Alex Scarrow - Time Riders

‘This is it?’ asked Haas. ‘This really is the first ever timemachine?’

Kramer nodded, admiring it silently.

It was little more than a metal grille box, the size of a shower cubicle. Sitting beside iton the floor was something that looked like a copper kettle and, next to it, a modest palmtopcomputer. A few feet away their portable generator chugged noisily, feeding a steady supply ofpower to Waldstein’s machine.

‘The displacement energy field is fed into the wire cage,’ said Kramer.‘It’s only big enough for us to go through one at a time. It’s going to takeus longer than I thought to get where we’re going.’

Karl Haas looked at his watch. ‘The deadline passed half an hour ago, sir. The policesurely won’t wait much longer.’

Kramer nodded. ‘I know. We should get started.’ He kneeled down beside thepalmtop and started to tap the touch-screen with a stylus.

‘It will be cold where we’re going, Karl. The men will need to pull out theirwinter tunics.’

‘I’ll warn them. Should I call through the — ?’

His question was interrupted by the sound of a muffled thud.

Kramer looked at him sharply. ‘What’s that?’

‘They’re coming in!’ Karl straightened up. ‘I’ll have the menfall back from the main hall. We can hold them on the stairwell to the basement. It’s agood choke-point.’

‘Whatever you think best. Just buy me as much time as you can.’

Karl nodded and turned on his heel, running down the dark aisle and already on the radio tohis men upstairs.

Kramer looked back at the screen and tapped in the time-stamp: a very specific time, a veryspecific place. He turned to two men standing nearby.

‘Max, Stefan, we must start by sending the equipment through first, allright?’

Both men nodded and began dragging their boxes and canvas sacks into the cage.

Karl Haas reached the top of the basement stairs and stared out through the opendouble doors into the museum’s dark main hall.

He thumbed his radio. ‘Rudy, Pieter, what’s your status?’

The earpiece crackled a reply. ‘They’re inside the building. They sent tear gasand flash-bangs down the left wing and they’re moving our way.’

‘Pull back to the main hall. And hold them there for as long as you can. We’resetting up a defensive position on the basement stairwell.’

‘Copy that.’

Karl squinted into the darkness of the main hall and realized, despite the slithers of blueflashing lights stealing in through the boarded-over windows, it was still too dark.

‘OK, gentlemen,’ he spoke quietly into his radio throat mic, ‘it’sshow time. Everyone, go to night-vision.’

He reached up to the unit strapped around his crew-cut head and flipped thenight-sight HUD down over his left eye.

Moments later he heard the first percussive rattle of a firearm echoing around the emptyhalls.

He turned to the man kneeling on the stairs beside him. ‘You ready for a fight,Saul?’

The soldier nodded, even managed an edgy grin. ‘Yes, sir.’

The men lifted in one last sack of equipment and closed the door to the wirecage.

‘Stand clear,’ said Kramer.

He looked down at the palmtop’s small glowing screen. ‘OK, then,’ he said,crossing his fingers behind his back. He turned to Max and Stefan. ‘This is where we getto see if this old machine actually works.’

He tapped an icon on the screen — PURGE.

Immediately sparks spurted from the wire cage, showering on to the equipment inside. For amoment Kramer worried the canvas sacks might smoulder and catch fire, causing the ammo clipsinside to explode.

But the display of fireworks was short-lived. As the last glowing embers cascaded down, herealized the cage was already empty. He looked at his two men, wide eyed and grinning likefools. He laughed.

‘And so it does.’

With no time to savour the moment, he ordered them to load up the cage again as he reset thetransmission program on the palmtop.

At the back of Kramer’s mind — although he realized now wasn’t the time tovoice it aloud — was: in what condition were those things arriving at their destination?Intact? Or in pieces? He could visualize too easily himself arriving in the past and only living long enough to see his body had been contorted into a steamingpile of inside-out organs.

He licked his lips anxiously.

You’re not chickening out now, are you, Paul?

2066, New York

Karl listened to the radio traffic coming in from his men. From their quick burstsof distorted cross-talk, it sounded as if they were doing a good job of keeping the policearmed-response teams tied down. Both flanking teams had called in at least a dozen killsbetween them. The police were getting chewed-up out there from the snatched exchanges he couldhear over his earpiece.

But already two of his men were dead.

Rudy had gone down early — took several rounds in the chest. Aden, one in the head: dead before he hit the ground.

His men were buying time all right, but they couldn’t afford to lose too many. Theycouldn’t afford to lose any , if truth be told. There wereonly two dozen of them. Twenty-four men… not exactly an army. Hardly enough to conquerhistory.

He tapped his throat mic. ‘All units fall back to the basement stairwell. Immediately.Keep your heads down. I don’t want any more casualties.’

‘Doing our bloody best, Karl,’ one of them called back. He recognizedPieter’s voice. One of the other men laughed over the radio comms.

The intensity of chattering gunfire increased momentarily as both teams laid down suppressingfire before hastily abandoning their positions to fall back to the mainhall.

Karl turned to Saul. ‘Ready? They’ll need covering fire.’

Kramer watched the fourth cageful of equipment vanish amid a shower of sparks. Hejust prayed to God that their invaluable equipment and his men were all going to end up in thesame spot, rather than scattered throughout history.

He looked around. Most of the kit had gone through.

‘So now,’ he said, ‘we need to start sending people .’

Max pulled his Arctic-camouflage jacket from his backpack. ‘I’ll go first,sir.’

‘Good man, Max.’

He zipped up his jacket, unslung his pulse rifle and offered Kramer a crisp, clipped salutebefore stepping confidently into the cage.

‘You ready?’

‘Yes, sir. Ready to change history, sir.’

Kramer nodded. ‘To change it to the way it should havebeen.’

‘That’s right, sir.’

Kramer saluted the man. He felt self-conscious making the gesture, having never been themilitary type — but it seemed like the right thing to do. ‘I’ll see you onthe other side with the others, Max.’

‘I’ll see you too, sir.’

Kramer hit the purge icon.

The last of Karl’s flanking men raced across the main hall towards where heand Saul were holding position in the open doorway to the stairwell.

Moments later several gas canisters rattled across the dusty marble floor of the hall andinstantly spewed clouds of acrid smoke.

Karl’s men squeezed past him, gasping and winded from theirsprint.

‘There’re loads of ’em,’ said someone. ‘It’scrawlin’ with ’em out there!’

‘Down the stairs!’ Karl shouted. ‘And set up a defence position below atthe basement entrance! Go! Go!’

The men trampled downstairs, their heavy boots and equipment packs jangling noisily.

Karl aimed down the barrel of his automatic, his night-sight HUD of little use through thebillowing smoke. He fired off a dozen rounds into it, more in the hope of forcing their headsdown than in hitting a target.

The kill zone was too wide here for just the two of them to hold. They’d be betterwithdrawing with the others and holding the stairwell at the bottom. The police would beforced to bunch up on the stairs. A much better kill zone.