They had rounded several corners and went through several doors before they ever encountered anyone. Ted opened the door in front of them which led to the freight elevator. He saw the guard that stood just on the other side. Jack walked up behind the guard, his gun drawn. He grabbed the guard around the neck and shoved his gun into his back.
“We want to be smart about this, soldier. Put your hands on your head, and be very, very quiet.” The soldier was startled, and hesitant to comply, but when he saw Ted’s piercing blue eyes as they stared down at him from behind the face plate of the riot helmet, and the barrel of the gun pointed at him, he reluctantly complied with Jack’s demands. Jack cuffed first his left hand, and pulled it behind his back. He holstered his gun and grabbed the soldier’s right hand and locked it behind his back. “Where are we going to put him?” Jack asked Ted. Ted walked up the hallway and motioned for Jack to follow him. As Jack caught up, he pushed his prisoner ahead as he went. Ted opened a door near the entrance to the freight elevator, a door that Jack had not noticed before. Inside was a small desk, a single chair, and no windows. As they entered the room Jack saw the bank of video monitors on the far wall.
“Can you see the whole complex from here?” Jack asked. The guard nodded. “How do you-” Jack began to ask.
“That panel by the wall.” Ted answered. “Find him.” Jack walked to the panel and began to switch from camera to camera. The views changed as Ted seated the guard in the chair behind the desk. Ted ripped the wire attached to the desk phone out of the wall, just as Jack found Atwater.
“He’s in the lab.” He said.
“Sit here and take a break, buddy.” Ted said to the guard as he stood behind him. “Do anything else...and you’re going to wish you were dead.” Ted said, and slammed his gun into the back of the guard’s head as if it was punctuation to his sentence. The guard slumped over the desk, unconscious. Jack looked open mouthed at Ted as he turned and left the room.
“Hey...was that really necessary?” Jack asked as he followed him back into the hallway.
“Look Jack! You’re not getting it! Atwater’s here. He controls this whole place. Every system, every detail, every man. Either you’ve got to get a grip on reality, or I’ll do this myself.”
“But-” Jack began.
“But what? He didn’t hire Von Hogue? He didn’t put the hit out? He didn’t kill your family this time?” Jack looked into his eyes and saw truth. He let his head tilt forward as he pushed his eyes away from Ted’s intense gaze. “Either you’re with me or you’re not. But I’ve got to know, and I’ve got to know now.” Ted demanded. Jack looked up again.
“I with you. Let’s get the bastard.” Jack said with new determination. Ted grabbed his shoulder, smiled slightly and nodded. He turned towards the freight elevator and motioned for Jack to follow. Without hesitation, Jack did. Jack punched the button for the elevator and the door began to slide open. Suddenly Ted grabbed Jack by the shoulder and pulled him to the side just as gunfire erupted from the elevator. Before Jack could react, Ted threw a stun grenade into the elevator. They both ducked behind the wall as the grenade clattered to the floor inside of the elevator. A scream echoed from inside and a guard attempted to run out when the explosion rocked the building, and launched the guard into the air. He landed with a sickening thump in the hallway. Jack went first, and found another guard face down inside the elevator.
“There goes our surprise.” Jack said as a bullet ricocheted off of the elevator door. Jack grabbed a tear gas canister in each hand, offered them to Ted who pulled the pins, and then tossed them into the hallway. Ted punched the button that would take them to the depths below. As the doors closed the gunfire stopped, and they could hear the gasps and wheezing coughs of the attackers grow quieter and quieter as the elevator began its descent. They both stood in silence as the elevator descended. They ignored the occasional creaks that reverberated throughout the compartment as they slipped lower and lower under the earth. They stood firmly as the elevator came to a stop and took positions on either side of the doors as they opened. Again gunfire erupted. Ted watched as Jack tossed another stun grenade into the hallway. He counted to two, and then tossed one in himself. The first exploded and the gunfire stopped, the second exploded and silence echoed into the elevator compartment. Ted drew his weapon and exited. He stepped over the fallen guard, with Jack right on his heels. They paused briefly in front of the doors that opened into the hallway and eased their way through, careful not to step on either of the guards that had been in the hallway. They came to a stop at the corner of the hallway, just steps from the entrance to the lab. Ted peeked around the corner and pulled back abruptly. He flattened himself against the wall. Jack did the same.
A few seconds passed and Ted eased up to the corner again. He peered cautiously around at first, and then eased completely around. Jack watched as his friend disappeared. Ted’s hand appeared from around the corner and motioned for Jack to follow. He too eased around the corner and followed Ted towards the entrance to the lab. Just as Jack approached the door, Ted crouched and shuffled past the door to the other side. They stood on either side of the door, weapons drawn. Fine beads of anxious sweat glistened across their brows, as their hearts began to beat harder. Ted peeked around the corner and through the glass which made up the top half of the door and into the lab. He saw that Atwater was not alone. A man stood to his side and appeared to argue with him. Atwater would be distracted. It was now or never.
Ted caught Jack with his stare, counted to three under his breath and nodded. Both men left their relatively safe hiding places and stormed the door to the lab. Even as Ted slammed his body against the door that always easily opened and closed without even having to turn a lever, he knew something was wrong. Jack slammed into the door and almost fell to the ground. Someone had locked or barricaded the door. Someone knew they were there, and why.
Instinctively Ted jumped back into his position beside the door, as Jack rolled to the side toward his.
“Evening, gents! I’ve been expecting you.” Atwater’s voice echoed through the hallway from the intercom mounted beside the door.
“Son-of-a-bitch.” Ted said under his breath.
“Hi Ted. Jack? Are you there?” Atwater asked. Jack looked to his partner and Ted nodded.
“Yeah. I’m here. Just needed to ask you a few questions, that’s all.” Jack said as he tried to sound unthreatening.
“Sure you do, Jack. But I guess you think you know most of those answers already, don’t you?”
“Not exactly-” Jack began.
“You don’t know shit! Nothing!” Atwater forced back in anger. Ted again eased to the edge of the doorway, and looked inside to see if he could get a shot at Atwater through the glass window in the door.
“Keep him talking.” Ted whispered to Jack. Jack nodded.
“Sure I do. I know it all, Atwater.”
“You young punks are all alike. Just like your buddy, Ted. You hear me Ted?”
“Yeah.” Ted said as he eyed Atwater at the back of the room. The man that he had been in conversation with had stepped aside. Ted had a clear shot. “I hear you.” He said as brought his gun up and fired. The blast was deafening in the hallway as it echoed off of the walls. Glass shattered and fell to the floor, but Ted retreated as fast as he had raised his weapon. The window had a sheet of bullet proof glass behind the outside pane. His shot had been harmless, but had escalated the situation.
“See, Ted. Always a little hothead, aren’t you?” Atwater said, a hint of laughter in his voice.
“Give it up, Atwater. There’s no way out of there.” Ted yelled. Suddenly, as if in answer to Ted’s demand, the air began to electrify. A deep rumble began to rise and turn into a low whine. Jack’s eyes widened as he realized that Atwater had activated the time gate’s start sequence. Ted stepped out into the open and began to inspect the door way, as he attem
pted to find a way inside. Jack joined the search. Feverishly they poured over the edges of the door as they looked for any sign that it could be opened from the outside, when Jack happened to glance through the shattered window in the door. The other man in the room was Mike, his brother.
“Mike?” Jack said as he stood dumbfounded. Ted stopped his frantic search and looked through the window at Mike who stood still on the other side like an animal in the night caught in the headlights of an oncoming car. “Mike?” Jack said again.
“I didn’t know-” Mike began.
“Shut up, punk!” Atwater said as he backhanded Mike across the face and sent him sprawling to the ground. “You know Jack. I seen a lot of shit. Hell...” He chuckled slightly as he watched Mike get back to his feet. “I’ve done a lot of shit. But I’ve never...never...ever...sold my own brother out.” He said as he raised his voice above the growing whine.
“No!” Mike screamed as he charged Atwater. Atwater’s fist caught him on the other side of his face and once again he sprawled to the ground again.
“Yep...a lot of things. But, hey. Some things even I won’t do. Right, Mikey?” Atwater said as he laughed again. Mike lay still on the floor. Ted watched the drama unfold inside the lab, but as he dropped his eyes to the floor in front of him in despair over a lost cause, he saw what he had been looking for. The door was locked at floor. A key from either side could open it. Ted tapped Jack on the side. As Jack looked up, Ted resumed his position at the side of the door and nodded. Jack too withdrew and retook his position at the other side of the door.
“Keep him talking.” Ted whispered as he crouched to the floor and began to approach the door, careful to stay beneath the window. Jack nodded.
“Why?” Jack asked Atwater.
“Why’d he sell you out, Jack? I couldn’t tell you. Greedy little bastard I guess. Ask one of those smart ass Freud guys. Those head shrinkers think they’ve got it all figured out.” Atwater said over the noise.
“No.” Jack said calmly as he watched Ted attempt to insert key after key into the lock on the door. Jack had forgotten that they still had the guard’s keys, but was now thankful for it. “Why Von Hogue?”
“Who?” Atwater asked.
“Von Hogue. You know...Mr. Smith.”
“Oh, Smith. That’s right, I had forgotten that you guys tracked him down.”
“So why?”
“See, I told you, You don’t know shit. It’s like this Jack. This is your first time here, right?”
“No. I was here the other day. Remember?”
“Not here at the complex, Jack. I’m speaking multi-dimensionally. Ooh...I just love that word.” Atwater said and chuckled again. “Here, Jack. In this same situation. Here at this place. This time. With Ted. With me. Here, now.” Suddenly Jack’s mind began to whirl as the implications began to swim into view.
“Yeah.” He said as he leaned heavier on the wall.
“Not me, Jack old buddy. Not me.”
“You’re looped?” Jack said.
“Looped? Yeah, I’m looped all right. So many times that...quite frankly...I really don’t know whether I’m fucking coming or going.” Atwater said and laughed again. “But this time...this time I’ve got my old buddy Mikey here with me.” He said as he bent over and lifted Mike to his feet. He stood weakly on his feet, still not coherent enough to stand by himself, so Atwater held him there. Suddenly Atwater lifted his own shirt and exposed his bare belly. An ugly red scar stood out on the right side of his abdomen. “You see this Jack? Do you see it?” Jack peeked around the corner and saw the larger man as he held Mike like a rag doll. He saw the scar.
“Yeah. So what.”
“You did this Jack. The last time we were here. The last time, before I had those locks installed on that door. I mean you just waltzed through that door and boom. You shot me. Hell you didn’t even say hello.” He said and chuckled again. He began to drag Mike to the other side of the room towards the inner lab which held the time gate. “Yeah, I knew that you’d be here. I just didn’t know exactly when. Everything changes...but every thing stays the same. Funny ain’t it?” He said and laughed again, while he leaned over and activated the gamma beam. The lights flickered and suddenly the inner lab glowed bright white. Instantly the pitch of the whine grew in intensity and the whine became inaudible. The gate was ready. Jack looked through the window and saw the time gate as the arcing sparks of blue fire cleared and the room appeared on the other side.
Jack’s mind spun faster and faster. It had never even crossed his mind that Von Hogue or Atwater could have been looped. The gate had only been operational for a short time. He couldn’t comprehend that Atwater was looped not once, but numerous times. He wondered just how many times Atwater had been at this juncture. How many times had he escaped?
“Sorry to leave you guys, but we’ve got places to go. Right, Mikey, buddy?” He chuckled again, as he carefully bent over and picked up a metallic suitcase. “It’s okay, Jack. You’ll know where we are. You just won’t know when.” He continued to laugh as he drug Mike up the ramp towards the gate. Jack looked down at Ted as he inserted the last key on the ring into the lock. It turned. Suddenly a bullet slammed into the wall beside of Jack’s head. Particles of plaster sprayed into the air. Jack instinctively turned and fired, and narrowly missed the lead soldier of the small assault squad. As Jack tried to get his bearings for another shot, Ted tossed his last stun grenade down the hallway. The soldiers hurriedly retreated before it could hit the ground.
Jack and Ted stormed the door, ran through the lab and into the room with the gate. Atwater was gone. As they ran up the ramp the room on the other side disappeared and again a swirling pattern of electric arcs appeared. Suddenly the inaudible high pitched whine became audible as the system began to shut itself down. Once again, behind them, the sound of gunfire erupted in the hallway.
“Damn!” Jack yelled as the sound got louder. Without hesitation, Ted ran into the control room and began to tap away at the computer keyboard while Jack ran back to the door. He tossed his last two tear gas canisters into the hallway and then shut the door.
“Keys!” He yelled. Ted tossed them to him without stopping to glance in his direction. Jack fumbled with the keys and finally found the right one. The lock clicked just as someone slammed into the door from the other side. Jack stood up. The soldier on the other side fired at point blank range. The bullet ricocheted off of the bullet proof insert in the door and struck the soldier. He stood there for a moment as he stared at Jack in disbelief before he fell to the floor. The pitch of the sound began to rise again. Ted had reactivated the gate.
“Where did he go?” Jack asked as they went back into room and watched the pattern of sparks within the gate change.
“I don’t know. I’ve never seen that setting before. It’s not logged either. I’m not sure if he even knows.”
“He knows, Ted. He’s been using this thing for a long time. The companies, the offshore investment schemes. He didn’t set that up on a government paycheck. Somehow he’s been using the gate.”
“You may be right, Jack. But it really doesn’t matter right now. The only thing that does matter is getting Mike back...alive.”
“I still can’t believe that he set me up, Ted. Not Mike.”
"Like I told you earlier, Jack. Atwater controls everything." The arcs of electricity stopped and a room swam into view on the other side. To Jack it looked identical to the room they had entered when they had went through the time gate the first time.
“You sure this is right?” He asked as they went up the ramp.
“Positive.” Ted answered as he went through the gate.
Chapter 34