Time Twisters Page 9

“It will be as you wish. I swear it,” she said.

  Joan’s face lit up with a beatific smile then, and her eyes focused on something just beyond her friends. “Jesu!” she breathed, and surrendered her will and her soul to the inescapable sweetness of the world beyond. This time, she thought, she felt the touch of feathery wings wrap themselves around her soul.

  One viewing screens all around the world, billions of people saw the martyrdom of Jehanne Dark. Watching with both fascination and horror, more than one person exclaimed, “We have murdered a saint!”

  8.

  Joan had a state funeral, though she was buried in a simple wooden box according to the wishes she had expressed at one time to Michael. Her death served as the final catalyst, sparking her movement to unprecedented activity. Leaders stepped forward to take her place; having seen her death in great detail, they had become fearless.

  When it seemed that they could take some time away from Joan’s campaign, Catherine asked Michael to activate Hawking’s Arrow again.

  “Are you planning on going somewhere?” he asked, a hint of a smile showing on his face, the first one since Joan’s death.

  “Yes,” Catherine said. “You and Margaret are welcome to come along.” Since knowing Joan, the formal hierarchy among the trio had broken down. They had been coworkers, military researchers attached to the Hawking machine, as well as its most experienced users. But Joan had made them friends and comrades.

  “Does this have something to do with your promise to her?” Margaret asked.

  Catherine nodded. She looked hesitantly at both Michael and Margaret, then took a deep breath, speaking rapidly as she exhaled. “I’ve been hearing her voice,” she said, and waited for Michael or Margaret to rationalize the experience away. Instead, both of them looked relieved.

  “So have I,” said Michael.

  “I have, too,” echoed Margaret.

  “Then you must know where we’re going and what we’re going to do,” Catherine said.

  “She thinks—thought—he could be salvaged if we snatched him before he quit the military and retired to his estates. We owe it to her to try,” Margaret said.

  “I agree,” Michael added. “We point the arrow at 1435,” he said as they made their way toward the room that housed the machine.

  “Gilles de Rais,” Catherine announced, “we come to you in the name of Joan the Maid.”

  DOWNTOWN KNIGHT

  James M. Ward

  “BetaOne, thisisAlpha One,doyou copy?Over.” “Loud and clear Alpha One,” the FBI agent responded.

  “Beta One, do you have a better angle on what’s coming in those twenty vehicles approaching the compound? Over.” Agent Jeffers, the lead FBI agent, was sitting in the Alpha One central observation post.

  Computer screens showed twenty new black Cadillacs pulling unusually large horse trailers through the main gate of the Gambino family Mafia compound.

  “Negative, Alpha One, check the Gamma station. Over,” The Beta FBI agent advised.

  “Gamma One, this is Alpha One, do you copy? Over.”

  “Loud and clear Alpha One. Those twenty vehicles have come to the middle of the compound and are unloading Clydesdales from horse trailers. Over,” answered the high observation post.

  “Agent, repeat that, what the hell is a Clydesdale?” snapped the confused Jeffers.

  “Alpha One, this is the Delta station. I can see them as well. Clydesdales are large horses bred in the Clyde valley of Scotland. They were used by the knights of the Middle Ages as the best mount to carry all the weight of a man and his armor. Over,” answered the FBI agent.

  “Horses? What does the don of all the Mafia bosses want with twenty huge horses?”

  “We have no idea sir. Over,” came the replies from observation posts Beta, Gamma, Delta, and even Epsilon.

  Four weeks later, sixty hard-eyed FBI agents all sat in the same meeting room discussing the astounding new developments of the Don Corollas Gambino family.

  A frustrated Jeffers looked over the field agents of his command. These were the best men in the agency. There was nothing they couldn’t find out, which was why Jeffers was so flustered.

  “Gentlemen, for fifteen months we’ve been observing the Gambino family. In the past two months atypical behavior has been observed among the family members and the compound. Something is happening, and we need to know what it is to go in with due authority and cause. I want your maximum effort on this case. Carson, what do you have?” Jeffers steepled his fingers and waited.

  “Two weeks ago, two armored cars entered the compound. We traced the vehicles back to their main branch. When we interviewed the drivers, they tried to tell us they couldn’t divulge what was in their client’s delivery.”

  The other agents burst into laughter at the thought of mere security guards trying to keep information from them.

  Carson continued, “The trucks delivered two large chests each—filled with thirty thousand gold coins minted in Italy. Gold bars were delivered to the foundry by agents of the Gambinos, and a minting order was placed. The best in engraving talent went into making the gold coins they produced. Side A has the face of the old Don, Corollas Gambino. Side B has the Gambino Italian family crest. Each coin is worth approximately five hundred dollars in today’s gold trading market.”

  There was a rumble among the men as each agent computed the worth of all that gold.

  “Let’s keep it moving, people; that’s only part of this new puzzle,” Jeffers said. “Agent Ackers, report from the observation posts.”

  “The younger members of the family have been taking riding lessons on those huge Clydesdales. The son, Corollas Gambino junior, is on his horse at least three hours a day. He’s becoming quite accomplished, and we’ve noted he’s grooming and even shoeing his mount.” Akers took a deep breath before continuing. “We’ve also noted an increase in the family members moving into the compound. Tommy ‘the Cooler’ Gambino arrived last Friday; Cousin Dino Gambino and Uncle Artoro Gambino, two heads of muscle groups, arrived on Saturday of last week. Cousin Carlos Gambino, their main moneyman, came yesterday. All told, there are at least twenty new Gambino relatives living in the compound—and all of them are the young leaders of the family from here and from Italy. These men are all very important people in their organization, and there isn’t one of them older than thirty.”

  “Curiouser and curiouser,” Jeffers said. “Does anyone have anything else to report?”

  Agent Breck stood up. “The Clydesdales were purchased from a breeding farm in Scotland. Fifteen are pregnant mares, the other five are high-quality stallions. They appear to be the best of that breed in the world. No expense was spared. The mares are worth fifty thousand each, and the studs one hundred thousand.”

  Agent James raised his hand.

  “Yes,” Jeffers recognized the agent.

  “Thank you sir,” James stood up. “For two and a half years now I’ve been tracking a pair of teachers coming in and out of the compound. One is an instructor in languages of the Middle Ages. The other is a fencing master who has been teaching the younger Corollas the saber and long sword.”

  Breck shifted in his seat and raised an eyebrow at James.

  James continued: “At first, we speculated the language teacher was just showing the young Corollas the language of his ancestors—on some whim from the father. The swordsman? We figured he was just giving them a little exercise. Now I’m thinking there could be some strange tie between the horses, the gold, and those lessons. The fencing instructor has picked up his lesson times from once a week to three times a week now.”

  Jeffers’s face turned redder as his level of frustration grew. There was something going on here, and he didn’t know what it was. “Agent Theon, what about those black trucks?”

  Theon was their best investigative officer. He had an outstanding ten-year record in drug enforcement, and had been brought to the unit to investigate the black trucks. “As you all know, for a year now at the begi
nning of every month black trucks have been making deliveries to the compound. Despite our surveillance cameras, it has been difficult to determine what they have been delivering. The observation posts report large crates coming out of the trucks. Intensive interrogation of the drivers reveals they don’t know what’s inside. Backtracking the trucks has revealed little. It’s more than clear elaborate efforts were made to hide the crates’ contents. The Gambinos know we’re watching. And I have to believe that they know they’re going down.”

  “And yet? What about those crates?” Jeffers motioned for Theon to keep going.

  “After a great deal of effort, and with the help of my squad, we’ve discovered that more than half the trucks have been delivering power equipment. Heavy transformers and the like purchased from large companies here in the US. We also know that whatever the other materials are, they come from Germany. We have agents working there to backtrack the deliveries. I’ll be going to Hanover myself tomorrow.”

  “Excellent work, Theon.” Jeffers looked over his group, having just made a decision. “People, something big is perking at that compound. There’s a full moon in two nights. We’re going to hit that compound with everything we have then. I’m authorizing a hundred men to invade and discover whatever is happening there. This afternoon we’ll go over the maps. We’ll take down the Gambinos, and with luck we’ll find enough goods to put them all away for a very long time. Dismissed.”

  The men left with smiles on their faces, Breck muttering that it was about time they’d be seeing some action on the case.

  Two nights later, in a perfectly coordinated strike of helicopter and ground units, the Corollas Gambino Mafia compound filled to overflowing with law enforcement invaders. The power was cut as one hundred of America’s best FBI agents went in.

  But the lights never went out in the compound.

  Agents came over the walls, crashed through the front gates, and rappelled down cords from five helicopters.

  Reports came back to Alpha One from the squads. The horses and the equipment were gone from the stalls. It was noted that the horses hadn’t left through the gates.

  The house showed no sign of servants, and surveillance equipment confirmed that none of the family servants had left through the gates either.

  “We’re looking for a very large underground entrance, people!” Agent Jeffers shouted to his squad. “Those big horses are going to need a big entrance to walk through.”

  The investigation continued.

  None of the rooms of the mansion revealed the large chests of gold.

  Bedroom after bedroom was searched and found to be empty.

  Reports back revealed clothes filled the closets and chests of drawers in those rooms; there was no evidence of things being packed up for a trip.

  Not a single cousin, uncle, brother, or anyone else was found.

  Until . . .

  From five separate entrances, FBI men burst into the large ballroom of the mansion at the same moment. The bright lights of the chamber revealed the elder Don Corollas Gambino sitting in his wheelchair, smiling. Red lights dotted his chest as laser sights targeted the old man.

  Beside him was a huge electronic device. Giant sparks of energy arched between two twenty-foot-tall transponder posts.

  “What?” One of the agents blurted.

  “I was too old to go,” the Don said. “And that’s fine.”

  “Go? Go where?” another agent asked.

  “I wanted to have the last laugh on you Feds. You’re too late!” raged the old man as he pressed a red button on a handheld unit in his lap.

  Agents in the ballroom showed confused expressions. Those same expressions filled the faces of those stationed in the Alpha One outpost. “Too late for what?” the agents asked themselves.

  Just then, the compound went up in a massive explosion heard three hundred miles away in the city of New York.

  Six hundred and five years in the past, something a little different was happening at a large jousting tourney in the London of 1405.

  “You are what kind of knight?” The head stooge spat the words out as if they were unclean things leaving his mouth.

  “I’m a knight of the family Gambino. I’m ot’ta the south side of Rome, Italy. You must’a heard of us?”

  “I’ve heard of Yorkshire knights, of Templar knights, even knights of the unicorn. I’ve never heard of Gambino knights. If I haven’t heard of these Gambinos, I daresay no one in all of England has heard of them,” said the scowling stooge.

  “Well, that’s your loss to be sure, pally.” Don Corollas Gambino tried to be polite under the circumstances. “See, this little shindig should change all that for me. Now sign me up for this clambake, and tell me where to pitch my tent.”

  “In due course, knight Gambin-e-o, in due course. Where are your squires, your armor, and other knightly equipment of note?” asked the Chamberlain of the tournament.

  “Squires? I never use ’em,” Don Corollas said with a grin. “Just let me sign the roster and get going. Okay, pally?” He slid his hand across the table and left five golden coins on the rough wood. His knowing wink spoke volumes about his true character and he suspected the gold coins would do the rest.

  “Knight Gambino, you seem to have dropped these funds. No doubt all you have in the world. Squires are required for this tournament. Since you don’t have one, you can’t participate. I’m so very sorry.” But the Chamberlain’s face said he was clearly not sorry at all. “Better luck next year. Next in line please.”

  Seeing it would do no good to argue with this type of stiff on the stiff’s home ground, the good “knight” wandered over to the other knights he’d seen rejected for various reasons. He walked up to the poorest-looking of them and bowed.

  “So buddy, why wouldn’t the lord high stuffed armorer over there let you play in his game?”

  “My name is Tarlen, not Buddy, but no offense taken,” replied the knight in a cheerful manner. “I didn’t have the required funds to enter. It seems they’ve doubled the fees this year.”

  “Tell you what, sport,” said Corollas, “I’m in need of a sort of squire-type guide to help me over the rough spots at this horse-lance-shield hoot enanny. I’ll give you a thousand cool gold ones if you be my squire for the tournament. Wad’da say?”

  “I say my name is Tarlen and the next time you make that naming mistake we will come to blows. However, I accept your offer if you prove to me that you can pay this sum,” Tarlen replied.

  “I likes a careful man. Come over here,” the knight ordered, taking Tarlen to a small wagon. Inside were lots of chests and one contained many times the offered price in gold.

  “Aren’t you afraid of thieves and bandits? That’s a lot of gold,” Tarlen queried.

  “We Gambinos don’t take lightly to theft. I’ve a few cousins with me and more coming. Ten people have tried to get in’ta that chest. All ten are wearing stone overshoes in the middle of several rivers in the local area. Word gets around, if you know what I mean?”

  “Well, yes, I see,” Tarlen responded. “Shall we get you signed up for tomorrow’s event?”

  “Onward and upward, pal . . . err, Sir Tarlen,” Don Gambino said with a sly and almost respectful smile.

  Later that day, Sir Tarlen and his own squire set up Knight Gambino’s tent.

  “Sire, what did the strange knight call this darkly striped material the tent is fashioned from?” the squire asked.

  Sir Tarlen held up the tent flap to the rays of the sun. “He called it pinstripe. I can’t imagine why, there are no pins in it.” Tarlen admired the material in the afternoon sun. “He also said his whole family had many tabards made of this material. Did you hear his last comment?”

  “No, what did he say?” the squire asked.

  “He said something about, ‘seeing the lay of the land and getting the skinny on tomorrow’s free-for-all. ’ I can’t imagine what that means, can you?” Tarlen asked.

  “No. I say, Sir Tarlen,
come look at this Italian armor. It is astonishing.” Wonder filled the young squire’s voice.

  The armor’s surface displayed intricately engraved roses and grapevines. Covered in etchings and embossed images, each piece of armor was an artistic marvel.

  “Where are the dents and tears? I’ve never seen jousting armor so perfect.” asked the younger squire. “What are these stubby things in these holders?”

  “They smell of sulfur and oil,” Tarlen remarked. “Put them back; who knows what devilish things they are.”

  “Let’s have no talk of devils, boys,” Don Corollas interrupted.

  The knight and squire leapt up from their examinations.

  “We Gambinos are all good Catholics, and that’s the way we likes it, see. Looking over the equipment, huh. Pretty good stuff, even if I do say so myself.” The Don brushed his hand over the surface of his armor.

  “We were just putting out your armor for the joust tomorrow. What are these odd clubs you have attached to carriers at your armor’s hips?” Tarlen asked.

  “Oh those . . . clubs . . . are a family tradition,” the Don explained. “We call them tommy guns. They’re named after my cousin, Tommy ‘the Cooler’ Gambino. He works the north side of Rome. That territory has become real quiet since he started carrying those. If you know what I mean. We never go into battle without them. They are kind’a like high-priced good luck charms. By the way, are there any Sullivan Acts against using missile weapons during the set-to tomorrow?”

  “Sullivan Acts?” Knight Tarlen had no idea what his lord asked.

  “If I may, Lord Tarlen,” his squire interrupted. “I think he means are there any rules against using missile weapons during the joust.” The squire smiled, getting into the swing of Knight Gambino’s horrible use of English.

  “Oh. Use of missile weapons is forbidden, unless the joust is to the death. In that case, only the most basic rules of chivalry apply. The more foolish knights sometimes charge an enemy in a fit of rage. This allows the defending knight to do whatever they wish. However, that hardly ever happens in jousts like these. A knight would have to be very angry to agree to a duel to the death,” Tarlen answered.