Brooklyn across the Williamsburg Bridge, along Broadway tothe hub of the city teeming with endless life. There were so many things to observe in thisplace — so much going on. She honestly didn’t understand how she was supposed toremember every little detail here, how she was supposed to know exactly what should happen inthis thoroughfare from moment to moment at this time of day.
Her eyes scanned the major billboards. There was a giant display of a jolly green ogre andthe title
Then, with something that felt like a reassuring stroke of deja vu, Sal spotted theyoung mother in the red jeans pushing a buggy before her, across a pedestrian crossing.
A moment later she did, bending down irritably for it in the middle of the crossing andhanding it back to a pair of chubby hands reaching out desperately from the buggy’sseat.
That was a weird sensation.
She smiled.
‘Wow,’ she muttered, pleased with herself, ‘I just predicted thefuture.’
1963, Dallas,Texas
‘Up these stairs, one more flight to go,’ Foster wheezed.
Liam looked across the stairwell, through an open office door. He could see desks andbookshelves and filing cabinets left deserted. Crowded around every front window was a crushof office ladies in floral print dresses, sporting beehive hairdos, eagerly peering out.
‘What are we heading up these stairs for?’
Foster was too winded to answer. ‘Bob, would you…?’
The support unit nodded obediently. ‘Information: on the sixth floor of this buildingis a man called Lee Harvey Oswald. He will shoot at the thirty-fifth president of the UnitedStates of America in precisely one minute and twenty-seven seconds. Now, one minute andtwenty-six seconds…’
‘Uh… thanks, Bob,’ said Liam.
The thing managed a cumbersome approximation of a smile. ‘You are welcome, LiamO’Connor.’
As they reached the top of the stairs, Foster slowed down and put a finger to his lips. Hepointed through an open door into what appeared to be a storage room.
‘This is it,’ he whispered. ‘Through here, on the left, is a row of windowslooking down on to Dealey Plaza. Oswald, right now, has his gun resting on the sill of thesecond window along. In about thirty seconds — ’
‘Thirty-nine seconds, precisely,’ Bob cut in.
‘Bob, be quiet.’
Bob nodded meekly.
‘In about thirty seconds the president’s car will swing round a corner and intoview. The car will approach this building and when it’s virtually beneath him Oswaldwill fire the first shot as it passes. But this first shot,’ Fostercontinued quietly, ‘we’re actually going to prevent. Follow me.’
Foster walked through the door into the storeroom, Liam and Bob following cautiously. Theystepped between stacks of school textbooks, precariously piled on top of each other, coated ina fine layer of dust.
Liam glimpsed, between teetering piles, the hairy tuft of the top of a head framed by a tallwindow. He turned to Foster and Foster nodded.
They stepped across the floor quietly until they were standing over him.
‘Excuse me,’ said Foster.
Lee Harvey Oswald spun round. His eyes widened at the sight of three tramps calmly watchinghim. One huge and muscular, one looked very old and the third was little more than a boy.
His mouth flapped open.
The muscular man wrenched the rifle from his hands.
‘Lee Harvey Oswald,’ said the old man calmly, ‘you’d better startrunning. Run as fast as you can,’ he said, offering the slightest sympathetic smile.‘I suggest you head home.’
‘Who… who are you?’
Foster smiled. ‘Hmm, let’s see. Oh, I know,’ he said, grinning,‘we’re the CIA. Anyway… you’d better get going or my man here willtoss you out of the window head first.’
Oswald nodded uncertainly as he got to his feet, looking Bob up and down. He pushed past themand disappeared out of the storage room, casting one last frightened and puzzled glance atthem as he descended the first flight of stairs, three steps at a time.
‘Time violation,’ cautioned Bob flatly. ‘This timeline has now beenaltered.’
Liam shook his head. ‘But… but have we not just done the thingwe’re
Foster nodded. ‘Correct. As we speak, time is already shifting, rippling forwardthrough the years. The decades are adjusting themselves, making room for a new reality: thatPresident Kennedy survived today.’
The old man looked out of the window and watched the open-top limousine, escorted by a stringof motorbike cops, sweep sedately up the street towards an overpass… and a grassyhill.
CHAPTER 27
2001, New York
Sal was beginning to feel a little foolish now, standing at the intersection ofBroadway and West 44th Street watching the world go by. A sweet old woman had stopped onlymoments ago to ask whether she’d lost her mommy and daddy and needed to be taken to apoliceman.
She was about to head for somewhere a little less busy to stand, away from the steady flow ofpedestrians, when she felt it… a passing moment of dizziness, disorientation, as if theworld was a giant tablecloth and someone, somewhere, had just given the corner a very gentletug. She reached out for a litter bin to steady herself. Then, recovering her balance, hereyes registered something very subtly different about Times Square long before her braindid.
Her eyes flickered around the busy triangular convergence of streets, thick withMonday-morning traffic.
‘What is it?’ she whispered. ‘What is it?’
Then her shifting scrutiny rested on something that hadn’t been there before… anew thing. Above the entrance to the PrimeTime cinema the billboard that had been announcingthe arrival of
She watched a grainy image of several men in crumpled orange boiler suits holding clipboardsand chatting amicably within the cramped confines of some sort of capsule…
Subtitles ticker-taped on to the screen:
Sal noticed that few, if any, of the pedestrians on the pavement around her seemedparticularly interested in the broadcast, as if it was something commonplace — old newsfor them.
The image of the men manoeuvring awkwardly in the cramped interior changed to a picture of arust-coloured sphere floating against an ink-black backdrop. A new ticker-tape subtitleappeared:
+++
+++
‘Oh my,’ she gasped, and pulled the mobile phone out of her pocket.
