Time's Divide (The Chronos Files Book 3) (47 page)

She runs her fingers across the medallion and opens up the view in the field extender. It’s the Sixteenth Street Temple stable point we viewed earlier, the jump to get the final set of vials. The jump that Other-Kate and Conwell haven’t made yet.

I wait for a moment, expecting to see her jump in with Conwell like the last time we watched. They jump in, walk down the hallway, and enter a door. But nothing happens.

“Can you pull up the time stamp?” I ask.

“It’s the same time we watched before. Something’s changed.”

O
UTSIDE THE
S
IXTEENTH
S
TREET
T
EMPLE

W
ASHINGTON
, DC

September 12, 9:12 p.m.

As soon as Bensen’s van passes the Lotus Lane entrance, I blink into the little niche outside the parking garage. They pass the entrance, pulling up to the curb maybe four or five car lengths from Seventeenth Street. I’m about to cross the street when I see Dad’s Subaru coming toward me. Connor is on the passenger side in the front. I give him a little wave from the bushes, and he rolls down the window.

Dad looks over, too, and they both ask, “What happened?” almost in unison. Connor nods at the skirt of the toga, which I’ve forgotten is a bit on the gory side.

“The blood isn’t mine,” I say for the second time in recent memory. “June, the doctor at Estero, was hit. Or it could be from the Templar in Addis Ababa. That jump . . . didn’t go so well. Dad, can you circle around Seventeenth to Cyrist Way . . . inconspicuously, if possible . . . and look for the walkway Charlayne was talking about? Then head back here. I need to check in with the others.”

As I approach Ben’s van, I see that the rear seats have been yanked out. Trey and Charlayne are sitting on the floorboard, backs propped against the other side.

“Are you two aware that it’s illegal to ride in the District of Columbia without a seat belt?”

Charlayne snorts and nudges the duffel with her foot. “Least of our problems if we get stopped, believe me.”

Just behind her are two contraptions with air tanks and a harness, strapped to what looks like a gigantic set of handlebars with a few extra bends along the way. Two motorcycle-style grips are attached to the ends, with silver levers extending parallel to each of the grips that look a little like hand brakes. I say a silent prayer of thanks that I never had to strap myself into that contraption, especially not while in the middle of a time jump.

Trey tugs at the edge of my toga, one eyebrow raised. “You okay?”

“Yes, it’s not mine. I’ll explain later.”

“And you got the vials?” Ben asks from the driver’s seat.

“The five sets that they’ve delivered, yes. Grabbed them and destroyed them. We still have no clue what’s up with the ones planned for North America. Simon must have them with him.” I set a stable point in the back of the van. “Can you two scootch over a bit? I need to bring someone else in.”

I blink out, and when I return, I’m dressed in my jeans and Dad’s sweatshirt again, another toga stuffed under my arm, in case I need it.

Other-Kate blinked into the van just before me. In retrospect, I probably should have warned Trey as to exactly who I was bringing in.

“I thought she was you for a moment—”

“Until he saw the baby bump,” she says, lowering herself awkwardly into a sitting position against the other wall.

“Well, to be fair,” Trey says, “the handcuffs and the . . . is that a bed rail? Those were also clues.”

Her eyes give Trey a quick appraisal. “So is this who you chose over Kiernan?” The tone of voice isn’t quite dismissive, more curious, really. But there’s a hint of something in there that suggests she doesn’t believe she’d have made the same choice.

“Yes, he is,” I respond, moving a little closer to him as I shoot her an annoyed look. “Trey, meet
Other
-Kate. This is Charlayne, and the driver is Bensen. Fifth Column.”

Other-Kate isn’t looking at them, however. I don’t think she even hears them say hello. She’s staring out the passenger side window where Dad and Connor are approaching. Tears are already pooling up in her eyes. Although I want to keep this other me at arm’s distance emotionally, my heart goes out to her, because I know exactly what she’s feeling right now, and I know how much it hurts. It hasn’t been that long ago that I sat across a picnic table looking at the dad-who-wasn’t-my-dad in another timeline, who had two little boys instead of me. Does it make it any less painful for her to know that he’s
my
dad and I’m
almost
her? Somehow I doubt it.

I should have warned Dad and Connor, too, because they both look like they’ve taken a blow when they see her.

“Sorry,” I say. “I had to get her out of Estero. And she can help. She’ll be doing surveillance, watching some different locations to keep an eye out for Simon, and also monitoring the three stable points we have here—one inside the gym, one outside the parking garage, and the other over near the playground and employee lot. But once we get Katherine out here, someone needs to keep her and Kate apart. I think they’ve got the same key, and it
might
not be an issue, but . . .”

“It’s not an issue,” Other-Kate says. “Different person, probably a different time stamp for the key.”

“Fine. But is it worth risking it?”

She shrugs. “I’ll jump to the stable point near the garage when I see them coming and hide in the Gray Ghost.”

Dad nods, and there’s an odd expression on his face when she uses the car’s nickname. He shakes it off visibly, eyes moving from Other-Kate back to me. “We checked the employee lot. The walkway is there. Gated, but not guarded, about seven feet high. I think I could climb it. I’m certain Charlayne or Trey could. But it looks like there are surveillance cameras on that side.”

“Yeah, but the parking lot is open to the street,” Connor says. “Five cars still there, and the cameras aren’t pointing at the gate. Security could just think it’s someone leaving late.”

“So we try stealth first, but if security heads that way . . .” I look over at Charlayne. “Maybe create the diversion you mentioned back at the cottage?”

“We have it ready,” Charlayne says as Ben pops the rear gate of the van. “That’s why he parked so far down. The playground is shared between the temple and the day care center. It backs to Seventeenth. We’ll go over the fence and strap these puppies to two of the trees. I also have a few M-80s.”

“M-80s?” I ask.

Charlayne grins. “Cherry bombs. Hella loud.”

Bensen is at the back of the van now, pulling a black ski mask over his face. “Those are just to draw attention. I have a timer to start the motors—it’s the gadget Tilson and I were working on when we thought Kate might have to use these things to jump into CHRONOS. So you’ll have an explosion, and then the jet packs will stir up every speck of pine straw, leaves, dirt, you name it, within a ten-foot radius. It’ll look like a dust tornado has swooped down on the parking lot. Security will be focused on
that
side of the grounds at least for a few minutes.”

“Okay,” Trey says. “Sounds like a good backup plan if we can’t sneak in. I’ll go with Charlayne, and Ben can take this door with . . .” He looks from Dad to Connor.

“With me,” Connor says. “Harry’s the driver. We drew straws back at the house. Do you have another face mask, Ben?”

Dad’s expression is fleeting, just a subtle tightening of his mouth, but I know instantly they didn’t draw straws, flip a coin, or even discuss this matter earlier. And Connor seems to know I know, because he gives me that same look he gave me back at Katherine’s when he was destroying the keys.

“Okay,” Ben says, handing Dad something that looks like a remote control wrapped in electrical tape. “Charlayne and Trey will set up the jet packs in case the diversion is needed, and then they’ll head back around the preschool building. If they don’t get in—or if you see security moving toward them—start the motors and fire off a few M-80s to draw attention in that direction.”

“We have a stable point at the front entrance,” I tell them. “One that Kiernan set. Other-Kate can watch it, and that should give you a few seconds’ notice that they’re coming.”

“More than that,” she says. “I’ll watch a minute or so ahead. Someone just needs to leave me a cell phone so I can call him.”

Trey tosses her his phone. “His number is under recent calls.”

“Okay,” Dad says. “So once they’re in, I circle back around and watch for the rest of you on this side?”

“Yes.” Connor straps one of the rifles over his shoulder. “And then we all get the hell out of here before the cops arrive. Because I really don’t think it will take very long, especially if you do have to set off that diversion.”

They start discussing the exact timing, and Ben shows Dad his gadget to start the engines. I’m paying attention, but only with half of my brain. The other half is cycling through the many different ways that this could go horribly, horribly wrong.

For the first time, I get—I
really
get—how stressed Dad is when I’m about to go on a jump. Watching people you love walk into danger is a hundred times harder than walking into it yourself. I catch a glimpse of Other-Kate from the corner of my eye, and she’s watching them, too. She gives me a shaky half smile, her eyes as worried as I feel. Even though she doesn’t know Trey, Charlayne, or Ben, I guess this dad and this Connor are as close as she’ll ever get to her own versions. She hasn’t seen them for months, maybe never thought she’d see them again, and here they are preparing to go all Rambo.

And what pisses me off most is that none of them should have to be here, or at the very least we shouldn’t be in this alone. The Fifth Column—or rather the rest of the Fifth Column—should be supporting us. And in a sane world, a world where the Cyrists weren’t running things, we wouldn’t be worried about whether the authorities will catch us. If, by some crazy set of circumstances, my mother and grandmother had been kidnapped by a madman, the authorities—the ones who are actually trained for this—would be the ones running the show.

∞24∞

O
UTSIDE THE
S
IXTEENTH
S
TREET
T
EMPLE

W
ASHINGTON
, DC

September 12, 9:23 p.m.

I don’t like this hallway.

I’m almost afraid to open my eyes, scared that I’ll see Eve in the doorway up ahead, her face bleeding from being whacked with that office chair. I can almost hear the Dobermans barking even though I know they’re at the far end of the corridor right now, in the gym with Kiernan, Mom, Katherine, and the security guards. The dogs are already snoozing, and one of the guards is nearly there, thanks to a little something extra in the filling of the jelly doughnuts they wolfed down. The other one told Kiernan he’s eating Paleo (which I had to explain), but I think he sneaked a doughnut when nobody was watching, because he’s looking a little groggy now, too.

What I don’t know is where—or when—Simon is. Or Conwell. Or Prudence, for that matter, and she’s supposed to be here. This was
her
stable point, the closest one she had to the Templar’s office, and she should have been here when I blinked in.

I press my back against the wall of the dark hallway and pull up the stable point in the gym. Katherine’s head is on the table, like she’s napping, even though Kiernan says their doughnuts were just glazed, without the knock-out meds. Mom is upright and alert, her eyes scanning the room. I don’t know if Kiernan gave her a heads-up or if it’s just her Spidey sense, but she knows something. Kiernan is casually leaning against the edge of the table, talking to the guards. One of them glances up at the clock and—

“Psst!” The voice is little more than a whisper, but it startles me. I jerk back, banging my elbow against the wall.

Prudence’s head pokes out from the doorway, almost exactly where Eve stood before. She motions for me to follow.

“Why weren’t you paying attention?” she hisses.

“Why weren’t you on time?” I hiss back, remembering a second later that I probably should avoid getting her angry.

But she’s ignoring me anyway. There’s an access badge in her hand like the one Eve carried last time I was here. Pru waves it in front of the sensor, then walks quickly down the hall toward the office on the left.

“You’re sure the side door is unlocked?” I ask.

“Yes. I unlocked it.” She waves the badge and steps aside. “And the office is empty. I checked.”

Pushing the door open, I see the room, a large library and office combo, lit only by moonlight from the courtyard and the glow of our CHRONOS keys.

She shoves the badge into my hand. “In case you need it. And you should hurry. They could come back any minute.”

“Who could come—” I begin, but I’m talking to empty space before I can finish the question.

Mom’s right. That’s really annoying.

I draw the Colt and hunch down to keep a low profile, moving quickly toward the stone fireplace that juts out a few feet into the room, dividing the two halves of the glass wall. Pressing my back against the stone, I look out into the courtyard. I was never on this side of the room last time, and I can now see the small alleyway between the buildings that Charlayne mentioned. Unfortunately, I can’t see to the end of the alley from this vantage point, so I unlock the door and step out, hoping to see whether she and Trey have made it to the gate.

The second I step into the courtyard, the entire place lights up. My heart hammers in my chest. I jerk my head upward where motion sensor floodlights point down from all four corners. I haven’t even had time to catch my breath from that shock when I hear a clanking noise off to the right. Someone drops from the gate, which is about seven feet high, into the alley.

Trey and Charlayne sprint toward me. And as happy as I am that they got in, they both look so very
wrong
with the rifles in their hands.

If this goes as planned, neither of them will ever have to use them, I remind myself, pushing away that nagging little part of me that’s sure everything that can go wrong will go wrong.

We enter the office now almost fully lit by the floodlights from the courtyard.

There are two wooden doors inside the office, one on each side of the massive desk. Charlayne turns toward the first one, which is partially open. “No! I think that’s a closet. The other one is the exit!”

I push the two of them in that direction and start to follow, but something on one of the bookshelves near the other door catches my eye. The floodlights reflect off the polished silver curves. It looks very familiar.

“Kate?”

Trey stands frozen in the doorway, a question in his eyes. Beyond him, shouts and footsteps echo in the hallway. One of the voices is Kiernan’s. Two shots are fired in rapid succession.

“Go!” I tell Trey. “Back up Charlayne! I’ll be right behind you.”

He hesitates for a moment, then nods and takes off running.

I hurry back to the shelf. It’s a communion tray, filled with the same small injection vials as the other five I’ve handled today. If not for the floodlights I was cursing a moment ago—or if it had been made of wood, like the ones at Grandma Keller’s church—I’d have walked right past it again.

The fact that the communion tray is silver is also why I see the tiny blip of blue and know someone else has blinked into the room. If the stable point had been facing me, I’d have been screwed, but the jumper comes in facing the fireplace, and I have a fraction of a second to slip through the open door on the left.

But, unfortunately, not enough time to grab the vials. It can’t be Pru or Kiernan—if they’d had a stable point in here, Pru wouldn’t have had to meet me in the hallway. So it’s either the other Templar—and I doubt he’s a jumper—or Conwell. Or Simon.

I lean back against the wall of the small, dark room. It’s a bit large to be a closet. There’s a couch against one wall, and I see a sink and toilet through an open door at the back of the room. I slide my key back into the leather holder to hide the light, hoping whoever it is leaves quickly so I can grab the vials and blink out. And also hoping Trey and Charlayne don’t backtrack to check on me.

“What in hell?” It’s Conwell.

Has he seen Trey or Charlayne? Or maybe he noticed the light from the key before I could hide it.

I’m about to spring out with the pistol when he mutters, “Why am I the only one who can remember to turn off the damned floodlights?”

He stalks toward this side of the room, and my heart leaps into my throat when he approaches the door. A hand reaches inside the frame, and I hold my breath, pointing the gun in front of me.

But he’s only looking for the light switch. His fingers flick the switch closest to him downward and the one next to it upward, turning on the lights in the main room. At least now that the light is on, Trey or Charlayne or anyone else who comes looking will know someone else is in here.

“So where is she?” he says.

I don’t even have time to wonder who he’s talking to before I hear Simon say, “Shut up, Patrick.” His voice is tired.

“No. Like I told you earlier, you need to stop putzing around—”

“I said shut up. Just shut up and give me the vials.”

“Yeah. As if.” I press one hand to my mouth to hold in a fit of nervous laughter. Did Conwell get that stupid phrase from his daughter? I can almost picture her tossing her blond hair over her shoulder. “Saul told
me
to handle that side of things. Apparently he didn’t think you had the—”

Conwell breaks off. The room is totally silent. When he speaks again, his voice is shaky at first, but then he gets it under control. “Is that a gun of some sort? Put it down, Simon. Be serious. You want to run Cyrist International on your own? That would cut into your playtime a bit, wouldn’t it? We have an agreement. I run the business, and you play time tourist. Just leave me the girl and the keys.”

It’s not until Conwell says the word
keys
that I remember I could just jump back to a moment before Pru and I entered the library, before I let Trey and Charlayne in the door, and grab the tray of vials. It would be risky to make a jump right now, since Simon and Conwell would almost certainly see the glow of the key if I pull it out in this dark room, but I could probably jump out before they reached me.

Probably.

But . . . if I do that, wouldn’t Simon just jump back to before I took the vials and put them somewhere else? And even if jumping back gets the vials, it won’t get me
answers
. I need those, along with the keys around Conwell’s and Simon’s necks, if we’re really going to end this. Unless Saul brought a large amount of the virus with him when he sabotaged CHRONOS, which seems unlikely, then someone had to jump forward to 2070 and steal it. The two most probable candidates are in that room. What’s to stop them from jumping forward and grabbing more of it once they discover we’ve destroyed the last batch? Or jumping back to kill us at some previous point in time?

We can’t stop this without information, and I’ll never have a better chance than now to get it—and hopefully the vials, too. So I shove the key pouch back into my shirt and listen, something that’s not as easy as it might seem. My heart is pounding so loudly that I can barely hear anything else.

Breathe, Kate. Calm down, and breathe.

Simon is saying something about renegotiation when I tune back in. “. . . have your Sister Prudence. This one’s even younger than the other one. She’s not pregnant, but that can be remedied easily enough if you really think the whole Madonna Pru bit makes a difference to the sheeple. And the keys aren’t a problem. Pru’s people don’t have keys anymore—hell, most of them don’t even
exist
anymore. Kiernan helped me get the keys from CHRONOS, and almost all have been deactivated now. Like I told you and Saul before, when you play things smart, when you use your head, you can get other people to do your work for you.”

I grit my teeth at that last bit, thinking how very much I like Prudence’s name for Simon. Rat Bastard pretty much nails it.

“Aside from this bit about the girl,” Patrick replies, “that’s the deal we had before. So why are you waving a weapon?”

“Like I said. I need that last tray. We’re not going to distribute those vials.”

“What?”

Conwell echoes my thoughts exactly. My mind starts reeling through the possibilities. Has Simon changed his mind about the Culling? Is that why he killed Saul? Does he know we’ve destroyed the other vials? Was that more work he was waiting for me to do?

“Think about it, Patrick. We don’t need to distribute the last set. What was Saul’s goal? Wipe out the weak. The parasites. Reshape history. Fix the future. You dropped your little viral bomb on the other five regions. Within the next few days, they start dropping like flies. But here on this continent . . . we’re not the weak. We’re the doers. The idea people. There are exceptions, of course, but we’ve got the strongest military, the strongest economy. With that virus wiping out most everyone in the other five regions—everyone except those already loyal to us—we’ll have rolled the clock back on pretty much every environmental problem there is within the next quarter century. The ones left out there around the world will be
our
people, Patrick. Handpicked. No religious wars. No sectarian conflicts. A perfect little paradise, just like Saul wanted.”

“I’ll admit you have some valid points, Simon.”

I want to scream,
No, he doesn’t!
All he has is a callous disregard for the rest of the world, a flawed assumption that might makes right, that we can solve all global problems simply by eliminating those who are different. Dead bodies are okay elsewhere, but not here. Not in his playground.

“But,” Conwell continues, “there would be spillover. Our borders are porous. A deadly virus in Europe, Latin America? It’ll reach us, too.”

“So Patterson steps up border security. I’ll go back a bit, give her the vaccine, let the CDC start producing it. And yes, we’ll lose some people, but not as many as overseas. We come out on top.”

The phone rings as Conwell says, “I’m willing to take it to Saul. If you can convince him, we do it your way.”

It rings a second time, and Simon says, “Answer it! On speaker. And careful what you say.”

“Hello.”

The woman on the phone sounds a little hesitant. “Templar Morton?”

“No, this is Templar Conwell. I’ve taken over for Morton effective immediately. Permanent reassignment.”

“Well, that explains why she asked to speak to you. Video call. On the secure channel. It’s Sister Patterson, sir.”

“Give him two minutes,” Simon tells her. “Then patch Patterson through, okay?”

“Oh, is that you, Mr. Rand? You . . . you want to make the president
wait
?”

“Can’t help it, Mitzi. The computer has to boot up, so—” Simon breaks off suddenly as a loud whooshing noise fills the air, followed by several loud bangs. A second later, the security alarm sounds.

What the . . .

Oh. The jet pack diversion. Which almost certainly means they’re sending someone in after me. Or does it mean they still haven’t gotten Mom and Katherine out?

Mitzi’s voice cuts through the sound of the alarm. “Sir, the security cameras are picking up a disturbance near the employee parking lot. Not sure what it is, but you might want to follow the standard protocol.”

“Send someone out to check,” Simon tells her. “Have the other guy check the surveillance cam in the Acolyte Rec Room. And turn off that damned alarm until we’re done talking to Patterson.”

That settles it. I’ll have to risk using the key. I inch my way along the wall toward the nearest corner, banging my toe on a coat rack and very nearly toppling it.

“What did you mean about the rec room?” Conwell asks. “And what are we going to tell Patters—” There’s an odd noise—
thwommp
—and then something crashes into the bookshelves, shaking the wall I’m leaning against. Something or, more likely, some
one
.

Once I reach the corner, I turn inward to shield the light of the key as much as possible. Then I set my current location as a stable point and blink back two minutes.