Time Skip

by Craig L. Seymour

  This second time around Lovelle decided to call it a day when his emotions were stirred. He simply went home and sorted through his feelings. It was a strange feeling, this simultaneous sense of loss and accomplishment. He hadn’t felt like trying to hide this inner turmoil, either from his customers, or Trina. So, before she arrived home for the day, when he realized that he was not yet ready to face anyone, he left. He called her from the road and made some work related excuse, then went to a movie, where he could sit in the dark and compose himself.

  *****

  Over the next month or so Lovelle got some of the closure that he wanted. Atta and several other conspirators were arrested, and some of the details of their plot emerged. The public’s reaction was disbelief at the audacity of such a plan. But, the general consensus was that such a plot had little or no chance of success. Each time he heard this, Lovelle wanted to scream out “You’re wrong”. He couldn’t stand the idea that people would not learn a lesson from this. For Lovelle it was unfathomable that Americans would continue to live with their heads in the sand despite this evidence. He had once worried that if he stopped the plot without the Feds ever learning of it, then the U.S. would continue to be vulnerable. He had hoped that the knowledge that terrorists would attempt such a vicious and expansive attack would serve to raise American awareness. Unfortunately, it seemed as if only the success of such an attack could move us to action.

  It was a depressing notion, and Lovelle was again left to wonder if there were something more he should, or could, do. He now feared that only the timing and nature of the attack had changed. Wouldn’t the terrorists simply regroup and switch tactics? Would they be even more careful in light of this failure? It wasn’t hard to imagine. The arrests may have ended the 9/11 plot, but the number of terrorists taken out of action was tiny. To Bin Laden, this would be a minor setback.

  Lovelle again decided to call on Agent Rosewood.

  “This isn’t playing out the way it needs to. People just aren’t taking this seriously enough.” He complained.

  “What did you think would happen?” Rosewood was taken aback that Lovelle was anything less than delighted at how things had worked out.

  “Well, when I had a vision of the aftermath the public woke up to the threat. I saw ramped up security at airports. I saw the military going after Bin Laden. The way the public is reacting I can’t help thinking that we’re gonna sit around and wait for it to happen again.”

  “Believe me,” Rosewood entreated, “We’re not ignoring the threat. We won’t let Bin Laden sit around plotting.”

  “I’m not concerned about your motivation. But, there are a whole lot of people inside and out of government who seem to think that your success is an indication of the effectiveness of the current system. Are you really going to have the resources you need? Are other agencies and officials going to give you the support? I’m just not sure. If anything, they are going to be less inclined to believe you need more resources. You can't exactly tell them about me.”

  Rosewood continued to try and allay his informant’s fears. “Trust me. We’re not going to let this go. Besides, you're still there. I know you'll call if you see anything coming.”

  Here was an unintended consequence. Not only was their success now forestalling the needed vigilance, but they were actually depending on him and a power he didn't really have. “Well, that's one thing you don't want to count on. I haven't had any visions in months. I used to get all sorts of things. Mostly useless info, sometimes sports results. All of a sudden there's nothing.”

  “Well, don't worry. That's unfortunate, but, we aren't depending on you.” The FBI agent assured him.

  Lovelle was less than reassured. But, he let it drop. He realized that there was really nothing he could do. He had changed world affairs so dramatically that nothing he knew of the future was now relevant. From here on out, he would lead as close to a normal life as he had in seventeen years.

  *****

  The following April, without a great deal of fanfare, Lovelle and Trina tied the knot. For Lovelle, although he still had a year and a half to go before he would reach the point where he had left off, this marked the beginning of the continuation of his life. There was virtually nothing important left that he would have foreknowledge of. There was nothing in his personal life which had not been completely obliterated by time. Oh, he could still go to Vegas and make money at the sports books, but, he didn’t need to. So he simply moved on. He resolved that he would never again make a decision based on any consideration but what was right in front of him. It was gloriously refreshing.

  They honeymooned in Australia, spending nearly 3 weeks just enjoying each other. It was the first time Lovelle had ever allowed himself to simply enjoy his new bride that fully. He let all of the baggage fall away and became more like the man that she deserved. She noticed too.

  They walked along a beach hand in hand just a few days before their trip ended and she informed him of how she had noticed the change in him. “I think we should move here.”

  “Okay, I’ll call a realtor when we get back to the hotel.” He joked.

  “You probably would wouldn’t you?” she chuckled.

  “If I thought that would make you happy.” He said quite seriously.

  “That’s what I’m talking about. It’s like you’ve just fallen in love.”

  “Oh yes, in America I get married for convenience. But, in Australia I actually feel the need to love my wife.” He teased her.

  She shot him her pretend angry glance, “That’s not what I meant. It’s just…” she paused, trying to decide how to phrase her comment. “…like you’ve let go of everything else. Like you needed to get away from everything to figure out how much you loved me.”

  “You’re sort of right.” He admitted. She stopped walking and pulled his hand to make him face her. Trina looked him square in the eye, then raised her brows, indicating that he should continue. “But not about getting away from everything. It isn’t Australia.”

  “Is it being married?”

  “Yes and no. I just finally decided to let everything else go. I don’t know why I waited until we were married. But, you don’t have to worry about going home. I’ll never put anything ahead of you again. I’m sorry I ever did.”

  She let it go at that. She never pushed him to explain himself any further, and he was true to his word, he never let anything come between them again.

  *****

  Married life was, as Lovelle had remembered it from his first go around, a pleasure. Oh, there are always ups and downs, but, life in love is always a good thing. Once he let her, Trina was capable of completing him in much the same way that Katie had. He was truly happy. Not in little spurts, like he had managed at times over the years, but, overall. He could honestly say that life was good for the first time since he had re-entered it. No baggage, just love, and support, and fulfillment.

  True to her word, when Lovelle asked Trina to move to Las Vegas, she happily went. Although he had no need to frequent the sports books any more, he had truly come to love Vegas. Trina quickly came to share his feelings. They enjoyed the weather. They moved into a nice house in an even nicer community. They were active people in a very active city, and they were happy.

  In less than a year, they decided to have a baby. In July of ’03, little Jessica was born. He had come full circle now. He was a father again, and he hadn’t really realized how much he had forgotten of how that felt. It was a joyous time, despite the few lonely moments when he again mourned for his lost son. He was a master at hiding such things, and Trina never noticed that bit of melancholy. He would simply park his car in some quiet place and cry his fool head off. When they were together, it took no effort to shake these blue feelings. Being with his two girls was what he lived for, and Lovelle never had to pretend when he was with them. In their presence, all of his past seemed to melt away.

  CHAPTER TWENTY TWO

  October 6th 2003 started out as typical as any
day. Lovelle was meeting with an account inside McCarran Airport when all hell broke loose. Some distance down a corridor there was an explosion. He could feel it almost as well as he could hear it. Immediately his police training kicked in. While scores of people rushed in the opposite direction, Lovelle pushed his way through to try and find someone to help.

  At the end of the terminal, where a cluster of gates were situated in a circle, Lovelle found the source of the explosion. At first, what he saw were slot machines and rows of chairs mangled and strewn everywhere. Then, among the twisted metal, he saw a dismembered arm. As he looked further, he could see more body parts near the crater in the floor. Then further out he could see whole victims, some apparently dead, and others clearly alive and suffering. He spotted a young boy and ran to his aid.

  The boy was trapped under a twisted video poker machine. Lovelle took his hand. The boy looked up into his eyes, struggling to focus. “Help my mom!” and turned his head and eyes to direct Lovelle’s attention to a woman slumped lifelessly over an overturned bench. From where he lay, the boy could see most of his mother’s body, but, not her head. Lovelle raised up a little so that he could see more of her and his already sunken heart fell even further. The lady’s head was smashed and bleeding terribly. Lovelle didn’t think there was any chance that she was still alive.

  He crouched back down to the boy and lied to him. “I’ll get to her next, but, let me get you out of here first.”

  The boy’s eyes dropped for a moment then he said resignedly, “Okay.”

  Lovelle assessed the situation and decided he could safely remove the machine. It would probably be quite painful, but, other than minor abrasions, the child was not bleeding, at least not externally. Lovelle was not really qualified to render much in the way of medical care, but, he expected paramedics to arrive shortly. They would be able to more quickly help the boy if he were accessible. “What’s your name?” he asked the boy.

  “Jack.” Came the feeble answer.

  “How old are you Jack?”

  “Nine.”

  “Okay Jack. I’m gonna try to get this machine off of you. It’s probably gonna hurt while I move it. You just let me know if it hurts too much and we’ll try something else. Okay?”

  “Okay.”

  The machine weighed less than Lovelle expected. He was able to pretty much lift it straight off of Jack without having to lever or roll it off. By the time the boy let out a little squeal, the machine was up and off. As Lovelle knelt back down to hold Jack’s hand he heard the sirens. He told the boy that someone else would be around to take him to the hospital.

  “Help my mom now.” Jack ordered. Lovelle nodded and left the boy.

  He checked the woman and she was, in fact, dead. He knew Jack could see him, so he carefully rolled the woman’s body so that it rested on the ground on the other side of the bench. He paused for a minute by her side as he looked around to see what else he might be able to do. Before he could decide to move the first paramedics rushed onto the scene. He saw them pause to take in the scene and he stood.

  “Over here!” he shouted, pointing to Jack. The medic rushed over and Lovelle briefed him on the situation.

  *****

  For the next two hours Lovelle assisted the first responders. He lent his muscle to helping find and rescue survivors, as fruitless as that process turned out to be. Then, as he and another pair of good Samaritans were searching the crater, they were evacuated themselves.

  “We need to clear this area. This whole place is hot.” A fire fighter informed them.

  One of the men said, “What the hell does that mean?”

  Lovelle knew exactly what it meant. Someone had just figured out that they were working in a radioactive hot zone. A sense of urgency bordering on panic overtook him. He hadn’t felt this way at any time that he could remember. He had been in danger before, both real and perceived. But, he had never felt any great concern for his life. Not that he hadn’t felt fear, or had harbored any sort of death wish. He just never cared like he did now. Later he would come to understand that this was the flip side of love. He had finally come to relish his life as it was instead of chasing after the life he had lost. He finally had something to be afraid to lose.

  A series of explosions had gone off in various places around the country. New York, Washington DC, Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Las Vegas had all been hit within minutes of one another. By the time Lovelle heard that news, the body count was already in the hundreds, with the expectation that it would rise dramatically over the hours ahead.

  Lovelle felt sick to his stomach. His dread of radioactive exposure was replaced by regret. He realized now that he had only delayed the inevitable by a couple of years. Just as he had feared, the terrorists had only been inconvenienced. They had been forced to take a different route to their mass destruction, but for them it had been only a minor setback. After all, what were a few suicide bombers and a little bit of time to the Islamic extremists. They had patience that Westerners couldn’t fathom. Long term goals were measured in decades, not years. And barely more than two years after being foiled in their hijack plot, they had again hit the World Trade Center. This time they had bombed the subway station that ran under the towers. At the same time, they had successfully bombed one other subway station and five airports. And it seemed entirely possible that the death toll would rival the 9/11 attacks.

  In short order it became obvious that things were easily that bad. Reports were coming in that all of the explosives were dirty bombs, conventional explosives packed with radioactive waste. If true, the casualties would continue to mount for some time as both survivors and rescuers like himself, found themselves affected by radiation exposure.

  At about the same time as Lovelle was learning about the dirty bombs, Trina was hearing the same thing. He had called her when the paramedics had arrived and told her that he was pitching in. Now she called him, her voice revealing her own panic. “You need to get out of there!”

  “I’m outside of the containment already. They pulled us out as soon as they got word there was a chance of contamination.” Lovelle tried to sound calm for her sake. He managed to calm her down and then went through the process of decontamination. He was given some hospital scrubs to wear and a ride home. They could give him an idea of how much radiation he had been exposed to, but, they couldn’t even venture a guess as to what the long term effect would be. He might die of cancer sometime soon, or he might never suffer a single consequence.

  *****

  Once at home Lovelle was torn between burying his head in his pillow, and watching the news as things happened. He had always been one of those people who could sit and watch the 24 hour coverage of a big ongoing story. He had done it as far back as the Reagan assassination attempt when he was only 12. So on this day it was as natural as anything for him to set himself down in front of the tube and watch the events unfold. And after a little while, he finished brooding and did just that.

  Lovelle watched as more and more facts, and more and more video made its way into the news rooms. He swung back and forth from anger to sorrow to regret until finally Trina found him crying, unable to get his emotions under control. She wasn’t sure if he was crying over what had happened to him, or what had happened to all of the other victims. He had never shown a penchant for this sort of empathy for strangers. But, he also was not the type to fear for himself that way. What she could never know was that he was crying over his own guilt and remorse. She comforted him as best as she could without prying. He knew it was hurting her that she didn’t know what was wrong, but, he couldn’t explain himself. All he could do was let her wonder, and it made him feel even worse.

  In time it was confirmed that all the bombs truly were radioactive. The terrorists had been accumulating powdered caesuium-137, a highly toxic radioactive isotope used in the medical field, along with other less dispersible, or less potent, contaminants. They had packaged these in suitcases along with a generous helping o
f plastic explosives. This meant that not only were the blasts themselves a devastating blow, but, that the heroes of that day, those first responders and bystanders that rushed in to try and save lives, found themselves with a lungful of radioactive dust. The bombs were designed to not only destroy everything in the vicinity, but, also to kill the very people that came to the aid of the victims. It had come about in a different way this time, but again the police and fire departments, in their rush to save others, had been condemned to extraordinary casualties.

  Many of the most exposed people, those that survived the initial blast, became ill quite quickly, and sometimes quite violently. In a matter of days there were a large number of cases of Acute Radiation Sickness. How many other people would eventually fall ill due to exposure would not be known for years to come. The massive radioactive doses would most assuredly kill years into the future.

  It seemed that after the plot to hijack and crash airliners was foiled, Al-Qaeda focused even more heavily on their attempts to put together dirty bombs. They had already started to accumulate materials for this purpose, and the unraveling of the 9/11 plot caused them to hasten that process. At the same time, the American government took its success in foiling the 9/11 plot as a sign that they were on top of things. This, despite any warnings from Rosewood and the other people who were directly aware of Lovelle’s role in what was now called the ‘suicide hijacker plot’. The redoubling of efforts from the terrorists, and the lack of a corresponding effort on the part of American counterintelligence, was a deadly mix. The airport terminals were not cut off from non-ticketed individuals and security screening was not stepped up, and the terrorists took advantage.