"We travel, some of us forever, to seek other states, other lives, other souls." - Anais Nin
Chapter 2
Jornada Del Muerto
"Lights."
Sam stopped watching the curling smoke in his rear-view mirror. "What?"
"Lights," Al repeated, sounding much calmer now. "You should turn on your headlights. It's getting dark."
Sam looked around the bike in confusion. Al's holographic hand reached through him and pointed out the switch. Sam flipped it on, and the road ahead became easier to see.
"Al!" He could hardly hear his own voice over the roar of the Harley.
"Just keep driving. You're faster than them."
"Them who? Who was that?"
"Just keep going," Al shouted insistently.
"Trust me, I have no intention of stopping!"
"Good." Al rubbed out the back of his neck, stretching his head one way, then the other, until Sam heard a bone pop. "Man, it's a good thing Ziggy found you so fast. And I was just about to head home. Tina is
not going to be happy. Oh well. Okay, let's see, you are..." He checked the handlink. "...Theodore James Nyt, age thirty-four, lawyer based in Las Vegas."
"That explains the teeth," Sam muttered into the wind.
"Nyt had a modestly successful practice through the late '80s around Inglewood, California, but hit a slump after his office was burned in the L.A. Riots of 1992."
"I'm in the '90s?" A bolt of excitement shot through Sam. Any time closer to the "present" always felt like a step closer to home.
Al looked at the handlink and gave it a smack. It whined in complaint. "Uh, yes, the day is February 14th, 1995...ooh, Valentine's Day!" he grinned with a suave wink.
"I have a feeling I won't be eating chocolates," Sam grumbled. "So what am I doing? Who's shooting at me and trying to...
to blow me up?"
"Let's see. After the riots, Nyt moved his practice to Simi Valley and hooked up with a female lawyer, Elena Ryder, where they set up a joint practice cleverly name Nyt-Ryder." Al chuckled a little at the name.
Sam frowned. "I don't get it."
"You have no sense of culture."
Sam gawked that Al, of all people, was telling him that.
"Elena and Theodore took on some rather high profile cases and mooched their way up into some posh yet dubious circles. He met Peter Milano, the Los Angeles mafia boss, in late 1993. Through the connection, he was introduced to the Cammisano and Civella mafia families. In early 1994, he agreed to work as a lawyer for the Cammisanos. Five months ago, he moved to Las Vegas, and that's where it all went to hell."
"Wait, the Cammisano family? As in 'Willie the Rat' Cammisano?"
"Yeah, don't you just love mafia nicknames," Al said in strained jollity. He looked forcefully down to the handlink. "Nyt helped them through some trials in Las Vegas when the police started cracking down on mafia influence in the city. He...wow, Sam!" Al laughed and took a puff on his cigar. "This guy managed to swindle five million dollars from both the Cammisanos
and the Civellas, had an affair with two capos' wives, knock up a Consigliere's very attractive and, I should add, very
young daughter, and basically," he laughed nervously, swinging the handlink back to the pursuers, "now they're out to kill you."
"So is that who tried blowing me up? The Cammisanos?"
"No, those were Milano's men."
"So I have three Mafia families after me?" he shouted.
"Well, uh, no," Al admitted, double-checking with Ziggy. "You see, the Cammisanos are well-connected, and Milano basically
owns the West Coast, and..."
"Al," Sam warned.
"You've got...seven families," he muttered.
The motorcycle swerved as Sam tensed in shock. "Seven!"
"Mostly small families, people wanting to make a good impression with the boss, you know."
Small or large didn't matter to Sam. "Seven Mafia families are on my tail? Wonderful!" he moaned. "So what am I supposed to do, flee the country?"
"Actually, that's exactly what you're in the middle of doing." Al again consulted the glowing board in his hands and gave it a few smacks. "After the first attempted hit in his Vegas penthouse, Theodore Nyt took all the money, hopped on his Harley—nice bike, by the way—and took off as fast as he could down I-40. They caught up with him in Kingman, shot up a fast food joint, but he escaped. Then they caught him again in Gallup, and that's when he decided to head south for the border. We're currently on..."
"Interstate 25," Sam realized. As if to tell him he was right, he drove by a low sign with
I-25 printed in reflective white-on-blue. Suddenly, the pink-skied desert became familiar. In the fading light, he could even see the ominous silhouette of the Oscura Mountain Range. "Jornada del Muerto. Stallion's Gate."
Al was not too surprised Sam recognized this place. They had driven down this highway many times, going from Albuquerque to Stallion's Gate, Project Quantum Leap's secret facility buried under one of those dark mountains. Al had just driven this route that morning, speeding merrily along in his red "experimental model" car. The desert was slow to change. It looked the same in Al's time as it did in 1995. Al even recalled the scorched cactus. It still grew on the roadside.
But Ziggy warned him, this was a dangerous place for Sam. His situation was dire even without distractions. To wind up in this place, at this time...
Jornada del Muerto:
Journey of the Dead Man.
"We're just north of Socorro, New Mexico, and heading straight for El Paso. Sam, if you can get to Mexico, Ziggy gives you a ninety-eight percent chance of escaping the Cammisanos."
Sam's mind swirled as it struggled with memories that refused to surface. His Swiss-cheese memory frustrated him at times, but normally he could ignore it and utterly embrace the person he had Leaped into, forgetting about his home as he adjusted to the new world around him. But now...
Stallion's Gate. Jornada del Muerto. The Oscura Mountains.
Home, and yet...a different type of home.
"Socorro," he repeated, forcing his mind on Al's information. "I know the place. New Mexico Tech. I can stop there for the night."
"Uh, no, Ziggy says the Cammisanos and Civellas are already staked out there. And in Las Cruces. And El Paso." His eyebrows shot up. He squinted and read the information Ziggy spewed out too fast for his mouth to keep up. "Boy, Sam, this guy pissed off the wrong people," he chuckled nervously.
"So what should I do?" he shouted. He could still see the smoke in his mirror. He guessed, whoever these people were, they were not far behind him. He pushed the Harley a little faster.
"Right, well, you need to go to Mexico, but Interstate 25 is being watched, so Ziggy thinks you need to..." Al's face drew up. "...take...another...route."
The solution came all-too-quickly. "Highway 380. We could head to Stallion's Gate."
"Sam..." Al sighed, rubbing out the tension in his forehead. This was exactly what Ziggy had worried about.
However, Sam was animate now. Home! Stallion's Gate! They were so close. "They'll let me through. I have authorization..."
"No!" Al shouted, determined to be forceful in this matter. "Dr. Samuel Beckett has authorization, Mr. Theodore Nyt does not. You can't waltz into the White Sands Missile Range. That place is
crawling with Marines. Marines with big guns. Bigger guns than these Mafia honchos. Sam? Sam, are you even listening to me? Sam!"
End of Chapter 2
A/N: Project Quantum Leap was located at Stallion's Gate in the White Sands Missile Range, New Mexico, where they detonated the first atomic bomb. Although Peter Milano and many locations I mention really existed in 1995, beside the historical tidbits, the events in this story are not intended to portray real occurrences.
