“An aircraft,” Gus said.
“A P-51,” Ralph added. “And it sounds low.”
“Get off the road!” Kimberley yelled. Ralph swerved to the right seconds before the ordnance exploded on his left. Another explosion followed the CCKW truck as it sprang into a jungle of giant randomly positioned fir trees, Ralph maneuvering the mobile 2.5 tons with some expertise and daredevilry. “Everyone alright?” Kimberley called out.
“Yes,” Aiden shouted back, Rachel holding on to him for dear life as the heavy truck bumped up and down in motion. His heart was in his mouth.
“It’s a Mustang, alright,” Gus said, watching the fighter-bomber fly by through the windshield. “I think he’s got HAVRs and intend using them.”
“He’s coming round,” Kimberley warned. “We won’t survive those rockets.”
“Everybody out!” Private Ralph yelled, killing the engine.
Kimberley jumped out with the two in front and ran back to see Fred lifting Rachel out of the cargo bay, while Aiden helped Aunt Shira step down in her pace. “Move away from the truck!” she told them, doing so without delay.
Fred carried Rachel away from the CCKW as fast as he could, Aiden and Aunt Shira on his heels. The whistling sound of the Mustang’s British Rolls-Royce Merlin engine could now be clearly heard above the fir trees.
“Hit the ground!” Kimberley shouted, and dropped down before Fred covered Rachel on the ground beside her. The HAVRs decimated the Jimmy truck in two explosions that raised massive dust and sent debris flying at high velocities across a wide radius around the vehicle.
As the aircraft flew past, it fired more rockets at the site, spewing up more dust and forcing the escapees to hug the ground a little bit longer. One by one, they picked themselves up as the P-51’s peculiar whistle receded.
“He will make a sharp turn,” Ralph warned, turning to survey the landscape around them. “Luckily, he can’t fly low enough to use his machine guns on us, because the trees won’t let him. So, our best chance is to hide behind those shrubs.” The others followed him as he moved to the said shrubs.
Moments later, the escaped prisoners heard the Mustang’s whirring engine as it scaled the tree tops, its pilot probably trying to see through the dense mass of fir leaves blocking his view for signs of life. More rockets exploded near the wrecked truck, but none did so near the hidden escapees.
“We should wait and see if he comes back,” Kimberley suggested as the sound of the aircraft’s engine became faint again.
“A unit will soon be here behind that fighter,” Gus reasoned, standing up as he dusted off his uniform. “We can’t remain here.”
“No, we can’t,” Kimberley agreed, helping Rachel to get up.
“Can’t we leave with the time machine?” the short private asked her.
“Not yet,” she said.
“You should keep your deal, miss.”
“I can’t keep it here, private,” Kimberley returned.
“The book doesn’t work in the present circumstance,” Aunt Shira helped Kimberley with. “It needs some quiet.”
“But we have some quiet now, don’t we?” Private Ralph wondered aloud. “We’ve done our part of the deal, right?”
“We can’t risk distraction while performing this ritual,” Aunt Shira told him, and Rachel nodded in agreement. “First of all, we have to make sure the fighter is not coming back.”
“Okay, we can leave this place since we’re not sure of the Mustang,” Fred said in order to calm things down. “But we need guns to protect ourselves with in case we meet any unit.”
“Sadly, we’ve only got one left,” Private Gus said, eyeing the M1 Garand hanging from Kimberley’s shoulder.“We’ll need more than that when Task Force A gets here.”
“Dear me,” Aunt Shira said. “I must have forgotten the gun in the truck.”
“Now it remains one,” Gus said, still eyeing the rifle Kimberley held. He’d thought of seizing the weapon from its present handler. “We shouldn’t have left those guns behind.”
“Can we look for the gun in the wreck?” Fred asked, rather foolishly.
“No need for that now,” Aiden said, looking at the wreckage that was a 2.5 tons GMC CCKW truck a few minutes ago. “No one can differentiate the gun from this mess now.” He heard aircraft engine and looked up.
“The plane’s coming back!” Ralph announced, pointing upwards. “And he’s headed this way. I think he has seen us!”
“Spread out as you run!” Kimberley suggested, pulling Rachel along. “That way he won’t know who to pursue or fire his remaining rockets at.” She dashed off with Rachel in tow as the others ran in different directions.
* * *
High above the scampering figures, First Lieutenant Howard Royd frowned as he steered the Mustang upwards for another turn. “I think I got them, Nick,” he said into his radio.
“Good one,” Nick replied. “How did you do that?”
“I dropped my bombs to scare them in my first run, then I saw them get out of the heavy vehicle through the trees as I came in for my second run,” Howard explained. “I couldn’t see them the second time, though, when I used rockets on their truck. They must have hidden in the undergrowth back then. Just saw the truck’s wreckage as I flew by.”
“Are they still alive?”
“Yes, confirmed alive,” the Mustang pilot said. “I see them running below the trees now.” Colonel Pash had specifically directed him to make sure of this. “Didn’t use my Brownings. Could have mistakenly killed someone if I had decided to.”
“Okay, good job, man,” the man at the other end of the radio aired. “The colonel just sent Sergeant Bradley and a volunteer to the area. You can come on home now, boy.”
“Okay,” Howard said, completing another fly-by of the destruction he’d earlier caused. His mission now accomplished, the homebound first lieutenant checked his compass.
The instrument’s needle appeared motionless.
Howard glanced at his control monitors. He stared at the glass circles the second time he looked. Something seemed out of place, but he couldn’t figure it out. The Mustang had a steady speed of 280 mph. Its fuel gauge indicated full main tanks and a half-filled fuselage tank, yet the plane seemed to be slowing down. No engine noise or sputter, just a drag that refused to go away.
Then the fighter-bomber pilot realized what had happened.
Everything had started moving in slow motion, even his hands and the needles on the control gauges. He could clearly make out the plane’s propeller blades in front of him. Even the inward and outward movement of his chest as he took his breath were slow.
First Lieutenant Howard Royd panicked for the first time on a mission. He felt he no longer controlled his thought processes, and realized that even his mind had slowed down.
“Still there, Royd?” Nick’s voice jolted him from the slumber he had fallen into.
Nick’s voice?
“Still here, Nick.” Spoken at the normal speed. Not slow, like his arm movements and the gauge needles. Surprisingly, his eyes still moved normally, so he saw the black speck as soon as it appeared on the horizon ahead of the Mustang.
“What’s the matter, Royd? Your fighter okay?” Nick’s voice seemed to be sailing in and out of his consciousness. His drowsiness. He felt lethargic. Like he’d been sunk into lead.
“I think I have a problem,” he said normally. “Trying to figure it out.” He lost whatever Nick continued with, because his attention went back to the black speck, which had become larger and more distinct. Or more indistinct. What was it? A shapeless entity on a head-on collision course with his fighter-bomber? He tried to steer away from it, but his plane refused to obey him. “What the hell?” he cried in desperation.
“Royd, are you okay?” Nick’s concerned voice again.
Bigger and bigger it grew, until Howard could see its hollow face and tangled arms. Again, he tried to veer off, to no avail. The apparition swiftly ate up the distance betwe
en his plane and its position, and the fighter-bomber pilot looked on helplessly.
“Nooooooooo!” he shouted, crossing his arms before his face in hopeless defense before the gray form went through his propeller and windshield, piercing his chest and tearing through his kapok-filled seat without slowing down. It burst out through the mustang’s sliding canopy and vanished into thin air.
The first lieutenant felt raw inside. His stomach churned and he started gasping for air, sweating profusely before losing consciousness.
The Mustang P-51D went into a diving spiral.
* * *
Kimberley heard the plane explode as she held Rachel beside Aiden and Mrs. Hannah Braun, or Aunt Shira.
“Now, we have some quiet,” Private Gus said, emerging from some undergrowth to her left. “We’ve brought you this far, agent. Time to get us out of here with your time portal as you promised.”
“Of course,” Kimberley said. She knew what she had to do. “We lied to you,” she said. “The time portal doesn’t exist. This is just a book of codes and we mustn’t let it fall into enemy hands.”
“What?” Ralph began. “What are you saying, miss?”
“We have to take the book to Heidelberg, private,” Kimberley told him. “We feared there had been an infiltration at Alsos Unit Spear, so we lied to you in order to escape from the camp and get this book of German nuclear codes to General Groves, who would know what to do with it.”
“German nuclear codes?” Fred asked no one in particular. “The Germans have developed nuclear weapons?”
“Who’s your suspect?” Ralph asked Kimberley.
“You guessed right,” she told him.
“Sergeant Bradley?”
“It’s not true,” Gus cut in. “What about the attack at the camp?”
“A German biological superweapon designed to cause hallucinations, fear and a killing spree within the enemy ranks.”
“My God!” Ralph exclaimed. “But this is possibly true. Nobody has examined the dead at the camp to know how they were actually killed.”
“I couldn’t get myself to tell you all this at the camp,” Kimberley lied, “because Sergeant Bradley was there.”
“A lie!” Private Gus exploded, stepping forward.
Kimberley raised the M1 Garand’s muzzle, covering the three deserters before her.
“What are you doing?” a startled Gus began, taking a second step.
“Stand back,” the Portwood police officer warned him, pulling Rachel behind her and signaling Aunt Shira to follow the little girl’s example with a slight jerk of the head. Aiden moved behind her without being prompted. “I won’t warn you again.”
Private Gus moved towards Kimberley and she cocked the rifle. The single shot brought him to his senses and he stepped back, grumbling. “You lied to us,” he snapped. “We risked everything for you.”
“You must know that we can’t go back now, agent,” Ralph said. “We can at least go with you to Heidelberg.”
“No,” Kimberley told him. “You did all this for your country.”
“Can’t you take them with you, Kim?” Aunt Shira began.
“America needs them now, Mrs. Braun,” Kimberley said, wondering how the German woman came to know her name. Rachel and the Hebrew language? “We need them to stall Task Force A lest they catch up with us before we can get to the General.”
“This is not fair,” Fred said.
“But America needs you to fight this war right now,” Kimberley repeated. “We have a different obligation, and we have to part ways here. It’s not right if you follow us, because the men of Alsos Unit Spear still needs you.”
“They don’t anymore,” Ralph pointed out. “We’ll be court-martialed if we remain here.”
“No, you won’t be court-martialed after the truth becomes known. You won’t forgive yourselves if you don’t remain here.”
“We’ll be punished,” Fred said, turning to Gus. “Told you this was a bad idea. This will...”
“Shut up,” Gus cut in.
“She’s right, Gus,” Ralph began, nodding. “I know I won’t forgive myself if I left now after what I just heard.”
“Why? What for?” Private Gus snapped, clenching his fists. “Y’all changing your mind all of a sudden?”
“I haven’t changed mine,” Fred noted. “Though I still think this was a bad idea.”
“No, it wasn’t,” Aiden said. “You guys helped us to resume our journey.”
“And which journey is that, exactly?” Private Ralph asked him.
“We’re…We’re yet to find out,” Kimberley replied. “It could end in Heidelberg or take us back to the President, but the sooner we move on, the sooner we find out where it will end.” Silently, she thanked Aunt Shira and the kids for playing along with the bogus story.
They heard the rumbling of a single vehicle.
“Task Force A,” Fred guessed. “Your gunshot has given us away,” he told Kimberley.
“You forget the smoke from our wrecked truck and the P-51 did that long before she fired that shot, dumbo,” Ralph said. “Besides, that sounds like just a Jeep. Maybe a forward party.”
“One Jeep won’t be a problem,” Gus told his colleagues. “Let’s seize this gun and teach this woman a lesson right now. Who’s with me, huh?”
“No, Gus,” Ralph said. “We need to turn ourselves in now. It’s the only way.”
“And I thought Fred was the weak one,” Gus said, eyeing Kimberley’s gun. “Come on, Ralph, let’s face her. She can’t shoot us both at once, right?”
“Don’t be foolish, man,” Ralph warned his friend. “After what you just heard, how sure are you that this time portal even exists?”
“As sure as the rumors going round back in camp about that little girl and her book,” Gus replied, stepping towards Kimberley again. He brightened when Rachel drew back behind the agent.
“I’ll shoot you if I have to,” Kimberley warned Gus, taking a backward step with her group.
“You’re scared already, miss,” the private told her. “I can smell it.”
“Then smell this,” Kimberley said, taking aim.
Gus lunged for the gun, dodging her shot. Ralph pulled him down by grabbing his legs before he could touch the rifle. Both men fell on the ground as Kimberley drew back with Aunt Shira and the children. Ralph was clearly on her side now.
Another resounding shot came from the narrow road outside the jungle of fir trees. It zipped past Kimberley and she recognized the dangerous situation they’d been thrown into.
“Run!” Ralph yelled at her, struggling with his colleague on the ground. “Run before it’s too late. We’ll try and slow them down.” The female CIC agent lifted the little girl behind her and made to move away before he remembered one thing. “Drop the gun! We need the gun!”
Three more shots zinged through the surrounding shrubs. A fourth one struck the trunk of a nearby tree.
“We need the gun!” Ralph repeated.
Kimberley nodded and dropped the weapon. She ran after Aiden and Aunt Shira while carrying Rachel.
“Get the gun, Fred!” Gus snapped at his fellow private, who had been lost all this while. “Get the gun, you fool!”
Fred picked up the M1 and made to follow the fleeing Kimberley before another shot from the new assailants forced him to change his mind. Crouching, he turned around and put the Garand rifle into better use.
“Idiot!” Gus railed from underneath Ralph. “You’re letting them get away!”
* * *
Far into the forest they ran, until the distant gunfire sounded faint.
“Never knew you could run that fast,” Kimberley told Aunt Shira, putting Rachel down on her feet.
“I was a long-distance runner for my school,” the middle-aged woman replied. “I won gold, twice.”
“Not bad,” Aiden said.
“She can run, you know?” Aunt Shira directed at Kimberley.
“Who?”
“Rachel, you
carried her all the way here,” the older woman clarified.
“Oh,” Kimberley said. “She would have slowed us down.”
“And I’m tired,” Rachel said, swinging her arms.
“Poor child,” her aunt exclaimed. “Let me bear this burden for you while you regain your strength. Let me bear the book for awhile now.”
Kimberley started. “Is that alright?” she asked. “Is the book the reason you’re tired, Rachel?”
“Yes, Kim,” the little girl replied. “Aunt Shira can do a better job of holding the book, you know.”
“Yes, of course,” Kimberley grudgingly agreed, wondering if her suspicions were correct. “Now that we’re temporarily safe, we need to know what to do with it.”
“I gave you two options, Miss Kim,” Aunt Shira said.
“It’s Miss Reyna, Mrs. Braun,” Kimberley corrected. “My friends call me Kim.”
“Well, Kim, either you find the first book, which you cannot do right now, or you hand this book back to the Gray Ones, which is the best option from the situation of things.”
“And how did you know that?” Aiden asked the middle-aged woman.
“Know what?”
“That that’s the best option?”
“You have been through a lot, dear,” Aunt Shira told him. “Imagine if everything you’ve been through could be reversed by just handing this back. Won’t you do that?”
“And what does the Bookbearer have to say about this proposal of yours?” Kimberley asked, trying to forget the possibilities the said proposal offered to her situation.
“I’ve already made up my mind, Aunt Shira,” Rachel said, rubbing her hands. “Thought I told you.”
“Returning it is the only option there is,” her aunt emphasized. “I think you have to make up your mind again, or if you want us to decide for you?”
“No,” Kimberley said, faster than she had wanted to. “We’ll stick with Rachel’s decision.” She saw gratitude in the little girl’s eyes.
“Fine,” Mrs. Braun said, stomping off ahead of the group.
“Do you think she’s angry?” Aiden whispered.
The White Book Page 20