The Eternal War (14 page)

‘Just gimme a call, OK? And I’ll bring you right back home. No need for funky fossils or ancient parchments this time.’

‘Oh.’ Liam looked sheepish. ‘Right … yes, of course.’

‘And look, Bob, if that van looks like it’s full of SWAT guys wearing Kevlar vests and packing big guns, then don’t be a dummy. You may be a tough brute, but you’re not invincible.’

‘I will operate within acceptable risk parameters.’

She looked at Liam. ‘It’s your decision to make, OK? If you feel it’s too dangerous, then we can figure out something else. At the very least we’ll know
where
they’re holding him and we can work out some other plan of action.’

‘Aye.’

‘OK … so everyone good to go?’ She checked the screen. ‘Twenty seconds.’ The displacement machine’s hum began to rise in pitch and volume.

‘Careful, guys, OK? Particularly you, Sal. Let the boys do their work.’

Sal sucked in a tremulous breath, clearly excited by the prospect of doing something more proactive than sitting idle and intently watching the world for subtle changes. ‘I will.’

A draught swept across the archway, sending sweet wrappers flying and pizza boxes shifting across the desk. Before them a shimmering sphere of daylight had suddenly pulsed into existence.

‘See you soon,’ Maddy called out above the hum of energy.

Sal waggled her hand as Liam took the first step into the portal.

She watched him vanish, then a moment later Sal, gritting her teeth and wincing as she stepped in, then finally Bob.

‘Close the window, please.’

Computer-Bob obliged and the spherical field collapsed into a single point and vanished.

She sat down beside Becks, facing the dim glow of a row of monitors, all of them showing news feeds from different channels, a variety of live-footage angles of the same thing: the smouldering ruins of the World Trade Center and the dust-covered ghostly faces of a thousand firemen, paramedics and police officers staring in stunned silence.

A frozen tableau.

The only movement seemed to be the still-fluttering sheets of paper circling restlessly in the sky like a flock of birds taking flight to seek a new home.

CHAPTER 24

2001, Quantico, Virginia

Liam, Bob and Sal squatted down amid the tall grass beneath the shadow of a red cedar tree. At the bottom of the freshly clipped sloping lawn was a single-lane road winding its way anonymously through the woods towards the grounds of the FBI’s academy.

Fifty yards in front of them, a small Portakabin – all scuffed plastic windows and corrugated iron – housed a pair of security guards. Both of them were staring at the glow of a TV on a desk inside. Where they were crouching at the edge of the tree line, on a normal day, the guards would probably have spotted them by now. But today both of them were glued to their television set. A brass band could’ve marched past them and they wouldn’t have noticed.

‘Bob?’ said Liam. ‘If that van does turn up and I give you the order to go and rescue Mr Lincoln, what’s your plan?’

Bob’s eyes narrowed in consideration for a moment. ‘Incapacitate the vehicle first. Then incapacitate any armed guards and proceed with extracting the target from the van.’

‘We want to get our fella out of there unharmed, so we do.’

‘Affirmative,’ he grunted. ‘I will assess the threat of harm to Lincoln and proceed only if the percentage is favourable.’

‘But you’re not going to kill those guards in that hut, are you?’ said Sal, looking at them. ‘They’re just old men.’

Bob frowned at her. ‘If they are an obstruction to the mission objective, they will be a valid target.’

‘Just give ’em one of your battle-roars, Bob,’ said Liam. He nudged Sal gently. ‘You should hear him.’ He’d seen men recoil from it before. A fleeting recollection filled his mind: the front few ranks of an army of veteran knights and grim-faced mercenaries had faltered, albeit for a moment, at the monstrous sight of Bob standing astride a mound of rubble at the base of the breached wall of Nottingham.

That heartbeat moment before the clash of arms, the thundering of thousands of boots, the jangling of a million rings of chain mail, the rising crescendo of every charging man screaming a noise of hate rinsed with fear … but, above all that, there’d been the deep bellow of Bob’s roar, like some sort of grizzly bear calling from one valley to the next.

‘That’ll scare the bejayzus out of them two poor fellas. They’ll scarper like rabbits, so they will.’

‘My size can be intimidating,’ said Bob matter-of-factly. ‘That is a factor that works in my favour.’

‘Do a scary face, Bob,’ said Liam. ‘Something really
gnarly
.’

‘Scary face?’

‘Yeah … sort of like your angry face, but much more so.’

Bob pulled up a file from memory. His brows suddenly rumpled and joined into the menacing ridge of a monobrow. His thick horse-lips pulled back to reveal a row of teeth that looked like they could stamp holes through sheet metal.

‘You remind me of a big bad-tempered dog that’s had its chewy bone taken away,’ said Sal.

Liam shrugged. ‘Perhaps, but would you hold your ground with a face like that bearing down on you?’

Actually, she imagined, she probably wouldn’t.

The three of them were silent for a while, the only sounds the restful far-off hiss of interstate traffic, the muted burbling of the TV set and the turf-war chirping call of jays and thrushes in the thick branches above them.

‘So tell me – I’m interested – are you happy with how today’s gone?’

Lincoln looked up from his feet at Agent Mead sitting opposite.

‘Is that what makes your day? Hmmm? Killing innocent American civilians?’

Lincoln’s jaw set. ‘I
am
an American, sir.’

‘Oh yeah? But what? You don’t like the way America is? Is that it? This is your way of changing it
for the better
, is it?’

‘I have no knowledge of your two towers or who it is that has decided to destroy them.’

‘Right,’ nodded the agent sarcastically. ‘You’re still going with the
I’ve come from another time
story.’

‘That is the fact of the matter, sir. Yes.’

The agent shrugged. ‘So … then, let’s run with the ball, shall we?’

‘Run with the ball?’

‘Why don’t you tell me your time-travel tale again.’

‘It is no fiction, sir! I live in the year 1831.’

‘1831, eh? I bet this is all pretty weird then, huh?’

Lincoln sensed the man was mocking him. ‘Of course.’ He answered drily. ‘As it would be to you if you had journeyed across one hundred and seventy years of time.’

‘So you must think it’s pretty far out, huh? Spacey? Futuristic?’

The other two men were quietly laughing along with their boss.

‘Well, since you ask, I think this world is decidedly rude. What I have seen of it.’

‘Rude?’ The agent shook his head. ‘That’s priceless.’ He grinned, amused by that. ‘Go on … you’re
almost
convincing.’

Lincoln was happy to. ‘Although what I have seen of its constructions and devices are quite beyond my comprehension, I do see clearly it is an amoral, selfish world.’

‘Really?’

‘Quite so, sir. And lazy. Why is it that everyone is so fat?’

The van leaned into a turning and then began to slow down.

‘Ah, looks like we’re nearly there,’ said the agent. He smiled coldly at Lincoln. ‘The next bunch of fellas who’ll be asking you questions aren’t going to be quite so indulgent, Abraham. You’re soon going to be thinking of us as the
nice guys
, trust me.’

Through the partition at the front they could hear the driver talking to someone, a crisp, professional exchange.

‘You’re going to vanish into a dark cell somewhere, Abraham. Every day of the rest of your life is going to be an extremely unpleasant one. And while all that’s going on I want you to think long and hard about what you and your terrorist buddies have done. All the innocent people you’ve wiped out today.’

There was the muffled sound of a voice raised as a challenge, a moment later the crack of a hand-gun.

‘What the –?’

They heard a loud thud against the van, making the whole vehicle rock and a side panel bulge inwards. All three agents began to fumble inside their jackets for their weapons.

The rear door of the van was suddenly wrenched open, blinding daylight spilling inside. Lincoln looked up, his eyes narrowed against the glare, and recognized the outline of the giant he’d seen in that archway yesterday.

The men in suits had their guns out, aimed, and were all shouting in unison at the giant man to raise his hands … when, as one, they simply stopped.

‘Jumping Jeezus … what in God’s name is THAT?’ gasped Agent Mead.

The giant man paused and turned to look round at what they were staring at.

Finally Lincoln did the same. Looking out of the back of the van, he saw it for himself … an impossible sky.

CHAPTER 25

2001, Quantico, Virginia

Liam and Sal stood up together and emerged from beneath the low branches of the cedar tree to get a better look at the rapidly advancing wall of reality, chasing its way towards them across the Virginian countryside.

At first it looked like a whole continental shelf was filling the blue sky, as if the earth’s crust had split and broken and one half of North America was sliding across and engulfing the other. But it wasn’t solid. It churned and changed like a liquid reality as it raced towards them. Like brewing storm-cloud formations filmed and then played in fast forward.

In among the looming darkness faint watermarks of fleeting possibility appeared: fantastic buildings that had never been, twisted creatures that had no place on
this
earth and a sea of tormented faces – lives glimpsed momentarily, people that could have been, but never would be.

‘Oh boy,’ gulped Liam. ‘It’s going to be a big one, right?’

Sal nodded. ‘Yes … a big one.’

Then it was upon them. The slam of a tornado moment. A maelstrom of thrashing energy and darkness. Liam kept his eyes open, absolutely determined to witness it all, this his first time to see a time wave up close, to be outside the archway and see for himself what reality replacing reality actually looked like. In the few seconds of it he thought he glimpsed a Roman soldier morph into something half human half mechanical; the screaming tormented face of a newborn baby become a girl, a woman, an old woman, a decaying skull – a complete life lived in no more than a second.

Then it had passed over them.

Liam turned to watch it go. A twisting, undulating, serpent-like ribbon of black across the sky receding away from them like a freight train.

‘Jay-zus …’ Breath failed him. He sucked in a lungful and tried again. ‘Jay-zus-Mary-’n’-Joseph! Did you … did you ever see anything like that?’ he gasped. He looked beside him. Sal was on the ground, all of a sudden kneeling amid rows of shin-high stalks of something: a harvested crop of wheat or corn maybe.

Liam helped her up.

‘That … was … incredible!’ He grinned manically at her.

Sal looked around them. ‘This is
very
different, Liam.’

Liam hadn’t even bothered to take the new reality in yet – his mind was still on the infinite possibilities he’d glimpsed in the time wave. He turned round to look where Bob and the van and the guard hut had been only moments ago.

They were in a large rolling field. The woodland behind them was gone. Fifty yards away, he was relieved to see Bob standing perfectly still, nonchalantly studying the new world around them, and then, a moment later, the tousled brush hair of Lincoln’s head emerging from the stalks as he began to sit up.

‘Come on,’ said Liam. They wandered over towards Bob and Lincoln. Lincoln was on his feet now. He saw Liam approaching.

‘That … that storm? That hurricane we … we …’

‘Aye.’ Liam nodded. ‘That’s the sort of thing you get when you remove something from history that shouldn’t be removed.’

‘You … you are talking about
me
, are you not?’

‘Aye.’

Lincoln looked around at the field, goggle-eyed. ‘I … Are you telling me, sir, that
I
make
this much
difference to the world?’

‘So it seems.’

‘Good God!’

‘Liam,’ said Bob quietly.

‘I cannot conceive of … of …’ Lincoln continued to bluster, ‘of … of anything I might do in my life that could so alter a world as much as this!’ He looked down at his big hands. ‘What could these do that could change a world so?’

‘Liam,’ said Bob again, his eyes on the sky.

‘Yeah,’ said Sal. ‘Liam …’ Her eyes were on the same thing as Bob’s. She patted his arm insistently as a shadow fell across the field. Liam turned round and looked up.

‘Oh …’ was all that rolled out of his mouth.

Lincoln managed more. ‘GOD’S TEETH!’ he boomed. ‘What in tarnation is
that
?’

A gigantic copper boiler hung in the sky, slowly drifting across the fields. Perhaps three hundred, four hundred feet long. The afternoon sun glinted warmly on its copperplated side. Slung beneath it was what appeared to be a building of some sort: a confusion of pipes and chimneys, silos, ladders and gantries, round portholes and hatch-like doorways on several floors. It seemed to be held beneath the copper behemoth by four immense crane-like arms, holding the building like a mother cradling a child.

They watched it slowly drift above them, across their field of ragged stalks to another field rolling over a hill in front of them. It moved silently, no roar of engines, just the sound of wind rustling through the gaps in the ‘building’ suspended beneath, thrumming taut cables, clinking chains, loose and swinging.

Eventually it began to settle down to earth a quarter of a mile away from them.

Nearing the ground, the large crane arms hissed steam from their ‘elbows’ and gently flexed, lowering the building between them to the ground. It settled on thick stilts that adjusted to the uneven tilt with the audible hiss and thud of compressed air until it was level.