Time Riders

CHAPTER 71

1957, Washington DC

That’s it, then. We’re finished.

Liam looked at the dark hulking silhouette of the support unit, standing in the alley besidehim. Still, calm, as always — free of doubt and despair.

The sleet had turned to rain and pattered softly around them and the darkness flickered everynow and then with passing light as searchlights from above panned routinely across therooftops, across the top of their little backstreet.

‘You must assign new mission parameters,’ Bob’s voice rumbled.

New mission parameters?

Liam could have laughed cruelly at that. There was nothing they could achieve now, not in thetime they had left. In just under two days’ time, a tiny explosive charge insideBob’s head would leave him little more than a comatose giant, a mindless, dribblingvegetable. Liam figured he might be able to keep Bob’s body alive, feeding it like a bigbaby, keeping it going with protein and water. But to what end? Bob would be gone…unable to protect him any more.

‘I don’t know what to suggest, Bob,’ whispered Liam. ‘Doyou?’

Bob was silent for a few moments. ‘Negative.’

Go back and rejoin the freedom fighters?

Liam’s smile was thin. He wondered what they’d make of theirsuperman — Captain Bob — slumped against a tree trunk,drooling long strings of saliva and staring lifelessly at their crackling campfire. Hardly thestuff of legends.

He’d listened in on those men talking about Bob in hushed reverential tones, huddled inone of the tents. It was almost a form of worship. One of them told an exaggerated account tosome newcomers of the raid in which Liam had been rescued, claiming he’d seen ashimmering ‘godly’ halo around Bob as he strode unharmed through the prison camp,protecting him from the guards’ bullets… and angels in the clouds lookingprotectively down on him.

Liam wondered if that’s how all the legendary figures in history began, as tales toldround a campfire, then retold and retold through successive generations, grandfather tofather, father to son, each time the tale growing more exaggerated.

An odd thought occurred to him. He wondered if the ancient Greek hero, Achilles, had merelybeen a support unit like Bob, caught up somehow in the Siege of Troy, his presenceunintentionally becoming a part of history. Or how about the super-strong Samson from theBible? Or Attila the Hun? King Leonidas of the Spartans? He wondered if any of thoseimplausibly heroic characters from history were the unintended side-effect of a mission liketheirs… some other agency team going about their work, leaving unavoidable footprints intime.

Footprints in time.

‘You must assign new mission parameters.’

Footprints in time.

‘Oh my God!’ he whispered. ‘Footprints.’

Bob remained silent.

‘Footprints,’ he whispered again. ‘Bob?’

‘Affirmative.’

‘I think there’s a way we can communicate with the fieldoffice.’

‘Negative. Tachyon transmissions can only — ’

‘Shhh!’ hissed Liam. ‘Listen to me. How long will it take us to get to NewYork?’