The Eternal War tr-4

by Alex Scarrow

  Liam waved his hand and called out to them. ‘Hey, you know what, fellas, we’ll come back another time! I can … uhh … see you’re all rather busy!’ He backed up a few steps from the counter and the plexiglas shield.

  ‘Stay right where you are!’ called out one of the plainclothes officers, his hand absently reaching under his jacket.

  ‘Oh crud!’ hissed Maddy.

  Sal stood between both support units outside on the pavement, feeling strangely conspicuous. She noticed the same eerie stillness here as she’d seen on countless occasions in Times Square: people standing motionless, gazing up at the sky, most of them with a mobile phone to one ear, sharing these moments of horror with a loved one somewhere else in the city. Even some cars were still, stopped at intersections though they had a green light, their driver-side doors open or window wound down to see better the thick pall of smoke filling the sky.

  With all eyes tilted upwards, it was only Sal — seen the 9/11 sky far too many times already — who noticed the black van smoothly rolling out of the precinct’s forecourt. As it turned left on to the intersection and rolled past them, she thought she spotted the ghost of a familiar bearded face through the grilled window in the back of the van.

  ‘Uh? Was that …?’

  Becks looked back down. ‘What is it, Sal?’

  ‘That van …’ She pointed.

  Becks followed her finger. ‘The black van? Registration Washington BLL 443.’

  ‘Yeah, I thought I just saw …’ Her uncertain voice faded to nothing as the van calmly weaved its way around the stopped traffic, took a right and disappeared from view.

  Liam grabbed hold of Maddy’s hand, turned and ran out through the swing doors.

  Outside, down three wide steps on the pavement, Sal and the other two looked up.

  ‘Maddy!’ called out Sal. ‘I think … we think we just saw Abraham being driven away in a — ’ She stopped. ‘Hey, what’s up?’

  Maddy grasped her shoulder, struggling to fill her wheezing lungs with air.

  ‘Maddy? You all right?’

  ‘We — ’ wheeze — ‘we … got a new plan!’

  ‘What is it?’

  At that moment the double glass doors of the precinct swung open and several uniformed police emerged, hands resting on their gun holsters, looking around at the passing foot traffic on the pavement.

  ‘Run!’

  CHAPTER 21

  2001, en route to Quantico, Virginia

  Lincoln glowered at his three captors in silence for the best part of an hour. The horseless vehicle they were travelling in was uncomfortable and bare. There were no windows that he could see out of clearly and the occasional lurching motion was beginning to make him feel sick. He had no idea how long they had sat like this, a man either side of him and one sitting opposite, returning his glare through round wire-framed glasses with cool professional contempt.

  To his left a hatch suddenly snapped open revealing wire mesh and two more men in a cabin in front. Lincoln had the distinct impression that he was seeing the drivers, the operators, of this curious vehicle.

  ‘Agent Mead, sir!’

  The man who had been silently staring at him turned and shuffled up the bench opposite. ‘What is it?’

  ‘Message from the New York field office, sir …’ The man’s voice was hesitant.

  ‘Well? What is it?’

  What was muttered, Lincoln couldn’t make out. But for the first time he thought he saw a flicker of emotion on the bespectacled man’s face. The conversation was quick and the trapdoor snapped shut again. The man shuffled back down the bench to look at Lincoln once more. His jaw was grinding away, his lips pressed tightly, the knuckles bulging on his fists as he silently clenched and flexed them. Finally, in a voice clogged with emotion, he spoke.

  ‘Jesus.’ He shook his head. ‘God knows how many innocent civilians just died. One thousand? Five thousand? Ten thousand? We may never know.’

  ‘What’s happened, sir?’ asked the agent to the left.

  ‘They came down.’

  Both agents cursed.

  ‘North and south, both of them, the whole damned thing … gone!’

  Lincoln frowned for a moment, and then realized the man was talking about those two magnificently tall buildings he’d seen exploding back in that brick archway. ‘The two straight towers are completely destroyed now?’

  Lincoln could see the man with the spectacles wanted so much to throw a punch at him, but was doing his best to contain that urge. Nonetheless, he decided it was worth another go explaining his bizarre circumstances.

  ‘Now you must listen here, sir. I told those two rude gentlemen last night all about this! I was trying to explain to the foolish ignoramus that I have somehow managed to travel in time — ’

  ‘I’d shut up if I were you.’

  ‘Good God, sir! This is a free country!’ Lincoln puffed his cheeks angrily. ‘I have a right to speak my mind, sir!’

  ‘Right now … no, you don’t.’

  ‘Do you know who I am, sir?’

  ‘Sure, I know who you are. You’re some scumbag, whack-job terrorist. Some messed-up-in-the-head fanatic who believes in killing innocent civilians to make some sort of screwed-up point!’

  Lincoln leaned forward and narrowed his eyes. ‘Now you will hear me, sir. I shall be president of this country one day, and — ’

  The man wearing spectacles moved with a blur and Lincoln found himself doubled over, gasping for breath, winded by a blow to his solar plexus. He tried his best not to vomit on the metal floor between his feet.

  ‘Agent Belling, you saw what just happened, didn’t you?’

  ‘Yes, sir. The vehicle lurched violently and the detainee fell on your fist, sir.’

  ‘Precisely.’

  Lincoln looked up at them. ‘What? No! That man just punched me!’

  ‘Like I said, Abraham …’ said Agent Mead, ‘probably best if you shut up right now.’

  CHAPTER 22

  2001, New York

  ‘He must have blabbed about nine-eleven,’ said Maddy. ‘He must have said something about the Twin Towers being blown to pieces when he was arrested last night.’ She looked at the others, pointed to one of the computer screens. ‘He saw it all on there, didn’t he?’

  ‘It is logical that with foreknowledge of the event the authorities will think he is involved,’ said Becks.

  ‘Exactly! I remember when nine-eleven happened there were arrests going on all over the country, you know? Like within hours of it all happening! If the FBI have just whistled him away somewhere in the back of a van, then they must believe he’s some terrorist. That he’s involved in nine-eleven somehow.’

  ‘But … if he is also telling them he’s Abraham Lincoln,’ said Sal, ‘maybe they will just think he’s a total crazy and let him go.’

  ‘Information: this is an altered timeline,’ said Bob.

  Maddy nodded. ‘Exactly, Bob’s right. It’s a timeline — remember — where there was no famous Abraham Lincoln. He can tell them till he’s blue in the face that he’s The Abraham Lincoln. It won’t mean a frikkin’ thing to anyone!’

  She got up from her armchair and paced up and down the length of the kitchen table. ‘We’ve got to work out where they’re taking him and snatch him back before we get another wave coming along. The next change could be a big one. We need to find him quickly.’

  ‘What’s the FBI?’ asked Liam.

  ‘Federal Bureau of Investigation,’ said Maddy. ‘Special police, if you like. They investigate terrorists and criminals. In fact, they’re like extra-special police.’

  ‘Like Scotland Yard?’

  Maddy shrugged. ‘I guess.’

  Liam nodded. ‘All right, then … and do they have a place they work from? Like us, like our archway? A base?’

  ‘Washington DC, I think,’ replied Maddy quickly. ‘That’s the FBI headquarters if I remember The X Files correctly.’

  ‘The X …?’

&
nbsp; ‘An old TV show — it’s not important,’ she replied. ‘Look, that’s got to be where they’ll have taken him. That’s what happened in the aftermath of nine-eleven. I remember reading about the FBI rounding up every suspicious-looking character they could and processing them and the FBI holding them until the camp at Guantanamo Bay was up and running a few months later and ready to take them.’

  She turned to Becks. ‘Can you get computer-Bob to put together a data package on the FBI, their HQ … layout, location, that kind of thing? Also any information on the suspects rounded up after nine-eleven — where precisely they were held?’

  ‘Yes, Maddy.’

  She turned to the others. ‘It doesn’t seem like we’ve got a lot of choice. I can’t think of anything else we can do. We need to make our way down to the FBI’s HQ and …’ She looked up at Bob. ‘And if worst comes to worst, Bob, you’re going to have to do your one-man-army thing and bust him out for us.’

  ‘That will require extreme violence,’ said Bob. ‘I will need more weapons.’

  Maddy nodded. ‘Oh, you can be sure of that. This is going to get messy.’

  ‘Where did you say this FBI place was?’ asked Liam.

  ‘Washington. You’ve already done that journey, Liam. Remember?’

  Liam frowned for a moment, then recalled. ‘Aye.’ He and Bob had travelled by truck from Washington to New York through a very different America back in 1956. An America overrun by an occupation army of Nazis.

  ‘We’re going to need a car, then,’ said Sal.

  ‘A car … and some big guns for Bob.’ Liam glanced up at the support unit and grinned. ‘He does like rather big guns.’

  ‘Affirmative.’

  Maddy planted her hands on the table. ‘And we need to get going soon … I mean, like, in the next hour.’

  ‘Who’s going?’ asked Sal. ‘We can’t all go, can we? Doesn’t someone have to stay here?’

  Maddy nodded. Sal was quite right. Somebody needed to stay right here to coordinate the opening of a return window.

  ‘Well, obviously you need to stay, Mads,’ said Liam. ‘We need you here to organize it all. Me, Bob and Becks can do this. The pair of ’em are an army between them, more than a match for anyone, so they are.’

  ‘Let me come with you,’ said Sal.

  Liam shook his head. ‘It’ll be dangerous. You’d be best staying here.’

  ‘I’m always here! I’m always safe — I never get to do anything!’ She turned to Maddy, looking to her for support. ‘This time, please … let me do something more than just watching for things!’

  ‘Liam’s right … There may be shots fired if they have to — ’

  ‘I should be dead anyway, right?’ said Sal. ‘All of us should be! I should have been burned to death in Mumbai with my family. But I’m here now. So … every day is an extra. Every day is bonus time. And what’s the point if all I ever do is sit here and do nothing useful?’

  ‘You are useful, Sal. You’re very useful. You’re our early warning system!’ said Maddy.

  ‘I want to do more!’ Sal folded her arms. ‘I need to do more.’

  Maddy gazed down at the wooden table in silence, glanced at the time on her wristwatch. It was gone twelve o’clock. Throughout today things across America were going to happen quickly. Right now, somewhere amid the panicking corridors of power, a FEMA-directed order was being issued to suspend all aeroplane flights across the entire nation. President Bush was in Airforce One in a holding pattern escorted by two F16 fighters. The Pentagon was on fire. Vice President Dick Cheney was sitting out the unfolding crisis in the Presidential Emergency Operating Center in the basement of the White House.

  And Abraham Lincoln was — if Sal was right, if she had seen him in the back of that black van — undoubtedly being taken down to the FBI’s headquarters in Washington to be interrogated. He was probably already on the interstate, heading south through New Jersey.

  ‘OK …’ she said presently, ‘OK, this is what we’re doing. No need to drive down there. We’re going to open a window down there, right now, right outside the entrance to the FBI’s place. Not a time jump … just a location jump.’

  She looked across the archway towards the computer desk. Becks was standing beside it, motionless and engaged in a silent Bluetooth conversation with computer-Bob. ‘Just as soon as we’ve got information on the layout and some coordinates we can use.’ She turned back to look at the others.

  ‘Liam … you and Bob and, OK, you too, Sal, you’re going down there and can watch the traffic going in. If you spot him, if you actually see this black van and Lincoln gawping out of the back window and think there’s an opportunity to snatch him … then you just go for it, OK?’

  The three of them nodded.

  ‘Meanwhile, me and Becks and computer-Bob, we need to pool data. We need to get every piece of information we can on how all the terror suspects were moved around in the first week after today: where they’re being held, how they’re moved … so on and so on.’ She shrugged. ‘If you guys miss him, then we’re going to need to build up a picture of where all the terror suspects are being held during today. If we lose him, if we let the trail grow too cold, we may never find him again. I hate to think where that’s going to take us. I suspect we’re lucky that history’s only tweaked itself so far.’ She pulled out a handkerchief and blew her nose noisily.

  ‘Sheesh … and God knows how long that’s going to last.’

  CHAPTER 23

  2001, New York

  Half an hour later Bob, Liam and Sal stood in the middle of the archway’s floor, just outside a faint hand-drawn circle of chalk, four foot in diameter. Within the circle the concrete floor was gone, or, more accurately, scooped out, leaving a shallow crater as if an impossibly large bowling ball had been dropped from the ceiling.

  Maddy hated the sight of it. They’d refilled the small crater several times; she’d even bought a cheap throw rug to cover it. But several times now they’d had to open a portal in the middle of the archway — ‘going dry’, that was their term for it. Going dry because there’d not been enough time to fill the displacement tube with water.

  ‘Now let’s see …’ Maddy looked at her watch. ‘It’s nearly twelve thirty now. If the FBI grabbed Lincoln just after nine-thirty, it’s what? … A three- maybe four-hour drive down Interstate 95 all the way south into Virginia?’

  ‘Correct,’ said Becks. ‘That would be my calculation.’

  ‘So I’ve set the coordinates for the slip road off Interstate 95 that leads to the grounds of the FBI Academy at Quantico. It’s a pretty discreet, quiet spot. Russell Road. There’s a checkpoint where every vehicle has to slow down and stop; you gotta show some ID and stuff. That’s maybe the best place for you guys to keep watch.’

  She hunched over the desk and tapped at the keyboard as she spoke. ‘I’m not bumping you backwards or forwards in time — it’s just a straight spatial transposition. You should be there at that checkpoint before the van arrives.’ She glanced back at Sal. ‘If, that is, you’re absolutely sure you saw Lincoln in the back of it.’

  Sal’s hesitant nod wasn’t entirely reassuring.

  ‘OK, then.’ She clicked the mouse on a dialogue box and tapped in a one-minute countdown.

  ‘What about a return window?’ asked Liam. ‘Do we not need to agree on a — ’

  Maddy rolled her eyes. ‘See the mysterious-looking contraption Sal’s holding?’

  Liam turned to look at her. She grinned as she held out her hand, the mobile phone sitting on her palm.

  ‘Just gimme a call, OK? And I’ll bring you right back home. No need for funky fossils or ancient parchments this time.’

  ‘Oh.’ Liam looked sheepish. ‘Right … yes, of course.’

  ‘And look, Bob, if that van looks like it’s full of SWAT guys wearing Kevlar vests and packing big guns, then don’t be a dummy. You may be a tough brute, but you’re not invincible.’

  ‘I will operate within acceptable
risk parameters.’

  She looked at Liam. ‘It’s your decision to make, OK? If you feel it’s too dangerous, then we can figure out something else. At the very least we’ll know where they’re holding him and we can work out some other plan of action.’

  ‘Aye.’

  ‘OK … so everyone good to go?’ She checked the screen. ‘Twenty seconds.’ The displacement machine’s hum began to rise in pitch and volume.

  ‘Careful, guys, OK? Particularly you, Sal. Let the boys do their work.’

  Sal sucked in a tremulous breath, clearly excited by the prospect of doing something more proactive than sitting idle and intently watching the world for subtle changes. ‘I will.’

  A draught swept across the archway, sending sweet wrappers flying and pizza boxes shifting across the desk. Before them a shimmering sphere of daylight had suddenly pulsed into existence.

  ‘See you soon,’ Maddy called out above the hum of energy.

  Sal waggled her hand as Liam took the first step into the portal.

  She watched him vanish, then a moment later Sal, gritting her teeth and wincing as she stepped in, then finally Bob.

  ‘Close the window, please.’

  Computer-Bob obliged and the spherical field collapsed into a single point and vanished.

  She sat down beside Becks, facing the dim glow of a row of monitors, all of them showing news feeds from different channels, a variety of live-footage angles of the same thing: the smouldering ruins of the World Trade Center and the dust-covered ghostly faces of a thousand firemen, paramedics and police officers staring in stunned silence.

  A frozen tableau.

  The only movement seemed to be the still-fluttering sheets of paper circling restlessly in the sky like a flock of birds taking flight to seek a new home.

  CHAPTER 24

  2001, Quantico, Virginia

  Liam, Bob and Sal squatted down amid the tall grass beneath the shadow of a red cedar tree. At the bottom of the freshly clipped sloping lawn was a single-lane road winding its way anonymously through the woods towards the grounds of the FBI’s academy.