by Alex Scarrow
Cartwright studied her silently. ‘There are others, then? Other places like this?’
Her face hardened and her dark eyes narrowed. ‘I’m not telling you any more. I don’t know any more, but… like I say, Liam knows.’
‘Hmm.’ He thumbed his chin thoughtfully.
‘Bob,’ said Maddy, ‘how many days would it take to do those density scans?’
› Calculating… just a moment… just a moment…
‘Nice try, young lady,’ said Cartwright eventually. ‘You know, that was almost convincing. But it’s the sort of nonsense that only happens in movies.’ His croaky voice raised in pitch to that of some damsel in distress. ‘ Oh, please don’t shoot, mister… If you let me live, I’ll show you where the loot is hidden.’
Cartwright laughed, pleased with his impression.
Sal shook her head. ‘Oh, I’m not lying. Where do you think the time machine came from?’ she replied. ‘What? You think me and Maddy put it all together by ourselves?’
He had no answer for that.
Maddy could see where Sal was going with this. A good bluff. ‘She’s right, Cartwright. Where do you think we get spare parts from? When the displacement system breaks down, who do you think we call to come and fix it? Some spotty kid from PC World?’
Sal nodded. ‘You think our people are going to let you walk away with one of their time machines?’
There were questions there that the old man needed time to consider carefully. The room remained a motionless tableau, while from somewhere overhead came the faint muted sound of a circling helicopter.
The blink of the cursor running across the dialogue box suddenly caught everyone’s attention.
› Information: running at 11 scans a second, 365,250 scans will take approximately nine hours.
‘Nine hours,’ said Maddy. ‘See that? Nine hours.’ She looked at her watch. ‘By three this afternoon, we’ll have an idea exactly when he is and we’ll be able to bring him back.’ She smiled sarcastically at him. ‘Then you’ll have three lab rats to play around with instead of two.’
‘Yes.’ Cartwright nodded appreciatively. ‘I suppose there is that.’
‘Please,’ whispered Sal, her hard-bargaining face softened to that of a begging puppy.
‘All right. But if either of you tries anything silly, like dialling for help with one of these signals — ’ he reached into his jacket and pulled out a handgun — ‘in fact, if you do anything that isn’t explained clearly to me first, I will shoot you dead. Do you understand?’
They both nodded quickly.
‘There’ll be no shouted warnings, girls. I will simply pick up my gun and I will blow your brains across that messy desk of yours.’ He offered them that cold lifeless smile. ‘And, believe me, you’d be in very good company. It won’t be the first time I’ve blown a person’s brains right out of his head.’
Maddy swallowed and puffed out a fluttering breath, her eyes resolutely on the wavering muzzle of Cartwright’s gun.
‘Sure. Uh… O-OK. Nothing silly, then… I totally promise you that.’
CHAPTER 62
65 million years BC, jungle
Liam heard the roar of the water through the trees ahead of them.
‘Becks? Are we close?’
‘Affirmative. The river is a hundred and twenty-six yards ahead of us.’
He grinned a mixture of relief and bravado. ‘Jay-zus-’n’-Mary, am I glad to be back!’
By the look on the faces of the others they couldn’t agree more with that. The thick canopy of leaves above them began to thin out as they approached the jungle’s edge, lances of late-afternoon sunlight stabbing down past loops of vine and dappling the ground with pools of mottled light.
With a final glance back at the forbidding darkness behind them, and an almost complete certainty that those things were still somewhere back there watching them from a distance, they hurried forward into the light.
Up ahead the river frothed and tumbled like some endlessly enraged beast. On the far side, he could see their bridge, dangling like a crane’s arm above the water. He was relieved to see it was raised; the four they’d left behind had maintained a wary caution.
Liam stood on the bank and cupped his hands. ‘Hello-o-o-o-o!’
The others gathered beside him. They’d lost three of their number, Ranjit, Franklyn and, earlier this morning, Kelly. All of them had heard his cry, and it had hastened their efforts down into the jungle valley, knowing those things were somewhere behind. And they’d grouped together more cautiously, realizing now the creatures were looking for stragglers.
Being bunched together seemed to have paid off. There’d been no sign of them throughout the morning, midday and now into the afternoon. Not even when they’d cleared the bare peak. Liam had looked back quickly in the hope of catching their pursuers unawares. But he saw nothing.
Now they were back. Job was done.
Liam craned his neck to look into the thin veil of jungle on the far side of the river. He could see some slivers of light through the dark tree trunks, the clearing beyond. But no sign of anyone coming their way to lower the bridge yet.
‘Try again,’ said Laura.
‘H-E-L–L-O-O-O-O-O!’
Liam’s voice echoed above the roar of the river, and startled a flock of miniature pterodactyls from a nearby tree. They waited with growing anticipation for a few minutes.
‘They’d have heard that surely?’ said Whitmore.
Edward stood on tiptoes to get a look through the jungle opposite. ‘Unless they’re all sleeping.’
‘There’ll be hell to pay if they are,’ muttered Liam. He cupped his hands again. ‘WE’RE BACK!’
Still nothing.
‘Maybe they gone huntin’?’ said Juan.
‘I gave instructions that someone always has to keep an eye on the windmill,’ replied Liam irritably.
Laura nodded at the bridge. ‘Someone would have to stay behind anyway, to lift that for them and lower it.’
He nodded. ‘True.’
‘So someone must be home.’
‘This is not good,’ he muttered under his breath.
Becks had been examining the fast-flowing water. ‘I am able to cross this,’ she said.
‘The current’s too strong,’ said Liam.
‘I do not need to swim across all of it, Liam.’ She pointed along the bank on which they were standing. Fifty yards down, it rose to a moss-covered hump that was well on its way to being undercut by the river. ‘Information: I calculate I will be able to jump across between thirty and forty per cent of the river’s width from that point.’
He looked at her. ‘And you know how to swim?’
‘Affirmative. I also know how to walk, run, jump… talk.’
He cocked a sideways glance at her. Was that actually sarcasm? Was that another example of Becks’s emerging sense of humour? She returned a smile.
‘Oh, you’re so funny, Becks.’
‘I am developing several files on humour traits.’ She nodded towards the mossy hump, changing subject. ‘I will not be long,’ she said, turning to walk down the bank towards it.
‘Where’s she going?’ asked Whitmore, unhappy to see their robot bodyguard leaving them alone.
‘She’s going to do her superhero thing,’ said Liam.
They watched in silence as she examined the river for a moment then turned to regard the height of the hump. After a few seconds she walked away from the river’s edge and came to a halt just as she was about to enter the shadowy fringe of the jungle. She turned round and without a second’s hesitation broke into a sprint towards the river.
Whitmore’s eyes rounded. ‘She’s gonna jump it?’
She bounded up the side of the hump and launched herself out across the river. Subconsciously everyone gasped and rose on their tiptoes as she gracefully sailed a dozen yards out over the water, her arms pinwheeling to give her extra momentum. Then she arced down into the water, disappearing beneath the sta
mpeding white horses of the river.
For a long half a minute Liam couldn’t see her anywhere, then, finally, he spotted a dark head bobbing among the churning swirls of suds, gone again, back again, then as the river rode over a bed of large boulders and became a chicane of lethal-looking rapids, it curved round and she was lost from sight.
‘She gonna make it?’ asked Juan.
Liam nodded. ‘I’d put money on it.’
Whitmore nodded with admiration. ‘What I wouldn’t give to have her on my school’s athletics team. We’d win every cup going.’
They waited an interminable ten minutes before they spotted her again, jogging up the riverbank on the far side. She reached their jury-rigged bridge, carefully untied the counterweight of bundled logs and then, taking on the weight of the main trunk, muscles in her arms bulging from the effort, she slowly lowered it, the vine ropes creaking and groaning under the strain.
Above the busy rumble of the river, they heard the crack of one of the vines snapping.
‘It’s gonna go!’ shouted Liam.
It looked like Becks had heard that too. She began to pay out the rope more quickly. But another vine snapped under the increased burden, twanging up to the overhanging branch like a rubber band.
‘Stand back!’ barked Liam to the others. ‘It’s gonna drop!’
And it did. The other vines snapped in quick succession and the tree trunk swung down from its forty-five degree angle and clattered heavily on the boulders on their side. Everyone heard the crack, loud as a gunshot. Halfway along the trunk, jagged splinters of wood protruded from the side, and their bridge sagged down in the middle almost into the water.
‘Oh, great!’ shouted Laura.
‘Lemmesee… it may be OK,’ said Juan. Before anyone could stop him he’d stepped up on to the boulders and then carefully on to the end of the log. He inched his way a few yards along it. It bowed a little further, now dipping into the water itself midway along, but it seemed to be holding.
Juan dropped to his hands and knees, then straddled it, bum-shuffling his way across. At the midway point, he gingerly eased his way over the jagged fracture, water catching his dangling legs and threatening to pull him off. But he got over, and a minute later jumped off on the far side.
Liam nodded. ‘All right, then. It seems like it’ll hold for us. Let’s go.’
Whitmore ushered Edward to cross first, then had Laura, Akira and Jasmine line up to go next. Meanwhile Liam turned round. ‘Have your spears ready.’ He nodded at the dark jungle behind Howard and Whitmore. ‘They may still be out there.’
Waiting until it’s just the one of us left? Then what?
He didn’t care to think about that.
Whitmore went after Jasmine, panting with exertion and fear as he inched his way across, the fractured trunk wobbling and creaking with each movement he made. Finally, he made it to the far side and beckoned for whoever was coming next.
‘Leonard, you go.’
The dark-haired boy eyed Liam. ‘You sure?’
‘Uh-huh,’ replied Liam, his eyes remaining on the dark jungle. ‘Just be quick, will you?’ he added, flashing him a quick nervous smile.
Howard nodded, and then was on the trunk and shuffling. Liam waited until the student was nearly halfway across before taking one wary step on to the end of the log. He could feel the vibration of Howard’s movements.
If they’re gonna come for me… it’s gonna be right now.
Then as if on cue he thought he saw movement, some dark shape leaping through the undergrowth, moving from one hiding place to the next. Getting closer, but not quite ready to commit to leaping out into the open.
‘What is it?’ he grunted under his breath. ‘You scared of me? Is that it?’
That sounded good to him, fighting talk. For a fleeting moment there he almost didn’t feel completely terrified. But that soon passed as his eyes assured him something else had just shifted position one tree closer to him.
He finally felt the trunk under his foot wobble as Leonard presumably jumped off at the far side. He heard Whitmore’s voice over the din of tumbling water calling him over.
‘Coming!’ Liam shouted over his shoulder. Keeping his eyes on the jungle, he reversed on to the log, still not daring to turn his back on what he knew was in there and waiting for him to do just that.
Pull yourself together, Liam.
He dropped down to his hands and knees. Unwilling to turn his back on the jungle, he began bum-shuffling backwards, one hand still holding the spear half ready, in case he needed to defend himself at a moment’s notice.
After a minute’s slow progress, he finally felt a sharp splinter of wood scrape the inside of his thigh and realized he was now just before the fractured halfway point. Cool water rode up his dangling legs, soaking him to his thighs. As he shuffled to get past the jagged shards of the fractured trunk, he heard it crack and felt it lurch as it sagged lower into the river. Water suddenly rode up over his knees and over his lap, pummelling his gut and chest like an enraged boxer sensing the faltering resolve of an opponent.
Oh no… please, no.
Water. Drowning. Suddenly the fear of being snatched and torn apart by some vicious predator was matched by the idea of being snatched away by the river.
‘It’s going to break!’ shouted someone.
Liam could feel the trunk being buffeted and kicked by the strong current. It flexed, creaked and twisted under the punishing weight of energy slamming into it. He realized it wasn’t going to hold out much longer and a rising tide of panic compelled him to get off his backside and crawl. He struggled on to his hands and knees, now, finally, turning his back on the jungle he’d moments ago thought was hiding the most frightening thing in this world.
No… the most bloody frightening thing right now was this churning white monster roaring hungrily at him, doing its best to pull him off. He could see the others waiting for him at the far end of the bowing log, all frantically waving at him to get a move on.
‘All right… all right, I’m coming!’ he yelped. He began to crawl forward on hands and knees. One hand carefully placed after the other on the treacherously wet bark.
Come on, Liam, come on. You’re nearly there. He managed to make his way a yard closer to the bank, and even managed to flash the others a cavalier I’m gonna be just fine grin, when his hand found a slick patch of moss.
‘Uhh…’ was all he managed to gasp before his hand slipped round the side of the trunk and the unsupported weight of his body carried him over.
CHAPTER 63
65 million years BC, jungle
Suddenly he found himself spinning amid a roaring chaotic swirl of swiftly moving water. Instinctively he’d snatched a lungful of air as he’d gone under, his body doing the thinking for him while his mind shrieked uselessly with blind panic.
Drown! I’m gonna drown!
He knew it. His lungs were only going to buy him a half minute of life. His mind was all of a sudden back in the narrow confines of a corridor groaning with the sound of stressed bulkheads, flickering wall lamps and the distant roar of ice-cold seawater finding its way up from the deck below. The certain promise of death a mile down in the cold dark embrace of the ocean.
Oh no, no, no, no, not this! Not like this!
Then his head suddenly broke the surface. He flailed in the foam, still holding on to the stale breath in his lungs. He caught sight of their log bridge thirty or forty yards behind him already and fast disappearing as the swift current carried him away.
His legs thumped heavily against a boulder and he found himself being rolled over its hard rounded surface. His head again under the water, his ears filled with the pounding roar of the river, he felt himself being sucked down deep by a spiralling current, pressure compressing his chest.
Panic. Sheer, blinding panic robbed his mind of any useful conscious thought and left him with a curdling mental scream, knowing this dark roaring depth was where it was all going to come to an end
for him.
But the river’s mischievous current decided to play one more game with him and shot him to the surface to say goodbye to life and air and trees and the crimson sky of later afternoon once more. Liam gasped for another lungful of air, half aware that perhaps the kindest thing he could do was simply breathe out and prepare his mouth, his throat, his lungs for an invasion of water.
But then his shoulder thudded hard against something. Something he could grasp hold of and fight the incredible pull of the river. He opened his eyes and realized it was a fallen tree. For a moment he wondered if the river had carried him right the way round their island in some logic-defying loop-the-loop and he was right back where their crudely constructed bridge was.
He desperately grappled with the rough bark and the small leafy branches that sprouted from it, merciful handholds that their smooth and straight trunk had lacked. From branch to branch he managed to pull himself out of the strong current in the middle of the river to some calmer eddies of swirling water.
Finally his foot brushed against the river bottom, scattering pebbles, and his feet desperately fumbled for firmer footing that promised to stay beneath him. His hands followed the fallen tree, pulling on thicker, more reliable branches until he found himself wading out of the river, finally collapsing on hands and knees on wet shingle that shifted and clattered noisily beneath him.
‘Urgh,’ he spluttered, between ragged gasps of breath.
His breath was still pounding in and out as he finally pulled himself, exhausted, to his feet. He turned to look at the fallen tree, trying to get his bearings and work out which side of the river he was now standing on. The base of the tree was on the far side; he could see a frayed and splintered stump that looked like it had been hacked at by a team of inept carpenters armed with blunt chisels… or beavers even.
Not beavers, obviously. Perhaps some species of termite had cannibalized the tree, or it had simply rotted and split. Either way, he thanked it for saving his life. He noticed a mess of disturbed shingle and footprints around him among the leaves and branches of the felled tree and realized that perhaps Lam and the others must have felled the tree for wood, but foolishly allowed it to fall across the river and just left it.