by Matt Hilton
Bowlam put up his hand.
‘Yeah?’ Rembrandt asked.
‘Can we order room service?’
‘Food but no alcohol,’ Rembrandt said. ‘In fact, knock yourselves out: Semple’s paying the bill not me.’
‘Wasn’t thinking of food, Chief,’ Bowlam admitted, holding out a leaflet depicting a young woman wearing little more than a come hither pout, and a telephone number to order her services.
Rembrandt shook his head with regret.
Walker nudged his mate. ‘Told you, Harry, it looks like the only escort we’ll get to ride is one of those Ford cars parked outside.’
Chapter 21
April 5th 2018
Loch Fannich, Scotland
‘Christ, where did that wind come frae? It’s enough to freeze you to the bloody core.’
‘Don’t exaggerate, John, it’s no’ that cauld.’
An icy breeze swept along the loch, puckering the water that had been glass-smooth only seconds before. The breeze wasn’t strong, but it caused the boat to rock as the fishermen adjusted their coats against the sudden chill. You wouldn’t believe that spring was on its way, because this far north the land was still locked in the grip of winter. This morning the sky had been a pale blue, cloudless, and frost had made the hillsides white. Even now, hours later, there were ribbons of hoarfrost in the gaps between the crags on the southern shore, where the sun had yet to tease the hillsides with its warmth. As the hours had progressed, the sky had grown murkier, but with the low-lying clouds the temperature had gone up a notch or two.
John Stewart was a slim man, not a lot of meat on his bones. He’d dressed for the weather, and had a heavy parka zipped up to his throat, a woollen cap on his head, and in anticipation of the trip had foregone shaving for the past two weeks so his beard kept the chill off his face. He pulled up his fur-lined hood, shivering. ‘Not cauld? Are you joking, Ram?’
‘I’m fine,’ Ramsey Graham replied, casting his line over the loch. Unlike his thin friend, Ramsey had plenty of padding. He was a rotund man, with a cheery face and little hair on top. His pate was blotched with age spots, even though he’d barely hit his late fifties, and his nose was a patchwork of broken veins. Looking at him anyone would think he was fond of a tipple, but he was tea-total, had been for twenty plus years.
The third man in the rowing boat was the youngest. He was called Ramsey Graham, too, but to distinguish him from his father everyone gave him the honorific of “Young Ram”. Even his father called him Young Ram, or simply Youngy.
Youngy was in charge of the oars. He dipped the right oar in, pulling gently, sending the prow of the boat perpendicular to the north shore. ‘Does that help you, John?’
‘No it dusnae,’ John griped in his thick accent. ‘Now the breeze is goin’ right up the tail of ma coat.’
‘Quit your whinging, John. Anyone would think you wernae enjoying yourself.’ Ramsey offered a tight smile.
Youngy was facing towards the southern shoreline of the loch, and the only one to notice the helicopters coming over the hilltops. He squinted at them, the mid-day sun’s glare making seeing difficult. He shielded his eyes with one arm. The presence of helicopters wasn’t unknown here in the hills, either mountain rescue or military, but he’d never seen as many as this in one go. There were six helicopters, all spread in a line and they were moving quickly. The roar of their rotors caused the others to peer back over their shoulders.
‘What do you suppose that’s all aboot?’ John wondered.
‘They’re military ’copters,’ Youngy said, pointlessly because the choppers were huge twin-engine Chinooks and instantly recognisable. ‘Probably something to do with that toxic spill that was on the news.’
‘If they’re anythin’ do with that, why are they coming this way? The spill’s forty miles south of here, isn’t it?’ Ramsey leaned back, watching the underbellies of the crafts as they powered overhead.
‘Here! Would you look at that!’ John’s cry brought their attention back to the southern hillsides. More helicopters hove into view.
‘What the hell’s going on?’ Youngy asked, as he manoeuvred the oars to put them sideways on to the coming choppers. ‘You don’t suppose they’re on some sort of exercise, do you, Da?’
The older Ramsey shook his head. ‘I’m sure that all hands would’ve been called in to help with the evacuations we heard of…’
More choppers followed the first two waves. Unlike the others not all of these were troop carriers. A smaller helicopter more like those belonging to TV stations swept low down the southern slopes, and across the loch towards them. The chopper slowed, hovering dozens of feet above them. The downwash from the chopper whipped John’s hood off, made the peaty water shimmer around them. A man hung out from a door in the side of the craft, waving frantically at them.
‘What’s his game?’ Ramsey demanded.
The man mimed rowing – quite a feat using only one arm, while he clung precariously to the chopper with the other. Then he stabbed his hand northward. He shouted but his voice was lost amid the roar of rotors.
‘He’s telling us to leave.’ Youngy looked at his father.
‘Our car’s parked on the southern side, but he wants us to go north.’
‘Da, I don’t like this,’ Youngy said, ‘maybe we should…’
‘Hold on a minute, I’m trying to make oot what that man’s sayin’.’
The man in the chopper tried a final time to get them moving, then he ducked back inside, summoned by the pilot. The chopper rose into the air, before the nose dipped and it took off after the others.
‘What the bloody hell was that all aboot?’ John asked.
‘Dunnae ken, but I dunnae like it one bit either,’ said Ramsey looking at his son’s wide eyes and open mouth.
‘What do you want me to do, Da?’
‘I think we should get oot of this cauld at any rate,’ John said.
Ramsey looked up at the chopper as it swept over the northern hilltops. Then he turned towards the hills from where it had come. ‘Is that a storm coming in?’
Grey tendrils were creeping across the heavens, thousands of them, serpents fleeing the commandments of Saint Patrick. As they came, the thin streamers thickened, coiling and then billowing out, and sending dozens more tendrils seeking across the sky. As they thickened they darkened, and the grey became the yellowish-brown of a fading bruise, then they purpled. Lightning flashed within. The crashes and rumbles of thunder rolled over Loch Fannich like a herald of Doomsday.
‘Dear God, I’ve never seen any’hin’ like it,’ Ramsey croaked. ‘Son, get us across the loch. That way.’
‘What aboot the car?’ John wanted to know. Ramsey’s Range Rover was parked on a spit of gravel alongside an unmarked road they’d followed from the A832 towards the loch. Even if they made land on the south side it would take them ten minutes to hike back to the shelter of their vehicle. They were nearer the northern shore and Ramsey knew there was an abandoned crofter’s house a minute or more’s jog up the slopes. They could sit out the storm there.
‘C’mon son, put your back into it, this looks bad.’
‘You don’t say.’ Youngy grunted as he pulled on the oars.
Now the clouds boiled over the southern hills, bilious things the colour of rotten liver. Great plumes of grey and black boiled into the heavens, as if they bore witness to a volcanic eruption.
The air shivered around them. It was as if a pulse wave powered across the loch, the water dancing in concentric bands from the southern shore outward. The blast tugged and pulled at their clothing, and Youngy could have sworn that he felt the flesh of his face make a similar shudder. He gawped back at the pillaring clouds that now dominated the horizon, and kept on coming. He checked for his father and saw that the old man’s normally jovial face was set in shock. John had pulled his hood back over his head, holding one edge as if afraid to look at the coming storm. Youngy hauled at the oars, grunting with each stroke.
&nbs
p; The thunderous roar built behind them, but over it could be heard a shriek of a motor and Ramsey watched as another Chinook blasted forth from the oncoming clouds. Its turbine engines were labouring, the source of the high-pitched whine. The ’copter weaved through the sky, as if the pilot struggled with the controls. The rear set of rotor blades churned to a stop, and the back end of the Chinook swung counter to the front blades. The chopper began to lose altitude, spinning lazily as it swept down the slopes and towards the loch.
‘Dear God, they’re going to crash!’
‘Da, what should we do?’
‘Keep going, son, get us oot of here.’
‘Aye,’ John yelped. ‘Row, boy, row!’
The Chinook made the noise of a wounded beast, continuing to spin lazily, growing larger by the second as it descended.
‘Oh, no, it’s coming doon,’ Ramsey moaned.
His words were prophetic, and came seconds before the impact. The Chinook hit the water, but there was no soft landing. The chopper hit side-on, and the huge front rotors were torn from their mountings, shattering into flying lances of steel that fragmented across the loch. The ’copter’s bulkhead was no less fortunate, crumpling and splitting, and casting debris for dozens of yards all around. Water gouted around the leviathan as it sank into the frothing waters. The rowboat was rocked violently by the wave pushed outward from the doomed craft.
‘Dear God! They’ll sink all the way to the bottom,’ Ramsey croaked.
‘Da, we should go back. We should check for survivors.’
‘No, son,’ Ramsey said. ‘We have tae keep going. There’s no chance for any of them.’ Ramsey stared up at the sky, then back at the riot of bubbles and churning water on the surface of the loch, the only sign that the massive Chinook had sunk beneath the surface. He again checked skyward. The ugly cloudbank was pouring over the ridge of the southern hill line, and he could tell now that there was more to it than rain and thunder. ‘Something in that storm brought the helicopter doon, and it’s coming right oor way.’
Youngy hauled on the oars as if he was a slave of a Roman galley on ramming speed. Ramsey crouched close to his son, one arm on the young man’s shoulder. ‘Pull, son, pull.’
The clouds poured down the hills and across the sloping fields towards the southern shoreline. Stands of trees were flattened before the rushing mountains of dust and steam. Ribbons of electricity wove paths through the cloudbanks, then reached out to snap and crackle at the water’s edge. The loch began to steam and boil along the pebble-strewn shore. The billowing clouds kept coming, no let up, and with the speed of a locomotive.
‘We arenae gonna make it,’ John howled, as he stood at the prow of the boat. Stupidly he was still gripping his fishing pole.
Gritting his teeth, Youngy gave his all, but it was a hopeless race. The bruised clouds towered over them, thousands of feet high, reaching all the way to the heavens, lightning spitting and cracking everywhere. It was a terrifying sight, but nothing compared to what was happening on the south side of the loch. The water was disintegrating – not evaporating but disappearing. As it sucked into non-existence it drew the waters of the north side towards the void left behind, and try as Youngy might, he could make no headway against the shift in tide that wrenched the rowboat back towards the oncoming storm. The speed of the tide built, and it was as if they rode white water back the way they’d come.
Eyes saucer-wide, John Stewart gave father and son one last wordless cry and then he jumped from the rowboat, splashing into the slipstream. He floundered for seconds on the surface, before some uncommonly powerful undertow sucked him down. Ramsey saw the man beneath the surface, struggling for life, and grabbed at him, but John was caught in a remorseless grip and was torn away.
Youngy stopped rowing.
It was hopeless. He stood up in the boat, fighting to keep his balance as the hull surged side to side in the violent tide. He grabbed hold of his father. ‘Da, Da! I love you, Da!’
‘I love you too, son. I’m so sorry…’
The leading edge of the storm clouds enveloped them. There was no wind as would be expected, and the clouds weren’t formed of water droplets but sand and dust, and God knew what else. Neither man had experienced being at the heart of a sandstorm before, but even if they had it would’ve come nowhere near as horrifying as this. The particles scoured them, cut through their clothing, cut into flesh. Youngy cried out as he squeezed his eyelids tight. His mouth immediately filled with the cloying dust, and he gagged, unable to get a breath into his lungs. He clung to his father. Electricity played over the rowboat and the shock transposed itself on father and son. Both men juddered and screamed, but the shock didn’t abate. As they hung onto one another, the clothing was scoured from their backs. Their hair was torn off, the flesh of their faces rubbed raw in seconds. Before they were fully engulfed by the rushing cloud they had been reduced to red bones, skeletons propped together in the boat. A second or two after and the boat disintegrated from under them, and so did the water.
Chapter 22
April 5th 2018
Tempus Facility, England
Terrence Semple watched the latest destruction unfold over the relative safety of a computer monitor. The technician, George Fox, had called to him only moments after James Rembrandt and his team had completed transvection to 1988 and indicated the news footage coming in from a TV crew near to Loch Fannich in Scotland. The breach sitting over northwestern Scotland had made a sudden belch, and expanded outward by dozens of miles in every direction. Thankfully most of the countryside it devastated was largely unpopulated, but Semple knew that hundreds must still have perished. Soldiers deployed on the ground to help evacuate civilians from the affected area were overwhelmed, and some of their helicopters and airplanes were brought down when they could not outrun the advancing dust clouds that were every bit as dangerous as the pyroclastic clouds of an erupting volcano.
Semple ran his hands over his face. Sighing, he combed his fingertips through his hair. He closed his eyes slowly, but aimed his questions at the young technician. ‘How long before it hits a major conurbation?’
‘It’s engulfing smaller towns all the time,’ Fox said, ‘and it continues to grow. At this rate, it will hit Inverness within a couple of hours.’
‘What’s the estimate on loss of life?’
Fox’s hands worked at the keys of an adjacent computer, and he brought up spreadsheets that Semple barely glanced at.
‘Inverness has a permanent population of roughly sixty thousand people, but there’ll be many more, if you take visitors and transients into account. Plus if we include all those that will be overwhelmed in the outlying regions, we’re probably talking upward of one hundred and fifty thousand people.’
Semple whispered the figure to himself, running his hands through his hair once more. ‘And if it goes unchecked?’
‘Won’t be long until the southern boundary strikes Glasgow and Edinburgh, and then we’ll be talking more significant figures. Millions of people will die, sir. And God help us if the anomaly keeps building at the same rate because it will overwhelm the entire British Isles within forty-eight hours.’
‘Including us.’ Semple wasn’t asking a question. ‘If this facility is breached, then there’s no hope left for any of us.’
Fox shrugged narrow shoulders. ‘Perhaps we should’ve questioned Rembrandt more thoroughly as to the government bunkers that survived the nuclear strikes in his time. Maybe this facility went untouched and we can ride out the anomaly in the same way they did the nuclear war.’
‘That isn’t a prospect I wish to think too deeply about. How soon will we know if Rembrandt’s mission is successful? I mean, is the time scale here relative to his in the other dimension?’
‘According to Professor Doherty, time isn’t relative. As you know the last time Rembrandt was transvected he experienced thirteen years while to us it was little more than two days.’
‘Yes. Yes. But if he was successful in the pas
t then shouldn’t we have witnessed an ending to this destruction?’
‘No. According to the professor, the breach here won’t close until Rembrandt and his team is extracted. Only then will any effect they have had on the past have repercussions on the here and now.’
‘Then why not pull them back now?’
‘We can pull them out post assassination time and date any time we choose to, but Doctor Heller has advised against it, saying it is too soon to employ the Tempus chamber again, before a full and concise decontamination has taken place, and that recalibration to the entire team has been programmed into the jump sequence. When the team was initially jumped, it was because they were all in immediate contact and therefore rode back on Rembrandt’s vibration. Should they be separated and we can’t lock on to their vibrations then there’d be no way of bringing them all out again. We could snatch Rembrandt back, but without a fix on each of the others, then they’d be left in the past.’
Semple sniffed. ‘So we need only bring Rembrandt out for the effects to be felt. I’m happy with that: the others are expendable.’
‘Perhaps,’ Fox concurred, ‘but we’ve no way of knowing how leaving them behind would impact on the future…our present, sir. If – for example – they felt abandoned, or worse still betrayed, then who knows what they might say to the wrong person. If it ever came to light that they’d travelled back from a future time and place it could cause dramatic repercussions in a world already on the brink of nuclear annihilation, and I dread to think where that could lead then. Perhaps we could expect worse destruction than we set out to avert.’
Semple nodded slowly. He had considered the very same issue when the mission to save Ronald Reagan’s life had been hatched. ‘If it comes down to it, then we might be forced to evacuate. Did Major Coombs speak to you yet…?’
Fox glanced around warily. ‘He did, sir, yes.’
‘And you’re happy to work with us on this contingency?’