Madman's Dance (Time Rovers #3)(174)

“I’ll give you that one,” Cynda said. “You were too busy hiding your own mess.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

She leaned over the table, relishing the moment. “Drogo.”

Davies’ face paled.

“Who’s Drogo?” Fletcher asked.

“I think it’s best to let Copeland answer that one.” Cynda performed the windings. “Pay attention, folks. There’ll be a quiz.”

It was hard to experience it again, to hear her enemy’s taunting laughter and her sharp cry of pain when the blade scored her flesh.



Too close. If she hadn’t delivered that punch to his chest, Copeland would have left her mutilated corpse cooling in the night air.

As he heard the battle for the first time, Theo sought her hand again, this time for reassurance. She watched his face grow ruddy, the muscles at his jaw clenching and unclenching.

“Sorry,” she whispered. He didn’t respond, too caught up in the drama pouring from the interface.

To her ears, her voice sounded thin, but at least it didn’t quaver.

“You’re not doing very well, Copeland. You didn’t blow up London and you can’t find Rover One. I’d say your string is running out. You’ve only got one chance left.”

“Which is?”

“Come back to ’058 and tell the truth about the Null Mem project.”

Across the table, the ex-chairman’s face went from pale to pasty white.

“Never heard of them.”

“Then how did you know there was more than one?”

As she and Copeland had bantered back and forth, he’d slowly nailed Davies to the cross for his transgressions.

“Why did Davies orphan the Null Mems in the time stream?”

“What better way to hide your mistakes?”

Then the battle had begun in earnest.

Cynda ended the recording the moment right after she’d bested Copeland and sent him to 2058. The portion of the recording with Satyr was gone now, erased. Reading the holo-manual had proven worth the time.

“Who is this Drogo?” Fletcher asked.

“It’s a patient’s code name. He was given the Null Memory Restoration treatment to keep him from becoming a serial killer. When the treatment failed, Davies ordered him abandoned in the time stream.”



“Wait a minute,” Fletcher interjected, swiveling toward Klein. “Is this the NMR thing you told me about?”

“That’s it,” he replied. Then shook his head. “You put them in the time stream. I never would have thought you’d be that stupid, Davies.”

Davies drew himself up. “They had to go somewhere. They’re all violent psychopaths. We couldn’t keep them here.”

Fletcher’s face turned the color of her hair. “How many did you transport?”

“If he answers,” his mouthpiece began, “that would implicate Mr. Davies in the unlawful—”

“You’re damned right it will,” Fletcher barked. “How many?”

The lawyer whispered in his client’s ear, but Davies shook his head.

“Fifteen,” he admitted. “As best as we can tell, there are at least thirteen still alive.”

A Baker’s dozen of the worst.

“What time periods?” Fletcher demanded.

“We just dropped them where we felt they would do the least damage.”

“Least damage?” Theo growled. “How could you possibly think they wouldn’t present a threat to individual timelines? To history?”

“Ah, nothing to worry about,” Cynda cut in, her voice brittle. “What’s a few more Stalins, Rippers or Elizars?”

Davies fluffed up. “The psychiatrist in charge assured us they were incapable of doing any harm, at least to the timeline.”

“Walter Samuelson?” she quizzed. A nod. “Let me guess—he became a liability, didn’t he?”

Davies nodded. “Walter knew too much. He kept asking to visit Drogo and some of the others. He knew they were in the time stream, wanted to do a follow-up study.”

“So you ditched him in ’88.”

A wary nod. “It was his brother’s idea. We used Mimes to lure Walter into 1888. He thought he was going to meet Drogo.”

“What was Mimes’ payoff?” Klein quizzed.



Davies rubbed his face, his expression hunted. “We promised to hide the fact he’d ever been in 1888.”

“So his Name the Ripper book would look like actual scholarship rather than complete trash,” Cynda deduced.

“That was the deal. He’d make a lot of money off the book and that would ensure he kept quiet.”

“You didn’t think anyone would notice when Dr. Samuelson went missing?” Hopkins asked, incredulous.

Davies shook his head. “We didn’t care. By then, it was starting to fall apart.”

Which meant they weren’t thinking, just reacting.

“Why did you put one of these people in 1888?” Theo challenged. “You knew how volatile it was.”

“We didn’t. We dropped him in 1768. He forced a Rover to take him to the nineteenth century.”