“That’s the mystery, but my bet, particularly given our experience, is that it is some operative from a future time.”
“Well if she wanted that key, she sure went about it in a sloppy manner,” said Maeve. “The Selene Horse was in the British Museum.”
“No, it was moved to the London subway system with some of the other Marbles during the Blitz,” said Nordhausen. “That, and the invasion buzz, prompted the British to transport some of them to the United States.”
“Yes, said Paul, “but did they even know what they had? I discovered that key by chance when that packing crate shifted and the sculpture was chipped.”
“Interesting,” said Nordhausen, rubbing the back of his balding head. “Then that damn key could have been embedded in the Selene Horse for ages. Hell, perhaps Phidias put it there!”
“Phidias?” Paul gave him a questioning look.
“He’s the famous Greek sculptor that work was attributed to. He also carved the image of Zeus at Olympia, regarded as one of the seven wonders of the ancient world, and his sculpture appears all throughout that era, particularly in the Parthenon. His work surpassed all the rest. Hell, suppose the old boy wasn’t who he seemed. Suppose he was from the future?”
“An interesting thought,” said Paul. “Look, we’ve already discovered that someone has been meddling with time. We thought we were the first, but it now appears that is not the case. I’ve suspected that someone has already altered our own history, and it may be that these keys have something to do with that as well. If that key turned up in this ancient Greek sculpture, then somebody put it there deliberately.”
“That would have been quite a trick,” said Nordhausen. “The Selene Horse was a solid piece of marble. It was placed high up on the east pediment of the Parthenon. I think it had to be placed there while it was being carved, either by Phidias, or one of his assistants.”
“It does sound suspicious,” said Paul. “If the keys are associated with these time fissures, does this mean one extends all the way back to ancient Greece?”
“That would be a logical assumption,” Maeve reasoned.
“How could we not know about it?”
“Well, suppose these rifts formed very recently. In that case, no one prior to our time would have known about them—yet someone from the future would. We know they extend to the past, and if they were discovered, they may have been navigated by future time travelers, and then well hidden and secured. Why they did this is really no mystery—the rifts are very dangerous. They could allow anyone to slip through and alter the continuum. So assuming they were natural, and not manmade fissures, they would have to first locate the source or cause of each rift in order to secure them. Who knows how far back they extend into time? The fact that this key was seeded in an artifact carved in the past is a fairly strong clue. They may have followed the rift back to its end point, and put some security in place there.”
“Sounds logical. We already know that the Assassins established secret archives and bases in the past, and had agents in place posted all along key meridians in the history they were targeting. Can we be certain this isn’t the work of the Assassins?”
“I’d think it was more like the Order to fashion these keys,” said Paul, but we don’t know that. Neither side could be involved. It could be a player we have yet to uncover. So I have to get back there and talk with this Fairchild woman again. We need to know more about the key she possesses.”
“You think she knows the answer to all of this?”
“She clearly knows something about it. She said she had instructions. I need to find out who gave them to her. There’s more to this, and she’s involved. So I arranged a meeting on the Azores. Kelly is programming the numbers now. Fairchild wants this key, so let’s see if we can find it.”
“You said it went down with Rodney,” said Maeve. “How will you manage that?”
“Oh, if I do go back to August of 1941, we won’t find it there. But we can look for it somewhere else.”
Those words held far more than Maeve was prepared to entertain at that moment, for clearly Paul had another time shift in mind.
“Somewhere else?” she said, an edge of suspicion creeping into her voice.