Alex Scarrow - Time Riders

Liam noticed the emblem he’d seen earlier on Maddy’s screens, stencilled across ahundred feet of the vehicle’s immense hull.

‘What the hell is that thing?’ he yelled.

‘Information: it appears to be a circular dirigible,’ replied Bob. He seemed torecognize the bemused and panicked shrug returned by Liam as an indication that hehadn’t a clue what one of those was. ‘It is a disc-shaped airship — areinforced aluminium hull containing many large cells filled with buoyancy gas.’

Some of the marines on the lawn, frozen into a motionless stupor by the sight, raised theirfirearms and began to shoot pointlessly at it.

A black square slowly appeared in the dark underbelly of the craft, then another, andanother.

‘Er… now that’s not good, is it?’ cried Liam.

Bob nodded in agreement. ‘Is not good.’

Liam saw something dark emerging from the squares, dots that quickly grew in size as a showerof somethings rapidly appeared to be descending towards them.

A canister the size of a Thermos flask thudded into the grass thirty yards from them among agroup of haggard-looking marines. The marines backed away from it as it started to spew out ayellow smoke. Several more canisters landed heavily and started billowing smoke across thelawn.

‘Tactical smokescreen,’ offered Bob.

The air was soon thick with a mustard-coloured mist. Through it Liam could just about makeout the nearby silhouettes of the American soldiers on the lawn, drawing fearfully back acrossthe clipped grass towards the steps and the grand portico at the front of the White House.

Now he could see more dark shapes descending through the mist from above- dozens, perhaps hundreds, of them. Bigger than the canisters this time.

They heard something crash heavily through the cedar trees behind them, accompanied by ashrill hissing sound. They spun round to see a man tangled awkwardly amid thick branches; hewore a loose black rubber boiler suit that reminded Liam of the bin bags that seemed to lineevery backstreet in New York. Covering his face was a dark rubber mask with two glass plateswhere the eyes should be. His head was kinked at an impossible angle and Liam realized theneck had been snapped on the way down through the tree’s branches.

Twin cylinders strapped to his back continued to discharge high-velocity geysers of gasnoisily, which lasted only half a dozen seconds more before finally fizzing to a silence.

‘Aerosol-based fast-descent system,’ announced Bob calmly.

Above them Liam could hear that same hiss multiplied through the air as other men in rubbersuits began to land nearby.

‘Sod this! We can’t stay here!’

The support unit nodded. ‘Recommendation: it will be tactically correct to go insidethe building known as the White House.’

‘Yeah… OK,’ Liam said, stepping out from the cover of the small copse andon to the open lawn.

‘Please wait!’ barked Bob. He stepped across to the body dangling from thebranches and, with a hard tug, pulled it to the ground. He effortlessly flipped the body overand withdrew a weapon from the man’s backpack. His calm eyes appraised its effectivenessand how to use it within seconds. He shouldered the weapon and nodded approvingly.

‘Rapid-fire pulse carbine.’ His grey eyes locked on Liam’s. ‘Weapontechnology from the middle of the twenty-first century.’

‘Well, that’s interesting… but can we go now?’

‘Affirmative. Please follow me, Liam O’Connor.’

Liam nodded. ‘Uh… sure, all right, you go first.’

Bob pushed out through the foliage beneath the trees and into the open, striding forward withthe carbine held at his hip.

The yellow murky air was now filled with the sound of hissing canisters and the thud of bootsmaking a heavy landing on the lawn. Liam could see the smudged outlines of men all aroundthem; mask-muffled voices barked orders in German.

Oh, I’m so-o-o very going to die.

One of the moving outlines took a step too many towards them and suddenly called out a sharpchallenge.

Bob was frighteningly fast — lashing out with the edge of his free hand and chopping atthe man’s throat. Liam heard a dull crack above all the other noise.

‘Follow,’ said Bob.

1956, Washington DC

They moved quickly across the lawn until Liam realized they were now among theretreating marines backing up the alabaster steps and firing sporadically out into the mist infront of them.

Rapid bursts of fire lanced back at them out of the smoke, exploding showers of dust andplaster from the steps and the columns of the palisade. A marine standing beside Liampin-wheeled from the impact of a shot and collapsed to the ground, a gaping hole blown out ofhis torso.

‘Follow,’ said Bob again, leading Liam through the marines returning fire towardsa glass-panelled double door. A wounded soldier slouched by the doorway halted theirprogress.

‘Hey! Where the hell you two goin’? We’re holdin’ the line righthere, goddammit!’

Bob calmly twisted his arm and pushed him aside without any apparent effort. They steppedthrough the doors and into the White House.

The carpeted entrance hall was thick with the stretched-out bodies of wounded soldiers, onetrembling, harried army medic moving among them and tending them with little more thanmercifully lethal shots of morphine. Ahead was a double doorway leading further into thebuilding and the west wing. Holding position behind a hastily assembled blockade of furniturewere a dozen more soldiers, grim faced and clearly ready to go downdefending their president to the last.

‘My God, Bob,’ uttered Liam, ‘this is the president’s laststand!’

Bob scanned the hall, the blockade, the marines ready to die.

‘Correct. The president called Eisenhower must be in this building.’

‘What do we do? Save him?’

Bob turned to Liam. ‘ You are the mission operative.Tactical decisions can only be made by the operative, not the support unit.’

‘What?’

‘You are in charge, Liam O’Connor.’

‘I… I… I don’t know what we should do.’

He looked out through the glass doors. Through the mist he could see little, but he couldimagine hundreds more faceless soldiers hidden behind gas masks forming up on the lawn infront of the grand steps and the portico and readying themselves for a final devastatingassault on the building.

We’re here to observe, that’s all. Here to learn whathappened. Nothing more.

Well, he’d already guessed that the American people hadn’t politely invited theseNazis to come on over and run their affairs. But they needed more details, details that wouldhelp them pinpoint the moment further back in the past where history had taken a turn in thisdirection.

‘We need to find out how things got like this.’ He turned to Bob.‘Right?’

‘Correct. Mission priority one: obtain information.’

‘OK,’ he replied, looking around the hall. ‘So we need to grab someone andask questions?’

‘Correct.’

Liam stepped forward through the dead and the dying. To their left was adoorway that led to a communications room. He could see soldiers on field radios, civilians ontelephones, typists and telephonists all making hurried calls, situation reports or, more thanlikely, final messages to loved ones.

To the right was a room full of desks and filing cabinets. It looked less busy. Liam steppedacross the carpet of bodies into the room. Some of the smoke from outside had leaked inthrough several shattered windows and the air was tinged with a fine yellow mist.

He spotted a man in a smart blue suit sitting on the floor between two filing cabinets, hisface covered in dust and dry-caked blood from a head wound.