to our technology we can change this world back.’
Devereau turned to her. ‘But, should this plan fail for whatever reason, then the consequences for our men as well as ourselves would be … dire to say the least.’
Wainwright sat down at his table. ‘Colonel Devereau and I being guilty of treason is one thing. We would both face our firing squads. But a mutiny …?’ He poured himself the dregs of cooling coffee from the chipped jug between them. ‘Every man of the regiment would be punished whether they took part or not.’
Devereau nodded slowly.
‘I can’t ask my men to do that.’
‘We could show them all what we just showed you,’ said Maddy.
‘No.’ He shook his head. ‘No. I fear not many of them would fully understand. And, not understanding, they would not dare risk facing charges of mutiny.’
There was a knock on the door to his room.
‘Enter.’
A young man’s face with a grey forage cap perched on a thatch of ginger-coloured hair looked round the door. ‘Sir?’
‘Yes, Corporal.’
‘You asked me to warn you when the British were coming … Well, they are, sir.’
‘Thank you, Lawrence. Instruct the men to prepare for an inspection.’
‘Yes, sir.’
The door closed behind him.
‘You’ll need to leave immediately,’ said Wainwright. ‘It should take them ten minutes to make their way down here. Best you’re long gone by then.’
‘Please!’ said Maddy. ‘Please … think about it!’
‘Here, ma’am … you should take your things with you,’ he said, gathering up her magazines.
Becks grabbed the magazines and the iPhone and placed them in a shoulder bag.
‘Well, just think about it. We have to fix this history!’ begged Maddy. ‘You think this war is bad enough? … It could get worse!’
Wainwright stiffened, ignoring her pleas. ‘Colonel Devereau, will you please take these ladies with you back to your lines?’
Devereau nodded. ‘Of course.’ He offered Wainwright a salute which the Southern officer returned crisply. He turned on a boot heel, opened the door and stepped into the concrete corridor outside.
‘Come on, Miss Carter,’ he said, grasping Maddy’s arm, ‘we have to leave right now.’
‘But …’ She gripped the edge of the table to stop him ushering her out. ‘But … he’s our only freakin’ hope! We have to –’
‘Sergeant Freeman!’
Freeman’s head appeared in the doorway.
‘A little help here, please!’
Becks, surprisingly, agreed with the colonel. ‘It is advisable to leave now, Madelaine. We should recalculate our options back at the archway.’
Five minutes later they were on the launch chugging sluggishly back across the East River. Maddy stared at the slowly approaching rubble-and-ruin landscape of Brooklyn and wondered if their only hope was to try to convince Colonel Devereau and his men to launch their own attack to capture this communications bunker.
Looking at him, looking at Sergeant Freeman, the other soldiers, old and young alike, sitting in their threadbare uniforms with the same patient look of defeat etched on each face, she realized they weren’t fighting men. They were draftees … men serving whatever period they were required to serve, counting away days until they might one day see their homes again.
Unless there was some other option, some other course of action, they were well and truly stuck in this mess. Forget helping Liam and Sal. Forget worrying about handwritten warnings from the future … she and Becks were nothing more than two civilians stuck in the ruined and contested wasteland of an eternal war.
CHAPTER 49
2001, outside Dead City
Liam gazed out of the forward observation windows of the carrier’s bridge, a long horseshoe array of glass panels that allowed the late summer sun to flood in, and bathed the place with warmth and light. Passing beneath them was a patchwork of fields that had seemed so much larger on the ground, and just ahead the fields gave way to the outskirts of the Dead City. Ordered rows of suburban homes with gardens long ago gone to seed giving way to smaller, more tightly packed homes and those giving way to drab brick-built tenement blocks. Further ahead, the apartment blocks grew taller and shared standing room with factories and warehouses and office blocks. All as dead and still as gravestones in a cemetery.
‘We’ll be landing shortly,’ said Captain McManus. He nodded at a thickset man in his forties, with silver-grey hair and mutton-chop sideburns that flared out generously. ‘Colonel Donohue is sending us in with three companies of men and some of our experimentals.’
‘Experimentals? Please explain,’ said Bob.
McManus smiled. ‘You’ll see soon enough.’
The drone of the carrier’s engines changed in tone and the