Jay thought briefly about stunning the man. They didn’t have time for this. Instead, he said,
“That would be cool, er, delightful. We’re staying at the Waldorf. Call any time. Now, we really must be going. So nice to have met you.” They shook hands again and the cavalryman gave a small bow to Sandra before turning to re-enter the museum.
“What the hell was that all about?” Jay snapped. He took her elbow and steered her toward the reading room. “We should have ditched him in the street.”
“What, and miss my one and only chance ever to be courted by a Hussar?”
“We have just six minutes. Sniper might be in there right now. Or he might walk through those doors at any moment.”
“He’s not here. If he was, we’d know it.”
“We should get out of sight. He’ll recognise you when he arrives.”
“I don’t think so, not dressed like this.”
Jay looked into her eyes. “Believe me, any man who’s seen you once would know you forever.”
Sandra looked at him in amazement, completely thrown by the intensity with which he had spoken.
Jay broke the spell. “I just had a thought. He might be dressed up too.” They looked around quickly. There were very few people in the courtyard and none of the men were even close to Sniper’s stature. “He could have seen us come in here. He might be watching us.”
Sandra shook her head. “Not his style. If he thought we were here to spoil his splash, he’d have shot us both without hesitation.”
They had reached the door to the library. “All the more reason to get out of sight then.”
“Excuse me.”
A man of about thirty was standing next to them, waiting to go into the library. He was round-faced with a goatee—hardly a distinguishing feature in 1902—and a heavy overcoat. What did stand out was his Russian-style fur hat and heavy Russian accent, obvious even though he had only spoken two words.
They both stood aside to let him pass, watching him in silent awe. Neither spoke until he had closed the door behind him.
“Oh my God. That was him!” Jay could hardly believe it. “He spoke to us!”
Sandra was less impressed. “Five minutes to go and Lenin just walked into the reading room. If Sniper doesn’t get here soon, we’ll have missed our chance.” An idea struck her. She led Jay aside, well away from the door.
“Look, this is the only entrance to the library, right?”
“I think so.”
“And Lenin is safe inside, yes?”
“Unless Sniper’s inside with him right now!”
“He’s not, I tell you. Sniper is…he’s like some god of chaos or something. When he arrives, there will be a whirlwind around him. People will be screaming and running. That’s who he is.”
She seemed strangely excited by the prospect, rather than scared as Jay thought she should be.
“But we can stop him,” she went on. “He has to go right past us to get to Lenin and he’s got no time to waste. If he turns up at all, we can take him down right there.” She pointed to the empty courtyard. “No one inside need ever know Sniper was here.”
“Except for the gunshots and the world going haywire, you mean?”
“That’s better than letting Sniper get inside.”
Jay looked at her and nodded. “Are you all right? Only I thought you’d be… I don’t know… scared or something. Yet you seem…”
Sandra frowned. “You’re right. I should be at least nervous about this, but I’m not. I’m just keen to get on with it. Get it done, you know?”
Jay looked into her eyes, not at all cheered by her reply. But he didn’t have time to worry about it. “We need somewhere to hide.”
“No, we don’t. We just need to stand out of the way and pretend we’re ordinary people.”
“Over here then.” He began to lead her across to a spot at the side of the library building where they could wait unobtrusively, when a noise came from the main entrance to the museum. Someone inside screamed and there was a bright flash of light at one of the windows.
“He’s here,” Sandra said. All the excitement was suddenly gone from her eyes. Now Jay could see the tension and fear he’d been expecting.
* * * *
“Whoo! Oh man, this place is crazy!” Sniper shouted as they crashed through the small group of people inside the museum entrance. Out in the street, the traffic jams were shimmering and chaotic as people leapt from carriages and horses bolted in panic. All attempts to keep a low profile had ended a few minutes ago when Sniper and T-800 realised that, whatever they did, a major splash was building up around them. That’s when they’d drawn their submachine guns and begun indiscriminately shooting their way through every obstacle. With the bucking road, the panicking crowds, and the falling masonry everywhere, their progress had been slow. They reached the museum entrance with just four minutes to go.
Only Sniper’s brutality and single-minded determination had kept them moving forward at all.
“Out of the way, bitch!” he yelled, shoving a woman to the floor, and running past her. As soon as they entered the building, the causal disturbances began. People jerked and trembled, and massive stone pillars rippled like water. The marble floors heaved and cracked.
“It’s that way.”
Sniper led them through the treacherous entrance hall to the back of the building where doors opened onto the courtyard and the large round building at its centre.
“At last,” he shouted, climbing over the wreckage of the doors. Behind him he saw himself and T-800 come into the hall again. He slapped T-800 on the arm and pointed. “Echoes.”
His companion watched the two of them making their way toward themselves. “Incredible,” he said. The echoes weren’t going to make it across the hall. A great rift opened in the floor and they couldn’t get across. They’d seen many echoes of themselves as they’d fought their way across London, little fragments of their recent past, replayed in the tortured timeline they left in their wake. Sniper grabbed his friend by the shoulder and dragged him onwards. Outside in the courtyard, it was calmer. There was almost nobody there. An elderly man walked about admiring the architecture. An elegant young couple was strolling around the side of the library. T-800 raised his gun to shoot them, just for fun, but Sniper stopped him.
“Don’t risk it, man. We’ve got to get inside. You start a big splash now and we might never get there. We don’t have long.” To emphasise the point, he pulled his helmet from the carpetbag and put his arm through the strap, tossing the bag aside.
They pushed on. The splash they’d created in the museum hall was spreading into the courtyard, but all Sniper had eyes for was the door of the Round Reading Room. So he didn’t see the elegant couple turn and point handguns at him.
* * * *
“He’s mine!” Sandra said.
Jay glanced quickly her way. She could see he doubted she could make the shot but he said,
“Okay. He’s yours.”
Sandra tried to steady her trembling hands. She watched Sniper over the barrel of her gun, the way she had imagined doing for so long. But something kept her from firing. Sniper looked scruffy and dirty. He’d obviously made some attempt at Edwardian dress but that had long ago been wrecked by the mayhem he’d fought his way through. The light in his pale blue-grey eyes and the vulpine grin on his handsome face told her how much he was enjoying himself. With a jolt, she recognised the man beside him. The same man who had been there at Ommen. The one who had watched silently as Hal was beaten to death.
“Go on then,” Jay said. “Take the shot. They’ll see us in a minute.”
Sandra tightened her finger on the trigger. Just a little more pressure and Sniper would be dead. Gone forever. Her nightmare would be over. She swallowed hard. It seemed impossible that it could actually happen, that she was here, at last, and he was about to die. Surely it couldn’t be so easy?
Then Sniper saw them. His pale eyes scanned around and he saw th
e guns. Then he saw her face and stopped in surprise. Not fear, not despair, just surprise. His grin hardened and she could see recognition and cold, cold hatred welling up in him.
Feeling those eyes burning into her, panic hit her like an electric shock. She pulled the trigger. Oh God, he’d seen her. Oh God, he knew she was there, standing exposed, standing where he could see her, where he could get to her. She fired and fired, but he kept looking at her, unharmed, invincible.
T-800 was not so lucky. Sandra’s first shot hit him in the chest and he fell dead as her other shots went wild. Sniper looked down at his fallen friend and a flicker of regret crossed his face. Then he was running. He raised his weapon and fired a quick burst toward Sandra. She noticed the careless way he did it. All that mattered to him was getting to the library. He didn’t care if she lived or died.
The realisation hit her like a slap on the face.
Jay dragged her down to the ground, firing back at Sniper from a prone position and managing to clip him on the thigh. The brick stumbled but stayed on his feet. He sprayed bullets in their direction and made it to the door as Jay and Sandra pressed themselves into the ground. Jay was on his feet firing again before Sniper was through the door, but a lucky return shot from Sniper hit him in the right shoulder. He dropped his weapon and fell to one knee as Sandra watched in horror.
“Are you all right?”
Sandra dragged her eyes off Jay to find the soldier they’d met earlier, helping her to her feet. The daze she had been in cleared instantly. “I’m fine,” she snapped. “We’ve got to stop him.”
“The scruffy fellow who ran into the library?”
“Jay, stay here. You’re hurt.”
“Well, I’m glad someone noticed.”
She grabbed a submachine gun from her bag and rushed on to the library with the Hussar corporal in tow. She glanced back at Jay as she reached the door. He had slumped to a sitting position and was watched them with glazed eyes, holding his shoulder. Blood oozed from between his fingers.
* * * *
“Mr. Jacob Richter?” the librarian asked, peering at Lenin above his spectacles. Lenin gave a small nod of confirmation.
The librarian riffled through a tray in which a number of documents were stacked. “Ah, here we are.” He handed a ticket over. “It is valid for three months, and must then be renewed if you wish to continue to use the reading room. Now, if I may, there are just one or two rules our new readers need to be aware of.”
The man began listing the library’s regulations in a polite, slightly pompous tone. But Lenin was barely listening. From where he stood, the magnificent interior of the Round Reading Room surrounded him in all its glory, from the highly polished reading tables, to the stuffed shelves curving beneath the splendid domed roof. He admired it with the eye of a serious scholar, eager to explore this Aladdin’s cave of intellectual riches.
“There. That’s all I think. Welcome to the British Museum Reading Room, Mr. Richter. Good heavens, whatever is that?”
They both turned to face the door. Beyond it they heard what might have been gunshots, interspersed with a loud mechanical roar such as neither man had heard before.
“I must go and invest-invest-invest—” The librarian began an unearthly, jerking motion. Lenin barely noticed. His attention was fully on the door and what might lie behind it. Could the Tsar’s secret police have come for him? Would they be so brazen as to assassinate him here, in a foreign capital? And, if it was them, who were they shooting at outside?
The door burst open and a wild young ruffian staggered in. He was dressed like a gentleman, but he was filthy and hatless. His eyes were bright and full of murder and in his hands he carried what could only be a weapon—a short chunky rifle of some sort.
“Lenin!” the young man yelled. Lenin could only think that this must be the end. “I want Vladimir Ilyich Lenin!”
Involuntarily, Lenin stepped back and bumped against the wooden counter. Who had sent such an assassin? In his mind he ran through the many factions of the many parties he knew of. All those thousands of people, all over Russia and throughout Europe, plotting and scheming in their dingy little rooms, just as he had done, each group believing it had the right way to free Mother Russia from oppression, each of them squabbling with the others about whose way was best. Squabbling like children—but children with bombs and guns. This man looked like a parody of an anarchist, with his hair unkempt and that madness in his eye. And was that a bomb hanging from his arm?
“You!” The young man was looking straight at him. “It’s you, isn’t it?” He raised the weapon and pointed it at him.
Lenin’s thoughts touched briefly on Nadezhda Konstantinovna, his dearest Nadya! He had promised her more than this. He remembered his work—not just Iskra and his pamphlets and reports—but the Great Work of building the glorious Revolution. Lenin felt a hot anger boiling up inside him. He was not going to die here like this. This was not his destiny. This scruffy madman was not to be his executioner!
“Yes!” he said, in a voice already well practised at swaying crowds of workers. He stood tall and puffed out his chest. “I am Vladimir Ilyich Lenin. Who is asking?” His eyes blazed with indignation and power.
But the young man was not at all impressed. “You look bigger in your pictures,” he said, softly. Then he grinned like a slavering hound and his grey eyes lit with anticipation. He sighted along the barrel of his strange weapon.
Lenin gritted his teeth and steeled himself for the bullet that would come at any moment. The room around him was shaking and trembling. A wind was blowing inside the library. A strange light glimmered from every surface. The walls behind his young assassin were melting like ice cream in the sun. It occurred to him that the bullet might already have struck him and that he was experiencing death itself.
A woman and another man charged in through the door. She was tall and young and incredibly beautiful. For a moment he thought she might be an angel. She too was carrying one of the short rifles. The man was a British soldier in full dress uniform. They both leapt at the assassin and sent him flying across the floor. The assassin’s gun went off with an ear-splitting explosion and the bullets that were meant for Lenin smashed into the counter beside him. The girl—no angel, after all—and the soldier grappled with the assassin on the ground. Lenin watched in shock and fascination.
The fallen man was immensely strong and fast. In an instant, he had turned on his attackers and smashed his gun into the soldier’s face. Alarm rose in him for the safety of the girl and he took a step toward her, stumbling on a floor that seemed to move beneath his feet. She had dropped her weapon in the struggle and faced her opponent empty handed. Yet the girl was by no means helpless. She punched the assassin hard in the throat and then again, with amazing speed. Yet, even as he choked, the wild-haired young man grabbed her by the neck of her blouse and slammed his forehead into her face. She cried out and fell back, stunned. They fight like street brawlers, Lenin thought. But not so the cavalryman. He had gained his feet, blood streaming from a cut on his temple. He drew his Webley Mark IV service revolver from the white holster at his side.
“Don’t move!” the soldier cried. The gun was pointing at the assassin but the corporal’s eyes were flicking around the room, confusion and fear in his expression. The library had become a heaving, stuttering maelstrom, and the soldier struggled to keep his attention on the man at his feet. When a huge crack exploded through the library wall, scattering books and splintering shelves, he jumped like a nervous cat, and the man on the floor jerked up his weapon and fired at him.
Lenin gasped in amazement as the weapon belched out a constant stream of fire and the soldier was literally torn apart by what must have been dozens of bullets. The fusillade threw the corporal backward, yet he did not fall. Instead, he hung suspended in the air, with blood that had splashed from his chest hanging in a series of high arcs above him.
The assassin didn’t spare a moment to admire his magical handiwork, but
turned back immediately to aim his weapon at Lenin. The girl, blood oozing from a cut above her nose, was on him again like a tigress. So ferociously did she attack that she managed to knock the weapon from the man’s grasp and, rolling away from him across the cracking, erupting tiles, snatched up her own weapon, pointing it straight at him. He snarled like a savage beast and leapt at her, fingers clawed, as though he would tear her to pieces with them. She pulled the trigger and fired. Whether it was the diabolical weapon, or some other kind of sorcery, Lenin could not tell, but as soon as the weapon roared into flame, the assassin disappeared.
* * * *
Sandra yelled in frustration and stood up, throwing the submachine gun to the ground. Sniper had been yanked back. He was gone. There was no way now to kill him. She turned to the man in the Russian fur hat.
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