Day of Vengeance (5 page)

Below, Johnstone clambered up the Taurus towards the Transfer Chamber. If the bullets couldn’t kill them, he would physically drag Jack and Angus from the machine. In seconds he was there. He reached into the Chamber, but he was thrown from the Taurus and back into the main Control Centre, as if seized by a massive electric shock. He landed awkwardly.

Suddenly, at the far end of the Control Centre, Jack saw a new figure appear in the doorway. The man looked oddly familiar. Behind him, there was a teenage boy with blonde hair. The boy looked up from his position in the doorway to where Jack stood on the Taurus transfer platform. Their eyes met. Jack gasped in astonishment. The boy staring up at him looked exactly like… well, he looked exactly like
him
. In fact it
was
him.

Beneath Jack’s feet, the flashing electrical whirlpool vanished and they stared down into a black abyss.

Pigeon Problems

Jack blinked as the rays of a dawn sun rose into a cloudless sky. He was sitting up and leaning against a curved wall of stone. His body ached. Angus was sitting next to him. He looked OK, but for one thing – a fat pigeon was sitting on his head. Angus detected the presence of the unfortunate creature at about the same time as Jack. He reached up and splatted the bird, which flapped away in a flurry of feathers, squawking loudly.

“Stupid thing…” Angus tried to look down his back, “has it crapped on me?”

Jack forced a grin. “Don’t think it liked the look of you.”

“I’m sore – did we make it?”

“Yes. But I’ve got no idea where we are.”

Jack stood up and immediately wished he hadn’t. He quickly sat down again and pushed himself back hard into the wall behind him. They seemed to be perched on a narrow platform of stone jutting out from a very tall pillar, high above a city square. Jack’s feet were close to one of the edges of the platform.

“What is this place?”

The square below contained fountains and four large bronze animal statues, possibly lions, lying down, around the bottom of the pillar. Jack looked up. Just above them was a huge statue of a man, which must have been nearly six metres high. The man gazed out across the city. He wore a broad admiral’s hat and his
left hand rested on the hilt of his sword. The sleeve of his right hand was pinned to his tunic. He had only one arm. It was the final piece of information that Jack needed to confirm where they were.

“Nelson’s Column,” Jack said.

“What?”

“The Taurus has dumped us on top of Nelson’s Column. Him up there – that’s Admiral Nelson and that down there – that’s Trafalgar Square. I think the Houses of Parliament are over there somewhere, yeah, look…” Jack craned his head. “That’s Big Ben. See the clock tower? We’re in the middle of London.”

“Then what are those, over there?”

Jack followed the direction of Angus’s gaze. Some way off, a series of large grey objects were floating in the sky.

“I think they’re balloons… you know, barrage balloons… to stop planes. It’s 1940 – the Second World War – that was the space–time fix that Joplin set. I’ll check our time phone.”

Jack reached into a pocket in his under vest and pulled out the time phone from its pouch. He flicked it open.

“Well that confirms it. Has the time signal gone?”

“No. Still bright yellow… that means we’re not out of the woods yet. Johnstone and Belstaff, or one of their cronies, can still come
back and get us. There’s no knowing what they’ll do if they find us.”

“We’ve got other problems too. How do we get down off this thing?”

Jack crawled forward on his belly to the edge of the stone platform. There was nothing to stop them from falling off the edge. Lying flat on his stomach, he peeked over. His heart jumped into his mouth. It was a sheer drop down to the square below. What made it worse was that the stone platform overhung the main column. There was absolutely no way of climbing down. They were marooned.

“What’s it like?”

“I wouldn’t look if I were you.” Jack felt himself starting to panic. “Angus – I’ve no idea how we can get off this… I guess we could shout, maybe the army could climb up or something, but I can’t see anyone down there, it’s too early – seems completely dead.”

Angus smiled. “Didn’t they teach you anything in VIGIL training? Be prepared. Here…”

Angus patted his backpack. For the first time, Jack realised that it was considerably larger than his own.

“I brought a few extra bits and pieces from the VIGIL prep room. I grabbed everything I could. I noticed these, you know, we were talking about the Battle of Britain with Dad and what with me doing my private pilot’s licence… and remember last time the Taurus dumped us on top of a castle…”

Jack had no idea what Angus was talking about.

Angus opened the back of his pack. “Anyway, I got one for you too…” He pulled out a large black bag. “…And in that bit there are 
the harnesses… you strap them round like this. It’s very lightweight.”

Jack’s heart sank as he suddenly realised what Angus meant.

“Parachutes. You brought
parachutes
with you.”

Angus’s mouth curled into a grin. “As I said – be prepared. Don’t worry – it’s easy. You just strap it on, jump off the edge and pull the ripcord… er, apparently. Like this…”

“But you’ve never done it before.”

“What? Of course not,” Angus tapped his temple with his index finger. “D’you think I’m bonkers?” Angus considered his last remark for a moment and added, “Look – think of it this way, if it all screws up, you’re not going to know anything about it anyway.”

“I feel better already.”

Angus started to strap the contraption onto his back.

Jack looked on, “You’re not serious?”

“Come on Jack… let me help you with yours…”

Soon Angus was standing on the edge of the stone platform. He turned round to Jack, “So, you coming? Or are you going to sit there all day, getting crapped on by pigeons?”

“But…”

“Get a grip, man, we don’t have any choice. Belstaff and Johnstone could be here in seconds.”

For some bizarre reason, Jack felt himself drawn along with Angus’s mad plan and soon he was standing next to him on the plinth, staring into the abyss with a parachute strapped to his back. He had just been transported seventy years through time into a war zone, and now he was being told to BASE jump off the top of Nelson’s Column. He didn’t feel well.

“Jump and pull… nothing to it. Just before you hit the ground, pull in the control lines and flare the ‘chute. Land on both feet, then roll…”

Angus had the patter of a professional – but Jack knew he was blagging.

“Sorry, Angus… I just can’t do it.”

“Look Jack, people do this stuff all the time. They do it for
fun
, for sport, so it must be OK.”

“I can’t…”

“Well I’m going. The more I think about it, the worse I feel… At least when I’m down there I can get help…”

Without another word, Angus leaped from the stone plinth. One moment he was there, standing at the feet of Admiral Nelson fifty metres up in the sky, next he was gone.

“Wait!” Jack shouted. But it was too late. Jack looked down. Almost immediately Angus’s parachute flowered from his backpack into a giant white cross on a blue background – the Scottish flag. Jack shook his head. The parachute immediately broke his fall and in seconds he had landed.

Jack edged forward, but then he stopped. He still had the time phone. He took it out again and noticed that the yellow light was still on. Now he had to make another decision. If they kept the time phone then, just like Angus said, the Revisionists could still locate them. They could come back and find them and then what? On the other hand, if Jack threw it away, they were stuck – maybe marooned for ever in 1940. He had to make a choice. He could hide it. But where? Jack closed the time phone and placed it at the rear of the narrow platform, where it met the pedestal,
which supported the giant statue. It wasn’t a great place but there was no time to think of anywhere else. At least no one would find it there… and if Belstaff and Johnstone tried to time travel back to it, they would get the same nasty surprise that Jack and Angus had just had. They would be stuck up Nelson’s column. At the same time, at least Jack and Angus would know where it was, although getting it back might prove a little tricky. Jack approached the edge of the platform again and looked down. He could see the smudge of Angus’s white face beaming back up at him from the square. He was grinning and waving.

Jack gritted his teeth. He was not about to be outdone. He stepped forward into the abyss and plummeted earthwards. The adrenaline gave him the second of clarity he needed. He pulled the ripcord; there was a second’s delay and suddenly he felt as if he was being flung upwards. He looked down; the ground was still accelerating towards him at an alarming rate. He closed his eyes and braced himself for the impact. Both feet hit the ground and it felt like his spine had been detached from his body. He rolled sideways and came to a halt. He was down.

Angus rushed over and hauled him to his feet.

“Incredible!” His face was pink with excitement.

Jack felt unsteady and, suddenly, his legs gave way.

“You all right, Jack?”

“Give me a couple of minutes.”

Angus hauled in the two crumpled parachutes and repacked them into their bags.

“I’ll get rid of these. Can’t see we’ll need them. You feeling any better?”

“I need to go and sit down – I could do with some food or something.”

Angus looked around. “It all seems very quiet. Maybe over there… that looks like a hotel or something.”

In a few minutes, they approached the impressive facade of the Charing Cross Hotel, just off Trafalgar Square. There was a restaurant on the ground floor and, despite the early hour, it seemed to be serving. Jack was still feeling shaky and he knew he needed to sit down for a bit.

The area in front of the hotel was fringed with sandbags. A sleepy-looking guard, wearing a tin helmet, which looked too big for him, cupped a mug of tea beside a makeshift sentry post. He nodded to them as they passed.

A few weary-looking travellers were huddled inside the restaurant. Angus and Jack found a quiet table beside the window that looked out onto the street. A white-coated waiter spotted them and approached. He had a strong East End accent.

“You’re up early lads. What can I get you?”

Angus didn’t need to look at the menu. “Er, can you do us a big fry up – you know a few eggs, bacon, a few sausages…?”

Angus’s order made Jack feel even more queasy. The waiter looked at them, grimaced and exhaled loudly, making a sort of
psssht
sound. “You having a laugh, son? Haven’t you heard? There’s a war on. There are restrictions you know…” The waiter then bent down and spoke to them furtively behind his palm, “unless, you know, you’ve got an extra bob or two…”

Jack and Angus glanced at each other.

“Er, get us what you can for, er, a pound…” Jack said.

The waiter took a double take. “A
pound
?” he said, completely astonished. He waited and then said the word again, this time whispering it, as though he might be struck by a bolt of lightning for saying it aloud, “A
pound
…?”

Jack blushed and shrugged his shoulders. “Sorry – I mean, you know, a few, er, shillings…”

The waiter looked at them oddly. “I’ll see what I can do.” And with that he wheeled round and marched off.

Jack whispered to Angus, “Think I might have got my valuations a bit wrong…”

“Do we actually have any money?”

Jack padded his backpack. “Of course… VIGIL prep room has the lot – just as you said, Angus, ‘be prepared’.”

“How long will the money last?”

“A lot longer than I first thought.”

Jack had started to recover and his thoughts went back to their escape from VIGIL. It was then that he suddenly recalled the strange apparition that he had seen at the entrance of the Taurus Control Centre. “Angus… just before we escaped, did you see…?”

“What?”

“I know there was a lot going on, but after Johnstone fell off the Taurus, I looked over to the entrance of the Control Centre. It was open, and I swear I saw, well, I saw
me
… and also there was a guy standing next to me…”

Angus looked at Jack as if he had gone mad. “You saw
yourself
?”

“I know you can’t see clearly through the atmosphere of the Transfer Chamber… but yes… I’m sure… and I think the other guy standing there, well, I think it might have been
Dad
. It’s ages since
I’ve seen him, but Mum still has photos round the house and stuff.”

Angus’s eyes widened in amazement, “I don’t remember that – are you sure?”

“I don’t know,” Jack shook his head. “How could it be?”

Angus shrugged.

Jack grimaced, “And I tell you, I only saw us for a moment, but we didn’t look too good… I mean we looked like we had been beaten up or bruised or burned or something…”

“Maybe you saw
future
you or something weird?”

“Don’t know Angus. I guess that’s good isn’t it? I mean that there is a future me. But there is one thing bugging me.”

“What?”

“Well,” Jack paused. “I don’t know if it means anything, but you weren’t with us.”

An anxious look flashed across Angus’s face – but in a split second it was gone.

“Forget it Jack. We can’t worry about that now.”

“But if it was Dad and me that I saw back there, then, well, that must mean we meet Dad somewhere and it must mean maybe we get back home somehow… I don’t know. It’s all too weird.” Trying to fathom the logical implications of it all made Jack’s brain hurt.

The waiter reappeared. “Here you go, lads.”

He placed two large plates of egg, bacon and sausage in front of them. He glanced around, furtively. “Er, three shillings please.”