To Crown a Caesar (The Praetorian Series: Book II) (39 page)

As for Titus, Vincent had been training him to replace him for the past few years, as his lost arm drastically hindered his combat effectiveness.  Nineteen years old, the kid was strong, fast, smart, and a good shot.  We’d given him the spare combat fatigues meant for McDougal, along with our fallen commander’s G36 assault rifle, and he started fitting in just fine.

He was too quiet though.  Never said a damn thing.  And he still calls me by my first and last name.  That was aggravating.

Okay.  I’m not adding anymore spoilers.  If you
’ve read your history and already know what’s going to happen, great, if not, you’re just going have to wait like the rest of us.

“What’re you smirking at?”  Santino asked as he munched on a piece of bread.

“Hmm?”  I replied distractedly.  “Oh, just
taking a little pleasure out of baiting my future readers.  I’m going to make a movie out of this yet!”

Santino shook h
is head and waved his pita bread at me, trying to swallow his latest mouthful.  Middle Eastern cuisine hadn’t changed much in two thousand years, and I was happily enjoying pita bread, falafels, and a classic shish-ka-bob, complete with vegetables and meat.

“No, that’s not it,” Santino managed finally.  “Something else.”  He tapped his chin in thought.  “Isn’t your birthday coming up?”

“Nope,” I said honestly.  He was late by a week 

It hadn’t been as horrendous as I’d thought it would be, now that Helena knew about it.  Although, she did force me to admit how old I was, just so she could carve a number into the MRE dessert cake she gave me.  At least she reluctantly agreed with my theory that I was now thirty one, and not thirty two due to the lost months
during our trip through time.

It took some doing though.

“Then what?  I haven’t seen you this pleased with yourself in years.  Helena wear something sexy to b…”

“No,” I answered quickly.  I wasn’t going to let him have the pleasure of forming the mental image.

“Just tell me!  It’s not like we’re really doing anything right now.  Just waiting.  Like always.”

I wrapped up my journal and dropped it in the bag I’d bought in Byzantium
, and turned to survey my surroundings.  Santino and I were sitting in a nice café on a balcony overlooking the Mediterranean Sea.  We had a beautiful view, and even though it was at least ninety degrees Fahrenheit outside, the dry air made it bearable and the sea breeze, comfortable.

“This isn’t exciting to you?  Get your blood boiling?”  I asked him, pumping my fists.  “We’re done sneaking around. 
Done not knowing what to do next.  We’re taking control for once.  It’s like we’re on some grand adventure now instead of just half-assing it.  I’m instigating an open rebellion against one of the most dominant world powers to ever grace civilizations, usurping an empress with my own emperor, pitting two political sides against each other, and possibly changing the course of world history!”  I paused for dramatic effect.  “And looking good doing it.”

I brushed my h
ands through my newly cut hair to emphasize my point.  I’d let it grow almost to my shoulders in Byzantium, but now it was back to my preferred length of short, but still longer than Navy regulations.  It was much more comfortable this way and Helena really liked it too.

Santino had cut his hair as well,
along with shaving his beard.  His new hairstyle was popular throughout the empire these days, stylized after how Julius Caesar wore his hair: short, with tiny little curls for bangs.  His freshly shaved face was also a local Roman grooming standard and set him apart from many of the local Jews who sported bushy facial hair.  Combined with his stupid grin and myriad of dashing scars, he had even more luck with the ladies these days, a fact he let few forget, especially Wang.  Helena’s little joke a month ago had spawned some kind of competition between the two, apparently the only objective of which being to sleep with as many women as possible.

Santino was winning, and whenever he wins at anything, is generally pretty annoying
about it.

Santino yawned.  “Some grand adventure.  All we’ve been doing is sitting
on our asses for three weeks.”  He looked out over the Mediterranean.  “Nice view, though.”

“You’re worthless,” I commented.  “Only you couldn’t get caught up in all this.”

“This isn’t a Dan Brown book, Jacob.  This is real life.”

I tilted my head to the side.  “You can read?”

He smiled.  “I’ve seen the movies.”

I sighed, resigning myself to Santino’s mood.  He
was
right.  We
were
doing a lot of waiting these days, but political scandals took a long time to work themselves out.

“Will you two please stop bickering,” the faint voice of Helena said in my ear piece.  “Try and stay focused.”

“
What?
”  I said, pretending her words were somehow shocking and insulting.  “No way.  Are you telling me it’s okay if you and I bicker, but I can’t even argue with my best pal?”

“Yeah, mom
my,” Santino chimed in, the both of us on VOX. “I’m just hanging with my besty.  Gee, Hunter, you sure can pick em.  Always the needy, clingy, bitchy ones.”

I nodded my head in agreement.  “You know what, John?  You’re absolutely right.  Maybe I should listen to you more often”

“Been sayin it for years.”

“Of all the…”Helena said, anger now clearly evident.  “You t
wo know I can shoot you right…”

“Stop,” the drawn out voice of Vincent
interrupted in an obviously annoyed manner.

Santino and I exchanged smiles
and traded air high fives.  Having everyone back together brought out the worst in us, and the past couple of weeks had been just like those first few weeks in Rome, with Santino cracking jokes, me backing him up, and Helena hating every moment of it.

Of course, back then all she would do is playfully punch m
e when I annoyed her.  Now, she was denying me more recreational and… fun things.

But like Santino earlier, s
he had a point.  Santino and I weren’t enjoying lunch together to annoy her, as much as we wished we were, but to meet our contact.  Because we had extensive knowledge of the current and near future socio-political atmosphere of the area, I knew King Herod was the key to our plans, as opposed to his Roman equivalent.  That’s why we were waiting for one of his top tier administrators to meet us for lunch.

To have a little chat.

I glanced around the café.  It was just as nice as the one in Byzantium, but the view alone made it far superior.  It added such grandeur to the spot, and the amount of space and open area available made the location much more beautiful than anything Byzantium had to offer.  Most of the buildings were tan in color, and the flooring was constructed out of a creamy sandstone. Combined with the sandy beaches, the bright blue water and crystal clear sky, I could almost imagine we were in the Bahamas.

It looked like a grander version of any Middle Eastern city, just without the centuries of decay
and war, long before the infighting and squabbling would tear it apart.  I’d never been to Dubai, but I could almost picture this place as a two thousand year old equivalent, just without the palm tree shaped islands.

The plaza where our café was situated was huge, easily the size of a football field.  It had outside seating for hundreds, and it was beautiful.  I hadn’t known much about the city coming into it, except that its port
had been recently renovated, but all in all, even Rome wasn’t quite as stunning.  Vincent told me it had taken Herod the Great twelve years to rebuild the city, and it was certainly worth it.   The city boasted a theatre, a hippodrome, perhaps the finest port in all antiquity, and the entire city appeared to have been chiseled by the skilled hands of a sculpture, like Michelangelo, out of some kind of pure white stone.  A material so wonderful it could have been a city sized chunk of ivory for all I knew.  Arches, towers, turrets, multistory buildings, aqueducts, temples, small palaces… the city had it all, and it was breathtaking.

It’s a shame that it was destroyed at one point
and probably will be again.

The table I was sharing with Santino was directly in the center of the café, and sat right next to the low wall
that separated patrons from the cliff that dropped off to the beaches below, only a few meters below us.  Bordeaux and Madrina sat a few tables away, sharing their own meal, wearing local clothing that looked almost identical to the indigenous clothing of Middle Eastern townspeople in the present day.  Vincent and Titus were near a vending stall for exotic weaponry a few dozen feet behind Santino, effectively pulling off a father and his eldest son out for a day of shopping.  Wang was hiding in an alley, out of sight, ready to deploy as a quick reaction force if something horrible went down.  Finally, Helena was posted in an abandoned lighthouse, very far away.

The shoreline behind me r
an for about four hundred yards before jutting out into the sea at a right angle for another hundred yards.  Helena’s lighthouse hide was at the end of the little peninsula formed by the shoreline’s shift seaward.  Utilizing a little Pythagorean Theorem know how, that put Helena at 412 yards out, not accounting for her elevation, which wasn’t that high.

Santino and I were well covered, and
I couldn’t think of a time or place where I’ve ever felt safer.  We were about to do something both smart and stupid, and it was nice to have the backup.  I wasn’t going to let the feeling shift to overconfidence like it had with Agrippina, but it was still nice.

Secure in my friends’ presence, I was watching a flock of seagulls fly over the water when a long shadow fell across my face and I noticed Santino put his feet down in readiness.  I turned my head to see a bearded man stop next to our table.  He wore long brown robes, with a thick sash of a belt colored in dark red, and the robe had two thick stripes running around the edges of his sleeves.  He had dark features, craggily skin, black hair with a salt and pepper beard, and he looked pissed.

Santino pulled out a chair, brushed it off with his sleeve, and offered it to the newcomer.

The man
turned to stare at Santino, his eyes steady and angry.  It took ten seconds before Santino’s wide smile faltered and another five after that before it fizzled away completely.  He looked at the table in embarrassment.  I found myself shocked anyone had the power to do such a thing.  Clearly, this guy wasn’t one to screw around with.

Satisfied Santino was now secure in his
place at the bottom of the food chain; the bearded man took his offered seat, crossed his left leg over his right and appraised the two of us intently.  I didn’t flinch at his perusal, doing my best to return his stare coolly.

“This guy doesn’t look too happy,” Helena’s reassuring voice commented in my ear, no anger from earlier remnant in her observation.

I nodded just enough so that she could catch it through her scope.  She was right for the second time today. This guy was a Zealot.  He hated Roman authority and their overreaching disregard for anything Jewish.  In the original timeline, almost twenty five years from now, men like him would form the nucleus for the uprising against Roman Rule, resulting in one of the bloodiest rebellions in Roman history, and over a million Jewish casualties.

“You are
Vani,
” he said, more of a statement than a question.

“We are,” I answered.  “My name
is Burt, and this is my friend Ernie.”

“I wanted to be Burt,” Santino mumbled in English.

“Shut it.”

It had surprised us to learn upon our arrival that our reputation had greatly
preceded us.  Even here in Judea, people had heard the stories of a mysterious band of do-gooders who went around helping those who couldn’t help themselves.  Everyone knew the highways of Rome weren’t safe from the likes of Madriviox and all the other scum we’d eliminated over the past four years, and to hear of people who tried to help others was unusual.

Nearly every day since we’d been here, whether we were just walking through the markets or eating in a restaurant, stories of our endeavors circulated through Caesarea like they were headline news stories or the most recent episode of a modern day
hit television program.

Humorously, most of the stories were outlandish versions of what really happened
, especially when they revolved around Helena.  Told mainly by the young men of the city, one story was that of a nine foot tall, black haired Amazon, whose outfit was always described in a way that reminded me of the armor worn by female warriors in any number of geek fantasy stories.

Not that I knew anything about those, of course.

Apparently, this woman could shoot lighting from her eyes, decapitate men with a blink, and disintegrate them with the snap of her fingers.  I joked with Helena that it seemed society knew her better than I did.

Other stories weren’t
nearly so ridiculous, but each carried a morsel of truth to them, and once people started noticing dark figures flitting about their rooftops during the night these past few weeks, the rumor mill had fresh material to work with.  Like we’d done in Byzantium, we spent our nights scouting and mapping the city of Caesarea.  It was twice the size of Byzantium, but with our added manpower and the help of Santino’s UAV, most of the work was done quickly and easily.