Chapter 9: Luck of the Draw
Looking down at the hanklink, Al read the information that came up once he’d entered the Sergeant’s name. There wasn’t much information to read through. If Sam failed in his mission on this leap, Sergeant Andrew Carter would be dead within five days. Shot by the Gestapo while trying to escape. At least, that was what the offical camp records said. Would say.
He turned his attention back to the man in question for a moment and debated whether or not he should say anything about this to him. It seemed wrong not to at least warn him but Al knew that it probably would make little difference either way. Al wasn’t sure if he’d want to know death was coming when there wasn’t anything he could do about it. No, it was probably best to let Sam do his job – he was the one in the saving people business. Then he spared a glance to Andrew’s friend who seemed very concerned about the young man’s sanity. Of course, if Al had been in his place – seeing one of his friends conversing with the air - , he was sure that he’d feel the same way.
Maybe he’d be able to do something about that, at least. “Gooshie, up the frequency, let’s see if that makes any difference.”
“All right, Admiral.” Gooshie said over the speaker. “How is it now?”
Judging by the fact that the expression on the kid’s face hadn’t changed, Al doubted that uping the frequency had done the trick. Still, maybe there was a chance this problem would have an easy fix. Ignoring how silly the question sounded, he smiled at the Sergeant and asked: “Am I gone?”
“No, I can still see you.”
Al shook his head even though he knew that Gooshie couldn’t see it. “No good, Gooshie. Try something else.” He was starting to wonder if it would even be possible to hide from the Sergeant’s sight – like he had told Sam before, if the kid had a chemical imbalance or was mentally impared . . . there would be nothing he could do about this.
“Who are you talking to, mate?” The British corporal sounded worried, as if he was afraid that his friend’s insanity would increase if he tried talking to him.
Carter shrugged. “Oh, his name is Al.”
Giving the young man the hairy eyeball, Al sighed. He hated it when people other than Sam knew he was around and he hated it doubly that his name was now in cirrculation. Not that it would mean anything to these people – he wouldn’t be born for two more years.
It was obvious that this answer had done nothing to sooth the other man’s worries. “Who’s Al?”
“That’s what I’d like to know. Actually, I’d like to know a couple things.”
Al spun around to face the man standing in the doorway. The American Colonel seemed irate and tired and, as he glared at the Sergeant through slitted eyes, Al felt relieved that he was a hologram here. He wondered what the man’s problem was but, judging by the man’s appearance, Al doubted that he’d have long to wait before he found out.
The Sergeant seemed oblivious to the time bomb he’d been faced with. He smiled. “Hi, sir.”
The Colonel did not smile back. “I want an explanation, mister, and I want one now.”
“About what, sir?” The kid’s tone spoke of bewildered innocence and Al knew, as he saw the older man’s mouth tighten, that it had been the wrong tact to try with a man as angry as his Colonel appeared to be.
“About what? About what the hell happened in Klink’s office!”
Carter looked surprised as comprehension dawned. “How do you know about that?” Then he seemed to realize the answer to his own question. “You must have been listening in.”
Al frowned. “Listening in” sounded omnious and the implication was clear – even if the rest of these jokers couldn’t see Sam for what he was, the damage was already done if they’d heard him talking to himself. Thinking about their last conversation, Al realized, even without hearing his side of it, what the Colonel had heard had he been “listening in” those times was damning.
“You bet I was, Private.”
“But, sir,” the young man protested weakly, “I’m a Sergeant.”
The Colonel’s expression held no hint of humor. “Not if you don’t start telling me right now what you know about this mess, you aren’t!”
As the Possibly-No-Longer-A-Sergeant Carter began his explaination, Al realized that he couldn’t waste any more time standing around here. He had to go to Sam and warn him that things were about to get much more uncomfortable during this leap. After walking through the back wall, as not to call Carter’s attention to him, Al yelled: “Gooshie! Center me on Sam.”
Sometimes, thought Sammy Jo as she
walked hesitantly towards the Waiting Room, it doesn’t pay to have a
conscience. If she didn’t have this overdeveloped . . . rightness gland,
she could have been in the lab or working on Ziggy or something. She certainly
wouldn’t be standing here, outside of the Waiting Room, wondering how
exactly to find out what it was that Dr. Beeks seemed to think that she needed
to know without coming off as more of a jerk than she had been already.
“Excuse me, mister, I was
told that, maybe, I didn’t have all the information I needed to have
– tell me about yourself so I can jump to conclusions about you guilt
free. How does that sound?”
Yeah, she was going to have to work
on that delievery.
At least she had another reason to
be here. She gripped the bag Dr. Beeks had given her to bring to the visitor,
her knuckles pale. If plan A didn’t work, there was always plan B. Inside
the bag were some things that Dr. Beeks had thrown together to keep the visitor
occupied and she wondered whether or not this was supposed to be the carrot
that would get the guy to hear her out.
It wasn’t a comfortable
thought and she decided, if it turned out that he wouldn’t hear her out, she
wasn’t going to force herself on him.
After keying in the security code,
she stepped into the Waiting Room. In almost exactly the same spot she had left
him, sat the visitor whose name she thought might have been Wilhelm Klonk. That
afternoon when she’d hacked into the mainframe, his name hadn’t
seemed all that important. Whoever he was, he was looking up at her now, his
expression hard. “And what you want?”
Sammy felt herself wince; his voice
was just as severe as his expression. While, intellectually, she had expected
this reation, when it came right down to it, it still stung. She supposed that
what she was feeling now wasn’t too different than what he’d felt
when she’d stood here earlier and gawked at him. “I . . .”
Taking a deep breath, she choose
her words carefully, lest she made the situation worse. Maybe an appology would
be a good start; being on the reciving end of his anger was making her feel
honestly sorry about the whole thing. “I came down to say that . . .”
Come on, she scolded herself, it’s not that hard – it’s only
two little words!
But she found that she could not
say them. Silence stretched. The visitor’s face was darkening and Sammy
still could not force out the words she wanted to say. Her grip tightened and
she looked down at the bag in her hands; she’d almost forgotten she had
it.
And, if there was ever a time to
implement Plan B, it was now. “I came down to bring you this,” she
said quickly,thrusting the bag out towards the visitor. “I think
you’ll be pleased.”
The visitor’s harsh
expression melted into puzzlement as he took the bag from her. He held it for a
moment before looking into it warily, as if unsure that he could trust what was
inside. Then he smiled slightly, reaching inside and pulling out a deck of
cards. “Ah, I see, Verbena sent you.” Without looking up at her, he
slipped off the rubber band that held the cards together and started to shuffle
them.
“Yes,” Sammy answered,
realizing as she did so how bad that sounded. It made it sound as though she
had been forced to come here – she had, but not in the way he clearly
thought. But what could she say that wouldn’t make her sound like a liar?
For several minutes, the only sound
was the papery strike of card against card. “So, why are you still
here?”
He sounded suspicious and Sammy
thought that this was much more uncomfortable than the anger. She was unused to
having her motives questioned and she did not like the feeling at all. Well,
enough was enough. It was high time to clear the air! “Dr. Beeks said
that I . . . I think that I may have misjudged you.” She looked away, not
wanting to see what sort of reaction her admittedly weak words would have.
The shuffling stopped. “You
do? Why?”
Sammy wanted to smile at the
complete surprise in the man’s voice but remembering why he sounded so
shocked killed the feeling. “Dr. Beeks told me that it wasn’t only
the Nazis and the Ku Klux Klan who judged people without knowing them.”
She paused, not sure if she wanted to share her insight with a stranger, before
deciding to press on. “I guess I just realized that I didn’t want
to be like those people.”
When she received no immediate response,
Sammy looked back at the visitor. He was staring at the cards in his hands, his
expression unreadable. Watching him for a few long seconds, she realized that
he wasn’t going to answer her. It was disapointing but not a real
surprise – the real surprise was that he had heard her out at all. That
was something.
But not enough.
Feeling distincly unstatisfied, she
turned to leave him to his cards. She had said her piece as well as she could
possibly say it and it was obvious that he didn’t want to talk to her
– considering how rude she’d been before, the least she could do
now was make her exit and stop staring at him.
“Wait.”
Slowly, not quite beliving this,
she turned back to him again, wondering why he’d decided to talk now and
what he wanted with her.
A smile teased the corners of his
mouth. “I was wondering if I could interest you in a game of
cards.”
There were hundreds of reasons why
this was a bad idea – not least among which being that she wasn’t
supposed to be here at all – but there was one reason to stay. She smiled
back. “I think you could.”
As they both settled onto the floor
and the visitor began dealing the cards, Sammy Jo remembered what her mother
used to say: “There is nothing more precious than a second chance.” Now, she thought she understood what that meant.
***
“Sam, we’ve
got a problem!”
Sam looked up from the day
planner he’d been thumbing through to stare at his frantic friend.
“What’s going on, Al? Did something happen?”
Al nodded. “That kid
you sent me after is in the process of spilling the beans to some Colonel but
that’s not the worst of it!”
“It’s
not?” That much alone sounded pretty bad to Sam but, while his friend
could be excitable at times, he usually was a good judge of just what qualified
as bad. If he said that the Sergeant spilling the beans wasn’t the worst
of it, Sam was inclined to believe him.
“They’ve been
listening.” He looked around the room as if he expected something to jump
out at him. “They might be listening now.”
Sam stood, his
friend’s nervousness putting him on edge. “Who? What are you
talking about?”
The hologram slapped his
forehead. “I should have realized before – if these guys have ties
to the Pentagon, some pidling little bug would be no stretch.”
Helplessly, Sam watched Al
pace. “What are you talking about? Who’s been listening?”
“The
prisoners!” The other man stopped his pacing abruptly and whirled around
to face Sam. “Unless you can think of away to play this off, we are in
deep ca-ca.”
This was serious. While he
had been planning on telling that Sergeant who could see the real him at least
part of the truth, Sam had not planned on having anyone else finding out he
wasn’t who he was supposed to be. And, if the prisoners had been listening
in, like Al had said, then it was possible that, before long . . .
All the prisoners could
know about it.
Panic was rising and it
took considerable will to force it back down. It wasn’t like him to panic
and panic was not an option right now. Whatever happened next, he would require
a cool head. He would need to keep calm. “What do I do, Al?” His
hands were shaking again. “Is there anything I can do?”
Silence was his answer.
***
As Carter told his tale,
he noticed with growing unease that the Colonel’s expression never
changed. He didn’t think he’d ever seen the Colonel look so angry
with him. So furious. It was almost as disturbing as the way Al had appeared
out of nowhere. Maybe more so – especially since the only sign that the
Colonel was even listening was the slight narrowing and widening of his eyes.
Not a good sign however
you looked at it.
It was not until
he’d finished that the Colonel’s expression changed. His frown
deepened; it was not an improvement. “And you didn’t think to share
this with the rest of us?”
“You believe me,
sir?” Carter winced as he realized how hopeful he had sounded. Who are
you trying to convince, Andrew, he thought. With an effort, he forced the
question away. At a time like this, the last thing that he needed to be doing
was talking to himself.
Colonel Hogan sighed, his
anger transforming into simple weariness as he pinched the bridge of his nose.
“With all the strange things that happen around here, Sergeant, what
choice do I have?”
Carter wasn’t sure
what he was most happy about: that he wasn’t going to be busted in rank
after all; that the Colonel was no longer mad at him; or that his commander
didn’t think that he was crazy . . . well, at least, not any crazier than
usual. He almost felt like hugging the man but he decided that the Colonel
probably wouldn’t appreciate it. He settled for a grateful smile and a
quiet “Thank you, sir.”
Lebeau, who had rejoined
Newkirk at the table, looked around warily. “Is this Al person still
here, Andrew?”
After glancing around the
room, Carter shook his head. “No. Huh, I wonder where he went.”
“Carter,”
Colonel Hogan said, sounding more like his usual self, “I want you to go
down to the tunnel and find Kinch. Tell him what you told me. Newkirk, I want
you and Lebeau to put the mission on hold until we find out what’s going
on around here.”
“What are you going
to do, sir?” Newkirk asked as he stood.
Colonel Hogan smiled.
“I think it’s time I had a chat with this Sam.”
***
Hogan walked into the Commandant's office with a confident swagger that he didn't really feel. Klink sat at his desk and looked at him curiously. "Yes, what do you want?"
Feeling a certain measure of doubt creeping on him, despite what he had heard on the bug and from Carter, Hogan put on his most charming face. "I just wanted to meet the famous Sam."
Klink stared at him, looking for a moment as if he were going to deny it before closing his eyes in surrender. "I guess there's no point in trying to fool you any longer."
Hogan couldn't deny that he was a little surprised. "So, it's true?"
Klink- Sam nodded and stood, looking Hogan in the eyes. "I want you all to know that I'm here to help. Three days from now-"
"Klink's going to die and so are some of the members of the underground."
Sam looked dumbfounded. "How . . ." He shook his head, "Never mind."
"Look," Hogan began,"Believe it or not, I don't want Klink to die any more than you do, and we certainly don't want to see anything happen to the underground. Maybe we can help each other."
Sam seemed to consider it. "I don't know. I mean, I don't know what you can do. I don't even know where the danger is coming from- much less how I can keep it from happening at this point." He closed his eyes. "But then, I don't see what choice I have."
Hogan smiled his first genuine smile all day. "I knew you would see things my way."
***
She had come to the fool's office and was about to knock when she heard voices. She put her ear to the door and tried to listen in.
". . . famous Sam."
". . . here to help. . . "
". . . Klink's going to die. . . "
She pulled her head away with a jerk. This was bad. This was so bad. This was . . .
She smiled a cruel smile. This was perfect. Getting rid of that meddling time traveler would definitely get her re-promoted- it would certainly get her in with Lothos. Oh, her plans would have to be altered a little, but it would definitely be worth it- if for no other reason than to see the look on Boy Scout's face when he found out who was responsible.