TS01 Time Station London (25 page)

Wendall sighed and looked down again. A stunned second later, he hit the ground like a sack of wet garbage.

Eight hundred meters to go now. Knuckles white on the controls, Col. Werner Ruperle fought to keep his severely wounded aircraft in a slow glide toward the English countryside. He preferred this to a water landing. He had one dead man aboard and three wounded. Make that four, he reminded himself.

Not until he had fought his burning, creaking Me-110 clear of the scramble of enemy aircraft did Col. Ruperle realize that the burning, stinging sensation across his back represented a bullet path from a British machine gun. He had come so close, he did not want to gamble with drowning or sharks. Even if it had to be a wheels-up landing, he saw it as better. Ahead he saw a wide, brown ribbon of cleared dirt. Never a good student of history, Werner did not recognize it as an untouched segment of an ancient Roman roadway that reached northward to Hadrian’s Wall. It looked like a perfectly good runway to him. His hands went to the gear lever.

A little lower. He had already lowered the damaged flaps. They vibrated violently as air tore through the bullet holes. Now the gear. The hydraulic pumps groaned and thumped, but the wheels did not come down. He was committed now. He recycled the control. Still no Gear Down light.

Five hundred meters, 205 mph airspeed. Throttles back. He had already dumped fuel after the extinguishers had put out the fires. Four hundred. Three hundred. Line it up. Easy, easy, now. Two hundred.meters. Throttles forward. Nose up. Easy.

“Fritz, get on the controls. We’re going to hit hard.”

“Ja.
Something tells me we will hit too hard.”

“No time to go around. We’re almost dry on fuel.”

“Ja, ja,
” Fritz answered nervously. “One hundred meters.”

They lapsed into silence then while the leading edge of the wings flashed over the edge of the bare strip. With a start, Col. Ruperle saw that the brown “earth” was in fact precisely made brownstone cobbles. He eased the nose to almost a stall. A minute later he cut the throttles and flared out.

The wings settled first. Sparks flew in showers and metal ground away as the Me-110 skidded along on its belly. The propellers made contact, bent backward, and Col. Ruperle’s hands flew to cut the engine switches. Groaning and shrieking, the aircraft continued along the Roman road. Stone that had withstood the ravages of the ages turned to dust and rose in a curtain around the disintegrating Messerschmitt. Slowly it lost forward momentum.

With a final groan, it settled, quivering, to the ground. A silence so profound it made Werner Ruperle’s ears ache descended upon them. They had made it. Col. Werner Ruperle solemnly made the sign of the cross, offered a prayer of gratitude to God and the Virgin Mary, then got the hell away from the destroyed aircraft with all the speed he could muster.

Time: 0950, GMT, November 1, 1940

Place: M-43 Highway, Coventry to London, England

Samantha Trillby started out for London at ten minutes to ten that morning. She was well into the country when the air raid sirens went off in Coventry. She puckered her mouth in a grim moue a bit later when she saw the black blossoms of antiaircraft fire through the rearview mirror.

They were coming a lot closer to Coventry this time, she thought. A squadron of Spitfires snarled by low overhead, followed by two of Hurricanes. Abruptly they climbed steeply to engage the advance columns of the enemy, Samantha drove a little faster. With the window down, she could hear the machine-gun fire. A chill clutched her spine. They were going to
Coventry
this time.

What for? There was nothing there worth bombing. Another question burned through her. Had there been enough warning? Who would survive? Nervously she began to chew her lower lip. Far above her and some distance behind, another flight of bombers, this time Ju-88-A’s, ran into the furious resistance that had plagued Col. Ruperle’s squadron.

Unseen by Samantha, one of the Junkers, shot to hell, struggled furiously to escape the deadly circus that spun around them. One engine was afire, thick smoke trailed behind. Following regulations, in the same manner as Col. Ruperle, the pilot gave the order to lighten his craft by dumping his bombs.

During the time it took him to reach this decision, he had turned completely to the south and flew over the road to London. This time.when the bombardier salvoed the stick, the safety wires had been attached to their tethers. As the bombs fell free they aimed themselves.

Wobbling through the air, the 4,960 pounds of explosives dropped in irregular lines down the highway. Their proximity fuses fired and the bombs erupted in a blinding, searing flash. The first ones to detonate disintegrated Samantha Trillby and her car.

Time: 1130, GMT, November 1, 1940

Place: Offices of MI-5, Bayswater Road,

London, N.W. 1, England

Brian Moore fidgeted through the morning, well aware that Coventry was being obliterated. Where was Samantha? At eleven-thirty, the first reports began to arrive from surrounding communities that had not been hit in the raid. The city’s entire center had been laid to waste, including St. Michael’s Cathedral and the Grey Friars’ Church. The statue of Lady Godiva had been damaged. Brian’s mouth tasted of bitter ash.

Noon came and the bad news continued to pour in. Brian had a pork pie and chips sent up from the canteen. He ate without tasting it. He began to pace the floor after he abandoned the half-eaten meal. He left the office for court at one-thirty and was back at three. At three-thirty, the intercom buzzed discreetly.

“Sir Hugh is on his way to see you, sir,” Sally Parkhurst informed him.

“I’ll see him at once, of course.” A dread premonition washed over Brian.

Sir Hugh Montfort entered a minute later. The expression he wore alarmed Brian further. Montfort’s greeting was brusque. He crossed directly to the sideboard and poured single malt into two glasses, handed one to Brian.

“Sit down,” the deputy director of MI-5 commanded. When Brian settled himself uneasily, he went on. “I’m sorry to have to bring you this news. A German bomber salvoed its bomb load after being badly shot up. They landed on the highway from Coventry. Some of them hit a car.

“From what could be found of it after, mainly the license plate, it has been identified as belonging to Samantha.Trillby.” Sir Hugh drew in a deep breath and sighed it out heavily. “Oh, goddamn it to bloody hell, Brian, I’m sorry. I’m so very sorry.”

Although anticipating it for nearly an hour, Brian sat in stunned silence.
She must have been meant to die in Coventry,
he painfully reminded himself. In a sinking funk he also acknowledged that his earlier intervention in her torture and murder only bought her a little more time. Bitterly he accepted what hundreds of Temporal Wardens before him had been compelled to embrace. The Time Paradox
always
cleared up any glitches.

Yet he could not help but feel guilty about it.
He
had put her on that road, the rebel portion of his mind mocked him. Who was to say that if she had not been ordered out of town that she would have died there? Brian sighed roughly to suppress a groan. Then he realized that Sir Hugh looked at him oddly.

Brian forced himself to confess. “I ordered her here today. I knew we could not save everyone. But… we are—were—in love. I couldn’t help trying.” He downed his whiskey and held out the glass for another.

When Sir Hugh had replenished their drinks, he reached out and lightly touched Brian’s shoulder. “I want you to know I received the message only a moment before coming down here. It wasn’t the purpose of my visit. You are to be decorated for your excellent work with the Cordise case and the roundup of so many Nazi spies. The affair will be tomorrow. White tie and tails. It’s hardly the time, but congratulations anyway.”

Brian struggled to quell his bitter grief. “Thanks, awfully.”

Time: 0730, GMT, November 2, 1940

Place: Regency House, Office of the Head of MI-5,

London, England

According to his instructions, Brian Moore reported to the office of Lord Walter Cuthbert-Hobbs first thing the next morning. He felt miserable in his formal attire. His night had not been a good one.

He drank too much alcohol and passed out in the living room of his apartment. Only to wake with an aching neck at a little past midnight. He went to bed, only he could not sleep. He got up and paced the floor. His eyes burned and stung. His throat ached. At last, his grief and nature eased the soreness in his eyes. Brian sat on the side of his bed and sobbed quietly. He went into a deep, healing sleep around two-thirty in the morning. The turmoil of his sorrow left him ill-prepared for what he encountered in the office of the director of MI-5.

“We’re going to Buckingham Palace,” Lord Walter told him.

Brian’s eyebrows elevated. “Whatever for?”

Cuthbert-Hobbs smiled broadly. “Well, it seems that not only are you receiving the Order of Valor, which I put you in for, but the King and Prime Minister have agreed. They have arranged for you to be invested with the Cross of St. George.”

Deep inside, Brian Moore/Steven Whitefeather could not believe this. “I—I don’t deserve this. I did nothing more than anyone else. I c-can’t accept.”

“Modesty becomes you, old chap. But don’t carry it too far. The PM is particularly pleased with your resolution of the Cordise matter, and of nabbing the German agents sent to assassinate him. King George is rather pleased by that, also. There’ll be no fanfare or front-page stories in the
Times,
you understand. Matter of fact, you’ll not be able to wear the medal or its pip until after the war. Oh, by the way, that friend of yours, Lady Wyndamire? She’s coming along. So, shall we head for Buckingham?”

Brian Moore managed to hide his surprise until he had a moment alone with Dianna Basehart in what they called a cloakroom in the palace. It had as much square footage as Brian’s entire apartment. When the door closed behind them, he turned to her, his consternation clear on his face.

“How did you manage this?”

Dianna gave him a coy smile. “I didn’t. Sir Hugh knew I was staying at the King’s Court, and must have told Lord Walter. He sent me a most persuasive invitation.”

“Oh, really? Engraved and all?”

Mischief danced in Dianna’s eyes. “No. Two big, burly Coldstream Guards.”

Brian chuckled. “That’s our Lord Walter all right.”

“This is quite something, you know. I don’t know another Warden with a George Cross.”

To her surprise, Steven Whitefeather blushed. “I’m not sure I should accept this one. Awards of the George’s Cross are recorded you know. Sooner or later, I’m going back. It will look damned funny for a holder of the Cross of St. George to disappear completely.”

Dianna patted his cheek. “You can always arrange a ‘tragic, untimely death’ by an accident. Now, let me get your white tie straightened.” She reached out and tweaked it into place.

Cloaked in solemn pomp, the ceremony went off without a flaw. Champagne and finger food followed. The King even deigned to partake in a toast to the new hero. Brian dutifully replied with one to King and Country. While he nursed his second flute of bubbly, Sir Hugh approached him.

He bent close to Brian’s ear in a confidential manner and whispered, “This only came in before I left for the palace. Some of the lads have rounded up a German plane crew. Landed it on the old Roman road, They were waiting right beside it, made no trouble at all. The thing is, a search of the aircraft showed that they had dumped their bomb load.”

Fire blazed in Brian’s eyes. “Those bastards. I want to be in on questioning them.”

“I thought you might. We’ll finish up here and go on over, what?”

Time: 1440, GMT, November 2, 1940

Place: Interrogation Room, Corby Barracks,

Northamptonshire, England

At first, Colonel Werner Ruperle could not figure out why the intense young man who had joined his interrogators took such a vicious dislike to himself. The youthful Military Intelligence type snarled his questions, insulted him and his fellow officers and crew, cursed and threatened them with physical harm. When the questioning got around to the reason for the forced landing, the colonel got the first inkling of what drove the man in white tie and tails.

“You did not complete your bombing run before you were hit, did you?” When Werner hesitated, the agitated interrogator turned red in the face and got down close to shout. “Answer me, goddamn you!”

“Have off a bit, chum,” an older agent urged.

“I’ll have an answer out of this bastard,” the offensive one growled.

“Go easy, Brian. There is the Geneva Convention.”

Brian straightened and turned away a moment, took a deep breath. Then he spoke over one shoulder. “We found your bomb bay empty.”

Col. Ruperle spoke calmly. “Yes, we salvoed after we took serious damage. A flight of Hurricanes engaged us at quite some distance from the target. My bombardier was killed in the first strafing run. And the aircraft was on fire after the second. I turned out of formation, the controls sluggish, flames and smoke everywhere. We were too heavy, I could not control it. So I had my copilot go down and salvo the load.”

A furious rage seized Brian Moore then. He bent toward Col. Ruperle with foam flecks at the corners of his mouth. “And you just managed to line up nicely on a car leaving Coventry, didn’t you?”

“No. No, we did not.”

“That’s a lie! You picked that car, lined up, and told your copilot when to release. And ... you destroyed ... the most ... beautiful girl in the world.”

Sudden horror grabbed Werner Ruperle. There had to have been something between this enraged man and the girl he mentioned. “No, I could not have done any sort of a thing,” he protested fervently, fighting for the proper English words.

“Yes, you did, you murdering Nazi son of a bitch. They could not find enough of her left to bury.”

Still shocked, Werner pushed on with his explanation. “I was not over any road. There were fields, trees; my bombardier had his brains sprayed all around the cupola. No matter that, my bombs would not have gone off. Didn’t you see for yourself? Or did they not tell you? The arming wires for my bomb load were not on the toggle boards. They fell without being able to detonate. They were still—how do you say—safetied.”

Brian’s jaw sagged. Stunned to the core by this revelation, he lost his voice. The words that came from the German colonel salved his burning heart. “Young man, Brian? I have no idea who might be responsible, but I would not have harmed your friend. I know what it is to have a loved one taken from you. My wife is sick, dying of yellow jaundice, and my son was recently forced to join the Hitler Youth. I am sorry that this happened to you. Sorry and ashamed that a countryman of mine could have done such a thing.”

The next moment Werner Ruperle came to his feet. He crossed the short distance and found himself embracing the MI-5 agent named Brian. Overpowered by their emotion, they both wept.

Time: 1707, GMT, November 3, 1940

Place: Time Station London,

Thameside, London, England

Brian Moore joined Dianna Basehart at the London Time Station shortly after five the next afternoon. They went to the small holding cell beside the Beamer room. With one on each side, they escorted Clive Beattie out and along to his final destination. His hands secured behind him, ankles joined by leg irons, he made no effort to resist until Brian eased him into a sitting position in the middle of the Beamer.

Brian read the intention in Clive’s eyes. “I wouldn’t try jumping out, Gunther. Only half of you might be left here with us.”

“I can still make you very rich.”

Brian nodded to Vito, who flipped the master switch. A hum filled the cellar. Brian and Dianna stepped back as the containment field shimmered into existence. Another second and Clive Beattie left the world of 1940. He did so with a curse and a scream.

“Now that’s done,” Brian said, with forced lightness.

“Steve, I waited to say this. It may be out of place, but I wanted to offer my sincere condolences over the death of Samantha Trillby. I only recently learned how close you two had become. I’m sorry she had to die so horribly.”

“Thank you, Di. Right now it hurts too much to talk about it. Truth to tell, I seriously considered marriage. And a life in the here and now. With her it would have been worth it.”

“I’m not going to comment on that right now. All hell is going to break loose four days from now when Sandra Hammond disappears. How are you going to handle it?”

“I’ll work out something. Probably conduct the investigation myself. There’ll be a massive man—er—woman hunt. She can’t get off the island, they’ll reason. I’ll do what I can to push the idea of an escape by U-boat. That’s not the most important thing.”

Brian suddenly awakened to the everyday world of a Temporal Warden. A beaming smile blossomed on his relieved face. Why had he not thought of that before? If it worked going one way, it could work in the reverse. He would have to clear it with Arkady, but that should be easy. Dianna read his expression with puzzlement.

“What is it, Brian?”

“I’ve been a fool. There is a way to save Samantha. And it does not involve a Paradox. Not if she is recruited as a Temporal Warden.”

Dianna saw it at once. “You just remembered it, didn’t you? You pulled Sandra Hammond out of the grasp of the Royal Army Corps, and you can pull Samantha out of her car. Tricky timing, but you can carry it off if anyone can.”

“Yeah,” Brian agreed. “Though it leaves me to recruit her. Warden Central will come as a shock to her.”

Dryly, Dianna answered him. “No doubt. What’s next, Brian?”

“After clearing up this little matter, a new assignment. This just came in from Arkady.” He opened the folded sheet and read off it to Dianna. “A new ripple has occurred in the fabric of Time. It threatens the stability of all the future. Dianna is to remain in London to assist you. The historical log indicates that a conspiracy exists between half a dozen rogue travelers to provide refined plutonium to the Germans, along with the schematic diagrams of how to build a nuclear bomb. If the Nazis get the atomic bomb, it will so seriously destabilize the time track that, Paradox factor or not, all of the future could permanently change.”