The Traveler Read online

  Instead of telling the truth, he grumbled and then stabbed his cigar end at the map.

  “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, Colonel, but do you see these power lines here and here?” The cigar stabbed at the two locations nearer the street.

  “Yes,” Jack confirmed.

  “If we are able to somehow get this ass-backward contraption runnin’, those lines won’t carry any sort of load close to what we would need.” He looked up and placed the cigar back into his mouth. “Not if the wattage we need is to carry the transformers I saw down in that pit. The old woman said she used bribes in the old days to get her power, but she didn’t explain it well enough. I’m sure the Borough of Brooklyn won’t be happy when we blow every electrical transformer from here to Bay Ridge.”

  Collins looked at the map again and the eight-hundred-foot space where the old dry dock used to be. It was sitting dry as the riverside gate was closed.

  “Yes, I did notice and have informed Virginia about the power problems we could be facing. She said that she has a plan for that and she wanted me to inform you that she needs your naval expertise to work out a few minor problems. She said to gather everything”—Jack looked at his pad and the notes he had written—“on the power output for either the Maitland, or SSN-688. I assume you know what that first name refers to?”

  Jenks removed the cigar once more and shook his head as if in wonder.

  “Smart lady there. I didn’t think of that,” he mumbled. “Yeah, I know what she’s referring to. Ballsy, I must say.”

  “Yeah, we’ve noticed that about Virginia,” Jack said, wondering to what level Jenks’s real fear of Virginia extended. “It must be all of those letters that follow her name and title, huh?” Jack smirked at the master chief. “Well, she said she’s also studied the aerial photos from Boris and Natasha and suggests you may want to get a start on—”

  “Hah! Filling the dry dock area,” he said triumphantly. He looked from Mendenhall to Farbeaux. “See, I can think just as fast as her.”

  “Oh, yeah,” Will said as he turned away and laughed.

  “Okay, you get on that, Master Chief.”

  “And myself? Am I to run out for coffee and doughnuts?” Henri asked.

  “No, we’re going out in the rain and assisting Madam Mendelsohn inside for our meeting with Xavier, Niles, and Europa. It’s time to see if we have a chance at using this”—he looked at Jenks—“half-assed-contraption.”

  “That’s ass-backward contraption,” Jenks mumbled as he corrected Jack with a disgusting smirk.

  “And I’m included here because…?” Henri asked as he straightened from the map of the navy yard.

  Jack smiled as he put his coat on. “I like to have a man know just what it is he’s volunteering for.”

  Colonel Henri Farbeaux lowered his eyes and wondered when and if his time in hell would ever be served. He watched Jack as he held the door open for him, intentionally not answering Henri’s question but avoiding it with another mystery.

  “Did you ever catch on that I really don’t care for you, Colonel?” Henri walked past Collins and then out of the office.

  “Really. But I thought we were actually getting to be friends.”

  * * *

  Moira Mendelsohn sat in her chair and looked out from the glass-enclosed gallery at the doorway laboratory. She adjusted the quilt on her legs and then looked away.

  “I didn’t think I would ever lay eyes on that damnable thing again.”

  The doorway was sitting silent without any power in the semidarkness of the spotlights. Moira looked around the gallery.

  “I remember looking up through a glass wall very much like this one. That is why I have always told my scholarship students not to lie to their children.”

  “Concerning?” Jack asked as he and Henri sat in the gallery seating section, flanking either side of the woman they knew as the Traveler.

  She smiled and looked at the colonel.

  “Why, that there really are monsters in the world.” Her smile became a conspirator’s smirk. “I know, I’ve seen them myself through glass walls just like these.” She gestured to the seats and the gallery glass separating the viewers from the time machine that sat beneath them.

  Jack remembered her file. He looked at Henri and knew he was thinking the same as him. Moira had really seen monsters in the flesh and most had red and black swastikas on the sleeves and death’s-heads on their caps. The tale she related in remembering her concentration camp debrief told the bizarre story of Heinrich Himmler and his plan. Yes, she had seen monsters. Jack studied the tired face of the woman who sat before him.

  “I trust you want to use the doorway for something of your own design?” She looked from Jack to the doorway below and the shiny instruments that gleamed in the sparse lighting.

  “Is it still possible?”

  Moira Mendelsohn snorted and chuckled, worrying both Collins and Farbeaux, but Henri far more since this was a machine owned and possibly once operated by her, so he hoped her insanity was a recent development.

  “Oh, yes, I imagine it is.” She used the chair’s toggle to turn her chair to face Jack full on. “But why would you wish to go there?”

  “Go where, ma’am?”

  “Germany in 1943, of course.”

  “We wouldn’t wish to if at all avoidable,” Henri said chiming in.

  “Then I suspect you have a Wellsian Doorway at the selected location?”

  “Not following,” Jack said, feeling his heart skip a beat.

  “My dear, you have to have two doorways for the system to work. Didn’t you read my dossier and specs thoroughly?” She managed to actually look sad at the way Jack’s face dropped. “The only other doorway is in the Germany of the past, 1943. There is no other.”

  Collins stood and faced away from Moira. He saw the look from Henri. While not at all sad about hearing the news, he did feel for these people, for when the news broke that what they wanted to happen was now an impossibility, their hope would be dashed. The Frenchman had read the entire dossier and understood far better just how devastating this new information was.

  Jack opened the door. “Master Chief, come in here, please.” He then turned to the monitor that had been installed by Mendenhall. “Dr. Morales, are you with us?” he asked as Jenks entered the gallery and saw the long faces and then sat down. He removed his ever-present cigar and then nodded a greeting at Moira.

  After a few seconds the young face of Morales filled the screen. Jack knew he would have to eventually get used to the new kid running the most intricate computing and AI system ever designed. He just hoped the young man was up to the task. They would soon see if the moniker that had been bestowed upon him was accurate … that of genius.

  “We are here, Colonel, and we do have some information. Professor Ellenshaw—”

  “Doctor, we may have a problem that will take priority over everything else. And note, Doctor, we are not secured on this end, we have a guest. May I introduce Ms. Moira Mendelsohn.”

  The old woman smiled when she saw the youth of the man on the monitor. She nodded.

  “Ma’am, it’s truly an honor,” Morales said with something close to awe.

  “He’s so young,” she said through the side of her mouth, and then nodded and smiled again at the young man blushing on the screen.

  “Doctor, listen to what Ms. Mendelsohn has to tell you. Then I want you to use some of that brain stuff we rescued you for. Find an answer. Master Chief, help fill him in.”

  “Europa is just now getting her act together, so I’ll do my best.”

  Jack excused himself and gestured for Henri to follow. They stepped out through the gallery and then took the elevator up to the old office area. Will was there figuring out a duty roster for his men when they arrived from Nellis.

  Jack opened the door with Will and the Frenchman in tow and they stepped out underneath the old and tattered awning that covered the front stoop.

  “My God, how can
we pull this one off?” he asked.

  Will was filled in by Henri and could see that the colonel was feeling physically ill being defeated at such an early point in the Event call.

  “What now?” Will asked.

  Jack just shook his head and then stepped out from under the awning and walked down the steps. He raised his face to the sky and allowed the rain to cool his face.

  Will and Henri watched a man realizing defeat and it was something they could both see didn’t sit too well with the former Green Beret.

  * * *

  The ruse had taken two and a half hours to formulate and execute. The van was actually stolen from the federal building parking lot in Brooklyn near the courthouse area and now sat idling at a closed and deserted gas station on Flushing Avenue. The driver of the van eased himself from behind the wheel and then joined the three men watching the main front gate of the navy yard.

  “That is one drive I don’t want to make again. I must have passed a dozen cops on the way here,” the man said in Russian. “I didn’t know if any of their radio signals would set that shit off. It would have blown half of the neighborhood straight to hell, not that it would be missed.”

  The smaller of the three men turned and faced the driver. “The explosives are detonated on a sealed circuit, you idiot, I have told you that. Radio signals cannot set them off.”

  “If you have to explain to your men their duties more than once, I wonder how well mine and my colleagues’ money was spent. Perhaps we chose the wrong organization to handle our problem?”

  The small man turned and faced his contracted employer. “Have we yet to fail you and your … colleagues in any capacity?” He snorted with a chuckle at the euphemism this dark-haired man insisted on using.

  “I fear there is always a first time,” the man said as he pulled his expensive coat closer to his throat. He hated dealing with these Eastern Bloc idiots. But they were the only people brave, or foolish, enough to take on the hard jobs called for to help him and his associates from time to time. These brutes had their own business concerns, but did this kind of work on a contractual basis and the Russians and the services they provided were not known to come cheap.

  “If there is failure the first time, there will be a second, a third, even a fourth attempt until you are satisfied our contract has been fulfilled.”

  “As long as you are aware of the situation and the people you’re putting into harm’s way. That’s the FBI over there. You may get through the civilian guards at the gate with your falsified van, but not them.”

  “Obstacles to be swiped aside like dirt.” The small man laughed. “The FBI has been trying to shut us down for many years, my friend, yet here we are.”

  “Have your people compensated for the design of the building and the fact that your target is in the subbasement?”

  “How did you get into the position you are in by worrying about such small details, my friend? You should know that with enough explosive you can do anything.” The man turned and watched as the civilian guards started their shift change. He faced the driver. “Once through the gate you will get out at the first blind corner; my men will take it from there. Just be sure to turn on the remote device before you leave the van.”

  The driver nodded in understanding. He turned and went to the van and carefully eased out of the deserted gas station and crossed over Flushing Avenue and into the navy yard without a second look from the harried guards at the gate. With a flash of the FBI magnetic lettering on the doors and the government-issued license plate, the dark-haired man watched the most powerful explosive ever to be used in the borough of Brooklyn on its way to kill the Traveler and any evidence of their past crimes.

  He placed a hand on the Russian’s shoulder. The sleeve of his expensive coat was pulled back and the contracted killer looked down at the man’s exposed arm.

  “Let’s hope we don’t have to try this again.”

  The Russian watched the dark-haired man of forty lower his hand and turn toward his chauffeured car, which waited in the back of the station.

  The Russian was left wondering about the strange numerical tattoo on the man’s forearm as he stepped into the old station’s store area that had not seen a customer or worker in over eighteen months. His men were there and as he looked at the bespectacled Russian sitting at the small desk, the contract killer could see by the red flashing light on the boxlike detonator that the remote system was indeed operational.

  * * *

  The driver slowed his beating heart as he passed through the main gate with nothing more than a cursory wave from the oncoming shift of civilian security guards. He drove slowly, obeying the posted limit of five miles per hour as he watched the deserted and rain-swept road near the back of the navy yard. The pulsing of the windshield wipers lulled him as he pulled around the blind corner. He immediately saw the bright lights that had been installed around building 117. He looked around as he placed the van in park and then allowed the van to idle. He didn’t wonder how the men who had hired him rigged the van, he just wanted out of it. He reached for the door handle and then he remembered to set the remote system on the dashboard. He took a breath and then flipped the small toggle switch. A small red light illuminated, indicating the arming of the system. Little did he know that it had also armed far more than the remote control. He pulled on the door handle—nothing.

  “What?” he said as he felt the first stirring of fear down in the pit of his stomach.

  He pulled on the handle again and the door still didn’t open. He put his shoulder to it and still the door remained locked and closed. Suddenly he heard the gearshift move from park to drive and his eyes widened. He hurriedly reached out and hit the toggle switch again. The light remained brightly lit. He repeated the same action with the same result. He yelled an obscenity and then slapped at the small radar-looking device, sending it crashing to the floor. Still the van moved forward toward the first taped-off line where two agents of the FBI waited in the rain. He hurriedly tried to shut the key off. It turned but the engine didn’t stop. He tried desperately to slam the gear lever into park but the van was moving so fast now that the transmission just clicked loudly as he sped onward.

  The accelerator pedal magically went to the floor and the unsuspecting patsy was thrown back in the driver’s seat as he realized the ruthless Russian mob had murdered him for their own ends.

  The FBI van hurtled toward building 117 with over a thousand pounds of the hybrid mix that crystallizes conventional plastique to HMX, the most powerful military explosive in the world.

  * * *

  In a combat situation, Colonel Jack Collins was an unparalleled warrior as far as instinctual awareness was concerned—unparalleled with the exception of a man who not only was trained the same as Collins, but one who also had the instincts of a developed criminal mind—Colonel Henri Farbeaux.

  Before the two FBI field agents jumped free of the path of the rampaging navy blue van, which the newly installed Krieg lighting illuminated clearly, Henri had his nine millimeter free of its shoulder holster and had fired six times before Jack had even reached for his weapon. Soon he added his and Mendenhall’s firepower at the onrushing target.

  The van careened wildly as if the driver had no control. The two agents had barely avoided being crushed as the van sped past their checkpoint and the wooden barriers that the FBI had installed. The wood shattered and the two men rolled free. Bullets slammed into the windshield as the van cleared the security checkpoint a hundred yards from the building. Henri had already expended a clip and had placed a new one into the Glock and continued his rapid fire at the oncoming threat.

  Collins lowered his weapon to reload but before he did he could see the dark shape of the driver as he fought the wheel of the van. The man was wide-eyed and terrified as the van hurtled beyond the running FBI agents as they piled from their field vans and into the rain.

  “Wheels!” Jack yelled and immediately Henri and Will adjusted their fire. They we
re satisfied to see the bullets striking the old and broken asphalt that lined the waterway. Rubber was starting to shred from the front right tire and sent the van careening to the right. It bounced off an old pier piling and then rebounded back into the roadway. The van rode on two wheels as the force of the turn threw the screaming driver to the floor of the van.

  Finally the right front wheel sheared off the front axle and the van screamed past the three men after hitting the crumbling facade of building 117. Jack jumped free as Will and Henri kept firing into the glass and engine compartment of the FBI van just as it zoomed by. The engine compartment exploded in a gouge of flame as the van careened back away from the building. The van then hit a pier piling and jumped into the rainy night air. The van struck the water and immediately started to founder. The spew of water into the broken windows sent geysers into the air.

  As FBI field agents started running forward as Jack was just standing after throwing himself onto the ground, when he was once again knocked off his feet and flipped over until he slammed into the redbrick of building 117. The detonation was so powerful that Farbeaux and Mendenhall were tossed from the stoop of the old building until they too were slammed into the old facade. The wall of water inundated the building, pier, and dry dock area of building 117. The wave hit Jack and he was washed away like he had been caught in a flash flood. The two FBI operation vans were caught in the artificial tsunami and slammed into the vacant building 115 where they were crushed underneath tons of water from the river. The running field agents were caught just as the wall of water slammed into the protective river-wall that lined the roadway. Parts of the old building started crumbling into the white water as the river started to calm.

  The geyser that erupted from the water traveled seven hundred feet in height before the wall of water had started to expand, freeing itself from the cold waters of the East River. Collins was washed backward toward the still roiling river and when he thought he was being whisked into the water, hands grabbed him and pulled him to safety. Jack spat foul-tasting water from his mouth and then looked up and saw Will Mendenhall with a serious gash on his head, and the arm he had broken in Antarctica was hanging limp at his side. Henri was spitting blood as he made sure Jack was breathing and then he ran to help some of the field agents as they struggled to stand. The rain masked the sounds of men moaning in pain from the underwater concussion that had rent the air around the oldest section of the navy yard.