Ziff under fire

Part 17 - Bending space-time

It was a short walk from 69 rue Sumac street to Kozak's new place on rue Bank street. I tapped in his combination at the front door of the apartment building and he answered by buzzing the lock on to let me in. I took the elevator to the six floor and found his apartment.

As soon as I arrived, he asked me for my armband. It was a transponder that allowed Triple Oh to keep track of my movements in case I was kidnapped.

'You 'av a choice,' Kozak he told me. 'If you want to see your parents, you must leave zat 'ere.'

I gave it to him reluctantly. 'Are you quite sure Murga will keep his word? I tell him what he wants to know and he will release us all in Ottawa at this date.'

'He made me zat promise but, just in case, I 'av anuzzer plan.'

He gave me a pile of clothes to wear so that I wouldn't look out of place in 1945 Berlin. He was already wearing a loose fitting suit that looked like something worn in France before the second world war.

I found a pair of grey trousers that fitted reasonable well. They were held up by straps over my shoulders he called braces (I found out later they were also called suspenders). I put on a white shirt, Kozak showed me how to knot a neck tie and then insisted I wear a knitted sweater with a a vee neck and a colourful pattern of narrow horizontal bands. There was what he called a tweed jacket with leather elbow patches. The shoes were made from brown leather. There was a long dark blue overcoat and a fedora, a grey hat with a brim resembling Kozak's bowler hat but softer. I checked the contents of a small leather suitcase, containing a change of underwear and socks, he had already packed for me. I noticed that there was a bar of soap and a toothbrush.

'You will need zis,' He gave me an old fashioned German passport with my name on it and a black and white photograph of me except that I looked older. The photo had been embossed to make forgery more difficult. It showed my official birth date except the year was wrong. It said I had been born in 1926.

I stared at Kozak. 'How did you get this fake passport?'

He shrugged. 'Murga 'as many contacts . . . You 'av' to sign it 'ere.'

When I was ready, we used Toktakunov's time link in the corner of Kozak's apartment. It was a lot smoother than Dr Zhang's and a lot less dramatic.

Suddenly we were standing in a large room with heavy old fashioned furniture and large windows overlooking a garden.

I followed Kozak to a wall filled with shelves of books. They all had plain dark covers but the titles were all in German. Kozak selected one and sat in a large leather arm chair to read.

'Where are we?' I asked.

'Near Berlin,' he said. 'Your fazzer will be here soon. Read a book while we wait.'

'Good idea,' I replied sarcastically. 'Except I can't read German.'

He gestured toward a small table. 'Zhere is an American magazine, Life. It is only a few months old.'

A knock on the door made me jump up in alarm but it was only a young man wearing a black uniform who said something in German and then disappeared. A minute later my father walked in.

He stared at me as if not believing his eyes. 'Am I hallucinating? Is it really you, Ziff?'

We had seen each other only once, briefly, in the past two years and that had been on a mountain in western China when I failed to rescue him from Murga.

'So, Murga has you too,' he said despondently.

I ran across the room to hug him. 'Where's Mom?'

'He would not let her come,' he said as he hugged me back. 'She's at Murga's country house. Gosh, it's good to see you. But why did you come?'

'Murga promised he would send us all back to Ottawa, if I answered a few questions and provided samples of genetic material for testing.'

'So, what's been happening?' Dad asked.

'It is a long story. Since I saw you in the Tian Mountains, we got misplaced to Britain in 1776 and then we went to China during the later Han Dynasty. But what about you? How is Mom?'

'She's fine. Just worried about you. Murga moved us from the Tian Mountains to Berlin. We've been here for about two months.'

Kozak interrupted. 'I must leave you for a few minutes. Murga will arrive in one hour.'

As soon as he left Dad hugged me again and whispered in my ear, 'This room is locked and bugged. Murga does not intend to release us. If you get a chance to escape, take it. Mom and I will survive.'

'How about we all escape?' I whispered. 'We could get Mom and . . .'

'To risky,' Dad muttered. 'This is a police state, we don't speak German and everyone reports anything out of the ordinary to the Gestapo.'

'Do you know exactly where Mom and we are? If I can get the addresses to Triple Oh, that's Time Agent Onderdonk, he will find us. He has agents in Berlin.'

'Sorry, Ziff, I was blindfolded on the way here and I don't know Mom's exact location. I overheard something about Oranienburg which I think is north of Berlin.'

My joy at meeting Dad suddenly evaporated. I didn't know what to say but the young man wearing the black uniform came in with a tray of sandwiches and a pot of containing a hot black bitter liquid remotely resembling coffee. We ate although I didn't feel hungry.

We sat down on the overstuffed leather armchairs while I quizzed Dad about my origins. Most of which I already knew but Dad added a few details I had not heard before. I had been born in 2160 C.E. My birth mother's name was Alianor and she was an engineer with Time Phase Technology. Mom's father was Professor Alastair MacPhun and he was an expert in enhanced intelligence. It was he who had caused our current problem by altering my DNA so that I had the ability to detect and manipulate Time Phase Shear. Under the right condition I could bend Space-Time and thus distort gravity. It other words, I could fly . . . sort of.

Unfortunately, Murga had learned of this ability and had attempted to steal my grandfather's discovery. He had also tried to kidnap me when I was still a baby but my birth mother had hidden us from Murga by sending Dad and me back in time to Toronto.

After several years with no contact, Dad became convinced that we would never return to life in the future. He had married Helen, my adopted mother, so that we would have some sort of normal existence. This had worked until I reached high school when Kozak had found me and Murga attempted another kidnapping. This plan had been thwarted by Time Agency officer Onderdonk (aka Triple Oh or Ondy). Except that Murga had kidnapped my parents instead.

Just then, we heard the key turn in the door lock and Murga walked in.