Holbrook was the first to regain his composure. “There’s bad news,” he said, addressing Jay.
“You can’t lob until the SAS team returns.”
“What? Why not?”
Nahrees jumped in. “We don’t know if it’s safe. No one has ever tried to send someone back from a lobsite that was already in use. No one can calculate extratemporal trajectories yet. There are theories, of course, Lee Chin Wu just published a paper on supertemporal coordinate systems that looks promising, but it’s all speculation, really. However, there has to be a finite probability that—”
“What she’s saying,” said Holbrook, loudly enough to stop her saying it, “is that the SAS team will be yanked back to where and when we are. Right here.” He nodded toward the platform.
“If we send you from there and they’re being drawn back to the very same spot, there might be a chance you’ll bump into the SAS team on their way back. We don’t know what that would mean, and we can’t take that risk, so we’re going to wait until they arrive.”
“Wait?” Sandra was outraged at the suggestion. “Do you know what the time is? Do you know how long we’ve got?”
“It’s not as bad as it seems,” Nahrees said, almost flinching as Sandra turned to glare at her.
“We don’t need to sync with Sniper’s timeline, we just need to overlap with it. I can send you back to a slightly earlier time so that you can still make it across town and arrive at the museum in time to meet Sniper.”
Sandra tried to puzzle out the various timelines—the one they were in, the one Sniper was in, and the one they would need to be in to get the job done.
“How much earlier?” Jay asked.
“Well, if we assume Sniper will arrive at the museum with a few minutes to spare, we can send you back to anything up to fifty-six minutes before that time and you’d still see him. Of course, it would be better if you got there well before he did in case he gets there early. So we should give you enough time to have, say, twenty minutes at the museum.”
Sandra gave a sharp laugh. “We can’t just hang around outside the British Museum for twenty minutes! Look at us. Can you imagine the splash we’d cause? And if anything is going to give us away to Sniper, it’s a splash happening before he even gets there. Besides, Lenin will be there and we’d put him in danger if we start a splash near him. We might end up doing Sniper’s job for him!”
Holbrook shot an angry glance at Bauchet. “If we’d known in advance what the target was, we could have had maps and plans here, found you a safe place to hide, instead of all this seat-of-the-pants stuff.”
Bauchet scowled back at him. “It is because of your mole that my hands were tied, my friend.”
Holbrook shook his head in frustration and backed down with a groan. “You’re right, Jacques, it was our mess.”
The medics lifted Colbert and carried him out to a waiting police helicopter. Porterhouse’s body still lay bagged on a gurney, attended by police officers. Getting an ambulance to Vauxhall in the middle of a general evacuation had proven impossible. In the end, Bauchet had pulled strings and got the Met to send in a chopper. More would be arriving soon to take away the rest of them once the lob was over.
Holbrook pursed his lips and turned to Nahrees. “Find them a schedule that gets them to the museum ten minutes before Sniper gets there.”
Nahrees nodded. “I’ll aim for forty minutes into Sniper’s lob. Is that okay?”
He nodded, his mind seemed to be elsewhere already. “Jacques, could you make sure we have enough police officers on hand to deal with the SAS team when it returns?”
“It’s taken care of. They’re standing by. And medics too, just in case.” He shrugged, acknowledging what a negligible chance there was that any of them would still be alive when they returned.
They all turned to look at the platform, empty now, but soon to be piled with the bodies of seven unfortunate time travellers.
* * * *
“It should be about…now,” Nahrees said and a moment later, the whole SAS team materialised on the platform. It was more like they’d been tossed into the room by the hand of God. The seven men went sprawling and rolling across the platform, most of them ending up tumbling onto the floor. By a miracle, two of them were still alive, but in a bad way. Police and medics rushed to their aid. One of the living pushed away any attempts to help him, determined to report.
Holbrook glanced at Nahrees. “Get those two on their way,” he said, meaning Jay and Sandra, then went to the stubborn soldier.
“Clear the platform,” Nahrees was shouting. “Everybody behind the yellow line.”
“Sir,” the SAS man said to Holbrook. His voice was faint and his lips were blue with cold. Jay and Sandra jumped onto the platform, watching the man as he struggled to speak. “Something went wrong.”
“We know, lad. Let the medics take care of you.”
“We went back too far. It was so cold. The colonel realised there wouldn’t be enough air to get us all back alive. We drew straws, sir.” Tears ran down his anguished face. “The losers got to keep their helmets and…and another man’s helmet for when his own air ran out. The rest…”
“Lob in ten seconds,” Nahrees said.
Holbrook looked around at the fallen soldiers. Only three had been wearing helmets, he now realised. Yet even one of those had succumbed to the cold. He looked up at Jay and Sandra, tethered together on the platform. They were looking back at him with horror in their eyes.
“Helmets on,” Nahrees said. “Five. Four. Three. Two. One.”
And they were both gone.
Chapter 24: 1902
Jay hit the ground hard. He thanked the gods that someone in MI5 had had the sense to put their lobsite on the ground floor of the SIS Building. It had occurred to him during the long, silent flight what the consequences might have been of siting it above or below ground. Almost as soon as he hit the ground, he was wrenched sideways by the tether. He slid across a rough, cobbled surface. Anxiously, he looked around for Sandra but couldn’t see her. The tether that was dragging him along disappeared into the ground just a metre or so ahead of him. No, he realised, not into the ground but over an edge. Sandra was dangling over some kind of precipice and pulling him toward it.
He jerked his body round so his feet were ahead of him and managed to dig his heels in hard enough to stop himself sliding forward. Frantically, he looked around for something to hold onto but there was nothing, just the round, smooth cobbles.
He was getting his bearings now. They’d landed in some kind of scruffy dockyard—a series of small inlets along the edge of the Thames. Sandra must have materialised in mid-air and fallen toward the dirty, oily water, while he had landed on the wharf. There was no one around, no ships nearby. An empty berth then. There was a crane about ten metres away, a black tower of criss-crossed wooden beams, sitting on a bogey with steel wheels. He wondered about shouting for help, but he thought that bringing people to him would only make matters worse. If that crane would only roll his way… Then it hit him that the crane was on rails, steel rails that were set into the cobbles. The rails ran right past him, just a little way behind him. If he could somehow reach them without letting himself be dragged over the edge…
The tether began tugging and pulling. He almost lost his tenuous grip on the cobbles. It didn’t help that his fingers were almost numb with cold from the lob.
“Hey!” Sandra had obviously managed to get her helmet off. “Hey! I could use a bit of help here!”
He shouted back but he doubted she could hear him through his own helmet. He tried crawling backward but he couldn’t budge; he just risked his feet and hands slipping on the cobbles. He had to reach the rail. It was his only hope.
He pushed himself backward with all his strength, twisting and diving for the rail. He caught it with one hand and quickly got his other hand onto it. With a firm grip now, he heaved himself forward, crawling on his belly, dragging Sandra’s dead weight inch by inch up the s
heer wall of the wharf. When he could, he stretched out a hand to the next rail and slowly dragged himself farther.
Once he could get his toes against the first rail, he was home and dry. He pushed himself forward until all Sandra’s weight was on his toes, then turned, carefully, onto his back, putting his heels against the rail. Now, with his hands free, he could grab the tether and haul her up. When Sandra’s arm appeared over the edge of the wharf and she took some of her own weight, he almost sobbed with relief. Within seconds he had her over the edge and safely on dry land. They both lay on the ground gasping for a while before Sandra got up and walked over to him. She looked him over then took off her backpack and her harness. She gave him an impatient look. “Come on. We haven’t got all day.”
“You’re welcome,” he said bitterly and struggled to his feet. They packed the harnesses, tether and helmets into their backpacks and, orienting themselves by the river, set off east toward Albert Embankment and Lambeth Bridge. Behind them, the corroded and half-demolished Vauxhall Bridge looked bleak in the dreary greyness of a cold April morning. Jay looked at the grimy, ramshackle wharves and warehouses they were passing through and decided he didn’t much like 1902.
They walked quickly for several minutes, glad of the exercise. Four minutes in the bitter cold of the extratemporal medium had chilled them both to the bone. They reached the southern end of the Albert Embankment without anyone noticing them, but as they neared the more fashionable northern end, the pedestrian traffic increased sharply, as did the number of carriages on the road. Ahead of them was Lambeth Bridge, not the neat bridge Jay knew with its painted arches, but a rickety decaying suspension bridge that he did not look forward to crossing.
They hurried along, Jay increasingly conscious that they must look almost naked in their splashgear compared to the men and women they passed. Everyone wore three-piece suits and floor-length dresses. They were all muffled in coats and scarves and hats. Most of the men had beards and large sideburns, and the women had their hair piled up on their heads. In almost every conceivable way, Jay and Sandra stood out.
“We need to get off the street,” Sandra said. She pointed to a man in a top hat who was staring back at them. He seemed to shrink as he spoke to a companion, then returned to his original size.
“There!” said Jay. Up ahead, a row of four hansom cabs were parked by the kerb. He had thought they would need to cross the river to Millbank before they’d find a cab rank, but was happy to have luck on his side.
The hansoms were two-seaters, with one big wheel at each side of the cab, a single horse at the front, and a high seat at the back for the cabbie. The cabs had little half-doors just behind the horse for people to get in and out of.
“Just like in a Sherlock Holmes vid!” Sandra exclaimed as they drew close. Jay looked at her sideways, worried by how cheerful she seemed about all this.
The cabbies were standing together, chatting, when the two time travellers arrived. The four men looked a rough lot. They wore a variety of coats and hats and two had huge bushy beards. They were mostly in their forties or older, but it was hard to see their faces under so much facial hair.
“Lumme!” said one of them, softly.
They all gaped at Sandra. One of them even took his hat off, he was so amazed.
“I, er, we need a ride to—” Jay began, awkwardly, stopping as a couple of the men turned and looked him up and down. Their shocked expressions made him painfully aware of how odd he must look.
Sandra stepped forward, speaking smoothly and with a sweetness of tone Jay had not heard her use before. “My brother and I are circus performers,” she told them. “Only we seem to have become separated from our troupe.” A couple of the men nodded, as if this explained everything.
“Trapeze artists,” said Jay, and grabbed an imaginary bar, miming a swinging motion. Sandra scowled at him. “I hope you’ll forgive our appearance. We were in a parade, you see. And now, I’m afraid, we’re lost.” She put on a face to match their supposed plight and Jay marvelled at the sympathetic expressions of the hard-faced cabbies.
“Would any of you be kind enough to help us? We need to get to the British Museum as quickly as possible. One of the owners is there. If we can reach him before he leaves, everything will be all right. If not, I don’t know what we’ll do.”
There was a sudden rush of volunteers. The cabbies almost fell to squabbling among themselves for the privilege of helping this beautiful young damsel in distress.
“Oi!” one of them protested, pushing himself forward. “It’s my cab is at the front.” The others subsided, acknowledging this incontestable right. The cabbie straightened himself up, preened himself, and said, “Now then, miss, if you’d care to step this way. You too, sir. And don’t you worry about catching this ’ere owner chap you’re after. ’Arry Endsleigh’s known the length and breadth of all Lunnun for being the fastest cab on two wheels.” He nodded proudly, chest out. He led them to his hansom and handed Sandra inside, averting his face—but not his eyes, Jay noticed—as she climbed in. He closed the doors on them and walked forward to take the nosebag off his horse. On his way back, he stopped and patted the horse’s rump. “Ol’ Bucephalus here might look a bit rickety,” he told Sandra, “but he’s a strong ’un, he is. Mark my words. He’ll get you there.” The man seemed to have grown mesmerised by the sight of Sandra’s legs and simply stopped speaking.
Jay leaned forward, irritably. “If we could get going. We’re in a bit of a hurry.”
The cabbie snapped out of it. “Ah. Um,” he said and dragged himself off to the back of the cab. Shortly, they felt the hansom rock on its springs as the cabbie climbed up to his seat. The reins, which ran from the horse over their heads and across the roof, flicked once and the cab jolted into motion.
Sandra turned to Jay with an impish grin. “I think he likes me,” she said. Jake snorted. “I think the Pope would like you in that outfit.”
“Why do you think we’re getting a ride with no splash starting up?”
“I don’t know. Maybe this guy just wasn’t doing anything that would change the timeline this morning. Maybe his life was just totally inconsequential.”
Sandra grinned at him. “You’re just saying that ’cause you’re jealous.”
Jay realised he was—stupidly and needlessly jealous. He sank back into the cab’s seat, deep in thought, while Sandra peered at the people in the street. Being in love with Sandra was always going to be a problem for him, he realised. A woman so spectacularly beautiful would have guys hitting on her all the time—and not just bristly, old cabbies either. One day someone really cool would come along, and then…
If only she loved him too, loved him so much he’d never have to worry about some other bloke catching her eye. Yet for that to happen, he’d have to be someone else entirely, someone far more glamorous and interesting than Jay Kennedy, soon-to-be-unemployed secret agent. It was a deeply depressing thought.
“Shit!” Sandra threw herself into the back of the cab. “Someone out there was watching me. I saw him start that vibrating thing.”
Jay snapped out of his dismal reverie. He looked around. There were blinds on the side windows and leather curtains across the open front of the cab, above the folding doors. He reached over and drew them all. It was gloomy inside but at least they were private. A hatch on the roof opened, and, as if to dispel any sense of security they might be feeling, the cabbie peered in at them. “You all right in there? Only I heard the curtains closin’ and bein’ as there ain’t no rain nor nuffin’, I thought I’d best ask, like.”
Sandra managed to force a smile. “You’re very kind, Mr. Endsleigh. We just thought it would be better not to be seen in public dressed as we are. We wouldn’t want to offend anyone, you understand.”
“Very considerate of you, miss.” He coughed uncomfortably. “I daresay how there’s plenty of narrow-minded types abaht as might take offence at the sight of a pretty girl in, er, in her professional costume, as it were, but
not ’Arry Endsleigh! Live an’ let live. That’s what I says. Live an’ let live.”
Jay reached up and took hold of the hatch. “Very broad-minded of you,” he said. “Thank you.” He closed the hatch, firmly.
He looked at Sandra through narrowed eyes. “You’re too damned good at this lying. It makes me nervous.”
She put a hand on his leg. “I’d never lie to you, Jay.”
She looked sincere, and the hand on his leg was a convincing argument, but she had looked just as sincere telling the cabbie she was a circus performer.
“And why did you tell them we were brother and sister?” he demanded.
She regarded him with her head cocked. “Because I might have needed to flirt with one of them. I couldn’t easily do that if you were supposed to be my husband or whatever, could I? And anyway, it was probably not done for a young lady and her beau to be gadding about town in a hansom. This way you’re my chaperone.” She grinned. “And it explains your grumpy, overprotective attitude.”
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