BROOKLYN NAVY YARD
As Virginia’s nuclear sciences team and Jenks’s newly aquired engineering department examined the doorway like ants crawling on a hill, Anya sat next to the Traveler, Moira Mendelsohn. The old woman looked at the sad countenance of the young raven-haired woman. Her eyes would wander back to the activity below in the newly discovered PIT where a machine she never knew existed sat in its sparkling glory as the Group went over it with all the advanced science at their disposal—equipment Moira had never seen before. Soon the old woman’s eyes were back on Anya, who felt her gaze. She faced the smiling Traveler.
“You keep looking at me as if you have something to say,” Anya said not unkindly.
Moira smiled wider and then fixed her with her brown eyes.
“You were the young lady who stole my debrief file from the Mossad?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“Dangerous games. Very dangerous.”
“Yes, I hurt someone very close to me to get that file.” Anya smiled as she looked away and watched the technicians below. She felt Moira studying her once again. “For a deed that I will eventually pay heavily for.” She gave the Traveler the briefest of sad smiles. “Deals with the devil and so forth.”
“But then again you would still go about hurting anyone to get back what was lost, yes?”
Anya looked at the Traveler and she could see the woman was speaking from a past fraught with the same sort of decisions.
“Yes, a million times over.” Anya turned away and looked at her watch. “If you’ll excuse me I have a meeting I’m late for.” She started to rise as Moira placed a hand on her wrist.
“You are a Gypsy?”
Anya stopped and looked down at the withered but elegant hand and then into the Traveler’s eyes. “Yes.”
“I knew many Gypsies in the old days,” she said as she looked away momentarily, and that was when Anya saw the tattooed number on her forearm as she absentmindedly adjusted the blanket around her legs. Moira looked back at Anya as she released her wrist. “I hope your quest turns out far better than my own.” Moira used the wheelchair’s motor and turned away to concentrate on answering Dr. Pollock’s technical concerns.
Anya watched her a moment and wondered what quest the Traveler had referred to. She thought a moment and asked herself just what secrets did this brilliant woman possess that she wasn’t mentioning.
Anya Korvesky knew she had to dig a little bit more into the Traveler’s past before men and women risked their lives for her and Carl.
EVENT GROUP COMPLEX, NELLIS AIR FORCE BASE, NEVADA
Xavier took a long swallow of Mountain Dew and then looked at the sandwich the mess steward had delivered to the computer center where he and his newly acquired staff were looking for any avenue that would allow the Wellsian Doorway to lock onto the correct time frame. Thus far there was nothing that could duplicate the signal from the second doorway. They had hit a definite dead end. He pushed the plate with the sandwich on it away from him in frustration. He placed the plastic bottle of soft drink down and then spun his chair to look down onto the floor where most of his techs were working with Europa to find a solution. They looked almost as frustrated as himself. His eyes scanned the monitors below and his sight caught something that made him think.
“Uh, Mr. Styles, is it?” he said into his microphone at his personal station, which overlooked the extensive computing floor below.
The tech was leaning over a station where another worked. The tall, thin technician looked up and back at his new boss. “Uh, yes, sir,” he said.
“What is that on your monitor?”
The technician looked up and saw what the youngest and newest department head in Department 5656 history was seeing.
“Oh, we were just going over the supply situation Mr. Everett would have had in the escape pod. We have come to the conclusion that he would have run out of supplies a month after crashing. If that long. His ammunition supply was—”
On the monitor below there was a schematic that showed the small escape pod that was used on the battleship HMS Garrison Lee.
For no apparent reason Xavier smiled and then slapped his hand down hard on his leg, not feeling the impact due to his paralysis.
“Transfer those specs to my station immediately, please. Join me up here, we have some work to do. Europa, I need everything that you have on escape pod design number 22167.”
Energy started to fill the computer center as an avenue for science had just been opened and they now had a chance at answering the question for how they would lock on to the correct time frame for Everett’s rescue. The Event Group came alive with a small thread of hope.
BROOKLYN NAVY YARD
Collins, Mendenhall, and Ryan were the last to be seated in the overcrowded upstairs office. The space had been cleared of the window-dressing mess that had camouflaged the true intent of building 114. The main addition to the room was the large eighty-eight-inch monitor against the far wall. Xavier Morales was on the screen and all but Mendelsohn knew Europa was there also.
Niles Compton sat at the table’s head and Alice Hamilton was on his right as was customary with Virginia next to Alice. Jack was directly across from Sarah, Charlie Ellenshaw, and Anya. The rest of the various departments that had something to add to the meeting were present. Jenks was in a hurry to get back to the newly discovered PIT to reverse-engineer as much as he could as he still wasn’t that trusting of Madam Mendelsohn. Jack looked at Sarah and let her know with his eyes that he didn’t like the fact that she and Anya, with Alice Hamilton’s help, had tried to sidestep his mission parameters and insert themselves into the field team. Sarah knew Jack wasn’t happy.
“Okay, Colonel, are our two adventurers unharmed?” Niles asked as he looked over the wire-rimmed glasses that covered not only his good, but also his patched eye.
“Aside from needing a refresher course on covert egress of an enclosed facility, they’re fine. Although two DNA-coded cell phones will be coming out of their pay,” Collins joked without a smile at Ryan and Mendenhall.
They would both thank Collins later for the public shout-out.
“Commander, you reported that the men who accosted you and Captain Mendenhall were Russian speaking?” Niles asked as he continued to look at the two men at the end of the table. His good eye kept wandering to Ryan’s facial anomaly that was unavoidable, thus it was hard not to smile at the young naval officer’s discomfort.
“Well, I wouldn’t say we were accosted exactly,” Jason started to protest.
Niles waited patiently even though time was short—but even the director couldn’t waste an opportunity jabbing a teasing blow at Jason and Will.
“Yes, sir, definitely Russian. From the sounds of it, maybe organized crime, not sure.”
“Yes, sir, it seemed the Italian gentlemen who assisted us”—he looked at Collins—“in our egress from that particular enclosed facility”—he then looked back at the director—“didn’t seem too fond of them. It seemed those gentlemen might have been organized types also.” Ryan shot Collins a look.
Jack smiled, knowing he had angered both of his men and knew they deserved the return strike. He shook his head and then looked at Henri.
“Okay, we don’t have the luxury of time to go out and hit these bastards first, and we’ve used our monthly quota of FBI assistance to find out exactly what they want and how they fit in here. You turn this thing over to our organized crime fighters, Will and Jason.” He faced both Mendenhall and Ryan. “Get a Europa link and get as much as you can on this Russian outfit.”
Will and Jason knew Jack was forgiving their small failure by not berating them further.
“And me?” Henri asked as he wondered how long his term of servitude would be—if he survived, that is.
“We stick as close to that machine as humanly possible. It seems Madam Mendelsohn’s little invention has suddenly become very popular at the oddest of moments.”
“‘Oddest’ being the operative word, I assume?” Farbeaux sniped.
“Par for the course around here,” Jack replied with a wink.
“Okay.” Niles nodded for the navy communications man to allow Moira into the room. He hadn’t wanted to be briefed by Ryan until he knew who they may have been dealing with. The Traveler still caused many a person at this table major concern for not knowing her greatest achievement had been compromised, stolen, and then duplicated. She wheeled in and nodded to all those around the table with her eyes settling on Anya for only a brief moment. “Virginia?” Niles finished as the room quieted.
“In consultation with Dr. Mendelsohn, we have come to the conclusion that the Wellsian Doorway looks intact and fully functional. But that has not been confirmed as yet by our teams. The damage to the power lines coming into these buildings has not allowed us to bring the doorway online nor even her peripheral systems. The building has a small supply of power coming through its own generating system, which we have fully refueled, but not anywhere near the power we would need to get the doorway operational.”
“Are we working on an alternate power source?” Niles asked Jenks.
“Not yet, we need—”
“Yes, we are covering that,” Virginia said as she cut off the startled master chief, who looked as if he had no idea what she was talking about.
“We have?” he asked with a grumbled look.
“Yes, I have,” she said, looking at his confused face.
“Okay, what should the priority be?” Compton asked only for the benefit of others around the table.
Virginia turned to Xavier, who nodded his head at the camera view supplied by the supercomputer.
“Thus far I have nothing on how to gain signal acquisition without the second receiving doorway being in place. The science just isn’t there. An attempt made without a corresponding doorway, as I am sure Madam Mendelsohn will tell you, is quite impossible. At least according to theory.”
“According to my engineering specs, Einstein may have come up with this theory, but I don’t see how this thing actually works, and sending people through that damn thing without knowing the exact science behind it is damn well stupid.”
Compton ignored Jenks’s outburst and turned back to the large viewing screen. “I sense a ‘but’ in there, Doctor,” Compton said, watching the young man and how he handled the pressure of research on an emergency level.
“That there is, Director Compton. In my briefing by Europa and reading the final after-action reports by Colonel Collins, I may have a lead on something that may help. It’s a long shot but I do think it’s worth looking into. I just need some information from the master chief.”
“Master Chief?” Niles asked looking to his left.
“Go for it, young Xbox jockey.”
Compton frowned at Jenks.
Morales smiled at the intended slight of being called an Xbox jockey. “I understand this entire operation was started when Admiral Everett vanished in an escape pod from HMS Garrison Lee, and then into the unnaturally generated dimensional wormhole, is this correct?”
“Yes,” Niles answered quickly just to keep Jenks from doing so.
“And the government of Great Britain recovered that same escape pod two hundred thousand years, give or take fifty thousand years, after it crashed into the historically and speculated inland sea on the continent of Antarctica. Is this also correct?”
Silence as the room waited patiently, knowing the new man knew nothing of how Niles ran his meetings.
“Master Chief, you designed those very same escape pods, am I correct?”
“That’s right, the escape pods and the assault craft used in the operation.”
“Brilliant designs, I might add,” Morales said. “But I digress. Master Chief, I need the escape pod design specs. Europa may have come up with a solution. As I said it’s a long shot, but it’s better than what the alternative would be.”
“What is it?” Jenks asked as he looked from Virginia to the screen.
“The pod was designed with a global positioning locater, correct?”
“Yes, it acts as a homing beacon upon ejection for search and rescue. All of the pods had them.”
“Completely waterproof?” Xavier continued.
“Yeah, it’s a sealed unit,” Jenks grumbled as he wondered if the kid was questioning his design.
“This is important, Master Chief: What is the life span of the locator beacon?”
“Six months, maybe seven.”
Morales looked away for a moment and his face was lost in the large monitor. He reappeared.
“Europa may have found a way to bypass a second doorway signal. She may be able to lock on to Admiral Everett’s search-and-rescue marker if you can get this doorway open to allow her signal to get through to search for the correct frequency.”
Anya felt her heart skip a beat. All others looked into the monitor absolutely blown away by the young Morales and his obvious and immediate connection with the supercomputer, Europa.
“Dr. Mendelsohn?” Compton said, looking toward the woman.
“I would need to know the frequency of the rescue beacon for the initiating doorway to lock on to, but this may be promising if the beacon is still active.”
All eyes shot back to Niles.
“Virginia, you and Master Chief Jenks are excused. Get with Dr. Morales and see if we have something here.
“Professor Ellenshaw, I need the report by you and the anthropology department on the primordial situation we could be walking into on the continent of Antarctica two hundred twenty thousand years ago, give or take two thousand years. Lieutenant McIntire, the same goes on the geologic front. I need answers, people, on what sort of environment we will be walking into there. I also need the zoological department along with anthropology to get us a read on possible animal and humanoid life, and I need all of this yesterday. Alice will coordinate.”
Niles conferred long distance with the other department heads sitting in the conference room in Nevada as Sarah and Alice both watched Anya eyeing Moira suspiciously. Both women knew Anya had discovered something about the Traveler that had disturbed her. As Moira explained some technical detail or other to Virginia and an attentive Jenks, Anya finally made eye contact with Sarah and nodded toward the door. Sarah looked at Alice and excused herself. Jack eyed the two suspiciously for getting up without comment. He looked at Henri and his head tilted ever so slightly in question.
As she stepped out of the office door, Sarah saw Anya looking out of a filthy window at the overcast and defused light outside.
“Alice and I wondered when you were going to let us in on what was bothering you,” Sarah said as she laid her electronic pad on the table lining a stained wall and then sat on its edge, waiting as Anya slowly turned to face her and the inquiry.
“She is hiding something,” Anya said, biting her lip.
“We all hide things, Moira probably more than most,” Sarah countered.
“My brother,” the voice said from the doorway.
Anya and Sarah turned and that was when they saw the Traveler sitting in her chair with her hand still on the old brass doorknob. She had been sitting there silently.
“Moira, I—”
The wheelchair slowly moved into the room and Moira examined the two women.
“I was searching for my brother. Sixteen times I made the transition through the doorway, and sixteen times I failed to find him.” The old woman advanced into the old outer office where shipyard accountants and naval engineers used to sit huddled doing their jobs of long ago. The wheelchair was silent as she moved it across the floor. She stopped next to Anya and she too looked out at the dreary day over Brooklyn.
“The brother who was used as a hostage while you traveled?” Sarah asked, remembering her file.
“Yes. Joseph.” She smiled at the mention of the name as she recalled his precious face to mind. She turned and took in both women as if she wanted them to understand. “I called him Flea, he was so small.”
“You had to have known the doorway was destroyed behind you. You said it yourself in your postwar debrief to the allies and then again to Israeli intelligence. So why would you make an attempt at something that was now clearly impossible?”
Sarah saw the answer first as her training dictated she would. “The first Wellsian Doorway from the previous year, the first built in Germany,” Sarah said as she watched Moira for the truth of her educated guess.
“Yes, the first doorway, built and unused for anything except for me and the initial experiments, the Nazi’s own Traveler.” She looked at the two women and smiled, a sad attempt. “The experiment was a closed one. That meant that when the bunker was evacuated after the construction of the doorway in 1942, it was left unguarded and in pristine condition for their test rat to emerge from that very first, abandoned machine. I would eventually use that first doorway and I and my team would attempt to bring my brother out of 1942 Nazi Germany. An impossible task, which was hard learned. We would go in two-week increments and search for him. First in Dortmund, and then at Bergen-Belsen, where we were all kept before the experiments had begun in 1942. We found nothing.”
Sarah was more interested in Anya’s reaction to Moira’s explanation than the Traveler’s words. Anya raised the black brow over her alternating blue-green right eye.
The door opened and Charlie stuck his crazed white head of hair inside and found Moira.
“Dr. Mendelsohn, Director Compton is ready for you.” He looked at the serious expressions in the room and immediately ducked away. After all, Charlie had been receiving dirty looks most of the day from Ryan and Collins every time they saw him. The door quickly closed. He was beginning to think that the music fiasco would kill his chances at coming along with the mission group.
Moira looked at Anya and then Sarah before she turned the wheelchair for the door where Sarah held it open for her. Without a look back or another word, Moira went back into the meeting.
“Well, you’re the Gypsy—is she lying? I thought she spoke the truth. Of course my instincts are based on nothing in particular … what does the spy in you say?” Sarah asked as she walked away from the door and faced Anya.
“No, she’s not lying, Sarah.” The former Israeli intelligence agent bit her lip once more and then looked at the door and the meeting beyond. “But she’s not being straightforward either. She’s not letting us completely inside yet.”
“Dr. Morales said that when Moira covered her tracks in the sixties and seventies she did it better than anyone he had ever seen outside of black operations people. He said it will take him and Europa months to uncover her true past. He said he will eventually dig it out, but she was that good at covering and hiding her intentions to the world in general.”
“Look, I know Jack and the security department have their hands full at the moment with this Russian mob aspect, but can you shift your duties to your assistant in geology? I think we girls need a trip into Westchester.”
Sarah looked surprised.
“What’s up in Westchester?” she asked as Anya faced her at the door.
“That is where the private home is located that our Miss Mendelsohn used as an orphanage. It’s closed down after all of these years but it’s still there. We need to see about these two hundred and thirty-seven orphans she supported. Let’s see if we can track someone down who can tell us just why Miss Mendelsohn was so generous of not only her money, but her time.”
“I’m not getting an evil, or even a bad vibe from Moira, and I usually get them from people with less-than-honorable intent.”
“Yes, but as you so brashly pointed out, Sarah, I’m a Gypsy and a spy.”
Sarah raised her brows and smiled as Anya opened the door to return to the meeting.
“Well, Jack’s already pissed at me, so, what the hell, I guess we’ll take a drive to Westchester County.”
UPPER EAST SIDE OF MANHATTAN, NEW YORK CITY
The younger man watched the CEO place the silk scarf around his neck and then pull on the slightly heavier coat over his two-thousand-dollar British-made suit. Joshua Jodle watched the old man with ever increasing contempt. After being assisted with his coat the CEO faced the younger man. The ever-present smile was in place where it always has been. He handed him his expensive briefcase as they stood before the private elevator.
“Look, Jodle, I want you up at Lake Champlain no later than eight o’clock tonight. We have to get this ugly business sorted out soon before everyone from the FBI to the Securities and Exchange Commission starts a witch hunt.” The dark eyes warned Jodle that if he wasn’t part of the solution he could easily be made part of their problem-solving efforts in the next few days.
“Yes, sir, the helicopter will return for me as soon as I find out the disposition of our eastern friends.”
“You do that. Now, the other members of the board are already onboard.” The elevator doors opened and the CEO allowed Jodle in first simply because the chairman was just too important to push the button for the roof. Jodle did and then watched as the older man stepped inside. The doors closed and the elevator climbed to the fiftieth floor in silence.
The wind had picked up and the night had some bite to it as the elevator doors opened onto the roof of the expensive apartment building—one of the most exclusive in the city. The helicopter’s rotor started to turn as the executive Sikorsky made ready for its run to the Lake Champlain meeting house where the entire board of directors would decide on how to handle the Moira Mendelsohn problem that seemed to be getting larger the longer they waited.
“Find out what that fool Russian is playing at. We need the details so we may respond appropriately.”
“Yes, sir,” Jodle said as the old man turned and walked briskly to the idling helicopter where the other six men of the board of directors waited inside the plush helicopter. Jodle even managed to wave his hand at the pilot, who nodded as the door closed. The idling engine went to full power for its liftoff from Manhattan. The gleaming Sikorsky lifted free of the helipad and slowly started to climb. It peeled off as soon as it cleared the roof and rose even higher over the East River. Jodle watched as his left hand held the elevator doors and his grip was pure white as he waited.
The explosion was bright and reflected off the heavy rain clouds covering the skyscrapers. The Sikorsky disintegrated and the pieces floated easily toward the water far below. The last to strike was the twirling rotor blades that hit with a spectacular wash of spray that shot high into the sky. Jodle closed his eyes when he knew he wasn’t alone.
“There, that was a simple solution to a sticky problem, wasn’t it? Now look who gets to take over the firm in the number one slot.” There was laughter. “You can thank me later.”
Jodle turned and saw the hand on his shoulder as the Russian stepped free of the shadows. Three of his bodyguards were with him.
“It was a risk to take them out before we are assured of Madam Mendelsohn’s full cooperation.”
“That’s why we have you, my young friend. You were the last one of her orphans through the doorway, we just need you to turn it on for us.” Mr. Jones, as he was called at all times, smiled and slapped the younger man hard on the back. “Besides, with the stolen list of your madam’s children, the task of gaining her cooperation is made that much easier.” The Wall Street trader grimaced as the blow to the back the Russian had administered a moment before almost made him lose the air in his lungs.
“It’s a bit more complicated than that,” Jodle said, hoping to dampen the high spirits of the cold-blooded killer.
He faced Jodle and the smile was gone.
“Let’s hope it is not, for your sake.” The Russian turned and started for the closed elevator doors and then waited on the younger man to catch up with him.
“And what do we do about those people at the navy yard?” The tall man waited for the Russian to acknowledge his concern. The bell chimed and the elevator doors slid open to reveal three of the mobster’s men waiting inside. He hesitated before climbing into the car. He turned with his black-gloved hand on the doors, halting their closing cycle.
“As of now I have four missing men who were conducting surveillance on these strangers. It seems whoever these people are”—he looked up into the trader’s face—“are very resourceful. That scratches most of the NYPD and federal authorities off the list. Especially since most of this borough’s uniformed men work for me in one capacity or another.” He stepped into the car and raised his dark brows until Jodle joined the four men inside.
“Regardless of who they are, they will nevertheless dismantle the doorway and remove it. And I assure you, Mr. Jones, the process cannot be duplicated. Times have changed and getting the necessary technology for duplication is highly illegal and, I might add in most cases, impossible to acquire. So if I may ask, how do you intend on getting the only working doorway out of the hands of these people?”
That irritating, knowing smile etched the Russian’s face as the elevator doors started to close.
“We do what any civilized gentlemen would do: we ask politely.”
The doors closed on the shocked face of the stockbroker.
FISHKILL, NEW YORK
The families were gathered to celebrate the birth of their first granddaughter. The proud parents held the newborn as the grandparents beamed while taking photos. The young woman was the only child of the couple who came to be parents a little later in life than usual, even for New York yuppies.
The grandfather had recently retired from a construction firm where he had served as an engineer for forty years. He and his wife considered themselves young and vital and prepared for the challenges of the second half of their lives. They felt it was all well deserved for the horrid first few years they had suffered. Benjamin and Natalie Koblenz were now complete and had guaranteed themselves that their strange legacy was going to continue in the grinning face of the newborn baby they now watched in their daughter’s arms.
The house was quiet as the grandmother and daughter began to place dishes on the table for a late supper after the long day checking out of the hospital.
The light knock on the back door caught the two women unawares as they exchanged curious looks.
“The back door?” the daughter asked.
Just as the grandmother turned, the door opened and three men stepped inside. Her eyes widened when she saw the guns in the men’s hands. The young woman gasped and before the strangers could react ran into the living room. She came to a sliding stop when she saw the second set of three men in the hallway holding the same menacing weapons as the ones at the rear door. Her eyes frantically went to the living room where she saw her husband standing with their newborn and her father staring wide-eyed at the intruders.
“Benjamin Koblenz?” the only black-clad man without a handgun asked politely.
“Yes,” answered the silver-haired man, who took a step backward to shield his son-in-law and new granddaughter. He turned when he saw his daughter standing in shock and then suddenly run to be with her husband and daughter. His wife was moved from the kitchen to the living room with a gun politely sticking in her back.
“And this must be Mrs. Koblenz, the former Natalie Freiburg.”
The husband remained silent as his wife came to his side. She was shaking and this infuriated the older man.
The talker placed a piece of paper into his coat pocket and then nodded to one of his men.
“My associate will assist you in gathering anything you may need for your child. Dress her warmly, we have a bit of a drive ahead of us.”
Panic spread rapidly across the daughter’s face like a wild flowing river as she removed her daughter from her husband’s hold and sat hard on the couch, holding her child tightly to her heaving chest. “You can’t take my baby,” she cried as her frightened husband tried his best to shield them as he too sat.
The man shook his head. “We are not in the habit of killing children,” the man lied as he had done just that a few months before with a freeloader and his family in Staten Island. “We need twenty-four hours of cooperation and then we will return you and your family to your home.” He smiled. “Completely intact and unharmed.”
“Who are you and why do you need us to go with you?” the grandfather asked as a diaper bag was tossed to him by one of the intruders.
“I will let Miss Mendelsohn explain that to you.”
Both Benjamin and Natalie Koblenz exchanged worried looks.
“Who is that?” the daughter asked as she and her young husband were brought to their feet.
The silence that greeted the question was unnerving as the six men went about preparing to abduct the entire family.
A small portion of the Traveler’s secret and extended family was being rounded up.
KATONAH, WESTCHESTER COUNTY, NEW YORK
The darkness had eaten most of Sarah’s enthusiasm as she thought about how Jack and Niles were going to fly off the proverbial handle when they learned that she and Anya were in the process of going rogue on them. All of this after the director had allowed them all back in after being caught trying to manipulate the young Morales. No, this was not going to sit well at all.
“There it is,” Anya said as she saw the address and the name on the black gate and the surrounding brick masonry that guarded the monstrous Gothic building.
Sarah slowed the car down and stopped at the chained gate and looked at the large mansion beyond. The darkness was complete. “Well, it sure as hell looks abandoned,” Sarah said and then nearly screamed when a knock sounded on her window. Embarrassed, she turned her head and saw the uniformed security guard standing just outside of the car. He had tapped on the glass with a flashlight. The man stood straight when the car’s dome light came on when Anya stepped outside and walked to the side of the car where the old man waited.
“You young ladies know this is private property?” he asked as he watched the gorgeous woman with jet-black hair approach. He was appreciative of her figure as his locked and loaded eyes made obvious.
“We just need some information,” Anya said as she stepped closer to the older security guard, whose frame looked as if it hadn’t missed any meals of late. “How long has the”—she looked at the brass name on the gate—“Briarson Home for Children been closed?”
“Oh, gosh, even before I got out of grade school. The town was sad to see it go, I do know that. The firm that supported the school and home was very generous to the local community. Let’s see, 1983, maybe ’84.”
“Wow, that has been awhile,” Anya said with a quick look into the driver’s side window at Sarah. Then the plastic Taser came up and into the man’s large belly. His eyes went wide and he became rigid as the electrical charge coursed through his body. “Sorry,” Anya said as she tried in vain to ease the unconscious guard to the ground but cursed when he crashed anyway due to his unexpected weight. She quickly rummaged in the man’s pockets and then stood and looked at a shocked Sarah McIntire. “We don’t have a lot of time here for Q and A,” she said as she turned and ran for the locked gate. She quickly had the chain removed as Sarah jumped out and started dragging the moaning security guard through the now open barrier.
“I think Carl and Jack are a bad influence on you,” Sarah said as she used the officer’s handcuffs to secure him to the inside bars of the ornate gate as the semiconscious man kept mumbling incoherently. Sarah reached down and removed the guard’s radio and threw it five feet away into a stand of overgrown bushes lining the gate. Both women went back to the car in silence and then drove through and closed the gate to keep outside curiosity to a manageable level.
The mansion was large and only a few lights burned purely for fire department safety. Moira, through her management firm, had kept the grounds immaculate and they hoped the same could be said for the interior. They parked the car in the front and used the large set of keys stolen from the guard to open the double front doors. The dreams of finding the inside as glorious as the outside were quickly and distinctly quashed.
“Boy, the housekeeping staff must have been the first employees let go when this place closed,” Sarah said as she ran a hand through thirty years of dust on a sideboard table near the front door. Sarah started to reach for the light switch and Anya stayed her hand. She just shook her head. She clicked on a flashlight and gave it to Sarah.
“The guard may have a few friends.”
Sarah nodded and they started looking—for what, they didn’t know.
BROOKLYN NAVY YARD
The machine up close was gorgeous in its design if not daunting in its construction. Virginia, Jenks, and the entire nuclear sciences and engineering departments were crawling all over the doorway and its support systems. With the assistance of Europa they had devised that the time machine was in complete working order even though Europa was having a hard time saying the apparatus would or could actually work. The science was just too impossible, even for the Cray system as she was also having trouble without the right programs on quantum physics.
The daunting problems remaining were not in the control of Jenks or Virginia, but mostly fell to the responsibility of Morales and Europa in finding a corresponding signal from what might be as far back as 250,000 years, that coupled with the fact that they could not even power up the Wellsian Doorway without blacking out the entire eastern seaboard. Moira had explained that exact same thing had happened causing the famous 1969 New York blackout. She had even smiled when recalling the debacle she had spent millions upon millions of dollars to cover up.
The Event Group’s duplicate, reverse-engineered, and far more portable Wellsian Doorway was now under construction next to the existing one. It would be able to be broken into components for transport to Antarctica to be reassembled there for the team’s dimensional return—if there was one.
“Yeah, well I can’t see anything working until we get some electricity in here that has enough umph to fire this damn thing up,” Jenks said as he removed the stub of his cigar and nearly spit the foul taste from his mouth until he saw Virginia waiting to pounce on him for doing so. He swallowed instead. “Well, are you going to let me in on your little secret on how you plan to accomplish that particular electrical miracle since the portable power unit we have at the complex has to go with the field team into the past”—he smirked at Virginia—“if that’s even possible.”
The look down at Moira by an unbelieving Jenks was unmistakable as she sat and smiled at the master chief and his continuing doubts about the sciences involved. Moira knew engineers had very small imaginations.
“Look, there is only one portable power unit in existence capable of generating the output of the hundred and fifty megawatts we need. Bringing in the power lines from the city will cause a lot of eyes to look our way and even then we would probably blow every circuit from here to Montreal in doing so. So, maybe you should let old Jenksy in on your solution, huh, Slim?”
Virginia shook her head while she used a nonconductive acrylic wrench to twist a bolt on the old doorway as they were now in the process of adding their own features to the technology. “I’m working on that, Harold.”
“What did I tell you about calling me—”
“Virginia, you’re needed outside, the harbormaster is waiting on you.”
Both Virginia and Jenks stopped bickering and turned to see Niles Compton and Jack Collins standing by the wheelchair of Moira Mendelsohn, who was looking up at them.
Virginia looked at Jenks and gave him a smug smile and then stepped down from the top of the doorway where she had been analyzing the lens cuts on the eighteen laser apertures in the rounded circle of the door’s opening.
“Unlike engineers, my people know how the world really works,” Virginia said as she hopped down the last few steps of the erected scaffolding.
“Smart-ass,” Jenks grumbled as he snapped the last laser lens into place.
Niles watched the assistant director exit the platform area and then waited as Jenks climbed from the erected scaffolding and confronted Moira for further instructions on how the doorway operated. Niles then pulled Jack aside.
“I had to bring the president in on this request from Virginia and I’m guessing the Department of the Navy and General Dynamics are going to start asking some serious questions soon.”
“We knew it wouldn’t last as long as we needed. Do we still have the eighty-eight-hour window the president promised?”
Niles pursed his lips and then limped to a chair and sat, staring up at the Wellsian Doorway and its newly born and much smaller reverse-engineered sister rising next to her.
“Yes, and those remaining hours are ticking away fast,” Compton said as his eyes roamed over the most amazing machine he had ever seen outside of the magical Leviathan, the futuristic submarine they encountered during a harrowing field mission a few years back that was so appreciated by the members of the Event Group.
“Has Morales and Europa had any luck with the escape pod signal?”
“He seems convinced if we can get the doorway up and running he and Europa can find a corresponding signal from Mr. Everett’s escape pod. Pete Golding Junior says that according to Professor Mendelsohn’s figures, Europa should be able to shoot signals into every dimensional plain, no matter how many that may be.” Niles smirked. “Hell, I don’t know if the kid knows what he’s talking about. I’m like Jenks there, this is so far beyond me that it hurts my head thinking about it.” Niles smiled and looked up at Jack. “Europa was right in her choice of her new boss, our Dr. Morales seems more than capable despite his youth. Pete was right to want him on his team.”
Jack knew discussing the replacement for Pete Golding always put the director in a funk. Pete was not only close to Charlie Ellenshaw, he had also learned most everything from the man sitting next to him—Niles Compton. Collins placed a hand on Niles’s shoulder and then looked around the PIT and the hundred technicians who sat at consoles and had wrenches and welders in their hands.
“Have you seen Sarah and Anya?”