She remembered…
Maddy jerked herself out of her drowsy wool-gathering.
‘Oh my God!’ she whispered.
The generator was still chugging away in the background. She climbed offher bunk and looked around the archway. Sal was sitting at the long desk listlessly staring atthe turned-off monitors.
‘Where’s Foster?’
Sal gestured towards the sliding corrugated door leading to the back room. ‘In the backfiddling with the generator, I think.’
Maddy paced across the floor, slid the door to one side and stepped into the smelly darkness.‘Foster!’
Torchlight flickered towards her, and over the noisy chug of the generator she heard him makehis way over. ‘What’s up?’
‘Foster, I think… I think there’s a way Liam can communicate withus.’
‘Sorry. What’s that you say?’ he replied, cupping his ear.‘It’s noisy,’ he barked, ‘let’s step out.’
They emerged from the back room and he slid the door shut. The noisy percussive rattle of thesickly-sounding generator was once more a background thud.
‘What were you saying?’
‘Liam… I think there’s a way Liam could try to contact us.’
Foster shook his head. ‘You know Bob can’t return atachyon beam transmiss-’
‘Yes, I know that,’ she cut in impatiently. ‘Listen… the museum. TheMuseum of Natural History…’
‘What about it?’
‘When you took us there, Liam and I were looking at the visitors’ guest book. Wewere having a laugh at some of the comments.’
Foster shrugged. ‘And?’
‘Anyway… the museum has kept a guest book in the entrance foyer since the museumfirst opened. They have an archive of them that they kept in the basement. They’ve keptthat archive since, like, the 1800s, I think.’
Foster’s eyes suddenly widened. ‘Yes!’
‘If we go there — ?’
The old man nodded. ‘They might still be down there!’ The hope on his face madehim seem much younger. But only for a fleeting moment. Almost as quickly as it arrived, thehope faded away.
‘But Liam doesn’t know all this.’
Maddy grinned. ‘But he does! The security guard there told me. Liam was standing rightbeside me at the time. He was telling us both! And if I remembered…?’
Foster’s lined face rumpled with a wide lopsided grin. ‘Then Liam wouldtoo.’
‘That’s what I figured.’
Foster nodded. ‘Yes… yes, he would. He’s a smart lad.’
‘So,’ she continued, ‘if he made his way to New York and visited the museumin 1957, it’s possible he could have left a message for us in there.’
Foster nodded. ‘And that message could give an exact time and location for us to open areturn window for them.’
‘Closer to home? Maybe in New York? Would we have enough of a charge left to dothat?’
Foster glanced at the blinking LEDs. Another red light had turned back to green.‘Generator isn’t going to last much longer, by the sounds it’s making. Thefuel tank’s virtually on empty. We need it to get the charge meter up to ten greenlights, at a guess.’
‘But if it can?’
Foster chewed his lip, deep in thought for a moment. ‘If we open a window close enoughto home… and even then, only for a few seconds. We’d need an exact time… I mean exact.’ His eyes methers. ‘Then… yes, we could make a window big enough for Liam. Possibly even forBob.’
‘Then — ’ she chewed a fingernail nervously — ‘then we have to go see, don’t we? We have to go check out the museum?’
Foster took a deep breath. ‘I don’t think we have any other choice.’
Maddy felt her arms and legs trembling. Oh God. Why did I have to openmy mouth and suggest this? The thought of stepping outside again terrified her. Butthe prospect of being stuck in this nightmare forever scared her infinitely more.
Foster turned to Sal. ‘Maybe you should stay here, Sal. Madelaine and I won’t begone long. We — ’
She shook her head. ‘No… I’m coming with you.’ She stood up, suckedin a deep breath, steadying her own nerves. ‘We’re a team, right? The three ofus… TimeRiders.’
Foster’s grin was infectious — both girls suddenly found themselves sharing it.‘The best, Sal,’ said Foster. ‘The very best.’
Sal shoved the office chair beneath the desk and zipped up her hoodie. ‘Then what thejahulla are we waiting for?’
Maddy nodded. ‘Atta girl.’
‘What the jahulla are we waiting for, indeed,’replied Foster. ‘I’ll get the shotgun.’
CHAPTER 73
1957, New York
Liam gazed out of the window at the streets of New York, crowded with brown andgrey stone skyscrapers so tall he had to scrunch down in his seat to look up to catch the verytops of them.
Some buildings he remembered seeing before when Foster had taken them through Manhattan: theEmpire State Building — Foster said a movie called King Kongwas made that featured the building and an eighty-foot gorilla swinging from the top of it.Liam suspected the old man was joking with him. The idea sounded too daft to be made into areal movie.
He noticed Kramer’s influence was already stamped across the streets of the city. Largebillboards seemed to hang on every street with the man’s face smiling benignly down uponthem. Messages such as ‘We are here to unite the world in peace’, ‘Unity isProgress’, ‘I promise you a thousand years without war’ were stamped beneathhim.
Liam could see troops on the street, checkpoints at some of the busier intersections,soldiers stopping pedestrians and inspecting identification papers. Above the tall buildingseither side of them, hoverjets patrolled the sky. And hanging motionless above the HudsonRiver he could see another one of those colossal grey command saucers — a clear reminderto everyone that the war was over, Kramer’s forces had won and that continued resistancewas… well, futile.
The uniform Liam was wearing was uncomfortable — the stiff collarmade his neck itch. Bob wore a similar uniform — SS. Black with silver buttons andepaulettes, an eagle on the left breast pocket and a red armband on the left arm featuring thelooped serpent.
Bob had managed to stop a German army automobile, a VW Kubelwagen, earlier this morningas it cruised down a quiet suburban road in Queens. The officers were both easily dispensedwith by a quick edge-of-the-hand chop to the neck. The attack — Bob’s suggestion- had been a calculated risk. Some civilians on the road had witnessed it, but hurriedalong on their way rather than remain at the scene and risk being questioned. Somebody mightcall it in. It was possible. Either way, the bodies were going to be found sooner orlater.
Liam craned his neck to look up at the patrolling Messerschmitt hoverjets and wondered if thealarm had yet been raised to be on the lookout for the stolen vehicle.
Maybe. So far at least, the risk had paid off well. The uniforms and the vehicle had ensuredthey’d only been stopped at one checkpoint, and even then Bob’s fluent German hadgot them through without a problem as the young soldier eyed the death’s-head insigniaon their collars and dutifully waved them on.
Up ahead, Liam recognized the grand front of the museum. It looked no different from the lasttime he’d seen it, except, of course, for the fluttering crimson pennants dangling fromtwin flagpoles above the main entrance. He could see a lot of activity out front: workmengoing in and coming out of the building laden with boxes and crates.
‘What do you think’s going on there?’
Bob looked. ‘I do not know.’
Liam leaned forward, squinting as the Kubelwagen slowly edged up the busy street throughseveral traffic lights. ‘Looks like they’re emptying the place.’