“Then I will return and see it done,” Khan said and held out the empty tumbler for Martin to take.
“No,” Sir Neal said. “I have another task for you. Something closer to home. Closer to the present.”
“I thought this operation in Judea was the priority,” Khan said.
“It is. It is at the core of all I have planned. But you know this is a complicated game we play. Time is everything and nothing to us. You will return to Judea another day, and it will be as though you were only absent for a moment.”
“As you wish, of course, Sir Neal. All I ask is to take a hot shower, and I am at your complete disposal,” Khan said, standing.
“Take all the time you need,” Sir Neal said with a trace of a smile.
Sumesh Khan departed with a swirl of his dark robes.
“I don’t like him, sir. He’s dangerous,” Augustus Martin said when Khan was out of earshot on the other side of the heavily insulated door.
“Said one predator of another,” Sir Neal said. “It is that precise attribute that makes you and Mr. Khan valuable to me.”
18
At Home
“Stephen. I like it,” Dwayne said.
“It was my father’s name.” Caroline was smiling, beaming really, where she reclined in the bed nursing their son. The sun that streamed into the room seemed to be shining just for them. Dwayne couldn’t remember being this happy or this at peace.
“Then your brother will like it, too,” Dwayne said, standing by her and holding her hand.
“You’re sure? You don’t want to make a suggestion?” she said.
“I thought maybe Richard for his middle name.”
“For Rick Renzi?”
“Yeah,” he said and squeezed her hand.
They both thought that fitting. Rick Renzi was one of the Rangers who went with Dwayne and the others through the Tauber Tube to prehistoric Nevada to find Caroline and return her to the present. Renzi stayed behind to man a machine gun and cover their escape against a horde of blood-mad cannibals. But, as Caroline learned from a study of his ossified remains, Rick Renzi did not die that day long ago. He lived on for another forty years, trapped in the alien world of the distant past.
“It’s good. Stephen Richard...” Caroline trailed away.
“We’re going to have to do something about the last name,” Dwayne said.
“He can take yours.” She shrugged.
“Only if you take it first.”
She looked at him, brows knitted. “Well?” He smiled.
“Of course!” she said and clutched his arm to draw him closer to share a kiss while their son suckled away.
“It will have to be between the two of us until we can use our own names again,” he said when they broke the kiss. “I mean, we can take the vows in our own name, but the paperwork is going to have to be—”
“Shut up, dummy,” she said, placing her fingers on his lips. “You’re spoiling the moment with operational details.”
They sat quietly and enjoyed the quiet, appreciating that it was fleeting and therefore precious.
After a while, Stephen Richard Roenbach broke contact with a look of sleepy contentment. He needed to be burped. Dad took the chore on like a champ, and soon the little guy was asleep in his father’s arms.
“We need to get one of these,” Dwayne said, rocking the dozing infant in the glider chair by the bed.
“For our nursery on the Raj?” Caroline smiled weakly.
“We’ll have a house. We have the cash. We’ll move anywhere you want.”
“Or anytime. Maybe Louis the Fourteenth would like some house guests for the summer.” She levered herself from the bed and stepped into slippers. “Mommy has to tinkle.”
“When can you and junior here move to the hotel?” He began to stand to help her but she waved him back down.
“Please don’t call him ‘Junior.’ Mo is the one who called me ‘Sis’ and it stuck.” She shuffled to the bathroom. “And I guess we can be discharged tomorrow.”
“I’ll make sure you’re settled in before I head back to the guys.”
“No need for that.” Her voice echoed off the tiles in the bathroom. “I have a live-in nanny arranged and a concierge doctor on call.”
“You’re sure about that?”
“The team needs you. And I know Morris is losing his mind. He’ll need you to hold his hand when they manifest.”
“I hate leaving you like that.”
“Leave me like what?” The toilet flushed, and she was back in the room and taking her time getting onto the bed. “A five-star Swiss hotel with twenty-four-hour room service and a small army of staff members to take care of every little thing? You make it sound like you’re abandoning me in a trailer park.”
“You’re spoiling our son already.”
“Damn straight, I am,” she said and bent to kiss the baby’s forehead, then Dwayne’s.
“All right. I’ll book the evening flight to Athens,” Dwayne said
19
Forward into the Past
The manifestation went smoothly.
The weather was cooperating with an overcast sky and gathering thunderheads out on the Med.
The Ocean Raj had been custom-fitted to transform much of the superstructure and the entire engine deck into a Faraday box. Electronics and radio equipment were shielded from the powerful electromagnetic field that would soon engulf the ship and surrounding water.
The ten-foot-diameter balloon was inflated and rose on a nano-carbon cable high above the deck. It climbed into the night sky, dully reflecting the roiling clouds on its ebon surface. The line grew taut as it swayed at its maximum height of five hundred feet. Weighted cables, secured to davits port and starboard, were thrown into the water.
Below decks, in their shielded control room, Parviz and Quebat waited in Tyvek bunny suits for the signal that all was green for go. With the “all ready” sign from above, they fired a megajoule charge down the line. The cables in the water crackled. A blue field of incandescent electricity climbed the balloon cable into the sky, singeing the air with fingers of
