Rebel in Time

Chapter 27

The time must have been close to three o'clock in the morning; the night still and hushed. When the moon had set soon after two-thirty the sleeping city had sunk into an even deeper slumber in the warm darkness.

Troy slept in the hayloft, close to the outside wall of the stable, where the night sky was clearly visible through the wide gap between the boards. He had woken twice, looked out and squinted at the moon, then gone back to sleep. Now he was awake, dipping water out of the bucket and rubbing it over his face. One of the horses stirred in its stall when it heard the small sound, then blew restlessly through its lips. It quieted when the barn door opened and shut noiselessly and silence descended once again.

Damp, hot, dark, the enemy on all sides; it was so much like Vietnam that Troy's hands felt strangely empty, missing the M-16 that had been so much a part of him. At first he had intended to bring the revolver, but then had changed his mind. If he had to use a weapon it would mean that the mission had been a failure. He wanted intelligence — not a fire fight. The steel lockpick was the weapon of choice this night. He also had his clasp knife, as well as a candle stub and some matches. There was nothing else that he needed.

Moving through the darkness of the unlit streets he felt secure, knowing that he would see or hear anyone long before they could be aware of him. He was on familiar ground now, a night reconnaissance, a straightforward mission.

Once a dog barked, catching his smell on the warm breeze, but Troy was well past before it had detected his presence. Later on he became aware of approaching footsteps. He stood silently in the darkness as the two men passed just a few yards away, talking quietly to each other.

Less than half an hour later he stood with his back to a picket fence, looking at the outline of the wooden building against the stars. McCulloch's factory.

Troy remained there, motionless, for a long time, the constellations of stars above dipping and vanishing in the west, patiently waiting. Nothing disturbed the quiet of the night. There appeared to be no watchman, and no dogs. A horse whinnied in the distance, then grew silent. This small noise did not disturb the stillness of the night, deep and profound.

He was in the clear. Troy moved away from the fence and drifted silently across the road. The front door of the building was before him and he pressed against it, his fingers feeling for the outline of the lock. Getting through this was almost too easy, the lock too simple. And there were certainly no electronic alarms or detectors to worry about. The lock snicked open and he pushed into the office beyond.

All of the interior doors were unlocked. He felt his way into the larger, open space of the workshop, filled with forms barely visible in the starlight that filtered through the high windows. To the rear, Robbie had said, a door in the back wall to the right of the forge. He moved forward, step by careful step.

Though he could not see the forge he felt the radiant heat of its presence. Soundlessly he crept by it, running his finger tips along the wooden wall until he found the outline of a door frame. A hasp held it shut and it was sealed with a padlock. Troy ran his fingers over its face, finding the keyhole, touching the pivoted shackle where it went through the eye of the hasp. Feeling it move under his fingers.

It was unlocked.

He stopped, motionless, not breathing, not making a sound. This was an unexpected bit of luck.

But was it just luck?

While his conscious mind considered this logical problem he found his body growing tense. He became aware of a growing sensation of unease. It appeared to have no physical source, he had heard nothing, seen nothing. Yet there was this expanding fear whose existence could not be denied. It was a sensation that he had experienced only once previously in his life, on a night patrol. Just before they had been ambushed. It was a reaction at an instinctual level, far removed from any rational thought processes.

It was completely irrational and emotional. Yet he had the sensation that something fearsome and deadly lay just beyond the wall. Waiting there, scant inches away from him. It did not make any kind of logical sense — but he knew that something was there in the darkness. He tried to dismiss the sensation, but he could not. The danger was unmistakably present.

He did not want to face it nor discover what it was. But he had to respect it — more than respect — he was terrified of it. His heart was thudding with this irrational fear and he wanted to get out of this dark trap, to leave at once, to run and keep on running. But that was the one thing he was not going to do. Instead of opening the door and facing whatever evil lay hidden on the other side, he would use other means to exorcize it. The traditional one. Still in absolute silence he withdrew the clasp knife from his pocket and opened it. Slowly and carefully, in order not to make the slightest sound, he pulled his shirt tail out of his trousers and used the razor-sharp blade to cut off a piece of cloth. He crumpled this, bent and placed it against the wall, then took out a match, cupping it in both hands. It made a small crack and ignited as he snapped the head with his thumbnail.

As soon as it was burning well he dropped the match onto the crumpled cloth, watched for a moment as the cloth flared and caught fire. The flame, small as it was, gave off enough light for him to move quickly across the workshop and out of the building the way he had come, finding shelter in a small grove on the far side of the road.

Where he waited with unmoving patience.

Inside the building the fire would be slowly spreading, eating into the wooden wall, moving along the floor. Some minutes passed before he saw a flicker of light through one of the front windows of the building. Only seconds after that there was the sound of a door crashing open in the back of the building, a horse neighing with excitement, then the quick hammer of hooves as horse and rider burst out into the street.

'Fire! Sound the alarm! Fire, fire!'

Troy smiled to himself in the darkness. He knew that voice.

McCulloch.

His was the presence of evil sensed on the other side of the wall. He had been laying in wait, ready to spring the trap. It had been well-baited, Troy suddenly realized, a plan undoubtedly galvanized by his own presence. McCulloch had not been sure of his identity or he would have been seized on the spot. But the colonel must have started to worry about the resemblance. Being a thorough man, once he had started on this train of thought he would have followed it through to the end. He would have considered the possibility of his being followed back through time. And the colonel was a careful man as well. There was always the possibility that the resemblance might have been a chance one, but the trap had still been laid to take care of the possibility that it had not. Therefore the guided tour, the implied secret of the locked room, McCulloch was a master tactician and his plan should have worked.

But it hadn't. It had come within a hair's breadth of succeeding. Yet it had failed. But it had been a very close run thing. If Troy had so much as opened that door a fraction of an inch he would have been dead on the spot, shot down instantly. He was sure of that now and felt the cool touch of perspiration at the realization of how close to death he had come.

But would there be anyone else lying in ambush here? No, McCulloch must surely have done this alone, trusting no one else with his secret, baiting the trap then lying in wait. But he had gone for the firemen. Was there a chance now to get into the room? There had to be a back door.

No, too late. Lights were coming on in the houses; voices called out one to the other. Fire! A constant danger in this city of wooden buildings. Everyone was aware of the communal threat and hurried to help. More and more people appeared and Troy drew deeper into the shadows.

Within minutes the first of the fire engines appeared, horse-drawn and primitive. But effective. Shouting men threw their weight onto the pump handles and the first streams of water jetted from the hose.

It was organized bedlam — but it was getting the job done. A bucket brigade formed, reaching to the well of the nearest house, then bucket after bucket of water began to splash onto the soaring flames. Another piece of fire apparatus arrived and McCulloch was there as well now to lead them through the front of the building to fight the fire from that side. This was Troy's chance! Fire was no respecter of race. Black and white were mixed together in the battle so there was little chance that he would even be noticed.

Troy ran to join the fire-fighters who were labouring at the back of the building.

Through the open rear door he saw that the interior was now a mass of flames. The stream of water from the hose was being played onto the roof above to stop the fire from spreading, while two rows of sweating, shouting men hurled pails of water on the fire below. Troy seized up a bucket and joined them.

It was hot and desperate work. For a while the fire would appear to be under control — then it would break out again, flaring up in the dry wood. Everyone was smeared and filthy with ashes, running with sweat. Troy worked as hard as any of the others, moving in to fight the fire in the depths of the smoking building. Pushing through the smoking embers. Kicking his foot against something made of metal.

He glanced around; for the moment no one seemed to be looking his way. He bent swiftly, grabbed up the metal and dropped it into the bucket. Plunging his hand into the water after it as the hot metal seared his flesh. Then turning, bumping into others, making his way out into the night.

The first casualties of the fire were on the far side of the road, coughing with the agony of their smoke-filled lungs. Troy joined them, his coughing realistic enough since he had breathed in a good deal of the same smoke. He dropped to the ground, sat there, coughing, his head between his legs. His hidden fingers slipping the metal out of the bucket and concealing it inside his shirt.

The night grew darker as the flames were brought under control. He found that there was no difficulty at all in slipping away and then vanishing in the blackness.

Troy controlled his impatience until he was far from the scene of the fire, in a silent street among dark trees. He sheltered behind a row of sweet-smelling shrubs, placed the piece of metal on the ground and bent over it. The match flared and the stub of candle caught and flickered. He let it burn for just a moment, then blew it out.

But he had seen enough. He knew what he had. Carefully he took up the blackened piece of metal, held it tightly in his hands.

He had held a piece of steel like this once before, in a different time and place. That had been in the Smithsonian Institute, in Washington.

The two pieces of metal were identical.

What he was holding now was the trigger plate of a Sten-gun.