Time Patrol (Area 51 The Nightstalkers) (16 page)

What were the odds he’d hit a plane? Nada imagined Eagle could have given him those, but he immediately focused on directing his fall. Central Park was easy to pick out, the rectangle of green in the center of the island of Manhattan. So was Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis Reservoir. He knew the destination was to the south of that and on the east side.

He’d had a chance to check the imagery of the target, so he directed himself toward that side of the park. As he passed below ten thousand feet at terminal velocity, Nada spotted the bulk of the Metropolitan Museum, the only large building inside the perimeter of the park.

At five thousand feet, Nada pulled his ripcord and was rewarded with the opening shock. He grabbed the toggles and began steering toward the command post parked behind the museum. At four thousand feet he reversed his spiral down, because Protocol said to reverse direction.

Nada was a big believer in following Protocol.

As he passed through one thousand feet, something flickered to his left and he twisted his head, thinking perhaps it had been a flash of light off the tens of thousands of windows on the cliffs of stone and steel surrounding the oasis of green he was descending into.

But there was nothing of note there.

Nada reached up and flipped open the covers on his quick releases. He stuck his thumbs through the metal loops and began to apply pressure. Glancing down he saw police cars with lights flashing along with other emergency vehicles. Looked like a clusterfrak.

Nada pulled his thumbs out of the loops.

He focused on the ground just as a Black Hawk helicopter came racing up Fifth Avenue. Nada was above it and realized they didn’t see him. The irony almost made him laugh—deciding not to commit suicide and then getting sliced and diced by a chopper anyway.

The chopper banked and headed toward a VS-17 panel staked down in the grass in the only open spot directly behind the museum. Nada did a quick check. There was a huge open area with a bunch of ballfields to the west, but he instinctively knew he didn’t have the altitude to make it.

As the chopper landed, Nada jerked his toggles and flared, touching down in the road adjacent to the landing zone. The downblast from the helicopter’s blades caught his chute and it knocked him over, dragging him. Nada grabbed the cutaways and pulled them. The chute flew off down the road as Nada did the paratrooper’s moment of grace, lying perfectly still in contact with Mother Earth, thankful that all his pieces and parts were still attached.

“Nice entrance,” Scout said, slightly out of breath from running over.

Nada got to his knees and then stood. “You’re bigger.”

“I’m older.”

“That too,” Nada said. He was surprised at the strength of feelings that washed through him, and he repressed the desire to rush up to her and give her a hug. Fortunately for him, Scout had no such reservations. She wrapped her arms around him, longer than Zoey’s and thus fully embracing, even though Nada had on a combat vest loaded with the various tools of his deadly trade.

“Good to see you, old man,” Scout said.

“You too, young woman.”

Scout stepped back and looked at him in a curious way. “You all right?”

“I’m fine,” Nada lied, and as he did so, he knew she knew he was lying. And then he realized her curiosity was infused with concern.

“Why aren’t you in college?” Nada asked.

“I’m trying to decide what to do with my life,” Scout said. “Right now I’m thinking the Peace Corps.”

Nada gave a wan smile. “Right. How was the training?”

“Army training, sir,” Scout said in her best Bill Murray voice. “Come on.” She tugged at his hand, reminding him of an older Zoey, which reminded him of someone else, and he masked the pain of the fractured memory as best he could.

“Let’s move, people!” Moms was standing in the doorway of the CP. Nada glanced over and saw Roland’s unmistakable bulk coming from the chopper. Nada followed Scout, and the Nightstalkers were finally assembled. Except, of course, for the disappeared Ivar. And Mac and Kirk, who were rigging charges.

Scout noted that Foreman was checking his watch and making some notes in a small pad, which he slipped back into his breast pocket.

“Who’s that?” Nada asked, nodding toward the old man seated near the front.

“Good question,” Moms said. “Someone who wants to keep his information close to his chest. Named Foreman.”

“Where’s Ivar?” Nada asked.

“Gone,” Moms said.

“Gone?” Nada repeated. “Gone where?”

“We don’t know.”

The Keep spoke. “This is Mister Foreman,” she said. “He—” She paused. “What exactly is your job, Mister Foreman?”

“That’s a little hard to define,” Foreman said.

“Right,” Scout said.

“You could try,” Nada said.

“I could,” Foreman agreed, but didn’t say anything more.

“Are you in charge of the Patrol?” the Keep asked.

“I was instrumental in their”—he searched for a word and when he chose it, it seemed he wasn’t exactly happy with it—“formation. But I am not in charge of them.”

“When did they begin traveling?” Doc asked.

Foreman chuckled. “A rather naïve question, especially from someone with so many doctorates. You do understand the paradox involved in the question?”

“Everything has a start point,” Doc said.

“I suppose,” Foreman said in a way that indicated he didn’t suppose at all.

“You know who we are,” Moms said, not a question.

“I’ve read your files,” Foreman said. He reached inside his coat pocket and retrieved a manila folder matching the one the Keep had. “We all have our rules and orders and our information.”

The Keep made a belated, and apparently unnecessary, introduction. “Mister Foreman, these are the Nightstalkers. As you seem to know, they are a special team designed to deal with special problems.”

“Certainly,” Foreman said. “The best of the best and all that. I’m certain. You often deal with Rifts, correct?”

“We shut the last one down,” Moms said.

“
You
shut it down?” Foreman seemed amused. “I thought it was the other way around. And are you sure it’s the last? Willing to bet your life on it?”

Nada took Moms’s side, as he always did. “There hasn’t been another one since the
Zombie at the Dam
.”

“Yes,” Foreman said, “when the other side, whoever they are, sent back those from our world who opened Rifts and survived going through. Colonel Thorn, who you might consider one of the first Nightstalkers, took care of the Japanese and Nazi physicists who were, so to speak, spit back to us.”

“You say his name like he was someone you knew,” Moms said.

“I did know Thorn,” Foreman said. “He was a good man. A tough soldier. As evidenced by his last act.”

“What exactly are we dealing with here and now, Mister Foreman?” Moms asked.

“I don’t know what we’re dealing with. That’s why you’re here.” Foreman clasped his hands together to keep them from shaking. “We’re above the Time Patrol. The alarm would only be sounded and the outer door closed if one of two things happened. One. There was an uncontrolled reverse breach via the HUB. Someone or something from another time or timeline coming into our time. Or two. The HUB is no longer down there.” He looked at Scout. “In the former, then there might well be monsters down there. So to speak. At least things we would call monsters, which is what we tend to call that which we do not understand. Or in the latter case, there will be just nothing; no Patrol and no HUB. In that instance, we’ve got a bigger problem because we need the Patrol to protect our timeline.”

Doc was focused, as always, on the scientific angle. “So are you talking time travel
and
travel across to parallel timelines?”

“The Patrol only travels in our timeline,” Foreman said, evading the import of the question. “That’s what makes it different than going through Rifts.”

“Who do they guard us against?” Moms asked.

Foreman responded. “Against those who try to attack our past in order to change our present and our future.”

“And who exactly are these attackers?” Moms asked.

“People and things that open gates into our timeline,” Foreman said. “While we can travel back in our timeline, we do not yet have the controlled ability to travel across timelines like others do. Rifts were aberrations and, as you know, uncontrolled on our side.”

There was a short silence as everyone absorbed this.

“So,” Moms said slowly, “you’re saying the Patrol might have been attacked by another timeline?”

“Yes. If so, I suspect a two-pronged assault. One is to incapacitate the Patrol, while at the same time, our past is being assaulted in order to alter our timeline.”

“What are gates?” Doc asked. “Are they a form of Rifts?”

Foreman shrugged. “I’ve followed all the reports from the very first Rift back in 1947 to your encounter in Tennessee this past year. Quite remarkable, and I applaud the way you’ve handled them. Rifts have been the result of us, our timeline, our scientists, trying to punch through to parallel worlds. We’re probably very far behind some of the other timelines in that regard.”

“Clock’s ticking,” the Keep said. “We can deal with theory after we find out some facts.” She focused on Foreman. “So whatever is down there is a threat to our world?”

“It could be,” Foreman allowed.

“Who else do we need,” Moms asked the Keep, bypassing Foreman, “according to your instructions?”

“We have enough,” Foreman said.

“I don’t take orders from you,” the Keep replied.

Foreman spread his hands and sat down in one of the bucket seats. “Whatever. But if you check the third page of your instructions you will see that you do indeed have enough, even though you are missing one of the Nightstalkers, a Mister Ivar. But it appears we have an addition to the team which balances that out,” he added, looking at Scout. “Sometimes it’s all in the fine print. Equalization by subtraction and addition.”

“We’ve waited long enough,” the Keep said, trying to regain command. “The last addition will get here when he gets here. Charges ready?” she asked Mac, who was standing by the door of the command post, having come back up with Kirk.

“Roger that,” Mac said. “Enough to take out the door. Beyond that, I don’t know what’s down there. I could try cutting a hole and putting a probe—”

The Keep cut him off. “We don’t know what’s down there but we’re going to find out.”

“Then let’s blow the door,” Roland said, cutting to the chase as he always did. “But you know there was this really weird thing that happened on the Sanction Neeley and I just did and—”

“Let’s go,” the Keep said, heading out the door. She paused as Foreman tried to get up to follow. “Why don’t you wait here, sir?”

Foreman spread his hands once more, seemingly unconcerned. “Sure.”

The rest of the team followed, except for Scout. She grabbed Roland’s arm as they trailed the team.

“What happened?” Scout asked.

The team didn’t see the irony in the
OUT
OF
ORDER
sign on the old elevator. They stood patiently, waiting, as the Keep checked her folder and then opened a panel exposing a keyboard, entering the long, complicated code that she’d given to Mac and Kirk. With a lurch, the elevator began dropping.

At least there was none of that elevator music.

“Nada,” Scout said.

“Yeah?”

“He’s lying.” No one seemed surprised at Scout’s announcement about Foreman.

“He’s a spook,” Nada said. “They lie every time they open their mouths, even if it’s just to breathe.”

“She’s right,” Kirk said. “I don’t like this.”

“All right,” Moms said, casting an uneasy glance at the Keep and knowing Scout was still green. “Keep it tight, team.” What she really meant was shut up in front of the outsider.

They reached the bottom in silence and the elevator opened up.

“Whoa,” Scout said. “Bad vibes.”

Everyone hesitated for a moment, and then Nada indicated for Mac to proceed.

The team waited in the questionable safety of the elevator, looking down the narrow brick-lined corridor to the steel door Mac and Kirk had covered with a shaped line of explosives.

Mac held up the remote detonator. “Fire in the hole.” He pushed the button and there was a surprisingly disappointing small crack of explosion. The shaped charges cut through the steel, and the door fell outward.

Nada was first through, his old standby, the MP5 submachine gun, tight to his shoulder. He went low. Moms was right behind him, going high, carrying heavier firepower in the form of the MK-17 SCAR (Special operations Combat Assault Rifle) chambered with 7.62 NATO rounds that carried a punch.

“Freeze!” Nada yelled, centering the muzzle of his submachine gun on the tall figure standing under the cheap lighting.

“Please!” the woman called.

The Keep pushed her way through the armed Nightstalkers. “Edith Frobish?”

“Yes! Yes! That’s my name!”

The Keep indicated for the team to lower their weapons.

Nada and Moms ignored her and pushed past Edith, checking out the rest of the corridor. They paused at the guard station.