The Fourth Rome Page 22

  “Oh, Mithras,” Flaccus said. His weather-beaten features sagged, softened. “Then we’re screwed for sure. It can’t be less than five miles to the river.”

  “About eight Roman miles,” Gerd said calmly.

  One of the legionaries knelt and started to unbuckle his sword belt. The girl wiped her face with a hand. Her exprèssion hadn’t changed, but there were tears at the corners of her eyes.

  The kneeling legionary tugged up the front of his mail shirt. He placed the pommel of his reversed sword on the ground.

  “No!” Rebecca said. She kicked her horse. It lurched forward with an angry neigh. The would-be suicide scrambled clear of the hoofs, dropping the sword in his haste.

  Rebecca dismounted awkwardly. “Pauli,” she said. “We can’t—”

  “I’ll decide what we can do,” Pauli Weigand said in a voice like steel. “This is my responsibility.”

  Rebecca stiffened. She swallowed from a dry throat. “Yes, Pauli,” she said; because he was right. What could the team do anyway, besides add more bodies to the toll?

  Pauli dismounted. He handed the reins of his horse to the legionary with the leg wound. “Here,” he said. “Can you ride bareback?”

  “Gerd, you’d better stay on the mule,” Rebecca said. Her relief was as bright as the sun breaking out after a storm. “You there”—to a legionary with his right arm splinted with a javelin shaft; his legs were uninjured, but his face was gray with pain—“mount this horse. And move it or we’ll have the Germans arrive before we’ve got our thumbs oui.”

  The Roman looked startled but obediently shifted to the animal’s flank. Beckie Carnes had a lot of experience sounding like she meant it when she gave orders to wounded soldiers. She made a stirrup of her hands to boost him into the saddle.

  “The leaders are two miles behind us,” Gerd said in his usual tones of disinterested helpfulness. “The remainder of the band stretches back almost another half mile. They number about seventy all told.”

  “If there’s that many, it’s all over,” another legionary said. “Urso’s right—we may as well fall on our swords.”

  He looked from Rebecca to the pregnant girl. “The women might be all right,” he added doubtfully.

  “First,” Pauli said in a crackling voice. “I’m in charge from now till we get across the river. Second, the three of us are magicians from the east and the chances are pretty decent that we’re going to pull this off. Third and most important—we don’t quit. None of us quits. Do all you men understand me?”

  He looked fiercely around the band of refugees. His left hand was on the pommel of his long horseman’s sword. His knuckles were mottled with the tension of his grip.

  “Mithras, I’m a believer,” Flaccus said. “I didn’t much like the idea of being cheated out of my pension by some fucking Fritz.” He turned to the others and said, “All right, you scuts! You heard the man. We got eight miles to go. Anybody who doesn’t keep moving’s going to have my boot up his bum before the Fritzes get around to putting a spear there. Move out!”

  Gerd prodded the mule with his heels. It ignored him. The analyst did something with his sensor pack. The animal skipped forward with a disbelieving bleat. Gerd had generated a spark—low amperage, but obviously placed where it did the most good. “To the left at the fork,” he announced, his eyes on the projected display.

  “I’ll take the rear, Beckie,” Pauli Weigand said. He sounded embarrassed for the way he’d taken charge. “They’ll probably surround us when they see what’s going on. I’ll need you up front.”

  “Right,” she said. She handed him the submachine gun she carried with her last nineteen rounds in the magazine. “At the range I can hit anything with this, the microwave does a better job anyway.”

  “All right,” Pauli said, nodding.

  Rebecca started forward, then looked back over her shoulder. “Pauli?” she said. “About the horses we had to kill back there?”

  “What about them?” he said.

  “People are more important than horses.”

  He grinned. “Yeah, I think so, too,” he said. “And if the folks at Central don’t see it that way, well, they can come here and tell me.”

  ARC Central

  Out of the Temporal Universe

  You’ve got fifteen minutes with the Chief, TL Roebeck. This is the seating plan,” said the ARC Chief of Staff’s aide. The aide had helmet-cut red hair and a dusting of freckles. Scrubbed and polished, stiff as a board, he held out the seating plan to her as if it, and not the meeting; requiring it, were the most important issue at hand. “Sirs, if you’ll just let me walk through this so you’ll understand it… TL Roebeck, you sit opposite the Chief. Specialist Chun, you sit on your TL’s left; Specialist Grainger, on the right.”

  The Chief’s office was the size of a TC bay. To reach its threshold, the team had walked two miles of conidor. To get in here, the ARC Riders had passed by two guards in dress uniforms of the sort that Roebeck hadn’t worn since her graduation. Each guard stood at unblinking attention beside a pole of battle standards on either side of the hallowed portal. Nan Roebeck had hoped to complete her career and never set foot in such an office. Now she was here with only hur recon staff for support.

  The Chief’s aide was terrified that these field operators were going to blow some bit of protocol and gel him in trouble. His lips were white with strain.

  Roebeck knew exactly how he felt. She bit her own lips under the cover of one hand to make sure they weren’t bloodless when she walked into the Chief’s conference room.

  Grainger couldn’t resist the opportunity to tweak the kid’s tail. “So, team, I figure we do this fifteen-minute parade drill, and we’re out of here. When we get back downrange, we’ll have the comfort of knowing we got an official blessing.”

  The kid ignored Grainger pointedly. “Team Leader Roe-beck, if you haven’t any questions, please sit down and make yourself comfortable.”

  Nan had been looking at the seating chart. Four other places would be occupied at the long briefing table. “Who are these other guys indicated?”

  “Senior Steering Committee officials, sir.”

  “Got an attendee list?”

  “List?” said the youngster.

  “Yeah, list. I want to see the list. Names. Office symbols. Contact numbers. The regular sort of thing.” Roebeck was beginning to regret she’d asked for this meeting at all. She hadn’t really expected to get it. But she and her ARC Riders had been briefing up the chain at the speed of infection ever since they’d displaced back to ARC Central.

  “I’ll see, sir. Coffee, anyone?” asked the kid weakly. “Tea? Soft drinks?”

  “List,” Nan Roebeck insisted.

  She was hoping that her direct superior was on that list, or at least his boss. When you got a meeting like this, way above your pay grade, it meant somebody asked for that meeting who could get it—and you—on the Chief’s schedule. That sure wasn’t her.

  They sat down on a soft blue couch with gold cord trim. Grainger said, “Lay this plan out for the Chief in fifteen minutes? Not possible.”

  Chun said, “Want to bet? I could do it in my sleep.” She pulled out her handheld and brought up a text screen. Then she tapped for a bit. “Here, Nan. How’s this?”

  Nan looked at the text screen. Chun had reduced everything that had happened to four bullet points. Below the bullet-speak were three action items and one recommendation in three parts.

  It would have to do.

  She gave Grainger the handheld. “Make it better.” Grainger was their area specialist, after all.

  The kid came back with a tray holding china cups emblazoned with the Chief’s office symbol in gold. His face was arranged in a determinedly polite smile.

  “Fancy, fancy,” Chun breathed.

  The kid had the attendee list with him.

  By then Roebeck didn’t need it. The others were filing in. She could tell their offices by their outfits. A horse-faced lawyer fro
m ARC CENTCOM sauntered in lazily, wearing plainclothes and a holographic entry badge thai proclaimed his status as SES—Senior Executive Service. SEiS pay grade was four times the rate of equally ranked military personnel. Following him came a joint staffer, the J-3 himself, with three gold braid strips encircling his cuffs, who nodded his dark curly head to them stiffly. Then came the Assistant Deputy Chief of Staff for Ops and Plans, in operational dress greens. The ADCSOPS planted himself squarely in front of the coffee table, regarding the operations team with a proprietary air. Only the last to join them, Dr. Bill, the ARC Riders’ Chief Scientific Advisor in ARC Science blues, was familiar to Roebeck. The scientist’s shock of white hair above a bumper crop of liver spots wasn’t a sight Roebeck was likely to forget. Neither was the nervous way Dr. Bill twisted his big Citadel class ring on his finger when he was about to speak. Among the officials her team had briefed during the last two hours, he’d given her ARC Riders the hardest time, the most resistance.

  If Dr. Bill had set up this meeting, it wasn’t to help them make their case. Nevertheless, the chief scientist was the only man here who’d taken a briefing from them. So tie must have been the one to arrange this meeting. He glowered at Roebeck like a disapproving patriarch.

  Hard to know what to do when you ’re in the second meeting on the same day with someone who has obviously decided you’re the enemy. She stood up and greeted the chief scientist. She couldn’t let him intimidate her. “Thank you for arranging this meeting, Dr. Bill.”

  “Don’t thank me, Team Leader,” Dr. Bill replied. “Bad news always has a way of getting people’s attention. You’re not exactly in line for a commendation. Simply tell your story as you told it to me, no matter how silly it sounds. Then leave. Stick to the timetable. Don’t ask for anything you’re not offered.”

  Grainger, behind Nan, stood up, too. She was afraid for a moment that Tim was going to say something stupid to Bill. It wouldn’t help their case if their team logged an open dispute with the ARC Riders’ Chief Scientist. But Grainger didn’t do that. Instead, he introduced himself to the strangers, shaking hands with everyone he hadn’t met before.

  She heard a snatch of conversation between Grainger and the ADCSOPS in greens. “…congratulations for cracking this nut, mister,” the ADCSOPS told Grainger. “We’re lucky it was somebody in an ops unit who brought this little dust-up to the Chief’s attention.”

  Well, that was better than worse. Parochialism had its place.

  Then the kid ushered them into the meeting room where the Chief waited, a spider in his web. The Chief was about six feet six, all gangly arms and legs and a balding, capacious cranium shining from the end of a long white conference table.

  “Sit down, people.”

  Everybody but Grainger found their assigned seat without a hitch. Grainger had decided to sit beside the ADCSOPS. There was nothing to do about it now.

  “You people are on a short stroke, I’m told. Give me the overview, Team Leader … Roebeck.” The Chief had to look at his copy of the seating plan to find her name.

  “Yes, sir.” Roebeck looked at the text display on Chun’s handheld. “Situation: Recon identified Up The Line technology in 1992 Russia. Technology includes one crashed Up The Line temporal capsule, partly nuked; an implant technology for moving biological systems temporally; a potentiating handheld controller for the implant which effectively replaces the need for a TC. A sample implant is provided.”

  The ARC Riders had withheld the sample so far. It was their hole card. Roebeck put Zotov’s box on the table before the Chief.

  Angry mutters came from the J-3 and Dr. Bill, who scowled at her. The Chief Scientist started to speak. Both the J-3 and Bill clearly wanted to object on the record to Roe-beck’s team withholding the technology sample until now.

  The Chief raised his hand and stopped them cold. “Continue, TL Roebeck.” Then he reached out with those long arms to Zotov’s box, making the box disappear in his big hands.

  “Yes, sir. Background: unidentified parties from Up The Line are proliferating this technology to 1992 Russia. Using Up The Line technology, Russian revisionists art: emplacing agents in 9 AD to establish a Fourth Rome. Preemption was Central’s original target on this mission and remains critical.”

  “And what do you think the ARC Riders should do, TL Roebeck?” asked the Chief.

  Thank God and her team that she was ready to answer that question.

  “Go back and finish what we started. Actionable Items. Number one: destroy the remains of the temporal capsule as well as Russian ability to create implants and related technology. Number two: identify and neutralize Up The Line actors on site. Number three: remove privy parties to 50K.”

  “Recommendations on how those can be accomplished?”

  “Our three recommendations are linked, Chief,” she said softly. This was the tricky part. It was also clearly why the lawyer and the Chief Scientist were here: to try to block or nay-say this plan on the grounds that the issue should be handled by more senior people.

  Roebeck was suddenly overwhelmingly afraid that the mission would be scrubbed or pulled from her team ;ind given to somebody else. “Our recommendations are predicated on the assumption that action isn’t possible UTL.”

  UTL—Up The Line.

  She waited one heartbeat to see if the Chief would stop her. He didn’t. Her next words would decide her career and her team’s fate. Maybe the whole Command’s fate, if her ARC Riders tried and failed. Or weren’t allowed to try and somebody else failed. Or failed to try.

  Roebeck said, “Recommendation one. Return the 1992 operating segment downrange with expanded force projection capability and emended Rules of Engagement allowing for broader collateral damage tolerance in accordance with emerging operating requirements. Do this before the advantage of surprise is lost to our enemies UTL.” She was asking for a free hand to use lethal and highly destructive force.

  She paused to give those in the room time to react. No one said a word.

  “Recommendation two. Because Up The Line technology beyond our current abilities is involved and ARC security may be compromised, suspend further command oversight and limit the privy parties to those in the venue.” In other words, don’t run this operation from your hip pocket. No telling whom you could trust. Give the field commander full operational flexibility. Once more, she waited for comments. None were forthcoming. That could be good, or bad.

  Sometimes you could tell how you were doing by who took what notes when. In this meeting nobody was taking notes. The Chief’s long fingers were interlaced over the Russian sample on the white tabletop.

  Roebeck made the remainder of her case. “Recommendation three. Since UTL penetration must be assumed to exist at Central, until proven otherwise we request that Central clean house here—simultaneously.” Finished, Roebeck sat back.

  The Chief unlaced his fingers and stared at the box they’d brought back from 1992.

  The lawyer said, “Sir, if I may…?”

  “Not now, Sid,” said the Chief. “TL Roebeck, it’s obvious you’re a zealot for this mission.” He paused. “We’ll work out the kinks here. And we’ll respect your security. You’ll need to download a complete report before you go—no distribution beyond myself. Make it comprehensive enough that another team can pick up the pieces if you fail to attain your entire objective. Under the circumstances, I’ll accept all your recommendations—that includes the one about security here at Central.” The Chief turned to the ADCSOPS. “You’ve got the action, Jerry. Go do it. Give them whatever they need.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “You four are dismissed. The rest of you, stay behind.”

  The lawyer and the Chief Scientist were already in a huddle as Roebeck’s team and the ADCSOPS shook hands with the Chief on the way out.

  Once through the outer office and in the hall, the ADCSOPS gave Nan a high-five, then set off down the first mile of corridors at a sturdy dogtrot. “Let’s go, ARC Riders,” he called back
over his shoulder. “Move it! You heard the Chief.”

  They had to hustle to keep up.

  Grainger jogged up beside her. “You trying to get us raped and left for dead on the road, boss, or do you just have a talent for it?”

  Roebeck ignored Grainger’s comment. This was neither the time nor the pake for loose talk.

  Chun joined them, pushing between them until the team trotted three abreast. “Oh, shut up, Grainger. You’ire just afraid you’ll have to wear your hardsuit.”

  “You’re wrong this time, Chun,” Grainger said. “I wish I had my armor on this minute, to protect me from those EARS”—Echelons Above Reality—“in there who’re right now planning their move once we’re reported Missing In Action. You know this is a sacrifice play.”

  The ADCSOPS, who’d stopped to let them catch up, had heard what Grainger said. He tuned up Grainger with a practiced stare. “You have it wrong, mister. This is no sacrifice play. It’s a long overdue wake-up call.” He shifted bleakly sparkling eyes to Roebeck. “TL Roebeck, I’ve waited a long time for somebody to come into The Building and ask these guys the basic question they didn’t want to hear.”

  “What question is that, sir?” Chun asked the ADCSOPS.

  “Question? The only question: ‘Is my war ready yet?’ And thanks to your team, TL Roebeck, the answer finally was ‘yes.’ ”

  So the ADCSOPS had known, maybe all of the flag officers had known, that there’d been more than a philanthropic interest at work Up The Line in the creation of the ARC Riders.

  “Roebeck, let’s talk about what kind of support you figure you’re going to need,” said the ADCSOPS, as if he’d known her for a thousand years.

  So the threat from Up The Line was real. And the flag officers of the Anti-Revision Command had known all along that someday it was going to come to something like this. Otherwise there’d have been more questions. Disbelief. Argument. Otherwise she’d never have gotten that meeting. Not with the Chief of Staff. Not in a million years.