He let go of the side with one hand and quickly waved. ‘I’ll be all right there,Sal. Don’t you worry about me now.’
The lights in the arch dimmed and flickered as power diverted to the tube.
‘Forty seconds to go until launch!’ announced Maddy.
‘Remember, Liam,’ shouted Foster as the hum grew more intense,‘you’re just going for a look … Don’t getinvolved in anything.’
‘Right you are!’ cried Liam, his voice rattling nervously.
‘Thirty seconds, fellas!’
Liam’s legs kicked in the water, sending cascades of bubbles up the tube. The hum ofthe generator increased in volume and pitch.
‘Twenty seconds!’ Maddy called out, her voice almost lost in the deafening whirof charging-up machinery.
‘OK, Liam,’ shouted Foster, ‘time to let go and go under!’
Liam nodded, sucking in one deep breath after another.
‘Fifteen seconds!’
‘Come on, lad… you’ve got to let go!’
Liam nodded, still sucking and blowing air, hyperventilating, his legs thrashing in the waterbeneath him.
‘Ten seconds!’
‘Come on, Liam, you’ve got to let go now!’
Taking one last gasp of air, he did so, quickly sinking under the water. Through the scuffedand foggy plastic, Foster, Maddy and Sal watched him flail in panic as he sank slowly to thebottom. Bob ducked down effortlessly beside him… and touchingly — so Sal thought- reached out and held Liam’s hand.
It seemed to calm him, just a little.
‘Three… two… one…’
With a pop the water and both occupants vanished.
CHAPTER 35
1956, Washington DC
They landed amid a small copse of mature cedar trees with a heavy, wet splash.
‘Arghh!’ yelped Liam. ‘I hate that goldfish-bowl thing!’
‘Information: the device is called a displacement cylinder,’ said Bob, crouchingbeside him, already alert and assessing their surroundings.
Liam picked himself up and squatted beside the support unit amid the foliage. Beyond thelow-hanging branches, out on the well-trimmed acre of lawn in front of the White House, hecould see soldiers gathering.
‘Who are they?’
Bob’s eyes slowly panned across the scene in front of them. ‘The insignia anduniforms indicate that they are a mixture of American marines, rangers and airborne,’ hereplied. ‘Recommendation: we must have clothes.’
‘Yes, clothes would be really nice.’
Bob stood up and announced, ‘I shall acquire clothes,’ before disappearingthrough the trees and foliage.
Liam continued watching the soldiers. They looked like they had already seen some fighting;many were wounded, some being dragged by their colleagues. All of them looked exhausted andbattle-shocked; their grimy faces had defeat written across them.
He noticed a large olive-green vehicle with tracks instead of wheels, and aturret with what appeared to be a long, slender barrel protruding from it. It lurched acrossthe grass amid a plume of dark smoke. It looked dented and scorched as if it too had seen someaction. The vehicle reversed across the lawn, kicking up divots of soil and leaving deeptracks in its wake, backing up against a large white building — the White House.
To his untrained eye this looked very much like the ragged assemblage of some kind of a laststand around the building — perhaps it was all that was left of the United Statesarmy.
‘Blimey,’ he muttered.
He heard a deep rumble coming from above and glanced up through the leafy branches. The skywas overcast, thick with grey low-hanging clouds that promised an imminent downpour. Therumbling was deep, so powerful he could feel it vibrate against his chest. It was coming fromsomewhere above the clouds.
The American soldiers, like him, were watching the sky anxiously — all eyes trainedupwards, waiting for something to appear.
Liam craned his neck to get a better view.
What’s up there?
Behind him he heard a heavy footfall and turned to see Bob holding out clothes and boots.‘The owner of these clothes is dead,’ he explained without any trace of emotion.‘He will not be needing them.’
Liam took them and looked at the damp stains of blood. ‘You didn’t kill someoneto get these clothes for me, did you?’
Bob shook his head. ‘No killing was required.’
Liam grimaced at the thought of stepping into another man’s clothes. On the other hand,standing undressed in the middle of a war zone struck him as the worse alternative. He pulledthem on as quickly as he could.
‘It looks like those soldiers are setting themselves up for alast-ditch defence.’
‘Correct,’ said Bob, his eyes smoothly scanning across the lawn.
‘And I guess whatever’s coming — ’ Liam looked up again at thedarkening sky from where that deep rumble was issuing — ‘is coming from right upthere.’
‘Possibly an airborne weapon system.’ Bob’s eyes flickered shut. ‘Ihave data files on the advanced aeroplane prototypes that were being developed by the Germansat the end of the Second World War.’
‘They actually used aeroplanes during the… the SecondWorld War?’
‘Affirmative.’
The rumbling grew even louder and Liam found himself having to shout to be heard. ‘Bigones?’
‘Jet propulsion, delta-wing designs, VTOL systems,’ replied Bob, raising hisflat-toned voice to compete with the deafening drone from above.
‘Well, that means nothing to me,’ shouted Liam. ‘What the hell arethose?’
Bob cocked his head for a moment. ‘I am able to provide detailed schematic blueprintsif I can locate a drawing implement — ’
Suddenly, the tumbling dark clouds above them momentarily spread thin enough for Liam to seewhat was approaching.
‘Bob! You see that?’
Above them, descending through the clouds, was a giant dull-grey disc-shaped vessel, easily aquarter of a mile in diameter. It almost seemed to fill the sky above the White House as itslowly pushed its way down through the billowing clouds. He could now make out dozens ofspinning rotors slung beneath the craft, giant propeller blades whisking theair beneath the belly of the enormous disc, projecting a powerful downdraught that set thecedar trees around them rustling and swaying.
Liam noticed the emblem he’d seen earlier on Maddy’s screens, stencilled across ahundred feet of the vehicle’s immense hull.
‘What the hell is that thing?’ he yelled.
‘Information: it appears to be a circular dirigible,’ replied Bob. He seemed torecognize the bemused and panicked shrug returned by Liam as an indication that hehadn’t a clue what one of those was. ‘It is a disc-shaped airship — areinforced aluminium hull containing many large cells filled with buoyancy gas.’
Some of the marines on the lawn, frozen into a motionless stupor by the sight, raised theirfirearms and began to shoot pointlessly at it.
A black square slowly appeared in the dark underbelly of the craft, then another, andanother.
‘Er… now that’s not good, is it?’ cried Liam.
Bob nodded in agreement. ‘Is not good.’
Liam saw something dark emerging from the squares, dots that quickly grew in size as a showerof somethings rapidly appeared to be descending towards them.
A canister the size of a Thermos flask thudded into the grass thirty yards from them among agroup of haggard-looking marines. The marines backed away from it as it started to spew out ayellow smoke. Several more canisters landed heavily and started billowing smoke across thelawn.
‘Tactical smokescreen,’ offered Bob.
The air was soon thick with a mustard-coloured mist. Through it Liam could just about makeout the nearby silhouettes of the American soldiers on the lawn, drawing fearfully back acrossthe clipped grass towards the steps and the grand portico at the front of the White House.