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Chapter Nineteen
For one, awful moment, Dan Collins thought McKee would shoot him out of hand. He didn't go crazy wild. He just went very still, with the silent deadliness of a viper poised to strike. He stared down at Dan, eyes narrowed. His fingers tightened slightly on the M16 he'd been holding casually trained on Dan's belly... .
Then he was moving, almost faster than Dan could follow. He grabbed Dan by the front of his parka and hauled him to his feet, then grunted and heaved him up into a fireman's carry. Dan's breath whistled out sharply. His aching head spun. He landed in a heap sideways on the passenger's seat of the truck and lay still. At least McKee hadn't left him to freeze to death in the snow... .
McKee climbed behind the wheel and slammed the door shut, then propped the M16s between himself and the door. Dan grimaced. Did McKee think he could take the stupid things away from him and use them? With his hands manacled behind him?
The knowledge he'd failed at his one pitiful chance threatened to crush him. Lucille and Da
Without warning, Dan felt as though he were falling. He clenched his teeth. I've been through this before, it lasts only a moment. A long moment.... Invasive white light he couldn't escape, even with his eyes squeezed tightly shut, blinded him. He couldn't hear the truck. Having his hands manacled helplessly behind him only worsened the gut-wrenching sensations.
Then solid ground reached up and slammed against the wheels. Dan yelled. He was thrown violently forward. He landed against the dash with rib-cracking force and slid helplessly onto the floor, jammed in sideways. He groaned, then bashed his head again as McKee stood on the brakes. The lunatic sent the truck fishtailing across a shifting, unsteady surface. Heartfelt oaths reached him as McKee fought the wheel... .
Then, blessedly, the truck skidded to a halt and stopped bashing Dan around like a pea in a pinball machine. McKee swore again, then the big maniac threw open the door and jumped out. Something hard slammed into the steel roof. Muggy air blasted in through the open door. Muggy, hot, and foul beyond belief. Hellish, unidentifiable noise bombarded his ears. Dan coughed and tried to squirm around into a sitting position. He could barely move.
Then McKee was back, yanking open the passenger door. The look on his face sent Dan's blood pressure into the stratosphere. McKee seized him and bodily hauled him clear of the truck, with no regard whatsoever for Dan's head, knees, or feet. He grunted, then he was stumbling in sand. He blinked and tried to focus. McKee swore monotonously in his ear. Something which was neither rain nor hail nor snow pelted down steadily from utterly black skies: pebbles, some of them glowing... .
McKee dragged him around the fender of the truck and pointed wordlessly across maddened surf. The truck's headlights cut a swath through the murk, revealing a harbor crowded with stone jetties, piers built over arches, tall, graceful columns... .
Beyond, riding at anchor on an endless stretch of black water, was an entire flotilla of Roman triremes.
"Where the goddamned hell are we, Collins?" McKee shouted. "You lying son-of-a—"
"I don't know! This was supposed to be Krakatoa the day before the big eruption! The Firellian Transfer didn't work!" He heard the panic in his own voice and didn't bother to disguise it. "I don't know where or when we are!"
McKee outdid his previous vocabulary. Some of it didn't even sound like English. He ended with, "What do we do now?"
"I don't know. We can try the second jump—"
"And end up on the backside of the moon?" McKee interrupted caustically.
"—but since the first one went wrong, we could very well end up on the backside of the moon. Firellian Jumps are damned dangerous. And with the time stream slipping already..."
McKee's jaw worked. Then he spat. "Great. Just great, Collins. Marooned God knows where and we don't even dare try to get home—"
He grunted sharply.
Then slid to the ground.
Dan stared, slack-jawed, at a nearly naked man. He'd managed to creep up silently behind McKee, without either of them noticing. He held a fist-sized rock in one hand.
"You okay?" the astonishing apparition asked.
In English.
Dan blinked. He'd spoken English. New Jersey English. Twentieth-century New Jersey American English. Involuntarily Dan glanced again at the triremes, then back. He focused on the man's horribly bruised face. Noted with some shock the misshapen burn scar on his neck, the thick metal collar which half obscured that scar, then noticed a welter of other bruises and older scars. The man wore nothing but a loincloth and improvised bandages around his ribcage.
"Uh—yeah," Dan said, intelligently. "I'm fine..." He blinked and managed to add, "Who the hell are you?"
Whoever he was, he'd stooped over McKee. He was busily rifling the man's pockets. He came up holding the manacle key. "Somebody else who got marooned, obviously," he answered unhelpfully. He unlocked Dan's wrists, then began stripping McKee of weapons. "Who are you?"
"Dan Collins." Dan was shucking off his arctic-weather parka as fast as he could. Sweat had pooled under his shirt. What looked and felt like ash rained down steadily. An occasional large rock fell from the sky and impacted hotly on the sand. Lightning from the time storm still blasted through the air, although the doorway itself had already closed.
The stranger glanced up briefly from looting McKee's pockets. Dan saw a quick gleam of white teeth. "Nice to meet you, Dan Collins. What'd you do to merit execution?"
Dan sucked in air between his teeth. Who was this guy? "I take it somebody sent you here to die?"
He snorted. "Something like that."
"Carreras?"
The man went utterly still. Then finished his search and straightened up. He seemed perfectly at home with the rifle in his hand as he checked the chamber and magazine. "And if it was Carreras?"
Dan managed a wan grin. "Then you're one lucky son." He didn't elaborate. This guy would figure it out once McKee woke up, but in the interim, Dan had an ally. And he needed allies.
"How so?"
"There's a tremendous chance we won't live through it, but we're going after Jésus Carreras. At least I am. Two members of his goon squad are locked up in the back of the truck."
That earned him a sharp glance. "What? Show me."
He moved ahead of Dan, dragging one nearly useless leg behind him. A clearly handmade brace should have stiffened it, but one side had broken and hung in splinters. Dan bit off an exclamation. The scars on that leg... The man's spine went rigid. When Dan kept his mouth shut, he seemed to relax again.
Christ—what had this man been through?
The stranger limped awkwardly to the rear of the truck. Dan opened the doors with a cautious, "They might be awake."
They weren't. Dan retrieved his flashlight and played the light across them.
"I don't know that one," the stranger mused. "Him, I recognize. Richie or Ricky, something like that. He was one of the ones who brought me through."
The stranger shot Ricky through the temple. Dan jumped nearly out of his skin. He shot the other one while Dan was still reeling, then turned and offered Dan the other rifle.
"Two down."
Dan's ears still rang from the concussion of the shots. The stench of gunpowder, blood, and human brain overpowered even the stink in the sulfurous air. His hands shook when he accepted the weapon. He'd never actually seen anyone die before... .