“He’s a man with a keen interest in physics and the advancement of knowledge.”
“And some shady connections,” Jimbo said. “Those two Axis of Evil escapees you have running the reactor. You didn’t find them through any want ad.”
“Our benefactor is a man of considerable influence,” Tauber said. He seemed anxious to change the subject but knew they’d want something from him. “But I’d be violating a stack of non-disclosure agreements this high if I told you any more. Your fee for this mission buys him his privacy.”
“You’re right, Doc.” Jimbo crushed a Coors can between his palms. “A quarter share of ten mill buys a shitload of shut-my-mouth.”
“I still don’t see a profit motive here,” Chaz said. “That’s an ass-load of cash to throw away just for curiosity. What’s the practical purpose of time travel?”
“What was the practical purpose of going to the moon, dumbass?” Renzi said.
“They don’t really share that kind of information with me,” Tauber said. “For Caroline, Martin Kemp and I, the success of the Tauber Tube can lead us to practical experimentation to prove string theory. Have you heard of that?”
“I’ve heard of it,” Chaz said. “Stephen Hawking, right?”
“Yes,” said Tauber, who tried to cover his surprise.
“We read more than Hustler and weapons manuals, Doc,” Dwayne said dryly.
“Uh-huh.” Tauber blushed. “String theory posits that there are universes next to ours, similar but differing in subtle details to radical shifts in reality. It’s long been theorized that these universes are created by disruptions in time rather than space. It’s where history branches off in a new direction at a critical point.”
“Like the South winning the Civil War,” Chaz offered. “Or JFK surviving the assassination.”
“Or the Lions winning a Superbowl,” Renzi said and brayed.
“We are talking probabilities not fantasy,” Tauber said.
It was the Rangers’ turn to be surprised. The doc made a funny.
“So, if you go back to the past and fart around on purpose,” Chaz said. “Won’t you risk changing the present?”
“We’ve considered that and planned to devise some low impact tests that we could then return to the past to undo,” Tauber said.
“Like what?” Dwayne wanted to know. “Well, we hadn’t gotten that far in actuality,” Tauber said with a dour expression. “And I hope we haven’t already strayed into a temporal anomaly.”
“Hey, where are Pervert and Queerbait?” Renzi said. He glanced over the hut. “I haven’t seen them around.”
“Parviz and Quebat went to Las Vegas for the day,” Tauber said. “The reactor is entirely self-maintaining. But they’ll be back in plenty of time to monitor the readings.”
“They gamblers?” Renzi said.
“Celine Dion fans.”
Dwayne stood on a ledge of shale and looked out over the moonlit desert. The temperature had dropped forty degrees since the sun went down. If the trail left by the three eggheads led that way, they’d be walking down this slope the following day and into the bowl-shaped depression below. It wouldn’t look exactly like this if Tauber was right. It could be wooded or grassland. Somewhere below would be a lake, a marsh, or even an inland sea where there was now sand, rock, and dust. The doc assured the team that rocks don’t lie.
Dwayne turned at the crunch of a boot heel. Chaz was climbing the natural steps up to him. Chaz clutched two beers, the necks between his fingers.
Chaz handed a bottle to Dwayne, and they stood looking over the desert.
“The Iranians are back,” Chaz said. He took a pull off the Coors.
“They enjoy the show?” Dwayne said.
“They didn’t share. They were wearing matching Celine t-shirts, though. You know they’re not a couple?”
“Huh?”
“Parviz and Quebat. They’re gay, but they’re not each other’s type.”
“Good to know.” Dwayne tipped the beer back in one long swallow.
“They’re our ticket back, man,” Chaz said. “I thought I’d talk to them. So we’re not just strangers.”
“Like when you always made sure the Black Hawk pilots knew all our names.”
Chaz threw his empty far out into the dark.
A brittle pop echoed over the rocks.
“Renzi seems to be dealing,” Chaz said after a moment. “He’s sober. Cranky about having no smokes, though.”
“He’s good as long as he has someone to shoot at or blow up,” Dwayne said. “It’s the home side of it he sucks at. Jimbo’s a smoker too, and he’s not bitching.”
“Ricky thinks he’s going to get the wife and kids back.”
“Never going to happen. Even if it does, if she comes back, he’d find a way to screw it up. And she’d only come back for the cash. I don’t know her, so I don’t know if she’s that kind.”
“Rick says she’s a bitch.”
“What else is he going to say?”
A coyote yipped somewhere out in the dark. “You think this is for real?” Chaz said.
“Going backward in time?”
“The money is,” Dwayne said.
“Yeah. But all this science fiction bullshit.”
“Doesn’t matter. It’s a payday. What do you believe?”
“I hope it’s bullshit. I hope it’s all smoke and mirrors and Tauber’s crazy and invented this story and all his machine does is keep beer cold. Because if all this is for real? We’re walking into God knows what with our eyes shut.”
“Quick in and out, bro. No unfriendlies.”
“You can’t know that. Our intel is non-existent. We know jack squat of what to expect on the other side.”
“When’s intel ever been one hundred percent? But this is hindsight, bro. We’re going back into history, not a mystery.” Dwayne threw his own bottle. It landed soundlessly somewhere out on the sand. “When haven’t we been told one thing and got dropped into the middle of something we weren’t expecting?”
“Yeah, but there was five of us then.”
“Four’s enough.”
“Did you even call him, Dwayne?”
“I thought four was enough.”
“I know it ain’t the money because there’s more than enough of that here.”
“We don’t need Hammond,” Dwayne said.
“You might not say that on the other side.”
“We needed him in Tikrit. We needed him in Kandahar and Quito. Remember when it all went south in Golol?”
“This is different.”
“I don’t see how.”
“It’s a rescue, not a raid. Hammond
