Page 24 of Wild Oblivion

There was an awkward silence.

“I should be getting back to the lab.”

“Thank you for the debrief. It was nice to see you again,” I said.

"You're welcome. I'm sure we’ll be in touch," she said before stepping away to say a few words to Special Agent Thompson. She ducked out of the conference room afterward.

"She seems a little socially awkward," JD said. "She needs to get out more.”

I laughed.

We talked to the sheriff for a bit, then Thompson approached. "I want you to come up with a list of everyone you know, every perp you’ve put away, anyone you've interacted with that might have the necessary skills. There's a good chance this guy has singled you out for a reason.”

I shrugged. "I thought the reason was obvious. He wants to go up against the best."

I said it just to get under his skin, and it did.

He took a deep breath, and his jaw tensed. He stifled his urge to snap back. "Careful, Deputy. Pride cometh before the fall.”

Thompson stepped away and rejoined his fellow agents. They had a little huddle before leaving the conference room.

When the room cleared, the sheriff said, "Please find the perp,” he begged. “The sooner, the better. The less I have to deal with Thompson, the better.”

We were all in agreement on that point.

JD and I left the station and headed up to Oyster Avenue to grab lunch. We chowed down at Totally Tubular and kicked around theories.

Isabella called during the meal. "I found something. I don't know if you’ll agree, but it's interesting.”

“I'm listening.”

12

“Klaus von Markov was a German scientist during the war," Isabella said. "Did horrible neurological experiments on people. A true sadist. He headed up Projekt Zeitspiegel with Rudolph Heissler and Stefan Strauss before the war.”

"What's Projekt Zeitspiegel?” I asked.

"I'll get to that in a minute. Strauss sabotaged the project before it was to be handed over to the SS. He was killed, likely providing cover while his family escaped. His son, Henrik, was something of a prodigy and, at 13, was thought to be one of the brightest minds in the field. He worked with his father and von Markov on the project prior to its sabotage. After he escaped with his mother, he started working for the Americans on several top-secret projects. The intel Henrik provided led to strategic bombing runs on top-secret facilities. Klaus von Markov and Rudolph Heissler were killed during the bombing of their research lab in eastern Prussia in 1945.”

“So Jürgen Stahl is rambling about something that happened over half a century ago," I said.

"Jürgen could have dementia, possibly hallucinating, or he's just lapsing in and out of different eras of his life. That's the most logical explanation. There’s also a not-so-logical explanation.”

"I think it's no coincidence that our victim’s name was Rudolph Weiss and his companion was Klaus Brenner. Perhaps Stahl somehow confused them in his twisted mind with Klaus von Markov and Rudolph Heissler.”

"I ran background on Stahl as well. Officially, he was an aerospace engineer. Unofficially, he was working for the CIA, tracking down Nazi war criminals. Stahl worked with a group that is still active to this day. Though nature is taking its course. Nobody escapes time."

"So he's been fixated on von Markov for over the last half-century, and as his mind has deteriorated, he’s lost touch and is still hunting a ghost.”

"Possibly. From what I can tell, Stahl’s mother was one of von Markov’s victims during his neurological experiments.”

“That would make for a hell of a motive.”

“There is another alternative." She let it hang there.

"I'd love to hear it."

"Just bear with me. This has a basis in theoretical physics. It's not as crazy as it sounds. During the war, the Germans were working on everything from the occult to speculative science. Anything that could give them a battlefield advantage. Nothing was too outrageous to attempt. ProjektZeitspiegel was co-opted by the regime. It was their effort to manipulate spacetime.”