by Greg Ahlgren
Paul stared across the table open mouthed. “Are you crazy, Lewis?” He looked around the pub nervously before turning back to his friend. “How are you going to give 12 guys military training without getting noticed? You think you can do that? And where the hell you going to train them? The Public Garden? C’mon!”
Amanda shook her head forcefully. “Paul’s right. Where are you going to find a dozen people you can even trust? And there’s no way you could train them for a guerrilla attack. That would take daily training for weeks. Months even. The satellites would pick that up in an instant, you know that.
“And,” she continued, “how would you ever get them all into the lab at once without raising suspicion? And where would you get the weapons?”
“But, could Lewis’ plan work?” Paul asked cautiously.
Amanda shrugged. “That’s the other thing. Even if we did this training thing and killed Ché Guevara how do we know that Castro wouldn’t have sent someone else to pick up where Ché left off and maybe still be successful?
“No,” she said forcefully, slapping her beer back down on the table so that some sloshed out. “The key is Cuba itself. Take out Cuba in ‘62 and no one can be sent to Bolivia. And the only way to do that is with an invasion. Invade Cuba and Ché never leaves for Bolivia.”
Lewis took another sip without answering. He stared straight ahead. “Maybe,” he mused. “Maybe.”
“The Bay of Pigs was an unmitigated fiasco for JFK,” Amanda continued. “The Cuban Missile Partnership–what they used to call the Cuban Missile Crisis–boiled down to America removing first-strike nukes from Turkey, another colossal blunder by Kennedy. Simply put the guy couldn’t afford a third strike with re-election coming up, so he pulled out of Vietnam rather than get waxed there.”
“But we could have won in Indo-China?” Paul asked.
Ginter snickered. “Absolutely. America was the strongest power in the world. We would have clobbered a bunch of guerilla fighters in Vietnam.”
“So exactly what happened over there?” Paul asked.
“It was quick and brutal,” Amanda said. “In November of 1963 Kennedy decided to pull out. Evacuation was complete in ’64. By the end of ’64 the country’s under Ho. Mass retribution everywhere, thousands of arrests and summary executions of suspected sympathizers and French collaborators, a bloodbath. Kennedy washed his hands of the whole thing and got reelected.”
The waitress arrived with the three replacements. Paul paid her in cash. When she had left Lewis spoke up. “O.K., I’ll buy it. We can find a wormhole that will fit.”
Paul and Lewis each hoisted their own glasses but Amanda left hers untouched. Lewis studied her over his whiskey glass before slowly setting it down. He shot a glance at Paul.
“What’s the matter, Professor, doubting your own theory?” Ginter asked.
She sighed. “No, it’s not the theory, not the history. It’s more the ethics, or maybe the collateral consequences.”
“Such as?” Paul asked.
She turned to him. “When you first told me about this, you mentioned different theories. What happens if we go back and change history but we change something so that our parents never meet and so we are never born? Then there is no one to go back and change things so does the old history come back again? And what happens to the people who are alive today but who are never born because we change things? Have we in essence killed them?”
“Love birds,” Lewis announced as Nigel and Natasha sidled back to the table, hand in hand. Paul noted that Nigel seemed more intent on keeping Natasha’s hand than Natasha seemed interested in being led.
“Shall we join you?” Nigel asked cheerfully. He looked down at the table. “Say, with a birthday isn’t there usually cake?”
“Diet,” Amanda announced.
Paul was desperately hunting for an excuse for why Nigel couldn’t join them when Natasha saved him.
“Come on, Nigel,” she pleaded, squeezing his hand. “I want to dance some more.” She leaned in and whispered something in his ear. Nigel laughed and the pair moved off again.
“I wonder what she sees in him?” Paul asked.
“I wonder why she didn’t press him on joining us?” Lewis asked.
“Well, if you’re right,” Amanda added breezily, “she can’t think that we’d say anything in front of her. So, what about my ethical quandary?”
Lewis turned back and shrugged. “The Theory of Merger. David theorized that all life forces might be static, almost pre-programmed. Sort of like programming on your computer that’s not yet installed. It’s still there and at certain points in time the person will be born, the installation will occur. Changing historical events only changes the history, not the people, not the life forces which remain constant. Under his theory, if you come back through a return wormhole, but have changed things so that you never would have left, then the returning life force will merge with the one that never left and the memory of the returning life force will dominate.”
“So, you’ll remember your old life while resuming a new one,” Amanda mused.
Paul shrugged and took another sip. “But it’s all just a theory.”
“Do you believe it?” Amanda asked.
“No, I don’t,” Lewis answered. “It conflicts with what we know about genetics. But if life forces can have other genetic make-ups well, then maybe.”
“Maybe you’ll be white,” Paul added.
“Or a party member,” Lewis retorted. “Or a guy who hates cars.”
The three laughed.
“In any event,” Paul said, “if we change something and come back, our reality would indeed be permanently changed. That doesn’t prevent there from being an infinite number of realities; there is always that theory. And the two kind of tie in.”
Amanda nodded soberly. “Where Lee won at Gettysburg.”
“And Hitler got nukular weapons,” Lewis added. “Like that neo-Soviet civil administrator in Tex-Arkana would have said.”
The three laughed again, but softer this time.
After a moment, Paul asked quietly, “How did it all happen?”
Lewis looked at him quizzically. “How did what happen?”
Paul gestured around the room. “This. All this. How did the Reds take over?
“You know the history,” Lewis answered in a bewildered tone. “Weren’t you just listening to Dr. Hutch here?”
Paul shook his head. “I don’t mean the military history. I know about Ché Guevara and the Malay Peninsular. Even with all that how the hell did we allow them to not only take over, but actually be supported? Tell me why people in Kansas or Missouri or Ohio for Christ sakes support the Reds?”
“Fear,” Amanda answered without hesitation. The pair turned to her.
“People are afraid,” she continued simply. “They are afraid of war, and of being attacked. Fear is history’s great motivator for inaction. People who are afraid will trade their liberties, their freedoms, their basic political essence for not being afraid again, for what they perceive as security. And evil forces are always ready to take advantage of that. That’s how Hitler came to power. And after what happened to China, the chemical weapons here, and that dirty bomb in St. Louis, when what, 3,300 people died, Americans were too willing to trade their freedom, their liberties, hell, their very way of life as Americans, in order to feel safe again. The Reds promised that. And on some level, they have delivered it.”
The table grew quiet again.
After a while Amanda asked softly, “So, we’ll be ready in a few weeks?”
Paul shifted uncomfortably. “We do have a slight funding issue. We need more money to get fuel to conduct a few more tests. We have some fuel but not enough to run more experiments on animals, and then test it on one volunteer, and then send us all back. We don’t have enough for all that.”
“Is the department that short funded?” Amanda asked.
The two men looked at each other for a moment before Paul answered slowly.
“It’s not exactly department funding. There is no way we could justify that amount of money. We are being funded, we’re getting our money from…contributors. And right now they are in the dark and money has been cut off unless they are brought in.”
There was a pause before anyone spoke. Finally, Amanda broke the silence.
“This isn’t good,” she said.
“No,” Paul agreed. “It isn’t good at all.”
Saturday, July 25, 2026 12:30 a.m.
In front of the red brick apartment house in Dorchester Natasha Nikitin ducked out of Nigel’s BMW. “Thanks for a great evening,” she said, casting a quick smile through the open passenger door.
Nigel hesitated, disappointment etched across his face.
“It’s still early,” he tried.
Natasha glanced at her watch and laughed. “Nigel, it’s twelve thirty.” She pouted and cocked her head sideways. “I’m really tired, maybe some other time, though?”
“I say, are you sure I shouldn’t at least walk you in?” He glanced around the street. “This isn’t the greatest neighborhood.”
“The door is right here. I’m fine. I’m just tired after some really great dancing. Promise you’ll call me tomorrow?”
Nigel brightened. “Sure, I’ll wake you up!”
Natasha threw him another smile, slammed the door shut and walked up the sidewalk without looking back. As she fished through her pocketbook she listened for the sound of either the car being shut off or accelerating away. She smiled to herself when she heard neither. What a gentleman! She let herself into the foyer and closed the door behind her. She stood waiting in the darkness until she heard the BMW pull away from the curb. She looked out the foyer’s side window, and watched the car’s brake lights come on at the corner and the car turn left. She gave it a few more seconds and then let herself back out the front door. She turned right in the direction in which Nigel had just driven off and began walking briskly.
It was a little over six blocks to the Dorchester post office. Nigel was right, it wasn’t a great neighborhood but Natasha had little concern for her safety as she hurried along. She checked her watch again. Main post offices were supposed to be open for full service all night – an improvement from the Soviet system-but she knew that the Dorchester service window might not be manned after 1:00. She reached the building before one. As she swung open the front glass door she was relieved to see a clerk reading a newspaper. He started when she entered but quickly relaxed upon seeing her. She read his nameplate: Sean Murphy.
“Can I help you?” he asked, folding the Herald.
Natasha swung her pocketbook off her shoulder and onto the counter. She reached inside and removed a thick yellow envelope heavily sealed with tape.
“I want to send this P.C.,” she said, rummaging inside her pocketbook.
“I’m sorry ma’am, but I’ll have to see some…Oh, I’m sorry, yes of course, Agent Nikitin,” Murphy said as he saw the ID badge Natasha was now holding in front of him. “We can send this out ‘Priority-Confidential’ right away. It should be there by Monday.” Murphy reached under the counter, opened a drawer, and removed a stamp. He rolled “Priority-Confidential” in red across the front and back of the envelope and then turned and gently laid it in a bin behind him.
“Thank you, Comrade,” Natasha said. She cast one last look at the bin and turned and walked out the front door.
Murphy watched her walk out the door, focusing on her legs. A pair of six-inch heels would look good, he thought. With straps, of course.
After the door had swung shut Murphy turned and retrieved the yellow envelope. He hefted it in his hands and then walked out back. In the warehouse workers slowly pushed wheeled bins back and forth. At a rear workstation three men sat hand-sorting mail while a supervisor hovered nearby. There were only a few post offices in the Northeast District that still weren’t automated and Dorchester was one of them.
As Murphy walked across the cement floor the supervisor broke away from his duties to meet him. Together they walked to the far corner of the warehouse. They said nothing until they reached the wall.
“What’ve you got?” the supervisor asked.
Murphy held out the envelope. The supervisor took it and studied the back side with the thick tape across the flap. The red “Priority Confidential” stamp had been applied below the tape.
“You should have seen the hot little Russkie number who dropped this off. Short skirt and killer legs. Not 30 years old. I could teach her though.”
“Not 30?” the supervisor asked, surprised. “And she had an Agency ID on her?”
Murphy nodded. “I swear, no way she was 30.” He indicated the envelope. “You think Eckleburg will want to see that? The doc says he wants to see everything Agency that comes out of here. See. I rolled the stamp below the tape just in case.”
Rather than answering the supervisor turned the envelope over. He studied the address and then laughed. “This isn’t going to Vodkaville. Look at the address. ‘Vladimir Romanov, Karl Marx University, Eichenstrasse 10, Leipzig, DDR.”
“So?” Murphy asked defensively.
“She’s probably a grad student there and this is her boyfriend. If it was Agency stuff she’d be sending it west. She’s probably the kid of some official and just has the ID.” He held the envelope up to the light. “It’s probably just a porn video of her and her boyfriend.”
Murphy licked his lips. “Maybe we should still open it? I tell you she was a fox.”
“Hey, if we’re gonna’ go to Gitmo’ it ain’t gonna’ be over some Russkie’s porn video, fox or no fox.”
The supervisor laughed again. “Think I can get it in from here?” He reached back and launched a jump shot of the envelope to the nearest out-bin 20 feet away. The package clanged on the bottom of the empty cart.
“Nothing but net,” the supervisor said.
“You ever miss?” Murphy asked.
“Only when I’m sober,” the supervisor answered as he swayed back to his workstation.
Murphy watched him walk away. For a moment he lingered where he stood, his eyes drawn to the bin, and he considered the package that lay inside. Maybe, just maybe I should… He knew there was still another hour before the next pick up. Then, abruptly, he turned and walked back to the front.
Chapter 12
Saturday, August 1, 2026
“Any idea what’s wrong with it?”
Paul deVere stood in the driveway of his Concord home peering over the left shoulder of Lewis Ginter who bent under the hood of the 1969 Plymouth Roadrunner. Ginter had the air filter off and was poking at a hinged metal flap that deVere suspected might be part of the carburetor.
“Probably the timing chain,” Ginter answered without glancing up.
DeVere nodded sagely. He had no idea what a timing chain was, or whether it was important.
“Can you fix it?” he asked, trying to sound helpful.
“Not here.” Ginter stood back up and replaced the air filter and a cover that he screwed back on with a wing nut. He grabbed a rag from the fender and wiped his hands. “I’ll probably have to tow it home.”
Minutes earlier Lewis Ginter had driven up deVere’s street, the deep throaty rumbling of the Roadrunner announcing his arrival. It was the Plymouth’s first day on the road. Ginter had called that morning to say he was on his way to give him the long promised ride in the restored muscle car. Besides, the pair had to talk.
DeVere had barely suppressed a smile when he heard the car approaching. Valerie’s disgusted look and haughty retreat into the kitchen had not dampened his enthusiasm. But just as Ginter had swung the ‘Runner into the driveway, the engine had quit with a screech and the car had rolled to a stop at the side of deVere’s house. Ginter’s efforts to restart it had resulted only in pointless cranking of the starter.
That had been 10 minutes ago and deVere had spent the time since staring at the engine compartment while feigning knowledge.
“Is it a big job?”
“Big enough,” Ginter answered. “Have to take the engine apart and basically rebuild it.” Lewis unlatched the hood brace and let the cover slam down. He made sure that the hood was closed before turning back around. “I guess you’re not gonna’ get your first ride today after all.”