Fate (Wilton's Gold #3) (21 page)

He nodded, then whispered, “Where did you learn to-”

“I learned it about an hour ago.” Dexter waited for a laugh, but it didn’t come. Instead, Jeff was springing into action. He pulled his USTP cell phone from his pocket and laid it on the table, then picked up the limp Dr. Schmidt under his arms and dragged him toward the door. “Hang onto that device,” he said.

Dexter’s voice was coming back to him. “There will be alarms.”

He shook his head. “It doesn’t matter. Put your hand on the thing.”

Dexter obeyed, then watched as Jeff scooped up Schmidt’s hand and laid it on the panel. The door slid open. “That’s all on record. How are we going to get out of here?”

“Dexter, it doesn’t matter,” he said forcibly. “Help me carry him.”

There was another set of biometrics at the end of the hallway to the elevator. They were installed as a failsafe so one person could not neutralize the other person who had helped them get into the room with the time devices and then leave. Dexter was trying to anticipate Jeff’s moves, but even if he didn’t know the ultimate goal, he deduced the next step was to get Schmidt to the next panel to let them out. He scooped up Schmidt’s feet and they started down the hallway.

An overwhelming sound took over the airspace as the alarms began to go off. The noise pierced his eardrums so badly that Dexter could hardly concentrate on holding Schmidt’s legs. He looked at Jeff, who mouthed, “Keep going,” and seconds later they were at the elevator doors. Again, Dexter moved to the right side of the hallway, which Jeff struggling to raise Schmidt’s hand to the panel. The system scanned their prints and the elevator doors opened.

Dexter darted into the elevator before Jeff surprised him by tossing Schmidt’s limp body to the ground in the hallway. He joined him in the elevator and the doors closed behind him.

“He’s not dead, is he?”

Jeff shook his head again. “It doesn’t matter,” he repeated. “Look, as soon as we step out of the elevator, no matter what you see, you grab this device and hang on. Got it?”

“But everything that’s happening is being watched. There’s no way to get out of this.”

“I don’t have time to explain. Just grab the device,” he said. He was firm in his instructions.

The elevator took a moment to get down to the third floor, but Dexter decided to just follow Jeff’s instincts. He could hear him breathing heavily, but didn’t know if it was from anxiousness or from carrying Schmidt down the hallway. His own heart was pounding, as well. He knew what that was about, though. It was from not knowing what would be waiting for them outside the elevator.

The elevator jerked to a stop and the doors slid open, unveiling a horde of armed guards awaiting their arrival. At the center of the sea of dark blue uniforms stood Bremner, who Dexter could see hastily analyzing the situation.

There was a split-second standoff as they locked eyes, then Jeff said, “Grab it.”

Before the words were out of his mouth, Bremner yelled, “He’s got the time device! Take him down!”

Dexter froze, unintentionally disobeying his directive, but felt Jeff’s fist land in the middle of his chest and grab his shirt. Then he was violently pulled out of the elevator toward onrushing guards. He felt Jeff’s hand slide under his arm as he was pulled into a tight embrace, then suddenly everything melted into a blurry mess. A familiar wave of vertigo hit him as the details of his surroundings became clear again.

Jeff had engaged the device.

Where he’d sent them, Dexter didn’t know. But there were no guards, the elevator door was closed, and the only threatening thing was his best friend holding him in a bear hug that was literally cutting off his ability to breathe. After a moment of realization that the danger was behind them, Dexter pulled back and Jeff let go. “What did you do?” he asked.

“I sent us back in time a few hours.”

“Why?” He kept his voice as quiet as possible.

“I figured it was the only way to get time devices away from the secure area.”

“Why the whole thing with beating up Arlen and dragging him down the hall?”

“C’mon, let’s go,” Jeff said, motioning with his head. “Our ride is waiting.” Dexter paused for a moment and then followed. “We had to get outside the security area. If we jumped back in time before leaving the room, we’d have had no way out – and the security footage would know we were in there. Now, nothing’s been disturbed.”

He ran to catch up to Jeff, who was speeding along. “I think they’ll notice there are two devices missing. Don’t you?”

“They’re not missing,” he said, not breaking stride. “We haven’t taken them yet.”

Dexter wished he wasn’t hurrying along as everything became clear to him. He would’ve liked to stop and enjoy the brilliance of the plan he was following. They had two time devices that no one knew they had.

“You got the battery?” Jeff asked.

“I did.”

They came to the elevators that would lead them to the atrium. Dexter, taking the lead for the first time, pushed the button.

The elevator doors opened and Jeff and Dexter walked casually out into the USTP atrium. Jeff was trying to maintain focus and stick to the plan, but he wanted to jump out of his skin because of the genius of his plan.

They hadn’t talked at all in the elevator, assuming it was bugged, though they’d taken the cover of privacy to each hide their time devices in their pockets. Once they were out, though, Dexter continued his line of questioning as they meandered across the floor, appearing as not guilty as possible. “I’m following you on faith that you know what you’re doing,” he said, “but I’m a little lost. What happens now?”

“Now we go to New York.”

“New York?”

“If I remember correctly, you wanted to fix the Kane situation. Yes? Your thoughts on all of this are right on. If we have the chance to fix something like that, we should take the opportunity.”

“But you said-”

“Don’t worry about what I said. I’ve said a lot of things the past few days.” Truthfully, he could’ve gone either way on Kane. If he’d been forced to pick a side, he’d have leaned more toward leaving everything the way it was. Consequently, in a debate he could easily have made the case for stopping Kane from committing murder. But this was a means to an end for him.

“You said our ride would be here?”

“Yes.” No explanation. It would have to come later.

“Alright,” Dexter said, with a tone suggesting he was finally realizing that now wasn’t the time. “I’m done for now. But I have to ask one thing so I can react quickly if needed. Why did you tell Schmidt you were programming the device for a couple hours into the future and then send us backwards?”

They passed through the glass entryway of the USTP and outside into the afternoon sun, which helped to mitigate the chill in the air. A black sedan was parked curbside about a hundred feet away, idling. Once they were about halfway to the car, he stopped and pulled Dexter to the side. “I’m telling you this now because you’re the only person that I trust – and I hope that I can trust you implicitly, because this doesn’t work if I can’t,” he said. Dexter nodded, which he expected. “We are dealing with two realities here, and I need to account for either in case something goes wrong, or I miscalculated.”

“Two realities?”

“The short version: In one reality, we just went past security and stole two time devices at about 5:00 p.m. When Schmidt wakes up – and no, he’s not dead – he will alert security on exactly what we did and said. Which includes telling him that we were going into the future several hours. Schmidt, thinking he’s onto us and knowing that we wouldn’t have been able to get out of the building, will tell them to simply wait around for us until we show up.” Dexter was nodding, but Jeff knew he was talking too quickly and it was going over his head. “In this reality, we are leaving the facility with two time devices that they don’t know we have – but we are also still inside the building doing our regular jobs. In a few hours, we’ll go into security with Dr. Schmidt, disable him, and steal the time devices.”

“It’s a loop?”

Maybe he
was
getting it, Jeff thought. “Yes, but right now they have no idea what we’re up to unless someone runs into two versions of us or they search us. Which there’s little chance anyone will do because they don’t suspect anything. There’s no reason to. But even if I’m wrong, hopefully I threw them off enough by leaving my cell phone in the room, and causing them to wait for us to show up several hours down the road. We need five hours to get to New York. And then this all goes away.”

“But if they stop us from traveling back-”

“Why would they? They have no reason to. And it doesn’t matter anyway because it doesn’t work that way. We’re already here. We’ve already become part of this reality.”

“Alright, that I don’t get.”

There really wasn’t time, but Jeff felt compelled to explain. He looked at the waiting car and held up a finger. Just a moment. “The FBI found my device in California even though we never made the trip. That means that in some reality that we were a part of, either we or someone else made the trip and brought the device there. But even though history changed somehow, it still remained as an event in that reality. We time traveled back to now. We’re here to stay.”

Dexter was thinking. “So by doing this, we ensured our place in this reality. Whereas, had we stayed, they probably would’ve done something bad to us.”

Jeff nodded. “That wasn’t necessarily the actual impetus, but you’re correct. This isn’t just a typical smash-and-grab job. These people have access to time travel, so theoretically they have an infinite number of opportunities to stop us. Provided they can figure out what we’ve done.”

“This is what you did a year-and-a-half ago. Isn’t it?”

“The other version of me?” He wanted to make sure Dexter wasn’t initiating some conspiracy theory where he’d been the same person all along, duping them. “I’m assuming that’s what he did.”

“Wow,” Dexter said, sighing. “Hard to blame him.”

Jeff nodded, then motioned to the car. “Like I said, our ride is here. Let’s get moving.”

“Oh, crap,” Dexter said, looking past him toward the building.

“What’s that?” He turned to see Victoria walking toward them. “Dammit,” he said. “We shouldn’t have stood out here chatting.”

She approached them briskly, but not as though she was in any hurry. Just her usual pace. “I saw you walk out. You’re done already?” she asked. “That was fast.”

“In between,” Jeff said, thinking quickly. “It was stuffy in there. We were going to step out for a little bit for some fresh air and maybe something to eat. You want to come?” He heard Dexter cough beside him. Jeff hadn’t wanted to invite her along, but was guessing she’d decline the faux lunch invitation.

“Actually, I was hoping to talk to you privately,” she said. “There’s something strange going on. I thought you should know.”

He looked at Dexter, who nodded and walked away toward the car, then back at Victoria. “What’s up?”

“It’s Dr. Murphy.”

“What about him?”

“I think he’s abusing time travel.”

“What would make you say that?”

“I swear I just saw him walking into the Museum, literally seconds ago,” she said, turning her body to shield the conversation. “And then I saw him walk out the front doors with you. Jeff, I think you’re being set up.”

“Are you sure?”

“I saw it with my own eyes, Jeff.” She was earnest. “I think you should go to Dr. Bremner. It’s not safe.”

He sighed. “Look,” he said. “Let’s get away from here for a little bit. I think everyone’s caught up in intrigue and conspiracy theory right now. It’s been a strange few days. Why don’t you come with me?”

“With him?”

“Well, the best thing we can do is to not let on that we know anything, right? Might force him into action?”

“I don’t know, Jeff.” She took a step back, so Jeff put his arm around her and started to usher her to the car.

“Jeff, I don’t want to go.”

“You need to.” She was resisting, but trying not to look like she was resisting. Which made it easy for him to move her forward. Ultimately, they reached the car and he opened the rear door. She stared at him in astonishment for a moment, then reluctantly got in. She slid over and Jeff sat down himself, slamming the door behind him just as Dexter sat in the front seat. Agent Fisher was sitting in the driver’s seat, his hands at 10-and-2 on the wheel. “Let’s go,” Jeff said.

As the car pulled away from the curb, Dexter turned his body around to see Jeff behind him. “What the hell is she doing here?” he asked.

“She saw you,” Jeff said simply.

In less than sixty seconds, they were off the USTP property. Three minutes later, they were on I-95 headed north.

Dexter sat in the passenger seat of the rental car, facing front as Fisher weaved in and through traffic on I-95 approaching Washington. Whatever Jeff was up to, he hoped he knew what he was doing.

He’d been thrown two new twists in the past several minutes – in addition to the seemingly endless game of catch-up he’d been playing with Jeff inside the USTP. He had not expected to find Agent Fisher sitting behind the wheel of the getaway car, and he certainly hadn’t envisioned Victoria joining them for the trip.

Fisher he knew, but not very well. He’d been working with the USTP since immediately after Jeff had run a year-and-a-half before, beginning with heading up the investigation that followed. He imagined that Fisher believed they had a better relationship than they actually had, though, remembering that he’d called him after Jeff had shown up a few days before. He couldn’t remember any time they’d interacted in between those instances.

So far, the duration of this new partnership had been spent hoping that Fisher’s driving wasn’t going to kill him before Bremner had the chance to. He tried to glance at the speedometer without looking obvious doing so. The digital readout said 102. He gripped the handle on the door more tightly.

“You don’t have to go so fast,” Jeff said from the backseat. He was calm, somehow.

Fisher shook his head without looking back. “There’s not much time.”

“We’re fine,” Jeff said. “They have no idea what’s happened, and won’t know for a few hours.”

“Nah, I screwed up,” he said.

“You screwed up? How?” Now Jeff leaned forward.

“I know better,” he said. His tone actually suggested that he was regretful for letting Jeff down. “I was being tailed. Bremner was onto me, so he was having me watched. I went into evidence and tried to find your file. I wanted to see if I could find where they’d put the things from your lab. But they followed me there. Then I got your text message and tried to rush out. I ended up losing them, but I know Bremner’s suspicions have to be on red alert.”

Jeff sat back and Dexter turned to look at him as he thought. He also caught a glimpse of Victoria, who was terrified but not saying anything. Wondering when she’d start to rebel against being kidnapped, Dexter was amazed that she hadn’t so far. He chalked it up to a scientist’s curiosity, though from knowing her she also might have been silently plotting her way out.

“Why would he be tailing you?” Jeff asked. “Or, having you tailed?”

“I don’t know. But it probably dates back to me questioning him about the unauthorized use of the devices before you ran. You running was a perfect cover for Bremner. After you left, everyone assumed it was you making the unauthorized trips. I was brought in to investigate, but my nosing around must have put a permanent target on my back.”

Jeff sat forward again. “It’s okay,” he said, gripping Fisher’s right shoulder in support for a moment. “It’s okay. But to be safe, you’re going to have to come with us.”

“Come with you?”

“Yes, to 1930.”

Dexter saw a look of realization cross Victoria’s face.

“How does that help me stay safe?” Fisher asked.

“Same as when I jumped – or, the other version of me. Cement your existence in history somewhere other than the present. Once that happens, unless they track you to that exact time and place and kill you, we can always get you back.” After a moment, they felt the car decelerate and Fisher took on a more reasonable speed. Still well above the speed limit, but not death-defying. “As for you, my dear...” Jeff said.

“Why am I here?” Victoria asked, seemingly without emotion. “What are you going to do with me?”

Dexter was still turned around, watching as Jeff sighed. “I haven’t decided yet,” he said. “I honestly didn’t expect to have to think about an extra person. But since you’re here, today’s your lucky day.”

“How so?”

“You haven’t had the chance to travel back in time yet, have you?” She shook her head. “Well your first trip is in about four hours.”

Fisher had merged onto the Capitol Beltway and they were now crossing the Potomac.

“What if she gets back and tells somebody?” Dexter asked, not able to contain the nerves in his voice. “We’re cooked.”

“She won’t,” Jeff said, shaking his head. “This is a great opportunity for her – to put her own science to work. Real-life experience.”

“How are you so calm?” Dexter asked. He, himself, was ready to leap out of the car and into the river, just to get his mind off of what was happening.

“What are we going to do? Get all crazy in the car here? Look, they don’t know we exist. There’s no one looking for us right now. And there probably won’t be.”

“I appreciate that you’re so confident everything will work out,” Dexter said. “But your bedside manner needs some work, doctor.”

“Can someone please tell me what’s going on?” Victoria asked, interrupting. Jeff and Dexter both looked at her, but neither said anything. When that wasn’t good enough for her, she jammed her hand into her pocket and pulled out her smart phone. Jeff quickly reached over and slapped it out of her hand and onto the ground. They tussled for a moment before Jeff, who had better access to the area right below her feet, emerged with the phone. He handed it up to Dexter in champion second-grade keepaway style, and Dexter tossed it in the glove compartment.

“You done?” Fisher asked. “This is hard enough without the commotion back there.”

“We’re done,” Jeff said. “Victoria, we can’t have you calling anyone when the plan is working so well.”

“Tell me the plan,” she said, frustrated anger tightening her lips with resolve.

“We’re going back to New York to fix the Kane situation,” Jeff said.

Dexter didn’t know if Jeff was actually going to be honest with her, but apparently he was. Widening the circle of people who knew what they were doing was dangerous, though, and he was immediately more anxious about Jeff’s willingness to expand the team.

“We’ve had enough debate about it, and I support Dexter’s belief that it’s the right thing to do,” Jeff continued. “We have the means to get it done, and we’re doing it. When we return with Kane, he’ll be arrested immediately, which is why Agent Fisher is here.”

Dexter didn’t know how much of that Jeff had made up on the spot, but it sounded like a reasonable course of action. The part about him being arrested was something they hadn’t previously discussed, but it actually made sense. There was a way out that put everything right and didn’t allow Kane to get away with anything. He felt good about how the plan had evolved – because, honestly, up until they were hurrying out of the USTP, he hadn’t been very sure of Jeff’s intentions.

“How did I just see Dexter in the building and then out here? You’ve been using time travel, haven’t you?”

“Just the once – and just to get away. Which of course you won’t approve of, but there’s a bit more to the story.” While they were talking, Fisher had turned off the Beltway and was now passing behind the Capitol Building. In the distance, Dexter could see the Washington Monument and the Lincoln Memorial. He’d seen them a thousand times in his life, but never tired of them, craning his neck even now in the middle of the conversation to watch them pass. He turned his attention back to Jeff, noticing that they’d all stopped to look. Except Fisher. He was all business. “Bremner is taking unauthorized missions.”

“Bremner? What would make you say that?”

“Jeff...” Fisher said from the front seat. Dexter turned toward him. He hadn’t said his name to get his attention. He was admonishing him.

“Because I’ve seen him do it. I trailed him last night. He went to the Jefferson Memorial and jumped back in time.”

“Dr. Jacobs...” Fisher said, with more emphasis.

Jeff didn’t listen. “I don’t know where he went – or I don’t know when he went – but he came back a minute later. He’s up to something and he’s not acting alone.”

This was all new to Dexter, so he jumped into the conversation. “Well, yeah, if it’s true. It takes two people to get into the secure area.”

Jeff shook his head. “I’m pretty sure General Carr is his accomplice.”

“And you intend to stop them?” Dexter asked.

He didn’t answer right away, instead looking abstractly at Dexter’s face as if trying to strategize his response. “I don’t know,” he finally said. “One thing at a time.”

“What do you think Bremner is doing?” Victoria asked.

“Honestly, it doesn’t matter. He’s doing something that he doesn’t want anyone else to know about, and that makes me think it’s something unethical. You have to understand – I invented this thing. I feel an overwhelming sense of responsibility here if someone is doing something bad with it. Now I haven’t figured out what to do yet, but I do know that as a first step we can stop Benjamin Kane from committing murder. So we’re starting there.”

They rode in silence for a few moments. Dexter turned and faced front. He really wished that Jeff would have shared some of this information with him earlier. He wasn’t at all comfortable with flying by the seat of his pants while Jeff made all the decisions. Of course, it had always been that way – where Dexter always found himself in a position of having to trust him. He silently swore at him. Then at himself.

“Did you get my satchel?” Jeff leaned forward and asked Fisher.

“It’s in the trunk.”

Dexter watched out the window as Fisher reconnected with I-95 headed toward Baltimore. When they’d reached cruising speed again, Victoria asked, “How did you get the time devices out of security?” She’d been contemplating during the lull in the conversation.

Dexter turned around again. Since they were sharing... “It was brilliant. Jeff’s idea. We took two devices and used Dr. Schmidt’s hand to get out of the secure area. Once we were out, we traveled back in time – what? three hours? – to a time when no one would suspect us of doing anything other than going through Jeff’s training. We walked out the front door.”

“What if they notice there are devices missing?”

“That’s the same question I asked,” he said, looking at Jeff. Again, he couldn’t tell by the look on Jeff’s face if he was okay with him telling the story or not, but wanted to put a little pressure on him to not be in control of everything. Behind him, Fisher’s cell phone went off in his pocket and he answered it. “The devices aren’t missing. We haven’t taken them yet.”

Even though she tried not to, she let a small smile escape her lips. “That is pretty clever,” she said, looking at Jeff with far too much romance in her eyes for comfort. He wondered if Jeff noticed. He often didn’t notice things like that, usually caught up in his own thoughts.

“Dammit,” Fisher said as he clicked off his phone.

“What’s that?” Dexter asked.

“They’re reporting an unauthorized access to the time travel devices,” he said, tucking the phone back into his pocket. They felt the car accelerate again. “About a half hour ago. The jig’s up. They’re onto us.”

Jeff was shaking his head. “No, they can’t be. Nothing’s happened yet.”

“They’ve got it, Jeff,” Dexter said. “They know it was us.”

“But it wasn’t us. Somebody else was in there.” He shut his eyes, thinking. Both Dexter and Victoria anxiously awaited his hypothesis. “The device,” he finally said. “Remember, there were only eleven devices in there when we got there. Someone had taken one.”

“Bremner.”

“It’s a good bet.”

“What’s he going to do?” Dexter asked.

“There’s a lot he can do,” Jeff said, thinking. “We’ve got to get there.”

“We’ve got hours to go. What do we do?” Victoria asked. She was getting into it.

A thought came to Dexter. “I’ve got it. It’s not ideal, but it could work. We stop the car now and time travel back. We’ll have to take a train or something in 1930 to get the rest of the way, but-”

“You guys don’t have to worry,” Fisher said, cutting him off. “They’re not after you.”

“Of course they are,” Dexter said.

“No, he’s right,” Jeff said. “Bremner’s shown his hand. We’ve got to get you back in time.” He was looking at Fisher. “When you don’t respond to-”

Fisher shook his head. “We’re not stopping,” he said.

“You’re cooked if we don’t. You’re done.”

“I’m getting you to New York.” The car lurched forward.

Whenever traveling between Washington and New York, Jeff had always found it faster to cut right through Baltimore rather than take the bypass on I-695. That was the route he’d just taken, driving his rented SUV across the city, and now he was pulling back onto I-95 toward Philadelphia. In general, he also liked to stop in Baltimore for she-crab soup, but that wasn’t in the cards this trip.

Jeff would rather not have been driving, so he could prep, but when Victoria had surprised them by joining their crew, Dexter had assumed guard duty, leaving him behind the wheel. He checked the time and then looked back from the driver’s seat at Dexter, sitting next to her. They’d taken away her cell phone to make sure she didn’t try to contact anyone, but that had been an hour ago. She seemed to have resigned herself to going on this mission with the two of them, which made her unanticipated involvement a little bit easier.