Time Riders

CHAPTER 26

1963, Dallas, Texas

Liam landed heavily amid a tumbling cascade of water, splashing noisily as if abath tub had been emptied from the top of a short ladder.

He looked up and saw Foster on one side and Bob on the other, both on their hands and kneesin a large puddle that spread out swiftly. He looked around. He could see vehicles parked on atarmac area. They looked less modern, more angular than the cars he was used to seeing everyday in New York.

Bob was the first to his feet. He held out a hand each to Liam and Foster.

‘I help you,’ he rumbled.

Liam grabbed the hand and pulled himself up.

‘We need clothes quickly,’ said Foster, ‘before we attract any attention toourselves.’

Between a pick-up truck and a dusty-looking car there was a double door with a sign on it: BOOK DEPOSITORY — TRADE ENTRANCE ONLY.

‘In there,’ said Foster, ‘is a locker room. We’ll find some clotheson pegs.’

‘You sure?’

Foster grinned. ‘I’ve done this training trip a few times now.’

‘What if there are people in there?’ asked Liam, his hands hoveringself-consciously to cover his soaking underpants.

‘There aren’t. They’re all at the front of the buildingtrying to get a glimpse of the president’s limousine. It’ll be arriving in a fewminutes.’

Foster led the way across the parking area and pushed through the double doors. Inside, outof the bright morning sunlight, it was dim and smelled fusty from the stacks of schooltextbooks littering the floor in untidy piles.

‘To your right,’ said Foster.

They turned into a room lined with employee lockers and pegs on the wall opposite. At the endwas a lost-property box stuffed with odds and sods left over the years. Between them theyfound enough items of clothing to dress all three of them — although the only items thatcame close to fitting Bob were a pair of sandals, which his large toes drooped over the endof, and a set of scruffy navy blue overalls.

‘We look like three tramps,’ said Liam.

‘Perfect,’ said Foster, ‘no one’ll think twice about us.’

‘Mr Foster,’ said Liam quietly, ‘what’s about to happen?’

Foster turned to the support unit. ‘Tell Liam.’

Bob mentally extracted the relevant file from his recently installed database.‘Information: in precisely five minutes, thirty-two seconds, the thirty-fifth presidentof the United States of America, John F. Kennedy, will suffer a point-forty-one calibreprojectile impact to the throat, and a second to the top of the cranium, ejectingapproximately twenty-five per cent of his brain tissue.’

‘The man’s killed?’

Foster looked at him. ‘Have a guess.’

‘And what? We’re going to stop thishappening?’

Foster shrugged. ‘More like… delay it.’

2001, NewYork

Sal looked around Times Square. This was probably the eleventh or twelfth timeshe’d taken a walk up from Brooklyn across the Williamsburg Bridge, along Broadway tothe hub of the city teeming with endless life. There were so many things to observe in thisplace — so much going on. She honestly didn’t understand how she was supposed toremember every little detail here, how she was supposed to know exactly what should happen inthis thoroughfare from moment to moment at this time of day.

Her eyes scanned the major billboards. There was a giant display of a jolly green ogre andthe title SHREK above his head, and another board with some hairyblue monster and a little green ball-like creature beside him entitled Monsters Inc. Further along she saw a poster for the stage performance of somethingcalled Mamma Mia.

Then, with something that felt like a reassuring stroke of deja vu, Sal spotted theyoung mother in the red jeans pushing a buggy before her, across a pedestrian crossing.

Oh, that’s right… she’llhave to stop and pick up a soft toy.

A moment later she did, bending down irritably for it in the middle of the crossing andhanding it back to a pair of chubby hands reaching out desperately from the buggy’sseat.

That was a weird sensation.

She smiled.

‘Wow,’ she muttered, pleased with herself, ‘I just predicted thefuture.’

1963, Dallas,Texas

‘Up these stairs, one more flight to go,’ Foster wheezed.

Liam looked across the stairwell, through an open office door. He could see desks andbookshelves and filing cabinets left deserted. Crowded around every front window was a crushof office ladies in floral print dresses, sporting beehive hairdos, eagerly peering out.

‘What are we heading up these stairs for?’

Foster was too winded to answer. ‘Bob, would you…?’

The support unit nodded obediently. ‘Information: on the sixth floor of this buildingis a man called Lee Harvey Oswald. He will shoot at the thirty-fifth president of the UnitedStates of America in precisely one minute and twenty-seven seconds. Now, one minute andtwenty-six seconds…’

‘Uh… thanks, Bob,’ said Liam.

The thing managed a cumbersome approximation of a smile. ‘You are welcome, LiamO’Connor.’

As they reached the top of the stairs, Foster slowed down and put a finger to his lips. Hepointed through an open door into what appeared to be a storage room.

‘This is it,’ he whispered. ‘Through here, on the left, is a row of windowslooking down on to Dealey Plaza. Oswald, right now, has his gun resting on the sill of thesecond window along. In about thirty seconds — ’

‘Thirty-nine seconds, precisely,’ Bob cut in.

‘Bob, be quiet.’

Bob nodded meekly.

‘In about thirty seconds the president’s car will swing round a corner and intoview. The car will approach this building and when it’s virtually beneath him Oswaldwill fire the first shot as it passes. But this first shot,’ Fostercontinued quietly, ‘we’re actually going to prevent. Follow me.’

Foster walked through the door into the storeroom, Liam and Bob following cautiously. Theystepped between stacks of school textbooks, precariously piled on top of each other, coated ina fine layer of dust.

Liam glimpsed, between teetering piles, the hairy tuft of the top of a head framed by a tallwindow. He turned to Foster and Foster nodded.

That’s him.

They stepped across the floor quietly until they were standing over him.

‘Excuse me,’ said Foster.

Lee Harvey Oswald spun round. His eyes widened at the sight of three tramps calmly watchinghim. One huge and muscular, one looked very old and the third was little more than a boy.

His mouth flapped open.

The muscular man wrenched the rifle from his hands.

‘Lee Harvey Oswald,’ said the old man calmly, ‘you’d better startrunning. Run as fast as you can,’ he said, offering the slightest sympathetic smile.‘I suggest you head home.’

‘Who… who are you?’

Foster smiled. ‘Hmm, let’s see. Oh, I know,’ he said, grinning,‘we’re the CIA. Anyway… you’d better get going or my man here willtoss you out of the window head first.’

Oswald nodded uncertainly as he got to his feet, looking Bob up and down. He pushed past themand disappeared out of the storage room, casting one last frightened and puzzled glance atthem as he descended the first flight of stairs, three steps at a time.

‘Time violation,’ cautioned Bob flatly. ‘This timeline has now beenaltered.’

Liam shook his head. ‘But… but have we not just done the thingwe’re never meant to do?’

Foster nodded. ‘Correct. As we speak, time is already shifting, rippling forwardthrough the years. The decades are adjusting themselves, making room for a new reality: thatPresident Kennedy survived today.’

The old man looked out of the window and watched the open-top limousine, escorted by a stringof motorbike cops, sweep sedately up the street towards an overpass… and a grassyhill.