by E W Barnes
“Did you get a good view?” Caelen asked, as she came around to the front of the bench.
“A once in a lifetime view,” she answered, nodding a greeting to the others.
“We only have a few minutes until we have to get back… shall we continue our walk?” he asked in a jaunty voice with a wink to the others who chuckled when she blushed. He took her hand again, and they continued down the path.
“Nicely done,” Caelen murmured. “You too,” she whispered. “We’ll circle back to pick up the phone after they leave.”
“There’s another bench up ahead. From there we’ll be able to see when they leave.”
They sat on the bench and he put his arm around her. It felt much less awkward, comfortable even, than when he’d put his arm over her shoulders in New York City in 1980. Where a moment before the terrifying randomness of dropped bombs had chilled her, now she felt a warmth and even security.
I am getting used to this undercover stuff, she thought. No, it was more than that. It was more than pretending to have a boyfriend or masquerading as an official representative of the U.S. government, or even seeing Buckingham Palace.
It was knowing that in trying to thwart the Chestnut Covin, she was working to stop evil just as the British had. Instead of taking an easy route and capitulating to what was patently wrong, she had chosen the right route, the right fight. She sat up abruptly.
“What is it?” Caelen asked, looking around them carefully.
“I got to see Buckingham Palace! In person!” She laughed and Caelen joined her. They looked like sweethearts sharing an amusing moment together.
“I need to ask you a question,” Sharon started.
“Yes?” he said warily.
“If you were a TPC agent on assignment, and not really working for a moving company, how did you get the not-a-real-Tiffany lampshade for my apartment?”
“Well, I found it in an antique shop,” he said, clearing his throat.
“You were just shopping for antiques?”
He exhaled. “No, I was looking for a lampshade for you after yours broke. I saw that one in the window of an antiques store advertised as a genuine Tiffany. I knew it wasn’t a real Tiffany and talked the owner down. I got a very fair price.”
Sharon grinned at him. “Thank you for the lampshade. I love it.”
“I can see them walking back,” Caelen said, taking a breath. “Just our Soviet friends or Kevin, too?” Sharon asked still smiling. “The Soviets are leading the way and Kevin is behind them, as before.”
They stood and headed back the way they had come. The phone was where Sharon had left it and it was still recording. She stopped the recording and slipped it back into her pocket. They traced the path of the others back, letting go of each other’s hand only when they left the park and crossed the street.
◆◆◆
The meeting lasted for the rest of the afternoon, ending in time for the attendees to get to safety before nightfall and the dread of Nazi bombs in the dark.
Rose discouraged conversation as they walked back, only confiding that Lloyd never left the meeting room. It wasn’t until they were in the safe house that Sharon and Caelen told Rose about the walk and the recording. They sat in the parlor to listen to the recording, eking out the last of the cool afternoon light before they had to close the curtains.
The first part was almost silent - the whispering of leaves of grass against the phone speaker, the slight crunch of gravel as someone moved a foot. Then there was a man’s voice speaking Russian. Mr. Petronov - followed by Miss Ivanova’s translation.
“What can I do for you, Mr. Bower?”
“It is what I can do for you, Mr. Petronov. And you can knock off the whole translating thing. I know that you can understand and speak English. Let’s save time, shall we?”
Another silence and then: “Very well,” Mr. Petronov said.
“While we are putting our cards on the table, I also know Miss Ivanova is more than a translator and that she works for the GRU.”
There was a small laugh.
“If we are putting our cards on the table, as you say, Mr. Bower, then we should tell you we know neither you nor Mr. Quill are Canadian or attached to the Canadian Embassy in London,”
Miss Ivanova’s voice had changed now she was no longer translating, less light and more deadly. “I wonder how the Canadians would feel about the joint defense agreement if they knew Americans were impersonating Canadian officials at a secret meeting.”
“There is no need for threats, Natalya,” Mr. Petronov said. “Let us hear what Mr. Bower has to say.”
She must have nodded in assent because it was Kevin who spoke next.
“I am here with proof of Nazi plans to invade the Soviet Union.”
Mr. Petronov scoffed as Miss Ivanova demanded “What proof?”
There was the crinkle of papers. “The Germans are meticulous about keeping records on everything,” Kevin said scornfully. There was more crinkling.
“These are the plans for Operation Fritz - the Wehrmacht’s planned march to Moscow.”
A long silence, and then: “How do we know these are not forged?” Miss Ivanova said.
“Because I also have this,” Kevin said as more paper crinkled.
They could hear Mr. Petronov draw breath.
“Kak eto vozmozhno? Kak vy eto poluchili? How did you get this?”
“Chto eto? What is it?” Miss Ivanova asked.
“It’s the secret part to the non-aggression pact between the Soviet Union and Germany,” Kevin answered. “You know, the part where Germany and the USSR agreed to divide up eastern Europe between them?
He waited a moment while they absorbed that. “I wonder how the British and American governments would feel if they got a copy of this document. That’s what will occur if anything happens to me.”
“However, I am not looking to blackmail you,” he added. “This document simply serves as evidence to prove that the plans for Operation Fritz are genuine.”
“Da,” Mr. Petronov said finally. “I will take this back to our leaders.”
“What else do you want?” Miss Ivanova’s voice was rough with suspicion.
“Nothing,” Kevin said.
“Nothing?”
“That’s right. In the long run, Nazi victories are bad for the rest of the world. If this information helps to stop them that’s all I need.”
In her mind’s eye Sharon could see the incredulity on Mr. Petronov and Miss Ivanova’s faces at this statement, but Kevin’s declaration was apparently good enough for them.
“Da, spasibo,” Mr. Petronov said. “Yes, thank you.”
“We were not here, we did not speak,” Miss Ivanova said, her voice making it clear what would happen if Kevin did not comply, secret agreement or no.
The bench creaked as they stood up and their footsteps crunched on the path, receding in the distance.
“Kevin followed them shortly after,” Caelen said reaching for the phone to turn off the playback. Then he froze.
“Rose, I know they recorded this conversation and that you will be listening. I need your help.” Kevin was speaking again.
Rose blanched and looked faint.
“I have gotten myself into something, way over my head, and don’t know how to get out. I know that you love me and that we are supposed to get married. Based on that future I am asking for your help now.”
“I beg of you, if you ever loved me, please meet me on the steps next to the statue of Clive outside the New Place offices at 10:00 tonight. Please be there. You’re the only one who can help me.”
Before Rose could speak, the sun set. The city’s lights switched off block by block as the blackout began, plunging them into a gray darkness eased only by the twilight coming in the windows. In the distance, an air-raid siren began to wail.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
“You can’t possibly be considering this!” Caelen’s knuckles whitened as he held Sharon’s phone.
&n
bsp; “He’s right, it has to be a trap,” Sharon said. She closed the blackout curtains in the parlor and used the brown paper near the windows to seal up any spaces through which light could escape.
“What if it’s not?” Rose asked.
“Then we can do another shift and help him then,” Caelen answered with a tight-lipped smile.
“We can’t if we don’t have a working temporal amplifier,” Rose said patiently.
“Then we must correct the error in the timeline and none of this will have happened,” Sharon said.
“That won’t work, Sharon,” Rose explained. “The Kevin who attacked you was in the correct timeline. It was only after he attacked you that we shifted into this timeline. It’s this Kevin who needs our help… my help.”
Caelen threw his arms up in the air. “You can’t do this. I won’t let you do this.”
“You will follow my orders, Agent Winters,” said Rose, her command presence returning. Caelen stiffened and the look of frustration left his face but not his eyes. “I thank you for your concern,” she said softening a little.
◆◆◆
After they had drawn the blackout curtains in every room and sealed every crack and seam, they met in the kitchen. They made a meal and sat at the small table under the window that was no longer bright. The sound of the air-raid siren had fallen silent, but Sharon could hear a low rumbling now and then, a sound like thunder that wasn’t thunder.
“Do we need to think about going to a shelter or a tube station if they get close?” she asked.
“No, I selected this location because it did not experience bomb damage during the war. We are safe here,” Rose answered. “The air raid won’t last long. Nazi bombers and fighters had limited fuel capacity, most of which was used up by the Channel crossings. They will drop their loads and retreat before they run out of gas.”
The thunder remained in the background, growing neither louder nor quieter. Caelen had stopped arguing as ordered, and his glowering silence was heavy in the room.
“What was Operation Fritz,” Sharon asked.
“It was later called Operation Barbarossa,” Rose answered. “The Nazis never intended to share Europe with the Soviet Union. Germany signed the nonaggression pact to buy the Third Reich time to conquer western Europe before it turned its attention eastward. Operation Barbarossa will start nine months from now, and the Soviet people will suffer some of the greatest losses of the war.”
“If the Soviets knew about it ahead of time and acted to stop it, it could save lives,” Sharon said.
“A lot of lives,” Rose nodded.
“Wouldn’t that be a good thing?”
“Not necessarily,” Rose answered. Sharon opened her mouth to argue, and it was Caelen who spoke first.
“This was one of the hardest lessons in TCP agent training,” Caelen said in a voice sounding like sandpaper. “We call it the Law of Temporal Continuity. It prohibits time travelers from changing the timeline, even for seemingly good causes because at best, positive events could be lost, and the negative consequences could be far worse.”
“But think of all the horror and evil you could stop. No Crusades, no Black Death, no Inquisition, no Holocaust, no genocides. Why would you not want to stop those terrible things?”
“Why would you want to deprive humankind the ability to learn and grow from its mistakes?” It was Rose who spoke now. “More importantly, who would decide what events to change and which would remain in place in history? Would you want to be the one who decides who lives and who dies?”
Sharon looked away.
“All the changes Kevin has made seem to support and benefit the Soviet Union,” Caelen said crossing his arms. “How does that result in a rapid shift anomaly? How could those changes in the past affect the future?”
“Maybe someone would live who otherwise died, and that someone changes the future,” Sharon said.
“Or several someones,” Caelen added.
“Or even someone’s children or grandchildren. This can get complicated. How do you TPC agents keep track of these kinds of things?”
“That’s part of what the temporal mainframe does,” Rose said.
“We don’t have access to the temporal mainframe,” Caelen said glowering again.
“No, but we have access to the one who is setting all this in motion.”
“You’re going to meet Kevin to find out what he is doing,” Sharon said. Caelen pressed his lips together.
Rose placed her palms on the table. “If Kevin needs help, we must help him. If it is a trap, we must plan for that possibility while still learning all we can. I see no other options.”
“What about the option of doing nothing?” Caelen said, trying to sound calm and reasonable.
“If we do nothing, then the changes to the timeline become permanent, the rapid shift anomaly goes uncorrected, and we sit and wait until we don’t remember that there was any other time.”
“What if one of us went instead of you?” Sharon said.
“It has to be me,” Rose answered. “He made his plea based on our love and the future we will share. He says I am the one he trusts. If it’s a trap, he may still confide in me if he thinks he is fooling me. We can’t be sure he will trust either of you, and we cannot take the risk of losing this chance.”
Unable to think of any other arguments against meeting Kevin, Sharon and Caelen reluctantly agreed. Caelen suggested that rather than Rose leaving from the safe house just before the meeting time that they go to the pub down the street before the meeting.
“Can we move around during the blackout?” Sharon interrupted.
“Oh yes, lots of people moved around at night,” Rose answered. “One had to be careful - there were traffic accidents and injuries caused by the blackout conditions - it was dangerous not to be in a bomb shelter or other refuge, of course. But people visited pubs, even during the Blitz.”
“It will look more natural, and we will be closer to the meeting point there,” Caelen explained. “If it’s a trap, they could be watching for three people. We can leave one at a time, or you first, and Sharon and me afterwards. In the dark, we’ll just look like pub-goers heading home.”
“You will not be coming,” Rose said.
Sharon and Caelen gaped at her.
“Somehow Kevin knew you recorded the conversation in the park. What if he knows you are close by and refuses to talk? No, I need to do this alone.”
Sharon pressed her leg against Caelen’s under the table and, whether understanding her silent communication or out of surprise at the contact, he stayed quiet.
◆◆◆
They decided that all three of them would go to the pub together. Rose would leave the pub to meet Kevin while Sharon and Caelen waited there for her to return.
Sharon had been expecting pitch black when they stepped outside, and she was alarmed at how much light there was. Fires in the distance dimly silhouetted buildings and trees, and spotlights flashed across the sky seeking targets for ground-based gunners.
The unceasing thunder she could hear in the house was louder now, mostly the distant roar of burning, punctuated by the sound of engines, both on the ground and in the air.
They walked the two blocks to the pub. Sharon had never felt more alert, every sense focused on the potential approach of danger from any direction. It was exhausting. How could people live like this day in and day out? she thought.
As Rose has predicted, the pub was open, and a few people were going out as they arrived. The entrance was a carefully blacked-out vestibule. Once the outside door closed behind them, they opened the inside door, and stepped into light and warmth.
They found a table next to a heavily curtained window and ordered toasted cheese sandwiches and ale. Most of the patrons sat closer to the bar and farther back in the room — presumably to avoid flying glass and debris if a bomb hit outside the building.
The plan was that Rose would arrive at the meeting at 9:45. Rose would have Sharon�
��s phone, hiding it on the statue of Robert Clive to record the conversation. Then, if Rose had not returned to the pub by 10:15, Sharon and Caelen would retrieve the phone, listen to the recording, and use clues given by Rose to find her.
“This is a really thin plan,” Sharon muttered. It was Caelen who responded. “It is the best we’ve got right now.”
At 9:40, Rose left the pub. As she opened the inner door, she smiled reassuringly at them. Then she slipped out.
“When do we follow her?” Sharon asked as soon as Rose left.
“In 10 minutes,” Caelen answered.
Sharon took a bite of her toasted cheese sandwich. It was a tangy cheddar, better than any she had tasted before, and combined with the ale was one of the best meals she’d ever eaten.
“If we had access to the temporal mainframe, could we figure all of this out?”
“Probably,” Caelen answered with a sigh.
“How does that work?” Sharon asked. “How can the TPC know how history will unfold before it even does?”
“The temporal mainframe has access to all points in time,” Caelen explained while watching the door. “It uses specialized algorithms and quantum computing to analyze temporal impacts. The TPC uses the information to coordinate chrono-historian movements through time and correct temporal errors when they crop up.”
“Is that how they know stopping terrible things in history could cause even more terrible things?”
“When the temporal mainframe was first brought online, one of the first analyses requested was to calculate the outcomes of removing terrible events from history. The changes in the timelines were so much worse than the events themselves, so horrific, they sealed the results to everyone except the highest ranks of the TPC. There are only a few people who know what those outcomes were.”
Listening to the low, taut voices in the pub, hearing the distant thunder that threatened death instead of rain, haron wondered what could be worse than this. She was not sure she wanted to know.
