Fate (Wilton's Gold #3) (30 page)

From what Jeff had told her, Erica knew this was a bad guy. As she watched Jeff surrender to him, she lamented not following through with her plans to end time travel when she’d had the chance. If this guy’s intent was to use time travel as a weapon, then she’d failed in stopping him.

She watched in anguish as Jeff held the time device out to him, knowing it was the end of their opportunity to fight the good fight. He’d come so far, and had been through so much – he was really the only one with the knowledge to stop what was going to happen in the next several years. The horror stories he’d told her. They’d already given him a second chance after he’d run the first time. They wouldn’t be stupid enough to do it again.

Suddenly, though, Jeff turned and dove onto the floor, catching everyone off guard. Everyone jumped at his sudden move, and Agent Fisher took a step toward him. Then there was a loud noise – like the sound of someone zipping a giant zipper quickly.

When she looked up, the older man was gone. Vanished.

Jeff had sent him on a time travel mission.

There had barely been enough time to realize what was happening, much less do anything about it. Dexter was staring at the spot on the floor where Bremner had been standing. Jeff had done it. He’d made the decision to end time travel. Getting rid of its biggest abuser was step number one.

Knowing his friend, getting rid of Victoria would be step number two. Dexter began to contemplate how he could assist Jeff without risking retribution from the Time Program. The only chance of that was for them to be successful.

He had a slight hesitation – he liked his life, and he knew that if they were successful he’d be returning to a new one. A different one. He was living the dream life of any historian, with the ability and opportunity to visit any place and time he wanted. He’d experienced things that no person alive had had the opportunity to experience, and from either a scientific or a personal perspective, that life would be difficult to give up. But ultimately, Jeff was right. The new Jeff, that is – the one who had seen the light. Time travel
was
too dangerous, and events that he’d lived through himself were testament to that. Not even to mention what Jeff had endured, and this business with Bremner that he was describing. Before they’d been separated in 1930, Jeff had mentioned suspicions surrounding Bremner, and Dexter seeing him for himself, standing only paces away from a dying George Mellen, had confirmed his treachery. But this was the first he’d heard of any journal – and Jeff’s making the connection between Mellen and the senator who had tried to single-handedly halt the USTP’s creation embarrassed him that he hadn’t discovered it himself.

The room was immobilized by what Jeff had done. Even he still lay on the floor on his side, perhaps contemplating his next step. But eventually they had to deal with it, so Dexter asked, “Jeff, where did you send him?”

That got everyone in motion again. Agent Fisher helped Jeff to his feet, and the rest of the agents closed in on him. Jeff shrugged and shook his head. “I don’t know.”

“You don’t know?”

“No. I just pushed some buttons on the device and sent him on his way. He could be anywhere. If it was before this building was built, though, he’s going to have a pretty good fall.”

There was confusion on the faces of the agents. Had he just committed a crime? Or hadn’t he?

“Boys, take all of them,” Fisher said, and two of the agents grabbed Jeff from him. “We can have this conversation in private.”

“No!” Dexter said, stepping forward, in between them and the door. Two of the agents grabbed him as well. “He’s not lying.”

Fisher stepped up to him, close to his face. “Look, you ask me to take a leap of faith in believing the three of you came from the future and that I need to assemble a team of agents to take this guy down. Which is insane. Then I find out that the leader of your little group is out to get me for something I haven’t even done. Then he disappears. What’s going to happen now is that we’re all going to a secure facility to answer some questions. With the truth.”

Dexter watched as the other agents grabbed Victoria and then Erica. He tried to remember the last time he’d seen her – it had been at the party after she and Jeff had returned from the future. She’d disappeared after that.

The lights went out.

When the lights went out, Erica immediately dove to the ground and rolled until she hit the closest wall of the lab. She stayed put in the dark as she heard a series of thumps, and then what sounded like bodies falling to the floor. Then a struggle that lasted several seconds, and then another body on the ground.

A moment later, the light went on again.

Now standing in the room was everyone who had been there, plus Emeka, who was wearing green night-vision goggles. Every one of the agents except for Fisher was motionless on the ground.

“You wanted privacy,” Jeff said. “You’ve got privacy. Let’s talk.”

Erica realized she was the only one who’d gotten herself out of harm’s way, though whatever Emeka had done to the agents had been pretty precise. She stood up and resumed her place next to Jeff’s side. He was in control now, so it seemed to be the safest place possible.

“What did you do to my men?” Fisher asked.

“Short-term tranquilizer,” Emeka said. “No lasting damage.”

Jeff stepped up. “We’ve got about ten minutes to convince you that we’re the good guys.”

“You just vaporized someone. How are you the good guys?”

He shook his head. “I didn’t vaporize anyone. And we can save him by being proactive. If we make a history where he never comes back here to this lab, he doesn’t get sent randomly into time. Does that make sense?”

She’d been trying to figure that out, and when he said it, she knew she was on the right track. He was good.

Fisher wasn’t convinced, though. “No,” he said, his hand moving to his gun. “Ten minutes, you said?”

Jeff had hoped that Fisher’s presence in the book would have been enough to convince him, but understood that the FBI protocol would be to calm the situation down in order to get control of the details. He hadn’t done anything specifically to harm Bremner, but he was pretty confident the U.S. judicial system would frown on sending someone against their will to a random time in history, despite the fact that the actual impetus for such laws wasn’t even common knowledge.

He’d had an interesting relationship with this man. He’d been confronted by him when the government had found his time device in the forest. He’d taken on a secret and dangerous mission at his request, and succeeded in it against all odds. He’d reunited with him only to find out that the very man who’d sent him on the mission had no idea that he’d done so. And they’d bonded over how to stop the bad guys. He’d had enough interactions with him that he hoped he knew something about him. The clock was ticking, and if those agents came to and were directed to take him into custody, he knew the United States Time Program would become a reality. He needed them to leave with Fisher.

“Look,” he said, stepping forward. “In the future, you and I became friends of sorts. In fact, I probably wouldn’t even be here if it wasn’t for you. You showed me what Bremner was up to. And you knew you were endangering yourself by doing so. According to his book, you were rightfully cautious. He went back in time and did something to you. I know that because you and I were collaborating, and then suddenly I didn’t hear from you again. I don’t know what he did or when he did it, but we can’t let that be your future.”

“If you’re on the right side of this, why did you need to neutralize my men?”

“Because you weren’t going to give me the time to explain. I need you on my side here. I am here to destroy this lab.”

“Destroy it?” Fisher asked.

“Destroy it?” Victoria asked at the same time.

“What the government is going to do with my time travel technology is more dangerous than any nuclear bomb, any other weapon they can come up with. The ability to eliminate an enemy’s existence. And not just an enemy of war, or a political enemy. But a business rival. A threat to scientific discovery. A singular target of the government that may or may not have realized his or her potential. The days of having the IRS audit your political opposition are gone. In a few years, you’ll be able to erase them from history. Does that sound like ‘good guy’ behavior?”

Fisher glared at him for a moment, then softened, the tension in his arm dropping as he pulled his hand away from his firearm. “Is that what they’re going to do to me? Erase me from history?”

Jeff held up his hands, shaking his head. “I don’t know for sure,” he said. He didn’t. “You were with me, and then the next day there was no word from you. Then you show up in this book. And I didn’t steal this book – the other me did. Which means they were watching you for a while. But you saved us all by taking that risk. Now I can return the favor.”

“What do you need me to do?”

“When they get back on their feet, I need you to get them out of here. Then, and this is probably the more important part, in the interest of what I would call national security, I need to you take all of this to the grave with you. Which I hope means you’ll be hanging onto this information a lot longer than if we don’t do this.”

“That’s a lot to ask.”

“I promise you,” Jeff said, “if time travel ever rears its ugly head again, you can come and get me. I’ll come willingly. But I can’t end this if you take me away from here now.”

Fisher sighed. “Alright,” he said. “Here’s what I’m going to do. I’ll send them on their way, but I’m staying to monitor everything you do. I don’t know you. I can’t take it on blind faith that you’re going to let this all go.”

“Fair enough,” Jeff said, and then he turned his attention to Dexter.

Dexter had been following the conversation between Jeff and Agent Fisher closely, back and forth, and then suddenly it was on him.

He was surprised that Fisher had acquiesced so quickly, especially since he was only going to be outnumbered for a matter of minutes. Perhaps he could ascertain the dangers of time travel himself without needing further explanation. Either way, Dexter had felt a breath of relief when he’d said he would let Jeff do his work.

But now it was decision time for him. Although it wasn’t much of a decision. There was already a version of Dexter Murphy living in this time, and there was no need for two. The world would change around him and the details of his life would once again be different. It had happened before, when they’d returned from Colonial America to find that he was no longer the world-traveling, history-reenacting bachelor that he liked being, having been changed by time travel into a married homebody. But now with three more years’ experience behind him, including the struggles and the divorce, he finally seemed to be finding something that was his own again in the Time Program. But it wasn’t meant to be. He’d have to reengage and learn who he was all over again. It was the right thing to do, though.

Not that he couldn’t give Jeff a hard time about it. “Why am I the only one that gets affected by all of this?” he asked, then couldn’t help himself from laughing. “Hopefully, I won’t end up married again this time.”

“Married again?” Jeff asked, confused. “What are you talking about?”

For the first time, Erica demonstrated that she knew him, leaning over to Jeff and touching him on the shoulder. “Sorry – I left a detail out of my story,” she said.

He looked down at her. “I guess so.”

“Well, aren’t you all buddy-buddy,” Victoria asked.

She was right – they were. Dexter had kind of forgotten that his traveling companion was there. He turned to her and said, “Victoria, we have to go back.”

“Yes, we do,” she said. “And he’s coming with us. Without her.”

Dexter shook his head calmly. “No, it doesn’t work that way.”

She pulled the USTP time device out of her pocket and waved it menacingly in front of her. “Well, if I’m the only one who’s going to work in the best interest of the Time Program, then so be it. But I’m not giving up on time travel.” She inched backwards away from them as she spoke. “And I’m not giving up on us, Jeff. I’ll see you soon.”

“Victoria, don’t,” Dexter said, reaching for her. But he was too late. She’d pushed the button and was gone.

“Well, that’s going to be a problem,” Fisher said.

Jeff was shaking his head. “No. It won’t. It’s probably the best-case scenario.”

“But won’t she be able to orchestrate something else to stop you?”

“No. She’s in the future. Anything we do now will change her options. But we have to do it now to make sure it gets done.” A few of the agents on the ground were starting to stir. “The ball’s in your court, Agent Fisher.”

“What about me?” Dexter asked. “She took my ride home.”

Jeff reached into his left pocket and pulled out the other USTP device. “Recognize this?” he asked, smiling. “It’s the device we used to break out of the USTP.”

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Dexter said, smiling. “I had a feeling everything you pulled in 1930 wasn’t personal.”

“No, not one moment of it,” he said, handing the device to him. “There’s one trip left on it. It’s all yours.”

Dexter took it and smiled. “Well, I’ll take it.”

“Don’t think I don’t understand the sacrifice you’re making here,” Jeff said. “I do. And I’m thankful. Destroy that thing when you get back.”

He nodded. Looking down, he entered the coordinates into the device – one minute after the moment he’d left – and looked up at Erica. There was one thing he’d wanted to say to her, but hadn’t had the chance with everything that had happened. “This guy traveled through history to find you,” he said. “Make it matter.” She nodded to him and smiled, then he turned to Jeff. “Dr. Jacobs,” he said.

“Dr. Murphy,” Jeff said, nodding with a smile. “I’ll see you in about three years.”

He pushed the button and the details of Jeff’s lab melted from his sight.