by Chuck Dixon
“We make an amphibious landing here along the Lebanese coast and move overland to intercept the slave caravan. We swim in or take motorized transport depending on how close Boats can bring the Raj to shore without any questions.”
“Not many with the IDF patrolling those waters for Hamas,” Lee said. “We couldn’t have picked a worse time for this op.”
“We’ll work that out. Now the mission objective is to free all the slaves in that caravan. We are not, repeat not, singling out our primary. One, we have no way of identifying him. Two, we can’t risk interfering with the string of events any more than they’ve already been dicked with. We free the captives, and it’s up to them from there.”
“God’s will,” Chaz said.
“What kind of force are we looking at? What’s our opposition?” Lee asked.
“Roman infantry.”
The other three shared a look. Jimbo was grinning from ear to ear.
“What’s their strength?” Chaz said.
“I have nothing on that right now. Expect at least a century.”
“That’s a hundred guys, right?” Chaz said. “Actually, more like eighty,” Lee said, and the others looked at him. “What? I read, all right?
“This caravan, what’s their final destination?” Jimbo asked.
“Most likely, a slave market. Here.” Dwayne touched the screen, zooming on a place called Philippi.
“That sounds familiar for some reason,” Chaz said.
“I’m looking at the distances here,” Lee said and pointed at the screen. “This caravan has a shorter distance to travel than we do. How do we intercept them before they get where they’re going?”
“We’ll be on horseback,” Dwayne said.
They had all had horse riding as part of their Ranger training for Afghanistan and had even been on a few old-school ops in the mountains of the Kush.
Jimbo’s grin broadened. He’d been practically born on the back of a pony back on the reservation.
Chaz was glum. He could ride, but he didn’t like it.
Lee began to ask a question, but Dwayne held up his hand.
“The horse situation is being worked out. I promise,” Dwayne said.
“Clusterfuck,” Lee said under his breath.
“There’s a question of languages,” Dwayne said, ignoring him. “We all have Arabic, but it’s the Egyptian dialect. It may not be of a lot of use. Languages change a lot over time. Same for Farsi. They’re both old languages, but they’ve changed since then. We’ll need to wing it.”
“Too bad none of us knows a dead language,” Jimbo said. “Latin or Hebrew. They haven’t changed at all since the time we’re going to.”
“I may be able to help with that.” Lee smiled one of his secret smiles that the rest knew usually meant trouble.
10
The Stranger Returns
Valerius Gratus awoke with a hand over his mouth. His first thought, upon struggling up from the well of sleep, was that one of his cherubs was being playful. He pushed his tongue between his lips to run it over the palm.
His next sensation was of the hand being swiftly withdrawn, followed by the sharp sting of a slap across his jaw. He started awake, sitting up to find a hooded figure dressed in inky-black by his bed. The room was dark, the lanterns extinguished. Gratus inhaled to cry out. He felt a hand of alarming strength close about his throat, locking all sound within.
The black wraith dropped the hood to reveal the white-haired stranger with one knee on his bed and a hand slowly crushing the life from him.
“I told you to execute them,” the stranger—what was his name?—hissed.
The hand leapt from Gratus’s throat. The prefect sat up gasping and was then wracked with coughs. The man’s hand was like a rope noose.
“Tell me why you defied me. Why you did not do as you promised.” The stranger stood glaring at him, the whites of his eyes gleaming like pearl in the muted moonlight.
“How could you know?” Gratus managed to croak at last.
“Do you understand the concept of eventualities, Prefect?”
Gratus stared at him dumbly.
“History, all of human existence, is built upon countless moments. Each rests atop another as numerous as grains of sand upon a beach. But these moments are not equal in size nor import. Some are dust motes, while others are boulders.”
What was this madman on about?
“And each one rests upon the other to bring us here to this very moment, this precise eventuality. By betraying me, you began a chain of events leading to this very moment, with you unguarded and me considering whether or not I should kill you.”
“If I might explain...” Gratus began.
“No more lies. I will not kill you. Not because I do not want to, because, believe me as you believe nothing else in your rotten soul, I most dearly wish to kill you in as prolonged and painful way that I can imagine.”
Gratus made no sound but to swallow.
“You will live but only because you are the only means by which I may rectify this catastrophe you have created. You will remain alive as long as you are useful to me as an agent.”
“What am I to do?” Gratus asked. No, begged. He would do anything to save his life.
“You will send a runner after the caravan. This runner will carry a message written in your own hand addressed to—who commands the escort taking the slaves to market?”
“Bach—Bachus. Centurion prime to the Twenty-third.”
“A message to Bachus. You are to tell him that, no matter what else happens, he must stay with the company of slaves. His soldiers must make certain that none escape. None. That means not one single captive may go missing.”
“Yes. Yes. I will have my lictor...”
“You will write it in your own hand. Now. Before me. I will dictate each word.”
“Yes. Of course.”
“And it must reach the caravan before they reach Philippi. You will choose your fastest runner. And you will pray to whichever of your gods you believe favors you that they make this runner as fleet as a gazelle.”
“I will. I swear.”
The stranger reached out once more. He made a fist in Gratus’s hair and pulled him from the bed. The prefect gained his feet uncertainly before being walked like a disobedient hound from his bedchamber into his office. His feet barely touched the tiles as he was held painfully aloft by the stranger’s grip. Gratus was thrust to his table.
“Write what I say,” the stranger growled.
“Um...first might I ask about the wine?” Gratus tried not to mewl, but his voice came out in a broken whine.
“The morphea?” The stranger smiled without humor. “Yes, I have brought more of the wine. It will only be yours if you do as I say.”
Gratus’s chin quivered, and he felt hot tears pool in his eyes. This man was equally his poisoner and benefactor. It sickened even as weak a man as Valerius Gratus that he had come to be in thrall to as cold a master as this. With shaking hand, he dipped a stylus in a pot of ink.
“Say on,” he whispered and placed the quill upon the vellum.
11
Another Time, Another Place
“Blue City, Station One in thirty minutes. Thirty minutes to Station One, Blue City.”
The loudspeakers in each car repeated the message again in Gallic and then in high German.
The train was passing through a tunnel bored through the base of the mountains for ten leagues in length. The last tunnel before the Blue City. Samuel sat alone in his seat and looked at his ebon reflection in the glass. He chose the late train because he knew it would be mostly empty. The risk was greater traveling at this time. There was no sheltering anonymity of a crowd. His singularity might call attention to itself. But it also made it easier to spot pursuit. And he knew that there were many assigned to hunt him here.
A book lay open but unread on his knee. The Rise of Cnossus in Empire II. It was a boring tome, but germane to the task at hand. Cnossus was
proclaimed emperor in 1583 A.U.C. Born of a Roman father and a Dalmatian mother, the reign of Cnossus and his heirs marked almost three centuries of decline. This dark period led directly to the Third Republic, which remained in place for over a millennium, until it was replaced in a violent coup, followed by a series of military tyrants.
The world was more ordered now. Nationality had been erased in the West. The cities had been renamed using colors to eradicate any sense of heritage or fealty to past associations of race or heritage. The world was now one without the silly contrivances that had held man back before the Age of Science.
You became a citizen either by birth or by bribe. And if you were not a citizen, you were nothing. And you would serve in the mines, fields, and factories that remained out of sight and mind of the citizens in their gleaming cities of steel and glass.
Samuel turned from his reflection to see a man watching him. The man was seated ten rows from Samuel on the opposite side of the car’s center aisle. The man turned away after holding Samuel’s gaze for a heartbeat. It could be nothing. Samuel studied the man. The watcher was in dark clothing of fine fabric. A crimson collar encircled the man’s throat. A patrician, then. He was an older man, with deep creases in his face that told the truth of his age while the black-dyed hair atop his head was little more than a vain attempt to extend his youth.
Despite his age, he appeared to be a hard man. Perhaps he earned his way into his class in the military or the guard. He was certainly not born to it. Samuel could tell that by the large rough hands resting on the man’s knees.
It was either professional or idle interest that made the man concerned with him. Samuel turned away for a moment. When he turned back, the man was watching him once again, boldly appraising Samuel and not caring that his subject was aware of it. It could still be the professional interest that a lawman takes in everyone he sees. And in the nearly empty car, Samuel was naturally a target for appraisal.
Samuel had planned to get off the train at Station Three, closer to his intended target area deep in the heart of the city. But he would alter that and get off at the next stop to see if the hard man followed.
The train emerged from the tunnel and rose toward the starlight of towers at the city center. Tallest of these was the Castra; the stolid block rising eighty stories above the streets and housing the guardsmen who enforced the will of the current tyrant: Hiram Galba. The towers were limned in blue to acknowledge the name of the city in lights. This was the Blue City. In Civitatem Hyacintho. The Castra gleamed darkly with a deeper hue of indigo neon in homage to the uniform of the guard.
The elevated tracks spanned over the low rooftops of plebian homes set in orderly grids about the center. The streets below were dark now. After curfew traffic was restricted to state-approved vehicles only. Samuel regretted his decision to take this later train. Better he had joined the early morning crush in the Red City the day before in order to arrive here as just another faceless traveler in the mob.
The train slowed as it glided into the shelter of the station. It came to a full stop and set itself down with a metallic rasp as the magnetic field that supported and propelled it was powered down. He waited until the arrival in Station One had been announced a third time before leaping from his seat for the exit furthest from his watcher.
He sensed rather than saw the watcher rise to follow. The few passengers who had gotten off were already making their way to the escalators that would take them down to the street. This was a fully automated station. No officials were in sight. And, thankfully, no guardsmen either. Samuel walked swiftly from the train and crossed the platform to slide his plastic travel pass over the sensor at the exit kiosk.
The kiosk’s speaker beeped. The circular datum screen lit up to inform him that he was exiting in error. His pass was for travel to Station Three, Blue City as his final destination. The bars of the exit kiosk remained closed. He ran the pass over the sensor again. The screen blinked and reiterated its original message. The bars stayed closed.
An ozone smell reached him. He glanced to see that the train had shut its doors and was rising on its electrified field for departure. The watcher stood alone on the platform regarding him. Samuel slid the pass over the glass plate again. A human voice came on the speaker and asked him to please wait until an attendant could arrive to assist him. The voice asked him his full name, province, and departure city.
“Remember to speak clearly and include your prenomen, nomen, and cognomen. Help will be with you momentarily.”
He threw himself over the exit bars, landed on his feet, and ran for the escalators. He heard the scrape of shoe leather behind him. He turned to see the watcher, the hard man, rushing from between the open bars of the kiosk. Of course, a patrician would have a Visa Europan. All doors were open to the privileged.
Samuel reached the head of the bank of descending escalators. All three flights were clogged at the center with the passengers who had exited the train. He changed direction and made for the ascending escalators. They were closed for the night, as his was the last train arriving until morning. He vaulted the barrier and lost his footing on the slick metal steps. He tumbled down a few painful steps, then gripped the handrail to right himself.
The watcher was stepping under the raised barrier and trotting down the steps toward him. Samuel rolled over the balustrade separating his current flight from the next. The watcher raced down the steps to catch him. Samuel leapt the next balustrade and landed hard on the escalator steps, to find that the steps on this flight had been collapsed for the night, leaving a smooth, uninterrupted slide to the bottom. He released his grip and allowed gravity to carry him toward the street exit. He felt an impact beneath him relayed through the metal plates. The watcher was on the slick, inclined surface with feet sliding as he gripped the handrail like a drowning man. His feet gave way, and the watcher crashed to the ramp and began a toppling descent in Samuel’s wake. The heels of his shoes yipped in protest as the watcher tried to control his slide.
Samuel gave in to the downward momentum, tucking his knees to his chest and slipping down the final length of the four-story grade at an alarming speed. He left the watcher behind, but at a cost.
He reached the bottom of the escalator and skidded under the lower barrier to a painful stop against a wall. He hobbled toward an exit arch, only to see a guard vehicle parked at the curb. Two guards, in their indigo uniforms and face-concealing helmets, stood by the armored truck in idle conversation.
Samuel’s abrupt arrival and disheveled clothing would be certain to draw their attention. He quickly stepped back into the arch and made his way along the wall toward a row of dark stores within the station. He made it into the shadows just as he heard the squeaking of the watcher’s heels come to a stop on the escalator ramp. Samuel broke into a run. The watcher was sure to alert the guardsmen, who would call for backup and seal off the station area.
The entrance to a pedestrian subway opened before him, and he raced down the stone steps into a greater darkness. He heard no outcry and no pursuit. Down in the subway, he could lose himself in the great mall that lay beneath Blue City. The mall came to life each winter when the deep snows came to the city above. It was high summer now, and the place would be mostly deserted, and its shops and eateries shuttered. From the mall, he could take any number of paths and lose himself in the maze of tunnels that ran in every direction under the streets to every corner of the metropolis.
He slowed to a casual walk. These passageways would be patrolled by night, and a running man would draw suspicion. There was enough risk that some bored guardsman might stop him to answer questions simply because he was alone and abroad so late at night.
Samuel was almost to the mall when he heard the scuff of a shoe. Behind him, black shadows pooled between the intermittent electric lanterns mounted on the tile walls. The hard man from the train could be standing in one of those dark places watching him.
Continuing on at a pace that Samuel hoped would make
him look like nothing more than a man in a hurry to get home, he trotted into the mall. No footsteps followed.
There were voices from somewhere off to his right. He could not see their source through the forest of support columns spaced across the area surrounding the mall’s central rotunda. They were male voices, and he heard a tinny electronic response.
Guardsmen.
He slowed to a walk, keeping the columns between him and where he thought the voices were echoing. The words weren’t decipherable. One still sounded professional but not urgent. Routine communications, perhaps.
Samuel let out a breath and slowed his walk to a deliberate but unhurried stride. He was almost to the exit that would take him up to street level close to his target point. The voices grew fainter behind him, the cavern of the mall swallowing them up.
The man from the train stepped out from behind a column just in front of Samuel. He was smiling easily now. From within his coat, he drew a pugio, a broad-bladed dagger. Its steel gleamed like quicksilver in the artificial light. A ceremonial weapon given for meritorious service to the empire. No less deadly for its beauty.
The hard man stepped forward, blade held low and free arm up to shield himself. He moved like a man who had been in knife fights before. As he closed, Samuel could see the crisscrossed white of scar tissue across the backs of his hands. This man had survived many encounters like this one. That meant Samuel could expect to bleed. The first rule of fighting with blades: expect to be cut.
Samuel did not break stride or even slow. He walked to meet his attacker. If this was to end well, it would have to end quickly. One outcry and the guards would come running. They were not yet out of earshot. The squawk of the radio voice reached him as a distant echo.
He raised an arm in defense, and the watcher stabbed. The tip of the blade caught metal beneath the fabric of the sleeve and slid off to slash a long tear in the flesh to Samuel’s elbow. Before the other man could bring the blade back for a return slash, Samuel ducked under the defensive arm. He drew his own weapon at the same time, a needle-like rondel with a triangular blade. A favorite among Gaulish assassins.
