Time of Fate (Wealth of Time Series #6) by Andre Gonzalez (e book reader online txt) 📗

with after making it to Winnipeg with no commotion from Canadian officials. Driving wasn’t ideal, but a two-hour trip was just reasonable enough to make a case for the method of transportation. Arielle Lucila was the main candidate to drive the commander, but had yet to be formally confirmed.

By nine o’clock, the entire team had woken and the jet hummed with energy and excited chatter. Some continued right back to work, preparing final research before the big presentation was due to be delivered to Martin at 12:30, part of his final preparation before leaving. Others gathered around, chomping on doughnuts, slamming back enough coffee to ride out the rest of the day. Martin made his rounds, partaking in small talk with his team to help keep his mind off the clock and the inevitable task that stood at the end of the road.

The next two hours passed in a blur until time came to a screeching halt shortly after eleven o’clock. “Holy shit!” Arielle shouted. “The capitol in Denver is on fire, and there are reports of hundreds dead at the protests.”

Dozens of hands reached into pockets to retrieve cell phones, wanting to see the story for themselves.

“It’s happening everywhere,” Arielle continued. “The national news outlets aren’t even sure which one to cover. It has to be the Revolution—all the attacks have been carried out on the ‘unknown protesters who have caused a stir the last couple of days.’”

“Settle down, everyone,” Alina barked, moving to the center of the room. “Let’s not jump to conclusions—especially not today. It probably is the Revolution, but let’s make sure. I want everyone to get online and check the local news from whatever city you were born. See what you can find.”

The jet fell silent as everyone brushed anxious thumbs over their cell phones, skimming the news, checking Twitter feeds, all to find out a bigger picture of the incidents.

“Same thing in St. Louis!” someone shouted.

“Mexico City.”

“Philadelphia.”

“Toronto.”

“Milwaukee.”

The list of cities continued until more than twenty different locations had been called out. Martin joined Alina in the middle of the room. “This is a coordinated effort across the continent. Are there reports of anything like this happening outside of North America?”

Everyone looked around to each other, but no one responded.

“That proves it. We expected as much, though I’ll admit, not something as ferocious as these early reports suggest. They took advantage of all the Road Runners huddled together at those protests and killed as many as they could.”

Some of the team members began crying, eyes glued to their phones as they read the stories breaking from all around North America, Martin’s words falling on distraught ears.

“This is meant to distract us,” Alina said. “Don’t let it happen. We can see the finish line and we must keep our eyes on it. We have one more hour until delivering our remarks to Commander Briar—I suggest you work on that. There will be plenty of time afterwards to shift our focus to these attacks, but for now we must remain on schedule. So let’s take a moment, gather our thoughts, and get back to finishing what we started over two weeks ago.”

Alina turned and grabbed Martin by the arm, pulling him back to their two seats along the wall. “I know what you’re thinking, but we cannot reach out to the Council.”

“Of course we can,” Martin snapped. “We have to.”

“And tell them what? Half of those dead bodies are our own soldiers. We’re at the mercy of the Revolution and can only hope the local police officers have a chance. Hopefully some of the National Guard is still around—they’ll have the best odds.”

Martin shook his head. “I can’t believe this is really happening. Of all the days.”

Alina shrugged. “I get it, this is awful, but we have to look at the big picture. This is a compliment to what we’ve been able to achieve. I guarantee you this all started once Chris realized something was wrong with Sonya. We don’t know what he found out before fleeing, but it’s clear something sparked a panic. Their entire organization sees the writing on the wall, and this is their desperate attempt to stop it from happening.”

“Am I going to meet an army when I get to his cabin?”

“Doesn’t matter—they’ll be frozen.”

“What if he found another Warm Soul, and has them waiting for me? I’d have no chance.”

“Commander, with all due respect, you’re letting your thoughts get the best of you. We’ve done our research and have kept tabs on the known Warm Souls around the entire world. None of them have moved, or even been contacted by Chris, from what we can tell. You’ll have the one-on-one situation that we’ve been planning for all along.”

Martin took a deep breath, the rest of the jet falling into background noise as he tried to process the unfolding chaos. “Thank you, Lieutenant. Please don’t think it’s a matter of trust—I know how hard everyone has been working to make this mission as seamless as possible. I had a long night and have thought over every single detail of how things will play out later. Naturally, I can only imagine the worst-case scenario for everything: the car crashes on the way, we get stopped at the border by Revolters, Steffan goes missing right before we need to freeze time. All of that ran through my head, and still is.”

Alina nodded. “I completely understand. I used to do the same thing, Commander. But I’ve come to understand that the more preparation that goes into a mission, the odds of something going wrong fall drastically. And if I may, I’ve never seen a mission as thoroughly planned out as this. For God’s sake, we have alternate routes for your drive, and there are no alternate routes. Think about that. Most missions have five to seven people working on them, and this one has twenty-four. The prep work was so spread across the board and cross-checked that not a single detail has gone unnoticed. You will