The Doomsday Box (17 page)

“First, your knowledge of psychotronics.”

The fear in Michael's stomach ratcheted up another notch. Psychotronics was the technology used in the Shadow Project to stimulate the out-of-body experience. It was absolutely impossible for Menshikov to have heard about it unless he knew all about the Shadow Project as well. And he couldn't know about the Shadow Project, which had not even been formed yet, would not be formed for decades. Michael's mind whirled, then a sudden memory emerged. In his foundation briefing at the Project, hadn't someone mentioned that psychotronics had originally been developed in Eastern Europe? Not Russia but . . .

Czechoslovakia! There had been a conference sometime in the sixties at which Czech scientists announced their discovery of the new energy. Czechoslovakia didn't exist as a country anymore, not in Michael's time, but when it did exist, it had been under the influence of the Soviet Union . . . and the psychotronic conference had been held in Moscow! He was sure of it.

Michael held his face studiously blank. He couldn't remember the year of the conference—he thought it might have been later than 1962—but that hardly mattered. The conference only marked the official announcement. Scientists could well have been working secretly in the field for ten years or more. So it was possible that Menshikov could have heard about psychotronics
without
knowing anything of the Shadow Project.

But why then was he asking Michael about it?

Michael decided to bluff. “Psychotronics?” he said. “What's that?”

He had half expected Menshikov to become angry, perhaps jerk the chains to cause him more violent pain, but the colonel only shrugged. “Of course not,” he said. “What would a young man know of such an obscure branch of science? You are still at school, are you not?”

“Yes.”

“They do not teach psychotronics at your school?”

“No.”

“Of course not,” Menshikov repeated. He dropped the remains of his cigarette on the floor and extinguished it with the heel of his boot. The expressionless eyes looked up at Michael again. “Let us try something else that will, perhaps, be a little easier for you. What knowledge have you of time travel?”

He knew! He knew everything! It was the only explanation. Menshikov—the Soviet KGB—knew their names, knew about the Shadow Project, knew about Montauk. But how? How could this have happened? It was utterly impossible—and because it was utterly impossible, Michael came to a decision. Somehow, Menshikov had to be bluffing, had to be pretending to know far more than he actually did. Otherwise why would he need to ask questions? And while Michael could not see what harm it would do to admit something that would only happen in the far future, he knew with absolute certainty he should not do so. At any price.

“None,” he said in answer to Menshikov's question.

Once again he tensed himself in anticipation of an angry response. Once again, Menshikov merely shrugged. “I have a meeting this evening for which I must prepare, so now I shall take my leave of you. My business will keep me occupied until at least tomorrow. I regret this will mean for you an uncomfortable twenty-four hours, but if your memory has not improved by this time tomorrow, then I fear you will experience additional discomfort still.” He stared thoughtfully up at the ceiling. “On my return I shall introduce you to the Krylov twins.”

W
hat are we going to do?” Fuchsia asked.

“Dunno,” Danny muttered sourly. He'd been racking his brain on just that question during the whole long walk from Lubyanka Square. They were back in the American embassy now, in Fuchsia's quarters, which, for some reason, were a bit larger than Danny's and sported two armchairs. Nothing had occurred to him on the walk, and no bright ideas were arriving to cheer him up now. They'd read up on Lubyanka Square in the briefing guide Mr. Stratford had given them, and it was trouble all the way. There was even a jail beneath KGB headquarters where suspects were held for questioning and often torture. Michael and Opal could not be in a more dreadful place in the whole of Russia. The worst of it was that Fuchsia was looking at him expectantly, as if he was her big, brave hero who solved all the problems. In real life, it was as much as he could do just to get by.

“We need to get help,” Fuchsia said.

Danny shook his head. “That's not going to happen. Who would we go to?”

“Somebody in the embassy?”

“And tell them what? We're time travelers and the KGB have just snatched our friends?”

“Just the last bit,” Fuchsia said mildly.

Danny thought about it. Eventually he shook his head again. “They'd ask questions.”

“Of course they would. But we were sent over by the CIA. Wouldn't that be reason enough for them? We don't have to tell them we're time travelers or about Cobra or anything. We can just take the Fifth Amendment or whatever you do in America when you don't want to tell something.”

“Yes, but we're not even sure where they are—Opal and Michael, I mean. All you saw was a vision of the building.”

“It was more than that,” Fuchsia cut in. “What I saw was like a sort of road into the future—I call it a time line. When I followed it, I got visions of the kidnapping and the car the men put them in and the route where it went. It stopped at KGB headquarters.”

“But you didn't see them going in, did you? You never mentioned it if you did.”

Fuchsia shook her head. “No, not actually going in, but I assumed they must have. Don't you think so?”

“I don't know,” Danny said honestly. “Maybe they just stopped in the square and abandoned the car, took them somewhere else in another car, or whatever, to throw off any pursuit. My problem is, I can't think of a reason why the KGB should take them at all. A criminal kidnapping makes more sense—thugs looking for a ransom. And if we tell the embassy it was the KGB and it wasn't, they're not going to believe us if we then say it was criminals.” An idea struck him with the speed and force of an avalanche. He gripped Fuchsia excitedly by the shoulders. “Wait a minute—we could find out!”

“How?”

“You could do your time thing! You could see if telling them it was the KGB actually worked; if they helped us and if it did any good.”

“No, I can't,” Fuchsia said. “I told you before, I can only see the future once it goes solid. That part of the future will only go solid when we make our decision. Right now it's just a whole lot of misty possibilities.”

“All right,” Danny said. “Suppose we make a decision now to ask for help at the embassy. Why don't we decide that now, and then you have a look and see where the time line leads, and if it doesn't lead to Michael and Opal getting free, then we don't do it.”

“That's not a decision, is it? That's only a decision if things work out right, so we don't have a solid future yet.”

“Let's try it anyway,” Danny said.

“Okay,” Fuchsia said.

She lay down on the bed and closed her eyes. Danny watched her carefully. For a long time she just lay there, then her head made the peculiar jerking motion. “Can you see it?' he asked impatiently, but she didn't answer. After a while she opened her eyes.

“It didn't work.”

“But you were in the zone!” Danny protested. “I saw you.”

“Yes, but there's no solid future: just misty possibilities.”

Danny still wouldn't let it go. “Did you look to see if they do manage to get out at all? I mean, maybe not because of us, but for any reason sometime in the future? Did you look at the misty possibilities?”

“I looked at some of them. Sometimes they do get away, sometimes they don't.” She hesitated. “Sometimes they're dead,” she added quietly.

“What's that mean?” Danny demanded almost desperately. “You're not making any sense.”

Fuchsia swung her feet off the bed. “That's because
it
doesn't make any sense. Or maybe you're right—maybe it's just me. I'm really new to this, Danny. I couldn't do it at all before we traveled in time.”

Danny sat down on the bed beside her and nodded. He had the feeling that he might have been a little hard on her. “I know.”

There was a long, thoughtful silence. Eventually Fuchsia said, “I wish we had one of the helmets.”

Danny lay down on his back on the bed and closed his eyes. “What helmets?”

“Those things they have in the Shadow Project. You could put it on and search KGB headquarters in your astral body. That's what you do, isn't it? You could search to see if they're still there, and it might give us some idea how to get them out. Or at least let us know they're still all right.”

There was another lengthy silence. This time it was Danny who broke it. “I can do it without one.”

Fuchsia twisted to look at him. “What did you say?”

Danny pushed himself reluctantly upright. “After I did my first helmet projection and got used to being out of my body, I discovered I could do it without the helmet. It was a bit tricky, but I was sort of desperate because they'd locked me up at the time.”

“Do you think you might be able to do it again?”

“Can't hurt to try. And if we know for sure they're with the KGB, then we can definitely go to the embassy for help.”

“What do you do?”

“Lie down, I think,” Danny said. “Unless you'd rather I tried it from one of the armchairs.”

“No,” Fuchsia told him, “you lie down on my bed. I'll sit in the armchair and watch you.”

“I don't want you to talk to me—that's too distracting.”

“All right.”

“And you mustn't touch me, because that can jerk me back in.”

Fuchsia grinned at him. “I'll try to resist the temptation.”

“Should we do it now?” Danny asked hesitantly.

“Yes, of course,” Fuchsia told him. “The sooner the better. I'll watch over you and wait patiently and not even dream of touching you, and you see what you can find out; and then when you come back, I'll see if anything you've found out has generated a time line to a solid future.”

“I'll take my shoes off,” Danny said. “So I don't mess up your bed.” He was aware he was stalling. He was afraid he might not be able to find their friends. When she didn't reply, he added, “Yes, well, all right, let's get started.” He kicked off his shoes without undoing the laces and stretched out on his back on the bed. He saw Fuchsia sit in the armchair just before he closed his eyes.

There were probably better ways of doing it, but Danny didn't know them. And he wasn't even sure that this way was going to work. The fact that he'd managed it before was no guarantee he'd be able to do it again. But he had to try.

He thought of Fran, the Shadow Project operative who'd trained him.

During his training, just before she . . . died, she'd set up something called a standing wave of sound, which had made him feel as if his insides were falling out. He concentrated on that feeling now, trying to re-create it, trying hard not to think of what else had happened after she'd switched on the standing wave. But the problem was, his mind kept going from the standing wave to the demon that had ripped Fran's throat out. He knew that he would forever link that demon with leaving his body, that a part of him still expected it to appear again. It was completely illogical—the demon was dead; he'd killed it himself—but he could not shake the worry, and the worry distracted him from what he should be doing.

Danny called on all his powers of concentration and focused on the sick sensation produced by the standing wave. Eventually he found it, faintly at first, no more than the sort of queasy feeling you get from eating one hotdog too many. But now he felt it in his stomach, not just as a memory. And as he concentrated, he could feel it growing stronger.

With the queasiness came an associated memory, and he began to feel shaky. Then the shake became a vibration, and he knew at once he was going to succeed. He took a deep breath, sank back somewhere inside his head, and let it happen. The vibration became more intense, then actively violent, almost unbearable, until he thought he was going to shake to pieces. But then, without warning, it stopped.

Danny lay quite still, welcoming the sudden peace. He did not try to move, because he knew from experience he would not be able to. The paralysis had been terrifying the first time it happened. Now he kept telling himself it would soon wear off; all he had to do was wait for the bats.

They weren't bats, of course. He wasn't even sure they were living creatures. At the Project they'd been named Guardians, or Threshold Guardians, since they seemed to appear just as you were about to leave your body. They were shapes and they flew around your head and they looked a bit like bats. Danny was the only Project operative who could see them around other agents as well as himself.