Time Riders

CHAPTER 54

1957, Prison Camp 79, New Jersey

Liam tugged the coarse grey blanket tightly around himself, trying to seal in whatlittle warmth his body had managed to generate. He was beginning to lose track of how manyweeks he’d been there. He wasn’t sure whether it was four or five months now.

Had to be about that.

His eyes drifted across hundreds — no, thousands — of other people wrapped insimilar grey blankets and gazing out listlessly through the chain-link fences at the barrenwinter countryside around the prison camp.

‘Look, it’s just hard to accept… to believe,’ said Wallace, standingnext to him. He’d been quiet for a while. Cupping his hands and blowing on them as hethought things through. ‘I mean… yeah, I saw your friend, Bob, take Lord knows how many bullet wounds back there at the White House, and hejust kind of shrugged it all off. I can’t say I ever sawanything like that.’

‘So then you do believe me?’

Wallace’s jaw was dark with a thatch of unshaven bristles. He scratched his chinirritably. ‘You’re really asking me to believe you’re from thefuture?’

‘Yes.’ Liam shrugged. ‘Well, actually I’m from 1912. But-’ he offered a tired smile — ‘yes… I came here from the future.’

‘And you say you came back to today… to 1956, to fix history sothat the Germans actually lost the Second World War?’

‘Yes. To correct history.’

Wallace shook his head and laughed. A plume of his breath billowed out and quickly dissipatedamid the cool morning air.

‘That’s completely insane. Listen, I’m tellin’ you, them Nazis nevereven came close to losing that war. They took Poland, Belgium, France, Britain… the restof mainland Europe in the space of just two years. There’s no way on earth they couldhave lost the war. No way.’

Liam shrugged. ‘Well, where I came from they did. That’s what I was told. Andthey lost badly. Their leader, the Hitler fella, is supposed to have made some pretty big mistakes, like starting afight with Russia at the same time as he was fighting the — ’

Wallace scratched at his chin again. ‘Well… the old guy, Adolf, was pretty nuts.That much is true. That’s why there was a change at the top in ’44. That’swhen Kramer took command of Germany.’

Liam turned to Wallace. ‘Tell me more about Hitler and this other fella, Kramer. I needto know more. See, all of these things happened forty years afterI died and I’m doing my best to catch up and make sense of it all.’

‘Died? Oh yeah, you say you were on the Titanic,right?’ added Wallace sceptically.

‘Yes, on that bleedin’ — supposedly unsinkable- hunk of metal.’

Wallace snorted. ‘You’re serious, aren’t you?’

Liam sighed. ‘Just tell me about them, would you? Hitler and Kramer?’

The man sucked in a deep breath.

‘Adolf Hitler was the leader of the Nazi Party. They came to power inGermany in 1932 because the country was bankrupt and broken and Hitler promised the people hecould fix things for them. And, for a while, he did too. He got that country going again andhis people loved him for it. But then… he started going a little crazy in the head, madwith the power, I suppose. He had his country build up their armed forces, and then it wasinevitable. In 1939, they invaded Poland. That started the Second World War.’

‘Second World War? So there really was a first one?’

‘The First World War? Yeah, of course. You want me to wind back and tell you all aboutthat too? It happened not long after you say you… uh… died.’

Liam shook his head. ‘No… this is confusing enough for me already. Just carry onwith Hitler and Kramer.’

‘OK. So the Second World War started. The Germans took Poland, Belgium, France. Theykicked the British army out of France at a place called Dunkirk. And then they spent a yearjust digging their heels in and building up their defences. Over here in America, althoughPresident Roosevelt wanted to enter the war, Congress and the Senate stopped him and kept usout if it. Which, back then, I think most Americans thought was a pretty smart idea. Wefigured it was a European problem. Not ours.

‘So,’ Wallace continued, ‘there were rumours that Hitler had plans toinvade Russia next. He was certainly preparing something. I saw intelligence reports coming infor the president that the Germans were massing tanks and infantry in the east. Then, all of asudden, it’s like Hitler had a complete change of heart.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I mean, he decided not to invade Russia. In the earlysummer of 1941 the Germans and Russians, out of the blue, signed a peace treaty. And that wasthe very same year that Paul Kramer came to public attention as Hitler’s deputy. Thatwas an incredible and very sudden change of heart. Because it was well knownthat Hitler despised the Russians, Stalin, communists. We all thought they were the next onhis hit list.’

‘Do you think it was Kramer who changed his mind?’

Wallace nodded. ‘Yes… yes, absolutely. I think Kramer had Hitler’s completeattention from the very first moment they met; he became his closest adviser, his deputy. Andthen three years later that sly dog Kramer kicked that crazy old lunatic Hitler out ofpower.’

Liam looked at Wallace. ‘See, where I’ve come from — the future, the storyI was told is different. This Hitler fella stayed in power and he went and lost that world war. Died in a bunker, if I recall correctly. Took hisown life, I think. No mention of a Kramer.’

Wallace looked at him incredulously. ‘And you’re saying in your history booksthere’s no Paul Kramer?’

Liam nodded. ‘As far as I know.’

Wallace stared at him, struggling to believe such craziness. ‘Good God, if only thatwere so,’ he replied, shaking his head. ‘The world has watched that man with batedbreath. He’s never put a foot wrong. He’s a genius and a madman. We’vewatched his empire grow stronger and stronger, his military technology become so much betterthan ours. An ever-increasing threat to America over the last fifteen years.’

Wallace puffed air into his cold hands. ‘But we thought — we hoped — he’d leave us alone over here. There was a hope that Kramer wasfinally ready to sign a truce between the Greater Reich and America. That the cold war betweenus was over.’ Wallace sighed. ‘Turns out we were fooled.’

Liam watched a couple of armed guards patrol the outside of the perimeter fence nearby, theirblack uniforms and death’s-head insignia covered by thick winter capes.

Kramer? Is it him? Is he from the future?

Liam shivered inside his blanket. ‘Listen, it’s just possible this Kramer issomeone like me… another time traveller.’

Wallace laughed. ‘Look, your story is getting too far-fetched, kid. Even forme.’

‘Oh, I’m quite serious.’

Wallace made a face. ‘Back there in the White House, I thought you and your buddy weremaybe Secret Service guys. That maybe there was something special or secret about you two. Now-’ he shook his head — ‘now… I’m sorry, I’m justthinking you’re some crazy kid with a little too much imagination.’

‘I’m telling you, time travel is possible.’

‘Then, you know what? Why don’t you go make a time machine and kill Kramer all byyourself?’ Wallace scoffed. He looked like he’d finally had enough of Liam’scrazy story.

Liam sighed. ‘I’m just a dumb ship’s steward. Or at least I was. Anyway,even if I had the brains to actually make a time machine, I’d need to know where andwhen to go… to the very first moment Kramer entered your history.’

Wallace shook his head. ‘Well, everyone knows that — except you, Isuppose.’

‘Uh? What do you mean?’

‘There’s an account of Hitler’s very first encounter with him. It’sin Hitler’s second autobiography, Mein Sieg… My Victory, the one he published in 1944, just before Kramer oustedhim.’

‘Go on.’

‘It was April 1941. It’s a well-known encounter. He describes Kramer as amessenger from God, an angel. Divine intervention, he called it. In his book he tells howKramer arrived in the dark of a wintry night at the notorious Eagle’s Nest. The night ofthe fifteenth of April, if my memory serves me well.’

Liam felt his heart pounding.

Oh my… that could be it. The time and place weshould have gone to.

Wallace turned to go, then stopped. His gaunt face smiled, teeth showing through his darkbeard. ‘I guess I’d like to believe in your story, kid, that there’s abetter history out there somewhere.’

‘There is!’

He laughed, puffing a cloud of breath before him. ‘Well, let me know when you find it,eh?’

Liam watched the man turn and go, feet crunching across the snow, huddled in his own greyblanket. A bleak figure. As Wallace merged with the other prisoners, huddling for warmth,Liam’s mind turned to a possibility, a ray of hope. If he could only get thatinformation to Foster and Maddy… that particular place and date.

Perhaps they’d also stumbled across this information somehow — this supposedinspirational meeting of Kramer and Hitler. Perhaps Bob had made it back through the scheduledportal and right now he and Foster were on their way back to put things right. Back to 1941 tofind this Kramer.

And to kill him.

It was a hope, wasn’t it? Something for him to hang on to.