Doctor How and the Deadly Anemones (20 page)

I looked up at the sixth floor window where I knew Lee Harvey Oswald was waiting with his rifle. I could just see the tip of the barrel. I saw the smoke-puff and flash and looked back down to the President, who was drawing level with me. The bullet hit the road and he said “I’m hit!” as a fragment of asphalt hit his cheek and the sound of the shot echoed around the plaza. The second shot rang out and a splash of blood and tissue erupted from Governor John Connally’s right shoulder. Kennedy’s left arm went around his wife’s neck and he pushed her down, protecting her with his own body. As the driver accelerated and weaved past the lead vehicle, another shot followed, but it was out by a wide margin. Most of the crowd were on the ground screaming. Agents in the third car had their weapons out and one was already pointing an assault rifle in the direction of the Depository behind him.

I’d seen enough. As I turned and walked back to the Spectrel I heard fire being returned and bullets breaking windows on the sixth floor. That, too, had never happened in the original timeline, where there were three shots, but no fire was returned from the motorcade.

Once back in the Spectrel I looked again at the timeline. The blurring had cleared, and the future was bleak. The subsequent intervention to avoid disaster was massive – certainly too much for a single Time Keeper. I had to beat Who at his own game. I had no choice but to go back and change the timeline once more.

The answer seemed clear. The motorcade being on time was what had thrown Oswald. The extra fifteen minutes in the original timeline had allowed his adrenaline to peak and then drain off, and for him to prepare more thoroughly for the fatal shot. I had to delay the motorcade.

I travelled back to Love Field airport that morning, and watched Air Force One come in to land at 11.39 from Carswell Air Force Base. The Presidential party disembarked with the usual photo-opportunity on the steps of the aircraft, and got into the waiting cars. From my position on the viewing terrace I used my Tsk Army Ultraknife to displace Jackie Kennedy’s hair. There was only a slight wind – not enough to ruffle anyone’s hair – so when I did it a second time she was slightly unnerved. She insisted on setting about her hair because she knew her fashionable good looks were vital to the Kennedy re-election machine.

But that wasn’t enough – they would still be five minutes early. To make sure of a delay I used my Ultraknife to scare a small bird overflying the motorcade. The dropping hit square on the bonnet of the President’s Lincoln Continental. It showed up beautifully on the midnight blue paintwork; they couldn’t possibly parade until it had been cleaned off.

I remember the laughter drifting across the concrete, and Kennedy remarking that it was supposed to be good luck.

I grimaced at his remark. I knew that would be enough, and retired to the Spectrel to view the ensuing events, confident I’d reinstated the timeline.

This time, the first car entered Dealey Plaza bang on time at 12.29. I was viewing the projection from a point above the Depository – above and behind Oswald.

Both of my hearts missed a beat as the motorcade entered Oswald’s line of fire.

The limousine had its plastic bubble top in place.

It was a sunny day, and the rear seats of the Lincoln were notorious for over-heating when the plastic top was on. The bird-dropping had made Kennedy or one of his aides realise how susceptible he was to either that threat, or the kind that had happened one month before, when UN Ambassador Adlai Stevenson was spat at in Dallas on UN Day.

The bubble was just ordinary plastic, so a bullet would go straight through. But as I saw the sun glint off it I realised that Oswald would be unable to see into the limousine from that angle. As previously, the first shot went wide. A fragment of concrete kerb ricocheted off the bubble with a
crack
. The second shot went blindly through the rear of the plastic. There was a marked delay and then a third shot rang out as the motorcade sped away. I turned the projection off in disgust; I knew Kennedy had survived, and that my brother had won. The human race was doomed, unless I could figure out a way around him.

I sat in a fug of despair for an hour or two. One Time Keeper against another was a difficult battle to win. I was still looking after my other responsibilities, whilst Who could quite literally spend all the time in the world playing tag with me. One Time Keeper against another who had the boundless energy of the deranged was an impossible task. I needed help, but there was no one I could turn to.

And then I had the answer.

I had to make Jack Kennedy complicit in his own murder.

In 1939 he had just returned to London from a pre-university tour of Europe, including Germany and the recently-invaded Czechoslovakia. He was in the public gallery of the British Houses of Parliament on September 3
rd
, 1939 as the declaration of war against Germany was made. He was representing his father, who was Ambassador to the Court of St James at the time. His father had supported Nazi appeasement, and continued to support it even as Britain was subjected to the Blitz the following year. Jack even went on to publish a book in 1940 entitled
Why England Slept
, which was his graduate thesis from Harvard. The title was a play on Churchill’s 1938 volume
While England Slept
, so I knew he thought well of the British Prime Minister.

I knew he’d had his differences with his father after the onset of war. Indeed, he was secretly ashamed of his father’s appeasement stance. After the attack on Pearl Harbor his father found himself in rather unsavoury company, and it spelled the end of his own Presidential ambitions.

Churchill was my way in. On the evening of the last Friday in August 1944 I took my government car to see him at Chequers, the Prime Minister’s country residence in Buckinghamshire. Although he knew I could choose to visit him at any time, he preferred our visits not to be a surprise because he’d learnt that when Time Keepers arrive unexpectedly, the situation has already deteriorated to crisis point.

Operation Overlord – the invasion of Normandy, which began on D-Day – had just concluded with the closing of the Falaise Pocket. Paris had been liberated that morning and the German army was in retreat over the River Seine. He was in high spirits, because he knew this was the beginning of the end.

“Doctor!” he said. “How the Devil are you, old boy?” I declined the single malt he’d already poured for me. I’d never once accepted one, but my visits allowed him to drink twice as much without it being remarked upon.

I told him I wanted to call in a favour. God knows, he felt he owed us Time Keepers enough already.

“Fire away, Peter,” he said, motioning me to a leather armchair opposite his.

“I need you to take the second Kennedy boy under your wing.”

Churchill sucked heavily on his cigar and fixed me with a steely gaze. “Cowardly Kennedy’s son?” he growled. “The boy who bought a sports car with the royalties of that dreadful thesis of his whilst England burned under Nazi bombs?”

“Winston, he did donate the British proceeds to the people of Plymouth. And you should not judge the son by the father.” I gave him a meaningful look.

“Leave my own father out of this, Doctor,” he growled.

“You know he lost his elder brother, Joe, just a couple of weeks ago.”

“Yes. I heard about that. Piloting a remote-controlled flying-bomb was brave but bloody stupid. His presidential ambitions were quite literally the death of him. One might say it was ‘overkill’. Eh Doctor?”

“Quite. That kind of bravado reminds me of a serving MP who went off to fight in the trenches of the Great War, leaving his young family behind.”

Churchill shifted in his seat. “I’d sent men to die in the Dardanelles. It was by the grace of God that I survived the trenches.”

I coughed and raised my eyebrows.

“And a fake call from a man in a red telephone box that took me away from a shell-blast that would have blown me to smithereens. I’m forever grateful.”

“But now the Kennedy’s dynastic ambitions rest on young Jack.”

“I can hardly endorse the boy for President – he’s only a US Navy lieutenant!” bellowed Churchill. “Hell’s teeth, man, what do you expect me to do? Ask Roosevelt to give a political rival a promotion to Admiral of the Fleet?”

“He respects you, Winston. I want you to be more than a distant figure to him. He’ll be here after the war and he’ll seek your company.”

“Why bother me now? It’s not over by any means – we have these V-1 and V-2 attacks to contend with still, and then there’s the Far East to win.”

I raised my hand. “Please. Just write him a letter of condolence. When he’s over three years from now you should be good pen-pals, and you can visit him in hospital.”

“Hospital?”

“He has a terminal disease, Prime Minister – though he doesn’t yet know it. He won’t have the privilege of a long life, but together we might effect a glorious one. As you served freedom and peace, so will he in his own era. He will, literally, help mankind reach for the moon – though he will not live to see it. Indeed, you will outlive him.”

“But I turn seventy this year!” Churchill’s eyes moistened. He waved away an offending curl of cigar-smoke but I wasn’t fooled.

“Very well, Doctor. It’s not such a great thing that you’ve asked. And to nurture and mentor is to serve the greater good.” He tapped the ash from his cigar. “A correspondence and then a hospital visit? Surely that can’t be all?”

“I shall join you on the hospital visit. I would be grateful if you could effect a credible introduction.”

“Only too delighted, dear fellow.”

“Thank you, Prime Minister,” I got up to leave.

“Tell me one thing,” he said. “Is this to do with Tube Alloys?”

I faltered a second before connecting. “Sorry, it’s just that hardly anyone knows about Tube Alloys in the future.”

“You mean it fails?”

“No, it’s completely subsumed and overshadowed by the Americans. So the Manhattan Project is what is always remembered. Alas, the codename Tube Alloys is seldom mentioned.”

“Blasted Yanks,” he muttered.

“Of which your dear mother was one.”

“Touché, Doctor.”

My next stop was 1947, the London Clinic, just off the Marylebone Road. Churchill’s unmistakable rich, rumbling voice led me down the corridor to the room where the young Jack Kennedy was recuperating. I waited until the old man had finished his humorous anecdote and heard his cackle, and a weaker male laugh. I tapped lightly on the door and heard the former Prime Minister say, “Come!”

Churchill had moved the bedside chair out to face Kennedy. He turned his head and made to stand up, but I motioned the old man to remain seated. Kennedy was lying flat on his back. He eyed me warily and I wondered exactly what Churchill had told him.

“This is the very chap I told you about, Jack. Doctor How. He’s always on time.” He chuckled, grasped my hand warmly and squeezed my wrist with his left. “Good to see you, old friend. This is Congressman Jack Kennedy, son of the former Ambassador.”

I extended my hand. “A great pleasure to meet you,” I said. “I was sorry to hear about your illness. I see your back is also problematic.” Kennedy hesitated a fraction of a second before taking my hand, at first weakly, then more firmly.

“Sorry to hear, even though Winston says you knew about it three years ago?” said Kennedy. “Sir Daniel Davis, no less, tells me it’s a death sentence. A long, slow and uncomfortable one.”

“Life is a death sentence,” said Churchill. “But I have to say you do look rather well – an excellent tan; the picture of healthy youth.”

“I think you’ll find that’s a symptom of the Addison’s,” I said.

“Ah. Insensitive of me. Old fool that I am. Forgive me.”

“Oh,” I said, holding out a brown paper bag. “Some grapes.”

“Grapes?” said Churchill. “Where in blue blazes did you get grapes in London at this time of the year?”

“I wanted to prove my bona fides to your friend here,” I said.

“Never mind war-winning technology and tactics,” said Churchill to Kennedy. “Grapes in Britain in February is nothing short of miraculous. May I?” He took the bag, tore it open and popped a couple in his mouth.

“Heaven,” he said, and offered the bag to Kennedy.

“Later, thanks. So what’s my prognosis, Doctor How?”

“What have they told you?”

“A decade. Two at the outside if I’m lucky. But I’m interested in what you think.”

“I think,” said Churchill, “I shall beat a tactical retreat. My books won’t write themselves. Unless you have the technological know-how, Doctor?” I smiled and shook my head. “Glad to hear it – there’s so much pleasure in writing them. It’s like conversing with old friends. If you’ll excuse me, gentlemen?” He took his hat from the bedside table, shook our hands and then shuffled off with his cane, closing the door gently behind him.

“Please,” said Kennedy, and motioned to the seat Churchill had left facing the bed, just a foot away. “A great man.” He nodded at the closed door.

“One of the greatest.”

We listened to Churchill’s footsteps and cane echoing down the hall. He coughed a rasping cough and rumbled something we couldn’t quite make out to a nurse. There was a female laugh. The footsteps shuffled off, a door swung shut, and they were gone.