Nine Eleven, page 7
part #5 of Area 51- Time Patrol Series
“Let’s not speculate without data,” Dane said.
Edith nodded. “If you’re there before or near the beginning of the battle, then the Shadow might be trying to prevent the ambush. If the ambush is already launched, then Varus has already walked his troops into the mouth of the bear. At that point, it’s the bear the Shadow would focus on. Arminius. Kill him, and the Federation of tribes might fall apart along with the ambush.”
Roland nodded. “Got it. Varus and Arminius.” He frowned. “But since the Shadow forms the bubble, wherever I end up is where the Shadow is trying to change things, right?”
“Correct,” Dane said.
“So, if I’m not near the Roman leader or the Germanic leader, what then?”
“Then it’s something else,” Dane said.
Roland shrugged. “Whatever.” He ran his hand over the haft of the battle axe.
“Doc,” Dane said.
11 September 1776, Staten Island, New York.
“You’re going to meet some old acquaintances,” Dane said, “John Adams and Benjamin Franklin.” Dane nodded to Edith, but Doc interrupted before she could get started.
“They’ll recognize me,” Doc said. “I showed up on the Fourth, talked them into shelving the Declaration of Emancipation, then disappeared. Franklin specifically said he wanted to talk to me the next day. They might not be too happy to see me pop in again.”
“They might not,” Dane agreed, his tone indicating it didn’t matter.
Doc sighed and turned to Edith. She framed the mission. “The British had just taken Long Island, pushing Washington back to Manhattan Island, or York Island, as it was known then. Admiral Howe and his brother, General Howe, decided to make a diplomatic gesture. The problem was, the Howes didn’t have the power from the King to do much of anything, and Congress knew it.”
“So why meet?” Doc asked.
“I think the attitude on both sides was, why not?” Edith said. “Congress sent Adams, Franklin, and Edward Rutledge, but gave them no authority to make any sort of deal, either. In fact, adding Rutledge to the mix was a strange decision. He was the youngest signer of the Declaration of Independence, but also one of the leaders in forcing the Committee of Five to remove the section on slavery.”
“If nothing happened,” Doc said, “why am I going?”
“Because something will happen,” Dane said. “Something that isn’t supposed to.”
“To quote Roland,” Doc said, “‘Whatever.’”
That brought a chuckle from the team.
“It’s 1776,” Edith said. “The Revolutionary War will go on for another seven years, although none of those at the Peace Conference know it. They also don’t know how it will turn out. At that time, the British had begun bringing in Hessian mercenaries in large numbers. The British had been driven out of Boston, but Washington had been pushed off Long Island. Manhattan was in the balance.”
“You’ll get all the details in your download,” Dane said. He put the chalk down. “Those who’ve been briefed can move to the ready room.”
No one got up.
“Hold on,” Moms said. “We’re a team. What about Ivar and Scout and Lara?”
“But you go on your missions alone,” Dane said, “and for Ivar and Scout’s missions, they need to be briefed alone. The rest of you don’t have a need to know.”
Eagle argued that. “We never really had a need to know the other missions. At least that’s what we thought. But Doc knowing Moms’s mission in 1826 on the Fourth of July operation allowed him to solve his problem in 1776.”
“Did it?” Dane asked, “or did it cause a larger problem? The Declaration of Emancipation is still around somewhere, wherever Thomas Jefferson hid it.”
“The cipher with its location was destroyed,” Moms said.
“It was,” Dane agreed, “but not the document itself. Some of the analysts in the Pit”—He nodded toward the door leading to massive hole—“are concerned. No ripples, but they sense the timeline has been disturbed simply because the document exists.” He waved his hands. “Bottom line. That’s an order.”
It was the first time Dane had ever pulled rank on the team. They all looked at Moms.
“What about Lara?” Moms asked. “Does she need to leave, too?”
“She’s not going on a mission,” Dane said.
“Then why is she in here?” Moms argued. “Does she have a need to know our missions?”
Dane nodded. “She does, actually. Her role here will be”—He paused, searching for the words—“somewhat different.”
Moms wasn’t satisfied. “Any tokens?” she asked Edith.
Opening her satchel, Edith flushed. “I know you can’t take them on the mission, but I thought you should have these.” She pulled out a handful of Time Patrol cloth tabs then handed them to Moms.
“Thank you,” Moms said.
“Not very secure to have someone make tabs that say Time Patrol,” Dane pointed out.
“I made them myself,” Edith said.
Moms kept one and passed the rest to Eagle. He did the same until they made their way to Roland, with Lara next to him. He extended the last one to her.
“I don’t think I’m worthy,” Lara said. “I haven’t gone on any of these missions, and it doesn’t look like I’m going on this one.”
“Take it,” Moms said. “Remember what I told you.”
“You’re part of the Time Patrol,” Dane said. “You just have a different mission.”
Lara nodded and accepted the last tab. “And what is that? Going to the Space Between again?”
“No,” Dane said, but didn’t clarify.
“Unfortunately,” Edith said, “I don’t have anything mission-specific that we believe can help you.”
Moms stood. “We’ll be outside. When you’re done, I want the team back in here, intact, before we deploy. That’s our tradition.”
Dane nodded. “Fine.”
“Let’s go.” She led Eagle, Roland, and Doc out the door leading to the ready room and Gates, each of them reaching up to tap the Time Patrol tab above the door as they exited.
When the door shut behind them, Dane indicated Scout. “Could you wait outside for a moment while I brief Ivar?” He indicated the door leading to the Pit.
Scout left without saying a word, leaving Dane and Edith with Ivar and Lara.
“What’s so secret about my mission?” Ivar asked.
Dane wrote the fifth mission on the board: 11 September 1973, Santiago, Chile.
“Not Cuba?” Ivar asked.
“Edith,” Dane said.
“A sad chapter in our history,” Edith said. “There was a coup in Chile on that day. A democratically elected president was overthrown.”
“All right,” Ivar said. “That’s history. I bet Eagle knows all about this.”
“He probably does,” Dane agreed.
“How it came about will be in the download,” Edith said. She wasn’t certain how to proceed, so Dane spoke.
“The problem is, it’s been speculated the U.S. had a strong hand in the coup. It’s certain Kissinger was not a fan of President Allende. Certain corporate interests, primarily ITT, were worried that Allende would nationalize their subsidiaries. The CIA gave millions of dollars to opposition groups, but Allende was still elected. As far as the actual coup, it’s believed the U.S. Military Group based in Valparaiso advised the Chilean military on how to pull it off, and that the head of the MILGROUP even killed a U.S. citizen who he thought knew too much.”
“Did he?” Ivar asked.
“A Chilean judge indicted the Navy Captain in command forty years later,” Dane said, “but nothing came of it. It was later discovered he had passed away a few years earlier.”
“Did he?” Ivar repeated. “I’ve picked up from my teammates how the covert world works. If the CIA and military were behind the coup, your analysts here know.”
Dane nodded. “The CIA poured money into the military along with ITT. In fact, later that month, on the twenty-eighth, a bomb went off at ITT’s corporate headquarters in New York as retaliation for Allende’s death. As far as MILGROUP’s involvement, they definitely advised the Chilean military.”
“The murder?” Ivar pressed, so different from the frightened graduate student who’d been forcibly recruited into the Nightstalkers.
“A movie was made about it intimating it’s true,” Dane said. “To this day, we don’t really know. If the head of MILGROUP did assassinate the journalist, and the evidence points that way, the truth died with him. The head of the army, Pinochet, rose to power. In the years afterward, he brutally suppressed the opposition, with over three thousand people disappearing. But what happened that day is key. You’re going to Santiago, the capitol. Early in the morning, military forces surrounded the Presidential Palace and placed it under siege. It’s reported Allende chose to kill himself, rather than surrender.”
Ivar indicated his uniform. “But this is Cuban?”
“Yes,” Dane said. “There were a handful of Cuban military advisors in country at the time of the coup. They had no official position, and little is known about them. Castro visited Chile in 1971. He was supposed to stay only a week, but ended up staying for a month. He was very impressed with the country and President Allende, so he sent some officers.”
“Where am I going to be?” Ivar asked.
“You’ll be inside the Palace,” Dane said.
“And I’ll get all the information I could never possibly absorb in the download,” Ivar was fingering the Time Patrol tab. “So whose side am I on? Allende? But he dies. The bad guy overthrowing the government, this Pinochet?”
“No,” Dane said. “You’re on the side of history. Your mission has nothing to do with whether the coup succeeds. It will. That’s a given. You’re going there to save someone.”
“That’s pretty specific,” Ivar said. “Who?”
“A young boy. He has to get out of the Palace alive.”
“How do you know he’s the target?” Ivar asked.
Dane sighed and walked to the table. He sat across from Ivar and Lara. “Because he’s here.”
Ivar blinked. “What? An analyst?”
“In a way,” Dane said.
Lara spoke up. “What was a kid doing in the Presidential Palace on the day of the Coup?”
“He went there with his mother to warn the President,” Dane said.
“About the coup?” Ivar asked. “He knew it was coming?”
“He ‘saw’ it,” Dane answered.
That confused Ivar. “I didn’t think the Sight was the ability to see the future, but rather the world in a way the rest of us can’t. At least that’s what Scout reported.”
Dane looked at Lara. “It’s different in different people.”
“What’s it in me?” Lara asked.
“We’re not quite certain,” Dane said.
“So I’m going to meet this boy who is now a man?” Lara asked. “Here?”
Dane nodded.
“That’s all great and well,” Ivar said, “but if I don’t keep the Shadow from killing him, you aren’t meeting him, are you?”
“Nothing will change,” Dane said, “unless the time bubble collapses, and the Shadow succeeds in changing our timeline.”
“What’s his name?” Ivar asked.
Edith answered. “Dominic. You’ll get his background, as well his mother’s, in the download. There’s not much.”
“So I have to get him and his mother out of there,” Ivar said.
Dane looked past Ivar at some distant point. “His mother didn’t make it.”
“Doesn’t make it,” Ivar corrected, “according to history. Correct?”
“Correct.”
Ivar sat back in the chair and rubbed his chin. “Does she matter?”
“The boy is your mission,” Dane said.
Ivar gave a wry smile. “I just wanted to see your response. I don’t suppose I can meet Dominic before I go. Get an idea of who I’m saving?”
“No.” Dane was adamant. He lifted a finger to Edith.
She pulled a leather sheath holding a dagger from her satchel. “This is made from the metal on one of the Naga staffs. It took all this time for our scientists to make this one. They had to—”
Dane cut her off. “He doesn’t need the details.”
Ivar took the dagger, sliding it partly out of the sheath. “You think I’ll run into Valkyries?”
“We don’t know,” Dane said. “We’re working on making more daggers. One for every member of the team, but you have the first.”
“Should have given it to Roland,” Ivar said. “In fact, should have given this mission to Roland. Sounds like something he’s trained on. I’m just—”
“Did you want to go back to a massacre of Roman legionnaires by Germanic tribes?” Dane asked.
“You have a point,” Ivar allowed.
“There is a strange vibe about your mission,” Dane said. “A sense of an outside influence other than the Shadow.”
“That’s vaguer than usual,” Ivar pointed out.
“That’s all Sin Fen told me,” Dane said. “She sent a message.”
“Where is she?” Ivar asked.
“The Space Between,” Dane said. He offered no more explanation.
“Anything else I need to know?” Ivar asked.
“There will be someone waiting for you once you get him out of the Presidential Palace,” Dane said. “You pass Dominic off to him.”
“Waiting for us where? Who?”
“The State Bank,” Dane said. “He’ll know you and the boy.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“You’ll know him,” Dane said. “That’s all I know and all I can tell you.”
Ivar shook his head, but didn’t argue further.
Dane pointed to the door through which the rest of the team had gone. “You can wait with them.”
Ivar took the dagger with him as he left the room.
“When do I meet Dominic?” Lara asked as soon as he was gone.
“In a little while,” Dane said. He went to the outer door then opened it, bringing Scout in.
“Chile, ’73,” Scout said. “You forgot to erase it.”
“Doesn’t matter,” Dane said.
“What’s so super-secret that the rest of the team can’t hear it?” Scout sat at the table, next to Lara.
Dane wrote the last mission on the board.
Abbottabad, Pakistan, 11 September 2012.
“What the frak?” Scout exclaimed. “Bin Laden?”
Dane shook his head. “No. He was killed the previous year in May.”
“Then what?” Scout asked.
“This is a little strange,” Dane said. “Just bear with me. The cover story about how the CIA learned where Bin Laden was hiding is just that. The truth is a bit more mundane. Inside Bin Laden’s compound, they were obsessed with security, but like any obsession, it causes abnormalities, and certain people notice certain things. To keep anything incriminating from getting out, they were burning everything. No trash was ever tossed out.”
“The garbage man,” Scout said.
Dane scowled. “How do you know that? Did someone tell you?”
Scout was taken aback. “It was just a guess. Trash. Garbage man. It’s not that big a leap.”
Dane took a deep breath. “Yes. The man who took care of the block the compound was on noticed the change. He had an idea how many people were in there, and the fact that they produced no trash was abnormal. He made his own logical deduction. Suffice it to say, given that the reward for Bin Laden’s whereabouts was twenty-five million, word eventually reached a case officer. The raid is history.”
“And the garbage man...?” Scout asked.
Dane tapped the date on the board. “That’s the day an operative was sent in to extract him and his family.”
“Did the mission succeed?” Scout asked.
“It did,” Dane confirmed.
“And the Shadow is trying to change that,” Scout said. “But, like, who cares? I mean, other than this guy and his family? What if they don’t get out? What, is someone going to parade them on T.V. and tell people how the CIA really figured it out? Bin Laden is still dead for over a year.”
“True,” Dane said. “We don’t think it’s about the family.”
“The operative,” Scout said. “Who is it?”
Dane sat across from Scout and Lara. “Neeley.”
“Roland’s Neeley?” Scout asked. “Neeley, Neeley?” She looked at her gear. “Oh, yeah, this is her fashion statement exactly. So, am I going with her? Into the past? That’s, like, weird, because I was just with her in New York. This is getting freaky.”
“It was a one-person operation,” Dane said.
“Okay.” Scout processed that. “Now you’re really freaking me out.”
“Remember when you supplanted the Delphic Priestess Cyra?” Dane asked, as if she could possibly forget such a thing.
Scout sat back in the chair, shaking her head. “You’re telling me the Shadow is targeting Neeley?”
“That’s what the data indicates,” Dane said. “And if Neeley dies that day... Well, she’s been on several very important covert ops since then. It will be a definite ripple.”
“But how can I succeed against something that could kill her? She’s, like, Wonder Woman. Guns, knives—heck, I watched her kill a guy with her boot in New York.”
“Cool,” Lara said. “I’d like to see that.”
Edith jumped in. “You’ll have Neeley’s complete after-action report in your download. You’ll know exactly what she did to succeed. You’ll know exactly what the threats were. You’ll know exactly what to say. That will allow you to spot anything that isn’t the way it was that day. That will be how the Shadow is trying to get her. Get you.”
“Right.” Scout lifted the M79 grenade launcher. “I’ve fired a lot of weapons, but never this one. How—”
“You were trained on the grenade launcher on the M-203,” Dane said. “Same basic weapon. You can do this. Plus, you have the Sight.”
“Right,” Scout repeated. “When I was in Cyra, to everyone around, I was Cyra. Yet Cyra knew I was there. Won’t Neeley know I’m taking over?”
