Time Frame (Split Second Book 2)

by Douglas E. Richards

  Vargas took a deep breath and walked closer to his three guards, who were spread along the wall that contained the room’s only exit. He blinked twice, paused, and then blinked twice again, bracing himself for a shriek that would be at a pitch he couldn’t hear, but which would drill through his ears and into his brain, incapacitating him and killing the three Rourks.

  Nothing happened.

  No sonic wave. No unhearable acoustic blast mowing down all in the room like they were blades of grass. No massive headache and urge to puke his brains out onto the floor.

  He tried three more times to activate the device, and failed each time. It was still in the prototype stage, but he had seen the reports, and it had only failed once out of hundreds of tests.

  He sighed. This was a very bad break. He would have to go with the vomit-inducing smell. He might be temporarily immune from it, but when the three Rourks heaved the contents of their stomachs onto the floor, he wouldn’t be immune from this smell. And he’d have to relieve one of them of their gun while it was happening, a messy endeavor at best.

  Vargas shook his head in disgust and executed the simple blink sequence that would activate the stench bomb.

  Again, nothing happened.

  It couldn’t be. The odds against both devices failing were astronomical. And based on the results of rigorous testing, the chances that the electronics in the contact lens had failed were even smaller.

  Unless the devices hadn’t failed.

  Unless Knight had detected his lens, knew what it could do, and had used Brain Trust technology to make sure it couldn’t issue any remote commands to trigger his hidden weapons. When Vargas’s hat also failed, he was certain this was the case.

  Maybe Knight was as brilliant as he thought he was, after all. So much for the easy way out.

  Vargas knew he was partly to blame for this disaster. There were versions of these hidden weapons that could be activated by hand. These wouldn’t have required receipt of a signal from his contact lens, nor would they have given off a detectable electronic signature. But he hadn’t brought them. Next time he would be smarter. If there was a next time.

  His only chance now was to be bold. He would have to take a significant risk with his life. It was either this or allow Knight to put a deadly capsule in his head. Just because his odds of survival had plummeted didn’t change his decision.

  Time for plan B.

  He began to walk toward the door. “It’s been fun, guys,” he said to the three Rourks, “but I really need to go.”

  All three laughed at the same time, in the same way, and extended their weapons. “Sorry, but we can’t let you do that,” they all said at once.

  “Okay,” he snapped in annoyance. “I’m not going to listen to you dickheads in stereo. You, in the middle,” he said, pointing. “You’re going to do the talking for the three stooges from now on.”

  “We don’t take orders from you,” said the Jack Rourk in the middle, while the other two remained silent, doing exactly what he had instructed.

  “Here’s what’s going to happen,” said Vargas. “I’m going to walk out that door. And you aren’t going to stop me. Why? Because you’ve heard how critical I am to your boss’s plans. Indispensable. Kill me and he’ll never get what he wants.”

  “He said you were free to leave if you chose not to help him,” noted the man in the middle. “You’re hardly indispensable.”

  “We both know he was lying. If I choose not to go forward, he’ll force that capsule on me. I’m too important to his plans. But if you really don’t think he was lying, then it shouldn’t trouble you to let me leave. I hereby announce that I choose not to help him. Now get the fuck out of my way.”

  The Rourks glanced at each other in confusion.

  “If you believe he was telling the truth about letting me walk,” continued Vargas, “no reason to stand in my way now.”

  “You aren’t going anywhere,” said the spokesman Vargas had designated.

  “Which means you do believe Knight was lying. If this is the case, then we’re back to me being indispensable to him. So are you really going to shoot me? Or maim me? You heard his plan to get me into Q5. You think if you give me a bullet wound to explain away, this will help my chances? I’ll make the decision even easier for you: wound me and I’ll kill myself.”

  When the Rourks remained silent, Vargas shook his head in contempt. “Let me spell it out for you in terms that even you can understand,” he said. “Try to stop me, and your boss’s plans are fucked.”

  “Same thing will happen if we let you leave,” said middle Rourk.

  Vargas shook his head again. “No. I’ll still be alive, and Knight will be able to find me. If he really is as formidable as he claims, I can’t stop him from capturing me and putting me to work.”

  Vargas walked briskly forward, giving them as little time as possible to think their way through this riddle. They each returned their guns to their holsters at the same time, and drew closer together to physically block his path, just as Vargas hoped they would.

  He pretended to stumble as he neared the middle Rourk, barreling toward him so the man had no other choice but to catch him and break his fall. The moment Rourk did, Vargas pulled the man’s gun from its holster and put multiple shots through his torso in the direction of the Rourk on the left, the bullets managing to penetrate the first Rourk and embed themselves in the second. The Rourk on the right reacted immediately, pulling his own gun, but Vargas spun the dead middle Rourk into his gun hand, defecting his shot, and then put several bullets through the last Rourk’s head.

  Satisfied, he surveyed the three identical bodies, all gushing blood on the hardwood floor of the farmhouse. He put an additional bullet into each of their heads, just to be sure, and calmly glided to the door. Once out of the room, he would plan the perfect ambush for when Knight returned. Knight would be dead before he even knew what hit him.

  Vargas certainly couldn’t let him return to this room. Even if he removed the three bodies, he wouldn’t have time to clean the blood spatter that now decorated the walls along with the chickens and roosters.

  Vargas threw open the door and stepped through.

  “Freeze!” screamed Edgar Knight, shoving an assault rifle against Vargas’s temple. “Drop it!”

  Vargas swallowed hard and released the gun, which made a loud thud as it hit the hardwood floor.

  “Back up!” shouted Knight. “Now!”

  Vargas blew out a breath and did as he was told. “I think you might have missed your helicopter ride,” he said.

  “It was just a decoy,” said Knight.

  “Yeah, no shit,” said Vargas in frustration.

  36

  “Very impressive, Colonel,” said Knight in admiration. “I knew you had a reputation as being capable in the field, but I had no idea. When I worked with you, you were just an asshole and a bureaucrat.”

  “So this was nothing but a setup?” said the colonel in disgust. “Just to see what I would do?”

  “You’re also quicker on the uptake than I expected,” said Knight. “Yes. I was curious to see how you would play this. And I took the liberty of deactivating all of your weapons. You have some nice toys, but I know what your scientists have been working on, and expected you might bring a few with you.”

  “I still don’t see the point.”

  “I put you in a bind, and I wanted to see what you’d do about it. A little test. I wondered if you’d really believe I’d let you walk if you refused to have the capsule implanted. If you did, I’d have no further use for you, since you’d be too stupid to pull this off, anyway.”

  Vargas glared at him but didn’t reply.

  “I monitored your contact lens,” continued Knight, “and was happy to see you at least tried to set off your weapons. That answered one question. The next question was, what would you do when your toys didn’t work? I had no idea, really. I just wanted to see if you’d roll over, deciding you had no way out. Of course y
ou aren’t going to let me put something in your fucking head. Who could blame you? I always knew I’d have to do that against your will. But I wondered if you would try to escape, even without any weapons. From what I’ve read about you, I thought you might have a chance, even against three armed men who were all well trained.”

  “Happy?” barked Vargas.

  “Extremely,” said Knight. “I was watching on my phone and listening through a comm. The Rourks didn’t know I was just outside the door. Just like you, they thought I had flown off in the helo.” He shook his head in wonder. “The logic you used on them was brilliant. I couldn’t have done better myself. And you killed them all so quickly, and left the room so decisively, if I’d have waited another few seconds to pocket my phone and raise my gun, you would have killed me too.”

  “I’m so glad you’re impressed,” growled Vargas.

  “More than impressed,” said Knight. “I take back what I said about your lack of backbone.”

  He gestured to the three dead men on the floor. “And thanks for saving me the trouble of killing them,” he added. “I let them hear every word of our conversation. If they were smart, they would have realized I couldn’t let them live after that—especially because I have two more copies of Jack Rourk elsewhere.”

  “While you were entertaining yourself,” snapped Vargas, “did you consider what would have happened if I hadn’t been so effective? What if I tried to escape without reminding them I’m indispensable? What if they had killed me, your ticket into Q5? How could you possibly take that risk?”

  Knight shook his head. “I didn’t. I programmed my time machine to make two extra copies of you. When it detected the first in the field, it changed polarity and sent the second fifty-eight feet away into the farmhouse. I didn’t choose to stop the truck where I did by accident. I measured the distance to the farmhouse beforehand. I had a colleague inside who knocked the third you out with a dart gun and dragged you to a room upstairs.”

  “So you got to conduct your little experiment on me without any risk at all.”

  “That’s right. If you were killed, I’d just wake the other you and start all over.” Knight shrugged. “Since you not only survived, you impressed, the extra copy of you is now . . . redundant. I’ll have him disposed of momentarily.”

  There was a long silence as Vargas considered just how easily Knight had outsmarted him at every turn. “So now what?” he asked finally.

  “Now we go forward as planned. I’m more excited than ever about making you my second-in-command. Which should give you great confidence that I’ll keep you alive. For this to work, you’ll have to be able to think on your feet. After what you’ve just shown me, I’m confident you won’t have any trouble. I think we’re going to make a great team.”

  “I don’t doubt it,” said Vargas. “Does this mean that you’ll forgo the damn capsule?”

  Knight laughed. “Are you kidding? Now I need it more than ever. You’re more impressive than I thought. Far too dangerous to be left on your own recognizance.”

  “Don’t do this, Edgar,” said the colonel. “We’re alike, you and I. Only you’re more ambitious than I am, and more capable. But we both want to tame the world. Bend it to our will. We’re both unafraid of killing if necessary to make this happen. And I’ve come around to your way of thinking. Really. History only remembers big deeds. I’m ready to embrace the old adage, ‘Kill one man and you’re a murderer. Kill millions of men, and you’re a conqueror.’”

  “Are you saying you’re ready to become a conqueror with me? Willing to kill millions of men?”

  “Only if we have to. But yes. If that’s what it takes to end terrorism and dictatorships forever, it would be worth it.”

  “You know that’s not the entire quote,” said Knight. “It’s, ‘Kill one man and you’re a murderer. Kill millions of men, and you’re a conqueror. Kill them all, and you’re a god.”

  “Good thing you don’t aspire to become a god, then,” said Vargas.

  Knight laughed. “No, no. Only a conqueror. And only if I have to. A bloodless coup is still the goal.”

  “Good,” said Vargas. “Then we couldn’t be more on the same page. You can trust me. No need to implant your capsule.”

  Knight removed a dart gun from a pocket and shot Vargas point-blank in the stomach. “Good to know,” he said as the colonel faded into unconsciousness.

  37

  Hank Vargas opened his eyes and tried to shake the fog from his mind. He was in his own room, lying on his own bed, so why did something feel wrong? As his head continued to clear, he realized what was troubling him.

  He was fully clothed. For a man who had slept in his underwear for decades, this was alarming, especially because he had no idea why this would be.

  In one quick burst his meeting with Knight came flooding back to him, along with a memory of the dart in his gut that had ended it.

  Vargas could feel a slight, throbbing pain just behind his right ear. Son of a bitch! he thought as he threw open the blinds, flooding the room with morning light. After his eyes adjusted he examined the site of the throbbing in his bathroom mirror. Sure enough, a small, round bandage was affixed to his head just above the ear. He lifted the bandage to reveal what appeared to be a small hole that had been bored into his lower skull, very near his brain stem. His ear was ringing just a bit, as well, but relatively free of pain, as promised.

  Vargas cursed again. The bastard had really done it. He considered for a moment that it might be a bluff, that Knight might have just stabbed him with a horse needle, but knowing the man he decided this was wishful thinking.

  The colonel removed his phone from an end table and checked a prominent text that was still showing on the screen, from Edgar Knight, instructing Vargas to call him when he woke up.

  “Sorry about the implant thing,” said Knight when he answered, his holographic image appearing in front of the colonel. “I really will reset it each week with plenty of time to spare.”

  Vargas fumed, but decided it wouldn’t pay to lash out. “How do I know it’s really there?” he asked.

  “Sounds like you don’t trust me,” said Knight in amusement. “I can’t help but be hurt.”

  “Go fuck yourself.”

  Knight laughed. “You know, with time travel duplication, I really could. But I think I’ll pass.” He paused. “Look, Hank, I know I implanted this against your will. But we’re partners now. And this is just an insurance policy. Now that it’s in place, why would I lie to you? I’m excited to have you as my right-hand man.”

  “That’s because you don’t have a time bomb in your head.”

  “That’s a little dramatic,” said Knight, “but I get your point. And I promise you that you’ll get over this. You said you wanted to join me. If this is true, you have nothing to worry about.”

  “I do want to join you,” said Vargas. “I have. And if I was certain I could trust you, the implant wouldn’t bother me.”

  “Good, then it won’t bother you for long. You’ll soon realize I’m sane, a good boss, and a man of my word. As a first step, you’re welcome to get a skull X-ray to confirm the capsule’s presence. Just be sure that when the doctor spots it, he doesn’t try to take it out. That would be very bad,” he added pointedly. “But if you’re going to confirm it, do this in a hurry. I want you to set up your meeting yesterday, if possible.”

  “Understood,” said Vargas.

  “Your phone was already untraceable and unhackable,” continued Knight, “but—while you were out—I added some features to make it even more so. I also added the Brain Trust invention I mentioned to you that will ensure you get good cell reception, even inside Cheyenne Mountain, without having to piggyback on the base’s Wi-Fi.”

  “While I was out?” said Vargas. “You make it sound like I was at dinner, enjoying lobster bisque, while you graciously upgraded my phone.”

  “Okay. While you were on your ass, knocked unconscious against your will. Better?”
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  “Yes. Since we’ll be working as a team for a long time to come, you should know I like my medicine straight, without any sugarcoating.”

  “Good. That’s how I prefer to deliver it,” said Knight. He paused. “I trust you’ll be spending some quality time preparing for this upcoming meeting, thinking through your approach.”

  “Of course.”

  “Including thinking through possible curve balls you might get thrown.”

  “I said I’d be prepared!” snapped the colonel. “I know what’s riding on this. Cargill’s days are numbered.”

  “Lee’s days are numbered,” corrected Knight. “Remember, you’re pretending you were his mentor, so use his first name—like you were best friends.”

  “Of course.”

  “Good,” said Knight. “Let me add one last thing. For this to work you have to establish trust—and at least a little rapport. So be friendly and respectful. Charming even. Whatever you do, you can’t be arrogant and condescending. You can’t be argumentative and caustic. In short, be yourself . . . only the opposite.”

  “Fuck you!” spat Vargas.

  “Perfect,” said Knight. “Keep behaving exactly like this. Only the opposite.”

  38

  “My name is Colonel Hank Vargas, and I need to meet with the president as soon as possible.”

  “I’ve never heard of a Colonel Hank Vargas,” snapped B. Joseph Kotrich, suddenly sorry he had taken the audio-only call. Kotrich was President Janney’s chief of staff and the ultimate gatekeeper. “Who are you? How did you get this number?”

  Before Vargas could formulate an answer, Kotrich continued. “You know what, I don’t care who you are. If you really are a colonel, then go through the chain of command. When the Secretary of Defense asks me to schedule a meeting between you and the president, I’ll be happy to do it.”

  “You haven’t heard of me,” hissed Vargas, “because I’m high up in Black Operations. You’re not supposed to have heard of me, shit for brains. And the fact that I do have your number tells you I’m connected and someone to take seriously. But Janney knows who I am. So check with him. Trust me, he’ll take the meeting.”