by Alex Scarrow
‘I am…’ His deep voice searched for unfamiliar words. ‘I… amsorry too… Liam O’Connor.’
‘We made a good team, didn’t we?’
Bob tried one of Sal’s smiles. It worked pretty well this time. Still ugly as sin,though.
‘Yes. We made a — ’ Bob froze mid-sentence. His eyes focused beyond Liam,then he was blinking rapidly.
Is he getting something?
‘Information: I am registering tachyon particles in the vicinity,’ said Bob allof a sudden.
‘Is it another message?’
‘Negative.’
‘One of them density probes?’
‘Negative.’
Liam got to his feet, ducking under a laundry line. ‘A window?’
Bob turned round, reached out for a laundry line and yanked it aside. The line snapped, crispand clean sheets and shirts fluttered to the ground and there, in the middle of the archway,he could see it — the heat shimmer of a time window, flexing and distorting like a poolof water. It was a much smaller sphere than the one they’d stepped into returning fromthe assassination of John F. Kennedy. But bigger than Washington’saborted attempt, big enough to carefully step through this time.
‘Why’s it still so small?’
‘They must have limited power. Or this window has been projected by machinery that isnot fully charged.’
Liam stepped eagerly towards it.
‘Caution: you must be entirely within the sphere. Any partof you not within will be left behind when it closes.’
Liam carefully ducked down low and eased himself within the shimmering envelope of energy.Once he was in, crouching because the sphere was low, Bob joined him, stepping in andhunkering down, wrapping his thick arms around Liam to prevent him wobbling out of theenvelope.
‘Remain completely still,’ said Bob.
Then all of a sudden it felt like the ground beneath their feet had been whipped away fromthem and they were tumbling through air.
2001, New York
His feet hit hard, cold concrete. Familiar concrete. Oil-stained concrete. Thefirst thing he noticed was that the arch was pretty dark. The second thing he noticed wasMaddy screaming and then the deafening, echoing boom of a shotgun fired just a few feetaway.
He looked up to see Maddy cowering on the floor with the smoking gun in her hands andsomething he thought was a skeleton at first fly back like a rag doll against the wall. Therewere plenty more of them: skeletons in tattered clothes, pushing through the sliding door fromthe back room, long claw-like hands stretching out to grab her. Across the room Foster wasstaggering from the computer terminals to join her.
Bob’s reactions were much quicker. He was already on his feet andsprinting with the speed of a bird of prey towards Maddy. His huge muscled arms thrashedviolently at the nearest of the skeletal things, shattering bones and tearing muscletissue.
He grabbed another and twisted its head with a flick of his wrist. The creature flopped tothe ground like a rag doll.
The shotgun fired again, sending another one of them sprawling against a wall.
Liam realized he was doing nothing and then remembered he had a gun. He fumbled at theholster on his hip, pulled out the pistol and tried his best to aim at the confusing tangle ofpale limbs picked out by a dancing beam of torchlight.
He fired a shot into the confusing scrum, producing an exploding puff of crimson onBob’s left shoulder. The support unit glanced back at him and growled.
‘Oh Jay-zus, I’m sorry!’
Bob turned back to the task at hand and tore the limb off another one of them and proceededto swing the flopping thing like a club at the others. Their high-pitched screams made themsound like startled children and they began to scramble back to the door through whichthey’d entered.
As Bob pursued them into the back room, the sound of crashing, a heavy perspex tube rollingacross the floor and further shrill screams of terror echoed out through the doorway. Liamjoined Foster and Maddy.
‘What’s happening?’
Foster looked at him. ‘Bad things, Liam. Bad things.’
He reached down to Maddy, wide eyed and in shock on the floor.
‘You OK, Maddy? You all right?’
Her eyes drifted from the contorted pale bodies either side of the doorwayand on to Liam’s face. For a moment she seemed confused, looking at him as if he was astranger.
‘It’s me! Liam!’
Recognition flickered into her squinting eyes. Recognition… followed by graduallyrealized relief. Her mouth opened and closed. Opened and closed. ‘Oh God,’ shefinally managed to whisper. ‘Oh God… I thought I was going to… thought thosethings were… were — ’
Foster reached out and held her. ‘Shhh. It’s OK now. They made it back. Both ofthem. We’re safe now.’
The sound of struggling in the back room had ceased. Bob appeared in the doorway, his facespattered with dark droplets of blood, his SS uniform ripped and soaked with even moreblood.
‘Information: the field office is now clear,’ he said matter-of-factly.
It was then Liam registered that they were missing someone.
‘Where’s Sal?’
CHAPTER 84
1957, command ship over Washington DC
Paul Kramer sat alone in his lab. Truly alone.
Karl’s dead. All those other men, Saul, Stefan, Rudy,Dieter…
Others whose faces he could remember, if not their names.
Now I’m the last.
He looked up from his lap across the messy floor, thick with snaking cables, towards the atombomb in its frame, nestling inside the small wire cage.
There you are, my little friend.
In his hand, he held a simple toggle switch wired carelessly into the complicated device. Aloosely soldered red cable descended from it, linking the switch to his jury-rigged version ofa Waldstein field-displacement cage. His thumb rested on the tip of the toggle switch.
Kramer felt so incredibly tired. A solid week now without a moment’s sleep. Not sincehe’d had Karl killed. If he’d had the courage, he would have activated his deviceright then. Joined Karl in the hereafter moments later.
Karl’s adjutant, and several other senior invasion-force generals, had petitioned tosee him, over and over. Problems mounting up, issues that needed to be resolved, paperworkthat needed signing.
He could face none of those things right now.
And there’d be no sleep either. Because the moment his eyes closedthe nightmares came. His assassin was no longer some time-policeman from the future, but somedark, formless entity from Hell… hungrily seeking his soul, ready to drag him downthrough a rip in space-time to burn for eternity for daring to step, albeit briefly, into itsdimension.
‘Burn… for eternity,’ he muttered quietly.
His thumb toyed with the toggle switch.
Paul, it’s time.
‘You’re back,’ he said flatly. The voice had been so quiet these last fewdays. Paul thought it had abandoned him.
I never left you.
‘I thought I was going to die alone.’
No. You and I, we’ll face destiny together.
Kramer gently applied pressure to the switch.
Just a little more, Paul… anounce more pressure on this tiny little switch… and all life onthis world will be gone.
He smiled weakly. There was poetry in that — to create a new world, a new history, andthen be the one to destroy it. Like a child builds a sandcastle, then in a moment of vainglorytramples all over it.
That’s right. We achieved so much, didn’t we?
The toggle switch clicked over… and the world turned white.
CHAPTER 85
2001, New York
Foster finished telling Liam their story as they stood in the backstreet justoutside the open shutter door and gazed upon the ruined city.
‘My God,’ Liam whispered. ‘What do you think happened to thisworld?’
‘A nuclear war of some sort is the only thing I ca
n think of,’ said Foster.‘I was hoping you might have a better idea, though.’
‘I don’t know,’ said Liam. ‘Kramer’s army had finished the jobof conquering America. I heard of no other wars going on. He still had Russia and China totake… but that wasn’t happening yet back where we were.’
Foster shrugged. ‘Then something must have happened not long after you left. Perhapsthis Kramer started a nuclear war. Who knows?’ Foster offered him an encouraging smile.‘We get things fixed in the past and we’ll never need to know what happened afteryou left because…’
‘Because it never will have happened,’ Liam finished.
The old man patted his arm proudly. ‘You’re getting the hang of it,lad.’
They stepped back inside and cranked down the shutter door. Inside, Bob had been busy fixingup the holes in the brickwork as best he could and hefting the bodies of the creaturesoutside.
They sat down at the table, joining Maddy, who quietly nursed a mug ofcoffee in both hands, still clearly very shaken by the attack.
‘Foster, you said it was possible we might get Sal back? If things rightthemselves?’
The old man shrugged. ‘It’s just a possibility, Liam. One of manypossibilities.’
Liam reached for a mug and sipped some of the tepid brew. ‘But right now, out theresomewhere, you’re absolutely certain she’s dead?’
Foster sighed. ‘We can only hope so. Whatever she went through…’ He shookhis head tiredly, his eyes briefly meeting Maddy’s. ‘Well, I’d like to thinkit’s over now. It’s done. She can’t suffer any more.’
‘But if we fixed things and she came back… Would she remember?’
Foster shook his head. ‘I don’t want to raise your hopes. Even if we get thetimeline corrected, she may just stay gone for good. There are no guarantees.’
‘She was so… so terrified,’ whispered Maddy. ‘I saw them carry heraway… I… I saw the look in her eyes. I — ’
‘There was nothing you could have done,’ Foster sighed. ‘Absolutelynothing. If I’d not stopped you going after her, then you’d have shared the samefate as her.’
‘But she was just a kid!’ cried Maddy angrily. ‘Just a kid! I told you weshould have gone after her!’
‘If we had, we’d be dead too,’ he replied softly. ‘I’m sorry,Madelaine, I truly am, but this is what it is. We just have to get on with it.’ Heturned back to Liam. ‘Our focus has to be on one thing now. One thing only: correctingtime. That literally is all that matters.’
A moment of silent reflection, then both Liam and Maddy nodded. He was right.
‘Now, Liam, you said you’ve identified a possible point in timefor us to send you back to?’
‘Yes. It was in that Hitler fella’s second book.’
‘In the correct timeline Adolf Hitler wrote Mein Kampf in what? 1925? And he shot himself in 1945, so he never gotto write any more books.’
‘Yes,’ said Liam, ‘but in the past that we were sent to Hitler lived on andwrote this second book. And shortly after that he was kicked out of the job by this Kramerfella who became the new Fuhrer.’
‘OK, so in this second book…?’
‘There’s this chapter where he describes receiving inspiration from God in theform of an angel. Apparently it’s a well-known chapter. Hitler never actually mentionsKramer’s name specifically, but it’s assumed that when he refers to a“ guardian angel” and “divine inspiration” it’s Kramer he’stalking about.’
‘Go on.’
‘I learned a lot about this guy, Kramer, whilst I was in that prison camp. He was avery mysterious man who seemed to sort of pop up out of the woodwork from nowhere. No familyhistory, no details of a childhood. A real mystery man. He took credit for steering Hitleraway from launching an attack on Russia in 1941. He claimed to have personally invented mostof the modern weapons that helped them win the war, that allowed them to invade America andwipe out their armed forces within just a few weeks.
‘His people worshipped him almost like a god. And I think he encouraged the idea thathe was extraordinary in some way. Apparently, up until he launched his invasion on America, hewas the most written-about man of his time. Hundreds of books about him… all trying towork out who he was and where he’d come from.’
‘And you recall the when and where of Hitler’s first encounter with him?’
‘Yes,’ replied Liam. ‘There was a fella who told me, a man called Wallace.If he remembered it correctly that is… then, yes, I can tell you the time and theplace.’
Foster considered that in silence for a moment. ‘So, this Kramer is our target, then. We can only presume he’s some foolish technicianfrom the future who fancied the idea of going back in time and ruling the world. Somebody whodecided to step into the past at a crucial tipping point… and make his ownhistory.’
‘I suppose.’
‘Liam, you understand what you’re to do?’
‘Locate him and…?’
‘And kill him. Execute him.Before he meets Hitler… before he has a chance to change anything to affect history.’
‘Sure.’
‘All right then. Give me those details of time and place.’
CHAPTER 86
2001, New York
Liam looked at the empty perspex cylinder. ‘There’s no water in there.It’s empty.’
‘We don’t have a water supply. You’ll have to go back dry thistime.’
‘So… do I still climb in the tube thing?’
Foster shook his head. ‘I’ll open the time window right here on the floor.It’ll mean a scoop of our lovely concrete floor will be going back with you… butI’m afraid that can’t be helped.’
‘But you told me nothing but ourselves can go back?’
‘That’s right. The less potential for contamination, the better. But, look, onthis occasion there’s not a lot we can do. There’s no tap water. Anyway…I’m not sure we’d have enough charge left to shift thirty gallons of water as wellas you two back into the past.’
Foster returned to the console. ‘I have the fifteenth of April 1941 set as thetime-stamp. The co-ordinates will place you in some woods near a road that leads up to whereHitler’s Obersalzberg retreat once stood. This is the onlyroad in.’
He turned to face Liam and Bob. ‘It’s the only way in for this Kramer too. Now,I’m assuming he arrived as some sort of a special guest. Perhaps he managed to convincean influential general or a Nazi bigwig to arrange an audience for him with AdolfHitler.’
‘Would he not have opened a window right inside the building? Rightin front of the man?’
Foster shook his head. ‘If it were me, I wouldn’t. What if you appeared right infront of a guard? You’d be gunned down on sight. No,’ he said, stroking thegrey-white bristles of his week-old beard, ‘far safer to have appeared somewhere quiet.Then make an approach through some official channel — that’s how I would do it- an offer of untold wealth, or strategic knowledge of the enemy… something tobluff my way into the offices of some senior Nazi official.’
He turned back to the console. ‘You say Hitler wrote that his profound moment ofinspiration occurred at nine thirty p.m. on that night. I have set your time-stamp for eightthirty p.m., an hour earlier. If Kramer managed to arrange for an audience with Hitler, thenit’s a reasonable assumption he arranged to be punctual. His meeting might have been fornine thirty p.m., but he presumably would arrive a little earlier to ensure he was there ontime to go through whatever security procedures they carried out back then.’
‘If we miss him?’
‘If you fail to intercept Kramer,’ sighed Foster, ‘then we’ve missedour chance.’
‘What then?’
The old man shook his head. ‘It means it’s game over. History remains changed.God help us all.’
‘We’ll be stuck back in 1941, won’t we?’
‘Yes, Liam. And Maddy and I will be stuck here.’
They stared at each other in silence. Liam realized their fate would be wors
e than his.‘What about those creatures…?’
Foster waved his hand and smiled grimly. ‘Let’s forget about them for now, shallwe?’
Maddy stepped across the floor, over snaking cables. She graspedLiam’s arm and looked at him with red-rimmed eyes. ‘Just make sure you get him,OK?’
He nodded.
She looked up at the support unit. ‘I’ve downloaded all the historicalinformation we have on Obersalzberg and the surrounding area from the database on toBob’s hard drive.’
Bob stirred. ‘Affirmative.’
‘If… if… you’re successful, Liam,’said Foster, ‘and history realigns, we’ll have a power feed once more. We canbring you home. The initial return window will be nine thirty p.m. from the same co-ordinates.The first back-up will be ten thirty p.m. The second back-up will be twenty-four hours later.Is that clear?’
‘Yes, sir,’ said Liam.
‘If you fail,’ said Foster, stepping towards him, ‘if it doesn’t workout, lad, then don’t throw your life away on some foolish gamble, eh?’ He placed ahand on Liam’s shoulder. ‘Find a way to survive. You’ll have Bob to help youfor the first six months. Find a way to survive… and live your life as best youcan.’
‘What about you two?’
Foster reached out and squeezed Maddy’s hand. ‘Don’t worry about us, Liam.We’ve got something arranged.’
Maddy nodded and offered him a thin smile. ‘That’s right.’
The four of them stared at each other in silence for a moment, understanding the stakes,knowing this was their one and only chance to set things right.
She looked up at Bob, standing stiffly to attention in his blood-spattered SS uniform.‘Oh, that’s definitely you.’ She punched him softly on the chest.‘Look after Liam, you dumb ape.’
‘Affirmative.’
She grinned, a rim of moisture beginning to spill from her eyes.
‘And you, Liam, come back safe, OK?’
He nodded. ‘That’s the plan.’
