Chapter 31

I hadn’t been prepared for that. Fortunately, Katherine was, and answered the calling flash with a quick reply.

“Don’t,” I snapped when I realized what she was doing. “This could be a trap.”

“It’s not,” Katherine responded dismissively, although she did lower the flashlight she was holding, shoving it once more into her coat pocket once she’d turned it off.

I just glared at her sternly in the dark and then I glanced back towards the compound. By then the message was coming in. It repeated itself twice and then the light went out.

“Did you get it,” Katherine enquired inquisitively a few seconds later. “What did she say?”

“You don’t read Morse code?” I asked curtly, raising an eyebrow as I did.

“It isn’t my specialty, you know?” Katherine sighed back at me, her exasperation clearly showing in her voice. “I really am a mineralogist by trade, although I did have a little ROTC training when I was going through university. That’s why Kim recruited me. I never did finish it. I got sick and the medical board washed me out well before graduation. What little Morse code I do know Kim taught me before she sent me through the Gateway. So what did she say?”

I paused for a moment, contemplating whether or not to tell the woman anything. She was obviously in the know, but she’d also kept her involvement in this affair to herself up until this moment. It made me wonder what the story was with her and just how far I could trust her. From her behaviour in the last half hour I got the impression she’d known about this little trip from the beginning, which meant that she knew that Geeta, Gort, and Bogdi had been going into danger when I’d sent them off and she hadn’t said a word. That had me pissed off and ready to strangle her. It took all my strength not to do it. My silence dragged on for several seconds.

“We need to have a heart to heart,” I finally said to the woman in a very cold voice. “I don’t trust you, and I don’t trust the person who just signalled me from the compound. For all I know the message could be coming from Winslow and it’s a trap. What I do know is that you obviously knew that Geeta and the boys were going into trouble and you didn’t say a word to prevent it from happening. To me that puts you into the same category as the two bastards I killed the other day. Give me one reason why I shouldn’t do the same to you.”

“I’m pregnant with your child,” Katherine told me bluntly, “and I didn’t know anything about Geeta and the boys going into danger.”

“What do you mean that you’re pregnant with my child?” I snapped back gruffly, too stunned to say anything else.

“Kim told me it would happen before I left,” Katherine admitted smiling up at me as she said it. “She told me that within days of getting back here with you that you’d knock me up with your child. I actually laughed when she told me that. Kim and I were good friends. It was another reason why she picked me for this mission. She could trust me and I could trust her. She told me all about you and her in bed together. It sounded nice and it got my interest. She teased me when I suggested that if I did run into you here in the here and now that I’d jump your bones and I’d have my way with you. She told me I’d be pregnant from the first time and she handed me a pregnancy test to pack along with me to verify the fact. I used it after you headed off looking for Quantum up north. She also told me that shortly after I got pregnant that something would happen that would send you hunting Quantum to the south of your base of operations. She told me that when that happened that I was to tag along and make sure you got her message. You see, don’t you? I’m not your enemy, Jake. Kim kept me in the dark as well. She had her reason why and she made me promise not to tell you until now, but you’ve got to believe me that I’m telling you the truth. You can trust me. I promise.”

I still wasn’t sold completely, but I did get the feeling she was telling me the truth about what Kim had told her before sending her back with Rolf and the rest of the group. It still left me with a lot of unanswered questions.

“Let’s head back to the camp and talk to the others,” I finally told the woman. “I need to speak to them about this and then decide what I’m going to do about you.”

“Please, Jake,” Katherine protested, “You can trust me.”

“I’ll give that a thought,” I muttered dismissively, “but for now, turn about and head on down the hill in front of me. I’m tired and hungry and not in a good mood. If you do something stupid; well then, you’re dead. Do you understand me?”

Katherine did. She wasn’t happy I didn’t trust her, but she admitted she did understand, and then turned about and did exactly as I told her. Ten minutes later we were both down into the shelter of the ridge and back with the rest of my party. They had a small fire going and Tisa had made some soup from dried meat that we’d brought with us and a few plants she’d foraged during the day. Everyone looked up when we got there. It didn’t take long for them to feel my mood. Gogra was the first to speak.

“Is everything all right?” the older man asked, first glancing at Katherine as she seated herself down at the fire, and then at me as I followed her movements with the muzzle of my carbine.

What could I tell them, but the truth?

The message from Kim had been short and sweet. It had identified the sender as Kim. It told me that there would be a snowstorm that night, and according to the message it would be a blizzard. The message also gave me numbers inside the compound. There were twelve guards, eight technicians, and sixteen prisoners. I didn’t know if those numbers included Kim, but the sender did state that two guards were friendly and four technicians were on my side as well. More importantly, the sender stated that ‘G’ and ‘B’ were safe, which I took to mean Geeta and Bogdi. Finally, the sender informed me that the gate to the compound would be open at 2400 hours. What made me think the originator of the message was, in fact, Kim, was how she’d closed off the message. She’d used a pet name that she used with me when we’d been lovers. I couldn’t imagine anyone else using it.

It still didn’t mean that I trusted her or Katherine any more than I had prior to receiving the message, but it did make me wonder. Was this a trap or was Kim really on my side and trying to help me out. I just didn’t know.

I did, however, start rethinking things when it started to snow.

By 2300 hours there was a foot of snow on the ground and more of it was still coming down. I could barely see the compound from my vantage point, which by the way was a lot closer than it had been the first time I’d spotted the place. Once I’d related everything to my companions, including the fact that Katherine was more than she seemed to be, I’d made the decision that regardless of how much messed up the whole situation was, and how confused I was about just what was going on, I had to do something other than just sit on my ass twiddling my thumbs. The blizzard was the perfect solution to me getting down there to rescue Geeta and Bogdi. It would certainly cover our approach. The question was whether it would be enough.

I was now in the tree-line roughly five hundred feet away from the compound. The lights were still blazing into the night, but like I just mentioned visibility was almost zero. Even if someone was watching one of the monitors inside the command post, nice and toasty away from the cold and snow, I doubted that they’d be able to see anything. There were still risks involved given the fact I didn’t know who was waiting for me in there, but I knew I would have to take them. All I could do was to make certain that my people didn’t get hurt.

The invitation said that the front door would be open at midnight. That was nice to know, but I had no intentions of using the door if I could help it; at least not as a point of entry. If everything else went okay we’d be leaving by it. I did decide that I’d send someone towards it as a diversion. If it was a trap and there was a team of Quantum goons waiting there to either capture me or to kill me, I’d given them another target.

Katherine was shocked that I suggested she head for the gate in my place. I’ll admit it was cold, but my choices of candidates were few and far between. She tried to pull the pregnancy card with me. It didn’t work. I countered with the question as to how much she actually trusted Kim. It turned out she trusted Kim a lot.

“We were lovers,” Katherine admitted to me, telling me this in English. “I knew her in University. If I didn’t trust her I wouldn’t be here now.”

“Then prove me wrong,” I told Katherine pointedly. “I’m going in a different way. If Kim is there we’ll all meet up inside the compound and we’ll have a very happy reunion. If the bad guys are there and they make a play for you, then I’ll kill them where they stand and the two of us won’t speak of this ever again.”

“Fine,” Katherine grunted in reply, “but if it is Kim, I expect a public apology and a space in your bed. Deal?”

It was a deal.

At eleven-thirty I slipped out of the tree-line and I headed towards the back wall of the compound. Sygor joined me in my mad dash, a few seconds later. We were both dressed in the winter gear that had been taken off the two dead men that I’d killed a couple days ago. It had been brought along just in case it snowed and I had the need to use it. Hopefully it would help.

It took us just under a minute to make it to the back wall of the compound. We both threw ourselves up against it and then we waited. To my surprise no alarm went off and no one cut us down with automatic fire. We waited a good five minutes and then I got busy finding us a way in. It really didn’t take me long.

The one thing I’ll say about Quantum is that they are consistent in their inability to think ahead in regards to their security. Perhaps it was the fact that they had surveillance cameras mounted on all four corners of the complex, but you’d have thought that someone in their organization would have at least electrified the wall. It would have certainly stopped me from going over the top. Spikes would have done that as well, but those were also lacking.

Sygor boosted me up and onto the top of the back wall. I straddled it for a minute or two, lying flat against it while I glanced about the interior of the place. I still couldn’t see much. The snow was coming down heavily and visibility inside the compound was as bad as outside. When no one sounded the alarm or took a shot at me, I reached down. Sygor handed me my weapon, and I pulled it up. Sygor then reached up and I gripped his hand. With a stifled grunt I pulled him up. A few moments later I was down on the ground and inside the place ready to kick some ass. Seconds later, Sygor was with me.

By then it was a quarter to the hour. Sygor and I were in the lee of the command post container. That put us out of sight, out of the wind, and in one of the only dark spots in the compound. As I’d expected, the interior of the compound was as well lit as the exterior. Lights were mounted on the upper corners of all the containers, pointed into the courtyard and illuminating it. Fortunately for Sygor and me, the blizzard was just as disruptive within the compound’s courtyard as it was out of it. With luck, when it was time to move, no one would see us. From where we were standing, Sygor and I needed to slip around a single corner and then follow the length of the container. The entrance through the compound wall would be there, just a dozen feet from the end of the container. Hopefully, when we got there, we’d find friends. If not, someone would die. With luck, it wouldn’t be me.

At five minutes to the hour I signalled Sygor and we started to move. By that time, Katherine would have just stepped out of the tree-line and started walking towards the gate into this place. Whoever was down there at the gate looking out, would be focused on her and not on what was going on inside this place. With even more luck, the person at the gate would be Kim Woo, and she’d say something that would convince me that I shouldn’t kill her. If that happened I’d be apologizing to both her and Katherine. If not ... well, I really didn’t want to think about that.

It took us only a minute to get to the other end of the container. When we got there, even in the blowing snow, I quickly spotted our welcoming party. More importantly, and much to my surprise, I recognized more than one of them! That made life that much easier for me, and for them as well. At least I didn’t have to shoot them first and talk later.

“Would someone like to tell me what the fuck is going on, here?” I called out into the howling wind.

My shout startled the trio. All three turned towards me. The two big guys were armed with M16 rifles, while the smaller person was armed with a pistol. All three started to bring their weapons up when I snarled at them to freeze.

“Don’t even think about it,” I growled at them forcefully. “I might know who you are, but if a weapon comes up, you’ll be dead. Now drop them and do it slowly. My friend here doesn’t speak English, and he has an itchy trigger finger and an automatic shotgun with a thirty round drum attached to it. Screw up and you’ll all be turned into Swiss cheese.”

“You scared the shit out of us, Jacob,” Kim declared loudly, while she popped the magazine out of her pistol and she pocketed it in her coat pocket. Then she ejected the round up the spout. Finally, she slipped the pistol back into the holster she was wearing on her hip. While she did that the two big guys slowly slipped their rifles to the ground, controlling the weapons as they sank into the snow.

“I’m sorry to have scared you,” I replied in a less than apologetic manner, “but a man has to be careful when he’s in enemy territory. I didn’t know who I was going to meet here, tonight. Now put your hands on your heads, so we can talk.”

Kim sighed softly and nodded her head in acknowledgement of my point. She slowly raised her hands, placing them onto her head. The two men with her did the same.

“I thought we were friends, Jacob,” Kim called out a moment later. “I know it’s been a while for you, but it hasn’t been that long for me ... only six months, actually. I’ve missed you.”

“That’s nice to know,” I growled back unsympathetically, “but I didn’t come here for hugs and kisses, or a reunion. I’ve got friends to rescue and people to kill. The only reason I haven’t shot you, is the fact that I know the two goons standing beside you. Regardless of what I think about you, I can’t believe these two guys would come hunting me, for Winslow or the other assholes at Quantum. That means that my first question still stands; what the hell is going on here?”

The two goons as I called them smirked at my statement and the abruptness of my question. I did know them. They were Dunbar and Burton. Both of them had been in my team back in Afghanistan. We’d trained together, served together, and bled together. Dunbar was the Special Weapons Specialist on our team; Burton was the communications specialist. Both of them were good guys. They’d visited me once after I’d collected my papers and walked. We’d downed a few beers, chased a few women, and in the end we’d told a few stories. I’d trusted them with my life back in the day, and now they were standing here in the middle of a blizzard grinning at me like it was the good old days. I just wanted to know what was up.

“Can we at least open the gate and get the rest of your people in here,” Kim asked raising her voice over the howling wind, “and out of the cold before we sit down and have that heart to heart? It would make life a little bit easier on all of us.”

I couldn’t argue with that point so I didn’t bother trying. By then I’d figured that if this was really a trap, someone would have sprung it already. Since that hadn’t happened I let Kim open the gate so she could wave everyone in. Five minutes later all my people were in the compound, and a few moments after that we were all in the command post and out of the wind and the weather, thawing out and greeting our friends.

Geeta greeted me first, only seconds after I’d stepped into the kitchen area of the command post. She came barrelling down the corridor the moment she heard my voice, and she threw her young, lithe body onto mine, wrapping her arms about my waist and not letting go. In response I enclosed the young woman into an embrace and hugged her back affectionately. To my surprise, Bogdi threw himself at me a few seconds later, joining his sister and me in the hug.

It took time to extricate myself from their embrace. Geeta just wouldn’t let go. She clung to me like a little girl scared of something that had gone bump in the night. In truth, she still was a little girl. Thinking about it, I couldn’t blame her for the way she reacted.

I ended up leading Geeta out of the kitchen and back into the sleeping area. I sat down on the edge of a bunk and I pulled the young woman to me offering her my lap to sit upon. Geeta accepted it willingly, crawling into it and snuggling into me for comfort. As I held her, Geeta broke down sobbing and crying, letting out all her fears and grief in one tumultuous explosion of tears. While I rocked her in my arms and shushed her, I noticed Bogdi standing near by. The youth looked like he wanted to do the same. I waved him over and had him sit by me. When he did, I wrapped my free arm about him and I pulled him in close to me and his sister, allowing him to let go as well.

Both kids were in a sorry state, both physically and emotionally. I’d already learned from Kim that the kids had been roughed up and slapped around when they’d been captured, and while they hadn’t been tortured like many of the other prisoners in the compound, they had been left out in the weather with nothing to protect them from the elements. She’d told me that both kids were sick, but that right now they were safe, and that they were being cared for by the station medic. It hadn’t reassured me much, and now seeing the two and holding them tightly in my arms, I was even less happy then I had been when Kim had spoken to me about them.

It pissed me off to see them in such a state, but for their sake I held in my rage, and kept it to myself. The fact was they both needed me to reassure them that they were all right. Blowing up in a fit of anger wouldn’t have helped anyone.

I ended up whispering to them both that they were safe now, and that I’d be taking them home very soon. Both asked about Gort, sobbing their question as one, through tightened throats and trembling lips. Softly and tenderly I reassured them that Gort was safe. I told them both that I had rescued him. It did a lot for them to hear that. Both had been concerned about their friend. Eventually, I turned them over to Tisa to care for them. Once they were in her charge, I turned away and headed back to the kitchen section of the command post, to have a ‘chat’ with Kim and my two buddies. I’d left them there under guard.

I was still angry when I finally extricated myself from Geeta’s embrace and handed her and Bogdi back into the care of the medic who had been standing watch over us while I had been comforting them. I rose and said nothing to her, eyeing her suspiciously before strolling out of the sleeping area and through the communications area. By then I noticed that the place was packed with people that I didn’t know. All of them gave me was wide berth as I stormed down the passage towards the kitchen and the people waiting for me there. I noted that some of them were armed.

“All right,” I declared brusquely as I entered the kitchen area, glancing about and taking in Kim, Dunbar, and Burton as I did, “I want answers and I want them right now, and the very first thing I want to know is, who the hell are those people back in there and what is going on here.”

“Sit,” Kim told me sharply in retort, pointing at one of the fold down seats that hung off the wall next to the fold up kitchen table, “and I’ll get you a coffee. Then if you’ll be good and listen to me, I’ll explain everything; or if not, as much as I can.”

Kim’s voice brought me up short. I was still angry at her, but her tone told me that I needed to suck it back up, and listen to her if I wanted answers. It carried some of the weight that my old platoon commander had used back when I’d been a green recruit. In response I slowed down and did what Kim had said. Silently, I took a seat.

Kim got me a coffee and then she refilled her own. She then sat down across from me to chat. Dunbar and Burton remained where they were standing, leaning against the kitchen counter. Sygor, who’d come upstairs with me when I’d entered the structure, stood off to the side, watching them like a hawk, still holding his shotgun at the ready.

“To begin with, those people in there are my people, and the survivors of a nearby village that the station commander had eliminated just after we’d gotten here,” Kim informed me slowly, watching my face as she told her tale.

“Why’d he do that?” I asked curtly, my anger welling up as I said it.

“Because the guy was a sadistic bastard and an idiot,” Kim replied bluntly. “Now he’s dead.”

I raised an eyebrow at that and then asked Kim how that had happened. Kim smiled in reply and then told me.

Kim informed me in a matter of fact manner that while Sygor and I had been busy sneaking up on the compound and slipping over the wall, Dunbar, Burton, and she had been busy as well, dealing with the people in the command post and freeing the prisoners that had been held in the chicken coop in the centre of the courtyard. I listened to her story intently.

Kim and my two buddies had cleared the command post first. They’d shot the station leader, his personal bodyguard, and one of the technicians whose job was to sit and monitor the external cameras regardless of the weather. Once the command post had been swept clean, Kim and her team had shifted the prisoners out of the cage in the centre of the compound, moving them into the command post. In the process Kim had dumped the corpses of the bad guys into the cage, leaving them there to be dealt with later when there was time and interest. Not only had she gotten the prisoners indoors and out of the cold, but she’d gathered her people together as well. It made the place cramped, especially when my people showed up, but no one complained.

As for the rest of the bad guys that made up the garrison of the compound, Kim told me that she’d already dealt with them. She hadn’t killed them. That job she had left for me, knowing full well that I would want to handle meting out justice myself. Instead, Kim had locked them up for the night. Moreover she had one of her people drug them just before they’d gone off to bed. It meant that I didn’t have to worry about the bad guys right away, and that I could have a heart to heart with Kim before I got down to executing a few thugs. I was actually looking forward to that.

“I’ll tell you what I can,” Kim continued after relating this stuff to me, pausing to take a sip of her coffee before carrying on, “but you need to calm down, Jacob. We’re not your enemy. In fact we came here specifically to help you out, knowing full well that by doing so we’d be stranded back here in the past, just like you. You might want to keep that in mind before you ask your next question.”

Kim’s reply made me stop and think. I hadn’t considered that when I’d stormed into the room. I looked from Kim to Dunbar and then to Burton. My two buddies just nodded their heads in acknowledgement, their faces very serious. I could tell then and there that they weren’t here for their health. I pursed my lips and thought about it for a second before asking my next question.