He pulled a piece of paper from the drawer and began to scribble a coded message, referring to the Rubáiyát from time to time.
A ring cut the silence, and he picked up the phone, answering it with a tired, “Wallace.”
“Sir,” a female voice blared with urgency. “This is Three Mile HQ — there’s something you need to see.”
63
Not Without My Slaughter
Blake had become feverish, and he could see that Ethan was freezing as well in the windowless room they’d been locked in for the past few hours.
It had been quite the trip; much of it a blur for Blake when the fever set in. The flight itself and the stop for refueling midway through felt like it took forever. After landing several hours later, there was the drive from the airfield, and then they were dragged from the vehicle and down the hallways of this facility. Every sign was scripted in a different language — he assumed it was Russian — so any attempt at reading them was useless.
Their holding area was roughly forty feet in width and depth, with pipes running along the walls and overhead. One light hung in the middle of the ceiling, the meager illumination of its bulb almost swallowed up by the encroaching darkness of the room.
With aching muscles and a sore back, Blake slid to his butt in a corner farthest from the door and leaned against the concrete fortification. He hugged himself in a vain attempt to ward off the chill in the air.
“Where are we?” Ethan said in a hushed voice.
Blake’s teeth chattered, echoing in the small chamber. “Take a wild guess, Einstein. Russia probably.”
“I figured that much, but where?”
Blake answered with a shrug and more clicking teeth.
“What do they want from us?”
“The watch, of course.” Blake grinned then, despite his misery. “But I sent it very far away. It was one of the first things I did when I came back to this year.”
“What? You had the watch until a few hours ago.”
“I went on a little vacation out west, to plot a point with the watch. It was a failsafe, you see — just in case I needed to send it somewhere safe for a long, long time.”
“And where would that be?”
Blake eyed Ethan. “The less you know the better.”
“So what happens next, then?”
“They didn’t blindfold us, so I assume it’ll be torture, then death. There’s no need to keep us alive.”
The lock on the door disengaged, and a screech of metal on metal ricocheted off the walls as the door opened. A man walked in, silhouetted through the doorway from the back light of the outer room, his face bathed in shadow. Two more men entered behind him, wearing headsets and bearing automatic rifles. They stood on either side of the opening.
The first man strode forward, his features still hidden in darkness. “We have been trying to locate you for a long time, Mr. Tannor. And when we do find you, we find a second you as well. How interesting.”
Stirring from his seated position, Blake stood to his feet, using the wall for support. He was still caught in an uncontrollable shiver from the bitter cold. “Is that the sound of a ghost? Because I swear it resembles a dead man I know.”
The man gave a soft laugh and took another step, into the dim light of the ceiling bulb. “I am no ghost. I am immortal. But enough about me; I have questions for you.”
“Who the hell is this guy?” Ethan asked, taking measure of the man who stood in the center of the room.
Blake ignored the question and pushed away from the wall. He locked eyes with the newcomer as he answered Ethan. “His name is Gernot. He’s a shit-stain I killed twice before — well, at least once directly — and I will do it again before the night is over.”
As Blake stared at Gernot he noticed once again the absence of the red burn scar. Of course — just like the earlier version in the apartment across the street from Jo Ann’s Café … in the timeline his face had not been ruined. Yet.
Gernot checked his watch. “Your window is closing. You have eight minutes and ten seconds.”
At this, Blake limped forward another step in defiance but said nothing. Ethan moved closer as well, and the men by the door raised their weapons. There was no sound; no cocking, no clicking of safeties. These weapons had been primed and ready to use. Now they were each pointed at the Tannor boys.
Ethan halted, but Blake took another step. “Maybe you are immortal in a sense, but you’re still a man here and now, and I can’t allow you to live another second where you don’t belong.”
Gernot looked at his timepiece again, watching another second tick by. Then he gazed back into Blake’s hard eyes. “It seems I continue to disappoint you. You know, there is something about you that I admire. Your determination, perhaps — or is it your stupidity? You are like one of those, what is the word …”
“Your executioner,” Blake said.
Gernot’s hand flashed out and snatched Blake around his mouth and jaw. Ethan jerked forward, but the guards pushed him back. Gernot ignored their movements, focusing his gaze on Blake’s face.
“I will travel back and kill everyone you have ever known. Any woman you have ever laid eyes on, any friend you have ever had, or any person who has had the misfortune of shaking your hand. They will die. It will be done for my amusement and it will not be painless, I promise you.”
Cruelty contorted his face as he said, “For my added enjoyment, I will make you witness each of them die. You won’t even know why it is happening to you, why your loved ones are dropping around you. I will be a phantasm that haunts you. When you think you have seen enough, there will be more. I will not kill you. I will allow you to save one of those dear to you with the sacrifice of your own life.”
Unbidden, the visage of every person in Blake’s life floated before his mind’s eye. He thought of his parents, of Art and his entire family strung up in front of him and screaming in agony. He even thought of Lisa Saunders, his first real girlfriend. What Gernot promised was brutal and painful to think about, because he knew it was possible.
Gernot still held Blake’s jaw in a death grip. He felt the Russian’s other hand grab the nub of his forearm. Gernot scrutinized the missing hand quizzically. “Did I do this to you?”
Blake tried to shake his head, but Gernot’s hold was too tight. When he spoke his words came out slurred. “No. Satoshi, one of your enlisted men did that. You died like a little bitch.”
Gernot released his hold on Blake’s arm. “Never heard of the man, but I will make a note of it.”
By now Blake had lost count of how many times he’d questioned if his actions were still impacting the past. Had he just provided this cold-blooded killer a contact to use? Or had it always been this way — just one more cycle within a cycle?
“Coordinates have already been set,” Gernot was saying. “I could easily have them changed.”
“Why not just go now with your own watch? No one is stopping you. Why use this facility?”
“I’m not as foolish as Wallace, to send living sacrifices on a one way trip. By using the reactor core here, I will preserve the power of the watch and when I’m finished I will return.”
At that moment Blake remembered the defeated Gernot vanishing into thin air in Amhurst’s lab and taking the meteorite with him. He’d never had the chance to use the watch to go forward after all. He’d gone back and gotten stuck in an infinite loop. Perhaps Gernot was not aware of that.