After 44 B.C. The Levant

Kairos 88: Candace, Nubian Princess

Recording …

“I said I heard gunfire,” Boston whispered.  Katie, Lockhart, Lincoln, and Decker spied on the gun shop across the street using the binoculars and the scopes from the rifles.  Elder Stow had his own spyglass, so to speak, and Boston could see better than human with her elf eyes.  At that distance, in the daylight, she needed no assistance.

Nanette, Alexis, Sukki, and Tony who held Katie’s handgun just in case, kept the horses and the wagon.  Sukki wanted to talk to Alexis, who had once been an elf and became human to marry.  Sukki wanted to know everything there was to know about being human, now that she was one.  Though she had been told over and over there was no real difference between being Homo Sapien and Homo Neanderthal, Alexis did not mind mothering the girl a bit.  Sukki only turned twenty-one, after all.

Tony was older.  He had been born in 1884, and Nanette in 1887.  Tony turned twenty-one in 1905, Nanette was eighteen when they got sent through time to Rome in the time of Caesar.  After seven years in Rome, Tony turned twenty-eight, and Nanette was about to turn twenty-six.  Needless to say, they both knew about horses, mules, and wagons, from their upbringing, if not from Rome.  Tony regularly took a turn driving the wagon, and even helped some of the others learn how to do it properly.  Nanette often rode with him in the wagon, so they could talk about shared understandings from their youth, and about Rome, and the people they knew.  Nanette regularly prayed for Evan and Millie, though mostly that they be happy.  She sometimes wept for Professor Fleming, and Tony did what he could to comfort her.

“They have a rifle range in the back,” Decker said.  Lockhart shifted his binoculars, but he did not have the angle to see the back of the house.

“Someone is coming out the front,” Katie said.

The man came out carrying a rifle.  He looked like an Arab from some old black and white newsreel, or maybe from Lawrence of Arabia.  The rifle looked that primitive.  But instead of a camel, the man got up on a horse.  An old man came to the door and said something.  The man on horseback responded with something before he rushed off down the street.

Decker followed the man on horseback with his scope, and his rifle, until the man went out of sight.  Lockhart turned to Boston, who heard the conversation with her good elf ears.

“The old man asked, how will you find them?  The one on horseback said, my information says Bethlehem.  That was it, but I think the man on the horse looked like the centurion in the Roman gate.”

“Me, too,” Lincoln said, and Lockhart put down his binoculars and rubbed his eyes.  Katie rubbed his shoulder as a sign of support, having a good idea what he was thinking.

“We are not made to be judge, jury, and executioners, no matter how strong the evidence,” Lockhart said.  “My every police instinct objects.”

“I considered it,” Decker said.  “But marines are not trained assassins.  We don’t shoot unsuspecting people in the back outside of a time of war.”

“Major,” Katie said.  “I understand the hesitation, but I think we need to consider this a war against the Masters.  Some innocent bystanders may suffer.  That is always the risk in war.  But I think going forward, anyone with a gun in this day and age needs to be considered an enemy combatant and taken out.”

“I double that idea,” Lincoln said.

Decker slowly nodded.  “I can do that.”  He did not sound entirely convinced, but he was a marine, seal trained, and he would do his job.

“Elder Stow and Boston.”  Lockhart sat up.  “Elder Stow with your weapon and Boston with your wand.  You need to melt any guns and all the gun making equipment in the foundry at the back of the house.  We don’t just want the building burned down.  We want to put them out of business before we burn the building.  Katie, protect Boston.  Decker, go with Elder Stow.  Lincoln, you and I need to look for invoices, or whatever evidence we can find that might tell us how far spread this gun maker’s work may have gone.  We can’t follow up, but the Kairos might appreciate the information.”

“We need to get to Bethlehem,” Katie said, some worry in her voice.

“Are you thinking about a baby in a manger?” Boston asked.

Katie nodded.  “I checked with the innkeeper.  The census of Caesar Augustus was two years ago.”

Lockhart pulled out his revolver, walked the group across the street, and knocked on the front door.  When an old woman answered the door, the travelers pushed inside.  Katie and Boston went up to the living quarters, and checked the guest room, the upper room, and the loft.  Boston checked the roof, but it was empty.

Decker and Elder Stow went out the back door and into the foundry building.  Decker shot all three men working there, and then began to pile up the tools in the center of the room.  Elder Stow turned his weapon on the pile and turned it into a useless slag heap.  They made a point of utterly destroying any futuristic equipment they found, like the hand-turned lathe.

“Most of this is typical blacksmith material,” Elder Stow said.  Decker grunted as he tore down the furnace.

The old man and old woman sat quietly on the rug while the policeman Lockhart, and the former spook for the CIA, Lincoln, tore the room apart, looking for what they might find.  The downstairs appeared to be one big room, apart from something that might have been a closet room in the corner.  A thick piece of leather served as the door to the closet room, but they heard nothing back there.

Lockhart pulled his handgun and turned on the couple.  “Who has gotten the guns?  Where have you sent them?”  The old man shook his head.  Lockhart did not expect an answer, and he would not resort to torture even if he had the time and knew what to do.  Perhaps the couple knew that.

“We can’t water-board them,” Lincoln said, as he began to tap the walls, looking for a hidden chamber.  He used the English words for water-board, not having an equivalent term in the local tongue.

The old woman laughed.  “Water-boarding will get you in trouble,” she said, entirely in heavily accented English.

Katie and Boston heard as they headed down the stairs.  They also saw a young man pop through the curtain to the closet room, a handgun in his hand.  The young man pulled the trigger.  He had a one-shot, primitive sort of gun, so he had no second bullet, and the first went wide, between Lincoln and Lockhart, like at the last second, he could not decide which man to shoot.

Katie returned fire from the stairs, and the young man curled up and died.  Katie looked at Lockhart, but Lockhart did not want to think about it.  He shot the English-speaking old woman so she would not suffer and turned on the old man.  “Where have you sent your guns?”  He wanted an answer, but the old man could only wail and cry.

Katie and Boston went to the back where Elder Stow and Decker were working.  Decker said, “The barn.  Be careful.”

“Sir.”  Katie nearly saluted and spoke to Boston as they walked out back.  “You left the upper room on fire.”

“Mostly mud brick.  It will burn slowly,” Boston said.

“But we don’t want to attract a crowd until we are done and away from here.”

“Yeah.  Sorry,” Boston said, as she put her wand in her left hand and pulled out her Beretta.

The barn was not really a barn.  There were two oxen tied out back that Boston tried to scare away.  Otherwise, the building appeared to serve as a warehouse.  They found piles of ingredients to make gunpowder, and barrels of gunpowder already made.  They also found no one around, and Katie thought, Thank God.

Finding no real information about how far and wide the guns may have spread, and getting nothing out of the old man, Lockhart stepped to the street.  He looked for neighbors and such, but it seemed a very quiet street.

“Katie?” he spoke into his wristwatch communicator.

“The back building is full of cases of gunpowder,” she responded.  “I recommend Elder Stow’s sonic device from a distance.”

“Decker?”

“Mostly blacksmith stuff.  All melted.  Elder Stow suggests one blast of his weapon, and that will reduce the building to charcoal

“Alexis?”

“Here, boss.”

“Bring the horses and wagon to the front of the house.  We are done here.  The rest of you need to meet out front.”  Lockhart paused when he heard a gunshot from inside the house.  Lincoln came out, and Lockhart apologized.  “Sorry, Lincoln.  I didn’t mean to leave you with the old man.”  Lincoln nodded, but said nothing in return.

People arrived and went to their horses.  Tony and Nanette took the wagon, their horses already tied to the rear.  They moved a short way down the street.  Lockhart asked for Elder Stow’s sonic device.

“No,” Elder Stow said.  “I will do it.  Cover your ears.”  About twenty seconds of high-pitched squeal, and the building Decker called a barn exploded and sent a ball of flame and smoke a hundred feet in the air.

Boston looked sad, and when her ears stopped ringing, she said, “Fresh cooked oxen.”

Elder Stow went invisible and lifted out of his saddle.  He flew over the house and foundry, and turned his weapon to full strength, wide angle.  One shot, and both buildings burned, cracked, and crumbled like there were struck with a piece of the sun.

“We need to get to Bethlehem,” Katie reminded Lockhart.

“I’m not doing that again,” Lockhart said.  As he started down the street, I’m not doing that again seemed all he was willing to say.