Lovelle booked a flight to Miami and told Katie he had to attend a sales conference. He would have five days to accomplish his final mission. Barely three weeks after picking up in his old life, Lovelle was back in action. He felt terrible that he had to deceive his wife this way, then he reminded himself that, regardless of what he did for the remainder of his life, he would forever be carrying around a secret. Katie could never know all the things he had seen and done. And he simply couldn’t let himself be wracked with guilt over it. He would have to find solace in the fact that he had chosen her to be with. Not just now when time had placed him back in her arms. But, in the last two lives when he believed that his choice would be final.
***
Arriving in Florida, Lovelle wasted no time getting to work. No longer flush with cash, and without the foreknowledge to make a quick score, he had to work on a budget. There would be no speedy yacht or cache of weapons on this trip. He would be infiltrating Cuba on the cheap. He found Juan and Manuel in the familiar bar where he and Maria first met them so long ago. He squeezed up to the bar right between where the two were talking. “Excuse me Gentlemen, but I’d like a moment of your time if I could?” The pair just looked at him curiously. “I have it on good authority, and please don’t ask how, that you two are in the right line of work to assist me.” This was the same introduction he had used successfully to recruit the younger versions of these men, and it worked equally well on them now.
Lovelle outlined his plan for the duo, and as always they scoffed at the audacity of it. And, as always, they signed on. There was to be no real preparation. He had neither the time nor the money. The Cubans were fine with that, since their own involvement was much more limited this time. They were simply to drop him off just inside of Cuba’s territorial water on Tuesday night and pick him up from the same spot two nights later. Easy money for them.
At the appointed time the ex-patriots lowered Lovelle and his dinghy into the water. He and the boat were all black, and looked more like an oil stain than anything definable in the dim light of a crescent moon. They had ventured in to the territorial waters of the island nation, but, remained a full two miles off the coast. As he headed in to danger, they turned back for the safety of international water. Running his silent electric motor, Lovelle took nearly an hour to come ashore in the familiar cove where he had rendezvoused with Maria in the past.
Although he had never ventured outside of the immediate vicinity of the cove, Lovelle felt sure he could navigate his way to Maria’s town. She chose the cove for its close proximity to her home, and, through their discussions of her many lives in Cuba and his careful study of maps, he headed off in the correct direction. He arrived in her city in the early morning hours and holed up in a wooded area outside of town. He had brought with him clothing that would blend in, and shortly after daybreak he entered the city. His destination was the bakery where he knew she had worked before the first skip.
***
Lovelle entered the bakery and spotted Maria a moment before she saw him. She looked up from where she was helping a customer with a loaf of bread and their eyes met. She smiled the biggest smile he had ever seen and excused herself from her customer. She approached him, but, her smile faded as she could see that he did not share her enthusiasm. He was smiling, but, not the smile of reuniting with an absent love. He opened his arms to her and they embraced.
“I knew you would come.” She whispered in his ear.
“Of course.” He answered. “I had to see you. I had to make sure you knew it was all real.”
“But you’re back with Katie.” She said resignedly.
“And you’re with Miguel.”
“But he is a stranger to me. My place is with you. I’ve been an American for the last three lives. A couple of weeks with him doesn’t change that.” Maria was almost pleading and it tore him up.
“It hasn’t been a couple of weeks for me.” He explained. “I haven’t laid eyes on you in nearly fifty years. I thought I never would again. And I’ve been with Katie for most of the past two lives.”
“I… l don’t understand?”
“It’s a very long story. This isn’t the place.” He looked around demonstratively.
“Give me a moment.” She indicated for him to stay put. He watched as she approached a man behind a counter. The two had a very animated discussion which ended with her tossing her apron on the counter in a huff and marching back to Lovelle. She wordlessly led him out the door and into the street.
“Is this a good idea?” he questioned as they hurried away from the bakery.
“I don’t care about good ideas. I need to know what is going on.” They walked for a long time in silence until she led him up to the front door of one of a row of little houses. “This is the house of my cousin Rosa.” She led him inside and he sat at the kitchenette. She opened the refrigerator and took out a pitcher of iced tea.
“I didn’t think you were this close to Rosa?” Lovelle wondered as she poured them each a glass.
“I haven’t been for a very longtime, but, she doesn’t know that. She believed in the revolution too much for me. But, beggars can’t be choosers.” There was an edge to her tone that was making him uneasy.
“What do you mean?” He asked, worried that he was about to poke a hornet’s nest.
“I mean, that when you need a place to live in this damned country you don’t just run out and sign the lease on a nice two bedroom apartment.” She edged closer to blowing up.
Lovelle stated the obvious, “So you left Miguel.”
“Of course I left him.” Maria shouted. “He is not my husband, Curtis! You are! Less than a month ago I am on my way to meet you in Havasu, and I get shot. I barely register what has happened before I black out. Then l wake up next to Miguel, as if it had all been a dream. But every day since has been a nightmare. All I could do was pray that you would come for me. And now you are here and the nightmare is not over.” Her anger turned to tears and Lovelle took her into his arms once more. He didn’t know what to say, so he just held her for a long while as she sobbed into his shoulder. Finally she sat up. “I know it’s not your fault. I knew that you might have lived on for a while without me. But, I never thought time would have kept skipping. I knew that you might have had time to get over me and that it would be hard to leave her when she had always been good to you. But it hadn’t occurred to me that you might have had time to rekindle your flame. And Kyle. What it must have been like to see your son again.”
“It’s amazing! I am so grateful for him.”
“So tell me everything. Help me to understand how the damned time skips have taken away the only good thing that came from living so many lives.”
He told her about Hardy and the cat and mouse game they had played, with one trying to spot the other first. Of the shooting of his mother at the hospital, and their encounter in Texas. Then he described how Hardy had nearly bested him in Sudan, only to have the tables turned with Lovelle being the sole survivor.
“Pure luck that I ended upon top in that one.” He stated.
"Luck for who?" She asked with regret. “If he had killed you right then, you’d be making love to me now instead of telling me I’ve lost you.”
Having no answer for that, he continued his story. “I knew then that he had been at least part right. I knew that the Skippers existence was holding time back. And that, for once, the life I made for myself just might be the one I kept. And as far as I could tell, there was no way for you to be a part of that. Hard as it is to believe, it had already been twenty years since you had passed. I didn’t want to be alone. I hope you can understand.” Maria nodded. “And I had told you that somewhere inside me there was always that love for her. I had spent many years avoiding her completely because I knew that it would only break my heart to be around her and not to have her. So, with no reason to avoid her any longer, I looked her up. I can’t even begin to describe how nice it was to be with her, and to think I might actually be ab
le to grow old with her. For once there was no conflict in my heart. There was no one else I should be with. No agenda I needed to take care of. I was free to live and to love like I hadn’t been since the very first day we started to skip back in time.” Lovelle sighed heavily.
“But the skips are cruel. I went to bed that last night with so much hope. And again my hopes were dashed. Sixteen again and faced with the horrible realization that I would have to sacrifice myself to release the world.”
Lovelle described the methodical and almost mechanical way he went about his work as the vigilante that last time. He told her how he had planned his final exit after killing Bin Laden, and how he hadn’t been able to go through with it. “I found my humanity somehow and I wanted to be happy again, even if just for a little while. And I was. Even with the end looming over me, I was able to enjoy my time with her. And a few weeks ago, when that bastard was taking you away from me, I was finishing two more lives and crashing my car into a lamppost. It’s hard to wrap your mind around. But I lived forty-eight years between the time you blacked out on our landing and woke up here in Cuba.”
They sat for a while in silence, just holding hands across the table. “You know. . .” Maria broke the silence, “One of the worst things about this involuntary time travel is being angry without anyone to direct your anger at. I want to scream at someone about how unfair this all is, but, I can’t blame you. Like always, you’re the hero.”
“I wouldn’t…” He started to protest and she cut him off.
“Don’t bother arguing Curtis. You always say you don’t believe in self-sacrifice, but, you’ve spent every single skip risking your life and giving up your own happiness so you could help other people. In the end, you were willing to give your life so that the rest of the world could go on. And not because you were tired of living like someone else might be. That’s not you and we both know it. You don’t quit that way.” She paused and then continued with her original thought , “So, I guess I’ll have to scream into my pillow at night until they come and take me to a padded room somewhere.”
“Oh, Maria. Maybe I shouldn’t have come. Maybe you would be better off wondering if it was even real.”
“No, Curtis. That would have been far worse. I could live with others believing me insane, but, not questioning my own sanity. You had to go on without me, and I will somehow go on without you.”
Lovelle suddenly slapped his hand down on the table. “Damn it! This isn’t going to end like this! I can’t leave you here. Never see you again. Never know if you’re okay. You have to come with me. You said yourself, you’re an American. If you have to start over, start over there. I’m not rich anymore, but, I can help you get started. “
“What? And be your secret lover?” She said with a trace at disapproval in her voice.
“No!” He answered a little shocked. “You know me better than that. I would never do that to either of you. But, I will always love you. And loving someone doesn’t mean abandoning them when they need you.”
“I don’t know Curtis. Giving you up will be easier if I can’t get to you. I would not want to be tempted to try and come between you.”
"And you wouldn't. Because you know that would hurt me. And people who love each other don’t knowingly hurt one another. Come with me. Be an American. Be a part of my life if you can. If it hurts too much, don’t. But be where I can see that you’re alright. If not for yourself, then do this for me.”
“How can I refuse you?” She replied, and it was settled.
Maria wanted to go away with him that night. But he told her that their ride would not come for them until the following evening. “If you disappear now they may come looking for you. We can’t afford to be found that way.” Which was true. But, what was also true was that Lovelle did not want to have to share his sleeping bag with her. Or rather, he very much did, and it bothered him. Ravishing as always, he could not help but desire this woman, who, but for circumstances beyond their control, would be his wife.
Maria was able to surreptitiously say her farewells that evening, and in the morning, instead of heading off for the bakery she met Lovelle. In their little town he would forever be the mystery man who stole her away, first from her husband, and then from her home. The legend would not be that far from the truth. They spent the day hiding at the cove in the very same place Maria waited for him to come for her after the skips.
They talked for hours. They reminisced about old times, and he elaborated on the time between their deaths. Maria decided that Hardy was the one she could scream at about her troubles, if she ever got the chance. Her melancholy was lifted a little when Lovelle told her who would be waiting for them on the boat.
“I’m so glad you hired them. It just seems right for them to take me out of Cuba for the last time.” She said.
“I thought so too. Besides, they’ve earned our trust several times over. I couldn’t imagine going to anyone else.”
The time to embark came and there had been no sign of a search effort for Maria. She climbed aboard the boat and he pushed it out into the water. A shore patrol boat had just left the cove and he expected no interference making their way out to sea. After a few minutes it became clear that interference with their trip wasn’t what Lovelle needed to be concerned with.
As with his first adventure in this body of water, a patrol boat had discovered the yacht. Only this time he wasn’t going to have the advantage of either surprise, or cover from shore. Instead of looming in the dark awaiting passengers, their ride was illuminated by the spotlight of probably the very patrol boat that had just left the cove. At least, that was the direction it was coming from. It had yet to actually reach the yacht, so there was still a little time to act. With no hope of talking their way out of trouble, the men had agreed to play possum if something like this occurred. Having borrowed a smuggling boat, the craft could be effectively disabled and there were good places to hide. At first glance, it would appear to be broken down and abandoned. And that would slow down any boarders and give Lovelle an opportunity to affect a rescue. Juan and Manuel had been agreeable to the plan this time because they were no longer dealing with a teenager. This version of Lovelle was middle aged, confident, and sporting an Israeli sniper rifle. But, Lovelle had not expected to have Maria on board.
If Lovelle could intervene before any of the soldiers boarded, he believed he would give all of them the best chance at getting out of this in one piece. He did have one advantage. Although he would he would have to effectively announce their presence to get into range in time, the range of his weapon was significantly greater than anything his enemy was going to be using.
“All right, this is going to get nasty. They’re in trouble and we’ve got to try and draw that patrol boat off. I’m going to start the outboard motor and I need you to steer us straight toward them. When I hold up my hand, you cut the throttle and turn to the left so we’re parallel to the patrol boat. Keep the motor running and keep moving, but slow and steady so I can get some shots off. If we’re lucky, they’ll come after us, but they’ll have a hard time getting a good look at us. They’re going to shoot, but we’ll be out of range for a little bit. We’ll try to come around the other end of the yacht and get on board before they figure out what we’re up to.”
Maria just nodded her head and Lovelle pulled the cord on the outboard motor. It fired up with a single pull and he moved out of the way so she could take control. While she steered them into danger, he pulled the rifle out of his pack and began sighting through the scope. Before he could effectively take a shot, he could see activity on the patrol boat. They had clearly taken notice of the engine noise approaching and turned one of their two lights off the yacht. Even with the engine noise they could not readily locate the dark dinghy. Once in effective range Lovelle signaled and Maria cut the throttle and swerved. Now that the motor noise had faded, they had last their best chance to locate the smaller craft.
Lovelle settled into his shooters crouch and chose
a pair of targets. Not concerned with a kill shot, he aimed at the first man’s torso, which provided a good target. He pulled the trigger and the man fell. Lovelle’s rifle being a semi-automatic, he was able to adjust immediately to his second target and hit him in the hip before he had a chance to really register what was going on. Hearing the report of Lovelle’s rifle, Juan and Manuel charged out of concealment on cue, AK-47’s in hand. It would take them a few minutes to confirm that they had not yet been boarded, then, they would come to Lovelle’s aid.
A third shot took care of the spot light that was searching for them. He did not have the angle to douse the other light, but, as long as the spot light did not land on them, Lovelle was happy to continue moving along parallel to the two bigger boats. He would not fire again and help them to pin point their locale unless he had to. He would be more than happy to just make their way around to the back side of the yacht undetected and join the fight from there. But, just as he began to think they might just pull that off, the light swung over them, then settled quickly back. Gunfire rang out and Lovelle quickly felled the target he had been keeping in his own site. “Go ahead.” He instructed Maria to take off.
Just as the patrol boat started to swing around in the direction of Lovelle and Maria, the ex-patriots opened fire from the yacht. This distraction caused the light to swing around again and the dinghy was left in darkness. “Head for the boat!” Lovelle barked, but, before the words even got out of his mouth she had angled that way.
Time Skip (Book 2): The Time Skippers Page 23
