C–130 rolling down the strip. Airborne Ranger going to take a little trip. Mission unspoken. Destination unknown. Don’t even know if we’re ever coming home.
~ Airborne Ranger running cadence I2–2025
Tuesday April 1, 2070
Florida District 8
Commonwealth of North America
Iteration 2
Sam slept on the leather couch of the regional director’s office, ignoring the mud that dried on her pant legs. She woke foggy headed to a still and gray morning. The sounds of everyday office life filtered through the walls like ghosts. Everything felt ever so slightly off, like she was skating on ice that she knew would crack at any moment, but she kept drifting farther from shore.
It was a weightless feeling brought on by closing the case, she told herself. But even that felt like a lie.
Thou Shalt Not Kill. How many times had she repeated the phrase as part of the Ten Commandments? How many times had the nuns repeated the little song, “Shed not life in wanton ways?”
All these needless deaths.
She tried to imagine what Henry had felt when he stepped through the time portal into the muggy predawn hours of July 4, 2069. Had the dew clung to his shoes as he stepped on the grass outside N-V Nova Labs? Had he seen the other Emir? Had he seen Marrins lift the gun to execute Henry’s mentor? Or had he been too far away, hidden in the tree line? The missing bullet they’d assumed lost last summer had certainly been meant for Troom.
But had Marrins known?
Was Marrins surprised when Henry pulled up to the lab the night she was kidnapped?
She sat at an empty desk, chin resting on her folded hands, and stared out the window at the palm trees. That morning in 2069 she’d rushed to the lab, angry at Emir for waking her up. Angry at herself for letting herself be pushed around by everyone else’s agenda.
The morning Henry died, she’d felt confident, certain she could handle it all. She closed her eyes against the threat of tears. Now she felt deflated. Empty. Adrift. Lost in a world of possibilities where each one was worse than the last.
It was all so meaningless.
“Agent Rose?”
She looked up at a young woman she’d never met peering in from the doorway.
“Yes?”
“The director is ready to meet with you. Would you like a coffee?”
“No, thank you.” Sam stood up, brushing the remains of the previous night’s debacle off her pants as best she could. “Where is he?”
Director Loren was waiting in a secondary conference room; nine screens filled one wall, images of men in military fatigues moving soundlessly. “Good morning, Agent Rose. How was my couch?”
“I wouldn’t recommend it if you aren’t tired, but last night it was perfect. What’s this?” She gestured to the screens. Emir’s machine was with the men in uniform. “Are they dismantling it?”
“Testing it,” Director Loren said. “We shipped it up to Fort Benning while you were catching forty winks. The first test was thirty minutes ago. It went well.”
“Went well?” The words tasted like ash in her mouth. “What did you do?” The ice was beginning to crack under her.
Director Loren frowned at her in confusion. “We tested it. Took all those notes you found and gave it to one of the science teams. This thing’s great.”
“No. No, you can’t,” Sam stuttered. “It’s dangerous.”
“I know. I read the report about the safety circles and crushed bones and everything. We’re being very careful. No one is going to get injured.” His frown deepened. “Rose, are you feeling all right? You’ve gone all pale.”
“The machine needs to be destroyed.”
“That’s an argument, certainly.” Director Loren nodded and picked up his coffee mug from the conference table. “But before we destroy it, we’re studying it. Making sure there are no uses for it.”
“It’s killed people.”
“So have guns. We still have those,” he said, giving her a significant look as he sipped his drink.
She knew that look. It was the one superiors gave to lower-ranking agents to tell them to shut up and get in line. “We know how guns work, sir. This isn’t a new kind of projectile weapon. It’s the new atom bomb. The new radium and mercury. It’s going to kill us if we try to use it.”
“Don’t take this the wrong way, Rose. I like cautious agents. I like the people who think of the worst-case scenarios and are prepared for them. I like that in you. But in this case, I think you need to remember there are reasons we have radium, and mercury, and the atom bomb. We aren’t Marie Curie leaving the thing out to slowly poison us. It’s controlled.”
“How can you possibly control something you don’t understand?”
“We’ll understand it soon enough.” He sighed. “You think you can hold it together long enough to debrief the rest of the senior agents? There’s a lot of gossip on social media about this. Your car wreck stirred up a tempest in a teapot like I’ve never seen. You should have seen how many demands I’ve had for your resignation.”
“My resignation? For what . . . not dying?” Sam was indignant, but Director Loren was clearly done with the interruptions. She withered under his glare. “I’m sorry, sir.”
“Trust me—I’m not going to ask you to resign. It’s not your fault, Rose. There’s always that one agent who catches media attention like a lightning rod. You just happen to be it.”
“I don’t try to get their attention.”
“You know the bureau, though. Attention means promotion. It’s hard for other agents to see your record as anything but self-aggrandizing stunts.”
“I’m sorry iterations of me keep getting killed. I’ll try to keep that under control. Maybe I can send a group memo to myselves.” She crossed her arms and scowled at him.
“Agent . . .”
He gave her a long look, somewhere between stern and sympathetic. Finally, he said, “You sure you don’t want something to eat before we go into the debrief? There are some donuts in the main office.”
Her stomach cramped at the suggestion. “I’ll be fine.”
“Okay, right in there then.” Director Loren led her into the main conference room, where the rest of the region’s senior agents were waiting.
The room held a row of tables set in a U-shape with computers, locking desk drawers, and plush red seats that looked comfortable but undoubtedly would feel like torture devices after the first hour. Ten other agents were already there, including Agent Petrilli, and the illustrious Senior Agent Alisha Mada, her inky-black hair twisted out and salted with white. She’d had a decorated thirty-year career, first in the USA FBI then the CBI, and the only reason she’d taken a district was because her nephew had been killed by gang violence and she wanted it cleaned up before her retirement.
It had been cleaned up, and her retirement was imminent.
Not soon enough to avoid her being here for this, though.
Sam met Mada’s eyes and tried to smile. Mada’s career was the one she’d always modeled, or hoped she was modeling. On days like today, she had serious doubts about her ability to live up to those standards.
Mada wasn’t smiling.
Next to Agent Mada was a younger man nervously tapping a stylus on the desktop. He saw Sam’s look and folded his hands in his lap.
Director Loren looked around the room. “Are we all here?”
“Yes, sir,” the junior agent said. Sam was surprised his voice didn’t squeak.
“Who’re you?” Director Loren asked.
“Junior Agent Gerrard Wade, sir. Agent Eckleton sent me because he’s in the hospital.”
“Right. Foot surgery.” Director Loren sighed. “What’s your clearance level, Wade?”
“Um . . .”
Director Loren jerked his head toward the door. “Get out. Tell Agent Eckleton I’ll visit him in the hospital later today.”
“Um, yes, sir.” Wade gathered his things and hurried out the door.
“Everyone else here has top secret clearance, correct?”
There was a murmur of affirmatives from around the room.
“Good. Let’s get started. Has anyone not had a chance to read the statement I sent out this morning.” If anyone hadn’t, they weren’t stupid enough to say so. “Good.” Director Loren sat down at the right corner of the U. “Agent Rose will catch us up on what she knows about the events of last night.”
Sam looked to the regional director in confusion. “Where do you want me to start, sir?”
“Start with the events of the past few days,” Director Loren said.
Sam nodded and tried to gather her harried thoughts. Biting her lip wondering if ‘In the Beginning was the Word’ was a good response. Director Loren didn’t look like he’d enjoy that bit of Catholic school humor.
So . . . the truth it is.
“Last year, a man named Dr. Emir invented a machine that he wanted to use to send messages back in time. It was meant to be an early alert system for natural disasters or terrorist attacks. It failed stupendously in that regard.
“What it did do was create a connection with timelines similar to our own. Parallel universes in a way. Emir called them iterations. The woman killed earlier this week was Detective Samantha Rose. Me from a different iteration of time. She crossed into our timeline, looking for Gant. She stole my car at least once. She impersonated me, most likely followed me, and, in the end, she died. Gant is a killer with no parallel in our iteration. I don’t know what psychosis drove him to pursue me after the other woman was dead, but he did. He firebombed my apartment, shot my dog, and put my partner in the hospital.”
“Iteration? Timelines?” Agent Mada’s stern frown was skeptical.
Director Loren made a circular motion with his hand, encouraging Sam to open up.
“Explain what an iteration is,” Director Loren said. “I doubt anyone understood that part before their morning coffee.”
“Time and reality are not as set in stone as we’d like,” Sam said. “Emir proved the theory of the Many-Worlds Hypothesis correct. Every choice fractures reality into different iterations of time. There are periods of expansion followed by collapses. Eventually, all iterations come back to one reality, and the others are discarded. Emir termed the event a Decoherence, the collapse of an iteration. When two iterations run parallel, it’s called a Convergence, and it is possible to cross into other timelines during a convergence. During other periods, it’s theoretically possible for a person to travel backward—possibly forward—in their own iteration.”
“Why weren’t we informed about this earlier?” Agent Mada demanded coolly. “The risk of having untracked criminals from other timelines is a significant security risk. Everyone in the bureau should be aware of what’s happening.”
Sam glanced at Director Loren and sighed. “We thought the machine was destroyed last year and that we wouldn’t experience any more interference from other timelines.”
“A foolish assumption,” Mada said. “Especially if you didn’t have proof the machine was destroyed.”
“We had proof,” Sam said. She’d smashed the damn thing herself. And she was willing to pick up a sledgehammer and do it again. Then she’d burn Henry’s notes. “But it was rebuilt by a student of Dr. Emir’s. Actually, he built two. A working prototype and another smaller machine that he tested in his lab and which killed him.”
“Give them the full story,” Director Loren ordered.
Sam closed her eyes. “Emir’s student, Dr. Henry Troom, activated the smaller machine at his lab, crossed back in time to the day of his mentor’s death, was shot by then–Senior Agent Marrins of the CBI, fell back into our time dead of a bullet to the head. The smaller machine was unstable and caused an explosion.” She could practically see their thought processes. The machine was a shiny new toy of destruction. Like Mac, they were all thinking about that one thing in their past they could change. Contemplating what crimes they could stop before they ever happened.
She was losing them to the madness of the machine. To that siren song everyone heard but her. “I need to be clear: These are not toys,” Sam said. “The machine has killed at least two people through improper use and been instrumental in the deaths of several others. Leaving our timeline open creates a security breach we are not prepared to deal with.”
“We can guard the machine, though, can’t we?” Petrilli asked. “Put guards around it and prevent anyone from walking in.”
Sam shook her head. “The machine doesn’t deliver you to the machine on the other end. At least, that’s not been our experience. There is a way to make that happen, but we don’t know how. We don’t know nearly enough to contemplate keeping the machine active. Most people who cross between timelines wind up in a random location. Unless we have a way to calculate it, this machine creates an open border we can’t defend. Look at Gant. He crossed over from another iteration and was hunting us before we knew he existed.”
“Not much different than most stalkers,” Petrilli said with a shrug. “Usually, we only find them after they’ve been following the victim for months. We can handle that sort of situation.”
She stared at him and wondered if Petrilli realized how stupid he sounded. Probably not. He hadn’t spent the last week reading physics notes until his eyes burned. He just . . . couldn’t know. Couldn’t understand.
“Petrilli is right,” Mada said. “If we get ahead of this, we could use it to our advantage.”
Petrilli nodded at her encouragingly. “There’s a lot to be said for being able to control time.”
“Yes, if we could control time,” Sam said. “We can’t. No one alive knows how the machine works. This is the new atom bomb, and we are poking it with a stick waiting to see if confetti comes out. Guess what? We’re not going to get confetti and candy.” Saints and angels. Why couldn’t she be having this argument with someone rational, like MacKenzie? These people were too . . . too . . . too her, she realized. This was exactly what Agent Rose would look like after ten years of service in the bureau. Able to rationalize anything in the name of the greater good, with full faith in the infallibility of the bureau.
Mada raised her hand. “You said we have the research Emir used?”
“Yes.” Oh, she did not like where this was going.
“Then we have a way of learning how to control the machine.”
Sam opened her mouth to protest, but Mada held her hand up to stop her. “But I also recommend caution. Agent Rose is right, we shouldn’t be poking anything with a stick. Yet we also shouldn’t dismiss it too easily. There are many things in history we could change.”
“That would be a mistake,” Sam said, cutting off Director Loren. She’d rather her director fire her than let this go on. “Changing the past will drive you insane. We have Gant in custody, he’s insane. I don’t think he started that way, but when he came here, everything that had made his history was erased. Anyone we asked to use the machine would be at risk.”
“So we ask for volunteers,” Mada said. “Ask them to fix our greatest mistakes, and in exchange, let them fix one of their own.”
It was like they weren’t even listening. “How would you determine our nation’s greatest mistakes?” Sam demanded, hands moving to her hips. “Marrins tried that. He wanted to go back and stop the nationhood vote. Gant wanted to leave the country before he committed his crimes. If you ask any two people what part of history ought to be stopped, you’ll get three different answers. Are you willing to risk another civil war to justify using the machine?”
“We won’t ask the people. This isn’t a referendum. We have a government for a reason.” Mada’s dark eyes were frosty with contempt.
“So we’ll put the power to eradicate parts of our culture into the hands of the wealthy and elite? You’ll destroy parts of our heritage with no idea what impact it will have on the future, or our present?” Sam shook her head. “No. This is too dangerous.”
Director Loren held up a hand. “Thank you, Agent Rose. Please have a seat. We have a great deal to discuss here.”
“Sir—” There was nothing to discuss.
“Your opinion has been noted, Agent Rose,” Director Loren said as he stood up. “I appreciate your passion for the topic. But, as your supervisor, I will caution you to examine your own feelings on the matter.”
Sam sank reluctantly into the chair opposite the director as she realized his decision was already made. Director Loren might not have even been the one making the decision. While she’d slept, he could have passed it up the chain of command, so the choice to use the machine ended up with a politician. Ended up with someone like her mother, someone who wouldn’t think twice before rearranging the universe to suit their whims.
“Dr. Troom was close to you,” Director Loran said.
“Not particularly, sir.”
“You rescued him last year during the assault on the laboratory where he worked?”
“Yes, sir.” Her shoulder tightened in anticipation of what was coming.
“From personal experience, I know how much it hurts to lose an asset you’ve risked your life for.”
She swallowed the angry refutation she wanted to use. “I regret the loss of Henry’s life, but I assure you that’s not why I object to using the machine, sir.”
“Your dog was killed by this. Your partner injured. You are too closely tied, and too emotionally invested, to think clearly about the possibilities,” Director Loren said with a patient smile.
Sam resisted the urge to cross her arms. Looking combative wouldn’t help her stance. “With all due respect, sir, that’s a weak argument. I’ve been dealing with this for over a year. I’m the only person with any direct experience in this field. That makes me the expert. I’m not being emotional when I tell you that using the machine will cost more lives than you or I are willing to spend. You’re about to make the Battle of the Somme look like a picnic. Sir.”
Director Loren stared at her, face a mask of emotionless rigidity. “I’ll take that under advisement. Agents, we will follow Agent Mada’s direction to proceed with caution. That being said, let us discuss the possible ways this new device could help our nation.”
“Putting a positive spin on it won’t make it better,” Sam muttered. Director Loren sent her another harsh glare, and she snapped her mouth shut. Her teeth ground together as the other agents talked about the things that could be changed. Old cases worth revisiting. Being able to place a person at the scene of the crime to witness it without interfering, stopping tragic deaths in advance. They hadn’t heard a word she’d said.
An hour later, her stomach was in knots, and nothing had changed.
Director Loren dismissed them. “Agent Rose, stay a moment please.”
She stopped at the door, not willing to turn. “Sir.”
“I know this is hard for you. You’ve been on the front lines, and it’s left an impression. Have you considered taking a few days off?”
“I’ll take it under advisement, sir.” Just like he’d taken her suggestions under advisement.
“You’re going to go down in history, Agent. A hundred years from now, they’ll be reading about you in history class.”
“A hundred years from now, there won’t be anyone left to attend class.”
The hospital was oddly quiet for an afternoon. Sam walked down the halls, heels clicking on the floor with a comforting familiarity. The smell of antiseptic and the slow beeps of the machines guarding the patients helped soothe her. She slipped into Mac’s room and checked the nurse’s notes on the computer screen by his bed. Poor security there. Someone should have logged out before leaving the room. Still, she was grateful for the oversight. Mac’s vitals were good. He’d recover in time.
She sat down in a hard plastic chair next to his bed. “Mac?” The whisper didn’t wake him. She gently reached for his hand. He was cold. So still. Corpselike . . . almost dead when she needed him most. She squeezed his hand and bit back the tears. There was so much she needed to tell him, to ask him, to take from him, she realized with a sickened sensation. She always took from Mac. Stole his time, and his couch, and his attention . . . She had endangered his career more than once.
She put her head on the bed beside his hand, waiting for him to wake up. She wanted one more thing from him: a chance to say good-bye.
A nurse bustled in, regarded her in speculative silence, and retreated after checking the monitors.
She was still waiting for Mac to wake up when Agent Petrilli knocked on the door.
“Hi.” He smiled like a movie star waiting for the camera flash.
Sam forced a smile of her own. “Hi.”
“Your phone was off, and Director Loren asked if I could check on you on my way back home.”
Sam sat up. What had they done?
“I figured you’d be here.” Petrilli smiled. “I always wondered who I was competing with for your attention. You two are quite something, aren’t you?”
“No, just friends,” she said for what felt like the hundredth time. She pulled her hand away from Mac’s. Petrilli couldn’t know what Mac meant to her. No one could. Not if Mac was ever going to have a normal life. “He saved my life once. I figured the least I could do was visit the hospital and check up on him.”
“Is he going to be okay?”
“He’ll be fine. He has a minor concussion, a couple of scrapes and bruises. Nothing serious.” Hoss had taken bullets for her. Mac had taken the bruises. She ought to be dead twice over, but here she sat unscathed, while everyone around her suffered. “Did you need anything?”
“No. I just wanted you to know they ran the first op with the machine up at Fort Benning.”
Her heartbeat slowed, stuttering, threatening to stop as cold fear gripped her. “Oh?” She kept her voice light and calm.
“They went back a week in time and saved a baby who was going to be killed in a car collision. I thought you might need to hear that.”
“Really?” Even to her ears, her voice sounded strained.
“We’re going to do good with this, Rose. I know you’re worried it could all go sideways, but it isn’t. I promise. I’m on your side. I agree we need to be careful. But we saved a kid’s life today, what’s better than that?”
“Nothing,” Sam lied. “I’m sure the family is relieved.” She waited a moment. “How did they react?”
He glanced down the hall and shrugged. “They were good.”
“You’re lying.”
Petrilli winced. “There was some shock. The family was grieving, and then it hadn’t happened, it was an adjustment. We sent a therapist to work it out with them. In the future, we’ll probably try to hit these things within a few hours. Giving people too long to adjust to changes only gives them more psychological dissonance to worry about.”
“What do you think is going to happen if we erase tragedy from life?”
He shrugged. “Who knows? Maybe we’ll create Utopia. Maybe it’ll just lower the number people using antidepressants. It’s a sea star thing; you can’t save them all maybe, but you can save the one you throw back in the water. You know?”
“Do you think everyone is going to have a fabulous life because you stop every death, every car accident, every suicide? Are you going to stop death? We can’t even keep people from being unemployed when the world population is so low that no single country could scrape together a halfway-decent army, and you think you can create Utopia by stopping car accidents? Life without tragedy isn’t life, Petrilli. If we didn’t ever experience a loss, we’d never understand how good it feels to have someone survive. You can’t appreciate sunshine if you’ve never seen night.”
“That is a very pessimistic view, Rose. If people need tragedy in life, they can read Shakespeare. Pull out some old Russian literature, maybe. No one needs real heartbreak in their life.”
“Who would we be without tragedy? I wouldn’t be me. Are you going to erase all the moments that defined my life?”
“Maybe this will mean your life won’t need to be defined by horrible things!” Petrilli threw his arms up in exasperation. “You know? How much happier would you be if your life was influenced by a series of happy memories instead of whatever trauma you’re hauling around. Drop your baggage, Rose.”
She lifted her chin. “There is no such thing as a perfect life. Even if to everyone else your life was flawless, you would hate the days that weren’t euphorically beautiful. You’d be an addict always looking for the next bit of happiness. You’d destroy yourself in a quest for something that doesn’t exist.”
“I give up,” Petrilli said. He turned away, then turned back, ready to jump into the fray once more. “We saved a baby.” Petrilli raised his eyebrows. “Don’t you think that means something? Can’t you see the value of a single life?”
“I can. I’m glad the baby is alive, but I want to make sure the baby grows up in a world where its choices determine its future. No one sitting in a lab with a tinkertoy time machine has the right to decide how history is shaped. That’s not our job. We aren’t God.”
“I was always taught God helps those who help themselves. We were given a wonderful new way to help people. I think God would want us to use it.”
“That’s probably what people said about the atom bomb.”
“And the bomb brought an end to the world wars. It isn’t a black-and-white thing.”
“Exactly! Don’t you see: You can’t just decide this machine will only do good because you want it to. There are people who will use it for their own ends. Nothing ever exists in a vacuum. And maybe it won’t be immediate, but given enough time—and we are talking about a time machine here—someone is going to turn that machine on and hurt others.” Sam pushed past him and walked furiously down the hall.
“Where are you going, Rose?” Petrilli asked as he chased after her.
“Home.” No. There wasn’t an apartment left to go home to. “Never mind, I’m going to the office.”
“Are you upset with me?” He honestly sounded wounded.
Sam came to a screeching halt in the hospital hallway. “Petrilli, I know this might be hard for you to wrap your mind around, but my life doesn’t actually revolve around you. In the past seventy-two hours, I’ve lost my residence, my dog, and my best friend has been hospitalized. I have paperwork piling up in my office and a junior agent who needs to be debriefed and given some leave time before he breaks from the stress.”
“I’m just checking. You’re were a hot second away from trashing your career this morning, arguing with Loren. I don’t want our friendship caught in the cross fire.”
“We’re fine,” she lied.
“Good.” He fell into step with her. “Wanna do lunch next week? I found this awesome Mexican grill near the border of our districts. Hole-in-the-wall, but the queso deserves a letter of commendation.”
Sam glanced sideways at him. “Really?” He couldn’t be serious.
“Oh, yeah. If you like spicy food, you will love this place!”
He was incredible. Nothing bruised Feo Petrilli’s ego. Something would have to get through to his little pin-sized brain for that to happen.
“You game?”
“Sure. Let me check my calendar, and I’ll let you know when I’m free.” She’d probably be free second Thursday after never, but she’d say just about anything to get him to shut up at this point.
“It’s a date then.” If he’d had a hat on, he would have tipped it. She almost laughed at the image.
Almost.
Sam stabbed the elevator CALL button and realized that was a tactical error. Being trapped with Petrilli even a minute more might result in a homicide, and she didn’t want more paperwork. The elevator dinged as the doors opened. She waited for Petrilli to step in, and said, “You know what, I think I’ll take the stairs.” She waved good-bye, then leaned back, looking up at the ceiling, trying to picture heaven beyond the faded white tiles dimpled with black paint.
Director Loren wasn’t going to listen to her. Petrilli had already dismissed every warning. The chances for divine intervention were low . . . Maybe this was what Julius Cesar had felt like before he crossed the Rubicon, like he was the only one in the world who could do things right.
Noah before the flood might have been a better analogy, she admitted as she walked back to Mac’s room. She hesitated in the doorway, watching him sleep for a moment. He hadn’t looked this peaceful since after he’d rescued her from Marrins and Emir the previous summer, and even then, things hadn’t been good.
Mac would never admit it, but being with her would kill him. She closed the distance between them and pressed a gentle kiss against his forehead, leaving a faint trace of her lipstick. “Good-bye.”
“Do you want a drink of water?” Agent Edwin asked. He was sitting at his desk, fiddling nervously with a pen.
Ivy looked at him. “Hmm?”
“Water, there’s, um, a watercooler in the county records office downstairs. I can got get you a drink if you want.”
“Sure.” She smiled and tried to not fidget. Agent Rose hadn’t given her any clue as to why she wanted to meet. All the paperwork had been turned in. Senior Agent Petrilli had met with her last night, debriefed her, and sworn her to secrecy. The department had given her the third degree this morning, then—after a phone call the chief wouldn’t talk about—she’d been told to take the rest of the day off. She’d been on her way to home—and her bed—when Agent Rose called.
The door opened, and Ivy jumped to her feet.
Agent Rose walked in, looking thinner and harder than Ivy could have ever imagined. She’d heard of women described as whiplike and always imagined them as leanly muscled people with sharp tongues and killer looks. Now she knew that whiplike meant ready to crack. “Good afternoon, Agent Rose. I was surprised you called.”
“Thank you for coming. I’m glad you were able to come here today.” There was no emotion on Rose’s face or in her voice.
“Busy schedule?” Ivy asked, trying to hide her worry.
“Something like that.”
“I hear Boca’s great this time of year. You could make a weekend of it. Catch up on your sleep.” She smiled nervously.
Agent Rose’s answering smile was brittle. “I’ll take that under advisement for a later date. My weekend is already booked.”
“Right. I bet you and Agent MacKenzie have things to do.” Probably naked things. If she had a man like MacKenzie looking at her the way Agent MacKenzie looked at Rose, she’d be spending her weekends indulging every erotic fantasy she’d ever had.
Rose’s face was statuesque in its emptiness. “Yes, but not together. He’s headed home to Chicago tomorrow.”
Ivy looked at the floor and wondered if it could swallow her whole. “Oh.” What a waste of a weekend.
“Let me grab something,” Agent Rose said. She unlocked her office, cautiously opened the door, then stepped in, returning a moment later with a small folder of dead-wood papers. “This is for you, Officer Clemens, with the thanks and gratitude of a grateful nation.”
Ivy took the proffered paper and read it. “A commendation?”
“For exemplary service and quick thinking under pressure.” Agent Rose held out the rest of the folder. “This is a recommendation to the bureau training program with testimonies from myself, Agent Edwin, Agent MacKenzie, and District Supervisor Loren. We all feel your service went above and beyond the call of duty and that your talent is being wasted in the police department here. It’s your choice, of course, but I think you’d be an amazing bureau agent.”
Ivy’s vision blurred as tears filled her eyes. “Agent Rose, I don’t . . . I don’t know what to say! You think I could be like you? I’m not . . . I’m nothing as good as you.”
“You said you admired me for being the only clone in the bureau? But then you learned I wasn’t. I was a fraud. The clone movement wanted to make me a figurehead because they needed a champion. But I’m not and never could be. You, though—you could be that champion. Should be that champion. A clone police officer graduating from the academy? You’d be everything you wanted me to be. I don’t want to pressure you, or tell you that people need you to do this, but they need someone. They need a hero.”
Ivy wiped the tears away with the cuff of her uniform. “Agent Rose, you have no idea what this means to me.”
“I have an idea.” She opened her arms. “Are you a hugger?”
Rose had just spoken of heroes, and Ivy wrapped her arms around hers. “Thank you!” She squeezed Agent Rose tight. “Oh, gosh, I will not let you down. You’ll see. I’m going to make you proud. You won’t regret this. I promise.”
“I know I won’t.” Rose squeezed her back and let go. “There’s one more thing.” She reached up and unclasped a chain from around her neck. “This is my Saint Samantha medallion, my namesake and the patron saint of spirituality. You may never need a god in your life, but you’ll need faith. The days ahead are going to be dark. Everything you do will be scrutinized. Everything you say will be questioned. On the days you can’t believe in yourself, know that I believe in you. No matter what happens. No matter what the future holds, I believe in you.”
There was a rush of air from the hall as Agent Edwin came back in. “Oh! Did you tell her, ma’am?”
Agent Rose smiled, and this time she looked less defeated. “I did. Officer Clemens hasn’t made a decision yet, but I did present her with her award and the letters of recommendation.”
Edwin held out a cup of water to her. “I wrote one, too. Said I’d be honored to have you in my district if I was ever a senior agent.”
“By the time she graduates the academy, you will be a senior agent,” Rose said. “You could request her for your district. That is if you’re going, Officer Clemens.”
Ivy took the water and lifted it in a toast as she beamed with joy. “To the academy!”
Mac shook his arm, trying to regain some feeling now that the IV needle was gone. The phone rang and went to voice mail. He dialed again.
“This is Agent Rose.”
“Sam! It’s me,” he said as if she didn’t make a habit of checking her caller ID when the phone rang. Or that she wouldn’t guess that from his voice. “The nurse said you came to see me but left with some man.”
“Agent Petrilli hunted me down.” There was a small sneer to her tone that suggested she hadn’t welcomed the other agent’s intrusion.
“Are you okay?”
“I’m fine.” Her voice was distant, closed off. “How are you doing?”
“I have a clean bill of health, and I’m starving. Want to meet somewhere for dinner?”
“I can’t. I’m sorry. The paperwork is Sisyphean.” The words were all in the right order, but the tone was wrong. Dismissive. Cold. Distant.
He was losing her again. “Sam?” He tried to stay calm. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.” There was a moment of silence and a little defeated sigh. “It’s not you. I’m tired. I have bureau paperwork and stuff for the apartment complex, and I’m so tired.”
He relaxed a little. “Why not go find a hotel for the night and tackle it in the morning. It’s already past six.”
“I just want to get it out of the way. Get it done and cut my losses, you know.”
“Yeah, I know, I just want to make sure you’ll take care of yourself.”
“I’ll be fine. Agent Edwin has manfully volunteered to stay here and fill out everything he knows the details for. We’ll be done in an hour or two.”
He thought he heard a smile in there. “Okay, well, maybe we could get together tomorrow?”
“You aren’t at the hotel yet?” Sam asked.
He hadn’t left the hospital yet. Checking on Sam had seemed more important. “No, why?”
“The bureau bought you a return ticket to Chicago for tomorrow. Your flight leaves at eight in the morning.”
“Oh.” So this is what heartbreak felt like. “I thought . . . never mind. I thought wrong.”
Sam sighed. “Don’t be like that. I’m going to take some leave soon. I can come visit. We can call each other.”
He heard the words, and in them, he heard the lie.
“Sam . . . I love you.” He sat down in the hospital hallway, leaned against the wall. “I love you.”
“I know . . . but I can’t love you. You’re wonderful.” He heard her move things on her desk and settle in to her chair. “The bureau approved use of Emir’s machine. They’ve already started testing it. I’m living with a death sentence. No matter what I do in the next year or two, I’m going to die sooner rather than later. I can’t do that to you.”
“We could be happy while it lasted.” A day, a year or two—he could accept there might be a time limit on their being together, but he couldn’t stomach the idea of never having time with her again.
“No.” Sam’s voice broke through his thoughts. “Mac, we couldn’t. You’d always be trying to figure out a way to stop it. I’d always be trying to find a way to protect you. I don’t want to see you broken again. I can’t die knowing how much it would hurt you if you loved me.”
He closed his eyes. “If you were trying to make this easier, this isn’t the right speech. Tell me you love someone else. Tell me you’re moving to Aruba with Agent Edwin.”
She laughed, a bitter, heartbroken sound of a woman who had lost too much laughing at the world asking her for another drop of blood. “You’d know I was lying. You always know when I’m lying.”
“Sam . . . please. Don’t do this to us. We’re so happy together.”
“Good-bye, Mac. Have a safe flight.” She turned off her phone.
He dialed again, but it went straight to voice mail. Two more tries, two more messages asking her to call back.
“Sir?” A nurse stopped in front of him. “Are you all right?”
He held up the phone. “My girlfriend just broke up with me.”
“Is she in the hospital?”
“No, ma’am.”
“Then sitting here isn’t going to do you any good,” the nurse said.
He looked up at a middle-aged woman whose no-nonsense face was filled with empathy.
“If you want her back, you have to go get her. That’s how these things work. Always have. If you want something, you have to go out and get it.” The nurse held up a hand to help him up.
He took it and stood up. “You’re right, thanks. She’ll probably be at work for a little while longer.”
“Take some flowers,” the nurse suggested. “Makes you look like less of a stalker.”
“Ah . . . right.”
Sam signed the last piece of paper and shut down her computer. She picked up her purse, then her phone. After a moment’s consideration, she tossed the phone in her trash bin. She walked out of her office and closed the door behind her.
“Ready to go home, ma’am?” Edwin asked. He turned beet red with embarrassment. “I mean, to the hotel.”
“Yes. Are Agent MacKenzie’s travel arrangements all set?”
“I was just finalizing them now, ma’am.”
“Good. I already told him he’s leaving in the morning.”
Edwin grimaced. “Are you sure he wants to take off tomorrow, ma’am? Traveling right after getting out of the hospital is a bad, um, not advised,” he said, hastily editing his vocabulary.
“He said he was eager to get home. There are cases piling up in Chicago that need his attention.” Mac might be able to catch her lying, but Edwin didn’t know her well enough.
“Are you sure?”
“You can call him,” Sam said.
“I tried. The number you gave me for his private cell phone seems to be turned off.”
“Really?” Sam frowned with genuine concern. “How strange. I’m sure it’s the right number.” And the sun was covered in ice, and cats were vegetarians. “He must want some privacy.” She laid her papers on his stack. “Can you sign and file these for me when you get a chance?”
“Sure, ma’am. Anything urgent in there.”
“No,” Sam said. “It’s just my final paperwork for the Troom case. No rush. The bureau already is fully aware of my thoughts on the matter.”
“I’ll get it done when I’m finished with everything else then,” he said.
“Great. Don’t work too late. This has been a hard week for all of us.”
Edwin blushed. “I’ll be fine, ma’am. One of the girls from the WIC office brought me up some of their fish fry. She said we’re reinvited to the building Christmas party! I think she likes me.”
“Well, that’s good news!” Sam said with forced enthusiasm. “I’ll start planning my ugly sweater!”
“Mine has reindeer,” Edwin said.
“I look forward to seeing it. I’ll be at the hotel downtown. If you need anything, just call.” Sam walked out of the office for the last time. She wanted to cry. No, that was a lie, too. She’d been wanting to cry for months. Ever since she’d buried her father, she’d been carrying a weight she couldn’t escape. Every day, her knees bent a little more. Every sunrise hailed another day of battle. One without Hoss.
And one without her anchor . . .
Her throat tightened with grief.
The bureau had signed her death sentence. Anywhere they took this project would be the path of her destruction. And Mac’s
She crossed the parking lot to where her new car sat, a used, gray Alexian Virgo. Mac was just the kind of person they’d get to volunteer to go through the machine. If they told him he could go back and save his friends from the ambush, he wouldn’t even stop to think about it. No one would. It seemed she was the only one who didn’t want to change the past.
All she wanted to do was change the future.
Mac pushed open the door to Sam’s office and looked in. Her flustered junior agent stared at him with a shocked look on his face.
“C-can I help you, sir?”
“I’m looking for Agent Rose; do you know where she is?” Maybe he should have stopped for the flowers.
“Uh-uh.” The younger man shook his head.
“Do you know when she’ll be back?”
Edwin frowned in confusion. “What?”
“Agent Rose?” Mac stepped forward not quite sure how to proceed. “Do you know if she’s returning tonight?”
“She resigned!” Agent Edwin blurted out. “She left!”
Mac closed on the desk and gently took the paperwork that the junior agent was clutching tightly. Sam’s signature was at the bottom of a resignation form. Reason for leaving was listed as personal.
For a moment, his heart leapt with joy. Personal reasons. She was going to come to Chicago with him! But . . . no. That would be a transfer. There was no reason to resign if she wanted to come with him. “What did Agent Rose do this morning?”
“She went to the district meeting. I mean, I think . . .” Mac gave him a steady, questioning look. “I wasn’t supposed to know about it,” Edwin admitted. “Definitely wasn’t supposed to be there.”
“I don’t care—I’m not going to get you in trouble. What did you hear?”
He shrugged. “Maybe Agent Rose arguing with the regional director. Something about her dog, and warnings, and a machine they took to Fort Benning. Maybe. I was outside waiting to ask her a question.”
“Not listening.” Mac nodded. “The director told her to toe the line, didn’t he? I bet that went over well.”
“Like telling a hurricane the city is a no-fly zone, sir.”
Mac set the paperwork down, tapping it as he stared into space. She couldn’t go back to her apartment. She hadn’t stayed around to take him home from the hospital.
In retrospect, he should have seen that as a huge, glaring red flag.
Sam was trying to get him out of the picture. Which meant there was really only one place she would go. “Sit on this,” he ordered Agent Edwin. “Give me forty-eight hours to see if I can talk some sense into her.”
Agent Edwin slowly nodded. “How are you going to reach her?”
“I’ll start with a phone call.”
“I tried; she left her phone and badge in her office.” Edwin grimaced. “In the trash can.”
Smart girl. She wasn’t leaving anything for someone to track. The Alexia Virgo she drove was old enough that it didn’t have a speed restrictor in it. It was tenuous, but he didn’t think she was just going off the grid, like Connor and Nealie. Which meant she was doing it for a reason—that someone’s being able to follow her would be either dangerous, illegal . . . or both.
And if he had to guess, he would say she was on the road to Fort Benning.
Mac smiled. “I know where she went.”
He drove back to the hotel first, parking the rental in the back of the lot. It had been years since he had done anything remotely black ops or covert, but the training was still there. The bureau couldn’t be fooled for long, but he didn’t need more than a head start. Once he was gone, there were only a few possible endings, death and imprisonment being the most likely options. With luck, and possibly divine intervention, he might be able to swing success.
Adrenaline burned through his veins. Time slowed to a crawl. It had been a long time since he’d been in the zone, but he was back now. In control and sure of himself like he hadn’t been since Afghanistan.
With careful attention, he tore through his luggage, discarding anything memorable. Nothing traceable was coming. Nothing that would garner attention. The government phone stayed, credit cards, all of it. There was no way the rental car could come, but it did mean he needed transportation that could move fast.
He looked out the window at the library down the street. Dereliction of duty. Fraud. Forgery. Possibly grand theft auto . . . it helped if he acted like this was hostile territory. He wouldn’t think twice if he were behind enemy lines and in a military uniform. Here, the lines were blurred. This was supposed to be home, but the people gunning at him were the ones in uniform.
Mac called down to the front desk—the room was reserved for another six days. By accident or design, Sam had it covered. Still in his suit, he walked down to the library and called the rental company. Thirty minutes later a young man named Kori picked him up.
“Thank you,” Mac said as he climbed into the car. “My transmission broke, I called the tow truck, but that doesn’t get me home to Columbia tonight. If I’m not at that meeting tomorrow, my boss will kill me.”
Kori laughed. “Yeah, my dad’s like that. I miss curfew, and I’m grounded for a week!”
Ah, to be seventeen again.
Kori dropped him off at the main desk and Mac spent another hour filing paperwork under the name of Cole Clary. Mr. Clary was a scruffy individual about Mac’s height who had been engrossed in a computer game when Mac walked past him at the library. Apparently, the computer game was pay-as-you-go, and the hapless Mr. Clary had forgotten to put his wallet away.
Mac had turned it in to the main desk like a good citizen after he lifted the driver’s license and cash.
“What kind of car, Mr. Clary?” the clerk asked as he signed the last page of waivers.
“Anything that runs,” Mac said. “Nothing flashy. I just need to get there on time.”
“I have the perfect car.”
A beat-up, brown Moka Black with twenty thousand miles on the tires. Mac checked the engine—there was a driver’s black box that would keep him from speeding, but he could work with that. “Looks great.”
“Just drop her off in the Columbia office when you get there, and you’ll get your fifty dollar safety deposit back when you plug her into the charge station.”
“Perfect.” Mac took the keys and pulled out of the lot. The first stop was the beach with the mud parking lot. He turned donuts in the empty lot until there was a good layer of mud on the car, then smeared the license plates and covered the rental sticker. He stripped off his suit and stuffed the bureau uniform in the trash. The chances of his ever needing that again were dwindling with every passing second. T-shirt and jeans were what this op called for. And sunglasses.
Time to chase Sam.
He drove the speed limit for an hour, then pulled into a good-sized town and stopped at an auto-parts store for two basic travel essentials: an auditor and a radar detector. Popping the hood, he fixed the auditor in place. It would read the allowed speed limit and tell the restrictor box that the car was within seven miles of that limit at all times. Then he hooked the radar detector in and set it to search for large radio signals, radars, and police bands. Traveling just shy of two hundred miles an hour wasn’t good for the tires, but it ate the miles between the Space Coast and the Home of the Infantry in record time.