TimeRiders

by Alex Scarrow

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Liam. ‘Kramer’s army had finished the job of conquering America. I heard of no other wars going on. He still had Russia and China to take… but that wasn’t happening yet back where we were.’

  Foster shrugged. ‘Then something must have happened not long after you left. Perhaps this 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 after you 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 fixing up the holes in the brickwork as best he could and hefting the bodies of the creatures outside.

  They sat down at the table, joining Maddy, who quietly nursed a mug of coffee in both hands, still clearly very shaken by the attack.

  ‘Foster, you said it was possible we might get Sal back? If things right themselves?’

  The old man shrugged. ‘It’s just a possibility, Liam. One of many possibilities.’

  Liam reached for a mug and sipped some of the tepid brew. ‘But right now, out there somewhere, you’re absolutely certain she’s dead?’

  Foster sighed. ‘We can only hope so. Whatever she went through…’ He shook his head tiredly, his eyes briefly meeting Maddy’s. ‘Well, I’d like to think it’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 the timeline corrected, she may just stay gone for good. There are no guarantees.’

  ‘She was so… so terrified,’ whispered Maddy. ‘I saw them carry her away… I… I saw the look in her eyes. I –’

  ‘There was nothing you could have done,’ Foster sighed. ‘Absolutely nothing. If I’d not stopped you going after her, then you’d have shared the same fate as her.’

  ‘But she was just a kid!’ cried Maddy angrily. ‘Just a kid! I told you we should 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.’ He turned back to Liam. ‘Our focus has to be on one thing now. One thing only: correcting time. 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 time for 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 got to write any more books.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Liam, ‘but in the past that we were sent to Hitler lived on and wrote this second book. And shortly after that he was kicked out of the job by this Kramer fella who became the new Führer.’

  ‘OK, so in this second book…?’

  ‘There’s this chapter where he describes receiving inspiration from God in the form of an angel. Apparently it’s a well-known chapter. Hitler never actually mentions Kramer’s name specifically, but it’s assumed that when he refers to a “guardian angel” and “divine inspiration” it’s Kramer he’s talking about.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘I learned a lot about this guy, Kramer, whilst I was in that prison camp. He was a very mysterious man who seemed to sort of pop up out of the woodwork from nowhere. No family history, no details of a childhood. A real mystery man. He took credit for steering Hitler away from launching an attack on Russia in 1941. He claimed to have personally invented most of the modern weapons that helped them win the war, that allowed them to invade America and wipe out their armed forces within just a few weeks.

  ‘His people worshipped him almost like a god. And I think he encouraged the idea that he was extraordinary in some way. Apparently, up until he launched his invasion on America, he was the most written-about man of his time. Hundreds of books about him… all trying to work 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 the place.’

  Foster considered that in silence for a moment. ‘So, this Kramer is our target, then. We can only presume he’s some foolish technician from the future who fancied the idea of going back in time and ruling the world. Somebody who decided to step into the past at a crucial tipping point… and make his own history.’

  ‘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 this time.’

  ‘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… but I’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, on this 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 well as you two back into the past.’

  Foster returned to the console. ‘I have the fifteenth of April 1941 set as the time-stamp. The co-ordinates will place you in some woods near a road that leads up to where Hitler’s Obersalzberg retreat once stood. This is the only road 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 convince an influential general or a Nazi bigwig to arrange an audience for him with Adolf Hitler.’

  ‘Would he not have opened a window right inside the building? Right in front of the man?’

  Foster shook his head. ‘If it were me, I wouldn’t. What if you appeared right in front of a guard? You’d be gunned down on sight. No,’ he said, stroking the grey-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 to bluff my way into the offices of some senior Nazi official.’

  He turned back to the console. ‘You say Hitler wrote that his profound moment of inspiration occurred at nine thirty p.m. on that night. I have set your time-stamp for eight thirty p.m., an hour earlier. If Kramer managed to arrange for an audience with Hitler, then it’s a reasonable assumption he arranged to be punctual. His meeting might have been for nine thirty p.m., but he presumably would arrive a little earlier to ensure he was there on time 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 missed our 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 worse than his.
‘What about those creatures…?’

  Foster waved his hand and smiled grimly. ‘Let’s forget about them for now, shall we?’

  Maddy stepped across the floor, over snaking cables. She grasped Liam’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 historical information we have on Obersalzberg and the surrounding area from the database on to Bob’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 can bring 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 work out, lad, then don’t throw your life away on some foolish gamble, eh?’ He placed a hand on Liam’s shoulder. ‘Find a way to survive. You’ll have Bob to help you for the first six months. Find a way to survive… and live your life as best you can.’

  ‘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.’

  CHAPTER 87

  1941, woods outside Obersalzberg

  Falling again. Falling through a dark void.

  Liam had just enough time to wonder whether he was ever going to get used to the stomach-lurching sensation before he found himself waist-deep in a drift of powder snow.

  ‘Oh, great!’

  Liam looked around at the snow-covered pine trees, glowing almost a luminescent blue by the light of the quicksilver moon. Thick branches of fir needles were weighed down beneath a heavy shroud of fresh-fallen snow.

  Beneath the thin material of his SS uniform, he shivered. ‘Jay-zus, it’s bloody f-f-freezing,’ he hissed under his breath, sending a plume of condensation out before him. ‘Glad we’re not just wearing wet p-pants right now. Hang on, isn’t that going to cause a contamination problem?’

  ‘Acceptable level of contamination at this point,’ replied Bob. ‘We will return with our clothes.’ He stopped mid-stride for a moment, consulting data in his head. ‘Information: two hundred yards ahead is the road leading to the Eagle’s Nest.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘Recommendation: we attempt to acquire better weapons and appropriate clothing and disguise.’

  Liam nodded eagerly at the suggestion of appropriate clothing.

  The support unit led the way, pushing through the wood’s undergrowth, dislodging hissing showers of shifting snow from the low branches above them. They walked quietly through the hushed winter forest until finally Liam could make out a narrow road, snow shovelled to either side to keep it passable.

  Bob squatted down, surveying the way ahead, and Liam joined him. The road, little more than a dirt track, climbed the hill gently. Fifty yards up they could see a guard hut picked out in the glow of a swivelling floodlight, sand bags either side, and a raisable barrier blocking the way. A small smile crept across Liam’s quivering lips.

  Nothing Bob can’t handle there.

  ‘If you can take out those guards,’ said Liam quietly, ‘we could wait right there for Kramer.’

  Bob nodded. ‘Affirmative. That is a good plan. I shall –’

  He froze.

  ‘Bob? What is it?’

  ‘I have just detected emerging tachyon particles in the vicinity.’ His grey eyes swivelled on to Liam. ‘A time window has just been opened nearby.’

  ‘What? You sure it’s not traces of our own time window you’re picking up?’

  ‘It is not us.’

  Liam glanced at the trees around them. ‘Nearby?’

  ‘Very close. Within three hundred yards of our position.’

  Foster’s guesswork must have been wrong. This guy, Kramer, hadn’t already been back in 1941 for some time working at getting an audience with Hitler. He’d only just arrived.

  ‘I am detecting a significant number of decaying particles.’

  ‘And that means?’

  ‘One large displacement window or many smaller windows.’

  Liam bit his lip with dawning realization. ‘It’s not just Kramer on his own, is it?’

  It was then that they heard movement through the trees: faint at first, the swish of a snow-laden branch pushed aside, the soft clink and rattle of webbing and carried equipment, the hushed whisper of several voices. All of it coming their way.

  ‘Recommendation: we should hide.’

  Liam looked around in the darkness. The glow of moonlight made everything that wasn’t snow-covered stand out in stark contrast. Unless they could quickly bury themselves, they were going to be spotted. He looked up at the tree they were squatting beneath.

  ‘Up there.’ He pointed. ‘In the tree.’

  Bob nodded. Without a moment’s hesitation he grabbed Liam and effortlessly hefted him up on to the lowest branch. Silently, and with the grace of a gymnast on parallel bars, he swung up beside him, the branch creaking worryingly beneath his immense weight.

  The noises grew subtly louder, closer, until Liam was able to see movement. Dark shapes warily emerged from beneath the shadow of trees, stepping cautiously across the glowing snow below, then – almost unbelievably – coming to a halt beneath the very tree they were hiding in.

  They squatted down and surveyed the track heading up the hill just as Bob had been doing a moment earlier. Then he heard one of them talking softly.

  ‘This is it, Karl. This is it! Hitler’s winter retreat!’ An accent he vaguely recognized. He recalled the precise tones, the voice of recited speeches endlessly broadcast over the prison-camp speakers.

  Kramer?

  A second voice. ‘Der Kehlsteinhaus. The Eagle’s Nest. It does not appear that heavily guarded.’ This one had a clipped, foreign-sounding accent.

  Liam strained to hear what the men said next, their voices quieter still. Then Kramer spoke more clearly: ‘A little further up the hillside, only a few hundred yards away, is an SS garrison housing four or five hundred of them. They will happily die to defend their leader. Your men will have to be very fast, Karl.’

  His voice dropped again, then the second murmured a response.

  Liam turned to look at Bob, perched perfectly still on the branch beside him like a night owl watching the progress of some small rodent and poised ready to leap.

  ‘Switch to night sights, gentlemen,’ hissed the second man. In the darkness below them, Liam saw something glowing a soft ghostly green among the gathered men. Then several more. He realized they were goggles of some sort.

  ‘Mr Kramer, sir?’ whispered one of the men.

  It is Kramer! Liam felt his heart suddenly flutter.

  ‘What is it, Rudy?’

  ‘Will we actually get to meet Adolf Hitler tonight? For real?’ Another heavily accented voice.

  ‘Yes, Rudy, you will. Tonight, gentlemen –’ Kramer raised his voice from a whisper to a soft murmur for them all to hear – ‘we are going to write a brand-new history together.’

  Bob tapped Liam on the arm. They were too close to the men below to be able to talk. Instead the support unit gestured
at them. An unmistakable gesture that told him…

  I am ready.

  Liam swallowed anxiously, feeling his gut churning once again with fear. Gritting his teeth, he nodded.

  Do it.

  CHAPTER 88

  1941, woods outside Obersalzberg

  Bob dropped silently down out of the tree on to the men below. Liam heard the heavy thud of his solid body and the unmistakable crack of bones.

  Then all hell broke loose.

  Voices brittle with alarm and confusion. The dark swirling scrum of figures below illuminated for a freeze-frame second by the single muzzle-flash of a silenced weapon. Bob, a bloodied knife in one hand mid-slash across the chest of one man, his other big hand crushing the throat of another of them.

  Several more strobing muzzle-flashes in the confusing darkness, accompanied by the muted puff of a silenced rifle. The fleeting light showed four tangled bodies on the ground already, blood pooling across the snow. Bob thrashing at another man with lethal speed and agility, and at least another dozen men around him recovering from the moment of surprise and cocking their guns to fire.

  I have to help him.

  Liam pulled the pistol out of his holster and aimed it at one of the dark outlines – one of the men who looked nearest ready to fire – and pulled the trigger. The loud crack from his gun echoed through the trees, no doubt rousing the SS guards up the track.

  One of the men below him grunted and went down, clutching his thigh.

  My God, I actually hit something.

  Having now given his position away, he realized he couldn’t sit perched up on the branch any more. Grimacing and gritting his teeth, he dropped down to the ground into the thick of the fight. He landed heavily on the back of one of the dead men. Around him all he could hear was the grunting, the laboured breath of a dozen or more men, shrill words barked in German, accented English and one or two other languages.

  ‘There… shoot him!’

  ‘Shoot! Shoot!’

  ‘Out of the way, Schwartz!’

  A machine gun spewed a salvo of muzzle-suppressed taps and lit the scene with flickering light. Liam saw Bob take half a dozen shots in the chest, his black tunic erupting with exit wounds and geysers of dark blood.