Alex Scarrow - Time Riders

His gaze drifted across to a milling crowd beside the large entrance doors. People seemed tobe hesitating there on their way out. Curious, he crossed the hall.

On a podium, a large leather-bound book lay open beneath the glow of a brass reading lamp.Beside it an old security guard with a ruddy face, topped with thick bushy eyebrows and an oddheart-shaped mole poking out from one of them, stood to attention.

‘Guest book,’ growled the guard, noticing Liam’s curious gaze. ‘Feel free to sign and add a comment if you wish, sir,’ he addedreluctantly. ‘And keep it clean.’

Liam looked down and noticed the scrawled messages of hundreds of visitors, so many differentnames, so many languages.

‘Keep it clean?’

The guard cleared his throat. ‘I know what you damn teenagers are like.’

Liam felt a tap on his shoulder and turned round. It was Maddy.

‘Guest book,’ said Liam.

‘Oh yeah… I know. I came here on a school trip once and left a dirty poem,’she giggled.

The guard scowled disapprovingly, his bushy old eyebrows knotted together, as if he actuallyrecalled the very words she’d written.

‘You still archive them?’ Maddy asked the guard.

‘We do,’ he replied stiffly. ‘We keep every guest book, down in thebasement. We’ve done that since before the beginning of the last century. A hundredyears of comments,’ he said proudly. ‘Not all of them dirtypoems , neither.’

Maddy cringed guiltily. ‘Sorry.’

But the guard was already busy directing a visitor to where the toilets were.

‘Go on, Liam. Why don’t you sign it?’

He looked at her. ‘Uh… will I not change history, or something?’

‘I can’t see how you would.’

He gingerly picked up the pen, attached by a chain to the podium.

Liam O’Connor, 10 September 2001 — I loved the dinosaurs alot.

‘That it?’ asked Maddy.

He shrugged. ‘Don’t want to push me luck now.’

She shook her head and snorted. ‘Ah… there are theothers.’

Liam followed her across the hall, casting one last glance back at the book.

There, I left me mark on history .

If he died tomorrow for whatever reason, at least there’d be a scribbled line on a pageof a book somewhere that showed he’d once existed.

‘Well done,’ said Foster, clinking his glass tankard of beer againstLiam’s, and Maddy’s and Sal’s glasses of Dr Pepper.

Bob observed the ritual with a curious expression on his face, picking up an empty glass andtapping it against another.

‘You all did very well,’ added Foster, before slurping a large frothy mouthful ofice-cold beer. He wiped his lips and, cautiously glancing around at the busy restaurant, helowered his voice. ‘You’ve all seen how it works now. You all understand the partyou have to play in the team?’

Maddy and Sal nodded.

Liam shrugged. ‘But I didn’t actually do very much, Mr Foster.’

‘No… not this time. But you will. The agency uses the Kennedy incident as astandard training mission. It’s a little piece of history that corrects itself. But whenyou go back on a proper mission it’ll be down to you and ofcourse the support unit — ’ he looked across at Bob, studiously examining a steakknife — ‘to make things right.’

‘But how will I know what to do?’

‘You’ll know, Liam. Because you’re a very bright young man, quick on yourfeet.’ Foster placed a fatherly hand on his shoulder. ‘Initiative…that’s what you’ve got. You’re a smart lad. No amount of training can give aperson that.’

‘Uh… thanks.’

‘What do you think, Bob?’

The clone looked up from the steak knife. ‘Mission Operative Liam O’Connoris… good.’

‘There. I think he likes you.’

Liam smiled. ‘Thanks, Bob.’

Foster turned to Maddy and Sal. ‘And you two… you did very well.’

They grinned, both very pleased with themselves.

‘But this exercise is just the beginning.’

A waitress arrived with a tray full of plates. She prepared to deal them out like playingcards. ‘Who’s havin’ the rack of ribs?’

Liam raised a hand. ‘I’m starving,’ he said.

‘The salad?’

Sal raised her hand.

‘The burgers?’

Foster and Maddy nodded.

The waitress looked at Bob, confused. ‘I’m sorry, sir. What did youorder?’

Bob glanced up at her with his piercing grey eyes. ‘I do not eat human food unless itis a necessary mission requirement,’ he explained dryly.

The waitress cocked her head. ‘Excuse me?’

‘Oh, don’t worry about him,’ said Foster. ‘He’s just notallowed to eat on duty.’

She smiled coyly at Bob, admiring his physique. ‘So… are you, like, some kind ofundercover cop, then?’

Bob turned to Liam. ‘Liam O’Connor, explain the term “cop”,please.’

Liam shrugged and made a face. ‘You’re asking me?’

‘A “cop”,’ explained Foster, ‘is a slang term for alaw-enforcement officer.’

‘I understand.’ Bob nodded slowly and closed his eyes. ‘Iam filing the term for future use.’

The waitress looked from Bob to Foster, bemused.

‘You guys ain’t from around here, are you?’

Maddy finished chewing her first mouthful of burger. ‘Oh, you can forget about them- they’re Canadian.’

1941, Berghof — Hitler’s winter retreat

Kramer cowered behind a small oak bureau in the hallway. Shards of wood stung hisface as a dozen rounds slammed into the far side and sharp slithers splintered off.

He rattled a stream of curses out under his breath as the corridor filled with the deafeningcrack of machine-gun fire.

At the end of the hallway several SS Leibstandarte were dug into covered positions, defendingthe double doors to die Gro?eHalle , the main room of Hitler’s mountain retreat.

Karl and several of his men returned fire, their shots peppering the overturned marble tableahead of them behind which the SS were putting up a valiant defence. Showers of powderedmarble erupted from the once mirror-smooth table surface, now pockmarked with cracks andbullet craters.

‘We have to move, Karl! They’ll have reinforcements here any second!’

Karl nodded. He understood the situation all too well.

The attack had started out smoothly. He and his men had quietly slipped past the machine-gunposts either side of the winding road and made their way up the steep rise towardsHitler’s hillside chalet. But the game was up when a guard spotted them at the lastmoment approaching the building’s main entrance. He’d managed to fire off a singleshot from his gun before Dieter had slipped a blade into his throat.

Hitler’s hand-picked guards had been surprisingly swift to react,bustling their leader to safety behind the thick double doors of the main hall and setting upa defensive position outside it. The rest of the SS guard detachment in the building had beenquickly and ruthlessly picked off by Karl’s men.

It was just these stubborn guards at the end of the hall now. The problem was, though, thattheir attack had been stalled right here and time was rapidly working against them. Outsidethe chalet a distant klaxon was sounding and the regiment garrisoned nearby was undoubtedlyalready scrambling into their boots and on their way over.

Karl’s five-man rearguard covering the front entrance of the chalet had as much chanceof holding their position as they’d had holding the ground floor of the museum — they were certain to be quickly overwhelmed.

Kramer was no soldier, but he could see that this last hurdle could be the one that finishedthem. If they remained in this stalemate a minute or two longer, then it was going to be allover. The numbers were quickly going to mount against them, and having modern pulse rifles andelite training wasn’t going to make a blind bit of difference.