Again, Tony went through the security procedures and the door opened. In a minute they entered the main Taurus Control Centre.
“Glad you are here, gentlemen.”
It was Councillor Inchquin – the Chairman of VIGIL. Next to him stood the Rector, VIGIL’s second in command. Both men looked more worried than Jack had ever seen them. There were two other men in the Taurus Control Centre. Jack and Angus’s friend, Professor Gino Turinelli had his eyes fixed on a closedcircuit-TV monitor and Theo Joplin, the chief VIGIL historian, was tapping manically at a computer terminal.
“What’s our position?” Tony asked.
“Not good,” the Rector spoke gravely. For a moment there, all our systems were overridden; we had no communication. They’ve just come up and it seems that we have four men down on the upper levels. I don’t even know if we were in time to warn all off-site VIGIL personnel and their security details. Look…” he waved them over to a large screen that showed a plan of the VIGIL complex. He tapped on the keyboard and CCTV footage popped up showing views of various parts of the building, including the maze of underground corridors. “We still have two small groups on site, but they’re outside the Inner Hub – and their comms are down. The intruders seem to be able to move through the complex at will – it’s as if they know all the security systems and can override them as they please…”
Jack spoke, “What about Mum – do you know if she’s OK?”
The Rector turned away from the console and looked at Jack, a worried expression on his face. “No news yet Jack…”
“Joplin, have you managed to make any more progress on the scenario?”
“Christie did not have all the details, but he gave us what he could. A Second World War intervention – 1940. We’re waiting to hear more from him… that’s assuming he can contact us.”
“It was Dad who sent us the first warning… up at Rachan,” Jack said. “Does he know why this is happening?”
“Your father has done us a big favour,” Inchquin replied, “but I suspect he’s more concerned for your safety than ours…”
“What do you mean?”
“He has got wind of a Revisionist plan to intervene in history. He says it was something that he and Pendelshape used to talk about a lot in the old days… how to stop the Second World War.”
“Does that mean that Pendelshape is still alive – he didn’t die at Gravelines?” Angus asked.
“He would seem to be very much alive. He must be behind this. As soon as he knows that VIGIL has been defeated and our Taurus is under their control, the Revisionists will execute their plan.”
“… and this time we won’t be able to do anything about it,” Jack said.
“Correct Jack. Not without our Taurus. We have to prepare to leave.”
“What do you mean, leave?” Jack’s brow furrowed.
Inchquin tried to keep his voice steady, but he wasn’t finding it easy. “What I mean, Jack, is that we have Revisionist intruders. They are already inside VIGIL and seem to have control of our security systems. They are aiming to break into the Inner Hub – and then in here – the Taurus Control Centre. If they do, well, that’s the end of VIGIL – and of us. The Revisionists will have no hesitation in killing us all and they will have a free hand to do what they want. Fortunately, the Taurus systems are isolated from the others. It gives us a breathing space. A final option…”
“Escape using the Taurus,” the Rector said.
Jack was incredulous. “But… if we time-travelled out of here and then they destroyed the Taurus there would be no way of returning. We’d be stuck.”
“It would leave us with one chance. We just might be able to intercept the Revisionists in 1940 and stop whatever it is they are trying to do…”
Jack looked over to the far side of the Control Centre where the Taurus sat brooding behind its blast screen, nestling within its arrangement of complex pipes, cables and access gantries.
“The Taurus becomes a lifeboat, then?”
“…and our only way to stop the Revisionists,” Inchquin said. “Gentlemen, I fear that it is time to prepare for the worst; prepare to go back to 1940.” He looked at Jack and Angus, “and that includes you two.”
Within minutes, they had changed clothes in the VIGIL transfer preparation area, gathered what provisions they could and loaded them into the special VIGIL backpacks. Already the powerful generators that powered the Taurus were starting up. Jack could feel his heart pumping in his chest.
“What space–time vector are we setting?” Joplin asked.
Inchquin sighed, shaking his head, “All we have from Christie is London, June 1940. Go for that. Gino – prepare the time phones and lower the blast screen. Taurus will be powered up shortly.”
“Comms is back up!” Tony announced, one hand cupped over his ear. “It’s Belstaff and Johnstone! They say they have managed to defeat a group of intruders on the second level and they’re coming through to help us.”
Inchquin clenched his fist. “Yes,” he hissed. “It might not be over yet…”
“They’re nearly here – outside the Control Centre. Shall I open the door?”
“Do it.”
The heavy door at the far end of the Control Centre swung open and through it marched Belstaff and Johnstone. Like Tony and Gordon they were part of VIGIL’s security team, but as they marched into the Control Centre, Jack could see from the looks on their faces that something was wrong. Very wrong.
Johnstone barked an order, “Everyone on your knees!”
For a moment, they did not understand the command. But then Johnstone fired a volley of automatic fire into the ceiling.
“Do as I say!”
“What are you doing?” Gordon boomed.
But Johnstone’s response was instantaneous and deadly. He levelled his weapon directly at Gordon and fired once. The round ripped into Gordon’s chest and he was hurled backwards.
They all dropped to the floor.
The Rector looked up at their assailants. “What is the meaning of this?”
“Never you mind – just do as I say.”
Jack knelt next to Angus. The situation was desperate.
“We’re going to tie you lot up and then finish clearing the complex. Do exactly as you are told.”
“Traitors! You swore an oath of loyalty to VIGIL,” Inchquin seethed through his teeth. “We’ve still got others on the outside… you don’t stand a chance. Give up now.”
Johnstone laughed, “Everything’s taken care of. I’m afraid it’s all over for you lot, sir. We have already started Phase Two.”
Jack glanced behind him at the Taurus – it was only five metres away and the blast screen was already down. The word he had used a few seconds before flashed through his mind again:
Lifeboat.
Surreptitiously, he caught Angus’s eye and nodded towards the Taurus as Belstaff and Johnstone started to tie up the others. It was only half a chance, but it was all they had.
Jack whispered out of the corner of his mouth, “When I say ‘go’ you hit the blast screen control, I’ll grab the time phones…”
Angus looked back at Jack with a glint in his eye.
“GO!”
Jack and Angus dived towards the Taurus. Johnstone looked up, levelled his weapon and fired without hesitation. But Jack and Angus were already halfway across the room and Angus had already thrown the blast screen control switch. The giant window accelerated upwards from its housing in the floor and the bullets ricocheted uselessly off it. Jack grabbed two of the preconfigured time phones nestling in their pods. He initiated the synchronisation procedure and set the countdown to fifteen seconds. They scrambled up the entry gantry into the waiting Taurus.
In front of them, the small heads-up display was already counting down:
12… 11… 10…
Around his feet, Jack saw shimmering eddies of light. The atmosphere within the Taurus structure was also changing and, outside, the Control Centre appeared da
rker and fuzzier. Jack could make out Inchquin, the Rector and the others looking up at them and the prostrate body of Gordon lying to one side. Belstaff and Johnstone were battling with the blast screen control panel and suddenly it started to come down. They raced towards the Taurus… But the countdown continued relentlessly.
7… 6… 5…
Belstaff stopped, aimed his weapon up at Jack and Angus and fired. Jack saw the spent rounds spit from the side of the weapon. In their position up on the transfer platform, Jack and Angus were sitting ducks. Jack recoiled, waiting for the bullets to rip through his flesh. But then something extraordinary happened. Jack could actually see the bullets as they entered the atmosphere of the Taurus Transfer Chamber. Miraculously, the bullets slowed down, as if they had entered a jar of treacle. As they slowed, they distended until they looked nearly a foot or so long. In a moment they stopped completely and just hung there in the air of the Taurus Transfer Chamber. The nearest was only millimetres from Jack’s heart.
Below, Johnstone clambered up the Taurus towards the Transfer Chamber. If the bullets couldn’t kill them, he would physically drag Jack and Angus from the machine. In seconds he was there. He reached into the Chamber, but he was thrown from the Taurus and back into the main Control Centre, as if seized by a massive electric shock. He landed awkwardly.
Suddenly, at the far end of the Control Centre, Jack saw a new figure appear in the doorway. The man looked oddly familiar. Behind him, there was a teenage boy with blonde hair. The boy looked up from his position in the doorway to where Jack stood on the Taurus transfer platform. Their eyes met. Jack gasped in astonishment. The boy staring up at him looked exactly like… well, he looked exactly like him. In fact it was him.
3…2…1
Beneath Jack’s feet, the flashing electrical whirlpool vanished and they stared down into a black abyss.
Jack blinked as the rays of a dawn sun rose into a cloudless sky. He was sitting up and leaning against a curved wall of stone. His body ached. Angus was sitting next to him. He looked OK, but for one thing – a fat pigeon was sitting on his head. Angus detected the presence of the unfortunate creature at about the same time as Jack. He reached up and splatted the bird, which flapped away in a flurry of feathers, squawking loudly.
“Stupid thing…” Angus tried to look down his back, “has it crapped on me?”
Jack forced a grin. “Don’t think it liked the look of you.”
“I’m sore – did we make it?”
“Yes. But I’ve got no idea where we are.”
Jack stood up and immediately wished he hadn’t. He quickly sat down again and pushed himself back hard into the wall behind him. They seemed to be perched on a narrow platform of stone jutting out from a very tall pillar, high above a city square. Jack’s feet were close to one of the edges of the platform.
“What is this place?”
The square below contained fountains and four large bronze animal statues, possibly lions, lying down, around the bottom of the pillar. Jack looked up. Just above them was a huge statue of a man, which must have been nearly six metres high. The man gazed out across the city. He wore a broad admiral’s hat and his left hand rested on the hilt of his sword. The sleeve of his right hand was pinned to his tunic. He had only one arm. It was the final piece of information that Jack needed to confirm where they were.
“Nelson’s Column,” Jack said.
“What?”
“The Taurus has dumped us on top of Nelson’s Column. Him up there – that’s Admiral Nelson and that down there – that’s Trafalgar Square. I think the Houses of Parliament are over there somewhere, yeah, look…” Jack craned his head. “That’s Big Ben. See the clock tower? We’re in the middle of London.”
“Then what are those, over there?”
Jack followed the direction of Angus’s gaze. Some way off, a series of large grey objects were floating in the sky.
“I think they’re balloons… you know, barrage balloons… to stop planes. It’s 1940 – the Second World War – that was the space–time fix that Joplin set. I’ll check our time phone.”
Jack reached into a pocket in his under vest and pulled out the time phone from its pouch. He flicked it open.
Date: 26th June 1940
Time: 05.30 a.m.
Location: Trafalgar Square, London.
“Well that confirms it. Has the time signal gone?”
“No. Still bright yellow… that means we’re not out of the woods yet. Johnstone and Belstaff, or one of their cronies, can still come back and get us. There’s no knowing what they’ll do if they find us.”
“We’ve got other problems too. How do we get down off this thing?”
Jack crawled forward on his belly to the edge of the stone platform. There was nothing to stop them from falling off the edge. Lying flat on his stomach, he peeked over. His heart jumped into his mouth. It was a sheer drop down to the square below. What made it worse was that the stone platform overhung the main column. There was absolutely no way of climbing down. They were marooned.
“What’s it like?”
“I wouldn’t look if I were you.” Jack felt himself starting to panic. “Angus – I’ve no idea how we can get off this… I guess we could shout, maybe the army could climb up or something, but I can’t see anyone down there, it’s too early – seems completely dead.”
Angus smiled. “Didn’t they teach you anything in VIGIL training? Be prepared. Here…”
Angus patted his backpack. For the first time, Jack realised that it was considerably larger than his own.
“I brought a few extra bits and pieces from the VIGIL prep room. I grabbed everything I could. I noticed these, you know, we were talking about the Battle of Britain with Dad and what with me doing my private pilot’s licence… and remember last time the Taurus dumped us on top of a castle…”
Jack had no idea what Angus was talking about.
Angus opened the back of his pack. “Anyway, I got one for you too…” He pulled out a large black bag. “…And in that bit there are the harnesses… you strap them round like this. It’s very lightweight.”
Jack’s heart sank as he suddenly realised what Angus meant.
“Parachutes. You brought parachutes with you.”
Angus’s mouth curled into a grin. “As I said – be prepared. Don’t worry – it’s easy. You just strap it on, jump off the edge and pull the ripcord… er, apparently. Like this…”
“But you’ve never done it before.”
“What? Of course not,” Angus tapped his temple with his index finger. “D’you think I’m bonkers?” Angus considered his last remark for a moment and added, “Look – think of it this way, if it all screws up, you’re not going to know anything about it anyway.”
“I feel better already.”
Angus started to strap the contraption onto his back.
Jack looked on, “You’re not serious?”
“Come on Jack… let me help you with yours…”
Soon Angus was standing on the edge of the stone platform. He turned round to Jack, “So, you coming? Or are you going to sit there all day, getting crapped on by pigeons?”
“But…”
“Get a grip, man, we don’t have any choice. Belstaff and Johnstone could be here in seconds.”
For some bizarre reason, Jack felt himself drawn along with Angus’s mad plan and soon he was standing next to him on the plinth, staring into the abyss with a parachute strapped to his back. He had just been transported seventy years through time into a war zone, and now he was being told to BASE jump off the top of Nelson’s Column. He didn’t feel well.
“Jump and pull… nothing to it. Just before you hit the ground, pull in the control lines and flare the ‘chute. Land on both feet, then roll…”
Angus had the patter of a professional – but Jack knew he was blagging.
“Sorry, Angus… I just can’t do it.”
“Look Jack, people do this stuff all the time. They do it for fun, for
sport, so it must be OK.”
“I can’t…”
“Well I’m going. The more I think about it, the worse I feel… At least when I’m down there I can get help…”
Without another word, Angus leaped from the stone plinth. One moment he was there, standing at the feet of Admiral Nelson fifty metres up in the sky, next he was gone.
“Wait!” Jack shouted. But it was too late. Jack looked down. Almost immediately Angus’s parachute flowered from his backpack into a giant white cross on a blue background – the Scottish flag. Jack shook his head. The parachute immediately broke his fall and in seconds he had landed.
Jack edged forward, but then he stopped. He still had the time phone. He took it out again and noticed that the yellow light was still on. Now he had to make another decision. If they kept the time phone then, just like Angus said, the Revisionists could still locate them. They could come back and find them and then what? On the other hand, if Jack threw it away, they were stuck – maybe marooned for ever in 1940. He had to make a choice. He could hide it. But where? Jack closed the time phone and placed it at the rear of the narrow platform, where it met the pedestal, which supported the giant statue. It wasn’t a great place but there was no time to think of anywhere else. At least no one would find it there… and if Belstaff and Johnstone tried to time travel back to it, they would get the same nasty surprise that Jack and Angus had just had. They would be stuck up Nelson’s column. At the same time, at least Jack and Angus would know where it was, although getting it back might prove a little tricky. Jack approached the edge of the platform again and looked down. He could see the smudge of Angus’s white face beaming back up at him from the square. He was grinning and waving.
Jack gritted his teeth. He was not about to be outdone. He stepped forward into the abyss and plummeted earthwards. The adrenaline gave him the second of clarity he needed. He pulled the ripcord; there was a second’s delay and suddenly he felt as if he was being flung upwards. He looked down; the ground was still accelerating towards him at an alarming rate. He closed his eyes and braced himself for the impact. Both feet hit the ground and it felt like his spine had been detached from his body. He rolled sideways and came to a halt. He was down.
Day of Vengeance Page 4