TW04 The Zenda Vendetta NEW by Simon Hawke Read Free Book Online

imprintation.”
    “
All
of them?” said Lucas. “That could take months!”
    “At the very least,” said Forrester. “What that means is that you won’t have any intelligence support upon this mission. Which brings us full circle. Falcon purposely left behind some personal effects belonging to Rudolf Rassendyll at the scene of Mongoose’s murder. Temporal Intelligence has authenticated them. I think that we can safely assume that they’re not trying to bluff us. The Timekeepers have clocked back to the 19th century and eliminated Rassendyll.”
    “But why tell us about it?” Andre said.
    “I should think that would be obvious,” said Forrester. “They want revenge for what you did in 17th-century Paris. As a result of that mission, their organization was virtually wiped out. They’ve already killed Mongoose. That leaves just the three of you.”
    “If they’re trying to make certain that we’re the team sent out on the adjustment,” Andre said, “why play into their hands? Why not simply send in another team?”
    “You’re not thinking, Corporal,” said Forrester. “Sending you three in is our best chance to stop them. They know that. They also know that
we
know that they have already created their disruption.
    They’ve made a point of telling us about it. There’s nothing preventing them from merely clocking out to another time period except the fact that they want you dead. So long as you’re available, they’ll stick around and try to get the job done.”
    Finn Delaney was shaking his head.
    “What is it, Delaney?”
    “There are entirely too many coincidences here,” he said. “I can’t believe that the Timekeepers arranged them all.”
    Forrester frowned. “What are you getting at?”
    “Just this. The whole thing is beginning to shape up as the sort of nightmares we used to construct as theoretical problem modules back in RCS when we were studying the effects of the Fate Factor on temporal inertia. We used to call it ‘zen physics,’ because it bends your brain around just thinking about it, like one of those old Japanese koans, you know, ‘What is the sound of one hand clapping?’ Only this is even worse.”
    “How so?”
    “Because trying to figure it out logically will make you crazy,” said Finn. “More cadets washed out on zen physics than in any other course. Temporal inertia works in ways that not even Mensinger fully understood. Look at the complete picture here. Everything that’s gone down so far bears directly on our actions in 17th-century Paris during that adjustment mission involving the three musketeers. The adjustment was successful and it enabled the TIA to arrest most of the Timekeepers, but we have no way of knowing just how much temporal inertia was affected. Remember that the Fate Factor works as a coefficient of temporal inertia, determining the degree of
relative
continuity to which the timestream can be restored. That depends on the effects of the disruption itself in the first place and the manner in which it was adjusted in the second place.”
    “In other words,” said Andre, “ ‘relative’ is the operative term. Temporal inertia can still be affected in some way that might show up at some later point in time.”
    “Exactly. Coincidences are a natural part of a random world, but too many coincidences indicates that there has to be more than randomness at work. That’s what we’ve got here. Too damn many coincidences. One: what the Timekeepers have done in disrupting 19th-century Ruritania is directly related to what we did to them in 17th-century France. Cause and effect. Two: Falcon appears to have been very high up in the terrorist organization, perhaps one of their leaders, which connects her to what we did in 17th-century France. Three: as Elaine Cantrell, she was involved with Colonel Forrester and now, as Falcon, their paths have intersected once again. Four: as Elaine Cantrell and later as Sophia Falco, she was involved with the TIA