The Fourth Rome (29 page)

If Dr. Bill had set up this meeting, it wasn’t to help them make their case. Nevertheless, the chief scientist was the only
man here who’d taken a briefing from them. So tie must have been the one to arrange this meeting. He glowered at Roebeck like
a disapproving patriarch.

Hard to know what to do when you ’re in the second meeting on the same day with someone who has obviously decided you’re the
enemy.
She stood up and greeted the chief scientist. She couldn’t let him intimidate her. “Thank you for arranging this meeting,
Dr. Bill.”

“Don’t thank me, Team Leader,” Dr. Bill replied. “Bad news always has a way of getting people’s attention. You’re not exactly
in line for a commendation. Simply tell your story as you told it to me, no matter how silly it sounds. Then leave. Stick
to the timetable. Don’t ask for anything you’re not offered.”

Grainger, behind Nan, stood up, too. She was afraid for a moment that Tim was going to say something stupid to Bill. It wouldn’t
help their case if their team logged an open dispute with the ARC Riders’ Chief Scientist. But Grainger didn’t do that. Instead,
he introduced himself to the strangers, shaking hands with everyone he hadn’t met before.

She heard a snatch of conversation between Grainger and the ADCSOPS in greens. “…congratulations for cracking this nut, mister,”
the ADCSOPS told Grainger. “We’re lucky it was somebody in an ops unit who brought this little dust-up to the Chief’s attention.”

Well, that was better than worse. Parochialism had its place.

Then the kid ushered them into the meeting room where the Chief waited, a spider in his web. The Chief was about six feet
six, all gangly arms and legs and a balding, capacious cranium shining from the end of a long white conference table.

“Sit down, people.”

Everybody but Grainger found their assigned seat without a hitch. Grainger had decided to sit beside the ADCSOPS. There was
nothing to do about it now.

“You people are on a short stroke, I’m told. Give me the overview, Team Leader … Roebeck.” The Chief had to look at his copy
of the seating plan to find her name.

“Yes, sir.” Roebeck looked at the text display on Chun’s handheld. “Situation: Recon identified Up The Line technology in
1992 Russia. Technology includes one crashed Up The Line temporal capsule, partly nuked; an implant technology for moving
biological systems temporally; a potentiating handheld controller for the implant which effectively replaces the need for
a TC. A sample implant is provided.”

The ARC Riders had withheld the sample so far. It was their hole card. Roebeck put Zotov’s box on the table before the Chief.

Angry mutters came from the J-3 and Dr. Bill, who scowled at her. The Chief Scientist started to speak. Both the J-3 and Bill
clearly wanted to object on the record to Roe-beck’s team withholding the technology sample until now.

The Chief raised his hand and stopped them cold. “Continue, TL Roebeck.” Then he reached out with those long arms to Zotov’s
box, making the box disappear in his big hands.

“Yes, sir. Background: unidentified parties from Up The Line are proliferating this technology to 1992 Russia. Using Up The
Line technology, Russian revisionists art: emplacing agents in 9 AD to establish a Fourth Rome. Preemption was Central’s original
target on this mission and remains critical.”

“And what do you think the ARC Riders should do, TL Roebeck?” asked the Chief.

Thank God and her team that she was ready to answer that question.

“Go back and finish what we started. Actionable Items. Number one: destroy the remains of the temporal capsule as well as
Russian ability to create implants and related technology. Number two: identify and neutralize Up The Line actors on site.
Number three: remove privy parties to 50K.”

“Recommendations on how those can be accomplished?”

“Our three recommendations are linked, Chief,” she said softly. This was the tricky part. It was also clearly why the lawyer
and the Chief Scientist were here: to try to block or nay-say this plan on the grounds that the issue should be handled by
more senior people.

Roebeck was suddenly overwhelmingly afraid that the mission would be scrubbed or pulled from her team ;ind given to somebody
else. “Our recommendations are predicated on the assumption that action isn’t possible UTL.”

UTL—Up The Line.

She waited one heartbeat to see if the Chief would stop her. He didn’t. Her next words would decide her career and her team’s
fate. Maybe the whole Command’s fate, if her ARC Riders tried and failed. Or weren’t allowed to try and somebody else failed.
Or failed to try.

Roebeck said, “Recommendation one. Return the 1992 operating segment downrange with expanded force projection capability and
emended Rules of Engagement allowing for broader collateral damage tolerance in accordance with emerging operating requirements.
Do this before the advantage of surprise is lost to our enemies UTL.” She was asking for a free hand to use lethal and highly
destructive force.

She paused to give those in the room time to react. No one said a word.

“Recommendation two. Because Up The Line technology beyond our current abilities is involved and ARC security may be compromised,
suspend further command oversight and limit the privy parties to those in the venue.” In other words, don’t run this operation
from your hip pocket. No telling whom you could trust. Give the field commander full operational flexibility. Once more, she
waited for comments. None were forthcoming. That could be good, or bad.

Sometimes you could tell how you were doing by who took what notes when. In this meeting nobody was taking notes. The Chief’s
long fingers were interlaced over the Russian sample on the white tabletop.

Roebeck made the remainder of her case. “Recommendation three. Since UTL penetration must be assumed to exist at Central,
until proven otherwise we request that Central clean house here—simultaneously.” Finished, Roebeck sat back.

The Chief unlaced his fingers and stared at the box they’d brought back from 1992.

The lawyer said, “Sir, if I may…?”

“Not now, Sid,” said the Chief. “TL Roebeck, it’s obvious you’re a zealot for this mission.” He paused. “We’ll work out the
kinks here. And we’ll respect your security. You’ll need to download a complete report before you go—no distribution beyond
myself. Make it comprehensive enough that another team can pick up the pieces if you fail to attain your entire objective.
Under the circumstances, I’ll accept all your recommendations—that includes the one about security here at Central.” The Chief
turned to the ADCSOPS. “You’ve got the action, Jerry. Go do it. Give them whatever they need.”

“Yes, sir.”

“You four are dismissed. The rest of you, stay behind.”

The lawyer and the Chief Scientist were already in a huddle as Roebeck’s team and the ADCSOPS shook hands with the Chief on
the way out.

Once through the outer office and in the hall, the ADCSOPS gave Nan a high-five, then set off down the first mile of corridors
at a sturdy dogtrot. “Let’s go, ARC Riders,” he called back over his shoulder. “Move it! You heard the Chief.”

They had to hustle to keep up.

Grainger jogged up beside her. “You
trying
to get us raped and left for dead on the road, boss, or do you just have a talent for it?”

Roebeck ignored Grainger’s comment. This was neither the time nor the pake for loose talk.

Chun joined them, pushing between them until the team trotted three abreast. “Oh, shut up, Grainger. You’ire just afraid you’ll
have to wear your hardsuit.”

“You’re wrong this time, Chun,” Grainger said. “I wish I had my armor on this minute, to protect me from those EARS”—Echelons
Above Reality—“in there who’re right now planning their move once we’re reported Missing In Action. You know this is a sacrifice
play.”

The ADCSOPS, who’d stopped to let them catch up, had heard what Grainger said. He tuned up Grainger with a practiced stare.
“You have it wrong, mister. This is no sacrifice play. It’s a long overdue wake-up call.” He shifted bleakly sparkling eyes
to Roebeck. “TL Roebeck, I’ve waited a long time for somebody to come into The Building and ask these guys the basic question
they didn’t want to hear.”

“What question is that, sir?” Chun asked the ADCSOPS.

“Question? The only question: ‘Is my war ready yet?’ And thanks to your team, TL Roebeck, the answer finally was
‘yes.’ ”

So the ADCSOPS had known, maybe all of the flag officers had known, that there’d been more than a philanthropic interest at
work Up The Line in the creation of the ARC Riders.

“Roebeck, let’s talk about what kind of support you figure you’re going to need,” said the ADCSOPS, as if he’d known her for
a thousand years.

So the threat from Up The Line was real. And the flag officers of the Anti-Revision Command had known all along that someday
it was going to come to something like this. Otherwise there’d have been more questions. Disbelief. Argument. Otherwise she’d
never have gotten that meeting. Not with the Chief of Staff. Not in a million years.

Roebeck was reeling from the shock of not being laughed out of the Chief’s office and summarily disciplined. She couldn’t
believe it. When her team was finally back in the launch bay, overseeing the on-loading of additional hardware, she still
didn’t believe it.

But Grainger believed it. He was sure they were dead meat, a lure to flush the bad guys out of hiding.

“You don’t send three people to stop a threat to an entire way of life,” he grunted to her. Grainger was personally working
the yellow loader lifting cases into the TC’s hold. He wanted to make sure he got exactly the weapons he’d requisitioned—and
nothing he hadn’t.

“Why the hell not?” Chun puffed. She was guiding the crates into the TC’s hold. Roebeck was checking the manifest. “The ARC
was formed to capitalize on force multiplication through superior technology. It’s our stock in trade.”

“It was our stock in trade, when we thought we had superior technology,” Grainger corrected.

Thanks to the Chief’s blessing, they’d been able to get the ADCSOPS to enforce the ruling about privy parties. So they were
on their own, isolated, operating in a sanitized environment even in the TC bay. But that meant they had to load on their
own. Roebeck checked her timetable.

“Let’s hurry this up. I want to lift and strike in twenty minutes.”

They made the elapsed-time deadline that Roebeck had set, but only barely.

When they were locked down inside TC 779, going through their systems’ checks, somebody opened the bay’s doors. It shouldn’t
have happened. The ADCSOPS had promised it wouldn’t happen. But it was happening.

“Ignore him,” Grainger begged Roebeck. “Just go.
Go!”

Whoever was out there would be dead in seconds if that someone came too close to the TC as it displaced out of here.

“Can you tell who it is?”

“That’s the Chief’s job, not ours. We don’t
care
who it is. Nobody’s supposed to be in here but us,” Grainger pleaded.

Chun was looking at Roebeck, not saying a word, her control wands poised and ready.

Grainger, although clearly paranoid, might tie right this time. Maybe there
were
forces from Up The Line loose in Central.

“Okay, Chun. Do it.
Now. Go!”
Roebeck ordered.

The TC bay sparkled out of existence around iJiem like so much confetti blown on a wild wind.

Y
ou know…” said Flaccus as he saw a dozen German horsemen top the hill and begin to spread out. “I’d got to hoping the Fritzes’d
dick around watering their horses long enough that we’d come home free.”

He spat. “Well, it wouldn’t be much of a pension anyway.”

“Beckie, keep the group moving,” Pauli Weigand ordered as he checked one, then the other, Skorpion. “I’ll send these off and
then catch up with you.”

He flipped the submachine gun’s sights to the 150-meter notch. That was an optimistic range for the light bullets to do any
real damage, but he was going for psychological effect.

The leading Germans dismounted two hundred meters from the refugees. For a moment Pauli didn’t understand what they were doing.
Footmen leading more horses reached the knoll. The nobles mounted the fresh animals and shook their lances.

Pauli glanced over his shoulder. Flaccus stood just behind him, balancing his javelin on his right palm.

“I told you to move on!” Pauli said.

“I heard you,” Flaccus said. “I’m bucking for a field promotion. Seems simpler than learning to read and getting one the usual
way.”

The refugees continued forward at a steady pace. They’d be able to see the Rhine over the next rise, but it was too far for
people so tired to run. Beckie’d keep them in hand.

Pauli grimaced. “I’m just going to hurt a few of them to give them something to think about,” he said. “IThen I’ll run up
with the rest of our people.”

Flaccus nodded. “And I’ll run along with you,” he said equably.

The Germans came on shrieking a war song. Retainers ran alongside the mounted men, each placing a hand on a noble’s horse.
The horsemen were armed with a mixture of lances and long swords. The commoners waved stabbing spears, though some wore Roman
swords as well.

Pauli took a deep breath. As he let it out slowly he put the front post of his sight under the face of the German noble and
fired a three-shot burst.

The German flung his arms up and went over the back of his horse. The animal swerved, tangled with a footman, and rode the
man down. The riders to either side slowed unconsciously as they looked in surprise at their fellow.

The man on the left end of the German line wore a gilded helmet with flaring wings. His short cape fluffed out with the wind
of his charge. He bellowed as bullets hit him, slashed his sword through the empty air, and kicked his mount into a full gallop.
Blood streamed from his neck.