WINDOW OF TIME

by DJ Erfert

  “No! Put those away, Dusty, and calm down,” Johnny stood rigid between him and Lucy. He wouldn’t let a stimulant be used on her. She still had a concussion, and the dangers from artificially raised pressure in her brain were too great.

  Dusty sat down heavily on the bed and put his face in his hands. “They hurt her, Johnny.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “I should have gone with her.”

  “She wouldn’t let you,” Rocky said.

  “Yeah, I know.”

  Johnny found a small green oxygen tank in his medic bag and unwound the mask hanging from the top. He quickly strapped the clear mask over Lucy’s nose and mouth before twisting the tank’s valve. The subtle hiss of the gas was audible. Along with the oxygen, Johnny tried to rouse her, slapping her face—not hard, but enough to make a sharp sound. “Lucy! Wake up!” She moved her head and took a deeper breath. “Lucy, wake up!” They got nothing more. “Lucy, wake up, or I’ll take you into a cold shower.”

  “No,” Lucy moaned, pushing him away.

  “Open your eyes, Agent James,” Dusty said authoritatively. “James Brockway is on the telephone.”

  Lucy’s breathing changed. It became shallow and quick. She seemed panicked.

  “Lucy, honey,” Johnny said lowly, his face near hers, “I need you to wake up for me. We need you. I need you.” Her eyes fluttered open, unfocused. “Take some deep breaths, honey. The oxygen will help you feel better.” She understood him and did as he asked. Her chest rose slower, and after a few moments her eyes locked onto his.

  “Johnny …”

  Her muffled, whispered voice sounded weak. “Take a few more deep breaths, honey. Come on, breathe deeply for me.” Johnny stroked her warm forehead. “We have a problem, and Sunny needs your help.”

  “Sunny?” Lucy licked her lips.

  “Dusty, get her some water.”

  “I’ll do it,” Rocky said, and walked away.

  “Yes, Lu. I—I’m not sure how to tell you this.” Johnny glanced up at Dusty’s grave face. “Sunny left with Adam after noon today, and, well, she wanted you to rest because of how sick you are. She said she was going to take surveillance pictures from outside of the compound’s fence, and …”

  “Tell me,” Lucy whispered.

  “Your boss just called. Mr. Brockway said that they’ve been watching the mission by satellite, and he saw Adam and Sunny being taken into the compound a few minutes ago.”

  Lucy put her hand over the plastic mask, her breathing becoming frantic. Johnny took the mask from her face, afraid she’d hyperventilate and get sick. “Why did she go?” Lucy asked.

  “She did it for you,” Rocky said. He had a bottle of water in his hand.

  “No,” Lucy said a little stronger. “That’s bull. I don’t believe it.” She rolled up onto one elbow, staring at Dusty. “What happened to me again?”

  “Instead of injecting you with B-1, she gave you a sedative and knocked you out,” Dusty said. “Can you go get her? Can you save her and Adam from that compound?”

  Johnny handed her the water. After she swallowed a mouthful, she moved her feet to the floor and sat upright, taking a few more swallows of the cool liquid.

  “Lu,” Johnny asked. “What are you going to do?”

  Handing the bottle to Johnny, she glanced at each of the three men around her before she said, “After we retrieve them from out of that compound, I plan on finding out what was so important that it cost Gabe his life before I blow up the whole damn place.” Then she glared at Dusty. “And then after we get Sunny back here safe and sound, I’ll kill her myself.”

  Twenty-six

  “The mission has changed, sir,” Lucy said into the small phone, a cough drop tucked in her cheek, slowly dissolving, to keep her boss from knowing how sick she was. But what Sunny had done complicated things immensely. “It’s now a rescue mission.”

  Brockway said, “I can understand how you feel. But you still have your first assignment to fulfill. There are reasons those people are so protective of that place, and they’re willing to kill to keep their secrets.”

  The sun had set. Lucy stared out the window into the growing darkness. She knew all about secrets, but she wouldn’t kill to keep others from finding out about hers. “I thought you said you didn’t have enough probable cause to use a satellite to watch the compound. What changed?” She waited for an answer. “Sir?”

  “Yes, I’m here.”

  “You’re following me. Is it because you don’t trust me?”

  “No, Agent James, that’s not it. And I can’t explain my reasoning. It’s …”

  When he paused for too long, Lucy asked, “Does anybody else know about your vicarious interloping?’

  “Yes.”

  “Who?”

  “Um, my wife.”

  Lucy smiled. “Your wife? A civilian?”

  “A retired operative. And Kate knows, too.”

  “And no one else?”

  “No.”

  “And you can’t—or won’t tell me why you’re watching my mission?”

  “I guess I was curious to find out if my gut instinct about you was correct, Lucy.”

  He used her first name. That was different.

  “I didn’t think you would send Agent Sanderson and Dr. Pettigrew to do any surveillance, at least without you, and when Mr. Rhodes told me what she did to you, then their mission made sense. I guess I understand Sunny’s reasoning for going with you. But quite frankly, I still don’t know why you have two civilians along for the ride.”

  Lucy gazed over at Johnny, who was watching her talk to her boss, remembering why he wanted to stick close to her. “That’s hard to explain, exactly. They’re both paramedics—” She shook her head, not quite able to tell him she was basically blackmailed into letting them come along. She knew for sure that the situation would never happen again. “I’m glad they’re here. Could you tell if Sunny or Adam were hurt?”

  “They both put up a good fight, but I don’t believe there was an exchange of gunfire.”

  “I wonder why not?” Lucy asked.

  “It could be they want information out of them—”

  “Which means I better get a move on it before we’re discovered.”

  “We don’t have any other agents close to you,” Brockway said. “I’ll call Cooper Steele. He can have men to you within an hour, I’m sure of it.”

  He wanted to have Steele Reinforcements coming onto her mission? Not a chance. “No, I can’t wait that long. Besides, they’d just storm in, breaking things, and that would leave my people dead. Besides, I’ll be in and out within that hour. Can you keep an eye on the compound? I need to know where they take our agents and how many men you see—” As she pulled as much intel out of her boss as she could, Lucy gathered her packs together.

  ~*~

  “I hope the owner doesn’t mind us borrowing his Jeep.” Lucy walked toward an out building at the end of the small runway.

  “I hope it has the keys in it,” Johnny muttered while he chewed an energy bar.

  “If it doesn’t, I know how to hotwire it.”

  “Don’t all agents know how?”

  “Sure, but when the instructor saw me holding my own set of lock picks on our first day of breaking and entering, which included hotwiring vehicles, he asked me to give the demonstration.” Lucy grinned at Johnny. “He told me later he didn’t think I knew how to do it, and he wanted to teach me a lesson about being too cocky. He knew I was the youngest one there, only nineteen, and nobody else had their own personal set of picks. After I opened the fifth lock he had sitting on the table, he stopped me and began his lesson. When we got to the hot wiring part of the class, he looked over at me before starting and asked me if I already knew how to do it. I nodded, and he shook his head before plunging on.”

  Johnny laughed. “Who’d you learn it from?”

  “My dad.”

  “Uh-oh! Don’t tell me he’s doing time right now for grand larceny.�
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  “No,” Lucy said. “He’s a carpenter.”

  “But he knows how to jack a car?”

  Lucy grinned. “I asked him about that once. He just smiled and told me to pay attention.” She shrugged. “It’s come in handy on occasion.” They rounded the building and found the Jeep parked next to the door. Lucy slowed down, grabbing onto Johnny’s arm to stop him from getting any closer.

  “What is it?”

  “I want to look at the sand around the Jeep before we mess things up.”

  “Don’t tell me your father taught you how to track.”

  “No, Mac did.” She took out her flashlight and lit up the ground as she knelt down. “Look, you can see every indention in the sand when you angle the light over like this. If there had been any footprints around the Wrangler, then we’d be able to see them.” She pointed at the dirt. “The earth’s smooth, not only from the door, but all around the tires too. I don’t think anyone’s been around here for a good long while.”

  Johnny jumped over the half-door into the driver’s seat and reached for the ignition. “No key.”

  Lucy sat in the passenger seat, reached over to the driver’s visor, and lowered it. Keys dropped down into the quick reflex of Johnny’s hand.

  “Excellent.” He stuck the key into the ignition and twisted. The engine turned over quick enough but chugged for several seconds before catching. Shifting into first gear, he said, “I think the battery’s on its way out. We may not get too many more starts out of this.” He drove over to the wing of the Belle with the headlights off, where Dusty was waiting with their gear.

  With her fever still stubbornly hanging on, Lucy stayed in her seat and let the men load the bags into the truck.

  Rocky had tried talking his way onto her mission. Lucy flatly answered no. She needed him to stay with the Belle Starlet and keep it locked up. She’d given him her personal gun and extra magazines, and also a deadline of two hours. If they didn’t return with that time, he was to take off and head to Nassau, just in case. Brockway would see what he did and send in professional backup, and Rocky would only be in the way after that. From the frown on the pilot’s face, Lucy knew he didn’t like thinking he was in anybody’s way.

  “Drink this,” Johnny said, handing Lucy a small bottle of water. “And eat this.”

  The cereal bar had little bits of oats coating the outside, and if it was like the last one Johnny made her eat, it had strawberry filling. Lucy knew she wouldn’t like this one any better. The cough drops tainted the taste of everything. But she would eat it because Johnny wanted her to. She’d do practically anything for him.

  “Put your Bluetooth Walkie-Talkie in your ear before we take off, guys. I want to be able to talk with you without having to speak loudly.” Lucy wound the stiff wire behind her ear and pushed the earpiece snug into her ear canal. Now she would be able to hear each one of her team hiccup—or call her for help.

  Full nighttime was approaching faster than Lucy would have liked, but since she couldn’t stop time, she concentrated on what she did have power over. Taking out her sat-phone, Lucy scrolled to the GPS application, and as she ate her cereal bar, she looked at the map of the island she had downloaded earlier.

  “Let’s go, and keep the headlights off,” Lucy said to Johnny in the driver’s seat. “Take a right and go south. You should find a wide dirt road, but it looks in good condition. Follow it around about two miles. I’ll let you know where the turnoff is.”

  Johnny shifted into first gear and made a U-turn away from the DC-3, accelerating down the field. “Can you hear me okay?”

  Lucy nodded, but said softly, “I hear you fine. How do you read me, Dusty?” She watched out the windshield as they approached their first turn.

  “I read you five-by-five.”

  Lucy smiled at the ex-Marine’s terminology. He seemed to be slipping back into his military role fairly easily. He certainly looked comfortable strapping on his gun belt. Before they had landed in Houston, she called ahead to the local agency headquartered there and ordered several pieces of equipment for her unexpected partners. At least Lucy felt comfortable with their preparedness.

  The road Johnny turned onto had enough room for two cars to drive down—wide by any island standards, but too narrow for Lucy’s comfort. On the leeward side, the ocean washed up at the sandy shore fifty yards away, and on the west side of the road the terrain changed. A smaller, softer dirt shoulder bordered the road, with bushy palm trees growing inland. While the road stayed mostly level with the sea, the ground off Lucy’s side of the Jeep varied in elevation. The foliage was so dense in places that she couldn’t see ten feet into the interior.

  From the intelligence Lucy read, there were a couple of settlements between the airstrip and the turnoff—several more beyond it, yet the population lived mostly on the west side of the island where a couple dozen nice houses were built. The majority of the owners rented them out during the summer and lived in them during the rest of the year.

  Looking out over the beach and watching the waves lap over each other offered her a false sense of tranquility. In reality, she knew she wouldn’t feel peace until the mission was over and Dusty had Sunny back in his arms. She glanced over her shoulder. The firefighter’s normally cheerful face was filled with turmoil. He must have blamed himself for her being captured. He wasn’t responsible for what she did. Sunny had made her choice. No one had forced her to drug Lucy and take over her mission. Crossing her arms over her chest in an effort to try to keep warm, Lucy thought about Sunny. Was she hurt badly? What were they doing to her? Was she even alive?

  Lucy thought about what lay ahead. What had Gabe seen in that compound that had gotten him killed? Why hadn’t she been there when the men-in-gray approached him on the beach? Could she have saved him if she would have stayed? The troubling thoughts that swirled around her mind suddenly stopped when—

  A phantom blast of icy cold air hit Lucy so hard it made her gasp out loud.

  The ocean that once tumbled playfully onto the shore froze into a sea of motionless gray, leaving it deadly silent.

  It’s happening!

  Looking to her left, she found Johnny as still as a snapshot. Behind her, the same colorless scene played out in the back seat, much to her relief. Up ahead, the road bent around to the right, out of view, but the area was cast in vibrant colors beyond what normal evening provided. Then, abruptly, her perspective changed to around the bend.

  Lucy could see two cars racing side by side. The look of terror flashed onto the teenage boy’s face when he saw what must have been their Jeep. He jerked his steering wheel to the right, impacting the competitor’s back quarter panel. That boy’s car fishtailed and was struck again broadside. It rolled, taking the first car on top of it in a gruesome dance onto the sandy beach. Two bodies were catapulted out in front of the wrecks and temporarily disappeared beneath the heavy metal hulks as the cars passed over them. When the cars came to a rest, they were already on fire. It was only a heartbeat later when the gas tanks blew up in close succession.

  Things changed.

  Time rewound.

  It was like it never happened.

  Lucy knew she had a chance to change the outcome.

  Time was short.

  “Johnny, hit the brakes right now,” she yelled as she grabbed the steering wheel and turned it just enough to take them off the road and onto the shoulder. The Jeep ground to a stop with its fenders digging into the dirt embankment.

  Dust swirled around them as Lucy turned in her seat. She wanted—she needed to let Johnny know what might happen. She found she didn’t need to touch him—he knew something had happened. He had released his seatbelt and grasped his hand around her neck, his brown eyes wide.

  “What happened?” Dusty asked. “Why did Lucy pull us off the road like that?”

  Johnny groaned, and Lucy felt the mixture of panic and sorrow rush through her mind and heart, emotions she didn’t experience before Johnny touched her.


  “She had her reasons,” he said sharply.

  “Why?” Dusty asked again.

  Johnny looked ahead toward the bend in the road as the two cars flew around it, side by side. A moment later, the car in their lane clipped the Jeep’s side-view mirror as it sped by.

  Lucy stood up and leaned against the roll bar, watching the two cars continue down the road as if they hadn’t felt the tiny collision or even seen the Jeep idling off the road. Best of all, they didn’t crash into each other. Laughing, she said, “It’s been changed.”

  ~*~

  Johnny knew what would happen to Lucy next. He had his hand on her leg when he felt her skin turn ice cold right through her pant. She slumped, but he caught her before she fell into the dashboard, and he cradled her against his chest, waiting.

  “What just happened?” Dusty leaned forward. “How did Lucy know those cars were coming around the bend—in our lane?” He reached between the seats and felt her neck. “She has a strong pulse, but she feels like a two-day-old cadaver.”

  Then her phone buzzed in her vest pocket.

  “Are you going to answer it?” Johnny asked, staring at Dusty.

  “Are you going to answer me?” Dusty asked Johnny.

  Johnny reached into her pocket and took out the phone. The window had the same phone number in it as before. “It’s her boss calling.” He groaned again. Her boss had seen the whole thing. He might not understand what he saw, but he had witnessed it nonetheless, with whoever else was watching the mission along with him. Lucy’s worse nightmare might be coming true.

  “Whoa!” Dusty shuddered. “Her skin just got hot.”

  Johnny had hold of her hand and felt the fever return to her body. He had avoided Dusty’s question about the gas leak when she was in the agency talking with Brockway, but now he had no idea what to say to him. Lucy opened her eyes.

  ~*~

  Johnny let her go when she pushed out of his embrace. The last thing Lucy remembered was watching the cars race out of sight, and now she had two men staring at her, one of whom looked shocked.