Agent of Time Read online

  Agent of Time

  A Time Travel Adventure

  Nathan Van Coops

  Contents

  Free Story

  Previously, In Times Like These

  1. The Crash

  2. The Morgue

  3. Fire Starter

  4. Wallace

  5. 49th Street Mining Company

  6. Disappear

  7. Paradox

  8. Wake Up

  9. Malcolm

  10. Unbelievable

  11. Ultimatum

  12. Resurfaced

  13. Carson

  14. Jessica

  15. Stenger

  16. Jumper

  17. Time Crime

  The Chronothon Sneak Peek.

  Also by Nathan Van Coops

  In Times Like These Recap

  About the Author

  Grab an exclusive short story to accompany this book, absolutely free! Download your instant copy HERE, or at nathanvancoops.com Join the race today!

  Previously, In Times Like These

  This story takes place concurrently with the events of In Times Like These and relates to them directly.

  If you have not read that novel, this story will contain spoilers.

  If you would like a quick recap of the primary events of In Times Like These, you can find one at the end of this book via the table of contents.

  I hope you enjoy the all new perspective on this multiverse of adventure.

  -Nathan

  1 The Crash

  December 30th-1985

  Two Dead. Mysterious circumstances.

  Special Agent Stella York scanned the photos of the deceased men, noting blank spaces where their names should be. It was a thin file. Even the dates of birth were missing, but one set of numbers had been neatly stamped next to each photo.

  Date of death. December 29th, 1985.

  Stella memorized the sparse details, then closed the file.

  Special Agent Bartholomew MacGregor leaned across the armrest of the Ford Crown Victoria and aimed a knobby finger in her direction. “Remember your job is to keep your mouth shut and try not to make me look bad. The sooner we get through this, the sooner we get outta here. Got it?” Her new partner didn’t wait for an answer, but rather turned and heaved his substantial body up and out of the car. He adjusted his sagging belt and moved toward the vehicle ahead of them.

  Agent York sighed and checked her watch.

  She had a theory that if Agent MacGregor could arrive anywhere on time for a change, he wouldn’t be so ill-tempered when he got there. But they didn’t seem in danger of finding that out anytime soon.

  She climbed out of the car and straightened her jacket, then followed him across the street.

  The white prisoner transfer van was still parked at the scene of the crash, though there was a tow truck standing by. Local PD had cordoned off the area and a couple officers with squad cars sat at the ends of the block redirecting traffic.

  The front of the vehicle was caved in and there were scorch marks along the top and sides. No fire though. Stella thought the burns looked electrical. The rear doors had been closed, but otherwise the scene still matched the one described in the report. Minus the bodies.

  A plain-clothes St. Petersburg police detective was waiting by the front of the vehicle and Special Agent MacGregor made straight for him, not bothering to study the scene. “Detective Briggs, I presume? Sorry we’re late. Traffic was hell.”

  The handsome detective strode forward and extended a hand. “Special Agent MacGregor, I’m happy you were able to make it down. And this must be your partner.” He turned his crystalline blue eyes to Stella as she walked up.

  “Special Agent York is assisting,” MacGregor replied.

  The detective extended a hand to Agent York. “Danny Briggs. Nice to meet you.” He had a pleasant, easy smile and damn good hair. It cascaded down the back of his neck in gravity-defying waves.

  “We appreciate you keeping the crash scene intact till we could make it down,” Stella said. “I know coordinating between agencies can have its delays.”

  “Glad we could get you down to the ‘Sunshine City’ for a bit.”

  “We certainly aren’t complaining about the weather,” Stella replied. “Must be ten degrees warmer than Jacksonville.”

  “It ain’t a vacation,” MacGregor grumbled. “What have we got?”

  Stella frowned. Her partner hadn’t always been so rude. When they’d first been assigned to one another, he’d even made attempts to be charming. But when she’d made it clear to him that simply being single and a woman didn’t mean she had any intention of sleeping with him, he’d lost his pleasant demeanor. He seemed to be especially icy around guys that outclassed him in looks—which was basically all of them.

  MacGregor addressed the detective again. “Anything new since yesterday?”

  “Still no leads on the vehicle. Has New York government plates, as you know, so it looks to be an interstate transfer of some kind—that’s no doubt why you got the call—but so far no one has a record of it. We’ve contacted all the prisons in the area. No one is reporting missing vehicles or inmates. Press got some pictures. Posted an article in the paper this morning calling it ‘A Mystery Crash’ on account of the van name.” He pointed to the placard above the fender. “‘GMC Savana.’ We called a local dealership and they’ve never heard of it. Not a model they even make apparently. So there are a lot of things that don’t add up.”

  “Like the registration sticker,” Stella added, brushing a loose strand of hair behind her ear. “The date doesn’t make sense.”

  The detective nodded. “That too.”

  Agent MacGregor frowned. “What’s wrong with it?” He walked around the back of the van to view the license plate. The registration sticker listed the year as “10.”

  “That’s either twenty-five years early, or maybe seventy-five years overdue,” Detective Briggs said. “But I doubt they had registration stickers in 1910.” He smiled.

  “So we’re dealing with amateurs,” MacGregor said. “Some kind of custom van but they didn’t have the sense to put a real name and sticker on it. That about it?”

  “Could be,” Detective Briggs replied. “But the oddities don’t stop there.” He walked to the front of the van. “We’re calling it a crash because it obviously hit something, but we’re not sure what.”

  “Would’ve thought that was obvious,” MacGregor said. “Looks pretty well wrapped around that power pole to me.” He ran a hand over the wrinkled hood.

  Stella studied the scene. “True. But not this pole. It’s not damaged.”

  Detective Briggs nodded. “Press didn’t catch this tidbit, but unless we’re dealing with some kind of miracle species of wood, there ought to have been a lot more evidence on the pole if it was hit this hard. There’s not a scratch on it.”

  “I’ve seen stranger things,” Agent MacGregor grunted as he peered into the driver’s seat. “And no more news on the bodies?”

  “Just what was in the report we sent over. Definitely homicides. Still waiting on the results of the fingerprint analysis. We’ve got somebody on that now, just waiting for a call. The bodies both showed evidence of electrocution. One was strangled and one was shot. Hard to say which happened first. Could be they were electrocuted after the fact. Coroner is still working on that.”

  “Electrocuted by what?” Agent York said, looking up at the power pole. The wires were still neatly suspended.

  “Another good question,” Detective Briggs replied. “Wish I knew. They told me to relay what we had and hand it off to you. We’ll of course assist as much as possible.”

  Special Agent MacGregor marched around the van, peering into the windows, then backtracked and opene
d the rear doors. Unlike the driver’s seat, there was no blood back here. MacGregor turned and elbowed Stella out of the way. “Nothing to see there. I assume we got all the pictures?”

  “Should be in your file,” Briggs replied.

  Stella peered into the back of the van, taking in the locks and benches. Her eyes settled on a sliver of wood protruding from the far end of the seat cushion. What was that? She put a foot on the rear bumper to step up into the van and find out.

  “Hey, I told you there’s nothing up there. Let’s get down to the morgue.” MacGregor gestured toward the sedan. “Actually, why don’t you go wait in the car?”

  Stella met his gaze and stood her ground. “Doesn’t hurt to have another pair of eyes inside.”

  MacGregor glared at her.

  The crackle of the radio in Briggs’s car broke the tension. A dispatcher’s voice said something Stella didn’t catch. Detective Briggs leaned into the window and picked up the microphone. “Yeah, this is Briggs. What have you got?”

  Stella took her foot off the bumper and walked over to his side to listen.

  “Thought you should know. A fingerprint match came in from one of the corpses you wanted identified. Came back as a guard at Polk Penitentiary named George Wallace,” the dispatcher said.

  “Well, that’s good news. Do they want to send someone down to ID him?”

  “There’s been some confusion about that. They’re pretty sure it’s not him.”

  “Until they get down here, they won’t know for sure.”

  “They said they’re sure,” the dispatcher replied. “They said George Wallace showed up for work today.”

  2 The Morgue

  “I thought I told you to keep your mouth shut out there,” MacGregor said as he closed the car door.

  “I’m here to do my job,” Stella replied. “To investigate.”

  MacGregor faked a smile as he waved out the car windshield to Detective Briggs, then pulled into the road to follow him. His features hardened when he looked back to her. “Don’t get any grand ideas in your head about what you’re doing here. Your job is to make the Bureau look good with the press and this Affirmative Action bullshit. I know Director Webster and his crew are all gung-ho about getting blacks and women in the door, but don’t think that’s the same thing as having real experience. You need to let the men do their jobs.”

  “You’re really inspiring, MacGregor. You ever stop to think that maybe not everyone wants a good ol’ boy agency anymore? You ever think that women and minorities might actually have something to offer?”

  “Last thing I need is some rookie straight out of the academy giving me lectures, York. While you’re assigned to me, I’m in charge,” MacGregor said. “You follow my lead or I write you up for insubordination, you got it? You make the coffee, you get the reports in, and we’ll get along well enough till I can dump you off on the next chump. That’s your job. Until that happens, I don’t want you getting in the way.”

  Stella crossed her arms and stared at the taillights ahead of them.

  “I didn’t hear a response, York. I want you to answer when I give you instructions.”

  Stella turned and glared at him. “I got the message.”

  “Sir,” MacGregor replied. “I got the message, sir.”

  He wasn’t wearing a seatbelt. Stella had the sudden urge to grab the wheel and push him out into traffic, but she contained herself. “I got the message, sir.”

  “Good,” MacGregor replied. “Glad we got that straight.”

  MacGregor insisted on a pitstop at a fast-food burger place prior to proceeding.

  While he walked inside, Stella pulled down the passenger side mirror and considered her reflection. Frowning, she fished around in her purse for a tube of lipstick. When she located it, she debated her options. This was another knife edge she had to walk in this job. Wear zero makeup and no man would bother to listen to what she had to say. Wear too much and no one took her seriously. Stella knew she caught more than a few eyes walking the halls of the Jacksonville office, but tended to tone down her looks for work.

  In MacGregor’s eyes, she was always going to be a female agent, not just an agent. It was obvious that in his mind she was taking a spot from a deserving man, but heaven forbid she wasn’t still pleasant to look at.

  Damn double standards.

  She gave her lips a quick touch up and shoved the tube back in her bag before her partner lumbered back out the door.

  He stared at her briefly when he climbed back into the car but made no comment on her appearance, which was a relief. Once again, none the wiser.

  When they reached the police station, Detective Briggs was waiting for them on the front steps. He had another file in his hands.

  “They sort it out?” MacGregor asked, wiping French fry grease on his pants. “Somebody mess up the fingerprints?”

  The detective shook his head. “Triple-checked. It’s a definite match. All ten fingers. Never seen anything like it.”

  “Clerical error,” MacGregor replied. “Somebody switched the guy’s records.”

  Detective Briggs led them to the door and opened it for them. “Let’s hope. We’re going to find out in a minute. I had the penitentiary fax over everything they had on Wallace. Even got an updated photo. They developed it today.” He handed the file to MacGregor. MacGregor skimmed through a few pages, then handed the file off to Stella. “Hold that.”

  When they reached the door to the morgue, MacGregor turned to Stella. “You want to wait outside for this? Might be rough on your constitution.”

  “I’ll be fine,” Stella replied, and resisted rolling her eyes.

  MacGregor shrugged and followed Detective Briggs inside.

  The bodies were already on display for them, a coroner’s assistant on hand to help. The young man smiled and waved as they approached. “Figured you might be back to see these two.”

  “Tommy, these are Special Agents MacGregor and York from the FBI, here to take over the investigation.”

  “Then you have your work cut out for you,” Tommy replied. “Double homicide by a mystery prison escapee. Don’t get too many of those around here.” He stepped over to the table and pulled back the sheet covering the first body, revealing the head and torso of a man who was likely in his fifties. His hair was graying and he had a bald spot at the crown of his head. He wore a mustache in the fashion of Tom Selleck, though the resemblance stopped there. This man was significantly shorter with a belly that protruded several inches beyond his chest.

  Stella flipped open the file and removed the new photo of George Wallace that the prison had faxed over. They weren’t a match. While their features were the same, the man in the photo had to be at least twenty years younger.

  MacGregor snatched the photo from her and looked it over. “He’s a relative. Father and son, maybe. They both work for the prison and they mixed up the fingerprint records.” He turned to Stella and gestured to her. “Give me the prints.” Stella located the sheet of images that had been faxed over, as well as the ones that had been taken from the corpse. Another sheet showed full and partial prints pulled from the crash site. MacGregor scanned back and forth between them, searching for an irregularity. “Has to be a mistake,” he muttered.

  “Polk County says George Wallace lives alone,” Stella read from the file. “Divorced. No children. Father died in ’68.”

  “Sure looks like him,” Detective Briggs replied. “After twenty years of not taking care of himself, maybe. But it looks like him.”

  “What about the other one?” Agent MacGregor said, striding over to the second corpse.

  The coroner’s assistant pulled back the sheet. “This one’s still a John Doe. No record we can find anywhere.”

  Stella followed her partner to the second table and studied the face of the other victim. He was young, early thirties, perhaps. His boyish jawline reminded her a lot of her older brother. They’d be about the same age too. The bruises on his neck showed evidence o
f the strangulation. The marks were an eerie yellow and purple in the morgue lights.

  “I want to nail this guy,” she muttered.

  “What’s that?” MacGregor replied.

  “Whoever did this,” she said. “He’s got to go.”

  MacGregor shoved the paperwork into her hands and addressed Detective Briggs. “We got a number for this Wallace guy? The one who showed up for work at the prison?”

  “It’s in the file,” Detective Briggs replied.

  “Okay. Let’s get him down here. We’ll see what he says about his doppelgänger. He has to know something.” He stared at Stella. “Get him here tomorrow. The sooner the better.” MacGregor turned and stalked toward the doors.

  Stella took another look at the young John Doe on the table. When she looked up she found Detective Briggs studying her. His expression was sympathetic. He looked like he was about to say something when MacGregor shouted from the doorway. “Let’s go, York! Haven’t got all night.”

  Stella nodded to the detective, then followed MacGregor back to the car.

  3 Fire Starter

  The motel on Fourth Street wasn’t much to look at. The TV was busted in Stella’s room and the comforter on the bed looked like it was used to mop up a crime scene, but it had one glorious attribute. She didn’t have to share it with MacGregor.

  It was rare to be working in another Florida division, but the local Tampa field office was swamped and had asked for extra manpower. Normally she wouldn’t have minded the change of scenery from the Jacksonville office, but she wished she could have ended up in charge of choosing the accommodations.