Simon Hawke - Hellfire Rebellion

“Yes, sir,” Johnny said breathlessly, wondering what sort of “foul practices” these terrible men indulged in and feeling suddenly afraid for Andre.

“Good,” said Adams. “Take this, then.” He pressed something into Johnny’s hand. “You’ve earned it.”

Johnny felt a lump in his throat as he gazed down on the silver Liberty medallion in his palm. Given to him by Sam Adams, himself!

“You’re one of us now,” said Revere, squeezing the boy’s shoulder. “Go and do us proud.”

Johnny left the house on Purchase Street in a daze. He could hardly wait to show Andre the medallion. He felt a slight, momentary twinge of guilt at not having told Adams and Revere what he had learned about her, but he was certain that they wouldn’t understand. Each time he thought of her, He remembered how she had realized that he was trailing her despite all the precautions that he took, how she had outwitted him, how she had bravely stood up to the horseman, whom even grown men feared!

She reminded him of the Indian girls that he had seen when he lived on the frontier and sometimes accompanied his uncle on his trading trips to their village. He would often lay awake at night and think about those Indian girls, about how different they were from all the white girls he had known, the simple and yet somehow beautiful way they dressed in their buckskins, the delicate way their feet looked in their leather moccasins, their pretty ankles and the way they walked, with a purposeful, slightly pigeon-toed stride, never flouncing or primping or flirting. The way they’d look at him and then shyly avert their eyes when he looked back. ‘He would dream about them sometimes and wonder what it would be like to talk with them, to walk through the woods and perhaps even to hold their hands, but of course he didn’t dare.

And he kept thinking about how it had felt when he kissed Andre. He did not know what had come over him. He did not know how she could possibly forgive such insufferable boldness, and yet she had not reacted angrily. She had been just as surprised as he was, but she had not looked angry. He felt like a fool for running away. And he kept thinking about that brief instant when his hand had come in contact with her breast. More than anything, he wanted to see her once again. There was a bond between them now, he told himself. They shared an adventure and a secret. For the first time since he had come to Boston. he felt happy and alive. He felt a sense of purpose. And. somehow, he knew that something wonderful was going to happen. For a long time, he had felt that he had a destiny that he had discovered. He believed that now, at last, he knew what it was.

The house on lime Street had been rented from a merchant who owned several similar properties along the waterfront. It was a boxy, wood frame structure with heavy wooden doors and mullioned windows with wood shutters. The brick chimneys rose about three feet above the shingled roof and the exterior was weathered from exposure to the salt sea winds. The house was located on a bend in the road where Lime Street curved around and met with Lynn Street. There was a foundry across the street and from the windows of the upper story they could see the docks near Hudson’s Point. Not far away was the ferry to Charles Town near the old windmill and within several blocks of them was Christ Church, on Salem Street.

Hunter had rented the place with some of his ill-gotten gains from the riots and he paid the landlord extra to insure his privacy. The landlord did not inquire into this special need for privacy. He was simply grateful to have the property rented and to receive the added bonus. He understood about men who did not want anyone inquiring into their affairs. After all, he was himself a smuggler. Perhaps Mr. Hunter was using the house as a place of assignation where he kept a mistress on the side, as many of his own friends did. Perhaps he was engaged in the smuggling trade himself and was using it as a place of storage for his goods. Perhaps he was a radical and holding clandestine meetings there in the middle of the night. The landlord didn’t really care. If anyone had told him that Hunter was a soldier from another universe and that the house on Lime Street was being used as a temporal transition point and field headquarters for a strike force of elite commandos from the 27th century, the landlord might merely have nodded absently and said. “No skin off my nose, so long us the rent is paid on time.”

Corporal Linda Craven stood at the window, looking out discreetly front behind the curtains, watching a merchant sloop sail past on a parallel course with the shore. She was twenty-two years old and this was her third mission. She had received her baptism of fire during her first assignment, in 19th-century London, when she was just a rookie, part of a support unit attached to the team of Delaney, Cross, and Steiger. When it was all over, only two of that support unit had been left alive. She had learned fast and she had learned the hard way. Since then, she and the other surviving member of that unit, Corporal Scott Neilson, had completed one other temporal adjustment mission, during the Second World War. On that occasion, they had been teamed with Lt. Wendell Jones, but the logistics of this assignment had required a new partner for them this time. Jones was black and there were certain historical scenarios where a black man simply couldn’t function very well. In colonial Boston, there was a fairly large population of blacks, but most of them were slaves, and even though many of the Boston colonists-such as Sam Adams, who objected to slavery in principle-had freed their slaves, they still did not possess the same rights as white men did and would not for many years to come, Because of this. Craven and Neilson had been teamed with Master Sergeant Rico Chavez, a veteran of Anglo-Chicano ancestry, whose physical characteristics could easily allow him to pose as anything from a Spaniard to an Italian to a Balkan or what was known as a “black Irishman.” descended from mixed Irish and Spanish stock, In addition to them. Forrester had dispatched another team, two being all that he could spare, consisting of Capt. Michael Seavers, one of the original members of the First Division. Sgt. Ivan Federoff, a veteran of over two dozen missions, and Lt. Geoffrey Stone, a former field agent for the T.I. A,

As Linda Craven was getting her first look at colonial Boston. Stone, Federoff, and Seavers were in the other bedroom, taking advantage of the time to grab some sleep. Chavez was behind her, relaxing on the bed and reading, but Nielson, as usual, was too keyed up to rest. A trick-shooting enthusiast and collector of antique firearms, he was eagerly examining the small arsenal of handguns Hunter had obtained in the 20th century.

‘A Cz-75.” he said admiringly, picking up a black 9 mm. Czech-made semiautomatic. “This one’s a collector’s item. And a 45 Colt Combat Commander; a couple of Berettas, a Model 84. 380 and a 9 min. 92F; a snub-nosed Colt King Cobra. 357 Magnum; a couple of small double-action Walther. 22s: a 10 mm. Springfield with convertible barrels and magazines; and Christ, look at this thing!” He picked up a huge cannon with a dull black steel frame. “An Israeli Desert Eagle. 44 Automag with a ten-shot clip! He’s even got a reloading press complete with dies! You’d think he was expecting an assault team!”

“He was,” said Chavez. without looking up from his book. “Us.”

“Us?” said Nielson, puzzled. “Well, not us specifically,” Chavez said, “but he didn’t trust Priest and the others any more than they trusted him. Not that I can blame him. If I were in his shoes, I’d have done the same thing. Prepared a safehouse and laid in some weapons, just in case. Looks like he picked some good ones, too.”