by Chuck Dixon
The four former Rangers took seats around the black-granite-topped table in the windowless room blasted from Alpine bedrock. Bottles of Bitburger Pilsner were chilling in a silver ice bucket on a banquet. A platter of cold meat and cheeses and a selection of breads lay by it.
Dwayne laid out the mission for them. “Holy shit,” James “Jimbo” Smalls said.
Chaz Raleigh spat out a mouthful of his sandwich. “This sounds like a clusterfuck in the making,” Lee said.
“We’re in the right place at the right time,” Dwayne said. “We’re the only ones who can make this happen.”
“Sounds like the wrong place and the way-wrong time to me,” Lee said.
“I’m in,” Chaz said after a swallow of beer.
“You are?” Lee looked at him, wide-eyed. “That easy?”
“You ask me if I want to go back and save Jesus,” Chaz said. “Yeah, I want to go back and save Jesus.”
“Then why not just go back and pull him down off the cross?” Lee said.
“I take you’ve never read the Bible,” Chaz said.
“I read Bill O’Reilly’s book. Does that count?”
“No.”
“I’ll make this plain,” Dwayne cut in. “This Sir Neal, the same fucker who nearly had me and Caroline killed, has his own version of the Tauber Tube. He’s using it to change the rules. His people are going back in time and affecting key events. Or that appears to be the strategy, anyhow.”
“So how does someone kidnapping teenaged Jesus change things?” Lee asked.
“Samuel doesn’t think it’s a kidnapping. He thinks it was supposed to be murder, but there was some kind of fuckery, and Sir Neal didn’t get what he paid for,” Dwayne said.
“Okay,” Lee said, waving a hand before him. “This Samuel guy. He’s from the future? He knows all this shit for sure? Like it’s already happened and he’s reading it in yesterday’s newspaper. How can we believe all this?”
“Do you believe me? Do you believe me and Caroline entered the field and then showed up four days later in Rhodes with Caroline six months pregnant?”
Lee raised his hands in surrender.
“You may be an agnostic on all this, Lee. But Jesus Christ did exist. And even if you don’t buy the son of God thing, you have to admit that the man influenced the world, a lot. And taking him out of the picture before he’s twenty-one means he doesn’t walk the road he was supposed to and none of what we know about him ever happened.”
“So, no Christmas or Easter,” Lee said.
“You can’t be this dumb, man,” Chaz said with some heat. “Jesus changed the world. We’d still be worshipping trees and shit. There’d be no Christianity or America or nothing. I don’t want to live in that world, bro. I won’t live in that world if there’s something I can do about it.”
“Okay, if this is the real messiah then wouldn’t his father be intervening here to make it right?” Lee said. “You telling me this Harnesh guy is fucking with God’s plan? And getting away with it?”
“Maybe we’re part of God’s plan,” Dwayne said.
“Avenging angels.” Chaz smiled.
“We’re on a mission from God,” Jimbo proclaimed, speaking for only the second time since the mission was sketched out. “Elwood Blues, right?”
“Whatever changes get made, they’ll make a world where Sir Neal calls the shots,” Dwayne said. “Whatever this is and whatever it means, it’s what that fucker wants. That can’t be good for anyone, and particularly not for us.”
“It hasn’t changed, has it? We’re sitting here talking about Jesus right now,” Lee said.
“Because there’s still time to change what happened,” Dwayne said and lifted a laptop onto the table and opened it. “But there’ll be a point where it’s too late to fix what’s broken.”
“We know this how?” Lee asked.
“Samuel. It’s all way over my head but, the way he explains it, time doesn’t act in the cause-and-effect way that we think it does,” Dwayne said as he tapped keys. “He said that traveling back in time is like lifting a sheet from a bed and dropping it back in place. The sheet’s in the same position and the fabric is the same, but the wrinkles are different.”
The three men regarded Dwayne with blank expressions.
“Yeah, I don’t get it either.”
“Shit, as long as you promise to stop trying to explain it, I’m in too.” Lee shrugged. “Color me curious.”
“Jimbo?” Dwayne said to the silent Pima nursing a beer at the end of the table.
“And miss a second chance to play gladiator?” Jimbo grinned. “No fucking way, Maximus.”
Dwayne turned the laptop so they could see the screen.
“This is our area of operations.” Dwayne stood to touch the screen and bring up details. “Our rescue target should still be in transit from here to here.” His finger touched the screen to highlight a winding north/south road that stretched from what was now northern Israel and into southern Lebanon.
“We make an amphibious landing here along the Lebanese coast and move overland to intercept the slave caravan. We swim in or take motorized transport depending on how close Boats can bring the Raj to shore without any questions.”
“Not that close with the IDF patrolling those waters for Hamas,” Lee said. “We couldn’t have picked a worse time for this op.”
“We’ll work that out. Now the mission objective is to free all the slaves in that caravan. We are not, repeat not, singling out our primary. One, we have no way of identifying him. Two, we can’t risk interfering with the string of events any more than they’ve already been dicked with. We free the captives, and it’s up to them from there.”
“God’s will,” Chaz said.
“What kind of force are we looking at? What’s our opposition?” Lee asked.
“Roman infantry.”
The other three shared a look. Jimbo was grinning from ear to ear.
“What’s their strength?” Chaz said.
“I have nothing on that right now. Expect at least a century.”
“That’s a hundred guys, right?” Chaz said.
“Actually, more like eighty,” Lee said, and the others looked at him. “What? I read, all right?
“This caravan, what’s their final destination?” Jimbo asked.
“Most likely, a slave market. Here.” Dwayne touched the screen, zooming in on a place called Philippi.
“That sounds familiar for some reason,” Chaz said.
“I’m looking at the distances here,” Lee said and pointed at the screen. “This caravan has a shorter distance to travel than we do. How do we intercept them before they get where they’re going?”
“We’ll be on horseback,” Dwayne said.
They had all had horse riding as part of their Ranger training for Afghanistan and had even been on a few old-school ops in the mountains of the Kush.
Jimbo’s grin broadened. He’d been practically born on the back of a pony back on the reservation.
Chaz was glum. He could ride, but he didn’t like it.
Lee began to ask a question, but Dwayne held up his hand.
“The horse situation is being worked out. I promise,” Dwayne said.
“Clusterfuck,” Lee said under his breath.
“There’s a question of languages,” Dwayne said, ignoring him. “We all have Arabic, but it’s the Egyptian dialect. It may not be of a lot of use. Languages change a lot over time. Same for Farsi. They’re both old languages, but they’ve changed since then. We’ll need to wing it.”
“Too bad none of us knows a dead language,” Jimbo said. “Latin or Hebrew. They haven’t changed at all since the time we’re going to.”
“I may be able to help with that.” Lee smiled one of his secret smiles that the rest knew usually meant trouble.
10
The Stranger Returns
Valerius Gratus awoke with a hand over his mouth. His first thought, upon struggling up from the well of sleep,
was that one of his cherubs was being playful. He pushed his tongue between his lips to run it over the palm.
His next sensation was of the hand being swiftly withdrawn, followed by the sharp sting of a slap across his jaw. He started awake, sitting up to find a hooded figure dressed in inky-black by his bed. The room was dark, the lanterns extinguished. Gratus inhaled to cry out. He felt a hand of alarming strength close about his throat, locking all sound within.
The black wraith dropped the hood to reveal the white-haired stranger with one knee on his bed and a hand slowly crushing the life from him.
“I told you to execute them,” the stranger—what was his name?—hissed.
The hand was removed from Gratus’s throat. The prefect sat up gasping and was then wracked with coughs. The man’s hand was like a rope noose.
“Tell me why you defied me. Why you did not do as you promised.” The stranger stood glaring at him, the whites of his eyes gleaming like pearl in the muted moonlight.
“How could you know?” Gratus managed to croak at last.
“Do you understand the concept of eventualities, Prefect?”
Gratus stared at him dumbly.
“History, all of human existence, is built upon countless moments. Each rests atop another as numerous as grains of sand upon a beach. But these moments are not equal in size nor import. Some are dust motes, while others are boulders.”
What was this madman on about?
“And each one rests upon the other to bring us here to this very moment, this precise eventuality. By betraying me, you began a chain of events leading to this very moment, with you unguarded and me considering whether or not I should kill you.”
“If I might explain” Gratus began.
“No more lies. I will not kill you. Not because I do not want to, because, believe me as you believe nothing else in your rotten soul, I most dearly wish to kill you in as prolonged and painful way that I can imagine.”
Gratus made no sound but to swallow.
“You will live but only because you are the only means by which I may rectify this catastrophe you have created. You will remain alive as long as you are useful to me as an agent.”
“What am I to do?” Gratus asked. No, begged. He would do anything to save his life.
“You will send a runner after the caravan. This runner will carry a message written in your own hand addressed to—who commands the escort taking the slaves to market?”
“Bachus. Centurion prime to the Twenty-third.”
“A message to Bachus. You are to tell him that, no matter what else happens, he must stay with the company of slaves. His soldiers must make certain that none escape. None. That means not one single captive may go missing.”
“Yes. Yes. I will have my lictor—”
“You will write it in your own hand. Now. Before me. I will dictate each word.”
“Yes. Of course.”
“And it must reach the caravan before they reach Philippi. You will choose your fastest runner. And you will pray to whichever of your gods you believe favors you that they make this runner as fleet as a gazelle.”
“I will. I swear.”
The stranger reached out once more. He made a fist in Gratus’s hair and pulled him from the bed. The prefect gained his feet uncertainly before being walked like a disobedient hound from his bedchamber into his office. His feet barely touched the tiles as he was held painfully aloft by the stranger’s grip. Gratus was thrust to his table.
“Write what I say,” the stranger growled.
“Um, first might I ask about the wine?” Gratus tried not to mewl, but his voice came out in a broken whine.
“The morphea?” The stranger smiled without humor. “Yes, I have brought more of the wine. It will only be yours if you do as I say.”
Gratus’s chin quivered, and he felt hot tears pool in his eyes. This man was equally his poisoner and benefactor. It sickened even as weak a man as Valerius Gratus that he had come to be in thrall to as cold a master as this. With shaking hand, he dipped a stylus in a pot of ink.
“Say on,” he whispered and placed the quill upon the vellum.
11
Another Time, Another Place
“Blue City, Station One in thirty minutes. Thirty minutes to Station One, Blue City.”
The loudspeakers in each car repeated the message again in Gallic and then in high German.
The train was passing through a tunnel bored through the base of the mountains for ten leagues in length. The last tunnel before the Blue City. Samuel sat alone in his seat and looked at his ebon reflection in the glass. He chose the late train because he knew it would be mostly empty. The risk was greater traveling at this time, there was no sheltering anonymity of a crowd and his singularity might call attention to itself. But it also made it easier to spot pursuit, and he knew that there were many assigned to hunt him here.
A book lay open but unread on his knee. The Rise of Cnossus in Empire II. It was a boring tome, but germane to the task at hand. Cnossus was proclaimed emperor in 1583 A.U.C. Born of a Roman father and a Dalmatian mother, the reign of Cnossus and his heirs marked almost three centuries of decline. This dark period led directly to the Third Republic, which remained in place for over a millennium, until it was replaced in a violent coup, followed by a series of military tyrants.
The world was more ordered now. Nationality had been erased in the West. The cities had been renamed using colors to eradicate any sense of heritage or fealty to past associations of race or heritage. The world was now one without the silly contrivances that had held mankind back before the Age of Science.
You became a citizen either by birth or by bribe. And if you were not a citizen, you were nothing. And you would serve in the mines, fields, and factories that remained out of sight and mind of the citizens in their gleaming cities of steel and glass.
Samuel turned from his reflection to see a man watching him. The man was seated ten rows from Samuel on the opposite side of the car’s center aisle. He turned away after holding Samuel’s gaze for a heartbeat. It could be nothing. Samuel studied the man. The watcher was in dark clothing of fine fabric, A crimson collar encircling his throat. A patrician then, an older man with deep creases in his face that told the truth of his age while the black-dyed hair atop his head was little more than a vain attempt to extend his youth.
Despite his age, he appeared to be a hard man. Perhaps he earned his way into his class in the military or the guard. He was certainly not born to it. Samuel could tell that by the large rough hands resting on the man’s knees.
It was either professional or idle interest that made the man concerned with him. Samuel turned away for a moment. When he turned back, the man was watching him once again, boldly appraising Samuel and not caring that his subject was aware of it. It could still be the professional interest that a lawman takes in everyone he sees. And in the nearly empty car, Samuel was naturally a target for appraisal.
Samuel had planned to get off the train at Station Three, closer to his intended target area deep in the heart of the city. But he would alter that and get off at the next stop to see if the hard man followed.
The train emerged from the tunnel and rose toward the starlight of towers at the city center. Tallest of these was the Castra, the stolid block rising eighty stories above the streets and housing the guardsmen who enforced the will of the current tyrant, Hiram Galba. The towers were limned in blue to acknowledge the name of the city in lights. This was the Blue City. In Civitatem Hyacintho. The Castra gleamed darkly with a deeper hue of indigo neon in homage to the uniform of the guard.
The elevated tracks spanned over the low rooftops of plebian homes set in orderly grids about the center. The streets below were dark now. After curfew traffic was restricted to state-approved vehicles only. Samuel regretted his decision to take this later train. Better if he had joined the early morning crush in the Red City the day before in order to arrive here as just another faceless traveler in the mob.
> The train slowed as it glided into the shelter of the station. It came to a full stop and set itself down with a metallic rasp as the magnetic field that supported and propelled it was powered down. He waited until the arrival in Station One had been announced a third time before leaping from his seat for the exit furthest from his watcher.
He sensed rather than saw the watcher rise to follow. The few passengers who had gotten off were already making their way to the escalators that would take them down to the street. This was a fully automated station. No officials were in sight. And, thankfully, no guardsmen either. Samuel walked swiftly from the train and crossed the platform to slide his plastic travel pass over the sensor at the exit kiosk.
The kiosk’s speaker beeped. The circular datum screen lit up to inform him that he was exiting in error. His pass was for travel to Station Three, Blue City as his final destination. The bars of the exit kiosk remained closed. He ran the pass over the sensor again. The screen blinked and reiterated its original message. The bars stayed closed.
An ozone smell reached him. He glanced to see that the train had shut its doors and was rising on its electrified field for departure. The watcher stood alone on the platform regarding him. Samuel slid the pass over the glass plate again. A human voice came on the speaker and asked him to please wait until an attendant could arrive to assist him. The voice asked him his full name, province, and departure city.
“Remember to speak clearly and include your prenomen, nomen, and cognomen. Help will be with you momentarily.”
He threw himself over the exit bars, landed on his feet, and ran for the escalators. He heard the scrape of shoe leather behind him. He turned to see the watcher, the hard man, rushing from between the open bars of the kiosk. Of course, a patrician would have a Visa Europan. All doors were open to the privileged.
