“That’s how long it took Harnesh and his tools to recreate our tube,” Caroline said. “That means five years in which they couldn’t find us. Is that right?”
“No more questions. That’s all I can say about it. Or about me. You understand why,” Samuel said and gestured for them to rise and follow him. The mist in the array was building once again.
“You can restore power that quickly? We have to wait days between activations,” Caroline said.
“No more questions, Dr. Tauber,” Samuel said, standing at the foot of the walkway that led to the tube platform. “In you get. Go home.”
Dwayne stood over the three bodies lying still on the walkway.
“You mind if we help ourselves?” he said. “Just leave the transmitter,” Samuel said.
Dwayne stripped the least bloodied of the cloaks from Ray-Bans and the hanged man. He took one handgun, and the purse of coins. He snaked a couple of Evians and a Snickers bar from the sack. Caroline slipped the offered cloak over her shoulders and started after Dwayne. She turned just before the freezing cloud engulfed her.
“Will we see you again?” she said.
“I can almost guarantee it,” Samuel said. And she was gone.
57
Time to Kill
The sky was dark as they exited the mist.
The field chamber and the building that housed it were gone now. Dwayne and Caroline stumbled out of the frigid cloud and dropped to their knees. Two manifestations inside of sixty minutes left them weak as kittens and helpless with vertigo. Caroline shook it off after a while and stood. Dwayne rose to one knee and pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes.
“We can’t stay here,” she said.
“Give me five seconds,” he groaned.
“Now, Ranger!” she shouted with more gusto than she felt.
Together they moved across a broad concrete pad studded here and there with rebar where the support columns would one day stand. It was the construction site for the soon-to-be Gallant facility. There were earth-moving machines parked in a row. The twenty-story tower of a crane cut the sky in half. A trailer stood with lights on inside along a packed-earth roadway. All was surrounded by a cyclone fence topped with loops of razor wire. The gates were closed with loops of heavy chain.
Caroline looked behind them. Rising from the dark were the beginnings of two enormous concrete structures. Cooling towers. That answered the question of how the Gallant bootleg time device repowered up so swiftly.
She joined Dwayne, who was standing at the gate with his fingers gripping the steel mesh.
“Think we can climb it?” Caroline said. The thought of it made her weariness more profound.
“Fuck that,” Dwayne said and took her hand to lead her toward the humped shape of a gargantuan earth machine.
He helped her climb into the cab with a hand on her ass then piloted the monster machine through the gates and along a rutted service road that ran along the coast. They left the earthmover between two boat sheds and made for the lights of a roadway. If they woke up any security, they weren’t sticking around to meet them.
They managed to flag down a cab to take them through the sleeping town to the Hotel Belazur. The cab driver was suspicious of the gold coin stamped with the profile of Phillip of Macedon that Dwayne offered in payment. Dwayne assured him in Arabic that it was gold and bit the soft metal coin before handing it over. The cab driver did the same, and smiled broadly before wishing them the Virgin’s blessings and pulling away with enough of a tip to buy a new cab.
The graveyard shifts that work international hotels are generally more understanding than the rigid souls who hold the same positions in the daylight hours. Caroline handled the man at the desk, telling him a story in fluent French of how they were Canadian tourists who had their rental car stolen on the road from Beirut and all of their clothing and luggage taken from them.
The registrar clucked his tongue in sympathy but failed to see how this unfortunate story had anything to do with him especially since the key part of Caroline’s tale, for him, was that they had no money or credit cards. In addition, they were naked and stank and were clothed only in what looked like tattered remnants too filthy to be sold as rags.
Ah, Caroline explained, but the thieves did not get the collection of rare coins that her husband had purchased from a dealer at a souk in Hamra. Dwayne produced a few silver coins and let them tinkle to the marble top of the counter. The registrar inspected them in the light with a practiced eye.
“We will be able to exchange some of these for currency in the morning,” she assured him.
“How long may I keep these to...determine their authenticity?” the registrar asked.
“Oh, keep these samples as long as you wish.” She smiled.
“And shall I telephone the Canadian consulate to make them aware of your situation?” he said, sharing the smile.
“It is late. Why trouble them?” She slid an additional gold talent across the cool surface of the counter.
“Yes. So late.” The coins vanished into a pocket of his vest.
Despite the fact that they were both exhausted, Caroline insisted they shower before going to sleep. Dwayne threw himself back on the covers of the queen-sized bed and was snoring within seconds. Caroline ran a steaming shower, squirted fistfuls of shampoo into her hair, and scrubbed until she was exhausted. She sat down on the sculpted ledge within the shower and promised herself that she would only close her eyes for a few seconds.
She awoke an hour later under a deluge of now-frigid water and stumbled from the bathroom without drying herself to lie down next to Dwayne and pass out.
Dwayne was up the next morning, and showered and shaved while Caroline ordered up breakfast and two pots of the strongest coffee they could make. Yes, cream. Hell
