His second-in-command nodded reluctantly. ‘I will show you.’
He stepped through his men across knee-deep snow that crunched beneath each step. Kramerfollowed him, pulling out his Arctic jacket, putting it on and zipping it up.
Karl led him into a thick copse of pine trees, branches drooping, heavily laden withsnow.
‘It appears something malfunctioned during their trip,’ said Karl as they pushedthrough some branches, dislodging a small cascade of powder snow. ‘Mercifully, neitherof them lived for very long,’ he continued, stepping to one side to reveal their bodies.‘They lasted no more than a couple of minutes,’ he added sombrely.
Kramer stared at the twisted tangle of limbs and organs. It was unrecognizable ashuman… or, more to the point, two humans. Instead, it looked like some grotesquecreature an insane God might construct from the parts left over from Creation — a pathetically corrupted thing with too many arms and legs and internal organsemerging into the open through distorted and bubbled skin that looked like melted plastic. Onehead, melded to the end of what looked like an impossibly long arm, Kramer recognized asEthan. He spotted the face of Tomas emerging from a mass of flesh that could only be describedas this thing’s pelvis.
‘My God,’ was all he could whisper. ‘They were still alive when you foundthem?’
Karl nodded, grim faced.
Kramer felt his stomach loosen, but he refused to vomit or retch in front of Karl. The manneeded to see a confident and strong leader, not someone who doubled over at the firstunpleasant sight.
‘We knew this might happen,’ said Kramer, ‘that Waldstein’s prototypemight be prone to error.’
‘We were lucky to lose only two men, Karl. Only two.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Well, there’ll be no more time travelling now; we’re done with that.We’re where we want to be.’
Karl nodded and managed a weak smile.
‘Germany, fifteenth of April… 1941.’ Kramer nodded at the crest of a nearbyhill, now bathed in the cool, silver glow of moonlight. ‘Destiny is waiting for us upthere, Karl.’
Karl grinned eagerly. ‘We will succeed, won’t we?’
Kramer nodded. ‘Yes… we will.’
CHAPTER 25
2001, New York
Maddy looked at Foster incredulously. ‘We’re going to do
‘I said, this morning we’re going to
Liam, Sal and Maddy stared at him in silence over their bowls of Rice Krispies. Bob, sittingbetween Sal and Liam, observed them and Foster thoughtfully.
‘Liam,’ said Foster, ‘today’s going to be your first trip back intothe past. You and Bob are both going together.’
Bob’s thick lips managed a clumsy ill-practised smile that looked more like a camelchewing. ‘Is good,’ his deep voice rumbled.
‘And you?’ asked Liam.
‘Yes, I’m coming along too.’
‘Where are we going?’
The old man raised a finger. ‘A-hah… now that’s a secret. The point of thisexercise will be to test Maddy and Sal’s ability to find out exactly where we’vegone, and what we might have changed.’
‘But…’ said Liam, looking confused, ‘but I thought we’re
Bob nodded slowly. ‘Changing history is bad.’
‘It’s what we call a test-bed location,’ Foster replied. ‘We use thislittle piece of history to test out new teams all the time. Don’t worry. We’ll bechanging something for a short period of time only, then putting things backexactly as they were.’
‘How long will you be gone?’ asked Sal. ‘Will it be dangerous?’
Foster smiled. ‘Not at all. And we’ll actually be in the past for a very shorttime. I’ve set the computer up to automatically open the return window, so all you twohave to do is watch history and work out where we’ve gone.’
Liam looked across the archway towards the large perspex cylinder full of water. ‘Andwe’re going to be climbing into that?’
‘Oh yes, I’m afraid so.’
Foster leaned forward and placed a hand on Liam’s shoulder. ‘Don’t worry,we’ll warm it up a bit. I’m not that keen on jumping into a test tube of freezingwater either.’
Liam removed the last items of his clothing, leaving him wearing a pair of grubbyunderpants he realized he’d been wearing for far too long.
‘You better not be peeking!’
He heard Maddy laugh from the other side of the archway where she was sitting at thebreakfast table. ‘What’s to see?’
‘Stop being an idiot, Liam, and get in!’ snapped Foster.
Liam quickly scampered up a rung ladder, swung his legs over the side of the tube and intothe water. He lowered himself down and found himself facing Bob and Foster, both treadingwater.
‘Well now, this is fun,’ he said sarcastically, holding on to the side of thecylinder nervously.
‘Why is this fun, Liam O’Connor?’ asked Bob earnestly.
Liam shrugged. ‘It’s not every day I climb into a large fish bowl with-’
‘Be quiet and listen,’ Foster interrupted. ‘I set the computer to send us back in time automatically. We won’t need Maddy to set anyco-ordinates this time, but normally she would be in charge of co-ordinating this wholeprocess.’
Liam nodded, glancing at her faint foggy form through the scuffed milky plastic of thecylinder. He wasn’t sure how confident he was going to feel being zapped through historythe first time she had her fingers on the buttons.
‘For this exercise neither of the girls know where we’re being sent. We’llbe there for no more than an hour, then the computer will automatically bring us back. I havedownloaded the relevant history data into the support unit’s hard drive.’
‘Into Bob’s brain?’
‘Yes… into Bob’s brain.’
Liam looked at the muscular giant treading water beside him. ‘How’d you get theinformation in?’
‘Wireless. It’s transmitted.’ Foster turned to look at the muscular giant.‘What time are we heading back to, Bob?’
‘Twenty-second of November 1963.’
‘And where?’
‘Dallas, Texas, America.’
‘Good. How much time left before the displacement field activates, Bob?’
‘Fifty-eight seconds until launch.’
‘All right, then,’ said Foster, ‘any questions?’
‘Mr Foster, why exactly are we in our underwear and floating in a pool ofwater?’
‘Contamination protocol. We take as little as we can back with us. That’s why.The water is a neutral buoyancy solution so that when the portal activates, we’re
‘I see.’
‘Twenty seconds until launch,’ said Bob.
‘When we count down from five, Liam, I want you to take a deep breath and submergeyourself completely,’
