Tempus: The Phoenix Man

by Matt Hilton

  ‘I’m unarmed,’ Rembrandt said. ‘Take this as a show of my good intentions. Let the prisoners go.’

  He could see the man standing with one arm around Marjorie Miller’s waist, his gun under her opposite armpit. The barrel wavered between Marjorie’s side and Rembrandt, never still, as if the gunman couldn’t make up his mind about his most viable target. Rembrandt flicked his gaze away from them, to alight on another form huddled in the corner of the room. Green eyes stared back at him. Rembrandt frowned marginally, as he returned his gaze to the gunman.

  The man was younger than Rembrandt had expected, probably no more than twenty-two or -three years old. He had a wedge haircut popular with other youths of the time, and a thin strip of beard on his slim chin. The man wore bleached jeans and a black Harrington bomber jacket. There was a patch of blood on his left forearm, where it was looped around Marjorie’s waist, evidence that one of Rembrandt’s bullets had nicked him. The guy was terrified. He didn’t look as if he were the brains of the outfit, simply a hired hand. That didn’t make him any less dangerous; in fact, it made him more desperate and more likely to shoot rather than consider a safer resolution.

  He nodded at Rembrandt’s gun. ‘You think I’m an idiot? There’s still a bullet in your gun.’

  ‘You think I’m an idiot? You don’t expect me to stand here like a target for you, do you?’

  ‘Throw down your gun,’ the man said. ‘I’ll take this old woman with me, and once I’m safely out of here I’ll let her go.’

  The man was growing frantic, as his offer had proven. His only hope of survival was the fact that he controlled the fates of his captives, and by making a promise to free Marjorie he’d just lost the advantage.

  ‘Let her go now,’ Rembrandt said.

  The man shoved the gun deep into her side. Marjorie cried out, as did her daughter. Rembrandt held up his left palm in a placating gesture. ‘Don’t worry; this young punk isn’t going to harm you. He hasn’t the balls.’

  ‘I’ll do it!’ the man hollered, but it was as if he was trying to convince himself.

  ‘No.’ Rembrandt shook his head. ‘Your ten seconds are up.’

  Glass shattered. Harry Bowlam crashed into the room, aiming his gun at the man, whose natural reaction was to turn towards the racket. The gunman twisted with Marjorie, trying to place her between him and Bowlam, and that was his undoing. Jamal, undetected by the gunman until now, leaned out from his hiding place and shot him in the left temple. Even as the man’s arms slid from around Marjorie’s waist and the woman slumped away from him, Rembrandt placed the single round available to him in the man’s chest. The force of the double tap, threw him on his right side, his gun hand outstretched. Bowlam stepped on hand and gun. The man was without doubt mortally wounded and seconds from death, but Harry desired some payback for his friend, Brent. He fired another two bullets into the man’s head.

  The Miller women shrieked at the kidnapper’s execution, but their cries were confused, and not a little tinged with relief. Marjorie scuttled on hands and knees towards her daughter. Rembrandt turned to watch, once more a little taken aback by Jessie. To hear Barry Miller speak, he’d assumed his daughter was younger, perhaps a teenager at most, but Jessie wasn’t. She was a young woman, probably aged in her early twenties. She had long brown hair pulled back in a ponytail, baring a face devoid of makeup, and large blue eyes. She took more of her looks from her mother than her father.

  He approached the two women who were busy hugging each other, the mother touching the daughter’s face and weeping softly.

  Rembrandt crouched in front of them, careful to hide his gun from sight. He held out his left hand, palm up. ‘You’re safe now,’ he said. ‘Come on. Barry is waiting for you.’

  Marjorie looked past him to where the young man lay supine on the floor. Her gaze was haunted. ‘B-Barry is alive?’

  ‘Alive and well and waiting for you both,’ Rembrandt confirmed.

  ‘I…I thought that we’d all die…’

  ‘No one else has to die,’ said Rembrandt, and he paused, feeling that strange ripple go up his spine again, realising that the words were more likely to be spoken by David James Johnston than Chief Rembrandt. But then, he hoped that they were prophetic, because now, with the conspirators broken, the hostages freed, he believed that the impending nuclear war was averted.

  ‘Thank you, thank you, for saving my family,’ Marjorie wept. ‘If there’s anything I can do to repay you…’

  Rembrandt looked again at Jessie.

  ‘Your father tells me you’re training to be a doctor, right?’

  The woman nodded meekly. ‘I…I’m a first year medical student…’

  ‘Then there is something you can do for me,’ Rembrandt said. ‘All I need you do is look someone up and remind them who it was that saved your life today, Jessie.’

  Chapter 34

  January 30th 1988

  Grosvenor Square, London

  Harry Bowlam and Crystal Kwolek stood on the fringe of a group of pro-abortion demonstrators, unconcerned by the placard waving or the shouts of anger directed at the presidential party. With the calm of a practised statesman, Ronald Reagan ignored the berating of the crowd, while also acknowledging the cheering and calls of encouragement from those opposing them across the square. The president was flanked by his security detail as he moved down the steps of the US Embassy. He paused to offer a wave to the crowds, then turned to shake hands with a diplomat. The snapping of dozens of cameras as journalists sought the ideal image to go along with tomorrow’s headlines caught the moment.

  Across the square from them, James Rembrandt and Benny Oxford were positioned at the rear of the anti-abortion crowd, but their energies weren’t wasted on watching the president. Their attention was on South Audley Street where – if it came – an assassination attempt would arise. If all their labors had been wasted and another assassin had been primed then they’d have to deal with it unarmed: no way could they carry weapons when surrounded by so many police and Secret Service personnel.

  Behind them President Reagan led his wife Nancy down the steps towards his limousine. The volume of the crowds rose incrementally. The four out-of-timers tensed, waiting for the first sign that all their efforts had been for nothing.

  There was a surge of motion in the pro-abortion group, but it was stalled before it gained any momentum by the closing of the ranks by the uniformed police officers in attendance. The pro-abortionists booed Reagan but he was above their heckling and continued down the steps to the pavement.

  Reagan paused to again greet the crowds with waves and a smile.

  ‘Just get in the bloody car, will you?’ Crystal Kwolek whispered.

  Beside her, Harry Bowlam held his breath.

  This was it. The moment.

  The back door of the presidential limousine was open, and Reagan’s security detail politely, but firmly, manoeuvred their package towards it.

  Now Crystal held her breath. Harry leaned against her, and she gripped his sleeve. She thought that if she didn’t she’d fall over.

  Nancy followed her husband into the safety of the limousine and the door was closed.

  Across the way Crystal saw Chief Rembrandt say something to Ox, both of them visibly relieved.

  The president’s limo was driven away, in convoy with others from the presidential convoy. It past Rembrandt and Oxford, heading into South Audley Street, taking a left towards a predetermined destination that originally had nothing to do with this current timeline, but everything in common to that which David Johnston belonged.

  Crystal still felt as if she could faint, but this time it was due to relief rather than anxiety. She looked up and met Harry’s gaze and saw that he was similarly affected. No. That wasn’t it. Harry was looking at her as if he had no idea who she was. She looked down at where she gripped his sleeve, and she released it as if stung.

  ‘Uh, I’m sorry for being so familiar…’ Crystal’s words petered out. What the hell d
id she mean by that?

  Harry blinked, and he took a step away from her.

  Crystal felt something strange flutter through her.

  It was as if the blood drained from her brain. Black spots edged her vision. She screwed her eyelids, and when she opened them could vividly see Chief Rembrandt across the square. He was gripping the front of Benny Oxford’s jacket, as if trying to hold the big man upright.

  ‘Wh-what’s happening?’ Crystal looked again at her friend…and could no longer recall his name. She knew nothing about him. He was a stranger, as much as she was to him.

  In that instant the man whom she’d fought alongside in Old City was nothing to her. And with that understanding he was nothing. The stranger dissolved before her eyes…fading away like pastel-shaded mist against the backdrop of Grosvenor Square.

  Such a sight should cause panic to erupt, but nobody around her seemed aware of the disappearing man. Crystal opened and closed her mouth, gasping for air. She scanned across the square for…

  She had no idea…

  A man stood looking at his clenched fists, his face hollowed by a sense of loss. He turned his head and stared back at her, this stranger, and Crystal lifted one querying hand towards him.

  He took a step towards her.

  But Crystal had gone.

  Chapter 35

  January 30th 1988

  Grosvenor Square, London

  It was a horrifying prospect, that to save the earth James Rembrandt had to give up his best friends, and even though he’d suspected the outcome it didn’t lessen his feeling of loss when it happened.

  Harry Bowlam had actually posed the question. What would happen to them - products of the nuclear-decimated world – if the war were averted? Rembrandt had hoped that they would go on unchanged, but a niggling feeling had told him that it was wishful thinking. If the nuclear war never happened, then his friends would lead different lives. They would never become cops of Old City and Rembrandt would neither meet nor lead them as his team. He would not therefore pull them out of the devastated world to join him on this mind-bending mission into their own past. Their willingness to assist him in halting the assassination of President Reagan had signed their own death warrants. They would simply cease to exist.

  No. That wasn’t strictly true.

  Somewhere out there Brent Walker was a young boy, Crystal Kwolek a girl. Harry Bowlam and Benny Oxford were young men, and Jamal Dhand a soldier. Their lives would go on, and this time it would prove better for them all. They’d love, marry, have children – the latter something denied them in the poisonous atmosphere of Old City. They’d experience more fruitful existences than the hardship they’d been forced to endure after the bombs. The same could be said for much of the Earth’s population: they too would live differently; billions of them would know a life that his friends’ sacrifice had given them.

  He should feel soothed by such knowledge. Yet he didn’t. Though his team no longer existed, would never exist, they did to him. He would never forget.

  Rembrandt wasn’t of this timeline. He was of 2018 in a parallel dimension. Everything that he’d known and experienced, both as David James Johnston and as James Rembrandt was a part of him, and of his time and place. He pictured again the look that Crystal had cast toward him in those final moments, before she’d faded from his life like steam from a bathroom mirror, and he knew that it was an image he’d never shake. Her look had been one of love and regret. He wondered if, in those final moments, Crystal understood her fate, and would have chosen to continue as she was or whether she’d elect for the easier life newly set for her. However irrational, he believed she’d take the horror of nuclear war over fading to oblivion before rebirth into a gentler existence, but then it was hardwired into the human psyche to fight for survival. He remembered how Ox had felt his impending end and had sobbed like a heartbroken child, and how he’d had to hold the man to stop him collapsing in despair. Rembrandt had told him to be brave. Ox had said, ‘I’m afraid.’

  It was with a heavy heart he made his way out of Grosvenor Square to where they’d left the Ford Granada, but decided to leave it behind. Harry Bowlam had driven the car there, and he had disappeared with the keys in his pocket. Rembrandt flagged down a passing taxi and gave the driver directions.

  ‘Could be slow going, mate,’ the driver chirped, ‘all the traffic’s been held up by Ronnie Reagan’s lot. It’ll take a while to clear. Don’t worry, though, I won’t put you on the clock til we get movin’.’

  ‘No worries,’ Rembrandt said. ‘I’ve all the time in the world.’

  It was the best part of an hour before the taxi dropped him outside the nondescript industrial unit where his team had set up their forward operating base.

  He let himself inside the building, closing the door tightly behind him. He allowed a moment to steel himself, leaning his hips against the door as he sucked in a deep breath. Then he walked along a corridor, passing the rooms where his team had gathered before leaving for Grosvenor Square earlier. He was tempted to peer into those rooms, to see if they held the residual vibrations of his friends, as if he would detect their ghosts lingering in the space. He shook his head and walked on. At the end of the corridor was another door; locked by a second key he had in his possession. A chair where Jamal Dhand had sat was still propped against the wall next to it, but of the man there was no sign. Rembrandt believed that if he checked, Brent Walker’s shrouded corpse would be missing from the adjacent freezer room where they’d laid him to rest. But what would he discover beyond the locked door?

  Barry, Marjorie and Jessie Miller would recall all that had come to pass, albeit he didn’t doubt that their memories would be skewed by the affect of the changing timelines. But it wasn’t the family that concerned him now. They were well out of harm’s way, hidden from the conspirators to assassinate Reagan, under false identities at the hotel on Bolton Street. Barry Miller, thankful beyond words, had sworn that he and his family would not show themselves until after the presidential cavalcade left Grosvenor Square. Neither would the Miller family breathe a word about what had happened to them: the plot to murder the president would forever remain a mystery. Jessie had once again promised to repay Rembrandt, and he trusted she would come through. He was relying on it, other wise he may never return home.

  There was one other person involved in all of this, and it was she that made Rembrandt pause and take out his gun before pressing open the door.

  Mina Feeney was sitting on a two-seater couch in the corner of the small office. She’d pulled up her knees and rested her hands around her shins. But for the handcuffs around her wrists and her ankles, the pose was innocuous. Her short hair was ruffled as if she had shoved damp palms through it. Her gaze was smoky as she peered at where he was framed in the doorway. Rembrandt studied her, not making a noise. On reflection she appeared dazed.

  It was hardly unusual to find her in a confused state.

  Mina had been grabbed and held for the past three days. Her shoulder wound had proved less damaging than Rembrandt had first thought: her collarbone wasn’t broken, and she’d only lost a chunk of flesh, that Crystal had subsequently cleaned and dressed. She’d recall being shot by Rembrandt, but Crystal’s first aid administrations? With the resetting of her timeline would Mina recall who was responsible for nursing or for guarding her? Whatever her recollection of events, it didn’t alter the fact that Mina was the same person she’d been before Rembrandt’s team blinked out of existence. She was still the same woman responsible for snatching, drugging and then attempting to coerce Barry Miller to perform an act of murder. Or was she?

  Rembrandt looked away from her, checking out the rest of the room. With her guard no longer at her door she’d had an opportunity to break out, but it appeared she had not taken it. She must have sat the hour or so since Jamal disappeared in this fugue state. Now as she took stock of Rembrandt’s appearance it was as if something kick-started her and she unfurled her legs and placed her feet flat on t
he floor. Her shoes had been taken away from her. Rembrandt saw her toes dig at the threadbare carpet, seeking stability.

  ‘Don’t get up,’ Rembrandt said. He gave her a glimpse of the gun at his side.

  ‘You lied to me,’ she responded.

  He didn’t reply, but closed the door behind him without taking his eyes off her.

  Holding out her cuffed wrists, Mina said, ‘Can these come off now? You promised that you’d release me after I…’

  ‘I did promise to release you, but there was something important holding me back,’ Rembrandt said. He’d known even as he made the promise that he could not release Mina until after the deadline of Reagan’s visit to Grosvenor Square had passed.

  ‘You promised I’d be freed as soon as…as soon as…’ she blinked wildly. ‘It doesn’t matter! You lied to me.’

  ‘And you lied to me. I think that makes us quits.’

  ‘I didn’t lie. I…’

  Rembrandt had no intention of listening to fabrications. ‘You tried to make out that you’d no knowledge of who was behind the plot to kill Reagan. You said you were simply a mercenary hired to snatch Barry Miller and to prep him for further instruction. Yet, when first I mentioned the president, before you concocted that lie, you didn’t appear shocked or even mildly surprised. You knew who the target was all along.’

  She shook her head, brain on overdrive to concoct a feasible rebuttal. ‘I thought I was about to be arrested. Who’d admit to planning what I had in mind?’

  ‘I don’t care,’ Rembrandt told her. He moved from the door towards her. ‘I know you were the brains behind the plot. Sadly you were a poor actor, Mina. That put-on voice didn’t suit you. Pretending to be a mercenary, spouting a load of crap you probably learned from watching TV. Ha! Even offering me enough money to retire to a private island.’ He shook his head. ‘It probably bankrupted you buying the help of those other guys, not that mercenaries of their calibre would have cost too much. What the fuck were you thinking, Mina? Ah, fuck it! It doesn’t matter now; whatever drove you to such extremes, you missed your chance.’