BackTrek (24 page)

“How?” He asked.

“You think I know? More to the point...does
it matter? If you ever see Einstein, ask him.” Jack grabbed him
carefully on the shoulder and hugged him briefly. He had been
there, throughout it all, and he was right. It didn’t matter what
had happened to the other Jack King. He was from the future, but
was also from Jack’s past. This paradox had enfolded itself, and
ceased to exist. Jack had already decided that some things were not
meant to be known. Before his experience with time travel, he had
mulled incessantly over one episode in his life. Then he had become
obsessed with the death of his family. Now, finally, he had begun
to realize that nothing is forever. That to focus on one thing, one
event, one time, was illogical and unreal. Time could be changed.
Events could be corrected. He remembered a plaque that Tracey had
hung in their bedroom, that had a relevant saying engraved upon its
marble face.

‘God, give me the strength to change the
things that I must change,

The serenity to accept the things that I
cannot change,

And the wisdom, to know the difference.’

He had been given the strength to face his
family’s death, not once, not even twice, but three times. Until
finally he had prevailed and beaten the odds, stopped the murderer,
and removed Smith. If asked before his journey began if he could
have done so much, he wasn’t sure if he could honestly answered
yes, that he could have. But as far as the serenity to accept what
he could not change, that he did not have, and doubted if he could
ever just accept something that happened. But his biggest downfall,
at least from this day forward, would be to have the wisdom to know
the difference. No matter how much influence that he thought he
might actually have over the events of his life before, now he
would never be able to forget that anything could be changed. Time
travel, even in its present one dimensional, one way, one time
fashion, had changed everything.

“And send McAlister. We’ve got an unknown
suspect here, and I want a positive I.D. as soon as possible.” Jack
barked into the phone. “Well get them moving, we’ve got a mess over
here.” He said and then returned the phone to his pocket.

“Jack?” Mike asked as he walked up to
him.

“Yeah, Mike. You okay?” Jack asked as he
reached out and grabbed him by the shoulder.

“A little shaken, I guess. But other than
that I’m okay. I was talking to Trace, and we thought that it might
be a good idea to get the kids out of here. She was thinking of
taking them to my place.”

“Good idea, Mike. Help her get them together
and then why don’t you drive them over.”

“Can I come back?” He asked, as his
enthusiasm to help edged into his voice.

“Sure, Mike.” Jack said, as a smile formed on
his face. “Just get them settled, and then head back over.” Mike
followed Jack back to where Tracey and the kids where still
huddled. Jack knelt down beside her, reached his hand slowly to her
chin and turned her head to face him.

“Jack, I-” She began, as tears welled up in
her eyes.

“Shh.” He said softly. “No words.” A single
tear fell over the edge of his cheek and traced its way slowly down
the stubble of his day old beard. She reached up and touched it as
her own tears began to flow. He took her hand gently, kissed it,
and then kissed her on the cheek. “Go with Mike.” He said
softly.

“But-” She began, her voice broken.

“I’m not through with this yet, Trace. But
when I am...I am yours. All yours.” He kissed her again, then stood
up slowly as he still looked into her eyes. She could feel his
love, and she could see it in his eyes. A warmth that had not been
there for years, now seemed to emanate from his very being like an
aura. She smiled slightly and nodded her head. She watched after
him as he turned and walked away.

“You ready, Trace?” Mike asked. Her stare
lingered another moment as her heart filled with love for the only
man in her life. She sniffed, wiped her eyes with the back of her
hand, and nodded. Across the room Jack pulled his phone from his
pocket, when Ted called to him. He knelt beside the body of Smith.
Jack walked over to him.

“What’s up, Ted?”

“Mr. Smith here has no identification. No
papers, no credit cards. Nothing.”

“What did you expect? A birth certificate and
map to his house?”

“No. I just thought we’d find something.”
Jack tapped Ted lightly on the shoulder.

“It’s okay, Ted. McAlister will be here soon
and he’ll get the answers that we’re looking for. Why don’t you go
outside and get some fresh air until they get here.” Ted nodded and
rose slowly to his feet. Jack bent down in front of Smith’s body
and stared intently into his expressionless face. “You might be an
enigma now, Mr. Smith. But I’ll find out who you are and why you
were here, no matter how deeply you’ve hidden it. Your employer has
some dues to pay, and I intend to collect.”

Ted stood outside of the house when the first
patrol car pulled up to the curb. McAlister’s van was right behind
it, but pulled into the driveway instead. The older man
nonchalantly exited his van and stepped to the rear. Moments later
he returned, with his bag full of equipment in hand.

“Inside.” Ted called out. McAlister nodded,
as he peered over his glasses at Ted. McAlister went into the
house, as Ted dropped his partially finished cigarette to the
ground and crushed it with his shoe. Whatever McAlister would find,
Ted wanted to be there. He followed the older man into the house
and then into the living-room. Jack rose from Smith’s body as they
entered.

“Hi, Jim. This piece of shit tried to waste
my family. I had to put him down a few times to get him stopped.
What I want to know is who is he?” McAlister looked at Jack
intently for a second. His fiery eyes that hid in his weathered
face, peered over the glasses that lay perpetually perched on his
nose. He nodded, and bent towards the body on the floor. Jack and
Ted both stood back as McAlister opened his equipment case and
withdrew a small pouch which he unzipped. He removed a device from
the pouch and reached back into his bag and withdrew a small wand
with a swab attached to the end. Carefully he removed the plastic
covering and touched the tip of the swab to the neat hole which was
in the middle of Smith’s forehead. Satisfied that enough blood had
soaked into the swab, he retracted it and inserted the tip into the
device that he had taken out of the pouch. He thumbed the power
button on the side of the device and the small machine came to
life. Its screen lit up and began to list out the DNA sequences
that were contained in the sample that he had inserted. Patterns
appeared and disappeared as the sequence was aligned and converted
into the same format as the DNA National Database. Suddenly the
image became fixed and a single red light blinked on the keypad of
the device. McAlister hit the button below the blinking light and
the word ‘connecting’ appeared on the display.

“It’ll be just a few more moments, gents.”
McAlister said confidently, as if there could be no chance that
Smith’s DNA pattern was not registered. Jack heard another car pull
up outside and glanced through the open curtains. Mike had
returned. He stepped towards the entrance into the hallway.

“What’s up?” Ted asked.

“Mike’s back.”

“You gonna keep him out of this, Jack?”

“I’m not going to stop him if he wants to
help.” They heard Mike enter the house and walk down the hallway
towards them.

“Anything?” He asked as he rounded the corner
into the living-room.

“Not yet.” Jack said. Suddenly a strange
sound echoed throughout the living-room. Mike looked puzzled as
both Jack and Ted reached for their weapons instinctively. Only
McAlister looked calmly amused by the sudden sound, and quickly
located its source. He removed the phone from Smith’s pocket and
tapped a button to silence the device. With a devilish half smile
he reached up and handed the phone to Jack. Jack took the device
from him and looked visibly relieved that it was only a phone that
had caused the noise. He glanced at the alert on the display. A
series of numbers appeared on the screen, but obviously not a phone
number of any type. He turned to Ted and handed him the phone.

“Make any sense?” He asked as Ted looked
intently at the numbers. Mentally Ted began to rearrange the
numbers in his mind, as he tried to make them into a valid
telephone number. But the number of digits didn’t match, no matter
how hard he tried.

“Let me see it.” Mike said. Ted looked at
Jack and Jack nodded slightly. Mike carefully took it from Ted’s
outstretched hand and peered cautiously at the display, as if he
thought that just to glance at it would erase the numbers from its
memory.“GPS.” He said after a moment’s hesitation. Suddenly a smile
broadened across his face. “These are GPS coordinates. And it looks
like they are somewhere in this area.”

Jack Looked at Ted, and Ted returned his
surprised stare. Even McAlister lifted an eyebrow, as he exhibited
the limit of his ability to show surprise.

“How did you figure that out?” Jack asked his
brother.

“I use them in some of my consulting work.
Luckily I just recognized them as being from this area. Everybody
uses them now. They’re even more popular than directions.” Mike
said enthusiastically.

“So how can we find out where this location
is, Mike?” Jack asked.

“Give me a second.” He said as he pulled his
phone out. He tapped the screen a few times, glanced back at the
numbers on Smith’s phone, and entered them into the application he
had activated. A few seconds passed, and then a map of the city
flashed onto the screen. A red ‘x’ marked the spot. Mike tapped on
the ‘x’ and the map zoomed in. He tapped again, and it zoomed in
again.

“That’s the Bus Station downtown.” Jack said,
as he recognized the map. “How exact are those coordinates?”

“Within inches.”

“Where in the bus station is that location?”
Jack asked. Mike again tapped the red ‘x’ and again the map zoomed,
this time to street level. He tapped it again and a map of the bus
station came into view.

“Looks like a bathroom on the north end.”

“Jack.” McAlister said.

“Who is he?” Jack asked.

“Karl Von Hogue, a German National. He
resides in a small town outside of Berlin.”

“Berlin? Germany?”

“That’s his listed address. His occupation is
listed as import export. I searched the INS files and found that he
was here on a work visa issued out of New York.”

“Thanks, Jim.” Jack turned, puzzled. “Mike,
the guy’s name is Karl Von Hogue, see what you can dig up. While
you do that, Ted and I are going to the bus station. There has to
be a reason that Von Hogue got that message, and we need to find
out what it is.” Ted followed Jack out of the house and silently
got into the passenger side of the Jeep. Jack slammed his own door
after he sat down, and fired the engine. He pulled out into the
street before even fastening his seat-belt.

“Von Hogue, huh?” Ted asked.

“Ever heard of him?” Jack asked.

“Not at all. It sounds like he had himself
well insulated.”

“Yeah, and now we’ve got to peel back the
layers.” Jack accelerated down the street, as Ted began to try and
work the pieces of this puzzle together in his mind.

Soon, Jack had stopped the jeep in front of
the bus station and he and Ted entered the building at almost a
full trot. Jack glanced around and Ted caught his eye. He had found
the bathroom. They walked towards the doorway and looked both ways
before they entered. Silently they ensured that the bathroom was
empty.

“What are we looking for?” Ted asked.

“I don’t know yet, but it’s small enough to
be hidden here. It could be a note, a small package, a key, a
photo. Just about anything, but whatever it is, it’s got to be
here. You start there.” Jack said as he pointed towards the bank of
sinks. As Ted bent over to look under the sinks, Jack entered the
furthest stall and bent over. He ran his hand under the backside of
the porcelain toilet in front of him. He came up empty, but
continued to eye the stall for any other hiding places. He lifted
the lid to the tank and again came up empty. He backed out of the
last stall and entered the fourth stall. Immediately he bent down
again and felt behind the bowl. He let his hands run up the smooth
cold porcelain and raked the underside of the tank. Still nothing.
Again he lifted the top off of the tank, and again found nothing.
He moved into the next stall and ran his hands under the tank. He
had found something taped underneath.

“Ted! I’ve got it!” He said as he stared at
the key he had found. He removed the tape that had held it in place
and exited the stall. “It looks like a locker key.”

“Well, let’s find that locker.” Ted said.
They left the bathroom and walked towards the locker area. In
moments they had located the locker which matched the key, and
opened it. Jack reached down inside and grabbed the envelope which
lay alone inside the locker. He opened it carefully and stared
blankly at the small sheet of paper inside.

“More numbers.” He said.

“GPS coordinates?” Ted asked.

“No...something else. I’m not sure what it
is. See this number? It’s three times as long as a coordinate, and
this one...it has letters in it too. This makes absolutely no
sense.” Ted took the paper from Jack and stared at intently for a
moment. “Okay, let’s think this through. Smith...Von Hogue...was a
hitman. Supposedly one of the best in the business. An employer
could contact him via his phone and leave coordinates for the key
to the locker which would hold information on a hit. Why else would
he be contacted?”