‘Sheesh … and God knows how long that’s going to last.’
CHAPTER 23. 2001, New York
Half an hour later Bob, Liam and Sal stood in the middle of the archway’s floor, just outside a faint hand-drawn circle of chalk, four foot in diameter. Within the circle the concrete floor was gone, or, more accurately, scooped out, leaving a shallow crater as if an impossibly large bowling ball had been dropped from the ceiling.
Maddy hated the sight of it. They’d refilled the small crater several times; she’d even bought a cheap throw rug to cover it. But several times now they’d had to open a portal in the middle of the archway — ‘going dry’, that was their term for it. Going dry because there’d not been enough time to fill the displacement tube with water.
‘Now let’s see …’ Maddy looked at her watch. ‘It’s nearly twelve thirty now. If the FBI grabbed Lincoln just after nine-thirty, it’s what? … A three-maybe four-hour drive down Interstate 95 all the way south into Virginia?’
‘Correct,’ said Becks. ‘That would be my calculation.’
‘So I’ve set the coordinates for the slip road off Interstate 95 that leads to the grounds of the FBI Academy at Quantico. It’s a pretty discreet, quiet spot. Russell Road. There’s a checkpoint where every vehicle has to slow down and stop; you gotta show some ID and stuff. That’s maybe the best place for you guys to keep watch.’
She hunched over the desk and tapped at the keyboard as she spoke. ‘I’m not bumping you backwards or forwards in time — it’s just a straight spatial transposition. You should be there at that checkpoint before the van arrives.’ She glanced back at Sal. ‘If, that is, you’re absolutely sure you saw Lincoln in the back of it.’
Sal’s hesitant nod wasn’t entirely reassuring.
‘OK, then.’ She clicked the mouse on a dialogue box and tapped in a one-minute countdown.
‘What about a return window?’ asked Liam. ‘Do we not need to agree on a —’
Maddy rolled her eyes. ‘See the mysterious-looking contraption Sal’s holding?’
Liam turned to look at her. She grinned as she held out her hand, the mobile phone sitting on her palm.
‘Just gimme a call, OK? And I’ll bring you right back home. No need for funky fossils or ancient parchments this time.’
‘Oh.’ Liam looked sheepish. ‘Right … yes, of course.’
‘And look, Bob, if that van looks like it’s full of SWAT guys wearing Kevlar vests and packing big guns, then don’t be a dummy. You may be a tough brute, but you’re not invincible.’
‘I will operate within acceptable risk parameters.’
She looked at Liam. ‘It’s your decision to make, OK? If you feel it’s too dangerous, then we can figure out something else. At the very least we’ll know where they’re holding him and we can work out some other plan of action.’
‘Aye.’
‘OK … so everyone good to go?’ She checked the screen. ‘Twenty seconds.’ The displacement machine’s hum began to rise in pitch and volume.
‘Careful, guys, OK? Particularly you, Sal. Let the boys do their work.’
Sal sucked in a tremulous breath, clearly excited by the prospect of doing something more proactive than sitting idle and intently watching the world for subtle changes. ‘I will.’
A draught swept across the archway, sending sweet wrappers flying and pizza boxes shifting across the desk. Before them a shimmering sphere of daylight had suddenly pulsed into existence.
‘See you soon,’ Maddy called out above the hum of energy.
Sal waggled her hand as Liam took the first step into the portal.
She watched him vanish, then a moment later Sal, gritting her teeth and wincing as she stepped in, then finally Bob.
‘Close the window, please.’
Computer-Bob obliged and the spherical field collapsed into a single point and vanished.
She sat down beside Becks, facing the dim glow of a row of monitors, all of them showing news feeds from different channels, a variety of live-footage angles of the same thing: the smouldering ruins of the World Trade Center and the dust-covered ghostly faces of a thousand firemen, paramedics and police officers staring in stunned silence.
A frozen tableau.
The only movement seemed to be the still-fluttering sheets of paper circling restlessly in the sky like a flock of birds taking flight to seek a new home.
CHAPTER 24. 2001, Quantico, Virginia
Liam, Bob and Sal squatted down amid the tall grass beneath the shadow of a red cedar tree. At the bottom of the freshly clipped sloping lawn was a single-lane road winding its way anonymously through the woods towards the grounds of the FBI’s academy.
Fifty yards in front of them, a small Portakabin — all scuffed plastic windows and corrugated iron — housed a pair of security guards. Both of them were staring at the glow of a TV on a desk inside. Where they were crouching at the edge of the tree line, on a normal day, the guards would probably have spotted them by now. But today both of them were glued to their television set. A brass band could’ve marched past them and they wouldn’t have noticed.
‘Bob?’ said Liam. ‘If that van does turn up and I give you the order to go and rescue Mr Lincoln, what’s your plan?’
Bob’s eyes narrowed in consideration for a moment. ‘Incapacitate the vehicle first. Then incapacitate any armed guards and proceed with extracting the target from the van.’
‘We want to get our fella out of there unharmed, so we do.’
‘Affirmative,’ he grunted. ‘I will assess the threat of harm to Lincoln and proceed only if the percentage is favourable.’
‘But you’re not going to kill those guards in that hut, are you?’ said Sal, looking at them. ‘They’re just old men.’
Bob frowned at her. ‘If they are an obstruction to the mission objective, they will be a valid target.’
‘Just give ’em one of your battle-roars, Bob,’ said Liam. He nudged Sal gently. ‘You should hear him.’ He’d seen men recoil from it before. A fleeting recollection filled his mind: the front few ranks of an army of veteran knights and grim-faced mercenaries had faltered, albeit for a moment, at the monstrous sight of Bob standing astride a mound of rubble at the base of the breached wall of Nottingham.
That heartbeat moment before the clash of arms, the thundering of thousands of boots, the jangling of a million rings of chain mail, the rising crescendo of every charging man screaming a noise of hate rinsed with fear … but, above all that, there’d been the deep bellow of Bob’s roar, like some sort of grizzly bear calling from one valley to the next.
‘That’ll scare the bejayzus out of them two poor fellas. They’ll scarper like rabbits, so they will.’
‘My size can be intimidating,’ said Bob matter-of-factly. ‘That is a factor that works in my favour.’
‘Do a scary face, Bob,’ said Liam. ‘Something really gnarly.’
‘Scary face?’
‘Yeah … sort of like your angry face, but much more so.’
Bob pulled up a file from memory. His brows suddenly rumpled and joined into the menacing ridge of a monobrow. His thick horse-lips pulled back to reveal a row of teeth that looked like they could stamp holes through sheet metal.
‘You remind me of a big bad-tempered dog that’s had its chewy bone taken away,’ said Sal.
Liam shrugged. ‘Perhaps, but would you hold your ground with a face like that bearing down on you?’
Actually, she imagined, she probably wouldn’t.
The three of them were silent for a while, the only sounds the restful far-off hiss of interstate traffic, the muted burbling of the TV set and the turf-war chirping call of jays and thrushes in the thick branches above them.