She frowned. That very evening, he’d been murdered. The joyful memories vanished and her view of the compound became a dark, dreary place, devoid of hope. Devoid of opportunity. She’d suppressed so many of the emotions she’d felt that day, and even now her bitterness over knowing what had actually transpired kept them tamped down. Even though the promise of a new reality had “fixed” the tainted history, she knew it would take some getting used to.
Looking down, she saw the roof of the building from which she’d entered the compound, and studied the interconnectivity between all of the buildings. In between the main building and the one she was in now, there was a courtyard that was presented like parkland. She could see no activity below. In fair weather, she figured people would probably use the courtyard to get from building to building instead of the walkways. But with the cold weather that was typical of a Russian winter, no one was in sight. It made her wonder about the lounge area in which she currently found herself, and why it was empty.
Moving to the east, which would be the busiest area, she saw the remaining four buildings, three of which were of the office variety, the other constructed in a two-story octagonal shape. That was the lab – she could be sure of it. If she knew anything about how the Soviets operated, she figured that security in that part of the facility would be greater, and only a few on the premises would actually have access. She might not be able to get into that area if her other self was already inside.
From this vantage point, she could also see the parking lot for the workers, which was filled with various colors of vehicles, all dimmed by a light snow that had begun to fall. Strangely, she saw a person moving among the vehicles away from the facility. She watched as the person, which looked to be a man, reached the end of the rows of cars and walked across the grassy field toward the forest. She smiled to herself, realizing that was probably her American traveling companion. She wondered what he was trying to accomplish. Though, without any resources at his disposal, he wasn’t much of a hindrance.
She felt a twinge of guilt for marooning him in Russia, and even considered for a moment that, after she completed her mission, she could help him. Provided she could find him, that is. Without his time device, he was no threat either way. She could not imagine that he’d have enough of his work stored in his memory to bring time travel back to life again in his lifetime. But coming to his aid was a fleeting thought that she would deal with at a more practical time.
Watching him walk to and into the forest, however, gave her an idea. If her other self was in the lab, and would be there until she presumably traveled that evening, Ekaterina had two options. She had to either find a way into the lab and deal with her rather publicly, or she had to get her out of the lab. The latter seemed to be the optimal plan.
Quickly resolved, she turned and headed to the cafe, which was for now unstaffed, grabbing a handful of magazines out of the rack near the dining area. Hoping that the systems of all the buildings were linked into each other, she ignited the burner on the small industrial stove and lit the corner of one of the magazines. Then she ignited the other three burners and laid the rest of the magazines on the stove. The smell of burnt glossy paper reached her nose as the rest of the pile caught on fire. Feeling like she needed a bigger blaze, she retrieved another handful of magazines and faster-burning newspapers and tossed them onto the pyre. Black smoke started to billow toward the ceiling, and content with the damage, she darted across the room to the stairwell, disappearing into it as the first alarm sounded.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Jeff had just reached the tree line en route to his previous hiding spot when the alarm sounded behind him. He turned toward it and saw grey smoke pouring from the top floor of the tallest building. For a moment he’d thought the alarm was about him, but clearly there was a fire.
His mind went immediately to his traveling companion Ekaterina, and he suspected that she’d started it. If she needed to get into the lab, it was one way to get her other self out of it. If she’d even gotten back inside by then. With the building evacuated, Ekaterina would have free reign of the facility. A frightening thought, given his predicament.
He noticed people starting to file out of the various doors and onto the landscaped property in rehearsed unison. Many stepped only far enough away from the building so that they were comfortable, and turned the distraction into a smoking break. Avoiding attention, he slid about ten feet into the trees and watched.
He plagued his own mind with the possible repercussions of the “bad” Ekaterina being inside the building. Being in possession of his time device and having access to the Russian time device could have dire consequences. As Jeff saw it, she had some surefire options to ensure that this new reality stuck – eliminate the “other” Ekaterina (Evelyn), or eliminate the time device. Or, rather, both of the time devices. Or Ekaterina and both of the time devices, if she really wanted to put a nail in the other reality’s coffin. For his own survival, he needed at least the present day Ekaterina (Evelyn) and one of the time devices, though he wasn’t sure if and how he could actually gain access to the Russian technology. Yet, in truth, knowing what the evil Ekaterina was capable of, access to the Russian device was probably more likely than getting his hands on his own device, which she was carrying. In any case, all of his plans were based on her not being entirely successful.
The throng was building now, as the personnel of the various buildings continued to file into the parking lot. As with any fire drill he’d been involved in since grade school, people gave themselves a respectable distance until they saw the smoke at the top of the building. Then they moved as far away as they possibly could. Eventually, some of the workers were standing some fifty feet from him. He kept a low profile, hiding behind some brush and breathing as silently as possible. Jeff noticed that while Ekaterina had been wearing regular casual clothes, most of the employees were dressed in khaki pants and light blue lab coats.
He listened for sirens. They were a long way from anything, so he wondered how quickly emergency services would be able to get to them. The smoke coming from the building was much stronger now. He didn’t know what was up there – probably an executive office or something – but he could tell it wouldn’t be long before the fire started to spread. The workers continued to chatter and watch with sensational interest in the fire. He thought they probably didn’t have access to much excitement out here. Especially if the Soviet Union was still the Soviet Union that he’d known as a kid.
Suddenly, Abby’s tablet buzzed at him. He looked up at the facility employees standing in front of him. They were close enough that he could hear them talking in Russian. If he moved to get to the tablet, it was possible that he could make noise rustling dried leaves and cracking twigs beneath him. But he also knew he didn’t have time to wait. He hadn’t been sure what the follow up to their conversation in the car would be. In fact, he didn’t know if he’d ever hear from her again. But she was texting him now, which meant that she had something to say.
With extreme caution, he inched his arm to the tablet case, still wrapped awkwardly around his shoulder. He started to click the clasp open, but realized it would make a snapping sound, so he hesitated. A moment later, he heard sirens in the distance and getting closer. By the time they reached the front of the building and began extending the ladder to reach the top of the building, there was more than enough sound to mask his movements. The building’s workers were inching closer and closer to the action as well, which left him some breathing room.
He pulled the tablet from the case and immediately ran his finger along its side to find the volume. It was off, so he brought up the message on the screen.
“Where are you?”
Talk about a loaded question. He looked up at the buildings and laughed to himself. There was no reason to doubt that it was the “right” Ekaterina that was sending him the text message, but he feared that if it somehow wasn’t, it could be a deadly mistake for him to admit his whereabouts. But
his life had become a risk versus reward scenario altogether, so he entered back, “I’m hiding in the woods,” and hit send.
A moment later, her reply came back. “I am in the parking lot. Get lost in the crowd and meet me there.”
No laughter this time. Getting out of the trees without being seen was going to be difficult enough, much less mingling with a hoard of Russians when he looked very different from them. He had an idea, though, and texted her, “How do you say ‘I had to pee’ in Russian?” He thought that would get pushback from her, but really, what else would he have been doing in the trees?
Her response came back more quickly than he’d thought it would. She got where he was going. “Ya duszha mah cheetsza.” She’d typed conscientiously, spelling it out phonetically for him.
He shrugged and decided he would give it a try. In the past hour, he’d already been assaulted by a Russian spy and menaced by a Soviet general. What could a group of white collar cubicle dwellers do to him?
He stood and walked brazenly out of the forest, miming zipping his pants. Predictably, a number of the office workers turned toward him as they heard the leaves rustle behind them. He smiled and acted embarrassed, delivering his line in possibly the worst Russian accent ever delivered in any reality. “Ya duszha mah cheetsza.” It came out like an alien in a sci-fi movie, but to his surprise, the workers simply turned back toward the fire. Before they gave him a second look, Jeff adjusted the satchel on his shoulder and merged with the crowd.
Walking slowly, he scanned for Ekaterina (Evelyn), finally finding her standing somewhat conspicuously among the cars. She made eye contact with him and he walked toward her. There were about a dozen people surrounding her, so when he reached her, he stopped and stared at the fire crew spraying water from their hose toward the top of the building. He hadn’t been watching, but the roof was now licked in flames.
He saw a flash of blue and looked down to see that Ekaterina was holding a blue coat – the same as the ones worn by the office workers – out toward him. Understanding, he took it and quickly slid it over his clothes.
“Did she start the fire?” he asked, without looking at her.
“I’m assuming that she did.”
“So, she’s in there now?”
“Most likely. But she will not know how to use the device.”
He laughed, shaking his head. “I don’t know if using the device is what she has planned,” he said. “My guess is she’s probably going to destroy it.”
“Well, we’re going to get in there before she can do that,” she said. “You are coming with me.”
“How am I supposed to get in there?”
“You will walk in with me when everyone goes back inside. There should be little questioning, and if anyone says anything to us, then you are my guest. I am generally afforded, what do you call it, leeway?”
That sounded risky. “What do we do when we get inside?”
“We must get into the lab alone. This will take speed and stealth. We will need to beat my colleagues, as well as the Polpodkovnik, to the room, and lock it behind us. Then we will have no more than three minutes.”
“No more than three minutes to do what?”
Now she looked at him for the first time. “Time travel to 1983.”
He shook his head. “No. I’m not going back there without my device. Just because you don’t mind living the last thirty years over again doesn’t mean I’m resigned to doing it.”
“If you would like your device back,” she said, “then I encourage you to go take it from her. Please send me a letter telling me of your success.” She had a tone in her voice, as though she’d known he was going to respond the way he was, and was fully prepared to shut him down.
He sighed. She was right, of course. If he wanted to restore his original reality, unless he could pry the time device away from her, there would have to be some self-sacrifice involved. “The big guy with the beard,” he said. “Where does he fit into all of this?”
She was watching the top of the building closely. The flames had subsided, but the building was still billowing smoke. It would soon be over and they’d be on the clock. “Yes, the Polpodkovnik. It was my belief all along that Belochkin was designing the time device so that he might travel back in time himself. Of course, I did not know what his purpose was, particularly since there was no mechanism for him to return. I assumed Dmitriyev was here to enforce that everything was going as planned. But two days ago, I learned a terrible truth. Dmitriyev is scheduled to give his life for Russia. He will go back in time to 1952 and attempt to assassinate your President Eisenhower.”
“Eisenhower?” Jeff asked, confused. “Why him?
“The General Secretary believes that the creation of the U.S. highway system by President Eisenhower was the key to America’s rise to prominence in the second half of the twentieth century. He believes that if he stops this from happening, the Soviet Union will have an advantage, both in national defense and in commerce.”
“The highway system?” Jeff asked, analyzing it as he spoke. “That makes no sense. If Eisenhower didn’t build it, someone else would have. Right?”
“I cannot speak for Belochkin,” she said. “I can only report what I know. In Russia, we value and honor great leaders. Belochkin must believe that President Eisenhower was a great leader or he wouldn’t be giving him this level of attention.”
“And this Polpov-“
“Polpodkovnik.”
Jeff repeated the word, but butchered it anyway. “He’s the one who’s going?”
“Yes. While we have not heard when the time device will be used with a human for the first time, Belochkin will be here tomorrow. So it is likely the time has come. Dmitriyev has been insistent on all of the details being up-to-date. If I was forced to guess, I would say they intend to send the Polpodkovnik back in time tomorrow. My intent has been to go first.”
“Which you were successful in doing.”
She shook her head. “Did you see me in 1983?”
“No.”
“Then perhaps I wasn’t as successful as you might think. Come, we should go now.”
He looked up to notice that people were slowly starting to make their way toward the building, but hesitantly. It was probably a mix of the short break and the fact that the fire didn’t look as though it was officially out. But with their time crunch, he and Ekaterina needed to get a head start, so they pushed forward into the crowd.
As people started to funnel toward the front doors of the facility, Jeff leaned in so that he could speak directly into Ekaterina’s ear. “How do we know she’s not in there destroying everything already?”
She shook her head slightly. “She will not be able to get in.”
“Why not? She got into the building.”
“I will tell you after we’re safe,” she said, then grabbed his hand and pulled him ahead of a handful of meanderers.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Now with a few moments to herself to think about it, Ekaterina found it eerie that the facility seemed to be laid out in a strikingly similar way to the Russian Science and Technology Center in the St. Petersburg of her original Russia. She’d visited several times as part of the Russian military, and while she hadn’t necessarily been privy to the experiments happening inside the building, the facility itself – designed by a man named Chernoff, who was famous for buildings all over the country – was a tribute to Russian scientific progress and often showcased to the powers-that-were. When she’d completed her mission here, she promised herself that she would learn the name of the architect who designed Belochkin’s facility here. She’d wager that it was the same person.
While the correlation itself was interesting, the increasing familiarity helped her to navigate the property. She followed the map she’d made in her head from her vantage point on the 8th floor across one of the buildings and toward the octagonal building that she’d pinpointed as the lab itself. With everyone outside because of the fire, she was af
forded some time to wander unnoticed. She could hear distant sirens, but figured that when the firefighters arrived they would be drawn to the tallest of the buildings where the actual fire was located. They would pose no problem for her.
When she’d started the fire, she’d gambled that the security protocols for the facility would be the same as in her original reality. There was no reason for all of the buildings to be evacuated due to a fire in one, but having been through a number of rehearsed evacuations, she had a feeling that the process would be the same. In either reality, Russian systems designers were creatures of habit. Had it not worked, she would have found another way, but she was pleased that it had.
Based upon a belief that this was a completely secure facility, she imagined there would not be many security measures in her way – cameras, sensors or anything else, so she considered herself free to roam the hallways. Her next challenge would be when she reached the lab itself. She guessed that very few people would have access – the lab would be highly protected and there was a good chance she’d have to psychoanalyze the other Ekaterina to figure out another passcode to get into the room. Once inside, she could disable or destroy the time device, whichever was easier, which would at least momentarily halt her counterpart from going back to murder Belochkin. Her plan was to emulate Ekaterina until the moment that she was confronted about her actions, and then use the fact that there were two of them in existence to justify those actions. The lesser evil of Belochkin first not being able to fulfill his plot, and second, being murdered thirty years before, she thought he’d see as an obvious choice.
The hallways were non-descript, so she relied upon her innate sense of direction to get her to the lab. Stark white corridors with sporadic doors gave her little to use as markers, but she was not unfamiliar with the tone. She thought of American office buildings that she’d been in, with art and indoor plants lining the walls, and liked to think that when Russians came to work, they came to focus on work. Sure, there were buildings in her Russia where employee morale was taken into consideration, with the perks and pretty views, but she was quite certain that in the Soviet Union there would be much less emphasis on frivolity. As a result, the workforce would be far more disciplined. These buildings were a tribute to that responsibility and discipline.
Fulfillment (Wilton's Gold #2) Page 23