air against his face, a soft pump of air that sent several dampscraps of newspaper fluttering up the backstreet, and empty tin cans rolling noisily acrossthe ground.
Some grit in his face — Liam was blinking and rubbing it from his watering eye whenBob’s deep voice rumbled.
‘This is not good.’
Liam rubbed the grit out, wiped the tears off with the back of his hand and gazed down at thewindow: an undulating sphere of soft, pale-blue light. It was no bigger than a football,bobbing gently a couple of feet above the ground.
‘What the — ?’
‘They have insufficient power,’ said Bob.
‘That’s it? They can’t make it any bleedin’ bigger?’
‘They have insufficient power,’ said Bob again.
‘Oh no,’ cried Liam. ‘Oh Jeez, no, no, no… this can’t behappening!’
Bob turned to look at him. ‘Liam O’Connor, you
‘Quick? Doing what?’
Bob pulled a long knife from his belt. ‘Neither you nor I can go back, LiamO’Connor. But the
Bob pushed the knife into Liam’s shaking hands. ‘You must bevery quick,’ he said again, dropping heavily to his knees so that Liam could reach hishead.
‘I… I can’t,’ said Liam, the blade trembling erratically in hishands. ‘Bob… I can’t do this!’
‘I will not feel pain. Insert the blade between the top of my neck and the base of myskull, that is where the cranium casing is weakest, then press very hard — ’
Liam nodded. He stepped round behind Bob, and raised the blade until it was pointing towardsthe dark mop of hair at the back of his head.
‘You must do it now,’ insisted Bob.
‘I… I…’ Liam could feel his whole body shaking. His stomachtightening, lurching, getting ready to eject the last meal he’d eaten.
‘You must do it NOW.’
The small blue shimmering light hovering above the ground began to flicker and modulateuncontrollably. In the middle of the sphere, Liam thought he could just about make out theflickering, undulating form of someone… no,
Then it was gone.
And once again the backstreet was dark and quiet, save for the soft pattering of sleet aroundthem.
‘I’m sorry,’ mumbled Liam. ‘I’m sorry, Bob. I justcouldn’t do it.’
CHAPTER 70
2001, New York
Maddy and Sal stared at the space in the archway where a moment ago the very airhad been thrumming vibrantly, a pocket of space that shimmered like the heat veil above abarbecue or the hot tarmac of a sun-baked highway.
Foster had deactivated the time-displacement machine.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said. He leaned wearily against the computer desk, tiredand finally looking like someone with no more answers left to give. ‘I thought we hadenough of a charge to get Liam through. I was wrong.’
Sal looked up from where the small ball of hot air had shimmered three feet above the ground.It had bobbed and undulated for less than a minute, and she was almost certain that throughthe flickering haze she’d seen Liam’s and Bob’s faces staring back ather.
‘So, that’s it?’ she said quietly.
Foster nodded.
‘Hang on! We’ve still got some charge left,’ said Maddy, pointing at therow of little green lights on the machine. There were three green LEDs and an orange one; therest were now red.
‘Yes,’ he replied.
‘So… why couldn’t you have used that power to widen the window?’ sheasked, a sharp edge of desperation creeping into her voice.
He took a deep breath. ‘It was as wide as I could make it. There justwasn’t enough to work with. I’m sorry.’
‘Couldn’t we have…’ Maddy was looking for possibilities.‘Couldn’t we have kept the window open longer? Maybe we could have communicatedwith them somehow?’
‘We were just wasting energy, Madelaine. Just wasting it. It was obvious theycouldn’t come through.’
‘So you closed it off?’
He nodded. ‘At least we still have some charge left.’
She shook her head, a shrill, desperate laugh escaped her lips. ‘For what, Foster? Forwhat?’
He said nothing.
‘Maybe…’ cut in Sal, ‘maybe there’s enough diesel left in thegenerator to — ’
Maddy snorted. ‘To what? Charge it up again so we can open up another midget-sizedwindow?’
The muted chugging from the back room filled the long silence between them.
Foster finally nodded towards the small line of lights on the machine. ‘We have alittle stored power left. I suggest we should be thinking how best to save ourselves nowthat…’
‘Now that it’s too late to save history?’ said Maddy.
Foster’s smile was pinched and weak. ‘Yes. What power’s left will provideus with light for a while at least.’
‘And coffee,’ said Sal.
He laughed softly. ‘And coffee… until it runs out.’
Maddy looked up at the ceiling light. ‘And then eventually that will flickerout.’ She looked at the other two. ‘And then we’ll be like those things outthere… in the city, foraging in the dark for scraps.’
She immediately wished she hadn’t said that. They all realized they’d run out of options. It hadn’t needed spelling out quite so bluntly.
Sal slumped down on one of the armchairs around the breakfast table. ‘I guessthat’s it.’
‘I’m so sorry,’ replied Foster. ‘It does seem like that’sit.’
CHAPTER 71
1957, Washington DC
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.
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
