Alex Scarrow - Time Riders

‘Go, Saul, go!’

‘Sir?’

‘Down to the basement. Go!’

Saul followed the other men down, leaving him alone in the doorway. Karl pulled threemanual-fuse anti-personnel grenades from his belt and set fuse times a minute apart. He tossedthe first out into the hall, dropped the second at the top of the stairwell and turned roundto scramble down the first two flights of stairs, where he placed the third grenade.

He raced down the third flight of stairs to the bottom of the stairwell.

‘Hold your fire!’ he called out in the dim light as he descended.‘It’s me! It’s Karl!.. Hold your fire!’ His voice echoed off thehard breeze-block walls.

His men were waiting, eighteen of them, tucked behind a barricade of boxes and crates hastilybuilt across the open doorway leading to the museum’s vast storagebasement.

‘Excellent work,’ he said, slapping the shoulder of the nearest man as heclambered over to join them. ‘There’s a three-minute spread of grenades up there,which should slow them down.’

He looked around at his men. ‘How many did we lose?’

‘Another two,’ said Saul. ‘Dexter and Schwartz.’

His face tightened.

Not good.

‘Karl? What about them?’ asked one of his men, nodding at the museum’ssecurity guards huddled together a few yards away beside another stack of crates andboxes.

‘Do we kill them?’ he asked.

Karl bit his lip in thought for a moment. They were no threat. Old men, frightened men.He’d let them go up the stairs, but the chances were they’d be gunned down themoment they stepped out into the main hall.

‘All right, Joseph, tell them they should go find a quiet corner and hide. Wait untilthe gunfight is over.’

‘OK.’

‘Oh, and tell them to make sure they call out to the police first before they show themselves. They’ll be trigger-twitchy.’

Joseph grinned and nodded. He obviously shared the same opinion of the dunderheadsupstairs.

Amateurs. Big boots, big guns and no brains.

The first charge went off in the hall with a dull thump.

Karl put a hand to his earpiece and nodded. He turned to his men. ‘Ross, Pieter,Stefan, Joseph. Head down there,’ he said, gesturing towards a narrow passageway betweentwo tall storage racks on their left. ‘Kramer is down there. He has the machine runningnow and is sending us back one at a time. You four are first.’

The men nodded and headed into the passage.

The second charge went off at the top of the stairs. Louder. Rubble anddebris rattled down the steps.

This is it, Karl , he told himself. Thelast holding position .

2066, New York

Kramer sent the man through and reset the co-ordinates for the next as the rattleof gunfire echoed down the passageway from the distant stairwell. He had lost count of howmany of them he’d put through, perhaps a dozen, maybe fourteen.

Karl had radioed through a few minutes ago; they were down to the last five men holdingposition at the bottom of the stairs. Another man had gone down — Saul. Woundedbadly.

Things were getting tight by the sound of it.

He tapped his throat mic. ‘Karl, you need to come now!’

Haas’s voice crackled back over the radio. ‘Someone’s got to hold themhere, sir. If we all turn and run, they’ll be on to us inseconds.’

Kramer cursed. Karl was right. Someone was going to have to be left behind to buy enough timefor the last two or three to be sent through and for Kramer to sabotage the machine so theycouldn’t be followed. Already they’d lost five good men; to have to leave one ortwo behind to hold them off wasn’t what he wanted to hear.

‘Dammit,’ he hissed.

If he’d managed to find the machine sooner, assemble it just a little morequickly… or if the police had taken a few more minutes to get organized before stormingthe museum they could have all been through into the past without any bloodshed, without a single casualty.

‘I’ll hold them,’ wheezed Saul.

Karl looked down at him; the front of his grey and white Arctic-camouflage tunic was almostentirely black with his own blood. Several unaimed shots sprayed over the top of thestair’s handrail had found him, thudded into his chest and knocked him off his feet. Theyoung lad was spraying thick gouts of blood with each laboured breath; a lung, or both, hadbeen hit.

Karl didn’t need a medic to tell him that the rest of this young man’s life wasnow going to be measured in mere minutes, perhaps even seconds.

‘Saul, I…’

‘You have to go, sir.’ The young man forced a ragged smile. ‘You have togo… Change this world for a better one. Kramer’s one.’

Karl nodded. ‘We’ll do it, Saul.’

‘You better,’ he gasped, a thick curl of congealed blood leaking from the side ofhis mouth. ‘Go… now,’ he whispered. ‘I’ll give you… aslong as… I can.’

Karl nodded. Saul was fading fast.

He looked at the remaining men and gestured with a well-practised hand the signal for them tobreak cover and pull back to join Kramer. As they did so, Karl emptied a complete clip on tothe stairs. Sparks and sprayed chips of concrete danced amid plumes of dust. The armed police,getting ready to storm the last flight of stairs, backed off, ducking their heads from theheavy fire.

The clip empty, he looked down at Saul quickly and squeezed his shoulder. ‘Perhapswe’ll see each other in another time.’

Saul grinned, then began firing at the stairwell with short economic burststhat would conserve his ammo and hopefully buy his comrades the precious time they needed.

Karl turned and ran after his men, hearing their pounding footsteps ahead of him.

Kramer reset the machine once more. The last of the men with him had gone throughand now he was waiting for Haas and whoever else was with him.

He could hear footsteps and, in the distance, short staccato bursts of gunfire.

‘Hurry!’ he called out.

Out of the darkness two men emerged. Ronan and Sigi.

‘Quick!’ he said, ushering the first of them into the wire cage.‘Where’s Karl?’

‘Coming just behind us, sir.’

‘All right… good.’

He activated the machine, sparks showered and the darkness flickered alive with strobinglight as Ronan vanished. Sigi stepped in just as Karl’s pounding footsteps could beheard.

Kramer quickly reset and activated the machine.

The gunfire down the aisle suddenly ceased.

Damn… they’re in.

Karl appeared. ‘They’re through!’ he called out.

‘I know, I know. Hurry up and get in,’ he said, holding open the door of the wirecage.

Karl drew up and looked at him. ‘Who will send you through?’

‘Don’t worry, I’ll manage, Karl.’

He hesitated. ‘No one gets left behind. Your words, remember?’

Kramer offered him a smile. ‘No one left behind, I promise. I’ll be right behindyou, my friend.’

Kramer closed the door on him. ‘I’ll see you there, Karl.’

He replied with a salute. ‘Yes, sir. I’ll have the men ready tomove out.’

Kramer nodded. ‘Good… see you in a minute.’ He activated the machine.

Once more the dark area of the storage basement lit up, throwing the wooden fascias ofstacked crates into stark relief.

For a fleeting moment, as the sparks showered to the floor, it occurred to him that thecontents of some of the crates and boxes down here in this dusty basement were about to bechanged. History, recent history… the last hundred years to be precise, was soon goingto be drastically rewritten.

No bad thing. History as it stood had led mankind here to this dark, poisoned, overcrowded,exhausted world.