The Eternal War by Alex Scarrow

She tossed Liam and Sal a mobile phone each. ‘I’ll monitor the police call-ins here. If we get a likely candidate, I’ll dial it in.’
    Liam frowned. ‘ Dial it in? ’
    ‘Call you! On the phone … the thing in your hand! I’ll call you on that!’
    ‘Ahh.’ He nodded. ‘Right you are.’
    ‘So, is that clear, everyone?’
    Four nodding heads.
    ‘And, Sal, Liam … Bob. Get changed back into your normal clothes. Quick as you can. You look like a convention of Quakers or something.’

CHAPTER 17
    2001, New York

    Lincoln stood in awe at the confusion of blinking, fizzing, flickering multicoloured lights, the neon signs in Chinese, pedestrian crossings blinking WALK and DON’T WALK , the cars and cabs looking to his eyes like impossible devices that shouldn’t be able to move on their own without the aid of horses in front – and yet they did.
    His ears were filled with a riot of alien sounds, sounds he couldn’t begin to make sense of: a rhythmic pounding that spilled out of the back of a vehicle as it rolled past him, a noise so deep he felt his chest shuddering in synchronicity; the pavements and street filled with people speaking languages from all over the world, so it seemed, every one of them holding slim and shiny pebble-shaped contraptions to their ears and talking into them or alternately looking intently at their tiny glowing surfaces.
    Languages, so many of them, but the most perplexing ones were those he had an inkling were some form of unidentifiable English. He could make sense of fleeting bits and pieces said, phrases shouted out from one side of the street to the other and peppered with words he couldn’t begin to try to decipher.
    It was awe at first, and pride, that almost had him crying. Pride that his nation, his fellow Americans, ambitious and brave men and women, pioneers, adventurers and entrepreneurs, all of them, would one day build something so magnificently, toweringly spectacular and ingenious and colourful as this incredible city of glowing cathedrals.
    ‘Hell’s bells and tarnation !’ he gasped out loud. Even his thunderous voice was lost amid the bustling din of Chinatown. ‘This is a truly remarkable place!’ He shook his head with utter incredulity. ‘Truly remarkable !’
    It was then a short woman standing directly in front of him said something.
    He cupped an ear, realizing she was talking to him. ‘I beg your pardon, ma’am?’
    She looked to him to be Oriental and giggled shyly as she spoke. He bent down low, almost doubling over to hear her better.
    ‘It is very noisy, ma’am. Pray you might speak a little louder.’
    She spoke again. ‘Like yoo hat very much!’
    ‘My hat?’ He self-consciously touched the brim of his battered felt-topper. ‘Why thank you!’
    Then without warning the woman whipped an object out from her handbag. It glistened gun-metal grey, square like a tinder-box, with one glassy eye that glinted dully at him.
    ‘Ma’am? What may I ask are you –?’
    She pulled the small device up to her face and said, ‘You smile now, please?’
    A blinding flash of light suddenly exploded from it and Lincoln staggered back, screaming in abject terror, quite certain the device was some sort of weapon and that he’d been shot at.
    He collided with someone else and a moment later they were in a tangle of limbs on the ground.
    ‘What you doin’, fool?’
    A young dark-skinned face beneath the peak of a spotlessly white Yankees cap.
    Lincoln grimaced awkwardly, patting himself down to be sure he wasn’t bleeding from the Chinese woman’s ‘gunshot’ wound.
    ‘My apologies, I … I must have … I thought …’
    The young black man angrily pushed Lincoln’s gangly legs off him. He uttered a stream of words Lincoln couldn’t begin to fathom.
    ‘Like I say, I am sorry. I thought I had been shot by a … a small woman with a … well, with some curious weapon.’
    The young man looked at him as he got up, dusting himself down.