Johnny O'Brien - Day of the Assassins

“I am not like you. I am of this time. For you, this is the past. For me, this is the present. I have a responsibility…”

Jack shook his head slowly, “I’m not sure that’s how it’s supposed to work… you heard what the Rector said…”

“But think!” the professor pleaded. “We have the power to stop many deaths. Why wouldn’t you do that… if you could? If you had that power.”

Put like that, Jack could see his point. But he had also heard what the Rector had said — about the unknown consequences of fiddling with time, with things in the past. Anyway, he didn’t want to get involved in this conversation. He just wanted to go home.

“But if we try to change things it might make them worse, we don’t know…” he strained to order his thoughts… “Maybe the war is supposed to happen; maybe it will happen whatever we do…?”

The professor was unconvinced, “Many lives will be lost Jack. With your father’s help maybe we could find a way to save them… to save them all.”

The suggestion hung provocatively in the air. When the Rector had explained everything to him, it seemed that VIGIL and its leaders were right. He had even started to believe the Rector when he’d said that his father was a dangerous fugitive. But, with the professor’s unexpected plea, suddenly he was not so sure. Maybe his father was right?

Their troubling conversation was interrupted by the sound of heavy footsteps coming down the stone stairs in the block behind them. Tony and Gordon entered the courtyard, closely followed by two other VIGIL guards and the Rector. They marched over to where Jack and the professor sat.

“Gentlemen, I am so sorry to disturb you but we have rather worrying news,” the Rector said. He stroked back wisps of his silver hair nervously. He was sweating.

They looked up pensively.

“It appears that Dr Pendelshape’s collaboration with your father was closer than we first thought — and their plans are well advanced.”

“What do you mean?” Jack asked.

“I am not sure we explained to you. All time phones, including the one that you used, are linked to our Taurus back at the school. We had not previously considered a situation where there are in fact two time machines. Two Tauruses.” The Rector’s brow furrowed, “It appears that Dr Pendelshape may have passed the identification code for your time phone to your father.”

Jack and the professor looked at him blankly.

The Rector sighed impatiently, “This means that, assuming a reliable signal, your time phone can be tracked by your father’s Taurus, as well as our own.”

“So if the yellow bar is on in my time phone, Dad knows where I am?”

“He knows when you are as well.”

“So — he could…”

“Yes — he could try and mount some sort of kidnap attempt.”

Jack suddenly had a brainwave, “Hold on! If he’s got the codes for my time phone… then can’t we use my time phone to find out where he is?”

The Rector smiled, “Good thinking, Jack. You’re a bright lad. But in that case we’d need the codes for his Taurus…”

“Which you obviously haven’t got…” the professor added.

“No. And we have now destroyed your time phone so it can’t be tracked. But that’s not the only thing. We are now receiving a good signal from our Taurus.”

“But that means…”

“Yes — we have an opportunity to get you home before we lose the signal again. However, we must act quickly — there is a real possibility that your father managed to get a space-time fix of this location before we destroyed your time phone, in which case…”

“He could time travel back… to the castle — right here.”

“Exactly. We must act quickly.”

The Rector, with Tony and Gordon in close support, ushered Jack and the professor from the courtyard.

They were not quick enough.

In the shadows of one corner of the courtyard there was a sudden disturbance. It was as if the air had gone strangely liquid. There was a flash of white light. In an instant, the shimmering of the air stopped. Where previously there had been nothing, there was a figure — just standing there. He had a thin face and his straight black hair flopped below his ears. Jack couldn’t believe it. Angus. But it was not the Angus that Jack knew from school. He was dressed like a member of the SAS. On top of that, to Jack’s amazement, he was carrying a weapon so heavy, even he was struggling to hold it level.

Angus screamed over to them, “Hit the deck!”

Jack dropped flat to the cobblestones as the whole courtyard erupted into a maelstrom of ricocheting heavy machine-gun bullets. The Rector, Tony, Gordon and the other guards dived back into the main block, taken by complete surprise. Angus’s weapon dispatched heavy calibre rounds and, as he was unable to control it properly, he was soon spraying bullets everywhere and in the process dislodging great lumps of stone and mortar from around the courtyard. In ten seconds it was over. The fountain had been levelled, the hedge stripped bare and the table vaporised.

Angus dashed over to Jack and helped him to his feet.

“Come on, we’ve got to get out of here…”

“What? What about him?”

“Who?”

“The professor — there!” Jack pointed at the professor who was still on the ground next to him. “Professor, are you OK?” Jack asked, trying to pull him to his feet.

“Come on, there’s no time — just leave him,” Angus said.

“I can’t!”

Angus rolled his eyes. The professor rose shakily to his feet, ashen faced.

“Right — he’s fine — so let’s get on with it,” Angus said.

“Why?” Jack asked.

“What do you mean, why?” Angus said desperately. “There’s no time to explain. You are in great danger. We all are. I’ve been sent to rescue you.”

They heard the Rector shouting. “Make safe your weapon. There is no escape. We will not harm you. Give yourself up.”

Angus screamed back, “Everyone stay where you are!” And as if to make the point, he opened up again with his machine gun, spraying the stone wall of the castle accommodation block with bullets and smashing a number of windows in the process. As the gun fired, Angus reeled backwards with the force and the nose of the barrel veered upwards dispatching rounds in a random pattern up the side of the old building.

“Put that thing down before you kill someone,” Jack said desperately.

Angus ignored him. He lowered the gun and looked into his own time phone, which hung around his neck.

“No! The signal’s going… I was told this might happen… it’s over.”

“What do you mean?”

“We can’t time travel out. We’ll have to run for it! Come on!” And to make his point, he unceremoniously poked the smoking barrel of his gun at Jack.

“Hey! Watch where you’re pointing that thing.”

Angus pleaded with his friend, “I’m telling you, stay here and we’re finished. Trust me. There’s a lot you don’t know.”

In the background, they heard the Rector’s voice again, booming orders.

“The others should be here by now to help me. But something must have happened. We’ve got to get out of here.” Angus was starting to panic. He knew something that Jack didn’t. If they could escape, maybe there would be some time to think.

“How?” Jack said.

“You’re the brain box. You tell me. I’ve never been here before.”

“There’s only one way down. And that’s on the cable car,” the professor said.

“Well let’s move.”

Jack had the layout of the castle in his head and they were soon racing up the other side of the courtyard to the cable-car. Angus waited briefly at the bottom of the stairs and fired some final rounds randomly into the courtyard to deter any immediate pursuit. The red cable car was waiting snugly in its arrival gantry. Jack opened the door to the small control room directly behind the gantry. There was an array of switches, gears and dials. They were labelled in German and they all looked dead. The boys turned to the professor.