The Cleopatra Crisis tw-11

by Simon Hawke

  He disappeared.

  “If you ask me. that man’s a few cards short of a full deck.”Andell said.

  “Maybe,” Lucas replied. “but what cards he does have are allmarked. You ready’?”

  “Ready,” said Andell.

  “Okay, check your time. I want them both clocked back hereexactly one minute from now. Ready?”

  “Mark!” Andell said.

  “Go!”

  Andell activated the warp disc on Calpurnia’s wrist while Lucassimultaneously clocked out Caesar. They both vanished.

  “All right. I’m on my way,” Andell said. “Good luck, Lucas.”

  “You, too.”

  Andell clocked out.

  Now came the tough part. Lucas held his laser pistol in onehand and his stunner in the other. he stood back against the wall, out ofimmediate sight of anyone who might be coming through the doorway. but in aposition where he could clearly see them. Now all he had to do was keep theroom secure and wait for the longest minute in the world.

  Cooper’s strike force troops started moving the second theyclocked in. Three of them took down the legionaries posted at the front gates.aiming carefully and firing their stun darts into the exposed flesh at theupper arms and thighs of the soldiers, where their breastplates could notdeflect them. Then they immediately started moving onto the grounds. Three moremen clocked in on the roof and that was where they sustained their firstcasualty.

  One of the S.O.G. guards on the rooftop just happened tomove to the same spot where one of Cooper’s men was clocking in. Two objectscould not occupy the same time and space simultaneously. There was a brief,agonized scream, and then a hideous, misshapen mass of bloody, writhing fleshthat was barely recognizable as being human fell to the rooftop. For aninstant, the other rooftop guards were too shocked to move and in that instant.Cooper’s men fired their disruptors. The S.O.G. men were briefly wreathed in ablue aura, then they disappeared.

  “Oh. God,” one of Cooper’s men said, staring at the horror lyingat his feet.

  The other one fired his disruptor at it, disintegrating thesickening remains of two fused human bodies. come on, snap out of it! The wholehouse must’ve heard that scream!”

  Indeed, the whole house had. In that moment, the element ofsurprise so necessary to the speedy conclusion of the raid was lost. Hollisterheard the scream and came awake instantly. rolling out of bed and lunging forhis weapon. He was already shouting out a warning at the top of his lungs ashis fingers closed around it and he went running out into the hall barefoot,dressed only in his tunic The guards outside Cleopatra’s bedroom immediatelyran inside to seize their hostage and were dismayed to see the bed empty. Theywasted valuable seconds looking for her around the room. By the time they heardthe sounds behind them, it was already too late. The stun darts struck them asthey turned and collapsed to the floor.

  Outside on the grounds, laser beams crisscrossed in the darknessas the firelight erupted between the S.O.G. men on security duty and the men ofCooper’s unit. As Delaney. Steiger, and Andre clocked into the peristylum, they could already hear the sounds of shouting and running feet.

  “God damn it!” said Delaney. “Come on. let’s move!”

  They ran across the open space of the courtyard, heading towardthe servants’ quarters.

  “Watch it!” Andre shouted.

  She dove to the ground and rolled as a laser beam stabbedthrough the air above her and fired as she came up. One of the S.O.G. men fell.Delaney dropped another one and they kept going, moving as quickly as theycould, the adrenaline pounding through their systems.

  Hollister spotted three men moving down the corridor andfired without hesitation. Two of Cooper’s men fell dead, one of them the manarmed with the disruptor. The third man brought up his stunner and fired, butHollister quickly ducked behind a column and fired. The third man went down.

  Laser beams made a webwork of light in the atrium as the twoopposing forces met in the central hall. Cooper’s team had taken casualties,but the S.O.G. men in the grounds had all been dealt with and the fight nowmoved entirely indoors. Several of the household slaves ran screaming in terrordown the corridors and were dropped by stun darts, though a few ran directlyinto the path of laser and disruptor beams and ceased to exist. Others coweredfearfully in their quarters, convinced the world was coming to an end, while afew simply dropped down to their knees in supplication before the invadingdemons and were quickly tranked.

  Outside. Simmons moved carefully across the grounds. crouchinglow and taking advantage of the darkness, holding his laser pistol ready. Hiswarp disc was already preprogrammed with his escape coordinates. Screw the others,he thought. Who needs them? This was the perfect opportunity. In all theconfusion, he could slip in and nail Steiger. then be gone before anybodyrealized what had happened. He bent over the body of one of Cooper’s men.Perfect. He quickly stripped off his own clothes and started putting on thecorpse’s T.C.I. fatigues. He slipped the black Balaclava hood over his head,then smiled as he picked up the disruptor. Hollister came bursting into Cleopatra’sroom, then stopped as he saw the unconscious bodies of his men lying on thefloor. There was no sign of Cleopatra. Somehow, incredibly, they had managed toget her out. He couldn’t believe it. He heard running footsteps coming down thehall. He quickly punched in a preprogrammed sequence of transition coordinatesand clocked out just as Delaney came diving through the doorway, firing hisstunner. The dart passed harmlessly through empty air.

  Lucas waited tensely, glancing every couple of seconds atthe readout on his warp disc. The time was almost up. Andell had clocked toPlus Time with Caesar and Calpurnia, as had Castelli and Corwin. withCleopatra. It would take days for them to be properly conditioned by the psychteams at TAC-HQ, but then they would be clocked back to Minus Time so that onlyone minute would have passed since they’d been gone. They would reappear,sedated. safely in their own beds. They would wake up several, hours later.completely oblivious of what had happened to them.

  As soon as the operation at Cleopatra’s house was concluded,assuming that it was concluded successfully, the survivors would be clocked toPlus Time and interrogated under drugs. The household slaves would then he separatedfrom any surviving S.O.G. infiltrators. Castelli would take charge of a teamthat would clock out to ancient Egypt. where they would purchase slaves thatwould replace the S.O.G. men. Once those slaves had been acquired from themarkets in Alexandria. they would then be tranked and clocked to Plus Time,when: they would be conditioned to believe that they had been in the Queen of Egypt’sservice all along. Cleopatra herself would be conditioned to believe that theyhad come to Rome with her. Then Castelli and his team would clock back in withthem, all before daybreak.

  Cleopatra would remember nothing of what had happened toher. She would recall meeting Marcus Septimus and his wife, Antonia, though shewould believe that they had left Rome. Both Caesar and Calpurnia would recallhow he had dismissed his Egyptian bodyguard because he did not wish to give theappearance that he feared his enemies or that he was too much under theinfluence of a foreign queen.

  In a matter of seconds. Lucas thought, if all goes well.Caesar and his wife would reappear in their bed and they would wake up in themorning as if nothing had ever happened. Cleopatra and her new slaves would beclocked back into her house.

  They had put the plan together quickly. but it seemed toLucas as if they’d covered every contingency. At least, he hoped they had.Everything hinged on the assault against the S.O.G. unit at Cleopatra’s housebeing successful. Lucas checked the time again. Another few seconds. Heswallowed nervously. Had they covered everything? All right. he thought, comeon. What have we missed? What else can go wrong?

  Hollister materialized inside the quarters assigned to hismen at the imperial palace. And froze. absolutely stunned. He recovered quicklyand glanced around, sweeping his weapon around the room, but Bryant and histeam had already left. He had missed encountering them by scant seconds, hemoved quickly to the door leading to the corridor and listened inten
tly.Everything seemed quiet. For a moment, he simply stood there, not moving. Herisked a glance out into the corridor. There was no sign of his men. They wereall gone, every last one of them. Jesus, Hollister thought. they must have hitthe palace and the house at the same time! He was staggered by their audacity.They must have clocked into the palace, and while Caesar slept just a shortdistance down the hall, they had killed every one of his men and gotten outagain, a lightning operation, brilliantly executed and devastatingly efficient.He had never dreamed they would dare take such a risk. He had vastlyunderestimated them and it had cost him. It had cost him everything.

  His mind reeled as he realized that his operation wastotally undone. All that work, all that preparation, wiped out in just onenight. It was beyond belief. How in hell had they managed to snatch Cleopatra?And how could they cover everything that they had done without risking atemporal disruption? He had to think. He had to put himself in their shoes andimagine what he might have done if he were in their place. And if he weredesperate enough to try something like this. Desperate. hell. he told himself,the bastards had actually pulled it off.

  All right, he thought, if they snatched Cleopatra, theycould do a wash job on her brain. Program her and she’d come out believingwhatever they wanted her to believe. They’d have to do the same with Caesar.Make him believe that he’d dismissed the bodyguard. God damn it. it’ll work,thought Hollister, They’ve beaten us.

  His heart sank with the realization. But it wasn’t over yet.He was still alive. And if any of his men got out, they’d clock to their escapecoordinates and rendezvous as planned. He wasn’t finished yet. Even if he wasthe only one left, he could still do some damage here.

  Hollister. well trained in temporal terrorist tactics, hadquickly and professionally sized up the situation. He was not the sort of manto panic when things fell apart. He was a pro and he kept his mind on hismission. The parameters had changed drastically and he had to adapt to the newsituation without a moment’s hesitation. he realized that the success of theT.I.A.

  strike was totally dependent on everything beingaccomplished during this one night. The activities of mission support teamsback at headquarters in Plus Time would have to be completely governed by thetimetable of the team in Rome. The timing would be close. If they’d taken Caesarwhen they killed his men, which would have been the only time when they coulddo it. they would have to return him by morning in order to minimize the dangerof a temporal disruption. Then, with their teams in place to monitor events,they would remain to make sure that Caesar was killed by the conspirators onschedule.

  Only what if he died a week early, murdered along withhis wife in his own bedchamber?

  There could then be no explanation for the sudden disappearanceof the Egyptian bodyguard. The blame for Caesar’s death would fall onCleopatra. instead of on Brutus, Cassius. and the other conspirators. She wouldbe arrested, tried, and executed. She would never live to join forces withAntony against Octavian. It would not be as great a disruption as they’doriginally planned, but it would be a disruption nonetheless. It might evenbring about a timestream split. Best of all, the T.I.A. wouldn’t be expectingit. When they discovered that they’d missed “Apollodorus,” they’d naturallyassume that he’d escaped to some other time period. It would have been thelogical thing for him to do. They’d never think he’d risk coming to the palace.It would be foolhardy. Almost as foolhardy as what they’d done tonight.Hollister smiled. Learn from your enemy, he thought. It was risky as hell, butit was worth a try.

  Slowly, cautiously, holding his weapon ready, Hollistermoved out into the corridor, heading toward Caesar’s chambers.

  11

  They had counted on the element of surprise and they hadlost it almost immediately. The scream from the rooftop had galvanized theopposition into action and even though they hadn’t expected such a bold attack,they responded like the pros they were. They didn’t run: they chose to standand fight. In spite of the swiftness of their attack, Cooper lost almost halfhis men in the first three or four minutes of the assault. Three more werewounded, two of them seriously. As Andre ran across the atrium, a laser beamlanced out and burned a hole right through the left side of her shirt, missingher kidney by scant millimeters. Steiger, running right behind her, took outthe man who’d fired the shot, but another one they hadn’t seen until it wasalmost too late fired at him as he was bringing up his stunner. The beam struckSteiger’s forearm and burned a long furrow from his wrist up to his elbow. Hecried out, but managed to hold on to his weapon long enough to fire a dart intohis attacker, and Andre shot him with another one almost immediately. Hecrumpled to the floor.

  “You all right?” asked Andre.

  “I’m fine, go!” Steiger shifted his weapon to his left handand followed her as they moved quickly from room to room.

  Cooper’s men had rappelled down from the rooftop and as soonas they secured the upper floor, they ran down the stairs to join the battle inthe main part of the house. Cooper heard the sounds of their booted feetcoining down the stairs and turned his head to shout a warning to them so theywouldn’t fire on their own men. In that instant, a laser beam burned its waythrough his left cheek and out the right. Cooper was so psyched, he didn’t evenfeel the pain. He spun around and fired, dropping his attacker, then kept righton going. If he hadn’t turned his head just at the right moment, the laserwould probably have killed him.

  Delaney found himself pinned down behind a column in theatrium, under fire from three directions at once. Three laser beams bracketedhim, one passing to either side of the column, the third grazing the marble,inches from his head. He dropped down low and risked a glance around thecolumn. In that instant, he saw a sight that made his jaw drop.

  Darkness suddenly appeared out of thin air and, movingfaster than the speed of light, plucked the weapon from the hand of one manwhile he knocked him senseless with his cane. Then he materialized behind thesecond gunman and clubbed him to the ground. before his afterimage had evenfaded from where he had first appeared. He repeated the same procedure with thethird S.O.G. man, but at the speed with which he moved, it all happened in thesame instant and Delaney actually saw three of him. He jumped about a foot whenDarkness appeared standing right beside him.

  “Somehow I knew I’d find you in a situation like this,” Darknesssaid laconically.

  “Jesus. Doc,” Delaney said, exhaling heavily, I wish youwouldn’t do that!”

  “If I hadn’t done that, you lunkhead, you’d look like aSwiss cheese.”

  “How’s Bryant doing at the palace?”

  “Knocking them dead.” said Darkness. “You, on the otherhand, seem to be having a few problems. Excuse

  Suddenly he simply wasn’t there anymore. Delaney heard asickening crunch behind him and spun around in time to see Darkness droppingthe limp form of an S.O.G. man whose head he’d smashed against a marble column.Then he jerked as he suddenly heard Darkness speaking beside him even as he sawhis image disappear again.

  “I’d move somewhere else. if I were you:

  “Thanks, Doc.”

  “Don’t mention it.”

  He vanished.

  Delaney crossed the atrium and encountered Cooper and two ofhis men coming the other way. Andrew and Steiger came running up behind them.Several more strike force commandos came running into the atrium from theopposite side.

  “Our wing’s secured. sir.”

  “Second floor secured.”

  “Grounds secured. sir.”

  “How many did we lose?” asked Cooper. glancing around quickly.

  “Kaufman bought it outside,” one of the men said.

  “Hockett’s dead,” another man said. “He clocked in right ontop of one of the roof guards.”

  “Poor bastard: said Delaney

  “We lost Bishop and Grant.”

  “Campbell’s wounded. We had to clock him out.”

  “How bad?” asked Cooper.

  “Pretty bad. I don’t know. He may not make it.”

 
; “Connors. you hit?”

  “I’ll make it.”

  “Where’s Sharp?”

  Silence.

  “Damn it. Okay, you all know what to do. Find Sharp, see ifhe’s alive. Search the house and grounds. All bodies. tranked or dead, getclocked to TAC-HQ. Make sure there aren’t any weapons left lying around. Moveit!”

  “Well done. Colonel.” said Delaney.

  “You’re hit.”

  “So are you.”

  “Yeah, but I’ll be okay long as I don’t drink any beer,”said Cooper. “Did you get your man?”

  “No. dammit.” said Delaney. “I had a shot. but I was just asecond too late. He clocked out on us.”

  “Well, we might get lucky and track him down through one ofthe prisoners, but he’s probably long gone.” said Steiger.

  “We’ll have some of Bryant’s people on Octavian and Antony.just in case.” said Andre.

  “Where’s Darkness?”

  Who the hell knows?” Delaney said. “He saved my ass backthere and then just popped off, like he always does. But he said things at thepalace were under control.”

  “We’d better get back to the house and check on how it wentwith Lucas,” said Andre.

  “Cooper, why don’t you clock out with your wounded and getyourself and them some medical attention?” Steiger said. “I’ll take over here.”

  “Thanks. I appreciate it.”

  “Okay, I’ll meet you all back at the house,” said Steiger. “Gotell Travers we pulled it off before he dies of an anxiety attack.”

  Andre and Finn clocked out while Cooper hurried to check onhis wounded. Steiger stood alone in the atrium. He took a deep breath and letit out slowly. I’ll be damned, he thought. We did it.

  “Steiger ….”

  He turned around. One of Cooper’s men was standing by amarble column about twenty feet away, holding a disruptor.

  “What is it, soldier?”