Alex Scarrow - The Eternal War

His ears were filled with a riot of alien sounds, sounds he couldn’t begin to make sense of: a rhythmic pounding that spilled out of the back of a vehicle as it rolled past him, a noise so deep he felt his chest shuddering in synchronicity; the pavements and street filled with people speaking languages from all over the world, so it seemed, every one of them holding slim and shiny pebble-shaped contraptions to their ears and talking into them or alternately looking intently at their tiny glowing surfaces.

Languages, so many of them, but the most perplexing ones were those he had an inkling were some form of unidentifiable English. He could make sense of fleeting bits and pieces said, phrases shouted out from one side of the street to the other and peppered with words he couldn’t begin to try to decipher.

It was awe at first, and pride, that almost had him crying. Pride that his nation, his fellow Americans, ambitious and brave men and women, pioneers, adventurers and entrepreneurs, all of them, would one day build something so magnificently, toweringly spectacular and ingenious and colourful as this incredible city of glowing cathedrals.

‘Hell’s bells and tarnation !’ he gasped out loud. Even his thunderous voice was lost amid the bustling din of Chinatown. ‘This is a truly remarkable place!’ He shook his head with utter incredulity. ‘Truly remarkable !’

It was then a short woman standing directly in front of him said something.

He cupped an ear, realizing she was talking to him. ‘I beg your pardon, ma’am?’

She looked to him to be Oriental and giggled shyly as she spoke. He bent down low, almost doubling over to hear her better.

‘It is very noisy, ma’am. Pray you might speak a little louder.’

She spoke again. ‘Like yoo hat very much!’

‘My hat?’ He self-consciously touched the brim of his battered felt-topper. ‘Why thank you!’

Then without warning the woman whipped an object out from her handbag. It glistened gun-metal grey, square like a tinder-box, with one glassy eye that glinted dully at him.

‘Ma’am? What may I ask are you — ?’

She pulled the small device up to her face and said, ‘You smile now, please?’

A blinding flash of light suddenly exploded from it and Lincoln staggered back, screaming in abject terror, quite certain the device was some sort of weapon and that he’d been shot at.

He collided with someone else and a moment later they were in a tangle of limbs on the ground.

‘What you doin’, fool?’

A young dark-skinned face beneath the peak of a spotlessly white Yankees cap.

Lincoln grimaced awkwardly, patting himself down to be sure he wasn’t bleeding from the Chinese woman’s ‘gunshot’ wound.

‘My apologies, I … I must have … I thought …’

The young black man angrily pushed Lincoln’s gangly legs off him. He uttered a stream of words Lincoln couldn’t begin to fathom.

‘Like I say, I am sorry. I thought I had been shot by a … a small woman with a … well, with some curious weapon.’

The young man looked at him as he got up, dusting himself down. He shook his head in half irritation, half bemusement. ‘You wanna jus’ watch out, a’ight?’

Lincoln looked at the young black man. Noticed a ragged tear along the knee of his pale denim trousers.

‘Good Lord! I appear to have ripped your clothes! I beg your pardon.’

‘Uh? What? No, hey … that’s jus’ meant to be like — ’

Lincoln shook his head, looking the young man up and down. ‘I have some small coin on me. You must allow me to at least recompense — ’

‘No, hey … that’s fine,’ waved the young man. ‘Jus’ watch out next time, a’ight?’

‘No, I insist,’ said Lincoln, digging into his own threadbare trousers. ‘Where’s your master? I’ll give the money to hi-’

‘Hey! What did you just say?’

Lincoln froze, cocked an eyebrow. ‘Ahh! I see! My mistake, young man. You must be a freed negro, then?’

Both police officers heard the call on the squad car’s radio.

‘ We got a disturbance, corner of Mott Street and Canal Street. Caller said we got a pair of guys tangling like a pair of fighting cockerels .’

Bill picked up the mic. ‘OK, we got it; we’re just round the corner.’ He stubbed his cigarette out, placed his cap on and straightened the peak in the car’s wing mirror. ‘Damn. Fun’s startin’ early tonight.’

‘Ain’t that right,’ Jim replied, tossing the uneaten half of his salt-beef bagel back in its paper bag and stuffing it into the car door’s side pocket. The beef was going to be cold by the time he got back to it and the mustard all soaked up into the bread.

Great.

He slapped on the siren and took the next left. ‘And sheesh … it’s only Monday fer cryin’ out loud.’

Bill chuckled in his seat as the squad car sped down the busy street, the siren clearing a gap between both lanes of sluggish traffic.

2001, New York

‘See anything?’

Becks shook her head. ‘I see no one who matches his identity or similar.’

Liam shucked his shoulders. ‘To be honest, I can’t imagine us spotting anyone similar . He’s an odd-looking fella, so he is.’

Although he seemed to Liam to be an utterly peculiar individual — one moment manic and excitable as a child, the next curmudgeonly and as bad-tempered as a mule — there was something about him he found vaguely likeable. Perhaps it was because he seemed so honest . His over-the-top mannerisms, his loud voice, his thoroughly expressive face, seemed utterly incapable of masking whatever happened to be going through his mind. Lincoln appeared to be one of those people completely incapable of deceit.

Or, as Liam’s Auntie Dot used to say, the poor fella wears his heart on his sleeve.

He recalled one of the other lads on the Titanic being a bit like that, one of the junior stewards. Liam remembered thinking the lad wasn’t going to last long on the ship. Too ready with a muttered curse if he failed to get tipped. The chief steward said the lad was a bad penny. Trouble. Certainly not the kind of young man they wanted wearing a White Star uniform.

Liam gazed at the winking lights of traffic backed up at an intersection and wondered if that lad was one of the lucky few who’d made it off the ship alive to be picked up later by the SS Carpathia .

› Maddy?

‘Yes?’ she groaned. Her cold had chosen the last half an hour to get worse. Her head was pounding, her throat was rough, her arms felt like she’d been bench-pressing hundred-pound weights and her legs like they’d run a marathon.

› There has just been an incident logged on the New York Police Department’s internal intranet system that I calculate as having a high relevancy factor.

She pulled her chair along the table to face the webcam. ‘Whadya got?’

› ‘19:31 hours. Disturbance on corner of Mott and Canal Street. One male, Caucasian, approximate age 22. Possibly a vagrant. Booked in using probable alias — Abraham Lincoln.’

‘Oh boy … We got him! What’s he gone and done now?’

› Data entry originates from Precinct 5 police station.

‘Any idea where that is?’

› Just a moment … searching.

She snatched her inhaler off the desk and took a wheezy gasp from it; asthma and a cold — no, strike that, flu — oh, and a whole pile of unwelcome stress on top of that. She wondered how much punishment her frail body was supposed to be able to take.

› 19 Elizabeth Street.

Sal and Bob were probably closer. She dialled her number.

‘Sal?’