The Traveler (23 page)

Alice started to turn and leave, defeated for the first time since her arguments with Garrison Lee. Just as she closed on the double doors Niles stopped her. He was busy writing something and when finished held it out to Alice. She read it.

“I take it you heard from Jack?” she asked as her mind went into preparation mode immediately upon reading the action order.

“Yes, our one-hundred-hour window has been opened and we have to go through it very soon or we'll get it slammed down on us.”

“I'll call it.”

All thoughts of mission team members went out the window as Alice was now in full Event mode as she hurried from the office. Niles turned and watched the doors close and then he grimaced as if his coffee was bad. He shook his head and wondered if he was doing the right thing. He had traded Anya Korvesky for the mere chance of getting the file on this Traveler, and now he refused to even allow her a chance at seeing the man she loved one last time. He felt the guilt as it coursed like the bitter coffee down his throat.

He heard the tones that sounded loudly throughout the massive complex. His people were going to do what they did best—fight the impossible odds.

*   *   *

Alert tones sounded throughout the Event Group facility and sixteen departments, totaling 512 civilian men and women, with their military contingent of 212, went into action.

The Group had just declared an Event.

BROOKLYN NAVY YARD

Jack stood over a map spread out on a desk in the upstairs office area that once fronted as a furniture repair warehouse after the Department of the Navy had started selling off the property in 1966.

“Okay, when our people get here, we secure the inside of the building and the FBI the exterior and surrounding grounds.” He looked at Mendenhall, who was taking notes on the electronic pad he had been issued for this particular op. “No one who isn't Group gets inside for the duration of our time on station.”

“Yes, sir. I'll coordinate with Mr. Ryan when he arrives with Assistant Director Pollock and her nuclear sciences team.”

“Good.” He looked at the master chief, who turned somewhat pale when he heard that Virginia would soon be on station. “You okay, Master Chief?”

Instead of telling the truth, he grumbled and then stabbed his cigar end at the map.

“I don't know if you've noticed, Colonel, but do you see these power lines here and here?” The cigar stabbed at the two locations nearer the street.

“Yes,” Jack confirmed.

“If we are able to somehow get this ass-backward contraption runnin', those lines won't carry any sort of load close to what we would need.” He looked up and placed the cigar back into his mouth. “Not if the wattage we need is to carry the transformers I saw down in that pit. The old woman said she used bribes in the old days to get her power, but she didn't explain it well enough. I'm sure the Borough of Brooklyn won't be happy when we blow every electrical transformer from here to Bay Ridge.”

Collins looked at the map again and the eight-hundred-foot space where the old dry dock used to be. It was sitting dry as the riverside gate was closed.

“Yes, I did notice and have informed Virginia about the power problems we could be facing. She said that she has a plan for that and she wanted me to inform you that she needs your naval expertise to work out a few minor problems. She said to gather everything”—Jack looked at his pad and the notes he had written—“on the power output for either the
Maitland
, or SSN-688. I assume you know what that first name refers to?”

Jenks removed the cigar once more and shook his head as if in wonder.

“Smart lady there. I didn't think of that,” he mumbled. “Yeah, I know what she's referring to. Ballsy, I must say.”

“Yeah, we've noticed that about Virginia,” Jack said, wondering to what level Jenks's real fear of Virginia extended. “It must be all of those letters that follow her name and title, huh?” Jack smirked at the master chief. “Well, she said she's also studied the aerial photos from Boris and Natasha and suggests you may want to get a start on—”

“Hah! Filling the dry dock area,” he said triumphantly. He looked from Mendenhall to Farbeaux. “See, I can think just as fast as her.”

“Oh, yeah,” Will said as he turned away and laughed.

“Okay, you get on that, Master Chief.”

“And myself? Am I to run out for coffee and doughnuts?” Henri asked.

“No, we're going out in the rain and assisting Madam Mendelsohn inside for our meeting with Xavier, Niles, and Europa. It's time to see if we have a chance at using this”—he looked at Jenks—“half-assed-contraption.”

“That's ass-backward contraption,” Jenks mumbled as he corrected Jack with a disgusting smirk.

“And I'm included here because…?” Henri asked as he straightened from the map of the navy yard.

Jack smiled as he put his coat on. “I like to have a man know just what it is he's volunteering for.”

Colonel Henri Farbeaux lowered his eyes and wondered when and if his time in hell would ever be served. He watched Jack as he held the door open for him, intentionally not answering Henri's question but avoiding it with another mystery.

“Did you ever catch on that I really don't care for you, Colonel?” Henri walked past Collins and then out of the office.

“Really. But I thought we were actually getting to be friends.”

*   *   *

Moira Mendelsohn sat in her chair and looked out from the glass-enclosed gallery at the doorway laboratory. She adjusted the quilt on her legs and then looked away.

“I didn't think I would ever lay eyes on that damnable thing again.”

The doorway was sitting silent without any power in the semidarkness of the spotlights. Moira looked around the gallery.

“I remember looking up through a glass wall very much like this one. That is why I have always told my scholarship students not to lie to their children.”

“Concerning?” Jack asked as he and Henri sat in the gallery seating section, flanking either side of the woman they knew as the Traveler.

She smiled and looked at the colonel.

“Why, that there really are monsters in the world.” Her smile became a conspirator's smirk. “I know, I've seen them myself through glass walls just like these.” She gestured to the seats and the gallery glass separating the viewers from the time machine that sat beneath them.

Jack remembered her file. He looked at Henri and knew he was thinking the same as him. Moira had really seen monsters in the flesh and most had red and black swastikas on the sleeves and death's-heads on their caps. The tale she related in remembering her concentration camp debrief told the bizarre story of Heinrich Himmler and his plan. Yes, she had seen monsters. Jack studied the tired face of the woman who sat before him.

“I trust you want to use the doorway for something of your own design?” She looked from Jack to the doorway below and the shiny instruments that gleamed in the sparse lighting.

“Is it still possible?”

Moira Mendelsohn snorted and chuckled, worrying both Collins and Farbeaux, but Henri far more since this was a machine owned and possibly once operated by her, so he hoped her insanity was a recent development.

“Oh, yes, I imagine it is.” She used the chair's toggle to turn her chair to face Jack full on. “But why would you wish to go there?”

“Go where, ma'am?”

“Germany in 1943, of course.”

“We wouldn't wish to if at all avoidable,” Henri said chiming in.

“Then I suspect you have a Wellsian Doorway at the selected location?”

“Not following,” Jack said, feeling his heart skip a beat.

“My dear, you have to have two doorways for the system to work. Didn't you read my dossier and specs thoroughly?” She managed to actually look sad at the way Jack's face dropped. “The only other doorway is in the Germany of the past, 1943. There is no other.”

Collins stood and faced away from Moira. He saw the look from Henri. While not at all sad about hearing the news, he did feel for these people, for when the news broke that what they wanted to happen was now an impossibility, their hope would be dashed. The Frenchman had read the entire dossier and understood far better just how devastating this new information was.

Jack opened the door. “Master Chief, come in here, please.” He then turned to the monitor that had been installed by Mendenhall. “Dr. Morales, are you with us?” he asked as Jenks entered the gallery and saw the long faces and then sat down. He removed his ever-present cigar and then nodded a greeting at Moira.

After a few seconds the young face of Morales filled the screen. Jack knew he would have to eventually get used to the new kid running the most intricate computing and AI system ever designed. He just hoped the young man was up to the task. They would soon see if the moniker that had been bestowed upon him was accurate … that of genius.

“We are here, Colonel, and we do have some information. Professor Ellenshaw—”

“Doctor, we may have a problem that will take priority over everything else. And note, Doctor, we are not secured on this end, we have a guest. May I introduce Ms. Moira Mendelsohn.”

The old woman smiled when she saw the youth of the man on the monitor. She nodded.

“Ma'am, it's truly an honor,” Morales said with something close to awe.

“He's so young,” she said through the side of her mouth, and then nodded and smiled again at the young man blushing on the screen.

“Doctor, listen to what Ms. Mendelsohn has to tell you. Then I want you to use some of that brain stuff we rescued you for. Find an answer. Master Chief, help fill him in.”

“Europa is just now getting her act together, so I'll do my best.”

Jack excused himself and gestured for Henri to follow. They stepped out through the gallery and then took the elevator up to the old office area. Will was there figuring out a duty roster for his men when they arrived from Nellis.

Jack opened the door with Will and the Frenchman in tow and they stepped out underneath the old and tattered awning that covered the front stoop.

“My God, how can we pull this one off?” he asked.

Will was filled in by Henri and could see that the colonel was feeling physically ill being defeated at such an early point in the Event call.

“What now?” Will asked.

Jack just shook his head and then stepped out from under the awning and walked down the steps. He raised his face to the sky and allowed the rain to cool his face.

Will and Henri watched a man realizing defeat and it was something they could both see didn't sit too well with the former Green Beret.

*   *   *

The ruse had taken two and a half hours to formulate and execute. The van was actually stolen from the federal building parking lot in Brooklyn near the courthouse area and now sat idling at a closed and deserted gas station on Flushing Avenue. The driver of the van eased himself from behind the wheel and then joined the three men watching the main front gate of the navy yard.

“That is one drive I don't want to make again. I must have passed a dozen cops on the way here,” the man said in Russian. “I didn't know if any of their radio signals would set that shit off. It would have blown half of the neighborhood straight to hell, not that it would be missed.”

The smaller of the three men turned and faced the driver. “The explosives are detonated on a sealed circuit, you idiot, I have told you that. Radio signals cannot set them off.”

“If you have to explain to your men their duties more than once, I wonder how well mine and my colleagues' money was spent. Perhaps we chose the wrong organization to handle our problem?”

The small man turned and faced his contracted employer. “Have we yet to fail you and your … colleagues in any capacity?” He snorted with a chuckle at the euphemism this dark-haired man insisted on using.

“I fear there is always a first time,” the man said as he pulled his expensive coat closer to his throat. He hated dealing with these Eastern Bloc idiots. But they were the only people brave, or foolish, enough to take on the hard jobs called for to help him and his associates from time to time. These brutes had their own business concerns, but did this kind of work on a contractual basis and the Russians and the services they provided were not known to come cheap.

“If there is failure the first time, there will be a second, a third, even a fourth attempt until you are satisfied our contract has been fulfilled.”

“As long as you are aware of the situation and the people you're putting into harm's way. That's the FBI over there. You may get through the civilian guards at the gate with your falsified van, but not them.”

“Obstacles to be swiped aside like dirt.” The small man laughed. “The FBI has been trying to shut us down for many years, my friend, yet here we are.”

“Have your people compensated for the design of the building and the fact that your target is in the subbasement?”

“How did you get into the position you are in by worrying about such small details, my friend? You should know that with enough explosive you can do anything.” The man turned and watched as the civilian guards started their shift change. He faced the driver. “Once through the gate you will get out at the first blind corner; my men will take it from there. Just be sure to turn on the remote device before you leave the van.”

The driver nodded in understanding. He turned and went to the van and carefully eased out of the deserted gas station and crossed over Flushing Avenue and into the navy yard without a second look from the harried guards at the gate. With a flash of the FBI magnetic lettering on the doors and the government-issued license plate, the dark-haired man watched the most powerful explosive ever to be used in the borough of Brooklyn on its way to kill the Traveler and any evidence of their past crimes.