by Chuck Dixon
Morris did as he was told.
They had him up walking on the open deck the next day, or maybe it was the day after that. Lee Hammond and Jimmy Smalls walked with him. The cold salt air felt good on his face. What didn’t feel good was the presence of strangers on board. Everywhere they walked, they were under the eyes of glowering men in dark clothes. Men like the ones who took him and held him beat him and drugged him.
“So, we’re all working for Jason Taan now?” Morris said with a bitter tone.
“For now,” Lee said.
“I really got us in a corner,” Morris said.
“Could happen to anyone,” Jimbo said.
He still felt like a child who’d walked into a trap without considering the consequences. The team had traveled back to prehistoric America and unconsciously left behind an artifact: a clear boot print. The story made the news as a clickbait kind of story. A college student had a petrified bird print that, overnight, was altered when Bat Jaffe, the former Israeli Defense Force soldier, stepped in the mud of a pond bank one hundred millennia before. The print was echoed in the artifact, a frozen relic of a chronal anomaly.
Morris went to meet the kid to offer him a big payday in exchange for the slab of calcified stone. Other interested parties got there before him. Jason Taan, a Taiwanese billionaire with a keen interest in time travel. He abducted Morris Tauber and held him for ransom. The ransom? The use of the Tauber Tube to reach back in time for purposes unknown.
Lee Hammond walked Morris to the sheltered aft deck of the Raj. Morris leaned on the ice-rimed rail and looked out over the gray world of Shanghai harbor. They were moored at the end of a long pier, well away from other container ships off-loading at ports all along the shoreline. Through the gloom across the water, he could see men and machines moving under lights so bright the wharves looked like movie sets.
“What does Taan want? I mean other than to use the Tube to make himself richer?” Morris said.
“All we know is we’re heading back to Shanghai in 1865,” Lee said. “We have a general outline of what’s expected of us, but Taan is withholding what the final mission objective will be. We’ll be back in The Then a minimum of thirty days. We have the needed gear in the works.”
“We just need you to crank up the Tube one more time,” Jimbo said. “Taan put pressure on Quebat and Parviz to work the Tube, but they dummied up.”
Quebat and Parviz were two Iranian ex-patriates and apostates on the run from the mullahs in Tehran for two reasons. One, they’d stolen an experimental mini-reactor. Two, they were gay. In Iran, there really is no going home again.
“You already know that I have all kinds of problems with everything you just told me,” Morris said. “But I’m letting that go for now. Where’s Caroline?”
“Better you not know anything other than she’s safe. Little Stevie, too. We got them off the Raj early to take your sister out of play. That gave us a bargaining chip,” Lee said.
Morris tilted his head at the ex-Army Ranger.
“It was the only way of getting your ass back safe. Without a Tauber, there’s no Tauber Tube,” Lee said.
“They need me to open the field and monitor the mission. I get that. Thanks.”
“No problem, brother,” Jimbo said and laid a hand on Morris’ shoulder.
There it was again.
“What’s with the ‘brother’ stuff ?” Morris said.
“You’ve been through the shit, Mo. Blooded. You’re one of us now.” Jimbo grinned. Lee nodded assent.
“Yeah. And you can have the shit,” Morris said, overcome with the sudden desire to lie down.
3
Down on the Baja
“I could get used to this,” Dwayne Roenbach said, lying back on the warm sand. He squinted at the sun setting over the Pacific in a spectacular bronze sky. A solitary figure splashed in the creamy surf spreading across a beach of sand the color and consistency of sugar. A naked female skipped through the rollers tumbling against her ankles.
“Are you talking about my company or the view?” Caroline Tauber said from a lounge chair under a grass umbrella, their son asleep in her arms.
Little Stephen was crawling now and babbling something close to speech. Dwayne had missed so much of his son’s life. Time travel multiplied absence. He was back in The Then for just under a month, but more time had passed in The Now. He’d missed all of his son’s infancy, not meeting Stephen until the child was six months old. The op that returned him and the team to prehistoric Nevada was about two weeks in the bush. He came back to a son three months older.
“You mean the sunset?” he said.
“You know what I mean,” she said. The warm ocean breeze carried to them the gleeful laughter of the girl playing in the waves.
“I mean being here with you and Stephen, silly. Spending time together. Real time, at the same time,” he said, turning on an elbow to smile at her.
“Really? I thought you’d be bored out of your skull by now.”
“I think I may have had enough of that life,” he said.
Caroline looked at his near-naked form and saw signs of the ‘that life’ under his deep tan. White ridges of scar tissue from old wounds. Fading purple bruises surrounded by yellowish auroras of flesh around more recent injuries. His arms and legs were crisscrossed by strips of scabs. He was still healing from a week-long excursion to prehistoric California. He’d only told her the broad strokes of what happened there. He’d been put out of the action early after an encounter with a sabretooth tiger. A concussion and broken ribs. The rest of the team continued a long trek over rough ground to free Richard Renzi from the same proto-human cannibals who’d once held her captive. They returned with Rick and an aboriginal girl they’d found Renzi shacked up with back in The Then. The same girl who was now skipping through the foam, giggling like a child, one hundred millennia from her own time.
“You don’t wish you were with the others?” Caroline said. “Lee can lead the team. He’s more than capable. We’d only butt heads anyway. Someone had to make sure you and Rick got away safe,” Dwayne said.
“Part of me wishes you were with them. A very selfish part of me.”
“I know, honey. You’re worried about your brother. But he’ll be back on the Raj by now. They’ll do what this lunatic wants and, one way or the other, it’ll all be over.”
“One way or the other?”
“I should say, Lee will make it go his way. He’ll get the whole team out of this. Mo included. Tight spots are his thing.”
“And then what?” she said and shifted the sleeping baby in her arms.
“Let’s just think about the next few weeks. We have to be here for Rick. We may as well enjoy it.” Dwayne rose from the sand to join her on the broad chaise under the cabana. He hugged her to him, fingertips resting gently on the wispy mop of hair atop the baby’s head.
“It is nice here,” she said and nestled her head against his chest. It was a sleepy and secluded beach on the coast of Baja a couple hours’ drive north of Cabo. The beach was private, part of the property of the private medical clinic that Lee found for them through one of his many contacts. Mexico was full of clinics like this one, half surgical and recovery center and half resort. Very secretive with a list of patients from the world of politics and celebrity. Caroline was sure it was a famous pop star she saw lounging by the pool, nose, and chin encased in bandages, on their first day at the clinic. Lee Hammond told them this place was renowned in the medical underground for treating the injuries of professional athletes ,who needed to keep any off-season surgeries on the down low.
Rick Renzi was here for some extensive orthopedic surgeries to his leg. It had suffered a severe fracture just below the knee, and it had set all wrong since Rick was one hundred thousand years from an emergency room at the time it broke. The surgeons re-broke the leg and set it properly with a set of rods and pins. Rick would be in traction in an ankle-to-hip cast for the next couple of months. His limp would be redu
ced and, with corrective shoes, eliminated. The pain he’d been suffering for the past five years would be reduced to a manageable level.
Until then, they had nothing to do but read, swim, make love, watch their baby grow, and enjoy the Baja weather.
“I’m hungry,” Dwayne said.
“So’s the baby,” Caroline said, sitting up as Stephen wriggled against her. “And we need to put some weight back on you, soldier.”
“Thought you liked me lean,” Dwayne patted his flat stomach.
“But not skinny. Get N’itha back here. I want to try the lobster at Cerritos. Everyone says it’s killer.”
He took the burbling baby from her and stood, cradling the diapered butt of his son in the crook of his arm. Stephen clung to his chest hairs, warm and drooling. Dwayne put two fingers in his mouth and let out a piercing whistle. Down at the water’s edge, N’itha raised her head then started back toward the cabana at a run.
“And for God’s sake, hand me her robe,” Caroline said.
Dwayne swung his son up to take a seat behind his neck, much to Stephen’s delight. They both watched Caroline trot down the sand to meet N’itha, holding a robe spread in her hands.
“Yeah. I could get used to this, son,” Dwayne said.
Caroline’s sleep was disturbed by a dream. A figure of a man spoke to her from clouds of fog. It was a world of swirling dark. The man reached a hand out. His lips moved, but no sound came out. His eyes were emphatic, blazing with passion.
It was Samuel Renzi, the son of Rick Renzi. His son was born two years before, but Caroline knew Samuel as an adult, a time traveler who visited from the future to offer them guidance. Samuel saved her life a number of times but was still a mystery to her. In this dream, he appeared to be older, hair graying and features drawn. His eyes were on her, hand reaching, calling a soundless warning from a place of shadows.
She awoke with a start beside Dwayne, dripping with sweat. Caroline raised herself from sodden sheets to see Samuel Renzi standing at the foot of their bed. As in her dream, he was beseeching her, mouth forming words in mute pantomime. His figure was translucent and shimmering. It appeared obscured as through a clouded lens.
“Dwayne...” she whispered, hand to his arm, eyes locked on the specter reaching for her.
“I see him too,” Dwayne said, already awake beside her.
4
Meeting with the Enemy
Jason Taan visited the Ocean Raj the following day. He parked a 60s vintage Aston Martin at the foot of the gangplank. He was free of his usual company of security muscle. He didn’t need it. The security contingent on the Raj and on the quayside was at platoon level.
He wore an open Burberry raincoat as the morning air was damp with a cold mist. Under the coat, golfing togs were visible. Light khakis and a navy blue polo. Just stopping in to visit you chaps before I hit the links.
Taan held the door for an elderly Asian man in a rumpled parka. Together they climbed the gangplank and came on board.
He took over the chartroom and made it his presentation room. Hot coffee, tea, and an assortment of Danishes were served. All had been delivered earlier by caterers. The Tauber team was called to attend, and took seats about the table. Only Morris, Lee, Chaz, Jimbo, Boats, and Bathsheba showed. Parviz and Quebat, who maintained the mini-nuclear reactor below decks, were essential personnel but not tactical to this mission. And Byrus, the Macedonian pit fighter brought back from the time of the Romans, was in his quarters enjoying his newest passion: Netflix.
“I first must express my disappointment that Caroline Tauber is not among us. I hope she is well,” Taan said, idly stirring a spoon in a damask-patterned cup of hot oolong.
The question was for Morris. He sat opposite Taan without responding.
“I would have thought that her participation might be vital to the success of this endeavor.” Taan’s mouth curled in his professional smile. His eyes remained cold.
“I can operate the Tube without her,” Morris said, struggling to keep his voice level. This was the first time he’d been in the same room with Jason Taan since Taan ordered him away into the hands of rough men who held him in a cell lit with painfully bright lights every hour of the day. Those days were marked by beatings delivered with skill so as to cause pain but no lasting physical damage.
“We don’t want to hold up your tee time, Mr. Taan. What’s this about?” Lee said, locking Taan’s eyes with his.
“How rude of me,” Taan said with a more open smile. He turned to the elderly man, slurping tea from a cup held in both hands. “This is Dr. Wesley Fong of the University of Macau. He will be spending the next week on board with you. Dr. Fong is the world’s leading historical expert on the period you will be visiting.”
“Thanks. But we can Google what we need,” Chaz said.
Dr. Fong raised his eyebrows at that. He looked deeply appalled. Taan’s smile broadened.
“Dr. Fong has certain proprietary research tools that were obtained at great expense. You can take my word that his expertise is crucial to accomplishing the set goals of this mission,” Taan said, a hand to the elderly man’s arm.
“Your word,” Jimbo said.
“When have I not kept my word? Though the circumstances that bring us together have been regrettable, and my methods have sometimes been brutal in your eyes, I have never lied or misled you. I need your device and guidance and participation in this effort. For this, you will be released from my employ with a generous reward upon the successful conclusion of our endeavor.”
“Well, this ‘endeavor’ isn’t going to come to a successful conclusion or even a successful start given the current conditions,” Morris said, an edge in his voice.
“You have concerns, Dr. Tauber?” Taan said.
“You can’t expect us to open an insertion field here,” Morris said. “We have no idea what the ground or water was like on this site one hundred and fifty years ago. We need to be on open water. My guess would be that this mooring was dredged in more recent times. It might be a mud bank or even higher ground back in the time you want the team to be sent to.”
“Do you have a suggestion for us, Dr. Tauber?” Taan was displeased, and his outer layer of cool élan was growing brittle.
“There are deeper anchorages in the Yangtze estuary. The Raj could be moored in the west channel off Changxingxiang Island.” Morris stood and sorted through charts of Shanghai harbor to stab a finger at a spot midway between the China coast and a long island in the center of the broad mouth of the Yangtze.
“And how would we explain your presence there, Dr. Tauber?” Taan said.
“That’s your problem. You’re the only billionaire fixer in the room,” Morris said, retaking his seat.
“Make up some bullshit about studying tides or currents,” Lee put in.
“It can be done, Mr. Hammond,” Taan said. “All it takes is some bullshit, as you say. And enough money placed in the right hands.”
“I have some other logistical requirements,” Morris broke in. “All will be met once I have examined your needs and approve them, Dr. Tauber,” Taan said. “Now, as Mr. Hammond suggested, I am due to meet a party on the links. I leave you with Dr. Fong. Make him welcome and pay special heed to his instruction. I will see my way back to the dock.”
With that, Jason Taan stood from the table and made his way out the hatch into the rain.
Wesley Fong produced a laptop from beside him and opened it on the chart table.
“Will this cabin be okay to use as a classroom?” Dr. Fong asked in fluent English with a Southern California accent.
5
God’s Other Son
It started as a lecture but turned into an open forum intel briefing. Dr. Fong was well prepared with a PowerPoint presentation projected on a screen mounted to the bulkhead of the chartroom. “The Taiping Rebellion was begun by a man named Hong Xiuquan in 1850,” Fong told the Rangers, SEAL, and IDF vets seated around the long chart table.
“He was
a low-born Chinese, and had a mental breakdown upon failing tests to become a civil servant. His breakdown took the form of visions in which he believed he was taken to Heaven to meet God. Here, he was told that he was the younger brother of Jesus Christ. What’s most amazing is that he was able to build an entire theology with himself at the center and get millions of followers to believe in it. The ruling Manchu emperor in Peking did not realize the danger until the Taipings had taken several cities and put hundreds of thousands to the sword. The Europeans in Shanghai, Macau, and Hong Kong were complacent as they mistakenly believed that the followers of Hong Xiuquan were true Christians. They were zealots following a charismatic madman and his twisted version of a religion. His ravings led directly to the bloodiest civil war in history.”
“Worse than the American Civil War?” Lee asked.
“Yes. The Taiping war left between twenty and thirty million dead. Your Civil War resulted in a little over six hundred thousand fatalities,” Fong said.
Bat asked, “What part of the war are we dropping in on?”
“For all purposes, it is the final days of the war you’ll be visiting.
“The summer of 1865. The last stronghold of the Taipings was at Nanking. You will be arriving when that city is in the last stages of a long siege by the Imperial Manchu army and mercenaries hired by the emperor and mandarins.”
“European mercenaries? Americans? Can we expect to fit in?” Lee said.
“There was a merc army formed by an American. I read about it,” Jimbo said, holding up a Kindle. “And there’s Brits and French along, too. We should be able to blend so long as our ordnance and uniforms match the period.”
“He’s right. Frederic Ward was a Yankee adventurer who led the Ever Victorious Army made up of other Americans, Europeans, and Filipinos,” Dr. Fong said, taking up the story. “He was killed in battle before the time you’ll be experiencing. Robert ‘Chinese’ Gordon, a British officer, will be in command in 1865. You should blend in with his forces easily enough.”
