The Traveler Read online

  “What do you mean?”

  Alice placed her paperwork in her case and then looked up one last time. “Pete Golding was killed in the field, but Niles knows he cannot save him, even if he could. He’s not lost, Carl Everett is. Morality plays are a little more hellish and real than you thought, aren’t they, Doctor?”

  Xavier Morales watched Alice Hamilton leave. He now understood better just why the director of Department 5656 had slumped shoulders—he had the weight of all world history upon them.

  * * *

  Jack checked out Henri’s suit and helmet. Charlie was already wearing his and Jenks looked him over.

  “Now don’t worry here, Nerdly, if we walk into a pocket of methane or somethin’ as delectable as that, your environment monitor in your sleeve there won’t allow your helmet to unlock. The colonel issued you this.” He held up a nine-millimeter semiautomatic pistol and slammed it home into a holster that stretched across Ellenshaw’s back and covered the front of his jumpsuit. “Guess he doesn’t relish the thought of a nerd with an M-4. You have extra ammo in the packs. Just remember to point it at anyone but me.”

  “Got it,” Ellenshaw said as he was tempted to pull the weapon and examine it, but saw the master chief looking at him to see if he would make that kind of stupid decision.

  Jack turned and made sure the packs were secured properly to the trailer and then checked if the four-wheeled John Deere tracked vehicle was ready. The rugged all-terrain vehicle was pulling six of the five-by-five trailers. The secondary doorway was safely ensconced in shrink wrap and boxed inside of protective polyurethane containers. The power source was bolted to the second trailer. If they lost any one part of either the doorway of the portable power storage unit they wouldn’t be coming back from this little jaunt. The rest of the team was issued tents, camping gear, signal devices, and defensive measures that were top of the line. Altogether they were taking over a ton and a half of supplies with them. Jack then adjusted his helmet as the sliding door started to rise and they heard the spinning doorway for the first time. The light changed inside the ready room as the door exposed the Wellsian Doorway. Each man looked at the miracle of quantum physics and were frozen to the spot for a moment.

  The last thing Jack thought about before entering the large chamber was the fact that he had left Sarah behind and his angry last words to her rang in his memory. He wished he had said good-bye but he just couldn’t face seeing those eyes and their accusing glint. Everyone would sit this one out. He looked at Charlie Ellenshaw, the only member of the team who was there for purely psychological reasons—he had to save Carl for the simple fact he hadn’t been able to save his best friend Pete Golding. He hoped this would help the old cryptozoologist to return to the Charlie they knew and loved.

  The loudspeaker came to life.

  “Return signal is holding strong. Doorway is at fifty percent power and is also holding at nominal levels. The Los Angeles is reporting her reactor board is in the green.”

  In front of Jack, Jenks, Henri, and Charlie, the Wellsian Doorway spun in its revolving arc and the colors were brilliant as they reflected off their visored helmets. The activity of personnel heated up as technicians started to clear the platform floor.

  “Time till displacement, ten minutes and counting.”

  15

  BARCLAYS CENTER, BROOKLYN, NEW YORK

  The cleaning crews were just finishing the long night of clean-up after a raucous concert earlier that evening. Many of the concertgoers were still mingling around the exterior of the new arena. Most didn’t pay any attention to the step van that eased into the loading dock at the back of the large venue. It backed in and several men emerged and started using a bolt cutter to snap the exterior lock on the roll-up door.

  “Hey, there’s no deliveries this late, it’s nearly two thirty in the morning, you need to—”

  That was as far as the security guard and his partner got in questioning the delivery drivers. The silenced weapon was quickly put away and then two bodies unceremoniously moved to the side as the large loading gate slid up. The brand-new soda machine was quickly wheeled inside. The five men vanished into the darkness and then returned a moment later. With one last look around they entered the step van and then they slowly pulled out.

  The second set of guards had just come from the front where they had tried to get the early-morning concertgoers to move along when they spied their two downed brethren. The first started to raise his radio to his mouth but the words were never allowed to escape his lips. The bomb hidden inside the soda machine detonated. The two guards were blown free of the loading dock and tossed like rag dolls into the alley beyond.

  The rear portion of the brand-new arena blew outward and flames erupted into the night.

  Ten minutes later the parties responsible made their announcement to the news media. It seemed terrorists had made a statement in the heart of Brooklyn and soon every policeman and federal agent in the five boroughs was rushing there. The Russian ploy to isolate the doorway had successfully diverted police and federal attention from other areas of Russian concern.

  The Brooklyn Navy Yard was now fully exposed and the Event Group was on their own.

  * * *

  Alexi Doshnikov pulled up the sleeve of his expensive coat and looked at his watch. The frightened family watched his lips move as if he were counting down the seconds. After a few tense seconds a deep rumble was felt through the thick frame of the limousine. The night sky was illuminated to the east and that was when they saw their Russian abductor smile. He lowered his arm and looked at the family. Benjamin and Natalie Koblenz, their son-in law and daughter next to them with a sleeping baby in the mother’s arms, and he smiled. His bearded face held no humanity for the frightened family.

  “It seems our little road show is officially open.” He looked at the family across from him and then looked at his man in the seat next to him, and nodded. The bodyguard picked up a phone and spoke into it. The large limousine started to move forward with no less than six Ford Explorers following.

  “Why are we here? Where are you taking us?”

  “A poker game. And you five are the chips that will allow us a seat at this very exclusive table.”

  The four frightened members of the kidnapped family saw the gleam in the man’s eyes. He looked at the oldest member and smirked.

  “Your Madam Mendelsohn is about to make me a very, very wealthy man.”

  ANTARCTICA, 227,000 B.C.E.

  The earthquakes, other than a few stomach-rolling tremors, had subsided as the brief glimpses of the fantastic starfield showed itself for one of the few times since his arrival. Carl was resting his back against the small cave opening that he was currently calling home. It was elevated and looked down upon the game trail three hundred feet below him. He had traded in his homemade bow and arrows for the rigid Roman bow and iron-tipped arrows of the old Ninth Legion. He had to string new rabbit gut for a bow string, but other than that he had far more confidence in hitting something with the meticulously designed weapon. It and the large quiver of arrows sat beside him as he stared up at the brilliant star-strewn sky. Then his mood changed when the rolling ash cloud once again covered them and the large rising moon of the distant past. He felt his confidence shake everytime he lost sight of something familiar such as the night sky.

  Sleep was hard to come by as the night sounds of prehistoric animals came alive as the ash cloud once more covered the central plain of Antarctica. He had watched for the past several days the run of animals big and small from the growing danger of the volcano. Erebus had put Carl on notice that there was not much time left. He once more looked at the sky and then closed his eyes.

  “Anytime, Jack,” he said as he drifted off to sleep.

  He didn’t know how long he had been asleep. He knew he liked dozing outside the cave during the nighttime hours for the simple fact the former SEAL hated to be caught in a dead end if a wandering animal was also seeking shelter for the night. He als
o didn’t know what it had been that made his eyes flutter open. He lifted his head from the rock facing and looked around. His fingers touched the Birchwood bow and he waited for the noise to come again. Carl saw that dawn was getting ready to break over this savage land. He adjusted his back and stretched without any noise. That was when he heard the screeching of an animal below him. He looked down into the diffused light of the day. Falling ash obscured a lot of the game trail below. It was because of that whitish-colored ash that he saw what had awakened him. His eyes widened and he inched back closer to the cave’s outer wall.

  “What the—” he started to say, and then stopped short when the feathered creature broke cover. It was soon followed by two more from opposing directions. The three animals had cornered a fourth. The frightened creature at the center looked like a small tree sloth that had wandered too far from its home. His eyes widened when he examined the three feathered birdlike animals that had its prey surrounded.

  The three birds were lizardlike in movement. Their two arms were long and feathered and what made Carl’s breath catch in his throat was the fact that these creatures had articulated hands and fingers. They were outstretched as they circled the sloth. He saw the yellow eyes as they watched every slowed movement of the fur-covered tree dweller. The animals were large, standing just about four and a half feet. The feathers along their arms were sparse but brightly colored. These feathers were long while the light down feathers covering their muscular bodies were short and moved with the rising breeze. Instead of the hard beaks of the feathered world, they had lizard snouts, and he could see even from that distance that they were filled with small, sharp teeth. The heads were clean of feathers with the exception of the bright red and blue ones crowning their heads and ran from their crown to the tips of their tails, which moved in dragonlike slowness as they forced the sloth into the center of the game trail.

  “Holy shit,” Carl mumbled as the hunters and prey squared off. The sloth with its elongated claws used for climbing sliced the air in front of the three Velociraptors, keeping them at bay with loud hissing and squeaks. The three prehistoric carnivores circled, infuriated that the small koala bear–looking sloth was actually going to put up a fight.

  Suddenly a thing happened that blew Carl’s natural world to bits. The larger of the three raptors moved quickly off into the bush. This animal was far more brightly colored than its two smaller compatriots. It vanished as the others continued to keep the sloth in check. The lead raptor reappeared and this time it held a long stick in its flexing hand. Everett’s hackles rose as he was witness to an animal using a tool to possibly kill with. The leader squawked out orders, which scared Carl even more than the makeshift spear that the beast carried. The alpha raptor hissed and barked again and the circling animals stopped. The leader slowly raised the long stick upward and then jabbed at the frightened sloth.

  “Run, damn it!” Everett hissed from his high perch.

  Without notice the activity stopped. Carl knew he had voiced his concern too loudly when the leader looked around and its scaled muzzle went into the air and it sniffed. It turned. Its yellow eyes, with quick, jerky motions, looked up and saw the man high in the rocks. It hissed.

  The sloth, seeing its break, ran off to the nearest tree and vanished. The other two raptors joined the first as they all looked up at the man. They were quiet as they examined this new element in the morning’s hunt. The alpha raptor barked three times and then it seemed to shake its makeshift club at the man who had so interfered with its breakfast.

  “Uh-oh,” Carl said as he gathered up his bow. He started to stand up but his boot caught on some loose rock and he slipped. He thought he could catch himself before he came too close to the edge but his other foot got caught up in the quiver of arrows. He knew he had lost and started a fast slide down the incline that had protected him from the night’s terrors. He slid down until the breath was knocked from his body as he finally came to rest just off the game trail. He shook his head and then looked around him. His bow was broken in two and his arrows were still in their quiver fifty feet above him. He quickly scrambled to his feet as he saw the stunned raptors looking at him.

  “I know, not very graceful, was it?” Carl said just to hear the sound of his voice over the three intakes of breath from the birdlike creatures. Everett slowly withdrew his sheathed survival knife. He eyed the birds as they didn’t exactly know what to make of this large animal that had intruded. The two lesser raptors looked to the alpha for guidance. The eyes and head flicked about as the raptor studied Everett. Then it barked twice and its two companions broke and ran to either side of Carl. The surround game was on again. Carl held the knife out to the leader and spoke. “Well, asshole, let’s do this,” he said as the raptor eyed him with fast blinks and head tilting when he spoke.

  The alpha raised the large stick and that was when Carl knew that it wasn’t just a club. The raptor had altered the broken limb for combat. The sharpened end was as pointed as anything he could have whittled. Suddenly the game was changed and Everett knew he was looking at something that shouldn’t be. The animal barked again and then stepped toward the larger human. The spear was held out as it started poking it toward Carl. He heard the other two raptors behind him in the bush. Their ragged breathing was almost as frightening as the vision of these out-of-place animals.

  One of the smaller Velociraptors charged Everett from the rear. Carl spun as fast as he could and caught the raptor in the throat and then he cut left to confront the other one hidden behind him. That was when the alpha charged with its spear out in front. Everett slammed the knife down deflecting the weapon as the raptor’s momentum swung it wide of Carl. The second raptor surprised him and came on from a direction he didn’t suspect. It jumped from a tree and then its weight slammed Carl to the ground and that was when he knew he was in trouble as he heard at the same moment the alpha recover from its aborted attack and turn. The one that had knocked him from his feet recovered and then turned, hissing on Everett. He brought the knife up just as Carl raised his weapon. He didn’t realize until later that he wasn’t using the knife to kill, but merely to use as a shield against the snapping teeth. The animal’s jaw came down on the blackened steel of the K Bar knife. It hit and the animal screamed. Then Carl saw his chance and pushed the knife down the half bird, half lizard’s throat. The animal tried to scream again but managed only to spill hot blood down Everett’s arm as it stumbled backward. It fell and then started its death spasms as Everett tried to stand. He was too late.

  The alpha broke from the brush once more, this time with a powerful leap into the air with the spear raised high. Carl tried to bring his arms up for some sort of defense but knew his move would be too late and the knife would never stop the weight and height momentum of the raptor before it sunk the makeshift spear deeply into his chest.

  As Everett braced for the searing pain he knew was coming, a miracle came from the same area where the tree sloth had disappeared to. The raptor’s flight toward Carl’s prone body was snatched away at the last moment by a blur of white, yellow, and red feathers. He rolled away and saw that the raptor’s trajectory had been altered big time. He shook his head and then focused on the commotion in front of him. The alpha leader of the Velociraptors was in a quandary as it it hissed at the large roc confronting it. The great bird was now the one doing the circling. Its small wings flapped as it cawed and screeched at the raptor, daring it to charge. The large talons of the roc were scratching away the undergrowth as it was preparing to charge like a bull. Still the raptor held its ground as it hissed out raptor epithets at the large chickenlike bird.

  “I’ll be damned,” he mumbled when he saw that it was the same roc that he had saved the previous month. The deep scratches that the giant panther had etched into its large beak were the telling factor in his identification. The deep gouges were now a blur as the beak opened and then the roc screamed and attacked.

  The raptor knew it was outmatched fighting alone. It t
hrew the spear like an Olympic athlete and, like the terrorists of Everett’s own time, it ran away from superior firepower—that being the enormous, sharpened beak of the roc. The large chicken knew not to press its luck with pursuit. It had the instincts to know that the alpha raptor had many friends in the jungles and one roc against a flock had no chance. The roc skid to a stop as the raptor vanished into the bush lining the game trail.

  Everett had a hard time getting his heart to slow after the close call. He watched the roc as it scratched the earth with its giant talons as it mocked the flight of its mortal enemy. The giant turned to face Everett. Its yellow eyes blinked in rapid movement. The long neck of the bird craned higher to get a better look at Carl. The rooster took a few tentative steps toward the man who had saved its life. The small wings flapped twice as it stopped only feet away. Everett sheaved the knife and then ventured a step closer to his savior. He stopped when the roc suddenly chirped. Everett’s eyes went wide for a moment as he didn’t know if that was a greeting or a warning that he was getting too close. The long legs and powerful thighs of the roc remained still as Carl held out a hand toward the scarred beak. The roc leaned over and Everett gently touched the deep gouges that had been close to a death sentence from the earlier confrontation with the large panther. The roc blinked its yellow eyes as Carl’s hand came into contact with the hard surface of the beak.

  “Well, I guess thanks are in order,” he said as his large hand slid easily over the rough surface of the roc’s large and menacing beak. It opened its mouth and then it squawked lightly as its head bent lower at Carl’s touch.

  Erebus took that moment to awaken from its nightly slumber and announce that it was now fully awake. The explosion of ash and rock flew from the mouth of the crater, and three other smaller mounts close to Erebus did the same. The ash cloud formed immediately and slid down the facing of not one, but four volcanoes. The earth moved and then quickly settled as the ashfall became heavier.