Black Tuesday (Area 51: Time Patrol)

by Mayer, Bob

  “Enough. We have much awaiting us.”

  Yeah, like getting your head chopped off, Mac thought as he left with Beeston.

  “How the hell does he know I’m not of this time?” Mac demanded of Beeston as they got outside of Gatehouse Prison. Ahead of them the scaffold was taking deadly shape. There was also a growing crowd. Spectators were filling the yard, searching for vantage points from which they could watch the execution. The space around the chopping block stage was the choice position. Hoping for some arterial spray, Mac thought. “What did you tell him?”

  Beeston shook his head. “I told him nothing of the Patrol. You were part of the prophecy given him. A man to appear on a dangerous day. A day when his head was to be at risk, but the three promises would keep him safe. A man from a different time. You fit the description.”

  “Why do you believe him?” Mac asked Beeston. “He’s obviously delusional.”

  Beeston shook his head. “I was with him in Ireland. He told me of the three promises late one night, over the campfire, a night before battle. As soldiers will talk on those nights when we know we are to visit death in the morning.”

  Been there, done that, Mac thought.

  “I too thought he was deluded,” Beeston said. “But that next day and at several other battles afterward, he fought like a mad man. Leading suicidal charges, yet surviving while those all around him were cut down. Perhaps it was luck. Mad luck. That happens.

  “But add in his journeys to the New World. And his naval expeditions against the Spanish. The odds keep piling up. But what really made me start to believe was after Elizabeth passed. And he was convicted of high treason and locked in the Tower, awaiting execution. And it did not occur. Year after year. While court intrigue swirled about and many others lost their heads. He survived the Tower for thirteen years. And then he is released to mount another expedition!” Beeston shook his head. “Tell me, sir, can one account all that to luck?”

  “But all because of an angel and a prophecy? How do you believe that?”

  Beeston stared at Mac. “Did you believe in time travel?” Before Mac could reply, he continued. “Do you know how you travel in time? But you are here from some time in the future, aren’t you? So you have to believe in it because of your experience. I am a man of faith, so I do believe in angels, and I do believe that Sir Raleigh was visited by one because I have been with him for many years and seen him survive things that only divine providence could have brought about.” Beeston reached over and shook Mac. “We are to maintain the timeline, yes. And Raleigh is part of that.” His eyes narrowed. “That is correct, isn’t it? You are from the future. Raleigh is part of the future, is he not?”

  Mac was bound by his own rules and said nothing.

  Beeston headed out of the yard and Mac hustled to catch up. “You are letting your faith cloud my judgment,” Mac argued and immediately realized that was the wrong approach.

  Beeston wheeled about. “I believe in God, the Almighty. I have watched thousands die for their beliefs. Both Catholic and Protestant. I was with Raleigh in France, fighting for the Huguenots. And while the horrors turned some away from God, it did the opposite for me, as I saw people of good faith die on both sides. So I believe God is larger than our religions. Larger than the Time Patrol. Therefore the Time Patrol is one of God’s agencies on Earth to do his bidding. Since God sent an angel to Raleigh, then I, for one, will do God’s bidding.”

  Beeston was on a roll. “God has existed since eternity, while we are just specks in time, even if, like you, we can travel in time. Your life is finite. God is infinite. He is beyond our ken. Therefore for us to try to understand his plans, his thoughts, his actions, is a waste of time. But the most important thing I believe is God is of infinite goodness, justice, and truth. He is the supreme governor and judge of our world, and all worlds.”

  Mac missed Scout. He had a feeling she’d understand this bizzaro situation. It was as if—and then it hit Mac.

  “Do you know all of this prophecy the angel gave Sir Raleigh?”

  “I know what he has imparted to me,” Beeston said.

  “Did he tell you what this angel looked like?”

  “He said it came down from Heaven out of the dark. It floated over his head while it spoke to him the holy words. Its skin was pure white, as an angel should be, but it had no wings. Strangely, it had long flowing red hair. And Sir Raleigh said the strangest aspect were its eyes, which were not eyes but burning red coals that he said peered into his soul.”

  A frakking Valkyrie, Mac thought, and it all snapped into place.

  Andes Mountains, Argentina, 1972. 29 October

  Dawn slowly illuminated Moms and Pablo Correa halfway up the ridgeline, pushing through snow that was getting deeper and deeper. They’d fallen into a pattern; the lead would take six steps, breaking trail through the snow, and then step to the side. The trail would then take the lead for six steps.

  The terrain, while covered with snow, was also rocky. It was bare of any kind of growth, being above the tree line, a true high-altitude desert of snow.

  As Moms passed Correa to take lead once more, he said: “If we are having this much trouble, imagine those poor people who are starving and not equipped for this. How can two of them make it to Chile?”

  Moms spoke to Correa’s back. “That’s what makes this so important in a way. While everyone was appalled—” she stopped, realizing what she had been about to say.

  “Appalled at what?” Correa asked. He stopped and looked over his shoulder. He had sunglasses on, protection against snow blindness as the sun rose behind them. Both of them had their rifles in hand.

  “Last week,” Moms said, “they had to resort to cannibalism. Eating their dead.” She hurried on. “For a while, that made worldwide news and gave the survivors an unwanted and negative notoriety, but then the true story came out of how difficult it was for them to survive, and how heroic the journey of the two who got help was. And that has overshadowed the cannibalism, which was seen as a necessary evil.”

  “Cannibalism?” Correa pondered that for a moment. “Will God forgive them?”

  That question surprised Moms. That someone in the Time Patrol would bring up God struck her as odd at the very least. “Why would God judge them for doing what they had to in order to live?”

  Correa shrugged. “God has strange ways. More to say, the church has strange ways. I suppose they have done what they have to do to preserve life, and God must approve of that. The soul would be long gone from the dead and in a better place. What becomes of the flesh—” he shrugged.

  With that he pressed forward into the now-waist-high snow.

  Moms pondered his words for a few seconds and that probably saved both of them as a Yeti exploded up out of its hide site, buried in the snowdrift next to a boulder ten feet to their right. Its long, fur-covered arms were outstretched and it would have gotten both of them if they’d been closer together, but as it was, it managed only to smack Correa a glancing blow, missing Moms by scant inches.

  A glancing blow from such a powerful beast was enough to send Correa tumbling into the snow, his rifle flying out of his hands.

  Moms fired the M14, impossible to miss at this distance. Her first round hit center of mass of the Yeti and caught its attention. It turned from going to finish off Correa to deal with the greater threat.

  Moms backed up along the path they’d plowed in the snow, firing as quickly as she could pull the trigger.

  The Yeti didn’t seem to notice the 7.62 mm rounds that slammed into its large body. In daylight, Moms could see it clearly: tall, over seven feet, broad, covered in dirty white fur. A three-inch claws extended from each finger, and as it roared, it bared fangs dripping with saliva. Moms fired and took another step back.

  Moms lifted the barrel of the M14. Her next round tore into the side of the beast’s face, narrowly missing the eye, which she’d been aiming for.

  It roared even louder and was on her, swatting the rifle
out of her hand with one paw while the other reached for her neck.

  Moms threw herself to the side, the claws snapping just short of her throat. She pulled Nada’s machete out and swung it back and forth, trying to gain time and space. The Yeti wasn’t deterred. It reached out and caught the machete in its paw, howling as the blade sliced deep into flesh.

  As Moms tried to pull it back, the creature clamped its fingers, locking the blade down in its fist. It ripped the weapon from her hand and tossed it away.

  Correa yelled something in Spanish, trying to catch the beast’s attention as he got back on his feet, bringing his rifle to bear. It worked momentarily. The beast turned, giving Moms the chance to draw her pistol. She fired a head shot, the bullet tearing a divot in the Yeti’s head, but failing to penetrate the thick skull.

  But that brought its attention swinging back to her.

  Which is what she wanted. She fired twice, as fast as she could, hundreds of hours in the Killing House at Fort Bragg having honed her skill with the pistol. The first round hit the Yeti’s left eye, penetrating the soft flesh and plowing into the brain. The second round followed the same path. The creature stopped as if surprised, dropped to its knees, which meant it was now Moms’s height. She double-tapped again, into the other eye. It toppled forward with a solid thump into the snow, facedown.

  Moms stood over the Yeti and emptied her clip into the base of its skull.

  Nada would have approved.

  She automatically pulled out another magazine and reloaded.

  “It is dead,” Correa said.

  “Just making sure,” Moms said.

  “Are you all right?” Correa asked her. “Injured?”

  “I’m all right. You?”

  “It was waiting for us,” Correa said. “That means intelligence. That is not good.” He was next to the body and leaned over. “This is not the one we met in the dark. There are no wounds from my weapon.”

  Moms heard him, but her focus was on Correa’s back. Four parallel red lines were sliced through his camouflage, jacket, and shirt into raw flesh.

  “You’re wounded,” Moms said.

  “I am afraid so,” Correa said.

  “Take your jacket off,” Moms ordered.

  Correa didn’t comply right away. “How bad is the bleeding?”

  “I can’t tell if you don’t take the clothes off.”

  But before he could do anything, the Yeti’s body began crumbing inward, as if some inner force was consuming it. Within seconds there was nothing left except the imprint in the snow where the creature had died.

  “I suppose,” Correa said, “that is also why these things are just legends.”

  “What happened to it?” Moms asked.

  Correa shrugged, which brought a hiss of pain. “Back to its own world perhaps? Back to nothingness? I have read reports of this. When the life force is gone from a visitor to our timeline, their physical presence dissipates.”

  “Will this happen to me if I die here?” Moms asked.

  “It is possible, but this is your timeline, if not your time. So perhaps that is different?”

  One more tidbit Dane had neglected to include in his briefing, Moms thought. “Take your upper garments off,” she ordered.

  Correa sighed and removed his jacket, and then shirt, shivering in the freezing air. As he peeled off the ripped T-shirt, revealing his torso, Moms was startled by what she saw. His back was scarred with red blisters, the claw marks cutting through them and the skin.

  “How is it?” Correa asked.

  “Not too bad,” Moms lied. “Do you have a first-aid kit?”

  “In my pack. Top left.”

  Moms quickly pulled it out. She worked swiftly, the cold biting into them. Some antiseptic, and then the best bandage job she could do under the circumstances.

  “How long have you had this flu?” Moms asked, as she worked.

  Correa didn’t reply. Moms finished as best she could.

  “Done. You can get dressed.”

  “Thank you,” Correa said, pulling on his shirt and jacket. He was shivering. “We need to move. It will warm me up.”

  Moms had her doubts about that, but didn’t express them. She recovered Nada’s machete and slid it back into the sheath. Then they resumed their way up toward the ridgeline, leaving behind the quickly filling imprint in the snow.

  They pressed on, moving up to the ridgeline without further incident. At the crest they pulled off their packs and settled down to observe.

  “It is amazing any survived,” Correa said, peering through binoculars at the fuselage half-buried in the snow below them, about a half mile away. It was barely visible through the snow at that distance, which was still falling, but the downfall had tapered a little.

  There was no sign of movement at the plane, the survivors all huddled inside. There was only the fuselage, battered and broken in several places. The metal tube was a quarter turned on its side. The top had been painted white (not very helpful for rescuers to spot) and the bottom half gray. Moms could read FUERZA AEREA URUG on the side, the rest of it torn off in the crash.

  “The Valley of Tears,” Moms said.

  “What?”

  “That is what this place will be called. Later.”

  “That would be an appropriate name,” Correa said. The snow surged thicker and the plane faded from view. They were huddled behind a large outcropping of rock. They hadn’t spotted any other Yeti, but with the snow flurries they had limited visibility.

  “The body of Christ,” Correa said.

  Moms was startled. “What?”

  “I have been thinking,” Correa said, “about eating the dead. They are mostly Catholics down there. The Church believes in figuratively eating the body of Christ and drinking his blood. It is not a sin what they have had to do. God will forgive them. They are not cannibals. Cannibals kill and then eat. The dead were killed in the accident. They are doing what God would want them do to. Live.”

  “There is something else,” Moms said.

  Correa nodded. “I am sure there is.”

  “Eight of them die tonight in the avalanche. But in a way, hidden in there is a terrible blessing for the remaining survivors.”

  Correa grasped the implications right away. “Ah. You are right. That is a most terrible blessing. But it must be God’s will also.”

  “Do you believe God exists across the timelines?” Moms asked.

  “I believe I am not smart enough or aware enough to know.”

  Moms had been doing her own thinking, but not in a religious vein. “People give blood. Donate their organs. It is all about living.”

  Correa began coughing. Slowly, then more quickly and deeply. Moms reached across and held him. “Easy. Easy.”

  Gradually Correa’s coughing slowed. He removed his hand from his mouth and smiled at Moms. “Thank you.”

  All Moms could see was the blood staining his teeth.

  “Your lover,” Moms said, “who you lost. What was his name?”

  Correa cocked his head and stared at her. “What do you mean?”

  “As long as someone remembers your name,” Moms said, “you live on.”

  “His name was Jose.” Correa smiled, once more revealing the blood on his teeth. “Such a common name. A boring name. But he was anything but boring. He brought me alive. He brought me out of darkness to my true self.”

  “And he died of the flu?” Moms asked.

  “They call it the gay flu,” Correa said. “The doctors—” he shook his head. “They are confused. And I do not think they care much. They sent Jose home the day he died, even though it was clear he was in very dire condition. They were afraid. I could see it in their eyes. They feared this flu, as they call it. People always fear what they cannot understand. And since it seems only we, the gay, are affected. So they blame us somehow.”

  Moms had recognized the Kaposi’s sarcoma lesions on Correa’s back when she dressed his wounds. She knew that meant he had gone from HIV-
infected to full-blown AIDS.

  “How much pain are you in?”

  “It comes and goes,” Correa evaded.

  “Do you believe God loves you?” Moms asked.

  “Some say what I am is a sin,” Correa said. “The Catholic Church certainly. They say acts I have done are an abomination. But I do not believe love can ever be a sin.”

  “How long ago did Jose die?”

  “Two months.”

  “Of this gay flu?”

  “Yes. The doctors do not know what it is, and most do not care to know. He was turned away from several hospitals even before that last day. He died at home. A friend of ours, a nurse, helped. But there was nothing to be done.” He looked over at her, snowflakes framing his face. “You know what this is, do you not?”

  “Yes.”

  “I will die from it, won’t I?”

  “I’m not a doctor,” Moms said, and immediately felt shame for the evasion. She knew Nada would not have approved. A tenet of the Nightstalkers had always been honesty. “It is most likely you will die. The disease will be called AIDS. Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome. It will kill many people before it is gotten somewhat under control.”

  “Thank you,” Correa said. He got to his feet. “We must get closer in order to see what is going on.”

  Eglin Air Force Base, Florida, 1980. 29 October

  Dawn was breaking as they moved through standard-issue Florida swamp in fall, one each. Each kilometer covered looked exactly like the last kilometer, except things were a bit dryer. Eagle had no idea how Hammersmith was navigating without a compass, but he trusted the man.

  He had to.

  But he didn’t trust anyone else in the squad. He could see them in the early morning light and it was a mixed bag. A couple were sullen, carrying their weapons loosely, barely looking out at their sector. Others were focused, in the here and now. He caught Caruso staring at him every once in a while and couldn’t decide whether the man would as soon put a bullet in his back or was trying to figure out the angles of this strange mission.

  Their uniforms were sterile, meaning there was no rank, no name tag, no unit patch. Nothing. Just OD green Vietnam-era jungle fatigues.