Dog Fight (Ch36)

The number two rule of time travel? Don't get arrested. Tell that to Conlin.

Mar 02, 2025

Late November 1946. The train tunnels under Grand Central Terminal, New York City.

Shadowtime. That’s what Andersen called it, but when moment arrived for Jackson to travel an hour into the past, the experience itself wasn’t hushed and dark as the name suggested. It was lightning but not the omnipresent flash of electrical force that one experiences outside of himself during a natural electrical event. Jackson felt the coming of a different storm. Even with his extensive vocabulary, he couldn’t find the correct words to reconcile the experience. Perhaps the adequate way to describe a phenomenon that broke the boundaries of human experience had its own language. All he knew was he felt something coming for him, as if pulling him forward with beckoning hands; a pulsating energy with its own intelligence and a knowledge of him, Jackson, on level that was simultaneously outside and deep within his own mind.

He watched Andersen jump onto the tracks and followed, knowing that the doctor wouldn’t have led them there is there were any chance of getting caught under the wheels of an oncoming train. Patrick Conlin deftly landed in front of him and Jackson let him take the lead. The tension between the two was already high and he could tell that he wasn’t Conlin’s cup of tea. No matter.

The feeling of being pulled grew stronger. “You feel that?” Jackson said to Conlin’s back. He stumbled and Jackson grabbed his shoulder and steadied him.

“Yeah. It’s making me a little sick,” Conlin said over his shoulder.

“A few moments longer. We’re almost there,” Andersen said, producing a long flashlight from inside his overcoat. The yellow lights every twenty feet or so on the walls dimmed as they walked through tunnel in single file, avoiding fetid puddles of condensation and scattering rats the size of chihuahuas. Jackson’s unease grew with each step, but not from what he was sensing. They traveled steadily downward and the ledge leading to a thin landing was now a foot over his head. If they had to climb up quickly, say, if a single headlight surprised them, it would be near impossible. Rumblings of trains zipping through other tunnels ricocheted off the walls like ghost whispers. One train makes three flat men. Rats’ll eat us.

Andersen stopped. “It’s here.” He pointed the beam at a wood door that blended in with the concrete wall. Across the door, painted in faded yellow block letters that had chipped after years of trains rattling the paint off, was the word, Danger. Directly underneath: Electrical.

“Ready?” Andersen half smiled, his face illuminated from underneath turning his normally kind countenance demon-like.

Jackson glanced at Conlin. However they felt about each other didn’t matter. At that moment he sensed that they were about to be bonded in a way that would change both of their lives from this moment on.

“Yes,” Jackson said, and Conlin nodded.

Andersen pushed open the door and they entered.

March 6, 1918

“Damn everyone.” Asa Jackson was just about to walk out of the alleyway when he noticed the small crowd around the Martin Wasp. He stepped backwards and put his broad back against the wall. “Damn!” He gritted his teeth when he saw the icy blond head nose to nose with Conlin. It was that bastard Peterson.

He peeked into the street. No sign of Theda or her sister. He pounded his fist on the wall behind him. They should have listened to Conlin and gotten the hell out of Army City for good.

The sirens from earlier were now silent, and a row of cop cars parked right behind the Wasp. A group of cops herded right past him and marched toward the cars.

“No sign of them girls. Must’ve been a false alarm. Who’re they, anyway? Heard one was that hot stuff at the dance the other night.”

“Daughters of that missing doc.”

“What missing doc?”

None of them even glanced in his direction and he eyed them casually crossing the street in the direction of the line of cop cars. They must have swept the Arcade and came up empty. They’re looking for Theda. But they’re in no hurry. Why? Then he went cold. Unless they had her already.

Across the street, words were being exchanged between Peterson and Conlin while two other men stood behind Peterson ready to spring. He had five minutes at the most before they arrested Conlin.

He pulled his hat lower and strolled out of the alley and walked behind a group of soldiers.

“Where’s Edward? Is he picking us up or what?”

“He’s right there,” Answered another and pointed to a Packard truck idling at the curb.

A head stuck out of the window and a hand appeared in salute.

The trio laughed. “Thank you for your patience, Edward. You’re going to wait for another half hour, too, bud!” The speaker pointed to the picture marquee.

Edward smiled tightly and saluted again as the trio hustled away. The smile turned southward and was replaced by a snarl. “Turkeys,” he said under his breath. “Flock of goddamn, scrawny hens with bird lice.” He spit a gob of tobacco juice in front of Jackson.

“Edward!” Jackson said brightly, pushing his hat up. “That’s some fine string of cusswords!”

Edward startled out of his annoyance. “I was just joking, sir.”

Jackson planted one foot on the running board and shot up until he was nose to nose with Edward. He opened the Packard door. “Hey!” Edward yelled.

Jackson narrowed his eyes and Edward shrank back. “Put it into drive, Ed,” he whispered. “Now.”

“Who the hell are you?” he stuttered.

“A turkey hunter. Just do it.” He reached slowly toward Edward’s throat.

With a shaking hand, Edward missed the gear shift once, then changed gear over to drive.

“Thank you. Now hold on.” Keeping one hand on the door, Jackson shoved him over with his butt like a kid fighting for a bus seat, and covered Edward’s foot with his own and pressed on the gas.

Jackson yanked the wheel right and the Packard tore away from the curb, cutting off a Cadillac that produced a blast of honks and yells from its driver.

“Aaaaahhhhhhhh…..” Edward screamed, but Jackson compressed the gas until the pedal was level with the floor and aimed the Packard right at the line of cop cars behind the Martin Wasp.

The group of cops scattered like feathers in the wind. Just before he cut the wheel a hard left, his eyes met Peterson’s. “This is for you, Hank.”

The Packard turned so fast that for a terrifying moment, its right front and rear wheels came off the ground. Edward screamed and threw his arms over his head. As soon as the Packard righted itself, Jackson jerked the wheel again right and braced himself for the impact.

The Packard hit the line of cars almost directly in the middle and the sickening crunch of metal blasted out the yells and more cursing that had a definitely different flavor than Edward’s.

Jackson jumped from the truck. The traffic had stopped where the Packard had left the curb, with the Cadillac and a Ford nose to nose. He couldn’t see the Wasp but behind him he heard the unmistakable sound of the Wasp’s engine revving.

“Help!” Edward yelled and fell from the Packard and right onto Jackson’s left shoulder.

Jackson went down on one knee, his balance pulled to one side. He stood and stepped on the squirming Edward and was just about to run toward the sound of the Wasp’s engine with a searing pain ripped through his upper left hip.

He turned into Peterson’s cold stare. “You don’t stay dead, do you?” Peterson said.

Jackson gritted his teeth against a scream. The hilt of a dagger…his dagger, the one his father had given him and was lost when he was taken into the General Building’s basement…stuck out of his upper left hip.

Peterson pinwheeled his arm out Jackson’s stomach almost heaved up its sparse contents when he realized that Peterson was going to jam the dagger even deeper into his leg. Jackson raised his left elbow and jabbed it into Peterson’s chest. The stab wound was beginning to burn and a shakiness coursed through his entire body.

Peterson smiled and it was that arrogant use of time that worked to Jackson’s advantage. He mustered the last of his focus and will to reach into his own pocket and weave his fingers through the trench knife.

Peterson lunged, his eyes on the dagger but Jackson was too fast. He plunged the trench knife into Peterson’s neck and maneuvered toward him, releasing the knife.

Peterson’s ice blue eyes never changed their blank stare but the skin around his eyes tightened first in rage but then in surprise that the final moments of his life were upon him.

“Nice try, Hank.” He wrapped his left hand around the handle and pulled, staggering and almost puking in the street. His peripheral vision swam into an oil spill of blurred colors but one color filtered into his mind and caused him to move toward it: yellow.

Jackson fell into the open passenger door and the Wasp peeled away with the door flapping open.

“Close the damn door!” Conlin yelled and Jackson blindly reached over and after one miss, hooked the handle and pulled the door closed.

From somewhere not far behind but millions of miles behind at the same time, those sirens began their second chorus of wailing.

“Jesus! That was close!” Conlin said and the scenery rushed toward him like a crazy movie that he never wanted to see again. “That goddamn Peterson! You know what he called me?”

Jackson sat forward and balled his coat in his left hand and pressed it against the wound.

“What’s the matter, Jack…” Then Conlin saw. “Oh, shit! You shot?”

“Stabbed,” Jackson felt another wave of nausea.

“It’s alright. I’ll get us out of here and we’ll take care of it. We can get halfway to Chicago tonight and then we’ll find a country doc who can keep his mouth shut and…”

“Head outside town. To the stockyards. To the slaughterhouse.”

Conlin’s brown eyes glanced into the rearview mirror. Jackson couldn’t see but the sounds of cars chasing them were almost gone now and replaced by a soothing whoosh and the whirring of the Wasp’s engine.

“Come on,” Conlin said and blinked hard. “Come on!” He slapped the steering wheel.

“I can’t leave without her,” Jackson said quietly. “You go. Just do me a favor and drop me there. Saved your ass, after all.” The seat underneath his left side was turning red.

Conlin slapped the steering wheel again. “You know how to get there?”

Through the waves of nausea and pain, Jack felt a relief he never knew was possible. “I do. Just go where I point.”

“Why am I doing this?” Conlin muttered.

He was about to remark to Conlin that wasn’t it funny that he hadn’t been wounded during the entirety of the second world war and now he was wounded during the first one, but he opened his mouth to answer but no words came out. He needed to save his strength. For Theda.