Fate (Wilton's Gold #3) (23 page)

He’d done it. Jeff was on his own.

He couldn’t have missed the look of confusion on Dexter’s face a split second before he’d disappeared. That was about all the time he’d had after Jeff had let go of the time device – enough to make a face. He hadn’t wanted to leave his best friend in the lurch the way he had, and he knew the expression on Dexter’s face was one he’d remember for a long time. But he forced himself to understand that it didn’t matter. What he was doing was best for everyone.

He paused for a split second to consider why Dexter would have thought he saw Bremner, but there wasn’t time for it. First thing, he had to get lost in the crowd. Quickly. He took a step to sprint the length of the alley when suddenly there was a loud cracking sound and he was hurled to the side, ramming his shoulder into the brick wall and toppling to the ground. Pain ran down his arm as he quickly rolled to a crouching position, looking up to see Dexter and a uniformed security guard from the USTP standing where he’d just been, holding either end of a time device.

It took a moment for them to recover from the jump, so Jeff took the opportunity to get a head start. He’d gotten about three steps down the alley when he heard Dexter yell, “Jeff, stop!” Well aware of why Dexter was there, he didn’t obey.

He glanced back to see them pursuing him, so he turned into high gear, his arm searing pain with every step. He reached the end of the alley and turned toward Fifth Avenue, which he thought would give him the best cover.

As expected, Jeff had run – and faster than they’d been able to shake the after-effects of the time travel. Which had given him a good head start. If he made it to the throng of people on Fifth and they lost him, he was as good as gone forever.

Upon returning to their present time, Dexter and Victoria had driven back to Virginia and the USTP, humbled and angry. In retrospect, he should have seen that Jeff had been planning something all along – even just knowing that there was no way he’d settle for letting the USTP run his life. But the insistence on having the old battery from the Museum, the need for 1930 money... Some of his requests had never connected with Dexter’s mission, but he’d never stopped to question them. What he was up to, he didn’t hazard a guess for even now – and he’d spent the hours in the car trying to coax Victoria into psychoanalyzing his friend to get a clue. All she would say was that, if it was the old Jeff, she’d know. The new Jeff was too unpredictable.

The second challenge they faced was returning to the lions’ den with one of two stolen time devices. They figured that by the time they returned, Dr. Schmidt would’ve been able to report that he’d been attacked and the devices had been stolen. Dexter also figured that there would be two versions of himself, because he was still a few hours ahead of his counterpart. What they were doing to that version of him for his crimes he couldn’t imagine. He’d made a pact with Victoria in the car that at that point they had no allegiance to Jeff, so they’d turn the blame on him. First priority would be getting back to 1930 to stop him.

Bremner had gone for it almost immediately, without even a slap on the wrist for him. Jeff was too dangerous and untamable. While Dexter didn’t trust Bremner, he had no choice but to make finding Jeff a priority. He also knew what happened to people who raised concerns about the USTP.

When they’d arrived, he’d also found out that he’d been wrong about the multiple versions theory. The “other” version of himself had simply followed course and gone back with Jeff in stealing the time devices. His return ended the loop, and Dexterville had returned to a population of one.

Steering the time travel ship, Dr. Schmidt had deduced that, since they were still in existence in their reality, Jeff’s personal mission had not been to end time travel. But he had something else up his sleeve, and as long as they went back to the exact time as when Jeff had run, they could ensure that he didn’t cause more damage. The mission was approved without running it up the chain. They decided there were two viable options – one, go back to 1930 and immediately catch Jeff at the moment after Dexter and Victoria had left, and for Dexter to talk some sense into him, or two, go back to the same time and take him by force. To double up their chances on both strategies, they decided Dexter would be accompanied by Jeff’s old friend and ex-Marine, Emeka Henderson, who Jeff himself – the old version of Jeff – had tried to recruit into the USTP a few years back. He’d said no at the time, and must have been surprised when the FBI three years later showed up at his North Jersey home to “volunteer” him for the mission.

Bringing on Emeka, who had been part of Jeff’s original time travel team, had been Dexter’s idea. He was familiar to Jeff, but he was also unbelievably skilled in hand-to-hand combat in case they were not able to convince Jeff to come back with them peacefully. He’d hoped that just seeing Emeka would give him the slightest pause of surprise, giving them an advantage. The way he’d run, however, had told Dexter that he didn’t recognize him right away – he’d seen the Dexter, and he’d seen the uniform, and simply split.

Emeka was now several paces ahead of Dexter, and he turned at full speed onto Fifth Avenue. Dexter made the turn as well, but had lost Jeff. Though, it seemed Emeka still had a bead on him as he disappeared into the crowd ahead.

Jeff sprinted through the crowd as people walked up and down Fifth Avenue, unaware that their reality was simultaneously being challenged. He navigated the sidewalk quickly, drawing dirty looks from businessmen used to a sense of order as they traveled on what must’ve been the only street in the country that forgot the country was in the midst of a depression. An ambulance had arrived and George Mellen was being carted away, even though it appeared they were too late to save him. Uniformed police officers scoured the area, looking for anyone with information.

An image burned in his brain as he fled, though. The security guard that had traveled with Dexter looked strangely like Emeka Henderson, who he’d recruited to be the muscle on his time travel team that never got to time travel. Had the USTP recruited him for this mission? If Emeka was on the case, it gave Jeff reason to worry. He could outrun Dexter – in fact, it seemed he already had. But Emeka was the best of the best. He was surprised the other Jeff hadn’t recruited him full-time to the program.

He looked behind him and didn’t see anyone who didn’t look like a normal 1930 New Yorker, so he ducked into the entryway of a cobbler shop – the sign above the door read “Milstein & Sons.” He scanned the street left to right, looking for anything out of the ordinary. Nothing in his field of vision concerned him.

Losing Dexter and the security guard, Emeka or not, was critical. As he’d told Dexter, standing in front of the USTP hours before, while it would be dangerous, they in theory had unlimited opportunities to come back and stop him. If they knew where he was at any given time, they could time travel to that spot and apprehend him. If they had no idea where he was or where he was going – and he specifically hadn’t divulged that information to anyone – their attempts would be futile. It looked like he’d been successful.

Still, they would be looking for him, so he inched backwards and reached for the door handle to go into the cobbler shop. He’d hide there for a little while. Maybe buy some shoes.

His hand hit clothing – someone’s pants. He turned around to apologize.

It was Emeka.

Within a second, his arms were pinned to his side and were useless as Emeka embraced him with the strongest arms he’d ever felt. He wasn’t particularly muscular, but sinewy instead, and Jeff felt as though he’d backed into a vice grip.

“Don’t do anything crazy,” Emeka said. “Dexter will be here in a minute.”

“Why are you here?”

“Because I love my country and they asked me to come. Jeff, whatever you’re doing, you can back out of it.”

“They didn’t tell you what’s going on, did they?”

He could feel Emeka shake his head. “It doesn’t matter. It can all be figured out when we get back. This, here, isn’t going to fix anything.”

They heard loud footsteps and Dexter ran up to them, separating himself from the crowd. As he slowed down, Jeff got a glimpse of his gun, hanging in a shoulder holster under his loose sport coat.

“Why did you do that?” he asked.

“Do what?”

“Not come back with us. And why didn’t you tell me? You can’t trust me?”

“Clearly not,” he said, motioning with his head at his chest. “You’re here to shoot me.”

Dexter put his hand on the gun. “I’m not here to shoot you. I’m here to bring you back before you do something stupid.”

Even as they talked, Jeff was looking around for some kind of diversion. He hoped they wouldn’t be arrogant enough to use the time travel device there on the sidewalk in the middle of all these people. But they didn’t respect the technology the way he did, and their mission had likely changed from ‘don’t do anything to change history’ to ‘bring Jeff back at all costs.’

“You led me right down a path,” Dexter said as he felt Emeka loosen his grip. He still held on, but at least it wasn’t painful. “And I fell for it, hook, line and sinker. What are you intending to do?”

“I’m figuring it out as I go along,” he said, smiling.

“Yeah, that doesn’t sound like you. Look, I know you want to get back to your old life. I understand. And I want to help you do it. But this isn’t the way. They can keep coming after you. It will never end. Let’s go back and we’ll figure this out. Figure out how to do it the right way.”

Jeff sighed. “Back to the alley?”

“Back to the alley.” Dexter motioned with his head.

“Where’s the device?”

“Right here,” Dexter said, tapping his pocket. He turned and started into the crowd again, but then stopped. “I really wish you would’ve trusted me. We could have avoided this whole mess – and the mess that’s waiting for you back home.”

“Not much incentive for me to follow you then, right?”

“Following me’s the first step to fixing things with Bremner.”

Jeff bit his lip and nodded. “I don’t trust Bremner and I don’t know how you do either.” Emeka relaxed his grip as Dexter turned and started walking back toward 33rd. He got about three steps before Jeff put both hands on his back and shoved him forward. “Police! Police!” he yelled. “It’s the guy! He’s got a gun!”

That raised everyone’s attention, especially the five or six officers who were within twenty feet of them and canvassing the crowd.

Dexter fell forward, his shoulder burying into a white-haired man’s back, pushing him forward and causing him to stumble to the ground. The man’s bowler rolled off his head and landed several feet away.

He heard Jeff yelling for the police and hoped Emeka had been able to hang onto him. They would have to make a quick getaway since Mellen had just been shot, and not only did Dexter have a gun hanging from his shoulder, but it was the same make and model of gun that had shot Mellen. As a number of uniformed cops descended on him, he turned to look for Jeff.

He was gone. But so was Emeka, who must have been following him again.

Unfortunately, he needed Emeka to go back to the present. He still hadn’t regained his balance, so he was easy pickings for the officers. One grabbed him by the arm and harshly jerked him to his feet. The other grabbed his coat’s lapel and ripped it open, finding the gun in his holster.

“Been doin’ a little shootin’?” the officer asked. It was the same officer that he’d talked to when Kane had been shot the first time.

“I-”

Suddenly the officer was thrown to the side and like a headpin took out two of the others. They sprawled to the sidewalk in a pile of blue. Dexter turned to see Emeka taking a boxer’s stance while the fourth cop – a dark-haired muscular Italian – went for his billy club. He took a roundhouse swing at Emeka with the club and was suddenly on his back from a chop across the bridge of his nose. Blood spurted onto the sidewalk.

“Is the device ready?” Emeka asked, scanning the crowd for more opponents. Two more cops were making their way across the street toward them, reaching for their guns.

“No,” Dexter said, pulling it from his pocket.

“Freeze!” the officers yelled, their guns trained on them from about ten feet away. Dexter was fiddling with the device in plain sight of the cops and at least a hundred on-lookers. As he did, Emeka reached into Dexter’s coat and took out the gun. He pointed it right back at the cops, to which they said, “Drop the weapon, boy.”

“You drop yours,” Emeka said as Dexter entered their return date and time into the device.

“Now!” the cop on the right warned.

“Almost done?”

“That’s it,” the office yelled and stepped forward. He deliberately moved his gun down toward Dexter’s legs to take him down. Dexter braced for the shot, instinctively hopping on one leg.

A quick motion in the street caught his eye. It was Jeff, appearing out of the crowd and haphazardly tossing his body into the officer with his gun trained on Dexter. A shot went off, but it misfired, ricocheting off the sidewalk and through the front window of the cobbler shop. Glass shattered behind them and the crowd cooed with delight. This had already been an exciting day for them.

The other cop turned his attention to Jeff for a second, and Emeka advanced on him, putting him down quickly in a manner similar to the others. Dexter looked past the officers on the ground. Jeff was gone.

The rest of the officers were coming to and similarly headed for their own weapons.

“Grab it,” Dexter said, extending the time device out to Emeka. “Now!”

Emeka turned and leapt the three steps he needed to reach Dexter. He grabbed the device, Dexter pushed the button, and they left 1930 unsuccessfully yet again.