Black Tuesday (Area 51: Time Patrol)

by Mayer, Bob

  And it’s not like they had television or radio or the Internet or soccer games or any of that to entertain themselves on the odd half hour they got off from backbreaking work. They had drink and—that’s when Mac noticed another thing. There were only men in this room, and his gaydar was ringing off the charts.

  There was always sex.

  Mac glanced down the table and there was a handsome young man staring back at him. And not in the manner of One-Hand, who looked like he’d stab Mac as soon as he’d fight alongside him.

  “Did they announce the execution for certain?” One-Hand asked Beeston.

  “Aye.”

  Surprisingly, One-Hand smiled. “Fools. Raleigh won’t be taken by no king’s axe for treason.”

  Another one laughed. “The prophecy says that be so straight on.”

  Everyone turned back to their ale and whatever they were talking about before with whomever, which meant there were about six conversations in the room with eight people because some were talking at the same time to each other.

  Mac was rather amazed they all hadn’t been gathered up and had their heads chopped off already if this was the way they ran things. They still didn’t know his name but were willing to so easily accept him into this room just on Beeston’s word.

  “’Scuse me,” Mac said to Beeston, who looked slightly startled as Mac left his side and went around the table to shove himself on the bench on the other end.

  “No name, eh?” the young man asked. “I’m Henry.”

  “I’m Mac.”

  “Odd name, that.”

  “Short for something.”

  “Odd accent too,” Henry said. “Never heard the like.”

  “I come from far away.”

  “I suppose.”

  Henry’s face wasn’t so attractive up close as it was pockmarked from acne and had rarely known soap.

  “Why does everyone think Raleigh is going to get away?” Mac asked.

  “The prophecy,” Henry said, giving Mac an odd look.

  “I’ve been in prison a long time,” Mac lied.

  “Then how do you now Beeston? Or Beeston know you? Or you know to be here?”

  “Long story,” Mac said, which he supposed was a partial truth. And at least this guy was still suspicious while the rest just seemed to be relying on some prophecy to take care of business for them.

  Henry leaned closer and Mac wasn’t surprised when he felt Henry’s hand on his thigh, but he was a bit repelled by the breath, although he tried not to show it, maintaining his position. Impolite to lean back when asking for secrets.

  The things he had to do in the name of duty.

  Henry was so obviously suspicious that Mac wished he could play poker with him, ’cause he was all tells. So Mac slid forward a little on the bench, allowing Henry’s hand to ride farther up his thigh.

  He’d seen other drunken men outside being a little more brazen on the way in although no one was actually humping on the bar. It seemed combining impending death with alcohol was an aphrodisiac; but in a pub where women weren’t allowed, the options were limited. Strange to be in a society that was so close-minded on so many things (to the point where they’d burn you at the stake over slight variations in essentially the same religious beliefs) but tolerant of other things. And yet they all smelled like muddied barnyard chickens. Mac wondered what this place would look like under a black light and shuddered. Henry took that as enticement, the hand going even farther up.

  “So the prophecy?” Mac asked.

  “Only those who served close by Lord Raleigh are privileged to know of it,” Henry said.

  Max took a guess, given how young this guy was and that Raleigh had been in the Tower for a long time with only one trip out. “You went to the New World with him?”

  Henry nodded. “I saw his son die. It was a terrible thing. But the prophecy only protects the Lord, not his family.”

  Mac noted that Beeston was staring hard at the two of them. But beyond Henry, Mac was picking up snippets of the other men at the table talking, catching up, or telling stories to newfound comrades. There seemed to be a theme—that Raleigh was the benefactor of some sort of prophecy and was sort of bulletproof, or, in this case, head-losing-proof.

  “So,” Mac said, deciding he didn’t have much to lose and the clock was ticking as Henry fondled him, “what’s this prophecy?”

  “Ah. I don’t know all of it. Not sure anyone but the Lord himself knows all, but I do know of the three promises he received from the angel.”

  “Oh yeah,” Mac said. “The angel. Heard of that,” Mac lied.

  Beeston came around the table and slid in next to Mac, pressing him up against Henry even tighter. Things were getting weird, for sure.

  Henry glanced worriedly at Beeston, but the nominal leader of this ragtag group nodded. “Tell him, Henry, what you know of the prophecy.”

  Henry’s hand had gone limp at Beeston’s arrival, which meant he feared the other man more than he was horny. “The key part is the three promises the angel made to Lord Raleigh.”

  “And they are?” Mac prompted.

  “‘Thou will never die at sea; thou will never die on field of battle; and thou will never lose thy head from treason’s fee.’”

  Who would cross the Bridge of Death must answer me these questions three, ere the side he see. Mac couldn’t help the thought that popped into his head: Eagle reciting that in the team room more times than he cared to remember, from the Bridgekeeper in Monty Python and the Holy Grail.

  “An angel told him that?” Mac asked.

  “Indeed.”

  Beeston patted Mac on the back. “Just you wait. You’ll see us ride off with our Lord, clear and free.”

  That was oddly phrased, Mac thought.

  The door started to open and the man closest to it was on his feet in a flash, rapier out. At least someone wasn’t totally soused.

  A man shrouded in a cloak, his face hidden beneath a drooping hood, slipped in, the door easing shut behind him. He didn’t seem fazed at all about the rapier at his neck. He pointed toward Beeston, and then crooked his finger.

  Beeston forced his way around the table, pushed the rapier away, and leaned in close. The two men whispered fiercely while everyone else in the room fell silent. After a minute the cloaked man disappeared.

  Beeston turned to face the room. “Lord Raleigh wishes to meet with me. I’ve been granted a few moments with him at Gatehouse Prison.” He smiled. “I am sure it will be about future plans.”

  The men pounded the table with their fists.

  “My friend,”—Beeston indicated Mac—“you are to come with me. Lord Raleigh wishes to meet you.”

  Grateful to escape the under-table groping and curious to meet the great man face to face, Mac quickly left the room with Beeston.

  Andes Mountains, Argentina, 1972. 29 October

  Moms saw the Yeti an hour into her guard shift. To the north, about four hundred yards away, a large bulky figure was briefly silhouetted along a ridgeline. She brought the M14 up, wishing she had a night vision scope, wishing she weren’t so cold, wishing that she didn’t wish.

  It was moving northwest, occasionally bending over, as if sniffing. It didn’t appear as if Correa’s rounds or her machete cut had done any significant damage. As it came down off the ridgeline, it disappeared, melding into the dark background of the terrain. She nudged Correa.

  He was awake in an instant, making her wonder if he’d ever been asleep.

  “Yes?”

  “Yeti,” Moms said.

  “Coming this way?”

  “Not yet. Moving that way.” She pointed.

  “Not toward the wreckage,” Correa said. “So that is good.”

  “It looked like it was bending over and sniffing. Didn’t look wounded.”

  “It might not be,” Correa said, and Moms understood right away that she’d made an assumption; one Nada would have chided her for. Correa said the obvious. “Might be a second one.”
He was silent for a few moments. “The beast must know where the wreckage is. So, like us, it is waiting. Scouting the area.”

  “If Yeti are the only things to come through the gate from the Shadow,” Moms said, “they might be here to stop us.”

  Correa chuckled. “Stop us from doing what? We are not certain why we are here. No. They have a plan. And you are right; there might be something, or someone, else who came through. We must be on guard.”

  “How do you know of this monster?” Moms asked. She was still keeping watch, quartering the area around them.

  Correa looked surprised at her question. “It is part of the lore of the Time Patrol. Many legends and myths throughout history have their basis in reality. We too often dismiss such things because they are beyond our ability to comprehend their existence. For most, our mind is limited to our world, our time. In the Patrol, we know there is so much more.

  “When gates are opened on our planet, in our timeline, strange things come through. Most regular people dismiss these sightings because they are very rare and the”—he seemed to search for a word—“presence of the species is not enough to make it believable that they are sustainable. But that is because they are not sustained on our planet. Furthermore, some of these creatures seem so strange that they could not have developed naturally. And that is correct; they did not.”

  Moms had seen, and battled, many strange things in her time in the Nightstalkers. “Will our guns take it down if we put enough rounds into it?”

  “I hope so,” Correa said. “I have seen the like once before, but did not engage it. The Shadow uses genetically engineered creatures to do its bidding.”

  “Like the kraken,” Moms said, remembering what Neeley had reported encountering en route to the Bermuda Triangle gate. “One of my team ran into one near the Bermuda Triangle.”

  “I have heard of that creature, but have not seen it,” Correa said. “A perversion of science, taking various species and merging them to build monsters.”

  “We took physics and perverted the power of the atom into a weapon,” Moms noted.

  Correa smiled. “You see the world in a curious way. I find it amazing that the human race has made it this far. I take that as an encouraging sign. And given you are here, from some time in my future, it seems we last a bit longer than 1980.” He paused. “Do you know why you are here?”

  “Not quite,” Moms said.

  He nodded toward the west. “They are suffering over there. The search was called off over a week ago. Are we to just stay here and allow them to die? You must be here for a reason.”

  “I know how it’s supposed to turn out,” she said. She was uncertain what to tell him, knowing the rule, but realizing he needed hope. “After the avalanche, three more die from hunger and exposure. But two of them make a trek to Chile and get rescue.”

  “To Chile?” Correa shook his head. “That makes no sense. They are closer to civilization going east, toward Argentina.”

  “They don’t know where they are,” Moms said. “The pilot, before he died, told them the wrong position. They think they are in Chile.”

  Correa pondered that. “But in history, your history, they went west and eventually found rescue?”

  “Yes.”

  “We could make it easier for them by letting them know where they are.” He pointed east. “There is an abandoned hotel just thirty kilometers in that direction. Would that be so bad to let them know? Would it change the timeline?”

  When Moms said nothing, he sighed. “We must let things be what they will be. But the beast is not what should be, so we will deal with that.”

  “How long will it take us to make it up to that ridgeline where we can view the crash site?” Moms asked.

  “Four or five hours,” Correa said. “It does not look far, but moving uphill in this snow is very difficult.”

  That agreed with what Moms had estimated. “We should start moving soon. Our movement will keep us warm.”

  Correa looked up at the dark sky. “We leave in one hour. You get some sleep. I will keep watch.”

  Moms put her rifle outside the blanket, resting it on the side of the plane so it wouldn’t warm up and “sweat” and then freeze up later.

  She closed her eyes, but sleep would not come.

  Correa must have sensed this. “Do they find this? The tail section?”

  “Yes.”

  “Hmm.” He reached into his pack and pulled out a small box. “Chocolate. May I leave it here?”

  Moms knew the answer right away, but it confused her. The survivors had indeed found some chocolate in the tail section, coming upon it when they were searching for a way out of the mountains. If that was Correa’s chocolate, they’d violated the rules. But it had been found.

  Moms surrendered to empathy and gave up on trying to solve the puzzle of time. “Yes.”

  Eglin Air Force Base, Florida, 1980. 29 October

  The patrol was gathered round Eagle. Ten men plus Eagle and Hammersmith. They were just silhouettes in the dark but they exuded an aura that Eagle was used to from his time in Special Operations and then the Nightstalkers.

  They were not students. Eagle knew professional, combat-tested soldiers when he was around them. How and why Hammersmith had formed this patrol, Eagle had no idea and he supposed it didn’t matter. They were here and now and had a job to do. But, and it was a “but” he couldn’t quite define, something was off about these guys. A strange vibe.

  Eagle barely saw their silhouettes. One had the obvious bulk of the M60 machine gun.

  “Master Sergeant Hammersmith,” Eagle said, “you’ll take point. You know the area and you know the objective.”

  “Roger,” Hammersmith said. “They’re running the last test flight later today. A dog and pony show.”

  “Sir?” one of the dark figures spoke up.

  “Yes?” Eagle said.

  “How do I get out of this chickenshit outfit?”

  Before Eagle could reply, Hammersmith stepped in front of the man. “Caruso, we’re in the Army. What you want, what I want, don’t mean squat. We follow orders. We die following orders if that’s what’s required. The only way out of this outfit is to make it through today and do what you’re ordered to do.”

  “Geez, Sarge,” Caruso said. “I know that. Was just asking. We’ll do whatever . . .” He paused and shifted to Eagle. “Sorry, sir, don’t know what your rank or name is?”

  Eagle reverted to his last official rank. “I’m not a sir. My rank is Master Sergeant. My name doesn’t matter.”

  “Well, Top,” Caruso said, using the familiar term for a master sergeant who was assigned as a first sergeant, “we’re all yours.”

  One of the other men snickered and Hammersmith wheeled toward him. “Do you want to go back to where I found you, maggot?”

  The figure straightened. “No, Sergeant.”

  Eagle had no idea what Hammersmith was referring to, and he was a bit surprised that Hammersmith would call one of his men a maggot. But that got a worrisome reference stirring in his brain.

  “Listen,” Eagle said, “I know this doesn’t make sense. But it’s what we have to do. It’s important. Not just for us and those we know. But it’s important for our children and our children’s children. For the human race. It might not seem like it. It might seem like I’m overstating it. But trust me. I’m not.” Eagle paused, waiting for a reaction. At least a chorus of “Hooahs!” which was Ranger for “Okeydokey.”

  Nothing.

  Something was definitely off here. Eagle had served in many units over the years, but these men seemed more resigned than motivated. Hammersmith’s words seem to have passed into the men, been absorbed, and ultimately meant little.

  “We’ll move out in five mikes,” Eagle said. He tugged on Hammersmith’s elbow and drew him away from the others. “What gives?”

  Hammersmith spit. “I couldn’t exactly pull a squad from the Ranger Battalion to do this. And, well, there were other considerati
ons. So I got an authorization from someone in the Pentagon, someone high up, someone from the Patrol I guess, to pull together a squad. They’re all good soldiers, or putting it more accurately, were good soldiers. All combat vets. Served in Vietnam.”

  Eagle was already ahead of this explanation. “The Dirty Dozen.”

  “Counting you,” Hammersmith said with a grin, “we got a dozen. I went to the big house at Leavenworth, some other places. All these fellows been locked up a long time.”

  “How much do they know?”

  “They know they have to do whatever they’re told to do,” Hammersmith said, “or they go back to where I got ’em.”

  “What’s the promise?” Eagle asked.

  “Complete pardon.” Hammersmith paused. “Listen. Doesn’t matter what they did or were facing. Doesn’t even matter we’re dangling the carrot of freedom. They’re here. They want to get out of whatever is coming alive, they have to fight.”

  Eagle knew there was a big difference between positive motivation and being forced to do something. “Gather the men.”

  The eleven clustered in close. Eagle mentally ran through a list of Nada Yadas, but couldn’t find one that specifically applied. He channeled the spirit of the former team sergeant for the Nightstalkers.

  But before he could get started, Caruso brought up one of the problems that had already occurred to Eagle.

  “Sergeant Hammersmith,” Caruso said, “what’s to keep the ten of us from killing the two of you and escaping?”

  “I don’t die easy,” Hammersmith said. “But the bigger problem you got, Caruso, is if I don’t bring you back in tomorrow or account for you, then a special unit called the Cellar is coming after each and every one of you sons-a-beasts. You ain’t never heard of the Cellar, have you?”

  “I been in one,” Caruso said, “for twelve years now.”

  “The Cellar will come after you,” Hammersmith said, “and they will execute you on the spot. You won’t be going back to your cell. You will die. And the Cellar, I am told, never fails. Do you all understand?”

  A low chorus replied. “Yes, Sergeant.”

  Eagle stepped up. “Men, as Sergeant Hammersmith has told me and most of you are picking up, there’s something out there between us and that airfield. Probably something, or some things, that, well, are beyond what you can imagine. Terrible things. I’ve faced some of them. Lost teammates to them. One or two of you might be thinking of taking off at the first sign of trouble. But I’m telling you: Your only hope to survive today is to fight through it as a team.”