Time Riders

CHAPTER 55

1956, command ship above Washington DC

Karl Haas smartly saluted the two SS Leibstandarte standing guard either side ofthe doors to the Fuhrer’s observation deck. They snapped crisply to attention, andthen swung open the double doors for him.

He proceeded down the oak-panelled passageway towards the second, inner, doors leading on toKramer’s extravagantly decorated quarters, the heels of his black leather jackboots nolonger clacking noisily on metal plating, but softly thudding against the luxuriously thickcarpet.

What is wrong with Paul?

Karl was becoming concerned with his leader. In the last couple of months, since their finalassault on Washington and the taking of the White House, Kramer had become very distracted. Itwas becoming increasingly difficult to convince him to attend the weekly situation briefingswith the regional Gauleiters and invasion fleet’s senior commanders. And when he didturn up he appeared not to be listening.

It was even getting harder for Karl to see his old friend alone. With increasing regularityit seemed, Kramer insisted he was far too busy to see anyone.

What is wrong with him? Surely not that body?

The worst it could possibly mean is that some future agent had tried andfailed to get to Kramer. A failed assassination attempt, nothing more.

And the rest of the news was all good. Back home in Europe the people of Greater Germany wereecstatic with the newsreels they were watching in their cinemas. Footage of their invasionforces marching proudly through the streets of New York, Washington, Boston. Some of that goodcheer was evident even among the provinces of Britain and France… who, despite beingconquered over a decade ago, had come to realize the Fuhrer was a good man, intent onuniting all people, not enslaving them.

The announcement of Unity Day, a day to celebrate the end of war and a uniting of the westernnations, had been met with rapturous approval by the citizens of the Greater Reich. Karl wascertain future Unity Days would be celebrated with street parties everywhere, people in everycity in every country of Kramer’s empire happy to draw a line under two thousand yearsof bloody history. Wars, crusades, religious intolerance, inquisitions, torture, ethniccleansing, holocausts — all of those dark things in the past now.

He rapped his knuckles against the thick wooden doors, waiting until he heard Kramer beckonhim in. He pushed them open, stepped inside and saluted his leader.

Kramer was sitting in the window alcove, looking down at a misty morning. He could just makeout the dome at the top of the White House poking through the pale blanket coveringWashington, the orange glow of street lamps along Pennsylvania Avenue and the pinprickheadlights of slow-moving cars making their way sluggishly to work.

Presently, he turned to look at Karl and offered him a warm smile. ‘Good morning, Karl.How are you?’

Karl relaxed his posture, dropping his stiff salute and stepping towards his leader, hisfriend. ‘I’m well.’

Kramer shook his head. ‘It’s amazing how quickly normalityreturns, isn’t it? Out there… people go to work, go to school, visit theirfriends, their loved ones, just as they always have. They have a new leader, a new flag…but life simply goes on for them.’

‘Yes… Paul.’

‘The American people, it seems,’ continued Kramer, ‘have already acceptedthe way of things.’

Karl stirred uncomfortably. Except, of course, those troublesome peopleattacking the prison camps.

‘So,’ said Kramer, ‘shall we get on with this morning’s briefing? Ihave other matters to attend to.’

‘Of course. I have the usual stack of papers for you to sign; most of them areapprovals for regional state governors — sympathetic politicians mostly.’ Karlleaned over and placed the papers on the desk. Kramer got up from the window seat and sat downat the desk, flicking wearily through the forms and signing them absent-mindedly.

‘So much paperwork these days,’ he sighed.

‘The remaining US military forces regrouped in Texas have agreed informal terms forsurrender. I believe it’s General MacArthur who’s in charge there.’

‘Good… good. Silly their fighting on needlessly.’

‘He’s hoping that we’ll grant clemency for the senior officers, allow themto return to their families.’

Kramer continued scribbling his name as he talked. ‘To be honest, it’s the seniorofficers I don’t trust. Tell MacArthur his troops will be disarmed and allowed todisband, to go home. But I’m afraid he and his high command will be interned along withall our other political prisoners,’ uttered Kramer, leafing impatiently through thepapers. ‘Until, that is, I’m satisfied they won’t be tempted to lead anytroublesome uprisings.’

Karl shuffled uncomfortably. ‘On that subject… we are having afew problems in the Washington area.’

‘Hmm?’

‘Raids. Some insurgents attacking our prison camps.’

Kramer looked up at him, his pen poised.

‘Five camps have been raided so far,’ Karl continued. ‘The garrisons wereover-powered and quite a few detainees managed to escape on each occasion.’

‘I presume these insurgents are some rogue US army unit? How many of them are wetalking about?’

‘Well, there’s some confusion there, sir,’ said Karl awkwardly.‘Eyewitness reports on the earlier raids indicated a very small raidingparty.’

‘How small?’

‘Well, actually, just one man.’

‘What?’

‘Clearly it can’t be just one man. That would bemadness. But among some of the prisoners that we’ve managed to recapture there’s aspreading rumour that some sort of… of a superman… hascome to their aid. They describe a large figure off which bullets bounce — ’

‘A superman?’

Karl smiled. ‘Clearly it’s wishful thinking, a fantasy. The Americans have alwaysliked their comic-books, their heroic figures in silly costumes. It’s not unreasonablethat their hopes and prayers have taken the form of this kind of mythical figure.’

Karl was unsettled by the sudden look of distraction on his Fuhrer’s face, as ifhalf his attention was elsewhere, listening to a faintly heard tune, or a conversation comingfrom the room next door.

‘In all likelihood, sir, the insurgents may well be a small group of well-trainedsoldiers, US marines… US airborne, highly motivated and well equippedand so far they’ve just managed to be very lucky.’

Kramer nodded. ‘Yes… yes. Perhaps you’re right.’

‘Nonetheless, sir, I suggest it would be wise to double the garrison strengths on theother camps in the region. Too many successful raids like these might just encourage otherinsurgents to join in.’

Kramer was silent, his face clouded, his brows locked in a frown of concentration as if hewas trying to listen to someone else. Karl noticed he’d not shaved this morning, a faintblur of silver-grey bristles on his chin, and he spotted the slightest sporadic tremble in theman’s jaw. Small things that only a close friend would notice.

Small things that worried him.

He’s having some kind of a breakdown?

‘Paul? Are you all right?’

‘Yes… yes, of course,’ said Kramer absently. His gaze returned from whereit had been and focused back on to Karl. ‘Take what action you think is necessary withthese raids.’

Kramer hastily scribbled his signature on the last few sheets of paper, handed them back andoffered him a flickering smile. ‘Thank you, Karl. You may leave now.’

‘Yes, sir.’

He offered a clipped salute, turned on his heel and departed the observation lounge.

Kramer waited until he heard the footsteps recede down the hallway outside.

To work.

‘To work,’ he agreed, stepping quickly across the polished floor towards hisstudy door. He turned the brass handle and stepped through into his sanctum sanctorum: book-lined walls, several leather armchairs anda work table littered with drafting materials. It was very much a replica of his private studyback in the Reich Chancellery in Berlin, a place to think, to tinker with his weapons designs,to ruminate on empire-wide policy.

From his desk drawer he pulled out a little black notebook, the corners curled and scuffed,the pages of handwritten notes beginning to yellow with the years now. A precious book ofthoughts and ideas, theories and secrets. His younger handwriting so scribbled andimpatient.

In the year 2056, he’d been barely twenty years of age and such a devout fan of themysterious inventor Roald Waldstein. His reputation as an elusive genius, the one and only manto mathematically formulate a displacement field that could fold a gap through space-time. Theonly man to have actually tested the theory with a workingprototype. An honorary director of the International Institute of Quantum Research, and theAmerican Museum of Natural History, a wealthy entrepreneur, a scientific adviser topresidents… a complete enigma.

Kramer’s hard work and promising talent had earned him an internship atWaldstein’s prestigious New Jersey research centre, several months in the company of thegreat old man himself. Waldstein liked to be in the company of keen young minds. He’dtaken warmly to Kramer. The other keen young minds, jealous fellow interns, suggested thatPaul Kramer reminded the sentimental old man of the son he’d lost many years before.

Kramer smiled at the pleasant memories, those weeks with that great mind, earning hisconfidence, listening to his theories about how the unseen dimensions of the metaverse heldeverything together in a way beyond the comprehension of most human minds. Struggling to keepup with him, yet understanding just enough, parts of it fittedtogether in his young head.

The old man’s over-riding passion, though, what kept him awake lateat nights and fired him up with a preacher’s zeal, was to bury the technology he alonehad pioneered — the potential for time travel. To ensure absolutely no one followed in his footsteps. For Kramer, it had been frustrating to bediscussing with this great man his most advanced theoretical work and then for Waldstein tosuddenly grow cautious on the subject of displacement theory.

An old man. He must have been about sixty then, but he seemed so much older and frailer thanthat, with hands that shook and trembled constantly, and watery eyes that always seemed todart towards dark corners. And his bizarre rituals — every morning after breakfast,Kramer watched him shuffle towards a curious sheet of yellowing newsprint, framed behind glassand hung on his wall. Waldstein stared at it for several minutes every day with eyes thatleaked tears down his sunken cheeks.

Kramer had glanced at it once, nothing more than a page of personal ads from some oldnewspaper, lonely men seeking lonely women.

Waldstein was losing his mind… and in the quiet moments, sitting with young Kramerbeside the warming fire, he let slip perhaps a little too much. Old enough and perhapstrusting enough of Kramer to let him know a little more than he should have.

Kramer fingered his tatty old notebook now. Pages of mathematical characters and equations,the parts of the old man’s puzzle that he’d carelessly let go, interspersed withpages and pages of angrily crossed-out formulae that Kramer himself had worked on over theyears. Pieces of equation that he’d tried to squeeze into the spaces, to make right with Waldstein’s elegant work… and that alwaysseemed to not quite fit.

He smiled at the notes scrawled across the draftsman’s sheet on the desk.

It fits together now, though, Paul. Doesn’t it?

Some of it did — the ‘Waldstein displacement field’. It had taken Kramer fifteen years on and off, thinking the problem over in his privatemoments. A personal hobby, an affliction, perhaps.

The field — the Waldstein field — in theory, on paper, was merely a method tocrack open the tiniest gap in space-time. That alone didn’t make a time machine, just away to open a peek-hole into the very fabric of space-time. Kramer needed computing power athis fingertips to make a time machine. Computing power to precisely navigate through theswirling chaos of a dimension that mankind had no business entering. There were no Apple Macshere in 1956, no PCs, no palmtops or organizers that could be cannibalized, adapted.

The schematic sketched out on the sheet of paper in front of him was for a device he couldconstruct merely allowing him to open a tiny window and tap infinite energy from the swirlingchaos beyond.

There’d been something Waldstein had once said to him: ‘To open time-space is toopen a door into Hell itself.’

You’ve been through that door before.

‘Yes,’ he uttered softly, ‘stepped into Hell.’ His voice trembledwith a mixture of fear and excitement. Waldstein had also once said something to a muchyounger Kramer, something that had unsettled him back then, and did so now.

‘Consider this, Paul… If a man can place a foot in Hell,then whatever exists there might just as easily use the same door and place a foot in ourworld.’

Those words tormented him now because he realized it was something far worse than some agentfrom the future after him. Something far more frightening.

You must hurry, Paul… before it seeks you out.

‘To work,’ said Kramer, pushing a forgotten plate of food aside on his desk.