Going Back

by Gene P. Abel

  “I can only follow the track,” their driver said before the lieutenant could ask. “I can’t make a turn like that.”

  Agent Hessman called out, “Stop the trolley!”

  The trolley was pulled to an abrupt halt, an act that apparently did nothing to disturb the kissing couple at the back. Before it was barely to a complete stop, Agent Harris led the charge down the opposing street, racing for another trolley going in that direction.

  The next gunshot didn’t happen, as the gun jammed in the shooter’s hand, affording the American team time enough to board another trolley, on which the lieutenant once again commandeered the driver’s services. This trolley was nearly full, so Agent Harris hung on by one arm and a leg while the others crowded in as best they could.

  Dr. Weiss looked nervous, Professor Stein worried, and Claire excited.

  “A trolley chase!” She beamed. “This will make for an exciting segment of the story for sure.”

  The horses were in as close to a gallop as their burden and attached equipment would allow, speeding down the street, barely avoiding cross traffic, the driver frantically ringing the trolley bell and shouting out apologies as he passed people. The streetcar had a decent lead on them, but then electric streetcars couldn’t be made to gallop if in a rush.

  They approached the streetcar, where the shooter had apparently failed to unjam his gun and looked increasingly frustrated. Agent Hessman squeezed his way into the front of the trolley, while from behind came the dismayed cries of other passengers wondering why it was going faster and passing up their stops.

  “Just a bit closer,” Agent Harris called out. “I’ll try a flying tackle before he can unjam his gun.”

  This time the shooter didn’t wait for an intersection. Pocketing his useless weapon, he glanced around for a good target, then leapt off the moving streetcar, rolled up to his feet, and ran. Agent Harris was after him in an instant with the same tuck and roll, while Lieutenant Phelps had the driver bring the trolley to an unscheduled stop.

  Agent Hessman’s team were not the only ones to exit; many of the passengers had had enough of speeding trolleys and missed stops. The rest of the team piled out while Agent Harris ran to catch up with the shooter. She leaped, hands outstretched to grab at the first body part she made contact with. She came down, wrapping an arm around one of the man’s legs, and rolled her body into him to trip him up.

  Her plan nearly worked, until the base of the man’s pistol came out, swinging into her shoulder. With a cry, she released her grip, and the man continued running to the nearest vehicle. By the time the others caught up with Agent Harris, the man was leaping into a taxi and shoving the driver out of his own vehicle.

  “Sue, are you okay?” Agent Hessman asked, running up.

  He was the first to offer an arm to help her up, Professor Stein bringing up the rear with Claire, who was gaping in shock that someone had just clubbed a woman.

  Agent Harris came up wincing with pain, but she did get up. “I’ll be okay,” she said, shaking her arm out, “but he’s getting away.”

  Even now, the taxi the man had stolen was racing down the street at a bracing forty miles an hour. Captain Beck quickly raised a hand to flag down the next taxi, but by the time one had stopped, the other was already nearly a block away.

  “Quickly,” Captain Beck told the driver as they all piled in. “You see that yellow cab up ahead? Catch it and there’s a good tip in it for you.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Captain Beck sat up front by the driver, the rest in the two rows behind them, with Dr. Weiss examining Agent Harris’s injury.

  “How’s it look?” she asked.

  “I’m not that type of doctor,” he replied. “How’s it feel?”

  “I’m not that type of patient,” she answered. “If it’s still attached, I keep on moving.”

  Their driver was flooring it, their speed creeping closer to forty-five before they came to an intersection where a traffic cop was signaling them to stop. But when the one they were chasing refused to stop, Captain Beck reached out with one foot and slammed it down on top of the driver’s foot before it could lift off the gas pedal.

  “Don’t stop for anything,” the captain told the man.

  They raced on through the intersection, horns honking as the oncoming traffic formed cloverleaves around them, trying not to hit anything. Somewhere a police whistle blew and several people shouted, all of which the team ignored. When the taxi up ahead made a sharp turn, so did they; when it sped up, they sped up even more. Slowly the gap narrowed; then came a sharp crack of thunder as a piece of the cab chipped off.

  “My cab!”

  “Looks like he’s got his gun working again,” Captain Beck called back.

  “Just keep on him,” Agent Hessman called. “Sue—”

  “Well enough,” she replied.

  “I wonder if this is what it was like for Nellie Bly in the war,” Claire said. “The perspective of being the one shot at instead of merely observing others being shot. I must say it’s . . .”

  “Thrilling?” Professor Stein suggested.

  “Terrifying! I don’t know how she did it.”

  The taxi ahead of them made another sharp turn, but this time when they followed it, they came to a dismaying sight. The cab had pulled up alongside a hotel in front of which were several other taxis parked two and three abreast. It parked beside one group of them. As the Americans neared, they could see the man crawl quickly from his vehicle into the passenger portion of the first taxi in that group, where they lost direct sight of him. When that taxi took off, though, Captain Beck was already urging their driver into pursuit.

  Then they saw the second cab start up and drive away, followed by the third one abreast. By the time their taxi had finished turning to follow the first one, the other two were also driving away in different directions.

  “Follow the first one,” Captain Beck told the driver.

  This chase was not nearly as long; in fact, the one they were chasing was only moving at the sedate pace of thirty-five miles an hour. They raced on down the street and got ahead of the other taxi by a car length to cut it off, the result of which was a near pileup. With drivers shouting and cussing all around, Lieutenant Phelps leaped out and ran over to the other cab, ripping the door wide open as the others joined him in surrounding the vehicle with their bodies.

  “Empty,” Lieutenant Phelps announced.

  “Driver,” Agent Hessman called up, “where’d your passenger go?”

  “What’s the big emergency, cutting me off like that? You could have wrecked my taxi!”

  “I’ll pay you for your troubles,” Agent Hessman said. “Now where did he go? Please, it’s important.”

  The man shrugged, then, as Lieutenant Phelps took out a small wad of bills, shrugged out a reply. “He paid me to just drive until the fare ran out, then got out the other side for the next taxi in line and told me to go. I didn’t see after that.”

  Agent Hessman silently cussed under his breath and then nodded to Lieutenant Phelps. While Phelps took care of paying both taxi drivers, Hessman stepped away with a word for his other teammates. “We saw two other taxis leaving at the same time,” Captain Beck stated. “He could be in either one of them.”

  “Or neither,” Agent Hessman stated. “Make us think we had a one-in-three chance when in reality we had none at all.”

  “Still back at that hotel,” Dr. Weiss said with a snap of his fingers.

  “Not anymore,” Agent Hessman stated. “We just gave him enough time to get away. Everyone, status.”

  “I’ll manage,” Agent Harris replied. “Just a little bruise.”

  “I don’t think we left any signs in our wake,” Dr. Weiss reported.

  “At least nothing that time won’t soon forget,” Professor Stein added.

  “Both taxi d
rivers paid up in full,” Lieutenant Phelps reported.

  “So who was that?” Captain Beck asked.

  “We’re about to find out.” The team formed a circle of flesh around Agent Hessman, shielding him from view while he discreetly brought out his own little handheld data device. A couple of swipes of his finger and he motioned Agent Harris over for a quick look at the pictures scrolling by on the small screen.

  “That one,” she said, pointing to one.

  “Are you sure?” Agent Hessman asked.

  “Completely.”

  Agent Hessman sighed. “Then we have a new wrinkle. Because that’s one of the people from the German team.”

  “The Germans?” Dr. Weiss exclaimed. “I thought it was the Japanese that created the TDW.”

  “I don’t know what to say,” Agent Hessman began, quickly putting his small device away within his coat. “At first it looked like‍—‍”

  A slight cough cut him off, as all members of the team turned to see who had made the sound. Claire Hill stood there, hands akimbo as she addressed the team members with a fixed glare.

  “If I might ask . . . what is a TDW?”

  Answers would not be forthcoming to that question either.

  15

  Regrouping

  The taxi they had given chase in would be getting one more fare from them, though not for chasing another taxi this time. Agent Hessman kept it simple as he paid the man in advance. “Get us to Central Park.”

  Claire tried to position herself directly in the middle of the group, the better to catch what everyone was saying, until Harris and Phelps pulled her into the rearmost row to sit wedged between them while putting a hand each over one of her ears. That left the others to talk, while the driver made a point of not listening to anything anyone said as he drove them through the city.

  “The Japanese and now the Germans,” Agent Hessman pondered aloud. “Are they here for the same thing or completely different motives? Or did they come in response to the Japanese team?”

  “It could be more complicated than that,” Dr. Weiss stated. “While both teams arrived back here the same as we did, the Germans might not have left until as much as, say, ten or fifty years after we did. We don’t have anything on us to track what year they came from.”

  “A very good, if disturbing, point,” Agent Hessman admitted. “But that may not change much at this point. We know now that the Japanese have come back for Tojo. Ben, you said that it was Tojo who caused all that misery.”

  “He was the chief architect of everything that happened in the‍—that other war,” Professor Stein replied, careful of his words with other ears around that shouldn’t be hearing any of this. “The attack, the camps, all of it.”

  “So let’s assume that we’re in the first iteration of history,” Agent Hessman continued. “Tojo did all the horrible things he did, which means now the Japanese team is here to change all that. They want to stop or even kill General Tojo before he becomes a general. The question is why? What do they gain out of it?”

  “It could be any of several objectives,” Professor Stein stated.

  “They came out of that war pretty bad,” Dr. Weiss suggested. “Maybe they want to stop their entry into it and avoid all that.”

  “But look what they grew into being in our day,” Professor Stein countered. “Or maybe without Tojo, an even better general is allowed to come into play who could win them their part of the war before Germany loses theirs. We don’t have enough data to really know.”

  “And even less for the Germans,” Agent Hessman said. “But with them entering this mix, I can’t help but suspect that both teams’ motives lead back to the next Great War. Two of the three member nations of the old Axis back in this same time period? I’m not a believer of coincidence when it comes to this sort of stuff. If Italy had a machine, I’d expect to see them here next.”

  “Italy was more of a client state of Germany before the war was midway through,” Professor Stein interjected. “But you’re right. It’s looking like that war is the focus we’re looking for; we just don’t yet know why.”

  Before their ponderings could get much further along, Claire finally managed to push her way forward and pry herself free of Harris’s and Phelps’s clamping hands long enough to launch a question in a more determined voice than before. “Now listen, I agreed to help you, but this is a partnership, and as such I demand to know what it is you people are into. First the Japanese, and now some Germans, and you still haven’t told me what any of this is about. If you don’t tell me something soon, then my next story is going to figure a few of your names rather prominently.”

  The men looked from one to another. Finally Captain Beck’s gaze rested pointedly on Professor Stein, accompanied by a harsh whisper in his direction. “Ben, handle it before we’re forced to find another way.”

  “Well, I must admit,” he replied, “while I am starting to admire her tenacity, this is not the time for that.” He moved around in his seat to face her, and Harris and Phelps scooted far enough away to give her a little freedom of movement while keeping an eye out on the road ahead. “Claire,” Professor Stein began, “the parts we have to keep from you are a matter of national security.”

  “I get that part, but don’t you think the secrecy is getting a little bit too melodramatic? I deserve to know something. I’ll only write what it is you guys clear me for, but I deserve‍—no, I need to know.”

  He considered her words for a moment and replied with a nod, “You’re right, but for reasons we cannot tell anyone, our secrecy must be maintained. Sue here? She’s a lot more than you might suspect. Her orders are to see to the safety of this team under any circumstances. If she thought you were a threat, she would drop you in your tracks before you could take in another breath.”

  “What, her?” Claire said. “But she’s just—”

  “Watch it,” Agent Harris cut in. “No version of that sentence will end up doing anything but displeasing me.”

  Claire glanced to the woman beside her, saw the challenging look in her eyes, and relented. “Okay, I apologize for that. But what manner of—”

  “And Robert here,” Professor Stein continued, “as far as his orders are concerned, every single member of this entire team is expendable as long as our mission is completed. So when I warn you that there are some things that we must keep from you, believe me.”

  She thought over his words for a few moments as the taxi turned a corner, then replied in a less harsh tone, “Okay, I get it. But what can you tell me about what’s going on?”

  “Well, all we know for certain is that a team from Japan is here on a mission that somehow involves one of their own countrymen and possibly the security of this nation. As far as the German we encountered, we know even less, but his presence means there’s another team around here with a mission of their own. For reasons we cannot get into, we believe the two to be related, though in what way we honestly do not know. Is there something more that we’re keeping from you? Yes, but as far as the pertinent facts, that’s all of it. Will this satisfy you for a while?”

  She coughed and after a moment, nodded. “I guess it will have to,” she replied.

  “Good.”

  Professor Stein was just turning around to face front again when the driver called out, “Central Park on the right. Just passing up the East Green with the menagerie coming up in a bit.”

  “Okay, driver, here would be fine,” Agent Hessman told him. “And about our conversations‍—‍”

  “You’d be surprised how many times I’ve been paid not to hear anything as much as I’ve been paid just to drive.” The man grinned.

  “Not a problem,” Agent Hessman said as the vehicle pulled to a stop. “Will a twenty percent tip do?”

  “Better make it thirty,” the man replied. “There was some really oddball stuff that I didn’t
hear.”

  Agent Hessman pulled out a few bills, handed them to a rather pleased-looking cab driver, and exited the cab with everyone else. They were left walking down Fifth Avenue with Central Park on their right, and ahead of them the entrance to the Central Park Menagerie‍—what would one day be named the Central Park Zoo.

  “Let’s just hope it’s not too late to catch them,” Agent Hessman remarked as they walked.

  “I’m thinking not,” Agent Harris said, coming up alongside him. “Over there by the front gates. That’s them.”

  A grand arch of brick and wrought iron spanned the flow of people coming and going beneath it, but amid that flow was a cluster of Japanese men milling about and seemingly making a point of not catching anyone’s eye.

  “I can’t see their faces too well,” Dr. Weiss stated. “How do you know it’s them?”

  “Can you think of any other group of five Japanese,” Agent Harris replied, “comprised all of males who aren’t a family that would be milling around in front of a zoo trying that hard to blend in and not get noticed?”

  “She’s right,” Claire agreed. “Say, they probably don’t know my face. Maybe if I just went up to them and‍—‍”

  “Come on!” To her own command, Agent Harris waited for no one and started into a charge, followed nearly immediately by Lieutenant Phelps, who had quietly vowed not to let them get away this time.

  “Just don’t stand there,” Agent Hessman told the rest. “There are no civilians on this mission. Before they spot us!”

  They all took off as fast as they could run, before any of their targets might turn to see them.

  16

  Central Park Menagerie

  They were nearly to the front gates when one of the Japanese men turned and spotted the group of people running directly for his team. The men exchanged quick words and then bolted, heading straight through the gates and into the menagerie. Agent Harris led the charge after them, weaving around visitors and bolting through the main gate before she could be asked for any admission fee. After Harris came Phelps, who shoved the attendant aside, followed by Dr. Weiss with a quick “Very sorry,” then Professor Stein and Claire, the latter making a point of pointing to the “Press” card sticking out of her hat while holding it to her head with her other hand. After them Agent Hessman went running past, shouting, “Important business!”