Free The Whitehall Syndicate: A time travel conspiracy thriller by Malhar Patel Page B

that I'm definitely me. I'm sure you have a host of questions but first let me say my piece. Hopefully that should answer most of them.” He was greeted by unanimous nods of approval. “It must seem like,” he said looking at Jack, “your life has taken quite a peculiar turn recently. People blackmailing you, threatening you, boxes of dead fingers and so on. I'm here to try and help us both. You see, in my time, the future to you, time travel has become much more strictly regulated. For technical reasons, I'm afraid I can't impart too much information on the matter. I can however, tell you what's going to happen unless you're smart.” Jack stirred restlessly. So far this speech wasn't proving too helpful.
    “If you try and kill me, you're going to fail. You're going to stab me in the neck and leave thinking you've done the job. Even when you do, the people threatening you are going to kill you to keep you quiet. Meanwhile I'm going to spend the next five years slowly recovering from spinal neuro-degeneration and,” he paused pointing to the metal object, “I'll have this grotesque thing plastered onto me for the rest of my life.”
    Jack sat up and paid closer attention now, the talk suddenly taking on personal relevance. “The only way we can both get out of this is to find the men responsible, and the only way to do that is by tricking them into thinking you've killed me.”
    “I don't follow,” said Anisha, clearly voicing what everyone else was thinking.
    “We pretend to kill the other me, and then when they think I'm dead they'll try and kill you. But with my knowledge of where and when it happens, I can stop it and we can lure them out and take care of them permanently.” His triumphant finish was met by an unsettled mood.
    “So you want to use me as bait?” questioned Jack defensively. He shook his head saying, “you don't understand my dear boy.” They're going to try and kill you anyway. If we do it my way then we know when it's going to happen and we have a better chance of stopping it.”
    “So when and where is it going to happen?” enquired Gina who, until now, had remained quiet. It was a shrewd question.
    “I can't tell you yet I'm afraid.” Jack frowned untrustingly. Green was withholding the most useful piece of information.
    “Why can't you tell us anything?” quizzed Anisha accusingly. She was the closest thing they had to an expert on time travel; maybe she could understand.
    “The Morrison paradox,” replied Green senior, as if this three-word explanation was more than sufficient.
    “I'm not familiar with that particular theory,” responded Anisha, completely confused but thinly attempting to hide it.
    “When one travels through time events are invariable altered merely by the presence of the time travelling party. Time is elastic however and the universe has its own adjusting mechanism, which alters events slightly to compensate for the actions of the traveller, thus returning the future to more or less what it was before he or she travelled. Hence I can't tell you too early or else the universe will have more time to re-arrange events against us.” Gina shot Jack a pointed look at the use of the word 'us'.
    “I see,” said Anisha slowly, while emphatically nodding.
    Jack looked at her to confirm whether or not his explanation has any credibility. She glanced back, appearing slightly unsure but ultimately convinced. Jack stood up now, re-asserting the fact that he was in charge.
    “So what I think we should do now, is to spend the next few days looking through the papers in the briefcase and planning a way to falsely kill the other Michael Green.”
    He paradoxically looked across at Green senior, simultaneously showing off his authority and seeking his approval. He turned back to the girls now, adding in a sombre voice, “assuming you're still interested in helping me. I wouldn't blame you if you weren't.” Surprisingly, Gina was the first to answer, seemingly taking