D-Day

by Bob Mayer

  “A fool,” she said. She looked him over. “American? Not British.”

  “American,” Mac confirmed. “Was he Resistance?”

  “Him and the two already covered,” she said. She screwed the cap back on then handed him the canteen. She walked back to the small mound and picked up the shovel to finish the job he’d interrupted.

  “Crap,” Mac muttered, realizing they were most likely the ones he was supposed to find. It also explained the lack of a light on the drop zone. He followed her over. “Their supplies?”

  “The Germans were waiting for them,” she said. “At, what do you call it? The drop zone?” She nodded. “About two hundred meters that way. A field. Much better to land in than a well, is it not? But then, if you had landed over there, you would be dead, too. Would you not?”

  “Are the Germans still there?”

  She shrugged. “Who knows?” She waved a hand to the west, where the sound of artillery was thundering on the horizon. The Day of Days was beginning to live up to its billing. “Since that started, I imagine things have changed for the Germans.”

  “How did the bodies get from the drop zone to here?” Mac asked.

  “Maurice can pull a cart with bodies more easily than an errant paratrooper out of a well.”

  Maurice is having a rough night, Mac thought. “Did you know them?”

  She sighed, and now that he was closer, he realized she was younger than he’d first thought—late twenties, early thirties—but it was her war-thin figure which made her look as old as the mule. Her face was drawn, her eyes sunken. “I knew them.”

  “Were you with them? In the Resistance? I was supposed to meet a team. We have to blow a railroad bridge.”

  “I was with them, but not this evening.”

  “Where are the supplies? The demolitions?” Of course, his blasting caps had come off with the leg bag, but Mac could improvise. That was why the team had christened him “Mac,” after the guy on the show MacGyver. He’d never had the heart to tell them he hated the name. The Nightstalkers didn’t give you a choice once they brought you into your new life and gave you your new name. As if Ms. Jones shredding your personnel folder wiped out all memories of your past.

  Mac wished it had.

  The French woman had gone back to the mule without answering.

  “We have to blow that bridge,” Mac said. “It’s the key to keeping the Panzers from counterattacking the beachhead.” He knelt next to the uncovered body. The chest was torn apart from a burst of gunfire. He looked at her again.

  She was holding Maurice’s head, and tears were making vertical lines of clean skin on her face. She’d had a tough night, Mac realized. Burying men would wear anyone out. But she was also here. Alive.

  Mac reached across his body then opened the flap on the .45. He drew it. He wasn’t as good with it left-handed, but Nada had insisted everyone fire one hundred rounds off-hand every time they went to the range.

  Why?

  Because he was Nada.

  “Why aren’t you dead?” Mac asked, which probably wasn’t nice since she’d saved him, so far, but there was the mission.

  She looked at him, her head pressed against Maurice’s. “You phrase it poorly. The better question is, Why am I alive?” She let go of Maurice then came up to him, stopping just a few feet away, peering at him in the moonlight. She noted the .45 in his hand. “And you? Traveler from the sky. Traveler in time. Why are you still alive?”

  She could be a Shadow agent, Mac reminded himself. It would explain why the rest of the Resistance team was dead. “Where are the demolitions?”

  “Is that all you care about? The demolitions? The mission? Since you’ve been sent here, I must assume it is most important, eh? Critical?”

  “It is.”

  “Tell me this, traveler. I have had years to think on things. Is it worth it?”

  “It is,” Mac said without much conviction.

  “Worth this?” She indicated the body and the mound. She took another step toward him, grabbed his hand holding the gun, lifted it, then pressed the muzzle against the center of her forehead. “This would be easy. You asked me if I knew them. My father, who lies at our feet? My two younger brothers, already covered with dirt? Louis was only twelve, but the German shot him in the back of the head after he surrendered. I watched hidden in the trees with Maurice. He laughed. The SS officer. He laughed when he pulled the trigger. Are you going to laugh now when you pull the trigger?”

  Sjaelland Island, Denmark, 6 June 452 A.D.

  ... the other, warped

  in the shape of a man, moves beyond the pale

  bigger than any man, an unnatural birth

  called Grendel by the country people

  in former days.

  If Grendel hadn’t paused to dine, he probably could have taken out all the thanes before they mounted any sort of defense, but the monster tore a chunk of meat off the thigh of one of the dead. He wolfed it down as the surviving warriors scrambled awake.

  One of Beowulf’s thanes charged him, more courage than smarts, leaping off the top of a table, axe raised for a mighty blow which Grendel didn’t even try to stop. The axe thudded into the side of the monster’s head, and the weapon pinged back, flying out of the thane’s hand as if he’d struck a stone.

  The man didn’t have time to reflect on that as Grendel swiped with one paw, slicing through leather armor, skin, tendons, and bone with equal ease, eviscerating the man.

  “Back!” Beowulf ordered the surviving thanes. “He’s mine.”

  Roland sighed. The guy told a good tale, but there was no way he was going to—

  Beowulf jumped, higher than any man Roland had ever seen jump outside of the Olympics. He went over Grendel’s head, twisting in the air like a gymnast and landing on the beast’s back. Beowulf slid an arm around, trying to get a chokehold.

  Bad move, since it appeared that, unlike Roland, Beowulf hadn’t focused on the “no neck” part of the creature’s anatomy. Beowulf’s arm slid up across the face, Grendel’s fangs slashing his flesh as the arm went by the huge mouth, and then the warrior had nothing.

  Not quite correct. Before he could fall off, Beowulf gripped hold of Grendel’s forearm as the beast reached to rip the irritant off its back. Beowulf didn’t let go of Grendel’s arm. Beowulf had grabbed the proverbial wolf by the ears—by holding onto the arm, he kept the claws on that hand at bay, while it had to fight off the others with its free hand. The beast shook the arm, trying to dislodge Beowulf’s grip as the surviving thanes attacked.

  This distracted Grendel from chomping down on Beowulf. Grendel used his one free hand to fight, and he began to dispatch warriors in disconcertingly quick order.

  Roland took a step closer, uncertain how to proceed. The poem was Beowulf’s, not Roland the Slayer’s. Pieces and parts were coming true. If this went according to script, or rather poem, Beowulf would rip the arm off, and Grendel would run away to his lair and bleed out.

  The other thanes hadn’t read the poem, nor were they obeying orders as they charged forward, spears, axes, and swords flailing away. Metal bounced off Grendel’s scales. The scene would almost have been comedic: Beowulf hanging like a doll from one of Grendel’s arms, shaken about while the beast fought the thanes with its other.

  Except for all the blood flying about, and the screams, and the bodies being torn apart and dropping to the stone floor, never to rise again.

  Roland was twitching; he’d never been one to hold back from a fight. It didn’t appear that Beowulf was making any progress on getting that arm off. In fact, it became apparent as Grendel spun, arm extended, and slammed Beowulf’s back into a wood post, that the warrior wasn’t going to last much longer.

  There was only one man left, Jager, and he was also holding back.

  Who are you? Roland wondered.

  Jager glanced at Roland. “We charge together?”

  What’s this ‘we’ stuff? Roland didn’t answer. He charged by himself. Rather
than going for a fatal blow, he aimed the point of the Naga staff toward Grendel’s shoulder.

  Instead of penetrating, the point slid up and then over the scales on the shoulder. Roland stumbled forward, having put all his effort into what should have been a severing thrust through the scales with the Atlantean metal.

  This isn’t good, Roland thought. He saw Grendel swinging Beowulf in circles, and he belatedly realized the monster was going to use the warrior as a club.

  Beowulf slammed into Roland.

  Roland was knocked the ground, the Naga falling from his hand. Dazed, he looked up. Beowulf, unbelievably, was still hanging onto the arm, but it was obvious he was almost done. With no more thanes attacking, Grendel reached with his free hand for the Danish prince.

  Roland grasped for the Naga, trying to get back into the fight, but he was too slow as Jager dove forward and grabbed the weapon. He rolled under Grendel’s swipe then jabbed the point of the Naga upward into Grendel’s unarmored armpit. The blade slid in, and Grendel emitted a howl that shook the hall.

  Jager held onto the Naga staff, straining with all his might, levering the blade in the beast’s flesh, cutting through flesh and bone.

  Grendel screamed again as Beowulf made one last effort, and the half-severed arm ripped free. Black blood spurted from the socket.

  Beowulf fell to the floor, clutching the monster’s arm. Jager stood fast, the Naga at the ready. Roland got to his feet, grabbing a nearby battle axe. Grendel staggered back several steps and howled once more, while looking at where its arm had been as if confirming what the pain was informing it.

  Then it ran for the main doors.

  None of the three survivors pursued it.

  Grendel grabbed the beam securing the doors with his one hand and tossed it aside. It pulled the doors asunder and was gone into the darkness. There was another howl of pain, but this one was moving away.

  Roland looked back.

  Jager sat down on the closest bench, putting the Naga down. And Beowulf?

  Beowulf was holding Grendel’s arm above his head, muscles quivering with the effort. The prince let out his own howl, this one of triumph.

  Kala Chitta Range, Pakistan, 6 June 1998 A.D.

  Gravity works. It was one law of physics everyone on the Time Patrol agreed upon. Even Roland, the master parachutist, implicitly understood that rule.

  Doc was making good time down the mountain. The download had given him a route he would have never been able to find in daylight, never mind at night wearing night vision goggles. According to the information implanted in his brain, Task Force Kali had begun working on a way to get into the Depot as soon as they were set in the Hole. The first rotation simply trekked over the mountain and dug in and built the Hole. That took a week, working at night, going back over the mountain to hide each day, then back over to build, until it was done.

  Then the next rotation worked on charting out a path from the hide site to the Depot and finding a way in, other than the front door, making notes of all security and anti-intrusion devices along the route, and how they could be avoided or defeated. This was the path he was following.

  It took Doc an hour and a half to descend to a level two hundred feet above the entrance to the Depot. There was still a deep valley between him and it, but now he could go horizontal, to the right, edging around where the mountain met the ridgeline. The “path” he was on could barely be called that, narrowing to just a few inches in places. If the download didn’t insist that it had been traversed by other members of Kali, Doc probably would have turned back in places.

  But he pressed forward, knowing time was of the essence.

  The world around Doc was two-dimensional in the green glow of the pre-twenty-first century night vision goggles. He paused as he came to the first obstacle noted by the earlier teams: a trip wire hooked to a flare. Practically invisible, even with the goggles. Doc carefully stepped over it, clinging to the side of the mountain, the rock cold under his hands.

  The trail began curving back to the left, meaning he’d left the mountain and was now on the ridgeline. He arrived at the second obstacle. A motion sensor. Doc reached into a side pocket on the rucksack then pulled out a small transmitter. He placed it on the narrow ledge then turned it on. It emitted a frequency that neutralized the motion sensor.

  He left the transmitter, and then the sensor, behind. The trail widened into what could be called a path.

  Doc halted, realizing his hands were shaking. He knelt, trying to regain his equilibrium, which took a few minutes. The trail edged around a spur of rock, and the download warned that a guard post in the form of a pillbox was ten meters past there. It was oriented not just to cover the path, but also overlooked the road from the valley up to the Depot. It was supposed to be manned by two soldiers, but the reports from the three Kali team members who’d made this journey before Doc to prepare the way, indicated that on the three occasions, the post had been manned only once, and then just by a single soldier who’d been sleeping.

  Doc began to crawl forward on his hands and knees. He reached the spur then peered around it. He could see the concrete pillbox, with the snout of a heavy machine gun poking out of a portal toward the road below, and found a small comfort that it wasn’t aimed at him.

  Doc crawled forward, expecting a burst of machine gun fire and bullets to tear through his body. Inch by inch, he crept toward the post. He reached it, flattening himself even more, then crawled underneath the muzzle of the gun. He made it past, continuing to crawl, until he was around another bend in the path and out of sight of the post.

  Doc stood, closed his eyes, and envisioned the rest of the way until he got to a ventilation shaft. It was clear of warning devices and—

  “Who are you?”

  The question was in Urdu, but the download immediately translated it.

  What was surprising, to Doc as much as the soldier asking the question, was Doc’s instinctive reaction, the result of years of special operations training bursting forth at the moment it was needed. Doc spun about, saw the Pakistani soldier eight feet away, his own G-3 rifle in his hands but not aimed, and Doc charged, drawing his knife as he did so. As the Pakistani began to bring the muzzle up, it was too late as Doc swung the blade, the razor-sharp edge slicing through the front of the neck.

  Blood spurted forth, pumped by a young and powerful heart, drenching Doc. The soldier was blinking, confused, stunned, his brain trying to process his accelerating death. He dropped to his knees, mouth moving, trying to say something, and then collapsed forward, head hitting Doc’s knees, and then the body slowly rolled to the side.

  Doc looked down, the blood a dark green in the night vision goggles.

  There was no doubt the man was dead. Not a man, Doc thought, staring at the smooth face of a teenager who probably shaved once a week. The eyes were wide and blank.

  Doc looked at the knife in his hand and then at the boy-soldier, as if by doing so he could make a true connection between his action and the result.

  For all his time on the Nightstalkers, and now in the Time Patrol, this was the first time Doc had killed.

  It changes a person.

  Delphi, Greece, 6 June 478 B.C.

  “‘Pandora?’” The Oracle shook her head. “Their kind have not walked the Earth for many years, but...”

  “I met Pandora before,” Scout said. “At Thermopylae.”

  She’d failed even before she had a chance to succeed. It made no sense. If she were in the Shadow’s bubble, how had the Shadow acted before—then Scout remembered Pandora killing the Valkyrie, claiming to not be part of the Shadow. It made no sense.

  But Pandora had lied about other things, so what was the truth?

  “You’re the traveler in time who went into Cyra two years ago at Thermopylae,” the Oracle said. “She told me what happened. That she was supplanted for a day, the final day of the battle. She retains only the vaguest memories of what occurred.” The Oracle shook her head. “That I should l
ive to see such things.” She looked at the body. “Why would Pandora kill him? He was here on commission to prepare some sculptures.”

  “The art,” Scout said. “And the math and the philosophy.”

  The Oracle finished the chalice then held it out.

  Scout indicated the body. “What was he doing here?”

  “To hear a prophecy, of course.”

  “Did you talk to him?”

  “She killed him as I walked in,” the Oracle said. “And then you appeared. out of thin air. I don’t know who, exactly, you are. I just know what you are. You come here from the future.”

  Scout spun about as she sensed a presence in the entrance to the cave. A priestess came in, then halted abruptly. She was tall, with red hair just like Scout’s. She was also older, with wrinkles etched around her eyes indicating years passed outside in the sun and wind, in addition to a lot of worrying. She had a white robe like Scout’s, with a red belt. A ceremonial dagger, the scabbard encrusted with jewels, was tucked into the belt.

  “Mother! Are you all right?”

  The Oracle waggled the chalice, and the priestess walked past Scout, giving her a curious glance, then topped off the drink. “I’m fine,” the Oracle said. “Him, not so much.”

  The priestess shifted her attention to Scout. “I know you.”

  Scout nodded. “You’re Cyra.”

  “And you’re Scout,” Cyra said. “I was there, but not there, when you took over my body. I was you, but not you. And you were me, and not me.” She shook her head. “Very confusing, and I’m still not sure what to make of it. Nor was my mother.”

  “Me, neither,” Scout said. “Sorry for—” she wasn’t sure what to say. Borrowing your consciousness and body? She didn’t think there was a protocol for this.

  “But what happened?” Cyra asked, indicating the body. “Who is this?”

  “Pythagoras of Samos,” the Oracle said.

  “The sculptor?” Cyra frowned. “How did he get in here? He didn’t pass the priestesses at the Spring.”