‘You’re right, no time to waste.’
He opened the door and climbed out, adjusting the black uniform and putting the cap on hishead, tugging the peak low to shadow as much of his boyish face as possible.
Bob joined him on the cobbled pavement strewn with rubbish from a kicked-over garbagepail.
Liam rapped his knuckles on the wooden door. He waited anxiously for aminute before rapping again on the wood. A moment later a small service hatch in the left-handdoor slid open and a ruddy-faced oriental man in a white apron peered out.
‘Yeah?’ he snapped irritably before registering the death’s-head insigniaand pitch-black uniforms.
Liam cleared his throat. ‘You will let us in immediately,’ he said, affecting aclipped officious tone.
‘Whuh?… Er… What — what wrong?’
‘We have reason to believe these premises are harbouring a criminal.’
The man’s eyes widened. ‘We not have bad man here!’
‘You will let us enter NOW or I shall have you all arrested.’
The man’s eyes widened still further. ‘I let you in. One moment.’
He slid the hatch closed and then a few seconds later they heard bolts slide and the woodendoor creaked open. The man waved them in.
‘You come in… see. No criminal here.’
Liam and Bob stepped inside and almost immediately felt a fug of warm moist air against theirfaces. The arch was dimly lit by several bulbs dangling from the arched ceiling.
‘You see… no bad man here!’ snapped the Chinese man.
Liam looked around the gloomy interior. There were about a dozen men and women standing overtubs of steaming water, stirring clothes with ladles, scrubbing them with bars of soap. Strungacross the archway were laundry lines from which clothing and bed linen hung to dry.
‘We laundry. Make super-clean for customer,’ the man explained.
‘You will tell your people to leave the building immediately,’ ordered Liam.
The Chinese man’s eyes narrowed. ‘Why you want us leave?’
Hmm. He hadn’t actually thought that far ahead. Liamhesitated a moment too long as he struggled to conjure up an answer.
The Chinese man squinted suspiciously. ‘You just boy… not real soldier pig. You steal uniform an’ try rob my laundry!’
Liam stared at him helplessly. ‘Er…’ was all he could manage.
The man continued to glare at him. ‘This is trick. Youleave now!’
Bob stepped in to help Liam out. He reached for the gun in his holster, wrenched it out andaimed it at the man’s forehead in one fast and fluid motion.
‘This is not a trick.’
The man’s suspicious expression was instantly wiped away and replaced with wide-eyedfear as he stared down the barrel of the pistol.
‘You will instruct the personnel here to leave these premises immediately or you willbe terminated!’ Bob’s deep voice thundered.
The man swallowed nervously, then, eyes still anxiously locked on the hand gun, he shoutedout in Cantonese over his shoulder at the others. Through the gaps in the hanging laundry Liamcould see fear on their faces as they spotted the gun levelled squarely at their boss. Quicklythey dropped their bars of soap and their stirring ladles, and filed out, ducking under thelaundry lines and heading for the open door.
They disappeared outside and a moment later the wooden door swung shut, leaving Liam and Bobin the faint, familiar gloom of their arch.
Bob once more consulted his internal clock. ‘Seven minutes and twenty-nine secondsuntil our specified window.’
‘And how long have we got until your brain explodes?’
Eyes fluttered. ‘Sixty-four minutes and three seconds.’
Liam pushed his way past a damp bed sheet and found a stool on which to sit down. ‘Soif this fails, if there’s no window, you and I will have less than an hour lefttogether?’
‘Affirmative.’
‘I guess that’s enough time to say our goodbyes.’
Bob cocked his head, curious. ‘You will be sad?’
‘Sad? That you’re going to be left a vegetable? Of course I flippin’ will!I mean… after all this time you’ve just about worked out how to appear less like acomplete idiot, and more like a human. It’d be a waste, to be sure.’ He sighed andshook his head. ‘Hang on. What am I saying? I guess maybe it’s the humans that arethe idiots.’
Bob shrugged, not entirely understanding what Liam was muttering on about.
Liam laughed at that. Such a human gesture.
‘Six minutes.’
CHAPTER 82
2001, New York
The generator was still chugging when they got back. Foster slapped the vibratingand warm cylinder head, relieved. He’d been half expecting to find it still and silenton their return, having either become clogged up and choked to death on dodgy diesel, or thefuel tank having run dry.
He emerged from the back room to check the time machine’s charge display. They werenearly there. Two LEDs were still red. He guessed the machine had to be powered-up enough totry opening a window in about twenty minutes.
He booted up the computer system, waiting for it to finish its start-up routine properlybefore opening the geo-positioning interface software and tapping in the co-ordinates thatwere scribbled in faded ink on the yellowed page before him. He whispered a prayer that Liamhad written down the numbers correctly.
The screen zeroed in on a portion of a map of New York.
‘Oh… good lad!’ he gasped over the noisy chug coming through the open doorof the back room. ‘There’s a smart lad!’
Maddy looked up, slumped in one of the armchairs around the communal table. Her voice soundedtired and small and defeated. ‘What… what is it, Foster?’
‘Right here!’ said Foster. ‘They’re right here! Right inside thearchway! The co-ordinates… they’re saving us as much power asthey can. Opening the window right here — that might just conserve enough power for usto bring them both back!’
She smiled weakly.
He got up out of his seat to join Maddy at the table. On his way over he pulled the door tothe back room shut, reducing the deafening rattling chug of the generator, clearly strugglingon the last dregs of fuel, to a muted background rumble.
He sat down heavily in an armchair beside her. ‘It’s almost over,Madelaine.’
‘It’s over for Sal,’ she replied.
‘Not necessarily.’
She looked up at him. ‘How do you mean?’
He rubbed his face tiredly. ‘Time travel is very muddy stuff… It’s anunpredictable science. If Liam and Bob can go back and fix things second time round, then,it’s possible… just possible, that the corrective waveof time realigning, shifting everything back to normality, might also return Sal tous.’
She sat up. ‘Do you think so?’
‘It’s possible… just that.’
She grasped his hand. ‘Poor Sal.’ Tears cleaned fresh tracks down hergrime-covered cheeks. ‘I can’t bear to think what… what — ’
‘Then don’t think about it. If she comes back tous… IF… she comes back to us, those things that happened to her, well… theywon’t have happened. She’ll have absolutely no memory of what’s been goingon here these last few days, she’ll — ’
‘Foster.’
He stopped talking. Maddy’s head was cocked, her eyes narrowed, squinting as shelistened to something. ‘Did you hear that?’
‘Hear what?’
‘I thought I heard…’
Then he heard it himself — something moving in the backstreetoutside. The skittering of a loose chunk of rubble kicked carelessly across the ash anddust-covered cobblestones. The light brush of something againstthe corrugated-iron shutter door. Then tapping.
Their eyes met and both knew what it meant.
‘They’ve found us, haven’t they?’ whispered Maddy.
‘I think so.’
The tapping on the shutter door suddenly became a frustrated bang. Maddy jerked in her seatand whimpered.