Tyranny of Coins (The Judas Chronicles) (Volume 5) Paperback (9 page)

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Beatrice slept harder than she had in months—her need for rest likely impacted by her stress-laden misgivings from the past few days. After leaving her a note reminding her I would be in Roderick’s suite, should she need me, I set the Do Not Disturb sign outside our door and stepped over to Cedric’s room across the way, quietly moving past Alistair and Amy’s room. There was no answer when I knocked, and for a moment I worried something had happened to him while I slept.

“Please tell me Cedric is here,” I told Roderick, as he opened his door to let me in. “Everyone else is sleeping.”

“Gotta admit I’m touched, Willie Boy,” said Cedric, calling from beyond the partition separating the living area from the bedroom. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard you sound this worried about my welfare!”

He peered around the corner, smiling wryly with a steaming cup of coffee in hand.

“Good to see another vice has returned,” I teased, offering a knowing smirk to Roderick as I stepped inside. “When did you resume the caffeine?”

“This morning. Right after Roderick told me the news,” said Cedric, motioning for me to come over to the dinette, where an array of pastries surrounded two tall silver pots, one for coffee and the other tea. “I’m damned close to opening the floodgates to all my vices, William. You heard the latest shit yet? If you haven’t, you might want to hit Roderick up for a highball or two to go with breakfast.” He pointed to the scotch bottles sitting atop the mini-fridge.

“I hope it doesn’t come to that,” I said, feeling my smile fade. The look on Roderick’s face confirmed the revelation wasn’t going to be pleasant.

“Michael will be joining us on video in about fifteen minutes,” said Roderick, moving over to the dinette to pour himself a cup of coffee. He motioned to see if I wanted one, and I waved him off for the moment. “I wish I had good news to report.”

He moved to his laptop sitting open on a coffee table, and turned it toward me.

“The Berlin police fished out two bodies from the River Spree last night,” said Roderick, playing a German news broadcast from the night before, showing emergency vehicles gathered close to a river’s edge. “Michael sent his latest update at four o’clock this morning, confirming the bodies are Agent Wilburn and Mr. Riefenstahl. The official autopsy reports will take a few days, but Michael said both bodies appear to have multiple gunshot wounds.”

“Execution at the hands of Krontos’ cronies?”

“Likely. But until the bodies are processed, we won’t know for sure,” Roderick advised, sitting down on the couch. Cedric joined him and the pair cleared a spot for me to sit front and center to the laptop. It appeared I’d be the featured attraction for Skype time with Michael. Oh joy. “The internet links to the auction site have been disabled. We can only assume the coin is now in the perpetrators’ possession, and I expect they will be purging all on-line evidence of the coin’s existence.”

“So, Krontos has it in his possession, or will soon,” I said, stating the obvious conclusion to no one in particular. “Should we also assume he will somehow find a way to remove the awareness of the coin from the world’s consciousness? Or, do you think he will only seek to
eliminate it from our awareness?”

“What… and perhaps alter the entire series of events that led us here?” Roderick frowned as he pulled the laptop toward him, typing in new commands.

“Wait… wait a goddamned minute!” Cedric reached over me to prevent Roderick from typing. “You two need to speak straight, instead of this ‘altered world’ bullshit. There’s no way some dude—immortal or not—can do things not even God can!”

“You mean the altered reality we encountered in Bolivia, and which once formed the only protection for the Yitari’s long, peaceful existence, is a bunch of bullshit, too?” countered Roderick, just as irritated. “How did you ever make it back home from the dimensional plane you spent six months residing in? Hmmmm? You didn’t just hop on a Greyhound bus to the States from the shores of Lake Titicaca, did you? Not to mention, how do you explain the time passage of several years in the six months spent away from our plane that you told us about in June? You, better than anyone, should understand the rules governing time and events are not the same when going from one dimension to another!”

The pair eyed each other angrily, but said nothing more. I took the opportunity to see if I could present an explanation that made sense to Cedric. Otherwise, the rest of our breakfast meeting could remain volatile, and therefore unproductive.

“I know you think all the new age metaphysical stuff out there is pure nonsense, Cedric,” I said, turning to face him. “And for the most part, you are totally correct. But, some metaphysical principles are rooted in and supported by traditional science. Even Einstein bought into some of it, as mentioned before. But let me begin explaining things to you like this: Everyone has free will to make countless choices in life, correct?”

He nodded curtly, the anger hovering near the surface.

“Suppose every one of those choices you could’ve made in our reality still exists elsewhere, with real outcomes on some other plane, or planes, of existence. For example, you told me once you dreamt of being a sculptor when you graduated from college, and you also regretted not pursuing your baseball dream with the Los Angeles Dodgers when they recruited you out of high school—things you thought were impractical. Instead, you chose what seemed wiser and financially sustainable. And, that choice eventually led to one hell of a career with the CIA.  But… what if those other choices you thought hard about and didn’t act upon became reality somewhere else?”

“That really sounds like bullshit, William” he said, snickering. “If that’s the best you can do, all your efforts to change my mind won’t do jack!”

“Okay… I’ll give you that, my friend,” I said, glancing at Roderick. “But humor us anyway, since what if the facts in this case end up pointing to our bizarre premise being the truth?”

Cedric snickered again, but indicated he would politely listen to the rest of what came pouring out of my mouth. Roderick bristled beside me.

“From what we can tell, Krontos has not only figured out how to travel within other dimensions, such as the ones you witnessed in Bolivia. He has also learned how to cultivate the alternative realities of other people, and superimpose snippets into their lives on this earth plane,” I said, ignoring the growing mirth in Cedric’s eyes. “If such a thing was possible, can you at least picture what would happen to those posing the biggest threat to his designs? And, how would they know he had altered their lives by grafting in either negative or positive events on a whim?”

“Sounds like surgery… of the bullshit variety,” he replied.  But, at least he was hearing me—even if he couldn’t wrap his mind around it all.

“Precisely,” said Roderick, his tone extending forgiveness for their recent spat. “It is just like surgery. And it doesn’t have to be full-scale alternate lifetimes Krontos taps into for him to accomplish his goals. He can take a weekend, or a day. Hell, we’ve seen him take an hour or two from a person’s earthly reality and replace it with a completely different sequence of events lifted from one of their alternative paths that never came to fruition in our world.”

I didn’t feel the need to add anything else. Neither did Roderick. The ball was in Cedric’s court, and all we could do was hope he would eventually become open to this way of thinking. At some point, his survival would likely depend on it.

Meanwhile, it was time to meet with Michael Lavoie.

Seeing my former CIA boss for the first time in nearly two and a half years was good, at least for the most part. Awkward at first, since it took a moment to get used to the physical changes as viewed through the slightly distorted transmission received by Roderick’s Macbook. Father time was finally winning the war with Michael’s vanity. His face was fuller, with unflattering definition to his surgically altered jowls, and I briefly detected a slight paunch around his waistline. Not that I’d ever judge anyone for these imperfections, as they are part of the natural aging process. But, since Michael had liked to poke fun at others for having these flaws, I couldn’t suppress a slight grin.

“So, what will you boys be doing now?” asked Michael, after our debriefing ended.

“Well, we had planned to be here through November first, and our flight back to the States isn’t until the afternoon of the second,” said Roderick. “Maybe we will have a look around.”

Sounded fine to me. Maybe we could revisit some of the places I had last seen in the spring of 1945, shortly after Germany’s surrender. Maybe I could figure out something romantic to help ease my wife’s trepidation in coming here. Lord knows there would be sightseeing that Alistair and Amy would be up for.

“I strongly suggest you not do that,” advised Michael. “We may not understand Krontos on your level, but we have seen the murderous rampages his thugs participate in. Who’s to say you’re not on a hit list right now? I would like for you all to come back to Washington, and to do it tonight. Don’t delay.”

“Mike, you’re sounding like a boss—
our
boss,” said Cedric. He glanced at Roderick and me before going on. “But none of us work for you anymore. You, my friend, are strictly an advisor at this point. And, though we’ll take your advisement under consideration, you’ll likely have to find some other way to cover your ass for Thomas’s death.”

I expected Michael to offer a harsh rebuke. I had been privy to a few of those down through the years. But, he merely nodded, before confirming if that was also Roderick’s and my position.

“We will make it without your watchdogs, Michael,” said Roderick, to which I agreed. “We understand that if we get in over our heads, we’ll have to work things out on our own. There will be no safety net from you or anyone else back in Washington this time.”

I shot Roderick a look, since I assumed this had been the way things were since I rebuffed the agency’s efforts to get me to come back, six months before our Bolivia trip last year. He mouthed an assurance he would explain things at a later time, and we wrapped up our video meeting with Michael.

“So, what are we going to do?” I asked Roderick. “Or, more accurately, what can I tell Beatrice and Alistair?”

“We can go home, if you insist,” he said. “Or, we could see some sights for a few days, making sure we all wear bullet proof vests.”

“Or, we can go find this son of a bitch,” said Cedric. “If it were up to me, I’d want to be hunting Krontos, instead of the other way around.”

He had a point. They both did.

“Maybe we can see a few sights while we pursue Krontos,” I said, at first not sure why I suggested such a thing. But as I thought about it, it started to make sense. Crazy sense. “Until we know for sure he has the coin, I think we should try to get closer to him. Closer, but not too close.”

“Now, what in the hell are you talking about?” Cedric released an exasperated sigh.

“Actually, it might be something that works well,” said Roderick, smiling at me. He must’ve liked the puzzle pieces coming together in my head. “Even though it’s likely Krontos already has the coin, it’s foolish to assume this outcome without a little research. Maybe a visit to the very places that made this coin famous could hone William’s senses to be drawn to where it is.”

“Stutthof and Auschwitz?” I whispered, seeing the connection Roderick had picked up on.

“We’ve got almost four days before our scheduled flight, which saves me the hassle of canceling and rebooking,” he said, his smile widening. “We just need to secure some weaponry… just in case.”

He picked up his phone, and soon scanned his contacts.

“I thought we told Mike to take a frigging hike?” Cedric eyed him suspiciously.

“We did,” said Roderick. “But the CIA isn’t the only game in town.”

And, so, we prepared to embark on the next leg of our journey. An excursion Roderick and Cedric seemed pleased about, with reactions I never would have pictured just two days earlier. Staying in Europe would be a tougher sell to Beatrice… not sure about my boy and his gal.

My biggest concern at the moment was the presence of a nagging doubt refusing to go away. A counsel cautioning me to reflect on what I had lectured Cedric about earlier. Was the inspiration spawning our latest plans an earthly perception? Or did it come from somewhere else?

I sent an urgent prayer heavenward, that it wasn’t Krontos feeding me a path from one of my alternative existences.

Chapter Nine

“Why in the hell did we even bother coming up here if there is no coin to find? Maybe we should return to Roderick’s fortress in America. Surely, Krontos has moved on by now.”

Alistair’s complaint carried validity to a point, and only because Roderick, Cedric, and I decided not to tell him the full reason as to why we were visiting Stutthof. All we revealed to him and Amy was the same advisement I gave Beatrice when I returned to our room: The auction was off, the coin was missing, and our CIA contact was dead.

Plenty to digest, considering she had awakened only thirty minutes earlier.

Unlike Alistair, she at least waited for the subplots to be filled in before reacting to my announcement of traveling to Poland. Once I told her we wanted to see if anything, psychic or otherwise, came to Roderick or me when visiting the Nazi death camps involved with the coin, she offered only a slight protest. Her biggest qualm was making sure we didn’t linger in Europe any longer than our original plans. I could tell she was intrigued by the prospects of visiting memorials from World War II. Although, dealing with cooler weather than Germany’s balmy October temperatures meant she would need a warmer coat prior to making the trek to Northern Poland.