Written in Time (55 page)

Ellen turned her head and looked at Teddy Roosevelt. The explosive fireball was reflected in his glasses, his face red-tinged, as was Jack’s, where the coal dust had fallen away.
 

Ellen wondered if Roosevelt thought that he was having a vision of Hell, and Hell was the future.
 

As a little girl, if Ellen had ever pictured herself as a locomotive engineer, it was not under circumstances similar to those in which she found herself now. Her husband was showing Roosevelt all about how to use a submachine gun and an automatic pistol. It was half past five in the morning. The wind around the locomotive was very cold and numbed her. The feeble light positioned between the locomotive’s smokestack and cowcatcher—a headlight—provided so little illumination that the train was clearly outrunning it; by the time she might spot something on the rails ahead, there would be no time to stop the train before smashing into whatever that object was.
 

Nor had she envisioned herself driving a locomotive after the real engineer had died in her arms fewer than five minutes earlier.
 

And, to make matters just peachy, she saw a bright light to the south—a light slowly but steadily increasing in size. “Jack! We’ve either got a UFO coming toward us or it’s a helicopter. You hear me, Jack?”
 

“I hear you,” Jack told her, suddenly beside her. “And, I almost hope it’s a UFO.”
 

“What do the letters U-F-O stand for, Mrs. Naile?” Teddy Roosevelt inquired of her.
 

Ellen looked at Jack, seeing his eyes in the lamplight. She couldn’t read them, but he said, “May as well tell him. The phenomenon was reported in various ways down through the centuries.”
 

“Mysterious lights in the sky,” Ellen amplified, “flying objects which move in strange ways, aerial phenomena that are unidentified. They came/will come to be known as unidentified flying objects in about fifty years from now. Some people call them flying saucers.”
 

“Is that light emanating from one of these flying saucers, then?”
 

“No, sir,” Jack volunteered. “You’re doubtless familiar with the scientific musings of Da Vinci. Do you recall his design for an aircraft or flying machine with rotating wings above its approximate center?”
 

“As a matter of fact, I do, Jack. Quite fanciful, but there was no power source by means of which it could be made to fly, even if such had been possible.”
 

“You’ve identified the crux of the problem, Mr. Roosevelt,” Jack agreed. “Until two bicycle mechanics will achieve the first powered flight in a little over three years from now.”
 

“Americans, these bicycle mechanics?”
 

“Of course, sir,” Ellen informed Teddy Roosevelt.
 

“Bully, Mrs. Naile! So, Jack, the power problem was solved—or will be—and the origin of that light—electrical, certainly—is from a flying machine similar to that posited by the great Leonardo.”
 

“Yes, sir. When and where we come from,” Jack told him, “they are called helicopters. Sometimes they are heavily armed for warfare. This might be such a gunship, but probably isn’t. More likely there will be one, possibly two armed men aboard, along with the pilot.”
 

“If we are attacked, as it appears may soon prove out, then I would assume the object in returning fire is to disable the flying craft in such a fashion that it is forced down.”
 

“You’ve got the spirit of it, sir,” Jack agreed.
 

Ellen suggested, “If time permits when they come into range, Jack can point out the chin bubble where the avionics might be disabled, and the tail rotor, which would force a controlled landing at the very least.” In the books Jack and she wrote, the good guys had shot down many an enemy helicopter in just such a way.
 

As for their vehicle, one string of gunfire, if it stitched across the locomotive’s boiler, could cause the engine to lose steam pressure and gradually fail. Almost certainly, had Jack Naile known a great deal more about the operation of steam-powered locomotives, there were other dangers from such gunfire that might prove more abruptly catastrophic. There were times, he reflected, when ignorance was bliss.
 

Theodore Roosevelt working side by side with him, Jack had taken toolboxes, coal shovels and every other suitable metal object that might slow down or stop a bullet, forming a low wall behind Ellen as she crouched before the controls of the locomotive.
 

Roosevelt, sleeves rolled up past his elbows, eyeglasses freshly buffed with his handkerchief, an expression of enthusiastic determination set across his broad face, had the submachine gun’s stock extended, the butt to his shoulder. “Good stock length for me, Jack. Will there be much recoil impulse when I touch off a round?”
 

“Barely noticeable, Mr. Roosevelt. And remember— very little noise, too. It’s got a sound suppressor. And, don’t forget to pump the trigger, sir, as I suggested. You don’t want to fire out the entire magazine.”
 

“I await your command to fire.”
 

Jack felt embarrassed—a seasoned man like Theodore Roosevelt following his lead. Up until four years ago, Jack’s only rip-snorting adventures were the ones he and Ellen made up for their books. Aside from a few animal pests he’d had to dispatch over the years, he’d never shot a living thing. Roosevelt was a seasoned man, had been all his life, choosing the adventurous path. Jack had merely fallen into circumstances beyond his control or imagining.
 

He could explain all that to Teddy Roosevelt, explain about a time loop that was the cause of all of this, but instead he called back to Mr. Roosevelt across the engine cab from him, “I’ll tell you when, sir,” and left it at that.
 

The helicopter was about two hundred yards off, its outline only partially visible in the predawn darkness, the spotlight emanating from the chopper the best and most logical first target. Jack was beginning to wish that he’d brought over one or two of the .30-40 Krag-Jorgensen military rifles from the support car. Unless the chopper got in well under a hundred yards, the submachine guns and pistols would be close to useless.
 

“I suggest shooting out their electric light, Jack!”
 

“My thought exactly, sir. We have to let the machine get very close before we open fire. Even a hundred yards is well beyond any practical range for the weapons we have available to us, firing from a moving platform as we are at a moving target. We don’t want to just hit the helicopter, but to disable it. If they think we’re their people and injured, we might have a chance of the helicopter getting in close enough that we can destroy it.”
 

It was a slim chance, at best, but their only one.
 

The helicopter was about one hundred fifty yards off, coming in so slowly that a sprinter could have outdistanced it.
 

One hundred yards.
 

Jack tucked the butt of the H-K submachine gun tight to his shoulder. His mouth was dry. He licked his lips. He blinked his right eye as he continued to watch the chopper over his sights.
 

“They’re getting pretty damned close, Jack!” Ellen cautioned.
 

“I know. Keep down and pray.”
 

“I think I see glass on the lower front of the flying machine. Is that the chin blossom?”
 

“Bubble, sir. Chin bubble. You concentrate on the light, Mr. Roosevelt, and then pour as much lead as you can through that chin bubble. When I tell you to, please.”
 

“Of course.”
 

The air around them was freezing cold, the darkness— except where the helicopter’s light illumined—impenetrable. The distance was seventy-five yards, give or take, and Jack Naile was sorely tempted to open fire.
 

Instead, he waited.
 

Fifty yards.
 

“Hold your fire, Mr. Roosevelt. Hold!”
 

“Affirmative, Jack!”
 

Twenty-five yards with the H-Ks would be easy, even considering that their firing platform—the racing locomotive—was moving at about sixty miles per hour and rocked slightly to one side or the other.
 

The helicopter was at thirty yards, Jack crouched as deeply as he could into the compartment, Theodore Roosevelt doing the same. “Like a stalk, for an animal,” Roosevelt observed.
 

“Yes, sir, but we’re the ones being hunted,” Jack responded.
 

The helicopter increased speed slightly, swinging in toward the locomotive to afford its occupants a closer look. The searchlight began a sweep across the locomotive.
 

Jack raised up slightly, bringing the submachine gun to his shoulder once again.
 

“Now, Mr. Roosevelt! Let ‘em have it!”
 

Jack’s trigger finger pistoned, and the submachine gun nudged gently against his shoulder as about a half-dozen rounds fired. The helicopter’s searchlight went out, shattering as the helicopter radically altered course.
 

Orange-yellow tongues of flame licked almost imperceptibly from the aircraft as bullets pinged along the roof and right side of the locomotive’s cab.
 

“Keep down, Ellen!”
 

Theodore Roosevelt was still firing, and his accuracy was just as good as Jack’s had been. Sparks were flying inside the chopper, near the pilot’s controls. Roosevelt had hit the chin bubble, and some of his shots had apparently penetrated the avionics.
 

More automatic weapons fire came from the helicopter, more bullets ricocheting off the locomotive. Glass shattered behind Jack. Ellen shouted, “I’m all right!”
 

In the same instant, Jack turned his attention toward the helicopter’s tail rotor. He used the submachine gun bullets like a chain saw, slicing with them, emptying the first magazine. Jack found the magazine release, not as quickly as one of the characters in their books would have.
 

The helicopter—for the first time, Jack realized what make and model: a Bell Long Ranger—was veering away, a strange glow from within the cockpit. Fire? Jack shouted to Teddy Roosevelt. “Shoot at the tail section, Mr. Roosevelt! We’re trying to sever any hydraulic and electrical connections. Use your weapon like a saw!”
 

“Indeed!”
 

The helicopter would be out of range in another second or two, Jack surmised. He was into his third burst from the H-K, Teddy Roosevelt also shooting at the same target. As Jack made to fire out his weapon, the helicopter’s motion pattern abruptly changed. The machine began to spin under its main rotor, executing rapid three-hundred-sixtydegree turns as it started downward, a roaring sound growing in volume exponentially as the main rotor strained.
 

In a heartbeat, the aircraft was on the ground and engulfed in flame, a body hurtling out of the cockpit as the aviation fuel blew, the sound wave drowning all other noise.
 

A hellish tableau unfolded beside the locomotive, red-tinged yellow flame brilliantly illuminating the night. Chunks of debris clanged against the locomotive. Jack ducked down, shielded his face with his left forearm.
 

There was another, smaller explosion.
 

The locomotive rounded a bend of some sort and the helicopter was gone from sight. “Should we try, Jack, to see if anyone survived?” Theodore Roosevelt asked.
 

Jack looked at the man who would, unless history were forever altered, soon become president of the United States. “If this were one of our books, Mr. Roosevelt, I would have had you shout what’s reportedly one of your favorite expressions when the aircraft went down. You know—‘Bully!’ But no, sir, neither man could have lived through that.”
 

Jack stood up, his knees stiff. He hugged Ellen as she stood. Roosevelt offered his hand, and Jack took it. “You’re everything I thought you would be, sir, only better,” Jack said honestly.
 

There was a faint glow in the darkness behind them. Some parts of the helicopter would still be burning. Jack lit a cigarette and said, “We’ll need to recruit some people who can keep silent, Mr. Roosevelt. The explosions involving the two rail cars back there are one thing, but the helicopter wreckage is another matter entirely. We’ll have to arrange for the wreckage to be gathered up discreetly and very thoroughly. We can’t have helicopter parts from 1996 discovered to have existed in 1900.”
 

Jack inhaled, watched the glowing tip of the cigarette in his fingers. His hands weren’t shaking. He was absolutely amazed.
 

CHAPTER
TWENTY
 

The air was crisp and cool, twilight upon them, the night promising to be clear and cold. Theodore Roosevelt had expressed considerable interest in what he persisted in calling “torchlights,” so much so that when Jack had handed him one of the rechargeable Maglites, Roosevelt had flipped it on and off as often as a child might have done. As they walked the by-now customary route to the observation position overlooking the time-transfer base, Roosevelt had twice commented, “I suppose it’s not time to activate the torchlights yet.”
 

Clarence, weary of Roosevelt’s seemingly boundless enthusiasm for virtually everything, however inconsequential, hadn’t answered him.
 

Turning to Clarence’s uncle, Roosevelt declared, “You’ll have to let me have a go at driving that excellent motorcar of yours, Jack!”
 

“Any time that you wish, Mr. Roosevelt,” Jack responded.
 

 
“Bully, sir!”
 

Clarence was amazed. Here was his uncle, Jack, palling around with Teddy Roosevelt as if they’d been buddies all their lives. Clarence shook his head, ambled on a few steps and caught up with David. “So, Mr. Bigshot of the future, think this connection with the guy who’s gonna be president pretty soon will prove useful to your business interests?”