Liam looked at Bob questioningly.
‘Information: in the twentieth century, the Japanese launched a surprise attack on the US naval base at Pearl Harbor. This act effectively brought America into the Second World –’
Liam held a hand up to hush him. ‘Tell me what’s been happening.’
‘What? Where on earth have you been?’ the man asked.
He shrugged. ‘At sea… for a long time.’
‘The Nazis launched an assault on the beaches of New England a couple of months ago. Overwhelmed our Atlantic defences like they were nothing, took New York inside of a week. We mustered everything we had to hold ’em outside Washington. But… but they crushed our boys, swiped ’em aside. Their Führer offered terms,’ he snorted. ‘Our president and his cabinet and chiefs of staff to be handed over as prisoners – or they’d come in and get ’em.’
The man suddenly looked up at Bob then back at Liam. ‘Wait! You said this isn’t how it should be. What’s going on? Who are you guys? SOE? Secret Service guys?’
‘This may sound incredibly strange,’ said Liam, ‘but you need to believe what I’m about to say.’
‘What?’ The man shook his head. ‘What is it?’
‘We’re from the future. From the year 2001. And right now is a bit of history that shouldn’t be happening.’
The man’s face hardened. ‘This ain’t a time to play the fool, son. I –’
‘He is correct,’ said Bob.
‘We’re sort of agents sent from the future to gather information on what’s going on here,’ said Liam. ‘We need to find out what’s been happening.’
The man stared at them both in silence. ‘You’re crazy.’
Liam shrugged. ‘I wish I could show you something to prove what I’m saying. But I can’t.’
‘Mission parameter: we have nothing on us from the future. This is an observation-only mission.’
Through the shattered windows they heard movement going on outside above the drone coming from the sky: men barking orders, the jangle of equipment belts, the cocking of weapons.
‘Oh Jesus, we’re dead men,’ cried the man. ‘There are rumours their Führer wants to completely wipe clean America’s government: the president, Congress, the Senate, all the top-level civil servants. They’ll kill every last person they find in the White House.’
‘Listen,’ said Liam, ‘we’re going to change this. We’re going to stop this Hiffler from doing what –’
The man looked up at him. ‘Hiffler? What the heck you talking about, son? You talking ’bout Adolf Hitler?’
‘Yes, that’s it, Hitler. That’s the correct name, right?’ He looked at Bob for confirmation. ‘Did I say it right?’
‘Correct. Adolf Hitler, the Führer, leader of the Nazi Party and the Third Reich.’
‘But that guy, Hitler, died about ten years ago. You guys gonna try telling me you don’t know that?’
Liam and Bob stared at each other. ‘Assessment: history diverged at least ten years earlier than this time.’
‘1946 instead of ’56?’ Liam spoke under his breath. ‘We have to go back another ten years?’
‘That is correct.’
The man studied them both suspiciously. ‘Dammit, who are you guys, really? You Secret Service guys? Some kind of special forces or something? Tell me you got some secret plan… some kinda super weapon we can use back on ’em Nazis. Right?’
The sound of gunfire around the front entrance suddenly intensified.
‘They are coming now,’ said Bob. ‘We must leave. The portal is due to open in exactly one hour and thirty-three minutes.’
‘Right… but we know now that we’ve got to go back again… but further back next time?’
‘Correct.’
The man in the suit reached out and grasped Liam. ‘Have we got something secret hidden away? Some weapon we gonna fight back with?’
Bob answered. ‘There is nothing. In this timeline you and all the people in this building have a high probability of dying in less than five minutes.’ Bob mimicked Liam’s attempt to calm the man and rested a large palm on his trembling shoulder. ‘But be reassured, citizen, this timeline will be completely eradicated once we have corrected the time contamination.’
Liam shook his head as the hapless man stared at him in bewildered silence.
Yes, very reassuring, Bob.
The support unit turned to Liam. ‘We must leave now.’
CHAPTER 37
2001, New York
‘There must be some way to hack past their security and access the rest of the online history database,’ said Maddy.
‘Maybe there isn’t any more?’ asked Foster. ‘Maybe the rulers of this time consider history before this date, before the conquering of America, as irrelevant. One way they could have chosen to keep control of the American people is to delete records of their national history, maybe even world history.’
Maddy shrugged. ‘But these are the Nazis, right? Surely they’d want to keep records of Hitler’s rise to power, the Second World War and how in this screwed-up history they actually won it? I’m sure Adolf Hitler would want all his subjects to know how brilliant he was and how hard a struggle he had as a younger man… and all that rags-to-riches rubbish.’
Foster sighed. ‘It doesn’t make sense. I don’t know why all that’s not there, Madelaine. I really don’t. Perhaps, for these Nazis, the day they took control of America is all that counts. Everything before that was of no importance?’
Sal coughed politely and the other two turned to face her.
‘Maybe,’ she said, ‘maybe the Hitler guy died and the one who took over from him, you know, didn’t like him or something? Decided to remove Hitler from the records?’
Foster nodded. ‘Sal might be right. We’ve been assuming Der Führer is Hitler.’
Maddy’s eyes widened. She looked for a search function on the main page and after a minute of trying various buttons labelled in German gave up.
‘God, these Nazis really suck at laying out a web page.’
‘Perhaps in this version of the year 2001 the Internet is a brand-new thing.’
She gave up on the idea of doing a search on the name ‘Hitler’. Instead she clicked through the various article tabs along the timeline chart – scanning each article for the name.
Five minutes later she shook her head.
‘No mention at all of Adolf. It’s like he never existed.’
‘But plenty of mentions of Der Führer… the leader,’ added Foster.
Maddy ground her teeth with frustration. ‘So who exactly is Der Führer?’ She accessed the computer’s on-site database, a vast encyclopedia of correct history, and pulled up files on Hitler’s high command, his inner cabinet… the men most likely to succeed him. ‘Heinrich Himmler? Hermann Göring? Martin Bormann? Joseph Goebbels?’ She turned to Foster and Sal. ‘One of them maybe?’
Foster splayed his hands. ‘It could be any of them.’
Sal spoke quietly. ‘Or perhaps none of them?’
1956, Washington DC
Splinters of plaster erupted around Liam’s head.
‘Oh God help us!’ he yelped, ducking down behind a desk. ‘They’re in the entrance hall!’
The air was thick with the percussive rattle of machine-gun fire, and the throaty burr of the invaders’ pulse rifles.
Bob pointed down to the far end of the room. ‘Recommendation: go to the end and take cover.’
‘What about you?’
‘I shall secure tactical advantage.’
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
Bob shoved him. ‘Please go now,’ he said calmly as bullets from the entrance hall sprayed in through the open
door and noisily shredded the typewriter and telephone on the desk they were crouching behind.
‘What about me?’ asked the man in the suit.
Liam half smiled. ‘Come with us for now, but we can’t take you back with us.’
‘Jeez… I’ll be happy staying alive just a little while longer.’
‘You must go now,’ insisted Bob.
Liam pulled himself to his feet, poked his head round the desk and stole a glance through the open door into the entrance hall. He could see a couple of dozen black-suited men firing on the marines’ blockaded position. The staccato chatter of the marines’ guns was lessening against the incessant snatched purr of the pulse rifles.
Liam realized the Germans had whittled down the defenders to one or two marines. The fight was all but over.
We have to move now.
He pulled himself out and sprinted down an aisle between two rows of desks, away from the open door and the one-sided battle. He came up against a wooden-panelled door at the far end.
The man in the suit was right behind him.
‘Where does this door lead?’
‘A hallway. If we turn right there’s an exterior door that leads us out to the rose gardens.’
Liam looked back the way they’d come. At the far end where they’d been hiding was the mustard-coloured mist. He could only just make out a dark blob that might have been Bob.
‘Your friend coming?’ asked the man.
‘I hope so.’
The dark shape moved suddenly, lunging out from behind the desk, and then it was gone through the doorway and into the main hall. A moment later Liam heard a renewed and intense burst of gunfire: pulse rifles. He heard cries of alarm and panic, muffled voices barking hasty commands in German. He heard several loud screams that ended abruptly, the sound of a ferocious struggle, something toppling over and shattering.
‘What in the heck is happening back there?’
It’s Bob happening.
For the briefest moment, as he imagined what those powerful arms could do to mere flesh and bone, he almost felt sorry for them.
A moment later, emerging through the mist, he saw something lunging like a charging bull down the aisle towards them. Bob emerged from the smoke, his face and chest spattered with blood, none of which appeared to be his own.
‘I have acquired a tactical advantage.’
Hands slick with fresh blood, he held out a gas mask and a black rubber hood. ‘Suggestion: Liam O’Connor, you wear the mask and hood. You will appear to be one of them from distances greater than ten feet.’
‘What about me?’ asked the man.
Bob regarded him dispassionately. ‘You are not a mission priority.’
Liam took the hood, wet with blood. ‘You killed one of them?’
‘Incorrect. Seven enemy units were killed.’
‘With just your hands?’
Bob looked sternly at both of them. ‘There is insufficient time for this conversation.’
Liam noticed several ragged fleshy wounds across Bob’s hip and waist. ‘Jay-zus! Bob, you’ve been shot! More than once it looks like.’
‘The wounds will heal in no more than three days. The blood is already coagulating. This is not a priority.’
The support unit then turned swiftly to the man.
‘Question: do you have detailed information on the floor plans of this structure?’
The man looked at Liam. ‘Uh?’
‘I think he’s asking if you know of another way out.’
‘Oh… yeah, it’s just up ahead.’
Bob nodded. ‘This is good.’
‘Hey,’ said Liam. ‘I think I’ve got a better idea how we might get back across the gardens to those trees.’
‘Please explain now,’ said Bob.
CHAPTER 38
1956, Washington DC
Liam and the man in the suit stepped out through the door into the rose garden, their hands raised. The smokescreen was still relatively thick out here and through the wafting mist he could see squads of soldiers fanning out across the lawn, rounding up able-bodied prisoners and shooting those marines too wounded to get to their feet.
Inside the building, sporadic gunfire could still be heard as the men in dark rubber hoods and suits moved from one room to another, finishing off the last few pockets of resistance.
As they stepped through the decorative maze of bushes towards the main lawn, Liam looked up at the sky and saw that the giant saucer had moved along, slowly drifting across towards downtown Washington DC, spraying out occasional jets of black dots from the dark trapdoors in its underbelly; squads of men dropped swiftly down to the ground, no doubt with key objectives in mind, to hastily secure administrative buildings, critical utilities and intersections.
Behind them Bob marched stiffly, a pulse rifle levelled at their backs, the bloodied hood and mask stretched over his thick skull.
A soldier nearby, unhooded and unmasked, called out to them across the waist-high rose bushes.
Bob replied in German.
‘What did he say?’ hissed Liam out of the side of his mouth.
‘I told the man you were being taken for questioning.’
‘That’s very good, Bob,’ whispered Liam almost proudly. ‘Very good thinking.’
‘I am programmed to mimic human traits such as lying and also duplicate –’
‘Shhh, save it for later, Bob,’ muttered Liam.
They walked through the garden and diagonally across the White House’s north lawn towards the copse of trees they’d first arrived in. Liam stared wide-eyed at the corpses littering the ground. He had seen only a couple of German bodies, but was now staring at no less than a hundred dead marines. Clearly, while they’d been inside, many more American soldiers had bravely converged on the White House in a vain attempt to defend their president.
The smokescreen had hidden a massacre out here before the building, those pulse rifles mowing them down as they charged pointlessly into the mist to save their commander-in-chief.
He looked for the copse of cedar trees amid the clearing smoke and finally found it. His heart sank as he spotted a platoon of German soldiers resting in and around the small stand of cedars. They had removed their hoods and masks and chatted animatedly, many lighting up cigarettes.
‘Dammit! They’re covering our way home!’
‘Way home?’ The man looked askance at him. ‘It’s just a bunch of trees!’
‘Our exit window will appear there,’ said Bob beneath his hood. He accessed his internal mission clock. ‘The window will open in precisely one hour and seventeen minutes and thirty-four seconds.’
‘What the flippin’ heck do we do?’ whimpered Liam under his breath.
‘I have no tactical suggestions at this moment.’
‘Great.’
He looked around. A fresh autumnal breeze was blowing away the last wisps of the smokescreen and he could see that the few prisoners taken alive inside the building were being ushered towards the centre of the lawn where half a dozen Germans were standing in a circle watching the defeated, dispirited civilians and soldiers already slumped to the ground.
He felt a cold stab of fear and desperation run down his spine.
They’ll expect Bob to herd us over there. And once I’m dumped with the others I’m going to be stuck.
As if overhearing his thoughts, a German officer, his black rubber jumpsuit rolled down and tied round his waist, revealing his grey Wehrmacht uniform, pointed to the prisoners and gave Bob an order.
Bob nodded, replied and steered them towards the holding area.
‘I have been instructed to leave you there,’ the support unit uttered quietly. ‘What are my orders, Liam O’Connor?’
‘I really don’t know. What do you suggest?’
‘Suggestion: I can attempt an attack on the soldiers among the trees. But I estimate a point-five per cent chance of success in taking and holding the position until our extraction window arrives.’
They were running out of time and options. The gathered prisoners sat in a cluster only a few dozen yards away, and no matter how slowly the three of them walked towards it, that’s where they were headed.
‘Suggestion: I leave you here and attempt a rescue when the percentage chance of success exceeds ten per cent.’
Liam gritted his teeth.
No, both he and Bob would be riddled with rapid-fire high-calibre rounds before he could get them both halfway across the lawn to the trees. Bob might well be able to survive several more shots on target, but Liam didn’t fancy he’d survive one… given the ragged wounds he’d seen the pulse carbines inflict.
‘There’s nothing we can do right now, Bob. It looks like we’re going to miss this window,’ he hissed out of the side of his mouth. ‘And I don’t fancy having my head blown off trying to make it. How long now?’
‘In one hour and fifteen minutes, precisely.’
‘But there’ll be another, right?’
‘Correct, an hour later. And twenty-four hours after that.’
‘So,’ said Liam, now just a few yards away from the seated prisoners and the nearest guards, ‘leave me here. If you see an opportunity to get me, take it. But, for Chrissakes, don’t get us both killed doing it.’
‘What percentage chance do you authorize me to take, Liam O’Connor?’
‘I dunno!’ he uttered under his breath. ‘Just take your best shot.’
One of the German guards called out something and pointed at Liam and the man with him.
‘I am being told to leave you here,’ said Bob quietly. Liam thought he detected the slightest note of anxiety in the unit’s deep flat-toned voice.
‘Then do it. If they take us from here, then follow me… wait for a chance and get me out of this fix, all right?’
‘Mission priority: primary duty is to observe and report back.’
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