Assassinating Yesterday: Project Gateway, #1

ASSASSINATING YESTERDAY

• PROJECT GATEWAY 1.0 •

COPYRIGHT INFORMATION

This is a Stories Rule Press publication

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales, is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for third-party websites or their content.

Copyright © 2024 by Mark Posey

Text design by Tracy Cooper-Posey

Cover design by Dar Albert

http://WickedSmartDesigns.com

Editing by Tracy Cooper-Posey

All rights reserved

No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

FIRST EDITION: October 2024

Mark Posey

Assassinating Yesterday/Mark Posey—1st Edition

Thriller, Time Travel, Action & Adventure

241001

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Half Title Page

Copyright Information

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About Assassinating Yesterday

Praise for Mark Posey’s Thrillers

About Mark Posey

Title Page

Epigraph

Right Up Your Alley

So Much For Staying Undetected

An Inside Job

In The Beginning

Calibration

Out Of Calibration

The Carolian

Mr. Flibbertygibbits

Thank You For Your Service

Agent Johnson

Gateway Rescued

Dad And Mom

Happy New Year

Tuxedo Creases

You Can Tell Us. We’re Dead.

Caught Red-Handed

Agree To Disagree

See You Then, Then

Déjà Vu...Almost

Insignificant Changes

North American Resistance

Twenty-Four Hour Jump

Smoking In The Boys Room

Nice To Not Meet You

A Bad Day In Loma

Switches

Points Of Convergence

Little White Lies

Home Sweet Home

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This is a Stories Rule Press Title

ABOUT ASSASSINATING YESTERDAY

Time Travel Rule #1: Don’t interact with anyone for any reason.

Yeah, right.

The day Dr. Robinson introduced me to the Temporal Fold Induction Gateway, an entire year passed. If I had known what would happen, I’d have run out the door and never looked back. It was the best year of my life, and I’d give anything to have never experienced it.

When Officer Blackie grabbed my arm in his jaws, his bite damaged the activation switch on my arm and trapped me twenty years in the past. On the run, I was left with only one choice: find my theoretical physicist father and get him to fix the switch so I can return to my own time. All without giving anything away to him... or my mother.

This is book is part of the Project Gateway time travel thriller series.

Project Gateway:

1.0 Assassinating Yesterday

…and more to come!

Also (only at Stories Rule Press):

Mark Posey’s Super-Bundle

Time travel, thriller, action and adventure.

PRAISE FOR MARK POSEY’S THRILLERS

All in all, an enjoyable page-turner!

What a fun roller-coaster of a story!

It continues to amaze me how this writer can give us so much in a short story

Oh, you want THIS story!

Wow. Another fast paced totally un-put-downable story from a what is turning out to be a fabulous series

I found myself laughing at parts of this story.

Danger, Intrigue and more twists. Pure entertainment, and makes you think!

ABOUT MARK POSEY

Mark Posey is a thriller writer born, raised and living in Edmonton, Canada with his wife, author Tracy Cooper-Posey. He is a retired professional wrestler and father of four—Terry, Matthew, Katherine, and Ashley. He likes cooking, woodworking, and watching hockey when he’s not scrolling through social media or taking an afternoon nap with his three cats—Pippin, Merry, and Strider.

ASSASSINATING YESTERDAY

• PROJECT GATEWAY 1.0 •

By Mark Posey

Stories Rule Press

The day Dr. Robinson introduced me to the Temporal Fold Induction Gateway, an entire year passed. If I had known what would happen, I’d have run out the door and never looked back. It was the best year of my life and I’d give anything to have never experienced it.

— Excerpt from the testimony of Special Agent Ryan Cochrane during the Congressional Oversight Committee’s investigation into Temporal Practices and Discrepancies.

RIGHT UP YOUR ALLEY

SPECIAL AGENT RYAN COCHRANE

RALEIGH-DURHAM INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT

TERMINAL #2, GATE #7

OCTOBER 6, 2015

5:45 AM EST

THE BRIGHT LIGHTS AND PRISTINE appearance of Terminal 2, Arrival Gate 7 in Raleigh-Durham International Airport was both a welcome and unwelcome sight. It was great to be on American soil again after so long in Afghanistan. But, bright lights and the noise of travelers deplaning sucks so early in the morning.

I could have caught a military flight home, but after fifteen years in the field, I can’t shake the us vs. them mindset that pervades both the military and the Central Intelligence Agency. Plus, my paranoid instincts insist I have a cover in place at all times when I’m in public.

I don’t think I’ve ever had a passport in my own name. Traveling as Richard Mackey, I can unobtrusively enter the country and go through Customs and Immigration with a backpack over my shoulder. I can be out of the airport as soon as possible. With the CIA-supplied Mackey passport, no way would anything get flagged. I could sail on through.

Good morning. I put on my best tired smile for the TSA agent and shoved the Richard Mackey passport through the opening in the glass.

Morning. He didn’t quite scowl but it seemed like this early in the morning wasn’t his cup of tea either. Where you coming from?

Paris.

Anything to declare?

I’m glad to be home.

He nodded, scanned the passport, and waited. His eyes snapped to the top corner of the screen, to my face, and to the passport. Mr. Mackey, can you step to the side, please? He indicated another TSA agent. She also had the early-morning scowl.

Sure. I held out my hand. Just need my passport back.

He lifted his chin to the other agent and she strolled forward and took the passport from him.

She opened the passport and glanced at it. Mr.... Mackey. Please come with me.

Is there some problem, officer?

She kept walking to a door behind the Customs stations. She keyed in the lock code and opened the door for me. In here, please.

It looked like an interrogation room. One table, two chairs, one on either side, and, of course, the one-way mirror on the wall. Before I could ask what the hell was going on, the door shut behind me.

What the actual fuck, I muttered as I slung my backpack onto the table and boosted myself up beside it.

Not even five minutes later, a kid in an ill-fitting suit stepped inside. He didn’t look old enough to drink. He clutched the Richard Mackey passport. Special Agent Cochrane?

Poorly trained, too.

I shook my head. No, sorry. I held out my hand. Richard Mackey.

He looked like a deer in the headlights. But, I was told...

I straightened up and snatched my backpack off the table. Look, you’ve mistaken me for somebody else. I slung the backpack over one shoulder. Am I being detained?

Detained?

Am I free to go?

He stepped to the side and opened the door. I’m not sure if he was about to leave or if that was his answer to my question. In either case, I took the opportunity to snatch my passport, shuffle past him and into the concourse.

Somebody’s going to hear about this shit show.

I GRABBED A RANDOM CAB half-way back in the lineup, over the protests of drivers in front of it.

On the way to an address a couple blocks from my assigned meet up, I dug out a hoodie and ball cap and swapped them for the many-pocketed hiking jacket I was wearing. No sense being easy to spot.

Out on the sidewalk, after paying the cabbie, I checked my watch, sent a text and looked up something on Google Maps. I was really scanning the area for unfriendlies. Not much chance of that here. This was not Afghanistan. Only, letting my guard down always ensured something bad happened.

After a circuitous route, I entered a bodega and turned my ballcap backwards. There were no customers in the store, so the guy behind the counter said, They’re waiting for you.

I made a beeline toward the backroom, yanked the curtain aside, and stepped through.

The Director of the CIA was there along with someone I did not recognize. Both of them were wearing the usual paper-pusher suit. At least they fit better than junior’s at the airport.

Having a stranger at the meet-up made me wary.

Director. What’s up? I glanced at the stranger.

Special Agent Ryan Cochrane meet Director Derek Brophy of the National Security Agency.

I shook Brophy’s offered hand. Director of the NSA is a military position. You’re out of uniform, aren’t you?

They both stiffened. Least obtrusive way to get him in here, the CIA Director said.

What’s the NSA want with me?

Your being temporarily assigned to an NSA project. It’s right up your alley.

What is it?

You’ll see when you get there, Brophy said. Report to the Temporal Research Facility out in Swans Mill. Dr. Stanley Robinson’s heading up the project. He’ll read you in.

Just then, the kid from the airport snatched the curtain aside and barged into the backroom.

I reacted.

He ended up on his back, eyes wide, with my knee on his chest.

I’m sure both directors jumped but I was focused on the little shit I had on the floor.

That’s twice today you’ve almost died, kid.

Agent Tambolini, this is Special Agent Ryan—

Cochrane. I know. Gave me the run-around at the airport. Then he glared at me. Gonna let me up?

I glanced up at the Directors. Recruiting them straight out of high school these days?

Tambolini struggled and tried to push my knee off. I put my full weight on that knee and he stilled. Son, if we were in any other country, you’d be a corpse on the floor now, and I’d be wiping the blood off my Ka-bar knife.

Yeah, yeah, he shoved at my knee again.

I let him up.

When he got to his feet, rubbing his chest, I grabbed him by the throat and shoved him backward against the wall. And the next time you use my real name instead of my cover name, being in America won’t save you. Understood?

He was pale and his eyes were wide, because I was restricting the flow of blood to his brain. He nodded.

I glanced at Director Brophy. How do I get to this Temporal Research Facility?

SO MUCH FOR STAYING UNDETECTED

OTHER SPECIAL AGENT RYAN COCHRANE

TEMPORAL RESEARCH FACILITY PARKING LOT

RALEIGH, NORTH CAROLINA

OCTOBER 8, 2015

4:45 AM EST

THE NUMBER ONE RULE OF time travel: Don’t interact with anyone for any reason.

Yeah, right.

After nearly fifteen years with the Central Intelligence Agency, my provisional assignment to the Temporal Security Agency and Project Gateway was because they needed someone who could handle anything without flinching. Right up my alley.

Except this morning at breakfast, my mom told me she’s proud of me. Normally, a pretty good thing. But if I can’t prevent the bad guys from getting their hands on the Gateway, I’ll be forced to correct any anomalies caused by my traveling in time, such as my parents dying in a car crash when I was thirteen.

I’d rather go back to doing wet work in the Middle East. It wasn’t as stressful.

WHEN I PHASED IN BEHIND the large boulder at the edge of the forest behind the Temporal Research Facility’s parking lot, all my senses went into full-on alert.

I’ve phased in behind this boulder in the middle of the night a couple dozen times or more and always been greeted with all of the cliches for fall in North Carolina – crickets chirping, frogs croaking, and the burbling of the creek back in the forest. This time, all I could hear was the rattling whine of