“Commander, there are some sensitive details we had to consider before making this decision. We understand the nature of this and that you’re opposed to killing Ms. Griffiths, but the initial investigative reports are showing that Sonya was the one who killed Gerald. She landed the shot.”
Martin looked up, fighting to stay calm, but feeling dizzy again, the chambers spinning around him. “Sonya? I don’t believe it.”
“Whether or not you believe it doesn’t change our team’s findings. You need to decide if you’re going to continue down this path of defending Sonya’s life in exchange for the barrage of attacks we keep enduring from the Revolution—and now the Liberation, too.”
“Oh, I get to decide? Because this sure as hell doesn’t make it seem like it’s my choice. What happened to not sacrificing a Road Runner, no matter what it could mean? Or does that only apply when it’s convenient?”
“Commander, we can only work with the information we have. I don’t agree with the initial decision by Commander Strike for that initial assassination attempt on Sonya, but that has since unraveled into this mess. I believe that decision is what cost Commander Strike her life. It scared Chris and he “He reacted. Must have thought Sonya was safe as a Road Runner and that her life would never be in danger, especially in her role as a recruiter. But that changed when they sent you to kill her.”
“So since the Road Runners broke her trust, and sent her into hiding, that somehow justifies us killing her? My defense of Sonya is much more than my feelings for her. I’ve never seen someone treated so poorly. She dedicated her life to the Road Runners and this is how she gets repaid? You people act like she was working with Chris behind our backs, when in reality Strike just got greedy and made a hurried decision.”
“To be fair to Commander Strike, rest her soul, she did not make that decision. It was a vote cast by all Lead Runners across the continent. It narrowly passed, and I think she regretted ever putting it up for a vote. She decided to go a different route to bypass the Council and see what the rest of the leadership wanted, then made her final decision from there. She could have just as easily decided against it—the vote wasn’t binding like a Council vote—but there’s no point in picking apart that process right now.”
“Why didn’t you stop it?” Martin snapped. “Surely you could have.”
“We could, but the Council was equally as split. All this aside, Commander, our decision is unanimous and we need you to implement it.”
Martin looked around the table and shook his head. “I can’t believe you all. I personally chose each of you to serve on this Council, and this is how you vote?”
“Commander, if you can put your personal feelings aside, you’ll see that this is what’s best for the Road Runners at this time.”
“Put my feelings aside? Forgive me for saying this, but my life has slowly been ripped apart since I joined the Road Runners, never mind what has happened since I became commander. The theme in my life since joining has been a constant cycle of getting my hopes up—even having my life headed in the right direction—only for everything to be ripped out from under me. This last month has easily been the most fucked-up month of my entire existence—and I’ve lived through the loss of my child at the hands of my wife, mind you.”
“And that’s exactly why we cast these votes, Commander. You’re enduring enough on a daily basis. This decision didn’t need to rest solely on your shoulders, especially with Gerald gone. We don’t expect you to see clearly—we understand the hell you’re being put through. At the same time, we’re getting pressured from the public to do something, and we don’t think removing you from office will actually solve anything. The time has come to end this war, and that’s what we’re dedicated to doing.”
“And if I don’t agree to any of this, will you just bypass me again? What’s the point of having a commander if you guys do whatever you want?”
“No, we can’t bypass. We don’t have the authority to execute a mission, just to approve it. We do, however, have the power to hold you in contempt if you refuse to do the work presented to you by the Council. Remember, the Council represents the people, the commander represents the organization. This has always been the way it is, for both balance of power and clarity of functions, but there are plenty of times we must work together. Now is that time.”
Martin snickered as he shook his head once more. “So you get to blackmail me into doing this? Fan-fucking-tastic. Congrats, Council, you win.”
Martin stood up and stomped toward the door, stopping when Uribe shouted. “Commander Briar, stop right there!”
He pivoted and planted his hands on his hips, like a teenage girl upset that her parents wouldn’t let her go out.
“Commander, we don’t want to make any difficult decisions. This sort of matter can cause irreparable damage to the Council and the office of the commander, not to mention another split in our membership. We’re willing to hear any of your concerns and come to an agreement on what this process will look like. At the end of the day, the decision on how this is all carried out is up to you as the commander. Can you at least work with us?”
Martin stood in silence, his lips pursed to give the appearance of deep thought. He knew this moment was a long time coming, he just didn’t expect it to be made for him. Gerald had set the expectation that if he wanted to be the commander to bring peace to the Road Runners, then killing Sonya was the direct route to do that. He had wrestled with this privately ever since he had started campaigning, and knew it would all eventually come down to this.
Yes, Martin still had feelings for Sonya, but the reality that he had long been avoiding was that she did not feel the same. He felt a real connection during their six months together in 1996, and even back into 2018 when she returned with him. As much as she swore to playing along with their love story for the sake of luring him into the Road Runners, he believed she at one point had developed feelings for him, too. Regardless of how it all played out, she had been the one to fully drag him into this mess, he being a pawn in a war between a daughter and her deranged father on the opposite side of the fence.
Closure had helped him heal two decades after Izzy’s disappearance, and perhaps closing the book on Sonya would also allow him to move forward in life and whatever remained in his final years on this planet.
“Don’t worry about me,” Martin said to the Council. “I’ll do it.”
He left the room without another word, leaving the Council in stunned silence.
33
Chapter 33
It only took three weeks for them to find Sonya. With all hands on deck, it was only a matter of time before they spotted her, blending into Chicago society in 1933, the peak of the Great Depression. They had sent teams of Road Runners to scout every year ranging from 1700 through 2100, mainly flooding the big cities while also scattering teams to check on more rural areas where she might have hidden.
They had no hunch of where they might find her, essentially throwing blindly at a dart board, not even sure if the 400-year span they had covered would be enough. She could have as easily traveled back to the days of dinosaurs and hidden there, but her chances of survival were slim. The plan was to cover the initial 400-year window, completely sweep each year in each state and town, and if nothing turned up, to do it once more before deciding where else to branch out. They also rode the assumption that she would remain in North America.
The Road Runners didn’t know if Chris was still providing her protection, or if she had truly ventured out on her own, leaving everyone on edge for that slim chance they’d be the ones to find her. Fortunately, the instructions clearly stated that Commander Briar only wanted to know her location—there was no need to engage with Sonya.
It was a blistering cold night in January of 1933 when a couple of Road Runners spotted Sonya returning home from a trip to the grocery store, two big paper bags clutched in each arm’s grip as she walked uphill to her apartment building. She didn’t appear to have a
ny sort of security tailing her. They watched for three consecutive days to ensure this fact, and even though she only left her apartment building once a day, all three times for her same route to and from the grocery store, they never spotted another person within fifty feet of her. She lived completely alone, as confirmed when they followed her into the apartment building to find which unit she resided in.
Having a basic feel for her schedule, they wandered around the hallways, stopping to press an ear against her door to see what they could hear. Little did they know, as she blasted the radio for background noise, that she stood on the other side of the door with her pistol cocked and ready to blast whoever might try to break in. Little did they know, she had spotted the two Road Runners tailing her that first night she returned home, and only left in the subsequent days to confirm her suspicions. She was no dummy.
She was the most wanted person in the history of the Road Runners, yet had never committed a crime. While she expected an eventual return to a life on the run, she imagined it would come much later, perhaps after a year or so had passed, not a mere three weeks since fleeing the house in Idaho. Regardless, she was ready, and while she had plans in place to run, she also wanted to fight back this time around. If these same two men kept following her, she’d kill them. Handling her own business had long been her strong suit, and she knew she could handle a pair of Road Runners.
What she didn’t know was that Martin had a change of heart. Back in 2020, eighty-seven years ahead of Sonya’s current hideout, Martin had packed his bag, stuffing it with clothes, body armor, six different guns, and half a dozen boxes of ammunition. He zipped the bag shut and stared at himself in the mirror hanging on his office wall. “This is it,” he told himself.
Two weeks earlier he had officially sworn in his new lieutenant commander, a confident woman by the name of Alina Herrera. Alina had carved a name out for herself running missions across Central America focused on wiping out cartels before they could harm the general public. Her methods were just as savage as the cartels’, but she couldn’t care less, fighting for justice on every single mission. She also had close ties to their super-agent, Arielle Lucila.
Alina had arrived in Denver and immediately locked herself in her new office, having since been cleared of Gerald’s belongings, and remained inside as she crafted a plan to kill Chris Speidel. Martin had worked with numerous teams around the country in regards to the mission of finding and killing Sonya, and he didn’t want his new lieutenant to worry about anything else besides Chris.
She lived and breathed her work, her dedication to the organization unlike anyone else Martin had met during his time in the Road Runners. He didn’t know it at the time—no one did—but Alina was the perfect fit for this ultimate role.
With the plans brewing and nearing completion for what to do once Sonya was killed, Martin took his packed bag and left his office behind. He had debated delivering some sort of memorable speech to the Denver office, but decided it might sound too much like a farewell. The Council agreed to let him be the one to capture Sonya, while acknowledging his elevated risk of death by going on such a dangerous mission. They only insisted he have a new lieutenant selected in case anything went wrong.
He did as instructed, his heart full with the notion that he would either return a hero, or see his life end once and for all. Both options sounded as equally appeasing for the emotionally torn commander.
Although he didn’t concern over his life’s outcome on this mission—the Council and Road Runners did, sending ten different guards to accompany him every step of the way. They had strict orders from the Council to not leave his side, regardless of what he directly instructed.
They took two cars to the airport, and all of the guards crammed into the jet with Martin for the quick flight to Chicago. Martin wanted to wait until they landed before taking his swig of Juice to jump back to 1933. His stomach fluttered with nerves as the flight took off into the still afternoon sky, a sense of doom mixed with destiny, practically suffocating his lungs.
Martin looked around the jet to all of the guards there to protect his life, but didn’t really see them. He felt alone on this mission, knowing these guards were at a high risk of losing their lives should they come anywhere close to Sonya. This was Martin’s mission. He had to take his gloves off and get dirty if any of their plans were to proceed.
Per advice from Alina, Martin had worked on playing out the murder scene in his mind. He was able to mentally take a step back and imagine himself killing Sonya, the idea never feeling normal and always tipping him toward a powerful nausea that made his entire body shake. He had to prepare for multiple circumstances, not knowing exactly how it would all play out: knives, guns, bare hands. Whatever it took. She had been ready during the first encounter in 1996 when Strike sent him on this same mission, when he didn’t have any intent on actually going through with it.
The stakes were raised now, and everyone knew it. Sonya would be more prepared than ever, expecting Martin to pay a visit. Their initial life together in 1996, when Sonya pulled him deeper into this twisted world, seemed thousands of years in the past. Now he stared into the clouds from his jet’s window, the future seemingly endless ahead of him.
For the first time in a while, during these brief moments of reflection, Martin didn’t look to the past. All the souls that had touched his life breezed by like the distant memories they were. Izzy, Lela, his mother and father, even his estranged brother who had been the initial spark that started this raging fire, passed through his thoughts without sticking, much like an express train blasting through a station without so much as touching its brakes to slow down.
The flight to Chicago only took a few minutes beyond two hours, and they had landed in no time, the crew of guards remaining in their seats and awaiting instruction. They already knew the plans and each step they’d be taking for the next twenty-four hours, only needing the official call from Martin.
He took a moment to nod to this crew of unfamiliar faces around him. This had seemed a growing trend since becoming commander, as more and more Road Runners entered his life on a daily basis.
Martin pulled the bottle of Juice from his bag that had rested beside his feet during the flight, and unscrewed the cap, raising the bottle to his fellow Road Runners, placing his hand on the jet’s wall to ensure the aircraft would come with them during their trip to the past. He tipped it back and took a hard swallow, prompting everyone else to do the same.
After a couple minutes, they had fallen through the usual rumble of the world and woke up in their same positions on the jet, parked at a distant hangar a dozen miles outside of Chicago. The jet’s door opened, letting in a brisk gust of cold air that made the cabin’s temperature drop fifteen degrees immediately. Martin started for the door and stopped before walking down the steps, admiring the city skyline in the far distance. It was much smaller than what he was used to from his present time, but it appeared majestic nonetheless.
“Welcome to 1933, ladies and gentlemen,” he said over his shoulder to the group of guards returning to consciousness. “Let’s go.”
He stepped out, leading his team into the unknown of the Great Depression, the world silent and still as it only could when destiny loomed.
Martin Briar had regained his sense of purpose as he set out on an adventure that was sure to change his life forever, his only hope that it would also save the world.
Time of Fate
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Acknowledgments
Thank you for continuing this wild journey with myself and Martin. Being the second-to-last book of the series, my goal was to set up the story for a strong finish in the sixth book, which I feel was a success. As I write this, I have just finished the first draft for the aforementioned sixth and final book, Time of Fate, which should bring this series to a satisfying end. This is the deepest I’ve written into a series, and I’m constantly surprised at how much more there is to learn to keep it going—and interesting. Series writing is definitely a unique skillset that I’m glad to have learned since jumping into Wealth of Time.
I wanted to take a moment to thank those who have made this book possible. Stephanie, my editor, for her prompt work and attention to detail. To Dane Low for another beautiful cover, it’s becoming harder each time to decide which is my favorite.
Thank you to my Advance Reader team, your feedback is always welcomed and cherished as my final readers before publication day.
To the Dizzy Dragons for the continued support. Even though we’ve been apart this year due to the pandemic, it still feels like home when we get into our Slack discussions.
Zero Hour (Wealth of Time Series, Book 5) Page 21