the 13th Hour (18 page)

Nick looked at the young blond reservist. He couldn't have been more than twenty-five, surely educated with the help of government loans that required years of service to your country in return.

"I need to see the police and I need them now."

"You're going to have to explain it to me," the young and eager soldier said, clearly enjoying his first taste of authority. "You're not allowed in there."

Nick stuck his finger out the window, curling it toward himself, bidding the solider to come close enough so he could read the name on the left side of his chest, and spoke in a soft, even tone, "Private McManus?"

"Yes, sir?"

"What's your first name?"

"Neil."

"I suppose you know how to use that weapon, Neil?"

"Top of my class in riflery."

"Well, good for you." Nick nodded. "Someone is trying to kill my wife, Neil, and I really need to see the police about it."

Seeing the sincerity in his eyes, McManus quickly waved Nick into the crash site. "They're stationed at the locker house."

I
F THE PREVAILING
impression out on the access road was one of death, then what greeted him as he inched into the main parking lot past the scores of emergency vehicles was nothing short of hell.

Stepping from the car and looking about, Nick momentarily forgot his own situation. He had never been to war, but he now knew what it looked like as he stared at the charred remains that scattered the once-pristine playing fields.

Hundreds of people swarmed the crash site, looking like ants on the blackened landscape. Some hovered over bodies, pulling back the white sheets to examine the charred remains, trying to figure out if they were looking at an adult or a child, male or female. Others marked debris, looking for clues, while still others photographed and videotaped the devastation.

Nick walked through the sea of people, past the news trucks and the temporary generators that provided power to the response team, past the flatbeds containing enormous halogen lights that would illuminate the shattered earth as the night fell, allowing the nonstop operation to maintain its twenty-four-hour vigilance.

Nick finally arrived at the command post set up under a series of tents that adjoined the brick locker house building. Card tables and metal chairs were set in an orderly fashion along the wall, temporary phones and computers had been hastily assembled, brought in from businesses and the local school to supplement the desktop and notebook units brought by the National Guard.

Nick found the table where a hastily scribbled sign read
Byram Hills Police
. A broad-shouldered older man sat behind the table, his gray hair desperately trying to hold on to its last bit of original black color. Nick recognized him at once as the man who interrupted his interrogation six hours from now.

"Captain Delia?" Nick asked.

"Yes." The captain looked up with weary eyes. "How can I help you?"

"I . . ." Nick paused, unsure how to start. "I know this a difficult day for you and everyone but I have a situation that requires immediate attention."

The captain gave a half nod for him to continue.

"There was a robbery this morning, a pretty substantial robbery. Over $25 million in antiques and jewels were stolen, from Washington House over on Maple."

"I heard nothing of this." Delia tilted his head in surprise.

"My wife is one of the owner's attorneys; she was notified of the robbery and has confirmed its occurrence."

"Of all days. Dammit!" The captain stood up, looking around, the weariness falling from his eyes, to be replaced with frustration. "I don't know who I can send over there. We're already stretched thin. Has the place been secured?"

"Yes," Nick said. "But that's not why I'm here."

"You here to confess?" He paused, wiping a sweaty strand of hair from his face, immediately regretting his statement. "Sorry, it's been a long day."

Nick looked away for a moment, debating crossing the point of no return before finally turning back. "Whoever committed this crime is after my wife."

"What do you mean 'after your wife'?" The captain grew suddenly serious.

"To kill her."

"And how do you know that?"

"They've already destroyed her office."

Delia took a moment. "Any idea who?"

Nick pulled out the printed picture. "This man is involved, but I'm not sure how, nor do I know who he is."

"What's this from?" the captain asked as he studied the picture.

"Security feed. The other faces didn't show up before video interference obscured everything. And I do believe the security company may be involved." Nick stopped, hoping the captain was convinced. "It's a start, right?"

The captain said nothing as he continued looking at the picture.

"There's a blue Chevy Impala that has circled our house," Nick lied about the car he had seen in the future, the car carrying the men who came to kill Julia. "Its license plate traces back to Hertz, and it was rented by a man named Paul Dreyfus. His firm handled part of the security for the building that was robbed."

"And you're a detective?" Captain Delia asked skeptically.

"No."

"Then how do you know all this so quickly?" There was suspicion in his voice.

"If someone was trying to kill
your
wife, you'd be amazed at how resourceful you'd become."

Delia digested Nick's words and nodded. "Where's your wife now?"

"She's with friends." Nick wasn't actually sure where she was in this hour, but he thought it best to not say too much until a trust had developed.

The captain picked up the walkie-talkie from the table and thumbed the button on the side. "Bob?"

"Yeah," the voice came back, overly loud and static-filled.

"Get your ass up here," the captain barked before laying the radio back on the table and turning back to Nick. "I'll tell you now, being as honest as I can be, we've got no men to spare. If a gun isn't being held to your wife's head, it's hard to assess whether the danger exists at all. I understand your concern, but whoever committed the crime--something we will investigate and solve--they're probably long gone and won't risk hanging around to be caught."

The captain sat back down, resumed filling out paperwork, and picked up the phone.

Nick turned and looked around. The door to the locker building swung open, the sound of grieving poured out. They had the building set up for the relatives of the deceased, a diverse collection of people from around the county who never imagined the day they would be facing as they woke up. Nick understood their pain, their agony, having endured the death of Julia, having stood over her violated body.

When faced with the sudden death of a loved one, the mind runs in all directions: rage, anger, self-pity, guilt, sorrow, finality, and even to the impossible: the what-ifs, the if-onlys. What if he got stuck in traffic and missed his plane? What if I just said she couldn't go and waited until Monday? What if I didn't make him change his flight to today so I could go to the shore next week?

. . . what if she was suddenly called off the plane for a business matter?

Nick knew himself lucky, blessed. He could be standing alone in that building, sharing his grief with strangers with no chance of Julia ever coming back. She had been on the very jet that lay twisted in the distant field, checked in, her carry-on stowed, her seat belt buckled, on the aircraft whose destination was death.

But Julia was saved, plucked from destiny, pulled off to survive . . .

. . . for all of seven hours. Seven hours of life given back by a twist of fate, by a crime of greed that she never would have the opportunity to understand. Shot down in the end by the very people whose actions saved her life.

As Nick heard the sobbing of children whose fathers wouldn't be coming home as they promised, of wives left to face the world alone, he thought of the watch in his pocket and wondered why he was in the middle of this twisted daydream trying to pull Julia from her grave. Was it all a fantasy, a dream of hope that he couldn't escape? He had watched as the hours flowed backward, as the unexplainable embraced him. He had seen Julia dead on the floor only to see her alive in the kitchen moments later--moments that existed in his time of reference, in his current flow of living, running contrary to that of everyone else around him.

As the door to the locker facility slowly closed, trapping the sounds of mourning within, he brought himself back to his current reality. He would shut out all of the illogic, all of the pain he had experienced. Against the laws of physics so elegantly stated by Einstein, he would bridge the gap of time with his heart. He would pull Julia from the jaws of fate for the second time this day. He would make the
what if
happen.

With full resolve, Nick turned to find the captain talking to a tall, muscled man in a tight-fitting black shirt, his badge and gun worn on the belt of his blue jeans. His hands were darkened by soot, streaked with sweat. His tousled black hair told the story of his day.

"Mr. Quinn," the captain called him over.

Nick approached the detective, hoping he finally had an ally who would listen and help him stop Julia's killer.

"Mr. Quinn, this is Bob Shannon."

Nick turned around and looked straight into Shannon's slate-blue eyes, and a wave of panic fell upon him as he realized who he was looking at.

"Bob Shannon." The detective held out his hand in greeting.

Nick's world spun. For standing before him was the man who had arrested him in the future, who had treated him as something less than a rodent. The man who in the interrogation room had wielded a billy club; who had screamed and accused Nick of murdering Julia; who had held a gun to his head with every intention of pulling the trigger.

The look in Shannon's eyes was one shared by most of the volunteers Nick had seen today: exhaustion, devastation, and hopelessness.

"What's up?" Shannon asked.

Nick's eyes fell to Shannon's neck, his tight-fitting black shirt unbuttoned in the heat, exposing his well-muscled chest. There was no St. Christopher medal there, which eased his mind a little about trusting the police.

Nick didn't know where to start, finding it hard to shake the fear that the man would somehow recognize him and shoot him for his escaping the interrogation room. Reminding himself that that was yet to happen, he said, "Someone is after my wife."

"What do you mean 'after'?" There was a weariness in Shannon's voice.

"Trying to kill her."

"Shit," Shannon said with surprising concern. "Okay, what's your name?"

"Nick Quinn."

"And your wife's?"

"Julia."

Shannon led him over to a corner of the tent, pulled up two folding chairs, and took a seat, indicating Nick to follow suit. "Can I get you a drink: water, soda, or something?"

Nick shook his head as he sat down.

"Why don't you tell me what's going on?" Shannon said.

Nick told him of the robbery, of Julia's computer's being swiped from her office. He explained how the thieves were erasing their tracks, each word out of his mouth carefully chosen so as not to indicate anything from the future.

"May I ask where she is now?"

"She's . . ." Nick paused. Though Shannon didn't appear like the animal he had been in the interrogation room, he had yet to earn Nick's trust, so he thought it best to hold back some truths. Though he didn't know exactly where she was, he lied. "She's with friends."

"Alone?"

"She's with some coworkers at one of their homes in Bedford."

"Why didn't she come with you?"

"She's scared, she didn't want to leave. And she said she couldn't bear coming down here."

"I understand that," Shannon said, looking out at the mayhem.

"Yeah, she was supposed to be on that plane."

"Whoa." Shannon's eyes went wide with surprise "Okay, you failed to mention that."

"She got off because she got a text message about the robbery in progress."

Shannon sat there, his face registering the irony. "Fate is so unpredictable. She must be a mess, thinking she lived only to be in the gun sight of some maniac."

Nick begin to see sympathy in Shannon. There was more to him than the single-note man who arrested him. "Are you married?"

"I was. My wife couldn't handle being married to a cop. She didn't think the pay matched the risk."

"Sorry."

"Her loss," Shannon said quickly. "She just doesn't get it. Life's not about money, its not about getting paid for risking one's life for others. You do it because it's the right thing to do."