by Anthology
“You’re not?” Bairthre said.
“No. I’m interested in only one thing. I want to know which of you walked out on me last night in the saloon.”
Barthold and Bairthre stared at each other, then back at Ben Bartholder.
“I want that one,” Bartholder said. “Nobody insults Ben Bartholder. Even with one hand, I’m as good a man as any! I want that man. The other can go.”
Barthold and Bairthre stood up. Bartholder stepped back in order to cover them both.
“Which is it, gents? I don’t possess a whole lot of patience.”
He stood before them, weaving slightly, looking as mean and efficient as a rattlesnake. Barthold decided that the derringer was too far away for a rush. It probably had a hair-trigger, anyhow.
“Speak up!” Bartholder said sharply. “Which of you is it?”
Thinking desperately, Barthold wondered why Ben Bartholder hadn’t fired yet, why he hadn’t simply killed them both.
Then he figured it out and immediately knew his only course of action.
“Everett,” he said.
“Yes, Everett?” said Bairthre.
“We’re going to turn around together now and walk back to the Flipper.”
“But the gun—”
“He won’t shoot. Are you with me?”
“With you,” Bairthre said through clenched teeth.
They turned like soldiers in a march, and began to pace slowly back toward the livery stable.
“Stop!” Ben Bartholder cried. “Stop or I’ll shoot you both!”
“No, you won’t!” Barthold shouted back. They were in the street now, approaching the livery stable.
“No? You think I don’t dare?”
“It isn’t that,” Barthold said, walking toward the Flipper. “You’re just not the type to shoot down a perfectly innocent man. And one of us is innocent!”
Slowly, carefully, Bairthre opened the Flipper’s door.
“I don’t care!” Bartholder yelled. “Which one? Speak up, you miserable coward! Which one? I’ll give you a fair fight. Speak up or I’ll shoot you both here and now!”
“And what would the boys say?” Barthold scoffed. “They’d say that the one-handed man lost his nerve and killed two unarmed strangers!”
Ben Bartholder’s iron gun hand sagged.
“Quick, get in,” Barthold whispered.
They scrambled in and slammed the door. Bartholder put the derringer away.
“All right, mister,” Ben Bartholder said. “You been here twice, and I think you’ll be here a third time. I’ll wait around. The next time I’ll get you.”
He turned and walked away.
They had to get out of Memphis. But where could they go? Barthold wouldn’t consider Konigsberg, 1676, and the Black Death. London, 1595, was filled with Tom Barthal’s criminal friends, any of whom would cheerfully cut Barthold’s throat for treachery.
“We’ll go all the way back,” Bairthre said. “To Maiden’s Castle.”
“And if he comes there?”
“He won’t. It’s against the law to go past the thousand-year limit. And would an insurance man break the law?”
“He might not,” Barthold said thoughtfully. “He just might not. It’s worth a try.”
And again he activated the Flipper.
They slept in an open field that night, a mile from the fortress of Maiden’s Castle. They stayed beside the Flipper and took turns at sentry duty. And finally the sun rose, warm and yellow, above the green fields.
“He didn’t come,” Bairthre said.
“What?” Barthold asked, waking with a start.
“Snap out of it, man! We’re safe. Is it morning yet in your Present?”
“It’s morning,” Barthold said, rubbing his eyes.
“Then we’ve won and I’ll be a king in Ireland!”
“Yes, we’ve won,” Barthold said. “Victory at last is—damn!”
“What’s the matter?”
“That investigator! Look over there!”
Bairthre stared across the fields, muttering, “I don’t see a thing. Are you sure—”
Barthold struck him across the back of the skull with a stone. He had picked it up during the night and saved it for this purpose.
He bent over and felt Bairthre’s pulse. The Irishman still lived but would be unconscious for a few hours. When he recovered, he would be alone and kingdomless.
Too bad, Barthold thought. But under the circumstances, it would be risky to bring Bairthre back with him. How much easier it would be to walk up to Inter-Temporal himself and collect a check for Everett Barthold. Then return in half an hour and collect another check for Everett Barthold.
And how much more profitable it would be!
He climbed into the Flipper and looked once more at his unconscious kinsman. What a shame, he thought, that he will never be a king in Ireland.
But then, he thought, history would probably find it confusing if he had succeeded.
He activated the controls, headed straight for the Present.
He reappeared in the back yard of his house. Quickly he bounded up the steps and pounded on the door.
“Who’s there?” Mavis called.
“Me!” Barthold shouted. “It’s all right, Mavis—everything has worked out fine!”
“Who?” Mavis opened the door, stared at him, and let out a shriek.
“Calm down,” Barthold said. “I know it’s been a strain, but it’s all over now. I’m going for the check and then we’ll—”
He stopped. A man had just appeared in the doorway beside Mavis. He was a short man, beginning to bald, his features ordinary, and his eyes were mild behind horn-rimmed glasses.
It was himself.
“Oh, no!” Barthold groaned.
“Oh, yes,” his double said. “One cannot venture beyond the thousand-year barrier with impunity, Everett. Sometimes there is a sound reason for a law. I am your time-identical.”
Barthold stared at the Barthold in the doorway. He said, “I was chased—”
“By me,” his double told him. “In disguise, of course, since you have a few enemies in time. You imbecile, why did you run?”
“I thought you were an investigator. Why were you chasing me?”
“For one reason and one reason only.”
“What was that?”
“We could have been rich beyond our wildest dreams,” his double said, “if only you hadn’t been so guilty and frightened! The three of us—you, Bairthre, and me—could have gone to Inter-Temporal and claimed triple indemnity!”
“Triple indemnity!” Barthold breathed. “I never thought of it.”
“The sum would have been staggering. It would have been infinitely more than for double indemnity. You disgust me.”
“Well,” Barthold said, “what’s done is done. At least we can collect for double indemnity, then decide—”
“I collected both checks and signed the release forms for you. You weren’t here, you know.”
“In that case, I’d like my share.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” his double told him.
“But it’s mine! I’ll go to Inter-Temporal and tell them—”
“They won’t listen. I’ve waived all your rights. You can’t even stay in the Present, Everett.”
“Don’t do this to me!” Barthold begged.
“Why not? Look at what you did to Bairthre.”
“Damn it, you can’t judge me!” Barthold cried. “You’re me!”
“Who else is there to judge you except yourself?” his double asked him.
Barthold couldn’t cope with that. He turned to Mavis.
“Darling,” he said, “you always told me you’d know your own husband. Don’t you know me now?”
Mavis moved back into the house. As she went, Barthold noticed the flash of ruumstones around her neck and asked no more.
Barthold and Barthold stood face to face. The double raised his arm. A police heli, hovering low, dropped to the ground.
Three policemen piled out.
“This is what I was afraid of, officers,” the double said. “My double collected his check this morning, as you know. He waived his rights and went into the past. I was afraid he’d return and try for more.”
“He won’t bother you again, sir,” a policeman said. He turned to Barthold. “You! Climb back in that Flipper and get out of the Present. The next time we see you, we shoot!”
Barthold knew when he was beaten. Very humbly, he said, “I’ll gladly go, officers. But my Flipper needs repairs. It doesn’t have a time clock.”
“You should have thought about that before signing the waiver,” the policeman said. “Get moving!”
“Please!” Barthold said.
“No,” Barthold answered.
No mercy. And Barthold knew that, in his double’s place, he would have said exactly the same thing.
He climbed into the Flipper and closed the door. Numbly he contemplated his choices, if they could be called that.
New York, 1912, with its maddening reminders of his own time and with Bully Jack Barthold? Or Memphis, 1869, with Ben Bartholder awaiting his third visit? Or Konigsberg, 1676, with the grinning, vacant face of Hans Baerthaler for company, and the Black Death? Or London, 1595, with Tom Barthal’s cutthroat friends searching the streets for him? Or Maiden’s Castle, 662, with an angry Connor Lough mac Bairthre waiting to even the score?
It really didn’t matter. This time, he thought, let the place pick me.
He closed his eyes and blindly stabbed a button.
DOWNTOWN KNIGHT
James M. Ward
“Beta One, this is Alpha One,do you copy? Over.”
“Loud and clear Alpha One,” the FBI agent responded.
“Beta One, do you have a better angle on what’s coming in those twenty vehicles approaching the compound? Over.” Agent Jeffers, the lead FBI agent, was sitting in the Alpha One central observation post.
Computer screens showed twenty new black Cadillacs pulling unusually large horse trailers through the main gate of the Gambino family Mafia compound.
“Negative, Alpha One, check the Gamma station. Over,” The Beta FBI agent advised.
“Gamma One, this is Alpha One, do you copy? Over.”
“Loud and clear Alpha One. Those twenty vehicles have come to the middle of the compound and are unloading Clydesdales from horse trailers. Over,” answered the high observation post.
“Agent, repeat that, what the hell is a Clydesdale?” snapped the confused Jeffers.
“Alpha One, this is the Delta station. I can see them as well. Clydesdales are large horses bred in the Clyde valley of Scotland. They were used by the knights of the Middle Ages as the best mount to carry all the weight of a man and his armor. Over,” answered the FBI agent.
“Horses? What does the don of all the Mafia bosses want with twenty huge horses?”
“We have no idea sir. Over,” came the replies from observation posts Beta, Gamma, Delta, and even Epsilon.
Four weeks later, sixty hard-eyed FBI agents all sat in the same meeting room discussing the astounding new developments of the Don Corollas Gambino family.
A frustrated Jeffers looked over the field agents of his command. These were the best men in the agency. There was nothing they couldn’t find out, which was why Jeffers was so flustered.
“Gentlemen, for fifteen months we’ve been observing the Gambino family. In the past two months atypical behavior has been observed among the family members and the compound. Something is happening, and we need to know what it is to go in with due authority and cause. I want your maximum effort on this case. Carson, what do you have?” Jeffers steepled his fingers and waited.
“Two weeks ago, two armored cars entered the compound. We traced the vehicles back to their main branch. When we interviewed the drivers, they tried to tell us they couldn’t divulge what was in their client’s delivery.”
The other agents burst into laughter at the thought of mere security guards trying to keep information from them.
Carson continued, “The trucks delivered two large chests each—filled with thirty thousand gold coins minted in Italy. Gold bars were delivered to the foundry by agents of the Gambinos, and a minting order was placed. The best in engraving talent went into making the gold coins they produced. Side A has the face of the old Don, Corollas Gambino. Side B has the Gambino Italian family crest. Each coin is worth approximately five hundred dollars in today’s gold trading market.”
There was a rumble among the men as each agent computed the worth of all that gold.
“Let’s keep it moving, people; that’s only part of this new puzzle,” Jeffers said. “Agent Ackers, report from the observation posts.”
“The younger members of the family have been taking riding lessons on those huge Clydesdales. The son, Corollas Gambino junior, is on his horse at least three hours a day. He’s becoming quite accomplished, and we’ve noted he’s grooming and even shoeing his mount.” Akers took a deep breath before continuing. “We’ve also noted an increase in the family members moving into the compound. Tommy ‘the Cooler’ Gambino arrived last Friday; Cousin Dino Gambino and Uncle Artoro Gambino, two heads of muscle groups, arrived on Saturday of last week. Cousin Carlos Gambino, their main moneyman, came yesterday. All told, there are at least twenty new Gambino relatives living in the compound—and all of them are the young leaders of the family from here and from Italy. These men are all very important people in their organization, and there isn’t one of them older than thirty.”
“Curiouser and curiouser,” Jeffers said. “Does anyone have anything else to report?”
Agent Breck stood up. “The Clydesdales were purchased from a breeding farm in Scotland. Fifteen are pregnant mares, the other five are high-quality stallions. They appear to be the best of that breed in the world. No expense was spared. The mares are worth fifty thousand each, and the studs one hundred thousand.”
Agent James raised his hand.
“Yes,” Jeffers recognized the agent.
“Thank you sir,” James stood up. “For two and a half years now I’ve been tracking a pair of teachers coming in and out of the compound. One is an instructor in languages of the Middle Ages. The other is a fencing master who has been teaching the younger Corollas the saber and long sword.”
Breck shifted in his seat and raised an eyebrow at James.
James continued: “At first, we speculated the language teacher was just showing the young Corollas the language of his ancestors—on some whim from the father. The swordsman? We figured he was just giving them a little exercise. Now I’m thinking there could be some strange tie between the horses, the gold, and those lessons. The fencing instructor has picked up his lesson times from once a week to three times a week now.”
Jeffers’s face turned redder as his level of frustration grew. There was something going on here, and he didn’t know what it was. “Agent Theon, what about those black trucks?”
Theon was their best investigative officer. He had an outstanding ten-year record in drug enforcement, and had been brought to the unit to investigate the black trucks. “As you all know, for a year now at the beginning of every month black trucks have been making deliveries to the compound. Despite our surveillance cameras, it has been difficult to determine what they have been delivering. The observation posts report large crates coming out of the trucks. Intensive interrogation of the drivers reveals they don’t know what’s inside. Backtracking the trucks has revealed little. It’s more than clear elaborate efforts were made to hide the crates’ contents. The Gambinos know we’re watching. And I have to believe that they know they’re going down.”
“And yet? What about those crates?” Jeffers motioned for Theon to keep going.
“After a great deal of effort, and with the help of my squad, we’ve discovered that more than half the trucks have been delivering power equipment. Heavy transformers and the like purchased from large companies here in the US. We also know that whatev
er the other materials are, they come from Germany. We have agents working there to backtrack the deliveries. I’ll be going to Hanover myself tomorrow.”
“Excellent work, Theon.” Jeffers looked over his group, having just made a decision. “People, something big is perking at that compound. There’s a full moon in two nights. We’re going to hit that compound with everything we have then. I’m authorizing a hundred men to invade and discover whatever is happening there. This afternoon we’ll go over the maps. We’ll take down the Gambinos, and with luck we’ll find enough goods to put them all away for a very long time. Dismissed.”
The men left with smiles on their faces, Breck muttering that it was about time they’d be seeing some action on the case.
Two nights later, in a perfectly coordinated strike of helicopter and ground units, the Corollas Gambino Mafia compound filled to overflowing with law enforcement invaders. The power was cut as one hundred of America’s best FBI agents went in.
But the lights never went out in the compound.
Agents came over the walls, crashed through the front gates, and rappelled down cords from five helicopters.
Reports came back to Alpha One from the squads. The horses and the equipment were gone from the stalls. It was noted that the horses hadn’t left through the gates.
The house showed no sign of servants, and surveillance equipment confirmed that none of the family servants had left through the gates either.
“We’re looking for a very large underground entrance, people!” Agent Jeffers shouted to his squad. “Those big horses are going to need a big entrance to walk through.”
The investigation continued.
None of the rooms of the mansion revealed the large chests of gold.
Bedroom after bedroom was searched and found to be empty.
Reports back revealed clothes filled the closets and chests of drawers in those rooms; there was no evidence of things being packed up for a trip.
Not a single cousin, uncle, brother, or anyone else was found.
Until . . .
From five separate entrances, FBI men burst into the large ballroom of the mansion at the same moment. The bright lights of the chamber revealed the elder Don Corollas Gambino sitting in his wheelchair, smiling. Red lights dotted his chest as laser sights targeted the old man.