The troops, on the other hand, the poor wretches cowering in their bunkers right now and hoping today’s bombing raid wasn’t going to drift further south, were all local boys. Lads from Michigan, Pennsylvania, New York State, Ohio. Sons of soldiers, grandsons of soldiers who’d held the line here for the Union for the last hundred and thirty-odd years.
He laughed dryly at that. Once upon a time it was the Union of Northern American States. But not any more. The ‘Union’ by name, perhaps, but no longer run by American generals and presidents.
He sighed. Long ago he’d given up trying to explain to the lads under his command that the French and their other European allies weren’t over here bank-rolling this war for them, for their dream of a united nation of free men. They were doing it for all their own reasons. Political reasons, complicated reasons, that were hard to explain to young men who could barely read and write.
Anyway, careless talk like that about their French benefactors could end up with him smoking one of these Gitanes in front of a hastily assembled firing squad.
Ah well, do your duty, come what may. Fais ce que dois, advienne que pourra.
On the wall of his small bunker room, damp concrete sweated in patches. Among the patches hung an old sepia photograph in a wooden frame. A collector’s item now.
Devereau stood in front of it and studied the row of generals in camp chairs smiling for the photographer as they held their ceremonial sabres to one side. Generals from the old, old times, the very first period of the civil war. Generals, all of them proud sons of America: Meade, Sherman, Grant, Hancock, thick whiskers and proud smiles beneath their soft felt hats.
A soldier could fight and die for men like that. For a cause like that … a united America. For freedom. He shook his head sadly. But not for this, not for what this stale war had become: generation after generation of American boys dying on one side for the French …
The room vibrated from the sonic boom of far-off ordnance.
… and on the other side for the British.
CHAPTER 28. 2001, Quantico, Virginia
The inside of the derelict barn smelled of compost, the afternoon light spearing in between the loose wooden slats and catching sluggish airborne motes of dust.
‘Here this’ll do us for now,’ said Liam, catching his breath.
Lincoln sat down on a desiccated bale of hay. ‘Young lady,’ he began, still out of breath himself, ‘and gentlemen … we meet again, third time to my counting.’ He frowned. ‘Liam. Liam O’Connor? If memory serves me?’
‘Aye.’
‘Please now … please tell me my timely escape from that under-bridge dungeon of yours is not the cause of all this … this alteration?’
Liam laughed desperately. ‘I’m afraid that … and your untimely jumping into our window home from New Orleans, Mr Lincoln. That’s what’s caused this, all right. A bit reckless and … not too clever of you, truth be told.’
‘You have become a timeline anachronism,’ rumbled Bob. ‘Until you are safely returned to your original time-stamp, history will remain contaminated and this timeline will persist.’
Sal handed him a worn smile. ‘You’ve been a very naughty boy.’
‘So it would seem.’ Lincoln looked down at his feet, sombre. ‘I believe I owe you all an apology.’
Liam, getting warm inside the barn, unzipped and took off his jacket, one of a bunch of hooded sweatshirts branded with various sports team names splayed across them that Sal had purchased for him from Walmart some time ago. He wore them without knowing — without particularly caring — who the Yankees, Redsocks or the Bulls were.
‘Bob, what do you suggest we do now?’
‘Recommendation: we should remain here for the moment, Liam, and await a tachyon signal. They know our location. Madelaine will attempt to open a return window for us.’
‘If she can,’ said Liam.
Bob nodded. ‘Correct. If she can.’
Lincoln looked up. ‘Your time-travelling machinery is broken?’
‘The displacement machine requires a lot of power, so it does. We draw it in from the city’s supply … a lot of it,’ Liam said, unfastening the buttons of his waistcoat. ‘If New York has changed and we’re not getting any energy, then we have a bit of a problem.’
‘We have a generator, though,’ said Sal.
‘Aye. For what good the thing does.’
‘Maddy’ll be running it by now,’ she replied. ‘It just takes a little while to charge up the machine.’
‘This is only a positional translation,’ said Bob, ‘the energy requirement for the return portal will be small. I estimate only three per cent of capacity charge would be required.’
Sal peered out between the wooden slats. ‘There then … shouldn’t be too long for us to wait.’
‘What if this “portal” of yours … does not appear?’ asked Lincoln. ‘What then? Are we stuck in this place?’
‘Jahulla.’ Sal made a face. ‘Are you always this pessimistic?’
He shrugged. ‘No woodsman ever felled a tree by smiling like a fool at it.’
Liam pursed his lips. ‘Very poetic.’ He joined Sal in looking out at the distant farm-cum-refinery and the fleet of smoke-belching tractors and combines buzzing around in the field. The first of the vehicles was returning up the ramp and into the cavernous dark entrance of some sort of delivery bay with a payload of harvested crop. It reminded him, bizarrely, of termites feeding their queen. He shuddered at the unpleasant comparison.
‘If Maddy’s got technical problems her end …’ he began.
Jay-zus, now, when does she ever not?
‘… then I suppose we’ll not be getting a portal back home,’ said Liam.
‘Hang on!’ said Sal. ‘It’s worth a go, I guess.’ She pulled the mobile phone out of the pouch of her hoody, flipped it open, selected Maddy’s phone on quick dial and held it up to her ear. A moment later, she shook her head. ‘No signal.’
Liam looked back outside, up at the sky, blue and cloudless, just like the normal 11 September had been. The sun had dipped past midday an hour ago and glinted with a bronze warmth off the hull of the airborne vessel hovering several miles away and yet still looking impossibly large.
‘If there’s nothing from Maddy by the time it gets dark, it means she’s got problems. No power most likely.’ He shucked his shoulders. ‘Which means we’ve got good news and bad news.’
Sal turned to look at him. ‘Bad news first, Liam. You should always do bad news first.’
‘All right … bad news is it means we’re walking home. The good news is that if Maddy’s got no power, the archway field won’t be on, which means it won’t reset without us.’ He looked at Bob. ‘I suggest tonight we start making our way north-east, back to New York. What do you think?’
‘Affirmative. That is a valid plan. If we maintain a direct true-line route back to New York, I will be able to detect any narrow-beam tachyon signal she might attempt to send.’
‘Tonight? Night, sir?’ said Lincoln. ‘Night? Why on earth would you want to choose the night to walk home? It’s when all manner of scoundrels and thieves emerge for their nefarious purposes.’