Day of the Assassins (11 page)

I
t was still dark outside. Jack had been dreaming again of the visit to the First World War graves – the endless sea of white crosses, the grassed-over outline of old trench networks, then running along for shelter from the storm and opening the door and seeing his mum and dad… crying… and then his mum whisking him back to his bedroom. He was relieved when gradually the curtains lightened with the arrival of a bright mountain dawn.

Breakfast was set out on a white-clothed buffet table at the end of the hall where they had met the Rector the night before. A fire had already been started and was crackling away merrily. The professor had been up early and sat alone at the long breakfast table nursing a cup of coffee. His head was still buried in Jack’s history book. Occasionally, a figure would scurry silently into the hall from an ante-room to clear a plate or bring fresh coffee. As Jack entered, the professor raised his head in acknowledgement and waved absent-mindedly at the food. Having helped himself, Jack settled down opposite the professor, unfurled a napkin and was about to tuck into two large poached eggs and several rashers of bacon when he noticed a rather strained expression on the professor’s face.

“OK, Professor?”

The professor looked to the left and to the right as if to make sure that they were alone and whispered across to Jack conspiratorially. “It’s not right.”

“What do you mean?” Jack asked loudly.

The professor winced, “Keep your voice down!”

Jack looked around him and shrugged as if to say ‘why?’.

The professor manoeuvred a prune around his bowl with his fork. “Were you locked in your bedroom last night?”

“Yes. But the Rector explained, they can’t take any chances, can they? They have to protect me. But they don’t want to harm us. It’s just the threat of being able to harm me that gives them power over Dad. I don’t like it either.”

The large oak doors swung open and the Rector strode purposefully towards them.

“Good morning, gentlemen! I see you are making yourselves at home… excellent! I trust you both had a good night’s sleep?”

The professor continued to prod the prune. The Rector inspected the fare on offer at the buffet.

“Not bad at all considering the short time we’ve had to set this place up.” He started to load his plate and was soon sitting beside them at the table.

“Is there a plan, sir?” Jack asked. “Will we be going home soon?”

“Well, your priority should be to have a good breakfast… you’ve had a traumatic time.” He filled a large cup from the coffee pot, “And then, for the rest of today, you will stay in the castle. As you can see, we have taken over this place because it affords us a number of obvious advantages – isolation, security… But I think you will find the main courtyard a pleasant place to while away a few hours.” He glanced over at the high-arched windows that dominated the far end of the hall, “Looks like it’ll be a fine day.”

“And then what?”

The Rector thought for a moment, “Well, as soon as we finally achieve a reliable signal connection, we shall send you back to the twenty-first century. Simple as that, really, Jack. The small VIGIL team we have here will follow, using our time phones, once we have, er, done some tidying up. Closed this place down in an orderly manner for a start. This might be today. It might be tomorrow. It’s a little difficult to tell. But our plan is that you should arrive back just after the point that you made the original trip from the Taurus.” His face tightened, “It will be hard, Jack, but at that point you will need to continue your life as if nothing had happened. We will be there to
guide you. As I explained yesterday, our aim will be to ensure that you lead a normal life… of course, we will need to keep you protected…”

“From Dad?”

“Yes. I’m afraid if ever he gets hold of you, then, well, we will have very little hold over him. There will be nothing to stop him.”

“Is there no way of finding out where he is? Dad, I mean. Negotiating or something?”

“We have no idea where your father is or where the second Taurus is, but of course it is something we are working on. As for negotiation – I’m afraid we’re well past that stage.”

The Rector took a slurp of coffee and then turned his attention to the professor. “As for you, Professor, you will be free to go, with your world record for the most distance travelled by balloon intact. But we must ask you not to speak of the events you have experienced. I am sure you understand.”

The professor looked up from his prune and nodded half-heartedly. Something was bothering him.

Later, they sat in the small courtyard of the castle, sipping lemonade at a table, awaiting instructions from the Rector. The castle was very quiet although occasionally a VIGIL guard could be seen moving along the crenellated outline of the upper walls. The afternoon sun cast a sharp, diagonal shadow midway across the courtyard.

The professor continued to be engrossed in Jack’s book. Occasionally, he would raise his head and contemplate the bright reflection of the sunlight on the cobblestones, or ask Jack some question about the war or the future. Nearby, water from a stone fountain gurgled into a flat earthenware basin. It was surrounded by a well-trimmed hedge. Presumably, this place still existed in the future. Jack vaguely thought about scratching his name or something, surreptitiously on one of the walls, to see if it would still be there nearly a hundred years in the future. He sighed. He’d only been away a couple of days but he missed home. It would be good to talk to his mum about everything that had happened. Properly this time. No more awkward silences or changing the subject. He could speak to her
as an equal: this time they would both know the truth about Dad.

“You’ve been reading that thing for hours.”

“It nearly didn’t happen,” the professor replied.

“What?”

“The war.”

“Sorry?”

“There have been several Balkan crises before now… in fact, the Balkans is always in a crisis of some sort. Do you know what I’m talking about, Jack?”

Jack tried to tune in to what the professor was saying, “Yes, Professor, I think so, Pendelshape was always going on about it. When the Ottoman Empire’s power declined in the Balkans, it kind of left no one in control.”

“Yes. Well, it’s not just the Ottoman Empire; the Austro-Hungarian Empire has also struggled to impose itself over all the different nationalities within its borders. There have been many crises and wars there. The point is, though, they have mostly been successfully sorted out by the diplomats. In fact, Europe has been at peace since 1871. Problems in the Balkans have happened before… and have been successfully worked out… or at least, have not led to a wider war – like the one in here.” He held up the book and tapped its spine vigorously with his index finger, “A world war.”

“So?” Jack said.

“But 1914, now, this time, my time, is somehow different. This time the great European powers – Germany, France, Russia, Britain, Austria-Hungary – don’t work it out… But they could have!” he said triumphantly. “And then things would have continued as normal! In fact, it was all just a silly mistake… there was no need for war at all! And this silly mistake… is responsible for the deaths of millions of people! People just like you and me…”

The professor stared at Jack through his round spectacles with his intense blue eyes. He looked around the courtyard furtively and whispered, “Jack – to be honest – I think maybe your father might be right about all this  – if I understand properly what he is trying to do.
Maybe it is right to use this amazing time machine of his to go back and try to change things so that they are better. Maybe even… maybe we have a responsibility to… stop it. Stop this war… and maybe, I, as a German, living now, maybe I have a special responsibility to stop it…”

Jack didn’t like where this was going, “Professor, I’m not sure…”

The professor spoke with an intensity that he had not heard before.

“I am not like you. I am of this time. For you, this is the past. For me, this is the present. I have a responsibility…”

Jack shook his head slowly, “I’m not sure that’s how it’s supposed to work… you heard what the Rector said…”

“But think!” the professor pleaded. “We have the power to stop many deaths. Why wouldn’t you do that… if you could? If you had that power.”

Put like that, Jack could see his point. But he had also heard what the Rector had said – about the unknown consequences of fiddling with time, with things in the past. Anyway, he didn’t want to get involved in this conversation. He just wanted to go home.

“But if we try to change things it might make them worse, we don’t know…” he strained to order his thoughts… “Maybe the war is supposed to happen; maybe it will happen whatever we do…?”

The professor was unconvinced, “Many lives will be lost Jack. With your father’s help maybe we could find a way to save them… to save them all.”

The suggestion hung provocatively in the air. When the Rector had explained everything to him, it seemed that VIGIL and its leaders were right. He had even started to believe the Rector when he’d said that his father was a dangerous fugitive. But, with the professor’s unexpected plea, suddenly he was not so sure. Maybe his father was right?

Their troubling conversation was interrupted by the sound of heavy footsteps coming down the stone stairs in the block behind them. Tony and Gordon entered the courtyard, closely followed by two other VIGIL guards and the Rector. They marched over to where Jack and the professor sat.

“Gentlemen, I am so sorry to disturb you but we have rather worrying news,” the Rector said. He stroked back wisps of his silver hair nervously. He was sweating.

They looked up pensively.

“It appears that Dr Pendelshape’s collaboration with your father was closer than we first thought – and their plans are well advanced.”

“What do you mean?” Jack asked.

“I am not sure we explained to you. All time phones, including the one that you used, are linked to our Taurus back at the school. We had not previously considered a situation where there are in fact two time machines. Two Tauruses.” The Rector’s brow furrowed, “It appears that Dr Pendelshape may have passed the identification code for your time phone to your father.”

Jack and the professor looked at him blankly.

The Rector sighed impatiently, “This means that, assuming a reliable signal, your time phone can be tracked by your father’s Taurus, as well as our own.”

“So if the yellow bar is on in my time phone, Dad knows where I am?”

“He knows
when
you are as well.”

“So – he could…”

“Yes – he could try and mount some sort of kidnap attempt.”

Jack suddenly had a brainwave, “Hold on! If he’s got the codes for my time phone… then can’t we use my time phone to find out where he is?”

The Rector smiled, “Good thinking, Jack. You’re a bright lad. But in that case we’d need the codes for his Taurus…”

“Which you obviously haven’t got…” the professor added.

“No. And we have now destroyed your time phone so it can’t be tracked. But that’s not the only thing. We are now receiving a good signal from our Taurus.”

“But that means…”

“Yes – we have an opportunity to get you home before we lose the signal again. However, we must act quickly – there is a real possibility that your father managed to get a space-time fix of this location before
we destroyed your time phone, in which case…”

“He could time travel back… to the castle – right here.”

“Exactly. We must act quickly.”

The Rector, with Tony and Gordon in close support, ushered Jack and the professor from the courtyard.

They were not quick enough.

In the shadows of one corner of the courtyard there was a sudden disturbance. It was as if the air had gone strangely liquid. There was a flash of white light. In an instant, the shimmering of the air stopped. Where previously there had been nothing, there was a figure – just standing there. He had a thin face and his straight black hair flopped below his ears. Jack couldn’t believe it. Angus. But it was not the Angus that Jack knew from school. He was dressed like a member of the SAS. On top of that, to Jack’s amazement, he was carrying a weapon so heavy, even he was struggling to hold it level.

Angus screamed over to them, “Hit the deck!”

J
ack dropped flat to the cobblestones as the whole courtyard erupted into a maelstrom of ricocheting heavy machine-gun bullets. The Rector, Tony, Gordon and the other guards dived back into the main block, taken by complete surprise. Angus’s weapon dispatched heavy calibre rounds and, as he was unable to control it properly, he was soon spraying bullets everywhere and in the process dislodging great lumps of stone and mortar from around the courtyard. In ten seconds it was over. The fountain had been levelled, the hedge stripped bare and the table vaporised.

Angus dashed over to Jack and helped him to his feet.

“Come on, we’ve got to get out of here…”

“What? What about him?”

“Who?”

“The professor – there!” Jack pointed at the professor who was still on the ground next to him. “Professor, are you OK?” Jack asked, trying to pull him to his feet.

“Come on, there’s no time – just leave him,” Angus said.

“I can’t!”

Angus rolled his eyes. The professor rose shakily to his feet, ashen faced.

“Right – he’s fine – so let’s get on with it,” Angus said.

“Why?” Jack asked.

“What do you mean, why?” Angus said desperately. “There’s no time to explain. You are in great danger. We all are. I’ve been sent to rescue you.”

They heard the Rector shouting. “Make safe your weapon. There is no escape. We will not harm you. Give yourself up.”

Angus screamed back, “Everyone stay where you are!” And as if to
make the point, he opened up again with his machine gun, spraying the stone wall of the castle accommodation block with bullets and smashing a number of windows in the process. As the gun fired, Angus reeled backwards with the force and the nose of the barrel veered upwards dispatching rounds in a random pattern up the side of the old building.

“Put that thing down before you kill someone,” Jack said desperately.

Angus ignored him. He lowered the gun and looked into his own time phone, which hung around his neck.

“No! The signal’s going… I was told this might happen… it’s over.”

“What do you mean?”

“We can’t time travel out. We’ll have to run for it! Come on!” And to make his point, he unceremoniously poked the smoking barrel of his gun at Jack.

“Hey! Watch where you’re pointing that thing.”

Angus pleaded with his friend, “I’m telling you, stay here and we’re finished. Trust me. There’s a lot you don’t know.”

In the background, they heard the Rector’s voice again, booming orders.

“The others should be here by now to help me. But something must have happened. We’ve got to get out of here.” Angus was starting to panic. He knew something that Jack didn’t. If they could escape, maybe there would be some time to think.

“How?” Jack said.

“You’re the brain box. You tell me. I’ve never been here before.”

“There’s only one way down. And that’s on the cable car,” the professor said.

“Well let’s move.”

Jack had the layout of the castle in his head and they were soon racing up the other side of the courtyard to the cable-car. Angus waited briefly at the bottom of the stairs and fired some final rounds randomly into the courtyard to deter any immediate pursuit. The red cable car was waiting snugly in its arrival gantry. Jack opened the door to the small control room directly behind the gantry. There was an
array of switches, gears and dials. They were labelled in German and they all looked dead. The boys turned to the professor.

“Well, Professor?”

“I am a scientist not a cable-car operator,” the professor said pompously. Then he surveyed the control room and smiled mischievously back at the boys, “Which means, for me, it won’t be that difficult.” He manoeuvred himself in front of the main control panel. “I have always found that, in the case of technical difficulty, the best thing to do is to press the biggest button you can find…” The professor poked an index finger at a large green button and then, reading a few of the other labels, made a number of further adjustments. A bell rang above them and he pressed another button. The machinery sprang into life.

The professor jumped up in excitement, “Let’s go!”

They moved across to where the cable car waited. The professor slid open the door and they piled in. He inspected the control panel inside the cable car.

“Here goes!” Suddenly, the car moved away from the gantry and began its descent into the valley below. The castle was soon receding into the distance.

“What happens when we get to the bottom?” Angus said.

“They’ll telephone down… someone will be waiting for us there.”

“Unless we can find some way out,” the professor said.

Angus laughed, “Be serious, we’re suspended several hundred metres up in the air.”

The professor moved over to the large metal bench at one end of the car. It had a small hatch in the side. He slid open the cover.

“Just as I thought. Nothing overlooked.”

They peered into the chest. There was a medical kit, a tool bag, some harnesses and an array of other equipment. But there was also rope. Lots of rope.

Angus said, “Well that’s a fat lot of good. What are we supposed to do –  suspend it from the bottom of the cable car and abseil down…?”

Jack and the professor looked at each other, and then Jack said quietly, “Angus, I think that’s exactly what the professor has in mind.”

Angus turned white, “No way. There is no way that I am climbing out of this sardine can and dangling myself on the end of a bit of thread two hundred metres up in the air… I’ve already risked my life to time travel back a hundred years to rescue you…”

Jack smiled at him slyly, “Not scared are you?”

The professor was already unloading the rope from the chest.

“Is it going to be long enough?”

“Should be. Otherwise someone has made a stupid mistake.”

“How do we get down it?”

“Here,” the professor handed Jack a small metal object. “It’s a friction device. One end attaches to you. The other to the rope.” The professor was busy securing an end of the rope to the anchor point inside the car. He leaned over and slid free the bolts on the trapdoor, which was built flush into the floor of the car.

“Stand to the side and hold on!” the professor said. And with that, he released the trapdoor and flipped it over on its hinges so it landed with a crash on the inside of the car. There was now a large square hole in the floor of the car. Cold mountain air blasted up through this gap as their descent continued. Jack stole a glance through the hole – far down, a landscape of firs, rock and alpine grass flitted silently past as the cable car floated downwards.

Angus was staring out of the front window, “I think you’d better hurry, Professor.”

They looked up and spotted the cause of Angus’s concern. Soon they would be at the mid-point of their journey. Still quite far below, but approaching fast, was the return cable car – making its way up the other cable to the castle just as their own cabin descended. Even at this distance, the trio could make out a number of figures eyeing them from the on-coming car.

“What do we do now?”

“We keep going. What can they do?”

“They can shoot us for a start,” Angus said.

The professor dropped the rope through the trapdoor. It rapidly uncoiled and trailed freely from the cabin until it started to drag along the ground way below.

The other cable car was approaching them rapidly. The professor looked towards it. He was working something out in his head.

“Let’s get ready,” he said.

They attached the friction devices to sections of the rope, ready for descent.

“Angus – you go first.” He pointed at the gun, “And you’ll need to leave that thing.”

“Great. Just as I was beginning to enjoy myself.”

The professor showed them how the friction devices worked. That bit seemed straightforward. The problem was going to be launching into the abyss in the first place.

Angus’s face was white. Jack didn’t look much better.

“Fun isn’t it?” said the professor enthusiastically.

Angus nodded in the direction of the professor, “Where did you get him from, Jack?”

The professor ignored him, “Right. I apply the brakes. Then you go. Then it’s my turn. Then Jack, you wait a little, and then you go.” The on-coming car was closing in on them fast. They waited, poised above the open trapdoor, the air still rushing in and the earth racing by, way below. They gripped their friction devices anxiously. The professor held his hand over the red emergency stop lever. And waited.

“OK…?”

Jack and Angus nodded. They were getting so close to the approaching car now, that they could see the whites of the VIGIL guards’ eyes. The professor pulled up the lever. The cable above their heads decelerated. As it did so, the cable driving the other car also slowed. Their forward momentum caused their whole car to arc upwards alarmingly as they held on tight. The car swung back on its pivot point. Out of the window, they could see that the men in the other car had all tumbled over – unbalanced by the surprise halt of the cable cars.

“Go!” The professor shouted.

Angus froze. Unable to move. He just stared blankly into the abyss.

“Go!” the professor shouted again.

But he still couldn’t move. The professor gave him a sharp kick up the backside. One moment he was there. The next he was gone. He just had enough presence of mind to apply the friction device to control his descent.

“Sorry about that,” the professor called after him. “Right – my turn.” He leaped through the hatch with what Jack thought was an unnatural degree of enthusiasm and slid down the rope, just as Angus had done seconds before. The car continued to sway as it slowed and it was all Jack could do to remain on his feet. Both cars were nearly side by side. Peering down, he could just see the white smudge of Angus’s face as it craned upwards to the two cable cars way above. He had made it.

Suddenly, Jack noticed that the roof hatch in the opposite car had been flicked open. A VIGIL guard was crawling up onto the roof with a grappling iron. In a moment, he had tossed the device over to Jack’s car before crawling, monkey like, across the precipitous divide that separated them. There was a loud scraping on the roof hatch of Jack’s car, as the guard started to prise it open.

Jack wasn’t about to find out what would happen next. Swallowing hard, he plunged out through the floor hatch, just as the others had done moments before. Initially, he closed the friction device too hard, so he barely moved on the rope. By gradually loosening it he gained speed. He glanced downwards. The professor and Angus had made it to the ground and both seemed to be safe.

Suddenly the speed of the rope through the friction device accelerated. It didn’t feel right. Instinctively, Jack locked the device and waited, swaying in the light wind, suspended from the rope, the Austrian Alps all around. And then, slowly, he felt himself being pulled… up. There was no doubt about it… he was being pulled back towards the cable car. He felt a wave of panic as he realised what was happening. The guard above had started to yank the rope up… with Jack suspended on the end.

He had to make a decision. Angus and the professor had made it to the upper bank of the river that meandered down the valley, but as the cable car had continued to move before finally coming to rest,
Jack was now suspended directly over the river. It was quite wide and he could spot one or two black pools that might cushion a fall. But there were also rocks, and he had no idea how deep the water was. He felt another violent tug on the rope as he was dragged upwards. The adrenaline gave him a moment of clarity. It was all he needed. As the rope was tugged up once more, he took a deep breath and flicked open the friction device.