The Traveler (50 page)

“Do we have the time?”

“Of course you still have the time. Congressional oversight can only crucify me once.”

The line went dead. Niles looked at the phone and then sat heavily into a chair. Alice stood and slowly walked over and removed the receiver from his hand and placed it in its cradle.

“It won't be the first time a president has yelled at the director of this department, I can assure you of that, Niles.”

He half smiled and then shook his head. “I hate placing my best friend in this situation.”

“It's a situation he agreed to. After all, Niles, Carl is one of his men as well as yours.”

“We may not have a mission anymore, and may have also lost even more personnel and friends than just Carl. We may have single-handedly sunk a hundred years of departmental history. The Group may not survive this if the president is caught lying to his own agencies. I've placed my best friend in an impossible situation.”

Alice patted his arm and then turned on the monitor to check in with Xavier Morales. She turned just as the computer center back at Nellis came into focus.

“If we can get back our people, who gives a damn in the end? The president is still the head of this agency and one of us.”

Niles Compton smiled for the first time in two days as he realized that Alice had just refueled his desire to get his men and women back in one piece and save the president the indignity of having to explain something he had little to do with. He knew his friend would go down, just like the presidents before him, in safeguarding the secret that is the Event Group.

“Xavier, let's start working to get our people home.”

On the screen Morales was there with his many computer techs.

“Yes, sir, we are assuming that they are alive and have been working to get the return doorway operational. We are beginning the signal now and will continue until we get an answer.”

Niles looked at the clock on the wall and then shook his head.

The director had a bad feeling that the clock here was not the only one running down as his thoughts quickly went to the threat of Mount Erebus and her murderous sisters.

 

21

Carl had given Sarah the combat survival knife and appointed her point man. He would guide her from the back of the small line as they made their way down the falls side of the steep ravine. Everett felt far easier with his new charges because he knew the terrain was much too steep for the local animals to feel comfortable hunting on. Still, they made slower time as the ash cloud once more arrived with the winds, and this time it was mixed with a harsh blend of sulfur and pumas that was starting to irritate their throats.

Carl had allowed them all to quench their parched throats at the wide river. The newcomers to his world were faring far better. Everett was still having a hard time believing they had come for him.

“Oh, my,” Sarah said as she spied the Roman stockade for the first time as Carl had led them down a trail that was hidden from view, just in case the Russians they had told him about followed them. He knew Jason and Will would have no problem giving them the slip if they hadn't already.

“Okay, I give up on the whole history thing,” Anya said as she and Virginia saw the old ruins through the falling ash.

“Someone is going to get an earful when I get back,” Virginia said as she stepped toward the long dried-up moat. The trench was over ten feet deep and the opposite side was spiked with old spears that shot off at angles toward the moat. “The whole of history may have to be rewritten.”

Everett chuckled as he realized the others had not figured out the little puzzle. He would let them stew on it awhile.

“You have to slide down on your asses I'm afraid, I didn't think it would be wise to build a two-lane highway to my only sanctuary.”

Virginia snorted as if his concern for their femininity irritated her to no end. She sat and went sliding down the ash-covered slope of mote. Sarah also shook her head at Carl's concern and then followed suit. Carl took Anya's hand, looked down at her, and frowned when he saw her returning his look as if he had kicked her puppy.

“What?”

“I'm still extremely pissed at you for dying on me.”

Everett scratched the itchy beard and looked consternated. “Well, then, I guess I have to make it up to you.”

“Don't think it will be that easy. I'm a Gypsy, remember?” She smiled and then plopped down unceremoniously and then gently and adeptly slid down the slope.

Everett knew that no matter what happened, he could be happy with Anya anywhere in the world, or at any time.

*   *   *

The three were shocked at the equipment that had been gathered up by Everett in the six months he had been in Antarctica. Sarah had to stop and examine the Roman shield. The red leather had peeled away exposing the wood beneath. She saw the outline of an emblem or insignia that had long ago left the ghost of a shield.

“Just wait, you're really going to like this,” Carl said as he pushed aside some giant elephant ear plants and pulled out something they couldn't see. He had to laugh again when he saw their faces as they turned a shade of red he could clearly see in the mounting dusk and ashfall of the false evening.

“I understand now,” Virginia said just as Sarah and Anya realized the true nature of the strange finds. The Rising Sun battle flag of the Japanese army was unfurled. Even though it was tattered and worn out in many places it was still spry with the colors of red and white. Virginia reached out and raised the old wooden shield that had once been covered in dyed-red leather and adorned with tacks that made the shield enduring in thought and memory. “The legendary Ninth Legion,” she said as she smiled over at Anya and Sarah.

“The Iranian power plant tests. From their test records the timing fits. The year the legion vanished was in the time frame of their sixth test. Tell me, Carl, was there any Chinese battle gear found?” Sarah asked, hoping to lay the theory to rest.

“Not yet, but then again I wasn't keen on going out and looking for any either.

“They all vanished through a wormhole not intended for them. They were trapped and went through the same rip in time that I did, only many hundreds of years separate,” Carl said almost sadly.

“What happened to them?” Anya asked, very much afraid of the answer if he had one.

Everett looked away momentarily and was about to answer when he heard the movement behind him.

“Yes, I would very much like to know the same thing.”

They all turned as one and Virginia dropped the Roman shield when she saw Doshnikov as he and his four men pushed Ryan and Will out in front of them as they left the first enclosure only yards away.

Everett saw the armed intruders to his inherited domain and then his eyes went to Mendenhall and Ryan. Without any regard to what would happen, the three men stepped forward and shook hands. When that wasn't enough they hugged and slapped each other on the back. The whole time Sarah, Anya, and Virginia smiled and the Russians didn't interfere.

“I should have known you two hard-asses would have already infiltrated the enemy camp and taken hold of the situation,” Carl said with a broad smile.

“Yeah, we were just getting ready to make our move,” Ryan said as he finally released Everett's hand. “Besides, I fully expect a royal ass-chewing if we ever get out of this.”

Carl finally turned his attention to the man Sarah had told him about in their trek back to the stockade. The man was looking far worse than his people and that made him smile at the Russian.

“What's your story?” Everett asked as he made Will and Jason step back.

“I am a man not to be trifled with, as your friends can attest.”

Carl looked from the Russian's eyes to the old Colt in his hands. Doshnikov saw this and then lowered the weapon and gestured for his men to follow suit.

The Russian turned to face the man that looked like one of the old pictures of his countrymen who lived in the wilds of Siberia, or the mountain men of the American West.

“Yeah, I understand you like to wire explosives up to children.”

“No, not children, small babies and their mothers to be more precise. And being a businessman I am willing to negotiate a deal. I will say this in absolute assurance, I will kill every one of you if you do not do as I say. You will get us to that valley and that new doorway these rather strange people built and you will get us back home. I can start right now with this one,” he said as he once again cocked the .45 and aimed it at Anya.

The silence after the threat was palpable even over the rumbling of the erupting volcanoes. Sarah and the others watched as Carl remained silent as he stared straight ahead. They all became concerned when they saw a smile creep across his face. The Russians even became uneasy at the strangeness of this man's reactions. Then the world once again froze in time. The ash seemed to fall slower and the earth shaking under their feet slowed as did their own heartbeats when Everett spoke.

“Jack, you have the most outrageous sense for the dramatic. What in the hell took you so long?”

The automatic fire opened up and tracers stitched the ground in front of Doshnikov and his four men. They jumped back as the glowing red tracers arched into the stockade from somewhere the men couldn't or didn't have the time to see as they dove for the soft, hot ash. As the bullets continued to fly, they stood and ran for the far wall of the stockade. A few tracers followed them with no malicious intent other than to scare the fools off.

Carl waited as the others willed their shock away. Walking toward them after only a minute the outlines of two men took shape. Everett laughed as did Ryan and Mendenhall when they recognized the large silhouette of Colonel Jack Collins.

“Piss-poor shooting if I may say so,” Carl said as he stepped forward, recognizing Henri Fabrbeaux.

Collins stopped and took in the surprised faces staring at him and the Frenchman.

“I was torn between who to shoot, these people or those Russian assholes.”

Jason, Sarah, Will, Virginia, and Anya looked at one another, not one of them knowing at what point to start the tale of what happened.

“But since we have a time machine to play with, I can shoot them anytime, I guess. Then go back and do it again, again, and again.”

The two men, and even Henri Farbeaux, shook hands while the others took a deep religious breath at their sudden reprieve and deliverance from the Russians.

Now their problems were narrowed down to a few things. Like finding their stolen power coupling and dodging every horror-story creature God could have thought up, until they left here in a reengineered doorway they weren't quite sure would work.

Yes, Jack Collins had worries other than his anger at all of the new company in this Lion Country Safari family experience.

*   *   *

An hour later while sitting around a small fire Everett scarfed down some of Jack's and Henri's MREs, wishing many times instead that he was eating one of the complex's masterful corned beef sandwiches from the departmental mess. They had briefed all parties on the predicament they found themselves in. Ryan found it shocking that the colonel didn't chew his ass off anyway, but only nodded when briefed by Virginia. What that meant, Ryan wasn't exactly sure.

“I don't know which is hardest to believe, the fact that we find ourselves in the biggest jam we have ever been in, or the fact that we have prehistoric, out-of-time Velociraptors trying to outthink and outfight us.”

“What can you tell us, Carl?” Jack asked, leaning forward after finishing the first meal he had had since arriving two days before.

“Hell, after six months of trying to piece things together, I think I've only scratched the surface. I do think with all of us putting our heads together we can at least make some sense of this strange-ass continent.”

Everett waited as Will and Farbeaux returned from a thorough perimeter patrol. Henri unslung his M-4 and sat, shaking his head vigorously at the offered MRE. Instead he started eating a giant berry he had found on the patrol. Jack shook his head.

“We believe now that when the continents separated it took the existing animal life with it. This continent developed totally on its own seven hundred million years ago.” Virginia looked at Sarah and she nodded. “Dinosaurs evolved differently and many more of them may have survived extinction by that separation. Maybe not the larger dinosaurs, but the smaller, avian breeds we have come to know from the movies. Left alone they developed rudimentary tool-making capability. In essence they took up where their larger relatives left off, unabated. I suspect that this is a recent development, maybe a hundred thousand to two hundred thousand years. Eventually those small birdlike raptors will learn to make more sophisticated weapons.”

“I do not know about you, my American friends, but I think the spears alone are pretty damn sophisticated.” Farbeaux tossed the remaining large pit from the fruit away. “And how long did it take humans to think of throwing a rock to defend himself?” Henri said, putting a damper on things as usual. “No, there is more to this than mere evolution.”

“Perhaps so,” Everett said as he looked deeply into the fire. They all could see that the many months of isolation had taken its toll on their friend. “You asked earlier about humanoid life.” Everett ceased staring into the flames, stood, and turned to look up at the falling ash and then toward the red glow of Erebus three hundred miles distant. “I've found fields of bones. Early man, Neanderthal, Cro-Magnon, even the little species we know as Lucy, at least from what my limited education into those fields can tell me. Thousands upon thousands. Entire species of anything that could threaten those raptors.” He looked at his rescuers. “You also asked about the Romans, the Japanese, and Chinese soldiers. All dead, massacred to the man. Three modern armies, all taken down by those feathery little bastards. They nearly had me more than once until I figured out how to get around them.”