Time Trapped (16 page)

Christmas Day, 1950, 2:27
A.M.

Westminster Abbey
London, England
Operation Coronation

T
he band's in place. I'm coming back!” I yell over Abbie's and Dmitri's mindpatches.

“No!” shouts Abbie. “Stay there and get out of sight! The thieves have got the rest of the stone and they're heading your way.”

Out of sight where? I glance left and right. Solid stone walls on either side of the lane. No doorways, no alcoves, not a single place to . . . Wait. There! Twenty feet away. A narrow break in the wall. I race to it and press my back against the shallow recess. In broad daylight, this would be a laughable hiding place. But I'm counting on the night shadows to hide me.

The sound of footsteps and grunting kick-starts my senses into high alert.

I can do this. I am a tree. Solid and unmoving. Wrong image. Now all I can think of is Razor yelling “timber” and that giant tree coming down and missing me by inches.

“Damn thing weighs a ton, Angus,” says the voice of one of the thieves. I don't dare look, but by the sound of his voice I'm guessing he's not more than five feet away.

“It's a wee bit heavy, I'll grant you that, Colin,” says the other thief. “But it's a good weight, if you get my meaning.”

I get his meaning. I know all about good weights and bad weights. A good weight is a mile-high stack of blueberry pancakes with maple syrup. A bad weight is the feathery touch of Uncle's blade on your little toe.

“Put her down a minute, mate, so I can catch my breath,” says the one called Colin, in between huffs and puffs.

They set the stone down right there in the lane. Just as they do, I hear footsteps approaching.

They must hear them too because Colin whispers, “It's the night watchman. He's not supposed to be on his rounds.”

Good. Their intel is as bad as mine.

“Don't panic,” Angus says.

“I ain't,” Colin says. “But we don't want to get caught here with our trousers down.”

Trousers down. I'm beginning to like these guys. Or at least Colin. He knows how to be miserable just like me.

“Right,” Angus says. The next second they've abandoned the stone and are hightailing it down the lane.

The footsteps stop for a moment. I watch the beam of the watchman's flashlight as it shines first on the wall opposite my hiding place and then onto the lane.

My left leg is cramping. I badly need to massage it. But there's no moving from here yet.

“Anyone there?” yells a gravelly voice. All the while the flashlight beam bounces here and there but amazingly doesn't land on the stone.

I am a statue. Strong, silent, unyielding, motionless—

The night watchman's footsteps start up again. This time they are receding—he's walking away!

I peek out from my hiding place. There's no one in sight.

Taking a deep breath, I step out and massage my leg.

“What's happening Cale?” Abbie asks over my mindpatch.

“They just took off . . . without the stone,” I tell her.

“Good,” she says. “We have to split up. Gerhard, Judith and I will track down the first thief and her piece of the stone. You, Razor and Dmitri snatch the piece we've got. I'm sending Dmitri over to you now.”

“All right,” I say, peering down at the stone. Draped in shadow and sitting on the cobbles as it is, it doesn't look too impressive. Still, I'm tempted to sit down on it myself and see if it makes me feel kingly.

“Cale, change of plans. Hide!” Abbie's voice sounds frantic.

“What's happening?” I mindshout.

“Thief number four just left Poets' Corner. He's coming your way.”

Did she say thief number four? That's impossible. Because there's only supposed to be three. But then again, nothing surprises me at this point.

I slip back into my hiding spot and wait. Seconds later, I hear footsteps followed by heavy breathing. Right after this snatch, I'm putting them all, except maybe thief number one, on an exercise program.

I sneak a peek and see Number Four taking off his overcoat and sliding it under the stone.

Next he's dragging the stone along the lane.

“Where's Dmitri?” I mindshout. “I can't snatch it without him!”

My patch is silent for a moment and then Abbie's voice comes on. “Sorry, we're having a little trouble here. Dmitri says that there is something important he has to do first.”

“What could be more important than snatching the stone?” I say.

Down the lane, Number Four is making good progress. In another few seconds, he and the stone will be out of sight. But how is he going to . . . ? A car. He must have his own car parked nearby.

“Razor,” I mindpatch, “get over here, and bring Dmitri. I don't care how you get him to come. Just do it. And tell him to bring his gadget.”

“That's a big ten-four, boss man,” answers Razor.

I take off my shoes to muffle my footsteps and race to the end of the lane. Peering around the corner, I see Number Four open the passenger door of a black car. Then he heaves the stone up so that it is standing on end and pushes it through the door.

Footsteps come clattering behind me. It's Razor and Dmitri.

Just then the car's engine starts up.

“Dmitri,” I yell, “do your thing. Stop that car!”

Mid-stride, Dmitri pulls out his gizmo and starts pressing buttons.

But nothing happens. No, that's not true. Something does happen—the car starts driving away.

“I'm afraid my device is not calibrated for a V-12,” says Dmitri.

“What are you talking about?” I yell.

“That car is a 1938 Allard,” says Dmitri. “It uses a Lincoln-Zephyr V-12 engine, which is basically a flathead V-8 that has been updated to narrow the angle between cylinder banks and add four more cylinders. Now, if it had been a later model Allard, it would likely have the much more common but less powerful V-8 engine, in which case my device would function admirably but—”

“Okay,” I say, cutting him off. “Then we have to find a way to follow him. You and Razor stay—”

Razor! Where is she?

A horn blasts and I look up. Twenty feet away there's a rusted red van, engine idling.

Razor's head pokes out the driver's side window. “Hop in, everyone!”

“Where did you—”

“Learn to break into and start a van?” she finishes for me. “At art school. Where else? I majored in the Art of Stealing Motor Vehicles. I got lucky, though . . . he left the keys for us.”

“Dmitri,” I say as we squeeze into the front seat beside Razor, “can you make your device drive this van?”

“Yes,” says Dmitri. “Reconfiguring for an autopilot feature is certainly—”

“Forget that,” Razor says. “There's no time. Besides, I want to drive.”

“And I want to retire and live by the lake,” I say. “We can't always get what we—”

Razor ignores me and steps on the gas. The van lurches forward and glances off the side of the building. She promptly reverses, and we smack into a trash bin, sending the contents flying.

“I am experiencing heart palpitations,” says Dmitri. “It may be the result of stressors such as a perceived loss of control.”

“Razor! You are
not
driving,” I shout. “Move over.”

“Sorry, but there's no time to switch,” she says, throwing the van into first gear. “The bad guy is getting away.”

Wrong. The bad guy is sitting next to me.

Christmas Day, 1950, 3:02
A.M.

Westminster Abbey
London, England
Operation Coronation

Y
ou and Dim should relax and close your eyes,” Razor says, turning onto Northumberland Avenue. “I'm an expert driver.”

Relaxing is the last thing on my mind. “Dmitri, get this thing on autopilot ASAP,” I say.

Unbelievably, I can still see the Allard's taillights. It's stopped up ahead.

“I'm gonna ram him,” says Razor.

“No! Don't!” I yell.

“Just testing to see if you're still awake,” says Razor, laughing. “I'd never ram someone . . . unless he deserved it.”

Dmitri nods to me and says, “It's ready.”

Finally, something is going my way. “You can let go of the steering wheel now, Razor. Dmitri has set up the autopilot.”

“No way,” says Razor. “I'm not putting my life in his hands. Did you see what he did to that poor tree?”

“You are the one who wagered that I could not move the tree both temporally and geographically, which I succeeded in doing,” Dmitri says.

“Hands off, Razor,” I say, trying to sound firm.

A car swerves in front of us. Razor jerks the wheel to the right and slams on the brakes.

“Whew. That was a close call. Good thing I didn't listen to you, isn't it?”

“Cale, what's happening?” says Abbie over my mindpatch.

“We're gaining on 'em, Abs! Got the pedal to the floor, hear this baby roar!”

“Razor, I want to speak with Caleb. Kindly get off this frequency.”

“Hi,” I say meekly.

“Hi? What's going on?”

“Everything's under con— WATCH OUT!” I yell.

Razor zigs right and brakes to an abrupt halt, barely avoiding a street lamp. And it starts to snow.

“That's it, I've had enough,” I say, jumping out and running around to the driver's side. “Move over.”

I grab the keys from the ignition and wait. I can barely make out the taillights of the Allard.

“Aww, c'mon,” says Razor. “You're no fun.”

I say nothing.

She opens her mouth again but then closes it. She moves over.

“Okay, Dmitri, take over,” I say, starting the ignition.

“With pleasure,” he says, sitting up to get a clear view of the road.

The steering wheel starts to move by itself, and the car lurches forward.

As it does, a wave of dizziness comes over me. That's strange. I don't usually get dizzy . . . unless I'm time fogged. But it can't be time fog. I took an anti-time-fog pill, and Luca said they're good for three hours.

Yeah, but he also said there would be only three thieves.

“You drive like a granny, Dim!” Razor yells. “Step on it, or we're going to lose him!”

“Very well,” he says. He presses a button on his gizmo, and the van begins to go faster. In moments, we're zipping along.

For the next hour, Dmitri somehow manages to keep the van on the road with Number Four's car in sight. I'm not doing as well, though. I go in and out of feeling dizzy, whether my eyes are open or closed.

When I can finally focus, I see Number Four's car just ahead of us. It has its brake lights on.

“Looks like he's stopping,” Razor says.

The thief's car turns onto a small dirt track off the main road.

As we reach the place where he turned off, I signal Dmitri to stop the van.

“Don't stop! We're gonna lose him again,” Razor says.

“We wait here for a minute,” I say. “If we turn too soon, he'll know we're following.”

The getaway car climbs a slope.

As we watch, a siren wails behind us. Wow. That was quick. The stone was stolen only about an hour ago, and the police have already tracked down the getaway car. The Allard is about three-quarters of the way up the hill now.

“Move us over a little so the police car can get by,” I instruct Dmitri.

He edges the van over, but instead of passing us, the police car slows and then rolls to a stop. A burly-looking police officer steps from the vehicle and heads toward us. My stomach does a quick flip.

I adjust my night vision to full zoom. The Allard is stopped at the top. The door on the passenger side is open, and the thief already has the stone halfway out.

“Quick, grab my hands,” I say to Razor and Dmitri. “We're timeleaping the rest of the way.”

Neither of them makes a move, so I grab Razor by the wrist and reach around her to nab Dmitri.

“Your hand, Dmitri!” I shout.

But by the time he looks up, the officer is already tapping at my window, motioning for me to roll it down. Rats.

“Good morning, Officer,” I say, letting go of Razor.

The policeman shines his flashlight full in my eyes and then does the same with Razor and Dmitri.

“Driver's license, please,” he says to me.

I make a show of patting my pockets and then say, “Uhh. I must have forgotten it at home. Look, I live just over that hill . . . if you wait here, I can drive over to my house and get it.”

“Kindly turn the engine off and step out from the vehicle,” he says to me. “And your friends, too.”

I'm focused on the scene unfolding at the top of the hill. The thief has the stone out of the car now and is duck-walking it to a spot on the hillside near some snow-covered shrubs.

He struggles with the stone for a few more feet before laying it down and kicking snow on top of it. I can't believe it. He's just going to leave it there—in the middle of nowhere!

“Step out from the vehicle, now,” repeats the officer, this time with an edge to his voice.

I turn the engine off, and we all clamber out of the van. As we stand by the side of the dirt track, he pulls a notepad out of his pocket and shines his light on it. Then he aims the beam at the van's license plate.

After a moment, he looks at me and says, “How old are you?”

My mind races. For the life of me, I don't know what the legal driving age was in England in 1950 but I'm guessing it was either sixteen, seventeen or eighteen.

“Nineteen,” I say, just in case. “I've got a rare skin disease. Makes me look younger than I really am.”

Razor guffaws.

“These are my . . . brothers,” I continue. “We're on our way home from visiting our grandmother.”

Razor smiles up at the officer. Dmitri, as usual, doesn't appear to be paying any attention to the goings-on around him. He runs his fingers over the buttons on his black box.

“I'm not buying your story, son,” says the officer to me. “For starters, if you're a day over fourteen my nan's a pilot with the RAF. I'm afraid I'm going to have to take all of you back to the station,” he says. “This vehicle is reported as stolen.

“You ride with me in the front,” he says to Razor. “You two go in the back.”

As Dmitri and I slide into the backseat, the officer talks into a radio receiver.

“Central Dispatch, this is car forty-seven. I'm just south of Catclaw Hill and have located the stolen vehicle. The three occupants are children, approximate ages, thirteen, ten and ten. No adult in sight. I'm bringing them in to sort this out. Over.”

“Car forty-seven, this is Central Dispatch. Copy that. Carry on. Over.”

I look up the hill. The getaway car is nowhere in sight. The stone sits on the hillside half covered in snow.

Why did the thief just leave it there? Then it occurs to me. Half of England is soon going to be on the lookout for a black Allard carrying the Stone of Destiny. He must be hiding it until the heat is off and then he'll come back in a different car and drive it the rest of the way to Scotland.

“Any update, Cale?” says Abbie over my mindpatch.

No sooner does she say this than another wave of dizziness hits me, this one stronger than the first.

“Abbie, are you . . . have you experienced any symptoms of time fog?” I ask.

“No,” she says. “Why? Have you?”

“Yup.”

“Well, there's nothing we can do about it,” she says. “Try to hang in. What's going on right now?”

“Not much,” I say. “I've just been arrested for vehicle theft and underage driving, and we're all about to head to the police station.”

“What about the stone?” she asks.

“I can see it from here,” I say. “Number Four dumped it and drove off. My guess is he's going to come back for it later.”

“There's no time for you to go to the police station,” says Abbie. “We're already running behind on the snatch.”

She's right. What seemed like oodles of time has now dwindled down to a measly forty-seven minutes. And it's bound to get even tighter, since now I've got to budget some time for busting out of prison.

“Don't worry, Abs, they'll never take us alive,” says Razor, cutting in.

“Razor, get off this frequency!” I mindshout.

“Can you get any decent rock stations on your radio?” Razor asks the police officer.

“What?” he says.

“Rock and roll,” repeats Razor. “You know . . . some Stones, or even Moody Blues? Oh cripes, I forgot. What about Elvis? He was big in the fifties, wasn't he?”

The officer gives her a strange look. “No more talking, son.”

The car starts up, reverses and then turns onto the main road.

As we bump along, I can see the back of Razor's head through a small mesh window, but I can't reach out and grab her. Which is what I'll need to do in order for the three of us to timeleap out of here.

I'll just have to be patient and wait for my chance.

I turn to look at Dmitri. He's completely occupied with what looks like a plastic mouthpiece, alternately putting it in and taking it out of his mouth. It amazes me how he can tune everything out. Maybe if I lived in my own little world like he does, I'd be a lot happier.

He curls his lips around the mouthpiece and glances my way. His eyes are full of mischief.

“Car forty-seven. Car forty-seven, this is Central Dispatch, come in. Over,” says a voice.

I do a double take. I swear that Dmitri is saying the words, but they sound exactly like the voice of the police dispatcher. And not only that. It sounds like his voice is coming from the police radio in the front seat.

“This is car forty-seven. Over,” says the policeman from the front.

“Update on the stolen vehicle report,” Dmitri says in the dispatcher's voice. “The vehicle reported stolen has been recovered and returned to its owner. I repeat, the vehicle has been recovered and returned. Over.”

“Copy that, Central Dispatch. Over,” says the policeman.

“Car forty-seven,” Dmitri continues, “the three you have picked up check out. They live on the north side of Catclaw Hill. You had best return them to their vehicle. Over.”

“Are you certain?” says the police officer. “The driver looks awfully young. Over.”

“Car forty-seven. We located the father of the driver, and he confirmed that the boy suffers from a rare skin condition that makes him look much younger than his years. He has a valid driver's license. Over.”

“Copy that,” says the policeman. “Will bring them back now. Over.”

The police car turns around and starts heading back.

Dmitri removes the mouthpiece and smiles at me.

Ten minutes later we arrive, but something about the scene is different.

There are ten or fifteen vehicles parked at the top of the hill, including a mixture of cars and horse-drawn wagons. About thirty men and women are milling around, a few of them putting up tents. They must have just arrived, because only twenty minutes ago, the place was deserted.

The officer opens the back door for Dmitri and me. “Out you go,” he says. “It seems there's been a bit of a mix-up. You're free to carry on.”

“Thank you, Officer,” I say. “Come along . . . children.”

He tips his cap at us, gets back into his car and drives away.

I scoot in behind the steering wheel. Razor and Dmitri scrunch in beside me.

I'm surprised that Razor hasn't said anything to me about wanting to drive, but I'm not about to bring up the subject.

“Hurry up and start this thing,” says Razor, rubbing her hands. “It's freezin' in here.”

I fumble around in my pocket for the keys but can't find them.

“Dmitri, did you—”

“Looking for these?” Razor asks, dangling a ring of keys from her fingers.

“How did you get those?” I say, grabbing them from her.

“I learned from the best!” she says, leaning across to toot the horn. “Now, step on it, Jack. Next stop, the Stone of Destiny!”