TS01 Time Station London (23 page)

It wasn’t every day someone shot at him. He wasn’t any Danny Danger from the pages of some pulp fiction magazine from the present, nor the hero of a holodisc story out of his own era. These people were seriously trying to kill him… and Dianna, he added parenthetically. So why was he hanging on the tail of this Austin?

Another bullet slammed into the rolled leather padding at the edge of his seat. Dianna leaned out the scooped side of the MG-TC and fired her ALP. It sliced off a neat section of rear fender. Brian had to swerve sharply to avoid it as the metal shard clanged noisily to the pavement and rebounded toward them.

“You’re as dangerous as they are,” he complained.

Tight-lipped, Dianna growled back, “Shut up and drive, Whitefeather.”

Brian drove. Dianna made a try for a tire. Severed metal glowed orange as she cut away a piece of the bumper. The engine of the Austin whined in protest as the vehicle slewed around a corner and began a steep incline. Another bullet cracked by overhead. Brian involuntarily ducked and slowed down. Ahead, the Austin dropped out of sight on the reverse side of the hill.

Then they were at the crest of the steep grade. A small village spread out ahead of Brian and Dianna, nested in a hidden valley, Not a light shone from the houses or lampposts. And they discovered that the Austin had completely disappeared. Brian braked and both Temporal Wardens swiveled their heads left and right in search of the vanished car. He slowed more and took a long look down the road to the east.

No taillights. Dianna looked away from the west and shook her head. They drove on another block. Same results. Dianna cursed under her breath in the long-forgotten language of Babylon.

“How could they have gotten away so fast?” she asked, highly perturbed.

Brian shook his head. “I don’t know. No, wait, I do know. Beattie has a safe house around here somewhere. It can’t be far from where we entered the village. We’ll have to look for it.”

Dawn on the thirteenth of October did not reveal the hiding place of Clive Beattie and the wounded German agent. Brian and Dianna had found only one place with a high wall and a large solid, double gate that suited their needs. They soon learned it belonged to the mayor. Brian looked haggard. He had a stubble of beard, a gaunt expression, and dark crescents under his eyes. He had been awake for forty-eight hours. He hadn’t eaten since their picnic the previous afternoon on the beach.

Dianna looked hardly any better. She listened to the grumble of her stomach and tapped Brian lightly on his left forearm. “I think we should give it up for now and get something to eat.”

“I’ll agree. You do know that while we’re not prowling the neighbourhood, they can get away again?”

“Yes, but how far can one go in a car with large chunks carved off it?”

Brian brightened some. “Not far without being seen.”

“And remembered. We can track them that way. First, though, we’ve got to get some food.”

“Something to carry along, too,” Brian suggested.

They found a hole-in-the-wall eatery and filled up on bacon and eggs. Brian bought sandwiches and some apples. He picked up bottles of the low-proof Bulmer’s cider and they returned to the street where they had lost the Austin.

A man dressed in a white coat and trousers, with a cart and broom, swept the gutters. Brian stopped alongside and leaned from the MG.

“Have you seen an Austin sedan this morning?”

“Yup. Several of them.”

“How about one with close to two feet of its left-hand rear fender cut off?”

The street cleaner removed his white bill cap and scratched at thinning sandy hair. “As a matter of fact I did, guvner. Looked like it had been done with a razor. Bumper, too. Right funny that.”

“Thank you. Which way did the car go?”

Always helpful, the city employee pointed north. “Toward London.”

Brian and Dianna sped off. They took the most direct route, convinced that their quarry would do the same. When they entered the city, Brian drove only a block before he found a bobby on a bicycle. Again he asked his questions.

“Funny you should mention that. I did see such a vehicle. Why do you ask?”

Brian showed his identification. “Government business. We meed to know where the car went from here.”

Pointing down the street, the bobby complied. “That there’s Bristol Lane. They made a right and drove on, off, never saw the car again.”

“There were two men in the car?”

“Right. They looked somewhat nervous, come to think about it. One of them might have been hurt. Are they army deserters?”

Brian smiled in a friendly manner. “Something like that. Shy of coppers, you can be sure. Thank you, Constable.”

“That explains it, then. Hope you find them.” He peddled away.

“Yeah,” Brian said in a sour tone. “That’s all we have to do—find them.”

They searched through most of the morning. Ten minutes before the noon hour, the black bulk of an Austin came into view through the window of a private garage. Quickly, Brian and Dianna closed in on it. Brian raised on tiptoes and peered inside the building. He turned away to face Dianna with a beaming smile. “We’ve found it. Now we have to take them.”

Time: 1105, GMT, October 13, 1940

Place: Village of Chelmsford, Lincolnshire, England

Brian Moore broke the lock and entered the garage with ease. He went to the front of the Austin and opened the hood. He removed the distributor cap and coil wire, then secured the hood once more. That accomplished, he and Dianna proceeded through a small door in the back to a terraced garden. On the way, Brian picked up a roll of tape. The house fronted onto the next street over, which served to make their search more difficult. Brian motioned Dianna to one side, where a row of evergreen privet hedge would screen her approach to the dwelling.

When she disappeared behind the greenery, Brian took the direct route across the middle of the garden. Bent low, he strode heedlessly over the rows of crops. His shoe soles crushed brussels sprouts, bush beans, parsnip, and turnip tops underfoot as he closed on the safe house. What surprised him more than the well-tended winter vegetable plot was that he met with no resistance. He gained his flagstone terrace without a shot being fired or even discovery. Dianna waited for him there.

Brian nodded to a covered passageway along one side of the house. “You had better go around front in case they try to make a break that way.”

Although she saw the logic of it, Dianna felt it necessary to make protest. “What? And have you grab all the glory? Isn’t the saying this era, ‘Ladies first’?”

Brian gave her a crooked smile with half his mouth. “Not when there’s a chance of some shooting.”

Dianna produced a smirk. “You’ve got a point there.” She left without further comment.

Brian gave her a long ten count and then stepped to the tall French doors. He tried the handle and, true to his expectation, found it locked. No way to avoid making some noise. Brian fetched the tape from his jacket pocket and loosely crisscrossed the pane closest to the knob. Then he took the Webley from his shoulder holster and reversed his grip, holding it by the barrel.

A swift, sharp rap with the butt broke the glass. To Brian it sounded as though he had struck an empty fifty-five-gallon drum with a sledgehammer. He methodically loosened the tape ends and pulled it and the shattered pane away. Ears alert for the least sound from inside, Brian reached through the opening and undid the latch. The door swung inward at his touch. He crossed the room in long strides, only to come to an abrupt halt as he rounded a high-backed wing chair.

“I… had to… make you… come to me,” the wounded Nazi agent gasped out in German. He held a fat-muzzled, suppressed Walther PP in an unsteady hand, aimed at the center of Brian’s chest.

So much for the element of surprise, Brian reflected as he examined the man. Shot twice by Brian, the German had lost a lot of blood. Movement out of the chair appeared out of the question. Certainly he could not have intercepted an intruder. All of this flashed through Brian’s mind in the split second it took him to raise the muzzle of his .45 Webley and squeeze the trigger.

Brian’s ears made ringing protest when the revolver fired. His bullet finished what he had begun the previous night in the wood beyond the beach. An expression of astonishment on the face of the German was accentuated by the hole in his forehead. His pistol canted upward and discharged, which brought bits of ceiling plaster down in a cloud. Brian sidestepped and started for the sliding doors of the dining room. They must give onto the hallway, he reasoned. Brian opened them and stepped out ... into the balled fist of Clive Beattie.

Hard knuckles smashed into the lips of Brian Moore and split the lower one on the inside. Brian tasted the salty-copper flavor of blood. In all his years in the Warden Corps, he had never been hit in the mouth before. The history logs said that the twentieth century had been an era of extreme violence. There had been more people killed in wars and through crime than all past years combined. Six million in the concentration camps by Hitler; thirty million kulaks and Kazakhs in the Ukraine by the Red Army, at Stalin’s command. Sixty-four million were yet to die in Mao’s purges of Red China. Add to that those killed fighting the wars and in the bombed cities, plus victims of violent crime, and it totaled more than the population of the entire world from the time of ancient Rome until the nineteenth century. These random facts unreeled in Brian’s mind while he tottered backward. Clive Beattie came right after him.

Brian hesitantly raised the Webley, his face a work of confusion as he stared into the familiar features of Field Marshal Lord Mountbatten. The next instant Brian had the weapon kicked out of his hand. Beattie knew some sort of martial art it would appear. The rogue traveler followed up his advantage with a knuckle-edge blow to the middle of Brian’s chest. Brian’s legs churned to keep him upright. He managed to duck the next swing and rally his senses.

With a piercing scream, Brian Moore exploded into action. He cocked his right leg at the knee and hip and, rising on the ball of the other foot, snapped the pointed toe of his wing tip to the sternum of Clive Beattie. Propelled backward, Beattie stumbled and crashed into the doorjamb. He recoiled quickly, right in time to take an upraised palm to his nose.

A welter of blood flew from the injured appendage and Beattie heard cartilage crumble. Dressed and made-up in the impersonation that would let him get close enough to Winston Churchill two days from now, Clive Beattie knew his Aryan perfection had been ruined. Rage clouded out caution, and he went for Brian with flailing arms. Brian sidestepped and drove a blade hand to the base of Beattie’s neck, instantly numbing the right side of the body. Beattie sagged to one knee. Brian bore in on his target.

A kick between the shoulder blades sent Clive Beattie face first onto the Oriental carpet. Sprawled and breathless, the depraved time rogue fought to fill his lungs. Brian did not give him the time. He dropped with a knee in the small of Beattie’s back and reached for his cuffs.

Steel bracelets clicked loudly as Brian secured his prisoner. He had only started to rise when a sound from the open doorway jolted him into rapid motion. He dived for the Webley and snatched it from the floor. Completing his roll, he came up with the weapon pointed the right direction.

“Whoa! Take it easy, Whitefeather,” Dianna appealed from the doorway, arms raised, palms forward. By one finger she clutched the firing stud guard of her ALP.

“Dianna?” Brian came slowly out of his combat frenzy.

She produced a lopsided smile. “I couldn’t help hearing your friendly encounter. I decided I should pop inside and see how it came out.”

“We have Beattie. At least I think it’s Beattie.”

Dianna crossed the room and rolled the trussed prisoner over onto one side. Her eyes widened. “My God, that’s Lord Mountbatten… isn’t it?”

Winded, Clive Beattie softly cursed both Temporal Wardens in German gutter language. Then his eyes focused on the weapon in Dianna’s hand. His cobalt orbs widened with recognition. That set off a string of even harsher expletives, the mildest of which was “You craven bastards.”

Brian bent low over his captive. “File it under Control-Delete, Beattie. Or should I say,
Chamäleon.
Or, better still, Gunther Bewerber, late of 2606.”

Beattie/Bewerber turned pale. Trapped and knowing it, he sought to wangle any advantage. “You can both be fabulously rich, you know. I have jewels, diamonds, emeralds, rubies. And I have ten kilos of germanium. Think what that would bring in our time!”

Brian’s eyes burned hotly. “We’re not buying. You’ll be sent back to Warden Central for punishment.”

Lips trembling now, Beattie made a final appeal. “Bu—but that means a brain-wipe and the labor battalions.”

Brian shrugged. “Too bad. Although on you a room temperature IQ will look rather good.”

“Better to die now,” Beattie said resignedly.

Fingers working furiously behind his back, Clive Beattie managed to turn the massive Mountbatten signet ring to the proper position. When he started to clinch his hand, Dianna shouted a warning to Brian.

“Whitefeather; stop him!”

Brian dived at Beattie and grabbed the hand that had started to hesitantly close. He saw a wicked, silver glint below the gold of the ring on the third finger. Quickly he put all his pressure on that digit to bend it backward from contact with flesh. Beattie shrieked when his finger broke.

Gingerly, Brian slid the signet ring off the injured finger. He examined the tiny hypodermic needle closely. Then he turned his attention back to Beattie. “So that’s how you were going to kill Churchill.”

“I saw him twisting that ring, wondered why,” Dianna injected.

“Yes, and that’s why he’s done himself up to look like Lord Mountbatten. The Field Marshal is to receive the VC from the King day after tomorrow. Churchill will be there. This way Beattie could get close enough to the Prime Minister to shake his hand or clap him on the shoulder. What did you plan to do with the real Mountbatten?” When he received no answer, Brian shoved the ring under the nose of Beattie. “This is what you got off the sub last night, right?”

“Geht zum Teufel.”

Brian’s smile goaded Beattie more than his words. “It’s more likely you’ll be the one going to the devil. The old poison ring gambit. That dates back even before Lucrezia Borgia, though she’s supposed to have made good use of one from time to time.” Then to Dianna, “Let’s give this place a good toss. Never can tell what might turn up.”

“You are going to keep the gems and germanium for yourselves and send me back anyway,” Beattie accused.

Flashing a pleasant smile, Brian disabused him of that. “No, but they will help offset the cost of catching and transporting you. Several times, I’m sure.”

Dragging Beattie along to his study, they went about the search in a methodical, thorough way. From a safe behind a large landscape painting in the drawing room they retrieved the jewels. A floor vault in the study gave up the germanium. Then Dianna began to leaf through Beattie’s correspondence. Most of it was of a social nature. Several related to the short-circuited campaign of Rupert Cordise. Those she stuffed in her purse. She put the letters aside when Brian came down from the attic.

“I found his transmitter. Also a codebook and onetime pad. They are careful, I’ll give them that. No decoded messages lying around for the casual eye to observe. I’m willing to bet that we can learn a whole lot about the entire spy apparatus if we turn our friend here over to Vito for a casual chat.”

Dianna caught Beattie’s eye to make certain he took in their exchange. Then she made an exaggerated wince and raised one hand as though fending off something threatening. “The last one Vito worked on turned into a gibbering idiot. The mind probe is a terrible thing.”

Face alabaster, Beattie began sweating profusely. “You—you can’t use a mind probe. It’s illegal except by court order.”

“Don’t worry, friend,” Brian assured him. “You won’t be drooling and soiling yourself for long. Once Vito Alberdi gets what we want from you, it’s back to the old Home Culture and a mind-wipe. It won’t hurt anymore after that.” Brian paused, put on a serious expression. “Unless you want to cooperate and it won’t have to hurt at all.”

Realizing he had to give up something, Beattie swallowed hard, spoke in a near whisper. “In the third drawer on the left. There are some papers there that you might find interesting. Under a false bottom.”

Dianna pulled the compartment from its place and dumped the contents onto the desk top. Using a penknife from the blotter, she pried out the phony floor of the bin. From inside the lower section she withdrew five thick letters and a black-and-white photograph.

Posed before the lens were two men. Dianna studied them and handed the photo to Brian. One of the figures turned out to be a stoop-shouldered older man with a leonine mane of white hair, who matched one of the descriptions of Clive Beattie. The other was the former Prime Minister of England, Neville Chamberlain.

Faced now with yet another dilemma, Brian read the letters in stunned silence. The major recurring theme was Chamberlain’s contention that “the German Chancellor” held no ill will for the British Empire or the British people. In one letter, on the second page, Chamberlain remarked favorably on the efficiency with which the National Socialist government was running Germany. In particular, he cited the stabilization of the mark, the recovery of the banks, the creation of jobs for those in the trades by building hundreds of small homes for participants in the new Retirement Security program. He also had glowing praise for the
Autobahn,
referring to it as “the Highway of the Future.” Brian looked up at Dianna, his eyes haunted.

“This is powerful stuff. Used the right way, it might bring about an end to any opposition to Winston Churchill.”

“Need I remind you, Whitefeather, that we are not here to take a partisan position.”

Brian nodded. “Yes. I can accept that. Only we are here to correct a ripple in the fabric of Time that centers around Churchill. Until he is safe, our job is not completed. You’ll have to allow me that.”

A sigh escaped Dianna. “Unfortunately, you’re right. How do you propose we use these letters?”