The Navigators (18 page)

I nodded. I had saved for many years, borrowed from everyone I knew, to amass $1500—enough to buy one ounce of gold. That would be roughly the equivalent of $45 in the 1900s, and that would be enough.

“You give me your gold, I put it with some of the cash from Jim and his friends, and I go back and buy a few shares of the Coca-Cola stock. I come back and we cash out in a private exchange. Everybody wins, Peeky. Think about it: you return to India as the conquering hero. I get to spend the rest of my life banging fashion models on South Beach in the back of my Porsche. Everybody’s happy.”

I glared at him. “Except my friends.”

He shrugged. “They were gonna lose anyway, right? Your plan didn’t include cutting them in on your nine million, did it? At least, that wasn’t in your notes – a curious oversight. You were planning on screwing them over anyway. Let me in as a partner. I can help.”

It was overwhelming, what he was suggesting.

“Besides, if you don’t take me as a partner… I’ll tell them anyway. Do you think they’ll trust you when they know about all this?”

He let the words hang on me like the death sentence they were.

“It’s over, Peeky.”

I dropped to the cot, the air going out of me. I had worked too long, spent too many years fixing bicycles for pennies and doing odd jobs, borrowing from everyone I knew, including members of my family who couldn’t afford to loan me anything. I couldn’t allow it all to go to waste.

It was crushing me just thinking about it. There were no other options. Not now.

I looked up at Findlay. “Will you wait until I can take at least one trip for myself?”

“Hell, yes! All I want is the machine,” he said. “I’ll make my cash run, then I give the machine to the school. They’re going to turn it over to the highest bidder and I’ll ride off into the sunset with a huge finder’s fee. You, too, maybe. The thing is worth billions to the electric companies and the oil consortiums, and I can cut you in for a piece. I should clear $2 million on the handover deal alone, plus consulting fees worth about $2 million a year over the next ten years. I’m sure I can get you a similar deal if you help me.”

He got up and went around to the chair, plopping down. A big smile stretched across his face as he crossed his feet on a corner of the desk and folded his hands in his lap. If he’d had a cigar, he’d have been smoking it.

“It’s everything you came here for, Peeky.”

Chapter Twenty-One

“T
his is for the swelling.”

Gina handed Barry a small bottle of pills. “Your ankle pain will only get worse if you move around a lot, so stay off it. Which I know you won’t.”

He balanced on his new crutches and shoved the pills into a pocket. “Thanks.”

“Hold them like this.” She repositioned his hands on the crutch handles. “Try to put more weight on your hands, and not let the top of the crutch rest in your armpits—you’ll get chafed in no time, and then you’ll start bleeding. You don’t want that. Armpits are tender. Sore ones are worse.”

Barry tried to rebalance as she’d instructed him. She shook her head. “Just do your best.” His attempt at movement was labored at best. Hopping, basically. She scrawled a few notes on her clipboard. “Do you know where you’re headed?”

“I’m . . . not sure.” He smiled. “But I probably shouldn’t tell you anyway.”

“No, that’s true.” She nodded, pointing at the lobby TV. Another update on the movement of the time machine crawled across the bottom of the screen, with images of the morning’s melee. “The police might figure out you were here and start asking me things. I’d hate to tell them the wrong information and send them off on a wild goose chase.”

Barry stopped trying to maneuver on the crutches and looked at her.

“I can only tell them what I know, or what I heard you say.” Gina lowered her voice. “Even if it’s not true. How would I know?”

“You’d help me? Why would you do that?”

She shrugged. “Dr. Harper’s not the only one you convinced back there.”

“You were listening at the door?”

“I wouldn’t have heard anything good if I had listened at the water cooler.”

He balanced again, finding his new center on the crutches. “Gina, you’re all right.”

“Look,” she said. “The news says they’re moving the machine to the Sun Dome, right? That’s right here on campus. But the prior update said they were thinking about taking it to the armory – that’s close to downtown.”

“So if I was, say, hitting on a pretty intern, she might get me to admit that I only knew about taking it to the armory.”

“She might.”

Barry grinned. “Would she lend me her cell phone, too?”

* * * * *

“Can I drop you somewhere?”

Officer Bolton had a squad car and a sudden burst of generosity. I can’t say I had the same for him—but it was a long walk to the pancake house.

I didn’t know where else to go.

It was where I told Melissa I’d meet her, before all my worst paranoid fantasies started coming true. Now, with all of Findlay’s accusations and wild theories, my head was humming. I couldn’t figure out if it was safe for me to go back to my apartment or not. The campus cops had already grabbed me, and now they were letting me go. Maybe somebody else was looking for me, too.

Bolton must have sensed my detachment.

“Come on, buddy, it’s not so bad. You’re gonna make a fortune. In a few days, none of that other stuff will matter. You’ll see.”

I sat alongside him as we drove to the pancake house, but I just stared out the window. “Have you never been shamed?”

“Sure. Everybody has. You know what they say, though. It’s not how many times you get knocked down, but how many times you get back up again.”

Folk wisdom. Not what I needed right now.

We pulled into the parking lot of the pancake house. Bolton glanced over at me. “You gonna be okay?”

“Are you worried about a suicide?” I opened the cruiser door. “We’re not on campus. It’s not your jurisdiction.” I got out and slammed the door.

Bolton bristled. “You could be a little nicer, you know.”

Funny, I was just thinking the same thing about you.

* * * * *

Melissa had already rolled past the pancake house once. Seeing none of her friends in the parking lot or visible through the large windows, she kept right on going. She circled back to the Sun Dome. Nobody knew the yellow truck as something she’d be driving. It was safe enough to do some reconnaissance.

But nothing seemed to be happening in that parking lot, either—not that she knew what she should be seeing. In fall or spring, there would be at least intramural sports going on inside; people coming or going from sorority volleyball or a pickup game of basketball, things like that. Not to mention actual NCAA basketball games during the season. In summer, however, if there wasn’t a concert in town, there wasn’t much happening at the big dome.

And that’s how it looked now: not much happening. Nothing, really.

Did I miss it, or am I early?

She tapped the steering wheel.

If they moved the time machine into the Sun Dome, there was still a chance to steal it back. The building might seem like a concrete fortress, but it was just a college basketball stadium. Once the machine left the campus for the armory or the air force base, it was unlikely they’d ever see it again. Campus cops were one thing; armed military personnel were another.

No, their best chance would be to steal it back, right from here, after it was moved and after everybody settled down and relaxed a little. When everybody might lower their defenses.

But when the hell would that be?

* * * * *

Barry made his way along Fowler Avenue, USF’s south border, with the use of his crutches. Even with the borrowed cell phone, he wasn’t getting through to anybody.

The number you have dialed is not in service at this time…

It was slow going, just as Gina had mentioned. Walking on one foot was awkward. The palms of his hands were already hurting, so he let the crutch slide up into his armpit, which made him chafe.

He paused to try Melissa’s cell phone again.

Nothing.

Why is everybody’s cell phone out today?

He huffed and puffed, half stepping, half hopping, along the hot sidewalk.

Or is it maybe that this borrowed cell phone can’t call them for some reason?

He dialed his parents’ home in Miami. After a few rings, it went to the answering machine.

So it works, but it can’t call Melissa or Peeky. What about my own phone?

The battery was dead, sure, but the service was still on, and he knew he’d paid his bill. He dialed, sweating in the sun as he waited for the call to connect.

Again, the tones.
“The number you have dialed…”

Then it hit him. Somebody had purposely shut off their cell phones.

It was almost a relief to discover.

But now what? I can’t call my ride.

He scanned the grassy areas of the empty campus.

If somebody cut off the phone, what else might they have shut down?

A bus stop bench under a nearby tree offered some relief from the sun and the painful crutches. He pulled out his wallet and dialed one of his credit card companies. Within a few minutes, he’d confirmed what was nagging at the back of his head all along. Somebody had accessed his accounts and shut them down on purpose.

The cops? Could somebody in the police force do this, to draw us out, maybe? Or at least make life difficult for us while we try to hide?

If so, it was working. They didn’t feel safe going back to their apartments. Without cell phones or credit cards, they couldn’t go too many other places. Most hotels chains were out. And since he didn’t see this coming, he didn’t pull any cash out of an ATM. Barry flipped through the bills in his wallet. About fifty bucks.

The paperwork at the hospital had been processed with no problems, so somebody could track his movements to there. Then to Dr. Harper and Gina. Then to, well, the south Tampa armory. He chuckled.

Or if they happen to drive by, they might spot me on this bus bench. Better get moving.

Barry didn’t know all of Melissa’s friends’ phone numbers, but he knew a few. He could look some up on the phone’s browser. Maybe if he spoke with them, they could somehow network a message to Melissa if she called one of them to check in. It was a long shot. Where might she go?

If I were Melissa, where would I go?

* * * * *

“Can I help you, sweetie?”

The waitress at the pancake house was a friendly, plump middle-aged woman. Such cheerfulness would usually be reciprocated by me. Today, I couldn’t.

“Do you need a little more time with the menu?”

I sighed. “Do you have anything that’s not pancakes? I don’t care for pancakes.”

“Then a pancake house makes an odd choice for you to eat at, doesn’t it? But we have hamburgers, great milkshakes. It’s pretty hot out and you look like you’ve had a bad day. Some folks have a shake with a Belgian waffle. How ‘bout that?”

It didn’t sound good. Nothing did.

“A glass of water, maybe?” I handed the menu back and put my cheek to the cold table top, wrapping my arms around my head and uttering a low groan.

“Oh, I see. Okay. Um, how about a shake? On the house. Chocolate. Sound okay?

Without lifting my head, I attempted to nod. “Can you put sprinkles on it?”

“Sure can, sweetie. Whipped cream, too. You just sit there and relax. We’ll get your hangover fixed right up.”

* * * * *

Why didn’t I eat something when I had the chance?

Barry continued his sweat-filled trek across the campus, leaving the hard surface of the sidewalk for the shaded grassy patches underneath USF’s many large oak trees. There was even an occasional water fountain along the jogging trail. The water was warm, but it was better than nothing.

Food, on the other hand, was nonexistent on this side of the campus.

Then he remembered. Melissa said she was picking Peeky up at the pancake house.

Even if the two of them had already caught up with each other, Melissa might realize it had been the only rendezvous place they had discussed. She specifically said she’d meet Peeky there. Since their phones had all stopped working, maybe they’d be watching for him.

So how do I make myself visible to my friend and not to my enemies?

Not by hiding under oak trees.

Back to fucking Fowler Avenue and the heat, chafed armpits and all.

* * * * *

There it is.

After about an hour of waiting in the Sun Dome parking lot, a small caravan of trucks drove up. Melissa hunched behind the wheel of the pickup truck as they rolled by. On the back of a flatbed sat the time machine, the big bronze egg that had been the source of so much trouble.

They delivered it using one of the university trucks, the way Barry and the rest of them had done a few days earlier. Right in the open for all to see.

Several maintenance workers got out of the first truck and opened a few large overhead doors, allowing the vehicles to enter the floor of the Sun Dome.

Within minutes of arriving, they had disappeared inside.

She sat back, imagining the workers unloading the machine and storing it somewhere in one of the locker rooms or storage areas. Before long, they re-emerged, shut the big door, and drove off.

As simple as that? Maybe I should have tried to sneak in while they had the door open.

From a side door, a figure emerged that she knew well: Dean Anderson. He was accompanied by a uniformed police officer, but from where she parked, Melissa couldn’t tell if he was a campus cop or City of Tampa police, or what.

More vehicles approached. She slid down in her seat.

Two campus cruisers sped by. They drove up to Dean Anderson and the other man. They hadn’t seemed to notice the yellow truck, but a stray vehicle on a large college campus wasn’t unusual. Runners parked in random spots to go for a run. Students played Frisbee on the large spans of grass. A little yellow pickup on the edge of the Sun Dome lot wasn’t cause for alarm.

Four officers went into the stadium. Dean Anderson and the other officer got into one of the squad cars and left.

This will be the security for the machine, at least until the military guys show up. Four guys. Campus cops.

The news report had said the Air Force brass at MacDill were organizing a transfer in the morning.

So our time machine will be spending the night right here. We have one night to get it back.

* * * * *

I was just finishing my second chocolate shake when the waitress returned again.

“Looks like you’re feeling better, sugar.”

I smiled. “I am.”

“Would you like a hamburger to go along with all that ice cream?” She glanced at her notepad. “Or are you gonna go for a third shake?”

“As tempting as a third shake sounds, I think I’ve reached my limit. Better call it quits before I explode.”

“Okay, hon.” She set the check down on the table.

“Can I sit here for a minute and… digest?”

“You bet. Flag me down if you need anything else.”

As she disappeared, the front doors banged open. A figure on crutches was attempting to enter—and doing a bad job. The crutches smacked into the door glass while he worked to keep his balance.