The Time Portal 2: Escape in Time (13 page)

Nicky didn’t mince words. “What’s up?” was all he said.

Doc filled him in and when he was finished, Dukie suggested they take Doc to the safehouse in Astoria until everything blew over. Nicky agreed.

Doc hesitated saying, “In all my sixty-eight years, I was never chased out of my town and it grates me to have to do it now.”

Nicky looked at him and said softly, “Doc, we’re going to be pretty busy for the next few days and I think you’ll be very comfortable at the safehouse. We even have an encrypted phone that you can use.”

Chapter Fourteen

Everyone in Australia was packed and ready for the trip home. Sam and Anastasia took the longest and somehow had accumulated so much from their shopping excursions that it was decided that they would need the assistance of a shipping company. Charlie had one of his ranch hands make the trip into town and, upon his return, promptly gave Sam the receipts for all the goods for tracking purposes. Charlie was feeling a little blue that his guests were leaving. He enjoyed their company, the noise, the hanging out with Lucky. Lucky noticed the sadness, the change in Charlie’s demeanor.

“Charlie, when’s the last time you left Alice Springs?”

“Never,” he replied.

“Never?” Lucky asked.

Charlie nodded yes.

“Well,” Lucky said. “Why don’t you think about taking a little vacation to a place like . . . New York City, let’s say?”

Charlie’s eyes opened up as round as two apples.

“New York City? Are you inviting me to go back there with you for while?”

“What I am suggesting,” Lucky said, “is that you go pack your suitcase, right now, because it’s my turn. Yes, I’m inviting you to be our guest for a while.”

Charlie quickly began making mental calculations of the things that he needed to do in the next few moments.

“Relax,” Lucky said, “and take your time. We’ve been here for months. A few hours longer won’t make much difference.”

Charlie picked up his phone, called several nearby friends, and asked that they keep an eye out on his ranch and check his livestock, and then he headed off to pack. Not more than a half hour later, he was ready to go, but needed to wait for his friend Jake to arrive so he could pass off a set of keys to the ranch and some of the work sheds and give him some last minute instructions.

In the meantime, Mickey, Lucky, and the professor worked together, rolling the spacecraft out into the large clearing in front of the barn, getting everything ready for, hopefully, a safe and uneventful takeoff. The professor cloaked the spacecraft, knowing that Charlie was expecting company.

Jake, Charlie’s friend who owned the ranch up the road several miles, arrived and Charlie told him how he would be leaving later in the day, giving him a story of how this was a last minute trip and that there was no need for Jake to return to check on the ranch until the next day. The real reason was that Lucky had told him to cover himself and Lucky – Mickey and Charlie needed this time just in case things with the spaceship did not go off as expected. Charlie handed the spare key to Jake, which he placed on his key ring. Jake was an old hand at tending to a ranch and knew all about maintaining a property of this size. After wishing Charlie a safe trip and saying goodbye to Charlie’s friends, he hopped into his truck and headed out, back to his own ranch.

Mickey and Charlie took one look at the professor’s creation and quickly decided that guinea pigs they were not. They’d have no part of the flying machine’s maiden voyage. Lucky could appreciate that. How could he fault them? They gathered up Sam’s and Anastasia’s belongings, helped the girls into Charlie’s truck, and Lucky watched as they took off down the ranch road, headed out to the airport to join Bobby Boots on the jet.

Lucky donned his “Casper Suit,” as he called it, fondly named after the likeable little ghost in the old cartoons who could appear and disappear at will. He climbed into the spaceship and was surprised at how much more sophisticated the craft had become with the new improvements the professor had made. Not only was the ship equipped with space-age electronics and a high tech dashboard worthy of making the most avid car aficionado drool, but it was also quite comfortable. There was something to be said for the plush captain’s chairs. This was just as good, if not better, than flying first class on a certain airline’s international flight. He could only hope that the flight would be the same.

Lucky picked up his cell phone, dialed Mickey, and maintained cell phone contact all throughout as Mickey gave him a play-by-play as to where he and the jet were – on the tarmac, cleared for takeoff – each step along the way. Using this information, the professor did his best to time the spaceship’s takeoff to be almost in tandem with Bobby Boots. The professor took the activator rod and inserted it into the magnetic tube. The ship sprang to life with flashes and sounds – dashboard lights, interior lights, the hum of gyroscopes. Satisfied that everything was functioning as it should be, he lifted the activator slowly, causing the ship to rise about six feet in the air. He hovered there for a moment and then cloaked the ship before taking it higher.

Once in the air, the professor felt that he could follow the jet at a safe distance— confident of it, as he had tested it previously with Lucky—but his concern was speed. How fast could the ship travel without it falling apart? That was the unknown. The craft was supposed to be designed to perform well at higher speeds than anything ever made by man, but only a flight of this magnitude would really tell. He was excited because now he could test it while flying all the way to the United States

The saucer was “cloaked,” invisible, all the way to New York. No one could see them flying as they trailed behind the sleek jet, soaring along in its wake of sorts. At times, the spaceship bobbed up and down like a yo-yo, the result of a combination of turbulence from the wake of the jet, the atmosphere, the craft’s construction, and the professor’s lack of piloting experience. The weather, however, was crystal clear with very few clouds.
Thank goodness for that
, Lucky thought. Without that weather report from Bobby, he might never have boarded this gizmo. According to the professor, the ship would be invisible to air traffic controllers, except for perhaps a momentary blip on the radar screen. The blip would most likely be explained away or dismissed as an interference of some sort or something caused by the weather. So far, it appeared that no red flags had been raised.

Bobby Boots landed the jet at Kennedy Airport where Casey, Lucky’s driver, was waiting for them in the Navigator. The group got off the private plane, stepped right into the car, and headed for the safehouse in Astoria.

Shortly before landing the spaceship, the professor turned off the cloaking device. He then set the spacecraft down at the abandoned South Hampton, Long Island Air Force base. Waiting for them were two Air Force men that Lucky had telephoned before departure. He had requested that they prepare an empty hangar for an experimental saucer shaped aircraft. Doc had helped him with this. As result of some minor offenses, it seems that the two men, a couple of local hometown boys, had been issued an ultimatum about a year and a half ago – prison or the Air Force. It was a unique ruling from the judge (the result of a little Doc Lamb persuasion), citing that the military can always use more bodies and that these men needed to understand discipline and what it was like to work for their money, rather than steal it. Once the men completed their basic training, Doc arranged to have them assigned to the recently closed base. His initial request was to place them in the recruiting office in Corona, Queens, but that request was denied.

The base was barren for the most part. All of the aircraft, ordinance, equipment, furniture, anything that wasn’t nailed down, was gone. There wasn’t much to guard. It was their job to make sure that no one entered the base because it was still a military base. There was still fuel in the tanks hidden under the ground and, if necessary, empty hangars in which to hide the planes.

All four men rolled the craft into an empty hangar where the military men would alternately stand guard until Lucky could have it relocated. Lucky informed the men that there would be a substantial bonus for the both of them if he returned the following day to find the aircraft undisturbed. Lucky and the professor, as well as Lucky’s entire entourage, were aware of the importance of this invention. There was no room for error. There could be no sleeping on the job. The men nodded their heads and assured him that they all would be well. As a precaution and thinking ahead, the men had worked out a double shift, which meant that they would be the only ones at work the following day, no extra bodies with which to be concerned.

Lucky walked out of the hangar and headed for the empty parking lot where Sal, another of Lucky’s childhood friends, was waiting for them in Lucky’s BMW sedan. Lucky had a host of cars. His billions had ensured that he could drive a different car each day of the week, if he so chose, but he didn’t. Instead, he poured his money into his jet . . . until now, that is. The spaceship had set him back a couple of million but that was fine with Lucky as he knew, in essence, that its value was . . . priceless.

Salvetore, the driver, or “Sal,” as he was known, was a degenerate gambler. He had lost his wife, kids, home, everything he loved because of his addiction to gambling. Lucky figured a way to keep him financially sound in the hopes that he might someday re-unite with his family. Without telling Sal, Lucky had opened a trust fund for him where he would receive a monthly stipend for life.

During the drive, Lucky took out his cell phone and called the Farmingdale Republic Airport (FRG) on Long Island and told them he wanted to rent a hangar. He gave the woman his American Express card number and told her to charge the next six months in advance. She responded with the hangar number and directions on its precise location. She informed Lucky that he could pick up the key at any time from the office address she gave him. At first Lucky told her that he would be there the following morning to pick it up, but he thought for a second and then asked her to hold for moment. He cupped the phone and said, “Sal, stay on I-95. We need to swing by Republic Airport on our way back.”

Lucky got back on the phone and told the woman that he would be in to pick up the key within the hour. He thanked her and then hung up the phone. Next, he called Casey and asked him where he was. Casey informed him that he and the rest of the gang were approaching the safehouse. Lucky told him that he would meet up with them in a couple of hours. He made yet another call to Jeff Kaney, one of the air force men guarding the spacecraft, and told him that he would be there the following morning.

“Look, to be safe,” Lucky said, “I’m sending two men to watch your backs.”

Lucky made his last call to the safehouse. Nicky answered.

“Nicky, after you get everyone else settled, I want you and Dukie to take a ride to the South Hampton base to back up the two air force guys. Make sure you’re armed and on your toes. If the Russians know about this spaceship, you guys are gonna have a rough night. I’ll relieve you early tomorrow morning.”

When Lucky and Doctor Lindstrom, the professor, arrived at the safehouse, Charlie and Doc Lamb were having a very animated conversation with their hands flailing about like a couple of old Italian men. They had taken to each other like two ducks in a pond, it appeared. No surprise there. They were about the same age and had the same temperament. Judging from their behavior, they acted like two friends who had not seen each other in many years, who just met up again and were determined to pick up where they left off years before. As they continued chatting, the professor motioned for Lucky to join him in the saferoom, and as Lucky walked towards him, he passed Charlie and the Doc and managed to grasp a few words of their conversation. Doc was promising to visit Charlie at his ranch and Charlie was insisting that he go back with him to Australia when he returned. The professor and Lucky took a seat in the front of the saferoom by the bookshelves and started discussing their next steps. The professor was concerned about the spacecraft, but Lucky tried to put his mind at ease, telling him that Nicky and Dukie were on their way to the airfield and, in the morning, Mickey was going to drive both of them back to South Hampton where they would then fly the ship to its new hangar in Farmingdale.

Since Lucky’s life-changing run-in with his ex-boss, Sommerville, and then Director Neil Stewart, Summerville’s boss, Lucky had re-enforced the safehouse with steel walls and doors, and lined both with sheets of titanium. He also had a state-of- the-art burglar alarm installed. If there was one thing Lucky knew, it was burglar alarms. He had made a career out of neutralizing burglar alarms. That was his specialty back in the day when he was considered the best high-end jewel thief in the business. He chose wisely, opting for the toughest alarm he had ever had to crack. The saferoom was something else. First, one had to figure out which book to pull that released the safety mechanism and next, which book triggered the hydraulic slide that opened the door to the room, cleverly hidden behind the bookcase. If the books were pulled out of sequence, a fail-safe system locked the slider to the saferoom and the door could not be opened until the system was reset and opened correctly, in the proper order.

Lucky loved the security of this room, but felt that double security would be even better so he decided to build another room. Some of his enemies already knew about his time travels, he feared, so how could he be sure that they had not learned of the safehouse and the saferoom? Jack Kinsey, the director of the compound, the man Lucky single-handedly had chosen to replace Dirk Sommerville, agreed and told Lucky that when he was ready, he would send the agency’s top contractor to assist him with his design. But first, Lucky had other things on his mind. He needed to move the spacecraft to a new hangar.

The next morning, Lucky filled an attaché case with cash, placed it into the backseat of the Navigator, and he and the professor hopped into the car with Mickey for the hour-long drive to South Hampton. They arrived just shy of eleven a.m. They parked the car near the hangar and Lucky instructed the professor to wait while he checked around. Sensing no danger, he walked back to the car, opened the door, and nodded to the professor that it was safe to leave the vehicle. Together, they walked directly to the hangar. Lucky looked around, but did not see Dukie’s car. As they walked on, he spotted the car on the other side of the hangar.
Smart,
Lucky thought. They parked it in such a way so the car could not be seen from the street. Gingerly, Lucky, Mickey, and Lindstrom opened the door and entered the hangar. Immediately, they saw several guns drawn, pointing directly at them, daring them to move. The professor yelled, “Don’t shoot. Please don’t shoot . . .” and the entire room broke out into laughter. Dukie, Nicky and the two military men stood there laughing, along with Lucky and Mickey until the professor make it clear, by the expression on his face, that he saw nothing funny about it all. Slowly and calmly, the men put down their guns and resumed their seats around a table in the corner where they sat sipping coffee, smoking cigarettes, and playing cards. Lucky casually walked over to the table and placed down the attaché case, careful not to disturb the playing cards. He opened the case and took out two stacks of one-hundred-dollar bills, containing five thousand dollars each, and handed one stack to each of the two Air Force men and thanked them for a doing a good job. The airmen shook his hand.