Chapter 14
The TV flickered at a low volume.
“Mr. Strauss,” I said as we stepped close.
He didn’t respond. Not so much as a blink.
“Mr. Strauss, I’m Deputy Wild with the Coconut County Sheriff’s Office. This is my partner, Jack Donovan.”
Nothing.
“We just have a few questions for you.”
I waited for a reply that didn’t come.
“Two gentlemen came to visit you the other day. Do you remember that?”
Again, nothing.
I displayed the old picture of the trio on my phone and held it in front of his face. “That’s your father, isn’t it?”
Silence.
“Those other two are Rudolph Heissler and Klaus Von Markov.”
His eye twitched a little.
I didn’t want to read too much into it.
“Rudolph was shot yesterday by Jürgen Stahl. Does that name ring a bell?”
Still nothing.
“You want to tell me about Projekt Zeitspiegel?”
Henrik finally looked at me, then glanced at the open door. In a whisper, he said in a thick German accent, “You should stop asking questions.”
“Why is that?”
“It’s best for all of us.”
I shared a look with JD, then addressed Henrik again. “You want to tell me why guys thought to have been dead since the Second World War are walking around Coconut Key, paying you a visit?”
“I want no part of it.”
“Part of what?”
“What they want is impossible anyway.”
“What do they want?”
Henrik gave me a dumb look. “What do you think?”
“This whole thing is a little out of the ordinary. I’m not really sure what to think.”
Henrik looked to the hallway again, then whispered, “They want to go back.”
“To the past?”
“They want to change the outcome of the war. Just think of it. All the knowledge of the present day at their fingertips. Catastrophic.”
I still had my doubts, but rolled with it for now. “Why come to you?”
He hesitated. “Because I have what they need.”
“What is that?”
Henrik’s eyes narrowed as he sized me up. “What do you know about time, Deputy Wild?”
“I know that none of us has enough of it.”
He seemed amused by my response. “Indeed. At my age, every day is precious. Unfortunately, I spend them in here alone with my thoughts.”
Henrik’s fugue state was mostly an act.
He pointed to the bed. “Look at the sheet.”
We did.
“See the wrinkles?”
I nodded.
“The wrinkles and undulations are like time, bent and distorted by mass and gravity. With enough of either, you can warp spacetime. Even fold it onto itself. But it’s one-directional.
You can move forward through time dilation as the rest of the world moves faster.
But you can’t go back. Unless,” he said, holding his finger up with a sparkle in his eyes.
“Unless what?”
“Unless you could harness negative energy.”
“Negative energy?” JD said. “You mean from people who have a problem for every solution?”
Henry smiled. “No. A theoretical force. But like I said, that would be impossible.” A sly grin tugged his lips.
“Why do I get the feeling you know how?” I said.
“I had made it my life’s work. But I abandoned it. Too dangerous. Some things should be left alone. We were not meant to play God.”
I took it all with a grain of salt. Henrik could just be a crazy old man talking nonsense. But out of curiosity, I asked, “What would happen if someone could travel to the past? Seems like a recipe for disaster.”
“Like I said, some things should be left alone. The potential paradox could unravel the very fabric of existence. Say you traveled back in time and killed your grandfather. Would you cease to exist?” His eyes lit up with wonder.
“Or would the timeline split at a quantum level, and two parallel timelines coexist? In theory, there could be an infinite number of timelines.”
I knew enough about quantum physics to understand concepts like multiple timelines and quantum superpositions. But at the end of the day, it really didn’t matter. The clock ticked in one direction, and we were just trying to get through each day as best we could.
I asked, “What do you have that they want?”
Henrik smiled and tapped his noggin.
“I’m sure there’s a vast amount of knowledge in there.”
He nodded.
“What about notes?”
“I destroyed them. Too dangerous. And the crystal is in a safe place.”
“The crystal?”