WASHINGTON, D.C.
Bill McCreary was staring down at the bloody corpse of a man who was slumped awkwardly against a trash bin with two bullet holes in his chest. Califano’s work, no doubt. Looking up, he once again scanned the service courtyard behind the Hay-Adams hotel for the vertical shaft that was supposed to be here, the one that provided access to the fallout shelter beneath the Third Church of Christ, Scientist. Where is it? He’d already circled the courtyard once with no success, and he was just about to do so again when he suddenly realized what he’d been overlooking the whole time.
The Dumpster.
With care, he stepped over the dead man’s legs and made his way around the corner of the Dumpster.
And there it was.
He was now standing at the edge of a square hole, about four feet across with a heavy steel access panel that was flipped over on its hinges. He observed a steel ladder secured to one side of the shaft, which extended downward and disappeared into the darkness below. He energized his powerful flashlight and pointed it straight down into the shaft, illuminating the bottom some forty feet below. It looked to be empty, but the cement bottom was shimmering, much like an asphalt road on a hot day. He considered this fact for a moment, then he reached into his pocket and pulled out a quarter. With his flashlight still illuminating the shaft, he held the coin above the opening for a moment and released it, watching as it fell straight down, spinning and glinting in the beam of the flashlight.
Until it suddenly vanished near the bottom.
“Whoa.” He continued watching the shaft for several seconds, utterly amazed, half expecting the quarter to suddenly reappear and hit the bottom. But it never did.
“Hello?” he shouted down into the shaft. His voice reverberated in the narrow vertical space and then quickly dissipated, with just the faintest echo still audible somewhere deep below.
Aside from the echo, there was no reply.
He checked his digital watch, which read 7:42 A.M. He wondered whether that was still the correct time. After all, he’d heard the reports on the way into the district about the GPS satellites falling out of sync. And now he knew why. He suspected the entire city of Washington, D.C., had just experienced a very mild time dilation. Perhaps on the order of a few seconds, maybe less for most areas. And most people never even knew about it. Except for the GPS issue, of course.
McCreary also now understood why Califano’s voice had sounded so funny on the radio. Standing at this very spot, Califano would have been at the peak of the bell curve, experiencing a much higher time-dilation factor than the folks back at Langley, who were probably experiencing little or none at all. That had apparently created something akin to a Doppler effect, making Califano’s voice sound deeper than normal.
“Steve, can you hear me?” McCreary said into his microphone.
Steve Goodwin answered a few seconds later. “Yeah, boss.”
“How do I sound?”
“Like Barry White.”
McCreary nodded knowingly and then peered down into the shaft. Of course, the highest time-dilation factor would be down there.
McCreary considered his options for a few minutes, repeatedly checking the shaft with his flashlight to see if anything had changed. It hadn’t.
Finally, blowing out a long, nervous breath, he eased his large, oafish frame onto the first rung of the ladder. Time to find out where my quarter went.