Chapter 20

It was dark and cold this December night. Phileas Fogg was walking the paths of the back garden. The fall flowers that had always been grown and dried every year had already been harvested and hung. The garden was empty, nearly as empty as he was feeling right now. Rebecca was on his mind often these days. He had become too used to her soothing presence in his life. Thinking of her had made him restless and thus his late evening walk.

Looking out over the distance, someone could be seen walking toward the house from the apple orchard. For a moment the figure and the way it walked looked like… No, it couldn't be.

Phileas left the garden path to intercept the newcomer. Sure enough, his eyes were not playing tricks on him. Jean Passepartout was walking toward him. The two men greeted each other warmly in the quiet darkness.

"May I inquire what you are doing here, Passepartout? Not that I am not glad to see you, old friend."

Jean was very pleased with the friendly greeting. It is good, this meeting, starting on good foot. "I having much to tell Phileas Fogg. I wishing to speak with you alone and feeling most lucky getting wish so soon. Phileas Fogg must listen to what I telling and agreeing to my plan. Moving through time is making much hurtfulness. I seeing only this way to stop hurting."

Phileas looked harder at his old friend, saw the seriousness in his eyes that didn't belong there. He sobered in turn. Something had happened. Something bad. Phileas steeled himself and nodded agreement.

"I will listen to what you have to say."

Loren and Roberta followed Phileas around the side of a cottage on the main road into the valley four days later. It was bitter cold and just past one in the morning.

Roberta, recently freed of her cast, had vehemently cautioned against this. Three people weren't enough. Phileas and Loren insisted the authorities be left out of it. Phileas said, "We don't know what we will find, and the fewer people who encounter the League of Darkness the better.

"That I understand, but you are still putting us in a bad situation," she said. "What if there are more people than we expect? And the layout–"

"We have watched them and know their movements." Phileas said, cutting her off. "There will be no problems. This raid is going to work." He turned away. It had to. If it didn't, all would be lost.

When Phileas and Loren told Roberta what they were planning, the cottage had been watched and the plan already set. Loren told her everything they had down thus far. "Those who live there are routine in their activities. Four stay full-time while others come on weekends. Right now, four are there alone. A man named Giles Brown is the renter on record, taking possession of the cottage a few days after Phileas and Jules arrived. He comes to the village once or twice a week for supplies. The others make a pretense of duck hunting, but spend most of their time at the local pub. It's a good plan, Roberta."

Jules and Jean were not going to be part of the raid. They went away somewhere to wait. That cut their only other possible helpers. She fought that, but again Loren backed Phileas over her.

Walking up to the front of the cottage, Roberta tried to concentrate, but inwardly continued to fume. Ice ran through her. This isn't being done right. Loren and Phileas are going against everything father taught me. James Fogg was often called ruthless but never under prepared. We have no backup plan, no reinforcements. Besides the cottage, there is a carriage house and an outbuilding on this property. They haven't been checked. If I were the opposition–

Roberta shut down that train of thought along with her long litany of shortcomings. Concentrate on the task at hand. I'm not leading this, and for some reason, Loren is ignoring my warnings. Why is Phileas in the lead? He may know his enemy, but he doesn't know twentieth century tactics.

Quietly, she slipped her pack off her shoulder and pulled out two gas grenades. She and Loren pulled the rings on them and threw them with all their strength at the upper floor windows at the same time. Phileas sent one into the front first floor window. The sound of breaking glass, shuffling of feet, and low coughing could be heard almost instantly. The two men donned their gas masks and headed into the cottage. Roberta stayed outside to watch their backs.

Phileas and Loren headed up the stairs with pistols ready. The men upstairs were all overcome with the gas. There were two who were still moving but they were no threat. The Fogg men went from room to room checking for… They didn't quite know what, but they were ready for anything. There were only three rooms upstairs, completely empty of threats. Satisfied but wary, Phileas led the way back downstairs. He was pleased but uneasy. This was too easy.

Coming down the narrow stairwell, the two men saw Roberta silhouetted, close to the open door, not where they had left her. As they stepped off the stairs, she fell face forward onto the floor. Behind her, Giles Brown stood, wearing dark clothing, and carrying a machine gun. Four men in gas masks came out of the darkness of the lower rooms moving quickly to subdue them.

Giles gave Phileas a smile of the purest evil he had ever seen on a human face. "So good of you to bring this one to us," he said, in a slow clipped cadence that made Phileas's blood run cold. He stepped over Roberta's body. "She got away from my us in France. That problem has now been remedied. You thought we would not see you coming? I have been watching you watch us." At Brown's order, his men roughly dragged Phileas and Loren out of the cottage, and into the carriage house.

There, Phileas's worst nightmare came true. He might have inflicted a setback on the monster, but Count Gregory still lived. He didn't need the wheeled platform with its complicated apparatus. His limbs were gone. His torso and head were strapped into a smaller wheelchair with a tall hook attached to the back of it, holding a large bottle of luminous blue liquid. Fluid flowed from tubes into his body and head. It was different from the way he used to be maintained but appeared to have the same effect.

The creature's eyes looked darkly on Phileas. "See what your interference has reduced me to," the angry, malicious voice said in the same clipped, slow, gravely cadence that Brown has used. "I lost my limbs to your sabotage! I can no longer obtain wholeness! You have cost me too much, Phileas Fogg!"

"I am so sorry to have inconvenienced you," Fogg said sarcastically as he struggled. "I assure you; our intensions were to make a more thorough job of it."

"As you see, I am not so easily brought down," the Count growled. He stopped his gloating, moving his chair closer to Phileas in some unseen manner. "Your meddlesome descendants were marked for death when I learned of their existence. James Fogg was the first. Now you and this one will join him. I shall have the satisfaction of watching you die."

In the distance through binoculars, Jules watched as Phileas and Loren Fogg were dragged from the cottage. He and Jean had stood helpless to intervene when the men wearing gas masks had swarmed out of the carriage house toward the cottage. The sound of rapid gunfire came out of the building moments later. It was over. They had failed again. A hand came down on his shoulder as he let the binoculars rest against his chest. He turned to see a look of deep sorrow that matched his own in Jean's face. "I must go," he whispered. "There is only one path now."

Jules didn't argue. His friend was right. Jean had offered two paths of action in response to the events he had witnessed. He had heavily argued that they leave the night he had arrived, but Fogg decided against it. He wanted the chance to win. He had to try.

They slowly walked back into the cave entrance together. Jean opened the door to the time machine and climbed inside. Jules stood watching him. If his plan worked, Jules would never come to England in this time and would soon no longer exist. He would stay in the cave.

The two men looked back at each other, backtracked, and gave each other the parting hug and kiss on both cheeks that was the proper French salutation in such a solemn moment. They would never see each other again. Jean closed the door and piloted the time machine to its next destination.