Bordeaux, Helena, and I continued to provide fire support, but only at specific targets. We didn’t need to be too fancy. Wang and Santino were handling themselves with little problem down there. Both were more skilled with a sword than even most Romans, Wang from his martial arts training and Santino from watching too many movies. Titus, however, had learned the trade from his biological father as he matured, but had never faced combat. As we got to know him, the fact quickly became evident that while, theoretically, his skills surpassed those of any of us, there was still the question of his complete greenness in battle, but both Vincent and Helena had vouched for him. Vincent knew him better than all of us and Helena knew what it was like to be thrust into a situation with other seasoned operators, where you either had to kill or watch your new friends die. She saw in him what she had felt all those years ago: a willingness to prove himself.
So, we only fired when we feared one of our friends were in danger. We knew the assassins would wake up sooner or later once the tranq darts wore off, but that was all part of the charade. All we needed to do was to keep it to a minimum for the time being.
The battle continued, with Herod’s side continuing to lose ground, even though our friends below had inconspicuously switched sides during the confusion of the battle and were now fighting against the assassin’s.
I decided now was a good time to do a head count. I tallied nine assassins, five guards, and three goofballs. That would have to do.
“Do it,” I said into my microphone.
There was no reply, but there was no doubt everyone received my message.
Almost immediately, Wang and Titus turned on anyone around them, creating utter chaos in the already disorderly battle. Wang skewered a guard through the right bicep, while Titus managed to nearly decapitate one of the assassins that left the man’s head dangling. Santino didn’t bother with either, instead focusing his attention solely on Herod.
The King of the Jews hadn’t sat idly by while his men defended him, but hefted sword and shield as well. It was a noble gesture, and it almost made me feel bad for what we were about to do. Santino didn’t catch the sentiment. He stalked around behind Herod as the king dueled with one of the last assassins, while Wang did his job by knocking out Herod’s dueling partner with the hilt of his sword, following it up by shoving Herod, just enough so that he faced Santino.
The man’s body turned and he immediately saw Santino looming before him. Santino face betrayed no hint of what was to come, but after performing a quick check to make sure some of the guards were watching, he plunged his sword deep into Herod’s chest.
The king didn’t scream, a mere wheezing sound emanating from his lungs instead as he slumped to the ground. I aimed at one of the two remaining guards. All the assassins had been dispatched and his attention was completely on his king. Before I let the guilt eat away at him too much, I shot him in the thigh and he dropped into a deep sleep. Bordeaux dispatched the other guard.
And with that, the battle ended, only ten minutes after it had started. I looked into the red slicked courtroom as my three friends stood within pools of blood. The three of us in the balcony tossed some rope over the ledge and fast roped to the courtroom floor. Everyone, save Wang and me, policed the bodies, securing any evidence of our involvement.
Wang was already kneeling over Herod’s body.
“Is he going to make it?” I asked.
Wang checked Herod’s vitals.
“Santino got him in the shoulder. No internal organs were damaged. His arm will take a while to heal, but he should be fine.”
“Good,” I replied.
Just prior to Santino’s death blow, Helena had shot Herod with a special dart. Instead of containing its typical tranquilizer serum, Wang had filled it with a combination of other serums instead, including some kind of soporific, parasolutrine, I think he said, along with something called paracin trichloride, and morphine of course, along with a few others. When I’d voiced my concerns over the amount of crap Wang was planning to dope Herod with, the small medic had simply smiled and commented that he was curious as to how it was going to turn out as well. But in the end, it had apparently worked, and was the sole reason why Herod hadn’t yelled out in pain after Santino had stabbed him. Morphine works quickly and he probably hadn’t felt a thing, and the other drugs made for a very convincing death scene after Herod had collapsed.
Many people were going to wake up in a few hours, especially the two guards who saw Herod go down. When they find his body gone, things in Caesarea should get much more interesting.
I noticed Santino walk over and hold out his hand. I looked at it and rolled my eyes. Hammering a fist against my other hand three times, I displayed rock while Santino threw out paper. He laughed and clapped me on the back while I moved around Herod’s body and placed my hands under his armpits, the much heavier end. On the count of three, we heaved him off the ground and left the building like ghosts in the night.
Santino caught my eyes and lifted his eyebrows.
“So,” he started, “now, n…”
“Don’t even fucking start!”
Part Three
IX
Mission Entry #9
Jacob Hunter
Caesarea, Judea — October, 42 A.D.
Americans have an interesting tradition of meddling in other countries’ affairs. Especially when it came to Communism and the Middle East. Oh, boy, does the American government love knocking off democratically elected, or not so democratically elected, heads of state, just to make sure the new ruler was more to their… liking.
Not that I had a problem with this tradition. It wasn’t a novel practice in world civilization, but it obviously wasn’t an overly popular one… at least depending on who you ask.
I point this out, because I did the ol’ US of A proud a few months back by knocking off a ruling sovereign of my own. Pretty impressive, no?
Well, I thought it was.
Sadly Herod didn’t necessarily think so.
Yeah, so I didn’t kill him. I haven’t gone completely over to the dark side yet. We only faked his death to incite the riot we needed to bring Agrippina here or at least slow her down in Germany. Remember what I said about pissing off the young Jews of the area to the point where their shit finally hits the proverbial fan? Well, Sociologists, you’ll be happy to know that it worked. This place went crazy within a week of Herod’s “death.”
As for Herod… well… let’s just say he was slightly miffed. He lost quite a few good men in the botched assassination attempt and was furious we lied to him concerning our intentions for him and the city.
Not to mention the fact that we had to stab him.
He had not been cool with that.
He ridiculed us, belittled us, yelled at us, and generally tried to make us feel bad for what we did. Especially me. He told us we should be ashamed of our status as Vani, and that if he’d known who we truly were, he would have had us executed immediately, or even worse, turned over to Agrippina.
We gave him a few days to cool down in isolation with us where we tried to explain what we were trying to accomplish… without all the time travel stuff, of course. In the original timeline, Herod never lived to see the rebellion in 66 A.D., but he’d ruled under a compassionate and tolerant leader in the original Claudius. In this new timeline, however, his reign hadn’t been nearly so peachy, and he knew it had been only a matter of time. When he learned how quickly events sped up after his death — how his citizens rallied against Roman rule — his tone steadily shifted to that of acceptance, and soon, he was ready to admit that, perhaps, we’d done the right thing… except for the whole stabbing him thing of course.