Until recently, there had been no way to obtain a complete and accurate listing of all the personnel the agency employed. It was impossible. The section chiefs would not cooperate. Even now, there was no way of knowing if they submitted complete lists or only partial ones, or even if the lists that they submitted were genuine or fabricated. Abuses had been flagrant and frequent. Upon assuming the directorship of the agency, Forrester had discovered that it was like an octopus that had lost count of its tentacles and had no real ability to control them.
Past directors had simply allowed the agency to operate in its own way, to run on its own inertia. And they had not overly concerned themselves with regulations. Though he was hardly a stickler for going by the book himself, Forrester did not work that way. He took firm charge of the agency and the section chiefs who ran their sectors like feudal kingdoms. He was determined to streamline the agency and mold it into a tight, well-disciplined, efficient unit, just as he had done when he had organized the First Division. To weed out the corruption, he had organized the agency’s own internal police force, the Internal Security Division, which had been headed by senior field agent Colonel Creed Steiger.
Forrester had known there were abuses. He had been aware of the corruption. But he had not been prepared for the incredible conspiracy he had uncovered when he found out about the Network. It was a secret agency within a secret agency. The Network made its own rules and was accountable to no one. Its only imperative was profit. The Network went beyond organized crime. It was like a multinational corporation whose influence transcended time. Forrester had been astonished to discover the extent of the Network’s operations. They were involved with organized crime in a large number of temporal sectors and they had extended their influence into politics, as well. The I.S.D. had uncovered Network involvement in large multinational conglomerates of the 20th century, in the 18th-century Moroccan slave trade, in piracy on the Spanish Main during the 1600s, and in diverse smuggling operations throughout the timeline. The potential for profit using time travel was simply staggering, and the resources the Network had amassed were impossible to calculate.
As Forrester had reported to his superiors, it was difficult enough trying to unravel the complicated financial structure of modern, 27th-century corporations. But even using all the considerable investigative resources at his command, it was impossible to trac
e complex and clandestine financial operations that cross the boundaries of time.
Profits skimmed from the revenues of the Roman Empire could be used to finance bootlegging and gambling operations during America’s Prohibition and the capital that was generated there could be invested on Wall Street in the bear markets of the 20th century, using the knowledge gained from time travel to pull off the ultimate in inside trading. Money skimmed from gambling casinos in Las Vegas, Atlantic City and Monte Carlo could be funneled into arms trade in Brussels and profits realized there could finance drug smuggling and prostitution rings operated under the cover of the Mafia. It was impossible to follow the trail of the money unless one or another of those operations were discovered and shut down, the participants taken into custody and interrogated. Even so, the closed cell system that the Network utilized insured that only small portions of its vast, illegal empire could be exposed. And then the trail simply ran out once again.
Unintimidated. Forester had set out to bust the Network and, in so doing, had incurred a price upon his head. Steiger, too, had a contract put out on him by the Network and, on his last mission, he had been assassinated, though he had managed to take his killer with him. Forester’s relentless pursuit of the Network had driven them more deeply underground and his only real hope of stopping them was to find their leaders, the people who would possess the records of all the Network branches and their operations. However, so far, only a few of the Network’s operations had been uncovered. Its leaders remained hidden and unknown.
As a result, the merging of the T.I.A. and the First Division had gone somewhat less than smoothly. There had been considerable resentment for the time commandos among the agents of Temporal Intelligence and the members of the First Division had reciprocated with distrust. For years, the agency had been a lot like a corrupt police division. Not everyone was on the pad, meaning that not everyone was actively involved with the Network, but many of those who weren’t involved had known about it and kept quiet. Indeed, there had been little else that they could do, considering the fact that the former agency director had been a Network man, himself.
Forester had instituted scanning procedures for all agency personnel in an effort to unmask those with Network connections and all the agents, even those who weren’t involved, resented it. Many resigned or transferred out. Others, significantly, simply disappeared. New personnel had been brought in to replace them and, eventually, things began to settle down. But it was significant that none of the old agents from the days before the two units had been merged were present in the First Division Lounge. The newer personnel had no background of camaraderie with the soldiers of the First Division. They, like the older agents, tended to socialize together. Consequently, when Delaney. Cross and Priest entered the lounge, they saw only a few other members of the First Division at the bar and lingering over their drinks at several tables. They nodded greetings to them and took a table of their own, near the back wall.
It was late and the sprawling base below them was all lit up. The glass wall gave a panoramic view of the base and the surrounding countryside. Off in the distance, they could see the lights of traffic on the interstate and, farther off, the distant glow of the city of Los Angeles, a vast metropolis that had seen phenomenal growth over the last few centuries, growth that showed no signs of abating. It had already swallowed up many of the towns and cities to its north and south and, at the rate the growth progressed in San Diego, L.A. and San Francisco. the entire coast of California would soon be one gigantic city. Always assuming that the long-predicted “Big One didn’t strike and cause most of it to collapse into the ocean, which would open up fascinating real estate opportunities in the Mojave Desert.
Over glasses of single malt Scotch whiskey, the three of them discussed their plans.
“All right, the first question is our cover,” Lucas said. “I think we should all go in separately. Or at least in such a way that we’ll appear not to be connected in any way.”
“I second that.” said Delaney.
“I’m going to have a problem with that.” Andre said. ‘I’m not about to take a job in Tombstone as a saloon girl and have smelly cowboys breathing cheap whiskey in my face and trying to drag me off to some back room. I’ll have to go in as someone’s wife. So, who’s going to be the lucky guy?”
“Oh, gee. I don’t know,” said Delany. with mock reluctance. “What do you think, Lucas?”
Lucas sighed. “Hell, why does it always have to be me?”
“Tell you what, I’ll flip you for it. Loser gets to be her husband. Call it. Heads or tails?”
He flipped a coin Andre snatched it out of the air. “Very funny.” she said, wryly.
“I don’t know, Andre,” Finn said. “if you go in as a hooker, you’ll be able to pick up a lot of information.”
“That’s true,” said Lucas. “And you’re inoculated against all known diseases, so-”
You want to drink that Scotch, or wear it?” she asked
“Okay, okay.” said Lucas, with a grin. “Lt. Cross, will you do me the honor of becoming my wife?”
“You heard him, Finn.” said Andre. “He just proposed.”
“That’s true, he did.” Delaney replied, nodding. “I’m a witness.”
“I accept, darling.” Andre said, smiling sweetly.
“Hey, wait a minute.” Lucas said, with a grin. “That wasn’t fair. You tricked me.”
“Did you hear me use any coercion?” Andre asked Finn.
“Nope,” Delaney said. “Far as I could tell, he proposed of his own free will. And he’s still sober. Hasn’t even finished his first drink.”
“Okay, okay, stop kidding around.” said Lucas, smiling.
“What makes you think I’m kidding?” Andre said, raising her eyebrows.