"Laurence M. Janifer - Agent in Place" - читать интересную книгу автора (Janifer Laurence M)

against this one candidate.
 So I found out what my assignment had been. Bodyguard for the candidate, against an assassination
attempt.
For a little while, this made no sense at all to me. You've probably ironed out all the wrinkles, but it
took me a little longer, being under medication while the shoulder put itself back together.
Obviously, we can see into the future.
We can't see very far, and we can't see anything but the specific matter we try to see (or, first,
there'd have been no attempt at all, and, second, there would never be a successful attemptтАФI hope; but
wait around). But we can look through time and see a tiny piece of the near future.
Which is changeable.
Somebody saw that the shot was going to be fired right after that boundary dispute, and that it
would hit the candidate unless deflected. Now, guards are one thing: people are used to guards, what
with the President and his Secret Service and all. But a bulletproof shield, completely surrounding the
candidate, is something else again. A lot of people would feel it made the candidate look like a coward,
or somehow made a personal appearance no better than a TV spot, or . . . anyhow, politicians and their
managers feel that way even about the breast-height combination shield-and-podium gimmick that's now
being used here and there. I've heard them. A whole bulletproof shield? Ridiculous, they'd say. Lose the
election right then and there.
(Which may or may not be logical, or reasonable. But politicians and political managers aren't logical
or reasonable except in spotsтАФthereby making them fair copies of the rest of us.)
No, the only acceptable deflection for a bullet is a special agent, I suppose. Somebody, maybe, took
a look and saw that, in one possible future, I would be just where I was in the crowd, and I started
moving toward the candidate at just the right time. Then matters were carefully gimmicked so that I was
set up in the crowd (apparently just that much gave them a future which put me in the right spot inside
that crowd) and started moving on cue, at speed.
Sure. Somebody juggled alternatives. Let the bullet hit its mark; let it hit me instead; bulletproof the
candidate (out, unacceptable, ridiculous); get the assassin out of the way beforehand; arrest him on the
spot with his weaponтАФand, out of that bag and one or two more minor possibilities (maybe in one future
the bullet hit some really innocent bystander), somebody settled for me. Beer Barrel Dave Welkin, the
human target. The fat and tattered X marking the safest spot. I think I know why.
Let's say that the future involved a successful assassination. If it's going to be changed, two things
have to be considered, and the first of these, simply, is: what's the least possible change required?
Clearly, you don't want to add in any more factors than you have to, because every new factor has new
results of its own, and so forth . . . so you find a real Bowery bum, someone who would legitimately be in
that crowd anyhow. And you replace him (keeping the bum in cold storage, so to speak, and putting him
back on the street in a slightly damaged condition, with a hole in his memory due to a month under
hypnoticsтАФbut a hole in a bum's memory is just not all that unusual, especially after he's been,
theoretically, shot at and trampled some); that way the bum's life goes on with minimal interruption and no
stir anywhere, and the replacement is a setup to intercept the bullet. Given a shut mouth and a career of
other odd actions for the replacement type, anyhow, you get the least possible amount of change.
The second thing to be considered, I'm afraid, is that you want to keep your time-viewing top secret.
(Which is why you don't even mention a bulletproof wraparound to the candidate's peopleтАФnot even if
one of them, in a fit of political insanity, might agree.) Hauling in the assassin beforehand needs
explanationтАФin these days of maximum courtroom civil liberty, it needs a lot of explanation. Grabbing
him with his gun, on the spot, needs explaining, too: it's hard to say that he got careless and made it
visible too soon, when he did his shooting, with that short-barreled .38, through the pocket of his jacket,
and never showed the gun at all. (And maybe, in the future or futures that carried that alternative, the guy
managed to get off a shot or two while being grabbed .. . and hit somebody more consequential than old
Beer Barrel.)
No: being able to see the future, and wanting to keep the ability secret, is the only explanation that fits