TW11 The Cleopatra Crisis NEW (28 page)

"They will be," Forester assured him.

"Hollister's a good man," said Lucas. "he just happens to be on the other side. In a way, I feel sorry for him. I trust the rest of the mission went all right?"

"The mission was totally successful," Forester replied.

"Capt. Travers tells me that there weren't any problems with Cleopatra's reinsertion. Or with Caesar and Calpurnia. With the bodyguard out of the way, the conspirators were able to move against him and he died on schedule, in the Senate. Congratulations. You did a hell of a job."

"Thanks," said Lucas. He glanced at Travers. "How does it feel to be back?"

"A little strange," Travers replied. "It's going to take some getting used to, but I'll have plenty of time. I've already started working on my book. You've given me one hell of a final chapter. I'm going to dedicate it to Col. Steiger's memory, and the other men who fell in battle."

Lucas stared at him, stunned.

"Oh, hell," Travers said with a stricken look. "You didn't know?"

Silence. After a moment, it was broken by Delaney.

"Creed didn't make it, Lucas," he said softly. "he caught it during the assault."

"Oh, shit," said Lucas.

"Nobody saw it happen," Andre said, "but we know who did it. Creed took out his own killer. It was a man named Simmons, a former field agent who was involved with the Network. It's possible that he was involved with the Underground. as well, but if he was, the Underground probably didn't know about his Network connection. They don't knowingly cooperate with those people."

"Damn," said Lucas. "How did it happen?"

"We figure it had to be Marshall." Delaney said. "He's the only one who could have alerted the Network to our presence in Rome. so he must have been involved. Creed obviously never suspected that. He figured that Marshall had just deserted to the Underground because he was burned out, but he must have done it because he was afraid to be exposed. When Creed showed up. he must have panicked."

"So it was Network that intervened when the S.O.G. tried to ambush us?"

"We think so," Delaney said. "They couldn't afford to have a timestream split go down any more than we could. The only one we found was Simmons. so either the others got away or they pulled out when our reinforcements arrived."

"Simmons was a real hard case." Forrester said. "After Steiger formed the I.S.D.. he busted up several Network operations. One of the biggest ones he exposed was headed up by Simmons, only we never got him."

"We never found Creed's body," Andre said. "but we found Simmons. He'd been shot through the heart with a laser. There was a disruptor on the floor beside him. The way we reconstruct it. Simmons got onto the grounds when the assault was in progress. He was wearing Kaufman's uniform, so he must have taken it off Kaufman after he was killed, or maybe he killed Kaufman himself in the confusion and took his disruptor. Then he waited for the right moment and made his move. They must have both fired at the same time."

"So Steiger went down fighting," Lucas said. He sighed "I guess it's the way he would have wanted it."

"He was a good man." said Forrester. "His name's going to be added to the Wall of Honor. At the same time as we take yours off. Officially, you're back among the living."

"What about Darkness?" Lucas asked.

"He disappeared again after the assault," said Delaney. "We haven't seen or heard from him since."

"If it hadn't been for him, Hollister would have beaten us," said Lucas.

"One more second and Caesar and his wife would have both been dead."

"Maybe there was a time in which that happened," said Delaney. "A scenario in which Hollister had won. If Darkness hadn't changed your destiny back in Afghanistan, somebody else would've been in that room with Caesar. That could have made all the difference. Maybe it would have been me or Andre, or maybe Steiger. Perhaps his death was the price we had to pay to get history back on the right track."

"But is it?" Lucas asked. "What is the right track? I wonder if we'll ever know."

"All we can ever know about for sure is our own past," said Forrester.

"To Darkness, his past is still our future. And for all we know, there may well be other people from the future in our present, and our past, trying to influence our actions in an attempt to compensate for whatever disaster lies up ahead. Chances are we may not even live to see it."

"I remember something a Roman centurion once told me, about three thousand years ago," said Travers with a smile. "It was on the night before we crossed the Rubicon, when this whole thing started. He said, 'If it is my fate to die tomorrow. I would prefer not to know of it tonight.' And then he put his hand on his sword hilt and added, 'I would sooner trust my fate to this than to the prophecies of oracles and soothsayers.' He was just a simple soldier, but there was a lot of wisdom in his words."

"Whatever happened to that oracle?" asked Lucas. "What was his name, Lucan?"

"Interesting that you should ask," said Forester. "We found him."

"You found him'?" said Delaney with surprise. "You never mentioned that!"

"Because I'm still not certain what to make of it," said Forester. He turned to Travers. "You remember how you said he seemed to simply disappear as soon as you passed him through the gate of Caesars camp?"

"Yes," said Travers. "There was no sign of him. I figured he clocked out."

"He did," said Forester. "Or, more accurately, he was clocked out. After we received your report, we went back a Search and Retrieve team to apprehend him. They got him just as he was coming through the gates."

"Then he disappeared because you clocked him out?" said Travers with astonishment.

"That's right." said Forrester. "The temporal anomaly had already occurred with the prophecy itself. But for all we know, perhaps it wasn't an anomaly. Because we interrogated all the prisoners extensively and none of them knew anything about the oracle. We also interrogated Lucan himself. As far as we've been able to determine, he was absolutely genuine. He grew up in a village not far from where Caesar made his camp that night."

“But ... how is that possible?" asked Travers. "If he wasn't from the Special Operations Group, how could he have known about Caesar's assassination? He even knew the exact date, and the names of the assassins!"

"Apparently, he had precognitive powers since early childhood," said Forrester.

"You mean he could
really
see into the future?" Lucas asked.

“It would appear so," said Forrester. "It seems he really had the gift of 'second sight.' If you can call it a gift. He seemed to think of it more as a curse." He paused. "I suppose it must have been. I assigned an agent to keep him under surveillance after we clocked him hack to his own time. It was a very short-term mission.”

"Why?" asked Lucas. "What happened?"

"I suppose Lucan must have seen something again," said Forrester gravely. "The morning after we clocked him hack to his own village, he committed suicide."

"My God," said Travers in a low voice. "He knew!"

"He knew what?" asked Forester, puzzled.

"Just before we passed him through the gates that night. I asked him if he could look into my future," Travers said. "He told me that he couldn't, because he needed time to recover. . . . And he was leaving on a long journey in the morning."

Created with
Writer2ePub

by Luca Calcinai