Wallace was frozen in deep concentration.
Jackman moved to the desk to look at the monitor as well. “So, was this Blake Tannor successful? Did he find the location of the Russian cell? Where are they launching from? What about the meteorite?”
Snapping out of his transfixed state, Wallace held up a hand to halt the questions. “We need to check the safe deposit box. Call Lucas — he’s waiting for us to give him the verbal to check.”
The room seemed to hold its collective breath while Jackman dialed out. The commando spoke in rushed sentences, then pressed the phone to his chest and said, “He’s checking now.” He brought the receiver back to his ear and waited, his face tense with expectation.
Wallace stared at Jackman, feeling his jaw muscles twitch. Everything was on the line here.
Jackman dropped the phone back into place. He looked at Wallace and shook his head.
Ben’s eyes narrowed and his fingers curled involuntarily into fists. “It goes without saying that we sent him back; that signal proves it. The question is, what has he done that shifted the timeline if he’s dead?” He paused a moment, thinking. Then he said to the technician sitting at the workstation beside him, “Prep the machine. We need to send a message to our scouting agent.”
He reached inside his coat pocket, pulling out his copy of The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyam and tapping its binding against his chin. This was a gesture everyone in the room knew well, so no one else spoke as Wallace pondered the next course of action.
Finally, he came to a decision and said to Jackman, “I’ll be back. Call Lucas again and have him ready.”
Jackman watched Ben exit the room in quick strides, then he lifted the phone to his ear once more.
“Jackman here. Get your team ready. And double your efforts; I want Ethan Tannor found — now.”
PART II
Then of the THEE IN ME who works behind
The Veil of Universe I cried to find
A Lamp to guide me through the Darkness; and
Something then said — “An Understanding blind.”
34
Iron-Plan
Doctor William Amhurst tinkered with ‘The Machine’ — as he had come to call it — until he was satisfied that all of the bolts were tight and all the moving parts were in working order. Then he stepped away and marveled at his masterpiece, uttering a silent prayer to himself that this time would be the one. All the others had been failures, but his hope never faltered. There was too much at stake and the time for the final test had arrived.
He began removing his clothes and stuffed them into the footlocker that rested at the end of his makeshift bed on the far side of the basement lab. With the exception of taking bathroom breaks and grabbing bites to eat, William had rarely ventured upstairs to the living quarters during most of the summer, preferring to grab needed sleep in quick snatches on the small bed. His gut had told him he was close to achieving the goal and he’d been working with tireless determination to get to this point.
The coffee and tea shop down the street from here was the only place he visited anymore. Martin, the owner, had become accustomed to William’s visits, which were now almost like clockwork — the first one coming at close to six every morning, when he would stagger in with an armful of notes. Along with the notes, he also toted various leather bound volumes of old and odd-looking books.
When he’d first settled here with Celice, the location was almost too remote, but it was affordable and at the time that was all that mattered for the young couple. He’d fixed up the basement lab with soundproofing and installed glass thicker than his fist in the windows so his work wouldn’t bother Celice upstairs. That was no longer a concern, but William was glad now that this location was still on the fringes of town so that the odd noises and loud hums generated by his work wouldn’t be heard by passersby. He’d almost closed up the lab windows entirely but finally decided against it. He’d already excommunicated himself from friends but resisted the pull to alienate himself from the world completely.
In truth, it had been staring out at the night sky through those windows that sometimes gave him the most resolve for his work. “Beyond the shining sun and stars, and further than the seven glittering veils is where our final resting place awaits us.” It was what his grandmother, dear old Elisabeth, — God rest her soul — had told him when he was a child.
Yet it was not for her that he worked. It was for those who completed him: his true love and the unnamed child they had created. Gone now, for so long. Many sleepless nights he would reach his hand toward the moon, and cry out to her. “Celice. Sweet Celice,” he would whisper. A name to his son, he had never given; it would only make the hurt worse.
Amhurst gave a final, longing, look at the waxing moon and then walked back to The Machine. It sat idle on the circular platform, a hulking beast of metal and wiring that resembled a modified deep sea diving suit, only slightly larger. Huge plugs and wires extended from the chest piece, connecting with cables that ran the length of the lab and hooked into the power junction box.
A heavy weight of anticipation and impending regret pressed on him. He unlocked the back of The Machine and pulled the hatch down, walking up the three steps to situate himself inside the giant apparatus. He engaged the locking mechanism and the rear door squealed on its hinges as it sealed behind him.
Within seconds, the interior atmosphere of the metal machine became muggy and hot to a near unbearable level. With great effort, Amhurst worked the mechanics of The Machine, flipping the necessary switches in sequence until all that was left was to pull the lever that gave a final charge to the suit.
With methodical skill he performed the tasks, and imagined the possible ramifications of his next actions. But as before, all he could see was a cloud of uncertainty. There wasn’t a way to fathom all the possibilities the following few seconds of his life would bring.
Twenty-eight years ago, William Amhurst had been happily married and about to become a father. Complications arose when his wife went into labor, and the surgeon lacked the skills to save her and his unborn child. He barely remembered the delivery nurse’s explanation about why Celice and the child had passed. But what he could never forget was one of her final comments to him: “What’s done is done.”
He could not live with those words.
William still didn’t know how he managed to keep from killing the woman right there in the waiting room. As the months passed, he somehow found his way back to his old lab, plunging himself into his experiments with a ferocity that would have frightened Celice. If she’d still been alive. The work served to occupy his mind and, perhaps, offered something more …
He had crumbled apart then, and had never been able to put the pieces back together. Maybe this would change all of that.
William looked down at the giant metal arm with the large hook on its end. His breath fogged up the four inch glass plate of The Machine’s helmet. He closed his eyes and pulled the lever.
As if the inside of the suit wasn’t already blazing hot, the temperature escalated another twenty degrees as quickly as a light turns on with the flip of a switch. Through the looking glass, William saw the blinding glare. The suit didn’t give him the dexterity to move its arms and block it, so all he could do was close his eyes. Brightness beyond compare rendered his eyelids useless as it penetrated through the thin skin. He felt pressure building in his ears and worked his jaw to unclog them. Seconds later, there was a loud whooshing sound and the light was gone.