Nik was staring at the tank, it was something he had done a lot over the course of building it. This time, however, he wasn’t waiting for inspiration, nor was he admiring his work, this time he was wondering if he should take it all apart. The time travel part of the tank was pretty much complete, there were of course some things he wanted to tidy up and improve but he was currently lacking the one thing left that was preventing the machine from being tested. Colin had the control circuit. The only one in existence. Without it all it would do would be to get them in trouble.

He sighed for what seemed like the millionth time, they had no idea where Colin was, nor whether they should be concerned, it had been a month already. His house was occupied by the army. Guy had confirmed that by going around and knocking on the door, now he had himself a military shadow. They weren’t even being discreet about it, there was a car which followed him wherever he went, there were audible taps on the phone lines and about a dozen new bugs in the workshop. Their already tight finances had taken a hit, new contracts had dried up and they were relying on the existing stock in the yard for income, they had all tightened their belts, the biscuits had gone. The worst sacrifice was the tea, they had been trying to eke out the last of it by making pots with fewer leaves, it was almost enough to make them drink water. They had always eaten simple foods and so usually they traded their spare food rations for other people’s tea ration but tea was expensive and they had resorted to selling those unused rations instead. They had even started walking to work, Guy had been sleeping in the workshop most nights to save fuel since his house was so much farther out. They had offered him their spare bed but so far he had turned them down each time. He felt a little insulted but told himself that it was probably just the musty smell putting him off. Then again, perhaps it was the thought of Nik’s turnip soup and the single bathroom.

He sighed again, loath to give up the project but unwilling to risk contacting James and unable to find Colin without getting further embroiled in the mess he had left behind. Working up some enthusiasm he took out his measurements and a cardboard template which he had created weeks before. It was another minute iteration of the bracket holding the emitters, one which should make adjustments easier, no more accurate than the previous one but at least it would only require a single Allan key.

The process of cutting, bending, welding and tapping the thick sheet steel gave him no joy, something that he had previously lived for, staying late into the night without pay to do. It just rang hollow when any day he or his friends may be called up and sent to the front lines. The Germans' apparent distrust certainly wasn’t giving him any confidence.

He had just coated the bracket with some weld through primer and was marking out its mirror image for the other side when Rich returned, “Any news?” He asked, ever hopeful.

“No, I discreetly asked around, I still can't find anyone who has seen him. Guy thinks he must have done something bad and be on the run, he thinks if they had him in custody they wouldn’t be posting guards at his house.” They had to talk around the issues now that they were being listened to everywhere they went. “The guys at the pub say they haven’t seen him or a bunch of the people he used to drink with for days.”

“Perhaps it is just like that guy he said hello to a few months back, you know, mistaken identity or wrong place at the wrong time? Perhaps they are back harassing him about that sewage job again?” Nik said for the recorder, they were all secretly hoping that Colin was somehow still holed up in his basement lair and would appear as soon as the soldiers left.

“Yeah… let's hope,” Rich said as he put the kettle on. “Any word from Guy about work?”

“Nah, they seem to have gone cold on the tank purchase too. It’s probably just this push into Asia, all the resources are going elsewhere.” Nik was hopeful that was actually the reason, whilst also being glad there was no push for them to sell the finished, but still being tweaked, tank.

Rich looked at what Nik was working on, “Is there any point in continuing the project? It might never come to anything now.” He left unsaid that they didn’t want to get James into trouble and Colin could be dead for all they knew.

“It’s something to do. The yard is as tidy as it has ever been, I’ve dismantled everything possible, and we gas axed anything worthwhile. If I don’t do something I will just sit and fret about Colin.” Nik stopped further discussions on the topic by starting up the grinder, causing Rich to duck and cover his unprotected ears.

***

Heinrich was fuming, he had been moved from the relative comfort of house arrest to a cold cell, just large enough for the flat mattress and toilet which filled it. They were still treating him with respect but they were insisting that he had given information on the project to the plumber.

Heinrich knew he had not done such a thing, try as he might though, he could not convince them. He lay in the pathetic little bed and stewed in his own thoughts. He didn’t even have a pen and paper with which to write his notes, not that it would make a difference.

He had tried over and over again to reproduce the formulae which he had used to calculate the field needed for time travel, but every time they had come out flawed. He needed the notes housed in a vault somewhere in Europe, he had asked repeatedly for those notes, he had even begged his captors to allow him to retrieve them to no avail.

He held little hope that his pathetic English comrades would be able to help him, their understanding of the maths was rudimentary at best, all their expertise lay in computer programming and electronics. Even so, he would have appreciated the help.

Not concerned about his situation, knowing that he was in the right and still quite enjoying the solitude, he tried again to do the complex equations in his head, trying to break the problem into manageable pieces and having only vague success. He ignored the disgusting slop his guard delivered through a flap in the bottom of the door, thinking in passing that the only good thing coming from this arrest may be some inadvertent weight loss.

***

“It was that barman I’m telling you! He sold us out to the Gerries.” The old men were sitting in a cosy kitchen, the coal fire churning out heat in the corner. Most of them still had rugs over their knees despite the warmth. They had been having the same argument every time they met, so much so that Adrian started to wonder if his friends were finally getting senile, still, he kept quiet and let them plan. He was fine letting others decide what to do, he was far better at the actual doing after all.

“Bill would never do that, his sister was killed in a raid a few years ago, he hates them for it.” Second Lieutenant Phillips may have been the junior officer in the group but he was normally a very good judge of character.

“Well, someone gave them Colin, they had investigated him and passed him over and now, suddenly, he seems to be their number one suspect again. One of my sources tells me they are putting the screws on that German scientist too.” Field Marshal Dale said slowly, not wanting to spark another argument.

“And of course, we can’t go back to the club without getting arrested! It all adds up to someone in our organisation.” Phillips said, very much missing his brandy.

“We finally have a way out of the county, if we trust it. Perhaps we should throw a little discord into the German ranks before we leave though? We should liquidate all our assets in Shropshire before we go after all.” Dale told them. They had downplayed their organisation to Colin, though they had very few active members they did have people feeding them information from almost every sector of the government and a large number of people who would be happy to help them with some wet work.

“We could nab the scientist. Perhaps he might defect now that he has seen the other side of his government?” The Brigadier suggested.

“I doubt he would but I can’t say it’s not worth a try.” Dale pursed his lips for a second, deep in thought, “We could have a slight diversion and kill two birds with one stone.” He said mulling over a plan in his head.

***

The German officer adjusted his tie, he looked at the rank on his epaulettes and sighed. The machine was meant to have propelled him up the ranks, and would have, had someone not destroyed the entire facility. They now knew who the mole had been. Surprising though it was, he believed his informant. The Englishman that the scientist had told had gone to ground, and the elderly members of the social club were missing too, that was all the proof he needed.

He had already ordered the scientist into custody and had seized all the notes at his house. The man had been trying to change the past and now that they knew his allegiance he was fairly sure he knew what he had planned to change.

He was meeting with the high command in London, a staff car was due to pick him up within the hour. He was feeling more confident now, or at least less convinced he would face a firing squad the moment he arrived.

“Lars, bring me my greatcoat and my pipe.” He casually ordered his soft spoken manservant. The man was timid as a mouse. “And pour me some iced water.”

The man bowed and left the room on silent feet. The officer carefully turned the combination on the dual dials which opened the wall safe, removing his pistol and inserting it into his holster.

Lars returned, greatcoat in one hand and a silver tray holding a pipe and a tall glass of water in the other, condensation was already beading on the smooth glass. He laid the greatcoat on the bed before placing the tray on the table by the chair. He then picked up the greatcoat and placed it on a wooden hanger, hanging it on the door of the wardrobe.

“You may go.” The officer said dismissively. Lars again disappeared without a sound.

He sat in the comfortable leather wingback chair, deciding to relax whilst waiting for the car to pick him up. He opened the heavy leather bound book he had been reading, took a drink of his water and leant back with a sigh.

A few minutes later he lit his pipe, blowing lazy smoke rings into the air before closing his eyes.

The staff car arrived exactly on time, a young soldier banging on the door impatiently when the officer did not emerge to greet them. There was no answer so, having knocked three times, the soldier tried the door.

He entered the house and began searching, on the top floor he found the officer, the top ranked man in Shropshire, apparently asleep but on investigation very, very, dead.

There was no sign that Lars had ever been in the house, let alone lived and worked there for the last six years.

***

“They got Abercrombie, spotted him coming out of the underpass near the station. Two shots in the back.”

“Oh god.” Captain Lewis drew a hand down his face, messing up his handsome moustache.

“Shot down in his prime. He will be missed.” Phillips said sadly.

“In his prime? The man was eighty-one!” Lewis exclaimed.

“Yes, and as spry as ever. Did you see him running after we shelled that compound? He was like a Giselle!” He said fondly, his eyes wide as he remembered the night.

“Compared to you, anyone is like a Giselle, that peg leg of yours slows you down old man.” Lewis reminded him, the man’s stick and slow stiff gait the only sign of the missing limb.

“Hey, I’m three years younger than you and I walked three miles to get here!” He wasn’t about to admit that he had stopped numerous times and that his back and hips hurt like bloody murder.

The old men bantered back and forth like this every time they met, as they had done for the last fifty years. It sometimes made serious conversation difficult.

“Okay settle down, it’s decision time. Are we rescuing this scientist or not? All the high-value brass is dead and shouldn’t be replaced for a day or two. We need to either attack or bug out before then.” The Field Marshal looked around the table, “Preferably both.”

They put it to a vote, unanimously agreeing to storm the prison and rescue the scientist in the hope he would defect. It was laughable, they had ten geriatric soldiers against an armed garrison.

“So, they know who we are, the only hope we have is a surprise attack, possibly at night.” The planning session went on for hours, Williams fell asleep twice and they had to pass the big magnifying glass around for everyone to read the map but eventually they had a plan.

***

Surveillance wasn’t Sergeant Williams’ strong suit, unfortunately, he wasn’t good for much else these days. He had been wheeled in across the road from the prison, hauled up two flights of stairs and now sat on a one legged stool, a thermos in hand with a rug over his legs and of course the obligatory binoculars and notepad.

The stool was to wake him up, he found it very easy to nod off nowadays so when he did fall asleep he would end up sprawled on the ground, waking him thoroughly. It had already been needed once, probably because of the boredom, he should have taken a good book. Oh, how he missed the days of sneaking around on covert missions as an army sniper, of being able to climb stairs on his own and walk for more than twenty paces without passing out. The doctor said it was his heart and that he wouldn’t have long, he intended this to be his last stand, the rifle was leaning against the wall behind the curtain. At least that was something he could still do well, his hands were still rock steady and shooting was best with a low steady heartbeat, you couldn’t get much lower than his without being dead.

He diligently timed the changes of guard, counted the numbers and attempted to match the faces to the little black and white photographs he had in a book. So far he had identified six people out of the twelve he had seen. He almost felt sorry for the ones he picked out, the plan involved removing the other two shifts overnight and attacking at dawn. Those poor sods wouldn’t see another day. He knew most of the guards were sadistic nasty pieces of work but they were so young, so much wasted potential.

His eyes closed briefly before a staff car pulled up, rousing him from his slumber and preventing another tumble.

***

It had been a very short, exceptionally one sided struggle. The man was dead the moment he opened the door of the toilet stall, he just hadn’t known it. In fact, he had tried to apologize for getting in the way whilst the knife was still in his sternum, the surprise in his eyes when the blade was suddenly twisted and his shocked stumble backwards onto the toilet was done in silent disbelief as the light left his eyes.

Adrian wiped the bloody knife on the officer’s uniform, he didn’t regret killing these men but it didn’t prevent him from feeling guilty. Killing on the battlefield was easy, even when it was up close and personal you knew that you were fighting for your life, kill or be killed. This sneaky assassination, it wasn’t his sort of battle. He moved the man into a more natural seating position and then closed the door, using the knife in his good hand to turn the lock whilst holding the door shut from the top with the new prosthetic that Colin had gifted him.

He calmly washed his hand at the sink, thinking about the young man who had sparked this whole mess. It hadn’t been his fault, he had to believe that they had worked to prevent the world from falling further into ruin. Even so, he almost wished he had never met him. Checking in the mirror that there was no blood splatter on his clothing he adjusted his oversized black leather glove and clenched the metal appendage he had been given, it was so much better than the old hook and so easy to get used to but it was just another reminder of how his life had been uprooted.

For the last ten years, fighting in the resistance had fallen into a comfortable rhythm, a relaxed push and pull with just enough excitement for a retired veteran to keep active and interested. This new paradigm was too much, yes it got the blood pumping in his veins and the adrenaline flowing, it made him feel alive like nothing he had felt for the last twenty years but it was too much and too little. He knew in his heart that it would end and that when it did people would have died on both sides and nothing real would have changed.

He straightened his tie and walked serenely out through the café, nodding politely to the serving staff on his way out into the street. He checked his watch, satisfied that he had half an hour to get to the barbers on Bouverie Crescent, he marched confidently down the road swinging his cane jauntily.

***

Edna took note of the names, locations and arrival times from the encrypted missive before clearing the screen. She had been in the secretarial staff since she turned eighteen, thirty some years ago, and was now the department head in charge of a team of young women. She was the most trusted person in the department, possibly the only person left in the county with the required top secret clearance to operate the machine now that almost all of the officers were dead. That thought amused her considering she had been passing information to the resistance since she started working here. She smiled, thinking about how they had been the ones to get her the job!

She typed out the letters on her typewriter, orders to send a protective detail to meet each of the new personnel. She was as fast as any of the women in the typing pool and was done in only a few minutes, handing the completed and sealed eyes only documents to a senior despatch rider for urgent delivery. Once he had left and she was alone in her office she changed the ribbon in her typewriter and posted the used one down the waste chute, knowing the boy down in the cellar would deliver it to the right people.

***

Dual explosions rocked the staff car, causing the soldiers at the checkpoint to dive for cover. A junior cadet had placed a pair of hand grenades under the back seat rigged with wires to pull the pins as soon as the boot was opened. He hadn’t been a member of the resistance but when he heard about the action in Shropshire and realised that he had been tasked with readying the car for two officers being sent as replacements he had felt compelled to act.

The boot had been opened as the car passed a checkpoint a few hundred miles from its destination and the booby-trap had done its job exceptionally well.

***

“Have you heard what’s happening?” A man whispered in the dark to his comrade. “All the officers are being offed. It’s happening all over.”

His new friend looked at him questioningly, “You think it’s worth your life?” He whispered back.

“More than dying in this stupid war.” The man considered this and nodded. They were currently on the front line, having been conscripted a mere two weeks before. Rifles were being fired sporadically to their left and right and return fire was occasionally pinging off the concrete in front of them.

They looked to their left where they knew the sergeant in charge of their platoon was holed up in a bunker. “Now?” The man asked, he got a nod in return and they slipped silently backwards towards the bunker.

There were three enlisted men and a communications officer inside the concrete structure. They took them out before anyone even registered their presence. “What now?” He asked his co-conspirator.

“I don’t know. This was further than I thought we would get.” He picked up the comms headset and listened.

“I think we just sneak off to the next unit and do the same thing. Perhaps we should tell the men to cover up for us?”

***

“How can we be losing so many officers?” The Oberste Heeresleitung asked, “We lost more than half our Rittmeisters in the last week.” The man was the leader of the entire German empire, he was also a man you didn’t want to annoy.

The bulk of the cavalry captains had been shot, many of them murdered in their sleep, in fact, suspicion was that they had all been killed by their own men but most of the murders had been during battle and so were easy to hide and almost impossible to investigate. Of course, nobody wanted to voice this to their commander for fear of repercussions, even though he had to know already.

“I am afraid that the junior officers are only the tip of the iceberg. We have also lost a large number of senior officers and we don’t have people to promote. We are seeing resulting issues everywhere from a lack of leadership, nobody can assign actions or even approve pay in some cases. We have an entire region in the north of England where our men are sitting in their barracks refusing to work unless someone pays them.” The seasoned veteran cringed as his superior threw a stack of papers across the room. “We have instructed the Adjutant corps to process all pay without leadership confirmation, that at least should be fixed in the next few days.” He said quickly, trying to placate the man who had a reputation for dealing out harsh punishments.

“Where is this lack of discipline coming from? Have the dissenters lined up and shot, that will bring them into line.” He banged his fist on the table in annoyance.

The assorted officers looked at each other, reluctant to tell him that they had tried this, both times the officer commanding the firing squad ended up dead.

“It could be the reduced occupation force, we started with one soldier for every forty civilians, which has dropped over the years to one per hundred or more. I think though that it is more likely the latest round of conscriptions, people think it’s a death sentence anyway so are less concerned with their own lives.” The Air force Commandant admitted gingerly.

“Well, call up all retired officers to active service and have a protection detail assigned to every one of them. My generation knows how to deal with dissent in the ranks.” He took a long swig of his coffee. “I want the culprits caught and executed, publicly.”

The meeting dragged on for three hours, requiring four refills of coffee. Unfortunately for them, a member of the catering corps had taken the opportunity to slip polonium into the coffee, it was tasteless, odourless and very very deadly. It would be weeks before the effects showed up but by then it would be too late.

***

Colin had calculated that even rationing his food to a tiny amount each day, the longest he would last was another week. He had considered digging another tunnel towards the neighbour’s garden, had even started removing that section of wall, but had then realised the futility. His last tunnel had taken months of late hours and every scrap of wood and steel he could scrounge. On such low rations he would be hard pushed to dig each day and even if he broke down every shelf and all his gadgets, perhaps even stripping steel from the existing tunnels, he may not have enough to stop the soft earth at the back of the garden from collapsing in. The last thing he needed was his house guest up above seeing a sudden depression in the grass.

He lay on his improvised bunk and nursed his empty stomach, thankful that the underground den at least kept at a nice comfortable temperature and wondering if he could just make a break for it under the cover of darkness. Unfortunately, the shifts upstairs changed frequently, worse than that, someone had placed something heavy on the hatch in the shed and his one attempt at opening it had almost caused it to topple with a crash. His only hope was the hatch in the hall, it was hard enough opening the hatch from underneath as it was, but doing it with the door shut and without making any noise may turn out to be impossible.

Colin’s eyes turned again to the unfinished time machine. He had been working on it ever since he realised he wasn’t getting out, sifting through the discarded parts and finding components he could repurpose. He had worked out that with the weight he had already lost, a little modification and some slightly painful contortions he could fit himself into the box. Every time he thought he had the time travel machinery right though, the measurements showed him wrong. The diagnostic instruments carefully constructed in the evenings with James were a godsend, the thought of trying the machine without it being thoroughly calibrated made him cringe. The images stored with the reports on the stolen computer were gruesome, the thought of ending up somewhere with his insides on the outside or without his legs made him especially careful.

Deciding he still couldn’t sleep he got up, fumbling in the pitch darkness for the light switch. He turned on the computer and started reading again, sure that there must be a scrap of information buried in the reports that may help him.

***

Williams fired the first shot, the unsuspecting guard dropped like a puppet whose strings were cut. There was a moment of confusion as his comrade stopped dead still just staring at the man on the ground before he too fell motionless to the cold pavement. Suddenly it was pandemonium, shots rang out from other points in the street and confused guards raced to get back inside the relative safety of the prison.

There were five bodies cooling in the street by the time the rest got through the door. Unfortunately for those inside that was just the beginning. As the door closed a rocket met the wood, the resulting explosion left a gaping hole in the side of the building. Four elderly men strode confidently across the street, not seeming in any hurry but in actuality just trying not to slip on the slick cobble stones.

A man leaned out of the smoke where the door had been, machine gun in hand. Williams’ rifle barked again and the man went down without having fired a shot.

***

Hearing the explosion the prison warden dropped his razor and rushed out into the small barracks, “We’re under attack, barricade the corridor!” he called, face still covered with shaving cream. “Get to the armory!” He grabbed his pistol and hurried to help. He reached the door to the intake room and peered through, a number of his staff were on the ground unmoving, he glanced out of a narrow barred window and took in the bodies in the street, by the looks of things they were already down to half his staff.

Smoke was filling the ground floor of the prison, thick and cloying, he covered his face with his shirt before realizing the soap still covered his face and wiping it away with a frustrated growl. “I think they must be trying to rescue that scientist.” He told his second in charge, finding him manhandling filing cabinets into a haphazard blockade, “You know the orders, go find him, I will command the men here.”

The senior prison officer raced away to follow orders as his superior dragged another cabinet out into the hallway, secretly happy to be away from the fighting. He passed a man handing out carbines and machine guns and accepted a rifle on the way past, thankful to be armed. Reaching the stairwell he unlocked the steel gate and locked it again once he had stepped through, racing upwards. There was a gate at every level, frustrating him as he heard and felt another explosion rock the building, he was panting by the time he was through the last gate and was on the highest level of the building but he still sprinted to the cell holding their highest security prisoner.

“What is happening?” The small man asked him, face pressed to the small grill in his cell door.

“Back up!” He commanded the man, causing him to take a single step backwards, “Further!” he shouted, “Against the wall!”

“What is this about? What are those stupid English men doing?” The man kept asking as he backed up against the wall in the small cell.

The prison officer took a deep breath and unlocked the cell door, swinging the door open and bringing his rifle to his shoulder in one motion. The weapon gave a single, deafening bang and the scientist looked down, surprise on his face before sliding down the wall to the floor. The officer looked on in silence before chambering another round and ensuring the scientist was dead. He then turned to find a window he could shoot through.

***

Adrian met the Field Marshal on his way back down from the top level, “Well, that went better than expected. Shame they killed the target.” He said as he fell into step beside his old friend. “How many did we lose Dale?”

“One. Williams.” The Field Marshal said tersely, “We need to release the prisoners and get out of here, I doubt reinforcements will be far off.”

“Williams? He was our cover fire, how did they get him?” Adrian asked as he descended the steps, he was feeling his age and his hips were killing him.

“As far as I can tell he was taking fire from someone on the top floor, he managed to take him out but I think the excitement was too much for him. We think his heart gave out.” He stopped and Adrian almost walked into him, “You need to see the prisoners on the fourth floor. I think you will be pleasantly surprised.”

Adrian turned and looked backwards with a groan, “Really?” He rubbed his hip and sighed, “Okay, I am really sorry about Williams by the way, I know he’s been your friend from the start.”

He nodded and turned away, leaving Adrian to climb the stairs a second time, this time leaning heavily on his rifle in lieu of his cane. He assumed they had found Colin, he wasn’t sure how he felt about that, the man was a friend but he was also the catalyst for all this mess they found themselves in.

He was hurting by the time he reached the fourth floor and he took a minute to lean heavily on the cold steel bars at the top of the steps, he considered sitting down but felt it likely he wouldn’t be able to get back up so he just leaned and panted.

By the time he felt capable of continuing, Jones had found him, he had also made fun of his advancing age, even though he was mid-seventies himself. Adrian forced himself onwards through the door and stopped dead, the rifle he had been leaning on fell from his fingers as he stared in shock, “How?” He whispered.

“They’ve been locked up here for decades, wasting away,” Jones told him, bumping his shoulder with a fist as he passed.

The noise of the rifle hitting the ground had drawn attention, friends he had thought lost met his gaze and smiled. “My lord…” he mumbled before hurrying to greet them, the pain in his hips momentarily forgotten.

***