01. Labyrinth of Dreams (33 page)

"What am I—there?" Brandy pressed. She was really adamant. "Are my parents still alive? Did I finish school, or what?"

"All right, then, here it is. Your mother died, same as here, same way and same problem. You were even wilder there than here, but when your father found out he gave you an ultimatum to shape up a hundred percent or get out and never come back. You went across town at age seventeen and became a hooker on a pimp's string. You still are, with a big heroin habit to feed."

"My daddy woulda killed me if I did that!"

"No, ma'am," Markham replied. "He killed himself, instead." He paused a moment while an extreme pall set in over the room. "I told you it's best not to know. Somewhere, somewhen, almost everything that might have happened did. Somewhere, too, your father, maybe even your mother, are still alive, have a successful agency, and you're a college grad with a career, husband, and maybe kids."

That cheered her a little. "What about Sam and me? How many worlds do you think we got together on?"

"Very few. I can say that without checking. The odds are just astronomical against it. More than one, sure, but I'd be surprised if it was a dozen out of hundreds or more where both of you are alive. The funny thing is, Kennedy says he actually called for a switch team on you two, but then you showed up trim, lean, different looking from the time on the siding. There was no match; and since you had nothing here, and the real you were with the Company, there was no percentage and no way to do it, even if they could have recruited and briefed a pair in that length of time. They had doubles for most of the others prepared, but nobody figured on Nkrumah hiring you, not even Nkrumah Two. It wouldn't and couldn't, because in that world everybody
else
was the same, but Sam was dead and you were a hooker, so there was no detective agency to think about going to. See?"

I
did
see. "Variables," I said. "Too many variables. All the big shots were the same, or real close to the same, but we were the one thing in this world that related to them that they didn't have. Our presence hadn't affected their development up to then; we were
zilch.
We only took on any importance when Little Jimmy came to us here."

"Even then, who knows what woulda happened if that old switchman or whatever he was hadn't sent us to the Garden?" Brandy mused. "I mean, a lot of these things are dead ends, right? We coulda rotted there. Only 'cause we happened to be there and I happened to wake up and hear it when they opened up that Labyrinth gateway, did we get out at all."

"That, in fact, is what we're here to discuss," Markham told us. "It was no accident, Brandy. You were meant to hear it, see it, and escape in it. That 'garden,' as you call it,
is
a dead-end siding."

I sat up at that one. "Now, hold on. Who was that seven-foot snow-white girl in the kimono, then?"

"That was when you were back on the main track. It's a short siding. You see, they needed you. They looked over the mess and they decided it was going down a failure, and the only thing they could do was send somebody in to take out those who knew too much, protect Kennedy if possible—waste him, too, if his cover was blown— and make sure nobody went any further than here. For that, they needed a way to get Jamie here, as a company agent, so she'd have the resources and cover to track these people down and know what we knew. The old switchman's report was filed with the nearest full station, as is procedure, so immediate action could be taken if need be. Otherwise, the station is supposed to send the report on down the line. They didn't. Instead, they arranged for one of their own to work the nearest switch set and convincingly send you to them with no record being filed."

"The dog-faced woman," I said.

"Uh-huh. We didn't know that for sure, since even Jamie wouldn't know the switching personnel, but we inferred it, and when we found she'd been recently certified and changed to that switch and watch, it was pretty easy to figure."

I nodded. "I figured if Jamie was their hitter, then her boss had to be Cranston. Too bad, with a name like that."

"That beach house, which in our world would be on the Sonoma County coast north of San Francisco, is a training center for younger operatives. He runs it because it's a quiet world and a stratified one, and so it's pretty easy to train people there without much danger of exposure. Now that I think of it, it's kind of odd that Cranston seemed happy there for so long and never pressed for promotion or reassignment, but that's hindsight. We probably have a large percentage of senior staff that get in a life they really like and want to stay."

"Cranston had it pretty good," I noted. "With some amenities hidden from the rest of the folks, I could get used to that lifestyle myself."

"Still has, but not for long," Markham noted. "So far we've covered all the entrances and exits, and he hasn't been tipped that Jamie was caught. If he finds out, he'll skip, and he has the means to do it. He's pretty wary; I doubt if we could con him into coming down to headquarters line, since he's always had to fight to get an appointment there before, and he's sticking pretty close to his house until this is done. He built the place, and it has a staff of twenty-four plus various students. We have no idea how many are really competition, and we don't know what's built into that house, but he has a flag stop in there, that we know. That's how he got you two back here. Our worry is, if we slip-up and can't take him, he can use that flag to enter the Labyrinth. We don't know how desperate he'll be. Some of them are pussycats, some are
kamikazes.
We don't want to lose him if we can avoid it. We want
his
boss, and he's the only one who knows who that is."

"But you're going after him."

"Sure. Want to come? We sure can't use anybody from the local organization there. We don't know who's who."

Brandy looked at me. "Want to go?"

"I shrugged. "More getting shot at. Yeah, all right. I can see that
you
do. I have a bad feeling about this, though. Every time we've gotten involved in this activity, something nutty happened. We've been lucky so far, but how long can it last?"

"Don't mind him," Brandy told them. "He's always like that. That's his way of saying he wouldn't miss it for the world."

I looked at him. "The fact that we're invited seems to imply a few. things. First of all, you really don't expect to nail him alive, so you can afford a couple of rank amateurs along. Second, you want to check us out."

"You're wrong. I
do
want him alive. I could have him killed pretty easily. That's why this is delicate. He is under no such restrictions."

The place was heavily guarded, but we had enough people to take out the major spotters and replace them convincingly with our own people. The trouble was, there were so many people in and around the house, and so many potential traps, that a full reconnaissance just wasn't practical. For the same reason, we couldn't come in through his basement flag stop, since we didn't know his alarms there and couldn't know what signals the automated equipment would give if an entry were made. What we could do, however, was issue a command that effectively shut down the flag stop from the Labyrinth side. Since McInerney and his cult were never in on Cranston's treason, since they deliberately remained ignorant of what was proper and what was not, we used the Oregon station for our own entrance, then had that temporarily shut down as well just in case.

Cranston's beach house location had been ideal for hiding the Company school and Company activities, but its very isolation in this world also made it relatively easy to cut off. Brandy and I were again dressed all in black, but this time professional outfits that were a lot nicer than that plastic, which the Company had been shipping to some other world from ours, that had gotten us into the plant at the start.

It was quiet and fairly still, but we slipped into the main hall and saw one of those liveried butlers making his way downstairs with a tray full of dirty glasses and dishes. We crept up to him, and I held him while Brandy took the tray and set it down. The gun in his back made him very cooperative.

"Company security," I whispered. "Cranston still awake?"

He nodded. "Y—yes."

"You have an intercom or speaking tube to reach him?"

"Yes—in the pantry."

"Anybody else in the pantry?"

"No, not at this time of night. Please—what is this all about?"

"If you have to ask, then you wouldn't believe the answer or you already know it. Either way, just don't sweat it, and do what you're told. If anything bad happens to us because of you, something
awful
's going to happen to you first. Understand?"

I had real hopes it'd be the guy who slipped us the mickey, but you can't have everything. The kitchen and pantry area was dimly lit and deserted as promised, though, and the tubes were all there—and all nicely labeled. He could still double-cross us if Cranston wasn't in his study and somebody else was, but it was his funeral if he did and he knew it.

"Mr. Cranston, this is Jameson," the butler said into the tube after giving a whistle, "I think you had better come down to the library, sir. There's something wrong that I think you'd best attend to in person."

"You said that just like we told you," I said approvingly. "Good night."

He looked puzzled. "Good night?" he echoed, and Brandy hit him with the juice right in the rump through all those clothes. That stuff, whatever it was, was quick. Maybe three or four seconds and he was down for the count.

We hurried into the library and concealed ourselves behind the drapes, guns at the ready. Cranston might just as likely send his people in first and we knew it. He didn't, though, coming down the stairs and walking straight into the library. He stopped and looked around, puzzled. He was wearing that same silk dressing gown we'd seen him in on the train.

"Jameson?" he called.

"Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men?" I asked, stepping out, pistol pointed at him.

"De shadow do," Brandy responded, and stepped out herself, also armed.

"I thought it was Helen Gurley Brown," I responded.

"Horowitz?" Cranston was genuinely surprised. I think he might have expected somebody, but not me.
"Both
Horowitzes?" He paused a moment, then sighed. "I surmise from this that Jamie blew it. She always was a hotheaded little psychopath, but she had the most experience in a world similar to yours of anyone available to me right then. I assume the house is surrounded?"

"Yes."

He sighed again. "Mind if I get dressed first, then? Where can I go?"

"Yes, I mind, and I don't want to find out where you can go. Hands where I can see 'em, please. Now, just turn and walk the eight feet or so to the front door, and the nice men outside will take care of you."

Brandy glanced at me. "Pussycat," she whispered.

At that moment a series of shots rang out, ricocheting all over the library. We jumped and tried to find the source, but in that split second Cranston was gone.

We ran out into the hall after him. There was the sound of people moving around upstairs, and lots of queries and complaints, but I was pretty sure Cranston hadn't gone back up. He was headed for the flag stop, and as we saw in the pantry, you got there through the wine cellar.

Our own people were entering and taking up positions, so that left us to give chase. I had no idea who'd fired those shots, but whoever it was, wasn't apparent, and also, thankfully, was a lousy shot. It was probably some kind of automatic device triggered somehow by Cranston.

We had just entered the wine cellar when the bottles started to vibrate and there was the sound of loud and very big machinery beyond them. One of Markham's men came in behind us. "That thing's been shut off! He
can't
be going in!"

"Well, he's doing it!" Brandy shouted back.

"Don't lose us!" I said to the agent. "And make sure your switches are secure! I'm going in after the son of a bitch!"

"We're
going in!" Brandy responded, and we went down the corridor, smashing some wine on the way, just in time to see the figure of a man in a silk gown enter what was unmistakably a small version of the Labyrinth. There was a fair amount of electronic equipment here, and some panels were exposed that had been built into the cellar wall. Somehow, Cranston had broken the seal and reopened the siding, giving him an opening to the first switch point. Brandy and I ran right into the blue lines of folding and twisting squares, running at full speed.

The trick was to keep Cranston in sight, because if we lost him he could go anywhere. That meant keeping no more than one cube length behind him. Fortunately, he'd stumbled very early on that dressing gown, while we were in good shape and dressed for this. We had sight of him, but we had been warned not to fire a shot in the Labyrinth unless we were in the same cube as Cranston and couldn't miss. Otherwise, the bullet would exit into some world and keep going until it was spent or hit something—or somebody.

Cranston reached the switch point, the same point where we'd been directed to him by the dog-faced woman, and that was what I was counting on. No matter what, he'd have to run in place for a while until the switch was set and thrown, and that would give us a chance to be in the same cube as him. He'd thought of that, though. Now he stopped, turned, and showed that we weren't the only ones with guns. His was a shiny, crazy-looking thing but I had no doubt that it was lethal and that Cranston would have no moral compunctions about shooting into an adjacent cube.

I hesitated, but Brandy stopped, braced, and fired anyway, disregarding instructions. Then, again, better a chance of a stray shot somewhere than a shot in me, I thought, and stopped to aim my own.

Brandy's volley struck home at least once, though. Cranston reeled and fell back, his own shot, an emerald-green beam, going wild, and when he recovered there was an ugly red stain on his left side. He'd finally have to get a new dressing gown, after all.