by CJ Martín
THE TEMPORAL
Book One of the Temporal Series
CJ Martin
Published by Kotoba Books
Copyright 2012-2013 by CJ Martin
Visit the author’s website at
http://www.CJMartinBooks.com
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person.
Other CJ Martin Titles
Tanaka and the Yakuza’s Daughter
Tanaka, Sons of Redemption
Two Tocks before Midnight (An Agora Mystery)
The Temporal
(Book One of The Temporal Series)
A Temporal Trust
(Book Two of The Temporal Series)
Coming Soon
The Peace Party Massacre (An Agora Mystery)
The Penitent Thief (An Agora Mystery)
Special Thanks to:
E.C. Smith, the author of Bitter Dawn of the Harbinger of Light Series
Tom Cormany, the author of The Goldilocks Incident
And to Dr. Robert P. Bodnaryk for his many helpful suggestions during the preparation of the MS.
Table of Contents
THE TEMPORAL
PROLOGUE
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
PART II Kaileen
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Epilogue
About the Author:
PROLOGUE
FOUR MONTHS AGO...
With his right hand, Fakhr al Din reached for a large chunk of white cheese. He had lost his little finger, but was blessed by Allah to still have retained the full function of the other three and his thumb. The explosion had been greater than anticipated. In the end, however, the mission was completed successfully. He allowed his hand to momentarily hover over the cheese, giving him a chance to admire its marred form—his small sacrifice for the cause.
The lighting in the room was dim and set primarily above the food on the table. His surroundings were completely in shadow, but that shadow was not void of eyes watching and fingers gripping weapons. There were two guards ready to give their lives to protect the great imam of the Bushehr Province in Southern Iran.
He took a generous bite of the cheese while enjoying the heavy aroma of garlic in the air. The garlic paired surprisingly well with the hint of fragrant mint and thyme flowing from a gift basket in front of him. He had received many such gifts since an anonymous spokesman from his Warriors of the Sword had, through Al Jazeera, publicly taken credit for the latest bombing in Sderot, Israel. Of course, on CNN International and in English, Fakhr al Din himself had categorically denied any involvement in the “atrocious and unfortunate event.”
Even with the local popular support and the current pleasant refreshments, the imam hated to be kept waiting. He tossed the remnants of a half-eaten piece of cheese onto the table and gave his disorderly beard a tug. Hamim, his head of security, was due for a report on local threats. He was twenty minutes late.
Last week, at Hamim’s request, the imam had ordered the killing of an innocent boy to remind the locals of the holy mission with which they were all entrusted: to protect Fakhr al Din. The boy’s parents had been quite cooperative. It was amusing to him how quickly planted evidence persuaded the father to disown his son, the infidel. As the youth was dragged away to sentencing, his father led the frenzied chants of condemnation. The whole matter, of course, had not been the imam’s personal desire. But he had to periodically remind the neighborhood of their sacred duties.
Where is Hamim?
The Americans had taken an increased interest in him. He, however, felt sure his current safe house was secure. Two dozen loyal guards were on the grounds. The latest surveillance equipment continuously monitored every inch of the compound. A tunnel that exited into the kitchen of a nearby house was an escape route of last resort. In addition to all this, he had a more traditional security system stationed at the three entrances and trained to discover explosives—his Belgian Malinois dogs. These precautions would afford him the precious minutes needed to facilitate an escape should the enemy breach the front gates.
Fakhr al Din grabbed his pita filled with lamb shawarma, but before he could bite, the door flung open.
“Hamim, where have you been?”
But it wasn’t Hamim.
Two strange men—Westerners wearing sunglasses and dark suits—stood in the doorway. He could see another shadowy figure in the distance beyond the men. A woman?
“Guards!”
Two of the imam’s men, unseen and hidden by the shadows, stepped into the light. Brandishing their AK-47s, they let off a few rounds before they were silenced no more than two seconds after they began.
Fakhr al Din was left with his mouth agape and without comprehension of what just happened. He had heard the rat-tat-tat of the weapons to his left and right, but what he saw straight in front of him defied understanding. Instead of blood and flesh ripped by bullets, he saw, for the briefest of moments, the two dark men’s hands go from their hips to at level with the incoming bullets. The motion—if it could be called motion—was quicker than his brain could process. It was as if their arms were in one position and then in the next moment, up to meet the bullets.
He heard the sounds of a dozen rounds ripping into and ricocheting off of the walls, furniture, and glassware around the room—but not into flesh.
In the next instant, the cleric, still looking forward, saw only the figure that had been behind the two men. The two black suited men had vanished, leaving what he could now confirm to be a woman. Her fiery-red hair was free and not held back by the traditional hijab head-covering. She was beautiful and terrifying.
Where are my men?
He turned left and then right to see the two dark strangers holding his men by the throat. His men were off the ground, struggling to breathe.
Fakhr al Din looked at the table. His SIG P226 was next to the cheese. With the quickest of motions, he jerked his hand out, slapping it on the hard wooden surface where the gun had been a second ago. The woman had closed the two dozen feet within that timeframe and now held his weapon—its muzzle was directed between his eyes.
He heard the sound of bodies pounding onto the floor and turned to his left and then right. His guards were now on the ground. Their throats were still tightly held by the intruders who were down on one knee and had their heads turned toward the center of the room. Although the dark sunglasses concealed their eyes, they both were clearly looki
ng to the woman, waiting for her command.
“What—what do you want?”
“A chat. A private chat,” she said with a smile, causing the Iranian to shudder. “Tell your men not to disturb us.”
The imam was at a loss. He felt her cold fingers breach the hairs of his beard and gently lift his chin. Her motion first closed his opened mouth and then raised his entire head to meet her eyes. With the other hand, she held up his gun. Depressing the magazine release, she let the clip fall with a clunk onto the table.
“Tell them to go.”
Before he realized it, she had the gun lifted directly above her head. A single shot expended the remaining round, ejecting the spent casing and filling the small room with an explosive sound. It somehow seemed louder to the imam than had the bursts of the AKs. Bits of clay and plaster rained on Fakhr al Din, covering the table and cheese.
“Tell them to go—now.” The woman, having moved to his side away from the debris, startled him. Her voice was soft, silky even. If it weren’t for those eyes that seemed to drill violently and deeply into his soul, she might appear peaceful and sublime, like an angel.
“D—don’t disturb us,” the imam said to the men, keeping his attention fixed on the woman’s face. As terrible as they were, he feared to wander too far from those dark, piercing eyes; they were captivating. “Tell the others to not disturb us!” Dirt and flakes of plaster dropped from his beard as he barked the order.
She flicked two fingers. Her two men immediately released their prisoners and returned to a standing position with their hands cupped in front like pall-bearers awaiting their duty. The guards on the floor rolled away from their captors, coughing.
“Go!” the woman shouted with a force beyond what seemed humanly possible.
The two men jumped to their feet and made for the door.
“Now,” she said as she casually walked to close the door, “I have a job for you. A job that I’m sure you will find to be most satisfying.”
THE PRESENT DAY...
“Donata desu ka?—Who are you?”
Her long-fingered hand darted up with grace, grabbing air as if she could touch the visage of the man standing in front of her in her dream.
She only required five or ten minutes of sleep daily and yet this dream had continued for over half an hour. She had already kicked off the top futon and her head was far from the pillow. Sweat dripped from her brow.
“Do you not see me?”
She always remembered her dreams which seemed to begin immediately with her loss of waking-consciousness and fade away when her body’s need for sleep was sated.
Particularly vivid were the dreams with him in it. His name was a mystery to her, but his face—she could recall it with exquisite detail and on command.
Her eyes fluttered, then opened with the full realization that she was not awake. Her mind projected the dream world onto the wooden ceiling above.
“Who are you?” she repeated.
The man stood two dozen feet or more away and was enveloped by an obscuring cloud—a first for a dream with him in it. Even still, her keen vision discerned a panic within his eyes.
How different this dream was. The man had always brought peace to her heart—not conflict and now… this horror. In previous dreams, the man recognized her. But now, she was invisible to him.
The man began to run. He was running from something and in her direction, but his position remained unchanged as if on a treadmill. He craned his neck over his shoulder in search of his pursuer.
She sharpened her vision and dared to peer beyond the man in search of the nightmare from which he was escaping. A moment later, he vanished. She was puzzled at first, but then she realized she had moved ahead of his position and was seeing what he saw. She was facing his nightmare directly.
As the scene gradually came into focus, she saw a street. It was in slow motion, but people were fleeing in terror. She squinted her dream eyes hard until she saw what they saw. A fireball.
Then it all disappeared. There was nothing but white.
“Sa—mu—el,” chanted a chorus of disembodied voices echoing from within the whiteness. It was a calm, sweet sound, a multitude of voices singing in unison like a well-trained choir. The echoes receded as the gentle whoosh of the ocean at eventide.
She answered, anticipating the meaning. “Samuel Williams, the one at the hospital.”
She understood and allowed it all to slip away. The white of the dream world gradually turned gray and then gave way to the dark brownish grain of the wood above her head.
PART I
Suteko
Chapter 1
TOKYO, JAPAN
Sam left the building feeling great—better than he had in weeks. His new boss was suitably impressed with his résumé and apparent work ethic. His soon-to-be coworkers—most younger than he by a decade—were pleasant and the office coffee was good and strong. He was now officially an English teacher in Japan.
Slim, but not skinny, Sam Williams had always been full of the kind of hope that would make a pessimist uneasy. He was a natural Pollyanna who understood that even the worst circumstances often had hidden, but truly redeeming qualities. He was able to glean the good from any bad situation. Always. That is, until recent events changed all that...
Sam had landed at Narita airport the previous day. He’d had time to shave, shower, and slip into a fitful night’s rest after the long flight. He had nicked himself shaving and had a difficult time getting comfortable on the hard mattress in the tiny hotel room his school had reserved. All these things wouldn’t have fazed the happy-go-lucky Sam Williams of a few months ago. But he had made it to Tokyo. At least there was that much.
In his mid-thirties and bookish, he could turn a banal conversation about sports into a philosophical brawl and he often did with this friends. His friends... Recently divorced, his wife left him for a friend, a friend he had introduced to her. His other friends, spineless as they were, tried to play Switzerland. In a crushing moment, Sam came to realize that he had no true friends or anchors back home. With the choice of trying to hang on to the past or create a new future, he decided to let go, get out of the country, and start over as a wiser and more careful man.
But he wasn’t the adventurous type, preferring instead the quiet—where evenings were spent with a glass of wine and an old novel to intoxicate. Yet here he was sober and on the outset of what rightly could be called a bold adventure: moving to live in a foreign country without so much as an acquaintance. The excitement of the idea and the desire to run away from the past kept any fear of the grand unknown at bay.
He had applied for teaching positions at a dozen English conversation schools throughout Asia. His first bite was in Japan. He’d had the urge to accept it immediately. But he carefully researched the school online and even contacted a teacher who had previously worked there. After a few questions by email with that teacher and the school secretary, he felt confident in his decision. Japan was, after all, a logical choice; his parents were military and he had lived there as a child. His Japanese was far from fluent, but he knew his tofu from his miso.
When he had entered the building earlier to meet his new boss, it had been sunny, hot, and humid—typical for an August in Japan; but opening the door to leave, he saw a sudden avalanche of water plunging to the earth from a sunless sky—also typical. He looked through the pouring rain to the mid-town Tokyo street in front of him. It could have been one of a million streets in any large Japanese city. Telephone and power lines hung low like vines on concrete trees swayed by a harsh wind and pelted by the nearly horizontal rain. The erratic weather perfectly matched his recent manic change of moods. He smiled. In it, he felt, he had found a comfortable camaraderie.
While still standing in the doorway and several feet from the downpour, a cool, wet mist slapped his face waking him from any possible remnant of slumber or jet lag. He dropped the smile and pulled his arms up into his chest.
The English conversati
on school happened to share an awning with a corner convenience store. As Sam entered, a blast of cold air from a vent made him shiver. He eyed a display of a dozen or so umbrellas on sale for five hundred yen. He grabbed one and walked directly to the clerk. It was a cheap, poorly made umbrella; one of the tips of the ribs had already broken off. He noticed that fact just as he was handing the clerk a big five-hundred yen coin. Had he been in the States, he probably would have demanded a replacement, but his mood was affected by the rain and his new surroundings.
“Arigatou,” he said and left the store in search of a taxi.
Tokyo seemed quieter and smaller than his memory or media-shaped imagination had led him to believe. But it was the rain keeping people inside or hurrying them by on the sidewalks. The rain made things seem small and distant, he thought.
With the umbrella hoisted above his head, he stepped into the downpour and considered waiting it out in the next door—and ever present—McDonald’s. He shook his head and hailed a cab instead.
Confirming his theory, he instantly felt smaller and... wet. The umbrella was barely wide enough for his broad shoulders; the far ends of Sam’s suit coat were soaked before even getting to the taxi.
Rushing to avoid the rain, he forgot that Japanese cabs have automatic doors. Even though his leg was smarting from the impact, he apologized profusely to the cab driver with a series of stunted, quick bows. The driver just nodded and held up his right hand for a few seconds, never looking back or even making eye contact in the mirror.
“Hotel Washington made onegaishimasu.” Without a word audible to Sam, the robot-like driver cut the wheel and the cab was swallowed by the stream of traffic. Sam hoped the slight wiggling of the driver’s unusually large left ear indicated his request was understood.
