The Traveler Read online

  Will pulled Jack to his feet and he shook out some of the cobwebs.

  “That was one hell of a punch,” Will said as he pulled Jack to higher ground as the waters receded back into the East River. His bad arm was now working again as the injury was only temporary in numbing his extremity. He rotated to make sure he didn’t break it.

  “What in the hell was packed into that damn thing?” Collins asked as he felt for the nine millimeter that was no longer there. He angrily pulled his sport coat free and tossed it onto the top step of the stoop. Then he heard the sirens. He took Will’s arm and pushed him toward the door. “See if Jenks and the Traveler are okay. Then lock up and allow no one inside. We’ll get the fire and police departments looking in the wrong place for now, but they’re not stupid, they may believe that building was the intended target.”

  “Right.” Will quickly entered the broken building.

  Henri and the FBI agent-in-charge, Williamson, the Event Group operative, quickly formulated a plan just as the navy yard fire brigade showed up and were quickly followed by both the FDNY and NYPD. The place was starting to look like ground zero and that was attention Jack and his team had to avoid at all costs. They just didn’t have the time for lengthy national security debates. Jack allowed the FBI to taint the trail and explain that a van filled with methamphetamine liquid exploded after trying to get by the FBI investigative team. The hard part would be getting Williamson’s own field team to go along. Thus far the Event Group plan was in shambles. No second signal for the original doorway to lock on to, and now there was someone who wanted the Wellsian Doorway kept on a more private basis and was willing to kill fifty federal agents to do it.

  Jack ran to the river and looked at the settling water and saw the bodyguard Julien as he stood wide-eyed in the rain where he thought he was unobserved. The other two were busily speaking beside him. They were animated as the larger man stared out at the spot the van had exploded. Then he saw Jack looking at him and before the colonel could move, Julien and his two companions turned away and vanished into the night. Jack turned and then headed for the heavily damaged building 117.

  * * *

  Jack found Will tending to a gash on Jenks’s head as he avoided the smashed and shattered glass from the viewing gallery. Mendenhall nodded toward the Traveler, who was looking through the broken window frame at the water that had cascaded into the PIT from the river. The explosion had ripped a hole in the seawall that protected the navy yard from the raising and the lowering of tides. The base of the building had survived two hundred years of rot and decay only to be smashed by what amounted to an underwater depth charge that smashed the ancient wood and concrete pilings. Collins could see that Moira Mendelsohn was in shock as the water bubbled and rolled over the equipment it had taken her a lifetime to design and build.

  Sparks momentarily flew from a bank of old computer panels and several of the old spools of magnetic tape blew free from their cabinets and splashed into the rising waters.

  “I am sorry.”

  Jack heard the words and he felt the woman maybe wasn’t sorry for the loss of the doorway, but for the lost chance at helping them get their man back from the past. Even though she had informed them that the doorway needed that second signal to lock on to, she had not given up on the vast possibilities. She took a deep breath and it came out as a sigh.

  “Ma’am, are you hurt?” the colonel asked as he leaned over for a look. He reached down and retrieved her blanket and spread it over her exposed legs. Jack’s eyes locked on the numerical tattoo that had been brutally applied in greenish-blue ink. She saw him looking and she slowly pulled the shawl closer to her body. She nodded, indicating that she was all right. Her eyes went back to the rising waters covering her life’s work. “You need to tell me who your enemies are.” Jack saw the stunned look on Jenks’s face as he removed the cigar from his mouth and stopped Will from tending his cut as he strained to hear what the woman had to say.

  “I have no more enemies, Colonel Collins. A woman my age actually becomes more secure the older she gets simply through the assault of time. Old age makes for an exceptional ally in avoiding enemies from the past.”

  “How about out of time?”

  She smiled. “I am not following you, Colonel.”

  “Who doesn’t want this machine falling into hands other than yours?”

  Moira turned her chair and then faced Jack. She watched his eyes for a moment and then shook her head. “Perhaps you should check your end of that equation, Colonel, not mine.”

  “Your bodyguards mysteriously vanished after the attack—why?”

  “Julien and the others have left me?” she asked, a momentary look of panic filling her expression.

  Jack remained silent as she thought and he realized that the information had truly stunned her. She looked away and Collins saw the tough old woman’s lips tremble. He placed a hand on her shoulder and then moved off to Will and Jenks.

  “Look, can you duplicate that design if you had all of the specs?” he asked Jenks in a low tone as he watched Madam Mendelsohn move back to the broken viewing glass and stare down at her submerged doorway.

  Jenks also watched the Traveler and then placed the cigar back into his mouth as he allowed Will to apply a gauze pad and tape to his cut.

  “Yeah, if I had ten years and about three billion dollars, you bet,” he growled, and then tossed the cigar stub away. He stood and went to the viewing window and looked out. “No, our only shot was right there,” he said, pointing to the rising waters. “So I suggest you get some pumps in here and some engineers and get that leak sealed up tight. Me and Ginny will figure something out after we dry everything off.”

  “Ginny and you will figure what out, Harold?” The voice made Jenks turn. He smiled and then quickly caught himself and spat onto the wet carpet. “Classy as always,” she said as she saw Jack and Will and nodded. Then her eyes fell on the Traveler and she quickly made her way to the electric wheelchair.

  “That we maybe can salvage…”

  Jenks’s words trailed off as Virginia Pollock kneeled down on the wet floor and faced Moira.

  “Dr. Mendelsohn?”

  Moira looked up and her smile grew as this was the first time in her life that someone from the outside world had addressed her as “Doctor.”

  “Yes,” she answered as Virginia took her old and silken hand into her own.

  “I have read your thesis on the alternating poles of influence in regards to ion particle research—an amazing piece that I use quite often in my courses on light-emitting and amplification lenses.”

  “I didn’t think anyone had access to my old work.”

  Virginia looked up at Jack with a questioning look. “She hasn’t met Xavier and Europa as yet?”

  Collins shook his head. “Just Dr. Morales, not Europa.”

  “Well, suffice it to say I can’t wait to get into your head about certain things regarding your research and the practical application of your work. I need to know so much. The mission into the past, I would love to see the records on those.”

  The smile vanished from Moira as she eased her hands free of Virginia’s. The move was caught by all. Jack suspected Moira was hiding something huge but for now his only concern was the repair of the doorway and its application in assisting them getting Everett back home. And in the middle of all of that they now had a mystery concerning who would be willing to kill federal agents to stop the doorway from being compromised.

  “All of my notes have been lost over the years. I’m afraid the only record of mission parameters is in here,” she said, pointing an old finger to her temple.

  “Master Chief, get the assistant director up-to-date. Moira, you and I need to speak after we get this thing moving. Right now I have to see how much of our cover story has bitten the dust.”

  “Do you mean the problems outside?” Virginia asked as she straightened up and looked around at the devastation caused by the suicide attack.

 
“Yes,” Jack answered.

  “Well, it looks like the FBI is under attack by the civil authorities representing the Borough of Brooklyn. Agent Williamson said to tell you they are being pulled off the detail and turning the investigation over to the NYPD vice squad, ATF, and the DEA.”

  “Damn, I have to speak with Niles. We’re going to need some special interference ran for us.”

  “You mean we’re going to add another criminal charge to our growing list?” Virginia asked.

  “Something like that, yeah. Now, we need your teams to get in here and start cleaning this mess up so we can see just how screwed we really are. Then the priority is to get the linkup with Morales and Europa up and running on a dependable basis. We need her computing prowess here ASAP. Will, get Ryan to grab us six field security teams out here from Nevada, I want our own people managing security from here on out.” Collins looked at his watch. “We have ninety hours left before the president will have to explain to a lot of angry agencies and cities why he is acting so slowly on this. And it’s now a lot larger problem than it was just an hour ago.”

  Jack turned and left the gallery and caught the lift to the top floor. All the while he felt a helplessness he hadn’t felt since he saw Everett push him away and then vanish into a wormhole.

  The Event Group was losing its race with time and technology.

  9

  BERNSTEIN, FRISCH, JODLE, AND WACHOWSKI

  INVESTMENT GROUP, NEW YORK CITY

  The Russian didn’t exactly feel out of place in the financial district as he rode the plastic-lined elevator on his way to the thirty-fifth floor of the Halas building, as money never, ever, frightened him, nor did the men and women who had it in droves. The fortress of glass, white marble, and steel ugliness set itself apart from the gleaming spires that replaced the old World Trade Center, which had come to an abrupt end on September 11, 2001. He looked at the three Wall Street types next to him as they stepped off on the floor below his destination. He knew very few people ever rode the elevator to the topmost floor. He smiled as the doors closed at the haughty mannerisms the departed men had about them, which he found distinctly funny. After all, he mused, we are practically in the same business—the procurement of money and the acquisition of power. He punched in the private code on the keypad and the elevator continued upward one more flight.

  The doors opened and the small Russian stepped free of the richly paneled car and saw the two security guards flanking either side of the double glass doors. The first rose from his small desk and confronted the visitor. He held out his hand and the Russian smiled and held open his black coat and sport jacket to show the guards that he carried no firearms. He smirked at the naiveté of the investment firm. He lowered his hands and the second guard issued him a visitor’s pass. The small plastic card was computer coded and it allowed him access to the thirty-fifth floor of one of the most advanced and profitable investment firms in the financial world.

  “Mr. Frisch is expecting you. His assistant will escort you. Sir, your visiting privileges extend only to the boardroom.”

  The Russian smiled at the seriousness of the two guards. He had seen no less than three alternate ways of entering this so-called secure haven in less than the two minutes it took to ride the elevator to his richly appointed destination. But that was information he would file away for another day.

  “Mr. Jones, please come with me,” said a matronly woman in a gray suit. He smiled at her overstated manliness and at the tie she wore. American women in their struggles to be competitive drove them to extremes, in his humble opinion.

  The Russian saw the boardroom he had been in many times. He was the only person inside the vast organization to actually see and have an audience with the men behind the curtain, the wizards, as he liked to refer to them. He stepped inside and saw the lone figure of a man sitting at the head of one of the longer boardroom tables the immigrant Russian had ever seen. The gray-haired man looked up from the newspaper and nodded that the visitor should sit.

  “Ask Mr. Jodle to join us please, Mrs. Abernathy.”

  “He has been notified, sir.” The woman closed both doors as she backed out with a hard look at the man visiting her boss. She obviously knew of his special talents.

  The older man, in his late fifties, looked up and then slapped the morning edition of The New York Times.

  “Care to explain this failure?” the man asked as he stood and went to the sidebar and poured himself a cup of coffee. The Russian noticed the coffee service was probably worth all of the meager salary he ever made inside the Moscow Police Department. He also noticed coffee was not offered to him. The Russian sat down with a smirk. The chairman of the board noticed but chose not to say anything as he returned to his expensive high-backed chair that appeared to have been custom designed to look down at the other eighteen chairs around the table.

  The door opened and a well-dressed man in an expensive three-piece suit strode in and without a greeting to the visitor sat down next to the chairman of the board. He folded his hands in front of him and then glared toward the small man at the end of the long table. Another sniff of humor from the small man as he noticed how much the well-appointed man acted like a schoolboy in front of the gray-haired chairman.

  “Failure?” he asked, hinting at confusion.

  “The police have already cleared the navy yard and proclaimed a major victory in the war on drugs inside the city. And yet, the building still stands. Madam is still breathing.”

  The Russian stood and made his way to the coffee service and poured himself some coffee without invitation. The younger partner was about to say something but the older man placed a hand on his and stilled him from the complaint. The Russian went back to the far end of the expansive table after pouring an inordinate amount of sugar into the china cup.

  The visitor sipped his coffee and then placed the cup down on the polished surface. He reached into his coat pocket and produced something he placed on a water tray after removing the empty carafe, and then slid the items and the tray down the long table where it came to rest in front of the two men.

  “It seems I was not told the exact situation by your young colleague.”

  The older man picked up the photos from the tray. His eyes went from the Russian to the photos. They were in night-vision format and the man could see that the photographer had used a long-range camera to take the shots. They showed three men in civilian dress as they fired upon the van as it hurtled toward building 117. The other men and women in the photo all wore the distinctive FBI Windbreakers that were so recognizable to the world.

  “You were told enough to complete the contract you agreed to. Now, what is so amazing about these photos?” The older man passed them to his younger partner, who had been at the attack at its outset.

  “Who are those men?” he asked as he lifted the china cup to his lips and blew lightly to cool the liquid. He sipped and waited.

  “FBI? How in the hell are we to know?” the younger man named Jodle said with indignity as he tossed the photos back onto the silver tray.

  The Russian laughed as he set the cup back onto the table. “No, I’m afraid all of the local field agents within the five boroughs have been tagged by my people. These men are not agents of that particular law enforcement group.”

  “Local police, possibly agents from Washington, who in the hell cares? Your job was to permanently shut that building down and to eliminate any possible contact between Madam and the federal authorities.”

  The Russian was growing weary of the answers he was receiving. “Your man inside Miss Mendelsohn’s sphere of influence, this Julien, says that these strangers are military.”

  “So, what does that have to do with this?” the older man asked as he leaned back to hear the answer. “And where is Julien? We wish to speak to him at the soonest opportunity.”

  “He was rather shocked at the extreme measures for which I was contracted.” He sipped coffee and then smiled. “He’s what you would ca
ll ‘disillusioned’ at your harsh tactics. He and his men are currently under my care.”

  “Bring him and the others to us. We would like to question them ourselves,” Jodle said as he tried to look intimidating but failed miserably.

  Silence.

  The two investments men exchanged worried looks when the Russian said nothing. But his grin said everything.

  “Secrets, secrets, secrets. Some are good at keeping them, others good at learning them.”

  Both men got the same gut-wrenching feeling in their stomachs at the exact same moment. The visitor pushed the coffee cup aside and then leaned forward in his chair. He fixed the two men with a knowing look.

  “I guess it was divine providence that these men you so casually shrug off as FBI field agents shot the tires out of that van, otherwise we might have destroyed one of the most valuable pieces of equipment in the history of the world, and the person responsible for its construction in the same process. Leaving us poor working peasants wondering just why you gentlemen wanted to permanently stop the advancement of science. Could it be for other than humanitarian purposes? Shame on you.”

  “You have been contracted to complete a job, this was not done,” the older man Frisch said with as much indignity as he could foster.

  “The conditions settled upon in our previous agreement will have to be reworded, I’m afraid.”

  The statement was met with shocked silence.

  “My organization has decided to wait and see just what is planned for that old building.” He stood from his chair and then buttoned his thick coat over the sport jacket. He smiled at the two men who sat looking white-faced. “Oh, and we have decided that it would be far more beneficial to speak with Madam Mendelsohn ourselves to understand better just what an amazing piece of equipment she has in her control.”