by Bob Blink
Double-Back
Bob Blink
Chapter 1
Blam-Blam.
The crisp double tap sent the two shots just to the left of center of where Jake had aimed, near where he wanted, but not precisely where he'd hoped. Quickly he switched to the next attacker, and repeated the process, this time getting a somewhat larger spread that wasn't centered as well either. The third and final pair were closer together again, but noticeably off center of where he wished them to be.
Jake knew that he should use a different attack pattern for multiple assailants, but he wanted to practice his double-taps, a technique that had never come easily to him. Once he had that back under control, he'd shift to the sequence he'd been taught by the combat instructor he'd hired several years ago for personal training.
Looking downrange at the paper targets, he could see that he was improving, but his neglected practice the past year had taken a toll. In the year and a half since he’d returned from Washington, he, Karin, and Janna had been occupied with more personal matters, which had included a couple of trips out of the area to visit Zack and Cheryl, as well as a trip back East. Jim Laney and his fiancé had also spent a couple of weeks in San Francisco with them before their wedding. That had meant, however, no target practice. He hadn’t fired a weapon of any kind in all that time.
Jake ejected the nearly spent magazine, and was in the act of picking up another to replace it when his cellular lit up and the special ring tone caught his attention. He’d set the phone on the bench where he could see it because even with the electronic earmuffs, there was a good chance he wouldn’t hear it.
"Hello," Jake said as he lifted his cellular phone to his head and pushed aside the muff over his right ear and hoped no one would be firing for a moment. It wasn’t Karin, or a special tone and picture of his wife and daughter would have been displayed on the front of the phone. The area code had been ‘202’ which meant Washington. That never was a good thing, but atypically he didn’t recognize the number. There could be a number of reasons for that, all of them probably bad.
"Susan's been kidnapped," Jim Laney said bluntly without any preliminaries over the long distance line.
Carefully, Jake engaged the safety and set down the handgun he was holding, making sure it was pointed downrange. Even though he’d ejected the magazine, there was a live round in the chamber of the Sig-Sauer.
"Wait until I can get out of the firing area," he told Laney. "Hold on."
Jim Laney was a Special Agent for the FBI and the partner of Susan Carlson, also a Special Agent for the Bureau, both of whom had become an integral part of Jake's life over the past couple of years. After several rocky starts, he and Jim Laney had become very close, to the point that Jake had been best man at his friend's wedding.
Jake set down the phone, stripped the round from the chamber of his Sig, and slipped the handgun into the zippered case he'd been using as a protective pad. He left everything else where it was. He could come back for the spare magazines, ammunition, and targets later. No one was going to wander off with them. He stepped back from the shooting lane, and then turned and walked along the back wall of the range following the passage behind the other shooters toward the two sets of doors that would take him out to the lobby.
"What happened?" he asked, almost holding his breath once he was safe from the noise of the other shooters and well away from anyone who might listen in.
"We don't know yet," Jim admitted. "We only confirmed the kidnapping a few minutes ago and I stepped out to let you know. We're going to need your special ability once we know what's going on to make this not happen. We have no idea what they might have done to Susan."
"Was she working on something special?" Jake asked.
"There's always something that might be considered special," Jim replied. "We have the usual array of cases, some fairly high profile. It's too early to say whether this is related to one of the current cases, or something from a previous case. Over the past six months we've put away a number of troublesome individuals."
Jake knew that Susan had made a number of powerful enemies in her job as senior agent of the anti-terrorist division, and anyone who took the risk of kidnapping anyone at her level was not someone to be taken lightly. Jake was surprised they hadn't simply killed her outright, but the motivations weren't important at the moment. Getting Susan back alive was.
Jake lived in San Jose, a little over an hour south of the San Francisco airport. He had a very secure video link back to FBI headquarters that would allow them to speak more openly. He and Karin had moved here a couple of years ago from Reno when a promotion at her work required the relocation. Now they had Janna, a three-year old daughter, and were comfortably settled. Washington, DC was a long way off, but there would be no frantic flights to get there to aid Agent Laney.
Jake's ability came with certain restrictions. He had to be close to where he'd been the past week or so to make his special Back-Tracking ability work. Laney would find out what he could, pass the information to Jake, who would memorize it, and then send the memories back to himself a few days ago here in California. Then, a few days ago, he'd jump a plane to Washington, and tell Jim and Susan what was coming up and they'd deal with it, armed with the specifics including, hopefully, the names of those involved.
"Just get the information," Jake said. "We've done this before. Even if they've hurt her, once we are finished it won't have ever happened. I'll be waiting at home, and once you know more, call me on the link and we'll talk over how we want to proceed. I'll bring what you learn to Washington a few days ago, and we'll be ready for them when they make the attempt."
"Understood," Laney agreed. He'd been on enough cases with Jake now that he was fully aware of what his friend could do. He'd even prevented people from dying after they'd been killed, so he knew he shouldn't be too worried. It was hard for the bad guys to get away with much when someone could loop back and be there waiting for them, armed with future knowledge of their actions. Susan would be fully informed, and she would be part of the takedown team when it happened.
Agent Laney hung up as Jake thoughtfully ended his own connection. He'd already planned to Back-Track later today, going back a full six weeks, longer than he liked, to deal with a family matter that Karin had asked him to look into. He'd go home, wait until he had the full story from Jim, then make the long jump, and as he relived those past days, he'd wait until a week prior to the kidnapping before flying to Washington to alert Susan and Jim to what was coming. There was little need to make two separate jumps to handle the completely separate matters. While the kidnapping seemed urgent, he would be reliving a time before it had happened, giving him as much time as needed to make sure they were prepared for it.
"You don't have any idea who any of them are?" Jake asked later that day when Jim Laney had called him back. He was with Karin in his study, the door closed and the secure link engaged. Janna was away at preschool playing happily with the small group of friends she had been making there.
"They were all wearing masks," Jim explained. "We were unable to see any of their faces in the video we found. There were four of them, and they were very professional. It's a little surprising they were even able to discover where Susan lives. That kind of information is carefully guarded, although it's possible they managed to follow her home. They all carried suppressed Glocks. From the size we believe they were 9mm's."
"How did they get past the security?" Jake asked. "From what I recall Susan's place was protected by some pretty sophisticated gear."
"One of their group was very good with electronics. He was able to bypass the security codes and disable all of the official cameras. It's only because Susan had a
second, well hidden and undocumented set of cameras in the apartment that we managed to get any pictures at all."
"What about Norm?" Jake asked.
Susan had been seeing another FBI agent socially during the past year. He was as senior as her, and they had become very close in recent months. Jake worried that he would soon have to be included in the small group that knew about him and his abilities. Up to now, Susan had agreed that Jake's ability should remain secret from her lover. Jake preferred being unknown, since in the past when people learned of his abilities, problems usually followed.
"He's not been too helpful. This has all hit him pretty hard, and he doesn't know that we have an easy work around," Laney explained. "I asked him if there was any particular threat that Susan might have mentioned, but he didn't know of any. That's not surprising because I would have been as aware, or more so, than him."
"How far do you want to pursue this?" Jake asked. They could spend some time and track down all of the available leads, during which time Susan would be in their hands. If it all worked out, that would never end up as having happened, but it was difficult to think of her being mistreated now while they moved slowly forward.
"I think we know what we need," Jim said. "We could try to track down the perps, but I sense that might take a long time, and may not pan out. We know when, where, and how they made their raid. I think it would make sense to simply be waiting for them when they arrive, don't you? We can ask them all of our questions then. They can't know what you are able to do."
Jake nodded, and looked over at Karin who was listening silently. His wife had been party to his work with the FBI since the beginning, and sometimes had very insightful suggestions. This time, however, she remained silent.
"I'll Back-Track a couple of days, then contact you and Susan with this information," Jake said. "Do you think I should come to Washington?"
"I can't see where that is necessary," Jim replied. "But let's ask Susan after you Back-Track. Handling this should be relatively straight-forward once we know the details in advance. How about you contact us and we'll see what she thinks. We can try to grab the kidnappers, and if things go poorly, then you may need to make another loop and then consider making the flight."
They went over the information that Laney believed should be passed to Jake's earlier self, and then broke off contact.
"You sound as if you plan on dealing with this before making the long jump farther back we'd talked about," Karin said.
Karin was blond, beautiful, and smart, and while it had taken her a while to adjust to what Jake could do, and how he often used his gift, they had now been married for several years and she was more knowledgeable about what he could do than almost anyone else.
"Won't that mean you'll simply have to repeat it all as you live through that time again. I'd think it simpler to go all the way back, then deal with this when the proper time approached."
"Logically you are right," Jake agreed. "That what I had planned initially, but I don't want this on my mind all that time. And, I want to go at it fresh. If we can thwart the kidnapping and capture those involved, I will know that it's going to work out, and I can use the information from that action to ponder the situation during the weeks between your personal business and when I'll have to redo this. I might have some useful insights to make it smoother or even help capture whoever is actually behind it all, and not just those making the attempt on Susan."
"It just seems like more Back-Tracking, and just before a multiple jump backwards," Karin noted unhappily.
They were both uncomfortable with the longer jumps as linking several Back-Tracks together had nearly killed Jake once before. He wasn't pressing his limits this time, but it was farther than he'd jumped since that strange mission almost two years ago. Multiple jumps, even short ones now seemed to affect Jake more than in the past.
"When do you go?" Karin asked.
"Might as well get started," Jake said.
After all, there was nothing to pack. The only thing he could take was his memories. He wrapped Karin in a hug. He would be the only one who recalled this moment since once he went back and meddled with events, this particular history would never have happened. He had a lot of memories that no one else retained as a result of his Back-Tracking, but some, like this moment with Karin, were very important to him.
Jake was surprised when a small headache announced the arrival of his experiences for the coming couple of days. He'd been planning to head backwards this next weekend, but would have bypassed this particular time, extending his Back-Track to the full ten day maximum he liked to use. Even as he had the thought, the implications of what he'd learned settled in and he headed for the library so he could call Washington.
"Four of them," Susan said as she considered the situation on the far side of the link. "You say that Jim hadn't been able to identify any of the group?"
"Not at the time I linked back," Jake explained. "We decided there was little point in waiting. Those questions should be more easily answered once the foursome is in custody."
"This should be straightforward enough," Jim agreed. "We'll have a team in place here waiting."
"Ten o'clock tomorrow night," Susan said, thinking to herself. "I'll have to put some thought into which case might have triggered all of this."
Then she looked into the camera at Jake. Her hair was streaked with gray these days, as compared to the light brown it had been when they first met. Hers was a stressful job, and she wasn't one to use dyes to hide the toll the years were taking.
"There's no need for you to make a trip here. Jim and I will call you as soon as the situation is under control so you will know that no further action is required."
The ambush of the four potential kidnappers went as smoothly as hoped. Karin was up checking on a restless Janna when the call came through informing Jake of the capture.
"Four of them just as you warned us," Susan said. "None are known, except Jim believes he has seen one of the men before. He believes he is tied into the local Mafia families in a strong arm function."
"They haven't talked?" Jake asked hopefully.
"Two of the men are unconscious. The defense team shot them with tranquilizer darts, and they won't recover for another hour or so. The other two are being stubbornly silent. Once we run their prints and faces through the system we'll have more to work with. I'll let you know once we know more, and in a few minutes I'll send you pictures of the four. I'm not sure how we'll want to approach this and whether I'll need you to take any action."
After breaking the connection, Jake waited for the photos to come through. He didn't know why, but he hoped he might recognize someone the others didn't, but there was no reason to think that would be the case. When the photos arrived, he found that all were strangers to him.
"That's them?" Karin asked, stepping up behind Jake. He'd told her about the situation.
Jake nodded and explained what he knew of the situation. A short time later Jake triggered the first of the multi-jump Back-Tracks that would take him back six weeks in time. He hated the long jumps, not only because they were physically harsh, but because he'd have to relive the full six weeks once again. A couple of days was seldom an issue, in part because for the shorter jumps he was usually engaged in working through a problem, but this time he'd fix the matter at hand, then have to simply coast along until the time came to repeat the call to Susan on the matter they'd just resolved when he reached that point in the time sequence once again. At least he knew it would go smoothly when the time came.
"I'm to be kidnapped?" Susan asked when Jake explained the attack that was planned in a couple of days. He was almost back to where things had started having completed his business and patiently waited until today so he could conclude the final details of the loop.
Jake explained what would happen just as he'd done the first time he'd warned the FBI agent of the planned attack. Everything was the same, other than this time he'd known for some weeks what was coming,
and he simply had to go through the motions to complete what they had done before. Karin was probably right. He should have done this all as part of one large loop rather than having to go through it all again. He'd thought of nothing useful during the past couple of weeks as he'd waited for the time for his call to approach.
"This should be straightforward enough," Jim agreed. "We'll have a team in place here waiting."
"Ten o'clock tomorrow night," Susan said, thinking to herself. "I'll have to put some thought into which case might have triggered all of this. There will be no need for you to make a trip here. Jim and I will call you as soon as the situation is under control so you will know that no further action is required."
They were working through the dialogue that Jake recalled from the last time. Finally it was done, and he wrapped an arm around Karin, and they went up to bed. Tomorrow night this would be over and he'd be back to a point where events were not a rerun for him.
"No one showed," Susan said into the camera from her office in Washington the next morning. "The team was in place all night, but there was nothing. Are you certain the attack was to have been last night? Could you be wrong on the day?"
Jake was stunned.
"There was no attempt?" he asked as he tried to wrap his thoughts around the situation. "You didn't capture the four individuals?"
"There was no kidnap attempt," Jim Laney said, underscoring Susan's earlier words.
Neither made any accusations. They had worked with Jake long enough to understand his ability and not have any doubts about what he could do. They sensed something unprecedented was at work here.
"Jake, has this ever happened before?" Susan asked. "You recall an event, go back to correct it, and it no longer takes place?"
"Never," Jake said with certainty. "In all the years I've been able to Back-Track, events always follow the same flow when I loop back."