The general data screens had briefed them. The Western and Southern armies, under the command of General Julio Diaz, were moving against Harrisonburg, a hundred miles to the southwest. All projections showed the Eastern Army defenses crumbling within a matter of days. Everyone Roger could see on 23rd Street below was armed. Children were filling and stacking sandbags to protect the government defense positions.
Roger turned and faced Dalik. “I was feeling pretty terrible about fouling up the mission until I was brought here. Are you telling me this is the future we want to protect?”
“Life isn’t all sweetness and light, Roger,” Dalik Ophon responded as he came up and joined him in front of the armored observation port. “In another two years Field Marshal Angus will reestablish the North American Parliament in Montreal, the treaties between the east, west, north, and south will be signed and the prime minister will lead North America to crush the dictator of the Latin American Union. Then … things get better. It isn’t perfect, Roger, but itis the future that produced the timewave generator several hundred years later. Once the ripple reaches there, our scientists have some doubt about our continued existence, even in the timewave.”
“What about the new ripple? What are the projections now when neither Booth nor Lincoln dies?”
Dalik nodded. “I must admit things were — are improved. The extinction of the human race was put off for an additional twenty-six years.”
“What? With Lincoln left alive and Reconstruction—”
“In 1869, at the beginning of his third term in office, Lincoln went quite insane. Actually, it had been going on long before that. It only became obvious in ’69. By then, however, Lincoln was under the power of a band of unscrupulous manipulators who had sacked the south, and invaded Canada under the pretext of joining Alaska to the motherland. Britain came in, of course, and the world chose up sides, with fairly similar results to the Booth-Dies-Lincoln-Lives scenario.”
As Roger raised his gaze and let it settle on the ruins of the Lincoln Memorial, he touched the fingers of one hand to his chest. “That knife, Dalik; I just wasn’t prepared.”
“You knew he was an expert with knife, foil, and firearms.”
“I just didn’t realize what being an expert with a knife meant. He must have been twenty-five feet away. Booth couldn’t have hit my heart more to the center if he’d been a surgeon with a scalpel.” He glanced at the time warden. “I go back for another try, right?”
“Of course.”
Roger nodded and raised an eyebrow at Ophon. “Booth never showed at the front of the theater, right? That means Ryan’s been tipped off.”
“Correct. Our observers couldn’t spot him anywhere on Tenth Street. We must assume he’s onto us. He’ll probably move forward to take Booth out at an earlier time. We’re sending you in on the evening of the thirteenth. We only know Booth’s location for certain during the night of the thirteenth and at several points the day of the fourteenth. The event ripple is accelerating. In linear time we only have perhaps twenty-eight hours before time span local is eliminated. Hence, we have to move now.”
“What if Ryan goes back to a scheduled performance Booth was in a few years earlier and takes him out then?”
Dalik nodded. “That’s right. You were in the timestream when Pebbek first proposed his event vacuum theory. In short, if there was no John Wilkes Booth, events would probably be so altered that Lincoln might not have become president, or if he did the times would most likely produce another Booth. Another assassin would be wrung from the spatiotemporal pulp, as it were.”
“Theory, probably, likely—”
“As lame as it sounds to you, Roger, within certain limits Pebbek’s theory works as advertised. Certainly Ryan can’t afford to disregard it. He knows we won’t. Therefore, we can count on Ryan attempting to get to Booth at the National Hotel the night of the thirteenth. You have to get there first—”
“I know,” interrupted Roger. “Take out Booth, kill Ryan, then assassinate the president.”
“Don’t forget the fellow in the alley behind Ford’s Theater. He’s still going to be there.”
“What fellow … you mean me? I have to take out myself?” Dalik allowed the silence in the room to answer Roger’s question. “You know, Dalik, it’s coming back to me now why I quit on you the last time.” He glared at the impassive face of the local time liaison, Shalla Inam. “Why doesn’t she ever say anything?”
“She doesn’t know any English.”
“I thought you said she’s an officer in the Eastern Army.”
Dalik smiled sadly. “Oh, you thought…” He shrugged and held out his hands. “The Eastern Army comes from the East, Roger, not from New Jersey.”
“I don’t want to hear about it,” muttered Roger as he headed toward the back room where Shalla Inam kept her time stage.
11:03 PM, 13 April 1865
“Dalik Ophon and his crowd’ve managed to disable Ryan’s time stage,” said Detective Wells as the pair stood in front of the National. Despite the occasional shower, the boom and flash of fireworks combined with the laughter and singing on the street, giving a strange, festive flavor to the fear in Roger’s mouth. He was not made up as Booth to avoid attracting attention, although he did draw an occasional questioning look.
Roger frowned as he fought down the renewed conviction that he was Richard Dreyfuss, tricked, manipulated, lied to, and bullied into this role of all roles. He rubbed his eyes and asked, “So, what does that do for us? I’m sure Ryan arranged something before Dalik pulled the plug.”
The detective nodded in agreement. “Most likely. What it means, though, is that we only have to take care of it this one time. Ryan doesn’t have anymore tries.”
“Neither do we,” replied Roger, his voice flat and hostile. “Wells, how does someone from 1865 get approached to be a local time liaison?”
The large man pushed his derby to the back of his head and smiled. “It was a book, a work of adventure fiction, called Time Enough. I read it, was captivated by it, and when the advertisement in the back of the book said the names of more such works were available simply by sending in my name and address, I did so.”
“And not long after, there came Dalik Ophon knocking on your door. So he lied to you, too.”
“How so? I have gotten more books.”
Roger shook his head. “No, man, you don’t get it. The time warden’s a slimeball, every move has a hidden agenda. He’s up to his eyeballs twisting, turning, manipulating people and events to get what he wants.”
Jason Wells held a hand out toward the hotel. “Isn’t that what we’re doing?”
“Sure,” replied Roger sarcastically. “Right.”
The detective scratched his chin for a moment and frowned. “Look, Mr. Dreyfuss—”
“—Alfred,” corrected Roger. “I think.”
“You said—“
“I know what I said, Wells. What were you going to ask?”
Jason Wells shrugged and held out his hands. “Very well. If you don’t like this work, why do you do it?”
“I don’t really. I quit on Dalik two years ago.” Roger began waving a hand to try and pin down for the detective where “two years ago” was located, but Wells waved aside the explanation. “Okay, Dalik put the guilt on me. ‘Roger, the world’s going to end if you don’t go back and do the mission.’ Besides, I was very confused.”