by E W Barnes
Jonas stopped at the top of the staircase on the east side of the terrace.
“Why did we climb up here if we were just going to climb back down?” Sharon asked.
“We wanted to get the lay of the land,” Miranda laughed. “Besides, we liked the view.” Sharon couldn’t argue with that.
Jonas led them through another park in the shadow of the eastern wing until they reached the far end of the arched building. They stopped in front of enormous black and gold doors—the entrance to the museum.
“This wing houses an architecture museum,” Jonas explained. “It’s also where the entrance to the auditorium is. We’ll have a chance of spotting the people we need here.”
Caelen opened a door, and they filed in after him, just as another downpour started. A security guard stood to one side, looking bored, glancing at them only a moment before letting his gaze drift back into his own thoughts.
The interior was as remarkable as the exterior. All around them were examples of architectural design, including massive stone carvings and even whole cupolas set out in the middle of rooms.
The peaked roof was made of opaque glass letting in a lovely soft light. Wrought iron trusses that looked like garden lattice arched across the roof line and the light coming through the ironwork made intricate designs on the floor. Sharon realized the wrought iron was similar in style to the Eiffel Tower.
“This is beautiful,” Sharon breathed.
“There will be a fire here, in your time,” Jonas murmured in a somber voice. “It will do a lot of damage.”
“I didn’t need to know that,” Sharon said as Jonas turned away.
She had a memory of watching live video when the Cathedral of Notre Dame burned a few years earlier. Her grandmother's eyes had been so sad as she held vigil with Sharon. Grandmother Rose had known it was going to happen, of course, and was quietly supportive as her granddaughter grieved with the world.
It must have been hard for Grandmother, Sharon thought suddenly, to know in advance about terrible events and be helpless to stop them. What must her grandmother have felt the morning of November 22, 1963? Or when the Chernobyl and Challenger disasters occurred? The night before September 11, 2001? Sharon couldn’t imagine how her grandmother had borne it.
“Are you coming?” Jonas asked her before getting distracted by a piece of Gothic architecture.
As she watched him get lost in the elaborate details, she realized the answer was in the tapestry she had envisioned earlier. Agents of the Temporal Protection Corps studied the tapestry, protected it, and honored it, the good with the bad. It was with new respect for her TPC agent friends that she joined Jonas in examining a flying buttress.
It wasn’t hard to look like legitimate museum visitors. They stopped to admire extraordinary examples of architectural creativity and genius. They pointed out interesting things to each other and talked among themselves. There was nothing to suggest they were time travelers from the future.
They saw more security guards the closer they got to where the U.N. was meeting, and the guards outside the auditorium entrance did not look bored but alert and observant. Miranda approached the entrance and they stepped in front of her.
“This area is off limits, Mademoiselle,” one said politely.
“But why?” Miranda asked as if deeply disappointed.
“This area is reserved for an event,” the other guard replied. “A private event.”
“I see,” she said. “Thank you.”
Miranda turned away and joined her companions to continue enjoying the exhibits. The security guards relaxed, stepping back to their posts.
“Nicely done,” Caelen said.
“I could hear the sounds of a large crowd when I got close,” Miranda said. “The delegates are meeting now. The people we are looking for should be there, too.”
“It’s almost noon,” Sharon said. “They might break for lunch soon. If we wait here, we might spot who we need when they come out.”
There were benches close to the auditorium entrance where they could see people coming and going, but far enough away that the security guards would not become suspicious. The benches allowed them to sit across from each other, Caelen and Miranda with their backs to the auditorium, Jonas and Sharon facing it.
Sharon’s guess was a good one. Only 15 minutes later a guard opened the auditorium doors and people walked out in ones and twos, talking animatedly with each other in many languages. After a while, the flow of people slowed. Sharon grew anxious. If they had missed their targets, or worse, their targets were not here, she wasn’t sure what they would do next.
“There,” Jonas murmured, interrupting her pessimistic train of thoughts.
“It’s Eleanor Roosevelt,” Sharon told Caelen and Miranda, since they could not see what was going on behind them.
Her voice shook with excitement. All her time travel experiences and training had never involved seeing someone famous, someone she admired and would like to meet.
It drove home that the possibilities of being a TPC agent were endless. She could imagine nothing she wanted to do more—and then just as quickly remembered the TPC she'd joined was gone. There were no possibilities in the TPC as it existed in the new timeline. If they were caught or failed in their mission, all those possibilities would never exist.
“That might be Mr. Cassain behind her, talking with another man. Yes, that’s him,” Sharon said as Jonas nodded in agreement.
“Do you think the man he is talking to is his assistant?” Miranda asked.
“He’s carrying a briefcase and some papers. He’s nodding a lot as if Mr. Cassain is giving him instructions. It's a good guess,” Sharon answered.
“Let’s wait until they are through the museum, and then follow them to see where they go,” Caelen said.
Jonas watched them walk away, seeing Eleanor Roosevelt surrounded by people who wanted to talk with her or shake her hand. Mr. Cassain and his assistant a few feet behind were, for the moment, forgotten by the others.
“Now,” Jonas said when their targets were far enough away to be clandestinely followed.
They kept their distance as they left the building, still laughing and talking together like museum visitors. Mr. Cassain spoke briefly to Eleanor Roosevelt before she was hurried into a car outside the museum entrance.
Then Mr. Cassain and his assistant walked through the trees toward the road on the other side of the park. They were in deep discussion and took no notice of the four behind them. They were much closer to the Eiffel Tower now, and it soared over them, dark metal against the gray sky.
“I heard them say something about not attending the afternoon session and getting something to eat,” Caelen said, pulling up his collar as the rain started again.
“Good. We can follow them and see where they go,” Miranda responded.
“And we can eat, too, and get out of the rain,” Jonas added.
The sidewalk was crowded, and they dodged pedestrians as they tried to keep together while still following their quarry. As a large clump of people approached them, Sharon dropped behind Jonas.
Her head was down against the rain, eyes focused on the backs of Jonas’ shoes so she wouldn’t lose him. Someone grabbed her hand hard. Sharon cried out and faced a blond woman.
“Don’t I know you?” the woman said. Jonas stopped, confused. Caelen was at her side in an instant and Miranda watched through narrowed eyes, guiding Jonas back so they were out of the way of the flow of pedestrians.
“No, no, you're mistaken,” Sharon said trying to pull her hand out of the woman’s iron grip. The pain from her wound was terrible.
“You’re right. I don’t know you,” the woman said, releasing her hand. She walked away, disappearing into the crowd of people hurrying to get out of the rain.
“What was that about?” Caelen asked.
“She thought she knew me,” Sharon said in a shuddering voice. Her hand was throbbing so much it was hard to talk.
M
iranda appeared next to Caelen.
“The restaurant is just over there. Let’s get inside.”
Thinking quickly or perhaps driven by hunger, Jonas had already requested a table for four. The table was close to the one where René Cassain and his assistant were seated. But Sharon no longer cared about good luck with the seating arrangements. The encounter with the woman rattled her, and she thought she knew why.
“Are you ok?” Jonas asked as she sat down.
“No,” she said.
A waiter brought everyone a cup of coffee and Sharon sipped it, feeling the warmth calm her. She took a trembling breath.
“We’re in trouble,” she said, speaking in a low voice. “I think that woman was a time traveler, a TPC agent. They've tracked us. They've found us.”
“Are you sure?” Jonas said. He sounded like he was having trouble breathing.
“I'm certain. It was a feeling of familiarity. Like I’d seen her before or like the feeling of being near a temporal amplifier,” Sharon answered. “It’s almost like when we were in 1951 and I knew someone near us had time traveled.” She glanced at Jonas.
“There’s no such thing,” Jonas said.
“I won’t argue with you about my feelings, Jonas.” Her voice was calm, but her eyes were hard.
“I think what he meant to say is that we’ve never heard of anyone sensing someone who has used a temporal amplifier,” Miranda tried to soothe things over. “It would be an unusual and useful perception.”
“What if I’m right?” Sharon asked after a long silence.
“Maybe we should go back, you know, to 2023, and make a new plan…” Jonas started.
“If we return now, we will fail and you might as well go back to your dark side TPC and give up any hope of fixing the timeline,” Sharon said testily. She didn’t know how she knew, but she was sure they would never get another chance to make things right. Retreat was the road to defeat.
Caelen inhaled deeply. “We knew agents could be tracking us. We didn’t expect it to happen so quickly, but even if it’s true and TPC agents are here in Paris, it changes nothing. We need to complete the mission.”
“We must be vigilant,” Miranda said. “We must watch everyone and everything we do.”
“What do we do next?” Jonas asked.
“We don’t have time to wait. I think we split up,” Sharon said. “Two of us follow one,” she tilted her head towards the table where Mr. Cassain and his assistant were sitting.
“Two of us follow the other. We find a way to make contact without raising suspicions. Then we meet back at the hotel this evening to talk about how to plant the seeds of the change we need.”
After finishing their meal, Mr. Cassain and his assistant walked back the way they’d come, parting company at the intersection at the foot of the hill on which the Palais de Chaillot sat across from the Eiffel Tower. Mr. Cassain angled up a side street south of the complex and his assistant walked toward the Eiffel Tower. Jonas and Miranda followed Mr. Cassain, and Caelen and Sharon followed his assistant.
“This reminds me of another walk we took, in a park in London,” Sharon said as they crossed the bridge over the Seine.
“You know I don’t remember that timeline. Tell me about the walk,” Caelen said.
“We were following someone there, too. I planted my phone, and we recorded a conversation,” she answered.
“I remember you describing that during your debrief,” he nodded. “It was a clever idea.” Sharon smiled at the memory but volunteered nothing more and Caelen didn’t ask.
René Cassain’s assistant appeared to be appreciating his free afternoon by taking a leisurely stroll. He had an umbrella which he swung as he walked, craning his neck up to look at the Eiffel Tower from different angles.
Sharon and Caelen appeared to wander aimlessly so they could change directions with their target as needed. Sharon closely watched the few people around, opening her senses to catch the feeling of another time-traveler in the vicinity.
“How's your hand?” Caelen asked.
“It’s fine,” Sharon answered. It was not fine, and Sharon thought that the woman grabbing it had made things worse. But she would not confess that. They needed to focus on the mission, not her hand.
“I’m not sensing anyone who could be a TPC agent nearby,” she said, changing the subject. “And I think it’s going to rain again.”
“I thought it was a shame that we no longer got caught in the rain in the future,” Caelen said teasingly.
“It’s fun in the summer,” Sharon said laughing.
The sun was arcing toward the horizon already. At this time of year, it would set before 5:00 p.m. They assumed Mr. Cassain’s assistant would soon return to his lodgings to get out of the cold.
They were wrong.
The assistant sat on one of several benches that lined the park surrounding the Eiffel Tower. He was sitting straight up, not leaning back and had his umbrella propped up in front of him, with both hands on the handle. He looked so prim Sharon had to work not to laugh. The laughter died in her throat, however, because a minute later, he was joined by someone else. A blond woman who sat next to him on the bench and leaned in for a passionate kiss.
It was the woman who grabbed Sharon’s hand.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Sharon stopped short, pulling Caelen back toward her. In a smooth motion, they turned away from the bench on which Mr. Cassain’s assistant and the blond woman were still embracing.
“Did you see her?” Sharon whispered. “It’s the woman who thought she knew me.”
“Yes.”
“Do you recognize her?”
“No, I don’t think I've seen her before today,” he said.
“There’s something about her… I can’t place it.”
“Could it be the, uh, sense you were talking about? Could the feeling of familiarity come from that?”
“I suppose it could.”
They hid behind an information kiosk, peeking around it to watch the couple. Mr. Cassain’s assistant and the blond woman were now walking arm in arm through the park area around the Eiffel Tower. They appeared to be engrossed in each other and unaware they were being watched.
“We have to go back,” Sharon said. “We could follow them all night and not get the information we need. They could be going to her place or his place, and then things would get awkward. We can’t stand on the sidewalk outside, waiting for them all night.”
Sharon felt defeated and tired. Now that they had stopped walking the cold seeped into every gap in her clothes sending chills through her. She wanted to be warm and to rest.
“I think you’re right,” Caelen said with a sigh. He did not like going back to the hotel empty-handed. They made their way back across the bridge toward the Palais de Chaillot and then veered to the left to return to the hotel. It was drizzling and Sharon clenched her teeth to stop them from chattering.
“I remember a training like this,” Caelen said attempting to keep her spirits up. “It was temporal infiltration and assimilation. We shifted to a day that was cold and wet and watched our subject for hours. By the end, we were soaked and stiff with cold. But we passed!”
“Where were you in history?” she asked.
“It was a soccer game in 2062.”
“A soccer game?” She laughed. “Why did you stay out in the rain for a soccer game?”
“It was the World Cup final! There was a legendary player - I won't tell you his name - and it was his finest moment. The discomfort was worth it.”
“You said we. Who else was there?”
“I was with my brother.”
“Oh, right, he was training to be an agent, too. You talked about him once.”
“I did?”
“Yes, well, it was Rose Sprucewood who mentioned him. In 1962. You know, in that other timeline.”
“Ah. Yes, she would mention him. She liked him.”
“She said he dropped out of training…?”
Caelen exhaled. “Kyle was, is, an outgoing person. He loves talking with people, learning about them, connecting with them. He’s charming, and he had a hard time with being the silent bystander that TPC agents must be. He wanted to talk to people in other times, interact with them, and it frustrated him that he couldn’t. Being an agent didn’t fit his personality.”
“Where is he now?”
“We lost touch,” Caelen answered. “I haven’t seen him in a long time.”
As they walked, the sky grew darker. In the west, the storm had broken up at last and the remaining rays of daylight reflected on the underside of the clouds for a final light show before nightfall. Streetlights came on, lighting their way with a warm yellow glow.
◆◆◆
“What took you guys so long?” Jonas demanded when they arrived back to the suite winded and chilled.
“We were following Mr. Cassain’s assistant, remember? What do you think we were doing?” Sharon asked. Her hand was throbbing again, and she was hungry, cold, and tired. She could smell food cooking, which made it worse.
“I, uh, it’s getting dark out. I was worried. What if a TPC agent detained you?”
“That didn’t happen, but we saw the same woman again, the one Sharon thought was an agent,” Caelen said.
“You did?” Miranda's voice rose.
“Yes, she was, um, with Mr. Cassain’s assistant,” Caelen said.
“With? What does that mean?” Jonas asked.
“It means they were kissing passionately on a park bench,” Sharon said. Jonas turned pink.
“That can’t be a coincidence,” Miranda said.
“I agree,” Sharon nodded. “How did you guys do following Mr. Cassain?”
Jonas’ demeanor changed instantly.
“We did very well,” he said smugly.
“We got lucky,” Miranda added. “Mr. Cassain stopped off in the bar in the lobby of his hotel and we engaged him in conversation.”