CHAPTER 3
Martin Spencer slept badly, woke up groggy, overcooked the eggs and ham until they were dry.
Allison walked in, and didn’t even attempt to offer a courtesy.
“Ah, ruined my breakfast again, did you?” She took the loaded plate and utensils he offered.
He admitted, “And mine. It was an accident.”
“Yes, always conveniently when I get home.” Her tone was accusatory.
He didn’t want to go there. He wanted out of the conversation to avoid a fight.
“I’m running late. I’m sorry.”
She heaved her shoulders. “It’s fine. It’s not as if I spent all night dealing with intake documents for a car accident.”
She seemed to really want an argument, prodding like that. He said, “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. How many times do I have to say it?”
“You’ve said it. I’d rather you got it right. Go play in the woods.”
Sigh. She still didn’t grasp it was a job. “It’s work. We teach people.”
“That’s fine.” She turned away with her plate.
He grabbed his backpack and stormed out. He had snacks at the office. He’d eat those instead.
He did relax a bit while driving. The old Suburban was a reassurance. Though he’d probably need to replace it, soon. They’d done Allison’s last. Actually, she’d gone through two cars while he was still on this one.
That part wasn’t her fault. He was just being pissy.
He pulled up at the office, grabbed coffee and a pack of jerky, and got to work. The students were up and waiting.
“Okay, your tarps are covered in dew. And the ones we set on the frame have filled the bottles. Go ahead and taste them.”
The water would be cool, fresh, and as long as the tarps weren’t too dirty, very tasty.
The students agreed. “Mmmm.” “Nice!” “That’s refreshing.”
“We’ll work on river water filtering shortly. Notice how you can roll the tarp to make puddles. You want to conserve as much as possible. Drink what you can’t store, so you’re hydrated.”
Bob was on his way with a couple of shovels. They’d use shovels for their sand filters. The students got E-tools.
His phone rang. He pulled it, glanced at the number, and his pulse hammered.
“Go ahead and work on that. I have a business matter to attend to, but will be back ASAP. Emily, can you keep an eye out?”
“Sure!” she agreed.
“Thanks.” He took a last glance around and headed for his cabin office, so he could call back in private.
He knew what the call meant. It was a military number through Washington.
The voice mail just said, “This is David McClare. Please call me back ASAP.”
David McClare. Not General McClare. If the man was being that circumspect…
He stepped into the trailer, closed the door, kept an eye on things out the window.
He pressed call back. It was answered on the first half ring.
“McClare.”
“Hello, David. Are you still using your rank otherwise?”
“Martin Spencer, thanks for calling back. Yes, this is official, just discreet. Are you in private?”
“Yes, sir. In my office. No one in hearing.”
“We’d like to recall you to duty.”
“Where and why?”
“It has to do with your last assignment and is not for public discussion.”
“Ah, that.” He nodded. Maybe. More likely not. If they wanted more questions and were paying, sure. He didn’t want to be a lab subject again, though.
“Your contacts from last time assure your safety.”
Contacts? The Cogi?
“That’s interesting,” he said. “Are you in contact with them?”
“They are here, and yes.”
“What about Barker?”
“We assumed one of you would stay to cover your business. That’s better for us, too.”
“Right. Do we get a choice?”
“Yes.”
“Let me think about it.”
“Please get back to us by tomorrow, close of business.”
“Understood.”
The Cogi, the future soldiers, were here. That was either a coincidental problem, or it meant they had reliable time travel. It sounded like the latter. That suggested others were also doing it.
He’d have to discuss this with family.
Who was he kidding? Allison wouldn’t stop him for a second.
Going away wouldn’t fix anything, but he wasn’t running away, just getting distance. Anyway, he didn’t know what was up yet.
It bugged him all day at class. He drove home wondering how to discuss it.
Really, there was no good way.
He walked in across the wooden slat porch, opened the door, and said, “Allison, the Army needs me for another project.”
She had no expression as she said, “Well, good. That’s reliable income.”
Charming. Thanks, wife.
“They may need me in A-stan.”
And suddenly she actually did look compassionate.
“You came back a wreck. Your POW time hurt you badly. You retired early. You never let your bug-out bag get more than a foot from you, even in bed.” She pointed at the pack, which he’d put next to his boot. “Do you really think you’re in a good mental state to go back over?”
He actually wasn’t sure. “They’ve given reliable assurances. We’ll have heavy allied support.”
“Then there’s my feelings to consider.”
“There are.” That was a legitimate matter.
Then she threw out, “So what’s the deal with you and this Gina woman on Facebook?”
Oh, hell, this could be bad. His pulse hammered and he tried not to blush.
“We were very close. Personally close. We were both married and never did anything physical.”
“And what did you do that wasn’t physical?”
“We know…a hell of a lot about each other.”
“I know how the military can be. And stressful situations. And emergencies.”
“Only talk, dear. We were both afraid we weren’t coming home, and we had lots of time to talk. We couldn’t possibly touch each other.”
“It still feels bad to me.”
“Yeah, it felt bad to us.”
“I saw your Messenger chat.”
He wished she hadn’t done that. Why had she done that?
She said, “I didn’t get who most of these people or groups were. I guess local tribes. But it looked like you weren’t exactly prisoners, and were doing something intel-wise.”
And this is why he should never have mentioned anything on Messenger to anyone, ever.
“We can’t say. Allison, we both talked about our relationships, and we did not cheat.”
“No, but you did talk about it. In detail. And about me.”
“All I can say is, this time we won’t be left hanging. If it looks like that, I’m turning around, because I can’t handle that again.”
“This means extra retirement points, doesn’t it?”
“Yeah. And pay on top of my share of the school. And maybe other perks.”
“I am very unhappy agreeing to this.”
“Do you want to say no?”
“I want you to consider the kids.”
The kids were adults.
“I’ll make it work,” he said.
He really didn’t feel at home here anyway.
Captain Sean Elliott had just taken command of an engineer company when he got called to go back to sunny Ass-stan. His “allies from the last deployment” meant only one thing, and he wasn’t thrilled. He’d thought that had all been sorted out.
Whether this was the Army’s screwup, the Cogi’s, or something else remained to be seen.
There was no “wait” on this leg, only “hurry up.” He was off the plane, into a waiting HMMWV that was even hotter than outside, and across the dusty flight line at once. It was filled with mostly German aircraft, and German cadre. The US contingent was reducing steadily. He did text Mariel that he arrived and would be out of contact for some time. Sucky way to treat a girlfriend who was willing to tolerate Army schedules, but then, that’s what it was.
In the US section of the base, General McClare was waiting.
He saluted, the general returned it, and extended a hand.
“Good to see you again, sir,” he said as a formality.
“And you, Captain. You’re looking fit.”
“I got that way and decided I liked the look,” he said. He did like the physique, and so did Mariel, who had a pretty good build herself.
“Excellent. Come right on in to my office.”
They entered the steel fire door, down the hall past some admin offices, and to the small suite that the general needed mostly for appearances’ sake. There was no receptionist in the outer office, though there was a desk for one. He led the way into the office proper. Sean followed.
Three men stood as they entered, and Sean pulled up short.
The first was Specialist—no, apparently now Sergeant Oglesby, who he knew easily. Well, hell.
“Hello, Dan. Congrats on the stripe.” He pointed at the sergeant’s insignia.
“Thank you, sir.”
Next was Cryder, the Cogi soldier from the future, who they’d met in the distant past.
Sean said, “Cryder. Greetings. I’m not sure I can say it’s good to see you.”
Cryder stood to his 6′6″ height and imposing physique. “Greetings, Captn. I’ve been workin’ on my language. Can guess why’m here.” He shook hands firmly, though Sean knew the man could crush his hand if he leaned into it.
Sean could guess. “You want us to do something in the past?” he asked.
“And future.”
He turned to the other and offered his hand again.
The young man declared, “I am Shug,”
Shug was young, about eighteen, very skinny, and looked not quite Afghan. Wait…
“He’s from the past.”
Oglesby said, “Yes, sir. Probably not far from the Urushu. I haven’t been able to determine much beyond that yet, but Mr. Cryder says he’s a couple of thousand years later.”
Sean shrugged mentally and said, “It is good to meet you, Shug.”
“Tank you.”
To the general, he said, “So Shug arrived here and Cryder came to help take him back?”
“To start with, yes.” McClare elaborated. “The Cogi have identified some more of our MIAs as displaced in time. It’s much easier to recover them if we have US forces along, and we don’t want to open up the group to anyone not already cleared.”
Cryder resumed his seat, leaned back a bit, and said, “Nor do we. There are technic reasons you guys work easier than others.” After he sat, the others followed his lead.
“I see. I’m guessing your presence at this exact location and time means your people got better resolution on the time warps or whatever?”
He kept an eye on Shug. The kid paid attention, but didn’t seem to grasp much if any of the conversation.
Cryder noted, “Within days now, yes. Each jump refines it more, but each one creates sort of like ripples, and those make it a bit harder.”
He asked, “How many jumps have you made?”
“This is my first delibrate one.”
“Overall by your people, I mean.”
Cryder shook his head. “I dunno, and that’s restricted. They sent me to help localize you people for pickup and return.”
“That’s good, I guess.”
Cryder said, “We’d like at least five of you. Unnerstand you’re not all available. General wants to send two life scientists to research. I recommend against. Whole point is the techs have your data on file to make it accurate.”
McClure said, “I argued that first so we have some sort of idea what effect this had on you and your troops, and on the ones we hope to bring back. Then, there’s pure scientific interest.”
Sean nodded. “So this is a planned mission.”
McClure said, “Sort of. It’s planned in detail, and three officers have the details. You’d be number four. All other documentation describes a completely different civil affairs mission, and cites your people as having developed useful contacts, et cetera.”
“I’m surprised we’ve kept it quiet this long.”
“There are rumors and conspiracy site posts. Usually about ten percent facts and the rest out there with aliens.”
“Time travel, not aliens,” Sean joked.
“Exactly.”
It was nerve-wracking, but Cryder was here, so it seemed there was actual control of the process.
“So what about those ripples you mentioned?” he asked.
Cryder said, “More jumps means more interference. We can deal with it, but it takes more zero baseline, which means more travel, which means more interference.”
“How many jumps have been made?” he asked, then realized he’d just asked that same thing.
“We don’t know. How many rockets have been made?”
Sean replied, “That depends on your definition of ‘rocket.’ Thousands to billions.”
“Exactly that.”
“You mean short jumps? Seconds?”
The tall man shrugged. “Lots of people making their own and fucking up everything possible.” He looked at Shug, and the young man looked a bit tense.
Oglesby reassured the paleo with something in the native language, then explained, “I told him he was fine. He knows he’s part of this, but not how.”
“Oh…how bad is that? Risk of things getting screwed up in the past?”
“No, but it’s like having a hundred imagers running around in the middle of a play.”
“Okay.” He imagined kids with cell phones running through a formation or patrol. That would suck.
Cryder continued, “There’s no way to stop them. Most displacements are not people, or only a few moments and don’t cause any real effect. Some are significant. They act like waves. Lots of little ones can suddenly cause a big one.”
“Got it. So you can work around it. It’s just a very variable thing.”
“Bingo, gringo.”
That was just a hilarious comment, and Sean laughed.
“So why us? You can go back and find them. You speak English.”
“I could, probably. Same with Arnet.” His counterpart from the previous event. “Tried sending someone else, couldn’t get within a century on the first approx. Existing personnel work a lot better, and we need more’n two for safety and support. They say they can get us a lot closer.”
“Human auras or something?”
The man nodded. “Guess that term works. Thousands of factors, those on file are easier.”
“And how hard is recovery?” He didn’t want to be stuck for another two years or longer.
“Recovery is simple. Or is as far as the user. Deployment is the hard part.”
Sean grasped it, but not entirely. “It just seems odd to come here to get us to go there.”
The man almost smirked. “How much production do you send to China and India?”
That took a moment.
“I can’t see that being a relevant comparison, but I guess I see the point.”
He asked, “Okay, so, General, do I contact the element or will others?”
McClare replied, “You do. It minimizes risks and they’ll trust you.”
“I don’t know about that last, sir.”
“Do what you can.”
Cryder added, “The longer they’re displaced, the more chances for things wrong. Got to get them back, Shug home, and they said there may be a couple they’re still sweeping for.”
“Damn. Nice mess.”
Lieutenant Colonel Kevin Rosten hated when his phone rang during the middle of the night. He squinted blearily at the clock. 0346. That probably meant…
“Yeah, Rosten, go ahead.”
“Sir, this is Sergeant Dormund at the desk. We have one of our troops here for a barfight.”
“Ah, hell. Do I need to come over? Who is it?”
“Sergeant Caswell.”
“What, Jennifer Caswell? Female, about five five?”
“Yes, sir.”
“What happened?”
“Apparently she smashed some infantryman’s face. He’s at the hospital now.”
“Is she okay?”
“Other than bruised hands, she seems fine.”
“What the hell happened? She’s not exactly large.”
Dormund said, “We’re still taking statements.”
He blinked again. “Roger. I’ll be there ASAP.”
Why did it have to be Caswell? She was smarter than hell, and just had completely the wrong chip on her shoulder.
Still, she was a bona fide combat vet and former POW from that mixup in A-stan. He’d find out what the issue was before making any decisions.
Twenty minutes later he was at his office, with coffee in hand.
He glanced over the statements. Caswell’s friend, and the other guy’s buddy, both agreed the victim had been mouthy and inappropriate. “Comfort women.” Yeah, he understood why she’d take that personally. Not only female and very feminist, but the few documents of her experience said she’d acted as escort and grief counselor for native women in theater. Smashing the guy was probably a bit much, but it depended on delivery. His injuries were minor, mostly bruises and splits. He had a couple of sutures and a tooth with some reinforcement while it reset.
The resolution was obvious to him.
“I think it’s best if we just make it go away.”
The man’s commander, a twenty-six-year-old captain, politely argued, “No, sir. I respectfully disagree. I’ve got a good soldier who’s going to be on quarters for at least a couple of weeks, and isn’t going to deploy on time.”
“Yeah, well maybe your ‘good soldier’ shouldn’t have been making sexually harassing comments to a decorated combat vet, impugning her service, and implying she should sexually service him. It’s not only unprofessional, it was stupid, since he had no idea about her background. I offer instead we call it even, he takes his ass whuppin’ like a man and goes about his business.”
He understood why an officer would stand up for his troops. He was doing the same. He understood why an infantry officer would care more about his combat soldier than someone he regarded as a mere REMF. At the same time, the soldier had been wrong, and it was actually quite amusing to know a female SP had worn him out in a puddle of blood and beer.
“That’s your final word?”
“I’m afraid it is, Captain.”
“I’ll give it some thought. I’ll see how he looks in the morning. On the one hand, it’s a problem for my manning doc. On the other, I really don’t want to escalate, either. That just makes work for everyone. I understand that, Colonel. But she took it from words to violence.”
Very calmly, because presence mattered, he said, “I can be reached at my office. It may be Monday before the relevant offices have their comments available. Do please let me know how you’d like to proceed.”
“Yes, sir, thank you.”
The captain sounded put upon, but he probably knew how this would play out, and someone was going to have to explain to the mouthy grunt about target selection, and, well, courtesy in public.
Caswell was released, with a cautionary letter to remain available pursuant to possible disciplinary procedures.
She looked exhausted, angry, and rather embarrassed, but challenging.
She took a deep breath and said, “Sorry, sir. I didn’t want it to escalate like that.”
“I’m sure you didn’t. I’ve advised them that pressing charges will complicate things for everyone. He was absolutely wrong to talk to you like that. That doesn’t justify hitting him.”
“I’m aware of the regulations, sir.”
Nice phrasing.
“You are. That’s also not any kind of admission or apology, is it?”
She gazed in restrained antagonism. “It isn’t, no, sir.”
“We’ll discuss this Monday. You will please remain on base and away from any of the establishments serving alcohol until then.”
She replied, “I understand, sir. I’d like to note for the record that I wasn’t drinking.”
“I saw. But he was.”
“I…Yes, sir.”
That was as much admission as he was going to allow that he was on her side. She seemed to grasp the hint and the discretion that went with it.
“Your friends are still here. Can they take you to the dorm?”
“Yes, sir.”
God, it was early. He might as well be up for the day.
It wasn’t five minutes later, just as he got in his car, that his phone rang again.
“Lieutenant Colonel Rosten, Security Forces Squadron.”
“Colonel Rosten, I don’t think we’ve met. I’m Captain Elliott. I’m in Mazar-i-Sharif.”
“What can I do for you, Captain?”
“You have a Staff Sergeant Caswell, Jennifer, in your unit.”
Goddamn. What was it with her?
“I do. She was over there about a year ago, I believe.”
“Well, we need her back.”
What? “Uh, that’s unusual. What for?”
“I’m afraid I’m not at liberty to say, sir. She has specific information regarding the events that took place while she was here with my element, and we need her in person to assist with them.”
“I assume you’re sending orders over?”
“AFCENT is. I just figured it was polite to give you a heads-up so you can relay it through chain.”
“Yeah, I’m not sure how she’ll react. There was an issue here last night. Tonight, actually.”
Elliott sounded concerned. “Is she okay?”
“She’s fine. Apparently, someone made comments about her deployment and they were not well received. A bar fight.”
“Ah. Well, if you need any backup from here, we’ll do our best to get it cleared and get her en route.”
“Thanks. I’ll let you know.”
Really, Caswell was competent, but annoying, and this might be good for her. She might be one of those troops who missed the war.
This also resolved the matter of the bar fight. Orders from higher up, she’s gone. Deal with it.
It also meant he wouldn’t be dealing with her for the duration.