Churchill struggled to get up, but Finn pressed him down.
“Stay here!” shouted Andre.
Churchill never noticed Andre clocking out. Another shell landed, sending up clouds of dust and clods of earth as it struck the entrenchment wall. Men screamed. The Ghazi attack continued unabated as they charged the trenches again and again and the British soldiers kept up a punishing stream of fire.
Andre took a gamble. She clocked blind, trying to estimate relative distance coordinates for the heights behind the camp. She thought she knew the weapon being used, or its alternate universe equivalent—a pop mortar, a small tubelike weapon fired from the shoulder with scope sights attached on a slender, collapsible stalk. It would be equipped with night sights, and it fired tiny, ball-shaped missiles about the size of walnuts. Its operation was completely silent except for an almost imperceptible popping sound made by the launching of the missiles.
The plan was clear now. They had never intended to infiltrate assassins to kill Churchill. Instead they had taken up position on the heights in order to drop well-placed mortar fire into the camp, taking out the big guns and cutting down on the British advantage, allowing the Ghazis to break through. A few more shots and they would be zeroed in, able to drop missiles directly into the trenches.
Andre tried to estimate trajectory, to think as they had thought, to find the most logical place to set up their point of fire. They needed to be well away from the attacking Ghazis, and the best vantage point for the battle were the heights directly behind the encampment, on the side opposite the Bedmanai Pass. She still had to find them quickly, but it left a great deal of territory to search. Unless she was very lucky, the odds of finding them were very small. And that meant Churchill’s death—and Finn’s.
Chapter 12
Phoenix heard the screams coming from the top of the tower in Drakov’s residence. Sayyid Akbar was home again. He felt the molecular disruptor beneath his robe. It gave him a profound feeling of security. He was sure the opposition wouldn’t have such weapons. There were only a few in existence, all prototypes made by Darkness. The Temporal Army could not figure out a way to duplicate them. The principles of the weapon’s operation had been explained to them in detail, but they just couldn’t make one. He could not imagine a duplicate Dr. Darkness in the alternate universe. The thought of two of them was unnerving.
Most of the village was empty now, save for the women and children. The men had all gone to take up their positions in the Khyber Pass, preparing for the ambush of the Tirah Expeditionary Force. Phoenix had remained behind, watching Drakov’s residence. He had seen Sadullah going in and knew the attack would not begin without him. He wondered what Drakov was doing to him to instill the terror necessary for absolute obedience.
“Is he inside?”
Phoenix jumped about a foot. The voice had come from about five inches away. He turned to see Darkness standing at his elbow.
“Jesus, Doc, I wish you wouldn’t do that. I swear, you’re going to give me a heart attack one of these days.”
“Don’t concern yourself,” said Darkness. “I know CPR. You haven’t answered my question.”
“Yeah, he’s in there, all right. Putting the fear of God into old Sadullah. They’re ready to move. Where’s the expeditionary force?”
“Approaching the pass,” said Darkness. “I’ve found the confluence point, thanks to the adjustment team.”
“They’re okay?”
‘They won’t be if I don’t get back to help them,” Darkness said. “Forrester is ready to move with the First Division on my signal, which I’ll give him the moment the soldiers from the alternate timeline start coming through the confluence. After that both they and you are on your own. I must get to the adjustment team and help them stop the second assault upon the timestream.”
“The second assault?”
“Never mind. It would take too long to explain. We’ve reached the crisis point. Make your move.”
Phoenix was about to reply, but Darkness was already gone. He shook his head, wondering what it must be like to live that way, at light speed. One of these days, thought Phoenix, he’ll translate and his tachyons will take off in sixty zillion directions at the same time, and then where will he be? Probably everywhere.
He pulled the disruptor out from beneath his robe and approached the house.
There was only one way to search for the mortar team and it was risky. She had to change her transition coordinates rapidly, clocking blind from place to place atop the heights overlooking the camp. The task seemed hopeless. There were hundreds of places for them to hide and she had to find them quickly, before their mortar fire turned the tide of the battle. She was desperate. It had all come down to her, and she could not afford to be cautious.
She initiated a warp fugue sequence, one that would allow her to teleport all over the vicinity with lightning speed, but she was afraid it wouldn’t be enough. Finn knew what the odds were, yet he had stayed behind to protect Churchill with his life. She couldn’t let him down. She couldn’t lose him too. If she was wrong, if she hadn’t properly estimated their strategy and they were not in the area she was searching, then it was all over.
She effected over thirty transitions with incredible speed, but they had already found their range and their fire was now failing into the camp with telling effect. The Ghazis, doubtless believing this was the divine intervention they were promised, renewed their assaults with fanatical determination. She kept estimating possible lines of fire and clocking to those points, all without result. Suddenly they were right in front of her, no more than five feet away.
She reacted quickly, firing from the hip, and the man with the pop mortar became enveloped in the blue mist of the disruptor’s neutron beam. She fired again and the second man fell as he was bringing his laser to bear on her, then a jarring impact on her back sent her tumbling to the ground. She dropped the disruptor and wrestled with the man who had tackled her. She jerked aside and the knife scraped along her skull, opening a deep gash in the left side of her head. She trapped the knife hand and rolled on it, dislodging her antagonist and reversing their positions. She brought her right hand down hard, fore-knuckle extended, into her opponent’s throat, crushing his larynx, then struck again twice more and he lay still. Breathing heavily, she slowly got to her feet and came face to face with Priest, standing about ten feet away, aiming his laser at her.
She froze. Both of them stood there atop a cliff overlooking a raging battle, and neither moved. The laser was leveled directly at her chest, but, Priest hesitated. Then he slowly lowered the weapon. She stared at him with disbelief.
He shut his eyes briefly. “Andre, forgive me.”
The laser started to come up again, and then it fell from his hands as his entire body jerked forward. The point of a bayonet came through his chest, then withdrew again. He collapsed onto the ground. Finn Delaney stood behind him, blood pouring from the wound in his shoulder and one in his arm. He held a Lee-Metford rifle in his hands, its bayonet wet with blood.
“I saw the beam flashes—” he began, then sank down to his knees, holding onto the rifle for support. She was at his side in an instant.
“How’s Churchill?”