Fulfillment (Wilton's Gold #2)

by Craig W. Turner

  Jeff’s stride suggested to her that he understood the message they were in a hurry, so she let go of his wrist. He fell a step behind as they darted around a corner, and she had to remind herself that he’d never been in the building before. There was a split second when she wondered of herself why she was even bringing him along – knowing that she had intended to take on this operation by herself from the start and that any changes she’d make to history would change around anyone who was in the present time. But if it wasn’t for his advice, instead of racing toward her lab she would be staring at whatever weapon her other self had chosen to finish her. Plus, she did not have time to contemplate the array of time travel possibilities, should something happen to him.

  They came to a set of double doors that led to the lab. This entrance required a retinal scan, so getting through the door wouldn’t be sufficient to leave the other Ekaterina behind. She ran directly to the pad and pushed the button, then placed her right eye in front of the scanner. A laser checked her ID and the door clicked open.

  As she reached for the door, she noticed Jeff looking behind them.

  She turned to see her look-alike in full sprint toward them.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  Ekaterina couldn’t move fast enough through the door, as far as Jeff could see. The other version of her, which he’d now come to think of as the “evil” Ekaterina, was advancing on them quickly, and there was no telling what she’d do when she reached them.

  He’d guessed that she wanted to destroy the time machine, which would be the most expedient way to halt Belochkin’s assassination. But as Ekaterina had pointed out, she wouldn’t be able to get into the lab without the passcode, meaning that the next best way to get the job done was to eliminate her. And since she probably wouldn’t be thrilled to see him still involved, he’d be on her hit list as well.

  While he’d let Ekaterina lead up until then, now he took matters into his own hands and grabbed her by the shoulder, shoving her through the now open door. If they could get it closed, it would buy them a moment while the evil Ekaterina negotiated the retinal scanner.

  Ekaterina stumbled forward through the door as a result of his push and he slid though after, slamming it closed behind him just as their pursuer reached it. He heard the magnets snap into place, leaving her alone on the other side.

  “Let’s go,” he said. He was taking charge. He’d already tangled with Ekaterina a couple of times and didn’t want to have to make a final stand.

  She glared at him, briefly admonishing him for the shove, then darted down the hallway. There were no random workers to avoid anymore, and with danger on their tail, running was the only option.

  They reached the double doors that Jeff assumed must have been the lab just as the other doors opened and Ekaterina burst through. It occurred to him that she wanted to get into the lab, and her only way in was if they made it accessible to her. As his new partner reached for the keypad to enter her code, he reached to stop her. It was a live-to-fight-another-day move.

  That’s when he heard heavy footsteps coming from the other end of the hall.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  Ekaterina had decided that if she reached them, her first move would be on Jeff, who she knew she could easily incapacitate. The critical target was her other self, who had access to the lab. She would need to force her entry into the lab to dismantle the time device, and then she could do whatever she wanted with her when she was finished. She would have little purpose with the time travel experiment ended and a stronger version of herself in existence.

  She let the double doors swing closed behind her as she took off in a full sprint toward them. They’d reached the lab and the keypad that had stumped her a half-hour before, but she was confident that she could get to them before her other self could enter the code and open the doors.

  A flash of red beyond them brought her to a clumsy halt. She nearly tripped on her own feet.

  Marching toward them from the other direction were two large uniformed men – one in a sharp red military uniform and one in drab olive, both with rows of medals lining their chests, their hats tucked under their arms. The man in red she immediately recognized as an older version of the man who had cared for her after her parents had been taken away. The man who she’d seen dead in the yard outside her bedroom window as a child, and whose life she’d saved only hours before. The man who she knew in this reality had risen to the top of the Soviet government and intended to go back in time to change world history.

  Lost in simultaneous admonition and admiration for Belochkin, she realized she’d stopped completely. Fortunately, the two men had also distracted her other self, who was having difficulty entering her passcode. She started forward again, knowing they would all converge at the same time.

  The door opened just as they all reached the lab. She started toward her other self, thinking that they’d try to burst through the door and lock it behind them, but strangely, they stopped. Belochkin and the man behind him also came to a stop, leaving them in a three-way Mexican standoff. Ekaterina stopped herself from advancing in the belief that they would not be able to get into the lab and close the door before being taken. However, her move on them had now changed, as she, an obvious stranger, could not possibly do what she’d intended to do with Belochkin present.

  “Кто – то играл с путешествием времени,” Belochkin said, looking at the two twins facing him. Even now, as a grown woman and accomplished Russian spy, his emphasis on the word “playing” with time travel made her shiver with the thought of disappointing him.

  She started to speak, but he held up his hand, silencing her. He pointed at Jeff.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  The General Secretary, Belochkin, was pointing at him. Jeff knew there wouldn’t be much point to the conversation, though, if he intended to only speak Russian.

  He didn’t. “I recognize you,” he said, in perfect English, though with a deep accent. “The man hiding in the trees.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Jeff said. Though he full-well knew what he was talking about.

  “Yes, I think that you do,” he said, placing his arms tightly behind his back and strolling several steps toward the evil Ekaterina. “I always had a feeling that you would show up again in my life. I only thought that you would be much older now.”

  He shook his head, trying to determine how much this conversation actually mattered. The way it was coming to him now, he was either going to be captured and killed, or they were going to make it into that lab and get the job done. Either way, this interrogation had very little impact.

  Other than the fact that Belochkin had walked several steps away from the door. The bad Ekaterina and the Polpodkovnik were still standing within striking distance of the door, which was being propped open by good Ekaterina’s foot. “If you’re looking for someone older,” he said, “it’s not me that you’re looking for.”

  “You are a time traveler.”

  “I am not.”

  “Then why are you here?”

  Damn. He didn’t have an answer for that one. Everything had happened so quickly.

  “He is a physicist,” Ekaterina said from next to him.

  Belochkin shouted at her a phrase that Jeff interpreted as him telling her to keep her mouth shut, then he turned his attention to the other Ekaterina. “Your hair, your clothes, are different. He brought you here?” He said it in English for a reason, Jeff thought. Probably to make sure he knew what was being said before he could be punished for it.

  “Da,” she said, nodding her head.

  “And why are you here?” He took a step toward her, getting in between her and him.

  This was Jeff’s moment. He turned and grabbed Ekaterina by the shoulders, forcing her through the door with him. As it started to swing behind him, he regained his balance and put his shoulder into it.

  It didn’t close all the way, leaving a gap of about an inch. The bi
g Russian was pushing against him. “Go!” he screamed at Ekaterina, who he hoped was already headed to the computers that would launch the time device.

  He could feel the door bending in his direction and knew that in a straight-up fight with the Polpok-whatever he would be overmatched. But knowing that this was a life or death situation, he felt a surge of energy.

  There was a thump on the door as another person joined the battle. He could feel his feet slipping on the smooth flooring as the door opened an inch more. Then another. He would not be able to hold them. His gambit had failed.

  Suddenly he felt a wind pass by his face and saw a flash as Ekaterina hurled her body into the door. The impact of her flight forced the door back, close enough to its magnetic latch that he could muster up one final push. He leaned his full weight on the door and it snapped shut.

  Then his legs gave out and he fell to the floor.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  Pain shot through Ekaterina’s arm, but she had no time to dwell on it. In the moments that Jeff had held the door, she’d been able to start the system that activated the time device. It had been tested only in sending inanimate objects moments into the future. It had not been tested to send anything – much less a human being or two – into the past. She was wholly trusting Jeff’s assertion that she’d been successful in her efforts. Because if they were unable to send themselves back in time before Belochkin got into the room, she had no doubt that it would mean certain and hasty death for them.

  Even in her haste, she was pleased that Jeff had taken control of the situation. She’d noticed Belochkin cut off her other self’s access to the room, but she’d been frozen. She knew she could never have acted that quickly on her own. She’d been more focused on how she was going to talk herself out of whatever Belochkin’s interpretation of the situation was, and had been relieved when he’d turned his attention instead onto her doppelganger. She still had a way out. While she was certainly plotting to do something, up until that time she hadn’t actually done anything against Belochkin or the nation. Had the conversation ceased right there, the only charge against her would be harboring an American, which, given her status on the science team, she thought she could overcome.

  Of course, that would not have addressed the tyranny that Belochkin intended to spread through his time travel program, so Jeff had set them on the right course with his rash actions.

  With the door closed, she immediately returned to the computer. She noticed Jeff had collapsed, but couldn’t afford the time to see if he was actually injured. As a growing whine came from the time device as it went through its initiating steps, she pulled a slip of paper from her pocket and began entering the coordinates. She heard a loud scraping noise to her right and looked over to see Jeff sliding a large file cabinet in front of the doors. Dmitriyev was the only one of the three in the hallway that would have an access code, and she was sure that he was already in the process of entering it. The same thing was obviously running through Jeff’s mind, and just in time, too, as she heard the keypad outside the door make a tone of acceptance and the door pushed inward, striking the cabinet. Jeff pushed back against the cabinet and the door stood at a stalemate as she finished entering the numbers.

  “How much longer?” Jeff yelled back at her. She could hear grinding and knew that the file cabinet was being pushed slowly into the room, bearing the strength of the Polpodkovnik.

  “Almost ready,” she said, darting to one of the other computers and clicking on the screen to set up the final stage for the device. “You need to be over here.”

  The time device began to emit flashes of light as the computer terminal listed its progress at 88, then 89 percent. Once the meter hit 100 percent, whatever was in the field would be sent back to 1983.

  She looked back at Jeff.

  Whatever wasn’t there would be left behind.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  As soon as Dmitriyev entered his passcode into the entry lock, all three of them started to push. Ekaterina found it impossible that Jeff himself would be able to hold the door so adequately, but quickly ascertained that he’d barricaded it somehow.

  She could hear the sounds of technology coming to life inside the lab and knew that time was running out for them to get into the room and stop them. As a failsafe, she began to work on her plan for after they left. Having already now been reacquainted with Belochkin, she believed she would be given more time to explain her motivations. That was if he wasn’t so irate that he took out his aggravation on the closest person possible – particularly the representation of the person who was trying to destroy his master plan, assuming he’d surmised what her endgame had become.

  Regardless, she needed to demonstrate that she was part of this team, so she leaned heavily into the door to help the olive-suited man push. He was an enormous specimen and shouldn’t have had as much trouble pushing the door open as he was. Whatever Jeff had been able to push in front of the door was working effectively as a barricade.

  As the whirring inside the room grew to a fever pitch, they were able to make progress in pushing the door. They had it nearly a foot open when the soldier stuck his arm in and attempted to slide through the opening.

  Two gun shots rang out, the rounds sparking and ricocheting off of the door. The giant man dove to the ground outside the lab, shielding himself from the shots. Ekaterina reflexively backed away herself, noting Belochkin also taking a step backward to be out of the line of fire.

  She looked inside the room, and among a wealth of machinery and blinding flashes of light, she saw Jeff standing with the gun they’d gotten from the FBI pointed at the door. The one she’d taught him how to use.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  “I have more bullets,” Jeff yelled at them through the door.

  He’d been carrying the gun uncomfortably around with him in the back of his pants for what seemed like forever. Finally, as they began to successfully push past the file cabinet, he remembered that he could actually use it.

  When he’d pulled the trigger, he hadn’t been worried about hitting anyone. Self-defense was his prime motivation, but he figured any guilt he would feel could be alleviated by his knowledge that, if they were successful, none of this would take place anyway. In the end, he only wanted to buy a few more seconds so he could join Ekaterina in the machine. His shots had been off, as they’d only ricocheted off the side of the door, but it looked as though his gambit had worked, causing the big Russian, who was closest to getting into the room, to dive out of the way.

  For a split second, he made eye contact with the evil Ekaterina, and thought that maybe she’d smiled at him. If she had, he knew it wasn’t a smile of pleasure, but of knowledge that she had his time device in her own pocket, so even though they could end up winning this round, the battle was by no means over.

  “Now!” Ekaterina screamed behind him.

  He broke eye contact, turned, and ran toward the time device, jumping into its core amid a light show protruding from the tentacle-like structures hovering above them. For a moment, he marveled at their science and how it differed from his own creation.

  Then he was falling.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  The fall was only a foot or so, but Ekaterina landed hard on her feet onto grass. Immediate pain shot through her leg and she tumbled to the right, toppling onto the ground, her outstretched arms not able to stop the fall. She groaned.

  The ground was wet. The grass dewy. And she could see her breath in the dark of night. She tried to stand, but vertigo forced her back to the ground. She turned her head to the side and vomited.

  After lying motionless on the ground for several minutes, her right ankle pulsing, she opened her eyes and took stock of her surroundings. It was a beautiful, starry night. The sky was perfectly clear. She felt as though she could see millions of stars. She had no idea if the technology had worked and, as a result, where or when she was, but she couldn’t imagine any setting more serene and inviting.

/>   “Are you okay?” Jeff asked from her side, breaking the silence of the night air.

  She looked over at him. He didn’t seem to be experiencing the same sensations. Maybe since he’d done this before. “I think I twisted my ankle. Hopefully it’s not sprained.”

  “Well, let’s see if you can walk on it,” he said, helping her to her feet. It was tender, but workable. “Is that it? Are we here?”

  He looked around. She realized she was using the strobe lights coming from inside the compound to see his face. “There’s no science facility here. We’ve at least come back to before that was built.”

  She sat back down on the ground. “That was tense. Can we rest for a moment?”

  He looked over toward the compound. It was then that she noticed the repetitive thumping sound, which brought back many memories for her. Her days as a child trying to fall asleep in the darkness but being kept awake by the bouncing of Belochkin’s basketball on his private court. This was home to her, and the warm feelings of being here almost overshadowed, for a moment, what they were here to do.

  “I don’t think we should take too much time,” he said, serious. “There’s a lot going on here now. Or, there’s about to be.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  Ekaterina shielded her eyes from the intense flash of light that came from inside the lab. They’d done it.

  When the glare subsided, she took account of her surroundings. Belochkin was standing to the side in the hallway, the look on his face telling her that he was resolved to the fact that they had escaped and were going back in time to change something. She turned her attention to the enormous Russian, who had now drawn his own weapon and trained it on her.