“There are only two stable points in Copenhagen for the 1950s, so it will be pretty easy to check. The one at Rosenborg Castle is closest to the Russian Embassy, so I’d start there. The newspaper article says the press conference was August 2nd. He might have come in earlier, however, so maybe check August 1st as well.”
He hands me my old nemesis, the Log of Stable Points, and I groan.
“You’d prefer doing the language lessons?”
“Nyet. I’ll let you know what I find.”
“What were you doing with the maps? Is that something Katherine or I could take over?”
I shake my head. I mean, they could figure out how many blocks I’ll be from the stable point, but it’s really more about getting a feel for the place before I go, and I’m not sure how to farm that out. “Maybe one of you could make some coffee? The good stuff.”
He comes back twenty minutes later with a big mug of coffee, a protein bar, and an oatmeal cream pie. “Brain food or comfort food?”
I snatch the oatmeal pie. “But leave the protein bar. I’ll get to it eventually.”
“Any luck?” He sits down beside me on the couch and looks over my shoulder at the Log, even though I’m pretty sure he’s only seeing row after row of black squares.
“Yeah, actually. Maybe too much.” I grab the pen and notepad from the coffee table, jot down another entry, and hand it to him. The list now includes six different jump coordinates, and I’m not quite finished. “There was apparently a lot going on that Moehler wanted to see on August 1st. He had several different suits, and he’s wearing a mustache one time, but mostly he’s just really average looking. Three different versions of him could be standing in a group, and you’d never notice it was the same guy.”
I take the list back and tap the third entry, which has a little star next to it. “So far, this is my best guess for which one was his final jump—the one after Saul’s attack. Everyone else has been a little off balance when they land from that jump. Katherine said she was knocked over. Evelyn twisted her ankle. When I was researching Port Darwin, Adrienne looked like someone had punched her in the gut. She just sat there in the stable point, stunned, for two or three minutes. But I haven’t found anything like that yet.”
Connor goes back to the library, and I go back to viewing the stable points. About five minutes later, I find Wallace Moehler’s last jump. He arrives in the little nook along the stone walls at the rear of Rosenborg Castle at 5:45 a.m. on August 1st. When Moehler lands, he sways on his feet for a split second and then falls flat on his ass, his legs splayed out in front of him, nearly smacking his head against the wall. He’s less than a foot from the stable point, so I mostly see his torso. He has a black briefcase in his lap and the CHRONOS key in his left hand.
Moehler sits there for maybe thirty seconds, probably trying to process what he’s just seen at headquarters. Then he tucks the medallion into his jacket pocket, straightens his glasses, and starts to stand. He’s about halfway to his feet when he rocks backward again. This time his head does hit the wall, and he slumps against it.
I watch Moehler’s face in the display for several seconds, wondering what happened. Then I see the small red circle on his forehead and the thin red line spreading downward onto his nose.
BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS
July 31, 1905, 10:25 a.m.
Kiernan transfers the Copenhagen stable point to his key and then hands the Log back to me. It’s stupid, but I feel better now. Katherine wasn’t able to stabilize the display enough to see it, and, of course, Connor couldn’t see anything. I knew I hadn’t imagined it, but it’s nice to know that someone else has seen the shooting, too.
Kiernan’s still in his Boudini bathing suit, his hair sticking up in spikes. He drums his fingers along the edge of his CHRONOS key before pulling it up to watch one more time.
Only a few minutes have passed for him since we returned from Norumbega—it was the one time that I knew for certain he’d still be in the room. But he seems a lot drier than he should be, given that he was soaked when I left.
I’m about to ask why when he says, “You’re sure no one took the key from Moehler after he was shot?”
“As sure as I can be without watching it straight through. I fast-forwarded in thirty-second increments for the next three hours, until a groundskeeper finds his body and calls the police. Before the groundskeeper arrives, the only things that come into the picture are a bird and a stray piece of paper that blows past. We need to go back through and watch the entire thing to be sure, but—”
“I’ll handle it. When we get back from the Athens jump.”
“Thanks,” I say, and then something about his voice stops me. What exactly is he saying he’ll handle? That he’ll watch the stable point in real time, no fast-forwarding? Or . . .
“What do you mean you’ll handle it?”
He just looks at me.
“No. Absolutely not. Do not retrieve that key. There’s someone in the garden with a gun, for God’s sake.”
“C’mon, Kate. I could blink in, grab the key, and be back before anyone has time to aim and fire. For all we know, the KGB saw Moehler hanging around the Russian embassy and decided he was a spy. Even if it’s Simon or some other Cyrist in the garden, which, I repeat, we do not know, they’re not expecting me—”
“Bullshit, Kiernan! We don’t know what they’re expecting. They’re watching us. Not just you, not just here, but me as well, and Prudence apparently doesn’t like what she’s seeing.”
He raises his eyebrows expectantly, and I tell him about Eve’s warning to me at the party. “So, unless they have cameras in Katherine’s house, which Connor says isn’t possible, they’ve either seen me here in your apartment or when we were walking around Boston.”
I take a ragged breath before continuing, the words tumbling out. “Or, yes, even more likely, when we went to Norumbega. And please do not remind me that you tried to cancel that trip. I was wrong, okay? Let’s just accept as given that I’m incredibly stupid and this is all my . . .”
Kiernan reaches over and takes my hands in his own, and my sentence trails off in midstream a few words later. It’s actually a very clever tactic for shutting me up, since I always use my hands for emphasis when I’m agitated. I’m a little surprised that no one has done it before. Then I look at Kiernan’s face, and I’m pretty sure that he has done it before. More than once, judging from his expression.
He looks down at my hands and runs his thumb across the Band-Aid on my forefinger. I lost the other bandage somewhere during the day, and he pulls that hand toward him, pressing his lips against the chafed knuckle. When he looks back up at me, his eyes are on the brink of tearing over.
“I don’t know what to do, Kate. Before, when things went all to hell and you were upset, I’d take you in my arms and hold you and tell you it would all be fine, all be okay.” He laughs—a brief, bitter sound—and shakes his head. “It was a load of crap, and we both knew it, deep down, but somehow it seemed like maybe everything would be okay when I held you.”
I look down, focusing resolutely on his hands clasped around mine, warm and strong. I don’t dare catch his eye, because there’s this rebel voice in my head telling me that it would be really nice, unbelievably nice, to feel like everything will be okay. Even if it was only for a minute. Even if we both knew it was a load of crap.
“I went back, Kate. Back to Norumbega. Not to finish the show—Operation Boudini is on ice for the time being.”
An image flashes through my mind: the audience at Norumbega, frozen in place, waiting for Kiernan to return. Or not return. Or is it both at the same time, like that experiment with Schrödinger’s cat?