The support units exchanged a cursory glance.
Perfect.
Abel led the way towards the nearest of the two policemen.
The policeman noticed Abel’s strident steps approaching him. ‘Sir, you need to step back!’
Abel drew up a few steps short of the cop. ‘Why?’
‘We’re keeping this access-way across the river clear for emergency vehicles.’ He waved his hands at Abel. ‘Please step back now, sir. There will be more fire trucks and heavy vehicles passing through at any time.’
‘Please give me the ignition key to your car.’
The cop ignored him. ‘Just step back off the road, sir.’
Abel reached out and grabbed one of the cop’s fingers and twisted sharply with a flick of his wrist. ‘Please give me the ignition key to your car.’
‘Hey! Ow! Hey!’ His other hand — clearly not his gun hand — fumbled around his ample waist to find the leather flap of his holster.
‘I will break your finger,’ said Abel politely. ‘This is a warning. Please comply to avoid further discomfort.’
The cop lifted the flap and grabbed hold of the gun’s grip. He pulled the weapon out and levelled it at Abel’s face. ‘Let go! Now! Let go and get down on the ground!’
Abel snatched the gun out of his hand as calmly as a toad lassoing a passing mosquito with its tongue.
‘Jesus!’ The cop’s jaw dropped open.
The other cop challenged Abel from across the street. ‘Drop that weapon! Now! ’
‘I require the ignition key to your vehicle,’ said Abel calmly. ‘Please provide this.’
‘Drop the weapon now or you will be fired upon!’ the other cop barked, a gun levelled at Abel, taking slow steps towards him. His voice was shrill. High-pitched. Warbling with fear.
Abel swung the gun in his hand quickly. A microsecond to aim, then three shots fired in rapid succession. The first shot killed the approaching cop, the other two were unnecessary. Faith immediately paced over towards his prone body ready to frisk his pockets and belt pouches.
‘Hey… p-please! Don’t sh-shoot, man!’ the other cop pleaded, his hand and finger still twisted in Abel’s firm grasp.
‘Do you have the vehicle ignition key?’
‘It’s in the c-car, man!’ He grimaced in agony. ‘It’s in the car!’
Abel shot a Bluetooth instruction to Faith and she changed direction towards the squad car.
‘You will not discuss this intervention with anyone,’ said Abel.
‘Whuh?’ Then the cop understood and nodded vigorously. ‘No! OK! Sure… I… I won’t d-discuss this. I promise.’
‘Your promise is not required,’ said Abel. Then he calmly shot the second cop dead.
He noted the pedestrians nearby staring at him. Frozen with shock. It would take too much valuable time to pursue them all and kill them. He decided so many eyewitnesses were an unfortunate collateral contamination, but nothing that could be helped.
The squad car rattled to life as Faith settled into the driver’s seat. Its siren squawked for a second before it was turned off. Abel made his way over, pulled the passenger side open and got in beside Faith. The car rocked under his weight.
‘Boston,’ she said.
He nodded. ‘Please proceed.’
Chapter 10
11 September 2001, Interstate 95, south-west Connecticut
Liam had watched as the Bronx became a suburban carpet of gradually more expensive homes interspersed with out-of-town superstores fronted by acres of car park as the RV crawled north-east along Interstate 278, then along 95. It was slow progress for the day, bumper to bumper past slip-road after slip-road; police blockades and random vehicle searches had reduced the traffic to a crawl. They’d stopped once for petrol at lunchtime then finally hit some clear road beyond New Rochelle.
‘It’s all new to me too,’ said Foster quietly. ‘All I’ve ever seen of this world is New York.’
Liam nodded. ‘You never been tempted to take yourself off and have a look around?’
Foster looked at him. ‘Have you?’
‘I’ve not had any time. Feels like we’ve been dealing with one problem after another since you pulled me off the Titanic.’
He realized, though, that the old man’s question was an invitation for him to talk about what they now both knew but had yet to talk to each other about.
‘She told me,’ said Liam. ‘Maddy told me you’re… me.’ He shook his head. ‘Or I’m you, or however I’m meant to say it.’
‘I’m how you’ll become, Liam. We’re the same person on either end of a number of years, lad.’
‘That’s what I can’t get me head straight about, Mr Foster. It’s…’ He paused. ‘Or do I call you Liam now?’
‘Just Foster,’ he answered with a smile. ‘I’ve been used to that name for some time now.’
‘So…’ Liam looked out of the scuffed perspex window at a Greyhound bus, its windscreen striped with the reflected glow of street lights passing overhead.
‘Do you remember all the same things as me?’
‘Up to a point.’
‘Cork? St Michael’s School for Boys?’
Foster nodded.
‘Sean McGuire and that stupid party trick of his with the three apples?’
The old man grinned. ‘He was never very good at it, was he?’
They both laughed. Liam felt odd. Memories, personal memories that he hadn’t shared with anyone, and yet this man knew them as intimately as he did. It was like talking to himself. Yet hearing a wizened, croaky version of his own voice coming back at him.
‘You remember getting the steward’s job with the White Star Line?’
‘Yes,’ Foster replied. ‘We got the job only because that other Irish lad was caught drinking on duty before the ship set sail. Remember his name? Oliver, wasn’t it?’
‘Aye.’ Liam smiled. ‘Stupid fella didn’t realize he was breathin’ his fumes all over the Chief Steward.’
The RV halted in traffic, causing everyone inside to lurch gently as Bob applied the brakes a little too keenly. A plastic bag full of unlaundered underwear slid off a seat into the cluttered aisle.
‘So you remember that night as well?’
Foster closed his eyes. ‘The night the Titanic went down? Of course I do. How does anyone ever forget something like that? I think what stays with me, Liam, what has stayed with me, was the calm before all the screaming. When everyone was certain there’d be lifeboats for all; that it wouldn’t come down to the type of ticket you’d bought.’
‘Aye.’
‘It came suddenly, so it did. The panic. You remember that?’
Liam nodded. It had. One moment there’d been order and calm across the promenade deck, even the calming sound of a string quartet playing. People talking excitedly about how this was going to be the news story of the day tomorrow; how their eyewitness accounts — from the comfort of their bobbing lifeboats — of the Unsinkable Ship slowly, gracefully surrendering to the sea would be in every newspaper around the world. No panic. Not yet.
And then word had spread among them like wildfire. Chinese whispers. Not enough lifeboats for everyone. Not nearly enough.
Then the panic. The horrible panic.
A thought occurred to Liam. ‘So, Foster… were you recruited just like me? The same way?’
He could see a glint of light reflected in Foster’s eyes. The glare of passing headlights on his drawn face. ‘Yes. Yes, of course. I was down checking on the second-class cabins.’
‘And you were young, like me?’
‘A bit younger than you are now, Liam.’
Of course. Liam knew that. Felt that now. No longer a young lad of sixteen, but subtly older in a million barely noticeable little ways. A man, prematurely.
‘And was it an older version of you… that recruited you?’
Foster hesitated. ‘Yes.’
‘But does that mean I’m in some kind of a loop that goes on and on? That I’ll get old like you, change my name to Foster, and then one day send myself back to 1912 to pick up another me? Is that it?’