Simon Hawke - The Cleopatra Crisis

“Damn,” said Lucas. “How did it happen?”

“We figure it had to be Marshall.” Delaney said. “He’s theonly one who could have alerted the Network to our presence in Rome. so he musthave been involved. Creed obviously never suspected that. He figured thatMarshall had just deserted to the Underground because he was burned out, but hemust have done it because he was afraid to be exposed. When Creed showed up. hemust have panicked.”

“So it was Network that intervened when the S.O.G. tried toambush us?”

“We think so,” Delaney said. “They couldn’t afford to have atimestream split go down any more than we could. The only one we found wasSimmons. so either the others got away or they pulled out when our reinforcementsarrived.”

“Simmons was a real hard case.” Forrester said. “AfterSteiger formed the I.S.D.. he busted up several Network operations. One of thebiggest ones he exposed was headed up by Simmons, only we never got him.”

“We never found Creed’s body,” Andre said. “but we foundSimmons. He’d been shot through the heart with a laser. ‘there was a disruptoron the floor beside him. The way we reconstruct it. Simmons got onto thegrounds when the assault was in progress. He was wearing Kaufman’s uniform, sohe must have taken it off Kaufman after he was killed, or maybe he killedKaufman himself in the confusion and took his disruptor. Then he waited for theright moment and made his move. They must have both fired at the same time.”

“So Steiger went down fighting,” Lucas said. He sighed “Iguess it’s the way he would have wanted it.”

“He was a good man.” said Forrester. “His name’s going to beadded to the Wall of Honor. At the same time as we take yours off. Officially,you’re back among the living.”

“What about Darkness?” Lucas asked.

“He disappeared again after the assault,” said Delaney. “Wehaven’t seen or heard from him since.”

“If it hadn’t been for him, Hollister would have beaten us,”said Lucas. “One more second and Caesar and his wife would have both been dead.”

“Maybe there was a time in which that happened,” said Delaney.“A scenario in which Hollister had won. If Darkness hadn’t changed your destinyback in Afghanistan, somebody else would’ve been in that room with Caesar. Thatcould have made all the difference. Maybe it would have been me or Andre, ormaybe Steiger. Perhaps his death was the price we had to pay to get historyback on the right track.”

“But is it?” Lucas asked. “What is the right track I wonderif we’ll ever know.”

“All we can ever know about for sure is our own past,” saidForrester. “To Darkness, his past is still our future. And for all we know,there may well be other people from the future in our present, and our past.trying to influence our actions in an attempt to compensate for whateverdisaster lies up ahead. Chances are we may not even live to see it.”

“I remember something a Roman centurion once told me. aboutthree thousand years ago,” said Travers with a smile. “It was on the nightbefore we crossed the Rubicon. when this whole thing started. He said, ‘If itis my fate to die tomorrow. I would prefer not to know of it tonight.’ And thenhe put his hand on his sword hilt and added, ‘I would sooner trust my fate tothis than to the prophecies of oracles and soothsayers.’ He was just a simplesoldier, but there was a lot of wisdom in his words.”

“Whatever happened to that oracle?” asked Lucas. “What washis name, Lucan?”

“Interesting that you should ask,” said Forester. “We foundhim.”

“You found him’?” said Delaney with surprise. “You nevermentioned that!”

“Because I’m still not certain what to make of it,” said Forester.he turned to Travers. “You remember how you said he seemed to simply disappearas soon as you passed him through the gate of Caesars camp?”

“Yes,” said Travers. “There was no sign of him. I figured heclocked out.”

“He did,” said Forester. “Or, more accurately, he wasclocked out. After we received your report, we went back a Search and Retrieveteam to apprehend him. They got him just as he was coming through the gates.”

“Then he disappeared because you clocked him out?” saidTravers with astonishment.

“That’s right.” said Forrester. “The temporal anomaly had alreadyoccurred with the prophecy itself. But for all we know, perhaps it wasn’t ananomaly. Because we interrogated all the prisoners extensively and none of themknew anything about the oracle. We also interrogated Lucan himself. As far as we’vebeen able to determine, he was absolutely genuine. He grew up in a village notfar from where Caesar made his camp that night.”

But … how is that possible?” asked Travers. “If he wasn’tfrom the Special Operations Group, how could he have known about Caesar’sassassination? He even knew the exact date, and the names of the assassins!”

“Apparently, he had precognitive powers since early childhood,”said Forrester.

“You mean he could really see into the future?” Lucasasked.

“It would appear so.” said Forrester. “It seems he reallyhad the gift of ‘second sight.’ if you can call it a gift. He seemed to thinkof it more as a curse.” He paused. “I suppose it must have been. I assigned anagent to keep him under surveillance after we clocked him hack to his own time.It was a very short-term mission.”

“Why?” asked Lucas. “What happened?”

“I suppose Lucan must have seen something again,” saidForrester gravely. “The morning after we clocked him hack to his own village.he committed suicide.”

“My God,” said Travers in a low voice. “He knew!”

“He knew what?” asked Forester, puzzled.

“Just before we passed him through the gates that night. Iasked him if he could look into my future,” Travers said. “He told me that hecouldn’t, because he needed time to recover …. And he was leaving on a longjourney in the morning.”