FORTY-EIGHT
The first thing I notice is that I’m not being shredded in a hailstorm of steel and lead. The second thing is a camp of white tents, campfires and the twilit silhouettes of men that extend as far as the eye can see. This is the wrong place. Where the hell am I? I turn to see a group of men clustered around the closest campfire and looking directly at me. I drop my gun and tell Zhivov to do the same thing, although I’m not a hundred percent sure he’s still behind me.
“Did you see that?” one of the men says, as they get to their feet. They’re holding rifles although they’re not in any kind of uniform. Once more, I’m at the wrong end of several gun barrels.
“Don’t want any trouble,” I say because that’s all I can think of, as if I’m dealing with a mugger and not a thousand-strong army. I’m sure that my not wanting any trouble is coming as a great relief to them.
“It’s all good,” I hear Zhivov say. They just came out of nothing. What you mean? Just then. You harecop. Magicked from thin air. They did. Get the lieutenant. You get ‘im. As my eyes adapt to the dark I see that we’ve landed exactly where we had meant to. The mansion is at the center of the vast landscape of tents and the barn is behind us.
“What’s happening?” Zhivov asks me.
“This is one hell of any army,” I say. The two men who approach us are unmistakably soldiers, probably officers. They’re wearing the blue jackets of the Continental Army with yellow breeches and black boots. They look us over and someone hands them one of our weapons.
“They were carrying these?”
“Yes, they’re ours,” I reply before anyone else has the chance, “but we put them down. We’re not your enemies.” The officer turns to his colleague.
“These are the swift guns,” he says. He looks back at us. “Where are you from?” He called them swift guns. He’s seen them before.
“We’re from ...” Where are we from? “We’re Americans.”
“We’re patriots,” Zhivov says.
“Are you?” the officer asks with what seems like a hint of sarcasm, although I wouldn’t know how to make that call any more. He whispers something to the other officer. “Come,” he says and walks off. The other officer gives me a shove to follow.
The Leatown garrison must have been taken. There couldn’t have been forty or fifty British troops there, and even if they had had the ‘swift guns’, which I’m not sure Asmus would have let happen so close to home, I doubt that they could have fended off an army of this size. I look toward to the barn but it’s just a shadow against dark. I’m pushed to keep walking.
“Not in the plan,” I hear Zhivov say behind me, followed by invective after the shove it earned him.
We’re in the entrance hall with the grand staircase in front of us. There must be a dozen soldiers here alone. I notice that the weapons are purely eighteenth century and that these soldiers, unlike Asmus’s slobs, are standing still, straight and alert. I scan the space. I could see Gallie at any moment, I tell myself, but then fear bubbles up. How did this army take Leatown? Was it violent, a battle? Was Gallie hurt, or worse? Is she even here? Prasad had confirmed that this is where she’d arrived after being taken. But Asmus is a madman. He could have since flung her a thousand years back to die. Or just killed her on arrival.
We’re told to wait and one of the officers enters what I know to be the drawing room. Zhivov and I are facing each other. I realize we’re still wearing the wrist accelerators. This could be our escape. If it is, we better decide fast because in that drawing room there may be someone who knows what these things can do. But if we accelerate, then what? We get nowhere. No, we need to see this through. Gallie could be in that room. If she is I could lunge for her and accelerate us both. The programming is already in place and a touch of the ‘Activate’ key will take us to where we need to be. I notice Zhivov is looking alternately at me and my accelerator. He’s having a similar thought. I nod. But it then occurs to me that he may be thinking something different entirely–that we should pop off right now. Then the drawing room door opens and the officer beckons us. I take a deep, slow breath to settle my shaking.
Gallie is there, seated. I exhale. I look at Zhivov who glances back at me before returning his attention to Gallie. A smile flicks across her face. In front of us is a soldier, clearly of high rank. He’s wearing a coat of blue with gold epaulettes and trim, and his hand is resting on the grip of his sword. On each side of him but a step back are two other senior-looking officers. I scan the room to see half a dozen soldiers standing to attention, eyes forward. And there’s one more figure. It’s Kasper Asmus. He’s grinning as someone approaches us from behind and rips our accelerators from us.
The general looks us over without expression. “And who are you?” he asks. The accent is unusual and I can’t place it. Not American.
