Time Patrol (Area 51 The Nightstalkers) (33 page)

“Anthony Gant,” Sin Fen said.

“I couldn’t save him even if I went back,” Neeley said. “Cancer got him. Ate him down to nothing. Can’t do anything about it.”

“Ah,” Sin Fen said. “That is what you saw and that is what he wanted you to believe. But how do you know his cancer wasn’t treatable? Did you ever go to a doctor with him?”

Neeley opened her mouth to respond, but then realized the impact of those words. She’d just accepted Gant’s prognosis. Terminal. No treatment possible.

“He lied to me?”

“He covered for you to the end of his life,” Sin Fen said.

“And if I go back?” Neeley asked. “Is his cancer treatable? Will he live?”

“That I can’t tell you.”

Neeley hung her head and thought. Hard. Then she looked up at the other woman. “He didn’t die in combat, which is what he would have wanted.”

“He died in your arms,” Sin Fen said. “Isn’t that what he truly wanted?”

Neeley swallowed hard. “All right. I’ve made my choice.”

Neeley disappeared into the gate.

“Roland.”

The big man walked across the sand. “I’ll go where she went,” he said, before Sin Fen could even give him a choice.

Sin Fen stared at him. “You’ve never questioned your past, have you?”

“Nope.”

“Do you worry about your future?”

“I didn’t,” Roland said. “But now, maybe.”

Sin Fen smiled. “Go. To where she went.”

And then Roland was gone.

“Scout.”

Moms and Nada were the only ones left as Sin Fen talked to Scout.

“What the frak does she have to feel bad about?” Nada muttered, gesturing at Scout.

“What makes you so sure it’s something you feel bad about?” Moms asked.

“Would you change something good?” Nada asked.

Moms had no answer to that.

Scout walked toward the gate, waved at both of them, and then was gone.

“Moms.”

“The note,” Sin Fen said.

“What note?” Moms was confused. “I thought this would be about the man. The man my mother was supposed to marry.”

“It is,” Sin Fen said, “but only tangentially.”

“What note?” Moms repeated.

“The one your mother left when she hung herself.”

“How do you know all this?” Moms demanded, buying time.

Sin Fen touched the HUB. “We can time travel. We can see. This is why you have to make a decision now. A decision you will take with you the rest of your life.”

“What was on the note?”

“First,” Sin Fen said, “you need to understand that the man who was engaged to your mother left because he read the note. He left because he hadn’t protected her and he believed there was nothing more he could do. And he was angry. He lived with that guilt the rest of his life. Guilt is a terrible, terrible thing to live with. It was so powerful, it led him to actions that actually saved a lot of his soldiers’ lives in Iraq. He died, but many lived. And he left you his allotment from guilt.”

“So I don’t change that,” Moms said. “I don’t make him stay and marry her?”

“That’s not the choice,” Sin Fen said. “The note.”

“Tell me what was on the note.”

Nada was alone, except for Dane, who was standing by the water, watching it all play out.

“This was all a test?” Nada asked.

Dane sighed. “Mostly. Joining the Time Patrol would be a bit overwhelming if someone just sat across a desk from you and tried to explain it. And you still really have no idea what it entails. This is just a taste of what’s going on.”

Nada nodded. “Scout’s a good person.”

“She has the sight,” Dane said.

“I don’t care about the frakking sight,” Nada said. “She’s a good person. That’s pretty rare in my experience. Remember that.”

And then Nada was summoned as Moms disappeared. He walked across the sand, each step heavier than the next.

“My wife and daughter,” Nada said. “Can I save them?”

“Yes. But it will be painful for you to remember it all.”

He ignored that warning. “What about the team?” Nada asked. “Scout?”

“You’ve already lived that,” Sin Fen said. “And so have they. They’ll be fine. You’ll be gone from this moment forward to them.” She reached forward and touched his forehead. The memories came in a torrent. Of pain.

Nada cried out, went to his knees, head bowed. He remained like that for almost a minute. Then he got to his feet.

“I’ll go back.”

“Good.” Sin Fen nodded. “Because you are the one who reboots all of this.”

Nada found Carl Coyne behind the ammunition bunker. The SEAL was leaning back against the bulkhead, eyes tightly closed, lips moving either in prayer or silent exhortation. Nada paused for a second, staring at the man, recognizing the paralysis that overcame men, even the best, but more often with the worst, when faced with the prospect of combat.

Nada grabbed Coyne’s combat vest, startling the man. “They need every man they can get on the rescue bird!”

“Who the—” Coyne began, but Nada wasn’t listening, literally pulling the SEAL around the shipping container toward the landing strip. Blades were turning and two Apache gunships, two Black Hawks, and two Special Operations Chinooks were powering up.

Nada had no sympathy for Coyne as he pulled him toward one of the Chinooks, checking the tail number to make sure he got the right one. It wasn’t like this was an immediate response and Coyne hadn’t had a chance to consider it. After getting a report about the four-man recon team getting attacked, it had taken precious hours to receive permission from higher headquarters for a rescue force to be launched. Coyne had had plenty of time to get over his paralysis.

He’d made a decision not to go.

Which Nada knew from the future.

A possible future.

As they got closer to the rear ramp of the helicopter, swirling dirt and debris filled the air. Coyne shrugged off Nada’s hand, straightening up and moving forward. He ran up the ramp, Nada right behind. Coyne’s fellow SEALs welcomed him on board.

They ignored Nada.

Which was what he counted on.

Nada’s uniform was unmarked, but his gear was top of the line, and he’d configured it exactly the way he remembered from his time in Afghanistan with an elite unit that had no designation. They’d worked directly for the in-country commander and carried out the dirty missions for which no trace could be left behind. The SEALs had seen his like before and ignoring was as much policy as reality. People like Nada went where they wanted and did whatever it is they did. No one got in their way.

The SEALs were simply glad to have an extra weapon on board.

The Chinook lifted. Nada settled onto the red web seats along the port side of the cargo bay. Manned by the correctly designated Nightstalkers of Task Force 160, the Army’s elite helicopter unit, the chopper banked hard and headed toward the last known location of the four-man SEAL team.

Nada reached into a pocket and pulled out a worn photograph, unfolding it carefully along the crease to maintain its integrity.

He smiled grimly: There was no need to worry about that.

He stared at the images of his wife and daughter, posed in front of
The Mad Hatter’s Tea Party
, feeling them in his heart. Joy blossomed because they were images of people who were living, not long dead. He’d kept them in his heart so long, buried so deep, the feeling caused him to sit back against the bulkhead of the chopper gasping for breath.

As he got his breathing under control, he looked across the cargo bay.

Coyne was sitting there, staring at him.

Nada met Coyne’s eyes and nodded, giving him the thumbs-up. Coyne had a puzzled look on his face, then the SEAL also nodded and returned the thumbs-up.

Everything’s going to be all right now
, Nada thought.

He tried to do that math: How old was Scout now in 2005? Was she living in the gated community in North Carolina?

One of the crew members was shouting something, a time warning to the objective. The SEALs were locking and loading their weapons, pulses quickening. Fast ropes were readied near the ramp in case they were needed for a quick exit.

Nada did nothing except hold the picture.

Everything’s going to be all right now.

A Navy Lieutenant Commander, the man in charge of the SEAL element, staggered down the cargo bay and leaned over Nada, yelling to be heard over the double turbine engines above their heads and the roar coming in the open ramp in the rear. “My men go in first. I don’t know why you’re here, but stay out of our way. We’re getting our people out.”

Nada nodded. “Roger that,” he yelled.

The LCDR looked at him oddly for a moment, and then headed for the ramp, to be the first off.

A good leader.

Nada twisted in his seat and looked out the small round window. They were flying low, up a valley, high ground on either side.

Nada saw the puff of smoke from the backblast of an RPG—rocket-propelled grenade—firing on the hillside.

Everything is just right.

Nada tracked the rocket as it sped toward the chopper and then disappeared above. There was the roar of explosion, the shudder of the aircraft. Pieces of shrapnel from both the grenade and the destroyed turbine engine ripped through the cargo bay. Wounded men screamed, others were shouting commands.