Shift (ChronoShift Trilogy) (38 page)

“Are you crazy?”

“9:43 PM.”

Mark’s jaw trembled.  It could be a trick, but if it was, he could just return to this time and catch the guy again.  He reset his watch and shifted.

Smith was standing now, Mark’s shares in one hand, a lighter already flaming in the other, ready to ignite them at any second.

“Drop the lighter! Now!”

This time, Smith was seriously startled by the sudden appearance of an armed man screaming at him.  He dropped the lighter and it self-extinguished.  Smith recovered from the surprise and reached for his shifter.

“Oh no, you don’t!”  Mark leapt onto him, and in one swift motion they were wrestling for control of Smith’s arm.  The guy had more wiry strength than it appeared.  He kneed Mark in the groin, and during the momentary lapse in concentration the pain caused, Smith freed his wrist and shifted out of the vault to an unknown time.

Mark scooped up the discarded shares from the floor, happy that at least he’d just returned his life to normal with minimal effort.

Slowly, realization of the opportunity he’d just missed crept into his mind.

What an idiot.

He wanted to slap himself.  It didn’t matter if the shares had been burned.  Mark could have always scrounged up a little money to buy some more and redone that work.

The shares were nothing compared to stopping Smith.  He’d just had Smith in his sights, trapped, unarmed, and
without a shifter!

Somehow, the burning of the shares had caused Smith’s shifter to disappear from off his wrist.  By preventing their fiery destruction, Mark had inadvertently allowed Smith to keep his shifting capabilities and get away.  He should have let him rot in jail without a shifter and just bought more shares.  That would have ended it.  Now, he was back to square one in trying to find the guy.

He patted his back pocket and was relieved to feel his wallet had returned.  Ty was probably back at headquarters in Boston now.  At least everything was back to normal for the time being.

He was about to leave by shifting out of the vault when he noticed a scrap of paper on the floor.  Realizing it had likely fallen from Smith’s pocket, he picked it up.  Its scribblings were cryptic.  He needed to get back to the office and see what they could make of it.  It might be a worthwhile clue.

L-04-14-65  L.H.O.

K-11-22-63  J.W.B.

“Do you have
any
idea what it means?”

“Not a clue,” Ty answered.

They’d been studying the thing for hours with no breakthroughs.  The best guess so far was that it was some kind of technical specs for something.  Maybe for the shifters?  Was Infinite Interlock the name of the company that made the shifters?  Was Smith affiliated with them? Was he now trying to eliminate Mark because Mark was never supposed to have gotten a hold of a shifter in the first place?

“We need to take a break, get a fresh perspective,” Mark said.

Just then, Savannah came in with a couple of cups of steaming coffee.

“Savannah, your timing is impeccable, as always.  Some coffee would help a lot right now,” he paused, “Hey, would you take a look at this?  We can’t make heads or tails of it.”

Coming closer, she pulled a delicate pair of glasses from her pocket.

“Hey, I thought you’d gone to contacts.”

“Uh....yeah, but not today.”  She scrutinized the paper on the desk.  “Seems pretty straight forward to me.”

“What do you mean?”

“It’s the Lincoln and Kennedy assassinations, but the assassins are mixed up.”

“Huh?”

“The L-04-14-65.  That’s short for ‘Lincoln - April 14, 1865'.  But the initials following it are for Lee Harvey Oswald, Kennedy’s assassin.   The second line is ‘Kennedy - Nov. 22, 1963' followed by the initials of Lincoln’s killer, John Wilkes Booth.”

Dates!
  By now, Mark should be an expert at spotting dates in unusual formats, yet somehow he hadn’t seen it.

“You’re right.  There’s nothing else it could be.”

She beamed.

            “So what’s the Infinite Interlock mean?”

“Not sure.  Maybe it’s a reference to all the historical coincidences between Lincoln and Kennedy.”

“What coincidences?”

            “Well, some people have identified all kinds of ‘connections’ between the lives of Lincoln and Kennedy, especially with regard to their assassinations.  Some of the connections are kind of silly, like both of their names having seven letters.

“But there’s other things, like the fact Lincoln was first elected to the House of Representatives in 1846, Kennedy in 1946.  Lincoln was elected President in 1860, Kennedy in 1960.  Their parties’ conventions those years were both held in Chicago.

“They both had Vice-Presidents named Johnson.  Both were concerned about Civil Rights.  Both lost a child while in the White House.  Kennedy had an advisor named Lincoln who warned him not participate in the motorcade.  Lincoln supposedly had an advisor named Kennedy who warned him not to go to the theater, though there isn’t much evidence of that.  Both Presidents were shot in the head, on a Friday, in the presence of their wives.

“Both assassins were southerners and killed before going to trial.  Booth killed Lincoln at a theater and was caught in a warehouse.  Oswald killed Kennedy from a warehouse and was caught in front of a theater.  Oh, and both assassins also have fifteen letters in their names.”

Ty whistled.  “Whew.  Ask a question, get a mouthful.”

Savannah blushed.  “It’s kind of a fun trivia type thing among historians.”

“I think I remember reading something about that in middle school.  What do you think all those coincidences mean?”  Mark asked.

“I don’t know.  I’ve always just thought it was some funny quirk of history.  Never treated it very seriously myself.”

“Okay, thanks, Savannah.”

“You’re welcome.”  She dipped in a mock curtsy and left the office.

“Sure helps having an expert historian on the payroll, huh?”  Ty said.

“Yeah, especially in our business.”

“So....Smith dropped a scrap of paper containing cryptic info about two presidential assassinations.  What is he planning, and what do we do about it?”

“We split up.  One of us goes back to 1963, the other to 1865.  We take a look around and see if we see Smith anywhere nearby.”

“Sounds good.  Which year do you want?”

“I think I’d have an easier time than you right after the Civil War.  How about you take Kennedy, I’ll take Lincoln,” Mark offered.

“Done.”

***

November 22
^nd
, 1963, Dallas, TX

Investigating in Dallas in 1963 without arousing suspicion wasn’t exactly an easy thing to do with Ty’s skin color being what it was.  Still, if you played it right, it could actually work to your advantage.

There was no way he would get close to the President.  Security would be too tight.  If there was need for a more in depth investigation, he would come back with Mark and have him pose as a secret service agent.

When was Mark going to forgive Hardy anyway?
  The three of them had made a pretty good team until Hardy had messed around with Laura.  Ty had never liked the woman personally.  He’d seen right through her from the start.  He’d grown up with women like that.  They were only after one thing: money.

It was all moot anyway.  Hardy was with her now.  Both his friends were blind to what she was, and neither would listen to him.  Mark just needed to get over it for the sake of the company, for the sake of their friendship.

Ty decided the best way to begin would be to study the Kennedy motorcade as it passed by.  He would observe the crowd and see if he could spot Smith anywhere.

He had to admit, though, it was exciting to think he was about to witness such an historic event firsthand.  He’d only been nineteen when the assassination originally took place.  He could still vividly remember the black and white images that had played over and over on small television screens around the world.  Who could have imagined he would ever have the opportunity to rewind the years and see it up close like this?  He would likely see it a number of times before he was done.

The presidential motorcade was now turning the corner from Houston Street onto Elm, where it would soon pass in front of the Book Depository and the Grassy Knoll.  Ty’s main task was to find Smith, so he kept the motorcade in the corner of his eye as he scanned the crowd.

Abruptly, his visual search came to a halt as his eyes fastened on a figure standing in the doorway of the Book Depository.  The man wore an orangish-brownish shirt which was unbuttoned halfway, revealing a white T-shirt underneath.  His angular face looked
oddly
familiar.  In fact, the man looked just like Oswald.

The cracks of rifle shots shattered the afternoon.  Ty didn’t think to look around and see where they were coming from, he was so fascinated by the Oswald look-alike.  If that was Lee Harvey Oswald, then there was no way he had killed Kennedy.  What if he'd really been a patsy like he'd claimed?

“Hello, Ty.”

The voice was as unexpected as the gun in the man’s hand.  It wasn’t Smith.  Nor was it anyone else he knew, but somehow this man knew him.

Two other men grabbed Ty’s shoulders from behind and pinned his arms.  Where had they come from?

“Do
not
let him get either hand free, not even for a second.”  The gunman tossed some cable ties to the men.

“Cuff him.  Then, take him into that building and down to the basement.  Outside the utility entrance, there’s a vehicle waiting.  Give the driver this address.”  He reached around Ty to hand a slip of paper to one of the men.  Ty used the opportunity to try and head butt the guy.  If he could break free from the others’ grip for a just moment, he would be able to shift out of trouble.

However, the gunman sensed the move and deftly dodged it.  He reared back and slapped Ty across the face with the back of his hand.  As he swung, his jacket cuff pulled up on his arm, and Ty caught a brief glimpse of dull pewter on his wrist.  He had a shifter.

Ty felt a trickle of blood dribbling down his chin.  “Who are you?” he growled.

The man ignored him.  “You know what?  Why take any chances?”  He slammed the butt of his pistol down on the back of Ty’s neck and knocked him out cold.

He must have been out for hours.  The sun was much lower in the sky now — it was probably late afternoon.  Ty was sitting on the cold floor of an abandoned warehouse.  The plastic cable ties on his wrists were gone, replaced by a two pairs of metal handcuffs.  The other ends of each were cuffed to two separate iron rails embedded above his head in the concrete wall at his back.  The rails were about four feet apart, so there was no way for him to get either hand loose to shift.

“Well, there you are, Sleeping Beauty,” a slimy, sing-songy voice cooed.

It was the same man who’d knocked him out.  His thick hair was jet black, except for a single odd tuft of gray right above the brow.

Ty tried to respond with something coherent, but all he could manage was a low moan.

“Yeah, it’ll probably take you a minute to recover.  When you’re ready, I’d love to fill you in on what we’re going to do to you.”

“Who are you?” Ty croaked.

“You asked me that before.”

“I saw your shifter.”

The man raised a hand to cover his mouth in mock surprise.  “Oh no!  You saw my shifter.  How else do you think I would know who you are, idiot?”

Ty said no more.

“Ah, cat got your tongue now?  No worry.  It’ll be over soon.  You’re too late to save the President anyway, if you were concerned about that.

“Don’t hope for one of your friends to save you either.  They may be able to jump through time like temporal kangaroos, but they can’t save you if they don’t know where you are.

“Tomorrow’s newspapers are going to be filled with the tragic news of the assassination of John F. Kennedy, and no one will have time to worry about some black man showing up dead in an abandoned warehouse on the other side of town.  Just to be safe though, we’re going to make sure your body’s never found.