9781940740065

by Paul B. Kohler

  “We’ve got a situation,” the man said to his fellow security guards. They began to drag him from the room as Peter kicked and struggled.

  “Get Mandrake! I have to see Mandrake!” Peter screamed.

  The guard allowed Peter to stand on his feet, to straighten his shirt. When that was done, Peter looked at the men angrily. “Tell me where he is.”

  An entourage of security guards escorted Peter up the elevator and down several corridors to Mandrake’s office. As they traversed the familiar maze of corporate hallways, Peter noticed the odd expressions on the guards’ faces. He knew that he looked different, far more rugged than he had only a month or two before. He’d lost so much, and he was biting and fierce, like a cornered dog.

  Mandrake appeared at the end of the hall, as if he’d known to expect Peter. He crossed his arms and waited, a slight grin appearing on his face. “Peter,” he called. His voice echoed menacingly. “I didn’t expect you so soon. How was your luxurious French vacation?”

  Peter wanted to spit on the ground at his feet. Mandrake led him into his imposing office with its memorable wall of windows displaying the San Francisco skyline. He poured them both small glasses of whiskey, and handed one to Peter. Peter drank it gladly, loving the burn in his throat.

  “I’m glad you came, Peter. I have much to speak with you about,” Mandrake began cordially.

  But Peter interrupted him. “Asher. Where are the doctors? Doctor Lamb and Doctor Larsson. What have you done with them?”

  Mandrake raised his hands slowly, palms out. “I don’t know what you think I’ve done. I can assure you that the men are completely fine. I hardly know where they are, myself.” He flashed a smile.

  “I just came from our hotel. They’re gone, and their room has been ransacked. From the looks of it, I’d say they’ve been missing from their room for some time now,” Peter said. “So I’ll ask you again—where the hell are they? I know you’re behind this.”

  Mandrake sipped his whiskey, listening. When Peter’s tirade was over, he spoke.

  “I’m sorry about that, Peter. A few of my associates may have overstepped their bounds over there. I gave them specific orders to observe only. It appears that your two doctor partners may have fled to safer havens.” He paused momentarily. “Perhaps to your trusted colleague Dr. Epson’s facility?” Mandrake adopted a sincere facial expression, but Peter knew better. He was convinced it was Muscle and Squirrel who were responsible.

  “So … you’re telling me that the doc’s aren’t with you? They’re safe?”

  “As far as I know, Peter. Must I remind you again about our non-violent nature here at the society?”

  Peter chuckled heartily, recalling Emmett’s ability to kill in New York—for the society. He sipped the whiskey once again, longing for another shot of it. And another. God, it had been such a long journey.

  “Let’s get down to real business, shall we?” Mandrake said, changing the subject. “I’d like to offer you something—a once in a lifetime opportunity,” Mandrake began. “I’d like to offer you the chance to stay here, in 1942, and work for this society.” He spread his arms wide. “You, Julie, and the doctors would all work here, for me.”

  Peter raised an eyebrow. “What makes you think any of us would want to work for you?”

  Mandrake smiled. “Well. Truly, I’m not certain. After all, you have so much to do in your own timeline, I’m sure. What I’m offering you is a full one-hundred-thousand-dollar-a-year contract. This is about—oh—one point four million dollars in your 2013 timeline.” He leaned toward Peter once more. “I’m offering you the chance to be a millionaire.”

  Peter’s hands grew clammy at hearing the amount. A millionaire? He’d lived for so long without anything, struggling with bills all the time. He swallowed. “I don’t know.”

  “But wait. In this contract, I’d make you second in command of the society. The doctors would be lead scientists. Julie can—can have a role that we’ll decide at a later date. But still—one hundred thousand dollars a year. Which is far more than any woman could possibly make in this decade. Probably in yours, as well.” Mandrake leaned back in his chair, looking cocky.

  Peter considered the offer. “Why would you trust me to be a part of your society? You hardly know anything about me. You haven’t even asked how our trip to France went, and you don’t whether anything I would tell you is true. Get on the radio and learn for yourself that Oradour-sur-Glane—the very French town we wanted to save during the process of ending the war—was still destroyed. What does this mean for our mission? Was it futile?”

  Peter shrugged, closing his eyes. He didn’t care about Mandrake anymore; he had no fear. “There’s no way we can know if it was futile. But I can tell you one thing. Emmett was killed in France. And he wasn’t killed at the hand of a Nazi; he was killed by me.” Peter leaned forward over the desk, the lie fresh and real on his tongue. “Now that you know I killed your informant—yes, I knew about Emmett—would you say the offer is still good?”

  Mandrake didn’t hesitate. “Of course it’s still good. My offers remain. All of them.” He flashed his teeth, like a wolf.

  Peter leaned back, considering. “Okay. Okay. So. Say I want to work with you. But I demand five hundred thousand dollars a year. Each. For all four of us. And I demand to be leader of this fucking society.” He thumped his finger on the desk between them, feeling the anger of their exchange fueling his voice.

  “Of course. Whatever you like,” Mandrake said.

  That wasn’t at all what Peter had expected; he was stunned that his demands had been met with such nonchalance. He’d even said he’d killed Emmett—that poor, sad man who’d ultimately died fighting for France—and he hadn’t seen a single reaction from Mandrake.

  “All right. Whatever I want, huh?” Peter began. “All right. I want you escorted from the building. Right now. I’m in command, and you’re out of here.” He leaned toward Mandrake. “And I never want to see your face again.”

  Asher Mandrake paused, gazing at this new, angry Peter. A few moments passed by slowly. Then Mandrake leaned back and began to laugh. It echoed from the window to the wall, sending shivers down Peter’s spine.

  “Well,” Mandrake said, obviously understanding that Peter was fucking with him. “I can run this by the higher-ups, of course. I highly doubt they’ll go for it, but that doesn’t mean I can’t ask them.”

  Peter smacked his thighs, fed up. He knew that the scientists weren’t there—which was enough to propel him from the office. “Well. Get back to me when you talk to your higher-ups,” he scoffed.

  He walked toward the door.

  “You know we can hold you here by force,” Mandrake said.

  Peter wheeled around and glared at the man. “What did you say?”

  Mandrake stood, still holding his whiskey glass. The ice cubes jangled against the sides. “We have the greatest power in this city. You really think we can’t hold you here if we want to?”

  “You sure didn’t stop us from arriving,” Peter shot back.

  “Sure, sure. But we can stop you from ever entering that little box again. You wouldn’t want this for yourself, would you? You wouldn’t want this for little Miss Julie Frey?”

  Peter glowered at him. “Julie has already made up her mind to stay. And she’s securing safe passage for the rest of us to return to our time. You know she’ll expose the society for everything it is if you prevent our return.” He brought his glass up to his lips and drank the rest of the whiskey in a single gulp, then set the glass down on the table with a sharp rap. “Remember, Mandrake. I’ve killed before. I can do it again.”

  Then Peter winked at him, nearly smiling. He knew that Mandrake didn’t know that Julie had remained in France, too far away for ready contact.

  But as he moved toward the door, Mandrake spoke. “I’m prepared to do anything to keep you here, Peter. I will sacrifice anything and everything. And you know I’m crazy enough to do it.”

 
Peter turned back toward him, unalarmed. He knew Mandrake wasn’t bluffing. He did hold real power. But what had he done since they’d arrived in the timeline? He’d had Peter and Julie followed. But then, Emmett had actually saved their lives, not hurt them.

  Therefore, Peter chose the next words carefully before slamming the door behind him and stomping from the society grounds.

  “Fucking prove it.”

  CHAPTER 20

  Peter felt the energy from his encounter with Mandrake surging through his muscles, making his heart beat fast, strong. He slammed the door of the car and sped across town, ready to find Dr. Epson at the lab and discuss his return home. He was finally pushing forward from the depression he’d felt during the previous few weeks, on the long trip from France to the United States. He’d begun to hear his children’s voices in his head; he’d begun to feel focused on a single purpose: returning to 2013.

  He parked outside the lab where he and Julie had trained for the mission. Now that the mission was over, the place didn’t seem so scary. It was his portal back home. He turned off the engine and hurried down the steps, through the older part of the warehouse. He remembered this part had been rather new in his 2013 timeline. He shuddered, wondering what that meant for the future of the structure. He assumed the bomb would go off in this general area, that the devastation would happen soon.

  He entered the tubular tunnel—the extent of the first sublevel—hoping that the doctors from his timeline would be down on sublevel six; he needed to tell them about Mandrake. He was thrilled that Mandrake hadn’t already taken them. He was still ahead of Mandrake, if only by a few steps.

  Passing the heavy blast doors, Peter began to descend the final five flights of steel stairs, hoping that it would be for the last time. As he arrived at sublevel six, he couldn’t help the emotions that began to take over.

  The bright lights felt so sterile, so stark as he entered the lab. He found himself face-to-face with all of them, and he wanted to hug them—the first familiar faces, besides Mandrake’s, that he’d seen in many, many weeks.

  “Peter!” Dr. Epson said, bouncing a bit as he entered. “Why, we’re surprised you’re back so soon!”

  Peter nodded, feeling a bit awkward even in his excitement, like he didn’t know where to stand. Before him stood both the doctors from 2013, Dr. Epson, Ms. Stewart, and Gallagher. They all greeted him eagerly, shaking his hand and congratulating him on the mission. Only Gallagher was a little overzealous in his movements as he spoke, shaking Peter’s hand a little too hard.

  As the excitement died down, Peter turned toward Dr. Epson and the two doctors from his timeline. “Would you mind if we spoke in private?” he asked.

  “Of course,” Dr. Epson said. He led them down the hall, toward his private office.

  The office was filled to the brim with filing cabinets. A small portrait of a cat stood on a shelf beside Dr. Epson’s chair. He tapped at it, adjusting it. “Peter, I must say, you look a little the worse for wear. What happened in France, if you don’t mind me asking?”

  Peter collapsed into a chair, feeling safe for the first time in many weeks. He looked at the doctors from his timeline and explained the mission. “Mandrake had us followed by a man named Emmett from the very moment we boarded the train. He agreed to allow us to go, only if we had this ‘companion.’ He wanted us to stop the war as soon as we could—that was the only reason he allowed the mission to continue. He needs everything to coincide with his society’s mission, his plan.”

  “Very interesting. A secret society. And did you file the memo?” Dr. Lamb asked, stroking his beard. His eyes were large. “Did you halt the progression of the war?”

  Peter nodded, remembering the memo-maker, Oscar Gionnoccaro. “We think we did. We did as much as we could do. But that companion I mentioned—he was killed during a battle at Oradour-sur-Glane. He saved my life.”

  Peter could feel the brush of death, the weight of that bomb going off so close by. It reminded him of the bomb he knew would go off in this very laboratory, very soon. He needed to alert Epson and the others, but he didn’t know how. He didn’t know when it was all set to occur. He didn’t want to create panic in the situation. Instead, he continued to speak about France. “Mandrake doesn’t seem to care, really, about his death. What’s more, Julie’s decided to stay on in France—”

  The doctors looked at each other, alarmed. Peter hated to hear the words come out of his mouth; they seemed so real, this way. He cleared his throat. The cat on the shelf behind Epson’s desk seemed to glare at him.

  “And Mandrake has just offered us millions of dollars in order to stay on here. He said it’s absolutely essential that we don’t go back to our timeline. And I—I thought he’d surely taken you,” Peter said, turning toward the doctors beside him. “I went into your room, and I found it had been ransacked.”

  Dr. Larsson nodded. “We found it trashed as well. Luckily, we had all important documents with us and we moved in here, down on ten.” He gestured toward the floor. “It’s good, living so close to the lab. And Dr. Epson stays here most nights.”

  “Ms. Stewart will tell you I’m married to my work,” Dr. Epson said, smiling.

  Peter couldn’t take the joking, the humor. He needed to reiterate the importance of Mandrake’s words. He’d scoffed at Mandrake before, but the urgency of the situation was catching up with him. “He said that—that he’ll stop at nothing to keep us here, away from our own timeline. I need to go back. I have my kids; my life is there. There’s nothing for me here. Not anymore.”

  He thought about Julie, then. He wondered if her morning sickness had ended. He wondered if little Marion was recovering from the deaths of her parents. There was so much to consider, and Julie and Marion were worlds and decades away.

  “We’ll get you back—” Epson began.

  But Peter shook his head vehemently. “I wouldn’t put it past Mandrake to murder one of us to keep us here. He doesn’t want to meddle with the timeline. I think—I think we need to be careful.” He lurched his head up, blinking wildly. “I think we need to make sure Gallagher doesn’t hear another conversation between any of us. Epson. He’s the nefarious rat. He’s delivering information to Mandrake.”

  Epson scratched his head for a moment. He ratcheted his chair back and rose to his feet, then charged down the hallway. His anger could be seen in the way his back lurched as he walked, in the way his feet pounded on the cement. The doctors rushed alongside Peter as they followed Epson down the hall, back toward the lab, and Peter wondered what it was like to work with someone for so many years, only to find out he’d been sabotaging you the entire time. What a waste, Peter thought. What a waste of time—time, the only thing we truly have.

  Dr. Epson stormed into the lab. Peter and the doctors followed. They found Ms. Stewart standing there smiling at them.

  “Ms. Stewart. Where is Mr. Gallagher?” Dr. Epson spoke slowly.

  Ms. Stewart bit her lip. She opened her hands to them all, a trace of confusion on her face. “He’s gone.”

  CHAPTER 21

  The lab seemed to darken with the tension between Dr. Epson and Ms. Stewart—something, Peter sensed, that didn’t normally happen. Epson brought his fists together in front of his face, growing more and more angry. “Where the hell did he go?”

  Peter watched as Ms. Stewart seemed to fold before them, clearly afraid she’d done something wrong. “I’m so sorry, Doctor. The moment he saw you step into your private office, he began gathering his things. He just—he ran toward the stairs.” She held her head in her hands. “I didn’t know what was going on. He wouldn’t listen to me when I asked him questions.”

  Dr. Epson began to pace. “He’s been sabotaging me this entire time.” He shook his head, muttering, “What the hell could he be up to?”

  But Peter already understood. He knew the bomb would be going off shortly, that Mandrake and Gallagher had been working together all this time. He felt the ticking of time in his heart, in his mi
nd, and he knew he had to tell the group the truth. He cleared his throat. “Everyone. I have something to tell you—something I should have told you long ago.” He swallowed. “I know that a bomb will detonate in this lab, very shortly.”

  His voice held such authority. Everyone turned toward him with widened eyes. “We don’t have time to figure out what Gallagher’s doing. We can only search for the bomb I feel sure he and Mandrake have left for us. To keep us here in this timeline, dead or alive.”

  Ms. Stewart cried out; the situation was apparently too much for her, and she sat in a lab chair, wrapping her arms around her body. The two doctors had brought their heads together in intimate discussion. Only Dr. Epson turned toward Peter with fear and anger burning in his eyes. “When will this occur? Where is the bomb meant to go off?”

  Peter breathed deeply, thinking. “I don’t know the exact time or location. But the results of the bomb are catastrophic. The time machine might be destroyed, leaving us here in the past. But I’m sure the bomb will go off on sublevel one, toward the stairwell. It looks different in the future. But, as I’ve already experienced, bits of this past are different from the recorded past of my future. So this bomb could go off, or it might not. Either way, we’re wasting time. It’s here, somewhere.”

  “If you say it goes off upstairs, why do you think it’s here and not up top?” Epson asked.

  “I … I don’t know for certain. But it does stand to reason that Gallagher would put it here in hopes of destroying the time machine completely, along with all of us,” Peter guessed.

  Ms. Stewart let out another cry of dismay. The scientists whispered on about timelines, about alterations in the future and the past.

  Peter moved closer to Epson. “You should really say something to her.” He tipped his head toward Ms. Stewart, whose tears were spilling down her cheeks. Dr. Epson approached her tentatively and placed his hand on her back. “Gertrude,” he said quietly. “I apologize for being so forceful earlier. I just—I didn’t expect to have such excitement today. We weren’t even meant to run tests today.” He shook his head.