A Glint In Time (History and Time) (21 page)

"Colonel Landry? Any thoughts along that line?"

"There are some ideas for detectors that we've kicked around. But it's been difficult to discuss because of the sensitivity of the topic. We need help from Scandia Labs and other places with the right security."

The Chairman thought for about fifteen seconds. "The Project can stay here?" he asked the Air Force Chief of Staff.

"Yeah, it's a good place for them." Those were the only words Ted and Sally had heard him speak.

"Colonel Landry, you stay in charge. You'll have an administrative line to DARPA and a command and control line to the Office of the JCS. I don't want you to lose that DARPA funding. But listen to me, there will be no operational time transportation, no hot BBs, without a direct order from me. Got it?"

"Loud and clear, Sir." Landry replied.

At this point his Brigadier General aide handed the Chairman a note he had quickly written on the pad where he was taking notes. "Ah," the Chairman said. "General Rigney

has again proven his worth. Colonel Arthurs, you're out of here. We're about to clear the Taliban out of Afghanistan and we need every operator we can get. I understand you have special forces experience?"

Although no one else would notice it, Ted heard Sally suck in her breath. But, before he could reply, the Brigadier General said something that sounded like "No Feeba."

"Oh yeah." The Chairman said. "If this time transport thing is a special weapon and you have knowledge of a special weapon, then you don't get to go within forty miles of the FEBA, the Forward Edge of the Battle Area. That's okay. I think that limitation applies to half of the Air Force, doesn't it, General?"

The question was directed at the Air Force Chief of Staff who shook his head, rolled his eyes, and said "You won't be a shooter, but we can find work for you."

Ted noticed Sally's left hand relax its grip on the table.

The Chairman glanced again at the note. "How about Missus Arthurs stays on as a GS? She can work mostly from home. We'll give her some offline encryption software. Would that work?"

This time Colonel Landry replied. "That would be a smart thing to do. She's thought about the problems and has a good understanding of the technology and its use."

Sally didn't think any of that was true, but she wasn't about to say so.

The Chairman had one more thought. "Colonel Landry. From this point forward it's all about strategic warning. Find a way to find out when and where someone is doing this.We have to know if time transportation is being used against us and, I guess, if it's being used at all."

With that, the four generals nodded to each other and marched out of the room. By the time they were halfway across the hangar the doors were opening and the C-20s right engine was spooling up. Ted quickly looked outside to see that the rented DA-40 had been moved to make a clear path for the Special Mission Jet.

Ted and Colonel Landry saluted the Jet as it was pushed out. After it was clear, Bill Wirtz walked in through the hangar door. "The security left, so I guess it was okay to come in?" Landry nodded waved them all back into the classroom.

"We have a lot of thinking and consulting to do." Landry said when they had the door closed. Bill, I'll need your ideas. Ted is back to flying. Sally is consulting, and we're defending. We're going to need help."

Almost on cue, the air shimmered and there was a hollow pop in the room. A shiny object appeared on the table and started it smoking. Sally grabbed a half empty Coke can and emptied the contents on the object. The Coke sputtered and sweet steam filled the air.After it had cooled for a moment, everyone bent down to see what had arrived.

This glittering object was a cube, not a sphere. It was almost an inch on each side. Looking down from the top Ted saw an image trapped inside. It was a tiny still picture of

the four of them standing in the hangar's classroom. Words were overlaid on each opaque side of the cube.

"Follow the Light" Colonel Landry read out loud from his side.

"Pattern recognition." Bill read. Ted said, "Home Pool Advantage." "What's that about?" Bill asked.

"It's what my high school swimming coach used to shout at us. He told us we couldn't lose a home meet because we had a home pool advantage."

Sally read her side of the cube and got a wonderful look on her face. "I'm pregnant." She said.

FORWARD TO BOOK III

This third part of the series has action and fun. By now you know the rules. Check the dates and listen to what the characters tell you.

Not quite as many twists and turns in time as we had in the second section. Ted complained that he was getting whiplash from jumping timelines. In this book we have a little more good versus evil... in relative terms.

Frank Derfler
Islamorada, FL 2008

GLINT IN TIME : BOOK III

2007-2011 FRANK J DERFLER

FOR LOVE AND FOR MONEY

Thursday, February 28, 2007
1100 JST
Downtown Sapporo, Japan

Excerpt from the Personal diary of Montana State Senator William G. "Willy" Abrahamson.
Approximate date, March 1, 2007

"...Isho was the perfect host. It was good to discuss things man to man."

illy Abrahamson couldn't consider himself as a tall person.The first time he walked through the airport in Tokyo in 1978 he felt a kinship of height with the people around him despite their other vast cultural differences. The average young Japanese had grown since then, Willy thought it was probably the effect of vitamins, but he still looked the average Japanese businessman right in the eye. He was always happy to be in Japan.

As a young man of 22, he had followed Mike Mansfield from Montana to Japan when the former Senator Mansfield had become the US Ambassador to Japan. Because of his hard work in raising money in Great Falls, and his need to leave the state for a while, Willy had picked up a political job at the US consulate in Sapporo on the northern island

of Hokkaido. It wasn't much of a job, but it got him out of Montana for a few years while the complaints against him about campaign finance irregularities and shake-downs died out.

He returned to Montana in 1982 and worked hard for the national elections of 1984. His reward was getting sponsorship to run for the Montana state legislature. According to the state constitution, the legislature only meets in odd-numbered years for 90 day periods. Each of those periods is packed with action that is carefully orchestrated many months before. Typically, no party has a big majority in the state House or Senate and often each party controls one side of the legislature. A lot of horse trading and political maneuvering goes on all the time.

The idea of the authors of the Montana state constitution was to create "citizen legislators" who only had to leave their farms and ranches for 90 days every two years to govern. In practice, they created a small class of full-time politicians who wielded the real power. As a senior state senator, Willy was on the top of the stack right now. That's why this meeting gave him so much pleasure. It was about both love and money.

Making contacts and building a network was part of Willy's bones. During his time at the consulate in Japan, he made many contacts with men in Japanese business and government.Although Willy left Japan in '84, Mansfield stayed on as Ambassador through 1988 and the commercial links between Montana and Japan grew strong. Everyone benefited.

Today, Willy was meeting with a man he had known, to their mutual benefit, for thirty years.

He exited the elevator and was greeted by a beautiful hostess who bowed deeply. "Welcome Abrahamson-San." She said.

Willy didn't bow. He would get the depth of the bow wrong by a millimeter and lose face, so he opted out of the tradition. He explained to his Japanese friends that he respected the tradition so much that he didn't want to get it wrong and appear a fool. They understood.

The hostess gracefully guided him to a conference room. Willy was almost shocked to see that it had a table and chairs. The hostess took his coat and was turning for the door when a Japanese man of Willy's age came through quickly. She executed a bow that was every bit as deep as the one she had given Willy, he thought maybe even more so, and then quickly exited.

Isho Morita gripped Willy's right hand, put his left hand on Willy's shoulder, and looked him in the eye with a grin. "Willy, you look great! How good to see you."

Willy reflected that this guy's body language, vocabulary, and especially the pronunciation of his name had really benefited from coaching since they had first met. "Isho, it is wonderful to see you and wonderful to be back in Sapporo. But Isho, I think I'm in the wrong place. I understand that the window has a beautiful view, but chairs? Why are we using chairs?"

Isho smiled. "Old age and the Chinese." He replied. "You are getting older and we are doing more and more business with the Chinese. The Americans sit cross legged on Japanese cushions to do business because they want to be liked. The Chinese don't care about being liked and they do not like cushions." Isho grinned and gave a shrug he had learned on television.

"Oh, Isho. You wound me twice. Once more and you should just take my head!" They laughed.

A hostess entered to present the tea. Willy and Isho traded gossip about people and deals. An hour passed quickly.

At one point Isho expressed interest in a road construction machinery contract being put out by the state of Montana. Willy assured him that a bid from a Japanese heavy machinery company would receive careful consideration.

At one point Willy observed that the party had received many bundled contributions from workers in companies, particularly chemical and agricultural companies, partially owned by Japanese investment trusts. Willy said that he admired the spirit and generosity of those employees. Privately, he doubted that those thousands of good citizens of Montana even knew that they had each contributed between $100 and $200 to the party, but that was fine as long as the paperwork was meticulous. Nobody was going to ask each of them personally to confirm their contributions.

Finally, Willy judged that enough time had passed. "Isho, I have a challenge and an opportunity. " The other man simply inclined his head to show interest. "You will remember that my brother, named Charles, disappeared in late 2001.

"Yes, of course. It was soon after the attacks on your country."

"He was in Montana staying at my house on September 1 1. He was awoken by calls from Washington and he woke me up. As we watched the story on television, he was very frustrated. In his frustration, he spoke to me of a secret project. And, what I am going to tell you will sound very strange, but it is a secret project that has the ability to change past events."

Isho's face was attentive. Willy had played poker with Isho and knew that the man didn't have a tick or a tell. He didn't give feedback unless he wanted to. So, Willy pressed on.

"This secret project has the ability to send small objects back into time. They can send a simple message or they can use these things, think of a glass or light metal bullet, to destroy something. My brother heard about it from some experiments done with the US Space Agency and because they came to his Congressional committee for funding. He wanted to use this capability to prevent the September 1 1 attacks from ever happening."

Willy took a break and Isho signaled a pause by pouring more tea that neither of them really wanted.

Finally, Isho said, "But the attacks, did happen. That is fact."

"Maybe or maybe not. The problem is that you might never know. What if there were more attacks that should have taken place, but they were somehow prevented? There are many stories about hijackers on other planes who did not carry out their plans. As I understand it, and since my brother disappeared I have asked careful questions of people in many fields, if the event was prevented in full, then it is as if it never happened. The actions you took to prevent the event would disappear along with the event."

Isho sucked in his breath loudly through his teeth. It was a very Japanese action that Willy thought was probably inadvertent. "How is this done?" he asked.

"There is a file on a Website." Willy replied. "The file is hidden in plain sight on a Website describing Montana exports. The file appears to contain only old historical information about exports, but it is encrypted. With the right code, it will open to provide all of the information I was able to get from my brother's notes and a classified file he left me from the NASA experiments."

"You are being unusually clever." Isho observed.

"I believe my brother disappeared because he talked about or tried to do something about this project. It is impossible to have an excess of caution."

"Why would you share this challenge and opportunity with us?" he asked.

Willy noted the use of the plural "us." An American would have said "me." But, that group identity was another thing he liked about the Japanese.

"Katakuichi" Willy used that Japanese word for revenge because it is loaded with medieval wrath. He understood spoken Japanese quite well. But he knew that his accent was awful and it often benefited him if others didn't know how well he understood what they were saying. This was a word he had practiced saying.

"So-desu" Isho replied with a slow bow. He understood the concept of revenge very well.

"I believe my brother was either killed or imprisoned by my government. If you can make this information into a weapon, I would like your promise that we use it in some way to find the truth."

The give and take continued off and on for another hour. Isho took the position, as Willy knew he would, that he could make no promises. He finally did say that he would use every means to see if he could find what, if anything, the American government might have done with Willy's brother. Willy knew that meant the Japanese would spread money around Washington looking for information. That's what he wanted.

In the end, he gave Isho the password to the protected file on the open Website.The rest of the evening they spent relaxing as old male friends should in downtown Sapporo.