by Bob Mayer
“Mister. It hurts real bad. Just like my brother said.”
Roland bit his lip so hard he tasted blood.
And then the courage was gone as the boy began to whimper. “I want my Momma. Please, Momma, please help me. I don’t wanna die here like this.”
Roland let go of the rifle and walked over.
The boy looked up at him with pleading eyes. “Was you just telling us a story? Or is it true? Does our dying matter?”
Roland shook his head. “It’s true. You’re going to matter more than you could ever imagine.”
The boy closed his eyes, groaning. “I guess I can live with that.”
Roland killed him.
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 4 July 1776 A.D.
Doc went back to Thyia as Livingston and Sherman were shouting objections that echoed down the hall. “I have to stop them.”
“Then stop them,” Thyia said. She was watching the stairs.
“Do you think the assassin will come?”
“Certainly,” she said. “He hasn’t completed his mission. Just as you haven’t.”
“Who are these assassins? Where do they come from?”
“That’s not your concern right now,” Thyia said.
“My concern is whether he attacks if I go in that room,” Doc said. “What if he kills those men? That would be catastrophic.”
“My life is between him and that room,” Thyia said. “That is a vested interest on my part. What is yours?”
“This doesn’t make sense,” Doc said. “You being here. Why do you care about us?”
“We don’t,” Thyia said. “You need to focus.”
“I am focused,” Doc snapped.
“What are you going to do?” Thyia asked.
“If they present both Declarations together,” Doc said, “there’s a good chance neither will pass. Or both will pass. Either way, it’s a disaster. And even if the second one doesn’t pass, it will still alienate the southern colonies and cause a rift in unity. I have to make them do as they should, and present the Declaration of Independence, but not present the other Declaration.”
“Then do it.”
“I don’t know how.”
“I cannot help you,” she said. She was still watching the stairwell. “You have your mission. I have mine.”
“This is different,” Doc said, more to himself than her. “There are lines.”
“’Lines’?” Thyia repeated.
Doc realized he was far beyond Rule One. Probably into Neeley and Roland showing up and blowing his brains out territory when he got back. If he got back. But he was also into something they hadn’t experienced before.
“Lines between the missions,” Doc said.
“Yes,” Thyia agreed. “The assassin is here for you, and I am here for him.” She seemed to be a sort of female version of Roland, taking everything literally.
“No,” Doc said. “That’s not what I meant.”
“I heard some of what was argued,” Thyia said. “It is likely the vision those three men had was induced by what you call the Shadow.”
“I’m sure it was,” Doc said. “How?”
“Do you have knowledge in your brain you did not have before?” she asked.
The download. How could she know of that? “Yes.”
She shrugged.
He remembered how they’d wiped Nada’s memories of his wife and child, even before they knew there was such a thing as the Time Patrol, while they were Nightstalkers.
Doc rubbed his hands together as he thought it through. The vision they’d been given was both partly true and partly false. But completely true, perhaps, if Roland and Ivar respectively failed at Gettysburg and Vicksburg.
Moms!
“What is it?” Thyia sensed his excitement.
“Nothing,” Doc said, because thinking of his team had his mind racing. Not just to a possible solution, but back to the Time Patrol, the Nighstalkers, and most importantly, Nada Yada’s.
“’Just tell me how to kill it’,” Doc murmured, remembering his in-briefing years ago in the Den. Nada passing on his wisdom and SOPs, the last of which was always that one. The fallback position on any mission. Especially when Doc argued for patience, for scientific inquiry, for understanding.
Just kill it.
Nada had been an advocate of action first, let’s chat later.
And he’d been right much more than he’d been wrong.
“What was that?” Thyia was confused.
“Why hasn’t the assassin struck?”
“I don’t know.”
“How did you miss him?” Doc asked. “You said if you were aiming at me, you’d have hit me for certain. But you missed him. I never saw him.”
“They are fast,” Thyia said.
“Then how are you going to kill him now? Even your grandmother, Pandora, said she doubted she could kill a Legion on her own.”
“She is not my grandmother,” Thyia said. “We are a sisterhood.”
“You’re admitting it is a Legion after me?”
Thyia said nothing.
“Why are you here?” Doc asked, as his hand slid inside his waistband and wrapped around the handle of the dagger.
Thyia lowered the bow, then turned to face him. “Awareness of self. Awareness of others. Awareness of the world. Awareness beyond the world.”
“The levels of the Sight,” Doc said.
She smiled. “Yes. And you are muddled in the first level as are most of your people. Three of the men in that room are quite advanced, for men. Brilliant. Insightful. But still very limited in what they see. The Shadow has actually used their brilliance against them, nudging their subconscious toward what their conscious cannot act upon, but they know needs to be accomplished.”
“But it didn’t happen,” Doc said.
“It will now,” Thyia said. “Won’t it?”
“Why are you here?” Doc repeated, beginning to slide the dagger out of the sheath.
“I will kill you before you can attack me,” Thyia said.
Doc believed her. He let go of the dagger. “Why are you here? There is no assassin, is there? You’ve played me from the beginning. Why?”
Thyia arced any eyebrow. “How did you figure that out?”
“It doesn’t add up,” Doc said.
“Interesting,” Thyia said. “I am not an agent of the Shadow.”
“Then why the bow?”
“For the very reason you are now beginning to understand. An anomaly in the scenario.”
Doc nodded. “Of course. Brilliant.”
She nodded toward the room. “Now. What are you going to do?”
She wasn’t interested in an answer as she put the arrow back in the quiver, slid the bow inside the cape and began walking down the steps. “I wish you good fortune, Doc.”
She was gone, leaving history in Doc’s hands.
Monticello, VA, 4 July 1826
Nothing. Not a word in the download of such a document.
“Where is it, sir?” Moms asked.
Jefferson rattled the pouches on his lap. “The secret is here.”
“It exists?”
“Of course,” Jefferson said.
“Everyone who signed the Declaration of Independence signed the Declaration of Emancipation?” Moms was trying to understand the implications.
Jefferson nodded. “We let them read both Declarations. Insisted that both must be signed by all. There was much argument all morning, but we were adamant. So they signed.”
“I don’t understand,” Moms said. “It wasn’t issued.”
Jefferson was lost in his memories. “A fair copy of the Declaration was sent to the printer the evening of the Fourth.” The leather pouches shook in his hands. Jefferson groaned again. “Bring Sally in. Please.”
Moms was torn. She needed the document, because history recorded no such Declaration of Emancipation. If it existed, it was her task to make it disappear.
“Please,” Jefferson begged.
/>
Moms went to the door then opened it. Sally Hemings rushed to her lover’s side. Moms stayed close.
“Rest, you must rest,” Hemings implored.
“Take it.” Jefferson tilted his head toward the leather bags. “Take it.”
Hemings reluctantly took the parts of the Cipher.
Jefferson’s chin sank down on his chest. His eyes closed.
For a moment, Moms thought he’d died. But she noted that his chest was still moving.
Hemings wiped his brow. She began humming something, some tune, which must have a special meaning for Jefferson. Moms didn’t recognize it, and the download was no help in that area.
Jefferson’s lips moved. He whispered something. Hemings leaned over to listen as did Moms.
“What, Tom?” Hemings said.
Moms could barely make his words out as he spoke, “Do you remember Paris?”
“Of course,” Hemings said.
“I should have followed my heart,” Jefferson whispered. “Not my head. Ah. Maria.” Then his lungs gave a death rattle.
The third President of the United States, and the author of not only the Declaration of Independence, but also a secret Declaration of Emancipation, was dead.
Vicksburg, Mississippi. 4 July 1863
Ivar couldn’t process what Pemberton was proposing for several seconds. “Excuse me, sir. What are you suggesting?”
He heard a gun being cocked and looked at Louise. Her good hand was hidden under the table. She shook her head.
“We captured fifteen Union supply wagons,” Pemberton said, “while withdrawing to the city. I’ve kept them under lock and key as a strategic reserve. Yankee hardtack. We will all partake today at noon of these gifts from General Grant. Three hours before I am supposed to meet Grant at the oak tree and sign the surrender.”
Ivar knew now why he was here.
“It’s just hardtack, sir,” Ivar said, trying to buy time, to figure this out.
Pemberton nodded toward the three pots on the stove. “Not after Louise adds her special ingredient.”
“You’re going to kill your own men?” Ivar was stunned. “And the civilians?”
Louise spoke up. “They’re going to sacrifice themselves for the Cause, as so many have sacrificed themselves before.”
The scope of the plan staggered Ivar’s imagination. If Grant entered a Vicksburg full of dead Southerners, it would be utter disaster. The public backlash, north and south, would be immense. Piled on top that, Pemberton was arranging it so that it appeared Grant had sent the poisoned food?
Grant would be strung up and then how would the war go?
Ivar leaned back in the chair. The General had gone off the rails. Hated by both sides, seduced by this woman with her own agenda, and—
“You said you were told this,” Ivar said. “By who, sir?”
Louise answered. “An Angel of the Lord.”
“We both saw him,” Pemberton confirmed “Three times, he came. Three times, he told us what we must do. I didn’t want to believe. Couldn’t believe. Not the first time. Not the second. But three times. For the Lord to send his Angel three times? It cannot be ignored.”
A Valkyrie, Ivar thought. The same thing Mac had run into with Sir Walter Raleigh, and had visited Benny Havens at West Point.
“I don’t think that’s what the Lord wants,” Ivar said. “It’s not necessary.”
Pemberton gave him a withering glance. “Who do you think you are, Captain, to question me? You believe showing up at the last moment gives you the right to say anything?”
Louise jumped in. “You have no idea what it’s been like here. No decent man would subject people to this. Grant is a devil.”
“I do not believe,” Ivar said carefully, “that people will believe General Grant would slaughter innocent Americans. Especially on Independence Day.”
“His country’s Independence Day,” Pemberton hissed. “And that is why I chose it. So everyone can see what he has wrought. So they can see the true character of Grant and Sherman.”
“The Angel,” Louise said, “came to us in a silver light and told us our divine purpose. And the purpose of all the brave soldiers and all the brave people of Vicksburg. By taking action we will end the war. All, north and south, will see how terrible this is. They will know it is time to come to terms as two separate countries. To make peace.”
Ivar blinked as he realized that what she was saying actually echoed his own thoughts when he’d first arrived here. A city of the dead. It took two such cities to end World War II in the Pacific eighty years in the future.
Then she went a step farther. “The Yankees need to see that to fight over the slaves is foolish. They aren’t worth the death of a single white person.”
“It was God’s plan from the beginning,” Pemberton said, “for there to be two countries.”
Ivar didn’t see slavery fitting into God’s plan at all, but many countries and societies throughout history had managed to accommodate believing in God and practicing slavery.
Mankind was most adaptable in its own interests; at least certain segments.
“We will go down in history and be remembered forever for our sacrifice,” Pemberton said, “just like the Israelites at Masada.”
There was no information about Masada in the download and Ivar couldn’t really blame Edith, since this was so far out of possibilities she couldn’t have foreseen it. He vaguely remembered something about a bunch of people cornered on some hilltop by the Romans and killing themselves instead of surrendering.
“But the Israelites lost to Rome,” Ivar pointed out, trying to figure out what to do about these two nut-jobs while also knowing that Louise had a revolver pointed at him under the table and seemed eager to pull the trigger. “Jerusalem was destroyed by the Romans. The sacrifice at Masada was in vain.” Ivar wasn’t sure of the timeline, but he knew the end result had not been good.
“Grant killed my husband and then let his body rot,” Louise said. “He cares nothing for the suffering of others.”
“I know Grant,” Ivar said, then thought oops.
Louise’s eyes narrowed. “How do you know him?”
“I knew him at West Point,” Ivar said, and immediately knew it was a second mistake.
“You’re too young,” Pemberton said. “You’re not old enough even to have served in Mexico.”
Ivar ran the numbers, the years, through his brain, trying to come up with a plausible explanation. 1843 to 1863 and his own age and it wasn’t going to work. There were some inherent problems with time travel.
“George Meade,” Ivar blurted out.
“What?” Louise was clueless, but Pemberton rocked back in his chair.
“What of George?” he asked.
“He won a great victory yesterday,” Ivar said. “He defeated Lee at Gettysburg. In Pennsylvania.”
“George Meade beat Bobbie Lee?” Pemberton was incredulous.
Meade and Pemberton had been roommates at West Point and were best friends. It appeared friendship didn’t extend to professional respect.
“Lee is retreating to Virginia as we speak,” Ivar lied, shifting the timeline by half a day.
“How do you know that?” Pemberton demanded. “Is the telegraph back up at Johnston’s headquarters? I didn’t even know George had taken command of the Army of the Potomac. What of Joe Hooker?”
“Hooker resigned,” Ivar said. “Meade has beaten Lee.”
“If that is true, then what we do is even more important,” Louise said. “We will win here, and that will be all it takes. That is God’s word.” She glanced at Pemberton. “We heard it. Together.
Ivar ignored her. “Have you told anyone of your plan?” he asked Pemberton.
Louise answered. “We don’t want to give the devil time to plot against God’s plan.”
Ivar heard Buster whine, and his blood went cold. He ran across the cave, tearing aside the blanket covering the way into the ‘bedroom’.
Joey l
ay on the bed, the bowl upside-down at his side. Buster leaned over him, licking his hair. There was dried white foam around Joey’s mouth, and blood had poured from his nose and eyes. The pupils were dilated and vacant, his chest still.
Mantinea, Greece, 4 July 362 B.C.
His officers and guards protested, but Philip was adamant: he had to go to Epaminondas. His officers pointed out that while Macedonia wasn’t at war with Greece, a group of foreigners would not be welcome in the Theban camp, especially trying to get to their wounded king.
“I will take the Oracle’s priestess,” Philip said, indicating Scout. “They will give us passage.”
That only partially assuaged the other Macedonians, but there are advantages to being king. Philip gestured in what Scout assumed was an imperious manner and set off. She went along, on alert for either Pandora or Legion.
The Thebans had taken the field and all that was left were the dead and dying. There were soldiers and wagons moving about, gathering up bodies. But the bulk of the Theban alliance, currently leaderless, had pulled back toward the town of Mantinea.
No one paid any particular attention to either Scout or the undercover king in his gray robe. The aura she was picking up from the survivors was one of intense relief; the aftermath of a battle for the living.
“They should be pressing the victory,” Philip said as they passed a pile of bodies. “Yet they are not pursuing.”
“They are not,” Scout agreed. Which was as it should be.
There weren’t many dead given the numbers involved. Warfare in this era seemed more a case of push and shove until one side broke, rather than of annihilation. Of course, that was little consolation to those in the pile.
“Your Oracle warned Sparta many years ago, you know that?” Philip said as they left the battlefield behind and followed the road south. “If their king had listened, none of this would have happened.
Scout checked the download. “Sure though thy feet, proud Sparta, have a care’.”
“That warning, at least, is pretty clear,” Philip said. They were at the rise in the road where Epaminondas had first appeared. In the distance, a large camp indicated where the Theban Alliance had withdrawn.
