The Pimpernel Plot (TimeWars 3)

“My relatives?”

Andre nodded. “She said she knew that you were an only child, but she was curious if you had any cousins, perhaps, who looked a great deal like you.” She paused. “Of course, Algernon Blakeney didn’t have a brother or a sister, so Percy obviously couldn’t have any cousins who were his identical twins, could he?”

She approached Finn and took the bottle from his hand. “I can’t really help you anymore with Marguerite,” she said. “She keeps asking questions and I’m running out of answers. l don’t know how you’re going to handle this, Finn, but you’re going to have to do it. I can’t do it for you. She’s just on the verge of believing the impossible, that her husband is an impostor. As Forrester might have said, she feels it in her gut. What are you going to do when it works its way up to her brain?”

Taking the bottle with her, she left the room and softly closed the door.

8

They sat together amidships on board the Day Dream as Captain Briggs piloted the boat across the Channel. They had sailed on the morning tide. It was a clear day and the wind was brisk and cold, sending sheets of sea spray across the deck, the droplets pattering down like grapeshot. Finn held his short clay so that the bowl of the pipe was shielded by his hand from both the wind and spray as he stretched his legs out before him. The crew did not intrude on his and Lucas’s privacy and Tony Dewhurst and Andrew Ffoulkes were both below in their cabins, having no desire to remain on deck in such damp and windy conditions. For Finn and Lucas, it was an ideal opportunity to talk. En route to Dover, Finn had told Lucas all about his meeting with TIA agent Cobra and his talk with Andre the night before.

“So she suspects that something’s wrong,” said Lucas. “That could be a real problem. I knew that you felt something for her, but I thought that maybe it was only sympathy or that she turned you on or perhaps a little of both, but this… You had to go and lose your head over a pretty face. Worse, you let her know it. Hell, Finn, you’re supposed to be a pro. Andre’s a rookie and she’s handled herself better on this mission than you have.”

“You just don’t understand,” said Finn.

“No, I guess I don’t.”

“She’s not just another pretty face, Lucas. I’m telling you, this is the real thing. I know it proba

bly sounds corny, but Andre called it, there was something happening between us from the very start. I’ve just been refusing to admit it to myself. Hell, I’m not some lovestruck kid, I’m old enough to be your grandfather and then some, but I’m telling you, I’ve never felt this strongly about anyone before. It’s a revelation.”

“It’s pathetic, is what it is,” said Lucas, dryly. “The problem is, what are you going to do about it? What can you do?”

“I’ve been thinking about that,” Finn said. “Blakeney’s dead. Even when this adjustment is over, when the Scarlet Pimpernel retires, someone is going to have to continue being Percy Blakeney. Forrester said that it might be indefinite, but since I’m already on the spot, why not make it permanent?”

“Are you serious?”

“Yes. Why not?”

“Christ, Finn, I can give you several obvious reasons why not,” said Lucas. “For one thing, you’re in the First Division. Adjustment specialists are just too valuable to waste on temporal relocation. You ought to know that. Besides-”

“They can’t turn me down if I request a transfer,” Finn said. “With my mission record, I’ve got that option.”

“Technically, yes, you do,” said Lucas, “but you’re not thinking, Finn. You must really have it bad, because I can’t believe you’d be so stupid. To begin with, if Fitzroy found out about this, he’d probably put you in for reeducation when this was over, after which you wouldn’t even remember Marguerite, much less the fact that you wanted a transfer, which they wouldn’t give you anyway, at least not to the relocation units. In fact, that might not be a bad idea. It would certainly solve your problem.”

“It wouldn’t help Marguerite very much,” said Finn.

“Oh, I’m glad to see you’ve finally thought of how this would affect her,” Lucas said. “Have you thought of what would happen when you clock back to Plus Time and someone from the relocation units gets sent back to substitute for Percy Blakeney, someone she’d have to live with for the rest of her life? If the two of you got together, would somebody else be the same? Even if you were allowed to remain here with her, there’s one basic difference between you and someone from the relocation units. You’ve had antiagathic treatments and you’re far too old to have them reversed. She’d age at the normal rate and you wouldn’t. Leaving aside the fact that it would be a little difficult to explain to all your friends, how do you think she’d feel, watching herself grow old while you remained the same? How would you feel?”

Finn nodded. He looked crestfallen. “You’re absolutely right. I’m being a complete idiot. I don’t know what the hell’s wrong with me.”

Lucas looked at him and smiled, sympathetically. “You’re in love,” he said. “It’s made idiots of better men than you before. I’m sorry, old buddy, I shouldn’t have been so hard on you, but you can’t say I didn’t warn you. I told you it would be really rough on you if you started caring about her, though this wasn’t exactly what I had in mind. You know, it’s funny, but in basic training they run down just about every possible hazard you can encounter on the Minus Side, yet I don’t recall anyone ever mentioning the hazard of falling in love with someone who belongs to another time. You’d think they would include that.”

“Maybe they don’t because there’s not much you can do about it,” Finn said.

“Well, there’s certainly nothing we can do about it now,” said Lucas. “Besides, we still have another problem on our hands. What are you going to tell Cobra?”

The corners of Finn’s mouth turned down in a grim frown. “I don’t know. I was going to ask you for suggestions. I know what I wont to tell him, but it’s not for me to decide alone. Besides, you’re the senior officer on this team.”

Lucas raised his eyebrows. “No kidding? God damn, someone record this for posterity, this is a first. Finn Delaney defers to the chain of command!”

“Go to hell.”

“After you, old friend, you’re not sticking me with this one. I’m not going to make any command decisions. I left my oak leaves back in Plus Time.”

“All right, then, at least give me some feedback. What do you think our choices are?”

“The way Cobra laid it out for you,” said Lucas, “it doesn’t sound like we’ve got much in the way of choices. We either play it his way or we don’t. If we do what he wants us to do, it’s hard to say whether we’d be disobeying orders or not. Technically, there’s nothing in our orders that says we have to go after Mongoose. In fact, Fitzroy was pretty specific on that point. Mongoose is Cobra’s responsibility. However, there’s nothing in our orders that says we have to back off and let Mongoose get away if we get a chance to stop him. If we do that, depending on who writes the report and how it’s interpreted, we might be brought up on charges. Fitzroy’s going to be submitting the report and he doesn’t like us, anyway. Now we could go to Fitzroy and report what Cobra told you. If we do, we’ll be forcing someone’s hand and Mongoose, Cobra, or Fitzroy might get killed. Or all three of them might get killed. Or we might get killed. Or someone blows the adjustment. God knows, it could go wrong sixteen different ways.”