Fate (Wilton's Gold #3)

by Craig W. Turner

  “No!” Dexter said, stepping forward, in between them and the door. Two of the agents grabbed him as well. “He’s not lying.”

  Fisher stepped up to him, close to his face. “Look, you ask me to take a leap of faith in believing the three of you came from the future and that I need to assemble a team of agents to take this guy down. Which is insane. Then I find out that the leader of your little group is out to get me for something I haven’t even done. Then he disappears. What’s going to happen now is that we’re all going to a secure facility to answer some questions. With the truth.”

  Dexter watched as the other agents grabbed Victoria and then Erica. He tried to remember the last time he’d seen her – it had been at the party after she and Jeff had returned from the future. She’d disappeared after that.

  The lights went out.

  CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

  When the lights went out, Erica immediately dove to the ground and rolled until she hit the closest wall of the lab. She stayed put in the dark as she heard a series of thumps, and then what sounded like bodies falling to the floor. Then a struggle that lasted several seconds, and then another body on the ground.

  A moment later, the light went on again.

  Now standing in the room was everyone who had been there, plus Emeka, who was wearing green night-vision goggles. Every one of the agents except for Fisher was motionless on the ground.

  “You wanted privacy,” Jeff said. “You’ve got privacy. Let’s talk.”

  Erica realized she was the only one who’d gotten herself out of harm’s way, though whatever Emeka had done to the agents had been pretty precise. She stood up and resumed her place next to Jeff’s side. He was in control now, so it seemed to be the safest place possible.

  “What did you do to my men?” Fisher asked.

  “Short-term tranquilizer,” Emeka said. “No lasting damage.”

  Jeff stepped up. “We’ve got about ten minutes to convince you that we’re the good guys.”

  “You just vaporized someone. How are you the good guys?”

  He shook his head. “I didn’t vaporize anyone. And we can save him by being proactive. If we make a history where he never comes back here to this lab, he doesn’t get sent randomly into time. Does that make sense?”

  She’d been trying to figure that out, and when he said it, she knew she was on the right track. He was good.

  Fisher wasn’t convinced, though. “No,” he said, his hand moving to his gun. “Ten minutes, you said?”

  CHAPTER FORTY-NINE

  Jeff had hoped that Fisher’s presence in the book would have been enough to convince him, but understood that the FBI protocol would be to calm the situation down in order to get control of the details. He hadn’t done anything specifically to harm Bremner, but he was pretty confident the U.S. judicial system would frown on sending someone against their will to a random time in history, despite the fact that the actual impetus for such laws wasn’t even common knowledge.

  He’d had an interesting relationship with this man. He’d been confronted by him when the government had found his time device in the forest. He’d taken on a secret and dangerous mission at his request, and succeeded in it against all odds. He’d reunited with him only to find out that the very man who’d sent him on the mission had no idea that he’d done so. And they’d bonded over how to stop the bad guys. He’d had enough interactions with him that he hoped he knew something about him. The clock was ticking, and if those agents came to and were directed to take him into custody, he knew the United States Time Program would become a reality. He needed them to leave with Fisher.

  “Look,” he said, stepping forward. “In the future, you and I became friends of sorts. In fact, I probably wouldn’t even be here if it wasn’t for you. You showed me what Bremner was up to. And you knew you were endangering yourself by doing so. According to his book, you were rightfully cautious. He went back in time and did something to you. I know that because you and I were collaborating, and then suddenly I didn’t hear from you again. I don’t know what he did or when he did it, but we can’t let that be your future.”

  “If you’re on the right side of this, why did you need to neutralize my men?”

  “Because you weren’t going to give me the time to explain. I need you on my side here. I am here to destroy this lab.”

  “Destroy it?” Fisher asked.

  “Destroy it?” Victoria asked at the same time.

  “What the government is going to do with my time travel technology is more dangerous than any nuclear bomb, any other weapon they can come up with. The ability to eliminate an enemy’s existence. And not just an enemy of war, or a political enemy. But a business rival. A threat to scientific discovery. A singular target of the government that may or may not have realized his or her potential. The days of having the IRS audit your political opposition are gone. In a few years, you’ll be able to erase them from history. Does that sound like ‘good guy’ behavior?”

  Fisher glared at him for a moment, then softened, the tension in his arm dropping as he pulled his hand away from his firearm. “Is that what they’re going to do to me? Erase me from history?”

  Jeff held up his hands, shaking his head. “I don’t know for sure,” he said. He didn’t. “You were with me, and then the next day there was no word from you. Then you show up in this book. And I didn’t steal this book – the other me did. Which means they were watching you for a while. But you saved us all by taking that risk. Now I can return the favor.”

  “What do you need me to do?”

  “When they get back on their feet, I need you to get them out of here. Then, and this is probably the more important part, in the interest of what I would call national security, I need to you take all of this to the grave with you. Which I hope means you’ll be hanging onto this information a lot longer than if we don’t do this.”

  “That’s a lot to ask.”

  “I promise you,” Jeff said, “if time travel ever rears its ugly head again, you can come and get me. I’ll come willingly. But I can’t end this if you take me away from here now.”

  Fisher sighed. “Alright,” he said. “Here’s what I’m going to do. I’ll send them on their way, but I’m staying to monitor everything you do. I don’t know you. I can’t take it on blind faith that you’re going to let this all go.”

  “Fair enough,” Jeff said, and then he turned his attention to Dexter.

  CHAPTER FIFTY

  Dexter had been following the conversation between Jeff and Agent Fisher closely, back and forth, and then suddenly it was on him.

  He was surprised that Fisher had acquiesced so quickly, especially since he was only going to be outnumbered for a matter of minutes. Perhaps he could ascertain the dangers of time travel himself without needing further explanation. Either way, Dexter had felt a breath of relief when he’d said he would let Jeff do his work.

  But now it was decision time for him. Although it wasn’t much of a decision. There was already a version of Dexter Murphy living in this time, and there was no need for two. The world would change around him and the details of his life would once again be different. It had happened before, when they’d returned from Colonial America to find that he was no longer the world-traveling, history-reenacting bachelor that he liked being, having been changed by time travel into a married homebody. But now with three more years’ experience behind him, including the struggles and the divorce, he finally seemed to be finding something that was his own again in the Time Program. But it wasn’t meant to be. He’d have to reengage and learn who he was all over again. It was the right thing to do, though.

  Not that he couldn’t give Jeff a hard time about it. “Why am I the only one that gets affected by all of this?” he asked, then couldn’t help himself from laughing. “Hopefully, I won’t end up married again this time.”

  “Married again?” Jeff asked, confused. “What are you talking about?”

  For the first time, Erica demonstrated t
hat she knew him, leaning over to Jeff and touching him on the shoulder. “Sorry – I left a detail out of my story,” she said.

  He looked down at her. “I guess so.”

  “Well, aren’t you all buddy-buddy,” Victoria asked.

  She was right – they were. Dexter had kind of forgotten that his traveling companion was there. He turned to her and said, “Victoria, we have to go back.”

  “Yes, we do,” she said. “And he’s coming with us. Without her.”

  Dexter shook his head calmly. “No, it doesn’t work that way.”

  She pulled the USTP time device out of her pocket and waved it menacingly in front of her. “Well, if I’m the only one who’s going to work in the best interest of the Time Program, then so be it. But I’m not giving up on time travel.” She inched backwards away from them as she spoke. “And I’m not giving up on us, Jeff. I’ll see you soon.”

  “Victoria, don’t,” Dexter said, reaching for her. But he was too late. She’d pushed the button and was gone.

  “Well, that’s going to be a problem,” Fisher said.

  Jeff was shaking his head. “No. It won’t. It’s probably the best-case scenario.”

  “But won’t she be able to orchestrate something else to stop you?”

  “No. She’s in the future. Anything we do now will change her options. But we have to do it now to make sure it gets done.” A few of the agents on the ground were starting to stir. “The ball’s in your court, Agent Fisher.”

  “What about me?” Dexter asked. “She took my ride home.”

  Jeff reached into his left pocket and pulled out the other USTP device. “Recognize this?” he asked, smiling. “It’s the device we used to break out of the USTP.”

  “You’ve got to be kidding me,” Dexter said, smiling. “I had a feeling everything you pulled in 1930 wasn’t personal.”

  “No, not one moment of it,” he said, handing the device to him. “There’s one trip left on it. It’s all yours.”

  Dexter took it and smiled. “Well, I’ll take it.”

  “Don’t think I don’t understand the sacrifice you’re making here,” Jeff said. “I do. And I’m thankful. Destroy that thing when you get back.”

  He nodded. Looking down, he entered the coordinates into the device – one minute after the moment he’d left – and looked up at Erica. There was one thing he’d wanted to say to her, but hadn’t had the chance with everything that had happened. “This guy traveled through history to find you,” he said. “Make it matter.” She nodded to him and smiled, then he turned to Jeff. “Dr. Jacobs,” he said.

  “Dr. Murphy,” Jeff said, nodding with a smile. “I’ll see you in about three years.”

  He pushed the button and the details of Jeff’s lab melted from his sight.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE

  Almost immediately after they’d said goodbye to Dexter, the first of Fisher’s men stood groggily. Jeff could feel Emeka tense up beside him, readying for any confrontation that might spring up. But the man was too out of it, almost falling back over once he’d reached his feet.

  After a few moments, most of them were at least standing, each of them finding the tiny dart stuck in random parts of their bodies. There were a lot of questions as to where the darts had come from, but true to his word, Fisher corralled everyone and led them out of the lab with an understanding that everything had been taken care of. Jeff had to imagine that, had they been thinking straight, they wouldn’t have been too pleased about the way they were taken out – especially given the uncertain nature of their operation in the first place. But a few minutes later, Fisher was rapping on the lab door to be let back in.

  Left in the room were Fisher, Emeka, Erica and himself. What they were about to do was monumental – as monumental as the first time he’d traveled through time. So, he sat for a moment and looked at each one of them. Fisher had a job to do, and he was staying to see it executed. Erica was fulfilling a mission she’d started only a day before, but one that seemed like it had been forever ago from what she’d told him. Emeka was a most loyal friend, who would do whatever Jeff needed done for the good of the cause. And as for himself... Well, he was finally ready to let it go.

  “Thank you all,” he said. “It’s been quite a ride.”

  “What’s the plan, Boss?” Emeka asked without acknowledging his emotion.

  “Probably best to start with the servers,” Jeff said. They headed over to the tower and began to extract the various hard drives on which Jeff’s time travel research was stored, preserving the legitimate data from his government grant under his direction. He fetched a toolbox from the other end of the room and gave Emeka and Fisher screwdrivers to begin dismantling the drives. “We have to open them, take out the memory cards, and destroy them,” he said.

  He started Erica on paperwork, loading important documents into the shredder he’d purchased a couple of years back, never knowing it would be a world-saving endeavor. When showing her the shelves where volumes of research were stationed, he couldn’t believe how much he’d put on paper.

  After he’d set everyone in motion, he asked if they minded if he took a moment to make a phone call. He stepped outside the lab for a moment and dialed his smart phone. After a few rings, a familiar voice answered.

  “Did you make it back to Philly okay?” he asked Dexter.

  “There you are… Where have you been?”

  Jeff laughed, but didn’t explain why. Where hadn’t he been? As they’d been working in the lab, he’d asked Erica to clarify the brief conversation about Dexter being married, and had learned that their time traveling had transformed Dexter from the Columbia University professor Jeff knew into the director of a history museum in Philadelphia – a museum that only existed because Jeff had talked the original owner of the building in which it was housed into removing a fire hazard while back in the 1830s. Apparently, by saving Erica, that skewed history had been restored and his best friend now lived in suburban Philadelphia, as opposed to Teaneck, New Jersey, where Jeff had picked him up before the fateful meeting where he’d met Agent Fisher for the first time. Erica had told him they’d had a party in celebration of a successful mission a few nights before, and then Dexter had returned home.

  “Yes,” he said, with an air of bitterness that Jeff expected. “I wasn’t quite ready to go back to work yet – not with you and your girlfriend gallivanting around in the future. I was assuming there would be at least one more adventure for the rest of us. Then, of course, there’s a woman in my house that I don’t know, but that’s another story for another time.”

  “It’ll be okay,” he said, guessing that he and Erica were probably the only people alive who remembered Dexter as a professor at Columbia. To Dexter, Jeff had reasoned in the short time he’d had the information, nothing was out of the ordinary because the change must have happened around him. Well, except for the wife. His friend – both the present and future versions seemed to be put out by that change. Unfortunately, Jeff didn’t know enough about the situation to offer more succinct words of encouragement.

  “Well, yeah, I’ll figure something out,” Dexter said, the tone of his voice showing how confused and disappointed he was about the turn of events. Not having been there, Jeff tried to empathize as best he could. “I don’t know, Jeff. It’s just not me. I work a lot of hours. I travel. I like my freedom. I don’t know what to do with a wife.”

  Had he not just been through a similar set of circumstances with Victoria, he couldn’t possibly have understood what had happened to his friend. “You’ll get through it, Dexter,” he said. “And I’m not going anywhere, so I’m here to help. Whatever you need.” Though what he needed most was to have what was done undone.

  “I would hope so. It’s your fault,” he said, then his voice quieted. “Look, Jeff, I’m not going to say anything to her about the money.” The money? Oh, from Wilton’s gold – yes, that job had now been completed, Jeff reminded himself. “But don’t leave me out of it.”

/>   “Well, I don’t know what we’re doing with the gold yet,” Jeff said.

  “The gold? No, I don’t care about the gold. Give it to the Smithsonian.”

  “What?” He was confused. But he hadn’t called his friend to talk about money. He had something much more important he wanted to say to him. “Look, Dexter... The reason I was calling was just to thank you. You’ve been through so much with me, and you’ve always stuck by me. Even though I put you through a lot. I’ll never forget any of it.”

  He heard Dexter laugh, and then say, “It’s alright. What historian wouldn’t want to be stranded in Colonial America and left to the noose, only to be rescued to find out that he was married to the daughter of a wannabe historian he can’t stand? While you get to be the hero. All the time. Every time.”

  Now Jeff laughed. “Well, when you put it like that, who could resist?”

  “You’ll probably get the girl, too,” he said. “Just like you – skate through everything unscathed and have the woman you mysteriously created fall in love with you.”

  “Yep,” he said. “I skated right through.” He smiled, thinking of the stories he would never tell his friend.

  “Well, just so you know, next time we time travel – I’m taking control of everything. You can sweat next time.”

  “Deal,” Jeff said. “I’ll come down to Philly this weekend and see you.”

  “Yeah, sure you will.”

  They hung up and Jeff leaned back against the wall outside of his lab. It would take a while for him to string together all of the pieces of the various realities he’d constructed – all starting with a reality in which he now lived, that he hadn’t even had the opportunity to experience himself. Each of the people in his life knew different things about him, about time travel, and about how it had affected them. Now, the real time travel research would begin.