Black Tuesday (Area 51: Time Patrol)

by Mayer, Bob

Price finally spoke. “We knew the first one to come for you wouldn’t stand a chance since you have the Sight.”

  The frakking Sight. She wished someone would explain it to her. Sin Fen had said something . . .

  Then she had the next inevitable realization. Price was playing for time, even with her blade in his heart. “Nice try,” Scout said and she jerked the handle of the stiletto, killing him. She ripped the Swiss army knife out of the sheath on his belt. She was out of the room, running toward the outer door well before his body disintegrated.

  She checked her watch: 22:28.

  She took a deep breath as she reached the air-conditioning unit, and then rapidly unscrewed the cover using Price’s knife. She put the cover to the side and stared at the canister, and the wires. The timer had to have been a distraction. A show to make her believe Price had disabled the device.

  Where was Mac when you needed him?

  She remembered the somber-looking staff sergeant who’d spent six days with her on the demolitions range. Only her, his only student. He was a grizzled Green Beret, one who’d seen more IEDs than almost anyone. He’d treated her as an equal, a true professional. Never asked her who she worked for. Where she came from. Where she was going. He’d shown her as much as he could in that time, focusing more on understanding the system of explosives and detonators and the mind-set of those who put them together.

  He told her that the bottom line was a good tech could always make the device almost impossible to disarm. And that the blue wire, green wire movie BS only worked if you’d been watching the person building the device. Or if you had the time to fiddle with it.

  She didn’t have the time to fiddle with it.

  In that case, his last words echoed in her head: What do you do when your computer seizes up? Unplug the frakker.

  She cut every wire. Then she slashed the hose that connected the canister to the other line.

  Without putting the cover back on, she ran back into the building. Entering the room where she’d killed Price, she barely noted his body was gone. She checked her watch.

  It was 22:30

  Peering through the peephole she saw Keane type. He had the headset on. “Got it?”

  Keane pushed back from the keyboard, clearly happy. He scribbled some notes into a logbook, powered down the computer, and then walked to the door and turned off the lights as he left.

  Leaving Scout alone in the dark.

  Two kills.

  London, England, 1618. 29 October

  Mac’s parents had taught him a harsh lesson: Going up against faith was breaking one’s effort on a harsh, jagged, and immovable rock. Logic would not work.

  Beeston, even though he was a member of the Time Patrol, believed in the prophecy. Mac’s first instinct had been to tell Beeston of the Valkyries and that the Shadow had been manipulating Raleigh ever since a Valkyrie visited him, not an angel. Probably even saved his life here and there and now and then in some manner.

  Then he remembered his parents and the way they had reacted to his brother’s death and realized the possibility of changing Beeston’s faith, and thus defusing the plot, in just a few hours, was futile, especially since it required Raleigh to actually lose his head. There had to be another way to maintain the timeline.

  “Drink,” Henry said, shoving another mug of ale Mac’s way. It was an hour before dawn and if this was any indication of Raleigh’s future, it looked drunken and sloppy. Except for Beeston. He was sitting at the other end of the table from Mac, arms folded, face somber. Waiting.

  Most of the rest of the men were pretty plastered, but Mac had a feeling they had the capability of sobering up fast. The download had informed him of one interesting fact: People drank a lot of ale and wine and other fermented liquids for many centuries because it was actually safer than drinking the water. Apparently Ben Franklin had been pretty soused almost every single day and he’d managed to accomplish a thing or two.

  Mac was evaluating possible courses of action as Henry was back to feeling him up under the table.

  He could do it the Roland way: Plant a bomb and take out the scaffold and Raleigh. There was a precedent: Guy Fawkes, who’d been executed in the same exact place they were going to whack Raleigh. Fawkes had been part of the Gunpowder Plot of 1605 against King James. When the plotters got rolled up because of a tip from an anonymous letter, there was Fawkes underneath the House of Lords sitting on thirty-six barrels of gunpowder.

  As an engineer and demo man, Mac would have loved to see what would have happened had Fawkes been able to fire the explosives.

  Except Fawkes had been sentenced to be drawn and quartered and wanted no part of that, a perfectly understandable sentiment. So he threw himself off the scaffold and broke his neck, going out fast.

  If only Raleigh would do that, Mac thought.

  Henry was getting more daring the more he drank and the closer it came to chopping-hour, but Mac could care less. He was running out of time. It made sense that the Shadow had sent a Valkyrie to give Raleigh his three promises and who knew what other information? It explained a lot: Raleigh’s willingness to put his life on the line as if possessed of boundless courage. Any man could be a world explorer with such promises tucked away.

  So the first question was: How was Raleigh getting off the scaffold to the horses? Raleigh had only quizzed Beeston on the getaway from the scaffold. The Fawkes way? That hadn’t turned out well either.

  Or was the Shadow going to intervene somehow?

  Mac doubted that. The idea had been brilliant so far. They didn’t have to pop back up, because all the tools and motivations were in place. Beeston was going to attack the scaffold with these drunken fools. Allow them to get slaughtered while he made off with Raleigh. Mac’s arrival was actually a confirmation of the prophecy.

  What to do? What to do?

  Roland’s way was out. Might kill Raleigh, Beeston, and a bunch of other folks and thus change history. Raleigh had to die under the axe. Only him.

  Mac realized he had to do it the Scout way. The smart way.

  He accessed the download for information on beheadings. A curious note popped up: A clergyman accompanied the condemned up to the platform. At one beheading the priest had been so good at convincing a young man that he was going to a better life, that the fellow actually had tears of joy in his eyes at the thought of being rescued from the hell to which he’d believed he was condemned. That the pearly gates were wide open for his treasonous ass. He took the axe willingly.

  Nope. Raleigh already believed he was right, so that wouldn’t work. Mac accessed information about the way it was supposed to happen.

  A chaplain had been sent to Raleigh in the same room where Mac had met Raleigh earlier. The chaplain later wrote about the encounter, dousing any last hope Mac had of “conversion” via faith:

  “He was the most fearless of death that ever was known; and the most resolute and confident, yet with reverence and conscience. When I began to encourage him against the fear of death, he seemed to make so light of it that I wondered at him . . . He gave God thanks, he never feared death; and the manner of death, though to others it might seem grievous, yet he had rather die so than of a burning fever. I wished him not to flatter himself, for this extraordinary boldness I was afraid came from some false ground. If it were out of a humour of vain glory, or carelessness of death, or senselessness of his own state, he were much to be lamented. He answered that he was persuaded that no man that knew God and feared Him could die with cheerfulness and courage, except he were assured of the love and favour of God unto him; that other men might make shows outwardly, but they felt no joy within; with much more to that effect, very Christianly so that he satisfied me then, as I think he did all his spectators at this death.”

  A few things left out there, Mac thought. Like three promises from a so-called angel.

  An interesting conundrum.

  The Shadow had convinced Raleigh of a reason to live. Even the priest had walked away shaking his
head. But according to the account, the priest was not the last one to see Raleigh before he was led to the scaffold.

  Mac had to give Raleigh a reason to die.

  Leverage. It was always about leverage.

  Andes Mountains, Argentina, 1972. 29 October

  “The days are short,” Correa told Moms. It was barely three thirty in the afternoon and the sun was already at the western horizon. “It will be a very long night.”

  They were now less than three hundred meters from the broken fuselage, edging their way down, bit by bit. They’d spotted some movement in the last couple of hours. A person slipping out from the wreckage to urinate every so often. But little else. Moms understood some of what those inside were feeling: exhausted, hope barely a flicker, unwilling to leave even the rough “comfort” of the interior of the plane. Given their condition, they would have the greatest difficulty stirring themselves for even the most basic needs. Moms had seen strong soldiers fold during Winter Warfare training. The cold and altitude and hunger sucked the will out of a person.

  “Do you know from which direction the avalanche comes?” Correa asked.

  Moms accessed the data. “There are no photos of it, but the survivors say it came in the open end of the fuselage.”

  Correa pointed past the plane to a slope. “From there then. We should be all right here. From what I felt in the snow as we came down from the ridge, this side is relatively secure.”

  They were slightly higher than the plane, on the far side of the slope to which he had just pointed and in the shadow of a large rock outcropping. Neither had mentioned the hope that the other Yeti had died of its wounds. They were both experienced soldiers and knew better than to allow themselves that comfort.

  They spent as much time searching the surrounding terrain as they did watching the fuselage. There was no reappearance of the Yeti or any other abnormal phenomenon.

  Correa suddenly spoke through the cold silence. “You said this AIDS was ‘gotten under control.’ But not cured in your time?”

  “Not cured yet,” Moms confirmed.

  “Is it restricted to homosexuals?” he asked.

  Moms scanned back the way they had come. Their footprints had quickly been covered by snow. Visibility was less than a quarter mile and diminishing as darkness fell. “No. It’s transmitted by some forms of sexual contact or any other way certain body fluids are exchanged; also from an infected mother to a child during pregnancy.”

  “To a baby?” Correa was shocked. “That is horrible. Babies can never be blamed for what befalls them.”

  “In my time,” Moms said, “most who have it via sexual transmission are actually heterosexual, although many don’t know that. It’s a very large problem in Africa. And intravenous drug users can spread it by sharing a needle.”

  “You are breaking the rules,” Correa said.

  Moms turned her head toward him, startled. “What?”

  “You are telling me of the future,” Correa said. “Is it because I have no future?”

  “I’m not a doctor.” Moms shifted uncomfortably.

  “You will be done with the here and now in . . .”—Correa looked at his watch—“ . . . under eight hours. This is the rest of my life. Here and now. It would be comforting to know the future becomes better.”

  Moms had not considered that. Was the future from 1972 to her time actually better? “We’re still around,” she finally said. “Bad things happen, but there is no nuclear war. Many dire things people are predicting don’t happen.” But 9/11 did happen, Moms thought. And the never-ending War on Terror. And then there were Rifts, but it appears they had that one solved. Only to now face the Shadow. “The Time Patrol has done a great job.”

  “That is good to hear.” He didn’t sound encouraged. “Do you know what the motto of my Commando Group is?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “Stirps Virilis. Latin. There are some variations of ways to translate it, but essentially ‘manly character.’ Perhaps there is some irony in that.”

  Moms thought of Mac, who’d hidden who he was for so long. “It takes a lot to be a real man. I think you’ve shown that.”

  Correa smiled. “And you, my friend, are a real woman. A leader. Your team is fortunate to have you.”

  Moms looked back at the remains of the plane. No one had appeared from inside the fuselage for a while. With darkness, the survivors were hunkered down inside.

  “It will not be long now,” Correa said. “Does your history record the time of the avalanche?”

  “The accounts from the survivors just say it was after dark. Pretty much everyone was asleep, essentially passed out from hunger and exhaustion when it hit.”

  The snow was beginning to fall more heavily and there was a mist in the air.

  The air was split by what sounded like a sonic boom.

  “It is coming,” Correa said.

  They looked across, beyond the plane, but there was only darkness masked by falling snow. A sound grew louder, like a row of locomotives charging toward them.

  As quickly as they saw the avalanche, a roiling sea of snow, it washed over the fuselage and spent itself, dying out less than a hundred feet from where they were hidden. The plane was gone from view.

  “Most who die in there, will do so from suffocation,” Correa said. “It takes about three minutes.”

  It was abnormally still now after the roar of the cascading snow. Moms had to force herself not to charge down the hill and start digging. It was an irrational thought, not only because of the imperative of the Time Patrol, but also because if she’d wanted to save those inside, she could have done so earlier.

  “This sucks,” Moms muttered.

  “It is a difficult task,” Correa understated. “Perhaps some of the eight were crushed when the snow came in the open end. They would have died instantly.”

  Moms spoke, as much to distract herself as to impart information. “One of those who survives does so because of what might be considered a miracle. Nando Parrado survived the initial plane crash but suffered a closed brain injury. They thought he was dead so they put him outside with the other bodies. But that saved his life, because the freezing temperatures kept his brain from swelling.”

  “He survived the accident by accident,” Correa said. “Did he survive this?” he nodded toward the buried plane.

  “Yes.” Moms was going to say more, to tell her partner of the courageous journey that Parrado and one of the other survivors would make, crossing the Andes into Chile to summon help.

  But that was in the future.

  “Those who suffocated are now dead,” Correa said, having kept a silent count.

  “Whatever will happen, will happen soon,” Moms said.

  Eglin Air Force Base, Florida, 1980. 29 October

  They’d made over two kilometers, but the mist hadn’t dissipated. Sound was muted, as if the mist not only blocked light, but also noise. Everyone in the patrol was in the here and now; their pasts of no importance other than their training and combat experience. Their future was immediate: survival.

  Eagle knew they were a team now because of the reason men always fought: for each other. One could wave the flag, make speeches about duty and country, but it always came down to fighting for the guy next to you. These were combat vets who knew the only way they were getting out of this swamp alive was to work together.

  But they were down two; the Dirty Dozen was now an even ten.

  Eagle was feeling some time pressure. Despite the mist, he could tell it was getting late in the day. He had to be in position near the airfield before the final flight of Credible Sport, or else it wouldn’t be the final flight.

  While Eagle had no doubt most in the know wanted the mission to go forward, as an objective observer from the future, he thought the plan was a stretch at best. It was one of those plans where everything would have to go just right or everything would go very wrong. It was almost as if nothing had been learned from the disaster at Desert One. There they’d relied on th
e helicopters with a low margin of error and it had failed; now they were relying on a single plane to do something never before attempted under combat conditions. As a pilot, Eagle knew how many ways the soccer stadium landing and takeoff could go awry. While all the concern was about the distances involved, a simple thing like a car parked in the field, or even goal posts, could initiate disaster.

  Eagle also had the knowledge that the hostages would be released in three months without loss of life, when Ronald Reagan took office. For those in this present, the hostage situation looked like it was never going to end, a continuing national embarrassment with each day added to the total.

  Hammersmith held up his fist once more.

  Eagle saw why: Less than five feet away was a sandy road. For a Ranger, a road like this was a “danger” area. There was a Protocol to crossing such an area. Flankers were to be sent out, left and right. A team of two men sent across to reconnoiter the far side, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.

  There was no time for that. Plus, visibility in either direction down the road was less than ten meters.

  Hammersmith looked at Eagle and raised an eyebrow in question. “The southern end of the airfield is about two hundred meters that way,” he added in a low voice, pointing at an angle across the road.

  Eagle signaled for the rest of the squad to come on line. Then he pointed ahead and pumped his fist. On line, the ten charged across the road.

  And before they were halfway across the narrow road, a Valkyrie swooped in on either end and slashed at the flankers, decapitating one, nearly decapitating the other, but dealing enough of a blow to send arterial blood spurting from the neck.

  Four men turned right, four turned left, and all opened fire.

  “The eyes!” Eagle yelled. “M203s!” he added.

  The Valkyries on either side were two feet off the ground. Each was seven feet tall, totally encased in hard white armor with a featureless white face except for two red bulges that marked the eyes. Flowing red “hair” went over their shoulders. A foot-long blade appeared on the end of each finger. The electric monsters plowed ahead, into the second man on each flank. Both were shredded and died, having gotten off only a few shots.