Stars Across Time (26 page)

A few nerves plucked at her belly during the landing, especially when a breeze came up, tugging at the light wings, but she kept them level, and brought the plane down without a hitch. She took them toward the ship, turning off the propeller. The water was choppier than that of the lake, but they came alongside the ship easily enough.

“Throw a rope down to secure us once you’re up there,” Andie said, not worrying about anyone hearing them. The ship’s deck was well above their heads, and he would need a rope just to climb up there. “And for my use later.”

“Will do.” Theron squeezed her shoulder, then hopped out onto the float. Before stepping into the view of those above, he handed her a pouch. “Some gags and sturdy ties in case you need to bind anyone.”

“I was planning to shoot the people holding Min-ji,” she said without apology.

“That’s fine, but I’d prefer you save the shooting for after everyone has escaped and we’re on our way out. Gunfire might interrupt the party.”

“Darn.”

Theron pointed at the pouch. “In the metal tin, there are a few of what we call fire sticks, tiny little wands that you can light like a match and that will burn through steel. If you need to get through any locked doors, they should be useful.”

“I understand. Thank you.”

Theron stepped out onto the end of the float and waved up, that invitation card in his hand.

“Don’t forget to signal for me if you can,” Andie said. “And be careful.”

He gave her a solemn nod as the tip of a rope splashed into the water in front of him. Then he climbed up, disappearing from view.

“G
eneral Duckworth,” a voice drifted down from above before Theron reached the railing. “You’ve dyed your hair. And lost a few wrinkles.”

Theron kept climbing. He had known nobody would be fooled as to his identity. He just hoped the greeters would believe him as a possible surrogate. Since he had DM-3 belted to the small of his back under his shirt, he couldn’t stand up to much of a search.

“I’m using a new moisturizing soap,” Theron said as he climbed over the railing. Perhaps a little humor would defuse some tension.

A motorboat peeled in from another direction. Two men in suits sat in the back, sipping wine from glasses as their driver brought them in close enough for a transfer. Judging by the unarmed and well-dressed people standing in small groups on the open deck of the whaling vessel, other patrons of the market had recently arrived too. He would have thought that with so many people coming in at once, the crew would have been too busy to do more than glance at the invitations. But the two men in black standing in front of him and glowering said otherwise. They carried rifles, not the lever-action firearms that he was accustomed to, but ones stolen from the past, or from a factory that had the resources to make more complicated—and more deadly—weapons.

“If you don’t ask, I won’t tell you,” Theron said.

“Who are you?”

“Actually, I was talking about revealing the secret ingredients in my moisturizing soap recipe.”

“I know who he is,” the second man said suspiciously. Neither showed any interest in the soap. So much for defusing tension with humor.

“Good, because I forgot to bring my identification,” Theron said. “You have an employer or someone with some rank in the organization that I can talk to? Because the army knows that Duckworth has been visiting your markets, and he’s in a jail cell right now.” Actually, going by what Morimoto had said, Duckworth was in his house, after having received a not-so-stern lecture. The important thing was that he wasn’t going to show up here tonight. “Before he was arrested, he told me about this place and gave me his invitation.”

“He told you about it.” The guard’s flat tone didn’t make it a question.

“He wouldn’t be allowed to do that,” the other said.

“Yes, but he’s a major general. Major generals do what they want.”

“And do colonels also do what they want?” The guard smiled, as if revealing that he knew Theron’s identity was some great coup.

“How about you just get your boss so we can figure out if I’m invited or not?” Theron reached slowly into his jacket, not wanting them to think he was grabbing a weapon. They watched his hand but did not swing their rifles toward him. For the moment, their guns pointed toward the deck. Theron withdrew a heavy purse of gold coins. “My shopping list is short. I don’t need to stay long.”

One guard jerked his head toward a hatchway guests were being guided through. “Go get the boss.”

The boss. A name would have been useful. If Optimus strolled out, then Theron would have to abort, which would mean leaping overboard and hoping he could climb into the seaplane and that they could get away before the guards shot it full of holes. An unappealing scenario. Even more unappealing was the idea of leaving without doing anything useful. On the way in, he had spotted the two army ships waiting on the other side of Belle Island, but it would take them a while to make it over, and Morimoto had implied they would only come if they saw smoke. Smoke from the whaling vessel, presumably, not the smoke from his borrowed seaplane.

Theron backed up to the railing and casually propped his elbows on it. A buzzing came from the dark sky. Another propeller plane? He had noted the two at the back of the ship when they had been flying in.

But the craft that flew out of the night sky was so rare that it took him a while to identify it. A helicopter. As far as he knew, neither his government nor military owned any. Compared to the small propeller planes, their fuel requirements were high. He watched curiously as this one approached, spotting something hanging on ropes hanging from its belly. What cargo could it be bringing?

Abruptly, he jerked away from the railing, standing straight as realization struck him. The tall, rectangular parcel had been boxed up into a crate, but it was the right size. The time machine. What else could they be bringing? Buy why bring it here at all? It wouldn’t be for sale in the market. Were they moving it again? He thought of the foreign lettering on the side of the whaling ship, the captain with the Russian name. Maybe someone from another nation had made a deal and purchased the time machine, or maybe those who had found it realized there had been a spy among them on their last mission. They could have figured that keeping it in the Puget Sea area was too risky. There were countless other places they could go to steal goods—and women. Places that were unpopulated now, but that had been populated in the past, places where nobody was around to care what was going on. If friends and family members started disappearing from existence or something happened that changed the world irrevocably... nobody would ever realize it. The time line would simply change, and Theron would never know the difference. Nobody would. And nobody would know to do anything about it.

The woman who strode out of the hatchway in a black dress with an elaborate shawl wrapped around her shoulders was not the “boss” he had expected, but the guard walked at her side, pointing at Theron as he spoke to her. She wasn’t the captain of the ship—that had been a man’s name—but could she be his wife? Or even the person in charge of the operation? It seemed strange to imagine a woman devising a plan to enslave other women, but he had seen all manner of atrocities in war, so he was not quick to dismiss the peculiarities of human nature.

“Welcome, Colonel Theron,” the woman said, offering him her hand. “I’m not certain whether it’s brazen or foolish of you to turn up here, but I have wanted to meet you for some time.”

The way her eyes probed him from head-to-toe did not make him want to take her hand, but he did so, clasping it lightly and then releasing it. “As far as adjectives go, I’m more fond of brazen, ma’am. And you are?”

She smiled, her lips painted a ruby red for the evening, a shade that matched her nails. “Someone who doubts very much that Malcolm gave you that invitation. Still, I’ll allow you to call me Vivienne because you’re even more handsome in person than your portrait suggests.”

Malcolm? That was Duckworth’s first name, but Theron didn’t know anyone who was on a first-name basis with the man. The president, perhaps, and a handful of other high-ranking officers, most retired.

“Does it matter?” Theron asked. “We’re working on the same project, whether we have any love for each other or not.” As far as Theron knew, Duckworth didn’t dislike him, but he had rarely bumped elbows with the general and couldn’t say for certain. Who knew what “Malcolm” had told this woman? “I have gold, and I need some rocket fuel. I hear this is the place to buy it.”

“This is the place to buy many fine items,” Vivienne said. “But I’m afraid I’m rather irked with you, Colonel. May I call you Aloysius?”

He smiled thinly. He hated that name. There was a reason he hadn’t asked Andie to use it. His mother was the only one who had ever called him that. Even his father, an Aloysius himself, had called him Junior for as long as Theron could remember.

“You’ve deprived me of a number of new girls, Aloysius. New girls that were, I’m told, young and attractive and fertile.”

Theron wanted to tell her that her “new girls” had been scarcely more than children and that it was beyond criminal of her to auction them off, but doing so would mean admitting to being out there. He leaned against the railing, again striving for a casual pose, but he used it to position his hand behind his back so he could reach the clasp of the belt holding the DM-3.

“
I
deprived you?” he asked, trying to buy time to think.

There probably wasn’t any point in denying it, but maybe she wasn’t entirely certain. Maybe it would be worth feigning a lack of knowledge. Who had identified him, anyway? Someone from the truck he had shot up? One of the men who had gotten away? He would have thought they had assumed that “Mace” was attacking them, rather than some army soldier, but perhaps someone had seen through his dirt and beard early and hadn’t said anything to him at the time. Or maybe Bedene had figured it out in the end, solving the equation when he had heard about the other truck not making it.

“That’s what I’ve been told.” Vivienne stepped forward, resting a hand on his chest.

The pair of guards watched with bland expressions on their faces. If it had only been the two of them and the woman, Theron might have attacked, knocking them out and throwing them overboard so that he could get into the ship, but there were at least a dozen other armed men patrolling the deck, some helping guests aboard, but others simply standing watch. He couldn’t get in a fight without drawing attention—and gunfire. Besides, as big as this ship was, he would have a hard time finding the women and freeing them if he had already raised a ruckus and people were hunting him.

Vivienne ran her hand down his chest, stroking him as she smiled into his face. Was this the first stage of a search? The DM-3 was at his back rather than his chest, but she might feel the strap around his torso.

“I think you’re here to try and get the rest of my girls,” she said. “Even if I can’t imagine why you’d want them. Surely you don’t have any trouble finding your own girls.”

“I’m really only interested in the fuel, ma’am.”

“I’m afraid you’re going to get more than you came for then.” She patted him again, stepped back, and nodded to the men. “Take him below and pen him up with the others.”

“What?” Theron unhooked the strap, using his body to block his movement. He closed his legs, so nothing would be visible dropping behind him.

The guards pointed their rifles at him.

“Oh, and search him and strip him down too,” Vivienne added. “Get help if you need to.”

One of the guards had started toward Theron at the order to search, but he faltered at the rest. “Ma’am? Strip?”

“You heard me. I do believe that since our dear colonel deprived us of some of our goods, we’ll auction him off tonight. There are always a few women in the audience. They’ll appreciate something new.”

“Can’t you just take my gold?” Theron asked, using his voice to cover any noise that might be made as he dropped the package over the side of the ship. He hoped it would land on one of the plane’s floats and that Andie would get it, but he dared not look to check. He did not want to draw attention to the drop-off—
or
to her.

“I’m afraid not, Colonel. Oh, we will take your purse, but you’ll also bring good coin. I may even bid myself.” She blew him a kiss, then nodded to the men.

“Strip,” the guard muttered, the word barely audible. “Great.”

“Find some chains to bind him with,” Vivienne added. “He has some big muscles under that shirt. We wouldn’t want him escaping, or harming his buyer.”

“Yes, boss.”

At a wave from Vivienne, two more armed guards came over to help with the searching and the stripping. Theron sighed. He hadn’t expected this mission to go as easily as Gideon and the others had seemed to think it might, but he had hoped to get further before everything fell apart. Ruefully, he acknowledged that if he had been a less loyal and trustworthy soldier during his career, he would be back out in the field where he belonged instead of having insider knowledge about time machines and instead of being sent off on spy missions.

As the guards stripped him down, he eyed the helicopter hovering over the other end of the ship. Several men had come out to guide the crate down into a cargo hold.

Theron sighed again. Everything he needed to accomplish—to free or destroy—was here, but he couldn’t do a damned thing about any of it.

As the guards led him away, his clothing left lying in a pile on the deck, he could only hope that Andie wasn’t discovered and that she could do something.

• • • • •

The package that dropped into the water next to the float wasn’t the signal Andie had been expecting from Theron. Given that he had been on the ship for less than ten minutes, she didn’t find it auspicious, either.

She hopped out of the cockpit and collected the package before it could sink, glancing up to see if anyone was watching. Full night had fallen, and she couldn’t see much up there, but she glimpsed some movement near the railing. Theron? She touched the six-shooter the army had given her, wondering if she should climb up to help. No, he had clearly been stealthy about dropping the explosives. He must want her to stay out of sight and try to complete the mission independently of him.