Fate (Wilton's Gold #3) Read online

  “It is, yes.”

  “Explain that to me.”

  “Well, it’s all theory, of course,” Jeff said, again, conscious of everyone around him to make sure they weren’t talking too loudly about time travel. The bar area wasn’t full in the middle of the afternoon, but there were some shoppers taking a break from walking around the mall to enjoy a beverage. “The theory states that if an event happened in history, regardless of whether it was caused by time travel or not, it exists in history going forward. Unless, of course, that event is changed. As in, if someone were to go back and stop Kane from murdering George Mellen, the new history – or, in effect, the old history – would become history.”

  Fisher held up a finger. “Alright – pontificate on this one... So your friend Dexter is the only one who actually knows the real truth about Kane. If he were to write that history down in a journal, then go back and stop the murder, when he returned would the journal still say the same thing? Or would it change to reflect the new history?”

  Jeff sighed. These were the types of questions that hadn’t been answered yet. “It’s actually hard to say. I suppose that if nothing changed the course of history where Dexter actually made the entry in the book, or, even started the journal in the first place, I wouldn’t see why it would change. Although, it might, now that I think about it. You know what? If Dexter takes the book with him and history changes around him and the book, then it stays the same. If he leaves it in the future, his own present time, I think there are just too many variables. Likely it would change – or, rather, be non-existent.” Fisher was nodding as he talked. “Where are you going with this?”

  “Well, wait,” he said. “You know, I have diagrams at home trying to figure all of this out, but I think I’m on the same page as you up until now.”

  “That’s good, I guess.”

  Fisher took a drink from his own glass. The television flashed a shot of the Redskins, who were contending for first place in their division – a lot must have happened in the three years since Jeff had been away. “Now, could there be a loophole that would enable someone to keep a record of time travel repercussions, despite changes being made to history?”

  He shook his head. “I don’t follow.”

  “Okay, let’s say I want to keep a record of changes being made to history beyond what’s simply in my brain,” Fisher said. The bartender noticed Jeff’s glass was empty and offered another one. Fisher motioned for another round. “I want to keep a journal. But I know if I leave it in my present time, it could change. However, I don’t want to have it with me.”

  “Why not?”

  “Let’s say I’m doing something illegal. Or morally suspect.”

  The bartender returned with full glasses and took away Jeff’s empty. Fisher’s first was still half-full. “You know something...”

  He shook his head. “I don’t. I’m worried that I’ve stumbled upon something.”

  “Worried? Why would you be worried?”

  “Let me finish,” he said. “Would it be possible to stash the records somewhere?”

  “Where? Like in a safety deposit box? I don’t see what that would-”

  Fisher shook his head again.

  Jeff smiled. “Oh, you mean stash it somewhere in the past?” He thought it out, talking slowly. “So I write in the journal, and then I take it and hide it somewhere in the past – probably before whenever the change in history was to make sure nothing unexpected happens – which would make it a part of history by the same logic we used a minute ago.” He nodded his head. “Pretty smart. Are you planning something?”

  “No.”

  “Then someone else is.”

  “That’s my fear.” He picked up his original beer and finished the remainder in one fell swoop.

  Jeff was lost in his thoughts for a moment, automatically fixated on the television showing the best plays from the day before, mostly hockey and basketball as his mind roamed elsewhere. In his head, he went around the table from the meeting at USTP the day before, trying to figure out who Fisher could be describing. No one really stood out in his mind – no one with the proper access, of course, much less the understanding of the intricacies of time travel. For all intents and purposes, he felt like the program had been stymied by his other self’s departure a year-and-a-half before, so he didn’t expect any significant scientific advancements in his absence. Then it occurred to him that Fisher could have been talking about him – or, the other version of him. Had he done more than simply run? He made the decision to play it cool. “You know, it’s funny – last time you and I had a congenial conversation, it was over a drink. Only it was at the Waldorf. Our standards have declined.”

  “I don’t remember that.”

  Jeff laughed and shook his head. “No, you wouldn’t. You’d followed me just like you did today. Only I was following the Russian woman that you’d sent me to find. I broke the news to her that she was involved with time travel, which she took pretty well, and then you approached me and we had a drink.”

  “What’d we talk about?”

  Jeff thought for a moment. “You want to know what’s crazy? To me, that was only like six or seven days ago. In real time, it was about three years ago, but I should be able to remember what we discussed.” He laughed. “I’ve been through a lot since then... I think I asked you where you would go if you had the choice to time travel.”

  “What’d I say?”

  “If I remember correctly, you said the Old West.” He laughed again. “No, that’s right. Then I told you that I’d gone back to see Bobby Thompson’s home run in 1951 and you said you wanted to change your answer.”

  Fisher smiled, really for the first time. “Both of those sound like me. The Old West, and then wanting to change my answer.”

  “So why did you say you have some fears about this theory?”

  He sighed. “Because I’ve come to the conclusion that time travel is dangerous. In the wrong hands, there is always the potential to change history without anyone knowing that it’s happening.” A group of young guys came into the bar and sidled up next to them, loudly ordering drinks. “Let’s get out of here,” Fisher said. He drank down his second beer, threw a $20 and a $10 on the bar, and they stood together, leaving. Not knowing where to meander in the mall, they turned to the outside. Fisher saw a park bench sitting near the entrance to the mall and took a seat. With no one around, Jeff leaned on the railing facing him. Though it was cold, the sun was out, mitigating the chill.

  “Thanks, it was getting a little too crowded for this conversation,” Fisher said.

  Jeff nodded.

  “About a year-and-a-half ago, you fled the program.”

  “My other self did.”

  “Yes, your other self fled the program. Since I was involved to some degree when we first found your device in California, I was brought in to investigate. There were two components to the investigation: one, how you gained unsupervised access to the time travel device you used to flee; and two, where you were headed. When you didn’t come back, the first investigation lost its steam. Clearly, you were up to something and were smart enough to hide it from everyone. However, when I investigated the devices to determine if there was a way to figure out where you went, I came across usage records for the fleet of devices. There were a dozen of them at the time, I believe – not sure what it’s at now.”

  “But I would’ve had the device with me.”

  “Right,” he said, leaning forward, his elbows on his knees. “I had no way of knowing where you went. Which seems like a major flaw in the program that to my knowledge they haven’t yet fixed. But what I did find was a series of missions that had an interesting sequence. Every other mission was to the same coordinates. Or, every pair of missions, counting the return. There would be a mission and then these coordinates. Then another mission, and then the same coordinates. Except for the time of day. There was a five minute difference between each one. Seven or eight times, this pattern happened.”r />
  “Did anyone know you were investigating?”

  “Some did, yes. But not everyone. Like any quickly-thrown-together governmental initiative, the left hand doesn’t necessarily know what the right is doing.”

  “And you’re thinking that the visits to the same coordinates were to keep some kind of record of what was happening?”

  Fisher laughed. “It sounds silly, I know. And without asking someone, perhaps the wrong person and potentially incriminating myself, I have no way of knowing what those coordinates mean. I Googled the date. There’s no historical significance I can find.”

  “No one you could trust?”

  “Not until now,” he said. “I figure with everything you’ve been through, you’re going to be more cautious than anyone. If I said the wrong thing to anyone else, it’d be easy enough for them to eliminate me.”

  That knocked the wind out of Jeff. It was exactly the type of thing he feared would happen. He thought aloud. “There’d be no way of knowing.”

  Fisher was nodding. “Exactly. Just like Dexter, being the only one who knows about Kane. Someone knows about these missions and what they were meant for. I fear they were destructive.”

  Jeff stood up and strolled about ten feet from Fisher, thinking. The agent seemed to be being earnest with him, so he didn’t suspect that he was trying to lead him in a direction that would enable some sort of disciplinary action. Just the thought of someone going into the past unauthorized and alone was ominous, regardless of the intent. Clearly, from the demeanor of the USTP team, there was no suspicion of any malfeasance taking place. The thought of how easy it was for someone to act on their own intentions without anyone knowing sent a shiver down his spine. He was going to need to work with Fisher.

  He turned back to him. “Just to be clear, it’s not the other me you’re talking about?”

  Fisher shook his head. “No. I thought maybe it was you, but the missions continued after you left. Though, I can’t help but wonder if you left because you learned something. Because you knew as well as I did that if they decided to make sure you didn’t exist, they could do it pretty easily.”

  “And the best place for me to hide would be somewhere in the past...” He leaned back on the railing. “You know, this is an awful lot of speculation. Some might even call it a conspiracy theory.”

  “I know.”

  “And the coordinates wouldn’t necessarily help you even if you did know what they meant. All they address is the time. They give you no indication of the place, because you actually have to take the device with you wherever you want to travel back. You would almost have to figure out who the person is and then tail them with the device to find out where they’re going – which could tell you why they’re going there. Hopefully, you’d be a little less obvious than when you tail me.”

  Fisher was silent, looking right at Jeff.

  “You know, don’t you? And you don’t want to tell me.”

  “I said I could trust you more than anyone else. But I don’t know how much. I don’t need you going off and trying to do a misguided investigation by yourself and screwing it up. Look – if you show me you can keep this entire conversation to yourself, I’ll give you more details.”

  Jeff held up his hands. “You brought all this to me, and no you’re going to leave me hanging? I don’t understand-”

  Fisher stood. “Trust me. You don’t want to know. Not until we are absolutely, one-hundred-percent ready to act on it.”

  “Is that your intent? To do something about it? I actually don’t even know your role with the Time Program right now.”

  “Right now, my role is to follow you around to make sure you don’t do anything stupid. Which is why I’m not telling you any more. I’ll catch up with you later.”

  As he started to walk away, Jeff said, “Can you at least tell me where?”

  “Not yet,” Fisher said, then walked through the mall entrance. Jeff followed him inside, but he’d disappeared into the mall’s afternoon customers.

  Unable to think about shoes, but still needing them, Jeff trudged through the crowd to finish his day of shopping.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Dexter sat in his car in the parking lot of the Capitol Suites in Alexandria, tapping his thumb on his steering wheel as he listened to some song he vaguely remembered from the late ‘90s. It wasn’t Pearl Jam, but one of the other bands that had had kinda the same sound. He was pleased that he remembered about three-quarters of the words, though.

  Jeff had been upgraded from his hotel into a room that would give him a little more space, and a kitchen. Dexter felt bad for him, and genuinely wished there was something more he could do, but they were both under the thumb of the USTP for the time being. Thankfully, he couldn’t see them keeping Jeff in this situation for very long because under such circumstances a person would probably go crazy, but his friend appeared to be playing ball. Pretty soon, if he knew Jeff at all, he’d tire of being in limbo and start making some demands. Or, probably the better bet, he’d try to find his own way out of the situation. If that was going to be the case, Dexter knew from experience he wouldn’t be able to stop him, but felt he had to help him make the best decisions possible. After Jeff helped him, of course.

  Jeff had specifically requested some time to himself and was spending the day handling some personal affairs, but Dexter needed him right away. If Jeff was being followed, which was probably happening, their friendship was a reasonable excuse for a visit. They hadn’t had any casual time together, just the two of them. He thought Jeff might like to go to dinner – something he could defend if the Time Program folks wanted an explanation for their fraternization outside of work.

  He’d spent his day stewing about the Kane verdict, and thought the government was being awfully cavalier with its interpretation of what was “right.” From his perspective, it had been a mistake to involve Kane himself. They should have simply moved forward with the plan to fix the situation. He felt the situation was akin to naming the cat that wanders into your yard and involving yourself with it, so that when it leaves you have an emotional reaction to its absence. Kane as a faceless murderer would have been easy to take care of. Kane the benign businessman with a big checkbook was a different story. Dexter couldn’t decide which version he hated more now that the current Kane had ostentatiously interfered with their project.

  He still had misgivings about how Kane could possibly have known that George Mellen would be on that street corner at exactly that time, and wished he had back the access to either of their stories from before the trip took place. Dexter’s family had stories that were passed down, and none of them were so precise as to know the time of day when things happened. It was too perfect – especially because the USTP missions offered such a short window of opportunity.

  The song had changed to Madonna – this one a song he knew easily – but he turned the radio down as his phone buzzed in his pocket. It was the office. The only number he actually answered instead of letting it go to voicemail.

  Turned out it wasn’t simply the office, though. “Dexter,” Dr. Bremner greeted him. “Got a minute?”

  “Sure,” he said. While they all worked very closely together, getting a phone call from the head of the USTP was like getting a phone call from a five-star general. It didn’t happen often.

  “Look, Dexter,” Bremner said, without going into pleasantries, “I know you’re not happy with what happened today, and if I was in your shoes, I’d be upset about it, too. But the directive came down from higher than anyone in this organization, so I hope that you’ll be able to get past it. Let it go. The world is not a perfect place. Nobody blames you for what happened. We all need to move on.”

  “Did you get the impression that I wasn’t moving on?” he asked.

  “I just want to make sure. You’re very important to the program and to everything we have going on, and I want to make sure you know that. I can’t have one of my top people distracted. Especially by something com
pletely out of his control.”

  “You don’t have to worry. It won’t be a problem, sir,” he said, noticing a silver SUV pull into a parking spot about a hundred feet away from where he was; it was similar to the car that Jeff had rented. A moment later, he saw Jeff get out of the driver’s side and move around to the liftgate, so he exited his own car and started toward him.

  “Look,” Bremner continued, “this is the very reason why we hired Dr. Graham. I encourage you to use her expertise. Schedule some time with her. Sit down and talk about what you’re feeling about this. It’ll help you get it out.”

  “I can do that,” he said, not really paying attention to what he was agreeing to do. He wanted to catch Jeff before he got into the hotel.

  “Actually, the conversation will probably help her as much as it’ll help you. I think she’s on to something with her thoughts earlier about time travel psychology.”

  “I agree.” He was trying not to sound hurried even has he speed-walked across the parking lot.

  “Neat, neat stuff.”

  He watched Jeff struggle to balance everything he’d purchased in one hand while trying to close the trunk with the other. He finally succeeded, and as he turned away from the car toward the hotel, he noticed Dexter hustling toward him. He threw up his shoulders in a helpless shrug and shook his head. Dexter smiled innocently.

  “One other thing I wanted to ask you,” Bremner said in Dexter’s ear. “Dr. Jacobs. Can we trust him?”

  Dexter stopped short about ten feet from Jeff. “Can we what?”

  “Can we trust him?”

  He held up a finger to Jeff. “To do or not do what?”

  Bremner laughed. “Well, to not do anything stupid. The United States government has invested an awful lot of taxpayer money in the Time Program. We can’t afford to have a cowboy with an overly-sensitive conscience on the inside, making it difficult for us to accomplish the program’s goals.”

  “I can’t see him doing that,” Dexter said slowly. He could see Jeff’s faux annoyance turning into impatience.