Alex Scarrow - Time Riders

Foster splayed his hands. ‘It could be any ofthem.’

Sal spoke quietly. ‘Or perhaps none of them?’

1956, Washington DC

Splinters of plaster erupted around Liam’s head.

‘Oh God help us!’ he yelped, ducking down behind a desk. ‘They’re inthe entrance hall!’

The air was thick with the percussive rattle of machine-gun fire, and the throaty burr of theinvaders’ pulse rifles.

Bob pointed down to the far end of the room. ‘Recommendation: go to the end and takecover.’

‘What about you?’

‘I shall secure tactical advantage.’

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

Bob shoved him. ‘Please go now,’ he said calmly as bullets from the entrance hallsprayed in through the open door and noisily shredded the typewriter and telephone on the deskthey were crouching behind.

‘What about me?’ asked the man in the suit.

Liam half smiled. ‘Come with us for now, but we can’t take you back withus.’

‘Jeez… I’ll be happy staying alive just a little while longer.’

‘You must go now,’ insisted Bob.

Liam pulled himself to his feet, poked his head round the desk and stole a glance through theopen door into the entrance hall. He could see a couple of dozen black-suited men firing onthe marines’ blockaded position. The staccato chatter of the marines’ guns waslessening against the incessant snatched purr of the pulse rifles.

Liam realized the Germans had whittled down the defenders to one or two marines. The fightwas all but over.

We have to move now.

He pulled himself out and sprinted down an aisle between two rows of desks, away from theopen door and the one-sided battle. He came up against a wooden-panelled door at the farend.

The man in the suit was right behind him.

‘Where does this door lead?’

‘A hallway. If we turn right there’s an exterior door that leads us out to therose gardens.’

Liam looked back the way they’d come. At the far end where they’d been hiding wasthe mustard-coloured mist. He could only just make out a dark blob that might have beenBob.

‘Your friend coming?’ asked the man.

‘I hope so.’

The dark shape moved suddenly, lunging out from behind the desk, and then it was gone throughthe doorway and into the main hall. A moment later Liam heard a renewed and intense burst ofgunfire: pulse rifles. He heard cries of alarm and panic, muffled voices barking hastycommands in German. He heard several loud screams that ended abruptly, the sound of aferocious struggle, something toppling over and shattering.

‘What in the heck is happening back there?’

It’s Bob happening.

For the briefest moment, as he imagined what those powerful arms could do to mere flesh andbone, he almost felt sorry for them.

A moment later, emerging through the mist, he saw something lunging like a charging bull downthe aisle towards them. Bob emerged from the smoke, his face and chest spattered with blood,none of which appeared to be his own.

‘I have acquired a tactical advantage.’

Hands slick with fresh blood, he held out a gas mask and a black rubber hood.‘Suggestion: Liam O’Connor, you wear the mask and hood. You will appear to be oneof them from distances greater than ten feet.’

‘What about me?’ asked the man.

Bob regarded him dispassionately. ‘You are not a mission priority.’

Liam took the hood, wet with blood. ‘You killed one of them?’

‘Incorrect. Seven enemy units were killed.’

‘ With just your hands? ’

Bob looked sternly at both of them. ‘There is insufficient time for thisconversation.’

Liam noticed several ragged fleshy wounds across Bob’s hip and waist.‘Jay-zus! Bob, you’ve been shot! More than once it looks like.’

‘The wounds will heal in no more than three days. The blood is already coagulating.This is not a priority.’

The support unit then turned swiftly to the man.

‘Question: do you have detailed information on the floor plans of thisstructure?’

The man looked at Liam. ‘Uh?’

‘I think he’s asking if you know of another way out.’

‘Oh… yeah, it’s just up ahead.’

Bob nodded. ‘This is good.’

‘Hey,’ said Liam. ‘I think I’ve got a better idea how we might getback across the gardens to those trees.’

‘Please explain now,’ said Bob.

1956, Washington DC

Liam and the man in the suit stepped out through the door into the rose garden,their hands raised. The smokescreen was still relatively thick out here and through thewafting mist he could see squads of soldiers fanning out across the lawn, rounding upable-bodied prisoners and shooting those marines too wounded to get to their feet.

Inside the building, sporadic gunfire could still be heard as the men in dark rubber hoodsand suits moved from one room to another, finishing off the last few pockets ofresistance.

As they stepped through the decorative maze of bushes towards the main lawn, Liam looked upat the sky and saw that the giant saucer had moved along, slowly drifting across towardsdowntown Washington DC, spraying out occasional jets of black dots from the dark trapdoors inits underbelly; squads of men dropped swiftly down to the ground, no doubt with key objectivesin mind, to hastily secure administrative buildings, critical utilities and intersections.

Behind them Bob marched stiffly, a pulse rifle levelled at their backs, the bloodied hood andmask stretched over his thick skull.

A soldier nearby, unhooded and unmasked, called out to them across the waist-high rosebushes.

Bob replied in German.

‘What did he say?’ hissed Liam out of the side of his mouth.

‘I told the man you were being taken for questioning.’

‘That’s very good, Bob,’ whispered Liam almost proudly. ‘Very goodthinking.’

‘I am programmed to mimic human traits such as lying and also duplicate-’

‘Shhh, save it for later, Bob,’ muttered Liam.

They walked through the garden and diagonally across the White House’s north lawntowards the copse of trees they’d first arrived in. Liam stared wide-eyed at the corpseslittering the ground. He had seen only a couple of German bodies, but was now staring at noless than a hundred dead marines. Clearly, while they’d been inside, many more Americansoldiers had bravely converged on the White House in a vain attempt to defend theirpresident.

The smokescreen had hidden a massacre out here before the building, those pulse rifles mowingthem down as they charged pointlessly into the mist to save their commander-in-chief.

He looked for the copse of cedar trees amid the clearing smoke and finally found it. Hisheart sank as he spotted a platoon of German soldiers resting in and around the small stand ofcedars. They had removed their hoods and masks and chatted animatedly, many lighting upcigarettes.

‘Dammit! They’re covering our way home!’

‘Way home?’ The man looked askance at him. ‘It’s just a bunch oftrees!’

‘Our exit window will appear there,’ said Bob beneath his hood. He accessed hisinternal mission clock. ‘The window will open in precisely one hour and seventeenminutes and thirty-four seconds.’

‘What the flippin’ heck do we do?’ whimpered Liam under his breath.

‘I have no tactical suggestions at this moment.’

‘Great.’

He looked around. A fresh autumnal breeze was blowing away the last wisps of the smokescreenand he could see that the few prisoners taken alive inside the building were being usheredtowards the centre of the lawn where half a dozen Germans were standing in a circle watchingthe defeated, dispirited civilians and soldiers already slumped to the ground.