Chapter Fifteen
About to Break
Jennifer found him standing next to the statue just like he had told her she would.
The statue was of a man astride a great horse, it's hooves rearing up into the sky. Somewhere in the recesses of her mind, Jennifer remembered that that meant something. Something about how the man had died.
As soon as she saw him she noticed that something had changed. Over the phone he'd sounded so lost, so broken, but the Thomas that she saw now seemed to have a renewed purpose. It was like he was shaking with excitement.
Things had been tough for them since they'd returned from their vacation, he was going somewhere without her, and Jennifer was afraid that they'd end up in two different places. But now, Thomas seemed like he was ready to take her with him. And she wanted so badly to go.
He reached out to her as she approached him and took each of her hands in one of his. “Babe, I figured something out after you called. I know it's been difficult lately. I've been doing a lot of thinking, and some of the ideas I've come up with have been hard for me to understand, and impossible for me to explain. But there's a man who can.” He gestured to the throng around them. “It's why we're all here. He can explain to you what I've been going through.”
Jennifer pulled away from Thomas. “Tommy, you know what that sounds like right? Is this some kind of cult?”
Thomas struggled for a moment to find the words. His face took on a look of frustration, but not angry. More, desperate. “It's no cult Jen. That's part of the point. We don't need leaders. De Vitoria isn't our messiah. He's just a good teacher. I'm still learning. If you give it a chance, I think you'll understand.”
Jennifer wasn't so sure, but before she could say anything she heard a murmur passing through the crowd and looked around to see what was going on. Something was happening, and after a moment news reached their corner of the world.
Someone had come out to respond to the protests.
Slowly people migrated closer to the capital building near the front of the lawn. The protests had formed at the foot of its stairs, and as more and more people had arrived, it had spread into the wide grassy area surrounding the building. The police had maintained a strong presence for the last week, and had kept the streets clear and ensured paths of entry through the crowds, but as long as people had stayed peaceful they hadn't prevented anyone from putting out a blanket. The local law enforcement agency was accustomed to dealing with this sort of thing and knew how to avoid agitation.
Now people were pressing closer to the steps, where men in suits were setting up a small stage with a microphone and speakers. It really did look like there was going to be some kind of address.
Thomas had taken on a kind of feverish intensity as he looked towards the front of the crowd, waiting for whatever news was going to spill forth. Jennifer looked up at him, but he seemed absorbed by the events taking place. She worried once again for him. What could possibly be so mesmerizing.
Thomas was focused on the stage because after seeing Jennifer he had once again realized how important it was that they find de Vitoria. Even trying to explain that much to her he'd somehow managed to screw it up. He needed the man to explain the situation. His marriage needed Xavier de Vitoria to appear.
After a while the crowd began to grow restless, but soon the men building the small stage finished their work and one of them approached the microphone.
He tapped it a few times until the sound popped forth from the speakers. “Hello? Hello? My name is Rick Haseltine. I work in the Department of Homeland Security in the Office of Mitchell Rather. Director Rather will be speaking in a few moments, addressing your concerns about Xavier de Vitoria. Please be respectful and patient.”
The crowd grumbled slightly at the condescension evident in Mr. Haseltine's remarks, but the anticipation of Director Rather's remarks kept them from getting too cranky. This was what they'd waited here for.
Within minutes, a broad shouldered man stepped out of the capital building and began making his way down the steps towards the microphone at the bottom. He was surrounded by men and women holding clipboards and making frantic notes, some holding up small tape recorders as he spoke. As he neared the stage he waved them off and walked up to Haseltine. They spoke for a moment and then he stepped up to the microphone.
“Ladies and gentlemen. I know that you are gathered here today because you want to know what news your government has regarding the whereabouts of the suspected perpetrator of the April 19th Devastation, Xavier de Vitoria.” Those statements illicited angry boos and hisses from the crowd, composed mostly of de Vitoria supporters, but Rather raised his hand to quiet them and continued.
“As of this moment, I have no information to release about where Mr. de Vitoria is,” the crowd growled angrily at this but Rather hurried on, “nor can I tell you what actions your government is taking in order to discover, detain, and bring to justice Mr. de Vitoria.” He had to raise his voice now to be heard, even over the loud speakers. “Please understand, this is a national security matter. If and when my office has information to share with the public, I assure you, we will release that information in our daily press briefing. We are currently doing everything we can to protect this country. I understand that many of you have concerns about exactly what course we are taking towards that goal. I can only assure you that every action taken by my office, and the current administration is done with careful, deliberate consideration. I must ask that you be patient, and return to your homes, so that we can refocus on the task at hand.”
All in all, the crowd was nonplussed.
This was not the news they'd hoped for, and it did nothing to appease their concerns. And on top of that, being told to disperse didn't sit well with anyone either, no matter how politely phrased.
But they probably would have gone away peacefully, or at worst settled back into their blankets and awaited another canned statement had Mitchell Rather not made one crucial mistake.
Not realizing that the microphone was still turned on, he gestured for Mr. Haseltine to join him on the stage, and pulled a letter from his jacket pocket. Rather turned to face him and handed him the letter with instructions as to both its contents and its disposal.
Instructions which were immediately broadcast out to the assembled throng.
“That should keep them for a while. Hopefully they'll break up, if not we'll have the police start thinning them out in the next few days. I need a jet ready to fly to this address within the hour.”
“De Vitoria's about to break.”
The response from the crowd was immediate.
In the intial surge of the crowd towards the stage, Thomas felt Jennifer's hand slip from his grasp, and he panicked when he turned towards her and couldn't find her.
He screamed out her name, but there were hundreds of people screaming now, and he couldn't even hear his own voice over the din. People were climbing up onto the stage, or tearing it down from below, and Mitchell Rather and Rick Haseltine were being pushed back towards the entrance to the capital building by their security force, while the local police poured in from all sides to try to quell the sudden violence of the crowd.
Thomas fought against the tide of people, trying to get back to where he had seen Jennifer only seconds ago, before Rather's ill timed revelation. After what seemed like an eternity he'd managed to make his way back to where he'd been standing, but still couldn't find her.
He spun around, people swarming past him screaming out her name. Suddenly she was there in front of him grabbing his arms, with a look of terror on her face. This was not why he'd brought her here. This was not what he wanted to show her.
Thomas held onto Jennifer tightly with both hands and tried to make his way out of the crowd in the opposite direction of the stage. As they slowly made their way away from the capital building, the crowd began to thin enough for Thomas to make out individual struggles happening around him.
Blankets were ripped and trampled where people had rushed over them making their way towards the stage. Here and there he could see others engaged in fights with police. The police hadn't expected this kind of reaction, and weren't wearing riot gear, but everywhere they encountered groups of protestors their batons rose and fell, beating out a grim measure to the events like a bloody metronome.
Thomas desperately avoided those groups as he picked his way through the chaos, dragging Jennifer behind him. He had to get her out of this somehow. But everywhere he turned he saw police blocking the exits from the lawn.
Finally he saw some space open up in the line of police marching through the grass. He pointed so Jennifer could see where he was headed. “There! We have to go now!” Jennifer only nodded her head as the two of them sprinted awkwardly towards the gap, still clutching each other tightly.
Thomas thought they were going to make it when an officer suddenly stepped in front of him and pointed a shotgun at him.
He felt the blast hit him squarely in the chest, and
Thomas crumpled to the ground, unable to take a breath. Jennifer screamed and collapsed over him, sobbing. The officers ran over and threw her to the ground next to him. Jennifer kept reaching out to Thomas, tears pouring onto the ground beneath her, as the police officer who shot him rolled him over and began to cuff him.
Thomas lay there, his face in the dirt, wondering why they would bother handcuffing a man after shooting him in the chest with a shotgun. He knew he was going to die, he just hoped that Jennifer would be alright.
He turned his head towards her and tried to drink in her face one last time. Her clothes were torn, and tears cut tracks through the dirt on her face from where they'd thrown her to the ground, but Thomas could only see the beautiful girl he'd married years before. He still couldn't breathe, but he tried to smile one last time, for her.
After a few minutes, the police dragged the two of them to their feet, and much to his astonishment, Thomas realized he wasn't dead. He looked down at his chest, trying to understand why his breath was slowly returning and he wasn't covered in blood, and that's when he saw the small black object lying on the ground near his feet. They'd shot him with some kind of rubber ball about the size of a child's fist.
As they dragged him towards a waiting van, Thomas looked around at the crowd. Following Rather's words the crowd had stormed the stage. Thomas couldn't see what had happened from where he was now, but despite his inclination towards pacifism, he secretly hoped that somehow they got the bastard. All around him he could see people being tackled and handcuffed by the police. It wasn't going well for the protestors.
But he was alive. And so was Jennifer. He didn't know what was going to happen to them next, but they weren't dead.
And that was a start.
Issacson knew he shouldn't have done it, but he just couldn't help himself.
In the end, he'd convinced himself that he could better serve PVP if he had more information, and that he wasn't really violating the trust his superiors had in him by trying to simply reviewing the parameters of the most recent launch. After all, how much could that possibly tell him about the latent directive anyway?
He hadn't accepted the results the first time he'd checked them. It couldn't possibly be the case. But he ran the numbers again, and then again. And every time he came away with the same results.
Thirty nine point three degrees north. Seventy six point six degrees west. Time 0617. Day 109. Year 412 BGE.
That was the exact position, date, and time of one of the worst terrorist attacks in human history.
Everyone knew about the Devastation of course, it was taught in secondary school. It was one of the cataclysmic events which was believed to have later inspired the “Great Emancipation.” At the time, the blame for the event had been laid at the feet of an obscure philosophical organization, though later historians would question the validity of that accusation and the general consensus would be that the actual perpetrators had gone undiscovered.
But why would the Board have wanted him to send the vessel directly into the epicenter of the attack? Were they trying to solve the mystery? Did they think there was some kind of clue which contemporary investigators had missed? Certainly the vessel contained sensory technology far beyond what was available to people at the time, but what did they hope to gain from solving a mystery from over a thousand years earlier? Or was it something else. Suddenly, a thought occurred to Issacson.
What if they were trying to prevent the Devastation from occurring at all?
Could that really be it? Were they trying to prevent one of history's greatest man made disasters from happening in the first place? Certainly people had theorized in the past that chrononautics could be used for such a purpose, but philosophically it raised a number of questions.
The more he considered it, the more it made sense to Issacson. After all, the motto of the company was “Improving History for the Good of Mankind.” Perhaps the Board were taking the idea to heart.
Issacson wasn't sure it would work, but he swelled with pride at the thought of the kind of men he had devoted his life's work to. These were men of vision. They were worthy of his loyalty.
Issacson decided it was important to speak with them, immediately. He locked down the lab and made his way to the Board room, without even pausing to leave a message for his assistants.
The Board might be a bit annoyed that he had done a little snooping, Issacson thought to himself as he made his way down the hall, but surely the kind of men who would dedicate their entire company to saving lives wouldn't hold it against him.
Gorsky looked around at the other men in the room. Several of them he knew by reputation, but only two by name.
One was Kevin Imalt. Emil knew that Imalt worked for Grandon, he knew most of Grandon's business associates, and he had read about some of Imalt's work in the past. Especially the thing in the jungle. Nasty business that, but Gorsky knew things like that didn't always go according to plan.
The other man Gorsky knew was named Thaba Fourie. Fourie was a freelancer. He'd been born in one of the poorest parts of the Republic, and had taken a job with a local militia as a young boy. He had shown a penchant for the work, and as a young man went into business for himself.
Fourie was known as a businessmen. He had a skill, and he was willing to sell it. He didn't embroil himself in ideas or movements. He charged a fee and cashed his checks. And he was very expensive, because he was very, very good.
Imalt was describing the plan again. They'd already gone over it several times, but it was important that each man knew his part. President Alexander was still supposed to be in the capital for an ambassador's banquet. Following the strike on the International Terror Summit, his administration still hadn't named a new Vice President, and he had been attending these sorts of functions as a public display of control. But with the deaths of most of the intelligence Directors, his security was jumpy, and after the riot earlier that day, and news of some kind of attack at a small town shopping mall, they'd moved him out of the capital. He would instead be attending a finance conference on the coast.
Imalt apparently had someone inside Alexander's security, or close to at least, because he had discovered that on the way back from that finance conference, Alexander was planning to make a stop at the prison facility where they were holding de Vitoria. That was where they were going to make their strike.
The plan was for their team to arrive at the facility posing as military personnel transporting prisoners. If Alexander's people were doing their jobs, this wouldn't hold up long, but it would be enough to get them inside the perimeter, past the three foot thick steel and concrete doors at the gate, which was all they needed.
After that, they would first make their way to the security office and initiate a total lockdown of the prison facility, preventing Alexander's people from evacuating him. At the same time, they'd disable the security cameras, and unlock the prisoner's cells. Then they would head down to the high security wing where de Vitoria would be held. That's where they'd find the President.
They'd kill him, eliminate whoever was with him, and make their way out of the facility, eliminating any security forces they encountered along the way.
The goal was to give the impression that this was another El-Hesab hit. After their two spectacular attacks and what was beginning to look might have been a third earlier that day, the public would believe it, no matter what the government tried to tell them to the contrary.
Gorsky was pleased to see the team Imalt had assembled. It was nice to know that Grandon was willing to pay for quality. If Imalt, Fourie, and himself were any indication of the level of professionalism Emil could expect from this team, he knew he would be working with some of the best.
Which would only make it that much more of a personal challenge when he had to clean the operation after Alexander was dead.
When he first woke, all was darkness. His world was devoid of form, and all he knew was thirst.
After a few moments, he pushed his tongue out and gently probed his lips. The salty taste of his own blood told him before the stinging sensation made its way through his fog dimmed mind that they had not treated him kindly. He ran his tongue against his teeth to make sure they were all there, and allowed himself a small smile when he found none missing.
He realized he was seated with his arms bound behind his back. He tensed his shoulders slightly, to test the strength of the binding, and was rewarded with another burst of pain. His right shoulder must have been dislocated sometime while they were transporting him. He also discovered that he was shackled to the chair he was sitting on. He tried moving his feet and found that they were similarly restrained.
As he sat there, he realized that he was not entirely in darkness as he had originally thought. A small sliver of light was coming in from somewhere behind him. As his eyes adjusted to the darkness, he began to take stock of his surroundings.
The room was large, but spartan. The walls disappeared into darkness where the light could not reach. He twisted his head as far as he could to either side. He could see that the light was coming in from under a door, and that there was a small table set just inside it. Other than that, he could make out nothing.
He shifted again in the chair, his muscles slowly coming to life as the fog lifted from his mind. He could remember little of his journey. A hood had been placed over his head, and he had been roughly thrown into some kind of vehicle. The men who had taken him had not spoken during the trip. After a while, the darkness and the silence faded into a numb sameness. He had no idea how long it had been, or where they had taken him, but eventually the vehicle had stopped, and he'd been roughly lifted to his feet by his arms and half carried, half dragged, into a building.
They must have sedated him then, because he had no memory of being transported to where he was now, or shackled to the chair. As he continued to stir, he began to feel the burn and ache of small cuts and bruises which covered his chest and arms.
He didn't know where he was, or who had taken him, but he could guess. What he was unsure of was exactly why. What did they have in store for him? Why was he still alive?
At first, he expected someone to come, to check on him. Surely they were watching and would know that he had awoken. But as the minutes dragged slowly on in that dark room, he resigned himself to the idea that no one was coming.
He had thought many times that it might end like this. In a place like this. He considered briefly yelling for water, for help, for anything. But he would not give them the pleasure of seeing him squirm. He knew that eventually his thirst would betray him, but he was far from that moment. For now, he would wait, and see who's patience was greater. His, or his anonymous captors.
In the meantime, he thought about his friends. He shied away from the painful memories of their deaths, and started instead with happier times. He tried to focus on the memory of a smile or a laugh, to lose himself in every nuance of some meaningless bit of frivolity. So much of their time together had been bent towards their greater end, but there had been many happy moments. For a time, he lost himself in their remembrance.
They deserved that of him.
Only after he had allowed himself to fill himself with the vibrancy of their lives, did he allow his mind to wind its way to the moment of their deaths. He saw once more the looks on their faces in the final moments before the wall had exploded inward and everything had rushed towards its inevitable conclusion. He allowed himself to see the bullets rip into his friends and take their most precious gifts from them. He felt their deaths as he felt the deaths of his family all those years ago.
He would not let his captors dictate to him the process of mourning, and he allowed tears to roll silently down his cheeks and fall, landing on the sterile tile floor at his feet. Not for the first time, he wished he could have lived as other men and never taken up his cause. If only to have avoided the suffering it had brought to those close to him.
He had no idea how long they meant to leave him waiting. Already, he could sense his thirst distracting him from his thoughts.
Thirst was a funny thing. As it grew in a man it began to consume him. For most people, this was never a concern. But a man deprived of water, even for a few hours, would begin to find his mind returning to the idea with increasing fervor. As time passed, he would find himself thinking absentmindedly about this or that, only to find he was once again on the subject of water. Over time, a man in such a state would become senseless, endlessly repeating in his head the one thought which would shout itself louder and louder until no other could be heard. Water. Without it, a man could go mad rather quickly. And he would do anything to have it again.
It was the easiest way to break a man. He knew that governments had experimented with torture for all of human history. Even the Yankees had recently renewed their interest in the field, when they didn't simply outsource the work to someone more experienced. But of all the horrific tortures man had conceived, none were more effective at breaking a man than driving him to thirst, and then promising him water.
Men could learn to ignore pain. Some could even learn to embrace it. But no man could learn to truly overcome his thirst. Eventually, it would always undo him. And in that moment, a man would accept any torture, or tell any secret, in return for one cool drop of water.
He knew that eventually he would break, just as all men broke. The only thought which gave him comfort was that he had no secrets to tell. They had already murdered his friends. If they could find him there, they could find anyone else he had ever collaborated with. It was not as though he had ever really made any mystery of his identity or his work, at least not until they had named him enemy one.
They must know he had nothing of value to tell them. He was no real terrorist or criminal mastermind. He was a writer. He was a philosopher. They called him teacher.
So why were they keeping him alive? Surely not for information. Perhaps they intended something public for him. Something to distract the peasants. A violent death, to the roaring of the crowds.
Xavier de Vitoria sat quietly in the darkened cell where they had left him and pondered his future. It would be some time before anyone would come to see him. He would sit, and wait. At times, he would fall into a light sleep, never deep or comfortable enough to truly rest. And he would always awaken again into the world of darkness and pain. And thirst.
And when the lights did suddenly explode to life, filling the room with a soft white glow and revealing the rest of the room, a large window along one wall and another door opposite where he sat, when he heard the door behind him open and someone did finally come for him, he stretched his cracked and broken lips into a smile. Even the wetness of the blood which ignited his tongue with desire was not enough to drive the thoughts from his mind then.
His captor gazed upon him with a look of arrogance, which only barely concealed the disgust and curiosity which rolled beneath the surface. De Vitoria looked back at him with a combination of understanding and pity.
Chapter Sixteen
Waking Up
Gorsky always found this the hardest part of this sort of thing. It wasn't the planning, he found that to be a kind of mental challenge which invigorated the mind. And it wasn't the actual work, he had been doing this for many years. The work came naturally to him.
It was the drive over. It always was. Once the planning was done, and the waiting had ended, he always found the drive over to be the most difficult. Nothing more could be done, no plans adapted or changed. Assuming everything went smoothly, all there was to do was drive to the destination, and then get to work.
Of course, sometimes it was a flight, or a boat ride, but for Gorsky it was always the same. The time between planning and working was just, waiting. Waiting for the plane to land, or the boat to dock, or the car to arrive at its destination. With nothing to do but wait.
He didn't let it affect his preparation of course. He was a consummate professional. And he noticed the other men in the military transport vehicle were similarly engrossed in their final routines. Checking blades strapped to thighs. Clearing weapons to check for any last signs of malfunction. Engaging in some odd personal good luck ritual.
Gorsky had been doing this for a long time. He knew how much a role luck could play in a thing like this. A professional did everything he could to minimize the effect of luck in his enemies favor, and maximize it in his own, but it could always happen. There was always the possibility that something no one had ever considered would occur, and completely change the outcome of even the best laid plan.
Gorsky felt confident that such would not be the case that day. They had kept eyes on the prison since shortly after de Vitoria's arrival, and Imalt's connection within Alexander's security detail had repeatedly assured them that all was according to schedule. Following the riots in the capital, some of the prisoners had been delivered to the military installation for holding, but the soldiers who had taken their transfer from the Special Weapons and Tactics teams operating within the capital had already departed the compound. Alexander's detail wanted as few redundant personnel on sight as possible for his arrival, to mitigate the possibility of informational “drift.” The prison would be operating on a skeleton crew when Gorsky, Imalt, Fourie and the rest of the team arrived.
The most important part was going to happen first. They had to get through that gate and into the prison compound. Once that happened, the rest would be fairly simple.
But first there was the drive, and as they bounced down the long desert road, Gorsky turned to one of the viewing ports which ran along both sides of the vehicle. Outside there wasn't anything more interesting to see than inside. Rocks, dirt, very little vegetation. Up in the sky he could see a hawk circling overhead, searching the barren terrain for a meal he might have missed.
Gorsky watched the hawk for a moment, before silently wishing it good hunting and turning back to the interior of the vehicle, to take his place amongst other hunters. He leaned back and closed his eyes, imagining the events which were soon to unfold.
He knew how this story would end already. It was simply a matter of making sure it was properly told.
Issacson walked up to the door leading into the Board room. On the way over from his laboratory, he'd continued thinking about the vessel, the Devastation, and what it could mean.
But something had begun to bother him.
It was paradox. Time travel had always been a problem for even the greatest minds, because it led to so many unanswerable questions. Issacson knew that one of the reasons he had been chosen to head the Temporal Logistics division was because he had shown an unusually high ability to understand and accept contradictory states and apply his understanding to solving problems. He had a mind for paradox.
And with the successes his team was showing, it was a good thing, because they were in a mine field now. But what was bothering him was the idea that the Board had tried to change history. He was sure that had been their intention, he couldn't fathom any other reason they would send the vessel to the exact place and time of such a horrible event, but it didn't make sense.
It had been generally accepted, at least in theory, that even if chrononautics could be achieved, history would either exist as an immutable constant, or as a perpetually diverging doorway to alternate realities. In short, history simply could not be changed. It had already happened. The theories said that either it would remain immutable, resulting in what was called a “perpetual universe,” or the change would result in the spontaneous creation of a completely alternate reality, parallel and identical to the current reality but one in which the change took place, and all effects of that change were experienced.
The problem with the “dual track timeline” theory, is that each of the two universes would be completely unaware of the existence of the other, and travel, or even communication, between the two would be impossible. Even those people who were responsible for the change itself would exist in two separate universes. One where everything changed, and they went about their new futures, and one where nothing happened and the future seemed unchanged. From the point of view of the observer, there would be absolutely no way to know which universe he was in.
Surely, the men who had chosen him to head this division understood at least that much. They had to know that the best they could hope for was the spontaneous generation of a completely imperceptible reality where the Devastation had played out differently. Perhaps that had been their intention, but they had to know that even if it worked, there'd be no way to verify the results.
At best, it was a shot in the dark of making a change no one would ever even perceive. Issacson tended to think that not even that was possible, and that time was completely immutable in both directions. He believed in a causal universe, one in which every moment in time, big or small, was absolutely determined at the moment of creation and that the illusion of free will and the ability to change the future was simply an artifact of first person perspective.
Either way, these problems began to nag at him, like an itch he couldn't reach, as he made the walk through the halls towards the Board room. When he left his lab, there had been a noticeable spring in his step, and he'd been whistling to himself. But as he neared the boardroom, his pace had slowed, and his whistling had trailed off as he'd fallen deeper into thought.
Wooden doors were an anachronism in this building, but these doors had been a part of PVP for centuries. They had come with the company when it had moved its headquarters to the new facility.
He stood before the great wooden doors stained dark with time that lead to the boardroom, and looked up at the elegant scrollwork stating the long heralded motto of Publius Valerius Publicola
“Changing History for the Good of Mankind.”
Beneath those words were four more words in the ancient language of the scholars.
“Nostrum causa est iustus.”
Our cause is just.
As he raised his hand towards the handle of the doors to enter, he stopped. Not quite knowing why he was doing it, or what he expected to happen inside the Board room, his hand drifted to his badge instead.
The first thing he felt when he woke in the cell was pain.
Thomas reached up to his chest to feel the bruises underneath his shirt. He was a mass of swollen and dark tissue where the rubber ball had hit him in the chest during the riot. It was supposed to be humane, but the pain was incredible.
As he lifted his hand up, he felt the shackles linking his two wrists again. He looked down at Jennifer, who was still asleep with her head in his lap, and wondered again what would happen to them both.
They'd been taken somewhere, but Thomas didn't know where. After he and Jennifer had been arrested at the riot, they'd been placed unceremoniously in the back of a black van. One of the riot police had placed black hoods over their heads, and they'd driven for hours. Thomas couldn't see what was happening inside the van, but he heard a voice which he could only assume was another civilian such as himself start to yell at the men driving the vehicle.
“You can't do this to us! We're citizens! We have rights! I want my phone call! I want my lawyer!” Thomas had felt his weight shift as the van had slowed to a stop. Then he heard a door open and shut near the front of the van, and a few seconds later, a door open at the back of the van.
He felt the van shift heavily as a man climbed into the back of the van, and could hear the heavy footsteps of his boots as he moved towards the man who was yelling louder and louder about “his rights.” Suddenly, Thomas heard the muffled sound of something rythmically striking a soft heavy object. It was a sound he'd heard in the gym when someone would be working out on the heavy bag. After the first blow, the yelling stopped, but the blows continued for a few more seconds while everyone else in the van sat still and quiet, to terrified to react to what they knew was happening.
Thomas heard a thud and the clanking of shackles like those around his wrists hitting the floor of the van, and heard the footsteps retreating. He felt the vehicle shift again as someone climbed out of the back. He jumped when the door slammed shut, and knew he couldn't be the only one.
A few seconds later they were on their way again, but this time they traveled in silence. No one else thought about decrying the inhumane treatment of their rights.
After what seemed like an eternity in pain filled silence, his mind shrieking at him the entire time with imagined horrors of what Jennifer would be subjected to because of his actions, they arrived at their destination.
When they came to him and roughly lifted Thomas to his feet, he didn't try to resist. He could tell that they were somewhere hot and dry by the feel of the air when he stepped awkwardly out of the back of the van, his hands still shackled behind his back and his eyes still veiled. He could hear men discussing him and his fellow travelers like nothing more than cargo as they were delivered by one group of men and received by another.
Once inside wherever they had taken him, the hood was removed from his head and his shackles were taken off. He was informed that a man had a rifle pointed at him at all times, and that any movement which was not specifically commanded would be seen as an attempt to escape and he would be shot. Thomas stood as still as he could, afraid that these men would interpret even the slightest shake of his legs however they wanted, and waited as he was shackled again, this time in front, and led to a long row of cells, where he was placed and left without any word as to why he was there, or how long he would be held.
He was too afraid to call out for Jennifer, not knowing where she was or what these men would do with him or her if he said anything, but he didn't have to wait long. Soon, another prisoner was brought to the same cell, and then another. The next time the guards returned in front of the cell he was in, they had Jennifer between them.
They signaled for the doors to the cell to be opened, and then shoved her in roughly before turning and walking back out of sight. Thomas realized that to these men, civilian protestors must not be much of a threat. So far beneath their notice that they were little more than inventory.
Thomas stood up from the cold floor of the empty featureless room and moved as quickly as he could to Jennifer's side. His bruised ribs and legs tired from hours of sitting in that van, coupled with the mental and physical fatigue brought on by the fear he'd been fighting, made his movements slow and uncoordinated. He reached for her with shackled hands, and to his relief she reached back and fell against his chest.
Thomas rested his head on her shoulder and held her hands tightly. His work clothes were ripped and torn from where he'd been shot and flung to the ground, and the blouse and slacks she'd been wearing when she arrived at the capitol earlier that day were streaked with dirt and grass stains. He begged her forgiveness for what had happened, and his soft whispers stretched into a mantra which they both clung to for sanity.
After some minutes, Jennifer looked up into his eyes. “Where are we Tommy? Where have they taken us?”
Thomas thought about the question for a moment before answering. “We were arrested in the nation's capitol by riot police. Those are special tactics officers with paramilitary training. Based on the drive, and the way they treated that guy in the van, I think it's clear that we aren't in the local lock up. I'm guessing this is some kind of prison facility.”
Jennifer shook her head. “Prison facility? What for? We didn't do anything?”
Thomas held her hands in his. “I know babe, but right now, we're in deep trouble. Maybe this will all get sorted out. I don't know. Maybe they are trying to determine who was involved in the violence at the protest. But for now, we need to be careful. This is a bad place to be, and it can get a lot worse real fast.”
Thomas could tell that Jennifer was having trouble understanding any of this. It didn't make sense in her world that two law abiding citizens could be beaten, blindfolded, and driven to a secret prison simply for attending a political protest. Especially when she didn't even support the cause the protestors were gathered for.
He needed to keep her calm if they were going to get out of this situation. If they even could. Thomas took her hands and led her over to the corner of the room where he had been sitting. They slowly settled into the floor and Jennifer rested her head in Thomas' lap.
He slowly stroked her cheek with his shackled hands and tried to think of something to take her mind off their surroundings. “Do you remember how we met Jenny? You were working at that veterinarian's office when I came in with my dog. She'd been sick and I didn't know what to do. Do you remember how shy I was when I asked you out for our first date? You were so beautiful.” Tommy continued droning on until he felt her muscles relax and fatigue settle over her.
He continued quietly reminiscing about the beginning of their relationship for another half hour, until he too succumbed to the darkness and, at least for a while, found relief from his pain.
Xavier De Vitoria's pain had disappeared the moment that he'd looked up into the face of his captor and seen President James Alexander looking back down at him.
He'd actually laughed. He hadn't meant to, but it had somehow struck him as funny. His lips had cracked open and begun to sting as he stretched them into a smile, but the pain didn't bother him anymore. Neither did the thirst.
As the sound of his single barking laugh faded from the room, he found the voice to greet the man who stood before him. “Hello President. It's an honor. I'd shake your hand, but well, you can see my predicament.” Xavier nodded his head to gesture towards where his hands were shackled behind him.
James Alexander stood there for a moment taking the measure of the man who sat before him. He had been roughly treated, and made to wait alone in the dark with no food or water. And yet somehow the man seemed full, not broken as James had expected, but more than a match for the situation. As though he really was only inconvenienced at the moment, and not a prisoner in the bowels of a secret government prison facing the most powerful man in the world.
James stood quietly for a moment before addressing him. “Xavier de Vitoria. You've been quite a problem for us. First the Devastation, then those videos you kept publishing. You endangered the lives of millions with your lies. Maybe more.”
Xavier looked up at him and raised his eyebrows. “My lies? You begin by accusing me of something you must know I had no hand in, and then speak of the danger of lies?” Xavier looked down and shook his head before returning his piercing gaze to the President. “My lies are not the ones endangering the world Mr. President. But I think you know that.”
James Alexander began to pace as he considered how to respond. He found it useful in situations like this to subtly draw attention to the differences between the man shackled to the chair and the man free to roam. It helped to reinforce the hierarchy of command. “Of course I know you weren't responsible for the Devastation. Not directly. But you are a problem. You and your ideas. Anarchy? You are a child playing with a gun. And the people out there will be the victims.” He stopped in his tracks and turned to face de Vitoria. “You had to be stopped. And I needed to give them a villian. You were useful.”
Xavier's voice was raspy as he responded back. “Your kind are always looking for the uses in men. You think my ideas dangerous? I encourage freedom and nonviolence. You command at the point of a gun.”
James smiled. “But all political power grows from the point of a gun. Surely a man of learning knows this. I am providing a service.” He strode towards the door of the room, gesturing grandly with his arm. “The people out there need men like me. They need to be shepherded and protected. They need someone to show them what to be afraid of, and then to make their fears disappear. They love me for it. And they hate you for trying to take that away from them.”
“Not all of them. Perhaps you should check the number of downloads on my recent videos.” Xavier smiled as Alexander turned back to face him.
James returned his smile. “Yes. Your videos. We are checking the number of downloads, also the users and their home addresses. Your videos have been helpful in determining exactly who else might be a threat to peace and stability.”
Xavier shook his head again. “You don't understand do you? You are the threat to peace and stability. You and your ideas. Statism is death. It can not grow and it will not last. The people you fear resemble so much more than you realize. And everything you do to repress them will only increase the number of people who see you for what you are.”
James made a show of considering the man's words. “Perhaps. But that is not really important. Man is not evolved enough to live free of subjugation. Without the shepherd to lead them, they would turn on each other like the wolves they so fear. I keep them safe. I keep them safe from themselves.”
With that, Alexander moved past de Vitoria towards the exit. He paused at the doorway before leaving and turned his head slightly to address Xavier one last time over his shoulder. “Your time is over. You will wait here, until I find it most advantageous, and then I will have you dragged before a screaming throng and put to death. And they will cheer me for it.”
Xavier didn't stretch his neck to address his captor. He simply looked down at the floor and smiled. In a quiet voice he responded.
“I need to thank you for all the publicity. Naming me enemy one did more to further the cause of statelessness than all the work I'd accomplished in all my years before. You will be remembered as anarchy's greatest champion.”
As James stepped out of the room he flipped the lights back off, returning de Vitoria to his world of darkness once more.
“Doctor Issacson! What a pleasant surprise. Do you have news of the vessel? Something which could not wait?”
Issacson could tell that the man who sat at Red was not nearly so happy to see him as he was pretending, but before he could reply his patriarch spoke up from the honored seat.
“William. It is good to see you son. We were just wrapping up our agenda, but the Board would be happy to make time for you.”
Issacson turned towards the man who sat at Black and opened his mouth to speak. He hesitated, not sure how to begin, and then decided to simply speak his concerns. These were men of science after all. “I know that the vessel was sent back to the place and time of a historical event known as the Devastation. I know what you were attempting to do. That's why I've come. It won't work.”
The five men who made up the Board at PVP looked at each other with concern. After a moment, Black spoke up again. This time his voice was softer and more guarded. “What exactly are you referring to son? What do you mean when you say what we were attempting to do?”
Issacson was taken aback. Did they think he'd misunderstood? “You sent the vessel back to the Devastation. I know you wanted to prevent it, but it won't work. It can't. Surely you must know this.”
The men of the board visibly relaxed, and Issacson saw the lips of one or two curl up into a half smile. The scene was making less and less sense. Black spoke up again, but this time his voice was stronger. “Yes. We were trying to prevent the Devastation. We, didn't want anyone to know about it, in case it didn't work. Tampering with history is a serious matter, even when done for the right reasons.”
Issacson shook his head. “But that's what I'm trying to tell you. It won't work. History has already happened. It can't be changed. Not in any way that can be perceived or appreciated.”
Issacson continued on, describing to them the “grandfather paradox” and the question of ontology, but more and more, he realized that something was wrong. He'd missed something. A corner of his mind was screaming at him, but he was too confused to understand. Slowly his words drifted to a halt as he noticed that every member of the Board was staring at Black.
Then Red suddenly spoke up. “Dammit Clisen. Your prize has jeopardized the whole thing.” Black turned towards Red and began to object, but Red continued unabated. “This will cost you Clisen. And what are we going to do about him?” With that, he turned to face Issacson.
“You think we were trying to prevent it. Let me ask you a question son.” Red reached under his jacket and pulled out a small steel object. He passed it across the table to Issacson, who reached out instinctively for the object and took it into his hands. “Do you know what this is?”
Issacson looked down at the object in his hands. He did know what it was, but he'd never held one before. He treated it cautiously as though it might turn in his grasp and bite him. He looked up at Red. “This is a gun. It's a projectile weapon which uses chemical explosives to propel small specifically designed pieces of metal at high velocities. Why is this here sir? What does it have to do with the vessel?”
Issacson could see that the men of the Board were getting tense again. But not Red, who was simply returning his stare, or Black who was glaring daggers at Red from the side.
Red replied. “It's here because it's an important part of the history of PVP Doctor Issacson. It's here because it signifies everything we've worked to achieve. And it has everything to do with the vessel, and with the Devastation.”
“Surely you remember our motto don't you Doctor Issacson? Improving History for the Good of Mankind. Publius Valerius Publicola takes that motto very seriously. The men who make up this Board have staked everything they've ever accomplished on it. But not just these men.”
“Every Board member for over six hundred years has been determined to accomplish one goal. And that goal has been shared, and passed down from Board to Board. Do you know what it's like to be a part of a journey of six hundred years Doctor Issacson. Well, perhaps you do. You have helped us achieve it. I am going to tell you a secret that no more than five men have ever shared at once in all of the history of PVP. I'm going to tell you why you are here, and what exactly we are up to.”
With that, the man who sat at Green stood halfway out of his chair and shouted for Red to stop, but Red simply raised his hand and Green returned to his chair. The man who stood at Black could have stopped him, but instead he just watched, consumed with hatred and anger for what Red was doing.
Red continued. “Do you know what the significance of six hundred years is Doctor Issacson? What historical even happened just more than six hundred years ago?”
Issacson thought for a second before answering softly. “The Great Emancipation.”
“The Fall.” Red corrected him. “That is what the Board of PVP call it. The Fall of the great nation states. The Fall of statism. The Fall of the Oligarchy and the rise of man. PVP was a great power before the Fall. We held the strings which made the puppets dance. And when the Fall came, we fell. Farther than any history will ever know.”
“And the men who made up the Board at that time refused to accept it. They were more than men, and they would not sit idly and subsume themselves to fate. So they decided to begin a journey. One which you have helped us to complete.”
“The men of that Board, and every Board which has followed, have devoted every asset, every advance, to developing effective Time Travel technology. But not for the reason you thought when you entered this room moments ago.”
“We seek not to prevent destruction. We seek to sow it.”
“We will create a thousand Devastations, until the people who turned away from their governments and their leaders cry out to them for salvation. We will drive the people back crawling on their hands and knees begging for the protection of nation states. The puppets will dance again, and PVP will call the tune.”
Issacson was numb with the horror of what he was hearing. Red reached out to him for the gun, and Issacson handed it back to him without thinking, reeling from the complete destruction of his reality.
Red took the gun back into his hands and calmly ejected the magazine. He checked it, reloaded the weapon and jacked a round into the chamber. “Thanks to you, we now have the power to change everything. And we can't allow you to jeopardize that.”
And with that, he turned the gun towards Black and squeezed the trigger.
The sudden explosion caused the other Board members to jump with surprise, one falling out of his chair and landing solidly on the floor. They looked at Red with shock clear on their faces and Black fell over backwards to the floor, dead from the bullet which pulverized his skull and brain long before his head smacked into the dark carpeting.
Issacson was frozen with terror as he witnessed the murder of both his joy and his benefactor. Red looked at him calmly as the other members of the Board regained their senses and began to shout at him.
Without responding to their cries, he slowly brought his arm around until the pistol was pointed squarely at the Doctor.
Issacson looked down the barrel of the first pistol he had ever seen fired in his life. A small tendril of smoke rose lazily from the end of it. A part of him watched detached as the smoke seemed to dissipate slowly only inches above the fixed sights on the end of the barrel. Issacson looked over those sights and into the eyes of the man who had just killed his patriarch. A man he had respected and admired, until only moments ago when he had discovered that the very same man was a mass murderer.
And with that thought, Issacson turned and ran.
Chapter Seventeen
Inside the Walls
He couldn't have the man's followers starting riots in the seat of power. They had threatened a member of his administration. It couldn't be allowed.
Of course, the capital police had managed to suppress the rioters, and the press was reporting that some “isolated malcontents” had been involved in “acts of anti-patriotic violence.” But that wasn't enough.
He needed to suppress their behavior. He needed to take away the their hope. It wasn't right, that they should have hope in any man but him.
Perhaps de Vitoria would perform his final service to mankind sooner rather than later.
James Alexander stood up from the desk he'd been sitting at and grabbed his coat off the back of the chair. As he slung it around his shoulders and shrugged his arms into the sleeves he headed towards the door of the office, his security detail falling into step behind him.
He headed out into the greater office area which housed the lower level administrators. Two more of Alexander's security detail joined him as he crossed the room, calling out to the prison warden who had temporarily moved his desk out there while his boss was visiting. “Warden Haimes. I'm going back to see the prisoner again. I'm going to need you to bring some of your men to prepare him for transport.”
Warden Haimes voted for him, but he would be glad when President Alexander had gone, he had his office back, and he no longer had to cater to every one of the man's whims. But that time was not yet there, and he hadn't become warden because he didn't understand politics.
“Certainly sir. I'll have a transport team in his cell in under five minutes.” Haimes picked up the phone on the desk he'd been using and began making the necessary calls.
Alexander was already sweeping out of the room and heading down the hall towards the elevator which would lead him down to the high security wing when the Warden first heard the phone ringing on the other end. He had already put Haimes out of his mind and was thinking about exactly how he would deliver the news to de Vitoria.
Alexander smiled as he hit the button on the elevator and waited for the doors to open.
In the guard shack, the phone began to ring just as the van pulled up to the gate.
One of the guards reached for the receiver and began listening to the Warden's instructions to prepare a vehicle for long term transport and have a team of at least two ready for travel, while the other guard went out and walked up to the window of the van to check the identification of the drivers.
Imalt slowly rolled down his window and began to tell the guard the story they'd carefully prepared earlier. All they had to do was get inside those gates.
But this was a secret government prison facility, and President Alexander was present. The guards would be professionals, unlike the warden, they were not political appointees. Imalt knew that they would be careful to check his story out, so they had carefully prepared for this step. It was the most important.
The gates were constructed from solid steel, over three feet thick and held closed by electromagnetic locks and heavy steel bars on the inside. Fourie sat in the back of the van with the others and waited patiently for those gates to open, knowing that once they did, the job would be all but complete.
The guard walked up to the window and began the same check he always performed. It wasn't unusual for military transports to arrive unannounced at his post, it had happened more and more in the recent days of the war on terror, but unless they had the proper clearance, he was instructed to turn them away. It had been made very clear to him by the warden that while the President was visiting, there were to be no lapses in security.
He looked into the vehicle from where he stood, making a cursory visual inspection of the interior. He could see two men in the front, both dressed in what appeared to be standard tactical dress. Behind them he could see the several more men sitting in the holding area. It looked like they had at least one prisoner. He turned his attention to the man in the front seat. “Sir. This is a secure military facility. I need you to shut off the vehicle. You currently have military snipers covering your position. Please keep your hands where they can be seen at all times. Make no movements until you are instructed, and follow my instructions at all times and without delay. Before I can clear you for entry I need your identification.”
Imalt reached over to the man sitting in the passenger seat who handed him a thin manilla folder. Inside it contained papers identifying the men inside the van as members of a top secret multi branch military team operating under the supervision of the Legislative Military Oversight Committee.
The papers were real, as was the seal of the Committee which they bore at the bottom. Grandon had drawn them up for Imalt more than once. But the information they contained about the men and their prisoner's was all false.
None of it seemed unusual. Due to the nature of the facility, the guard had seen orders like this more than once. Because of their highly sensitive nature, protocol required that he verify the seal, and the identification of the men who bore the orders, and record the order number itself. He was not however to record the names of the Legislators who signed the order, nor to make any record of who carried the orders or what the orders themselves contained.
He closed the folder and looked up at Imalt. “I'll have to take this for a moment. Do not turn on the vehicle. Do not exit the vehicle.” Without another word he turned back to the guard shack where his partner was just hanging up the phone. The men in the vehicle waited patiently for him to return.
When he entered the shack, his partner was reaching for the phone to make another call. He stopped and addressed the guard. “That was the fat man, Eagle wants an emergency transport of a high value prisoner. I'm about to call down to the depot and tell them to get a transport up here. Who's in the van?”
The guard handed the folder containing the orders over to his partner to peruse while took out another folder which contained the seals of office pertaining to the military and legislative branches capable of issuing such orders. After putting that on the desk and opening it up, he reached into the desk and removed a ledger book.
He would carefully compare the seal on the orders with the copy of the seal he had been issued to ensure its authenticity. Then he would record the order numbers in the ledger by hand. They didn't computerize the records for such orders due to the strict need for security. They couldn't afford those records falling into the wrong hands, and over time such low tech measures had proven the most secure. The computer techs hadn't devised encryption yet which couldn't be broken. Paper records were easily destroyed and far more difficult to reproduce than digital information.
His partner whistled as he looked over the orders. “Black ops. High value prisoners. Names redacted. Operations redacted. Measures redacted. This is real stuff. Those guys look scary?” He handed the folder containing the orders back.
The guard laughed as he began to compare the seal in his folder with the one on the orders. “They always look the same. It's like they pick these guys up at the emotionless cold blooded killer store. Normal. Boring. Professional. They weren't concerned that they had snipers pointed at them. It still freaks me out.” The seal checked out and he began to record the order numbers.
His partner unconsciously looked up at the guard towers out of habit. Everyone here had a rifle pointed at them at all times. He'd been posted here for over six months at this point, and it still made his neck tingle.
The guard finished recording the order numbers and closed the folder. He stood up from the desk and turned back towards the door to head back to the van. His partner picked up the phone and called down to the depot for a transport vehicle.
Gorsky sat calmly in the back of the vehicle. He looked over at their “prisoner.” One of Imalt's men, dressed in civilian clothing. He was unarmed and shackled in case the guards decided to check him or transport him inside themselves. In that case, their only hope was that he would be able to overpower the guards once the gate was open and allow the rest of them inside. To that end, Imalt had picked his best man in unarmed combat to pose as the prisoner.
But as he heard the crunch of the guards steps calmly approaching the front of the vehicle without any calls to exit the vehicle or open the back, Gorsky knew their plan had worked. Having a Legislator on their side had made things much easier, but Gorsky was always prepared for things to go sideways. Luckily, it seemed that this wouldn't be one of those times.
The guard walked up to the window and handed the folder containing the orders back to Imalt. “Sir, please start the vehicle. I will open the gates. When I signal, please drive through the gates, and then stop the vehicle at the red line in order that it may be searched. Do you understand these orders Sir?”
Imalt smiled. “Yes soldier. I do understand. On your signal.” The guard nodded his head and stepped back as Imalt turned the key and started the van.
The gates slowly swung open and Imalt began to slowly pull the van up to the red line painted on the ground in front of them, just as a prison transport vehicle pulled into the yard and two more guards climbed out.
The hard part was over.
The heavy wooden door of the boardroom crashed loudly against the wall and swung back clipping Issacson on the shoulder as he ran from the room, nearly knocking him to the floor. He stumbled a few steps and reached out with his right hand to brace himself against the wall, barely slowing as he managed to stay on his feet and kept running wordlessly down the hall.
Back in the boardroom, Red looked around at his fellow board members. He could see the terror on their faces. Not for the first time, he looked at the cringing dogs who made up the Board of PVP with disgust. Standing above them, he looked down at the men sitting in their chairs, and at Blue where he had fallen to the floor. “Get yourselves together.”
The shock of hearing him snap at them got their attention. Green looked up at Red without rising from his seat. “What have you done? You killed him! You killed Clisen!” Blue just sat there staring numbly at the body of the man who used to sit at Black. Green kept babbling on. “Why? What are we going to do now?”
Red ignored Green as he carefully bent down to recover the bullet casing which had fallen to the floor. Fools. These men had no right to the legacy of their ancestors.
Red stood back up and carefully placed the gun and the shell casing on the table in front of him. Without looking at them, he addressed the Board. “Doctor Issacson has killed his Patriarch. We need to alert the guards immediately.”
Yellow reached out and pressed a button on the table in front of him. After a moment he spoke quickly and carefully. “Security. Doctor William Issacson has just attacked one of the Board members. We need a medical team in the boardroom immediately. Doctor Issacson is to be detained immediately and remanded to high security detention. He is armed and dangerous.”
Green looked over at yellow with his mouth hanging open. “What are you doing? What have you done?”
Yellow calmly turned to look at Green. “We are committed to a course of action. I might not approve of what has taken place here, but I will not allow the work of this Board to go to waste.”
Red sneered at Yellow's cold demeanor. He saw that he was the only man here who truly believed. “The guards will have Issacson soon. In the meantime, you need to make sure you agree on what happened here.” He moved purposefully around the table and towards the door.
Blue finally spoke up when he realized Red was leaving. “Where are you going?”
Red stopped and turned back to the Board members. “I'm going to take command of the search for Issacson. Get yourselves together.”
He turned away from the circle of failure and marched out of the boardroom.
Alexander stepped back into the dark room with his four bodyguards and reached for the switch he knew was next to the door.
The light that suddenly filled the room illuminated the man who sat chained to a chair fifteen feet in front of him. Alexander de Vitoria looked up at him from where he was sitting. “Back again so soon Mr. President?”
Alexander was still smiling. He was not by nature a violent man, but he would enjoy seeing this man die. “Yes Mr. Vitoria. I decided you and I had more to discuss. You probably don't get much news in here, but some of your supporters made quite a ruckus in my capital earlier today.”
De Vitoria returned his smile. “They aren't my supporters Mr. President. They are simply free people, concerned with the direction of your administration. What kind of ruckus are you speaking of?”
“They attacked a member of my Cabinet. My Security Director. The riot police had to be called in. It wasn't pretty.”
Xavier stopped smiling and shook his head. “So your men incited a riot and then brutally suppressed it. And now you are here to speak to me. I don't suppose you want to discuss philosophy this time.”
Alexander walked over to stand directly in front of his prisoner. “No, this time I have something else planned. You incited those people, not me. Not my people. And I know what I need to do to get them back in line. Your time on this worldly stage is nearly over.”
Alexander turned to his bodyguards. The men the warden was sending to help them transport the prisoner would be entering the room any minute. Alexander opened his mouth to ask one of them to check out in the hall to see if they were there yet, now that he had a plan he was anxious to get moving.
But before he could say anything they heard a tremendous boom resonate from somewhere above them.
In the end, the guards suffered from a surfeit of confidence.
They relied too much on their procedures. Checking identification. Comparing embossed seals. They thought their big steel reinforced gate would keep the right people in and the wrong people out. And they thought the three snipers in their towers could take care of the rest.
Kevin shut off the engine as two guards approached the vehicle from either side carrying long poles with mirrors on the end so they could check the underside of the van. As the two men began to walk down the length of the vehicle, starting from the back, Fourie calmly took the shackles off of the man posing as a prisoner and passed him one of the rocket launchers they had stored under the bench.
Kevin and the man in the passenger's seat pulled their silenced pistols from their holsters and prepared for the men on either side to approach their windows. At the same time, the men in the back prepared to open the doors.
There were five of them, just enough. And when the two men carrying the mirrors stepped into view of the two men sitting in the front of the vehicle, they were promptly shot dead at close range, which was the signal the men in the back had been waiting for.
At the same moment that the snipers in their towers saw the two guards falling away from the van pouring blood from head wounds which had already decided their fate and swung their rifles towards the front of the van looking for targets, the men in the back of the van stepped out and each separately fired a shoulder launched rocket at one of the three sniper towers.
The resulting explosions were catastrophic.
Thomas woke up with a start when he heard the explosion. Jennifer was still laying with her head in his lap and looked up at him. “What was that Tommy?”
The other prisoner in the cell with them had been sitting in the corner of the cell by himself, but now he jumped to his feet and rushed to the cell door. He pressed his face up against the bars and tried to shout for the guards. “Hey! What's going on out there?”
Thomas looked down at Jennifer. “I don't know Jen. I think we need to be very careful.”
Jennifer sat up and moved next to him against the wall, putting her arms around his shoulders. “I'm scared Tommy. What's gonna happen?”
Thomas looked up in the direction the sound had come from, trying to imagine what was going on above them. “I don't know Jen. I don't know.”
Things were going well for the team Grandon had sent to the prison facility.
The sniper towers collapsed in fiery destruction, and before the guards at the gate or in the yard were able to react to the sudden chaos exploding around them, Gorsky, Fourie, and the man that had been posing as a prisoner were firing on them with automatic rifles. The guard who had checked their credentials and his partner were dead before they were able to raise the alarm.
Not that the rest of the prison wasn't aware that there was something going on by that point. But with their deaths, the gate to the facility stood wide open, and the team turned in towards the main entrance to the administration building with a calm determination.
Two more guards came running out of the doors with their weapons drawn as the team approached the building, and were promptly gunned down by fire from Imalt and Gorsky. Without breaking stride they stepped past the bodies of the men as they twitched for the final time on the desert sand.
These men were experienced professionals. The guards who made up the prison staff were mostly military men, but they were trained to control unarmed and shackled prisoners. Their primary defense against the hell that had descended upon them was the gate and the snipers, and they were no match for the cold precision of the violent men who walked inside their castle walls.
Following the architectural that Grandon had provided them they made their way towards the suite of offices where the surveillance and security stations would be. Occasionally they encountered guards in groups of two or three, or a single guard running up from a side hall and into their path. All were dealt with efficiently as the men moved inexorably towards the next step in their mission.
Upon entering the suite of rooms, they encountered the heaviest resistance so far. It seemed that several guards were holed up behind a makeshift barricade of desks. Gorsky could see a fat man sweating heavily shouting orders at them.
He was being ignored for the moment, and the guards clustered around him were in a terrible position. They must have known that stacking up wooden desks for protection against someone who brought the kind of firepower capable of the explosion they heard was a waste. If they had an intelligent commander, they would have been preparing for a counter offensive. The fat man must have ordered them to stay to protect him, and now they were in a death trap.
Fourie pulled a grenade from his belt and tossed it against the front of the barricade. The resulting explosion tossed the wooden desks aside like paper milk cartons, leaving the men who survived it open to the automatic rifle fire which followed in its wake. Within a matter of seconds the guards and the fat man were no longer a concern.
The man who had posed as a prison dragged a rolling office chair over to a security station and sat down. He began typing commands into the computer terminal while the other men set up a perimeter at the door and checked the rest of the office for any other guards.
He stopped typing and rose up from the chair. “The security footage has been erased and the cameras are off. I have also opened all the cell doors. I locked them out of their own system, they won't be able to take control back from any terminal hardwired into this site without a complete system wipe.”
Imalt looked down the hall that led into the large room they were in. “And the prisoner? You got the location of his cell?”
The man nodded his head as he checked the magazine in his rifle and then reloaded it. “He's in a sub-basement. There are two doors leading to his cell, one leads towards the stairway we'll be taking, the other towards more interrogation and holding cells. Either can be reached through a series of corridors.”
Imalt motioned for the other men in the room to join him as he prepared to move out of the office. “That's where the target will be. We'll take the door from the stairs. Let's go.”
With that the men moved quietly out into the hall and towards the stairs. Gorsky checked his watch.
It had been eleven minutes since they had watched the gates open in front of them.
Issacson ran blindly down the halls. From time to time he would turn a corner and see a security officer moving in his direction, and without thinking, he'd stop and sprint in a different direction.
He'd tried speaking with the first security officer he'd encountered. He had run down the hall and through the first door he'd seen, believing all the time that there was a man with a gun right behind him.
It was a laboratory. The familiar site of the terminals on the walls and the chemical control system in the center of the room told him instantly that he had was in Analytical Thermochemistry. Everyone must have been at lunch, because no one was there to wonder why this well known department head had suddenly burst into their lab with a look of terror on his face. Issacson ran across the empty room to an exit on the other side and yanked the door open diving out into the hall beyond.
Standing right there was one of the security force which patrolled the grounds. Thank god, Issacson thought, and he ran over to the security officer and opened his mouth to tell him what had happened.
The security officer turned around to look at the strange man who was sweating profusely and out of breath. He thought the man looked familiar, but he couldn't recognize him, but he assumed he was another of the doctors around here. The man was panting so hard he couldn't speak. “Calm down sir. What's the problem?” Probably something minor, most of the time the security force was putting out squabbles between rival departments.
Issacson was panting hard, his mad sprint out of the boardroom had winded him, and before he could say anything he heard a transmission come in over the security officers ear piece. “All officers all officers. Violent assault, Board level. Doctor William Issacson is suspected of attacking a Board member. Detain on sight. He is armed and dangerous.”
The security officer looked down at the strange man standing before him who's expression had turned from salvation to horror and suddenly remembered where he'd seen him. The officer had been present at some major event just recently, some kind of science experiment, but it had been top level secret and they had security in the room for extra precautions. This was the man who had commanded the experiment. And in that moment the security officer remembered his name was Doctor Issacson.
He reached for the small stun rifle he kept holstered at his side with one hand and raised his other hand up in a warding gesture. “Stop right there Doc. I need to take you in.”
Without waiting to find out what would happen, Issacson reached out with both hands and shoved the security officer into the wall behind him, causing him to stumble and fall, and then ran past him and down the hall.
Since then, he hadn't bothered stopping to try to talk to any security guards he saw, he just ran away from them. But he knew they'd be closing in on him. Everytime he turned down a hall and saw them moving towards him he knew he was running out of room. And instinct as much as habit drove him back to where he spent most of his days.
Which is how Issacson found himself running down the hall towards where he had done his best work for PVP with two security guards no more than twenty yards behind him. He could see the door of his laboratory right in front of him. He was sure that he just needed to get there. He'd be safe there.
He wasn't sure what he'd do next.
