CHAPTER
TWENTY-FOUR 

Alan’s first cellular phone call was to his wife. No one answered at their house, so he tried the estate in central Wisconsin after leaving a neutral sounding message on the answering machine. His wife answered the telephone on the third ring and cried the moment that she heard his voice. Promising that he was all right and that he would call back very shortly, he asked a few questions, ascertaining that he still had control of his own company and that his parents were also okay. His mother was actually at the estate, his father down in Chicago. 

Alan learned that his father had literally taken himself out of retirement and was personally overseeing Horizon Enterprises’ day-to-day affairs and Horizon’s efforts with law enforcement and a corps of detectives to locate Horizon’s missing CEO or his body. Almost oddly, Alan thought, although Lakewood Industries and Kaminsky in particular topped everyone’s suspect list, it had occurred to no one that he’d been kidnapped to another time. Alan didn’t mention it. 

Instead, Alan told his wife to lock the doors and take the kids and his mother “downstairs,” the best euphemism he could think of for the war/storm shelter built by his grandfather below the house in Wisconsin. Alan and his wife both loved gangster movies, so he added, “I want you guys goin’ to the mattresses, see,” and he got a little chuckle out of her. 

Killing the connection, he called his father’s cellular number, a number only family members had. “Dad?” 

“Alan! My God, son, where have you—” 

“No time to explain. I’m alive and I’m fine, but we’ve got work to do to help Jack and Ellen—they’re still you know where, of course, but they were here with me for a little bit. Tell you when I see you, Dad. Keep my private land line clear. As soon as I find a pay phone, I’ll call in. Have a scrambler on it, huh?” And Alan hung up. 

Instead of a roadside pay phone—harder and harder to find in the era of wireless everything—Alan rented a motel room with a dead man’s credit card. The black nylon gear bag that he carried held no socks and underwear, but instead an MP-5 submachine gun, two 228 9mm pistols and plenty of loaded magazines for both the H-K and the SIGs. 

The motel was a modest affair that probably got along based on location. It was the middle of Nevada and looked, Alan thought, more like the middle of nowhere. A remote location indeed, it was a popular one. Nevada 375 was commonly known as the Extraterrestrial Highway because it was the road to Groom Lake, the infamous Area 51. 

However intriguing Area 51 might or might not be, it currently held no interest for Alan. Highway 375 also led to the far western edge of Red Raven Ranch, and this was extremely interesting because Red Raven Ranch was the location of the second and smaller Lakewood Industries time-travel base. That information was uncovered in the aftermath of the attack on Lakewood’s primary time base in 1996, but only after Jack and Ellen had returned to 1900. By the time Alan had picked up on Red Raven Ranch as the site, Alan had already trashed the controls for the transfer device beyond repair and had no means by which to alert Jack and Ellen. 

The base at Red Raven Ranch had to be destroyed, wiped off the face of the Earth in both times, before Kaminsky and her thugs—if Jack and Ellen were successful—could use it to escape the year 1900. If his many-times-removed grandparents were not successful, the only remaining working time-transfer base’s destruction would trap the Lakewood Industries personnel in 1900, ninety-six years out of reach of resupply. 

There was a bank of pay phones in the motel lobby. If he’d been spotted by some Lakewood Industries confederate, or even in the case of ordinary nosiness, the telephone in his room would be far too easy to listen in on. Alan began to dial his private number in Chicago. Unlike the room phones, the pay phones would not go through a switchboard at the motel. With a scrambler on the Chicago end of the line, chances were excellent that the conversation about to take place would be secret. 

His father answered the telephone midway through the first ring. 

“Alan?” 

“Yeah, it’s me, Dad.” 

“Where the hell have you been, son?” 

“In 1900.” Alan waited a second to let that sink in with his father, then went on. “I would have been dead if it hadn’t been for great-great-grandpa Jack and Ellen and Clarence’s wife—she’s the doctor I told you about who was involved in the initial time-transfer experiments, helping Jane Rogers. Bethany Kaminsky and Morton Hardesty are lovers—if you can call it—” 

“Hardesty? My God, son! Hardesty’s got access to almost everything.” 

“We ought to fix that as quickly as possible.” 

“If we press charges against Hardesty or anybody else, we’d have to reveal the time-transfer operation, and you know what that would entail.” 

Alan nodded his head in agreement, even though his father was nearly two thousand miles away. If the mechanism for time-transfer—even in so limited a manner— was revealed, they would have opened the proverbial Pandora’s box. 

“It’s a dilemma, Dad. How about some words of wisdom?” 

Alan heard bitter-sounding laughter from the other end of the line. His eyes swept the lobby for signs of anything strange. He wore both SIG pistols under his shirt, but they provided little comfort at the moment. 

His father spoke. “If you want me to be the one who says it, then I will. We’re just going to have to—” 

“No. Don’t say it, but I agree. I’m going to need some help out here quite rapidly. Kaminsky’s people have their secondary base out here.” 

“Is it even safe for you to be near there, Alan?” 

An older couple wearing T-shirts and ball caps that were a perfect match were wending their way across the blue-carpeted lobby toward the polished wooden front desk. A fluorescent fixture buzzed just a little. Nothing else was even that noteworthy. “No, I’m okay for a little while, here. I’ll wait, but get some people to me in a hurry.” 

“They’re already en route, son.” 

Alan nodded again, his stomach churning at the thought of his only recourse concerning Lakewood Industries. “About their facility in Chicago, Dad—there’s a lot of data there that really shouldn’t be.” 

“I’m on top of that, son.” 

There was only one solution and it was terrible, but Bethany had brought it down on her own head. 

Just as the flashes of manmade lightning that signaled the time-transfers had been visible miles away from the mountains, so too were the fires burning at the site that had once been Lakewood’s base in what, to them, was the subjective past. It would be late in the afternoon where Alan was—1996. Part of the time-displacement anomaly included a difference of four hours, twenty-three minutes and some seconds. It was four and one-half hours later and early evening in 1900, dark enough that Jack Naile could easily spy the glow of the flames through his binoculars. 

The small convoy—two Suburbans and an old Soviet tank—had stopped in order that Clarence could launch a weather balloon, assisted by Lieutenant Easley. Easley’s father, it was discovered, had been a reconnaissance balloonist during the Civil War and had imparted an interest in aeronautics to his son. Although Clarence manned the electronics package, Lieutenant Easley was clearly in charge of readying the balloon itself. 

The purpose of the binoculars Jack Naile held was not for the observation of far-distant fires, but to keep track of the first balloon. He’d lost sight of it almost five minutes earlier. 

As Jack aimed his binoculars toward the subtly darkening eastern horizon, he thought he spotted it. “Over that ridgeline, about five miles to the southeast! Do you see the ridgeline, Clarence?” 

“Got it! I think. Yeah, I’ve got it.” There were a limited number of video cameras and a limited number of balloons. If they could be salvaged, it was definitely advantageous. If they could not be salvaged, at least if their location could be generally fixed, it would be possible for Mr. Roosevelt to have them recovered so they would not be randomly discovered. “The camera’s picking up what must be headlights far to the southwest.” The reason for waiting until near dusk before launching was the hope of spotting headlights being a better bet than spotting a dust trail. “What happens if they spot our headlights and send that helicopter back after us?” 

“We might die,” Jack answered as cheerfully as he could. 

The air was cool, rising along the rocky promontory near where they’d parked. The western horizon was a deep purple, the ball of sun—about the color of an egg yolk—enormous-seeming. 

Clarence and Lieutenant Easley were packing up their ballooning and electronic monitoring gear, Ellen rounding up her passengers for the next leg of the journey . . . 

Still in cowboy clothes and boots, Alan buttoned down the stretched black Lincoln’s right-side window as the limousine skidded slightly on the hard-packed sandy dirt and ground to a halt. Three helicopters were coming in, sunset-tinged and gleaming black Bell Long Rangers, unmarked, their registration numbers meticulously taped over. Alan didn’t wait for their arrival or for the bodyguard from the front seat to open the door for him. He stepped out of the Town Car and flexed his arms, his shoulders, tried loosening his neck muscles. 

Red Raven Ranch was twenty miles away, a distance that a helicopter could cover in little more than a heartbeat. This land was the same as it had been ninety-six years ago, in the Old West. Only what transpired there was different. It was strange; it literally boggled the mind to contemplate that what was happening ninety-six years ago had already happened, but differently. Time, almost certainly, healed itself, as was often said in science fiction books and films; Jack and Ellen, dead by all logic, lived on in the past, and the past was happening simultaneously with the present. All pasts? All presents? Did everything just go on and on and on, repeating and rerepeating itself in alternate planes of time? 

And what of the future? Alan wondered. 

He’d read articles in which well-respected serious scientists had theorized that travel into the past might be theoretically—at least—possible. But that made such a vain assumption! Why was this moment in time the point farthest along in time? Had a scientist in 1900 posited that time-travel into the future was impossible because 1900 was as far as the future had yet gone, the events surrounding Jack and Ellen and himself and Teddy Roosevelt and the men from the Seventh Cavalry—not to mention Lakewood’s back-and-forth journeys—would have proven the idea totally false, a conceit of the most ludicrous proportions. 

The same held true in 1996, Alan felt. 1997 and 1998 and only God knew how many other futures were already out there, unreachable now, but there. 

“Mr. Naile?” 

Alan turned around and glanced at his bodyguard; the man looked overheated, standing there in the desert twilight wearing his nattily tailored Chicago business suit. “Yes, Frank?” The man was adjusting an earpiece, one of two, the second dangling lazily over his left lapel. 

“The choppers are ready, sir, and your presence aboard the nearest of the three”—Frank gestured in the direction of the helicopters—“is requested, sir. The penetration team is in position on the ground.” 

Alan merely nodded his understanding and assent. Whatever the year, murder was murder, and that was what circumstances demanded of him. These murders would be for the good of all mankind, of course, but that reason was almost certainly one of the more common excuses offered for taking significant numbers of human lives. 

As Alan walked toward the designated helicopter, he kept reminding himself that he was with the good guys. 

David worked the squeeze bulb to evacuate the air in the transparent plastic line between the first jerrican and the Suburban’s fuel tank. Among the supplies his parents had packed for their anticipated—and realized—journey almost a century into the past were numerous odd things. He remembered asking his father, “Why are we taking plastic tubing and these squeeze bulbs? Are we going to start an aquarium?” When the family had been in its tropical-fish period, identical tubing and bulbs had been used to evacuate dirty tank water into buckets; these were carried off, their contents flushed down the toilet. Jack Naile had responded that what was used to siphon water could be used just as easily to siphon gasoline. 

His father had some good ideas at times. 

Anyway, it amused his passengers, the men of the Seventh Cavalry, to watch the pale reddish liquid moving magically through the transparent tube. The rechargeable flashlight by the light of which he was able to see what he was doing had elicited mutterings of pure amazement, the light so terribly bright. David felt like a veritable master of illusion. 

Alan retracted the M-16’s bolt and let it fly forward. That he was violating countless laws was of little consequence. Dealing death from a helicopter would be the toughest rap, and he’d never beat it. 

The western horizon was washed in brilliant shades of red, dissolving into orange and then into yellow-tinged pink, all edged in deeply purpling darkness. Already in the west, Alan could make out the sparkling pinpoint of Venus. The eastern horizon was so dark a blue that it was nearly black. 

The desert slipping away below the helicopter was gray, neither day nor night, but in between. The leader of the raid, Del Stringfellow, was Horizon’s chief of security for the southwest. His somewhat high-pitched voice was coming through Alan’s earphone. “We’ll be over the contact point in ninety seconds. Ground personnel—I kept to a minimum—are fully positioned. This should be quick.” 

“Any chance they’ve got us on radar, Del?” 

“No, sir—we’re too low. They could have us on visual by accident, but that’s doubtful. About sixty seconds, now.” 

“You didn’t have to do this, Del; so, thanks. This wasn’t part of the job description.” 

“In a funny way it is, though, Mr. Naile. Don’t sweat it.” 

Alan didn’t answer verbally, only nodded. 

Probably thirty seconds remained. 

“Incoming! Surface to air!” It was the pilot’s voice, shouting, not panicked, but startled. 

Del’s voice hit with machinegun rapidity in the next millisecond. “Evasive action. Get us outa here. Special One to Special Two and Three; we are under fire, presumably low-end Soviet-era SA-7 shoulder-mounted SAMs. Evasive action. Engage enemy at will. Prospector One and Two; commence Operation Visitor immediately. I say again, commence Operation Visitor immediately. Special One Out.” 

The helicopter had been climbing, then diving. It leveled off and skimmed the ground, seeming inches over the dirt. Only twenty seconds or so had gone by. The contrail from one of the missiles flashed past the Bell’s nose, missing the chin bubble by less distance than Alan wanted to think about. 

A searchlight flicked on from the helicopter’s nose. “They can see us by our running lights anyway, Mr. Naile.” 

“Affirmative that, pilot.” 

As the searchlight flashed across the sandy terrain, Alan spotted a half-dozen Lakewood personnel, discarded missile tubes only a yard or so behind them. Two of the men stopped in their headlong lunge and turned; one fired an M-16. Bullets spiderwebbed the chin bubble. The second had a missile tube to his shoulder, preparing to fire. 

“Mr. Naile! Be careful, sir!” 

It was Del Stringfellow’s voice in his ear, but Alan Naile was already dismounting the door, letting it fall away in the helicopter’s slipstream. Belted in, he leaned out of the chopper, the M-16 to his shoulder. Aiming at the man with the missile from the unsteady firing platform, he missed him and struck the rifleman beside him instead. The Lakewood man’s M-16 fired a long, full auto burst skyward, bullets ricocheting off the fuselage. 

Flying over the man with the missile, there was a flash of yellow, the missile firing. The pilot shouted, “Hold on!” 

The helicopter banked sharply to starboard and Alan nearly lost his rifle as he was half flung from the machine, only his safety harness keeping him from being dashed to the ground below. The missile tracked so close to the helicopter that Alan could feel heat from its vapor trail. 

Gunfire and explosive flashes were everywhere in the gathering darkness below. Hands—Del Stringfellow’s— pulled at him and Alan was fully returned to the cabin. “Thanks! Let’s get that fucker!” 

“Yes, sir! You heard Mr. Naile! Turn this crate around.” 

“Wilco that, Del.” 

The helicopter described a steep arc and swooped toward the ground. “He’s mine,” Alan declared, checking his safety belt and leaning out the starboard side of the fuselage. This time, his M-16’s strap was twisted round his left arm in the classic Hasty Sling. The Lakewood man threw his empty missile tube to the dirt and ran, firing an MP-5 submachine gun blindly upward and behind him. 

Alan drew his weapon’s trigger back, and a long burst chewed into the ground behind the Lakewood man, then stitched up along the length of the man’s body as the helicopter overflew. The Lakewood man tumbled down dead in the mini-cyclone of sand that rose in the helicopter’s wake. 

Alan looked ahead. Brilliant, ephemeral flashes of yellow-orange rose and fell in the darkness. 

Stringfellow’s voice came through the headset again. “It’s estimated that resistance is over ninety percent neutralized. Enemy personnel encountered have been permanently neutralized. Estimating maybe a little over a dozen Lakewood personnel. One pocket of resistance remains near what appears to be the time-transfer control station, a capsule near it.” There was a pause, and Alan looked over at Stringfellow. Short, slight, blond, with a jaw like a rock, the security man’s ice-blue eyes flickered up from an aerial shot showing on the screen of a laptop. With his right thumb, Stringfellow made a downward sign three times. “The last of the Lakewood personnel have been permanently neutralized, Mr. Naile.” 

“Let’s get down there,” Alan ordered, letting out a long breath that was almost a sigh. 

The dry lake bed below them was an enormous valley, what had once been its shoreline—David had no idea how long ago, but the time would be best reckoned by a geologist—forming the rugged higher ground wherein they had concealed themselves. Through the predawn hours they’d waited. Beyond, to the east, the sun relentlessly climbed. It would be hot this day. 

“The bad guys are over there,” David said, addressing the nine troopers with him. He had driven the Suburban through the night on the calculated guess that this was Kaminsky’s probable destination. The guess was correct. “Very bad guys,” he reiterated, jerking his thumb toward the center of the lake bed, where there was pitched an enormous tent. Sand-colored and large enough to shelter a small circus, the tent had been erected with additional canopies adjoined to it. Maybe folding chairs hadn’t yet been invented, or maybe a more elegant look was sought, but elaborate-seeming wooden dining-room-style chairs with cushioned seats and raised arm-rests were ranked under the canopies. Overstuffed chairs with exposed wooden trim and love-seat-sized sofas of the same construction formed a semicircle of grand proportions beneath the tent itself. At what was the exact center between the two main verticals around which the tent roof was erected were buffet tables. Several portable generators were providing power for electric chandeliers and a bank of bar-sized refrigerators and at least two refrigerated serving tables. 

It was a credit to Anglo-American cooperation— strained occasionally during these times, David knew— that there seemed to be no representation for Great Britain. There was, of course, none for the United States. The French, the Germans, the Russians—they were the expected bidders and they were present. David could tell from the uniforms of the military personnel, his knowledge based on old movies his father had pretty much coerced him and his sister into watching. The Germans had the most businesslike and military-looking uniforms, and these were field gray. The French uniforms were certainly the most stylish and their headgear was the flat-topped, almost ball-cap-looking thing called a kepi. The Russians had extremely elaborate helmets, apparently not trusting to ordinary hats of any kind. 

Many of the civilians—the diplomats—wore swallow-tailed coats and striped pants and tall, narrow-brimmed, shiny black silk hats. The other men—there was not a single woman visible—were evidently assistants, male secretaries and the like, attired in uncomfortable-looking suits and less formal hats, derby-or Homburg-style. Ranked socially lower still were coach drivers and footmen, exiled to nether regions beneath more spartan canopies and near where the luxurious carriages and less prestigious buckboards were parked. 

“Missah Naile, suh? What’s them li’l blue houses out yonder?” 

David glanced over at Corporal Gossman, the ranking soldier, and smiled. “What do you suppose they are for, Corporal?” 

“Well, suh, sho’ look like the’ oughta be a qua’ter moon cut in them doors, if’n y’all takes mah drift.” 

“I take your drift, Corporal.” David nodded. “Only these are portable. When they’re no longer needed somewhere, they’re carted off.” 

“What’s they do with the, the—” 

“The shit? It’s usually sucked up with a hose after chemicals have liquefied—” David stopped, his attention focusing solely on the motor home parked some distance back from the tent. A solitary woman exited it. As she turned her face toward the east, David could see her clearly through his binoculars. It was Bethany Kaminsky. Alan’s powers of elucidation proved quite remarkable; she was as promised, even down to exuding an amazing and unmistakable deadliness. 

Kaminsky’s blond hair, done in ringlets, was piled at the crown of her head. Her eyes—in this, Alan’s descriptive abilities failed utterly—were blue, yes, but such ineloquence could best be compared to labeling the world’s most exquisite diamond as a “pretty rock.” Blue, to be sure, but so much more than that. Even through the lenses of mere binoculars, the color was at once obvious and magnificent. 

Women’s fashions of the day were designed to accentuate a slender waist, of course, and Kaminsky’s figure showed the classic and perfect hourglass. David smiled at himself as he realized that he was wondering what Kaminsky— evil bitch that she was, assuredly—looked like without all those pounds of clothes. “Oh, well,” he muttered under his breath. Her coachwork looked great—what he could see of it. Her motor probably ran a little hot and fast, he guessed; but, with an experienced man controlling the throttle . . . But, lamentably, there’d be no chance for a test drive. 

“Pick four men you can trust to stay here with you and not spook if they see the aircraft or any of the weapons in use before we get back. We’re going to use that telegraphy kit; make sure we’ve got plenty of water.” His father thought that he never listened. He listened—sometimes. Jack related seeing one of his half-hour western A-list boyhood action heroes, Jock Mahoney, use canteen water and a piece of wire to short out and link up with a telegraph line. David found himself actually remembering hearing the story before when his father had recently suggested using the same technique. And his dad was actually rather impressed. “Pick your men, Corporal. I’m moving out in under two minutes.” But he’d be damned if he let anyone use the barrel of a six gun to tap out a message in Morse. 

David started toward the Suburban. He had topped off its tank just before parking it for the night, lest a sudden quick getaway be required. 

Looking at the situation from a strictly business perspective, David could see why Lakewood Industries would not achieve quite the future prominence of Horizon Enterprises. Lakewood was making a mistake, its sales technique clearly faulty. Each of the three potential buyers for future technology would know what all the others knew. Greed manifested in the desire to up the ante to the highest possible level the first time out was sheer stupidity in the current context. Germany, according to both his father and Mr. Roosevelt, would almost certainly be the end-result purchaser. So why let the French and the Russians have intimate knowledge of what Germany would possess? Drive up the price at the expense of future sales? Madness. And what if Kaminsky set up dummy front companies, so that, after selling to the Germans, the dummy companies could sell to anyone and everyone else? More money and power, but what if these technologically naive military powers destroyed the whole world eventually, and Kaminsky and Lakewood Industries somehow wound up being obliterated along with all the rest of the future? 

David didn’t understand time-travel theory, so maybe what he posited could never happen. But theory was one thing, reality another. 

Kaminsky was, in effect, a suicidal viper, a dangerous, deadly, egotistical asshole. 

And her choice of locations proved it. She was probably one of those idiots who believed in little green men and thought that staging a firepower anachronism at this exact spot would be cutesy. David’s telegraph message, which would be relayed to his father, would simply read “Area 51 STOP,” because brevity was, so the expression went, the soul of wit. 

Their shadows and those of their mounts stretched for yards ahead of them along the sandy stagecoach road over which they traveled, the sun low still and directly behind them. They had risen in darkness, and were mounted and moving before dawn. The stagecoach road had turned due west only a mile or so back. 

Elizabeth Naile rode at the head of the column, to the immediate left of Major Clark Davis, Army Ordnance. The air was fresh and still cool, no noticeable dust rising yet. There was a slight breeze, and they advanced against it. 

Elizabeth, despite a rocky sleep in a small tent on a cot pitched on rough ground and no proper bathing facilities, was having the time of her life, an experience unlike any other. She’d convinced Mr. Roosevelt to give orders that she could accompany the forces being sent against Lakewood’s firepower demonstration, promising him she’d stay well to the rear if the unit she’d accompany saw action. Mr. Roosevelt probably hadn’t believed her, but gave the orders anyway. “I have a very pretty daughter named Alice, who has a rather adventurous spirit as well. You remind me of her. Be careful.” 

In a flat-crowned, wide-brimmed, fudge brown hat with a stampede string snuggled under her chin, white silk blouse with full sleeves, ankle-length brown-suede split skirt and lace-up-the-front brown high-heeled boots, she felt she was dressed for the part of the daring girl on her way to adventure. 

Lizzie glanced at the major. He was extraordinarily tall in the saddle, so long-legged that his stirrups were adjusted well below those of any of the others of their party. Whereas she would have to take a little hop to get her left foot into her stirrup in order to mount into the saddle, Major Davis stepped onto his mount as effortlessly as an ordinary person might merely ascend a stair tread. 

And she loved it when, low-whiskey-voiced, he’d order his sergeant to “Mount the men.” If she hadn’t found herself falling in love with Bobby Lorkin, and if Major Davis hadn’t been about the same age as her father, Lizzie could have had a crush. 

The pace at which the column moved was a rapid canter rather than a gallop, miles more remaining certainly before there would be a chance to rest. The pace was also determined by the rolling stock. There were three field-artillery pieces, each positioned behind a caisson of ammunition. Two men were seated on each of the boxlike affairs, one of the men driving the four-horse team pulling each of the units. There were three wagons, one of these the cook’s wagon, a second wagon that would serve as a field hospital and a third carrying additional supplies and ammunition for the troops. 

“Ho!” Major Davis raised his right hand and reined back, signaling the column to halt. 

Lizzie looked up at him as she brought her roan mare alongside. “What is it, Major?” 

“There, Miss Naile. Just coming over the rise. The telegraphy party is returning.” The major looked over his shoulder and ordered his sergeant, “Tucker, get a report from the man in charge of that detail and on the double.” 

“Yes, sir!” The sergeant called out, “corporal Redding, on the double!” 

A moment later, the corporal was riding off at best speed to intercept the telegraphy party, which was still almost a half mile distant. 

Unbidden, Major Davis volunteered to her, “Lieutenant Matthews and the two scouts should be getting back soon, too. If we bump into these Lakewood people and their ordnance is half as capable as you say, we’d be outgunned at the least. We’re going to need all the tactical advantage we can muster to counteract their firepower.” 

Corporal Redding’s mount, a cloud of dust around it and behind it, skidded on its haunches and stopped alongside the telegraphy party. There was a moment’s discussion, and Corporal Redding’s horse wheeled under him and raced back toward the column. 

“Tucker, have the corporal report to me directly. You stay and listen,” Major Davis ordered. 

“Yes, sir!” 

As Corporal Redding neared, Lizzie heard Sergeant Tucker bellow, “Report directly to the major, Corporal.” 

Corporal Redding made no acknowledgment except to wheel his horse a few degrees left and skid to a halt about six feet in front of Major Davis, reining in and saluting in one fluid motion. “Sir!” 

“Relay your report, Corporal.” 

“Sir, we are to rendezvous with Miss Naile’s parents and some elements of the Seventh north of a large dry lake bed in the Nellis Range about a hundred or so miles north of a little town called Las Vegas. There’s also been independent confirmation from the other side of the enemy position by Miss Naile’s brother. We are to make the best speed possible, sir.” 

“Back in the column, Corporal.” Major Davis ordered, already taking a map from a leather case on his saddle. “Miss Naile, we’re here,” he gestured, “and we’ve got to get to here. We’ve got about two hours of hard riding, if you’re up for it.” Major Davis smiled, a nice smile. 

“I can handle it, Major.” 

“I never doubted that, ma’am. Good show, Miss Naile!” 

Standing up in his stirrups, he looked back along the length of his column. “Men, we’ve got a rendezvous with the future of the United States and maybe the world. It’s two hours hard ride from here to aid the Seventh.” And he said to Sergeant Tucker, “Bill, move ‘em out.” 

“Yes, sir!” 

Major Davis started his tall black gelding ahead. Lizzie drew back on her mount’s right rein, falling in alongside. There was a brace of Colt Single Action Army revolvers in her saddlebags. Lizzie promised herself that, when the column stopped to rest and water the horses, she’d take them out of those saddlebags, along with the holster rig. 

Of course, whatever was going to happen in 1900 at what would someday be known as Area 51 had already happened ninety-six years in the past, but Jack and Ellen had only returned to 1900 less than a day ago, and time had seemed to move the same there/then as it did in 1996. Alan felt compelled to think that—however it could be explained or might remain forever inexplicable—the same number of hours had passed for Jack and Ellen as had passed for him. 

Kaminsky’s firepower demonstration of modern weapons to a small crowd of early 1900s would-be despots should be getting started at almost any time, even though— by one way of thinking—it had already happened. 

It was going on mid-morning in 1900, almost dawn in 1996. 

If Kaminsky survived in 1900, she would attempt to escape to 1996. Alan watched carefully as the cement mixers bearing the Horizon Enterprises name and logo turned off the ranch road leading from Nevada 375 and drew up around the small time-transfer capsule. 

Alan turned his back and walked away. The cement mixers began disgorging their contents into the capsule and would continue to do so until the time-transfer capsule was completely filled. Alan had decided on that as being the most certain way. 

Initially, the source of the chamber music had fascinated the assembled diplomats and military personnel. Merely a CD player with perfectly placed speakers, it had seemed magical to sophisticated, worldly men of 1900. 

And Bethany’s assessment of the commercial possibilities for her time-transfer enterprise was suddenly and irrevocably altered. What would the rich and powerful of 1900 pay for the ordinary luxuries of 1996? What would the traffic truly bear? Finding out would be half the fun. 

It was pleasantly cool and oh so civilized under the tent. Bethany’s champagne glass was barely sipped from, but she placed the tulip-shaped crystal on a passing waiter’s tray, then turned her attention back to the tall, very fit looking man in military uniform, the special emissary of the Kaiser. 

“Whatever it is that you would wish, Fraulein Kaminsky, Imperial Germany can and will provide. The only marginally worthy opponent the Fatherland might have is Great Britain, and, of course, your United States. Upstart that it is, Fraulein—but, I mean no offense. 

“No, Fraulein, the French are a deceptive lot. You have a marvelous English word: bluster. The French are masters of this bluster, but not of warfare. As to the Russians, they can afford nothing, comparatively, and their country is beset with the political and social unrest which so often plagues a nation led by the maladroit, the inept. 

“So, Fraulein, the only meaningful bargain which can be struck here—and we both know that—is between Imperial Germany and your firm. No other arrangement is either possible or practical. 

“Who else can you sell to? The British? They would never purchase the weaponry because it would not be ‘cricket’ to use it. The Americans? Much the same, I am afraid. Should either of them make an initial purchase, to what end? Great Britain is more or less content with the empire it has and the Americans have never had the stomach for empire. And a one-time sale is almost as bad as no sale at all, Fraulein. Yes? You will wish to continually upgrade the weaponry which you provide for a continually rising price. That price can only be met through conquest—therefore, war. Imperial Germany is the only choice, Fraulein, for Lakewood Industries. It is your only choice, Fraulein.” 

“You’re so forthright in your thinking and your speech, Baron von Staudenmaier! Are you as forthcoming with funds?” 

“You are an incredibly lovely woman, Fraulein. That means, of course, that I should doubly distrust you.” His voice was low, musical, flowed like honey. 

After a moment’s pause, Bethany asked, “And shouldn’t I distrust you, Baron?” 

“We have a commonality, then, lovely lady. Our relationship is based on mutual distrust.” 

“Do we have a relationship, Baron?” 

Von Staudenmaier smiled, the action lighting his face, it seemed, accentuating the aquiline nose and strong jawline. He bowed slightly, the twinkle in his dark eyes ever-so-slightly masked beneath the shadow from the bill of his officer’s cap. “I would hope that we might have a relationship.” 

“Field gray becomes you, Baron,” Bethany said, glancing at him and then turning her eyes away when she realized that she was being unintentionally coy. 

“Your gown—maroon, is it not?—is quite fetching, Fraulein, quite fetching indeed, but, somehow I think you would look your very best in flesh tones.” Von Staudenmaier took a step back from her, looked her up and down, then said, “You will have to forgive me, Fraulein, but I was indulging my imagination for a moment. And, indeed, flesh tones—that’s how I would love to see you.” 

“Perhaps that can be arranged, Baron. Tell me. Are you truly an expert in artillery, or are you a spy?” 

“I am only expert at certain types of artillery, of the more personal kind,” he responded, smiling again. “I am not a spy, but rather concerned with military intelligence. I have indulged that interest ever since my arrival in America, more than eighteen months ago. And you, Fraulein. Are you someone only interested in vast sums of money, or more in the power that such funds afford?” 

“Both—of the more personal kind.” 

Von Staudenmaier laughed softly. 

Bethany glanced at her anachronistic wristwatch. 

“I noticed that before. What a fascinating way to carry a watch,” Von Staudenmaier remarked. 

“We do lots of fascinating things in the future. I could show you some of them if you were truly interested.” 

He cocked an eyebrow. “You are forward for a woman of culture and position—and, by Heaven, I like that.” 

“We’re about to begin . . . the demonstration.” 

“Oh, I see.” 

In the next instant, a half-dozen men in surplus Soviet battle gear, most with AK-47s in their hands, rose up out of the sand and raced forward. Von Staudenmaier reached for the flap-holstered weapon at his hip, starting to draw a long-barreled, strange-looking automatic pistol from its confines. “That won’t be necessary, Baron; trust me.” She thought that she heard him chuckle softly as she raised her voice so that all around could hear her. “Please! This is just the beginning of the demonstration.” 

The six armed men, as if they weren’t being watched at all, ran to a cluster of rocks some twenty yards away. As each man settled into position, suppressive fire was begun against orange painted reactive target panels that were popping up at ranges from fifty to one hundred to one hundred fifty yards distant. The leader of the squad of six men spoke into a radio handset, but a microphone amplified his voice, making it easily heard over the gunfire through the same speakers that a moment earlier had carried the strains played by a string quartet. 

“Fire team Alpha to Command Post, come-in!” 

The answering voice boomed back. “Sit-rep, Alpha. Over.” 

“Encountering heavy enemy resistance.” And the “commercial,” as Bethany liked to think of it, began. “Our Lakewood Industries AK-47 fully automatic thirty caliber assault rifles are working just great, but we need more firepower. We’re unlimbering the Squad Automatic Weapon now, Command Post. Over.” 

Two of the men, one an operator and the other a helper, manned a machine gun. Bethany didn’t know what kind and didn’t care. She pressed the cupped palms of her hands over her ears as her eyes flickered over the crowd of onlookers. One of the uniformed Frenchmen actually drooled; all of the men, regardless of national allegiance, were enraptured—except for Baron von Staudenmaier, who seemed certainly interested, but equally amused. “Good theater!” Von Staudenmaier remarked as their eyes met for an instant. 

“I thought so when I planned it.” 

The voice of the fire team leader could be heard again. “Requesting airpower to knock out last of enemy resistance, Command Post. Over.” 

“Stay on your Lakewood Industries two-way radio battlefield communication system, Alpha, so you can precisely direct the helicopter air strike. Over.” 

“Affirmative, Command Post. Over.” 

The only airpower she had left in 1900 rose from beyond the western horizon, streaking across the desert toward them. A few of the male secretaries started to break and run. Several of the onlookers all but collapsed into their chairs. Von Staudenmaier remarked, “Name what you want, Fraulein. I doubt there is enough gold in the Imperial Treasury to satisfy the price, but perhaps a little country of your very own?” 

“You’re serious, aren’t you?” 

“Deadly so, yes, Fraulein.” 

The helicopter completed hovering over the six-man fire team and, nosing downward, roared off in the direction of the “enemy” targets, a (hastily) nose-mounted machine gun strafing the enemy position. “Fire Team Alpha to Command Post. Over.” 

“Reading you loud and clear, Alpha. Over.” 

“We need armor in here, Command Post. And more troops. How close are the Lakewood Industries heavily armored battle tanks and armored personnel carriers? Over.” 

While the answer was being announced, Von Staudenmaier leaned down, his lips millimeters from her left ear as he whispered, “Never abandon your present career for that of a playwright, Fraulein. But, on the other hand, good theater does not always have to be ‘good theater,’ does it?” 

“I like you, Baron.” 

“Without sounding conceited, I hope, I must confess that most women do. However, I find you equally fascinating. What shall we do about the situation, Fraulein? That is the question of the moment, hmm?” 

The first two tanks—she had three in 1900—with about a dozen personnel garbed as infantrymen huddled behind them, were moving up. Earlier, Morton Hardesty had suggested, “Don’t you think you should have more guys, to make the firepower demo look more authentic?” 

“Who do I look like to you?” Bethany had asked rhetorically. “See? Tits, a clit, pretty hair. But you think I look like Cecil B. DeMille?” 

The APCs—two of them—were immediately behind the tanks. It galled her that her two jump jets had been destroyed, but she’d bring in jump jets for the next round of sales. 

Bethany glanced at the marvelous-looking man beside her. Germany really did have the inside track on the war materiel and might even position itself for a little something extra.