TS01 Time Station London (10 page)

“Yes, Hail Victory,” Niedermann returned.

They shook hands and Beattie turned away toward the path that led to the top of the cliffs. Behind him, Capt. Niedermann removed his crushed officer’s hat and scratched idly at his thinning hair.
For whatever does that
närrisch
Englishman want common mica?

Time: 0323, GMT, July 7, 1940

Place: A Cellar of a Building on Dryden Way,

Coventry, Warwickshire, England

Samantha Trillby looked up from the lukewarm bowl of porridge. The sticky oatmeal made her want to gag. To make it worse, this disagreeable troll always sat with her and watched her eat. So far they had not harmed her, beyond the first time they clapped the chloroform-soaked rag over her face. How long ago had that been?

It didn’t feel like a day had passed. Yet they had fed her four times, always the same disgusting gruel. In between feedings, they had put her under again. Disoriented and anxious because of it, she decided to try to gain some knowledge.

“Where are we and why did you bring me here?”

A dark scowl twisted the ugly features even more. “Do not talk. You are here to answer questions, not ask them.”

“But why? What could I possibly know that would be useful to you?”

“Silence!” Menacingly he came to his feet, snatched the bowl from her grasp, and clapped a chloroform rag over her mouth and nose.

It seemed only an eye-blink when Samantha awakened again. This time another man stood behind her brute jailer. Marvin Burroughs, the man she had been following.

His voice held an oily whine. “Well, Miss Trillby, I don’t think we’ll need to detain you much beyond another two days.”

Two days? Had it been that long?
Her body didn’t feel like it. She matched his cold, deadly stare with a twin glare. Briskly massaging his palms, he took a step toward her. When he reached a spot that impinged upon her personal space, she involuntarily jerked backward on her backless stool. Water dripped from the gray, stone walls that surrounded them. They were underground, she knew that much. He smirked at her reaction, then he started talking to her again.

“If you cooperate, you will suffer nothing more than a bit of discomfort. If you fail to assist us enthusiastically, we can make it extremely painful for you.”

Samantha kept her face calm. “I don’t know what you are talking about.”

“Corne, Miss Trillby. Isn’t it a fact that you work for MI-5?”

“What is MI-5?” Before the last word had left her mouth, his hand lashed out viciously and the palm crashed against her left cheek.

“Enough of that. Evidently you did not take me seriously earlier. We deal with truth and reality here. The truth is that you are an agent of British Intelligence. The reality is that not even your own mother would recognize you after I finish inflicting pain if you persist in being obstreperous. Now, shall we begin anew?”

Samantha looked him hard in the eye. “Go bugger yourself.”

This time she got a backhand, with a cruel signet ring on one finger that laid open a three-inch gouge on her right cheek. Warm blood trickled down to the point of her chin where it dripped into her lap. Her eyes teared but did not overflow. Her left cheek had already begun to turn a sickly yellow-green around a scarlet center.

“Tell me about MI-5, Miss Trillby.”

Time: 2300, GMT, July 7, 1940

Place: Apartment of Brian Moore,

Threadneedle Street,

London, England

Stymied by his inability to trace Samantha in two days’ effort, Brian had Wigglesby take him back to London. They drove in silence to Brian’s apartment, where he dismissed his driver.

“It’s late,” Brian observed with a yawn while he gazed across Barenson Mews and, a quarter mile away, Big Ben tolled eleven. “Go home to that family of yours, Mr. Wigglesby.”

“Coor, that’s
Sergeant
Wigglesby, if you please, sor.”

Brian laughed aloud as the Austin’s taillights dwindled in the distance. Then he climbed the sandstone steps to the front door. Inside, he quickly changed into the workman’s clothing and left again.

At a matchbox-tiny garage, he retrieved his Morris Garage roadster. The black, squared-off, speedy roadster hugged the cobbles of the streets a scant four inches above their polished surface. The ride took only seven minutes. Brian parked outside the sham travel agency and ran a chain from the steering wheel to a lamppost, which he secured with a padlock. The building was dark.

Brian used a key to enter. Frank Matsumoto snored softly in a corner, his head on the desk, cradled in folded arms. Brian slid past him without disturbing the security guard. Downstairs, Brian located Vito in the Tech’s personal quarters.

Still muzzy with sleep, Vito Alberdi knuckled one eye as he looked up at the Resident. “What’s the rush, chum?”

“Pressing business,” Brian evaded, not revealing it to be personal business.
Damn it,
he had decided while checking out worthless leads in Coventry,
he could not leave Samantha in a dangerous situation and simply walk away from it.
If routine MI-5 procedures did not work, he had an alternative. He tossed Vito his trousers and went into the operating center, flicking on lights as he entered.

“It’s the middle of the night,” Vito protested as he ran fingers through his black hair to straighten it.

“Right, and I want you to scan the history log forward to see if you can find any information on a Miss Samantha Trillby. You are to determine if she is deceased, and if so, where her body was found.”

Vito blinked. “How long do you expect this to take?”

“I don’t know. All I know is she has gone missing and we have to find her.”

Cocking an eyebrow, Vito spoke dryly. “That could get tricky. And how do we justify the expense?”

Brian had not considered that. “I’d say we were checking into one of the rogue time travelers.”

A snort escaped Vito. “Boss, d’you think Director Gallubin will buy that?”

“Arkady will scream at the expense.”

Light flashed on the Beamer console and the transport device shimmered into life. Vito stared at it as though it had reached out and kissed him. What came next got a rise out of both Warden Corps men. Brian’s voice spoke from the front of the Beamer as the core collapsed and the containment field whined down to dormancy.

“You don’t need to worry about that.” Brian’s other self stepped into the room. A green indicator light on the console indicated that a Temporal Collision Avoidance Field was in operation. “I came back here from two weeks in the future. Samantha’s body has been found on a weed-covered lot on the bank of the river, near the north end of the city. She had been tortured and mutilated.”

“How are you going to explain the cost of this little expedition?” Brian asked his other self.

“Spread the power expenditure around a little, eh? A short jump from now will cost a lot less than ahead and back again, right? We’ll come out in Coventry wherever you want, two weeks from now, and can come back when we choose.”

That made sense. Brian admitted it with a sigh. “All right, get it ready, will you, Vito. And—ah—you and Frank take tomorrow morning off, okay?” He gave Vito a wink.

Grinning, Vito rubbed his palms together. “Sure, Boss. Whatever you say.”

Time: 1000, GMT, July 21, 1940

Place: CID Office, Police Post, Coventry,

Warwickshire, England

Brian and his future self advanced to early morning on the date of the finding and, after driving to Coventry, the future Brian presented himself at the local CID office.

A ruddy-faced, jowly Criminal Investigation Division sergeant peered up beyond the identification offered him and cocked his head to one side. “Didn’t know we’d attract the attention of the Yard so early in a case.”

He sounded as though he resented Brian’s presence as an intrusion. Yet he was secretly pleased to have the expertise of this Assistant Superintendent Brian Moore on this case. A particularly sticky one, as he saw it. And the way MI-5 was poking around a couple of days back, it could be the dead girl was some sort of spy. A regular Mata Hari, he thought. So let the Yard get their fingers burnt. Better them than him.

“Sergeant Telford, is it? Right. I would very much like to get a look at the crime scene.”

Telford raised an eyebrow. “Y’mean now? Why, it’s time for the regular mid-morning tea cart to be around. They’ve got some cream buns I’m particular’ fond of.”

Brian eyed the broad expanse of Telford’s middle. “Yes, I’m sure you are. And, yes, now. You can snag something on the way out.”

Grumbling under his breath, Sgt. Telford got up from behind his desk to follow Brian out.

Time: 1340, CET, July 7, 1940

Place: Ruperle Home, Diessen am Ammersee,

Bavaria, Germany

Colonel Werner Ruperle sat on the porch in a hand-carved wooden chair, propped back against the wall of his house. He had been in Diessen
am
Ammersee for two days now and enjoyed it thoroughly. Though Bruno still seemed a bit withdrawn. He would find out about that this evening.

Hilda brought him a bottle of
Spaaten Lager,
his favorite beer, the ceramic stopper hinged back out of the way. She poured for him and sat beside her husband on a bench. “Werner, I am so happy that the war will end now that France has fallen. Surely, the Führer will rethink this invasion of England.”

“I’m not so sure, dear. The question is, if we do suspend hostilities, will the British do likewise? I am not inclined to think so, and neither is Hitler.” He lifted the heavy stein and took a long pull.

“I worry so about you. I know you could not write me about it, so it came as quite a shock. To be flying over England nearly every day. What a terrible risk that is.”

Werner patted her dress-covered knee. “Not as much as you might think. The RAF has only a finite number of aircraft. We’re whittling them down steadily. And the Americans are not sending nearly so many as Churchill would like everyone to think.”

“Will America get into the war?”

“I doubt it. Particularly if you have your way and the fighting ends now, with the surrender of France.”

Hilda cocked her blond head. “Somehow I don’t find that funny.”

“I really hoped you would. Now, enough about the war. It is what’s going on here that interests me. Bruno seemed ...” He shrugged. “Reluctant, I suppose I could say. He acted as though I were a stranger. Not only when I first arrived, but ever since.”

“I don’t know what to say. Talk to him, Werner. See if you can find out what is on his mind.”

Ruperle nodded. “I shall. Have him come out here now.”

Bruno came at his father’s summons, and his mother tactfully withdrew. Werner Ruperle examined his son with care, and growing interest. The boy took after his mother, had her flax-white hair and cobalt eyes. Always small for his age, he looked more to be nine, Werner thought again, than the twelve years he could claim to. Werner knew him to be a sensitive child. One given to daydreams and stargazing. The last in a most literal and tangible manner.

For his last Christmas, Werner had purchased a telescope for the boy. Bruno had spent hours since, peering at the southern sky out the dormer window in the high, peaked roof over his bedroom. He had made star charts of the heavens, some of which had been meticulously copied and shyly sent along in letters to a proud father in a far-off air base near Dresden. Now that summer had come, Bruno set up on the postage-stamp front lawn and worked the northeastern quadrant. He cut furtive glances at his equipment while standing before his father.

Col. Ruperle took a long puff on his pipe and exhaled. “Do you want to tell me about it, Bruno?”

“Sir?”

“What is it that’s bothering you?”

Internal anguish crumpled Bruno’s face. “It’s the other boys. At the
Gymnasium,
sir.”

“I thought you liked your school.”

“I do. I am second in my class. And the teachers are nice. Except for Herr Wittenauer. He keeps after me about joining the
Jugend.
All of the other boys who have turned twelve have joined.”

“What does your principal say?” Werner prompted.

“Father Gerhart attends their meetings,” Bruno said miserably. “Many boys who have just come from
Grammatik Schul,
some as young as ten, have joined, too. They hear Wittenauer going on at me and they pick on me too. They call me Jew-lover,” Bruno went on, lowering his eyes in embarrassment.

Ruperle read his son’s emotions clearly. “Do you think it is proper, then, to hate the Jews?”

A startled expression illuminated the face of Bruno Ruperle. “Oh, no, sir. You taught me…”

The colonel halted his son with an upraised hand. “l thought I also taught you to hold your tongue around that kind.”

“And I have, sir. I never speak out in defense of a Jew. But I don’t engage in hate talk about them, either. And I don’t participate in the Jew-baiting the others enjoy so much.”

“You don’t regret what you are doing?”

“Oh, no, sir. It’s only…” Tears sprang to life in Bruno’s deep blue eyes and began to spill over. “These boys are my friends—used to be my friends, I guess. I want to have friends, like anyone else. It’s only… only that I don’t want to join the
Hitler Jugend.”

“What made that so difficult to talk about with me?”

Bruno mopped at one eye, his thin-lipped mouth twisted into a grimace of mental anguish. “It seems like you’ve been gone forever. And I’m a little afraid of you because you are a soldier, a hero of the Fatherland, an officer. You have to be a party member to be an officer, they teach us in school.”

“That’s true.” Ruperle reached out, drew his son close to him. He rested one big hand on a slim shoulder. “You need not be afraid of me, son. I am a member of the National Socialist German Workers’ Party, but that does not make me a Nazi. Nor a Jew-hater. Not in here.” He thumped his chest. “Or here.” Another tap of a finger to his head. “It’s what is in your heart and mind that makes you a National Socialist, or any other person for that matter. I have told you this before. Why is it troubling you now?”

“Because… I want… want you to find some way to keep me from having to join. I need your help, Father.”

Pain burned in the chest and eyes of Werner Ruperle. He sighed heavily and embraced his son. “I am afraid that, given our Germany today, I have very little to encourage you, son. It may well be that you will have no choice. That, like me, to survive, you will have to join. And God have mercy on us for it.”

Time: 1025, GMT, July 21, 1940

Place: The Quay, Coventry,

Warwickshire, England

Two weeks in the future for Colonel Ruperle, Brian Moore examined the crime scene. The place where the body had lain had been cordoned off, and additional barriers placed around the entire lot. It took Brian only seconds to reach the same conclusion as Sgt. Telford.

“It’s obvious she was not killed or tortured here, Sergeant.”

“Yes, sir, that’s what I put in me notes, sir.”

“She also wasn’t brought here in plain sight of anyone who might happen along.”

“Hummm. Hadn’t considered that, sir. Why do you say so?”

“Simple logic. Since no one has reported anyone carting a corpse around, no one saw anything of the sort.”

“Could have done it in the middle of the night,” Telford suggested.

“The weather’s been good here of late?”

“Yes, sir. Right seasonably mild.”

“And when do the brooks and browns surface to feed?”

Surprise and confusion lighted Telford’s face. “What’s fish got to do with it?”

“Everything, my good Sergeant Telford. Just tell me when they feed.”

“Why, late at night, by moonlight.”

Brian pointed to some Y-shaped stakes driven into the riverbank nearby. “If I’m not mistaken, those are fishing rod rests. Put there recently, I’d say. Very likely last night. If the body had been here it would have been found by the fishermen. Those boys did it easy enough coming down at daylight.

“She may have been dead three days, but she was kept somewhere else. Then brought here early this morning and dumped, after the fishermen left.”

“Whatever for?”

“We may never know, Sergeant. Anything else unusual about the body?”

“No, sir. Wait! We collected some fibers off the palms of her hands. Seemed to be dyed wool. There was more under the fingernails and toenails.”

“What did you do with it?”