36: A Novel (48 page)

Grimacing in pain, I forced my left arm up and used my right hand to quietly insert the maid’s master key into the lock.  Visualizing what I would do, I pulled it out and swiveled.  The lock beeped and I used the elbow of my right arm to slam the handle down an instant before my shoulder rammed the door open. 

The pistol was in my hand, coming up as I rushed through and fell to the side, placing a short wall that created a bar area between me and the main living area.  Behind, the door sighed and clicked as it closed and the lock engaged.

I’d gotten half a second of a look as I’d come in, seeing Julie’s body lying on the floor.  Unconscious or dead.  There had been a shout of surprise when I’d burst into the room, but no gunfire came my way.  Now it was quiet and I popped my head up for a look.  And saw myself, pointing a pistol at another myself, who was pointing his own back at the first me.  Fuck, this was getting even more confusing.

57

“What the hell?”  The left me said, glancing back and forth between the right me and me.

“What happened to her?”  I asked, aiming at a point halfway between the two of them.

“He knocked her out,” the right me said.  “Who the hell are you?”

“I’m me.  I mean you,” I said.  “I’m here to stop one of you from killing her.”

Both of them glanced at me before turning back to face each other and resuming the standoff.

“He’s lying,” left me said.  “We got back from a walk and I went to the bathroom.  When I came out, she was on the floor and he jumped me.”

Each of them were disheveled with various marks on their faces.  Clear indication that at least that story was true.

“Tell me about Monica,” I said, expecting the same ploy from the other night to tell me who was real and who wasn’t.

“My old girlfriend?”  Right me asked, confusion on his face.

I shifted my aim to left me, ready to take up the slack in the trigger and put a round in his head.  When I saw his expression I stopped.

“
My
old girlfriend,” left me said, correcting the other me.  “What about her?”

What the hell?  How was this possible?  If one of these was really me, he should clearly remember seeing Monica in the lobby with her family.  That had to have already happened.  Unless that was the difference in this timeline!  Dr. Anholts had said the only explanation for us not being in the hotel room was something must have altered the timeline.  Shit!  What now?

“One of you is here to stop the assassination of the President,” I said, shifting the muzzle of my weapon back to the halfway point.  “The other is here to clean up anyone who might know anything.  You kill Julie and try to kill me.”

I left the thought of, “maybe I just kill both of you”, unspoken.

They both looked at me before turning back to each other.  What the hell did I do?  I needed something that only I could possibly know.  Something that would have never been put into a file during my trial.  Nothing that could have been noted since I’d been scooped up by the Athena Project.  And that was the problem. 

I’d been forced to spend a lot of time with a Psychiatrist before they were willing to turn me loose in the past with a weapon.  At first, I’d resisted talking to the shrink about anything.  But over time, he’d gotten through and I’d gradually opened up.  After six months of multiple sessions per week, I wasn’t sure I had any secrets left.

But would the impostor have bothered to study my file?  He couldn’t have possibly anticipated this scenario.  Studied and prepared for it.

“So, what are we going to do, Chief?”  Right me asked.

I shifted aim and shot him in the head.  I’ve never called anyone “Chief” in my life, and it’s one of those little things that grates on me when someone uses it like he just had.  There’s no way that was me.

“Fuck me,” left me, alive me, breathed as he lowered his pistol.  “What took you so fucking long to figure it out?”

“Piss off,” I said to myself.  “And be glad I didn’t trust my gut.  I thought you were him.”

I stepped around the corner, intending to head for Julie.  He shouted and held his hand up to stop me.

“No closer,” he said.  “Remember the warnings.”

I nodded and had to stand there and watch as he knelt over Julie to check on her. 

“Is she OK,” I asked, impatient.

“Yeah, I think so,” he said.  “What about you?”

He was looking at the wetness on my slacks and jacket.

“Fucker shot me,” I said.  “No worries.  I’m back to real time in twenty minutes.”

“Is she safe?”  He asked.

“Goddamn it!  No!”  I said when I realized I still remembered Julie being killed.  “It wasn’t him.  Who the hell was it?”

He shook his head, looking back down and brushing a stray strand of hair off Julie’s face. 

“What was that about Monica?”  He asked.

“Oh.  Guess you should know.  Don’t know which one of us is going to remember this.”

I talked quickly, relaying the events of the timeline as I remembered them.  I could see the sadness, my sadness, in his eyes as I finished the story.

“I’m guessing that her not being here was the change to the timeline Dr. Anholts talked about.  That’s how I tripped him up when he was pretending to be me.  So.  What do we do?  I’ve got just over ten minutes left.”

He looked around the room, thinking.  I saw the idea occur to him and a moment later he lifted Julie onto the sofa.

“You take her with you,” he said.  “She’ll be safe that way.”

“Will that work?  Can she go through with me?”

“Remember the question I, we, asked Dr. Anholts when we were first learning about the project?”  He asked. 

“Right.” I smiled.  “I remember.  The one they hadn’t thought of and it kind of tweaked her that I did.  She found out someone could come forward without being harmed because there’s no Black Hole involved in returning to real time.”

He nodded and smiled back at me.

“You’d better be holding her,” he said.  “If she’s touching anything other than you, she might not go.”

I nodded, accepting the logic.  He leaned down and kissed Julie gently on the forehead.  Despite myself, a surge of jealousy passed through me.  How stupid is that?  Jealous of myself!

When he stepped away, I slowly came forward.  We were careful to never come within more than ten feet of each other.  Reaching Julie, I knelt by her form and checked my watch.  Seven minutes.

“How is it you’re here, by the way?”  He asked as we waited.

“Dr. Anholts.  Who else?”  I grinned.  “Parallel, but different, timelines.  She sent me back and sideways.  And by the way, going sideways makes us sick.  Lasted a few minutes and it was bad.”

He nodded, staring at me.

“I’m thinking maybe things are pretty good here,” he said after a minute, nodding at Julie.  “Maybe don’t want to be trying to go back and change things.”

“Agreed,” I said, thinking about the irony of agreeing with my own thoughts.

We didn’t have anything else to say to each other.  To ourselves.  Whatever.  The remaining time passed in silence.  When there was 90 seconds remaining on my watch, I bent and worked my good shoulder under Julie.  Wrapping my arm around her body, I rolled it up against my neck and carefully stood.

She wasn’t big, or particularly heavy, but in my weakened condition I swayed and nearly fell.  The other me automatically began to step forward to steady me.  I stopped him with a shout, his hands only a couple of feet from me. 

When he realized what had almost happened, he leapt backwards to open space between us.  I nodded and stood there swaying.  Waiting for time to expire.

Then there was the blink, and I was standing on the dais in the facility.  With Julie draped over my shoulder.

“Mr. Whitman, you’d better have a very good explanation,” Patterson’s voice said over the intercom.

58

Julie laughed at the hat when I tried it on.  I’d try on a thousand more to keep hearing that sound.  We had just arrived at the airport in Nassau, the Bahamas, on a well earned vacation.  Our flight had been early, and we had some time to kill before the shuttle from the resort where we were booked was scheduled to pick us up.  Removing the hat, I winced at the sharp pain in my left arm as I returned it to the rack in the small gift shop.

“OK?”  She asked, the smile on her face immediately changing to concern.

“Fine.  Just a little twinge.”

I slipped my good arm around her waist and hugged her against me as we browsed the goods on display.  Three weeks had passed since we had stopped the assassination of the President and Speaker of the House.  And it had hardly been an uneventful time.  Well, not for us, but in the larger world.

I’d arrived back in the first real time with Julie on my shoulder.  My arm had been treated and she’d been examined by the medical staff and declared fit, other than a mild concussion.  Then it was time to return to
real
, real time.  The whole concept still made my head hurt when I tried to work out the logistics.

After a protracted discussion with Patterson, I’d been allowed to take Julie with me.  I guess he’d gotten the message that after all I’d gone through to save her, I wasn’t about to let her out of my sight.  Not for a while, at least.

So, we’d made the final jump.  Fortunately, this one was a straight line forward and the director was expecting both of us when we arrived.  My data chip was downloaded, then Julie and I were sent off to clean up and get some much needed rest.  Rest hadn’t been a priority for either of us.  Not until we’d worn each other out on my lumpy mattress.

We spent the next couple of weeks getting to know each other.  She had been assigned private quarters, but never spent a night in them.  We seemed to be attached at the hip.  I introduced her to Ray and she gave him a funny look.

“What?”  He asked.

“I don’t know,” she said.  “It’s just that there’s something familiar about you.  Can’t put my finger on it.”

After the timeline change as a result of me saving Julie, the events where Ray and I discovered her body didn’t happen.  I didn’t even remember them, horrified when they were finally shown to me.  But not as horrified as Julie.  She didn’t sleep for two nights. 

I attended multiple meetings with Patterson, Agent Johnson and Dr. Anholts.  A young woman named Forman, Carpenter’s replacement, also attended.  Julie was excluded.  It was explained to me that the director had not yet decided how to deal with her.

She’d been allowed to call her brother, her only living family, letting him know she was doing well and was involved in a sensitive project which would make her unreachable for a few weeks.  I didn’t ask, but from the tone of the call it didn’t sound like this concerned him.  It didn’t seem as if they were particularly close.

Nearly three weeks after returning, Julie and I were strolling on the helipad.  I was getting some fresh air as she puffed on a cigarette.  My nagging was paying off as she was down to less than half a pack a day, and swore she was determined to quit. 

There was a warm breeze across the deck, sunlight diffused through her windblown hair.  Focused on her, I jumped when Agent Johnson’s voice spoke from right behind me.

“Good morning,” he said.

“Hi,” I grumbled, chagrined that he’d been able to walk right up without me noticing.

“Agent Johnson!  Good morning,” Julie said with a bright smile. 

They had become instant friends.  I didn’t get it.  Didn’t make sense to me, but it did to them.  And when he was in her presence, a little bit of the façade slipped.  I was getting more and more glimpses of the real man under the hardened exterior shell.  I guess I wasn’t the only one whose best was brought out by her.

“I’ve been remiss,” he said to me as he lit a cigar.  “I haven’t thanked you.”

“Thanked me?”

“For not shooting me in the head the instant I walked into the director’s quarters,” he said. 

“Don’t make me regret it,” I grinned.

He gave me a look that could freeze iron, a moment later his face cracking open into a broad smile.  Then he laughed.  An actual laugh!  Seconds later it was gone.  I wasn’t sure it had happened.

“I’m actually here to discuss something with Ms. Broussard,” he said.  “And the director would like for you to join him in his office.”

“That OK?”  I asked Julie.

She leaned forward and kissed me before shooing me on my way.  I nodded at Johnson and headed for the door to the interior.

Patterson was sitting at his desk when I walked in after knocking and waiting for him to grant permission to enter.  I had dusted off my military manners, learned from when I was in the Army, and had begun interacting with him as if he was a superior officer.  Our relationship had improved dramatically.

“You wanted to see me, sir?”  I asked, standing in front of his desk.

“Take a seat, Mr. Whitman.”

When I was comfortable, he closed his laptop and leaned back in his chair.  Looking at me, he took a deep breath and started talking.

“I believe we have finally unraveled all of the machinations of the conspirators.  I thought you might be interested in the details,” he said.

“Very much so, sir.” I sat up a little straighter.

“The conspiracy was more widespread than originally thought.  The Vice President and the Deputy Director of the CIA were the two highest ranking officials involved.  Beneath them were thirty-two other individuals, ranging from FBI agents to CIA officers and three Secret Service agents.

“This cabal, for lack of a better word, has been plotting for some time.  You won’t recall, due to your personal circumstances, but the Vice President ran against the President for their Party’s nomination.  And lost.  But not by much.  That’s how he wound up on the President’s ticket and was elected. 

“Apparently, he wasn’t satisfied with waiting for the President to serve out his term.  He recruited an old college friend, and convinced the President to appoint the man to the position of Deputy Director of the CIA.  Only the Director of the CIA need be approved by Congress.  The DD requires no such approval, and is selected at the discretion of the President.