The Empire Page 20

  After Kyle left, Padma turned on her side, facing the lamp. She extended her right hand in front of the lamp. In the distance, she heard the drums and songs of the Lakota people, singing praises to their messiah. She turned her hand over to examine her palm, then turned it again to scrutinize the back of her hand in the dim light. Her hand eclipsed the flame. An orange corona glowed between the shadowed fingertips of her knife hand.

  Now I can kill too, she thought.

  Standing Rock Reservation

  South Dakota

  September 24, 1890

  07:30 hours

  Timeline 003

  Padma opened her eyes. Morning light illuminated the tent’s canvas walls. The lamp on the nightstand had been extinguished.

  Padma heard crackling and popping. She smelled bacon cooking. She looked up. Kyle was hovering over a cast iron skillet on the potbelly stove. Hoover sat next to him, looking up hopefully at the stove.

  “Mornin’!” he said cheerfully.

  An ice bolt of terror jolted Padma as she heard the echo of the dead scout’s voice in her head.

  Mornin’!

  Padma clenched the sheets close to her chest as Kyle scrambled eggs with bacon in the skillet, oblivious to Padma’s post-attack trauma.

  Padma’s breathing became shallow, ramping in frequency as fear ascended in her chest. The pain from her wound seared her chest with every breath, compounding her panic.

  The bacon popped, spraying Kyle with hot grease.

  “Shit!”

  He dumped the eggs and bacon jumble onto two plates.

  Two parts of Padma’s mind wrestled with each other. One voice tried to inform her that the white man cooking in her tent was her husband. The other voice shrieked with fright.

  Kyle opened the stove door with a potholder and extracted an iron toaster with two slices of unevenly burnt toast. He plucked out the toast slices, put them on the plates, then set the plates on the table.

  “I’m still trying to get the hang of this,” he said.

  Padma looked around the tent.

  “Where is my dress?” she asked, attempting to maintain an appearance of calm as she hurled an escape plan together in her head.

  “You can get dressed later. There’s no hurry. Have some breakfast.”

  “I need to dress now,” she replied.

  “You need to eat,” Kyle said.

  “I know what I need!” Padma screamed. “I need to dress and I need to go—now!”

  Kyle was stunned. After a moment, he yielded. “Your dress is hanging in the armoire.”

  Padma got out of bed, swung open the armoire and pulled her dress from a wooden hanger. She began to remove her robe, then stopped, gasping when she realized Kyle was watching her.

  “Sorry,” Kyle said, surprised. In the years they had known each other, Padma had never before been modest in his presence. He averted his eyes as Padma quickly tossed the robe and pulled on her dress. She walked to the tent flap. Kyle rushed to her, taking her arm.

  “Padma!”

  “Leave me alone!” she snapped as she squirmed away from him.

  Kyle watched the tent flap fall shut in his face, stunned. He felt lead in his stomach as he turned to look at the two expectant toile breakfast plates on the checkerboard tablecloth, sitting before two empty wooden chairs. Hoover looked up at Kyle with a worried whimper.

  • • •

  Padma emerged from the tent into the morning sunlight. She closed her eyes, exhaling a deep sigh of relief. She took a deep breath and exhaled. The panic abated. She opened her eyes.

  Hundreds of her followers stood in front of her. Standing to her right beside the tent door was Takoda. She noticed something was different about him. He was no longer wearing his Ghost Dance shirt with its inverted red triangle. His chest was bare, save for a fringed leather vest and a diamond-shaped black and yellow beaded medallion that hung around his neck.

  Padma’s eyes met Takoda’s. Her anxious face warmed into a loving smile. Takoda returned her smile. She took his medallion in her hand. The center of the diamond was made of yellow beads and surrounded by a perimeter of black beads. Padma glanced at her followers. They wore the same yellow and black diamond symbol. Some, like Takoda, wore medallions. Others had painted the symbol on their shirts and dresses. The diamond was painted in the center of their chests, directly over their hearts.

  “What is this?” asked Padma, holding the diamond.

  “It is the symbol of the Messiah,” replied Takoda, pointing toward the bullet hole in her dress.

  Padma nodded, smiling. She lay Takoda’s medallion back against his chest, allowing her fingertips to linger a moment against his muscled brown chest.

  Standing Rock Reservation

  South Dakota

  September 24, 1890

  16:45 hours

  Timeline 003

  Kyle walked through the grove of trees that separated the tent from the Grand River. He carried two empty wooden water buckets—one in each hand. His MP7 was holstered on his thigh. His combat knife was strapped to his belt. Hoover trailed behind him.

  He had kept himself very busy during the day, doing anything to distract his mind from his wife and her new infatuation. Kyle saw Padma’s adoring eyes on Takoda—a loving gaze that had previously been reserved exclusively for Kyle. Takoda was smitten as well. Kyle’s mind burned—a jealous rage made heavy by depression.

  Kyle translated his pain into productivity, spending most of the day building a wooden water tank for the tent. He used tools brought from Deadwood to cannibalize one of the wagons for the materials. The tank fed into a pipe with a crude spigot that entered the tent through a small hole—the reservation’s first indoor plumbing.

  Having completed the tank, he was now making sorties to the river to fill it with water. The tank was nearly full. He headed to the river to fill the water buckets for the last time.

  It was late afternoon, and the trees cast long shadows on the dry prairie grass. As Kyle made his way through the cottonwood grove, he saw glints of afternoon sunlight shimmer off the river through a gap in the trees.

  The shimmering light grew brighter. Hoover growled and gnashed his teeth. Kyle squinted against the light as it became blinding. A teeth-rattling hum accompanied the light. In the instant Kyle recognized the phenomenon, the light faded, leaving Annika Wise in its place, standing directly in front of him. She was dressed in black, with commando pants and a long-sleeved black shirt, fingerless black gloves, a utility vest, a web belt with a knife, and a large backpack. An MP7 submachine gun was holstered on her thigh.

  She reached for her gun. Kyle swung one bucket into her gun hand, knocking the gun away as Annika grunted in pain. Kyle backhanded the bucket, smacking her on the side of her head. Annika staggered, stunned by the blow. The bucket opened a gash in her right temple. Kyle could see that her backpack was heavy, slowing her down.

  As Kyle stepped toward Annika, she flipped her backpack over her head toward him. It hit him in the face, obscuring his vision for a moment. As the bag fell away, he saw the sole of Annika’s boot take its place, a nanosecond before it smacked him in the cheek. He spun, swinging his buckets as Annika ducked beneath them. Crouched on the ground, she swept her leg behind Kyle’s feet, knocking him onto his back.

  Hoover leapt at Annika, clamping his jaws onto her left forearm. She punched his face with her free hand. Hoover held tight, growling fiercely. Annika pulled her knife to stab Hoover when Kyle side-kicked her in the gut, doubling her over. He raised his leg for a follow-up kick to her face. Annika slid to the side and out of harm’s way. She clubbed Kyle over the head with Hoover—the jolt knocked the dog free of Annika’s arm. He rolled on the ground, then lay motionless.

  Kyle glanced at his dog. The distraction cost him, as Anni
ka whacked him in the gut with a roundhouse kick, then leapt in the air, knocking him on the back of the head with a scissor kick. Kyle face-planted on the ground.

  Kyle had never been a match for Annika, even when they trained together for their mission. Now seven years older, Kyle felt as though he moved in slow motion compared to his bantamweight ninja opponent.

  Annika drew her knife and lunged for Kyle. He rolled away, and Annika’s knife struck dirt. She drove her knee onto his sternum, grabbing a handful of his hair with one hand, preparing to thrust her knife with the other.

  “Annika!” screamed Padma.

  At the sound of her name, Annika’s focus lapsed momentarily. She instinctively turned her head. In a millisecond, she turned back to Kyle for the kill, just in time to see a rock in Kyle’s hand a moment before it smacked the right side of her head, bringing instant darkness.

  Standing Rock Reservation

  South Dakota

  September 24, 1890

  19:15 hours

  Timeline 003

  Annika heard shuffling. Blurry dark and burnt orange shadows intertwined with images and sounds from her subconscious. She heard her father’s voice asking her something. She tried to respond to him, but her thoughts could not translate into words. She uttered unintelligible sounds.

  She felt the heaviness of her head. It was hanging down. She tried to lift her head—it swayed under its weight. She felt an intense throbbing pain from her right temple.

  A fragment of lucid thought peeked through the chaos. She struggled to open her eyes. They seemed impossibly heavy. She slowly lifted her head. She was in a tent. It was night. A single oil lamp, sitting on the floor in front of her, illuminated the tent, casting orange and black shapes against the tent walls. She tried to move. She was seated on the ground. Her hands were bound behind her to a tent pole. Her legs were stretched in front of her, bound at the ankles with one of the plastic zip strips she had brought to bind Kyle and Padma if she captured them.

  Beneath her was a large rug that covered most of the floor area of the 20-by-30-foot tent—Kyle’s “war room” in which to plan the campaign against the US Army. A simple wooden table surrounded by four chairs stood to Annika’s right.

  On the opposite side of the tent, Kyle was unpacking Annika’s pack and vest, taking inventory as he stacked the contents on the floor.

  Padma sat nearby on the floor, her legs pulled up, her eyes locked on Annika. Hoover lay next to Padma, his head resting on his front paws. Padma was unaware that she was petting the injured dog. When she noticed what her hand was doing, she jerked it away from Hoover and held it up to examine it, vexed that it seemed to have a mind of its own.

  Kyle saw that Annika was coming to. Dried blood caked an open gash on a swollen purple mound on her right temple.

  “Welcome back,” said Kyle.

  “Fuck you,” said Annika.

  Kyle smiled and continued unpacking Annika’s bag.

  “Let’s see—one MP7A1 submachine gun, 3,000 rounds, one Glock 17mm pistol, 500 rounds, 20 pounds of C4 with wireless detonators, knives, and night vision goggles,” said Kyle. “I’m flattered—all this to kill little ol’ me?”

  “I could kill you with a teaspoon, old man,” snapped Annika.

  Kyle smiled and continued, “Mil spec laptop computer with extra batteries, binoculars, $10,000 in period currency, first-aid kit, flashlight, MREs, glow sticks, plus some personal effects. Toilet paper—that’ll definitely come in handy.”

  Kyle tossed the roll to Padma. She caught it without taking her eyes off Annika.

  “You came prepared,” he said.

  Annika was silent. She looked around the tent, studying her environment. Padma observed Annika’s behavior with contempt, as though she were watching a captured scorpion.

  “There’s one thing that’s missing,” Kyle said. “Care to guess what it is?”

  Annika scanned the pile of arms, cash, and accessories. She felt a pang of fear.

  “The transponder,” she replied. “Where is it?”

  “Actually, I have no idea,” Kyle answered. “I gave it to a tribesman, with instructions to give it to another tribesman, and so on. One of them buried it somewhere. While they were at it, I had them bury mine too.

  “It’s insurance—life insurance for my wife and me, as well as insurance that you’re going to help us with our mission.”

  “And what mission would that be?”

  “We’re going to win the Battle of Wounded Knee.”

  Annika’s eyes went wide.

  “You are outside your mind,” said Annika. “Even with these weapons, we’re hopelessly outnumbered and outgunned.”

  “I have to say, I’m a little disappointed,” said Kyle. “I guess I overestimated you.”

  “I’m from DC, not Planet Krypton,” she replied.

  “Still, if we don’t succeed, one thing you can be sure of is that you’ll never see home again. You can’t torture the transponder out of us, because we don’t know where it is.”

  Kyle watched Annika as she considered her situation. He saw the glimmer of a thought flash across her eyes. He knew she was intrigued with the challenge, though he had no illusions about Annika’s allegiance. If she could find a way to kill Kyle and return to 2008, she would do it in a heartbeat.

  Annika considered the dual challenge of changing the outcome of the Wounded Knee Massacre while still realizing her original kill-or-capture mission. Her gaze wandered with her mind as she began to delve into the problem. She snapped out of her deep thought and looked up, meeting Padma’s stare.

  “The fuck you looking at?” Annika said.

  Without saying a word, Padma rose and exited the tent. Kyle watched her leave.

  “Touchy, isn’t she?” Annika said, enjoying the moment.

  Kyle squelched an angry impulse. He got up and stepped over the pile of weapons and ammo. He picked up the oil lamp on the floor and set it down beside him as he crouched at Annika’s feet. He folded his hands in front, resting his elbows on his knees. He looked down, took a breath, and exhaled.

  Annika watched Kyle, trying to divine what he was up to. The flickering lamp flame threw moving light against his face and burnt shadows against the tent wall.

  Annika understood both sides of prisoner-of-war dynamics. She knew how to coerce, and she was trained to resist. She knew Kyle would know that. She steeled herself for what was about to happen.

  Kyle looked up, staring Annika squarely in her eyes.

  “Let me ask you something,” Kyle began. “Did you ever learn to fly?”

  The question seemed harmless to Annika. “Of course,” she said. “I flew Blackhawks and Apaches in Desert Storm.”

  “No,” Kyle said, “did you ever learn to fly?”

  “I don’t understand,”

  “Like a shadow warrior.”

  Annika’s face went white. She had never shared that childhood dream with anyone, including her ex-husband. Kyle had fired a lightning bolt into her core, shattering its citadel with a single stroke.

  She tried to regain her composure. “Look, I don’t know what you think you know about me, but…”

  “I know everything about you, Annika. Everything. I know about your childhood—I know the first Bruce Lee movie you ever saw with your father. I know you met his teacher, Ip Man, before he died. I know how you met your husband…and I know how your husband died.”

  “You’re confused. My ex-husband is alive,” replied Annika.

  “In one timeline, yes,” said Kyle. “In another, both of our spouses are dead.”

  Annika was stunned. “We knew each other.”

  “Yes.”

  They paused, eyes locked. Annika was momentarily disarmed. She studied Kyle’s face, searching for evidence th
at this might truly be the one person she had dared to trust. She could see the sadness in his eyes. She had never known a depth of love that could have surfaced her most intimate secrets. She had not dared to hope that was a possibility for her. She wondered if the eddies and currents of time had reunited them, washing them onto the same shore.

  An epiphany flashed onto Annika’s face. “Anderson Wild,” she said. “A.W.—you took my initials.”

  “Yes.”

  The fact that Kyle had inscribed her initials onto his identity gave her guarded heartstrings a powerful tug. She gasped.

  “She knows?” Annika asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Awkward.”

  “Yes.”

  Kyle pulled his knife from his belt and sliced off the zip strip binding Annika’s ankles. He walked behind her and cut her wrist strip. Annika rubbed her wrists. She propped up her knees and rested her wrists on them. Kyle returned to his crouched position, facing her.

  “I’m supposed to kill you,” she said.

  “I think I already figured that out.”

  They sat silently as Annika attempted to process the staggering epiphany and reconcile it with her mission.

  “Well,” she said, “I suppose we can fight this crazy stupid battle first. There’s no way we’ll both survive, but if by some miracle we do…”

  Kyle nodded.

  “…we can figure it out then.”

  “All right,” Kyle said. He rose to his feet and extended a hand to help Annika up. She took it.

  “There are some blankets,” he said, pointing to a couple of folded blankets in the corner. “I’ll bring you some food and water. That wound is going to need attention. I’ll help you with it.”

  Kyle turned toward to leave.

  “I never learned to fly,” Annika said.

  Kyle turned and gave a sad smile.

  “I’ve never seen anyone fly higher,” he said.