Chapter 14

Ed steered his car onto the access road to the hotel. The access road was a four lane road with a divider between the lanes in each direction. He made it about twenty yards to a turnaround with a security checkpoint blocking the road beyond the turnaround. Security men, armed with automatic weapons, wearing armored vests, and helmets equipped with radios stopped Ed’s car. If they had been wearing military camouflage, they would have looked like soldiers on a checkpoint in a war zone. The men looked like they meant business.

Feeling uneasy, Ed turned to Jane and said, “There is something almost sinister about this.”

“I don’t like it,” Jane said reminded of the brutal harshness of her timeline.

Ed rolled down his window and waited for the security man to reach the car. The man bent down and just stared. With the sunglasses he was wearing, it was impossible to say what he was looking at.

“The hotel is closed to the public for the remainder of the week. You need to turn around and leave.”

“Is there some kind of problem?” Ed asked in a friendly voice.

“No problem. You need to turn around and leave.”

“Could I see some identification?”

“No. You need to leave. Right now!”

“I’m Senator Taylor. I insist on seeing some ID!”

“I don’t care if you’re the Tooth Fairy. I told you to leave. Now go before I lose patience.”

Ed noticed that the other security guy had adjusted his automatic rifle so that it was pointing in Ed’s direction. He looked from one man to the other. They weren’t going to identify who they were. He looked over at the black SUV. There were no license plates on it.

“Okay. We’ll go.”

Ed turned around and headed away from the hotel. He pulled onto the main road, drove about a hundred yards, and then pulled off to the side.

“Did you say it was a meeting of bankers?”

“Yes.”

“I’ve been around Washington for years. I’ve never seen anything like that.”

“That was the kind of security we had around government buildings during my timeline. It all started after you got into office. You created a lot of people who really hated the government.”

“I can assure you that I don’t have that intention. All I want to do is improve the security of the nation, balance the budget, and increase the standard of living for American citizens. Is that so wrong?”

“Your goals may have been lofty, but the means you took were not.”

Ed glanced in the mirror. He swore. “There’s a black SUV that just parked behind us.”

“Let’s get out of here.”

“There’s a hill over there. Maybe we can see what’s going on from there.”

Ed pulled away from the curb. It took a minute or two to find a road that led up to the top of the hill. There was a scenic overlook with a parking lot. He pulled into the parking lot and looked around for a second before spotting the two black SUVs parked there. He didn’t bother to stop at the scenic overlook.

“Let’s go to a restaurant and make a new plan.”

Puzzled by what she had seen, Jane said, “I don’t understand. There was nothing in the historical record of anything like this. The papers said that a group of high-level bankers were meeting to discuss interest rates and there was an explosion from a gas leak. None of the articles said anything about armed security around the hotel.”

“Maybe they’ll stop Jack.”

“That shouldn’t be possible. I haven’t done anything to affect the timeline, yet.”

“You’ve talked to Jack,” Ed pointed out.

“Maybe.”

Ed turned onto the main street at the foot of the hill. He was driving past the property on which the hotel stood when he spotted a person he recognized. “There’s Jack.”

“We’ve got to stop him.”

Ed pulled off the road. Before he and Robin could exit the car, Jack turned to look at them. He held up a device and touched a button on it. There was a huge explosion from the hotel. After a second, Jack disappeared. He just vanished without a trace.

“What happened?” Ed asked.

“I think he just erased his existence.”

“If he never existed, then how come we remember him?”

“I don’t know. It’s a paradox. He erased his existence in the future so that he’s never born, but his actions in the past live on in the present.”

“Thinking about that gives me a headache.”

It was a long quiet drive back to the hotel. Jane was looking forward to getting back to what had now become her home.

After reading various parts of Jack’s diary, Robin sat back trying to compare his world with hers. There was almost no common ground except for one – there was a lot of unhappiness in each world. The source of misery in each case was the government.

Perhaps the most obvious example of people suffering in her timeline occurred when the undocumented workers were forced out of the country as a result of Ed Taylor’s brutal enforcement of the immigration laws. Even after so much time had passed, there had never been an accurate count of how many people had died in the camps on the Mexican side of the border. No one knew how many women had been forced into a life of prostitution.

Even after Ed Taylor left office, those who had remained in power continued policies that were just as brutal. America had stopped being a beacon of light for oppressed masses wanting to flee injustice or poverty. There was no longer aid for political refugees. Any immigrant had to have a real job before immigrating. Some argued what a real job meant, but in practice it required that the immigrant had to earn money and pay their taxes. They also had to speak, read, and write English. The kind hand that had once welcomed the unwanted had been withdrawn and the country as a whole became a harder place.

By the time Robin had left for the past, people were questioning the rightness of the policy. Actually, people had questioned the morality of his policies at the time. The actions of Ed Taylor in forcibly removing undocumented workers were viewed in much the same way that the forced movement of Japanese into internment camps during World War II was viewed. It was a huge overreaction to a minor problem that could have been handled in other ways.

The harshness of Ed Taylor’s justice system was reflected by imposition of death penalties on government employees found guilty of corruption. Her own grandfather had been a victim of that policy. It was a policy that remained in effect even at the time she had left for the past. After the initial shock wore off, it seemed as if the entire population supported that law. Most people found it impossible to argue that accepting a bribe to sell out the country’s best interests was not a treasonous act.

The law was still enforced at the time she left for the past. Cops on the street who accepted a little cash to look the other way found themselves facing the gallows. Government inspectors looked over their shoulders when on the job, terrified that someone might falsely accuse them of demanding a payoff.

Elected officials who accepted little tokens of appreciation suffered the same fate. This required a major change in how campaigns were financed but many felt that was a major step in the right direction. Donations to a campaign had to be anonymous. One couldn’t mention directly to a candidate how much they donated. Individuals couldn’t hold fund-raisers, beg individuals for contributions, or get paid for public-speaking events.

There was one consequence which no one might have imagined. All of the influence peddling occurred before running for office. Candidates were selected by groups with specific agendas, promises of rewards were made to potential candidates before they signed up for the races, and retirement plans were put into place in the event the candidate was successful in getting elected. The result was that an average Joe had no chance of even becoming a candidate.