“Jesus Christ,” Brigham uttered, having remained silent during the drive. Web gazed out the window, but they had grown expectant of his reticence.
“We can continue the history lesson another time,” Gerald interrupted. “Because we’re here, gentlemen.”
He pulled the van to the side of the road and parked in front of a three-level building, a crooked, faded sign calling it The Last Stop Hotel & Suites. It appeared no different than the other buildings they had passed, only this one had a welcoming patch of two-foot tall grass, and black, dreary trees. Atop the building, a crow cawed into the quiet afternoon.
“Say hello to your home in 2064,” Gerald said, killing the engine.
Martin pressed his face against the window to soak in his surroundings. The buildings were practically stacked on top of each other, separated only by narrow alleyways where groups of people huddle around each other, shooting dice on the ground with dollar bills in short piles.
Just remember why you’re here, Martin reminded himself. It’s not that bad. When you get the medicine, all of this will be forgotten.
He leaned back, knowing none of this would ever be forgotten. The images from his brief time in 2064 would already be burned into his memory forever, serving as a constant reminder of what waited for him later on in life.
109
Chapter 16
Commander Strike awoke in a dark hotel room. Sleeping in the Denver office had grown exhausting, as she never actually received a full night of sleep. The pull out beds had springs that dug into her back all night, and the temperature always seemed to be just off, either too hot or too cold, never perfect.
She had wished the team farewell before leaving, letting them know she was heading back to Alaska to plot the next steps of the war with Julian. While she could’ve slept on the plane ride home, all she really wanted was a moment alone. She had wandered down the street from the office and found a small hotel called the Jet Hotel. She could’ve stayed for free at the Oxford, but walking into any place filled with Road Runners always drew their attention and swarmed her in a mob of excited people.
At the Jet Hotel, she walked in the front door like any normal person looking for a room, minus the trailing security team who followed, blending in as if they didn’t know her. When she checked in to her room, she immediately collapsed onto the fluffy bed, splaying her limbs in every direction and enjoying the room’s perfect temperature. It had been at least ten days since she had a day off, and she’d plan on spending it in bed, watching trash TV, and ordering room service for all meals of the day.
Even on the brink of passing out from fatigue, she wondered how the crew was faring in 2064. Mainly she wondered about Martin. Something about him drove her a bit wild. He had a confidence that he didn’t realize, yet a soothing presence equally oblivious to him.
She wondered what drove Martin Briar. After losing his daughter so many years ago and going back in time to helplessly witness it, something had to keep him moving forward. She’d seen similar scenarios play out where people had killed themselves or let their life spiral out of control with drugs, alcohol, and gambling. But not Martin Briar.
She didn’t just think about him, but worried about him. She was in 2019, and he was in the dangerous year of 2064, 200 years after the Civil War had ended, yet seemed to be starting again. The Road Runners had statisticians who ran numbers throughout the spectrum of time. She pulled a report and found that anyone who traveled beyond the year 2050 had a six percent chance of being killed if they spent an entire day in any following year. Those numbers jumped up to ten percent and eighteen percent on days two and three, respectively.
She shared this data with Gerald, insisting they get in and out as quickly as possible. He projected a week’s time to complete the mission, which carried a forty-five percent chance of death.
“They can run their numbers all they want,” Gerald told her. “But they can’t factor for me. Those odds don’t mean shit to me. The crew will be safe as long as they listen and stay by my side.”
Strike sighed in her silent room, thinking back to this brief conversation and only feeling temporarily relieved by Gerald. She wanted Martin back, not only to ensure his safety, but to ask him if he’d like to join her inner circle in leading the Road Runners. She had Julian and Bill to bring him up to speed, and believed he’d be the perfect fit with those two. Working alongside her would guarantee he’d never have to leave on a dangerous mission again, unless he really wanted to.
Thinking of them reminded her that she’d need to have a talk with both men. As a departing Commander next year, she was to endorse an individual to succeed her. Endorsed candidates had won the election ninety-five percent of the time throughout the Road Runners’ history, and while Bill had plenty of seniority and wisdom, she believed Julian had the mettle and toughness to lead the organization into the next wave of the future.
Bill had always been laidback, so she hoped this scenario would be no different. He’d make a fantastic leader during a time of peace, but they simply weren’t at that point yet. For her, she considered who would have the greatest odds of capturing Chris, and that was a no-brainer to choose Julian. He had the ambition, passion, and a wealth of fresh ideas. Deep down she knew she wouldn’t be the one to get Chris, but had no issue imagining Julian pulling off the task.
Julian can end the war, and Bill can lead them into peace afterward, she thought, and would plan her pitch to them on exactly this.
A shallow knock came from the door, causing Strike to jump in the bed. The room was pitch-black except for the soft glow of the clock on the nightstand that read 6:42. She had breakfast scheduled for delivery at 7:30, and couldn’t imagine they’d be this early with the food. Perhaps they thought she asked for her delivery at 6:30. Or it could have been one of her guards, but they never disrupted her, especially during sleep.
They’d either knock again, or leave, realizing their mistake. Strike rolled onto her back and stared into the darkness. The thick curtains had been drawn shut to keep any sunlight out. She turned to the door, where a sliver of light from the hallway seeped through the bottom gap. The light divided by the shadows of two feet as the person who knocked remained on the other side.
A second knock echoed throughout the room.
“Who is it?” she called.
“Room service. Breakfast delivery.”
Dammit, she thought, dreading that she now had to get out of bed a whole 45 minutes earlier than planned. She had the room till noon and planned to eat herself into an early morning nap.
Strike rolled to the edge of the bed and swung her legs over where they landed into a pair of white slippers. A robe lay on the ground which she pulled over her naked body. “I’m coming!”
She shuffled across the room, tasting the sourness of her morning breath, and knowing her hair was a frazzled mess. The unpleasant sight of her opening the door was their fault for being so early. She flicked on the light switch in the entryway, splashing a soft glow across the room. A quick check through the door’s peephole showed a young man dressed in a suit, a tray of breakfast held in his arms.
Strike pulled open the door to receive a warm smile from the man. “Good morning, Ms. Strike, we have your breakfast ready.”
“Thank you, but I had asked for it at 7:30.”
The man’s face scrunched as he checked the receipt on the tray. “I show that as your regular request, but that you called in to request it earlier.”
“I never called in. I’ve been asleep almost the entire time I’ve been here. It must have been a call for a different room.”
The man peered at the paper, his arms trembling from the weight of the tray.
“Please, you can put the food down on the dresser. You don’t need to hold it this whole time,” Strike said. The young man entered the room and slid the tray on top of the nearest dresser.
“Of course, thank you. It just doesn’t make sense. It was a handwritten note passed over to me about the chang
e of time. I don’t know who did it.”
“I did,” a voice called from the open door, and they both swiveled around to see Chris standing there with a wide grin.
“Who are you?” the man asked.
“Just an old friend of Ms. Strike,” Chris replied calmly, his grin not fading.
The man looked from Chris to Strike. Strike had a stern expression smacked on her face.
“Ma’am, are you okay?” he asked. “Or should I stay?”
“You can stay,” Chris cut in, lunging across the room and pulling a pocket knife from his coat.
The poor kid never saw it coming. Chris jammed the knife into his gut, getting a faint grunt sound as the hotel employee collapsed to his knees, eyes staring blankly at the crazy old man.
Strike balled her hands into fists, fighting off the urge to leap across the room and tackle Chris. He had a weapon, leaving her no option but to stand by and watch, her pistol tucked away in her suitcase.
Where the hell is my team? she wondered. It was completely unacceptable for Chris Speidel to even be in the same building as her, let alone standing at her room’s door.
“So we’re killing innocent civilians now?” she snapped.
Chris tipped the man on his back, his skull hitting the carpeted floor with a hollow thock!
“I’ll kill whoever gets in my way,” Chris said, turning his maniacal expression to her. “Especially with such a grand opportunity like this.”
“What are you talking about?”
Beneath her confident tone, Strike shook with terror. This was her own mistake, insisting to stay in the hotel. Where are they?! Surely one of the guards had to have seen Chris slip into the building. Strike focused on her heart rate as it tried to leap out of her throat. She was alone in a private room with Chris Speidel where he could kill her and disappear without a trace. The weight of the entire war now hung on to her ability to talk her way out of this predicament.
“I’m talking about an end to this war,” Chris said.
“I see, so you’re here for a peace offering.”
Chris giggled like a child. “Peace? I think too much blood has been shed for this to all end with peace. I always imagined the ending as more of an explosion. An ending of all endings. A big boom.” He held his hands open and apart to mimic an explosion.
Chris returned the knife to his pocket after wiping the blood clean with his fingers, which he slurped off like barbecue sauce after attacking a rack of ribs. The sight sent instant chills down Strike’s back.
“You see, Ms. Strike, I came here with two options. I can either kill you and watch your people flounder for leadership. Or, my preferred option, I take you with me, and we watch together as your people scramble. We can laugh at it like a good comedy movie.”
“We have systems in place,” Strike cut in. “This exact scenario has already been planned for. We have a chain of command that falls into place, and everyone moves up one position.”
“How precious. That’s a good sentiment, and I’m sure it’ll resonate with the general population of your people, but what about your leadership? Your Lead Runners, as I believe they’re called?”
“How do you know that term?” A tsunami started to form in her gut. Chris already knew too much.
“That’s a fair question, but have you considered the other glaring one you’ve yet to ask? Aren’t you curious as to why I’m here? How I got here?”
“Your people have been following me. It’s no secret. And this is my own fault for insisting on a non-Road Runner hotel.”
“I see. Thought you’d have a romantic getaway, eh? Well, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but we have not been tailing you.”
Chris paused, and his grin somehow widened even more, revealing his yellow-tinted teeth.
“I don’t know what you’re getting at.”
“Strike, my dear, your own people turned you in. Your people told us where you’d be and how to get to you. Your people told us where your security team was, so I killed them all before coming to your room. We made a deal where I release the prisoners I’ve kept for so long, and they hand you over. I thought the offer was too good to be true, but here we are.”
Strike studied Chris, unsure if she should believe him or not. He kept his childish grin, and that’s what made her think it all true. He clearly enjoyed getting a reaction, and not a fake one. That was his purpose wasn’t it, to feed off the raw emotion from those around him?
Her mind immediately jumped in circles, wondering who in the hell on her team would stoop this low. Her face softened with the sudden realization that she had no way out of this situation.
“I know, my dear – this must be sickening for you to hear. I never thought such a loyal group of people could carry out such huge betrayal.”
“I don’t believe you.” Doubt clung to her every word.
“Let’s cut the shit. You’re coming with me and it’s time to decide how. I can force you, or you can cooperate, and I just might spare you further down the road. So what will it be?”
Strike wanted nothing more than to grab her pistol in the closet and empty it into this old piece of shit’s skull, but it wouldn’t accomplish a thing. He’d just stand there, giggling through it like someone was tickling him with a feather.
She wondered what the nerds at the office would say of her chances of death right now. Her only chance of living now relied on Chris’s mercy, and she had to do anything to increase those chances.
“Before I go with you, I want some sort of proof. I still don’t believe someone on my team would do this.”
“Certainly,” Chris said as he rummaged in his pockets, pulling out a folded up piece of paper. He stepped toward her and held it out for her to grab.
She unfolded it and flattened it to read the scribbled handwriting.
“Holy shit,” she gasped. The writing was the next 24 hours of her schedule neatly listed in bullet points, down to the minute. Her flight back to Alaska was the next thing shown, where they’d expect her in another five hours.
“The holiest of shits, I’d say,” Chris added.
“This can’t be.”
“Let’s go, my dear. We have work to get done.”
Chris stepped to her and took the paper out of her trembling grip, sliding an arm around her shoulder.
This is actually happening, she thought, mind spinning. The deathly sensation of Chris’s arm around made her want to vomit. He smelled like a funeral parlor, and his arm felt like a block of ice over her shoulders.
“Who did this?” she demanded, squirming to get out of his grip.
Only a handful of people had access to her complete schedule: Bill, Julian, and her security detail who trailed her every minute of the day. The security team consisted of a rotation of ten different members who typically traveled with her and stayed by her side when she left one of the offices. Except today when she demanded they stay in a hotel room down the hallway.
“I wish I could tell you,” Chris said into her ear, the odor of death oozing from his pores. “It was a man, but he remained anonymous, insisting to never be known. And since he came to me with such a generous offer, I felt compelled to oblige to his request.”
If it was a man, that only eliminated the two women on her security team, leaving eight others plus Bill and Julian. But why? Who would gain from having her kidnapped by the Revolters? Julian would step into her role as Commander, with Bill moving up one spot closer. But she couldn’t imagine either of them orchestrating this, especially with her term up within a year.
It had to be someone on the security team. Just because Road Runners were sworn to loyalty, it didn’t make them immune to the temptations of an offer. Who knows what Chris put on the table in exchange for her schedule, but it had better been worth it, because if she ever found her way out of this mess she wouldn’t rest until the traitor was brought to justice.
Her fear and anxiety quietly slipped away and gave way to rage. Her fists had been balled, and she n
ow felt her fingernails puncturing the inside of her palms.
“Let’s get out of here, shall we?” Chris said with his smirk. “We’ve got so much work to do and so little time.”
He pulled her in closer, daring her to make a move she would only regret.
“Let’s get this over with,” she said.
Chris nodded, and led them out of the room.
110
Chapter 17
The hotel suite reminded Martin of his old place in Larkwood. It had every feel of the bachelor pad that he had grown to love. The chipped walls had larger holes covered with tape and a half-hearted paint job. The blinds, crooked in the window sill, let the sunlight seep in through a slanted angle. The stench of cheap cleaning chemicals filled their noses when they entered the vacant space.
Web studied the space with his lips pursed and brow furrowed, and touched the furniture and countertops with such caution that he must have thought a diseased creature would jump up and kiss him.
“Don’t fall in love with the place, gentlemen,” Gerald said. “We’re here to sleep and work—won’t exactly be hanging out to watch football on Sundays. Web, you’re going to have the master bedroom since you’ll be doing the most work inside. Set up the room however you see fit. There are two other bedrooms, so who wants to sleep on the living room couch?”
Brigham and Martin locked eyes for a brief moment. “I’ll do it,” Brigham said. “My wife used to threaten me to sleep on the couch, but little did she know I liked it; my own private space where no one could steal the sheets.”
Gerald snickered. “Suit yourself. Martin, I’ll take the north facing bedroom since it has the best view of the front of the building.”
“Sounds good.”
The men split separate ways to examine their new living spaces. Bedroom doors creaked open as Brigham flopped down on the raggedy couch, kicking his shoes off and grinning the way only a free man could.
Wealth of Time Series Boxset Page 64
