Out of Time (35 page)

Nobody moves.

‘No,’ Ian states with unflinching determination, ‘we can’t go until the others are free. We can’t just leave them. You agreed before.’

‘Things have changed.’

William feels caught in a trap. Once he had decided to leave the town, the plan to escape, though fraught with danger, seemed manageable. He had not bargained on the children’s firm refusal to co-operate. The situation was impossible. It was essential to force them to abandon their grandiose plans.

Joe is touched by the children’s innocent enthusiasm but his patronising tone alters when he realises the seriousness of what they are proposing.

‘No way,’ he says. ‘If we try and rescue everyone, we’ll all die. And what’s the point of that?’

‘You don’t understand,’ Susie tells him, ‘We’re going to topple Helmuth.’

‘Very interesting. How do you propose to do it?’

‘We’ll think of a way.’

‘You heard what William said. We have to leave.’

‘No. You can go without us.’

It is all or nothing. Both Joe and William argue vehemently but to no avail. Joe admires the children’s courage but feels increasingly frustrated. To have got so far and now to face failure because the children are stubborn and unrealistic is unendurable.

William is both frightened and angry. All the risks he has been taking, all the hopes he has invested in this desperate venture, are going to be destroyed, and he with them. He curses himself for his folly in ever getting involved with these illegal children. He now has six of them under his roof, holding him and the adults at bay, refusing the only way of escape. It is intolerable and, in a wild and despairing moment, he considers the possibility of handing them, plus Joe and Meredith, to the authorities, claiming to have collected them for just that purpose. This too is fraught with danger. The junta might not believe him and it could spell death for all of them. Nevertheless, he will have to risk it. It is his only chance to save himself. And there is no time to lose. There have already been questions at work and he has noticed an increase in patrols in the district. Every minute is terror strewn, every moment he expects the heavy tread of guards on his garden path. The situation is truly perilous and he no longer feels that, in the face of everyone’s folly, he is prepared to sacrifice himself further.

But there is another William waging war against these thoughts, the William who did not betray the children, who took them in and sheltered them with little thought for his own safety. The action was not premeditated but spontaneous, an unknown nerve centre coming to life and commanding him to act against decades of compliance. He has astonished himself, did not know he had the courage to defy the machinery of which he has so long been a cog; but images of his wife dying of a broken heart, of a daughter lost, of the daughter herself, an adult unknown and unknowable, intrude constantly into his thoughts. He failed them. This he knows. Over the many years of brutal living he has lost his humanity, left it buried in his childhood village. By sheltering the fugitives and allowing them to burrow into his emotions he has unwittingly revived it. Is he going to deny it again and walk away from the one worthwhile act of his life? Would he ever be able to live with himself again? He doubts it.

Meredith remains strangely quiet during these discussions. He is torn by what he recognises as the immediate need to leave and what he alone knows destiny has, or may have, planned. It marries perfectly with his now heightened thirst for revenge. He has seen Margaret’s and Rob’s wasted bodies and has listened with horror and dismay to the children’s accounts of their sufferings; but he can see no end to them. Even if they reach the community the children will remain fugitives, in constant fear of attacks from the townspeople. If the regime is not brought down there will be more deaths, its barbarous cruelties perpetuated indefinitely. Conditions now are as favourable as they will ever be. He and Joe have succeeded in infiltrating the town, are in a comparatively safe house with a junta official fighting their side. It is not an opportunity he is prepared to miss. He says so. Joe is astonished and dismayed at his partisanship and takes him aside, shocked that they should differ at this urgent moment on so fundamental an issue.

‘You’re risking all our lives.’

‘Our lives are at risk all the time. It’s our destiny Joe.’

Meredith wonders once again if now is the time to make Joe aware of Kathryn’s prophecy, to warn him that Kathryn witnessed events which are now unfolding, that she foresaw his death. He feels that he must give Joe the chance to escape. He tells Joe everything about the vision. He is astonished to find that this is not news to Joe. Close as he was to Kathryn, sensitive to her every subtle change of mood, he had intuited that something of the kind had occurred during her fit. But now, as then, he remains convinced that Kathryn was projecting fears about his safety into her dreams. He does not believe in the predicted victory and shrugs off the possibility of his death. His concern is for the children and the necessity to get them to safety.

‘We have to leave,’ he says.

‘We have to liberate the town,’ Meredith quietly insists.

They are at an impasse and both regret it but the niceties of relationships have to give way to the urgency of their plight.

William hears himself say,

‘These young children are right, they understand what we don’t - that the junta have to be brought down.’

Meredith is relieved at this unexpected support, Joe furious at what he sees as madness.

‘Great,’ he says. ‘Can you tell me how?’

There is silence and Joe sees with dismay that they are all looking at him, expecting him to be their leader. The fact is, as Joe dimly realises, though none but Meredith knows his origins, they all sense a personality out of the ordinary. And indeed Joe, when he starts thinking more positively, recognises that he is in a unique position to plan a rebellion. He alone comes from a world where these are commonplace, where the overthrow of governments that deny liberty is considered not only normal but desirable.

Joe is not blind to what this can involve. Mayhem and death. He can see little chance of avoiding it, even less of success. The odds against them are overwhelming. He is puzzled and angry that he has been placed in a situation where so much, the fate of a people, has landed on his shoulders. He brushes aside the suspicion, long harboured, that the reason for his sudden appearance in this world has been to serve a purpose, that destiny has planned what only destiny can command; but he is not prepared to succumb to its dictates. Any decision he makes must be free, his own.

He thinks about Kathryn lying under the cool turf in the cemetery. What would she have him do? Turn tail and run or stand up and fight? He does not need an answer for he knows what it is and knows what he must do. And Joe sees what he has been blind to before, that it is possible to give gifts to people after they have died. This will be his gift to Kathryn, the liberty of her people, so long desired, so long sought for. Meredith is right. They cannot walk away.

There were worse ways of dying.

‘OK. I have a plan to offer,’ Joe says.

The children are jubilant and Meredith clasps him in an embrace. He had feared a rift that would not easily heal had opened between them. He should have known better, should have trusted Joe.

Joe has recalled some of the video games in the arcade. One, which he and Martin played continuously, involved storming the army HQ of an alien race, conducting a shoot-out inside their octagonal building and hand to hand fighting in the stratosphere outside. Here, there are neither firearms nor stratospheres, no explosives, nothing that could be detonated. But there is the old friend and enemy of humanity - fire.

‘You can tell us when the next meeting takes place? When Helmuth and his councillors are all in the Meeting Chamber?’ he asks William.

‘Yes.’

‘We set fire to the building while they’re in it.’

‘What about the guards? It’s impossible.’

‘No it isn’t.’

They had not reckoned on Susie.

‘I know about them. They’re lazy.’

Joe remembers Kathryn telling him of the townspeople’s apathy. He could not have guessed how important a part it would play.

‘She’s right,’ William says, ‘they’ve never been challenged. They won’t be expecting an attack and won’t know what to do if there is one. They’re not very energetic anyway. So we manage to set the place on fire. What then?’

‘You, Meredith and I lie in wait and kill Helmuth and the junta as they come out.’

‘They’ll kill us first. They have guards on duty everywhere.’

‘We’ll have the advantage of confusion and surprise.’

It was a desperate scheme.

‘All we’ve got to do is take Helmuth. No one else knows how to make the drug,’ Meredith says.

‘How do you know?”

‘Stands to reason. If Helmuth shared the secret he’d lose power.’

‘That may be so,’ William concedes. ‘Anyone got a better idea?’

None is forthcoming. William turns to the children.

‘I thought you and the others could escape while the battle is going on.’

Ian squares up to him.

‘No way. We intend to take part in the fighting.’

William looks at the determined figure confronting him.

‘All the guards in the town will be called to the fire and while that’s going on you can break into the dungeon and set the others free. That’s what you most want, isn’t it? And once you’ve got them we can all go.’

Ian considers this.

‘Where to?’

‘To my community,’ Meredith says.

‘Not before the town is liberated - and then we won’t have to go.’

Susie speaks with absolute certainty and impeccable logic. The children have marshalled their facts with a simplicity that brooks no argument.

It remains only to work out their plan in detail and then to act.

Meredith has been occupied in the cellar for purposes unknown but that evening he signals everyone to troop down. Intrigued, they follow, surprised at what he has to show for it looks insignificant, a coil of rope made from dry straw, cocooned in tallow. He has placed it on escalating heights of bricks and various objects to hand so that it lies on a smooth slope.

‘Now watch,’ he mouths and taking a firebox, lights the lowest section. William is puzzled by Meredith’s construction but as it starts burning, the fire gradually but inexorably snaking upwards along the rope’s length, he understands its purpose. So does Joe. Meredith is demonstrating a fuse for reasons it is not hard to guess. The children put their hands together in delight. Later, after they have eaten a sparse supper, William gives them his news. A meeting of the junta is scheduled in three days’ time.

The Meeting House stands in Weymouth Square, a considerable distance from Fairfax Road; to reach it involves crossing half the town, dangerous enough without the complication of laying fuses and preparing an attack. The building is constructed entirely of timber which would easily ignite but for an outer skin of brick that has been raised round the original edifice as an additional safeguard. A house within a house. It was necessary to get past the outside guards into the passageway that runs all round, separating timber from brick. Doors lead off into various rooms. These have no other exit. An underground passage at the back of the building leads to the centre, directly into the Meeting Room. Beyond that, housed in a cast iron container that only Helmuth can open, is the drug. Where it was made William does not know, no one does, but rumour has it that it is in a laboratory far out of town. This is in any case irrelevant. Their target is Helmuth and his henchmen.

William draws a plan and they consider all the possibilities. Entry is going to be difficult. Apart from the guards at the main entrance, five others patrol the passageway, walking constantly round though William reckons that their numbers would, during this important meeting, be increased. Each guard inside the building has his own rota so that the changeover is perpetual. This means that those just come on duty are more alert than those towards the end of their shift. It is a well worked out scheme which leaves little room for manoeuvre.

‘If there are five, how many minutes elapse between each guard passing the main door?’ Ian asks.

William holds up two fingers. Meredith indicates cutting a throat.

‘Yes,’ William replies in a low whisper, ‘so long as the one behind can’t see what’s going on in front; or the one in front does not hear what’s going on behind; but we have to get past the outside guards first.’

‘The building is a rectangle, right? Once we’re in, we can use the two minutes one guard is alone.’

‘So long as there aren’t two visible at one time.’

‘Can’t be. Five men going round a rectangle must at some point leave one alone,’ Meredith says.

‘What’s in the rooms that run off the passageway?’ Joe asks.

‘Some are empty, some occupied by personnel. Originally there was a huge staff but it’s tailed off. Helmuth trusts no one. He’s killed them off one by one.’

‘OK. Here’s what I suggest.’

Joe outlines a plan which is debated in a session that lasts all night. It is this:

William can supply uniforms but only Joe and Meredith are tall enough to impersonate guards. William will go as himself. Ian again protests as he feels he could qualify; but he cannot and his task to save the children from the dungeon is important and perilous enough to satisfy even him. William and Joe will set out on the morning of the meeting and walk the streets as though on their way to work. They will make their way towards Weymouth Square, taking the route via Rodden Road, Windsor Crescent, Streatfield Road and Catherine Street. Meredith will leave five minutes later and take the more direct route alongside the park, down Welshmill Road. They will meet outside the Meeting House while it is busy with the extra coming and going that accompany important councils. Two unknown guards will not be noticed, or so they hope. Then the dangerous part will begin. They will wait for the meeting to settle, William will divert the outside guards with a story of trouble round the corner while Joe and Meredith go in, one after the other. Meredith going ahead will garrotte the first man to come round the corner, drag him into an empty room - these William would identify beforehand - and Joe, following hard on his heels, deal with the next guard. They will then walk round as though they were guards on normal duty, one laying the fuses in their purpose built wedges, the other lighting them. William will hopefully by then have joined them and at an agreed signal they will all three set light to torches concealed in their clothing and hurl them into the rooms as they pass through, ready to spring on Helmuth and the junta as they flee down the tunnel.