If Jack was this gunman who’d bested Lester, there might be more to him than she’d imagined. Apparently, he was capable of total ruthlessness. She liked that in a man.
Reaching her car again—she’d completely circumnavigated the planetarium—Kaminsky had made up her mind. With the facility outside Ulm, Germany, unable to become operational for what might be several more weeks, she would utilize the time-transfer base she had. Taking out her cell phone, she leaned on the hood of her car and brought up Lester’s cell phone. “Here’s what I want you to do. Get those guys—the salesmen—ready to travel. I want them out of here and back there and ready to get the deals rolling inside of forty-eight hours.”
He mumbled something; she didn’t care what because he took orders much better than he could think.
“Two teams for each prospective client, just in case this Naile cocksucker is really good. We need at least one team to get through to each government on the prospect list.”
Bethany cut the transmission.
Her computer models all pointed toward Jack, if he knew what was going on, taking steps to do something about it, to contravene her efforts. He would be sensible enough not to take on the small army of men she’d installed at the time-transfer base in 1900. He’d be hopelessly outnumbered and outgunned. The Naile family would have to find help.
In school, Bethany Kaminsky had found history boring, except as it concerned the acquisition of wealth. Lots of dead people and dates, punctuated by a few daring men who’d made fortunes or acquired so much power that they were above the concept of wealth. But Naile liked history. One of the computer models had focused on Naile’s political bent. The writings of Naile and his wife showed a strong leaning toward the philosophy known as Objectivism, as promulgated by Ayn Rand in her novels and other writings. Naile had been an outspoken supporter of Republicans for state and national offices. Nevada was granted statehood without some of the usual hoops through which to jump, it seemed, because of its strong connection to the Republican Party.
A Republican in a Republican stronghold, in an era with a Republican President—William MacIntosh? Not like the apple. McKinley. It was an election year, 1900. That same computer model—she could almost swear that sometimes the damned machines really could think—had posited that, with Jack’s love for history, fascination with cowboys and penchant for Republican politics, the logical man for him to go to, if he could get to him, would be Theodore Roosevelt.
Bethany had ordered a bio punched up on Roosevelt. He’d led a cowboy life, was a military man, had organized a police department, done all sorts of macho stuff like hunting and riding and shooting and boxing and all that crap. Theodore Roosevelt was also almost universally respected for his intellectual abilities, and had a reputation for being open to new ideas.
The conclusion of the computer model’s scenario was that Jack had a seventy-eight point nine percent chance of convincing Theodore Roosevelt that the time-transfer base existed, was a threat and needed to be obliterated.
The computer model was then fed the information concerning Roosevelt’s life and asked to model what effect there would have been on current affairs had Roosevelt, while still Governor of New York and a vicepresidential candidate, been assassinated.
National Parks and wildlife preservation—about neither of which Bethany gave the proverbial damn—would be adversely affected. The negotiations concluding something called the Russo-Japanese War of 1905 would have turned out differently, and Japan, when it came time for World War II, might not have attacked the United States at Pearl Harbor. Antitrust legislation might have been enacted at a later date and been significantly different. There might not have been the “death tax,” certainly something she would have profited from when her father died. In all, except for the tree and animal huggers, Theodore Roosevelt wouldn’t be missed all that much; that was her determination and not that of the computer.
Bethany called Lester once again. “That other project we discussed?” He mumbled something. “I’ve decided to go ahead with that, but it’s not something we should discuss right now. My office, twenty minutes.” She cut the connection.
A cigarette seemed in order. It would have been far easier to light one by leaning inside her car. But easy was never fun, and she took out her lighter and cupped her hands around it against the wind, the spray stinging her