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Authors: Bob Mayer

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Gathered around some of the markers were families and friends and comrades in arms.

She paused and saw a woman standing, staring at a stone. The inscription summed up a life:

CARL
COYNE

OPERATION
RED
WINGS

28
JUNE
2005

PURPLE
HEART

BRONZE
STAR

US
NAVY
SEAL

The woman was crying and Scout wanted to tell her not to. That fate had intervened, in more ways than the woman could imagine, for the better.

But that wasn’t allowed.

Scout glided past them. Near the end of one row was a girl. A pretty young girl, her hair long and twisted into a braid so thick that Scout both admired her and envied her at the same time. Scout glided toward her and halted. She didn’t have to read the marker, because she finally knew the name engraved there: Edward Moreno. And now she knew the date, one most Americans had forgotten; but it was all clear to Scout what had changed for some and then changed back and not changed for everyone.

She looked at the girl and saw her father in those eyes and the way her smile tilted.

Isabella, I knew your father. He was a great soldier and man.

The girl was startled and looked about, as if the wind had disturbed her without ruffling the flowers on the grave.

Scout moved on, not wanting to intrude anymore, but she knew Nada had made a choice. He had chosen that the stone bear his name over the alternative of standing in front of a different marker bearing his daughter’s name and her mother’s name. And as much as Scout would miss him, she also felt a smidge of happiness that Nada had been allowed to make this choice. That he’d been allowed to remember, both the wonderful and the terrible and then choose.

She would always miss him, as would all the other Nightstalkers, but the man they missed, they did so because he was the man who would make this choice.

And then the dream faded and Scout knew it was time to face reality. It passed like the early morning fog over the river outside her house. She was in bed and her mother wasn’t singing and there was no smell of bacon permeating the air.

No mother cooking for a beloved daughter. Just the thud, thud of Mother’s feet meeting the rolling trail of the treadmill. Scout lay there and listened to the rhythmic stride of her mother’s surprisingly loud tread for such skinny legs and pulled the covers over her head.

And maybe she drifted off to sleep, but maybe it was the sight, because in the noise she could hear some words.

Thud, thud.

Hey, Scout.

Thud, thud.

Nada!

Thud, thud.

I’ll miss you, kid.

Thud, thud.

Everything is just right.

Thud, thud.

Keep me in your heart.

And then the treadmill stopped.

Scout got up. She grabbed her deployment bag from under her bed.

She had places to be and things to do.

The four Nightstalkers from Area 51 were gathered in the treeline watching as Winthrop Carter, the man who would now never be known as Kirk, chopped firewood, his lean body leaning into every swing of the axe.

Eagle had Googled the Department of Defense database and they knew the scant details. Carter had some pockmarks on his side, shrapnel wounds from his tour in Afghanistan with the Infantry. After getting booted out of Ranger School for cheating, he’d gotten out of the army and come back to Parthenon, Arkansas, zip code 72666.

Carter—it was hard for the Nightstalkers to think of him as that, as he would always be Kirk to them—slammed the axe home into a log and turned as a young girl called out from the door of the old house.

“That’s Pads,” Eagle said. “His younger sister.”

“She must be important,” Doc said.

“Or not,” Ivar argued, “if Sin Fen allowed him to come back here to take care of her.”

Carter-Kirk walked with the girl hand in hand down the rutted dirt road to a pitted single-lane asphalt road. They stood at the intersection, chatting, while the Nightstalkers watched, not quite sure why they had been drawn here.

A schoolbus came rattling down the road and Carter-Kirk gave Pads a hug. Then she got on the bus. It began to move away.

The four Nightstalkers froze as Carter-Kirk looked up, as if sensing their presence. Everything was still for a moment, and then Carter-Kirk shrugged and headed to his axe.

Cleopatra’s Needle was bathed in sunlight and Edith Frobish took the extra moment to circumnavigate it, checking all four sides with more than the usual perusal. It was as it always had been.

For now, Edith thought as she turned for the Met with a bounce in her step. For now. Who knew? Some day Caesa
rion might just turn out to be alive and ruling in Egypt. She was pretty sure Dane had gotten that little wrinkle from some other timeline for Foreman to play.

With extra vigor, Edith shoved open the blank metal door.

“Hello, Burt. Beautiful day outside.” She held up her badge, but the guard didn’t even look at it.

“Hey, Edith. It sure is.”

She walked down the hallway, turned right, past the
CLOSED
FOR
CONSTRUCTION
sign, and got on the elevator.

She rode down patiently.

The doors opened and Edith walked out. She came to the guard post and the heavily armed man did his checks, without a greeting or how-do-you-do. But Edith looked at him differently now, recognizing his real job. So she paused, graced him with a smile and a “Have a wonderful day,” and then breezed down to the next steel door.

She stepped in and waited for that door to shut behind her. Passed the DNA test. Then opened the next door.

A spotlight was focused on the HUB.

The gate was where it should be.

And standing by it were Moms, Eagle, Mac, Roland, Ivar, Doc, and Scout.

The Nightstalkers. And now also the Time Patrol.

Edith Frobish walked across the cavern floor to the gate and joined them. She paused, as she always paused. “Are you ready?”

An unfair question, Edith knew, because they still really didn’t know what they needed to be ready for.

They stepped up next to her.

And then they all stepped through.

Bob Mayer is a
New York Times
bestselling author, graduate of West Point, former Green Beret (including commanding an A-Team), and the feeder of two yellow labs, most famously Cool Gus. He’s had over 60 books published, including three #1 series: Area 51, Atlantis, and The Green Berets. Born in the Bronx, having traveled the world (usually not tourist spots), he now lives peacefully with his wife, and said labs, at Write on the River, Tennessee.

If you enjoyed this world, you can check out another timeline with Dane, Sin Fen, Foreman, Amelia Earhart, the Bermuda Triangle, the Ones Before, The Others, etc., via the six-book Atlantis series where an Earth timeline confronts the Shadow as it launches an all-out assault against
their
Earth. Terry Brooks lauded this series: “Spell-binding! Will keep you on the edge of your seat. Call it techno-thriller, call it science fiction, call it just terrific story-telling.”

If you’re interested in Hannah and Neeley and Doctor Golden and how they became the Cellar via Nero, you can check out
Bodyguard of Lies
and
Lost Girls
.