by Chuck Dixon
Samuel drove the blade up in a short piston movement to puncture the soft flesh behind the point of the other man’s jaw. He could feel the impact, then the yielding through the ivory handle as the force of the point punctured the man’s palate and drove into the soft meat of the brain. Samuel gave the dagger a savage twist. His opponent went limp. Samuel embraced the man to take his weight and lowered the corpse to the tiles without a sound. Even in death, the man kept a grip on his own blade so that it did not fall to create a clatter on the tiles.
He wiped his blade on the dark fabric of the man’s clothing and returned the rondel to the scabbard cleverly concealed in the lining of his jacket. He then plucked the pugio from the man’s dead grip. Standing astraddle the corpse, Samuel thrust the point of the pugio into the man’s throat to follow the path of the wound made by his own weapon. It might appear to be a suicide long enough for Samuel to accomplish his business in the Blue City and move on.
Taking the dead man beneath the arms, Samuel dragged him into a shadowy recess between two shopfronts and propped him against a wall. He made a quick search of the body. The man wore a medallion beneath his shirt front—a golden bull on a chain. A former soldier, and probably a guard when his service was done. He stuck the medallion into the man’s slack mouth and left the chain dangling from the teeth. The final gesture of a man faced with no other escape from dishonor.
Samuel stood and inspected himself. There was no blood on him but his own. The other man had died too swiftly to bleed. He took his jacket off, draped it over the wounded arm, and continued on his way toward his appointment.
As he exited the mall, he was joined by the first of the commuters making their way toward their places of work or stops for surface transit. The sun was just beginning to show over the surrounding mountain peaks. A shaft found the head of the massive brass eagle that towered ten stories above the central plaza.
Samuel imagined that the gargantuan bird had its predator gaze on him alone as he crossed the broad space. There were others walking here as well. He lost himself among them on the way to meet an appointment he was already thirty years late for.
12
The War Room
Time meant everything when you moved in it. It meant nothing when you moved through it.
The Rangers would get there when they got there. They picked a date of September 1, 16 AD for their arrival target back in The Then. That was the Nones of Sextilis by the lunar calendar that the Romans used. That was two weeks ahead of the abduction of the Nazarenes and enough time to get ashore and cover the ground they’d need to cover to set up an ambush along the road which the slave caravan would travel. Jimmy Smalls argued for more time in-country but Dwayne and the other nixed the idea. The less exposure, the better. For once Morris Tauber agreed with the Rangers’ consensus.
That was the last time they’d all agree.
They gave themselves thirty days in The Now to plan, prep, and deploy.
Lee handled procuring all the ordnance expect for body armor. Jimbo said he had a guy for that. Boats charted a course for them using their standard bullshit excuse of the Raj being a science vessel involved in a study of ocean temperatures. Dr. Tauber managed to locate Parviz and Quebat in Copenhagen. He asked if they could cut their vacation short by a week and return aboard the Raj to look after “the baby.” The infant in question was the nuclear mini-reactor concealed and shielded in the hold of the container ship.
Boats offered a two-week leave to his crew of Ethiopians. To a man, they opted to stay on. The pay was good and in cash. They all preferred to stay on and build their bankrolls doing needed maintenance on board. His first mate, a wiry man of indeterminate age behind a black hedgerow of beard, was named Geteye. He made sure all hands earned that pay. Every ocean-going vessel had an endless chore list and the Raj was not a new ship by any means.
Dwayne and Lee worked up a rough timeline for the mission and presented it to the team for suggestions.
“Not to take a dump in your chili,” Boats broke in on the presentation in the Raj’s chartroom. “But we’re going to have to anchor in deep water, guys. The Israelis are all over the Med in the region you want to go into. They’re going to be on us at the first sign of fireworks.”
“How far offshore?” Lee asked the red-bearded former SEAL.
“Twenty miles or more. And that’s cutting it close.”
“The surge needed for manifestation looks like a natural weather event for the most part,” Morris Tauber offered.
“Those Jews are twitchy, Doc. And they have every right to be,” Boats said. “They’ll use any excuse to board us, and you can bet your ass they’d sweep us for any kind of threat including radiation. And all the explaining in the world wouldn’t get our asses out of that.”
“We’ll make it thirty miles and you can take us in on the motor launch,” Dwayne said.
“That means I go with you? Back with you?” Boats said.
“I don’t see another way,” Lee said.
“I’m not waiting with the fucking boat,” Boats said. His usual smile was gone.
“No. You’ll be on mission with us. You up for that?” Dwayne said.
“Shit, yeah!” Boats said, the grin returning. “That will make us five,” Chaz said.
“Four,” Lee said.
“How do you figure that?” Dwayne said.
“Because you’re not going,” Lee said and looked at Dwayne flatly. The others shut down to let these two sort it out.
“Bullshit,” Dwayne said.
“Caroline will be having the baby between now and mission start. She needs you there. And we would need all of your head in the game. Your head will be with her and the baby. And there’s another reason,” Lee said.
“Can I ask what that is?” Dwayne’s face was dark.
“If Boats goes back to The Then with us, we’ll need someone on this side who can go tactical if the shit hits the fan. That will be you.” Lee said.
“Makes sense, D,” Jimbo said.
“Yeah. It does,” Dwayne said. “That’s the way it has to be.”
But it hurt.
The meet went on for another hour or so with Morris giving his usual warnings about maintaining temporal integrity and the Rangers pushing back with the needs for objective priorities.
“You can’t be polluting the past with current technology,” Morris urged. “You’ll be entering an age closer to our own and possibly be encountering literate inhabitants. Any anachronistic technology you expose them to could be recorded. Dwayne and my sister had a few close calls on their last outing. All risks have to be minimized.”
“We tried it your way once, Doc. We got our asses kicked,” Chaz said, referring to their first trip to the past when they went with eco-friendly weaponry that failed against an army of man-eating proto-humans.
“The more gear we carry, the more chance of success and the least exposure time. The best way to go is to go hard and fast and get the hell out,” Lee said.
“Trust us, Mo. We’ll take every precaution,” Dwayne said, putting a hand to Morris’s shoulder.
“Every precaution that doesn’t add to our personal risk,” Lee added.
13
A New Member of the Club
A week into mission prep, the Raj had moved into an anchorage off of Limassol on Cyprus. It was a nothing-special port of call with the usual half-moon of blockish white condos and hotels standing along the shoreline. The container ship sat at anchor in the azure water away from the approach lanes of the big cruise ships that crawled in and out of port daily.
Even though they were not seeking a berth in the harbor, there was business to attend to. Boats paid a premium to have a tanker come out to them to top their reserves off with diesel. Customs came aboard and the ex-SEAL sent them away with a few cartons of Marlboros, a case of Ron Rico, and some folding money.
Since the skipper was occupied, Lee Hammond went ashore on the motor launch with a couple of his crewmen to restock thei
r food and freshwater stores. Dwayne Roenbach tagged along to catch a shuttle to Athens and then on to Berne to join Caroline.
Lee returned in the late afternoon with Parviz and Quebat and their luggage. There was another passenger aboard. Lee was at the gangway with a bag under each arm as Bathsheba Jaffe climbed the ladder to the sally port. The crew lined the rails to watch the raven-haired beauty in tank top and cargo shorts come aboard.
“Who’s this?” Jimbo said.
“Our Hebrew teacher, bro.” Chaz grinned.
“We figure our Arabic will get us by for the most part,” Lee said to the Rangers and the SEAL as they shared beers in the captain’s quarters with the AC on full. “But some Hebrew would come in helpful. Just a few dozen phrases we can memorize. Directions. Trading. Greetings. Just general tourist stuff.”
“I can do that,” Bat said. “But you guys don’t exactly look like you’re in the tribe. And a little of the old language does not go a long way. When things get tight, you need to let me do the talking.”
“Wait, what?” Lee said.
“I think the lady thinks she’s going with us,” Chaz said.
“No. Fucking. Way. Ain’t gonna happen,” Lee said.
“Hold on now. She knows everything?” Jimbo said.
“You mean all about your Wayback machine?” Bat said. “Uh huh. Your boy here likes to talk after sex.”
“Shit, Hammond!” Chaz slammed his bottle of Luxor on the table, creating a geyser of beer.
“She’s all right! I vouch for her!” Lee shouted back; a rare display for him.
“You thought I was going to come out here and hold shul for you guys and not ask any questions?” Bat laughed.
“That didn’t include an invite to the mission,” Chaz said.
“I’m going. You need someone fluent. If you run into serious trouble then ‘where is the nearest bathroom’ is not going to be much help,” Bat said.
“It’s not all talk, baby. We’re there to run and gun. Can you hack all that?” Chaz said.
“I’ve got seven years with the IDF. I’m a trained sniper with a Galil and an M14. I’ve been in combat, and I know the country we’ll be crossing better than any of you.”
“Combat? So you’ve heard some hostile fire. You have any kills?” Chaz said, locking eyes with her.
“Three confirmed. Lebanon.” She met his eyes unblinking and with no resentment. They had a right to know her bona fides.
“And if we don’t take you along?” Jimbo said. “What? I’ll tell the world about a bunch of vets traveling through time making trouble in the past? Try and turn you in to the time cops? And have everyone think I’m nuts?” She laughed.
“But we make you stay here and no more sugar for Hammond, right?” Chaz smiled, showing plenty of teeth.
“You can bet on that,” Bat said, returning the feral smile with gusto.
“Guys...” Lee was not enjoying the confrontation. He felt like the table had turned against him and he was outnumbered.
“I vote for Bat.” Chaz raised his bottle. Jimbo and Boats raised theirs as well. Hammond shrugged and raised his.
“You’re going to need a membership card, girl,” Chaz said.
“To your little group?”
“To Jews for Jesus,” Chaz said and clinked a bottle with her.
They took stock of the ordnance they had on board. The last mission was a clusterfuck despite its positive outcome but had required no firepower in the end. They still had more than enough small arms and case lots of ammo for each. Jimmy Smalls had a second Winchester Model 70 to loan to Bat. She could familiarize herself with it when they put back to sea. They’d all be putting in some range time then.
The team took to the common room to do regular maintenance on their armory. Bat impressed the guys by stripping down the gifted Winchester, oiling it, and reassembling it within ten minutes. Not bad for her first time with the weapon. She stripped down a Sig P-226 she’d be using as a sidearm. She also picked a 380 Colt snubby from the collection on the long table. A stainless job with no hammer.
“This anyone’s?” She raised an eyebrow.
“Mine,” Chaz said. “My pocket rocket for party night. It’s yours if you want it.”
“A girl can’t have enough surprises,” she said.
“I have a strap holster for it somewhere,” Chaz said and sorted through a plastic tub of accessories.
They were all sharing Irish coffee and bullshitting over a table lined with a row of oil-slick rifles and shotguns when Morris Tauber walked in with an empty carafe. He went to the counter and emptied a pot of coffee into it, followed by a long stream of sugar. Morris looked like he’d combed his hair with a pitchfork and had a week’s growth of ginger on his chin. He rarely came topside, and that was usually at night. He was the only one in the room without a deep tan.
“Our Iranian friends settled in?” Lee asked. “They went right down to the nuke and never left it,” Morris said and poured a cup from the dregs. “They’re checking levels and running a diagnostic in sandals and shorts. Here’s to us nerds, huh?” He stopped mid-sip and blinked at Bathsheba. “You’re a woman,” he said.
“Thanks. You’re nice,” she said.
“I mean. I don’t know you, and here I am talking about—”
“She’s hip, Mo,” Chaz said. “She’s coming with us.”
“I’m Bat Jaffe. I’m teaching the guys Hebrew.”
“Oh. Well. I suppose. Yes,” Morris said and retreated, cup and carafe in hand.
“That was the brain behind all this, right?” Bat said.
“One of them. Dr. Morris Tauber, engineer and theoretical physicist,” Jimbo said. “But not a whiz at the social niceties.”
“He’s interesting,” Bat said.
“He’s gonna get more interesting when that coffee hits him,” Boats said. “I put four fingers of Maker’s Mark in the pot.”
14
The Order of March
The runner reached the slave caravan where they camped the second night. Or rather, the third runner reached them as the message was relayed from one station to another along the road. Every Roman citizen bragged that these roads allowed a message to travel from any point in the empire to another within two weeks.
The caravan of slaves and their minders had made slow progress, yet had passed forty mile markers since departing Nazareth the day before.
The runner used his medallion from the cursus publicus, the official messenger service authorized throughout the empire, to make his way past the sentries posted about the fortified camp. In the moonlight of the Ides of Sextilis, he trotted along the rows of tents until he found the tent where the centurion Bachus slept. An optio offered to take the packet from the messenger.
“I am under orders of the prefect of Judea to deliver this into the hands of centurion Trivian Bachus and only him,” the messenger, a slim boy of fourteen years insisted with the imperious attitude of a Claudian. The boy was a slave, and in the hierarchy of the imperium, a slave was empowered by the office of his master. Thus the legion optio was obligated to obey this lowly youth as though ordered by prefect Gratus himself.
The messenger was admitted to the tent. The optio spoke softly, and the centurion stirred naked on his cot. Bachus sat up with a mumbled curse and took the packet from the runner’s hand. It was held closed by a blob of wax embossed with the prefect’s seal: a pair of swans with necks entwined. He tore it open and read by the light of a lamp held overhead by the optio.
Ut Cen. Mettius Trivian Bachus
De Valerius Epidus Gratus, prefectus Judaica
Be warned that word has reached this office of an attack by rebels meant to halt your progress toward Philippi. You are to take refuge at the nearest fortifiable location and arrange for any reinforcements necessary to its defense. At all costs, the lives of the slaves in your charge are to be protected from harm and prevented from escape until further word from me.
The note was in the prefect’s own hand. Th
e letters were poorly formed, and the words ran together in a way that made them almost illegible. His signature, a simple VEG, was scrawled across the bottom, accompanied by another wax seal.
Bachus allowed his optio prime to read the message aloud as he sat at his campaign desk to pen an acknowledgment. The terse words of a soldier were written and sealed with Bachus’s legion signet ring; a crude horse beneath the numeral Twenty-third. The runner was given drink and a place to sleep on the floor of a tent. Bachus dispatched one of his own men to run south to the next station to carry his reply, by relay, back to the prefect’s villa in Caesarea.
“What are your orders, sir?” the optio said. “Dispatch scouts to search the road ahead for a defensible position,” Bachus said. “We’ll march at first light to follow. Half rations of water and food for the soldiers. Nothing for the slaves until we reach our goal. I have no idea how long we must hold before relief arrives.”
“The Jews must have grown bold to seek to face three centuries on the march, sir.”
“Perhaps there is someone in our charge they prize,” Bachus said, running a hand over the bristles sprouting on his jaw. “There could be one or more of their leaders among the slaves we escort.”
“Then why not execute them all and have done with it?” the optio asked bitterly.
“I do not know, and I cannot guess. But I know this: Gratus may very well be mad, which only means that his commands must be carried out to the letter. I’ve no wish to incur the wrath of a lunatic with his power and influence.”
“And when shall I have the men roused to break camp?” the optio said.
“Now, Sextus,” Bachus said, stooping to reach for his boots. “We will march to greet the sun’s rise.”
