Mojitos with Merry Men

by Marianne Mancusi

  "Uh, let me call the desk. See if it's okay." The assignment desk was the Big Brother of the newsroom: always watching you. If I took off without checking in with them, I could be in big trouble.

  I reached into my purse to dig out my phone. The agent placed a hand over mine. "No need, Ms. Duncan," he said. "We've already called your station. That's how we knew where you were."

  "Oh." I looked over at Jenny. Should I believe this guy?

  "We talked to a man named Mario. Your news director. He said he could move your story to the eleven P.M. news so you'd have time to finish it after we met with you."

  I raised an eyebrow. Wow. Guess even my boss Mario was impressed that I'd been called upon by the FBI. Usually the guy wouldn't pull a story even as a personal favor to The Pope. Go figure.

  "It will only take a few minutes, Ms. Duncan," assured the agent. "Then we can return you here for your story."

  "Go ahead, Dora," Jenny suggested. "I can hang here, go pick out a few thongs at Vicky Secrets. After all, Robbie's coming over tonight."

  "Uh, great. A bit T.M.I, but great." I suppressed a shudder, then turned back to Special Agent Fredricks. "Fine, fine. Lead the way," I agreed.

  I followed him out of the mall and into the parking lot, where a shiny black car with heavily tinted windows sat idling by the curb. A chauffeur type stepped up to open the back door and I ducked down to crawl inside. FBI Man entered after me, and soon we were speeding away from the mall.

  "Where are we going?' I asked.

  "Headquarters," Fredricks replied not-so-informatively.

  "And what is it you need my help with again?"

  "It will all be explained to you in due time, Ms. Duncan."

  Of course it would be. I leaned back, settling into the plush leather seat. Might as well relax for a few moments. God knew I'd be scrambling the rest of the day to make my news slot after this inopportune field trip. Still, my pulse thrummed with anticipation. Relaxation was never my forte.

  About ten minutes later, the car slowed to a stop and the chauffeur opened the door. I crawled out, looking around at my surroundings. We were in an underground parking garage. Agent Fredricks stepped out beside me and gestured for me to follow him.

  Soon we were walking down a featureless corridor, flanked by even more featureless silver doors. It didn't look like anything I'd imagined FBI offices would look like. Not that my job had ever taken me anywhere higher up than the local police barracks.

  Curiouser and curiouser, as Alice would say.

  Of course, my brain decided to take that instant to remind me that I hadn't really checked this man's ID all that closely. What if he was lying about being part of the FBI? About speaking to Mario? What if he was really part of some secret underground Iraqi syndicate that had been looking for me this last year? What if I'd walked right into their trap?

  I felt the all-too-familiar wave of panic rise like bile in my throat and attempted the breathing exercises the shrink had taught me to prevent yet another full-on panic attack.

  Oh Dora, how do you get yourself into these messes?

  I squeezed my hands into fists and struggled to regain control of my rebellious, wildly beating heart. Being scared wouldn't help me escape if I needed to. Besides, I was being completely irrational. Why would some Iraqi group be looking for me? Ridiculous.

  "Here we are," Fredricks announced, interrupting my racing thoughts. He slid a card key into a slot by one of the nondescript doors. It looked exactly like the other thirty some-odd doors we'd passed, and I wondered how he kept track.

  A light above the slot turned green and the door slid open, revealing a circular, windowless conference room with a large mahogany table at its center. Sitting at the table were three men, also dressed in the uniform of black suit and mirrored shades. Which was odd, considering we were deep underground and the lighting didn't exactly lend itself to sunglasses.

  This was beginning to get super freaky. If they started introducing me to any aliens like they did with Will Smith, I was so out of there.

  "Sit, Ms. Duncan," said Man in Black #1.

  I pulled out a chair and did as he requested. After all, what choice did I have? Sure, I knew Tae Kwon Do, but it didn't seem quite plausible that I'd be able to take on four men all at once. Especially ones who appeared to be platinum members in good standing at their local gyms.

  "What's going on here?" I asked. "Did I do something wrong?" Even as I asked the question, I knew that couldn't be the case. After all, my current life consisted of reporting on new-and-improved microdermabrasion by day and binge-watching The Real Housewives of Whatever City was Currently on the Air. by night. Not exactly the stuff of which trouble was made.

  Unless they wanted to know more about my prison days in Iraq. I doubted that, though. I mean, I'd already been through the endless questioning a thousand times with a thousand different military men. The case had been closed—dismissed—long ago.

  Man in Black #2 shook his head. "No," he said. "On the contrary, we need your help."

  I shot a skeptical look from one to the next to the next. What on earth could they need my help with? And FYI, I'd retired from the helping business. I was a lowly features reporter now. I had no remaining FBI Helper Girl skills on reserve.

  Man in Black #3 picked up a shiny silver remote control from the table and pressed a button. A slide projection illuminated the far wall of the room. My eyes widened and I gasped as I recognized the image on the screen.

  Nick. Nick the Prick, to be exact.

  "Do you know this man?" asked Agent Fredricks in a tone that told me he already knew the answer and wasn't going to allow me the luxury of lying.

  Grr. I gritted my teeth. Why was it that everything in my life seemed to revolve around Nick? Why couldn't the world let me forget him and move on with my life? Allow me to meet a nice, normal investment banker who wanted nothing more than to transplant me to the suburbs and impregnate me with towheaded, blue-eyed suburban babies?

  I stared at the picture. At Nick's bright green eyes. At his endearingly cocky, Benedict Cumberbatch smirk. My heart squeezed and I reached up to brush the renegade tear from the corner of my eye. Ughl. Why did it still have to hurt so much? Why did just looking at a picture of him serve to flood my heart with nearly unbearable pain? He'd moved on. He had a new life. Why couldn't I do the same?

  Why was I still, deep down, so pathetically in love with this man? It didn't seem quite fair.

  "Yeah, he's an anchor in LA," I muttered, turning my gaze back to the men. It was a bit unnerving to stare into four blank mirror-sunglassed faces, but I'd sooner stare longingly at the Crypt Keeper than look any more at that projected photo of Nick.

  One of the men flipped through a legal pad filled with scrawled notes. "And your ex-boyfriend, right?" he asked.

  I sighed. I'd been holding out the insane hope that they didn't know that little fact. But of course they did. They were the FBI. Also, there was that article in Star……

  "Yes. We…dated."

  "And you broke up because of……?"

  I shifted in my seat. "These are awfully personal questions." The last thing I wanted to do was rehash what happened in Iraq. It was too horrible. And too humiliating.

  Man in Black #2 nodded. "Our apologies if we're making you feel uncomfortable, Ms. Duncan. Maybe we should explain."

  I nodded. "Good idea."

  My eyes involuntarily wandered back to the projection, wishing the lump that had formed in my throat would go away. I stared at the photo and it seemed to stare back at me.

  What on earth kind of trouble have you gotten yourself into this time, Nick?

  "We have reason to believe that Nick Fitzgerald has joined an underground fringe group known as 'The Time Warriors,'" said Man in Black #1.

  I raised an eyebrow. Uh, what? The Time Warriors? What kind of group was that? And what's with the tacky name? I couldn't imagine even Nick being that cheesy.

  "The faction formed a few years ago," Man i
n Black #2 explained. "A group of rich white men, sick of the golf circuit, with nothing better to do. They bought a …machine of sorts off of the KGB back at the end of the Cold War."

  "A machine?" I asked. He'd better not be talking about some nuclear bomb type thing. I mean, I knew Nick was a little wild, but I couldn't see him going all terrorist on me.

  "An XR-2300, to be exact."

  Oh, right. An XR-2300. Of course. That cleared everything up.

  I cocked my head in question. "An XR—"

  Man in Black #3 cleared his throat. "In layman's terms, Ms. Duncan, a time machine."

  A what? A time machine? A freaking time machine?

  I stared at him. I think my mouth even dropped open for a moment. Was he for real? This had to be some joke, right? I glanced around the room, looking for peepholes. One-way glass. Where was the candid camera? A time machine? Give me a break!

  Annoyance gnawed at my insides. "Gentlemen, I don't know what little game you're playing here," I started, trying to keep my voice even. "But I don't appreciate being jerked around. I've got a story to get on the air and—"

  "You're not being jerked around," Man in Black #2 interjected, rising from his seat. "The XR-2300 facilitates energy modulation through experimental quantum physics technology."

  "What, do you think I just fell off the turnip truck?" I demanded, suddenly realizing my hands were shaking. I shoved them behind my back. "There's no such thing as a time machine."

  Or was there? I mean, how did I really know there wasn't? Just because they didn't have TimeTravel.com kiosks at the local 7-Eleven didn't mean the government hadn't secretly developed the technology. After all, they'd been hiding aliens in Area 51 for fifty years. I was sure they had tons of crazy stuff we average citizens knew nothing about.

  But still. A time machine? I had a hard time wrapping my head around that one.

  "Look, ma'am, I know this is hard to grasp, but if you can just accept the fact that this technology exists, we can move on to briefing you for your mission." Man in Black #1 looked at his watch. "We're almost out of time."

  "Uh, right. Well, then why don't you cook up some new time then? If you've got a time machine and all."

  Man in Black #2 sighed deeply, my sarcasm evidently making him extremely weary. "It doesn't work like that, Ms. Duncan. The XR-2300 burns a complex plutonium blend. One trip back in time costs more than Bill Gates's monthly earnings."

  "Wow. I guess time really is money," I quipped, unable to resist. I looked from man to man. None even cracked a smile at what I considered a pretty clever joke. Tough room.

  "Um, fine then. Go on. Don't let me hold you back," I said with a wave of my hand. After all, the sooner they got through their spiel, the sooner I could be on my way.

  "As we were saying, the Time Warriors got their machine through the black market. And they've been using it as an expensive toy. Going back in time to experience different historic events through the eyes of those who lived them."

  "Uh, like that guy in that old Quantum Leap show?" I asked, raising a skeptical eyebrow.

  "Something like that. Except they can return to their twenty-first century bodies anytime they choose,"

  Well, that was convenient, now wasn't it? "What kind of events?" I queried, all Question Girl as usual. Not that I believed these morons for one minute. But I figured I could play along.

  "Battles, mostly. They seem to really enjoy those. And we do know one of them went back as Joe DiMaggio. To play baseball and sleep with Marilyn Monroe."

  Ah, right. Sex and violence and sports. All the important stuff to the male gender.

  "And by doing this they messed up history?" I asked.

  "We believe so, though of course it's hard to tell, since we're living the current version. But we suspect they may be to blame for mom jeans, twerking, and even the man bun ."

  I shuddered. "So, um, what does this all have to do with me?" That was, of course, the sixty-four-thousand-dollar question. I doubted they wanted me to expose this group on local TV news, so there had to be some other purpose for dragging me in here and revealing this earth-shattering secret.

  If, of course, this wasn't just one big reality show setup. And I wasn't at all convinced it wasn't. Though, if it was, they were totally wasting their time. I was so not about to sign a waiver.

  "We've been after this group for years," Man in Black #3 explained. "But it's difficult. We usually don't know where they're going—what time period they're jumping into and whose body they're invading—until it's all over." He cleared his throat. "But this time we've got a tip."

  Man in Black #1 glanced at the projection of Nick and then back at me. "We have intelligence that says your ex-boyfriend, Nick Fitzgerald, has traveled back in time to 1929—to witness the St. Valentine's Day Massacre."

  A bitter chuckle escaped my lips. How ironic. Nick taking part in yet another Valentine's Day massacre. After what happened last year, it seemed all too appropriate.

  "Do you find this humorous, Ms. Duncan?"

  I cleared my throat and threw on what I hoped appeared an abashed face. "um, no. Sorry. Go on."

  "I'm not sure how familiar you are with the event. Basically, it's believed that Jack 'Machine Gun' McGurn, a known mobster of the time, ordered the murder of rival North End gangster Bugs Moran on Valentine's Day, 1929."

  "On V-Day, huh? What a Hallmark moment that must have been."

  "Yes, evidently McGurn cared enough to send the very best…assassins," Man in Black #2 quipped back wryly. The other two men turned to stare at him, evidently un-appreciative of his attempt at humor. "Uh, anyway, Bugs and his men were supposed to meet a truck on Clark Street, to obtain a shipment of bootleg whiskey from Canada. McGurn's men dressed as police, made like it was a bust, then killed seven men. But Bugs overslept and so they missed their real target."

  "Before this, the Time Warriors have simply been time tourists," Man in Black #3 spoke up. "Sure, they interfered in a few things here and there, but they never changed big historical events." He cleared his throat. "This time is different. This time we believe Nick Fitzgerald is planning on waking Bugs up on time so that he'll get whacked as well. And since something like that could completely wreak havoc on history, we need someone to stop him."

  "Right. And you think that 'someone' should be me," I concluded.

  The four men nodded in perfect unison.

  "No." I shook my head.

  "No?"

  "Is that word not part of your FBI vocabulary?" I asked. "First of all, even if what you're saying is true and I'm not in some weirdo reality show, I am way too busy to go back in time. I've got a story on the air tonight and I haven't found anyone to interview for it. The rest of my week"— I fished in my purse for my phone and opened my calendar app—"is completely booked. As is the rest of my month. So I have absolutely no time to play your little reindeer time travel games." I stuffed the phone back in my purse. "Secondly, what makes you think I could stop Nick Fitzgerald from doing this, anyway? Even when we were dating, he'd never ever listen to a word I said.. It's safe to assume he's not going to start now."

  "Ms. Duncan—"

  I rose from my seat, nodding to each man in turn. "Thank you for inviting me and telling me about your little time machine. It's fascinating stuff, really, and when you're ready to release it to the media, definitely fax me a press release. But for now, I must be on my way. Unless…," I smiled sweetly, "any of you would like to tell me how you're too stressed for sex?"

  Two of the men shot each other uncomfortable looks, leading me to believe that perhaps I wasn't too far off the mark with my question. But neither seemed too interested in confessing, which was really fine, considering I didn't have a camera with me to record it all, anyway.

  "Ms. Duncan," Man in Black #1 said, "we understand your busy schedule and that this request might be seen as a bit inconvenient. But I don't think you grasp the severe implications of this scenario."

  Against my better judgment, I paused at
the door.

  "If Nick Fitzgerald is not stopped, he will alter history forever. The world as we know it will cease to exist and we will spiral off into some parallel universe. Quite simply, the future of the world rests in your hands."

  My shoulders slumped. Sheesh, talk about laying on the guilt! These guys were better than my Catholic grandmother. And she was the master. "I'm sorry. I'm not really the 'save the world' type," I argued, my defenses already crumbling. "Not anymore."

  "Look, Ms. Duncan, we know what Nick did to you back in Iraq. And we understand why facing him would be a somewhat…undesirable situation. But think about the damage he could do. Not just to you this time, but to the entire world."

  I turned around slowly. What else could I do? Even though this whole thing seemed so ridiculous, I couldn't exactly refuse to save the world—could I? Especially from Nick the Prick.

  I drew in a breath. "Fine. What is it you need me to do?"

  "Sit down, Ms. Duncan," Man in Black #2 said with a wide smile, looking far too smug for my liking. "We'll brief you on your mission."

  They blabbed on forever, but here's the gist: they could send me back in time, but not as myself. Not as Dora. No, instead I had to basically body snatch someone who already existed in 1929. For this mission, they had chosen Louise Rolfe, girlfriend of the infamous Jack "Machine Gun" McGurn, the gangster who'd ordered the hit on Bugs Moran. They felt that by me being on the inside, I'd be better able to figure out Nick's whereabouts and stop him from his future-altering plan.

  I asked them what made them think I wouldn't inadvertently screw things up on my own (that was my specialty, after all) and accidentally change history myself. But they evidently had a contingency plan in place. I'd be meeting up with a contact who would help me learn the lay of the land and let me in on just how things should play out, historically speaking. Besides, they said, if small things changed because of my actions, it wouldn't be a big deal—might lead to a new Kardashian spin-off or something. It was the big historical events they were most concerned with.