“It was a drugs sale. Someone bought ten kilos of cocaine from our friend in a police uniform.” Jake was shocked, but he let Will continue. “You see, D.I Arnold had been investigating someone for various drugs and armoury offences, and found him doing a weapons trade here three days before.”
Jake had never thought so much crime would ever happen in their mild mannered north eastern town. It seemed nowhere was immune from such problems these days.
Will continued, “He was a good cop, but the man behind the arms and drugs deals threatened his family and career, and blackmailed him until he gave in and joined this man.”
“So good cop turns bad to protect his family?” Jake asked.
“Correct. It seems a chain of trades has been set up, all orchestrated by one man, using threats against people. He doesn’t do the deals himself,” Will said.
Jake had been watching the clock constantly since he got into the car. It now read 2:24pm. Will had mentioned he only had ten minutes. It seemed his time was about up. He was fully expecting Will to pull over and let him out, but there was no sign of that happening. In fact, it seemed he was going faster with every passing second.
Jake looked at Will Spalder, whose face now wore a panicked look. “What’s wrong?” Jake asked.
“You’re not going to like this,” Will answered tensely. “The brakes don’t work. They've been cut!”
They were out of the town and travelling southwards at sixty miles per hour along a country road. They continued driving along, being unable to bring the car to a halt. They travelled round a bend and down a shallow incline.
In the distance were several dark vehicles, covering the whole width of the road. They weren't police cars. This was some kind of unofficial road block. They were heading straight for it, but they couldn't stop.
“Grab hold of something!” Will shouted. Jake groped around for anything sturdy onto which he could hold.
The road block was fast approaching, and they had no chance of avoiding a collision with it. Jake cringed and braced himself for impact.
Will pulled at the wheel and tried to move the car out of the way, but all he did was cause the car to skid out of control. The car started tilting before tipping over entirely and going into a roll. Jake saw the ground and sky spinning in front of him as the car rolled once, twice, then a third time. There were further rolls but Jake lost count before the car came to rest on its roof.
Hanging upside down in his seat with blood, twisted metal and broken glass in all directions, Jake looked over and saw Will lying unconscious behind the steering wheel. The man had obviously not taken the crash very well. Jake was lucky to still be conscious. He looked out of the shattered front windscreen and saw two men walk towards him. He could hear their conversation as they approached.
“Who's the other guy?” one voice asked.
“No idea. We were told he’d be travelling alone,” replied the other guy. “It makes no difference if we have to get rid of one body or two.”
With an almighty shriek of metal struggling to move, they tore open the passenger side door. All Jake could see were the feet of whoever stood closest to the door. A pair of expensive-looking dress shoes, most likely with steel toe caps, was staring back at him. The right foot lifted up, then moved back, then hit Jake square in the jaw. Blackness covered everything and Jake was out.
CHAPTER 12
Sunday 25th January, 8:30am
Jake opened his eyes and sat up in bed in one sudden movement as if he’d woken up from a horrific nightmare. The difference was that he knew it was not a bad dream. Yesterday really did happen.
He thought it was even more frightening that he didn’t wake up after 2:25pm. Would those people really have eliminated him for just being there? Would someone do that without any attempt to identify him or find out why he was there? He assumed that William Spalder was either killed when the car rolled, or that he was taken out of the equation shortly afterwards.
He thought about what Will Spalder had said to him in their brief conversation yesterday. It had been too much information to process all at once. His head was still spinning after a full night's sleep.
A drugs sale had happened, and anyone who had reported it was then added to a hit list. It didn’t seem right that someone who had dedicated his life to law enforcement and the fight against crime could be so easily corrupted. On the other hand, it made so much sense of the events of the past few days. If Jake was a desperate, high ranking policeman and he needed to get rid of some people, there was a chance he would have done exactly the same thing. He had already tortured people to try and help save his family. He knew he could go further if he needed to do so.
He slipped his feet into a nearby pair of slippers while staying perched on the edge of the bed. He continued to let as much of the conversation as he could remember float around his head.
He recalled the start of the conversation, in which Will had said he didn’t have much time. He mentioned an address where he could be found. It was forty two… something. Yesterday really seemed more like a dream than the previous repeated days had seemed. The dream-like memory of yesterday's events was fading from his mind with every second of the day. He got out of bed, went into his study down the hall, sat down in his black swivel chair, picked up a pen and started to write down what he could remember on a wide ruled yellow telephone note pad.
He wrote that these events were the latest in a chain of drug and weapons trades. He wrote the names of the victims he’d tried to save. He wrote down that D.I Arnold was threatened until he agreed to become part of it all. He was obviously spotted, reported to another police department, and he was left to clear up his own mess before anyone could find out how involved he had really been. He felt a little disgusted with himself for referring to his family as ‘Arnold’s mess’ in his own thoughts. He had criticised Will for a not-too-dissimilar comment the previous day.
At the bottom of the sheet of paper he wrote 42. He could not remember the street, even though Will had said it twice. Ever-something came to mind. He wrote that down. He picked up an A-Z street map of the town, and turned to the street index at the back.
The letter E seemed to be a common letter to start street names with in this town. East Street, Earl Court, and many others were listed. Towards the end of the list he found the word Evergreen. That was it. It was definitely Evergreen.....something.
There was a Street, Place, Terrace, Garden, Square, and Road. Nearly as many variations as anyone could possibly think of, but which one was it? Forty two Evergreen… Place. It was definitely Evergreen Place. It seemed to ring true with Jake's fading memory.
Jake returned to the bedroom, but just to change. He put on a t-shirt and tracksuit bottoms. Amy stirred, sat up, and looked at Jake curiously. “And where might you be going so early on a Sunday morning?” She asked, in a tone of voice that she might have used if she had found him with his hand in a forbidden cookie jar.
“It’s a New Year’s Resolution I made a little bit late. I’m going to start running in the morning, and I’ll be making use of that gym membership I keep paying for,” he answered.
“Won’t that upset your routine?” she asked with more than a hint of sarcasm.
“I plan to get a bit fitter, starting today.” He put a hand to his stomach. “I need to work off this stomach fat.” Amy smiled in response, but said nothing.
“I'll have my mobile phone with me,” he said. “I'll be out for a couple of hours. I'll call if I'm going to be out longer.”
“Isn’t that a little ambitious for your first run?” She asked concerned.
Jake quieted Amy's concerns and assured her he'd be fine. He had his mobile phone with him and would call if he needed help. With that, she let him go.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Jake's idea for getting out of the house was not great. It was a clever excuse which had not aroused suspicion, but it meant he was without his car, and he would have to walk to w
herever he would be going. He had a map in his pocket, and after a relatively short walk was now just a street away from his destination.
He had been walking for about twenty minutes, but it would only have taken five minutes or less to drive the same distance.
He found the street. It was not very wide with substantially sized red brick detached Victorian houses topped with black roof slate lining both sides of the road. There was the occasional overgrown tree dotted along the pavement, with roots bulging up through the tarmac, exceeding the bounds of the circular cut-outs into which the trees had originally been planted. The houses were well-kept and every house had an expensive car of one sort or another in its driveway. The area in which Jake lived was not cheap, but he suspected that it paled in comparison to the prices of these houses. Whatever Will Spalder did for work, he was undoubtedly successful at it.
Jake located number forty two. He did so after recognising the black car in which he'd been a passenger. It was definitely the car he had been inside yesterday as it swerved, tipped, and rolled to a halt. Seeing the car brought vivid images back to Jake's mind which brought with them a sense of panic that he had to fight hard to quash when he envisaged the foot of Will Spalder slamming onto the brakes to no avail. The images of the car rolling, and of a black steel toed dress shoe swinging towards his head caused his heart to start pounding again.
He shook off the panicked feeling as he walked through the black metal gate and up to the solid wood blue front door. He gave the apparently ancient doorbell a forceful push, hearing a bell ringing for as long as he pressed it. The faint sound reminded him of the much louder bell he heard many times a day at school several years ago.
He could almost smell the polished linoleum floor from school days gone by as a blond haired middle aged woman answered the door. “Can I help you?” she asked. She looked as if she was trying to recognise him at first, but she resigned to staring at him with a blank look.
“My name is Jake Hingham. I believe Will Spalder is expecting me,” Jake said. With that, the woman nodded with recognition for the first time since opening the door, and let him in. “He’s on his way downstairs. He’ll join you in the lounge in a minute or two.” She led him through the hallway, and left him alone as he entered the lounge to his right.
The room seemed to have been styled by someone in their mid-sixties, far too old for the tastes of the average person Will Spalder's age. There was a lot of dark furniture and the occasional doily under decorative items. The carpet was a large dull floral pattern in dark shades of red, green and brown. The whole room looked like part of a house that had travelled forward in time by about fifty years, with the exception of a large ten year old television in the corner.
Jake sat looking at a dark wood clock on the mantle piece. It was almost exactly a minute between Jake sitting down, and him hearing a voice behind him.
“Jake Hingham. How are you doing today?” He recognised it as the voice of Will Spalder. He turned around and started to stand as Will entered the room. “You have too high an opinion of me if you're about to stand when I walk in the room,” he said. “I'm far from being considered royalty, or indeed the president of anything.”
Will walked into the room, closed the door, and sat in an ageing dark green armchair, across from the brown leather couch on which Jake was sitting. “So, we've already met,” Will said, half posing it as a question, half as a statement of fact.
“Yes we have. You took me for an interesting drive yesterday.” Jake responded as if it had been a question, reminding Will of events that had not yet happened. “You told me about the chain of drugs and weapons trades, and why my family was targeted,” he added.
“Okay. Today we’re discussing something else, I guess,” Will suggested.
“Yes. I know this will sound crazy, but," Jake hesitated. “My family were the victims of an attack nearly a week ago. I woke up the next day to discover it was the same day again. I was able to stop the attack on them and save their lives, and since then, I've woken up every day to discover it was the day before. I've been able to try to stop the other attack victims who were on D.I Arnold's hit list, and eventually ran into you tomorrow – or yesterday for me.” He stopped talking to see what Will thought of it.
“You’re right. It does sound crazy, and if you’d have told me this more than a couple years ago I would not have believed you.” Then Will repeated what he had said the previous day. “No matter how crazy things might seem, you need to understand that someone, somewhere will understand.”
“I'm beginning to understand that. You said the same thing yesterday, err, tomorrow,” Jake answered.
“I know what you mean,” Will nodded as he spoke. “Anyway, the matter at hand is not a small one. All of this may take some time to explain, so I hope you have plenty of time… and a good attention span.” Jake nodded at Will and he continued.
“I'm sure you remember September the eleventh 2001,” Will said. Jake wasn't sure if it was a question or a statement, but he nodded anyway. “What you won't remember is what happened almost exactly a week afterwards.”
“Not a lot. It took the US and UK governments almost a month to sort themselves out and go after the terrorists in Afghanistan,” Jake answered, deciding to assume Will was asking questions. “Some kind of bombing starting in early October to attack Al Qaeda, I believe.”
“Correct. However, it was nearly very different. Early, very shaky US Intelligence suggested that almost the entire Middle East conspired to set up the attacks on the World Trade Centre, the Pentagon and the failed attack on the Whitehouse. They believed that several governments from neighbouring countries in that region were responsible for forming Al Qaeda. They believed that governments not only did nothing to stop an uprising of Al Qaeda, but they assisted them in attacking the United States.”
Jake couldn't believe the things he was hearing. This didn't make sense to him, and none of it correlated with his own memory of the events of September and October 2001.
“Every piece of evidence they could get would point towards Al Qaeda, and they took Al Qaeda to be a branch of a combination of the Iran, Iraq, and Afghanistan governments. They were set to bomb the hell out of the entire Middle East, and no one was going to stop them.” Will seemed far too laid back in describing these events. He obviously knew a few things that Jake didn’t, such as the happy ending. Was all of this happening behind the scenes, unknown to most of the public?
“Armies were prepared. Navy, Air and Special Force vehicles headed straight for the Middle East, starting with Iraq. The objective was to eliminate the government of each of those countries, and therefore cut off Al Qaeda at the source of its support and funding. Of course, we know now that this course of action was wrong, but it's what they wanted to do. Government officials were looking for an excuse to invade Iraq, and now they had one. The resources of the country were worth fighting for, once an excuse for invasion was deemed valid.”
As interesting as this story was, Jake could not see what it had to do with him. “Forgive my interruption, but I have no idea what this has to do with me,” Jake said.
“Be patient, Jake. You will understand why you need to know this when I have finished,” Will said, trying to convince him to continue listening.
“So, you're telling me that the US government almost went to war with the entire Middle East?” Jake asked.
“Oh no, Jake. They did go to war with the entire Middle East. Full out war in less than a week. The only trouble was that most of the civilised world objected to such swift action, especially in the light of very little evidence, and started to wage war on America. It was the beginning of a world war, Jake.”
“But none of that actually happened...” Jake butted in, and then it started to dawn on him. “Wait a minute. Are you telling me that someone has already done the same thing I'm doing?”
“In a manner of speaking, yes,” he answered. “Someone working for the government found himself moving back
wards through time, and was able to clarify the evidence they had, and persuade the heads of the military and government that they needed more time to gather further and more accurate evidence. The result was that they discovered there were no grounds for their initial accusations, other than senior government officials who wanted to profit from a war in Iraq. They found Al Qaeda to be an independent organisation and targeted them in a well-planned attack, with the governments’ permission.”
Jake’s head was spinning. He didn’t know what to make of what he’d been told. He obviously appeared to Will to be struggling to process this information. He wondered how much more information would be dispensed today that he would have to attempt to absorb.
“I know this is a lot to take in. It’s taken me a long time to understand it all.”
Jake nodded, but said nothing.
Will met his gaze. “I don’t expect you to understand it in a few minutes,” he said. He paused for a couple of minutes, leaving Jake to think it all over.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Jake had several minutes to get his thoughts straight. Will had offered Jake a drink and a snack, and he had accepted. He had a few minutes of silence to digest the mind-blowing information he'd just received.
He was not alone in his experience, but how did Will know about all of this?
“Here you go. Some cookies my wife baked yesterday, and a drink of cola, as requested,” Will said, placing them on the coffee table in front of Jake. All of a sudden Jake wanted something much stronger to drink.
Whilst drinking and snacking, Jake must have opened his mouth to speak five or six times. The trouble was that he didn’t know what to say. He finally spoke. “So, how does this work?” was the question that kept coming to mind, and the first one out of his mouth. “I mean, scientifically, there must be a way to explain it, or is time travel granted to anyone who might wish for it?”
“Okay, as for why it happens, I'm not sure. But I can explain how.”
Jake sat forward in his seat awaiting the explanation.
“I don’t know if you know anything of the space-time continuum, but what most people know is not entirely accurate,” Will responded, and Jake looked confused. Will continued what he was saying. “When you see diagrams of people’s interpretation of the space-time continuum, you will usually see something resembling a piece of paper or a length of ribbon – something smooth and straight. This is typically the case, however this can change.”