Author's Notes:

5 Sept 05 – Eek! It needed more description. So, if you read this the first night I posted it, sorry. There are a few things to read. Most of it is descriptive from Flint's POV, but there may be some minor plot details that were omitted in the first round of writing that will come into play a little down the road. Thanks!

3 Sept 05 - One of the things I always loved about G.I. Joe was that Cobra could get his hands on some of the most fantastic, dastardly things. Some things never change . . .

Once again, this is a fresh, unedited post. Thanks!

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Chapter 4

Flint felt a tickle down his neck. It felt like a bug. He reached up to brush it away when his mind registered that it was not a bug at all. It was wet, trickling slowly through the tiny hairs toward his collarbone. He awoke quickly and looked at his fingers. The clear liquid glistened on his fingertips. He traced the path on his neck back to his ear. The river water had found a way to escape his eardrum, just as Suarez had predicted.

He heard the voices of the next shift taking over at the duty station in the hall. The sun was beginning to rise, sending a soft light through the window. He blinked his eyes, trying to get moisture back in them. He looked over at Allison. Not much had changed since the previous night, except some color had returned to her face. He noticed that she was no longer receiving a transfusion, which he took to be a good thing.

A nurse stepped into the room, smiling at him. She was older, experienced. She entered the room in a flourish, purposeful in her work as many in the ward did. He sensed her upbeat manner and welcomed the contrast it brought to the devastation that had consumed him the last fourteen hours.

"Good morning, sir," she said with smile, her voice cheerful. "I'm Joanne. I'll be her nurse for the shift. How are you?"

He stifled a yawn, stretching out his legs, grabbing on to the file folders before they slid to the floor. "I'll be better if you give me some good news."

"Well," she said, approaching the bed, "I'm sure it's not going to sound like much, but she's stable. There don't appear to be any additional bleeds, and she's holding her own."

"But?"

"But," she said, matter-of-factly, "she's been put through the wringer. Just going to take time."

"How long will she be out of it?"

"Depends," Joanne said, checking the dosage levels on the IV machine. "Sometimes, these things don't happen on our schedule. The patient has a lot to do with it." She looked over at him out of the corner of her eye. "How are you feeling this morning?"

"I'm all right," he said, even though it was a flat-out lie.

"That's good to hear, because from the looks of you, I'd say you felt like hell."

He smiled at her forwardness. She was a veteran, a good judge of what was appropriate to say.

"I've felt better," he admitted.

She rounded the bed and approached him, beginning to check on him.

"What are you doing?" he asked, as she felt for a pulse on his wrist.

"Well, technically, you're still a patient in this hospital. Since you're in this room, that makes you my patient. That means I have to keep an eye on you until Doctor Suarez releases you for duty."

He allowed her to continue, having the distinct feeling it would have been useless to resist her efforts.

"Doctor Suarez is new around here?"

"Been here a few months," she said. "Very good with the patients. The staff likes her," she said, reaching for a blood pressure cuff on the wall. "Any chills this morning?"

"No," he said, obliging her by pulling up his sleeve. "Feeling a lot better today."

"Good," she said as she continued her examination. "Hypothermia can take it out of you, so just make sure you get enough rest."

"I will," he said. "Am I free to go get a cup of coffee, or will you send the hounds out after me?"

She smiled again, removing the cuff. "Just make sure we can take a gander at you every now and then, and no running off to a firefight."

"I'll keep that in mind. You'll have me paged if anything changes?"

"Not a problem."

"Thanks."

He pulled the blanket off his legs, scooping up the file folders. He stood and neared the bed as Joanne exited. He looked down at Jaye, running the back of his hand across her cheek. She was warm – much warmer than she had been the night before when he held her on the riverbed. He hated to leave her, but the idea that someone had put her in that bed gnawed at him, angering him. Someone had sold out the team. Someone had nearly gotten them all killed, and that someone was most likely walking among them – eating with them, sleeping in the same barracks, interacting with others like they were part of the group when the real goal had been betrayal.

He could put aside the physical misery he felt. He noticed a myriad of bruises on his legs when he had been ordered to get into to dry clothes. The river had been rough. He had been slammed several times against unforgiving rocks and boulders. Bruises healed in time, though. He believed that Allison would recover in time, too, because he had no other choice. To lose her was not an acceptable outcome – not when they had fought so hard to make it out alive.

As much as he did not want to, he knew he had to leave her for at least a little while to begin researching the personnel records Scarlett had given him. He doubted he would find any earth-shattering information in them. With the exception of team medics, it was unlikely hospital workers were in a position to absorb covert information. They were not privy to any mission briefings, nor did they did not have access to the command center. They did their jobs, and they did them well. He had seen that firsthand the night before when they gathered to take on a new patient on the tarmac. They were eager to do a good job and save lives.

Still, he decided, it was good to cover all the bases. If anything, he would be doing the infirmary staff a favor by clearing them early in the investigation. The last thing anyone needed was a bureaucrat from Washington prying around the base, looking for any anomalies without a clue as to what it meant to be a part of the unique anti-terrorist operation. He would read the files, he told himself, grab a shower and be back in an hour or two. It would at least take his mind of seeing Allison in her present state. He would be helping to narrow the investigation by chipping in and doing something productive, by being productive – not making things worse, as Suarez had warned.

"I'll be back," he whispered to her.

He tucked the files under his arm and headed out the door. He passed by the rooms that housed the other two critical patients from the mountain battle. They were awake, seemingly in good spirits. He stopped in to see them both. Private Kelly and Private Osterman were faring well, glad that they were going to be moved to regular room.

Kelly and Osterman. He repeated the names in his head so that he would not forget. He would make it a point to check up on them later on when they were out of the ICU and into their own rooms.

The cafeteria was emptying out after the morning breakfast rush. He got a tall cup of coffee and found a table in the far corner that was away from the remaining patrons. He put the files on the table, sliding the first folder off the stack and opening it. He had tried to read it the night before, but his body simply refused to allow it. Now, he was more awake and rested. He could concentrate, he knew, on the information and make heads or tails of it.

The information he read in each file at first was dull and expected. Names, ranks, serial numbers, postings history – the files read to Flint like they should have. Security had tacked on background check reports to the last page of the files. Most of the information was benign and dull. The hospital staff was composed of those with exemplary service. The worst he saw was one corpsman with outstanding parking tickets.

He thumbed through the name tabs on the folder covers, searching for Suarez's file. He could not help but be intrigued by her. She was young and in charge of her work. She actually seemed too young to be on the Joe roster. He knew it was probably a matter of her youthful looks, but the team was comprised of veterans, and she did not strike him as one. He could not imagine her having gone through the same ordeals as Doc or Lifeline in the heat of battle. Suarez looked more the cleanup hitter, the one who dealt with the aftermath of action. He wondered if she had even been on combat duty. Her records would tell the whole story, he knew. Central Security was thorough in its job, giving commanders the luxury of knowing everything about a soldier that might affect an operation. Suarez had, without a doubt, been checked out, and he would read all he could about her before he passed additional judgment on her abilities.

He pushed through the folders to the last one in the stack. Her name was nowhere to be found in the group of files. He searched again, sure he had missed it, but the folder was not in the stack. It had been the jacket he most wanted to read, but security had evidently forgotten to pull her file. Frustrated, Flint gathered up the folders once more and headed for the doors to the compound.

The command center was busy. The day staff outnumbered the night staff two to one in most sections. He carefully dodged anyone who might question his presence in the center as to why he was not still in the infirmary. His office was located before the main command center, allowing him to slip in unnoticed to anyone except security guards who admitted him without question.

He closed the door to his office, locking it. His desk was a mess. Paperwork was piled in strategic mountains that he had warned his secretary not to move. He maneuvered one pile to another clear space so he could reach the keyboard of his computer. He logged into the security database that contained the profiles of everyone assigned to the base and, indeed, every member of the Joe team. After two unsuccessful attempts, he managed to key in Suarez's name without a typo, activating the search for her records.

He turned away from the monitor, looking for a notepad. He found one and turned around again, expecting her profile to be on the screen. Instead, he found a flashing red message stating no records could be found. He gave a shake of his head, frustrated that he could not type on a good day, let alone when he had been through so much in less than twenty-four hours. He entered the search again, but the same message appeared.

His frustration mounted. He picked up the phone and called Central Security, asking for one of them to call up the record for him.

"I'm sorry, sir," the operator said, "That name isn't in our database. There is no Doctor Suarez assigned to your location."

Flint was speechless.

"Would you like me to conduct an extended records search, sir?"

It took a moment for Flint to answer as his thoughts raged. "Yeah, I would. Send me what you find, my eyes only."

"Understood."

Flint left his office in a flourish. He went straight to the emergency entrance of the infirmary, stopping at the desk.

"I'm looking for Doctor Suarez," he told the triage nurse.

"You just missed her, sir. You might try the roof. She goes up there a lot on her breaks."

"Thanks," he said, turning.

He knew the way up to the roof. He had been there a couple of times when he needed to think. There was a small patio with chairs and tables where workers and patients could go for some fresh air. The view of the mountains was unobstructed and extraordinary. He climbed the stairs leading to it, spotting Suarez sitting all alone at the table. The day was brilliantly clear, not a cloud in the blue sky.

A white puff of smoke caught on the breeze as she lit a cigarette. He approached her quietly from behind, taking careful steps so as not to be heard. His heart pounded with anticipation of the encounter. He neared her, observing her for a moment.

"I'll bet you have a lot of questions, Flint," she said, still facing away from him.

He had no idea how she knew he was there. It took a moment for him to figure out what to say or how to approach her.

"A few," he said simply, taking enough steps to be next to her. "I thought doctors weren't supposed to smoke?"

"They're not, but hell – you only live once." She took another puff.

"Who are you?"

"I thought the name tag said it all." She pulled over a chair. "Take a load off, chief."

He sat down slowly, watching her. "You didn't answer the question."

"No, really – I am Doctor Suarez," she said, flicking an ash off her cigarette.

"You don't seem to exist."

She looked upward, pondering. "In theory, no."

His patience was running thin. He had the urge to take her into custody right then and there, but he sensed this might be the only time he would get to interrogate her on his own. "These one-liners are getting old, doc. I'm going to ask you one last time – who are you?"

She sat back in the chair and looked over at him casually. "You don't really expect me to lay it all out for you, do you?"

"Either you tell me, or I'm going to have someone pound it out of you."

She took another drag on her cigarette, exhaling as she spoke. "Like that would do any good. You're way out of your league."

His anger rose. "Don't test me, lady. I'm not in the mood."

"I know you're not," she said, not in the least intimidated by his tone. "But there are some things you're just not meant to know in life. There are a finite number of things you should be worried about right now. Who I am is not one of them."

"You're topping the list, actually."

"Well," she said, rubbing at her eyes with a thumb and forefinger, "some things are unavoidable, I suppose. Still doesn't change the fact that your focus is on the wrong thing right now."

He decided to play in to her game. "What should I be concentrating on, then?"

She crossed her legs and leaned toward him casually, pulling on the cigarette until the tip turned a bright orange. "Cobra."

"We're always concerned about Cobra. That's why we exist. Try again."

"Your sworn enemy is up to no good, making a pact with the devil. If you don't put a stop to it, it'll change the course of history like you couldn't imagine."

"I'm listening."

She stubbed out the cigarette. "Have you figured out how those Ravens hit the overwatch yet?"

"No," he answered, drinking in the fact that she had firsthand knowledge of the mission.

She thought for a moment. "You fish a lot, Flint?"

"Used to," he obliged.

"You know when you cast out, and that bobber hits the water? There's a big splash and rings of ripples flow outward. You and I are on the far outside rings right now. Cobra is dead center, making the big splash."

He shook his head in disbelief. "Who are you?" he asked, almost in a plea.

"I'm the yin to Cobra's yang," she answered. "I'm here to make things right."

He laughed, shaking his head as her meaning dawned on him. "This is rich. Let me guess – you're a time traveler?"

"That's a very clichéd term, but whatever," she said dismissively. "I prefer 'temporal enforcement officer', myself."

He shook his head again. "I don't know whether to lock you up or have you committed."

"You could try either, but it won't do you any good. The only thing that will benefit you right now is to listen to me."

"Oh, I'm all ears, doc. Lay it on me."

She straightened in the chair, stretching her back. "Okay, here's how it plays out. My job, quite a ways down the road, is to sit at a desk and watch the past. We look for things that change unexpectedly from a known outcome. And before you even ask," she said, holding up a hand, "don't ask me how we know the expected outcome. Just assume we do."

"Who is 'we'?"

"Others, like myself. We're sort of an agency, government sanctioned. The point is, the expected outcome has changed. Someone has an ace up their sleeve and is cheating. Cobra is the card that's being played."

"In the future or in the present?"

"Let's just say that Cobra is being used as a tool to affect the future. That surveillance strike was just the beginning. If you don't put a stop to it, you're going to be picked apart until you kiss the free world as you know it goodbye."

"So, if Cobra is in our time, who's in yours?"

"Can't tell you that. Then again, I never said it was in my time, did I? Look," she said with an air of detente, "I walk a very fine line in my job. We're big on non-interference in most cases. It takes a lot for us to decide to intercede on the behalf of a timeline. The rules are very specific. We have to make the case that actions occur close enough to the big splash to justify righting things."

"The Strikers?"

She gave another shrug. "My idea. The monitoring station would have been destroyed anyway. But the Rattlers were close enough to the splash. All I did was buy you a little more time and even the odds. You all would have made it, believe it or not – just not with the same outcome."

"So the point of you being here is to put things back the way they should be?"

"Not possible," she said, lighting another cigarette. "The best we can do is add circumstances that influence the outcome to align is as closely as possible to the original. In this case, I'm here to help you take away what Cobra was given to annihilate you."

"And what might that be?"

"You know that little problem you had with the Rattlers and Ravens? Well, Cobra is dabbling in temporal rifts, and not too far down the road. If you don't take away his toys now, it's only going to get worse."

A breeze kicked up, the chilled air of impending winter bearing down on the valley. Suarez closed her eyes, taking a deep breath.

"It's been a long time since I breathed fresh air. You're very fortunate in this era."

He could not have cared less about her personal opinion of the environment. "Let's not change the subject. I'm assuming Cobra sends fighters back through time to specific spots, correct?"

"Correct."

"So, why the hit and runs? Why not a massive strike that wipes us out completely?"

"Well, Cobra's benefactor is under much the same constraint I am about revealing too much. If you reveal too much, you alter your own future, which is not a good thing no matter whose side you're on. So, at this point, Cobra is only allowed to take baby steps instead of jogging all over your backs. Remember, we're talking about preserving a timeline of power."

"Assuming I'm not the one who should be committed for buying into this story, does that mean you're going to give us the same advantage?"

She smiled. "Not a chance in hell. It's bad enough we have one group rifting. I can guide you in certain directions, but it will be up to you to right things."

"But I'm not allowed to tell anyone about you or what you're doing here or where you come from, right?" he challenged.

She looked at him intently. "You were chosen for a reason, Flint. You're the one I calculated could be trusted the most to bring things back into alignment without causing new problems."

"I have to let them know to some degree," he argued. "There are going to be a lot of operational questions."

She sighed. "Let me put it to you this way – when too many people know what you now know, it's a lot like juggling kittens. It can be done, but not without scars. The timeline has enough wounds. Don't add more than has already been inflicted."

He continued to pry for additional information. "Then how do I explain this to them? I can't just mobilize a unit without justification."

"You tell them you have a confidential informant in Cobra. No one ever said confidential informants had to identify themselves. And," she said, pulling a folded paper from her pocket, "you can give them this." She handed it to Flint.

He unfolded the paper. It was a printout of satellite imagery. He looked closely at it. At first, all he saw was a mountainous region. Then, he looked closer, the details finally revealing themselves. The base in the center had all the style of a Cobra installation. It was small, almost undetectable, but it was clear that vehicles had made their way in and out of what should have been an unoccupied area.

"This isn't too far from the surveillance base," he said, noting the location.

"Ding, you win the prize!" she said, like a carnival game caller.

"We were too close for comfort up there. They had to take us out," he said, the realization of her story sinking in to his thoughts.

"And now you need to take out Cobra's base before it goes operational. No one can come back to haunt you if they can never get to the past."

He studied the image again. There was no doubt that there was a base where there should not have been one, but there was no way to know the picture's authenticity. He would have Mainframe take a look as soon as possible, but Flint wanted his time with Suarez. She intimated telling others would be a bad thing, but that could have simply been a trick, he knew, to keep things under wraps.

He weighed the facts in his mind, quickly doing the math as she laid it all out for him. If she was lying, she was going to get some people killed. If she was telling the truth, it would be one of the few times in the history of Joe warfare that they had been given a heads-up about an impending attack. Moreover, they could not only defend themselves – they could do a pre-emptive strike.

"How do we get in there?"

She winced. "Eh, that's the kicker. What you have to destroy is deep, to put it mildly. Forget conventional bombing. This is a ground operation, and you're going to lead it."

"Sure," he said, sardonically. "I'll just call a few of the guys and we'll go knock on their door."

"I wouldn't recommend it," she said, playing right along. "But a very small team would get the job done."

"And what about you? Do you just magically disappear when the job is done? Or do you stick around on trips like this to breathe the air and take in the sights?"

"Well," she said, thoughtfully, "theoretically, I could ride to hell on horseback, but I really am bound by an ethics code. I do have to see the job through to the end. What happens to me from there is, again, something you can't know."

He rubbed at the whole of his face with his hand. "This is unreal."

"It's very real, Flint," she said. "The price is damned high if you fail. The choice is yours."

His eyes closed, his mind desperately trying to find a thread of reality which to cling in the midst of what he had been told. "You're asking me to believe in science fiction," he said, looking at her once more.

"I'm asking you to do the right thing," she gently countered. She looked down at his belt. "You better answer that."

"Answer what?"

And then his pager began to beep.