Time Split - Briggs

by Patricia Smith

  He moved deeper into the passage and had just approached the first door when a strange whining noise came from the room at the far end. He changed direction and decided to check that one out first.

  At the bottom of the corridor, Briggs stopped and pushed against the door to gently open it. He was surprised to encounter resistance. He could see it was not locked, but there was something in the way, blocking the opening. He put his shoulder against the metal and pushed hard to force his way in. A scraping, squealing noise could be heard from the other side of the door. He slipped into the room when the opening was wide enough and saw the cause was a table deliberately set to obstruct the entrance.

  The whining noise had stopped, but Briggs immediately saw the machine was active. He moved to the control panel and realised it was going through a cycle.

  “Just over a minute,” he laughed, “you’re just over a minute ahead of me.” He opened his jacket and slipped the booklet out from an inside pocket. “Don’t get too cocky, a minute’s not very long, I’ll not be far behind you.”

  Quickly, he read the instructions, checked the previous entry, duplicated the information, then stepped into the machine and readied his gun. “You don’t think you can mess with me and get away with it, do you?” he sneered, then in a blink he was gone.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Havelberg, Germany, March 1930

  The station whistle blew. Jason waved as the train began to pull away. Brushing any foreboding aside, he again reassured himself he had done the right thing.

  As the last of the carriages moved away from the platform, he checked the station clock; it was 5.32 p.m. Everything had gone smoothly and he now found himself with a couple of hours to wait before returning home. He looked around. He suddenly realised how dark it had become. The station, although hardly glowing, was still well-lit, but beyond, the blackness was pitch. With the train gone, the solitude seemed emphasised. The urge to seek the comfort of street lighting and the company of others became irresistible.

  It took only a few minutes at a brisk pace for Jason to find himself once again back on the main street. His feeling of comfort was short-lived, though.

  Stormtroopers, backed by SS guards, were in the town square and were stopping people to ask them questions.

  The last thing in the world Jason wanted was to be confronted by these Nazis. He looked around for somewhere quiet to sit for the next couple of hours and noticed a cinema across the road. He moved over and hurried inside.

  The girl behind the counter informed him the film had already begun.

  “Yes, that’s fine.” He handed over the money.

  Shrugging her shoulders, she passed him a ticket.

  Inside the cinema, Jason settled into a seat discreetly positioned towards the back. The film was a tragic love story; a marriage was coming apart after the death of their child.

  “Excuse me, sir!”

  Jason woke with a start. He looked around, alarmed.

  “Excuse me, sir, the film finished ten minutes ago, you’ll have to leave.”

  He stared at the girl blankly for a moment before suddenly remembering where he was.

  “You’ll have to leave now or I’ll call the manager,” she said, her voice sharpening with fear.

  Jason shook his head. “There’s no need. I’m sorry.” He stood. “I’ll go at once.”

  He hurried from the cinema, through the foyer and out the front door.

  “Hello, Jason.”

  He stopped abruptly and turned to look at the woman.

  She had been standing to one side of the door as he left. He had barely noticed her and had only caught a glimpse of her as he stepped outside. No-one should be speaking to him, as the only two that knew who he was were on the train to Hamburg, but she not only knew his name, she also spoke to him in English.

  She looked distinctly unkempt and appeared to have been sleeping rough. Her auburn hair was matted in places and her face was gaunt and pale. Her clothing was dirty with mud stains on the knees, stomach and elbows as if she had been crawling across the ground. Still, despite all of this, Jason could see a strength and fire in her eyes that said a lot more about the woman than her scruffy appearance.

  He gathered his thoughts. He had to be careful. He had heard about people being tricked into giving themselves away when they were questioned in English and they responded in kind.

  “I do not understand you,” he replied in German.

  She smiled. “I know who you are.” She leaned closer. “You’re a time traveller and you must do exactly what I say.” She nudged her head towards the cinema. “We just need somewhere to hide for a few minutes. Can we go back inside?”

  Jason’s face fell; he shook his head. “No, they’re closing. Something went wrong,” he added softly.

  “There, I knew you were clever,” the woman called over her shoulder. She returned her attention to Jason. “I’m Sarah and this is, well...”

  Jason jumped back when the man who emerged from the shadows by the side of the building looked exactly like his twin. His face paled. “What the hell happened?”

  “It’s all right, you don’t have to worry about us meeting,” the scientist stated. “We’ve already proved it doesn’t cause annihilation when Sarah met herself in another timeline.”

  “How many timelines are there?” Jason asked.

  “Just the two that we know of, but this is the fourth alteration of this time zone.”

  Jason’s eyes widened.

  The scientist checked his watch. “Three minutes.” He looked at Sarah. “There’s a doorway under a fire escape, down this alley, which should easily accommodate us all. We can hide there until we’re recalled. Come on.” He led the way.

  The street lighting did not reach very far down the alley and they were soon plunged into darkness, compounded by the closeness and height of the grey stone buildings lining the lane.

  Carefully, the group made their way to a metal staircase. It was attached to the side of the cinema and would obviously be used to evacuate the upstairs patrons from the theatre if there was ever a fire. They moved around, beneath the steps, then slipped into the blackness of the doorway until they were sure they could not be seen from the main street.

  “Why are we hiding?” Jason asked.

  “You’ll find out later,” Sarah replied, “but for the time being I suggest we be very quiet.”

  The scientist checked his watch. “Two and a half minutes to go,” he whispered.

  ****

  For a moment Briggs looked around surprised, slightly disorientated by his arrival. The almost instantaneous journey from the small cubicle to the wide brightly lit street, in comparison to the blackened nuclear bunker, was a little unsettling, until he caught sight of the square and immediately gained his focus.

  There were two people he was looking for: one he would recognise immediately and the other, as he did not exist in his timeline, he would have to identify by his location and his bodyguards. Both men he intended to kill and anybody else who got in his way.

  There were noises up ahead that sounded like a demonstration. He moved forward and soon saw the cause of the commotion when the street opened out into the square. It was very busy with people. A protest was taking place and there was a lot of banner waving and chanting at a group of soldiers.

  Briggs made his way into the crowd.

  The report had stated that Hitler had been killed as he exited a building across from the square. He scanned the perimeter.

  There were streets joining the plaza on his left and his right, but directly ahead was a road running parallel and across from there, a line of official-looking buildings.

  He started to move through the crowd, scanning for a familiar face, and had crossed more than half of the square to a location where the mob was thinning when suddenly he saw a man grab a woman from behind. It was not so much the gesture that caught his attention, but the woman’s reaction.

  All around he could hear peopl
e talking, but he knew nothing of what they were saying as he spoke no German, then suddenly as if all other noises had stopped, he recognised some words coming through and in amongst them the most familiar one of them all, his name.

  Tellingly, she began to pull away and Briggs saw the flash of a blade. This was all the confirmation the mercenary needed. With perfect fluidity, he raised his gun from the discreet position flung at his side and in a single movement lifted it to a right angle to his body, fired four shots at the man, moving up his chest and into the head, lowered the gun back down to conceal it by his leg and continued on his journey to the building across the square without so much as even a faltered step.

  The woman screamed in fright and lifted her hands to her face as the man’s body jerked three times in quick succession before finally the side of his head exploded.

  Eyes wide, jaw dropped as though in alarm, fingers still wrapped around the woman’s arm, the cadaver fell to the ground and landed in a crumpled heap at her feet.

  She gathered her senses and looked at the shooter just before his pace took him out of sight. Briefly, she seemed totally confused and glanced at the man at her feet before her brain, hyper with terror, put all the pieces together.

  She lifted her gun. It only had one shot and she had been instructed to use it in an emergency. She aimed. For a fraction of a second she had a clear target, then suddenly the crowd closed around her. She lowered the gun and pushed ahead, forcing her way through the mass until again she had a good shot. Quickly, she raised the gun, aimed and fired.

  Briggs stopped when the bullet skimmed past his shoulder, tearing a hole through his jacket and grazing the skin. He turned to face the woman.

  She was looking past him at the building directly opposite, where three men could be seen descending the stairs.

  The two leading the way were wearing uniforms and appeared to be guards, but the man behind, dressed in a suit and a long overcoat, looked more like an official than a soldier.

  The woman began to panic; she was running out of time and the time traveller was nowhere to be seen. She should have been celebrating, even though his absence was puzzling, but it was now obvious someone else was here to do the job instead. “He’s going to kill Hitler,” she screamed as the two guards stepped onto the path.

  Briggs raised his gun, ready to kill her, and was just about to fire when suddenly she disappeared, wrestled to the ground by vigilantes who had witnessed her shooting the weapon.

  She struggled to get free. “Stop it! Leave me alone,” she screamed, “he’s going to kill Hitler.”

  ****

  The scientist and Sarah looked at each other, alarmed, when they heard the single gunshot ring out from the square.

  He lowered his rucksack and retrieved the semi-automatic from inside the bag.

  Sarah grabbed his arm, her face awash with terror. “You can’t. This is how it all started.”

  “I now know what I’m doing,” he stated firmly. “I won’t make the same mistake again. Wait here,” he instructed. He moved away from the stairs and was nearing the exit from the alley when a woman screamed out a warning about Hitler in English. He picked up the pace and hurried into the street to see the crowd stampeding from the plaza. As the hordes parted, scattering for cover, he saw Briggs dead on the ground and two men holding a woman down with a couple of soldiers standing over them.

  A short distance away, another man was turning from the scene and the scientist suddenly realised this was also Briggs.

  “So we meet,” he muttered. “Sarah was right, you are the Briggs from her timeline.”

  The mercenary continued towards the group of buildings on the far side of the square.

  The scientist started sprinting, his gun at the ready. He had very little confidence in his skills as a gunman at the best of times, but at a run, he had even less. He could not risk randomly shooting as he could not afford to kill anyone else, especially the wretch they had come to save. He charged across the square. “He’s going to kill Hitler,” he yelled in German, just as Briggs began firing.

  Neither of the guards protecting the official had time to react and were dead before they hit the ground. Then Briggs aimed at his main target and pulled the trigger as the man scrambled for cover.

  The scientist fired a round, but his aim was off-centre and he caught Briggs on his left shoulder when he had been shooting at his back. It was enough to throw the mercenary’s crack shot off a little, but not enough to prevent him hitting his mark.

  The scientist stopped. “Nooo!” he screamed as he saw the official collapse onto the path. Suddenly, his skin started tingling. It travelled through his muscles all the way to his bones. For a fraction of a second, just before he was recalled, he saw the soldiers starting to shoot, and in a blink, he was gone.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Kenton Bank Foot

  Jason looked around wildly when he materialised in the machine with Sarah standing beside him.

  “What happened?” she howled. “Why are we back here?”

  He stepped out of the unit. “I saw Briggs shoot Hitler just before I was recalled.”

  She burst into tears, “Nooo!” and lowered her face into her hands. “I can’t do this anymore. I can’t live like this.” She began to sob, her chest heaving, her shoulders tight.

  “Come on,” Jason said briskly, ignoring her breakdown. He pulled on her arm. “Get out.”

  She stepped out of the machine, still crying, following his instructions robotically.

  He pushed her towards the door. “We’re going to finish this with Briggs once and for all. I want you out of the room.”

  She turned to the machine, her face contorted in pain. “What? He’s coming back here?” she bawled.

  Jason readied his gun. “It was your Briggs that killed Hitler. You were right. It must have been him and Andrews that attacked us on the hill.”

  Sarah froze. “The Briggs from Alnwick?”

  “Yes.”

  “He’ll kill us for sure!” She started to drag Jason from the room. “He’ll kill us both. We need to leave!”

  “Not if I kill him first,” Jason said. He pulled his sleeve free.

  Sarah grabbed his arm, unwilling to be brushed off. “Dismantle the machine and leave him there,” she pleaded.

  Jason shook his head. “No. Goodness knows what damage he could do if left to his own devices. We have to get him out of that timeline and the moment he materialises, I’ll kill him. Killing him is the only way to stop him.” He pushed Sarah away. “Now get out of the room, quick.”

  “No, I’m staying with you,” she said firmly.

  “Then get behind me,” Jason ordered.

  She jumped behind the scientist, needing no more persuading, when suddenly the whine of the machine starting up came from the device.

  Jason braced himself, his heart racing, his chest thumping, gun pointing at the clear cubicle set to automatic for maximum spread, ready for the mercenary’s return. His muscles taught, his shoulders locked, he watched, unwilling to even blink, waiting for the killer to materialise.

  Then suddenly he was there and Jason’s finger twitched on the trigger. Just in time, he stopped himself, as the rain of bullets would have obliterated the machine.

  “What do you think happened?” Sarah whispered from behind.

  Jason never spoke. He cautiously approached the unit, unconvinced it was not a ruse.

  Sarah followed behind, hanging on to the back of his coat. “Is he dead?”

  Jason lowered himself down to examine the bullet-riddled body more closely. “It certainly looks like it.” He stood and looked at Sarah. “Just before I disappeared the soldiers in the square started shooting at Briggs, but I presumed after I’d seen the way he killed Hitler and his guards that there was a chance he’d shoot his way out of that one as well.”

  “He must have been outnumbered.”

  “Yes,” Jason turned away from the body, “but how many did he kill in the proc
ess?” His shoulders slumped and his head dropped. He stood like that for a few seconds, staring at the floor before gathering himself together. “Come on.” He shuffled from the room. “I want to check Andrews is really dead,” he sighed, “then we’ll get some sleep here and make a decision about what to do with this mess when we’re rested.”

  They stopped at the end of the passage.

  “It’s been a while since I slept in a bed,” Sarah said. “Those couches in the Town Hall were not too bad, but you can’t stretch out the way you can in a proper bed.” She suddenly realised they were no longer moving. “What’s wrong?”

  “The door’s locked. Briggs must have destroyed the lock after he returned from Germany.” Jason turned the circular handle clockwise two full rotations before the mechanism engaged and the door sprung open. He pulled it wide and stepped into the chamber. He lowered his rucksack to the ground. “You stay here, just in case there’s trouble.” He flung the gun over his shoulder and started up the ladder.

  Sarah watched as Jason ascended the rungs and a couple of minutes later he disappeared from sight when he arrived at the top of the chute. She heard the outside door open then close before everything went silent, bar the whoosh of blood pounding in her ears.

  When a few minutes passed and Sarah still could not hear anything, she began to regret not going with Jason as her imagination started to run wild. Maybe he had been killed; Andrews also liked to carry a knife as they discovered on their last encounter with him, or maybe he had had an accident. Another minute passed and she could stand it no longer, even gunfire would have been preferable to the torturous silence; she decided to go up the ladder. Suddenly, the outer door clattered and Sarah shrank against the side of the chute in case it was Andrews at the top of the chamber.

  “Sarah!”

  She returned to the bottom of the ladder when she heard Jason’s voice. “What took you so long? I began to...”