Private First Class Wallace Standing Bear, one of the lucky winners in the first round of the submachine gun sweepstakes, would, along with Jensen and the other marksmen, be part of the “aircraft interdiction unit.” Jack had drawn a crude picture of an airplane in the dirt and, by match light, pointed out things like landing gear, fuel pods, cockpit bubbles and the like. The second-element marksmen had the task of crippling whatever aircraft they encountered by the only means available—accurate rifle fire to vital components.
With all necessary watches synchronized to his Rolex, Jack watched the seconds tick by. Six shots would be fired in precisely forty-two seconds. For good or for bad, since there would be no time to verify whether or not the bullets of the marksmen had struck their targets, the assault would begin immediately.
Sergeant Goldberg, the platoon sergeant., held one squad of B Company, Second Platoon in the throat of a rocky defile twenty-five yards or so to the north of Jack’s position with Easley and nine other men.
Twenty-three seconds remained.
The men of the Seventh were among the most experienced, battle-toughened men in the United States Army. In the blue-gray predawn, their faces showed the resolute hardness battle breeds. Crouched, legs like coiled springs beneath them, rifles with fixed bayonets clenched in gnarled fists, they waited. Jack’s eyes drifted back to his watch.
Eight seconds.
Jensen and the five other marksmen would be letting that last breath before let-off catch in their throats, and, in another second or two, fingers would take up the slack in triggers, drawing them back to just before the break point.
For the zillionth time, it seemed, since he and his family had been swept back in time, Jack thought of a phrase attributable to the writer Ian Fleming: “It reads better than it lives.” Indeed, adventure and danger on the American frontier of western books and movies and television was far less scary to experience vicariously than in personal reality. Sometimes, it seemed almost as if he had done nothing but kill since he had come to this time.
Six shots rang out almost as one.
It was time to kill again. “Let’s go!”
In the next instants, it was evident only five rounds had connected with their targets. The sixth computer controlled weapon began spraying lethality throughout its field of fire the moment Jack and his men spilled down out of the rocks and charged toward the time-transfer base.
Almost louder than the gunfire were the alarms, screeching claxons resonating throughout the time-transfer base, reverberating, as did the gunfire, off the rocky terrain, the sheer cacophony maddening.
Jack raced forward, the killing ground for the electronically controlled guns made totally devoid of rocks or any other possible cover. Bullets rippled into the ground to his side. Bringing the submachine gun up to his shoulder, its folding stock already extended, he fired a long burst toward the still-functioning gun. The boxlike affair mounted above it—its eyes and brain—shattered.
Jack and Lieutenant Easley led one element of the attack force, Sergeant Goldberg the second. Fighting was everywhere, the whine of gunfire and the shrieking of the alarms all-consuming. Ellen’s heart might well have been in her mouth, but she realized that she wouldn’t have known, her entire being numbed by her fear for Jack and the horror of what she witnessed.
Her nephew, Clarence, and her son, David, on either side of her like protective bookends, Alan on David’s right—as if two bookends weren’t somehow quite enough—Ellen watched the battle for Lakewood Industries’ time-transfer base in 1900, a battle of immense historical importance that would never be recorded in history books, a battle unlike any other. In addition to David, Clarence and Alan, there were three of Lieutenant Easley’s men with her as well, their rifles shouldered. Clarence, Alan and David each had a rifle at the ready, the dual purpose to cover a withdrawal should one become necessary and to prevent any Lakewood personnel from escaping the time-transfer base. The goal was that none of the Lakewood personnel should be taken prisoner; that made Ellen’s skin crawl, although she realized the practicality, the inevitability of such a measure.
Jack was running again, firing his liberated submachine gun at almost point-blank range into two of the Lakewood Industries personnel. Jack dropped to his knees and Ellen knew exactly where her heart was—in her chest. It stopped dead for an instant, heavy as lead and cold as ice.
But Jack wasn’t hit. Letting his own submachine gun fall to his side on its