Time Frame

by Douglas E. Richards

  Cargill did this as succinctly as possible. When he finished, he said, “I need a go/no-go decision, Mr. President. We’ll never have an opportunity like this again. The world will never have an opportunity like this again.”

  “If I give the green light, then what?”

  “Kim’s palace in Hyangsan is out of teleportation range of South Korea. But Blake can teleport himself and Kim to Pyongyang. The Swedish Embassy there has agreed to let two of our men inside, and empty a large room for us—no questions asked. I chose Chris Entwistle and Eric Beal of our Inner Circle. Both are ex-special forces, and both have considerable experience conducting interrogations. They’ll smuggle Blake and Kim to South Korea. From there, we’ll have our fastest jet take them wherever you’d like. But wherever Kim ends up, we’ll need a number of duplicates so we can try various means of interrogation.”

  “Which is why you want your men in charge,” said Janney.

  “Exactly. The interrogators have to already know about time travel.”

  “Where would you take him?” asked the president.

  “We could bring him here to Cheyenne Mountain,” offered Cargill. “Or we could land him anywhere you want. Camp David is another option. We’d just have to move a kettle there. But we’d have to do it quickly. After the palace explodes, the Kim Jong-un we leave in North Korea will have his hands full purging his government. Three or four days later, he’ll die, plunging the country into greater chaos. At that point, we’ll need to be prepared to go in and nullify the threat once and for all based on the intel we get from our version of the man. Right at the moment of maximum confusion and vulnerability.”

  Janney paused for several seconds in thought. “If this really is our chance to end this crisis,” he said, “we’ll need to do it right. I’d need my Secretary of Defense and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs on board. I’m the Commander in Chief, but having their full support will be critical. And there’s no way I’ll get this support unless they’re absolutely convinced that our intel is rock solid, that we’ve identified every last landmine.”

  “Then show them that you’ve captured Kim Jong-un.”

  “While the other one is still alive in North Korea?” said Janney.

  “Tell them he isn’t. It’s just North Korea refusing to acknowledge reality. Tell them we kidnapped him from his own country, and any reports that he’s still in North Korea are false. Once they realize we really have Kim, they’ll get on board in a hurry.”

  “With questions I can’t answer unless I disclose time travel.”

  “Sure you can,” said Cargill. “Just tell them you authorized a daring secret mission to grab him. Tell them you sent in SEAL Team 6, but you won’t disclose operational details. This is your prerogative as president. Sure, they won’t like it, and they’ll still have questions, but they aren’t going to look a gift Kim Jong-un in the mouth, regardless of how he fell into their lap.”

  “How much time before you need a decision?”

  Cargill checked his watch. “A little under two hours.”

  Janney hit a button on his desk. “Cancel my meetings for the next three hours,” he said to his assistant, not waiting for a response.

  “Okay,” he said, turning back to Cargill. “Let’s keep going. You’ve lied to me. Repeatedly. About matters big and small. So why should I trust what you’re telling me about the North Korean situation? If this fails and innocents are killed by the remnants of Kim’s regime, I’ll be crucified.”

  “It won’t fail,” said Cargill.

  “Before I decide, what else haven’t you told me about?”

  Cargill sighed. “I haven’t told you about what happened at Lake Las Vegas. What I told you was a lie. But so was what Vargas told you. It’s time you knew the truth.”

  “How do you know what Vargas told me?”

  “I’ll get to that in a minute. First, let me start with Lake Las Vegas, which was where Knight had established his headquarters.”

  Cargill told him about seizing the chance to take out Knight once and for all. About using Aaron Blake and Jenna Morrison as bait, arming them with undetectable bombs and waiting for Knight to reel them in. Not knowing in advance where Knight would take them risked that innocents would become collateral damage, but Cargill had made the call that they had no other choice.

  He spent a few minutes describing what factors he had weighed when making this decision, and the ethics of impossible choices, using Truman’s decision to drop the Bomb as one example.

  Janney found his arguments more persuasive than he thought he would. Cargill managed to get across the immensity of the issues involved, and sounded genuinely sickened by his own decision. Janney had always found him to be a brilliant organizer and idealist. Events may have changed him, but few men could have withstood the demands of power any better.

  The president wasn’t sure what decision he would have made. Part of him was relieved that Cargill had taken this into his own hands. In Truman’s heart of hearts, would he have been relieved if the decision to drop the bomb on Japan had been made for him? If a rogue general had ordered this without consulting Truman, would he have been doing the president a favor?

  “I can’t blame you if you condemn me for this act,” finished Cargill. “I’ve condemned myself. I’d just ask you to give it more thought before you decide if it was justified or not.”

  “I will,” said the president.

  “Thank you,” said Cargill. He shook his head miserably. “But it gets even more tragic. While we did kill Knight on the island, we’ve learned that he generated at least one duplicate beforehand.”

  “What?” snapped Janney. “You told me he’d never allow a copy of himself.”

  “I was wrong. And at least one version of him survived our attack.”

  “Are you positive?”

  “Yes. At least one of him is out there. Maybe more.” Cargill shook his head in disgust. “Who do you think sent Hank Vargas to meet with you in the first place?” he said.

  56

  Cargill thought the discussion was going relatively well, although there was no way to know for sure. The president was reeling from all he was saying—understandably so—but seemed to be keeping an open mind.

  Cargill went on to explain the current state of play, beginning with the interrogation they had conducted on a duplicate of the colonel, and how they had become the unlikeliest of allies.

  This surprised Janney as much as anything. “So Hank Vargas,” he said, “the man you warned me was one of the most dangerous men alive—the man you said couldn’t be trusted—turns out to share your philosophy almost exactly.”

  “Yeah, I know. You couldn’t make this up.”

  “I’ll want to speak with him for a few minutes, without you present, when this is done.”

  “Of course, Mr. President,” replied Cargill. “For as long as you’d like.”

  He went on to describe how Knight had recruited Vargas, and the grand vision he had shared. “And this is just the tip of the iceberg,” said Cargill. “Knight must have decided that some aspects of his plan were too ugly to even share with the colonel. Ask Vargas how big of a danger he thinks Knight represents. He’ll second what I’ve been saying. With Knight’s ability to wield time travel, the risk he poses justifies extreme measures to stop him.”

  “Except that the extreme measures you used,” said the president pointedly, “didn’t stop him.”

  Cargill scowled. “No, they didn’t,” he said. “But we did set him back. Way back. He lost his headquarters and most of his followers.”

  “Yet he still managed to manipulate me into putting Vargas into your camp.”

  “Underscoring further just how big of a danger he represents,” said Cargill. “Look, Mr. President, now that you’re up to speed, there are two important decisions I’m asking you to make. First, we’re poised to end the North Korean threat. We can capture Kim and leave a copy of him in place at the same time. We just need your say-so. In my view, the
reward is huge and the risk small.”

  “And the other decision?” asked Janney.

  “Now that Vargas is in our camp, we can use him to take out Knight. We can pretend to fall for Knight’s plan to capture us, and turn the tables. I’m skeptical that he’s had the chance to set up an additional duplicate of himself, but if we capture him, we can know for sure. If he has made another duplicate, we can learn where he is and eliminate him too. I’d like your support for this effort, as well.”

  Janney paused in thought. “Let’s tackle the North Korean question first,” he said. “You know that every Op is risky, no matter how straightforward on paper. I think you’re underestimating the risk here.”

  Cargill shook his head. “Trust me, Mr. President. Aaron Blake won’t fail you. I’m not sure he knows how to fail.”

  The president closed his eyes for an extended period, inhaling and exhaling deeply several times, as though trying to achieve some Zen-like meditative state.

  “Okay,” said Janney finally. “Tell Blake he has his green light. Give him my private number and tell him I’m on call for anything he needs. Have your three colleagues bring Kim to Camp David as fast as possible. I’ll make sure a section of the retreat is cordoned off and secured, and that they can move Kim there without anyone seeing him.”

  “Thank you, Mr. President,” said Cargill. “You won’t regret this. I’ll coordinate with you so that you have a kettle in place when they arrive.”

  “Good,” said Janney. “With respect to your strategy to stop Knight, you have a green light there as well. Assuming, of course, that when I speak with Colonel Vargas, he backs up what you’ve been telling me.”

  “He will, sir.”

  “Then you’ll have my blessing to proceed as you think best. But this time get it right. Make sure you kill him, and his copies.”

  “We will,” said Cargill firmly.

  “Good. But just because I’ve sided with you on these two decisions, don’t think this is over. You lied to me repeatedly. Not about little things, but about enormous things. You killed thousands without any authorization. You took the law into your own hands.”

  “I understand, sir,” said Cargill. “And I am guilty of these charges. My only hope is that you come to appreciate my motives and believe I’m still the best man to run the show. Making sure you’re never left out of the loop again,” he hastened to add.

  “If you bring me Kim Jong-un, and we’re able to defuse North Korea’s strike capabilities, I’ll consider not hanging you. After that, we’ll have to see about keeping you on in your current role.”

  “Understood,” said Cargill somberly. “And thank you, sir.”

  57

  Aaron Blake took a deep breath and prepared to split into two men once again. One would capture and also slowly poison the most dangerous, unpredictable tyrant in the world, and one would add to the growing list of Blakes who would give their lives for the cause, flashing out of existence in a massive octa-nitro-cubane fireball.

  Challenging, important work for one. Death to the other. It hardly seemed fair.

  Cargill had just informed him he had finally come clean with the president, who had personally authorized the mission and who would no doubt take full credit for its success—as he should. Cargill and Q5 were desperate to remain in the shadows, anyway, and this momentous military victory would translate into a massive political victory. It was hard to imagine this wouldn’t put the president in a more forgiving mood when it came to Cargill’s many transgressions.

  Nothing succeeded like success.

  For several nights now, with nothing to do but wait for the order to complete his mission, Blake had used the night-vision capability of his lens to admire a magnificent pair of large owls who had nested in the crook of a thick branch almost directly overhead. Even though night vision turned them a fluorescent green, it couldn’t take away their simple majesty.

  At the moment, the female was manning the nest, but Blake knew from experience that the male would be returning soon to share a meal.

  “K-1,” said Blake aloud, “I need to modify my orders.”

  Blake quickly relayed new instructions to the kettle supercomputer. The original plan had been for K-1 to send K-2, with him inside, into Kim’s bedroom. Once K-1 detected K-2 arriving at the palace, it would abort further time travel, and detonate immediately.

  The new plan was nearly identical. Only this time, K-1 would wait a single minute before detonation.

  Once K-1 acknowledged its new marching orders, Blake stepped into the nested kettles, made sure K-2’s video and audio were sending data to his lens, so that he could observe the environment outside of the kettle when he landed, and prepared his weapons and syringes. This completed, he mentally rehearsed the steps he planned to take one last time. He had pantomimed these steps dozens of times over the past twenty-four hours, leaving as little to chance as possible.

  “Mark!” he called out, giving the order to time jump.

  Nothing happened.

  Shit! he thought, feeling ill in the pit of his stomach. He must have been the copy left behind. Just as this realization came, K-1 confirmed that he and the inner kettle had arrived from the future—eighty miles away. Hopefully, the GPS coordinates he had been given were accurate, and his double was even now emerging from the kettle inside Kim’s bedroom.

  Blake walked briskly to the edge of the open trailer, looked up at the trees, and drew his handgun. The night was dark, but his lens could readily see that the male owl had now returned, and he and his mate were both minding their nest.

  Blake allowed himself to admire their magnificence once again, but only for a few seconds. He then pointed his gun in their direction and fired off multiple shots. Both owls darted into the air and climbed, and other wildlife scattered through the air or undergrowth, desperate to get away from the violent eruption of sound.

  Blake only wished he could run as well, fleeing the violent eruption soon to come, one that would bring much more than merely sound.

  He followed the owls as they flew out of sight and experienced a single moment of contentment before the reality of the situation returned.

  It was a feeble gesture. He had killed scores of innocents. He was beyond redemption. Saving a few owls and other forest creatures wouldn’t make up for what he had done, wouldn’t make any difference in the scheme of things.

  But it would make all the difference in the world to these two owls, he told himself.

  He closed his eyes. He had but seconds to live. Every survival instinct in his body begged him to sprint from the scene and save himself, but he managed to find the force of will to hold himself in place and await his fate.

  This was going to truly suck. At least he wouldn’t feel any pain. He would be torn to pieces before he knew what hit him. One instant a living, thinking man, filled with hopes and aspirations and visions of a future.

  And the next . . . nothingness.

  It would happen so quickly he’d have no way to sense it before it was over, no chance to brace himself for dissolution.

  Had he left K-1’s original orders alone, he would have been duplicated and annihilated at the same time, and wouldn’t have had to face the agony of waiting for death to come.

  This was the far greater torture.

  He just hoped the owls appreciated it.

  This was his last thought as the kettle turned into a shrapnel-filled fireball that snuffed out his consciousness at a speed faster than sound.

  ***

  Blake and the inner kettle arrived at the foot of Kim Jong-un’s massive bed, and video and audio feeds began coming to him immediately. He exited the kettle a moment later, deciding the coast was clear.

  The room was dim, but there was still enough light for him to see without the use of night vision.

  He took in the scene with practiced efficiency. Kim’s people were starving, but his bedroom was as enormous and well-appointed as the finest palaces of history. The room sported the
finest Persian carpets thrown over gleaming marble flooring. Two ivory statues of lions, with jewel-encrusted ivory platforms on their backs, served as end tables on either side of the bed, a thumb in the eye to those around the world trying to save the elephant from extinction.

  The room had a single entrance, a heavy steel door, hermetically sealed, half as thick as the doors that protected Cheyenne Mountain from a nuclear strike. Sensors in the kettle reported to Blake’s lens that the walls were also steel, covered in plaster on the outside, but thick enough that a tank couldn’t make it through them.

  Fortunately, this wasn’t an issue for a time traveler.

  Kim was sprawled out on the bed, naked, doughy, and repulsive. Two naked young girls, perhaps seventeen, were lying beside him. All three appeared to be unconscious. Empty bottles of wine were strewn about the bed haphazardly, along with empty lobster husks and half-empty steel containers filled with melted butter. The scene had all the trappings of a drunken orgy that Caligula might have envied.

  Blake exited the kettle and approached the North Korean leader, one of the most recognizable figures in the world. The bed smelled of alcohol, butter, flatulence, and sex, which only added to the surreal nature of the experience.

  The man was certainly living down to every low expectation one could have of him. Blake had no doubt he could blow a trumpet in Kim’s ear without causing him to stir. But the two girls were another story. They could be in drunken comas, sober but asleep, or even fully awake and only faking sleep. There was no way for him to know.

  He desperately wanted to wake them. Scream at them to run. Force them to flee the palace as fast as they could, and get out of harm’s way.

  But he couldn’t risk that they would alert others on their way out. He couldn’t risk delaying his mission until they cleared the blast zone—if they were even able to run. And when they were questioned later, he couldn’t have them babbling about a stainless steel refrigerator and a strange Caucasian who had somehow joined them in the room.