Forty Leap (18 page)

“Thank you, Mathew. Thank you.”

Before I could pull out, Igor was climbing in
beside me.

“What are you doing?”

“If you get caught, you’ll need some help
talking your way out of a death sentence.”

“And you’re willing to help me with
that?”

There was that wry grin again and I knew Igor
was following opportunity. It made me uneasy but Carlos seemed
relieved to be rid of the little troll. Samud, though, was less
comfortable with the situation. He also volunteered to join us and
slid into the middle seats behind us. And now it was complete and
Carlos could hope none of us came back because he hated each of us
for one reason or another. For my part, I was glad to have Samud
and suspicious of the detestable Igor. But the job was still the
same and I had never expected to come back to the tunnel
anyway.

Without looking back, I pulled away from the
entrance and back onto the streets. I began to head uptown,
thinking that they might confine their search to the areas of the
office and our apartments. But that was a foolish hope at best. It
was known that we had a vehicle and that meant that we would have
access to the whole city and any of the bridges. Some reports came
over the radio, but they were sporadic and, based on Samud’s
translations, lacking in information. It was possible that they
expected he was listening in. Aside from those interruptions the
ride was silent as we crossed first to the west side and then back
east, always moving in a generally northern direction.

Close to twenty minutes later, Igor began to
grow restless. Finally, he couldn’t take it any longer. “You’re not
going back, are you?”

I shook my head.

“I didn’t think so. Do you have a plan?”

I shook my head again. “I thought you
did.”

Samud watched this exchange curiously. I can
only guess at what was going through his mind. If I were in his
position, I would assume that Igor and I had worked out some sort
of truce. Nothing of the sort had happened, which made me wonder
just what was going on in Igor’s mind.

He took advantage of my dependence on him and
ordered me back to the east, this time to the FDR drive. During the
war, I had learned that that particular stretch of road had been
blasted off in chunks. Most of the damage had been irreparable but
one lane access or better had been restored along most of the
stretch for the sake of convenience. Igor suggested that it was a
quick and relatively safe route for us. Samud agreed but wanted to
know exactly where that route would take us.

Igor smiled his wry smile and said, “Why, the
Triboro bridge, of course.”

Of course.

Another few minutes took us to the FDR drive
and I was able to gain easy access. The roadway was bad, even the
restored portions. We bumped along at twenty miles per hour, my
irritation growing with each mile. As we passed eighty sixth street
a shadowy movement in the rearview mirror caught my eye. I became
distracted and slowed. Here is when Igor chose to make his move. He
lashed out with both hands and grabbed hold of the wheel, spinning
it to the right. The van lurched and we veered toward the
precipice. Recovering much more quickly than I would have believed,
I turned the wheel back. The confluence of motion jerked us out of
control and we spun haphazardly into the rubble. Without even
understanding what was happening, I fought Igor as he tried to
plunge us into the river. From his position, there was little Samud
could do. He reached forward, perhaps attempting to restrain Igor,
but it didn’t work. There was no talking. There was no shouting. It
was a completely non-verbal conflict.

Ultimately, there was nothing I could do. The
job had been done on the first try and all I had accomplished was a
delay. As we spun toward the edge I saw movement in every
direction. Of course, I couldn’t really determine a direction so I
just saw movement. Police vehicles, United Arab police vehicles,
were approaching the scene rapidly, flooding us in the eerie shafts
of light that seem to illuminate just the space they touch. In the
disco atmosphere, where the faces of my friend and my enemy kept
appearing and disappearing before my eyes, we fell. I was unaware
of the fall. There was no lurch and no sense of vertigo beyond that
which was caused by the spinning. /Only when we finally hit the
water was I aware that we had fallen. Water flooded quickly into
the cabin through the open windows.

Before I knew what was happening, Igor was
upon me, punching and kicking. His blows were ill timed and his
weight unevenly distributed. Though I couldn’t well defend against
him, he didn’t do much damage. But physical damage was not his
ultimate goal. With the advantage of position and aggression, he
was able to readily force me down into the gathering pool around
the driver’s seat. I felt his stubby fingers close on my throat. He
planned to strangle a drowning man.

Samud was on him quickly, attempting to pull
him bodily through the seat division and into the back. But Igor
was more of a fighter than we had given him credit for. And he was
well motivated, though the source of that motivation was a mystery.
A man of opportunity, he had well analyzed exactly what he needed
to do in order to accomplish his goal. Holding me down with his
good right hand, he fended off the battling Samud with his left. I
knew that if I breathed in but one lungful of the fetid water I was
done for. He knew it, too. As the chill enveloped me and the last
of my strength drained away, I felt finally Samud’s success. Igor
had been pulled away. But it was too late. I could no longer move,
all of my strength spent in holding my breath. It would only be a
matter of seconds.

Then I would drown.

I could see nothing through my blurred
vision, but strong hands gripped my arms and legs. There was
definitely more than one pair of hands. I was pulled quickly and
roughly from the river and into the warm night air.

I choked and gasped like the drowning victim
I was. The air felt moist and thick as it entered my lungs, but it
was air. My head began to clear, but there was so much confusion
that I still couldn’t get my bearings. Lights shined from
everywhere, piercing the night like daggers. Men were talking.
Blankets were wrapped around me.

“I’ll be damned!”

Those were the first words I can remember
understanding. The voice was deep but innocent sounding, almost
gleeful. I focused, looking for the speaker and seeing a man who
matched his voice exactly. He was a large man with sandy hair and
he wore a uniform and a badge, but none as I had ever seen. I tried
to speak, but my throat was still constricted so I chose to look
instead.

I was on a boat on the river. In front of me
was Manhattan Island in all of its lit splendor, as magnificent as
it had ever been. The FDR drive, completely repaired, ran in three
levels with traffic racing back and forth along it. The shape of
the cars looked funny from this distance but I certainly couldn’t
make them out for sure. They were travelling faster than I would
have expected. All around me, people were fussing. There was the
sound of machinery rising above everything else. The man who had
spoken stared at me with an open mouthed grin while, behind him,
two ladies in white blouses conferred over what appeared to be an
electronic clipboard. They, too, wore the unfamiliar badges pinned
to their breasts.

“I’ll be damned,” the first voice repeated.
He opened his mouth to say more but was drowned out by a violent
noise behind me. I turned quickly to see the appearance of Samud’s
minivan as it was yanked from the water by a crane. It was covered
in algae and rust. The water poured from it in sheets, revealing
decomposed upholstery and mechanics. Only minutes ago, it had
looked so new.

“What year is it?” I whispered.

“I’ll be damned,” the man repeated. “Twenty
twenty three.”

Someone pushed a chair under me and I sat
gratefully. Leaning back, I closed my eyes and breathed. Once
again, I had leaped. This time, however, fate had played a hand and
saved my life from the psychopathic troll who had attacked me. And
despite the failure of his attempt, I was now twice removed from my
family and twice removed from Jennie. She would no longer be a
child. She would be a woman, perhaps with a child of her own. With
the passing of nine years, I feared I had probably lost her
forever.

“Mr. Cristian?”

It was the same man again and I realized that
he had called my name several times. His grin was gone, replaced by
a look of concern. I looked back at him, strangely calm. I was not
even curious as to how he knew who I was.

“Do you need anything?” he asked.

“I need to rest,” I said, thinking of Carlos
and their trek through the tunnel, thinking of Samud.

Mine was a fine room in Cento Towers, a four
year old establishment that had taken advantage of real estate
prices during the reconstruction. My new friend was a man by the
name of Wil Lowenburg. I managed to get that much as he escorted me
off of the boat and to the hotel. It was a dark summer night and I
was tired. Only as we reached the street did I realize that there
was a light rain falling. Being so wet and on a boat in the middle
of active waters, I’d had no inkling of the weather. It didn’t
matter anyway. Wil talked a lot and he asked me questions which I
couldn’t even interpret let alone answer. I was exhausted from my
ordeal and when he showed me my room, I began to strip off my wet
clothes without even a second thought. Blushing, he hastily
departed. Bedclothes had been laid out upon the bed and I took them
up, finding them a perfect fit. Forgetting about my time jump and
my murderous companion, I lay down and fell asleep.

When I awoke, it was still dark outside and
the clock read 2:58. I don’t know how long I slept because I have
no idea what time it was when I arrived at that place. What did
occur to me, though, was that the time now was not much later than
the time I had leaped. Of course, you’d have to take out the nine
years in between, though.

The room was nicely furnished and clean
clothing had been provided in just my style. Apparently, I had been
expected. Gathering my wits, I went quickly to my own clothes,
still piled on the floor, and fished out my journal and my wallet.
Though wet through, the journal was relatively undamaged. If I let
it dry, it would be sadly out of shape but the writing would be
intact. I resolved not to play with it until it had dried. The
wallet was water logged but there was little in there that would
matter anyway. The contents were relics of the past and I decided
it was best to shed myself of them. I deposited them into the empty
trash can and went to the television set.

TV was not much help. I was glad to see that
most of the shows were in English and Spanish again, as opposed to
the Arabic I had been seeing for the past several weeks. Far be it
from me to condemn a people for their language, but the sound of it
had grown ugly in my ears. Many of the shows were decades old
reruns that I had seen in the past. I even managed to kill thirty
minutes watching
Gilligan’s Island
between 4:00 and 4:30 am.
The news was mostly local. Little was discussed that could fill me
in on nine years of missing history but I was at least able to
ascertain that Americans had once again gained control of America.
There were numerous references to Constitutional Amendments I had
never heard of. There was also this inundation of the news with a
company called GEI.

Just before six o’clock, I decided to test
out the shower. It was good and hot, the best shower I’d had in
quite some time. Certainly, the United Arab Nation had treated me
well, kept me clean and housed and fed. But there was nothing like
the comforts of an establishment designed to please its customers.
When I came out of the bathroom almost thirty minutes later, I
noticed that a small light on the phone was lit. I picked it up,
the shape of it strange compared to older phones. It was smaller
and thinner. As soon as I held it to my ear, a message recorded in
a ladies voice began to repeat.

Please dial 001 for an important message.
Please dial 001 for an important message. Please dial 001 for an
important message.

And so on.

I put the phone down and the light went off.
Curious, but not too curious, I decided to dress first and check on
the status of my journal. In almost four hours, it had dried
somewhat, but still had a long way to go. I found some plastic
shopping bags in the closet and took one for the journal. Then I
sat down on the bed and dialed 001.

The important message was from Wil Lowenburg.
He wanted me to meet him in the lobby and have breakfast with him.
With nothing else to do, I went down straight away, carrying my bag
with me. At that hour, the lobby was deserted. There was no sign of
Mr. Lowenburg so I approached the desk. At the mention of my name,
the clerk picked up the phone and rang him up. Mr. Lowenburg
appeared in the lobby a few short minutes later. He was wearing a
pale green suit of an unusual cut. But it fit his frame well and
didn’t look odd even by my outdated standards of style. I was
relieved that he had forsaken the badge and uniform of the night
before. With a smile and a shake of hands we stepped out of the
hotel in search of a place that would seat us so early in the
morning.

Wil Lowenburg was an interesting character.
His personality was cheerful at all times and he seemed eager to be
friendly and make friends. In retrospect, I suppose that was why he
was chosen for the job. I grew to like him almost instantly. There
was a boyish charm about him that made it almost impossible not to.
We began talking almost immediately as we walked. He was naturally
curious about me, so much so that I was temporarily able to forget
my ongoing predicament and my instinctive curiosity about the world
in which I had arrived.