Sunder (9 page)

8

Alfredo turned his back to the monitors. He had seen enough. Two days of watching Etienne writhe in pain should have been satisfying; it should have felt righteous.  But Alfredo felt nothing of the sort while he watched that heretic monstrosity withhold Isabella’s location.  The council had advised Alfredo not to conduct the questioning himself.  It would only further harden Etienne’s resolve, they said.

Occasionally he would break from watching the carnage to read and re-read the note Isabella had left for him on the kitchen counter:
I’ll be back this afternoon. Remember the meeting tonight with Padre. I had Elizabeth clean your kitchen this morning. Really Papi, you should hire someone to clean the house.
The memory of her laughter, her chiding of his refusal to employ any house servants after Stefania had gone away, filled his head in noisy defiance against the silence of the empty break room. 

Alfredo clenched his fist, crumpling Isabella’s words in his right hand. Immediately sorry, he laid the paper between his hands, trying to smooth the wrinkles he had just inflicted on the note. His heart still beat savagely whenever he thought of the hours after the explosion—of the initial wave of nauseating relief when he saw Dejesus appear in the launch station. A dizzying joy had overtaken him as he rushed forward to embrace his daughter, only to see she was not there. It had only been Dejesus and the young biology student, both staring at him in terror. 

Oh, how he had screamed at her.
Where is she? Where is Isabella?
Dejesus had stuttered in a most uncharacteristic display, telling him of the arrangement for Isabella to travel separately, all while the biology student nodded at every syllable. Why had she done so? Who had told her? The bewildered look on her face and the response to his question had nearly caused his heart to stop:
Because Danforth told me the time window was moved up. The council caved to Coronado. Weren’t you the one to make that decision, Sir?

How strange it was, Alfredo mused, that until Dejesus said his name, no one had given any thought to Etienne at all. Alfredo did not even notice his son-in-law’s absence from work that day. The damning statement saved them hours, perhaps days, of combing through the off-site backup data from the launch console. They had what they needed.

Things moved rather quickly after that. Etienne was taken within the hour. The house Alfredo had gifted them was sealed, as was the entire launch station.  An unbreachable cone of silence enveloped every sector of Jaramillo-Diaz Travel and Compliance, save for a solitary  statement indicating an employee had sabotaged the machines, resulting in Isabella Jaramillo becoming temporarily lost. Though the perpetrator went unnamed, Etienne’s disappearance from the face of the Earth made it easy to guess who was responsible.

The tabloids had gone berserk. Photos of Isabella and Etienne were splashed all over every magazine and news site, some of them with pictures of Guillermo as well. “Anonymous sources close to the family” were quoted as saying all sorts of things about her. Some of the quotes were ridiculous fabrications, but most of them were true. The abominable behavior of one reporter had even provoked Elizabeth—sweet, quiet Elizabeth—to slap the grotesquely fat man directly in his face. Unfortunately, she had chosen to do it on camera, leaving Alfredo with no alternative but to dismiss her, albeit with an extremely generous severance package.

The whole ugly affair had even reawakened the public curiosity about why Monica had been buried so quickly without even holding a wake. More than fifteen years had passed, and still they hounded him about his wife.

In addition to the scrutiny of Alfredo’s family, there was also The Agency. Jaramillo-Diaz had always enjoyed a certain protection from prying eyes. The world sent their scholars to Florida in order to travel in time. The Agency was as much a diplomatic entity as a corporation, and their need to protect trade secrets was always respected.  But now, everyone wanted to know—they
deserved
to know—what had happened to America’s Princess? If Isabella could be made to disappear, was any traveler safe? Part of the released statement included an assurance that no traveler would ever again depart at High Noon. No one knew if such an assurance would be enough to get the wheels turning again.

Still unable to look at the monitors, Alfredo walked away from them and sat down on the shabby, uncomfortable sofa stained long ago with some dark-colored liquid—soda, most likely. After Etienne had been brought to Presidio Modelo, Alfredo decided he would stay here until Etienne broke.  As a courtesy, the warden gave him use of one of the empty break rooms. It was hardly hospitable, but it had windows, carpeting, and monitors for him to see what Agency Intel was doing to Etienne. 

A chirp from his port phone brought Alfredo to attention. He jumped out of his seat so he could more easily reach into his pocket. With sweaty palms, he retrieved the phone, looking anxiously at the caller ID.

“Hello Guillermo,” he said unhappily. He was hoping it was someone with news of Isabella.

“Please forgive me for calling you so late, Don Jaramillo. Have you heard any news?”

The young man sounded so desperate, but Alfredo could not muster the energy to create false confidence for him. “No, Guillermo. He just sits there, refusing to talk. If he does speak, it’s just to spew hatred. We have as many Agents as we can spare looking all over Europe in different time periods. The techs are doing what they can to pinpoint temporal disturbances.”

“But you don’t even know she
is
in Europe! He could have put her in Antarctica!” Guillermo took in a shaky breath. “Did the sensors tell us anything?”

“Only that Etienne was the one who tampered with the console. The main computers were tasked with recording destinations, but the bastard got around them.” He felt his throat close. “He’d rather die than tell us where she is.”

Alfredo appreciated Guillermo’s silence on the other end of the phone.  He looked up at the ceiling and heavily sat back down on the sofa, willing his tears away.

“Don Jaramillo,” said Guillermo, obviously clearing the lump in his own throat. “You shouldn’t be in that terrible place. I would be honored if you would stay in my home during the investigation. My sister is here with me. She’s a very good cook.”

Unable to even smile at the kind invitation, Alfredo just tried to sound grateful. “Your offer is generous, but I can’t leave here. I cannot sit in comfort without knowing what kind of hell he sent my daughter to.”

“I understand, sir. Please call me if I can be of any assistance, or if there is news, no matter how small.”

“I will. Go with God.”

“And you sir.”

He listened to Guillermo sign off, leaving Alfredo with only the sound of old water pipes.  He put his phone away and stared out the window.  Of course it was night, so all he saw in the window was his own reflection. 

Guillermo had not been wrong; Presidio Modelo really was a terrible place. Built in 1931, it had only been given the most meager of updates since.  Like all other prisons under Agency control, Presidio Modelo was not subject to inspections, and prisoners did not receive visitors, making their comfort a very low priority.

Alfredo liked to call the rotting prison the Chateau d’If when he sentenced travelers to serve their time here.  After all, this was the place to send the prisoners he was ashamed of.  The other members of the Council simply thought he was being ironic. They would sometimes giggle at his nickname—calling a filthy dilapidated prison a chateau.  How comical.  None of them fully appreciated the reference, as they had not heard of the 18
th
century prison, and they certainly had not read
The Count of Monte Cristo
. How could they? It had never been written here.

Alfredo did not know what had become of Alexandre Dumas, or even if he existed. But he never wrote a book. Not in this world—the world he had inadvertently created.  Alfredo supposed that was part of the reason he sent Ryckoff to Presidio Modelo to be executed.  He was a rapist, which was embarrassing enough for America. But Ryckoff’s excuse of making a “mistake” filled Alfredo with rage.

A mistake? You can’t accidentally rape a woman. What if that child had been allowed to live? Ryckoff may have returned to 2114 and found the world changed, a fate Alfredo knew all too well.

He had been only 19 on that terrible day—that day in 1688 when he had killed a man. After his horrible mistake, Alfredo activated his emergency beacon and was dropped into a world he barely recognized. He came home to 2073, and knew immediately he was responsible for what he found. He had worked so hard over so many years to contribute to this world. His world.

But now he wondered if it was ever really his.  First Monica had died, now Isabella might be gone for good. He was so sure God had wanted him to make that terrible blunder in time. Yes, a man died. But his death—it changed everything. For the better. Alfredo had left an America riddled with sin and violence and despair, an America that had fallen so quickly from its rightful place as a world leader. From one man’s death, one accidental murder at Alfredo’s hands, the world was better. It was all so much better. Surely the improvement of an entire planet was penance enough for one murder.

Thus it seemed odd to Alfredo that God would be so angered with him as to take his wife and daughter. 

“What do you want me to do?” he whispered. 

Almost immediately, he remembered his foster mother’s cutting voice, her favorite phrase whenever he asked her for help:
God helps those who help themselves
.  Yes, that was it. Creating this timeline
was
the right thing to do. But his task was not yet finished. Isabella was not supposed to be Lost. God wanted him to fix what the heretic had done.

Without so much as a single glance back at Etienne’s face on the monitors, Alfredo stood up and walked out of the break room.  He made his way to the elevator, using his port phone to ensure his plane would be ready to take him away from Presidio Modelo and back to Miami. He had fixed the mistakes of time already. It would not be difficult to do it again.

***

The red light of the camera peered at Etienne through the dusty light in his cell.  In this place where time had no meaning, the light was the only constant.  He was alone now; it felt like forever since he had last seen another person.  Of course, when he was not alone, he wished he was.  During the endless visits from the nameless men from Intelligence, they would ask over and over where he sent Isabella.
We have your mother and sister, you know. Did you tell them where you sent her? You think they can hold out as well as you can?
They injected his carotid artery with a clear liquid, causing his head to feel like it was ready to explode.
You know that little stunt of yours killed Cody Peterson. I heard you were friends. You marooned your wife, you killed your friend, and didn’t I hear you refused to testify for your father at his trial?
They shoved a stiletto under his kneecap.
You’re making this harder on yourself than it needs to be.
Then they started chopping off his fingers.

When they left, one of them had tossed a roll of gauze and a tube of coagulant paste at his feet, despite leaving him shackled to the chair. Now it was just him and the camera. Typically, his torture continued ceaselessly, heedless of the Agents’ absence.  Sometimes the lights would go out, allowing him a few precious moments of sleep – only to be turned on all the brighter a few minutes later. Then the noise would start – the grating sounds of electronic music, the repetition of a jackhammer, or the endless wailing of a baby.  They liked to pump the smell of rotten eggs into the air ducts. Once he could swear it smelled like decomposing flesh, and who could be sure the smell was not coming from the cell next to him?

But at this moment, there were no smells or exceptionally bright lights. There was only the soft sepia light, the floating particles of dust and debris, and the sounds of the crying man in a cell somewhere in this prison. The crying man called out frequently, begging for someone to talk to him. His name was Alexander, he said. His mother called him Sasha.

Never, not even now in the silence, did Etienne respond to him. Sasha was likely just another Agency interrogator, working another angle to get him to blurt out Izzy’s location.  But it wouldn’t work. Every time he felt his resolve weaken, every time he felt he couldn’t take any more pain, he thought about Izzy falling into the river. He thought about her listening to the recording he left her. And then he thought about her being rescued. If he told now, Alfredo himself would travel back to save her. And Etienne would still die.

No, there would be no rescue for Isabella Jaramillo, who should have been Isabella Danforth, if she would have taken his name as she should have. The rotten bitch got what she deserved.  No matter what happened to her after she landed in the River Stour, she was long dead now.

She was dead, and though Etienne knew it wouldn’t be long before Alfredo would have him executed, the thought that Isabella had died first gave him great joy.

***

The silence of the launch depot buzzed in his ears.  Compared to the constant noise of Presidio Modelo, this kind of quiet pinched a tight wad of panic into Alfredo’s guts. He was being ridiculous; he knew he would be all alone here. Despite the calm lecturing of his logical mind, the silence unnerved him, and he wished someone else could be there with him.