“Thanks for the pep talk,” Jeff said. He sat back in his seat and sighed.
“I’m just being realistic.”
“I know. I know. If there was more for me to do than to guide Ekaterina there, I’d have some reservations myself. She’s doing all the dirty work.”
“And is she capable? There’s another thing. You don’t know this woman at all.”
“She seems capable. From what I understand from Evelyn, there really wasn’t any resistance from this general. As long as we maintain the element of surprise.”
Dexter sat up, wincing part of the way, and leaned toward Jeff. “Well, let’s talk about that for a minute – the element of surprise. You’re going back to a moment in history where something happened, specifically an assassination, caused by someone who time traveled from the future.”
“Right,” Jeff said, finally opening his own water bottle.
“And we now know from Erica that no matter where they came from, if someone goes back to the past and becomes a part of history, that they will remain a part of history. That script on your cell phone there proves it.”
“But this is different because of fulfillment,” Jeff said, doubting himself as he spoke. We’re making sure that Ekaterina goes back before Ekaterina – or, Evelyn – would have gone back. We’re taking her place.”
“Yes, that’s what Evelyn believes. But she doesn’t know what we know. You don’t even know Erica, so you have no way of knowing when she went back in time. And that doesn’t matter. She’s there in the trail waiting for Wilton.”
“So what are you saying?”
“I’m saying that if you’re standing there at the exact time of the assassination, I would expect Evelyn to be there.”
“Young Evelyn?”
Dexter was nodding. “My guess is – and I’m not the astrophysicist here, you are – that you can’t change the past by changing the future.”
“So you don’t think the theory of fulfillment is accurate?”
“I’m not saying that. At least, I don’t think I’m saying that. Better safe than sorry. If everyone believes that somebody has to go back and kill this guy or the world will be all screwed up, I don’t feel strongly enough about it to argue the point. Especially since we actually have the means to do it. I’m just saying that the chances are that, unless someone goes into the past and physically stops Evelyn from doing the job, everything should be fine. Just the same as we didn’t stop Erica from interrupting Wilton, and we came back to a present time where history is the same as when we left. Even though she doesn’t actually exist in this reality.”
Jeff sighed and sat back in his chair again. He’d thought he had a handle on everything, but was finding out that wasn’t so much the case. He wandered if he ever would. “So, it is virtually impossible for us to stop Erica Danforth from going back in time. Because she doesn’t exist.”
Dexter laughed. “Crazy, huh?”
“And just the same, it should be impossible to stop Evelyn from going back in time because we don’t have access to her.”
“That one’s a little murkier because we do have access to her. Well, in a way. But if I was a betting man, I’d put money on her being there when you get there.”
“Unless we change our timing.”
“Well, yeah.”
“But if the end goal is the assassination, and she’s going there to make it happen, what’s the harm in her being there?”
“Are you arguing against your own theory now?” Jeff started to push back, but Dexter put his hands up. “I’m just trying to help you prepare for whatever you might come up against.”
“Well, thanks. Now I’m all kinds of confused.”
“Why don’t you think about it for a while,” Dexter said, rising with some difficulty. “I’m going to try to use the bathroom.”
“You need help?”
He laughed. “I think I can handle this myself.” Using the seats for stability, Dexter hobbled to the bathroom at the front of the plane. He closed the door behind him.
Jeff was experiencing one of those “too much to process” moments, so he decided to change the topic in his own mind, taking Erica’s phone out of his bag again. He opened up the text messages and re-read the message from himself. “I know what you’re doing and I understand. I hope to see you again in the future.” She was going back to Wilton’s time and he knew why she was doing it. He must have understood that she intended to change history. His initial thoughts the night before had centered on what would’ve driven her to do that. But now he was more focused on what his life had been like before that happened. What had happened with his time travel device in the other reality that would have made her take such a drastic measure?
There was only one person who knew that, and she was standing in the middle of a path in the Sierra Nevadas in 1849. With or without Dexter’s help, Jeff was going to get back to her.
The bathroom door opened and Dexter emerged. He groaned as he sat down. “Pain killers and turbulence don’t go very well together,” he said, resting his head against the seat with his eyes closed. “I feel like I’m on the Tilt-a-Whirl.”
“You rest,” Jeff said. “We’ll be back in a bit.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Jeff disembarked the jet first, turning to help Dexter once he set his feet on the tarmac. He took his friend’s arm as he hobbled slowly down the steps, then adjusted the satchel holding Abby’s tablet on his shoulder so that it didn’t slide. They headed for the terminal.
It was late afternoon, and Teterboro Airport was bustling. Business and pleasure travelers arrived and departed, none of them realizing the two men walking among them were actually from three months into the future. They didn’t know that their reality was at stake, or even that there was the possibility of alternate realities. Jeff looked at their faces as they passed him, trying to determine if he was privileged or cursed to know what he knew. Maybe a little bit of both.
They made their way through a small crowd of people to the restroom where they’d emerged from the future the day before. Jeff held the door open for Dexter, then followed him inside. There was a white-haired gentleman in the room washing his hands, so they waited a moment for him to leave. Once he was gone, Jeff locked the door behind him.
“Ready?” he asked, pulling the time device from his bag. He’d already loaded the coordinates while on the plane.
“I feel like I’m this much closer to lying in my own bed,” Dexter said, deflated. “So yes.”
“C’mon. This has been a great adventure.”
“Yeah, well next time we’re on an adventure together, you can stand in the line of fire and I’ll go gorge myself on Mexican food. Deal?”
Jeff laughed. At least Dexter wasn’t taking things too seriously. “Hang on,” he said, positioning himself in the middle of the room.
Dexter put his hand on the device and Jeff pushed the button. There was a quick blur, then a horrendous crack, like a tree splitting following a lightning strike. Jeff felt an impact up-and-down the entire length of his spine, but it was quickly relieved. Dexter lost his balance, releasing his grip on the device and stumbling to the floor.
“What the hell was that?” he asked.
Jeff’s hand went immediately to his back, where he felt a hole in his shirt. He pulled his hand around to the front to see traces of blood on his fingernails. He turned to see that their jump through time had landed him directly on top of the open door of one of the bathroom’s stalls. He’d won the battle for the space, though – the door was shattered and splintered, lying in pieces on the floor.
“I guess that proves that hypothesis,” Jeff said.
“What’s that?” Dexter was still sitting on the tile floor.
“That the time traveler will displace anything in the current space.” He inspected the remains of the door. “Makes you think a little bit harder about what else you could possibly run into.”
“Let’s try not to.” Dexter extended his hand to
Jeff, who helped him delicately back to his feet.
“Is it bad?” he asked, turning so his friend could see his back.
“Well, the shirt’s torn a little, and you have some scratches. It’s not the worst, but you may end up having to explain how you went into the bathroom intact and came out a disaster.”
“Yeah,” he said with a snicker. “Of course, you went into the bathroom not limping. We could say we came in here and had an epic battle.”
“Oh, I’m not coming out of this room until you’re long gone,” he said. “Last thing I need is that Agent Fisher recognizing me. I’m done with your little game here.”
“Done?”
“Yes, done. This is way too dangerous. My suggestion is that you finish your trip to Russia, get back here, and release your findings. You can be famous without putting yourself in harm’s way anymore.”
“But this morning you said-“
“That was while you were trying to convince me that going back to the Wilton heist was a smart thing to do. I’ve grown up since then.”
“Well, this really isn’t about being famous,” he said, replacing the battery in the time device with the fresh one from his luggage, which was sitting against the wall where he’d left it. He placed the device back into his bag. “It’s about discovery.”
“You’ve made discoveries.”
“Yes, but I never imagined that the discoveries would be more than simply answering whether time travel is possible,” Jeff said, knowing he didn’t have much time to hang out there in the restroom before Ekaterina and Fisher would get antsy. Back in the present, they were on the clock again. “The repercussions of time travel are so much more fascinating. Just the concept that our reality – the one that we believe is the true and original reality – might not be true and original... is unbelievable. It needs to be studied. Evelyn’s story will do that, in part, if it’s true. And I’m going to find that out very soon. But it can’t stop there.”
Dexter held up his hands. “Look,” he said, “I know you’re intending to go back to the Wilton heist, and if you’re that hell-bent on it then there’s not really anything I can do to stop you. But I want to be clear with you that you’re doing it alone. I can’t be party to it because I think it’s a horrible idea.”
Jeff stood for a moment, looking at Dexter, then nodded his understanding. “Yes, that’s probably best. You don’t need to be entangled here. I’ve taken advantage of your good nature already.”
“Well, don’t be a martyr... Geez, Jeff.” Dexter sighed, leaning back against the bathroom counter.
Jeff shook his head. “I’m not. I’d better get out there. I’ll see you when I get back?”
“You will. Best of luck to you.”
“Thanks.”
“Be careful.”
With that, Jeff unlocked the door and left the restroom, wheeling his luggage behind him. Upon re-entering the terminal, he saw Fisher and Ekaterina standing, waiting for him.
“All set?” Fisher asked with sarcasm and annoyance.
Jeff nodded, and the three continued their trek to the gate. He smiled secretly, since the two or three minutes they’d waited for him to use the restroom had really been almost a full 24-hour day for him, in which he’d flown to California and time traveled to the Gold Rush. But to them, they’d seen him go through the door, assumed he was simply doing his business, and seen him come back out. It had occurred to him that there was a slight possibility of him changing something that could’ve skewed this present reality – where he would come out of the restroom and they would not have been there waiting for him. But he hadn’t affected anything pertinent to his current situation. Which was reasonable, given a completely different mission.
As they walked, he tried to look energetic, trying to emulate what had been his demeanor from the day before. He couldn’t show the fatigue of having just gotten off of a six-hour flight, when all he really wanted to do was, like Dexter, find his bed and pillow. But that wasn’t in the cards. He was moving onto an even longer flight halfway around the world. At least he wouldn’t have to fake trying to sleep in order to keep conversation to a minimum. He’d probably be lights-out as soon as the plane took off. That, in itself, was a blessing, since while he was not averse to flying back and forth across the country, seeing nothing but the Atlantic beneath the plane terrified him. And the longest he’d ever had to endure that was the 45-minute flight from Miami to the Bahamas.
When they reached the gate, Jeff and Ekaterina sat down in the waiting area while Fisher approached the attendant at the desk to finalize their arrangements. Jeff sat, facing front while Ekaterina fiddled with her bag. He was about to embark on a trip across the ocean with a woman he barely knew to assassinate a man that didn’t exist. That thought made him pause for a moment to reflect on just how he’d gotten there. A short two days (calendar time) before, he was a physicist in his lab on the brink of breakthrough technology. Suddenly, he’d had that pulled from him, having been shanghaied into service for the U.S. government. What a turn of events. He’d never imagined it would turn out this way, specifically since he’d been tirelessly focused on keeping his time travel device out of the hands of the government for as long as possible.
Of course, now sitting there at their mercy, he figured that it wouldn’t have taken long for them to figure it out anyway. It didn’t take a conspiracy theorist to realize that a person couldn’t take too many steps away from home without the government knowing where they were. He didn’t think it was quite to an Orwellian stage yet, but there wasn’t too much room in modern-day America for anonymous activity.
Purchasing large quantities of radioactive Neptunium probably hadn’t helped him, though.
He turned his head and peered back into the main area of the terminal, thinking of Dexter. He knew his leg would be fine and he’d be back to normal in a few days. Jeff’s challenge would be talking him into going back to the Gold Rush Era when he returned from Russia. That is, if he could finagle some privacy with his time device again – even for a few minutes. Which didn’t seem like a certainty, though he supposed Dexter could keep sneaking in and out of restrooms if really needed. He was fairly confident that he could ultimately talk Dexter into taking the trip with him. Talking Fisher into leaving the two of them alone was a bigger lift.
On cue, Fisher returned. “The plane’s ready,” he said, motioning them to follow him. Jeff didn’t understand his formality – the trip and its purpose seemed to be pretty well set according to Evelyn’s instructions. Everyone appeared to be on the same page. But he figured they’d be free of Agent Fisher and on their own in only a few minutes. Then he could relax a little.
He stepped aside and let Ekaterina go first, following her with his suitcase trailing behind him. They walked out of the terminal and out onto the tarmac, where Fisher hopped up the stairs two at a time onto the plane.
“He’s very serious,” Ekaterina said when Jeff caught up to her.
He let a laugh out. “Yes, he is. I don’t know what he’s expecting to happen.”
“Maybe he thinks we’d time travel somewhere else.”
Jeff skipped a breath, but caught it. Was she speculating? He tried to laugh it off. “I hadn’t actually thought of that,” he said, hoping his comment didn’t come out as nervously as he heard it himself.
“Well, once he’s not around, maybe you can tell me where you went.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Ekaterina didn’t have to have the intuition of a trained Russian spy to know that Dr. Jacobs was up to something. However, for most people – those who had no reason to believe that time travel was nothing more than a fantasy, for instance – there wouldn’t have been any reason to suspect wrong-doing. She, however, from her interaction with Evelyn and her time spent with her new traveling partner, was quickly becoming a believer.
So when Jeff went into the bathroom clean shaven, and emerged with a day’s growth of facial hair, it was pretty obvious to her – if not to Agent F
isher – that his time in the restroom had not been spent relieving himself. She wondered if he would be honest with her.
“What do you mean, where I went? I went to the bathroom,” he said. No honesty. At least not as a first response. Which made their partnership suspect, for now.
She started to answer, but Fisher appeared at the top of the stairs and walked slowly down toward them. “Everything’s good,” he said. “Should be a nice, comfortable flight.”
“Were you worried it wouldn’t be?” she asked. She didn’t like Agent Fisher much. Not because he seemed to want control of the situation, or because he was the type of overbearing and egocentric American she generally didn’t like. He just seemed like his was a lot of pomp and little circumstance.
Fisher didn’t know how to respond, so he laughed uncomfortably and turned to Jeff. “I’d like you to check in with me when you get to Moscow. A driver will meet you, and your rooms are booked at a hotel about five minutes from the airport. It’s a ten-hour flight and you’ll be eight hours behind, so when you land it’ll be about 4:30 in the morning. You need to be at the compound outside of Tula by noon, so try to get most of your sleep on the plane. Everything you need for the mission is loaded on-board.”
Jeff was nodding throughout the entire speech. He seemed to understand, though the responsibilities they had laid out for him weren’t actually all that burdensome. All he was expected to do was to guide her back in time. They expected her to do all of the dirty work.
Fulfillment (Wilton's Gold #2) Page 14