TW11 The Cleopatra Crisis NEW (26 page)

"Fine," said Simmons coldly. "If you gutless wonders want to tuck your tails between your legs and run, then go. I don't need you. I'll do it myself.“

"Don't be a fool. Why take the chance? There'll be another time."

"No," said Simmons firmly. "It's gonna be this time. Right here. Right now."

"Suit yourself.” said Rick. shaking his head. "It's your funeral."

"Oh, there'll be a funeral, all right." said Simmons. "Only it ain't gonna be mine."

There were two guards standing on either side of the doorway to Cleopatra's bedroom. Neither of them heard a thing as Darkness suddenly materialized beside the Queen of Egypt's bed. He reached out and flung the bedclothes off her and as she jerked awake with a gasp, he pulled her into his tachyon field and translocated. Before Cleopatra could even react to what was happening, she had reappeared with Darkness a nanosecond later in the library of Travers' home. Corwin held her while Castelli fired a stun dart into her upper arm.

"Sorry about that, Your Highness," said Castelli. “But it'll be okay. you won't remember a damn thing."

She collapsed in Corwin's arms with a small moan.

Lucas gave the order. "Okay, people. Move out!" Bryant's team clocked out to the palace. Simultaneously. Cooper's strike force unit clocked to Cleopatra's house. "Okay," Lucas said to Castelli and Corwin. "You know what to do. Move."

Castelli and Corwin snapped a preprogrammed warp disc around Cleopatra's wrist and clocked out to the future.

"Andell, you ready?" Lucas said.

"Ready," said Sgt. Andell.

"Okay, Finn, get going," Lucas said.

"Good luck, Lucas," said Delaney.

"You, too."

"Travers, if we're not back in ten minutes, get the hell out of here," Delaney said.

"You'll be back," said Travers.

"Okay," said Lucas. “Let's go for broke."

They all clocked out together, !caving Travers alone in the library. He crossed his fingers.

There were two S.O.G. men standing guard outside the door of Caesar's chambers. Two more were stationed in front of the sleeping quarters of the guards. There was a sudden
whoosh,
followed by a loud
thwaack
! One of the guards at Caesar's door crumpled unconscious to the ground. The other guard jerked around, startled, but he didn't see a thing except the unconscious form of his companion. Suddenly a disembodied hand appeared floating in midair, about a foot and a half in front of him. It was holding a blackthorn walking stick. The guard's jaw dropped as he stared at it with astonishment.
Whoosh,
thwaack
! Two down.

Major Bryant materialized in front of the two fallen guards, holding his disruptor. He glanced down quickly at their unconscious forms, then looked up to see Dr. Darkness leaning back against the wall, blowing an imaginary speck of dust from the head of his walking stick. Bryant tossed him a casual salute.

Darkness touched his walking stick to the brim of his hat.

At the same time, the other commandos of Bryant's team clocked in to their transition points. They fired their disruptors and the guards were briefly wreathed in the blue glow of Cherenkov radiation as the neutron beams struck them, then they disintegrated. They never even had a chance to scream.

Bryant aimed his disruptor down at the unconscious guards and quickly disposed of them, then moved quickly and silently toward the sleeping quarters of the other S.O.G. men. Moving softly, the commandos fanned out throughout the room, covering the sleeping guards. One of them, either feeling the call of nature or reacting subconsciously to their presence, woke up. He had only an instant in which to register the black-clad men spread out through-out the room. He opened his mouth to shout out a warning, but at that precise instant, they all fired. The room became bathed in the bright blue glow of Cherenkov radiation as the S.O.G. men, their bedclothes, and their beds all disintegrated. It was over in a matter of seconds.

As Bryant and his team coped with the guards. Lucas and Andell clocked directly into Caesar's bedroom. Calpurnia was sound asleep, but Caesar, a light sleeper with instincts honed by year of battle, awoke as they started to move toward his bed. He sat up suddenly as Lucas quickly raised his stunner and fired a dart into his chest. Caesar jerked and fell back onto the bed. At the same time. Andell fired a dart into Calpurnia. She jerked slightly and moaned, then lay perfectly motionless.

"A trifle late, there," Darkness said as he appeared standing against the wall, toying with his walking stick. "How are the others doing?" Lucas said as he and Andell quickly started strapping preprogrammed warp discs around the wrists of Caesar and his wife.

"Surprisingly, they seem to have the situation well in hand," said Darkness. "I'd better go check on that great clod, Delaney, and see if he's managed to do his part without shooting himself in the foot."

He disappeared.

“If you ask me. that man's a few cards short of a full deck," Andell said.

"Maybe," Lucas replied. "but what cards he does have are all marked. You ready?"

"Ready," said Andell.

"Okay, check your time. I want them both clocked back here exactly one minute from now. Ready?"

"Mark!" Andell said.

"Go!"

Andell activated the warp disc on Calpurnia's wrist while Lucas simultaneously clocked out Caesar. They both vanished.

"All right, I'm on my way," Andell said. "Good luck, Lucas."

"You, too."

Andell clocked out.

Now came the tough part. Lucas held his laser pistol in one hand and his stunner in the other, he stood back against the wall, out of immediate sight of anyone who might be coming through the doorway, but in a position where he could clearly see them. Now all he had to do was keep the room secure and wait for the longest minute in the world.

Cooper's strike force troops started moving the second they clocked in.

Three of them took down the legionaries posted at the front gates. aiming carefully and firing their stun darts into the exposed flesh at the upper arms and thighs of the soldiers, where their breastplates could not deflect them.

Then they immediately started moving onto the grounds. Three more men clocked in on the roof and that was where they sustained their first casualty.

One of the S.O.G. guards on the rooftop just happened to move to the same spot where one of Cooper's men was clocking in. Two objects could not occupy the same time and space simultaneously. There was a brief, agonized scream, and then a hideous, misshapen mass of bloody, writhing flesh that was barely recognizable as being human fell to the rooftop. For an instant, the other rooftop guards were too shocked to move and in that instant, Cooper's men fired their disruptors. The S.O.G. men were briefly wreathed in a blue aura, then they disappeared.

"Oh. God," one of Cooper's men said, staring at the horror lying at his feet.

The other one fired his disruptor at it, disintegrating the sickening remains of two fused human bodies. “Come on, snap out of it! The whole house must've heard that scream!"

Indeed, the whole house had. In that moment, the element of surprise so necessary to the speedy conclusion of the raid was lost. Hollister heard the scream and came awake instantly, rolling out of bed and lunging for his weapon. He was already shouting out a warning at the top of his lungs as his fingers closed around it and he went running out into the hall barefoot, dressed only in his tunic. The guards outside Cleopatra's bedroom immediately ran inside to seize their hostage and were dismayed to see the bed empty. They wasted valuable seconds looking for her around the room. By the time they heard the sounds behind them, it was already too late. The stun darts struck them as they turned and collapsed to the floor.

Outside on the grounds, laser beams crisscrossed in the darkness as the firelight erupted between the S.O.G. men on security duty and the men of Cooper's unit. As Delaney. Steiger, and Andre clocked into the
peristylum
, they could already hear the sounds of shouting and running feet.

"God damn it!" said Delaney. "Come on. let's
move
!"

They ran across the open space of the courtyard, heading toward the servants' quarters.

"Watch it!" Andre shouted.

She dove to the ground and rolled as a laser beam stabbed through the air above her and fired as she came up. One of the S.O.G. men fell. Delaney dropped another one and they kept going, moving as quickly as they could, the adrenaline pounding through their systems.

Hollister spotted three men moving down the corridor and fired without hesitation. Two of Cooper's men fell dead, one of them the man armed with the disruptor. The third man brought up his stunner and fired, but Hollister quickly ducked behind a column and fired. The third man went down.

Laser beams made a webwork of light in the atrium as the two opposing forces met in the central hall. Cooper's team had taken casualties, but the S.O.G. men in the grounds had all been dealt with and the fight now moved entirely indoors. Several of the household slaves ran screaming in terror down the corridors and were dropped by stun darts, though a few ran directly into the path of laser and disruptor beams and ceased to exist. Others cowered fearfully in their quarters, convinced the world was coming to an end, while a few simply dropped down to their knees in supplication before the invading demons and were quickly tranked.

Outside, Simmons moved carefully across the grounds. crouching low and taking advantage of the darkness, holding his laser pistol ready. His warp disc was already preprogrammed with his escape coordinates. Screw the others, he thought. Who needs them? This was the perfect opportunity. In all the confusion, he could slip in and nail Steiger, then be gone before anybody realized what had happened. He bent over the body of one of Cooper's men.

Perfect. He quickly stripped off his own clothes and started putting on the corpse's T.C.I. fatigues. He slipped the black Balaclava hood over his head, then smiled as he picked up the disruptor.

Hollister came bursting into Cleopatra's room, then stopped as he saw the unconscious bodies of his men lying on the floor. There was no sign of Cleopatra. Somehow, incredibly, they had managed to get her out. He couldn't believe it. He heard running footsteps coming down the hall. He quickly punched in a preprogrammed sequence of transition coordinates and clocked out just as Delaney came diving through the doorway, firing his stunner. The dart passed harmlessly through empty air.

Lucas waited tensely, glancing every couple of seconds at the readout on his warp disc. The time was almost up. Andell had clocked to Plus Time with Caesar and Calpurnia, as had Castelli and Corwin. with Cleopatra. It would take days for them to be properly conditioned by the psych teams at TAC-HQ, but then they would be clocked back to Minus Time so that only one minute would have passed since they'd been gone. They would reappear, sedated, safely in their own beds. They would wake up several, hours later, completely oblivious of what had happened to them.

As soon as the operation at Cleopatra's house was concluded, assuming that it was concluded successfully, the survivors would be clocked to Plus Time and interrogated under drugs. The household slaves would then he separated from any surviving S.O.G. infiltrators. Castelli would take charge of a team that would clock out to ancient Egypt, where they would purchase slaves that would replace the S.O.G. men. Once those slaves had been acquired from the markets in Alexandria. they would then be tranked and clocked to Plus Time, where they would be conditioned to believe that they had been in the Queen of Egypt's service all along. Cleopatra herself would be conditioned to believe that they had come to Rome with her. Then Castelli and his team would clock back in with them, all before daybreak.

Cleopatra would remember nothing of what had happened to her. She would recall meeting Marcus Septimus and his wife, Antonia, though she would believe that they had left Rome. Both Caesar and Calpurnia would recall how he had dismissed his Egyptian bodyguard because he did not wish to give the appearance that he feared his enemies or that he was too much under the influence of a foreign queen.

In a matter of seconds, Lucas thought, if all goes well. Caesar and his wife would reappear in their bed and they would wake up in the morning as if nothing had ever happened. Cleopatra and her new slaves would be clocked back into her house.

They had put the plan together quickly. but it seemed to Lucas as if they'd covered every contingency. At least, he hoped they had. Everything hinged on the assault against the S.O.G. unit at Cleopatra's house being successful. Lucas checked the time again. Another few seconds. He swallowed nervously. Had they covered everything? All right. he thought, come on. What have we missed? What else can go wrong?

Hollister materialized inside the quarters assigned to his men at the imperial palace. And froze, absolutely stunned. He recovered quickly and glanced around, sweeping his weapon around the room, but Bryant and his team had already left. He had missed encountering them by scant seconds. He moved quickly to the door leading to the corridor and listened intently. Everything seemed quiet. For a moment, he simply stood there, not moving. He risked a glance out into the corridor. There was no sign of his men. They were all gone, every last one of them. Jesus, Hollister thought. They must have hit the palace and the house at the same time! He was staggered by their audacity.

They must have clocked into the palace, and while Caesar slept just a short distance down the hall, they had killed every one of his men and gotten out again, a lightning operation, brilliantly executed and devastatingly efficient. He had never dreamed they would dare take such a risk. He had vastly underestimated them and it had cost him. It had cost him everything.

His mind reeled as he realized that his operation was totally undone. All that work, all that preparation, wiped out in just one night. It was beyond belief. How in hell had they managed to snatch Cleopatra? And how could they cover everything that they had done without risking a temporal disruption? He had to think. He had to put himself in their shoes and imagine what he might have done if he were in their place. And if he were desperate enough to try something like this. Desperate. hell, he told himself, the bastards had actually pulled it off.