by Alex Scarrow
He cursed under his breath. Too many unknowns.
‘So, they may have got the message, Foster,’ said Maddy, ‘but what if theycan’t make it to the location we specified? What if it’s just not possible?’She tapped the monitor in front of her showing a street map of Washington DC. ‘The citycould be completely different. There might not even be a street there in their time. Itcould’ve been built over by the Germans or razed to the ground… or… orsubmerged beneath some large rubbish tip, or — ’
‘We have to take that chance.’ Foster sat tiredly back in the old office chairwith squeaky castor wheels and a faded threadbare cover. ‘Liam’sa smart lad. Between them they’ll find a way, Madelaine. They’ll find a way tomake it there in time.’
‘If they’re still alive, that is,’ she added grimly.
Foster could’ve replied irritably that her doom and gloom wasn’t exactly helpingthings. But she was right. There were many reasons why this was just a desperate shot in thedark. If it failed…
Then this is it.
The world left forever like this — just ashes and rubble. And living within this ruinedlandscape, those pitiful mutated creatures feeding on the flesh of each other, scavenging likerats. In a few days’ time they’d be out of water and canned food, then have to beout there scavenging for food just like them.
And how long before those creatures found them? Found their little archway? They may mewl andbabble like babies, but there was intelligence in those pale eyes. He could well imagine themslowly but surely scouring the city for them, gradually zeroing in on them. The thought of itset the grey hairs on his forearms on end.
If those things managed to find them here… they’d work out a way to get inside.After all, their humble little base was little more than a crumbling bricks-and-mortararchway. Hardly impregnable.
They’ll find a way in… and it will all be over veryquickly.
He couldn’t let the girls know what he was thinking, of course. He couldn’t letthem know that he suspected their plan was almost certainly doomed to failure. The chance ofthe message getting through was painfully slim, let alone Liam and Bob being able to make theappointed window in time. And listening to the faltering muffled chug of the generator…it sounded like it was on its last legs. Chances were there wasn’t going to be enough ofa charge on the displacement machine to get them out of this fix, anyway.
‘You OK, Foster?’ asked Maddy quietly. Quiet enough for Sal notto hear. ‘You don’t look so good.’
He smiled. ‘I’m fine… just a little tired.’
‘This is going to work, isn’t it?’ sheasked.
He needed to put a brave face on things for now.
‘Sure, of course it is. It’s going to be fine.’
Fine?
If they failed to bring Liam and Bob home and they were stuck here alone in this ruined placeforever, then he silently vowed he’d do the deed that was necessary. There were a dozenrounds of ammo in his shotgun. The first nine he’d use to defend them if those creaturesfound their base and decided to break in.
The last three? Well, there’d be one for each of them.
CHAPTER 67
1957, command ship above Washington DC
‘Paul? What is this?’
Kramer looked up from the workbench. He smiled when he saw his friend standing in the doorwayto the lab.
‘Karl, good to see you.’
Karl stepped into the lab, his eyes darting across the assembled machinery, trying to makesense of the draping cables, the gutted machine parts strung together, the wire cage.
What is this?
‘You’ve not been available for our daily status meetings for over two weeks,Paul. Your assistant said you were unwell… not taking anymeetings at all.’
Kramer looked back down at his hand-drawn schematic. ‘I have been busy, Karl. Verybusy.’
‘I can see that,’ he replied, shaking his head, a bemused look on his leansoldier’s face. ‘What manner of thing are you working on now?’
Kramer answered the question with a dismissive shrug.
Karl stepped a little closer, ducking beneath a loop of power cables. ‘I have a backlogof papers for you to sign, Paul. Important matters that need discussing. We have a growingproblem in the New Jersey and Maryland state areas… more of those raids on prisoncamps.’
Karl squeezed past a rack of acetylene cylinders to join Kramer at hisworkbench.
‘The American newspapers have printed stories of this superhero and his army. Thisisn’t good, Paul. It’s giving the American people something to rallyround.’
‘So, close the printing presses,’ replied Kramer, distracted, returning to histask, scribbling amendments across his work.
‘I have already done that on my own authority. But they have underground printingpresses. Not just in Washington… but in New York, in Boston, other cities.’
Kramer continued scribbling in silence.
‘Paul? This is a problem that could very quickly become serious. We don’t havethe manpower over here in America to deal with a nationwide insurgency. We would need at leastthree, four times as many men to cope if this resistance movement catches on.’
Kramer’s eyes remained on the workbench. ‘Do what you feel is necessary,Karl… I am busy here. I do not have the time to deal with this.’
Karl studied him silently. He has not been listening to me.
Frustrated, he reached across and placed a hand on Kramer’s arm. ‘Paul. You must-’
Kramer looked up at him sharply, grabbing his hand tightly and pushing it forcefully off him.‘You forget, Karl… that I am your Fuhrer!’
‘I’m sorry… I meant only to — ’
‘Be quiet!’
Karl flinched. He met Kramer’s eyes and realized there was a hardness there, aniron-stiff resolve, none of the warmth of friendship he’d grown accustomed to over theyears.
Paul is not himself.
Kramer began to say something, then irritably shook his head. His gazedropped impatiently back down to the papers splayed out across his workbench.
Karl remained standing stiffly to attention, waiting for Kramer to formally dismiss him fromthe room. As he waited, he looked around. This lab was Kramer’s thinking space aboardthe command ship. It was normally as tidy as his leader’s mind, a place of order andcalm, a place where Kramer’s mind could comfortably work on refinements to theirarmy’s weapons technology. But right now it had the look of a troubled mind. Along theworkbench, a meal started, forgotten and unfinished; a teacup half full, cold and growing askin of congealed cream. Karl’s eyes followed a loop of cables snaking across the floortowards a wire cage.
A cage.
His mind flashed an image of the museum basement… fifteen years ago. A desperate gunbattle, then hastening into a cage similar to this. Static electricity, sparks, then aterrible sensation of falling.
‘My God… you are making a time machine?’
Kramer muttered something in response.
Karl’s eyes followed another thick string of cables away from the cage, across the labtowards what appeared to be a small beer keg suspended in the middle of a protective metalframe by an array of thick springs. The unfamiliar frame confused him for a moment. But thebeer keg, he suddenly recognized.
‘Paul! You have one of the atom bombs in here!’
Kramer sighed, and looked up. ‘Indeed.’
‘Is it… is it deactivated?’
‘No, Karl, it is primed and ready for use.’
Karl immediately felt his scalp begin to prickle. ‘You understand… you understandhow dangerous it is to have this aboard the command ship, when it is primed for-’
Kramer’s smile was cold and lifeless. But worse than that was the vacant look in hiseyes. Karl felt his leader — his friend — was looking through him, beyond him, not at him. The muscle tics in his face he’d firstnoticed some weeks ago, the tremor of Kramer’s jaw were more pronounced. His eyes lookeddeep, hooded and dark from lack of sleep.
Kramer’s eyes seemed to focus back on him. ‘My old friend,’ he said, somewarmth finally returning to his lean face, ‘I believe it is over for us.’
‘Over? What is over?’
‘Someone has come for me, Karl.’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘You saw that body. You remember it? On the day we took the White House?’
Karl cast his mind back. Yes, he remembered a curiously fusedbody. Remembered it had troubled him for a few nights, but then their high-powered weapons,their incendiary bombs, habitually produced all manner of twisted and unpleasant corpses.He’d had no time to reflect further on it; the business of governing a conquered nationhad made sure of that.
‘Do you see, old friend… that’s them.’
‘Them?’
‘They know where we are… They know when we are. And they’re going to come.’
‘They? Who?’
Kramer shook his head, that tremor in his jaw uncomfortably exaggerated now. Karl realizedPaul must have experienced some kind of a nervous breakdown.
‘Our actions in history, Karl, have angered them. And nowthey’re coming to exact payment. To take their pound of flesh.’
Karl frowned. ‘You are talking of other time travellers?’
Kramer’s eyes, red-rimmed and glistening, widened. ‘I’veseen it in my nightmares. Perhaps I glimpsed his face in the gap in space-time, Karl. When wetravelled back to 1941. I must have seen his face then… in that swirling chaos betweenthe present and past.’
‘Face? Whose face?’
‘The devil, Karl… Satan. Death. Chaos.’
He regarded his leader in uncomfortable silence.
He has gone quite mad.
‘Paul, there is no such thing as the devil.’
‘Oh, but there is. You and I stepped through a gap in space-time, a gap in the laws ofphysics… you and I may have stepped briefly, so very briefly, and placed our feet inHell itself.’
This has to stop. Paul is not himself.
‘And Hell has our scent now, Karl. It has our scent. It isseeking us and it will punish us.’
Karl’s eyes stole away from Kramer’s intense face, and darted again to the atombomb nestled in its metal support frame. He could kill us both with thisdevice. Kill everyone aboard the command ship.
Kramer turned and followed his gaze. ‘Yes, Karl. This device… you want to know what it is?’
‘You have an atom bomb linked to a time machine?’
Kramer shook his head. ‘It’s not a time machine. I’d need things Ican’t get my hands on in 1957 to make one of those. No… it’s a doomsdaybomb. An atom bomb magnified infinitely by Waldstein’s displacement field.’ Hepointed at the wire cage. ‘It will ensure a blast and gamma radiation that will wipe outevery living thing.’
‘My God!’ gasped Karl.
Kramer’s face creased with a playful grin. ‘It is aGod-like thing, is it not?’
Karl felt his heart thumping through his charcoal-grey tunic, through the silver eaglestitched on his left breast pocket.
‘Paul, this is… this is madness.’
‘I consider it a kindness, my old friend.’
‘What?’
‘Yes… yes, a kindness. We mistakenly let some dark force come into the pastbehind us. Something evil… chaos itself. It is seeking us.It will come for you and I, and will come for every other soul in this world. I can see thatnow.’
‘Paul… listen. There are no angels, or demons, or — ’
‘It will come for every soul in this world… because this is a world that shouldnever have been. Every person living right now is living a lifethat should never have been.’
Karl found his hand instinctively, slowly, reaching down for the pistol on his belt. Beingmerely decorative it was unloaded, but perhaps Kramer would not be aware of that.
Am I really going to pull my gun on him?
Yes. He needed Paul to come with him now, away from thiscontraption, where he could talk to him, where he could reason with him safely. And, if needsbe, he would order a physician to provide sedatives for the Fuhrer. The man needed to becalmed, desperately needed some sleep by the look of him.
‘You know, Karl, I wanted to make a better world, a better future,’ said Kramer,his tired eyes rimmed with tears. ‘Instead — ’ he shook his head — ‘I believe I’ve condemned us all to something worse than death itself.’
‘But you are talking of supernatural things, Paul. Devils,angels, God, Satan — these are things that belong to the Middle Ages. You are a man ofscience, not some insane… priest.’
‘Perhaps the supernatural is what lies beyond our science? It is in that gap inspace-time.’ A solitary tear rolled down Kramer’s gaunt cheek. ‘The factis… I know the devil has arrived and is coming for us as we speak.’
He’s gone too far.
‘I have to ask this, Paul… Is this devicefunctional?’
Kramer nodded. ‘It is.’
I have no choice, then. Karl’s hand stole into his holsterand with one fluid sweep pulled out the pistol. He aimed it at Kramer. The gun was steady. Hisvoice wasn’t. ‘Paul… I’m s-sorry. You must understand I cannot letthis go any further.’
Kramer remained calm, his eyes on the gun. He smiled, not unkindly. ‘I’m afraidit’s something I have to do.’
Karl cocked his gun. ‘Look, come with me, Paul. We’ll talk about this in yourquarters. You and I — ’
Kramer calmly reached for the intercom on his workbench.
‘Paul! Please stop! I will shoot!’
‘I don’t believe you will, old friend,’ said Kramer softly as he thumbed abutton on the intercom. ‘Security detail to my private laboratory on the double,please.’
A tinny voice acknowledged the order over the desk speaker.
Kramer looked up at him. ‘I’d hoped we could face this together, Karl. After allwe’ve been through.’
‘Do you not see? You’re not well. You’re tired. You’re not seeingthings clearly. Send the guards away and you and I can talk.’
Karl could already hear the clatter of boots on the hard floor outside the lab. ‘Callthem off, Paul. This is madness.’
A rap on the double door, a muffled voice outside. ‘Security detail, sir!’
‘Enter!’
Karl quickly lowered his gun. The SS Leibstandarte guards would shoot even him, theReichsmarschall, if they saw a weapon raised at their beloved leader. The door swung open andfive SS Leibstandarte entered. The oberleutnant leading them glanced at Karl, the pistol heldloosely in his hand now aiming down at the ground.
‘Mein Fuhrer? Is everything allright?’
Kramer sighed, his shoulders sagging. ‘I’m so very sorry, Karl.’ He steppedaround a nest of cables towards his friend, gently easing the unloaded pistol out of his handand placing it on the workbench.
‘Paul,’ said Karl quietly, ‘you must listen — ’
Kramer put a finger to his lips, hushing him. He reached out and affectionately clasped hisshoulder. ‘I consider you my closest friend… perhaps my only real friend, Karl. But this is too important a thing.’
My God.He’s going to place me under arrest.
Karl bit his lip, realizing it would be foolish to push Kramer any further right now. Assecond-in-command of the Reich’s invasion force, he might still be able to reason withthe guards, the higher echelon officers… but not right here, not like this.
Kramer took a step back. ‘Trust me,’ he said softly, barely more than a whisperfor Karl’s ears only. ‘This is a kindness for you.’
‘Paul? What are you — ?’
‘Oberleutnant?’
‘Sir?’
‘Execute Reichsmarschall Haas.’
The young officer’s eyes widened in momentary confusion.
‘Do this right now, please.’
What? He can’t be…!
Karl was turning round to sharply bar
k a counter-order when two precisely aimed shots endedhis life and scattered tissue and blood across Kramer’s workbench.
CHAPTER 68
1957, woods outside Baltimore
‘All right, Bob? You understand what you’ve got to say tothem?’
‘Affirmat-’
Liam raised a finger and cocked a scolding eyebrow.
‘Yes… I understand, Liam O’Connor.’
‘Better. This has to be convincing. You need to come across sounding sort of like someOld Testament prophet, and not like a bloody robot.’
‘I understand.’
‘You remember it all?’
Bob looked down at the tattered sheet of paper in his hands, and Liam’s untidyhandwriting littered with words crossed out, phrases rewritten, and written again.
‘It is stored in memory.’
‘Right, then I suppose we should get a move on.’
‘Correct,’ rumbled Bob, ‘Washington is fifty-seven miles south-west fromthis location. We will need to travel quickly.’
Liam led the way out of Bob’s shelter and blinked at the early-morning sun piercing thebranches and pine needles above them and dappling the hard-trodden snowy ground with pools ofwarmth and light. The camp was already stirring with activity, some of the men already up andreviving the smouldering campfire to cook breakfast and heat an urn of coffee.
He could see Panelli interviewing more newcomers eager to join the fight,even more eager to catch sight of the legendary Captain Bob in action.
Oh boy, they’re really not going to like this.
‘Come on,’ he whispered to Bob, ‘you better lead the way.’
Bob strode past him towards the clearing in the middle of the camp. When he stepped out fromunder some low branches, the camp’s hum of activity died down to an expectant silence asthey stared in awe at their magnificent heroic leader.
The newcomers, about thirty of them, surged forward excitedly, keen to get a closer look atCaptain Bob.