Time Riders

CHAPTER 35

1956, Washington DC

They landed amid a small copse of mature cedar trees with a heavy, wet splash.

‘Arghh!’ yelped Liam. ‘I hate that goldfish-bowl thing!’

‘Information: the device is called a displacement cylinder,’ said Bob, crouchingbeside him, already alert and assessing their surroundings.

Liam picked himself up and squatted beside the support unit amid the foliage. Beyond thelow-hanging branches, out on the well-trimmed acre of lawn in front of the White House, hecould see soldiers gathering.

‘Who are they?’

Bob’s eyes slowly panned across the scene in front of them. ‘The insignia anduniforms indicate that they are a mixture of American marines, rangers and airborne,’ hereplied. ‘Recommendation: we must have clothes.’

‘Yes, clothes would be really nice.’

Bob stood up and announced, ‘I shall acquire clothes,’ before disappearingthrough the trees and foliage.

Liam continued watching the soldiers. They looked like they had already seen some fighting;many were wounded, some being dragged by their colleagues. All of them looked exhausted andbattle-shocked; their grimy faces had defeat written across them.

He noticed a large olive-green vehicle with tracks instead of wheels, and aturret with what appeared to be a long, slender barrel protruding from it. It lurched acrossthe grass amid a plume of dark smoke. It looked dented and scorched as if it too had seen someaction. The vehicle reversed across the lawn, kicking up divots of soil and leaving deeptracks in its wake, backing up against a large white building — the White House.

To his untrained eye this looked very much like the ragged assemblage of some kind of a laststand around the building — perhaps it was all that was left of the United Statesarmy.

‘Blimey,’ he muttered.

He heard a deep rumble coming from above and glanced up through the leafy branches. The skywas overcast, thick with grey low-hanging clouds that promised an imminent downpour. Therumbling was deep, so powerful he could feel it vibrate against his chest. It was coming fromsomewhere above the clouds.

The American soldiers, like him, were watching the sky anxiously — all eyes trainedupwards, waiting for something to appear.

Liam craned his neck to get a better view.

What’s up there?

Behind him he heard a heavy footfall and turned to see Bob holding out clothes and boots.‘The owner of these clothes is dead,’ he explained without any trace of emotion.‘He will not be needing them.’

Liam took them and looked at the damp stains of blood. ‘You didn’t kill someoneto get these clothes for me, did you?’

Bob shook his head. ‘No killing was required.’

Liam grimaced at the thought of stepping into another man’s clothes. On the other hand,standing undressed in the middle of a war zone struck him as the worse alternative. He pulledthem on as quickly as he could.

‘It looks like those soldiers are setting themselves up for alast-ditch defence.’

‘Correct,’ said Bob, his eyes smoothly scanning across the lawn.

‘And I guess whatever’s coming — ’ Liam looked up again at thedarkening sky from where that deep rumble was issuing — ‘is coming from right upthere.’

‘Possibly an airborne weapon system.’ Bob’s eyes flickered shut. ‘Ihave data files on the advanced aeroplane prototypes that were being developed by the Germansat the end of the Second World War.’

‘They actually used aeroplanes during the… the SecondWorld War?’

‘Affirmative.’

The rumbling grew even louder and Liam found himself having to shout to be heard. ‘Bigones?’

‘Jet propulsion, delta-wing designs, VTOL systems,’ replied Bob, raising hisflat-toned voice to compete with the deafening drone from above.

‘Well, that means nothing to me,’ shouted Liam. ‘What the hell arethose?’

Bob cocked his head for a moment. ‘I am able to provide detailed schematic blueprintsif I can locate a drawing implement — ’

Suddenly, the tumbling dark clouds above them momentarily spread thin enough for Liam to seewhat was approaching.

‘Bob! You see that?’

Above them, descending through the clouds, was a giant dull-grey disc-shaped vessel, easily aquarter of a mile in diameter. It almost seemed to fill the sky above the White House as itslowly pushed its way down through the billowing clouds. He could now make out dozens ofspinning rotors slung beneath the craft, giant propeller blades whisking theair beneath the belly of the enormous disc, projecting a powerful downdraught that set thecedar trees around them rustling and swaying.

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.