State of the Union

“Thank you, Mr. Capone, but I’m booked up solid with these gentlemen.” The principals agreed to act on my suggestion, with Capone handling security. We moved to a restaurant for a banquet. The rest of my sponsors showed up for that. Everyone wanted to meet Capone, talk with him, have their pictures taken with him. The party went on into the wee hours of the morning.

The next day the real work began. During the first couple of months it went slowly, as the targets were tracked and we worked out the necessary routines. Then, just after the elections last November, the operation went into high gear. By Christmas it was over. And now, here I am.

Wilson assembled the pages of his statement, tapping the sheaf on the table in front of him several times. He looked up at the senators. At some point, Senator Hitch had left. The gap at the bench was as obvious as a missing tooth in a wide grin.

“I will be delighted to answer any questions,” Wilson said.

Senator Tavish looked around, as if he wanted to be absolutely certain that Hitch was gone, then cleared his throat. “It’s almost time for us to recess for lunch, Dr. Wilson, but I would like to ask a couple of questions before we do.”

Wilson nodded his acceptance. “Assuming that it was the Mafia who financed your machine, and that you got rid of all of their competition from other ethnic and national groups, what happened to them? The reports this committee have received also indicate that no known Mafia members have been seen since Christmas either. I doubt very much that they hired you to get rid of all of the competition and then retired en masse themselves.”

“No, Senator, they certainly did not. But you have to understand, sir, that this was a massive operation. I was working eighteen hours a day, seven days a week. We had to find and transport literally tens of thousands of individuals, and we had to work quickly, before significant numbers of them could ‘take a powder,’ once they realized that something serious was up. That meant that my patrons had to put virtually every man and woman on their payroll into the operation, spotting, and being ready to respond to any emergencies—their SWAT teams, you might say. The last two days....” Wilson stopped and shook his head slowly.

“I finished the operation in one thirty-six-hour stretch, non-stop. When I got to that point, I had to work fast, before one of my sponsors realized what I was up to and decided that I should be eliminated. Up until the point that I started operating against my employers, I felt safe. The machine needed attention often enough that only I could provide. They had to have me to use the apparatus. And the time I had spent working on getting rid of their competitors had given me plenty of opportunities to study my patrons and their, ah, traditional employees. I had to get the right people first, scramble their command and control structure, to use the military idiom. My employers were very paranoid about security matters, and that worked against them. I got rid of them all, every last one of them, including Zarelli and Pastor. I shipped them all out, right down to the people who were there to keep watch over me.”

“All of them?” Tavish asked.

“Everyone who was targeted for me, everyone I knew about. The exception was Capone and the people we brought forward to help him. I returned them to their proper places. Capone went right back to his Florida home the morning of the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre. That was inescapable. If he had disappeared in February 1929, it might have altered history.” Wilson shrugged. “Besides, I sort of enjoyed his company, even with all I knew about him. As for the rest, I’m sure that there must have been some who escaped, who were missed, but not enough to pick up the reins. As long as the police stay vigilant, it should be a lot easier to make our cities and towns safe again.”

Tavish glanced at a clock, looked around at his colleagues, then finally turned to Wilson again. “ Where did you send them?”

Wilson’s smile grew even larger. “A place and time where their talents and proclivities could pose no threat to the locals. I had to be very careful. I had to make certain that I didn’t send them anywhere, or anywhen, where they might alter history, alter our present.”

“Where—when—was that?” Tavish asked.

“The early Cretaceous, Senator, back when the neighborhood bullies were dinosaurs.”

The hearings continued for another week and a half. Dr. Wilson freely answered all of the questions put to him by the committee and by the press before and alter the Senate sessions except in two areas. He steadfastly refused to give any details, even in the broadest form, of the time machine’s construction. And he refused even under threat of contempt of congress to say where the machine, or its components, were currently located. All he would say on the latter subject was, “I disassembled it immediately following the conclusion of the project and moved the parts to other locations.”