Written in Time (61 page)

Lieutenant Easley picked up a bottle and inverted it. “Nickel-plated, you say, Mr. Naile? Who’s got a match?” Flashing a grin, eyes twinkling, young Lieutenant Easley struck the match against the underside of the wheelwell beside which he crouched. “Flares up quickly, doesn’t it?” Easley observed dryly, his nostrils flaring as he evidently smelled the alcohol. He stood for a split second to fling the burning Molotov. The bottle of burning beverage— vodka in this case—shattered against metal drums behind which the Lakewood fire element had taken cover. A direct hit. Easley remarked, “Now, anyone who can best me not only gets that nickel-plated Colt Mr. Naile offered, but a Winchester rifle to boot, from yours truly.” He fired a glance at Jack and smiled. Over Easley’s shoulder, Jack could see Alan and the two troopers, leapfrogging their way toward the control center . . .
 

Her helicopter would make for a spectacular—indeed, frightening—introduction to the foreign buyers. Bethany liked catching adversaries off their guard, with their “pants down” as it were. In the first few moments following such an incident, people habitually said and did things that they would never say or do if their wits were fully about them.
 

Vulnerability: Bethany avoided displaying it, loved discovering it.
 

But she was caught up in her own temporary vulnerability at the moment and cursed herself for it. The surface ordnance was already too far south of the time-transfer base to be recalled. There was no direct communication with 1996 without use of the time-transfer capsule. The two pilots for the VSTOLs—damn their chickenshittedness—were among the seven men trying to reach the capsule rather than running for their fighter planes.
 

One lousy fighter plane could wipe out all of the attackers.
 

Because of her costuming—the long skirts and voluminous undergarments—it would have been needlessly risky for her to sit opposite the Bell Long Ranger’s pilot. If an item of clothing were to snag in some control or another, disaster might result. She sat immediately behind the pilot instead, able to see nearly as well as she could have otherwise.
 

It was up to her to give the order to her pilot. “Steve? Can a regular rifle or a subgun take out our helicopter?”
 

“Sure can, Ms. Kaminsky. If this was a gunship, we’d be better set, but not immune. Bullets and helicopters— especially ordinary civilian ones—just don’t mix!”
 

“Well, shit! That’s just fucking wonderful. Then get me outa here!” The attackers—a bunch of fucking soldiers dressed like extras from a western movie and probably that son of a bitch Jack Naile and his fucking meddling dogooder family—were going to lose her the time-transfer base. “I could be trapped here in this damn fucking time! Do you realize that?” Bethany Kaminsky’s fists bunched handfuls of her skirts, and she shrieked, “Get airborne and get me out of here, Steve! Now, dammit!”
 

Bethany was giving a good performance, she thought. But what she knew was no one’s business except her own. And, she could very well be “trapped” in 1900 without a proper shower or bathroom, without normal clothes, without any of that for—for hours.
 

Stifling a laugh, Bethany evaluated her position. She could obviously retake the time-transfer base once she reconnected with the tanks and armoured personnel carriers. She could radio them immediately and do just that. Or she could let the firepower demonstration go on as scheduled, get herself set with a power base at the beginning of the twentieth century just as planned.
 

Below her, one of the VSTOLs blew up, a fireball belching skyward. Steve banked the helicopter just in time to keep them from being swallowed in flame.
 

Bethany’s temples pounded, and she felt vomit rising up in her throat. It was the flight, she knew; helicopter rides were never her favorite thing even under the best of circumstances.
 

Within little more than an hour, merely by raising binoculars to her eyes, she would be able to just make out on the horizon what would be a caravan of carriages and coaches withdrawing to a considerable distance from a dry lakebed where canvas pavilions had been erected to shield onlookers from the sun and the elements. If the range was not far enough, a great many frightened drivers would be chasing an even greater number of wildly terrified horses once the firepower demonstration got underway.
 

Her pilot’s voice came through Bethany’s earpiece. “I’m patching you through to the time-transfer base. It’s a voice I don’t recognize. He asked for you by name.”
 

“Let me talk to him.”
 

The transmission was clear, clear enough that the voice was easily recognizable as that of Alan Naile. He was gloating over how she was trapped in 1900 and would soon be out of fuel and ammunition.
 

While he was still talking to her, she pulled the headset off and rested it in her lap. “God, how predictable!” Steve, the pilot, just looked at her oddly. Bethany could no longer maintain the charade. And anyway, her sides hurt; the boning in her corset pinched when she laughed.
 

The concussion from the exploding jump jet slammed Jack back against the motor home’s coachwork. Apparently, the six marksmen were on the job. Just as he mentally congratulated their skills, he looked up. The helicopter had gotten airborne and was out of range of any rifle Jack had ever heard of. “Shit!”
 

“What is it?” Lieutenant Easley queried.
 

Jack couldn’t resist the impulse to try a Leslie Nielsen impression. “It’s a brown sticky substance human beings excrete to eliminate waste products, but never mind that now. That’s Bethany Kaminsky, the principal bad guy, getting away. That’s all.” Jack pulled the unlit rag from the mouth of the bottle in his right hand and took a swallow. It was whiskey.
 

The trooper who won the nickel-plated Colt and the Winchester rifle could pitch in the first World Series in 1903—if he made it through this alive.
 

Fortunately, the seven Lakewood personnel— technicians or engineers, most of them, two of them pilots—had chosen to fight to the death. Jack Naile did not relish the idea of executing someone who had surrendered, did not know if he would be capable of doing so and feared that he was.
 

The remaining VSTOL, its paint job smudged from smoke, seemed otherwise unscathed. Trouble was, there was no one alive in 1900 who could fly it.
 

Alan had reached the control trailer moments before the helicopter got airborne. After what seemed like forever, he at last exited it and announced, “We guessed right, Jack. The men who were trying to escape to the capsule had the controls set so that they could trigger a time-transfer remotely. I disarmed it. We have complete control of the capsule as far as going into the future. I can’t tell whether or not there’s any traffic due in to our objective present.
 

And I raised Bethany Kaminsky on the radio. I think she was numb.” Alan laughed.
 

Jack nodded, saying nothing. They stood some feet away from the time-transfer capsule, David and Clarence and Lieutenant Easley and the six volunteers.
 

Ellen, standing beside Jack, said, “The quicker we get ourselves to 1996, then, the faster we can get back here and take care of what’s left of Lakewood Industries in 1900.”
 

Jack squeezed his wife’s hand. “Understand this, Ellen, everybody. From everything Alan has told us about Bethany Kaminsky, we’ve got to figure that she would have covered her bet, anticipated that we might do just what we did. Alan said that she sounded numb; maybe she was just being coy. She’ll have an ace up her little lace-trimmed leg-o’-mutton sleeve. Watch and see.” Lighting a cigarette, Jack announced, “We’ll be leaving in just a few minutes, gentlemen. Let’s get all the firepower we’ll need and plenty of ammo ready. We won’t be able to try this again.” He turned to Lieutenant Easley. “I want you to put together a detail under the command of my nephew, Clarence. He’ll tell the men what to look for here.”
 

The very fact that the seven now dead men had attempted to make a getaway into the future boded well for what Jack and those with him intended. If there were definite schedules that were followed for time-transfers and any deviation from the schedule would be met with killing force, the seven would have been better off taking their chances in 1900. Of course, they might not have known about such a schedule, but that likelihood seemed doubtful. The technician who had programmed their capsule for a remotely triggered time-transfer had to have known what he was doing, would likely have been privy to any such scheduling restrictions.
 

By the same token, there would certainly be well-armed security waiting in 1996; to have done otherwise would have been negligent in the extreme, madness. Since 1996 was the future, could the Lakewood people there already know the assault from 1900 had taken/would take place? Headache time again, Jack mused.
 

Jack was loading the last of the MP-5 magazines with scrounged 9mm ammo. Ellen came and sat beside him on the rear bumper of the motor home that had demolished the fence gate. She wore slacks and laced-up boots, and wherever her hat was, it wasn’t on her person. “What do you think, Jack? Has Lakewood got another time-transfer base set?”
 

Jack thwacked the spine of the magazine against the palm of his hand to seat the last few cartridges—it was more habit than necessity. “I don’t think a full-tilt base, because Kaminsky’d want something like that pretty secretive. And the cost is enormous, of course. No, I figure she’s got a smaller facility, probably south of here, maybe closer to 1996 Las Vegas. It was probably selected here in 1900 and then built in 1996. In 1996, it could be inside a building or something. Probably is.”
 

“So, if there’s a second time-transfer base, then going to 1996, and knocking out the principal facility won’t put Lakewood out of business. They can still do whatever they want.”
 

Jack had two expropriated SIG 228 9mm pistols with thirteen-round magazines. He checked these as he spoke.
 

“That’s going to be up to Alan, sweetheart. Once we’ve got him back to 1996 and we’ve secured the time-transfer base there, Alan should be able to quickly reestablish himself as being not only alive, but in charge. He’s got political connections, as our descendants always do. His party’s not in charge in 1996, but God willing, that’ll change with the 2000 general election. In the meantime, he’s probably still got enough clout to shut down Lakewood’s time-travel ambitions. I think he can handle it on his end, and we’ll pull the plug from this end. That—and tracking Bethany Kaminsky—is what Clarence is working on right now.” Jack leaned over and kissed his wife on the cheek.
 

Jack had not wanted to risk taking 1900-vintage nitroglycerin dynamite into the time-transfer capsule. It sweated, given the slightest provocation, and was highly unstable under the appropriate circumstances. But, on the other hand, there were enough Communist bloc grenades at the time-transfer base that each man—and the solitary woman, Ellen—could have four apiece.
 

David, along with nine men from the Seventh, had already set out toward the anticipated scene of the firepower demonstration. All of the serious ground-based ordnance was gone, of course, but there were numerous pickup trucks, vans and a Suburban with three seats and a roof rack. David had crammed all the gear and weapons he could on to the Suburban’s roof rack and into the Suburban itself, along with the nine men, the vehicle rather crowded despite its size. One of the motor homes would have accommodated more personnel and equipment but with no modern roads in existence, might have handled getting from the time-transfer base to the firepower demonstration not at all.
 

Clarence, along with the men detailed to him by Lieutenant Easley, was busily scrounging electronic gear and explosives.
 

The interior of the time-transfer capsule—the capsule was enormous and gray inside and out and shaped like some sort of gigantic bean—beckoned with its coolness. The morning sun was strong and Jack warm.
 

Twenty-three minutes had passed since Kaminsky’s helicopter had gotten airborne. His special Colt slung at his right hip, a brace of SIG pistols that hadn’t been invented yet thrust into his waistband, one of the H-K submachine guns in his right hand, Jack took his wife’s right hand in his left and took the first step into the capsule.
 

It was cool inside, a little dark and creepy seeming, of course, and, when he spoke, his voice echoed and reechoed, amplifying the unnatural feel of the place. “Unlike the helicopter which brought my wife and family and myself here, Lieutenant, this capsule doesn’t cease to exist in one place, even for a moment, isn’t that right, Alan?”
 

“When the time-transfer occurred the first time, the helicopter they were in—well, we later deduced,” Alan said, his fingers stroking the walls of the capsule, “that the helicopter had to have ceased to exist in our time reference for possibly a nanosecond while it was traveling from the future to here.
 

“The people and the equipment sent from 1996, let’s say, to 1900 do actually cease to exist in 1996. However, this capsule is like the mountains, like a natural feature. The time-transfer takes place around the capsule, which is why there’s the shimmering effect you and your men have probably heard us mention, Lieutenant. The problem for us has always been that we just honestly don’t know what is happening or why this time-transfer thing works.
 

“It’s a trick of nature,” Alan went on, “and I don’t know if we’ll ever understand it. We just simply learned to imitate the trick and we can keep repeating the trick. But that doesn’t mean we’ve gotten any smarter.”