Secret Passage

by Amanda Stevens

  Something sparked in his eyes. “She…is still alive? In the future, I mean?”

  Camille shook her head sadly. “She died a few years ago.”

  “And your mother? Elizabeth?”

  “She’s gone, too. And that’s why you can’t get on that ship. You’re all I have left—” Camille put out her hand again, and this time he didn’t pull away. “If you get on that ship, there may not even be a me. If you die, I die, too. My mother and my son… There won’t even be memories because we’ll never have existed.”

  He closed his eyes. “What do you want me to do?” he whispered.

  “Don’t get on that ship. The experiment must take place as it did before.”

  His eyes flew open. “But all those men… They’ll die…”

  “And more will die in the future. Lives will be ruined because of the technology you created, but we can’t change that. We can’t tamper with the future. We can’t play God. You told me that once.”

  “A very noble sentiment.” A door closed somewhere behind them and Camille turned. Her breath caught in her throat as her gaze lit on the man walking slowly toward them.

  “How did you get in here?” her grandfather demanded. “Where’s Agent Wilkins?”

  “The man you had stationed at the door? He’s…incapacitated at the moment.”

  A chill shot up Camille’s backbone at the implication of his words, and as his gaze met hers, she knew exactly where she’d seen him before. She was looking into the eyes of her son’s killer.

  “You bastard.” Camille lunged for him, but he quickly drew his weapon and she knew that he wouldn’t hesitate to use it. Not for a moment. She froze, but fury raged in her heart. She wanted to kill him more than she’d ever wanted anything in her life. But revenge would have to come later. For now, she had to protect her grandfather. “What do you want? Why are you here?”

  “I want Dr. Kessler to come with me.”

  Camille glared at him. “Over my dead body.”

  Vogel shrugged. “That could easily be arranged. Or would you prefer that I put a bullet in him and simply take what I need? It’s of no consequence to me, but I should think it would be to you.”

  “Who are you?” Camille’s grandfather came around the table to stand beside her. He put a protective hand on her arm. “What do you want?”

  “I told you. I want you to come with me. But first, I need you to gather up all your notes and files, everything you have on Project Rainbow. Then you and I are going to take a long trip.”

  “Where?”

  “Berlin, ultimately.”

  “You’ll never get away with it,” Camille said. “You won’t make it out of this building, much less out of the country.”

  “Oh, I think we will,” Vogel said. “Most of the guards have been conveniently distracted by the explosion. Those who get in our way will be dealt with. And, of course, there’s the tunnel that you and your colleagues use to slip in and out of the city,” he said to Dr. Kessler. “Very clever of you.”

  Camille tensed, but her grandfather’s hand tightened on her arm, as if warning her against attempting anything foolish.

  “In a matter of minutes, we will be outside the fence,” Vogel told them. “I have someone waiting with a car to take us to a nearby airstrip. From there we will fly to the coast and rendezvous with a U-boat in the Atlantic.”

  Camille quickly stepped in front of her grandfather. He tried to shove her aside, but she stood her ground. “He’s not going anywhere with you. You’ll have to kill me first.”

  “An easy fix,” Vogel said and took aim.

  “Freeze!”

  To Vogel’s credit, he didn’t even flinch as the door to the lab banged open. It was as if he’d been expecting the intrusion all along.

  “Drop your weapon!” Special Agent Talbott shouted. He came slowly into the room, his gun leveled at Vogel’s back. “Turn around slowly,” he ordered.

  Vogel began to turn. He lowered his weapon to his side, but he didn’t drop it.

  “Put it down! Now!”

  Vogel continued to turn.

  “Drop your weapon or I’ll shoot,” Talbott warned.

  “You’re not going to shoot me, Agent Talbott.”

  Talbott’s finger tightened on the trigger. “Don’t be too sure about that.”

  “But I am sure. If you were going to shoot me, you would have already done so. Like this.” In the blink of an eye, the gun flew from Talbott’s hand. He didn’t even have time to utter a shocked gasp before Vogel lifted his weapon and fired.

  Talbott staggered back against the wall, clutching his chest. When he brought his hand away, his fingers were covered in blood. His gaze lifted to Vogel, and then, as if in slow motion, he slid down the wall to the floor.

  THE SOUND OF GUNFIRE chilled Zac to the bone. Camille!

  He had been following the maze of corridors and stairways that he’d memorized from the blueprints Von Meter had given him, but he hadn’t been certain he was heading in the right direction until he heard the shot.

  And if he’d heard the gunfire, so had the guards. Within a matter of moments they would converge on Kessler’s laboratory, and Zac would have a hard time convincing them that he was on their side. Especially after having used the diversion of the explosion to slip behind the fence.

  If the guards came, he’d have to deal with them, he thought grimly. Right now, his first concern was Camille. And her grandfather.

  Hurrying down another stairway, he saw an open doorway at the end of a long corridor. Loud voices were coming from inside. When he recognized Camille’s, he let out a breath of relief. Thank God, she was still alive. This time, he wasn’t too late. Not…yet…

  Pressing himself against the wall, he inched toward the doorway.

  “He’s still breathing,” he heard Camille say. “But if we don’t get him to a doctor, he’ll die.”

  “You’re all going to die,” Vogel said calmly. “And we may as well start with you.”

  “Vogel!”

  He whirled at the sound of Zac’s voice, his face contorting in fury. And then his expression turned to shock as his own weapon flew from his hand.

  “It’s just you and me, Vogel.” Slowly, Zac walked into the room. He refused to meet Camille’s gaze for fear of losing his concentration, but he could see her out of the corner of his eye. She knelt on one side of Talbott, her grandfather on the other as they took turns applying pressure to the dying man’s wound.

  Zac observed all this in the split second before he lunged for Vogel. His hands wrapped around the man’s neck and then, locked in a death grip, they went crashing against a table filled with expensive equipment.

  IT WAS AN UGLY STRUGGLE. A bitter fight to the finish. Camille’s heart was in her throat as she watched them, knowing that one man would not walk away.

  Zac seemed to have the upper hand at first. Perhaps he’d caught Vogel sufficiently off guard, but the man quickly recovered, and he broke Zac’s grasp on his neck. Then he grabbed Zac’s throat and the two of them fell back into another table.

  Camille spotted Talbott’s gun on the floor and scrambled for it. She leveled it at Vogel, but, in the space of a heartbeat, he and Zac had switched positions. It was impossible to get off a clear shot.

  The fight seemed to go on forever with neither man gaining the clear advantage. Then, as they thrashed on the floor, Vogel’s hand closed around a metal pipe and he swung it against Zac’s temple. Zac’s arm flew up to shield his head, but the pipe still connected. Stunned, he fell back against the floor, and, before he could recover, Vogel was on top of him. Somehow he’d gotten his hands on a long, jagged piece of glass and his intention was clear. He meant to slash Zac’s throat. He drew it back, and in the split second before he brought it down, Camille fired.

  For a moment, she wasn’t sure she’d hit him. She fired again, but the bullet seemed to pass right through him.

  And then before her very eyes, Vogel began to…disappear.

&
nbsp; “HE’S DEAD.”

  Camille slowly turned to find her grandfather still kneeling beside Talbott. Then she rushed to Zac.

  He sat up and shook his head, as if to clear his vision. “What just happened?”

  “I’m…not sure,” Camille said. “I shot him. Or at least, I think I did. The he just…disappeared. Vanished.” There wasn’t so much as a drop of Vogel’s blood left on the floor.

  “What the he—” Zac’s words were cut off by a gasp from the doorway. They both spun to find Betty Wilson and Davy gaping at what they’d just witnessed.

  Betty’s terrified gaze went from Zac to Camille, then back to Zac. “Who are you people? How did you… How did you do that?”

  Davy appeared speechless for a moment, then his eyes rounded in excitement. “You really are from the future! Donny’s never gonna believe this!”

  With an effort, Zac got to his feet, then both he and Camille walked over to the dead man. Dr. Kessler stared up at them. “He disappeared at the exact moment Agent Talbott stopped breathing.”

  Camille put a trembling hand to her mouth. “Then he must have been—”

  “Vogel’s grandfather,” Zac finished. “He said his grandmother is Alice Nichols. Or she would have been. She and Talbott must have hooked up during the war, but she never told anyone about it. Talbott probably never even knew she was pregnant.”

  “And by killing his own grandfather, Vogel ceased to exist.” Camille clutched Zac’s arm. “That means—”

  He shook his head. “Don’t. We don’t know what it means. We don’t know how the future has been changed by what we’ve done tonight.”

  Dr. Kessler said grimly, “He’s right. The tunnel you told me about earlier, the one that opened up after the experiment…I can see now how dangerous it is. It must be destroyed. We can’t take the chance that someone else like him—” he nodded to the spot where Vogel had disappeared “—could come through it. And as for you two… You have to go back. Now. You can’t stay here. Look at the damage you’ve already done.”

  Camille stared at him in shock. “But we saved your life. That’s why I came here.”

  Her grandfather glared at her. “Then your mission has been accomplished. It’s time for you to go. Both of you.”

  “He’s right,” Zac said. “The explosion sealed off the entrance to the mine, but Davy knows another way in. If we don’t go now, it may be too late. The tunnels are collapsing. The whole mine could go.” He turned to Kessler, quickly explaining what had to be done to the generators aboard the Eldridge once it rematerialized.

  “I understand,” Kessler said impatiently. “Now go.”

  Just then, Betty rushed up to Zac, threw her arms around his neck and kissed him long and hard on the lips. Zac pulled back, stunned. “What was that for?”

  “Where you’re going, I’ll be an old lady. Or dead. I figured that was my last chance.”

  Camille looped her arm through Zac’s. “You got that right.”

  Betty grinned good-naturedly, then said, “Oh, I almost forgot. I found this in the mine. I think you must have dropped it.” She pulled a gold medallion from her pocket and handed it to Zac.

  He stared at it for a moment, then turned to Dr. Kessler. “Actually, I think this belongs to you.”

  Dr. Kessler took the medallion from him and held it up to the light. The gold chain sparkled as it swung gently to and fro. “It’s lovely,” Kessler said. “But it’s not mine. I’ve never seen it before—”

  Camille’s heart actually stopped beating when she saw the look on Zac’s face. He was focused intently on the medallion, and she knew, suddenly, that the trigger planted in his subconscious had been activated. She lifted Talbott’s gun at the exact same moment Zac lifted his own weapon. It was a standoff.

  Her heart pounding against her chest, Camille’s finger tightened on the trigger. “I can’t let you do it,” she whispered.

  He seemed not to hear her. His gaze was still focused on the medallion.

  “Don’t do it,” she pleaded. “If you kill him, you kill me. I’ll disappear just the way Vogel did. I’ll cease to exist. Is that what you want? For us to have never been together?”

  When he didn’t so much as blink an eye at her plea, Camille said desperately, “What about Adam? Think about it, Zac. He could be alive now. He could be in the future, waiting for us. All we have to do is go find him. Put down the gun, Zac. Please. For Adam’s sake…”

  Without a word, Zac dropped his arm to his side and the weapon fell to the floor. Only then did his gaze meet Camille’s. And what she saw shining in those dark depths made her want to weep.

  THE HOLE THAT LED DOWN into the mine was barely large enough for an adult to shimmy through. Zac went first, dropping the five or six feet to the floor and then lifting his arms to assist Camille as she came through.

  The air was thick with dust from the collapsing tunnels, and the walls and floors still trembled from the aftershock of the explosion. They inched their way along the narrow passage, stepping over debris and at times having to stop to clear the way before they could go on.

  As they neared the wormhole, Camille’s heart started to pound in excitement. She took Zac’s hand and squeezed. “Do you really think it’s possible—”

  “I don’t know. I’m almost afraid to think…to hope…” He turned to stare down at her. “Let’s just take it one step at a time.”

  She nodded. He was right. One step at a time. And the first step…was to make it back home.

  “Ready?” Zac asked her.

  She drew a deep breath and nodded.

  And that’s when they heard it. A voice calling out to them. For a moment, Camille thought—

  Her gaze flew to Zac’s. “Is that—”

  “It’s Davy. He must have followed us into the mine.”

  “Oh, my God.” Camille glanced around frantically. “The tunnels are still collapsing. He’ll be trapped in here—”

  She stumbled and lost her balance as the floor shifted beneath her feet. Davy called out again, this time in panic.

  Zac grabbed Camille and lifted her to her feet. “Go!”

  “No! I’m not leaving without you!”

  “Go find Adam!” he shouted. “Go find our son!” And with that, he pushed her through the wormhole, and the last sound Camille heard was the roar of collapsing rock and debris.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Camille awakened to strange faces peering down at her. She tried to sit up, but gentle hands pushed her back down. “Take it easy now. You’re going to be fine.”

  She blinked in confusion. “Where am I?”

  “You’re in Memorial Hospital in Knoxville. You were brought into the emergency room after some tourists found you unconscious near an old mine shaft just outside of Oak Ridge. Do you remember what happened?”

  She put a hand to her head. Everything was still so foggy. Oak Ridge? A mine shaft?

  “You had some rather strange-looking papers on you,” the doctor commented. “They dated back to 1943, and we assumed you were part of a documentary film crew that’s staging a reenactment nearby. Does any of that ring a bell for you?”

  Camille shook her head.

  “What about a man named Nicholas Kessler? Do you know him?”

  Camille gasped as memories started rushing back to her. Oak Ridge. The mine. Zac!

  She tried to sit up once again, but the doctor wouldn’t have it. “Take it easy,” he advised. “You’ve obviously been through something pretty traumatic.”

  “Zac?” she asked frantically. “What about Zac? Did he make it through?” He had to have made it through. He had to!

  The doctor and nurse exchanged glances. “As far as we know, you were alone. About Dr. Kessler… He says he’s your grandfather….”

  Camille fell back against the pillow. “Where is he? I have to see him.”

  “He’s on his way from California. He should be here in a few hours.”

  “Did he—” Camille swallowed. “Did
he say anything about Adam?”

  “No. Who’s Adam?”

  She squeezed her eyes closed as a deep sorrow welled inside her.

  WHEN SHE OPENED HER EYES, he was sitting on the edge of her bed. She thought it was a dream at first, but the image seemed so real, that day in the park might never have happened.

  And then everything shifted. As she gazed at her son, Camille was assailed by memories…memories of the past year…memories of her and Adam at a baseball game…on a picnic…walking him home from school…

  Memories…as if he had never been gone…

  Camille put out a tentative hand to touch him. “Adam?” she whispered in wonder. “Is that really you?”

  “Who do you think I am? The tooth fairy?” He giggled then, as if his joke were the funniest thing in the world, and Camille had never heard anything in her life sound so wonderful.

  She laughed, too, and pulled him into her arms, hugging him so tightly, he had to squirm to get free. “Mom, stop it!”

  But she wouldn’t stop. She wouldn’t let him go. She clung to him so fiercely that he finally relented and hugged her back. And it was the most precious feeling in the world to Camille.

  It was as if that day in the park had never happened. Because it hadn’t…

  “COME ON, MOM! YOU PROMISED!” Adam prodded her.

  “I know, but…” Camille glanced around. The park still terrified her. That long-ago day was nothing more than a dream now, but she couldn’t shake the awful sense of foreboding she always experienced when they came there to play.

  Adam took her hand and squeezed. “Mom, who’s that man over there? And why’s he looking at us?”

  “What man?” Camille’s gaze lifted, and her heart began to pound when she saw him. The shadows obscured his face, but Camille knew that he was watching them.

  “Zac?” she whispered.

  He watched them for another long moment, then turned and walked off.

  “COME IN, MR. RILEY. Dr. Von Meter is expecting you,” the maid told him.