The Assassin by Lynn Mann	Part 1 appears in this issue.
conclusion

The minions stopped, puzzled. “You’ve read my file, you know I dislike killing. Perhaps I won’t kill you, if I simply disable you there won’t be any bodies to explain.”

No one moved. “I actually have no objection to early retirement, Mr. Grayson. Before I left, the Director said mine might be the agency’s last mission, and that has apparently come to pass. Fine. However, I have no intention of leaving this office, let alone of spending the next three months in solitary confinement, without an adequate explanation.”

John continued in the same calm voice as before. “I wish to speak privately with the Director. Afterwards I will decide whether to comply with your instructions, Mr. Grayson.” John saw he’d registered the insult and kept his satisfaction to himself.

“You are in no position to be making demands, Mr. Honeywell.” Grayson snapped. “Your choices are to comply and leave for the time of your choosing with preparation and adequate funds for your first year there, or be dumped into the time of my choosing immediately.” Grayson’s expression left no doubt as to the type of period he would choose.

John shrugged and raised his hands, palms out. “I would only ask one question, then. Is the Director still alive?”

Without deigning to reply Grayson turned towards the door, followed by the rest of the strangers and Mo. She, at least, looked uncomfortable. That might be his in.

John left the Director’s office, escorted by Grayson’s two goons. He had some thinking and some planning to do.

* * *

His rooms had been thoroughly cleaned and aired out recently. The cabinets and cooler unit were well stocked with all his favorites. He stripped off his past-time clothes and stepped into the spray shower unit. They’d even provided his preferred brands of soap and shampoo. John wondered idly whether these brands were still available, or whether they’d been fabricated especially for his use. Didn’t matter, soon enough he’d have to get by without them. People weren’t a problem; there was no one left he cared for, except the Director.

His original, biological family was long gone, dissolved in the aftereffects of an Agency adjustment. He’d had liaisons with other agents or staff over the years but nothing that dented his heart. When it was over, it was over, and everyone moved on.

John showered, dressed in clean clothes and heated up one of the frozen, pre-packaged meals from the freezer. Once the container had been disposed and the fork and glass washed there was nothing left for him to do.

He lay in the dark bedroom, legs straight out and fingers laced behind his head. Depression, an old familiar friend who awaited him after every mission, weighed him down.

The docs tried to push pharmas that would “repair the chemical imbalance.” They couldn’t understand that he needed his grief. John believed wholeheartedly that his actions were righteous and saved countless lives. However his conscience still had things to say. He needed to work through the depression; it reminded him that that he was still human, could still understand the difference between right and wrong.

Although his mission had been aborted, he still had to deal with the fact that he would have killed the man. Killed him now, when he was still young and had done the world no harm yet. Killed him because of what he would do, if all the factors fell into place. The Agency couldn’t, wouldn’t, risk letting events take their course, because that course was too dangerous. That way convulsed most of the world in a killing orgy, left millions dead and millions more enslaved.

His hand twitched, almost reaching for the bottle in his nightstand. He quelled it. No sleeping pills tonight, no white noise, no distractions. He needed to think. No matter what Grayson thought, John had no intention of being shipped off to some downtime hellhole without some explanation.

When and where did he want to live out his exile? Most of human history was dominated by war, famine, disease and ignorance. Even periods of great intellectual growth, such as Renaissance Europe, were counter-balanced by hideous social conditions for all but a small cadre of wealthy men. John doubted the Agency would bankroll him into a life of comfortable ease.

Grayson’s nasal toned reverberated in his memory. “Fifty years.” John smiled, knowing the solution.

Problem solved, he settled into Zen breathing, meditating into sleep.

* * *

Three months later he was back in Europe. October 8, 1951, London. He’d risked everything to get one final message to the Director, who’d taken an equal risk responding. While it gave John no solace, he needed concurrence. It was a suicide mission, there was no coming back. He hoped knowing of it would give the Director some comfort in his final days.

John expected, given Grayson’s attitude, that he’d have difficulty learning what had happened to the Agency and the Director. If Grayson’s minions were as arrogant as their boss, he should have no trouble getting them to gloat. However it was Mo who walked into his quarters the next morning.

“Acting Director Grayson,” she began in a cold, formal voice, “asked me to personally brief you about the events that led up to your recall and early retirement.”

“Thank you,” John responded, equally formal.

Without waiting to be asked, perhaps sensing she wouldn’t be offered a chair, Mo stalked past him and sat in one of the two kitchen chairs. Perforce John followed, taking the other chair.

“What happened?” John asked, trying to keep his voice neutral.

Mo sighed, looking aside. “It has been almost fifteen years, our time stream, since you left on your mission. Time travel is now banned and almost all emitters destroyed. Once you’ve been retired, the last one will go into the most secure storage ever devised. Acting Director Grayson has been running the Agency for the last ten years, overseeing its orderly shutdown.”

Mo paused, as if expecting John to react. When he said nothing she continued, “My uncle, that is the Director, thought, honestly believed, that the research was complete and all the effects accounted for. He was wrong, all the scientists were wrong. Every change we induced created an echo, at an equal distance into the future. Unwittingly we wreaked havoc upon our future, thinking we were fixing our past.

“As you know, all time travel involves paradox and chaos theory. So in the then-future, which is almost now, the emitters have been destroyed and all knowledge of them buried. For decades, emitters were considered a myth, until one fanatic tracked the last one down and figured out how to use it.

“It was a bit hit or miss, but he finally found us. He managed to convince the Director who then convinced the Science Council, to do what had already, in his time, been done.”

Mo shrugged, struggling as they all did with syntax.

In response to John’s unasked question, Mo shook her head. “No, you can’t meet him. He died. He managed to activate the emitter but didn’t really know how to use it. He got time-bends, and we couldn’t save him. Too bad, really, can you imagine how brilliant he was, to have figured the emitter out all by himself?”

“And the Director?”

Mo couldn’t meet his eyes. “He’ll retire honorably and be treated with all the respect a man of his great intellect deserves.” The statement sounded rote, something she’d said too often already.

“I want to see him, Mo.”

Mo shook her head adamantly. At the same time a tiny wisp of paper dropped from her fist to the floor. “I’m sorry, John, he is too ill to receive guests. I will be sure to convey your best wishes. I’ll leave now, your trainer will be here in ten minutes. Have a good trip, John. We won’t meet again.”

Mo stood and walked to the door without another word. Her every movement told him the room was under surveillance. So he left the wisp of paper where it was, as if he hadn’t noticed it. Mo was smart enough to drop in a blind spot — at least he devoutly hoped she was.

He endured two hours with his trainer, a dried-up humorless stick John had never met before. Before he left the man, who’d introduced himself as Mr. George, instructed John to familiarize himself with all the material he’d been given prior to their meeting the next morning.

While making himself lunch John burned his fingers on the hot toast, dropping it to the floor and cursing softly. He ran cool water over his fingers, then picked up the offending bread and threw it in the waste bin. The wisp of paper he palmed.

Mo was good, he had to admit, as he opened the paper in his dark bedroom. The ink was phosphorescent, easily read under the covers.

All she gave him was a numeric sequence, but he understood it. “S1216 — 4839457 — 0130”

South wing, twelfth floor, room 16, 1:30 in the morning. The rest was probably the security code to get him into the room. John wondered briefly if she was setting him up but decided not to worry. If she was, so be it.

He couldn’t pass up his only chance to tell the Director... tell him what? Not how he felt about the man, the Director would be embarrassed to death. No, all they’d have time for would be goodbyes. However, John also wanted to tell the Director his plan, and get, if not exactly permission, then absolution.

* * *

1950’s London wouldn’t be so bad, and he had absolutely no intention of honoring his promise not to use his knowledge of future events. What could they do to him? Without emitters they couldn’t reach him. Soon it would be moot anyhow.

John’s memory kept returning to his last meeting with the shattered husk that once been his friend and mentor, Director Stevens. Evading the half-asleep guards hadn’t been much of a challenge. The one guarding the Director’s suite had been alert, but John took him down soundlessly. He punched into the keypad the security code Mo had provided and the door slid open.

Despite the late hour the Director was awake and seemed to expect him. The suite was completely dark, except for a faint trail of phosphoresce leading down the hall. The Director sat in his bedroom, ostensibly reading. Opera played a bit too loudly in the background. John stayed in the shadowed doorway, sure the Director was aware of him.

Without lowering the book or even glancing in his direction, the Director said quietly, “Well, John, I understand you wanted to see me.”

“Yes, Director. Mo did a great job of getting me here. How are you?” The question was for courtesy only, John could see exactly how he was. Fifteen years might have passed objectively, but the Director appeared to have aged double that. He looked wasted, hollow. His hands trembled slightly and his skin was yellowed and parchment thin.

The Director didn’t bother to answer. In a low, rapid voice John told the Director his plan. At first the old man didn’t respond. Then he said, “Yes, I see. You’re quite right, of course. It was at the River Cat Pub, on October 22, 1951. And thank you for telling me. You should leave now, my boy.”

“Director,” John started, but the old man’s face hardened and John swallowed the rest. “Good night, sir,” he said instead, and faded away.

He had two weeks to scout out the location and prevent the encounter. It should be simple enough: ask for directions or a cigarette, engage him in conversation. The key would be to turn Major Albert Stevens away from the pub’s door, ensure that he never met pretty young Margaret Hayward and that they never married and had a son who would someday become the world’s foremost physicist. While the Major was a regular at the pub, she was only visiting and would return to Manchester in the morning.

However John would have to keep a close eye on the Major, because history had a funny way of repairing itself. If necessary he would eliminate the man altogether, however he preferred it not come to that.

He also decided killing young Tom Grayson would be merely for self-satisfaction, an unjustifiable revenge killing. After all, if the Agency was never formed, Grayson could have no hand in destroying it, nor the genius that founded it.

John’s thoughts returned once again to his last sight of the director, hand raised slightly in a gesture of benediction. “Thank you, my boy,” he whispered.

Copyright © 2009 by Lynn Mann

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