Lucas stared at him. “Of course we just came down from our room! Where did you think we were?”
“In another universe.” said Delaney. “I’ll be damned He was right.”
“Who was right?”
“Incredible. Nothing changed. I didn’t notice or feel a thing.”
“Finn, what the hell are you talking about?”
Delaney exhaled heavily. “We’d better go back up to your room.” he said He shook his head. “You’re not going to believe this.”
Zaber came back into the saloon and sat down at the table with the others. ‘They’re registered at the Grand Hotel, as Mr. amp; Mrs. Priest.” he said. “And Delaney’s got a room over the Aztec.”
“Are they there right now?” O’Fallon asked.
“Priest and Cross are. I don’t know where Delaney is. And I haven’t seen the Kid…;”
“He just walked in.” O’Fallon said, looking toward the door.
“What’s the plan?”
“We wait. We act nice and polite-like Clanton said, we don’t want any trouble. We stay right here, in front of witnesses. And when he leaves. Curly Bill plugs him.”
“What about the others?”
“I’ve got six of the boys waiting for Delaney at his rooming house. I made it clear to them that he’s extremely dangerous and if they screw up, it could mean their lives. The moment they spot him, they’ll open up, As for Priest and Cross. I’ve got four of our best riflemen stationed on the roof of Hafford’s Saloon, across from their hotel. As soon as Delaney gets it, someone’s going to run inside and tell them he’s been shot. The minute they step outside, the snipers will open fire with their Winchesters. Meanwhile, we’ll all be sitting right here, having a nice, friendly game of cards and establishing our alibis.”
“How are you going to prove to the organization that we got them?” Zaber asked.
O’Fallon smiled, “We won’t have to, Paul. Forrester is going to do that for us. We’ll be able to collect on that contract as soon as their names appear on the First Division’s Wall of Honor.
Zaber smiled and nodded. “Nice.”
“Minimum risk, maximum profit.” said O’Fallon. “That’s the way to run things. Then as soon as it’s over, we fold the operation and pull out, before any of their backup can arrive.”
“What happens if anything goes wrong?”
“Relax and have a drink. Nothing will go wrong.” He pushed a pack of cards toward him. “Shuffle the deck and deal.”
Scott stood at the bar with Jenny, watching the Network men out of the corner of his eye. He was torn with indecision. He felt certain, somehow, that he was at the center of this whole temporal scenario. What should he do? Would he have to think twice about every single action he was going to take from now until… whenever? Or should he simply attempt to do nothing? Maybe he should just hole up in his room and not come out until the time for whatever was supposed to happen had passed. Only how was he to know when that would be?
What troubled him the most was Drakov. Drakov troubled the others, too. Not only because of who and what he was, but because somehow he had found out about everything that was going on in this scenario. What Scott knew, he knew only from what Jenny had told him, and from what he had deduced from that, but clearly Jenny did not know everything. Drakov had told her only as much as he felt she needed to know to do her job for him. Obviously, he himself knew a great deal more. Only how’?
He knew about the Network and who they were. He knew about Ben Stone being S.O.G. and if there were others-and it would seem there had to be-he probably knew about them. too. He knew about Zeke Bailey. How could he know all that? How could he know about all the forces at work in this scenario without any of them knowing about him?
“Scott?”
He looked at Jenny.
“You look so worried.”
He took her hand and gave it a gentle squeeze. “Everything’s going to be all right. Jen. “
“What did you and Finn talk about before?”
“Oh, we were discussing what our plans should be.” he lied. “What we should do about Drakov and the others.”
“I watched Finn’s face while you two were talking.” she said. “He didn’t look as if he thought everything would be all right. “