Shift (ChronoShift Trilogy) (39 page)

“I’ve got some guys digging a trench outside right now.  As soon as they finish, we’re going to shoot you in the head and dump your body in the hole.  Then, we’re going to fill it back in with concrete.  Ain’t nobody gonna be the wiser, and your friends will never track down your whereabouts.  How’s that sound?”  He smiled wickedly.

Ty grumbled unintelligibly.

“What was that?”

Ty spat at the man’s feet.

“That’s better.”

April 14
^th
, 1865, Washington, D.C.

“Yes?”

“I have an appointment with the President.”

“You must be Kennedy from the Department of the Interior?”  The secretary was dressed sharply in striped gray pants and a black frock coat which ended just above the back of his knees.  His vest and tie were a slightly darker gray.  He spoke with a slight accent which sounded German.

“Er....Yes.”  Mark had bribed an official in the Department of the Interior to set this appointment up, but he hadn’t known the man was going to choose the name Kennedy for him.

Sweat dripped from his palms and butterflies were doing somersaults in his stomach.  With everything Mark had been through in his short life, it was hard to faze him, but today he was outdoing himself.  He was about to meet the President of the United States.  He was about to meet Abraham Lincoln.

He followed the male secretary down a series of halls that looked amazingly similar to the halls of the White House of his day.  Most noticeably different was the absolute lack of any modern touches.  No telephones, light switches, or exit signs.  The light level in general was dimmer since the only source available was sunlight streaming through the window panes.  Candles were positioned throughout the home, ready to be lit once evening neared.

They arrived at a large paneled door, and the secretary knocked.  Another clerk inside the Oval Office opened it. 

“Mr. Thomas Kennedy from the Department of the Interior to see the President.”

“Thank you, John.  Please show him in.”

Gaunt was the best word Mark could come up with to describe Lincoln.  He was tall and gangly, and sunken-in cheeks and eyes gave him an almost sickly appearance.  The stress of the war was clearly visible in his visage.  Yet, his eyes were bright and engaging.  His physical presence was magnificently compensated for by his powerful personality.

His voice was a little higher than Mark had expected.

“Welcome, Mr. Kennedy.  I don’t believe we’ve met before.”  Lincoln extended his hand.

Mark shook it, still unbelieving that he was actually standing in the Oval Office shaking hands with Abraham Lincoln.  “No, sir, we haven’t.”

“I understand they sent you over to speak with me about my reconstruction program for our southern neighbors.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Tell me, is there much support over at Interior for my plan?”

“I support it, sir.”

“Those words are refreshing, I assure you.  I’ve received such little support of late, truthfully, for the last five years, but I suppose one grows accustomed to opposition.   Do your superiors support the plan?”

“It’s doubtful, sir.”

“That’s more what I expected.  The Radicals have extended their unsavory influence into all areas of the government it would seem.  I can understand it.  We’ve lost near half a million men fighting this bloody war.  Most want to exact a terrible vengeance on our southern brothers for it.”

“Yes, sir.”

“The South has already paid a heavy enough price, as much as we have, more even.  We must now heal and restore if we are to hope for the future of this Union.”

“I think future historians will agree with you, sir.”

A knock interrupted their conversation.  The clerk opened the door, and the same male secretary poked his head in.

“Sir, sorry to interrupt, but Senator Sumner is here to see you on urgent business.”

“Yes, I’ll be right with him.”

“Also, General Grant has sent his regrets that he will not be able to join you tonight at the theater.”

“Fine.”  The secretary closed the door again.  “Mr. Kennedy, I hope you’ll forgive me for cutting our meeting short, but I have some things I must attend to before the evening.”

He took Mark’s hand and shook it.

“Mr. President, please do not go to the theater tonight.”

Lincoln’s smile froze.  He gripped Mark’s hand more firmly.

“That is an odd thing to say, young man.”

“Please, sir.  Don’t go.”

Lincoln looked Mark straight in the eye, holding his gaze without wavering for a full minute, searching for the meaning behind Mark’s words.  At last, he spoke.

“What will be, my son....
will
be
.”

Then he was gone, down the hallway to meet the senator.

***

Mark wondered if the Lincoln assassination would be a “protected” event like the death of his own children.  Something unable to be changed.  He guessed it would be.  If he were able to prevent Abraham Lincoln from being assassinated, it would theoretically change the entirety of American history which followed.  Still, he wanted to try.

Whatever forces of the universe ruled such events proved his guess correct.  The best and easiest way to stop the assassination was obviously to shift directly into Lincoln’s box right before Booth burst in and fired the fatal shot.  Mark tried numerous times to shift directly into the box, but his shifter wouldn’t perform.  Then, he tried right outside the box.  When that didn’t work, he tried immediately prior to the shooting, then several minutes before, then fifteen minutes before, but nothing worked.  He couldn’t get anywhere near Lincoln's box, anywhere close to the time of his death.

The shifter wasn’t flashing red or anything.  He could shift to other moments sufficiently distanced from the time of the shooting.  The shifter just would not allow him anywhere near the vicinity of Lincoln or Booth in a way that he could prevent the shot.

Echoing through Mark’s mind were Lincoln’s last words to him. 
“What will be, my son, will be.”

Mark waited for the fated event on the lower level of the theater.  The play that night was
Our American Cousin
.

At 10:15, a shot rang out from the balcony level.

So hollow the sound of a great man’s death
.

The high-pitched screams of several women followed.  The pandemonium was just beginning, most not having yet realized what that loud pop signified.

“Sic semper tyrannis!”

The shadowy figure of John Wilkes Booth leapt from Lincoln’s box to the stage, catching what appeared to be his heel on one of the flags draping the box.  More cries and shouts were heard now.  Booth landed hard on the wooden stage, and stumbled.  Mark knew from history books that Booth had just broken his leg.

For a moment, he considered pursuing Booth.  He knew where Booth was headed.  In fact, he could shift to right outside the door where Booth would escape and capture him.  But why should he?

Booth wasn’t much longer for this world anyway.  In a short time, he would be cornered in a barn by a mob and killed.  What would Mark’s meddling gain?

No, if he couldn’t stop the Lincoln assassination, he had only one purpose here, to find Smith.  There was something Smith was planning around both the Lincoln and Kennedy assassinations.  His only hope for figuring it out was to hang around and see if he spotted Smith anywhere and try to capture him.

Suddenly, a hand gripped Mark’s wrist firmly, covering his shifter and preventing access to it.  Mark instantly reacted to remove the man’s hand, but the grip was like steel.

“You struggle and I’ll start yelling you’re part of this bloody conspiracy.  You won’t get your hands free before you’re killed.”

The speaker was dressed in the uniform of a theater usher.  A glint of gray metal peeked from under his sleeve.  He had a shifter, but he wasn’t Smith.  Someone else.

If glares could burn, the man’s eyes would have been scalded from his head under Mark’s stare.  As it was, the usher didn’t even blink.

“There's another man behind you, pointing a gun at your back.  If your right hand moves  anywhere near your left, he will put a bullet in your head long before you can shift out.  Got it?”

Mark nodded.

“Good.  Walk with me.  We have a carriage waiting.”

They pushed their way through the frantic and growing crowd to the exterior of the theater.  A black carriage was parked curbside.  The door opened from the inside as they approached.  Mark stepped up to it and something slammed down hard on the back of his neck.  Dark swirls swam before his eyes and then he blacked out.

He came to in a barn.  At least, he figured it was a barn with the hay and other, more malodorous indicators laying around.

His head throbbed like a thumb that’s just been pounded by hammer swung at full force.  Struggling, he finally managed to sit up.  Both his hands were tied with thick rope to opposite sides of a horse’s stall.  Smith sat on a stool in front of him about twenty feet away, a malicious glee illuminating his eyes.  He was flanked by two strongmen.  One of them was the usher from the theater — the one with the shifter.  Mark couldn’t tell if the third man had one or not.

“You were out pretty good there, Carpen.  I was getting tired of waiting.”

“
Smith!” 
Mark hissed.

Smith threw his head back and laughed.  “Yeah, I guess that’s how you’d know me isn’t it?  I was never important enough to catch your attention before, was I?”

That was a cryptic comment.

“What is your real name then?”

“Rialto.  That’s all you really need to know.  That and the fact that Ty Jennings is getting whacked right as we speak.  Well, I guess he’s actually getting whacked a hundred years or so from now.  Time travel certainly twists one’s concept of sequence of events, doesn’t it?”

“You’ll never get away with it.  We’ll see to that.”

“I've
already
gotten away with it, don’t you see?  In a few minutes, you’ll be dead.  Ty’s being taken care of too.  Who else would stop us, or undo what we do here today?  Hardy Phillips?  Not likely.  We’ve taken great lengths to make sure no one can find either of you.  Even if he could, we’ll get to him long before he figures out where to find you.  It’s a done deal.”

Mark shook with rage.

“By the way, how’d you like our little trap?  Did you honestly think that piece of paper fell from my pocket by accident?  No, the whole bank thing was a lure.  I knew you could simply shift around and undo it, or just go buy more shares, but I also knew you would want to try and find me.

“My shifter disappearing off my wrist was a glitch I hadn’t foreseen.  I’d originally intended to just leave the paper on the floor for you to find, but I was stuck once I’d burned the shares.”

Mark had wondered about that before.  “Why is that? — Smith, Rialto, or whatever your name is — Why did burning my shares cause your shifter to disappear?”

Something flashed behind Rialto’s eyes.

He continued as if Mark hadn't spoken.  “Anyway, it’s a good thing for me you’re so stupid.  If I hadn’t goaded you into shifting back and stopping me before I burned them, I would have been at your mercy.  That was your one chance to get me, Carpen, and you missed it. 
I
won’t miss.  That, I promise.”

Mark glared, but Rialto ignored him, confident in his victory.

Rialto turned and instructed Mr. Usher.  “Once I’ve gone, shoot him.  Make sure it’s in the head.”

“What do you want me to do with the body?”

“Bury it in the woods.  Do it far from here and deep in the ground.  We don’t want any animals digging him up.  As long as the body is never found, no one can ever come back and save him.  Oh, and don’t forget to get his shifter once he’s dead.  We don’t want to bury that.”

End of Book 1

Chronoshift Trilogy

Want a peek at a Secret Chapter?

The author has installed a secret

chapter on ChronoShift’s website that

can only be viewed there.

            1.  Go to
www.Chrono-Shift.com

            2.  Use the same login give earlier in this

                    book and click on “Search Archives”.

            3.  Enter a search for  “Chapter X”.

            4.  Follow the instructions.

Don’t forget to look for the next installment of the ChronoShift Trilogy

Chase

Coming Soon - 2012

Table of Contents

Title

Prologue