Written in Time (58 page)

All the while, Clarence Jones had been noting the near-perfect shine on the lieutenant’s boots under the thin coating of yellow trail dust, the gleaming buckle of the shavetail’s pistol belt. Clarence found himself smiling. When he’d stood inspection in the Air Force in various bases stateside and overseas, never quite having mastered the aura of spit and polish, he’d more than once been accused of shining his shoes with a Hershey bar and a brick.
 

To a man, despite the trail dust, the troopers under Lieutenant Easley’s command had the look of the proud professional. Just looking at Second Platoon, Company B of the Seventh was almost enough to make a man enlist— almost . . .
 

Six blue-shirted, khaki-trousered, campaign-hatted men stood awkwardly at ease beside the lamplit main counter of “Jack Naile—General Merchandise” while Theodore Roosevelt, changed into sturdy faded-brown trail clothes, outlined what, in fact, they had volunteered for. “I spoke with your Lieutenant Easley. More to the point, I spoke with Sergeant Goldberg. I wanted the best men Second Platoon, B Company of the Seventh had to offer. Supposedly, you men are it.
 

“So I’ll get right to the point with no more shilly-shallying around.” In the reddish-yellow glow of the oil lamps, there seemed almost a demonic determination in Roosevelt’s hard-fixed eyes behind the omni-present spectacles. “You will see and hear and do things tonight which you must never reveal to anyone besides those of us in this room, and the President of the United States, of course. This is, perhaps, the most secret mission, as well as the most important, in the brief history of these United States. Should it fail, gentlemen, there might well be no United States. I don’t have to ask if I make myself clear.
 

“Therefore, pay close attention to Mr. Naile, this gentleman standing beside me whom you have all met.”
 

Jack, feeling somewhat awkward as a civilian telling six seasoned soldiers their duty, suppressed that feeling as well as he could. Clearing his throat once, he sat down on one of the stools and said nothing for a moment, looking each man eye-to-eye in turn. Then, from the counter beside him, he whisked away the saddle blanket covering one of the submachine guns. “This is called a Heckler & Koch MP-5 SD-3. It is a submachine gun, meaning that it is a pistol caliber weapon capable of multiple shots with one pull of the trigger. This particular firearm magazines thirty rounds between reloadings. It hasn’t been invented yet, of course, and won’t be for many decades to come. It is from the future. That’s where I’m from, as well as my wife, Ellen,” and Jack gestured toward her, “my son, David—the dapper-looking young guy over there—and my nephew, Clarence—that tall gentleman with the drooping mustache—and some others, as well—my daughter, Elizabeth, Clarence’s wife, Peggy—both of whom helped with getting you fellows fed—and one man in particular, that fellow who just joined us.” Jack pointed to Alan. Rather than trying to explain that Alan was, however unlikely, his great-great-grandson, Jack simply said, “He’s also a close relative.
 

“We will have a mission unlike any other, gentlemen. It is simply this. After Second Platoon, B Company of the Seventh successfully overcomes a heavily armed force with superior weapons such as this submachine gun and things well beyond its capabilities, the six of you will accompany Alan and me. And, of course, albeit Colonel Roosevelt had wished to be in on any action we might encounter, I was able to prevail upon him to stay behind as the operation’s overall commander.
 

“You six gentlemen will accompany Alan and myself into the future. It’s quite safe, the process of traveling from here to there. Once we get there we’ll have our work cut out for us.” Jack lit a cigarette and said something he’d always wanted to say ever since he’d seen his first war movie. “Smoke ‘em if you got ‘em.”
 

Exhaling smoke through his nostrils, Jack continued. “There will be an indeterminate number of hostile personnel at our arrival point in the future. They will be well-armed, but by that time so will you, trained as well as we can manage in a matter of hours rather than weeks in the use of these sophisticated weapons. The sole purpose of our mission is to get Alan access to certain pieces of equipment—machinery, if you will. In order to do this, we must kill everyone at the arrival point. Everyone. No prisoners, no woundings. Just death. Then Alan will operate the machinery that will return us to this time, to our present. We will bring with us a few items, if they are available. Alan will then destroy the machinery so that it can never be used again.
 

“As time goes by,” Jack said, realizing the irony of his words only as he spoke them, “the six of you will learn why we are doing this. You’ll be risking your lives, so you have that right. If any one of you wishes to back out, now is the time. Once you’ve touched one of these weapons—” Jack hefted the H&K MP-5 submachine gun again—“begun to learn why this mission is of such grave importance to the Republic and to the world, there will be no backing out. I’ll add that no one will think the less of you should you choose to decline this mission. Unlike a lot of things in the Army, this genuinely is for real volunteers.”
 

Second Platoon, Company B of the Seventh had volunteered as if one single organism when the call went out while they ate their dinner. These six—Jensen, Armitage, Goldstein, Harek, Luciano and Standing Bear— were decreed the best qualified. Jensen—short legs, thick chest and stocky build—was both the regimental boxing champion, with the semi-toothless grin to prove it, and, as his stature indicated to the experienced eye, the perfect human firing platform, he was the best rifleman in B Company. Armitage, Goldstein, Harek (his Turkish-origin name somewhat badly Anglicized) and Luciano were all standup troopers. Standing Bear was a full-blooded Cheyenne, his father and grandfather among the men who had handed the Seventh Cavalry one of the Army’s worst defeats twenty-four years earlier at the Little Big Horn.
 

None of the six moved to leave.
 

CHAPTER
TWENTY-ONE
 

Teddy Roosevelt was trapped by his responsibility as the mission commander, marshalling men and materiel for the anticipated assault on the firepower demonstration Jack had guessed might be held near Groom Lake, the part of Nevada that would become known as Area 51. Superfluously, Roosevelt had said, “I wish I were going with you.”
 

The Seventh had moved out, ridden until mid-morning, stopped to rest and feed their animals, then ridden on, minus its six volunteers, Jack and the six men staying behind. David, Clarence, Alan and Ellen rode with Lieutenant Easley’s troop, guiding them toward the time-transfer base.
 

A picket line was set out for the mounts Jack and the six volunteers had ridden and the spare mounts that would allow them to catch up with the others; all fourteen of the animals were hobbled, lest the unfamiliar mechanical noises of the submachine guns spooked them.
 

The quick course in the HK MP-5 submachine gun commenced.
 

With the six men seated in a semicircle on their ground cloths, Jack covered operational characteristics first. “The MP-5 is a radically improved version of the basic concept of a submachine gun, meaning a weapon which fires multiple rounds with one single pull of the trigger and is chambered for a handgun round rather than a rifle cartridge. It’s a delayed blowback, meaning that the gas which is generated when the cartridge is fired is used to push the bolt back. This action expels the empty brass remaining from the bullet being fired and introduces a new round into the chamber from the box magazine as the bolt comes forward.” Jack held up the magazine. “The HK system incorporates a delay, brought about by a two-section bolt utilizing rollers. What all this means is that the gun works reliably, fires fast until you run out of ammunition in the magazine and is accurate in the extreme. The accuracy is in part due to the fact that, unlike most submachine guns, the MP-5 fires from a closed bolt, something you guys can parallel to the idea of the breech being closed on the old trapdoor Springfield rifles. If the breech had to close as the hammer fell, that added force would inhibit accurate shot placement.
 

“We will have a goodly supply of ammunition soon, we hope, when we capture the Lakewood base in this time, but for now we have scavenged all of the 9mm Parabellum ammunition from the bodies of the men to whom these weapons belonged, in order to feed these four submachine guns. I will have one of these weapons, the remaining three going to three of you. Soon all six of you will have ones like these.
 

“This particular variant is the SD model, meaning it has an integral sound suppressor. When you fire the weapon, most of the noise of the cartridge will be swallowed up. You don’t have to worry about that. Only the mechanical noises from operation will remain, for the most part. The empty cartridge cases will be spit out. These particular models do not have what is called a burst control, meaning that they can only be fired full-automatic and semiautomatic, which means that a single shot only is fired with each pull of the trigger. This magazine holds thirty rounds. After all thirty rounds have been fired, you’ll have to change magazines in order to continue making the weapon go bang!”
 

His previously stonily silent students laughed, the first reaction he had from them. He’d have to remember to use the word bang often.
 

Jack progressed to field-stripping, clearing stoppages and operation of the fire selector, warning the men, “Until you become proficient with these weapons, I want you to consider that there are only two positions on this lever, not three. When you’re not going to be shooting for a while, put the weapon aside or must accomplish some particularly difficult physical activity, set it on safe. When you’re using the weapon, keep it in the position for semiauto.”
 

A check to his leather-cased Rolex showed him that he had about another fifteen minutes he could use before it would be imperative to get the men mounted. Jack started with Jensen, the boxer and marksman.
 

In all, there were twelve magazines for the submachine guns, and, by using the pistol ammo, he’d been able to have all twelve magazines fully loaded.
 

It would be prudent to expend only thirty rounds on familiarization-firing, a woefully insufficient amount under the circumstances . . . .
 

Jack led the six volunteers into the mountains. Each man led his spare horse, keeping their animals at an easy gallop. Jensen, Luciano and Standing Bear had won the toss with the submachine guns. Each man had three magazines, plus a few loose rounds. Additional weapons and ammunition would have to be scavenged from the bodies of the men at the time-transfer base. Hopefully, they had a lot of it.
 

Timing would be a total crapshoot, yet its criticality inestimable. The fate of humanity, as it likely had before and would again, hung on sheer guesswork. Logic dictated that Kaminsky or her chief henchmen would not care to drag a modern motor home across a good hundred fifty miles of some of the roughest terrain to be found in North America. Nor would people comfortably used to central heat and air, running water and the like go out of the way to travel so well beyond the reach of the amenities they’d gone to such trouble to bring back to this time.
 

Therefore, Jack hoped, the grunts with the tanks and armored personnel carriers and Humvees and old Jeeps and anything else would set out for the site of the firepower demonstration before the big shots did. The big shots most likely would not travel by VSTOL jet, but by helicopter.
 

The aircraft were the crucial element in the equation.
 

If they were on the ground, victory was possible; if they were airborne, or got that way, the battle and mankind’s future was likely lost.
 

Judicious use of the remounts allowed Jack and the six volunteers to overtake Lieutenant Easley’s column at almost exactly the same time that it reached the dismount point, before beginning the forced march to the time-transfer base.
 

Ellen, hatless as usual, one hand resting on the butt of one of her sixguns, walked forward. “You guys were pretty good in the timing department, Jack.”
 

“Sheer skill at horsemanship,” Jack responded, smiling as he dismounted and handed off the reins of his horse to one of the volunteers.
 

There was no fire; there were no torches. The only light was that of the nearly full moon, low on the western horizon. But it was enough, the night sky otherwise clear. Jack Naile took his wife into his arms. “I don’t suppose you’d wait here with the men Easley will leave behind to watch the horses and equipment.”
 

“You ‘don’t suppose’ correctly. I’ll be fine. I’ll stick with you.” Ellen patted his cheek, then leaned up and kissed his lips lightly. “Are your volunteers ready for the mission?”
 

“As ready as they can be to go ninety-six years into the future on a murder raid against a heavily armed force of killers with vastly superior firepower. Sure, they’re ready. You are aware of the fact that you’re not coming with us there? Right? Please?”
 

“I’ve thought about that a lot. Sure, somebody has to keep things organized here. But it can be somebody else.
 

Just don’t let anything happen to that time-transfer junk so we don’t make the kids orphans just yet. I don’t want you trapped there and I’m trapped here. So, I’m going. Whatever or wherever happens, it’s going to happen to us both.”
 

Jack couldn’t argue with that. All of their lives, since their marriage, they had done everything possible to always be together. He’d never actually counted, but a rough guess was that they’d spent perhaps as few as twelve nights apart from each other, certainly no more than twenty. For one of them to be somehow alive in the future and one alive in the past wouldn’t be living at all.