“After we found Marcian dead, we clocked over to back up Petrone’steam,” said Maselli. “Only we were too late. They’d already been hit. Nosurvivors. I left Church behind to take their discs and clock the bodies outand the rest of us clocked over to check on Morton’s group. They’d been hit, aswell.”
“I don’t believe it,” said Hollister. All right, Morton. let’shear it.”
Sgt. Morton picked up where Maselli had left off. “We clockedover to the Argiletum, where Sabinus had just moved into a small apartment. Wefigured he was only one guy, we’d have no trouble. We could probably take himalive for interrogation. Only there was someone keeping him under surveillance.We held back and while I was trying to figure out what the hell that meant.Sabinus came out and started walking down the street.”
“Alone?”
“Alone. And this guy started tailing him. So we startedtailing them both. I didn’t know what the fuck was going on. But after a coupleof blocks. I was pretty sure that Sabinus or whoever the hell he really isspotted the guy who was tailing him so we decided to move in. Only before wecould, somebody opened up on our tail with lasers.”
Hollister frowned. “What the hell.
“That’s just what I thought, sir. And right about the sametime, we got hit. as well. I don’t know where the hell they were. I never evensaw them. Randall and Biers were down before we knew what hit us. Sabinus andthe guy tailing him both clocked out to who knows where. Then we got the hellout of there ourselves before we all got wasted. That’s all there is. sir.”
“Son of a bitch!” said Hollister. through grittedteeth.
“What the fuck is going on? how many sides are there to thisthing’?”
“The only explanation I can think of is that it’s their Underground.”said Macelli. “They must have an entire cell back here. They’ve caught on to usand started backing up the T.I.A. team to prevent a disruption on their hometurf.”
Hollister nodded. “That would fit,” he said. “They could becovering the T.I.A. people, but that doesn’t explain the hit on Marcian. We’repretty sure that he was either in their Underground or another L.T.O. In eithercase, why take him out’? It doesn’t make any goddamn sense!”
“There’s obviously something going on that our Observers weren’taware of,” said Maselli.
“We allowed for the possibility of a T.I.A. adjustment teambeing clocked in,” said Hollister, “but we didn’t count on members of theUnderground coming to their aid. We should have foreseen that possibility. Butit’s still not necessarily a problem.” He got up and started pacing back andforth. “Marcian’s murder bothers me. It simply doesn’t fit. Why would they wantto take out one of their own people?”
“Maybe he wasn’t one of their own people,” Morton suggested.“Maybe we were wron
g about him. Maybe he was just an ordinary Roman whom theyused.”
“Then explain the cigarettes we found in his room,” said Maselli.“And the warp disc and the laser he had hidden away. No. Marcian or whoever hereally was had to be either T.I.A. or Underground. We know their TemporalIntelligence agents used contacts in the Underground from time to time. Hell,we’ve done the same thing. So either way, it doesn’t make any sense that theyshould kill him. There’s got to be a part of the picture we’re not seeing. In anycase, it probably doesn’t matter anymore. If they had any doubts about us before,they don’t after tonight. I think it’s time we considered aborting the mission.”
Hollister spun around to face him. “We’re not aborting anything,Maselli! We’ve come too far and we’re too close to give up now! Besides, we’restill holding all the cards. So long as we stick close to Caesar and Cleopatra.they can’t touch us. Not without risking a temporal disruption. They can bringin as many people as they want, an entire fucking army, and it still wouldn’tdo them any good. Caesar’s got to die on the fifteenth and he’s got to bemurdered by Brutus. Cassius. and the other conspirators. Anything they do tochange that would play right into our hands. Even if they figured out some wayto get the conspirators past A team and take out Caesar we’ve still gotCleopatra. And we can still shift our objective to Antony or Octavian. Theirhands are tied by their own temporal continuity. We don’t have to worry aboutthat. do we?”
“No. sir, I guess we don’t,” said Maselli.
“You’re damn right, we don’t. Just about anything we do herecan constitute a disruption, so we stick to the original objective. Morton, youget back to the rest of A team. If Caesar asks about the missing men, tell himthat you sent them out for wine or something and they were set upon and killed.That should make Caesar think twice about discounting the rumors of aconspiracy against him. Maselli. I want you to bring the rest of C team in.From now on, A team sticks to Caesar like glue. B and C teams remain right hereat baseops. If Cleopatra decides to go out, B team stays as close to her aspossible. She’s our insurance. In the meantime, we’ll double the guard here,just in case they’re crazy enough to try anything. And nobody, nobody, getsinside unless they’ve been cleared through me first. Got that?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Any questions?”
“No, sir. “
“Right. Dismissed.”
They all snapped to attention. Morton and Maselli bothclocked out and the others went back to take their posts. Hollister took hiscigar out of his mouth, spat out a soggy piece of tobacco, and crushed the buttout in a small dish he was using as an ashtray.
Merely a minor setback, Hollister told himself. So they’dlost a few people. They had expected that. They had all volunteered for thisassignment. this mission from which there would be no return, and they had allexpected to die, if not in this temporal scenario, then in some other one they’dclock to after they were finished in Rome. The plan was simple. Cross over andresearch one temporal scenario early in their history as thoroughly aspossible. create a disruption that would have maximum impact, then immediatelyclock ahead to another time period and try to pull off another one. Keep doingthat, building on the domino effect of temporal disruptions in their timelineuntil they were either all killed or until there was no possible chance of theT.I.A. being able to reverse their actions. Then, thought Hollister, their oneremaining chance for survival would be to find some time period that was stillrelatively safe. While the damage escalated of its own momentum elsewhere inthe timestream.
Until tonight, everything had gone off like clockwork. Theone part he hadn’t liked was killing their own Observers, but there was noavoiding it. It had to be done. The poor bastards hadn’t known what was coming,of course. They had thought that they were just sent through to scout atemporal location for a baseops that would serve as a jumping-off point fortemporal assault missions further down the enemy timestream. But at least theywere able to make it quick and painless.
The rest of it was easy. Killing the real Apollodorus andtaking his place had proved no problem. Hollister had been carefully selectedfor the mission so that his body type would correspond with that of Apollodorusand the rest had been accomplished by cosmetic surgery. Cleopatra had neversuspected a thing. The rest of it, getting the others into place, had all beeneasy once he had assumed the identity of Apollodorus. Cleopatra trusted him.Even now. she was sleeping soundly in her bedroom, having had her bones jumpedby the Emperor of Rome, never suspecting that anything was amiss in her household.So long as she was there, she was the perfect hostage. There were guards outsideher door and all around the building and the grounds. Even on the roof. Theystill had a firm lock on the situation.
Hollister poured himself some wine and walked over to thewindow. The shutters were open to let in the cool night breeze. He looked outat the dark surface of the Tiber, and along its banks, toward the house whereTravers lived.
“Come ahead, you bastards.” he said softly. “Take your bestshot.”
The scene inside the library of the handsome Roman villa ofLucius Septimus was highly incongruous, to say the least. It was three o’clockin the morning. The library door was bolted, just in case any of the householdslaves felt restless in the middle of the night, heard voices in the libraryand decided to investigate. Travers had given strict orders to his householdslaves and they knew that certain rooms in the house were off limits to them,especially the library, but had they glanced inside, what they would have seenwould have astonished them.