Fate (Wilton's Gold #3) (19 page)

“One already did,” Jeff said, interrupting him. “The system didn’t catch him.”

Now Abby jumped in. After all, it was her system. “Out of the various components in this process, even though it was in a different reality, I can assure you it was not the algorithm that missed that one. Our process is based on data. There is no data to support recollections that have been passed down. If anything, the psych exam should’ve caught that Kane was up to something.”

Dexter started to laugh at the irony that the entire time travel process had started with the two of them planning missions based solely on recollections, but his reminiscing was shut down by a piercing glare Abby shot across the table.

Jeff laughed. “Abby, what – what’s the defensiveness for? Is that aimed at me because Dr. Graham was my girlfriend? That’s a little short-sighted, don’t you think?” She shrugged. “When I said the system, I meant the whole system. Not just your computer program.”

“I just want to be clear,” she said. “This is the smartest computer on the planet. The likelihood that this system will make an error before a human is about 437 million to one.”

“And yet George Mellen is dead.” He held his hands up as she started to retort. “I’m just saying. There are varying degrees of ‘error.’”

Dexter watched as Abby stewed for a moment, feeling like he should intervene, but not knowing quite what to say. Jeff’s points were certainly valid, regardless of Abby’s reaction to them. Especially with the way Jeff was studying the devices in the museum, Dexter was beginning to sense that he was up to something beyond helping him restore the history surrounding Benjamin Kane. Perhaps he had something planned for when they got back.

After a minute, Abby took a deep breath. “What are you getting at, Jeff?”

“Look,” he said. “I’m not trying to insult you or your system. What I’m saying is that there are flaws in the overall Time Program that I don’t think are necessarily accidental.”

“Jeff, I wrote the program myself-”

He shook his head. “I’m not talking about the writing of the program. I think your program is one of the most incredible things I’ve ever seen, and you should be proud. But my assumption is that, if someone wants to get approved for a mission badly enough, they can find a way to make it happen. And if someone wants to use time travel to cause harm, it’s easy enough to do. It was my fear from the beginning, and both of you were there with me. You remember.”

“What makes you say that?”

“What, were there 370 scenarios that were possible conflicts in my analysis? And you
might’ve
gone through those? That’s what you said – ‘might’ve.’ What’s the number that would trigger a review? Five hundred? A thousand? Is it higher if I dangle a $5,000,000 check in front of you?”

Dexter was shaking his head. “Jeff, it doesn’t work that way.”

“It’s exactly how it works,” he said. “We saw it happen with Benjamin Kane. And you told me yesterday the head of the program gives the thumbs up or down for final approval of a mission. What do you think the outcome’s going to be?”

He looked at Abby, who waved her hands in disgust at Jeff. Conscious of the possibility – or, more likely the reality – of the powers-that-be listening in, Dexter leaned forward in an attempt to calm things down. “Interesting theories,” he said. “Perhaps we can discuss them more after your physical. Grab lunch or something?”

Jeff got the hint and rolled his eyes, forcibly laughing. “Are we done, then?” he asked.

Dexter nodded, then ushered him past Abby and out of the room. Once they were out of earshot, he whispered, “What was that? You know they’re listening.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Jeff said, walking down the hallway overlooking the atrium.

“It does if they decide they’re better off without you.”

He shook his head. “No. They need me. For now.”

“Yeah, well, ‘for now’ has a time limit,” Dexter said as they hit the elevators.

Jeff laughed out loud when Dexter handed him a cell phone. Could they be any more obvious that they wanted an easier way to track his every move? He had no intention of using it unless a strategic opportunity presented itself.

Dexter hadn’t asked why he’d laughed – probably having figured it out on his own. The idea that the government would be on top of Jeff at all times had been a legitimate concern during the early phases of his experiments, but the longer he’d gone without being noticed, the further into the back of his mind he’d pushed it. Which had probably been a mistake. He should have been more aware of what could actually happen once the time device left his control. Otherwise, it might not have ended up somehow and sometime in the middle of the Sierra Nevada forest, which had kicked off this entire catastrophe waiting to happen.

The phone had been delivered after they’d broken for lunch – which was supposed to be an early lunch forced by Dexter’s wanting to flee the session with Abby. But they never had it. The two of them had engaged in a quick argument outside on the front steps of the USTP before Jeff had added to Dexter’s to-do list and sent him on his way. He knew Dexter wasn’t happy with everything he’d said in the room with Abby, but that was in large part because Jeff hadn’t explained to him exactly where his mind was – something he had no intention of doing. At the end of the conversation, they’d both taken a deep breath and he’d instructed Dexter that he needed two things in preparation for the next morning: the original battery from the Museum – the one with four charges in it, just to play it safe – and a supply of 1930s cash. He’d asked if his friend could collect those things while he was in his physical training. Dexter hadn’t questioned either request, and hadn’t blinked an eye either. Securing them was well within his means, and Jeff was sure that the era-appropriate money gave Dexter confidence that his own mission was the immediate priority.

Dexter had left in his own car, and now Jeff sat in the driver’s seat of his rental car. While the December air had gotten pretty chilly, the sun on the car had kept it warm. The new cell phone sat on the passenger seat while Jeff brought Abby’s tablet to life, now plugged into the car charger after not having been used for several days while in Fisher’s custody.

While the USTP would trace every communication Jeff made on the newly-issued cell phone, they were not aware that he had the tablet in his possession. Of course, he didn’t know if he had a mobile plan, and unlike in Russia when he’d gotten lucky by connecting through Abby’s, he didn’t want to alert anyone by trying. Going to a coffee shop with free Wi-Fi would be too obvious, as well. Instead, he used his new cell phone to create a mobile hot-spot and signed in to the internet there in the car. He reasoned it wasn’t the kind of thing they’d trace until they got the next bill, and he only needed it momentarily.

Opening up the tablet’s messaging app, he input Fisher’s phone number, which he’d memorized from his arm the night before. He typed a short message: “This is Dr. Jacobs. It’s time. Satchel’s in my car. Meet me out front at 2 p.m.” He hit send and quickly shut down both the tablet and the hot-spot. He placed everything in the satchel and set it on the floor by the passenger seat.

Jeff returned to the building and ordered a panini at the café. He took his time eating it and observing all of the action around him in the USTP atrium, keeping one eye on an enormous clock hanging over the main entrance – visible only once a person was in the building. He let some time tick away until the clock hit 1:30 p.m., then threw his plate into a recycling bin and walked up to the security desk on the far side of the room. He explained who he was, which wasn’t necessary. The clerk made a few phone calls before telling him that a Captain Lowenstein would be down momentarily to get him.

He waited only 30 seconds before an athletic man in a muscle shirt and work-out pants emerged from the high security doors. He was chiseled from his crew cut down to his wrestling shoes, and Jeff’s immediate thought was that if he was actually serious about physical training, this would be the guy he wanted as an instructor. They introduced themselves and then Jeff followed Lowenstein through the doors and up a flight of stairs where they came into a training room that looked like any of the commercial gyms he’d been in. Not that he spent a lot of time in them, but he’d had his phases from time to time. Once he’d gone to the gym three days a week, for an entire week.

After Jeff changed into the workout clothes provided for him, Lowenstein explained what was going to happen – the same process that all of the participants in the program had to complete. It wasn’t particularly strenuous, but Jeff would be required to demonstrate some degree of stamina. Jeff was actually waiting for his body to be physically assaulted with exercise so that he could further make the case that Benjamin Kane should never have been allowed to time travel, but after several sets of squat thrusts, twenty minutes on a stationary bike, and twenty more minutes on a stair climber, he realized there wasn’t much to it. He’d broken a sweat, but by no means was he overwhelmed. “That’s it?” he asked.

“We’re not training for the Olympics,” Lowenstein said. “All we need to know is that you’re not going to have a heart attack if you have to run for your life.”

“It’s not a very impressive program,” Jeff said in between pants. He had noticed the clock on the wall passing 2 p.m. and hoped Fisher was waiting outside as he’d requested.

Lowenstein smiled. “I had nothing to do with creating it, sir.”

Jeff laughed. “Oh. I suppose I did?”

“I didn’t say that, sir.” But obviously he had. Which made Jeff wonder why on Earth he was involved with so many aspects of the program in which he had zero expertise. “Let’s get to the good stuff.”

“Wait, one more thing.” Lowenstein turned back to him. “Did you train Benjamin Kane?”

“No, sir. I’ve trained all of the participants in the program, and that name doesn’t ring a bell.”

Jeff silently swore. He kept doing that. Kane hadn’t time traveled in this reality, so he never would have been trained. In fact, outside of a small group of them, no one would have any idea who Benjamin Kane was. He shook his head. “Oh, just wondering,” he said, keeping it mysterious. “Let’s go.”

Lowenstein led him to the opposite side of the room, where there were a number of red and white mats on the floor and two heavy bags hanging from steel frames. “The trick with your training,” he said, “is that you’re in a unique position. If we were simply teaching you self-defense, I would teach you how to disable your attacker and get away from the situation. Unfortunately, in your case, you can’t just get away because if you’re traveling with a subject, you can’t abandon them. Your only choice is to disable them so that you can protect yourself and ensure their safe trip back to the present time.”

“Wait – am I being trained as the guide or am I the participant?”

Lowenstein stopped and looked at him. “I don’t understand, sir.”

“You don’t have to call me ‘sir.’”

“Yes, sir.”

Jeff paused for a moment. “You’re talking to me as though I’ll be accompanying someone on their time travel mission. I actually want to be trained as though I’m the traveler. Like it’s my mission that I paid for.”

“Well, those are really just the tests that you’ve already done. The physical examination. My recommendation is that you get at least a snapshot of our training program.”

“So participants in the program don’t learn self-defense?” he asked. Lowenstein shook his head. “Alright, now I understand a little bit more. Let’s do it, then. I guess it couldn’t hurt.” He really did think the training would be useful, but his first purpose here was to get a good understanding of how they trained the paying customers. The fact that Dexter was debilitated by a decrepit old cancer patient continued to raise questions for him – he’d assumed that Kane had at least had some rudimentary training on how to take someone out, but he supposed it must have come from elsewhere.

The soldier walked around him and guided him into an attack stance, the way 
Jeff
 had seen karate students stand facing each other in a tournament. “There will be levels of danger that you’ll have to quickly assess should anything arise,” he said. “There will be those who simply don’t want to do what they’re supposed to do, and there will be those who wish to do harm – either to you or to someone else. Let’s start with the easier of the two.”

Jeff copied Lowenstein’s moves as he led him through a basic curriculum in what he called
chin na
, which he of course had seen in movies a thousand times. It involved gaining control of your attacker’s arm at either the forearm or the wrist, and then quickly bending it in a way to cause enough pain to control him. Lowenstein’s first demonstration against Jeff’s simulated attack sent a wave of excruciating pain up Jeff’s arm and into his shoulder, making the point very clear to him that the move, if mastered, was undeniably effective. After about a half-hour of practice, Jeff was nowhere closer to believing that he could actually pull the move off in the heat of the moment, but he at least understood the logic behind it.

“The second case will be where you have to actually put someone down,” Lowenstein continued once the
chin na
lesson was adequately complete. “If you sense life-threatening danger, you’re going to want to act decisively because you won’t necessarily know what you’re up against. You don’t want to get caught in a drag down fight because the other person might be well-trained, as opposed to your hour of practice here in the gym.”

“I’ve been there,” 
Jeff
 said, remembering his altercation with Ekaterina. She’d made short work of him.

“You also may not want to kill the person, if indeed the attacker is a client of the program.”

“That makes no sense if you’re fighting for your life,” Jeff said. “Just an observation.”

Lowenstein ignored him. “What you’ll be doing is thrusting your fist into the person’s neck. You may have read about the effectiveness of an open hand, but you’re only trying to disable the person. But you’ll be using your fist. And it has to be quick. A surprise. It’s very easy to block the neck. Hitting someone in the jaw hard may daze them for a moment, but it won’t be enough. A solid punch to the neck will disable them long enough for you to reestablish control and trip the time device. Think of how a rattlesnake bites. You never see it coming. Has to be that quick.”

Jeff
 wasn’t surprised that the move Ekaterina had used on him was exactly what he was about to learn. Lowenstein stood in front of him and demonstrated. Then Jeff emulated him, lunging forward and thrusting with his fist, slowly and repetitively, but increasing intensity until 
he
 was feeling like he could actually use it to do some damage. After a few minutes, Lowenstein moved him over to the bag, where he continued his reps.

He’d gotten three or four punches in at the bag when the main door to the training room opened. Jeff allowed himself to be distracted for a moment – probably a
faux pas
that would get him killed later – and saw the hulking figure of General Carr standing in the doorway. He was immediately intrigued.

Carr sat down in one of three chairs lined up along the wall. He said nothing for several minutes as 
Jeff
 punched the heavy bag repetitively, Lowenstein prompting him, “Again. Again. Again.” While Jeff felt like he was getting it, he also felt like his arm was about to fall off.

Finally, Lowenstein gave him reprieve and he looked over at Carr, who was sitting back with his right leg crossed over his left, casually observing. “Dr. Jacobs, I don’t trust you,” he said.

Jeff
 laughed. “Well, hello to you, too.”

He didn’t smile. “And I know that you and I don’t like each other. I know you think that your vast knowledge of time travel gives you some kind of advantage. But I want to warn you not to underestimate the rest of us. Especially Dr. Bremner.”

“General, sir,” 
Jeff
 said, shaking his head as Lowenstein tossed him a towel, which he used to dry the sweat from the back of his neck. “I don’t know you. So I have no reason not to like you. I am aware that you and the other 
Jeff
 didn’t get along, but knowing what I know of myself, I would guess that it was nothing personal.”

“Oh, yeah?”

“That’s my guess, yes,” 
Jeff
 said. He hadn’t yet figured out General Carr’s involvement in everything that had transpired, or where he stood within the organization, so his showing up in the gym was opening a new line of thinking for him. “I would think – because I’m feeling the same way – that the other 
Jeff
 was nervous about taking a very tenuous technology and putting it in the hands of people he didn’t trust. I’m sorry, that’s not fair – I don’t mean to imply that the USTP team is untrustworthy. I meant people he didn’t know.”

“Dr. Jacobs, the other Dr. Jacobs, was at the center of building this program,” Carr said. “That was never a concern he expressed.”

“Well, c’mon, sir,” Jeff said, knowing he was probably pushing it with the general. “Jeff wasn’t at the center of the program because he chose to be. He was forced into it. Am I wrong?”

“As a matter of fact, yes, you are.”

Interpreting the intentions of someone they couldn’t speak to was a debate he wasn’t going to get into, especially with someone
he
didn’t know or trust. “Is that why you’re here, sir?” he asked. “To tell me you don’t trust me?”