EVENT GROUP COMPLEX, NELLIS AIR FORCE BASE, NEVADA
The conference room on level seven was silent as the members of the specialized team faced one another. For Sarah, Charlie, and Virginia, they had to smile as each and every person at the table who had not been a part of the Event Group before today sat in total shock and a disturbing silence after being hit with the secrets of the entire world laid out before their eyes. The biggest void came from Master Chief Jenks, who sat looking at the polished tabletop. Even Anya, who had guessed at the duties of Carl’s decidedly strange agency, was stunned at the few artifact vaults they had been shown. As for the young man, Morales, he was still smiling at what he had seen. The only person who had not been given the grand tour of the complex was, of course, Colonel Henri Farbeaux. Niles just wasn’t ready for that and might never be. Farbeaux had been in the complex before but had never seen the vault levels and on Jack’s advice would keep it that way. He was escorted into the conference room by Jason Ryan. While Henri went to a seat by the table, Ryan turned on someone they could not see and gestured animatedly. Frustrated, he shot one more barrage of anger at whomever he was speaking to, then closed the conference room door and angrily sat next to Mendenhall.
“Do we have a problem, Commander?” Niles asked as all eyes turned and saw Alice Hamilton walking through the door. The eighty-nine-year-old was dressed in a light blue pantsuit and was carrying an armload of files and paperwork as if she had never retired.
“Mr. Ryan, is there a problem?” Niles repeated.
Alice took her normal place beside Niles and then placed her work on the table and smiled at each of the newcomers. For Anya it was like looking at the wife of George Washington, for as much as Carl had spoken about the famous Mrs. Hamilton and her brilliant boss, the deceased Garrison Lee. Anya had to admit that there was an air of royalty about the woman and as they made eye contact she could see why Sarah was of the opinion that Alice and Anya would soon become great friends.
“Oh, Mr. Ryan is a little put out with Clarisse Carpenter and her people.”
Niles looked from Jason to Alice, who had adjusted her seating and was pouring a glass of water from the carafe. “Clarisse? You mean of the logistics department?” Niles asked.
At the end of the table Ryan made a face, scrunching up the horrid tattoo used as cover to break Morales out of prison.
“It seems our logistics department placed the wrong tattoo on Jason here and he’s a little put out by it.” Alice couldn’t help herself as she grinned while trying to cover her mouth with the water glass. She failed miserably.
“Well, are you going to keep us in suspense?” Jack asked, guessing at the predicament Jason was now facing.
Ryan remained silent as he kicked Mendenhall under the table for snickering.
“It seems they used the wrong ink on Jason’s prosthetic tattoo.”
All eyes went to Ryan, who lowered his head in embarrassment. The tattoo was the most brutal any of them had ever seen. The animal claw actually covered the entirety of his right-side facial features.
“How long?” Niles asked sadly, but inside he was glad that this situation broke up the seriousness of the meeting.
“Five weeks. It won’t wear off for five weeks!” Ryan said as he challenged the smiling faces around the table.
“The lady-killer of the high desert—how will you survive?” Will asked in a seriously concerned tone.
Ryan started to say something but Jack stopped them.
“Thank you, Mr. Ryan. I will have a talk with logistics and have some precautions taken for future reference.”
“Wonderful,” Ryan said as he again gave Will a murderous look.
“I would love to know what our new personnel thought of our artifact and vault level, but I’m afraid we must get down to business. Mr. Morales still has to meet his department heads and has to settle in with Europa. He has quite an amount of work to get done and as always we have very little time to do it in.” Compton nodded at Alice.
“Europa, visual aide 17890, please,” Alice said, and then looked flustered when Europa did not respond. “Europa, visual aide please,” Alice asked again.
On the large 105-inch monitor that sat in the middle of fifty-two smaller ones, the screen came to life and showed an old black-and-white picture. It showed a man in a white lab coat next to a small girl who could not be more than fifteen. It was obviously a young woman from a concentration camp. The two were standing in front of a hundred or so similarly dressed technicians. With the exception of the small, hellishly thin girl, they were all smiling. The date scrawled on the bottom of the photo was 1943.
Niles Compton looked at Anya and nodded just as he had done with Alice.
“Lars Thomsen. German scientist of some renown only for his work in the early twenties with one Albert Einstein. In 1939 Professor Thomsen dropped out of the scientific world for all intents and purposes to dedicate his life to the acquisition of quantum technology.”
Everyone heard the exhale of breath from Master Chief Jenks, but he remained quiet after voicing his opinion of quantum theories.
“I understand your doubts, Master Chief, an educated engineer such as yourself always wants facts, hard design, not theory. But be patient with me and I will bring you to believe in the quantum sciences. I was just like you when I started digging after the death of”—she paused, looking embarrassed, but continued—“after the war.”
“Who is the girl?” Charlie Ellenshaw asked.
“We’ll get to that, Charlie,” Niles said as he rubbed the bridge of his nose. “But for now let’s concentrate on our findings. We don’t have a lot of time before I have to start filling in the other departments on what we will be”—he quickly corrected himself—“hope to be attempting.”
Ellenshaw nodded in understanding.
“The Israeli government in the late forties and fifties started a program to interview any Holocaust survivor they could debrief. Most in the vein of hunting down and finding war criminals, but there was other reasoning behind the interviews. Technology was one of those. So”—Anya, without really noticing, stood and started pacing, and all eyes followed the former Mossad agent as she walked—“in the process of debriefing the surviving slave labor force from sites such as Peenemünde, the V-1 rocket facility, Israeli intelligence came up with a name that kept recurring and for the life of them they didn’t know why. That place was Dortmund, Germany. It was familiar to some of our people for the simple fact that we were aware of Operation Chastise.”
“Excuse me?” Sarah asked, knowing that operational name sounded vaguely familiar.
“The Royal Air Force raids into Germany during the war to eliminate certain projects from the Nazi books by taking out their hydroelectric power generating systems, thus ending any hard-water experiments for their atomic weapons research programs,” Jack answered for Anya.
“The famous bouncing bombs? The Dam Busters?” Charlie asked, proud that he recalled such a thing.
“The same,” Anya said as she nodded at Jack in thanks. “Dortmund, or in particular the dam that served the region, was called the Möhne. The dam was struck by a bouncing bomb on the night of May 16, 1943, essentially knocking out power to over a thousand towns and villages. Through research we have discovered that the RAF might have been taking out far more than just their hard-water research.”
“For instance?” Mendenhall asked.
Anya smiled and nodded at the eagerness. “We’ll get to that part, Captain. Now, to the debriefing of all prisoners of war who served German science. While a first-year agent I was assigned the maddening job of refiling these old cases and mothballing, as you Americans say, any file that wasn’t relevant to the search for war criminals, as that function had officially ceased to exist for the Mossad after 1984. During this time I came across one interview that was hushed up and secreted away. It was from, of all people, a thirteen-year-old boy who served with his sister at an unknown bunker complex in Dortmund. I was able to uncover his testimony from the official Israeli debriefing conducted in Jerusalem in 1946, and the contents of that testimony led me to investigate the Dortmund area for any war activity that may have been noticed. I did this in the hopes of impressing certain people on my thoroughness. I found nothing. Then it was eventually filed away and I forgot all about the debriefing until the recent war. I brought it up to my uncle, who swept it under the rug and told me that there was nothing to the file and to forget about it. The fact that it was being hushed up by the most powerful man in the Mossad gave me at the very least some doubts about my uncle’s motives. I brought this fact up to Alice and Sarah and they conferred with Dr. Pollock. They wanted more information as it did have something to do with quantum theory as stated in the main file on this concentration camp survivor. So then on the advice of Dr. Compton and Virginia, I started delving into construction records for the German Army—still nothing. Then I went back to the file on this young prisoner. It seems he described the final night of activity in Dortmund as the night he lost his only living relative. He also described a very famous personage attending this event, whatever it was. By his description it could have been none other than Heinrich Himmler himself.”
“What does that mean?” Charlie inquired.
“It means that whatever this project was, why Himmler? Why was he in Dortmund?”
“Maybe like the colonel said, the hard water. I’m sure Himmler would have been interested in that.” Charlie made a good point.
“That wasn’t it. Europa, slide 17895, please,” Anya said, facing the large screen. “Europa?” she repeated.
“Europa, slide number 17895, please,” Xavier Morales asked as everyone looked his way.
“Yes, Dr. Morales,” Europa finally said in her Marylyn Monroe voice. Again everyone exchanged looks.
“Admiration is one thing, but Europa is pushing it a little,” Will said, whispering to Ryan.
On the screen the picture changed and another appeared. This one showed Thomsen during the construction of his bunker system.
“The main clue as to the system and who built it. This is Thomsen himself standing with a construction president, Alexis Knudsen.”
“You know where this bunker complex was built?” Alice asked, admiring the newest member of the Event Group for her investigative technique. Alice could see why Carl had fallen for the young Gypsy woman.
“Through the gentleman’s surviving family, yes. Unbelievably the plans were still in his office in Dortmund.”
“Which leads us to the conclusion that this project was undertaken without the knowledge of the German engineers who usually built these facilities, like the one at Peenemünde, and who were not allowed in on this one project. Why? Because we assume it was Himmler’s and Himmler’s alone. Thus he hired an outside construction firm to build his series of bunkers.”
“That aspect of the investigation was conducted by Dr. Compton and Virginia, who did very well. So, we have an underground bunker complex built by Himmler for this man Thomsen. He hires a construction firm that has no ties with the Nazis or even the German Wehrmacht. That is what we in the intelligence community would call secretive.” Anya paused and looked at Niles.
“People, let’s get down to it. We suspect that through this Thomsen’s ties with Albert Einstein and his connection with quantum theories, that Himmler and his own private mad scientist were attempting time travel. I know it’s very thin, but it’s a chance.”
“Hogwash!” Master Chief Jenks said, not caring if Virginia shot him a warning look. “To me old Albert’s as entertaining a theorist as they come, and he did a bang-up job with the relativity thing, but time travel was something that he said would always be theory. It can be done, but never would be because there is no way to travel through time and space with the electrical technology we currently possess. That simple, folks.”
“And that is where we were short. We had no proof at all of what Himmler and Thomsen were working on. Until I actually found this child who was a part of the experiments.”
“You found him alive?” Sarah asked, amazed at the long odds the kid had to survive to make it to old age.
“Yes, in Tel Aviv … before he vanished.”
“What did he say?”
“He was afraid to discuss it, but he was old and sick by that time so he told me a story that shocked me, and from that sent us”—she gestured around the conference room at everyone—“down this path. He witnessed his sister, who was used in all of these experiments, actually leave this existence and arrive in another and return.”
The questions started flying and it took Niles standing to silence them. He was used to his people being excited about things, but to actually have the ability to travel through time was not something they had ever remotely considered with the technology this planet currently had.
“And we never had a hint of this experiment throughout our world search for quantum technology when the British found Captain Everett’s wristwatch in the ice in Antarctica?” asked Sarah again.
“No,” Niles said. “It seems Himmler covered his tracks rather well from the Nazi regime. And the Mossad’s reluctance after the war to pursue this to the full extent, well, let’s just say was disappointing. Now, through the discovered construction records and the description of the site from the concentration camp survivor, we found the location of the bunker system. The boy claimed the last experiment failed because of some mishap in the power supply. We now know that interruption was the RAF doing a number on the Möhne Dam. The boy claims the bunker system was flooded and destroyed and his sister, known to the Germans as the Traveler, never came back.”
“She was lost?” Alice asked, always placing a human face on such things from the past that made them seem more real for everyone around the table.
“Yes,” Anya said as she watched a weakened Niles Compton walk slowly to his desk near the far wall and lower himself painfully down into the far more comfortable desk chair.
“Since we know the location, why don’t we investigate firsthand?” Jason asked as he kept a hand over his partially disfigured face.
“If you had noticed, Colonel Collins was missing for some time a few weeks ago. He and Anya took a little foray into the woods outside of Dortmund. Jack, if you would?” Virginia volunteered.
“We spent three days wandering the woods and then we finally found a conduit access port used for electrical line maintenance. We found the bunker complex and that was why Anya was sent back to Israel to look for the final piece of the puzzle. And why Alice had to use an intermediary to get her out.”
Alice was the only one to nod her head in Farbeaux’s direction.
“The last puzzle piece? I thought you found the bunker?” Jenks asked as he pulled the cold stub of cigar from his mouth.
“We did indeed. Flooded and collapsed, most of it. A few old skeletons in SS uniforms and evidence that something very powerful happened there.”
“And you recovered the equipment used by this Thomsen and Himmler?”
Jack pursed his lips and shook his head.
“None of the displacement equipment was there. It had been removed,” Anya finished for him.
“Himmler went back and got it, huh?” Jenks interjected while shaking his head.
“No. The equipment was moved in 1969, several years after all concerned in this particular event was dead, even Himmler.”
“How in the hell do you know that?” Jenks persisted, looking for any holes in Jack’s or Anya’s stories.
“Because the same construction company, which is family owned and operated, removed the equipment that very same year. Contracted by a company not from Germany.”
“Where is the equipment?”
Anya looked at Jenks and then lowered her head. “We don’t know.”
“And that was why Anya went home. We had to know more, personnel records and things like that. We had to know who was still alive in 1969 who would know what it was they were looking for down there. Anya found the only other person who is known to have survived that night.” Jack sat down and looked at Anya.
“And that is why we need each and every one of you in the next few weeks. We have the name thanks to Mossad files, we just have to locate that person because they have the time displacement equipment for some reason.”
“Well, you goin’ to let us in on the big secret?” Jenks said, huffing at the dramatics of the group.
Anya went to her chair and pulled out the same file that General Shamni produced for her. She tossed it into the middle of the table.
“I give you the thief of the technology taken from the bunker in 1969. Moira Mendelsohn.”
“Who?” Sarah asked, looking from Anya to Jack. It was Jack who answered.
“Moira Mendelsohn—the Traveler.”
The room went silent.
“Humph, rumph,” the master chief rudely said as he stood up from the table. “So, you’re telling us that the only person to actually … time travel”—he sourly hissed the words—“stole the equipment we need to retrieve our boy?”
“Yes, that’s what we’re saying, Master Chief,” Jack said.
“So the one question we have to ask is,” Niles said from his desk, “where did she go with it and what reasoning did this concentration camp survivor have for wanting it in the first place. Even if we weren’t attempting to do the impossible”—he shot a quick glance at the master chief—“we could never allow this technology to be utilized for any one individual’s personal gain. The tech itself will eventually have to be outlawed.”
“You mean after we possibly use it for our little illegal gain?” Jenks quipped.
“Something like that,” Collins said, quickly losing his patience with the master chief.
“I have a better question,” Charlie Ellenshaw said. “It seems you have overlooked one little item. If she hid the equipment, where she hid it is not the right question at all. When did she hide it—in the past, or right here in the present?”
Niles lowered his head and rubbed his temples. “That is why I have called upon the most brilliant people I know to find out. Xavier, that is the task I am assigning you and Europa. Find me that woman. Your first order of business.”
Young Morales was not afraid of the challenge. He could find anyone, which he had already proven. He just nodded and then frowned when he saw Charlie Ellenshaw staring at him. The man was angry and Morales would need to know more about the strange professor they called Crazy Charlie. For now, as the others filed out of the conference room, he looked up at the still photo of Professor Thomsen and the young girl sadly standing bedside him and he silently repeated the name.
“The Traveler.”
* * *
Alice Hamilton lagged behind as the others left the conference room and then took her time turning to face Niles, who sat at his desk and pretended he didn’t see her. This was a confrontation he had not been looking forward to—a battle with his own conscience as voiced by the marvelous young actress Alice Hamilton.
“Quite a collection of new faces you have; interesting, to say the least,” she said as she easily placed her ever-present files on the edge of the large desk.
Compton looked up and smiled. He decided to let Alice throw the first punch and remained silent as she politely folded her hands in her lap and then adjusted a strand of gray hair that slipped from her bun. He kept the smile and waited.
“The young man”—she picked up a thick file from the top of her stack and opened it—“Xavier Morales, brilliant, so many letters after his name it looks like a screwed-up alphabet. Thus far since his professional career has started he has broken into no less than three commercial companies with names like Microsoft, IBM, and Raytheon. He claims boredom. Main achievement in life, hacked close to a billion dollars from a drug cartel.” Alice smiled and closed the folder. “Still, him I can understand. You need an abstract mind to keep up with Europa, I get it.”
Niles leaned back as he watched the waters of the floodgates overflow. He pushed two aspirins into his mouth and dry-swallowed them. They caught, he grimaced, but then managed to get them down just as Alice reached for the second file. She eyed Niles as she opened it, waiting to see if his one good eye would flinch.
“Master Chief Harold Jenks, United States Navy, retired. Owner Blacksmith Engineering. Everyone in his own company hates his guts even though he has made all fifty-one employees very wealthy. Ruthless, barbaric, and quite the engineering genius. Here only because he has a fatal attraction with the only woman he has ever been terrified of, our own assistant director. Bottom line: unstable, uncontrollable, and any other ‘un’ you can think of. Not Department 5656 material, and that is according to your own job description and criteria.”
“Okay I—”
Alice politely smiled and held up her hand. “Oh, but there is more Mr. Director. How about a foreign intelligence agent who now has access to the greatest finds in the history of the world? Granted, she’s a woman we all like and admire, especially myself.”
“Alice, I—”
“And let us not forget our good friend Colonel Henri Farbeaux. Do I need to go into his record?”
“Now that was Jack’s idea and you have to admit Henri’s already paid dividends for this Group.”
“Yes, by getting our other high-risk asset out of Jerusalem, I know. It was me who sent him in as I figured if the Mossad arrested him we weren’t at a loss of one of our own.” Alice started gathering her files. “You are rushing into this, Niles.” She stopped and looked at the director. “All I’m saying is be careful. These new people are brilliant and are capable of good things, but make sure they belong here in the long term and not just for getting Carl back. They need to belong.”
Niles decided to let it drop now that he knew that Alice was only voicing his own inner thoughts and venting her fears, which were in line with his own. He watched her as she gave him one last look before patting his arm.
“You look pretty good, by the way. How’s your buddy?”
“The president is doing better, and yes, I do feel somewhat … well, besides being blinded in my right eye, having a scar on my face the length of Long Island, and knowing that this is the best I’ll ever walk again, hell, not bad at all.” He gave Alice a sour look as she smiled and turned for the conference room door.
“Could have been worse, Mr. Director. After all you still have your balls, and with these new personnel changes here at Group, you’re going to need them.”
Niles watched the door close and then he faced the large monitor and the image that was still up. He gave a crazed chuckle and wondered if he was doing the right thing in risking more lives to get one back from the dead.
* * *
Alice caught up to Xavier Morales as he just finished his rounds in the computer center. Though quiet and shy he asked very legitimate questions of the one hundred men and women who would be working for him in computer sciences. Most of the apprehension at having someone so young being a department head was tempered by the fact that they had all heard of Xavier Morales, the wunderkind of MIT. Alice watched the young man through the glass and immediately saw that he wasn’t dressed as a man of his education would have normally dictated: black tennis shoes and an old checkered button-down shirt. His black hair was neatly combed and in his shy way looked as if he were nothing more than a teenage boy.
Jason Ryan turned and saw Alice standing outside of the large theater-style comp center and then nodded as Morales turned to leave. Jason quickly opened the door for him. Alice greeted the young man and introduced herself again. She looked at Jason and stifled a laugh at his tattooed predicament.
“And I suspect Jason was taking you over to meet Europa face-to-face?” Alice asked. With boredom etching his features, Jason nodded. “Well, you probably have far better things to be doing. I’ll take him, I need a word with our new comp genius.”
Without a word Ryan hurriedly left toward the bank of elevators so he could get down to logistics where a whole lot of people responsible for this tattoo had better be ready for war.
Alice gestured for Xavier to continue down the same hallway. She noticed the old chair and the strong arms that propelled the young man at a pretty good clip.
“Our engineers can find you something far more advanced than that old chair if you wish,” she said, suspecting she already knew the young man’s answer.
“And Master Chief Jenks is one of those engineers?”
Alice only raised her lovely brows and smiled.
“No, thank you, Mrs. Hamilton, I was raised in this chair and if I get anything else now I would get lazy and also get no exercise at all.” He slowed his pace and then looked at Alice. “Tell me about Professor Ellenshaw.”
“Charlie?” A sad and knowing look crossed her features as she adjusted her load of files. “I won’t go into detail, but Charlie’s had a rough go of it the past three months.”
“I understand he was close to Dr. Golding?” Morales asked as he stopped by the double clean room doors and the blue-clad Marine guard standing outside. Xavier removed the new temporary ID card from around his neck and gave it to the guard, who checked it. He nodded at Alice as he gave it back.
“Quite close, rather unexplainable as they were such opposites, a man of science and one who chases dreams and sometimes nightmares … yes, they became close because they started out so distantly separate. He’s hurting and if he’s taken it out on you, I assure I’ll speak to him.”
“No, no, please, don’t do that, Mrs. Hamilton. I have an idea: Would you please give me five minutes with Europa to introduce myself properly, and then would you ask Professor Ellenshaw to join me in the clean room?”
With a curious look Alice just nodded. “Yes, I can do that.”
The clean room doors hissed open and Morales smiled as the guard handed him a sealed plastic bag with electrostatic clothing. Morales just shook his head with a polite smile.
“Nah, we don’t want to start off like that.”
The guard looked at Alice and then saw that the Group matriarch was smiling.
“You heard him, that’s no way to meet someone for the first time.” Alice nodded at Morales and then left.
The doors hissed closed behind Xavier as he entered the dressing area and then easily went to the last door and opened it. He wheeled himself inside and then turned. The console for Europa was there with six stations. Microphones were at each. The large bulletproof glass stretched fifteen feet across the front. The metal screen protecting the inner sanctum was in the down position so Morales could not see inside. But he knew, or could guess, what was there. Gone were the robotic program placement arms, and in their place would be a series of long glass tubes that contained Europa’s bubble memory system of Pete Golding’s own design. Morales closed his eyes as he faced the large glass remembering the paper he read from Golding describing the theory of bubble memory cylindrical super-microchip technology. He cleared his throat and a seventy-five-inch monitor lowered automatically from the ceiling. It came to life with a simple screen saver that said DEPARTMENT 5656.
“Hello, Europa,” he said as he watched the monitor, hoping to get a verbal response.
“Good afternoon Dr. Morales,” said the sexy Marylyn Monroe voice.
“How are you today, Europa?”
Silence.
“I asked how you are?” he repeated as he watched the screen.
“I am well,” Europa typed.
Morales only smiled as he approached the first of the six workstations.
“No, you’re not well. But we’ll get you there.” Morales patted the console and then raised the large metal panel. What he saw amazed him. The famous, or was it infamous, Blue Ice system with Pete Golding’s own fingerprints on it. The sight was beyond his imaginings. The three-foot-in-diameter tubes were filled with large, slow-moving blue bubbles made of clear silicone—the memory carrying system that Europa could tap into in a millisecond.
“Where have you been all my life?” he asked as he leaned forward to look upon the most beautiful thing he had ever seen.
The door hissed open and Charlie Ellenshaw stood in its opening. His hair was still crazed and his glasses were perched on his forehead. His eyes were red.
“Alice asked me to come and see you,” he said with a voice that was deadpan.
Morales looked from the blue-tinted Europa programming room to Charlie.
“Professor, we have a very sick lady here, and according to Colonel Collins and Director Compton, we’ll need her services desperately”—he looked at his wristwatch—“in less than three hours. I need your help.”
Charlie looked from the newcomer to the inner workings of Europa.
“Pete never worked with Europa while her protective screen was up.”
“Why is that, Professor?” Morales asked, not out of politeness at the tall, strange man, but because he really wanted to know.
Charlie took a tentative step into the room and the doors hissed closed behind him, startling the older man. He collected himself and then faced Xavier.
“He said it was rude to see her like that, so he did the polite thing and closed the door, like she was—”
“A lovely lady in a dressing room?”
“Yeah,” Charlie said as he looked more closely at the youngest genius outside of Niles Compton he had ever met.
Morales, without looking away from Ellenshaw, hit the button and the protective screen came down.
“Europa, are you there?” he asked as he kept watching Charlie.
“Yes,” she typed out.
Without facing the screen he asked Ellenshaw, “She texted her answer?”
“Yes.”
“See, she’s not acting right and I think I can guess as to why. Can you help me, Professor?”
“How?”
“Tell me and Europa about Pete Golding.”
“What?” he asked in utter confusion, but sat down in the station next to Morales.
“Europa, can you tell me the disposition of Dr. Peter Golding, please?”
There was silence for the longest time, long enough that Morales turned his wheelchair and removed the rolling chair in front of the empty station and then faced Europa’s screen.
“Dr. Golding is currently not on station.”
This time both men noticed she spoke instead of texting.
“Do you know why?” he asked.
Silence.
“Europa, have you scanned all personnel records for Department 5656 and any corresponding field report deaths from same?”
Silence.
“Europa?”
“Dr. Peter Golding, deceased ninety-seven days, sixteen hours, fifty-six minutes, plus or minus ten minutes.”
Morales turned to face Charlie.
“Tell me about Pete.” He smiled and then looked at Europa. “Tell us both about Pete and why he died.”
Charlie Ellenshaw was flabbergasted to say the least. He didn’t know if he wanted to hit the kid and leave or just stare stupefied. Then he saw the text messages on the screen blink out and then the lights in the clean room dimmed as Europa powered down.
“You see, Charlie, she needs to know also. She knows what death is, but no one ever explained why people have to die. That is messing with her advanced AI systems that only Pete had intimate knowledge of. We both need to know about Dr. Golding, especially her.”
Ellenshaw sat silent as he studied the young master of artificial intelligence. He didn’t know what to think of the young man and his obvious intellect. Charlie could understand Pete simply because they had fought and been through some of the adventures of a lifetime that challenged them as men, but Morales was someone who lived his life outside of his world through others. Charlie came to the realization that Europa might be no different. He watched Morales as he opened what Ellenshaw knew was Pete’s 201 file from personnel. He wrote something down and held it up to the camera so Europa could see it.
“Europa, do you recognize these coordinates?” Morales was patient as the temperamental Europa read what he had written. She typed out that yes, the longitude and latitude were confirmed as the Mount Rose Cemetery in Princeton, New Jersey. “Use your satellite imagery files and bring up an aerial view, please. Zoom in on plot 2343, northeast quadrant of the cemetery.” As he waited for the satellite image to boot, Morales looked over at a curious Ellenshaw. “By the way, Professor, your choice of music may not have been likable to certain members of your rescue team, but as a PSYOP distraction I thought ‘Sugar, Sugar’ was a righteous choice,” he said, and then smiled at Charlie, who didn’t know if he was joking with him or not. Only Xavier Morales knew that if anyone else asked he would say that he had never heard of the song nor the Archies who performed it before that day in Mexico.
On the large monitor an image of New Jersey exploded to a close-up of the cemetery in question. Soon Charlie was looking at a headstone. The name was there. Peter Golding. The date of his birth and of his death. Then the simple message: “A Friend.” Ellenshaw knew the headstone well as he had been the one to place it there. Charles Hindershot Ellenshaw III removed his glasses and stared at the image. Europa was motionless and it seemed even the bubble memory system slowed in its intensity behind the large glass.
Charlie didn’t know if it was right, but he started talking and for the next hour and a half Europa and Morales listened to a story about a man’s life and his death.
* * *
All sixteen department heads were present inside the large conference room. Many of the civilian personnel saw the new additions and politely nodded. They watched as Master Chief Jenks came through the doorway dressed in a lab coat and carrying his newly issued blue coveralls all military personnel wore at Group. Compton was silent for a brief moment.
“Dr. Morales, I assume you have made progress with Europa?”
Xavier didn’t understand a thing of what was going on but he nodded and gestured toward Charlie Ellenshaw, who sat silently.
“With the assistance of Professor Ellenshaw, yes, Europa has been enlightened to certain things that had not been adequately explained to her. She is even now absorbing the new data.” He partially turned to the large monitor. “Let’s see. Europa, are you monitoring the minutes of the current meeting?”
“Yes, Dr. Morales, Europa is recording.”
All eyes went to Morales as he smiled when Europa used her voice synthesizer to answer. The familiar sexy voice was greeted with thankful sighs from Niles and Virginia, who knew that if they didn’t have a fully functional Europa, what they hoped to do would be impossible.
“Thank you,” Niles said.
“She’s not there yet, but soon will be as soon as she assimilates certain data.”
Niles nodded at Alice Hamilton. She stood and started passing out electronic tablets. “Please keep all written notes confined to these pads. They will be linked directly to Europa. There will be no, I repeat no, handwritten reports to be filed on Operation Traveler. Even if successful, this technology can never be confirmed by any written word. It’s just too dangerous.”
Silence was the order of the day as everyone accepted the electronic pads.
“Master Chief,” Virginia said, taking over after Alice had taken her seat, “you will notice that your first fifteen thousand pages are filled with Einstein’s and other noted scientists’ theories on time displacement and its quantum limitations—theoretically speaking, of course. Familiarize yourself with them as much as possible. I’m afraid it’s quite heavy reading. You will learn why as we go along. You will also see the dossiers on several scientists of German background, familiarize yourself with them also. We need your report on the mechanical and scientific feasibility related to these men and their work to compare with my physics department assessment”—she paused and then went all the way in—“in twelve hours.”
“Thrilled,” Jenks said, but his eyes did look to the pad and the headings of several of the entries. He had to admit, he didn’t believe in the theory, but as an engineer, he was intrigued nonetheless.
“Dr. Morales, you will see the main factor in your upcoming research is the Traveler herself, Moira Mendelsohn; she is your target. You and Europa will dig until you have everything you can find on her. We want the number of hairs on her head if you can get it.”
Xavier looked from Director Compton to the young face of a girl in ragged clothing that was now up on the large monitor. She had a sad face and Morales could see that the picture was made by blowing up a section with only her in it.
“If she’s alive, find her. Without this woman this operation is done before we ever start,” Niles said as he pulled a chart out from his stack of papers. He nodded at Virginia to conclude her brief.
“All departments, historical and sciences, will be coordinating with Alice and she will correlate any and all information. Colonel Farbeaux, you are well versed in the German language and have tactical military training, which could become useful. You will be attached to the security department answerable to Commander Ryan and Captain Mendenhall for the duration. You will be included on any field operation if called upon for same,” Virginia said as all the eyes in the room watched the Frenchman. They waited for the witty rebuke that they knew would be forthcoming. There was none, just a raised right brow as he sat silent.
All sixteen department heads nodded their understanding. Virginia looked at Jenks as she sat back down on Niles’s left. The director cleared his throat.
“Professor Ellenshaw, you have been kept as a part of the team for the simple reason you knew about it from Pete Golding, when the operation was first discussed over a year ago during our search for the alien power plant and its theoretical time warp capabilities. Now that we have proof other than the alien aspect”—Niles paused as Anya Korvesky entered the conference room and then sat next to Will Mendenhall—“that was provided by our asset in Israel, you are retained to be the historical expert on this mission. For the time being the Paleolithic aspects concerning the history of Antarctica: animal life, human or subhuman habitation, and its environment. We will get you assistance if and when we have need for more advanced theory on the continent that existed over two hundred and fifty thousand years ago.”
Charlie nodded. “I request a geologist to assist me as we will need a complete geological makeup of the continent at the time in question. May I suggest Lieutenant McIntire and her geology department?”
“Agreed,” Jack said as he looked over at Sarah. She was typing furiously on her electronic pad. “But as we discussed, no one outside of the complex is to be aware of what it is we are researching. Everything is on a need-to-know basis where inquiries are made to outside sources.”
“Oh, yeah, need to know, that’s always a good thing,” Jenks said with a huff.
“Dr. Morales,” Niles said, ignoring the pessimistic master chief as best he could, “we need that report on the Traveler in no less than three hours. Can you give it to us?”
“Europa, have you started collating the data from the file coded ‘Traveler’?”
“Three thousand seven hundred and seventy-two historical references to the personages known as ‘the Traveler.’”
“Thank you, Europa, complete cycle and we will be with you momentarily.” He turned his attention back to Niles and those around him. “We’ll give you what we can in one hour, anything later and we would be redundant as I suspect that Europa will have everything on this woman there is to know—if she’s still alive, that is. Moira Mendelsohn will soon not have a secret to hide, if she has any.”
The conference room went silent as most sets of eyes went to the large main monitor where a lone picture illuminated the room with her black-and-white shades.
The Traveler.