Time Snatchers (2 page)

The crowd’s thinning. I’d better start looking busy or someone might wonder what I’m doing here. I take one last glance up at the roof of the Great Hall. There, fluttering in the breeze, is the thing I’ve traveled a year back in time and seven thousand miles west for: the first flag of the Great Friendship. To be honest, it’s nothing special: horizontal stripes of gold, red, blue and white—a combo of all of the colors in the Chinese and American flags. But I don’t care what it looks like. All I really care about is stealing it.

I head for the park across the street from the square. It’s sure taking a long time for that sun to go down. I could jump ahead in time a few minutes and get on with things, but who knows when I’ll be in China again? I might as well try to relax and enjoy being here.

Going to the park is a bit chancy with my allergies, but it’s either that or follow the noisy crowd to a place where the Chinese emperors used to hang out called the Forbidden City.

Entering the park through a gate flanked by two towering stone lions, I’m rewarded with quiet—exactly what I need before a mission. I stop for a moment on a wooden footbridge overlooking a small, still pond sprinkled with orchids. Not far away is a big grassy area where some adults in track suits are moving their arms and legs into graceful poses. Everything is so peaceful. Abbie would definitely love this place. But at the last second she got called in to be the third agent on a mission to 1671 England to steal the crown jewels from the Tower of London. So we’re in different centuries right now. It goes like that sometimes.

The light is finally fading. It’s time for me to do my thing. As I enter the square again, I become hyperaware of every little thing: the
smell of those awful flowers, the laughter of a group of tourists. Even the feel of my footsteps on the concrete is magnified. Uncle says the Japanese have a word for this heightened sense of awareness:
zanshin
. But I just call it being sharp for the mission.

I hear a whirring sound and look up to see a helicopter. A big Russian job. It does a slow circle of the square and hovers for a moment right above the Great Hall before flying away.

There are only two tourist buses left in front of the Great Hall. I make sure no one’s on board, take up a position between them and crouch down. It’s possible someone could see me, but it’s not likely. After all, I’m really not that interesting to look at. At least not until I go poof and vanish.

What I see next makes me frown. The guys with the shiny boots and pointy rifles are still in position right outside the bronze entrance doors of the Great Hall. Then I remember that a special dinner honoring the two presidents is taking place inside.

Well, I’ll just have to work around them. Besides I don’t intend to go in. Only up.

I yawn and rub my eyes. Anyone watching would think I’m just another tourist dead on his feet from a full day of sightseeing. I even look the part: Great Friendship T-shirt, blue jeans, sandals and a green knapsack that has seen better days. But when I rub my eyes, I’m really adjusting my ocular implant to night vision. The closest member of the honor guard is about twenty yards away. I switch to high zoom and can easily see the tiny spot on the left side of his chin that he missed shaving this morning.

Noise from above makes me look up. The helicopter is back. Exactly five minutes after making its last round. All right, that means I have a little less than five minutes to do the snatch.

It’s showtime.

I tap my right wrist a few times. The tapping activates the time travel implant just under my skin. It’ll just be a short hop. Twenty yards ahead, one hundred feet up and four seconds forward in time.

Closing my eyes, I feel the familiar rush of a timeleap: three parts dizzy, four parts excited and two parts weird sensation of not knowing where I am.

I land, lying flat on my stomach on the roof. I can’t move. I’m still in time freeze mode: a state of total paralysis that happens after each leap through time. I’m not sure why it happens, but it has something to do with bodies adjusting to a new time/place. The good thing is that it doesn’t last long—two or three seconds, max. Of course, it’s all relative. Two or three seconds can go by awfully quickly when you land on a sandy beach in the summertime, but it can seem like forever when you turn up in the middle of a raging snowstorm wearing only your bathing suit.

The time freeze wears off but I stay still for a few seconds, listening. Just some faint traffic sounds coming from beyond the square. Rising to a low crouch, I glance around and get my bearings. I’m just about in the middle of the roof. Staying low, I crab walk my way toward the front of the building.

There, between the U.S. flag and the Chinese flag, is the flag of the Great Friendship. I lie back down on my belly and slither forward. Got to be extra careful now; I’m close to the front edge of the building, which means that the guards are right below. If I so much as sneeze, one of them is bound to hear me and say something … and odds are, it won’t be “God bless you.” Plus, even though I’d be surprised if the ancient Kalashnikovs they’re carrying actually worked, it’s not a chance I’m willing to take.

One more slither, and I’m there.

I hold up my left index finger. It’s seven thirty-eight
P.M.
local
time, according to the readout under my fingernail. Oops. I had no idea it was that late.

I extend my right hand, place my fingertips on the flag and close my eyes, falling now into a deep meditative state. My fingers probe and compare the properties of the flag in my hand with the those of the original Great Friendship flag that were uploaded to my brain along with the rest of the mission data. The next moment, the answer comes back, and I breathe a little sigh of relief: it’s the real thing, all right—not a fake.

You never really know what you’re snatching until you do a scan. After all, the world’s full of thieves—not all of them time travelers—and it’s not beyond the realm of possibility that another thief could have gotten here ahead of me and switched the original for a cheap replica. The last thing I’d want to do is bring a replica back to Headquarters. That’s a guaranteed failed mission.

No, the only thief I want switching the original for a cheap replica is me. Uncle’s big on keeping what we do real low-key, and the best way to do that is to make it look like no theft was ever committed.

Speaking of replicas, I pull one from my knapsack. Uncle’s assistant, Nassim, gave it to me for the mission. Personally, I think that it looks even better than the original, but no one’s paying me for my views on the subject. In fact, no one’s paying me for my snatches, either, unless you count the measly allowance Uncle gives out, which is hardly enough to buy afternoon snacks.

Money or no money, I have to admit that I love this part of my job. Nothing beats the rush of adrenaline right before a snatch. The more dangerous the mission, the greater the thrill. I’m not about to share this with Uncle, though. He’d probably find some way to take the fun out of it.

Laying the replica down, I feel around for the snaps holding the
original to the pole. There are two of them. I try to unhook the snaps, but no go. I’ll have to cut the rope.

I pull my knife from my jeans pocket. This is the delicate part. Uncle’s clients are real picky types, and if I so much as nick the fabric, the customer will no doubt demand his money back. But that’s nothing compared to what Uncle will do to me if I mess up.

Angling the blade, I begin cutting. It’s going slower than I’d like, mostly on account of the rope being thick and my knife blade being dull. I should have sharpened it before I came. But you can’t think of everything. I take a deep breath and carry on.

Just then, I see something that makes me freeze in place. A shimmering only five feet away. The shimmering is forming into the shape of a person. This isn’t good. The only things that shimmer like that are other time travelers. But Abbie is in the seventeenth century, and nobody else was invited to this little party. I go back to cutting the rope, hoping that my eyes are playing tricks on me.

No such luck. Three seconds later, I’m not alone on the roof anymore. I groan when I see who it is.

Frank.

Like me, Frank is one of Uncle’s time snatchers. He was a street kid when Uncle found him four years ago, living mostly off of leftovers thrown out each night by the restaurants on the Lower East Side. I remember going on the rounds with him once not long after he started and being amazed at his skill in picking garbage cans that had the cheesiest manicotti or the leanest pastrami. But it’s been a while since I’ve hung out with Frank. Around the time that Uncle started acting weird, Frank changed too. He became obsessed with being the number one time snatcher and was, and still is, prepared to do anything to get there, including stealing from the one person who has more snatches than him—namely, yours truly.

I glance at my fingernail and frown. Only two minutes left to complete the snatch.

“Hello, Caleb,” says Frank in a booming voice.

I nearly jump. For a second, I’m positive his greeting is going to alert the guards below and send them scurrying up here. But then I realize he hasn’t spoken the words out loud—only over my mindpatch.

“Hello, Frank,” I reply, using the same frequency. “Let me guess. You just happened to be in the neighborhood and thought you’d drop by and say hi.”

“Something like that,” he says, sauntering toward me as if he doesn’t have a care in the world.

He might not be in a rush, but I most definitely am. I’m working away at the rope in a frenzy, silently cursing the amount of time it’s taking.

“Well, it was great seeing you. Now, if you don’t mind, I’m kind of busy here,” I say.

“I can help with that, Caleb,” says Frank. “You see, there was a little mix-up at Headquarters. You’re supposed to be in London with Abbie and the others. This is my snatch.”

“You’re lying,” I say. There’s no way I’m falling for Frank’s story. He knows he’s three snatches behind me this month. He came to stall me until my thirty minutes are up, then claim the snatch for himself and tell Uncle that he had to do it because I failed. It’s not a bad plan, but I don’t think he’s thought it all the way through. Uncle might not view Frank’s hanging around my snatches waiting for me to fail as a good use of his time.

“Move away from the flag and hold your hands out to either side where I can see them,” he says.

“Sorry,” I say. “Go find your own flag.”

I’m through the rope now. My fingernail tells me I’ve got forty-five seconds to get out of here.

I reach for my wrist to initiate the return timeleap. But just as I do, Frank grabs my arm.

Instinctively, I unleash a kick to his shin, and he releases his grip.

We spin and face each other across the roof.

Ten seconds to complete the snatch.

I reach again for my wrist, but at the same moment, he lunges at me and I’m forced to block his punch. We square off again. Frank’s smiling now. He knows my time is running out.

A whirring sound catches my attention. The helicopter is on its way back.

He pulls a black-handled knife with a wicked-looking blade out from under his shirt. I recognize it immediately as the same one I always use for chopping onions back at Headquarters.

“You stole that from the kitchen!” I say in disbelief.

He smirks at me and says nothing.

I’m seething. But what choice do I really have? My own knife is puny compared to his. I might be able to disarm him, but we’re both black belts in karate, and at best I’m looking at a stalemate. Besides, he’s already won. My thirty minutes for completing the snatch ended about five seconds ago.

For a moment, I consider leaping twenty minutes back in time and doing the snatch over, so that I’m long gone before Frank even shows up on the roof. But apart from having to deal with time fog, I doubt it will work anyway. Frank’s not stupid. If l go back to try to outwit him, he’ll counter by leaping even further.

And how did he get the data for my mission anyway? That’s secret information and the only people who know are myself, Uncle and Nassim. I doubt Uncle or Nassim would have told Frank, if for
no other reason than they would want him busy completing his own snatches, not poaching mine. No, something doesn’t smell right.

Sighing, I pick up the replica flag and am about to hand it to him when he stops me.

“Nice try, Caleb but I’ll take the other one.”

“If you insist,” I say. “But you’d be making the wrong decision. I already had the copy up on the flagpole when you landed. I was only pretending to cut it down to make you think it was the original.” I’m lying of course, but I figure it’s for a good cause: if Frank’s going to succeed in spoiling my day, then at least I want him to work for it.

Frank smiles, steps even closer and says, “All right. In that case, I’ll take both.”

Hmmm. I wasn’t counting on that. Well, at least he’ll have the embarrassment of trying to figure out which one is the original when he gets back to Headquarters.

I fork them over and watch glumly as he stuffs them under his shirt. The sound of the helicopter is nearing. I calculate the odds of making a quick getaway. Not very good. Frank is holding the blade inches from my chest. If he sees me go for my wrist, he could easily slash me before I make it halfway there.

He looks up at me and smiles one of his big jerk smiles. “You think you’re better than me, don’t you, Caleb?”

I’m tempted to agree with him. After all, it’s the first sensible thing he’s said since he arrived. But instead I say, “If you think poaching my snatches will get you in Uncle’s good books, you’re wrong.”

“To be honest, I don’t know why Uncle doesn’t get rid of you,” Frank continues. “You’re more of a dreamer than a time snatcher. I don’t get distracted with dreams. That’s the difference between you and me. Dreamers dream. But snatchers snatch.”

“That’s a brilliant observation, Frank,” I say, “coming from someone who has only fourteen snatches this month to my seventeen.”

Frank glares at me for a moment, but the next instant, his features soften into his usual smug expression.