TimeRiders Page 13
To his untrained eye this looked very much like the ragged assemblage of some kind of a last stand around the building – perhaps it was all that was left of the United States army.
‘Blimey,’ he muttered.
He heard a deep rumble coming from above and glanced up through the leafy branches. The sky was overcast, thick with grey low-hanging clouds that promised an imminent downpour. The rumbling was deep, so powerful he could feel it vibrate against his chest. It was coming from somewhere above the clouds.
The American soldiers, like him, were watching the sky anxiously – all eyes trained upwards, waiting for something to appear.
Liam craned his neck to get a better view.
What’s up there?
Behind him he heard a heavy footfall and turned to see Bob holding out clothes and boots. ‘The owner of these clothes is dead,’ he explained without any trace of emotion. ‘He will not be needing them.’
Liam took them and looked at the damp stains of blood. ‘You didn’t kill someone to get these clothes for me, did you?’
Bob shook his head. ‘No killing was required.’
Liam grimaced at the thought of stepping into another man’s clothes. On the other hand, standing undressed in the middle of a war zone struck him as the worse alternative. He pulled them on as quickly as he could.
‘It looks like those soldiers are setting themselves up for a last-ditch defence.’
‘Correct,’ said Bob, his eyes smoothly scanning across the lawn.
‘And I guess whatever’s coming –’ Liam looked up again at the darkening sky from where that deep rumble was issuing – ‘is coming from right up there.’
‘Possibly an airborne weapon system.’ Bob’s eyes flickered shut. ‘I have data files on the advanced aeroplane prototypes that were being developed by the Germans at the end of the Second World War.’
‘They actually used aeroplanes during the… the Second World War?’
‘Affirmative.’
The rumbling grew even louder and Liam found himself having to shout to be heard. ‘Big ones?’
‘Jet propulsion, delta-wing designs, VTOL systems,’ replied Bob, raising his flat-toned voice to compete with the deafening drone from above.
‘Well, that means nothing to me,’ shouted Liam. ‘What the hell are those?’
Bob cocked his head for a moment. ‘I am able to provide detailed schematic blueprints if I can locate a drawing implement –’
Suddenly, the tumbling dark clouds above them momentarily spread thin enough for Liam to see what was approaching.
‘Bob! You see that?’
Above them, descending through the clouds, was a giant dull-grey disc-shaped vessel, easily a quarter of a mile in diameter. It almost seemed to fill the sky above the White House as it slowly pushed its way down through the billowing clouds. He could now make out dozens of spinning rotors slung beneath the craft, giant propeller blades whisking the air beneath the belly of the enormous disc, projecting a powerful downdraught that set the cedar trees around them rustling and swaying.
Liam noticed the emblem he’d seen earlier on Maddy’s screens, stencilled across a hundred feet of the vehicle’s immense hull.
‘What the hell is that thing?’ he yelled.
‘Information: it appears to be a circular dirigible,’ replied Bob. He seemed to recognize the bemused and panicked shrug returned by Liam as an indication that he hadn’t a clue what one of those was. ‘It is a disc-shaped airship – a reinforced aluminium hull containing many large cells filled with buoyancy gas.’
Some of the marines on the lawn, frozen into a motionless stupor by the sight, raised their firearms and began to shoot pointlessly at it.
A black square slowly appeared in the dark underbelly of the craft, then another, and another.
‘Er… now that’s not good, is it?’ cried Liam.
Bob nodded in agreement. ‘Is not good.’
Liam saw something dark emerging from the squares, dots that quickly grew in size as a shower of somethings rapidly appeared to be descending towards them.
A canister the size of a Thermos flask thudded into the grass thirty yards from them among a group of haggard-looking marines. The marines backed away from it as it started to spew out a yellow smoke. Several more canisters landed heavily and started billowing smoke across the lawn.
‘Tactical smokescreen,’ offered Bob.
The air was soon thick with a mustard-coloured mist. Through it Liam could just about make out the nearby silhouettes of the American soldiers on the lawn, drawing fearfully back across the clipped grass towards the steps and the grand portico at the front of the White House.
Now he could see more dark shapes descending through the mist from above – dozens, perhaps hundreds, of them. Bigger than the canisters this time.
They heard something crash heavily through the cedar trees behind them, accompanied by a shrill hissing sound. They spun round to see a man tangled awkwardly amid thick branches; he wore a loose black rubber boiler suit that reminded Liam of the bin bags that seemed to line every backstreet in New York. Covering his face was a dark rubber mask with two glass plates where the eyes should be. His head was kinked at an impossible angle and Liam realized the neck had been snapped on the way down through the tree’s branches.
Twin cylinders strapped to his back continued to discharge high-velocity geysers of gas noisily, which lasted only half a dozen seconds more before finally fizzing to a silence.
‘Aerosol-based fast-descent system,’ announced Bob calmly.
Above them Liam could hear that same hiss multiplied through the air as other men in rubber suits began to land nearby.
‘Sod this! We can’t stay here!’
The support unit nodded. ‘Recommendation: it will be tactically correct to go inside the building known as the White House.’
‘Yeah… OK,’ Liam said, stepping out from the cover of the small copse and on to the open lawn.
‘Please wait!’ barked Bob. He stepped across to the body dangling from the branches and, with a hard tug, pulled it to the ground. He effortlessly flipped the body over and withdrew a weapon from the man’s backpack. His calm eyes appraised its effectiveness and how to use it within seconds. He shouldered the weapon and nodded approvingly.
‘Rapid-fire pulse carbine.’ His grey eyes locked on Liam’s. ‘Weapon technology from the middle of the twenty-first century.’
‘Well, that’s interesting… but can we go now?’
‘Affirmative. Please follow me, Liam O’Connor.’
Liam nodded. ‘Uh… sure, all right, you go first.’
Bob pushed out through the foliage beneath the trees and into the open, striding forward with the carbine held at his hip.
The yellow murky air was now filled with the sound of hissing canisters and the thud of boots making a heavy landing on the lawn. Liam could see the smudged outlines of men all around them; mask-muffled voices barked orders in German.
Oh, I’m so-o-o very going to die.
One of the moving outlines took a step too many towards them and suddenly called out a sharp challenge.
Bob was frighteningly fast – lashing out with the edge of his free hand and chopping at the man’s throat. Liam heard a dull crack above all the other noise.
‘Follow,’ said Bob.
CHAPTER 36
1956, Washington DC
They moved quickly across the lawn until Liam realized they were now among the retreating marines backing up the alabaster steps and firing sporadically out into the mist in front of them.
Rapid bursts of fire lanced back at them out of the smoke, exploding showers of dust and plaster from the steps and the columns of the palisade. A marine standing beside Liam pin-wheeled from the impact of a shot and collapsed to the ground, a gaping hole blown out of his torso.
‘Follow,’ said Bob again, leading Liam through the marines returning fire towards a glass-panelled double door. A wounded soldier slouched by the door
way halted their progress.
‘Hey! Where the hell you two goin’? We’re holdin’ the line right here, goddammit!’
Bob calmly twisted his arm and pushed him aside without any apparent effort. They stepped through the doors and into the White House.
The carpeted entrance hall was thick with the stretched-out bodies of wounded soldiers, one trembling, harried army medic moving among them and tending them with little more than mercifully lethal shots of morphine. Ahead was a double doorway leading further into the building and the west wing. Holding position behind a hastily assembled blockade of furniture were a dozen more soldiers, grim faced and clearly ready to go down defending their president to the last.
‘My God, Bob,’ uttered Liam, ‘this is the president’s last stand!’
Bob scanned the hall, the blockade, the marines ready to die.
‘Correct. The president called Eisenhower must be in this building.’
‘What do we do? Save him?’
Bob turned to Liam. ‘You are the mission operative. Tactical decisions can only be made by the operative, not the support unit.’
‘What?’
‘You are in charge, Liam O’Connor.’
‘I… I… I don’t know what we should do.’
He looked out through the glass doors. Through the mist he could see little, but he could imagine hundreds more faceless soldiers hidden behind gas masks forming up on the lawn in front of the grand steps and the portico and readying themselves for a final devastating assault on the building.
We’re here to observe, that’s all. Here to learn what happened. Nothing more.
Well, he’d already guessed that the American people hadn’t politely invited these Nazis to come on over and run their affairs. But they needed more details, details that would help them pinpoint the moment further back in the past where history had taken a turn in this direction.
‘We need to find out how things got like this.’ He turned to Bob. ‘Right?’
‘Correct. Mission priority one: obtain information.’
‘OK,’ he replied, looking around the hall. ‘So we need to grab someone and ask questions?’
‘Correct.’
Liam stepped forward through the dead and the dying. To their left was a doorway that led to a communications room. He could see soldiers on field radios, civilians on telephones, typists and telephonists all making hurried calls, situation reports or, more than likely, final messages to loved ones.
To the right was a room full of desks and filing cabinets. It looked less busy. Liam stepped across the carpet of bodies into the room. Some of the smoke from outside had leaked in through several shattered windows and the air was tinged with a fine yellow mist.
He spotted a man in a smart blue suit sitting on the floor between two filing cabinets, his face covered in dust and dry-caked blood from a head wound.
The man stared into space in front of him. ‘This is it,’ he muttered, his voice cracked and tired. ‘It’s all over. They’re coming for us… coming to get us… to get us…’
Liam squatted down in front of him. ‘The Germans? Nazis?’
The man didn’t seem to hear the question, his eyes unfocused. ‘We should’ve known… should’ve prepared… should’ve realized this was going to happen eventually.’
Bob mimicked Liam’s posture and stooped down in front of the man. ‘Information request: please tell us everything about your divergent history timeline.’
‘Bob?’
‘Yes, Liam?’
‘Let me try first, eh?’
He nodded. ‘You are the mission operative.’
Liam reached a hand out to the man and rested it on his shoulder.
‘Hello? Mister?’
The man’s eyes focused on him.
‘There isn’t much time,’ said Liam. ‘Listen to me, things can be changed. This isn’t how it was meant to be. We’re here to put this –’
‘No…’ replied the man, shaking his head. ‘No, you’re goddamn right this isn’t how it should be! They surprised us, just like them Japs did back in ’41.’
Liam looked at Bob questioningly.
‘Information: in the twentieth century, the Japanese launched a surprise attack on the US naval base at Pearl Harbor. This act effectively brought America into the Second World –’
Liam held a hand up to hush him. ‘Tell me what’s been happening.’
‘What? Where on earth have you been?’ the man asked.
He shrugged. ‘At sea… for a long time.’
‘The Nazis launched an assault on the beaches of New England a couple of months ago. Overwhelmed our Atlantic defences like they were nothing, took New York inside of a week. We mustered everything we had to hold ’em outside Washington. But… but they crushed our boys, swiped ’em aside. Their Führer offered terms,’ he snorted. ‘Our president and his cabinet and chiefs of staff to be handed over as prisoners – or they’d come in and get ’em.’
The man suddenly looked up at Bob then back at Liam. ‘Wait! You said this isn’t how it should be. What’s going on? Who are you guys? SOE? Secret Service guys?’
‘This may sound incredibly strange,’ said Liam, ‘but you need to believe what I’m about to say.’
‘What?’ The man shook his head. ‘What is it?’
‘We’re from the future. From the year 2001. And right now is a bit of history that shouldn’t be happening.’
The man’s face hardened. ‘This ain’t a time to play the fool, son. I –’
‘He is correct,’ said Bob.
‘We’re sort of agents sent from the future to gather information on what’s going on here,’ said Liam. ‘We need to find out what’s been happening.’
The man stared at them both in silence. ‘You’re crazy.’
Liam shrugged. ‘I wish I could show you something to prove what I’m saying. But I can’t.’
‘Mission parameter: we have nothing on us from the future. This is an observation-only mission.’
Through the shattered windows they heard movement going on outside above the drone coming from the sky: men barking orders, the jangle of equipment belts, the cocking of weapons.
‘Oh Jesus, we’re dead men,’ cried the man. ‘There are rumours their Führer wants to completely wipe clean America’s government: the president, Congress, the Senate, all the top-level civil servants. They’ll kill every last person they find in the White House.’
‘Listen,’ said Liam, ‘we’re going to change this. We’re going to stop this Hiffler from doing what –’
The man looked up at him. ‘Hiffler? What the heck you talking about, son? You talking ’bout Adolf Hitler?’
‘Yes, that’s it, Hitler. That’s the correct name, right?’ He looked at Bob for confirmation. ‘Did I say it right?’
‘Correct. Adolf Hitler, the Führer, leader of the Nazi Party and the Third Reich.’
‘But that guy, Hitler, died about ten years ago. You guys gonna try telling me you don’t know that?’
Liam and Bob stared at each other. ‘Assessment: history diverged at least ten years earlier than this time.’
‘1946 instead of ’56?’ Liam spoke under his breath. ‘We have to go back another ten years?’
‘That is correct.’
The man studied them both suspiciously. ‘Dammit, who are you guys, really? You Secret Service guys? Some kind of special forces or something? Tell me you got some secret plan… some kinda super weapon we can use back on ’em Nazis. Right?’
The sound of gunfire around the front entrance suddenly intensified.
‘They are coming now,’ said Bob. ‘We must leave. The portal is due to open in exactly one hour and thirty-three minutes.’
‘Right… but we know now that we’ve got to go back again… but further back next time?’
‘Correct.’
The man in the suit reached out and grasped Liam. ‘Have we got something secret hidden away? Some weapon we gonna fight back with?’
Liam shook his head as the hapless man stared at him in bewildered silence.
Yes, very reassuring, Bob.
The support unit turned to Liam. ‘We must leave now.’
CHAPTER 37
2001, New York
‘There must be some way to hack past their security and access the rest of the online history database,’ said Maddy.
‘Maybe there isn’t any more?’ asked Foster. ‘Maybe the rulers of this time consider history before this date, before the conquering of America, as irrelevant. One way they could have chosen to keep control of the American people is to delete records of their national history, maybe even world history.’
Maddy shrugged. ‘But these are the Nazis, right? Surely they’d want to keep records of Hitler’s rise to power, the Second World War and how in this screwed-up history they actually won it? I’m sure Adolf Hitler would want all his subjects to know how brilliant he was and how hard a struggle he had as a younger man… and all that rags-to-riches rubbish.’
Foster sighed. ‘It doesn’t make sense. I don’t know why all that’s not there, Madelaine. I really don’t. Perhaps, for these Nazis, the day they took control of America is all that counts. Everything before that was of no importance?’
Sal coughed politely and the other two turned to face her.
‘Maybe,’ she said, ‘maybe the Hitler guy died and the one who took over from him, you know, didn’t like him or something? Decided to remove Hitler from the records?’
Foster nodded. ‘Sal might be right. We’ve been assuming Der Führer is Hitler.’
Maddy’s eyes widened. She looked for a search function on the main page and after a minute of trying various buttons labelled in German gave up.
‘God, these Nazis really suck at laying out a web page.’
‘Perhaps in this version of the year 2001 the Internet is a brand-new thing.’