind of time paradox.  The reason Mark couldn’t save his kids was because it would have created an unsustainable paradox. Sorry, Mark, I hate to bring that back up.”

Mark waved dismissively.

“Look,” Hardy continued, “Mark only found these shifters because of his tragedy.  If it hadn't happened, he never would have been in those woods.  If he used his shifter to undo the very event that caused him to find the shifters, then how could he find the shifters and still undo the event.  It’s a paradox, man.  Plain and simple.”

Mark’s complexion darkened as the conversation progressed, though neither of the other men noticed.

“Then how do you explain this guy Bradley that you couldn’t save?” countered Ty.

“I don’t know.  That’s why I’m asking.  Maybe saving him would have caused some paradox we’re not able to perceive ahead of time.”

“Like what?”

“I don’t know.”

“Bradley died
after
Mark found the shifters, so there’s no way his living could cause a conflict with that.”

“The space-time continuum is a pretty complex thing, buddy.  We’ll never understand all the complexities and interactions of every event and person in history.  Maybe if Bradley had lived, he, himself, or someone he knew, would have gotten a hold of a shifter in the future and gone back and stopped Mark from finding them.”

“That’s reaching, dude.”

“Look, we, of all people, know how fictional the line between past and future actually is.  The order of events doesn’t mean squat.”

“I’ll give you that, but answer me this.  Who is monitoring these potential space-time paradoxes and preventing them?”

“So, what do you think it is, hot shot?  Why would God get involved?”  Hardy missed sinking the fourteen ball in the corner pocket by a hair.  “Your turn, Mark.”

“I don’t think....I
know
,” Ty stated emphatically, “God has predestined all things.  Nothing is accidental.  And the things he doesn’t want changed, we aren’t able to change.”

Hardy looked like he’d passed beyond skeptical and had moved on to incredulous.  “If everything is predestined, then how is that we
can
change so many things.”

“Simple.  We were predestined to change them.”

Hardy choked and spewed out some Coke he’d been drinking.   “That’s rich, man.”  He wiped his mouth with his sleeve and got some paper towels to clean up the mess he’d just made.  He was trying to control his smirk to mask some of the ridicule he was feeling.  After all, Ty was a friend.

“So, you’re saying that God ordained Mark’s kids to die.”  

“All life and all death is in God’s hands.  Nothing happens without His permission or even, to be truthful, His causing it.”  Ty was confident.

Mark, who’d been completely quiet on the matter until now, suddenly threw his cue down in anger.

Shaking a finger at Ty, he declared, “I don’t want any part of a God who would take Daniel and Brittany from me so....so....capriciously!”  He spat the last word.  Then, turning to Hardy, he said, “And you!  I don’t care what kind of ‘paradox’ it creates.  I’d give up these shifters and all the money in the world in a heartbeat if it would get me my kids back!”

Mark kicked over an end table, sending a lamp crashing to the floor.  “And I don’t want to ever talk about this again, you hear!  That goes for both of you!”  With that, he stormed out of the room.

Ty and Hardy looked at each other.  They knew how sensitive Mark was on the subject of his kids and realized they’d been too flippant.  “I’ll go,” Ty said.

He caught up to Mark in the hallway.

“Mark, wait up, man.”

Mark stopped.  “Go away, Ty.  I don’t want to talk about it.”

Ty took his arm gently, preventing him from going further.  “Look, Mark, we’re sorry.  I mean, we know how much it must hurt, but if we’re gonna be shifting around through time, these kind of discussions are gonna be necessary.  We’ve got to understand why things happen the way they do.”

Mark sighed heavily, tension flowing from his shoulders as they slumped low.  “I know,” he whispered, “I’m sorry.  You’re right.  I just can’t take it.  I don’t want to think about it.”

“Look at it this way.  If we can figure out what’s preventing these people from being saved every now and then, we might be able to figure out a way to get around whatever's blocking you from saving your kids.”

Mark looked up, a new gleam in his eye.  “But if
you’re
right, Ty, then there’s no way I can save them, period.”

“That’s true.”

Mark stared at him.

***

“Sit down, Rialto.”

Alex seated himself smoothly in the stiff leather chair facing his boss’ desk.

“Sir.”

“I got word today that you requested a wiretap on Mark Carpen.”

“Yes, sir.”

“I distinctly remember ordering you to drop that case, Rialto.  What do you think this is? Your own private investigation agency?”

“Actually, you just said to put it on the back burner for a while, but I found some things in his file that I felt warranted a follow-up.”

“Like....?”  Pennington looked like he wasn’t in the mood for wrong answers.

“It appears somebody’s been forging Carpen’s signature on all of his tax returns for the past 25 years.  On top of that, this same person forged the signature on all the tax returns for his father and his grandfather.  Meaning, the same person has been forging these signatures for over
70 years.
”

“Okay.  Let’s say I believe it.  So what?”

“So what?  That’s forgery.  There’s something very suspicious going on there.”

“What else you got?”

“Nothing else....yet.”

“What do you have for me on the Santos gang?”

Rialto stared at his shoes.  “Still working on it.”

Pennington’s face turned a bright shade of scarlet.  His words were measured and clipped.

“Let me get this straight, Rialto.  You’ve been traipsing around following this Carpen guy — a guy who’s paid us
billions
in taxes mind you — with nothing more to go on than a hunch and a suspected forged signature, yet you have completely ignored the Santos case?  Does that about sum it up?”

“Uh....”

It seemed steam might erupt from Pennington’s ears at any moment.

“Let me ask you a
question
, agent.”  His tone dripped with sarcasm.  “To the best of your knowledge, is Mark Carpen smuggling thousands of tons of cocaine into the United States each year?  Has Carpen set off bombs outside government buildings in Mexico killing dozens of civilians?  Is the
dreaded
Mark Carpen responsible for the murders of three United States DEA agents?”

“No, sir!”

“May I humbly suggest,
agent
, that you get your priorities straight!  You’re lucky I don’t land your rear in a sling for this stunt.  Heck, I’ll be lucky if the President doesn’t land mine in one.  You will drop this Carpen case, and you will drop it right now.  Is that clear?”

“Yes, sir!”

“You will get to work on the Santos’ case and have results for me yesterday.  And if I hear one more word about this Carpen nonsense, you’ll be looking for work elsewhere, got it?”

Rialto nodded his understanding and slunk out of the room with his tail between his legs.  He understood all right.  It wouldn’t be difficult to get some dirt on the Santos gang.  He’d pull an all-nighter or two and get Pennington what he needed.  That was no problem.

He certainly didn’t think he deserved that kind of a berating, not with his exemplary record, but the President was probably breathing down Pennington’s neck, as the man himself had said.  No, he didn’t blame Pennington for the outburst.  The real culprit was Mark Carpen.

Carpen had won this round.  He was up to something, of that Rialto had no doubt.  For now, he was stuck, and he’d have to keep any further investigations close to the vest.  Rialto wouldn’t rest though.  Even if it took him years, he would get Carpen for this humiliation.  No one pulled the wool over Alex Rialto’s eyes.

October 12
^th
, 2012, Washington, D.C.

“Whatcha got for me, McGuire?”

Tony McGuire was a senior field agent with the FBI.  He was based in Boston and he owed Alex Rialto a number of favors for tips Alex had passed to him on some key Mafia cases.

“Not a lot, but there was one thing that may be of help.  Last year, Carpen approached an antique coin dealer wanting to manufacture mass quantities of historically accurate antique coin molds.  Carpen specified that he wanted these molds to produce coins that would be indistinguishable from the real thing.  The coin dealer thought Carpen might have been trying to flood the market with fake coins, so he refused the job.  Couldn’t shake the thought that something was up, though, so he contacted us so we could investigate.”

“Did you?”

“No, we had a lot more pressing cases at the time, so this got set aside.  Plus, no actual crime had occurred yet.  You know how that goes.”

“Yeah, I do.  Is that all?”

“The guy’s pretty clean.  Checked through the entire FBI database, and there’s nothing else significant on him, or his father or grandfather.  Had a couple of other hits on the name Mark Carpen, but they weren’t the same guy, different social security numbers.  One was a drug dealer out in California, and he’s still in prison.  The other was a guy from Georgia who lost his kids in a car accident.  That guy’s wife divorced him after the accident and he pretty much dropped off the face of the earth a little more than a year ago.”

“What’s the name of this coin dealer?”

“Clyde Moore.  I’ll email you all his pertinent info along with the case file.”

“I trust you kept this under wraps like I asked?”

“Yeah, don’t worry.  I was discreet.”

“Good.  Keep it that way.  Pennington will have my hide if he learns I’m investigating Carpen again.”

“Well, for what it’s worth, something does seem off about that coin order.  My instinct would be what the dealer suspected, an attempt to make a quick buck off fake antique coins.”

“But why bother if you’re already worth billions?  Doesn’t seem worth the time.”

“Don’t know.”

“All right, thanks Tony.”  They hung up.

He would be paying that coin dealer a visit in the near future.

***

Moore’s shop wasn’t nearly as sophisticated as Rialto had expected.  It looked like a Mom & Pop jewelry shop, except the glass display cases were filled with rows of age-worn pieces of money instead of rings and bracelets.  The owner sat on a stool behind the counter eying a golden coin through an eyepiece.  He was about thirty pounds overweight and balding, with tufts of grey hair highlighting the sides of his head.

Alex stepped in and flipped open his wallet, displaying his credentials and ignoring the customer Moore was currently assisting.