A Glint In Time (History and Time) (18 page)
frightened. "That's what I thought about all night when we were talking to those FBI jerks. What if Patrick was with us when they broke in?What if they used that gun? How dare they? How DARE they!â€Ted took her into his arms, but he sensed that she would rather be kicking one the intruders than hugging him.
Landry put a hand on her shoulder. "That anger is important, Sally. There are many hurt and angry people right now. We have the stop the people who would attack us. We can make it not happen. That's our work."With that, he turned and left.
As Landry drove past base operations on the way to the Project, his pilot's brain spotted a shiny new Gulfstream business jet on the ramp. He flicked his eyes back again to see that it had no insignia or identification other than the short US civilian N number on the tail. Then, he noticed five Crown Victorias, just like the ones the FBI drove last night, parked in a motorcade in front of base operations. He pulled into a parking lot next to the operations building. He could see the plane's stairway and he saw two people with their hands cuffed behind their backs hustled up the stairs sandwiched between some of the same agents he had seen last night.
He put his head back against the seat and closed his tired eyes while he listened to the jet start up and pull away. Inside his head he taxied the plane down the ramp, got his flight plan clearance from the ground control, and did his run up. At just the right time he heard the engines go to takeoff power. He watched as the jet popped into the air
on the northeast runway heading, going out over the water. But then, he watched fascinated as it turned sharply to the south while it was still climbing. The wings reflected in the low sunlight from the east. "South?" he thought to himself. "There isn't anything south of Homestead except Cuba. Why would a government plane carrying two possible terrorists head toward Cuba?"He shrugged off that mystery and went to work on the logic puzzles that occupied his own life.
On Tuesday Ted and Sally took turns that day playing with Patrick and napping fitfully.A Homestead police cruiser seemed to pass by the house at least every thirty minutes and several times Sally saw officers walking through the backyards and looking into the lush shrubs around the neighbors' houses. A well intentioned neighbor told her that they hadn't seen this kind of police presence in this golf course community since a fraternity from Alabama had sneaked through the filtering process of a local rental company and taken over two houses for spring break. That night the three of them slept soundly while two Navy SEALs, arranged for by Bill, played cribbage on the kitchen table. At irregular intervals they silently blended in with the shadows outside the house and stood in harm's way.
STOPPING AMERICAN AIRLINES FLIGHT 43
Wednesday, September 18, 2001
0715 Eastern
Homestead, FL
Excerpt from the Personal Narrative
of Dr. William E. Wirtz, PhD
Recorded April 2009
CLASSIFIED TOP SECRET/ BLACKEYE
"There are many anomalies in the timeline around September 18, 2001 and the days following. Using newly available techniques, we've detected things happening . . . these things couldn't possibly have happened in the same time sequence. The physics theorists might attribute it to parallel time lines. Personally, I can't explain it to my own satisfaction."
They were up early and ate a good breakfastTraffic was slow at the base gate because security checks were tight. After dropping Patrick at the Kiddy Hangar, they got into their office just in time for the 0730 PENTTBOM update briefing on the video conference. Colonel Landry and Bill Wirtz joined them to listen to the update. They both looked haggard.
The first part of the briefing covered the spread of radioactive contamination caused by the crash of American
Flight 43 into the Indian Point nuclear power plant. Initially some news channels had tried to label it as "America's Chernobyl."But then it became apparent that it was a hundred or even a thousand times worse than the 1986 Russian incident at Chernobyl in potency, area, loss of life, and economic impact and they dropped that label. Now, they just called it "The Poisoned Area". The US Army Corps of Engineers was leading the team trying to deal with the Poisoned Area, federal troops were working with federalized National Guard units, but so far there was nothing positive to say. Refugees were streaming out of New York, Massachusetts, and New Jersey and no recovery was in sight.
Ted and Sally were a little surprised when their home invasion was the highlight of the FBI's portion of the briefing. The briefing room in Washington often came across on the videoconference as noisy and chaotic. But, you could hear a pin drop when the FBI briefer announced that two Arabic speaking men had attempted to kidnap two people with PENTTBOM access. According to the briefer, the men were still being questioned, but they denied being part of a conspiracy. They said they were motivated by the success of the September eleventh strikes against the Great Satan and wanted to stop those who might"interfere with history.â€They saw the FBI briefer shrug on the screen suggesting that he didn't know what to think about the reference to history. That portion of the briefing ended with the advice that everyone should be "vigilant. " Landry muted the conference audio.The four of them sat quietly for a moment.
Ted spoke first. "The way I put this together, this guy Rajesh had the basic concept briefing on the Project.When Sally and I showed up, he figured out that we might be trying
to do something to change history. He was burning with the spirit of Jihad, even if he didn't know exactly what to do. He might have known the hijackers when they were in this area. We know that Mohamed Atta was near here in August. It could well be that Rajesh decided on his own to try and keep us from changing the effectiveness of the hijacking attacks."
"That's the way I see it too."Landry replied. "The first reports on the interrogation came out late yesterday. The "change history" words went over the heads of a lot of people who are concerned with the radioactive poisoning in New York and Massachusetts, the loss of the Vice President and one hundred and forty members of the legislative branch, and the immediate loss of life in New York City. But, those words attracted attention in a few places. The interrogation team will have the whole story out of Rajesh pretty quick. I've got DoD trying to control access to any portion of the interrogation that describes our mission and capabilities, but it will get out."
"The bureaucrats will start circling."Bill Wirtz observed.
"Where do we stand on stopping the flight that went into the power plant?American Flight 43?" Sally asked.
"Ready to go in a few minutes." Bill replied. “The Colonel and I spent yesterday morning setting up to shoot the three warning beads back to us in the restaurant and the one bead to Woody. We got all of that done last night. Because we only had to go a few hours back in time, we got some quick solutions from the computer and didn't have to use much
power. The capacitor bank recharged quickly and we even had time for a few naps."
Colonel Landry rubbed his face picked up the thread. "We already had computed and stored a preliminary solution for the attempt to put beads into the tires of Flight 43 on the ramp. The solution was updated last night and we shoot the first one at eight thirty."
A few minutes before the first bead was to go back in time into the tires of Flight 43, the four of them crowded into the operations booth. A single fused quartz ball, about the size of a pea, hung from a thread only a fraction as thick as a human hair. They backed out of the room, closed the heavy door, and watched as Colonel Landry entered the confirmation code into a screen. Pumps chugged as they created a vacuum and the supercooled magnets established a precise field. At exactly the prescribed time the computer fired the laser system with a very precise modulated pattern. The result was a bang that Sally felt in her chest.
Sally and Ted looked at each other. "Feel any different?" Sally asked. "Nope, still got all my fingers and toes.'Ted replied. With that they returned to their office and started to plan how they could best stop United Airlines Flight 93 that crashed into the Capitol.
STOPPING UNITED AIRLINES FLIGHT 93
Wednesday, September 18, 2001
0715 Eastern
Homestead, FL
Excerpt from the Personal Narrative
of Brig Gen Fred Landry, PhD, (USAF Ret)
Recorded July 2012
CLASSIFIED TOP SECRET/ BLACKEYE
"We were
all here, but none of us remembers any of it. The logs for this time show no evidence of activity. As far as we know, objectively or subjectively, it never happened. But, we have evidence from the ether of time and space that we were really busy. So busy, in fact, that some of these shots overlapped the minimum charge cycle of the system. They overlapped each other in the threads of time. To put it simply, two things happened at once that couldn't happen that way."
Excerpt from the Personal Narrative
of Major General Ted Arthurs (USAF Ret)
Recorded July 2012
CLASSIFIED TOP SECRET/ BLACKEYE
"I
believe that someone else was in control of the Project for some period of time. We have some evidence that I can't discuss within this codeword classification"
They were up early and ate a good breakfastTraffic was slow at the base gate because security checks were tight. After dropping Patrick at the Kiddy Hangar, they got into their office just in time for the 0730 PENTTBOM update briefing on the video conference. Colonel Landry and Bill Wirtz joined them to listen to the update. They both looked haggard.
Ted and Sally were a little surprised when their home invasion was the highlight of the FBI's portion of the briefing. The briefing room in Washington often came across on the videoconference as noisy and chaotic. But, you could hear a pin drop when the FBI briefer announced that two Arabic speaking men had attempted to kidnap two people with PENTTBOM access. According to the briefer, the men were still being questioned, but they denied being part of a conspiracy. They said they were motivated by the success of the September eleventh strikes against the Great Satan and wanted to stop those who might"interfere with history.â€They saw the FBI briefer shrug on the screen suggesting that he didn't know what to think about the reference to history. That portion of the briefing ended with the advice that everyone should be "vigilant. " Landry muted the conference. Everyone sat quietly for a moment.
Ted spoke first. "The way I put this together, this guy Rajesh had the basic concept briefing on the Project. He might have even had some contact with the terrorists when they were in this area. We know that Mohamed Atta was around here in August. When Sally and I showed up, Rajesh figured out that we might be trying to do something to change history. He was caught up in the spirit of Jihad even if he didn't know what to do. It could well be that he
decided on his own to try and keep us from changing the effectiveness of the attacks."
"That's the way I see it too." Landry replied. "The first reports on the interrogation came out late yesterday. The "change history" words went over the heads of a the people focused on the loss of the Vice President and one hundred and forty members of the legislative branch and on the immediate loss of life in New York City. But, those words have attracted attention in a lot ofplaces. The interrogation team will have the whole story from Rajesh pretty quickly. I've got DoD trying to control access to any portion of the interrogation that describes out mission and capabilities, but it will get out"
"The bureaucrats are already circling."Bill Wirtz observed. "In fact, the first plane load will be landing at about eight thirty."
"Where do we stand on stopping the flight that went into the Capitol? United Airlines Flight 93?" Sally asked.
"Ready to go in a few minutes." Bill replied. “The Colonel and I spent yesterday morning setting up to shoot the three warning beads back to us in the restaurant and the one bead to Woody. We got all of that done last night. Because we only had to go a few hours back in time, we got some quick solutions from the computer and didn't have to use much power. The capacitor bank recharged quickly and we even had time for a few naps."
Colonel Landry rubbed his face picked up the thread. "But, I've been told to put all operations on hold pending the review of the team that's about to land."
The Project didn't have a briefing room, so the special review team from Washington crowded into the office that Ted and Sally had been using. It was immediately evident that they had been displaced. Each member of the review team had a laptop and a yellow legal size tablet. Ted muttered, "That's real progress. ' under his breath as the twelve members of the review team spread across the four desks.
There were a couple of surprises when the team introduced themselves. The team leader wasn't even from the DoD. He was a staff member on the Senate Intelligence Committee. The only military person was an aide to a senior DoD civilian. Most surprisingly, there were two people from NASA on the team. There was no one from the FBI and no one identified themselves as being from the CIA, although Sally was suspicious of one guy who said he was a "technical consultant."
Colonel Landry had an off-the-shelf mission and history briefing, the standard dog-and-pony-show.That presentation took about 35 minutes and, surprisingly, there were no questions from the review team.The House staffer.athin man named Charles Abrahamson, spoke with Ivy League phrasing and seemed alternatively amazed and condescending. Sally thought that he was amazed at the concept of changing history and condescending toward the simpletons who were running the project.
Abrahamson sat up straight, steepled his fingers, and asked, "Have you taken any action to stop United Flight 93?"
"We were ready to proceed when we got word you were coming. We held off per your instructions."
