The Empire of Time (40 page)

‘Don’t fuck with me,’ he says, and the gun in his hand trembles, like his anger’s genuine. And maybe it is. Maybe he really doesn’t know who Burckel and I are. But that’s unlikely.

‘So what’s your angle?’ I ask. ‘Why are
you
so concerned?’

‘It was my club, that’s fucking why! My money. And now my fucking loss!’

It’s a good act, only I know he’s a Russian agent, and any money he may or may not have put into the club was
Russian
money, not his.

‘How did you get out?’

‘Me?’ He looks puzzled. ‘I wasn’t there.’

‘And the Guildsman?’

‘Dead. And eighteen others with him. The fucker used a sticky bomb. Placed it right dead centre on the Guildsman’s chest.’

I narrow my eyes. ‘How do you know all this? I thought the cameras were destroyed.’

‘They were. But there’s an external feed. We saw it all.’ He’s staring at me still, but there’s a slight question in his eyes now, as if he’s not quite as sure of me as he first thought.

‘And the assassin?’

‘Dead. When the bomb went off he was only a metre or so away.’

‘But you got a good look at him?’

‘No. The fucker was masked.’

‘Ah …’ And I wonder if our friend Reichenau was involved. One of his men, maybe. ‘All right …but why are you so pissed off with me?’

‘Because you were there earlier. Your first visit. A bit of a coincidence, wouldn’t you say?’

‘That’s because it was.’

‘So you say. But I’m afraid you’re under suspicion. The Guild are furious. They want answers, and fast. If you hadn’t come here …’

Too late, I realise what he’s done. Nor can I jump, because then Burckel will have to jump, too, and our operation here will be completely blown. That is, if it isn’t already. But Dankevich is acting as if he really doesn’t know who we are. As I stand and turn to the door, so it flies open and two SS men, heavy snub-nosed automatics in their hands, block the way.

‘I’m sorry, Albrecht,’ Dankevich says. ‘But if I hadn’t handed you in, they would have come for you anyway.’

The apology is unexpected – and it makes me glance back at him. But then we’re grabbed and cuffed and half pushed, half carried out to the cruiser which is waiting in the broad avenue outside, hovering a foot above the ground, all black metal plate and bristling guns.

Burckel looks sick, but I’m not about to let these bastards take us in and torture us, and as the cruiser lifts and banks, so I jump and jump back almost instantly, artillery in hand, and open fire, taking out both the guards and another four of their companions, including the pilot. One of them manages to fire a shot off, however, and suddenly Burckel’s squealing like a stuck pig. As the cruiser dips towards the ground, Freisler appears from nowhere in the co-pilot’s seat and, taking the controls, keeps the flyer steady until I can see to Burckel. It takes a moment to stop the bleeding; then I go forward to join Freisler in the cockpit.

‘Thanks,’ I say, hauling the dead pilot out of his seat and clambering in, getting the feel of the joystick.

Freisler nods … then vanishes.

We dump the cruiser in wasteland to the south of the city. There I jump back to Four-Oh and return an instant later with a proper medical kit to patch Burckel up. It’s his leg. The bone is smashed, but I can deal with that. I dose him up and put the limb in a walking cast, its neuro-transmitters by-passing the nerve-ends in the shattered leg, its artificial muscles allowing Burckel to walk while the bone heals.

We make our way by foot to the nearest terminus. Burckel’s convinced there’ll be a full-scale alert out for us, so we try to avoid all checkpoints and security cameras, only in this world you can’t scratch your arse without a camera looking on.

I’m tempted to go back and change things, to jump in down the line and sort this mess out at the source, only Hecht was keen that I didn’t meddle, and what Hecht says goes.

The priority now is to find a hidey-hole. Somewhere to stay for the next day or two. I suggest contacting Reichenau’s man Heinrich, and Burckel makes the call, only our friendly terrorists don’t want to know. They cut us dead, like they’re afraid to know us.

I’m at a loss, but Burckel has the answer.

‘Werner. We can stay with Werner. He’ll look after us.’

I’m not so sure, but as I know no one else in this world, I go along with him. Burckel makes another call and, half an hour later, a bright red flyer descends nearby and Werner leans out, beckoning us across. It’s not as plush, nor as powerful as the
Steuermann-L8
, but I’m surprised that Werner owns one at all. He’s alone in the flyer, no sign of his two goons. Once we’re strapped in the back he asks us what happened, and for once I let Burckel do the talking.

‘You
shot
them?’ he asks me, amazed. ‘How the fuck did you manage that? I thought you were cuffed?’

‘A trick I learned,’ I say. ‘But thanks. For this …’

‘Shit. Don’t thank me. Anyone who whacks one of those bastards …’

I’m about to say that I didn’t, only Burckel lays his hand on my arm and I keep quiet.

Werner’s ‘place’ is a big penthouse studio on the eastern side of the city. He sets the flyer down on a pad, then hurries us inside.

The apartment is the very height of luxury. I look about me, impressed. Werner is a far bigger man than I thought. ‘Where are your friends?’

‘I sent them away for a couple of days,’ he answers, pouring us drinks. ‘I thought it best.’

His smile is kindly, unthreatening, and I begin to wonder whether my earlier judgement of him was too hasty.

‘I’ve some business to do,’ he says, ‘so I’ll be gone for three or four hours, but you’ll be safe here.’

I look up and find he’s holding something out for me to take. It’s a gun. A large calibre automatic, with laser sights.

‘Just in case,’ he says and smiles. ‘I don’t think anyone followed me, but you never know.’

I nod, and smile back at him gratefully. ‘Thanks. You don’t know how much this means.’

And that’s true. Germany owes a debt to ‘Werner’. That is, if we survive the next two nights.

When Werner’s gone, I see to Burckel, checking his wound, then dose him up again. I want to give him something stronger – something to put him out, to let him rest so that his body will heal faster – but he won’t let me. He wants to keep awake. He wants to talk. And so, finally, I let him, taking a seat by the window, looking out across the city, the gun across my lap, as, sprawled out on the couch nearby, Burckel tells me how it’s been, here in 2747.

‘This is a cold place, Otto. A frightening place, at times. No place to raise a family, if you know what I mean. Not that we two have much sense of family, eh? Not in the traditional sense.’

‘We are a people …’

‘I know, but sometimes, well, I miss the more intimate stuff … you know, being a father, having children … that kind of thing.’

‘Not the sex, then?’

‘No. Strangely enough I don’t miss the sex. I never liked being part of the programme. You know, servicing the
Frau
…’

I look away, before he sees the agreement in my eyes.

‘Anyway,’ he goes on, ‘even if I could, there’d be no point in this world. These people live in constant fear.’

I look to him, querying that.

‘The fortress has the power of life or death over all,’ he says, ‘and it chooses its servants, well, let us say
arbitrarily
. Who knows on what criteria the choice is made. All that anyone knows is that at any time – day or night – the King’s men might call and take a child, any child they wish, and take it back to the fortress to be changed, turned into one of the
do-hu
, the domesticated humans that serve the Masters. Nor is there any right of appeal. All here are the property of the fortress.’

I know, yet to hear Burckel say it so clearly – and with such bitterness – makes me see it anew.

‘There are things we cannot change, Albrecht. How people live …’

‘You believe that bollocks?’

I stare at him, surprised.

‘No, Otto.
Think
. We can change Time itself. Recast events and make things happen. So why not this? Why not make changes that affect the common people’s lives? Why always the grand historical gesture?’

I could answer, and at another time I might, only I want to hear what he has to say. Want to learn just how deeply this madness has taken hold of him.

‘We act like policemen, Otto. Time cops, when we really ought to be acting like revolutionaries.
Undrehungar.
We could change things.
Really
change things. Not piss about meddling in historical events – what good does that do ultimately? The Russians only change it back! No. We need to get to grips with the underlying phenomena, with the
infrastructure
of history, not the surface froth.’

I have heard this argument before, but only from my younger students. To find it in an agent of Burckel’s maturity stuns me, for he really ought to know what he’s talking about.

‘Have you been lonely here?’

He blinks, surprised by the question, then looks down and, after a moment, nods.

‘You know,’ he says. ‘Some days I’ve been so lonely that I’ve thought I was going mad. I’ve thought …’

He hesitates, and when he doesn’t continue I prompt him. ‘Thought what?’

He takes a long, shuddering breath, then nods to himself.

‘Go on,’ I say. ‘I’m listening.’

‘It’s just … sometimes it feels as if I’ve reached the edge.’

‘The edge?’

‘Of what’s in my head. It’s like … you know how the ancients used to view the world as a great flattened circle, surrounded by a void, and that if you came to the edge you would fall off? Well, that’s how I feel. That’s what my memory seems like sometimes. There are limits to it. Like, well, like something has been taken from me.’

My mouth is dry now. This is what I saw, what I read, in Burckel’s journals – the very thing that set alarm bells ringing, both for me and for Hecht.

‘And to what do you attribute this …
feeling
?’

There’s the slightest frown now. ‘I don’t attribute it to anything, Otto. It’s how we are. How human beings are made. Only …’

Only
I
don’t have that feeling. And as far as I know, no one normal has it either. Yet Burckel does. Why? Was he captured by the Russians and re-conditioned? Or is it something simpler – something physiological, brought on by a blow to the head or perhaps a mild stroke?

‘Albrecht … I have a confession to make.’

‘A confession?’

‘I read your journal.’

He laughs. ‘Read it? But …’ And then he sees what I have done and his face changes, and he nods, as if it all now fits into place.

‘I’m sorry,’ I say. ‘But we had to know.
Hecht
had to know.’

‘Yeah …’ But he doesn’t sound happy. He sighs and lets his head fall back, closing his eyes. ‘So what did Hecht say?’

‘He told me to watch you.’

‘Ah …’ He’s silent for a moment, then he smiles. ‘At least you’re honest, Otto. Some other bastard …’

He doesn’t finish the sentence, but I know what he means. Some other bastard would have kept quiet about it; pretended to be his best friend.

‘Albrecht?’

‘Yes, Otto?’

‘Where did you meet Werner? In that bar we went to?’

‘Urd no!’ He laughs. ‘It was at a party. I had these two friends – they’re dead now, but – well, I went to this party with them, in the east lowers. In Friedrichshain, I think it was.’

‘When was this?’

‘Three, maybe four years ago.’

‘And he’s been a friend ever since?’

‘No. At first I found him quite hostile. I remember we argued that first time. I found him … arrogant, I guess. Self-opinionated. But then I met him again a couple of times and things improved. First impressions … they’re not always right, are they?’

I think of Kravchuk and I’m not so sure. But I don’t argue. I want Burckel to talk. I want to find out where the edges of his memory lie.

‘You’ve been
here
before, then?’

‘Once or twice. Not often. He had a gathering here once, a year or so back. It wasn’t so much a party as … well, Dankevich was a guest.’

‘Go on …’

‘Oh, I know what you’re thinking, but there’s no connection. Werner is as German as they come. He’s like Reichenau in that, fiercely proud of his nationality. He’d never dream of getting involved with the Russians.’

‘Okay … but how does he know Dankevich?’

Burckel shrugs. ‘I don’t know, but that’s how I came to meet Dankevich – or Schmidt, as I knew him. That’s how I got to hear about the club.’

‘
Das Rothaarige?
’

‘Yes. Mind, I didn’t know that he owned it. If I had—’

He yawns deeply. The shots are clearly having an effect, but there’s also a degree of shock setting in.

I look out across the rooftops. The city looks abandoned almost,
dead
, the only movement the dark shape of a flyer, two, three miles distant

‘You say you had Werner checked out. What did you do?’

‘There are ways,’ he says. But he doesn’t elaborate, and it gives me a moment’s unease. Then I think about what Werner’s done and I relax. If he’d wanted to, he could have handed us over straight away – led the authorities directly to where we were. No. Werner’s all right.

‘Do you ever have doubts, Otto?’

I look across. Burckel is watching me now. ‘Doubts?’

‘About what we do? About
why
we do it?’

‘No.’

And it’s true. If we didn’t do this, the Russians would eliminate us, down to the last man, woman and child.

‘
Really?
’

I nod.

‘Only, what if we
do
win, Otto? What if we finally destroy the Russians? What then? What kind of world would it be that our children inherited?’

I smile. ‘A German world.’

There’s the flicker of a smile, but he’s in deadly earnest now. ‘A
German
world, certainly. Not a
better
world. Not a more
humane
world.’

I look away. ‘You’ve been here too long, Albrecht. All German societies are not like this.’