by Gene P. Abel
Agent Hessman thought for a moment at Sam’s remark, paced a few steps, and shook his head before speaking again. “No, I don’t think we have to worry about anything on that small a level. Remember, whoever came back here before us has the same level of historical knowledge as we do. They might have a few more details here and there, or might have missed a few things, but basically we’re working on the same playing field. They’ll be limited to whatever has been recorded in history books or government records.”
“My . . . record book,” Ben began, “was loaded with everything that General Karlson could get, including sealed military and government records of any sort. It’s still a lot to go through, though.”
“Agreed, though it may not include all the secret files of some foreign governments, which in a strange way gives us a place to start. Ben, I assume that record book of yours includes maps?”
“Down to the very alley we’re standing in,” he answered. “Here, give me a minute.”
Out of the corner of her eye, Sue caught Ben pulling something the size of a bulky cell phone out of his breast pocket and acted immediately. Stepping back to stand between Ben and any accidental street-side view, she grabbed hold of his shoulders and gently spun him around so his back was to the street, hiding any view of the device he was pulling out. Ben barely seemed to notice the act as he passed a finger down the length of the little screen.
Agent Hessman took another glance down at the headline in his hands before rolling the paper back up. “Let’s assume that things start from the big headline of the day: President Wilson’s pending arrival. Wasn’t he about to promote the League of Nations or something? That’s got to have every foreign diplomat around scurrying.”
Ben replied with a slight nod as he looked at the display now on his small device. “Area maps for the year 1919. And yes, the League of Nations. With World War I finally over with and the treaty all signed and delivered, Wilson was trying to push the country into joining it. I don’t recall any particular diplomatic visitation, though.”
“Don’t bother looking,” Hessman replied. “Half the stuff those types do is all off the books.”
“A question for those of us uninitiated in the way of spycraft,” Dr. Weiss interjected. “You implied that our lacking any of the secret files from foreign governments gives us a place to start. May I ask how?”
“Simple.” Agent Hessman paced a few steps down the alley, then turned on his heel and explained to his team. “Either the Japanese or Germans sent a team back in time to change something. A team that would have some information that we lack but only as it relates to their own country’s activities of the day. With Wilson as a suspected trigger point, they would begin with whatever secret activity that their government of 1919 was up to that we may not know about.”
“Which leaves us where?” Captain Beck asked.
“At one of the consulates,” Hessman answered. “Ben, we need the location of the Japanese embassy.”
“Coming up,” Ben replied as he tapped a finger to his screen.
“Why not the Germans?” Captain Beck asked. “Their country would have been very unhappy with how the war came out.”
“Which is why I’m putting them farther down my list,” Hessman stated. “I doubt if the Germany of 1919 had anyone left to spare to send over here on any sort of mission, secret or not. They were too occupied with being wrapped up by that treaty. Even if some modern-day neo-Nazi wanted to get something going back here, their German ancestors wouldn’t be up for it quite yet. The Japanese, though, would also have a gripe but with more resources readily available.”
Ben paused from his work on his device to look up curiously at Agent Hessman. “Actually, that period was quite prosperous for them, Agen—Lou. They were on the winning side of that war and barely suffered any losses in it to begin with. Are you privy to some piece of historical knowledge I have overlooked?”
“Not at all,” Lou replied. “It just stands to reason, since we know that Japan enters in on the aggressive side of the next world war, that they must have had something to gripe about, and looking into what that something is, is as good a place to start as any. Ben, how do we get to the Japanese embassy?”
“Coming up now . . . Quite a walk from here. I might be able to find us a subway route in that direction.”
Sue Harris had been keeping an eye out for possible threats, with an ear on the conversation, and now put forth her own opinion. “Too many trap points taking the subway.”
“Do you have a better way, Miss Harris?” Captain Beck asked.
She gestured with a nod in the direction of what was now passing down the middle of the street: another of the double-decker buses they had seen earlier. “We ride top level so we have a clear view of all approaches.”
“Agreed,” Agent Hessman said after taking a brief moment to consider. “Phelps, you lead point. Ben, you’ve get to tell us which bus we’ll be taking.”
The team then left the alleyway in relative silence, saying as little as they could as they approached a stopped bus to board and be off for the Japanese embassy.
6
Going for a Stroll
So, where’s the Japanese consulate?” Captain Beck asked as they stood on the sidewalk looking around at the towering buildings. They could see a building down the street with an attached sign that read, “English Consulate,” before them a “Horn and Hardart” dispensing quick food to impatient customers, but no sign of a Japanese consulate.
“It was here in 2018,” Dr. Weiss casually remarked.
“Well?” Agent Hessman asked, eyeing Ben.
“Twenty . . . oh, of course,” Ben replied, quickly reaching into his jacket.
Agent Harris saw the motion and immediately stepped over to block any errant spectator from seeing what the professor was pulling out. Ben brought out his pocket computer and quickly tapped on the screen a few times.
“Ah,” he then continued, “Japanese consulate didn’t exist yet.”
“Then why—” Captain Beck began.
“But the Japanese Society building does,” Ben amended. “A few blocks down. Whoever programmed this thing must have forgotten to crosslink the two or something.”
Dr. Weiss casually leaned over to Captain Beck for a quickly whispered comment on the matter. “That would be your people, Bob.”
“Enough,” Agent Hessman stated. “Let’s just get there. Ben, lead the way; Harris and Phelps, flanking.”
They spread out into their little formation, Captain Beck walking beside Agent Hessman at the rear while Dr. Weiss joined Professor Stein, with Agent Harris and Lieutenant Phelps to either side.
“I must say,” Dr. Weiss remarked as they walked, “these sidewalks are a lot more spacious than I remember them. And the streets so narrow in comparison.”
“Not as many cars back in this period as in ours,” Professor Stein told him. “Once cars started getting popular, they had to widen the streets, which meant cutting the sidewalks down to about half their width.”
Dr. Weiss sighed. “Pity. These walkways are made for more leisurely strolling.”
They set a slightly more than leisurely pace, eager to be about their investigations while trying not to stick out overly much. As a historian and mission specialist, Ben Stein was caught between marveling at the sights of a bygone age and knowing the need of maintaining a good pace.
“I must say, though,” he remarked as they walked, “I could never ask for a better opportunity to study something like this. Grainy old black-and-white pictures pale in comparison to being here in full living color. Anyone think to bring a camera?”
“No unnecessary technology,” Dr. Weiss reminded him in a whisper.
Ben sighed. “More’s the pity.”
“Say, do you think this Japanese Society will have any of those geishas or those bathhouses where the girls—
”
“Yes, and, Sam, I’m surprised at you. You’re starting to sound as bad with the young women as I am with the historical aspects.”
“Hey, I may be a physicist, but I’m a thirty-five-year-old man whose last date was with a female physicist with a harelip—or was that a hairy lip? Either way, it was most unpleasant.”
Before Ben could remark or smirk at his companion’s statements, two things happened nearly simultaneously. First came a shout and the sound of a police whistle, and then came the hand of Agent Harris grabbing Professor Stein to pull him back, while Lieutenant Phelps did the same for Dr. Weiss. An instant later, the disruption to the day’s peace came running across their path from an adjoining cross street.
The first man to rush by had a haggard and desperate look, but also something unsavory hid behind his eyes. He held a gun in one hand that he used to fire off a couple of shots behind him before continuing on.
“Don’t get involved,” Agent Hessman warned as the event played out before them.
Next to come were a group of four local policemen, three of them waving their batons while the fourth fumbled with his own pistol. “Don’t shoot if you don’t have to,” the lead policeman called back to his fellows. “Too many people around.”
“All I’d need is a single shot, crowd or not,” Lieutenant Phelps quietly remarked.
“David, mind on the mission,” Captain Beck warned. “We are not here to prove your own . . . What the . . . ?”
“Excuse me; reporter coming through!”
Abruptly pushing through the group was a young woman in her midtwenties, about five and a half feet tall, and of a slender, if pleasant, frame. With a pearly-white complexion to contrast the mop of black hair trailing down the middle of her back, she was clothed in a series of layered white dresses of the era, white boots, and a floppy, wide-brimmed white hat. A purse dangled at the end of a long strap from her left shoulder, while with her right hand she was busy pushing Captain Beck out of her way.
For a brief moment, Ben’s eyes happened to meet those of the young woman. The encounter was long enough, however, for him to see the small card jammed into the brim of her hat that read, “Press,” before she flashed a quick smile and pushed on through.
That’s when the next shot rang out from the fleeing man. He called out a challenge in a tongue that most there could not understand. The woman ducked behind the men, while they in turn hid behind Harris and Phelps.
“That sounded like Italian,” Professor Stein stated.
“Italian?” the woman asked. “Great, that gives me a definite angle. Say, you don’t think your two bodyguards could get me closer to the guy with the gun?”
“Bodyguards?” Ben replied hesitantly.” Wh-what makes you think—”
She nodded in the direction of Harris and Phelps, who had their backs to the action while shielding the two intellects in what amounted to a group hug.
“Though I must say,” the young lady continued, “I’ve never heard of a negress trained as a bodyguard before. Hmm, suppose that would make her perfect for the job. Well, on with my job.”
Out in the middle of the street, the man being chased had run afoul of another group of police coming at him from the other side of the street. He now stood in the middle, spinning back and forth with his gun, aiming at one group and then the other, while traffic came to a standstill and pedestrians tucked themselves fearfully behind any available cover. Many of the women screamed at the sight, while the men held them secure.
The young woman who had barged in between Ben and Sam, however, was definitely not screaming. “I’ve got to get over there to see what’s really going on. He can’t just be a random criminal.”
“He certainly looks like one to me,” Ben remarked.
The young woman fixed him with an annoyed glare. “Criminals rob places for money; anarchists bomb places for other reasons. Or didn’t you see it go off a couple blocks down?”
“Bomb?” Professor Stein exclaimed. “There’s a bomb around here?”
Just then a sharp cry came from the man who was the center of attention. One of the police had caught him from behind with a flying tackle.
“Great, they got him.” The young woman beamed. “Now’s my chance. Thanks for the cover, guys.”
She bolted back to her feet, pushing past Ben and Sam, then stopped for a brief look of appraisal at Agent Harris. “A black suffragette. I may want to interview you for a different story later on. Not sure about the short haircut, though, but the hat does a good job of hiding it.”
Before Agent Harris could decide whether to scowl or frown at that remark, the other woman had bolted away, running straight for the growing pile of police now bearing down on the man with the gun.
“Hey, reporter Claire Hill here,” the young woman called out to the assembly in the middle of the street. “What can you tell me about the suspect? Is he really a member of one of the Italian gangs? Does his gang have any connection with Benito Mussolini of Italy and his new Fascist Party? Any connection with anarchist activity?”
No one cowering along the sides of the streets had dared to get back to their feet yet, save the woman reporter now assaulting the police with rapid-fire questions. In response, one of the policemen broke away to try to hold her back from the group currently disarming and binding their new prisoner. She even shouted questions to the criminal himself, though the only response she got seemed to be an angry curse in Italian.
Agent Harris made a quick visual survey of events before releasing her charges with a wordless nod and standing back up along with Lieutenant Phelps. As the rest got to their feet, however, Agent Hessman looked thoughtful.
“Well, that was rather . . . disconcerting,” Dr. Weiss remarked.
“The gunplay or the eager young woman?” Ben asked.
“Both, I would say.”
Meanwhile Captain Beck, as he straightened himself out, caught the look on Agent Hessman’s face and stepped over next to him. “What are you thinking?”
“That we may have just bumped into a convenient little tool,” Hessman replied. “Ben.”
Professor Stein looked back to Agent Hessman, though he still had half an eye out on the reporter. She was still hounding the police even as they dragged their suspect off the street.
“You never replied about the Mussolini connection. Can I count that as a confirmation? Can I have a quick word with the criminal?”
“Ben,” Agent Hessman said, taking a step closer to the historian, “how much of an issue was Mussolini in this period?”
“Well,” Professor Stein replied, “he would have just established the Fascist Party around April or May of this year, I think. In only a couple of months.”
“And yet that female reporter out there’s already on top of it. That must make her pretty good at her job.”
“Lou,” Captain Beck said from behind him, “what are you thinking? We can’t involve any locals.”
“Ben here has everything we need to know right on his record book,” Agent Hessman told them all, “but only in relatively general terms. That woman out there is a fountain of information who knows a lot more about local events than we ever will. It’s a resource I think we should bring in.”
“But we can’t risk contaminating the timeline,” Dr. Weiss warned in a hushed whisper.
“We won’t,” Agent Hessman assured him. “We’ll just say we’re federal agents on a mission and need her help. Ben, when was the FBI established?”
“About ten years ago,” he answered. “You want us to impersonate federal agents?”
“We are federal agents,” Agent Hessman countered. “Just not from around here. I won’t say anything too specific. Just follow my lead and let her reporter’s mind fill in the blanks. Ben, by my side to make sure I don’t make any historical missteps.”
With Agent Harris
falling in at his other side, Agent Hessman led the way across the street to where the reporter was still trying her best to get a few words from the police.
7
Enter Miss Hill
Come on, just a single statement, something I can send to my editor.”
“Sorry, Miss Hill, but he’s a dangerous criminal. Now please be on your way. We’re trying to clear the street to get traffic flowing again.”
The young reporter exhibited a brief look of indignant frustration before calling back to the departing policeman, “It’s just because I’m a woman, isn’t it?” Another glance showed that she was now the only one left still standing on the street, while a couple of waiting cars gave her some impatient honks.
“Okay, I’m leaving,” she shouted out to the streets in general. “But I’ll get my story.”
She turned to storm away from the direction the police were taking the criminal, only to bump into a group of several others coming right for her.
“Miss Hill, was it? I’d like to speak with you, if I could.”
Standing before her was Agent Hessman, Professor Stein a step behind him, while Agent Harris came up to stand on her left and Lieutenant Phelps on her right. The captain and Dr. Weiss stayed at the rear. Claire took one look at the setup and immediately switched from indignant to cautious. “You aren’t with one of those Italian gangs, are you? Because I’m just trying to get a story.”
“No, Miss Hill,” came the quiet response. “We’re with the federal government. I’m Agent Hessman.”
“FBI!” she gasped. “Well, that changes everything.”
If anyone there had expected Claire to cower in the presence of the federal government, they would have been greatly disappointed. Instead, she grabbed Agent Hessman by one arm and guided him on a swift walk over to the nearest curb and away from the protesting cars. Her manner was brisk and insistent.
“Well then, Agent Hessman, I have a few questions for you. Was that an anarchist, and is he associated with one of the gangs that I hear Mussolini’s backing? Well, it must be, or why else would the federal government be involved?”
