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We were a team of three in 1985, The General, The Commander and I. The Chronosphere, aka Time Machine, was our most secret weapon. Part of our mission was to protect the sources and methods of our operations. By April of that year, the number of coups we had engineered on the basis of actionable intelligence from the device was so large the Threat, then the Soviet Union, was getting wise to us.
The General asked me to devise a plan to deflect the gray men in the Kremlin from guessing we had developed an operational Time Machine. Ironically, my plan, as modified by The Commander, involved both disinformation and the Time Machine itself to gauge the effects of our campaign.
A disinformation campaign is both insidious and dangerous. Truth is a rare commodity in the murky smoke-and-mirrors work of intelligence. Dangers of a campaign like ours included blowback where our own Intelligence Community takes as truth the disinformation we distribute. The General called this kind of purposeful deception ‘liar’s dice,’ so that became the name of our elaborate deception operation.
Our first task was to invent a fictional program for special paranormal research. Its purpose was to read the mind of the enemy to discern intentions. We thought we knew the Threat’s capabilities, but the critical intelligence we lacked was the enemy’s intent to use its lethal arsenal against us. The program was divided into three parts—envisioneering to see the threat clearly, paranormal analytics to assess the effects of the threat and affective measures meant to provide physical interdiction. An Agency-friendly investigative reporter leaked the name and purpose of the program in The Bangkok Post.
Six days after the leak, the Threat devoted one team of spies to get additional information about the program and a second team of spies to design a similar program for the USSR. Because our own spies knew nothing about the disinformation campaign, they laughed about the ridiculous scramble of the Kremlin to invent capability out of whole cloth. Meanwhile, my team brainstormed and planted leaks about the wondrous results of paranormal espionage. Many of our Time Machine exploits were thus “explained,” diverting the Threat from the real source and method.
For example, our knowledge of the number of vacant silos on Soviet ICBM-capable submarines affected our Single Integrated Operational Plan, or SIOP. Early in our own deployment cycles, our national policy was not to overstate our deployed ICBMs. We openly stated the missiles we put in the field since that information was part of our strategy of deterrence. Naturally, when using the Time Machine gave us insight into the real capability of the enemy, the Soviets went apoplectic trying to discover how we learned the truth through all their bluff and bluster. Now that our paranormal program had been “accidentally disclosed,” the Kremlin became convinced that was the true source of our knowledge. Speculation about our Time Machine subsided. Our weapon remained secret.
I knew the Kremlin’s thinking because during time travel in 1952 I became intimate with Lyudmilla Kruchkov, a beautiful and brilliant Soviet spy from Ukraine. I gained her trust by giving her scraps of genuine intelligence that her masters could verify. During our assignations, she updated me on Soviet plans and programs, sometimes embellishing her data but mostly giving me a fair return for what I gave her. She had no knowledge of what agency I worked for. She assumed I was an agent with American counterintelligence but willing to go ‘off the reservation’ for occasional sex and information exchange. I recall distinctly the mission that gave me the priceless connection to the then-Soviet agent. It involved two paired low orbiting Soviet satellites.
*
“FARNSWORTH,” THE GENERAL barked, “drop whatever you’re doing. I have a special mission for you. You’ll be going back to April, 1977, in the Chronosphere. I need to know the computational relationships between the RORSAT and EORSAT capabilities of the USSR.”
“Begging The General’s pardon,” The Commander interjected, “but we’ve got beaucoup intel on both those paired low-earth orbiting satellites already. Wouldn’t it be simpler to order up a research report from our anti-sat folks? I’d be willing to bet something in that line has already been prepared. If it has not, the men whose job is to track those programs will know things Farnsworth could never learn on a single time machine mission.”
The General’s piercing eyes stopped The Commander from continuing his exposition. Turning to me, he said, “Let’s pretend The Commander never spoke. As I was saying, draw up a plan and have The Commander vet it. Once I’ve approved the final plan version, you’ll launch.”
“Sir, I assume you have a specific date and time in mind.”
The General smiled. “October 2, 1977, at 0400 Zulu Time.”
“If I’m not mistaken, that’s the date when the Soviets destroyed one of our SPINTEL surveillance satellites with a prototype ground-based laser.”
“I’m glad you’re as sharp and as well-informed as ever, Farnsworth. I have reason to believe the targeting of that laser was enhanced in near-real-time with data from a RORSAT.”
The Commander reddened. He rose to full height. “The geometry won’t support that view, General.”
The General shook his head. “Farnsworth, keep an open mind. Draw up the plan within the next twelve hours. Commander, review Farnsworth’s plan and send me your revision within the next twenty-four hours. I’ll have to take the final plan to the Situation Room ASAP after that.”
The Commander and I both said, “Yes, Sir!” simultaneously.
I drew up a notional plan in four hours. I fiddled with my plan for another four hours. I delivered my draft plan to The Commander four hours early. It was a good thing as The Commander required the additional four hours to convert my humble prose into what was essentially a campaign plan, with intestine-based schedule and hard, scientific deliverables.
The General beamed when he looked over the finished product, which he immediately delivered to the president’s special watch team in the Situation Room.
I launched while The General was in transit from our secret enclave to the White House.
“Lyudmilla,” I said, “It’s up to us to save the world again.”
“Oh, Lieutenant Farnsworth, let’s cut the bullshit, shall we? What do you need to know?”
“You have an experiment coming down within four hours. I’d like to discuss it in detail with someone in the know.”
“I designed the experiment in question. Why don’t we share a bottle of vodka at my place?”
“I’m afraid I don’t have time though it’s a tempting offer. Let’s walk through Gorky Park like two lovers instead. I doubt the trees have ears as long as those in your bedroom.”
“You’d be surprised. But if we whisper and snuggle close and share a bottle, we might get away with our little exchange.”
We bought a bottle of Stolichnaya Export and walked through the park like the lovers we sometimes were. I was dumbfounded when Lyudmilla talked not about the ASAT experiment but instead about the launch of a new MIRV-capable ICBM, which had been scheduled simultaneously, that is, at 0400 Zulu Time. The launch from a ballistic missile submarine in the Indian Ocean was targeted so the multiple warheads would strike ten neutral points on the ocean’s surface at distances roughly equivalent to major American cities if the submarine had been located four hundred miles due west of Los Angles.
Lyudmilla arched her brow when she saw my astonished expression.
“Lyudmilla, you wouldn’t be foisting disinformation at me, would you?”
“Farnsworth, how could I invent such a horrible scenario out of whole cloth?”
“Will you give me the coordinates of the location of the submarine that will fire the ICBM?”
“If you’re especially nice, I shall.” She pulled my face close to hers and kissed me on the lips. Then she whispered in my ear.
“Listen carefully: 7.3195 degrees South, 72.4229 degrees East.”
I grabbed her arms and held her firmly.
“You liar! Those are the coordinates for Diego Garcia. I happen to know the island well. Do you want to try again? or must I assume you’ll keep on lying?”
She pouted. “You didn’t let me finish. The submarine’s position for this morning’s launch is three hundred miles due east of that position.”
I was furious with her. I had no idea whether she was telling the truth. She was, in fact, almost as good a liar as I. I decided to open another line of questioning.
“Was it your idea to cover the ICBM launch with another, more visible exercise?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. What nonsense have you heard?”
“A little bird told me your ASAT people are planning to destroy one of our low earth orbiting satellites at the time of the ICBM launch.”
She looked away and nodded. “It is as I suspected, then.”
“What?”
Lyudmilla looked at me with an icy stare.
“How do you know about the ASAT experiment? What else do you know?”
“I know the satellite will be destroyed by a ground-based laser.”
“That is plausible.”
“What I can’t figure out is how the target will be acquired and tracked.”
“Of course you are aware of the atmospheric distortion of signals.”
“Of course.”
“So any satellite targeting by a laser would have to be accomplished not from a ground station but from another satellite flying near the target.”
I had a wild surmise. “So to cover your ICBM launch, you destroy one of our satellites and make the destruction seem to come from a ground based laser facility when it is actually from a space platform.”
Lyudmilla smiled, but she did not answer me. I deduced I had guessed correctly.
“So tell me, how can a little RORSAT and a little EORSAT contain space tracking equipment and kinetic weaponry to strike an orbiting satellite?”
“Who told you a RORSAT and EORSAT were involved? Those birds only look down, the one with radar and the other with electromagnetic sensors.”
“So you have a third bird that flies in tandem with the other two, and it is ASAT equipped.”
“I would have to make inquiries. I don’t really know since I am not authorized to know about ASAT capabilities.”
“What would you have to do to get detailed engineering information about the results of the MIRV test and the design of the ASAT satellite?”
“I’d have to sleep with a couple of highly cleared people. I can arrange to do that and have the documents available within ten days. I’ll need to give them something in return.” She handed me the Stoli bottle by way of example. I drank while I considered what intel I could give her in return.
“If I told you about an American black project that will surface with a visibility point in the spring of 1983, would that help?”
She nodded and pressed two fingers on my lips.
“Wait until I get the information you require. Then I’ll accept your intel in return. This time, though, we’ll spend time in a five star hotel in Moscow and make up for all the time we’ve lost by walking in Gorky Park.”
We made a date and went our separate ways. I returned to 1985 via the Chronosphere to report progress.
The General recorded my debriefing. The Commander made the typescript and marked it with the caveat Song Bird. I was not allowed to read the typescript of my own debriefing. Naturally, I was not named as the source of the information, only that the date of the report corresponded to the date of the two simultaneous experiments. The marking on the final copy was POTUS EYES ONLY BURN IMMEDIATELY AFTER READING. A second version was made for the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency. A third version was made for the Chief of Naval Operations’, the CNO and my administrative boss.
I returned to Moscow and roomed with Lyudmilla under a pseudonym at the Intourist Hotel where, as we promised each other, we shared wild, glorious sex and priceless intelligence.
“It’s not the Rossiya, Farnsworth,” she whispered, “but everything we say is recorded. I handed her a one-page brief on the American Strategic Defense Initiatives project. I made her memorize it. We burned the paper together and crumbled the ashes before flushing them down the john.
“If only heads could speak,” I told her.
She cocked her head sideways with a puzzled look on her face.
“A john in the USA is called a head. It’s a joke.”
Lyudmilla shook her head. “Some joke! Now it’s my turn.” She handed me two pages of data in Russian, one detailing the geometry of the MIRV splash points and the other describing the design of the ASAT satellite. I reeled from the enormity of what I had just received. I wanted to take the pages back with me, but she demanded that we burn them and flush the crushed ashes down the john.
We had no sooner pulled the cord on the john when a knock on our hotel door sent a frisson of fear down both our spines. At the door was a waiter with a towel over his arm. He pushed a cart covered with an immaculate white cloth. On the cloth sat a silver ice bucket with a bottle of Krug champagne in it, a salver with whipped butter, black bread and caviar and two fluted glasses.
I breathed a sigh of relief. The waiter uncorked the champagne and poured the first glass for each of us. I tried to tip him, but he would not accept my money. His sneer indicated he hated the very idea of the capitalism that room service implied.
“Well, Lieutenant Farnsworth,” Luydmilla said, “Here’s to all your filthy capitalist money can buy while you’re here in Moscow.”
We drank to that sentiment. Then we ate caviar on black bread. We spent the rest of the night demonstrating the value of good international relations. By five o’clock Moscow Time, it was time for me to return to 1985.
In the Chronosphere, I sat for a moment dazed. I asked The General to record my debriefing at once since I wanted to deliver everything I had memorized verbatim. The Commodore set up the recorder. I spoke for one full hour. My two teammates were engrossed in the recording for another two hours. The Commander made a typescript, which I was not allowed to see. It was, as the last had been, marked POTUS EYES ONLY. The General dashed to the White House to deliver it to the president. Again, separate versions went to the CIA Director and the CNO. I was told never to divulge anything about my mission to anyone, ever.
The Commodore gave me the next two days off. The third day I returned to my normal duties. I was not told what had occurred on the basis of the intel I had harvested. The General told me I did not have the need to know.
I thought I had heard the last of my October, 1977, adventure, but administrivia always catches up with the wicked. The Inspector General made inquiries about unauthorized expenditures I had vouchered shortly after my mission. I was interviewed by two of the little gray accountant women from CIA Headquarters, Langley.
“I’m afraid I am not at liberty to discuss anything about my missions. You of all people surely know the drill.”
“We’re not investigating your mission. We’re investigating vouchered expenses for a room and room service in the outrageous amount of seven thousand US dollars—for one night’s stay!”
“Whoever spent that kind of money must have had a very good time.” I had a hard time keeping a straight face.
“Do you deny having stayed at the Intourist Hotel in Moscow on October 12, 1977?”
“Is my name associated with documentation submitted with the voucher?”
“No. The voucher is signed by you, but the documentation is signed in an illegible hand.”
“May I see it?”
The older of the boffins handed me the offending document. I took one look and laughed so hard, I almost wept.
“What’s so funny, Mr. Farnsworth?”
“I make the signature to be a woman’s: its in Cyrillic. Tatyana Larina, to be precise.”
“And your point is?”
“You’ll have to ask a Russian poet about that. His name is Alexander Pushkin.”
“Where can we find this man Pushkin?”
“I believe he can be located at the Svyatogorsky Monastery, near Mikhailovskoye, Russia. Your Sovietologists can be very specific. That’s all I can tell you. Good luck finding the information you’re looking for.”
The two old biddies looked at me sternly. Then they looked at each other. They rose and departed. I did not hear from them again. I did, however, receive a charge-back notice deducting the bottle of champagne from my authorized expenses. It took me a couple of months to wipe out the debit against my account. By then, I had popped back in time to cause such a mess of auditable accounting I addressed the matter with The General.
“Farnsworth,” he said, “the accountants will be the reason we’ll win the Cold War. Cost is an important measure. Stress is another. You are costing us plenty. Fortunately, you are stressing only the quants at the Agency. In future, I’ll open a special black bag account for your extravagant holidays. Do try to keep expenses to a minimum. Contrary to public opinion, the Black Budget isn’t unlimited.”
“General, will I ever know what happened to the intel I brought back from Moscow on the thirteenth of October, 1977?”
“Son, I have no recollection of your ever having been in Moscow during that time. I’m sure that, upon reflection, you’ll agree you were never there.”
*
THE GENERAL’S REMINDER about deniability of my missions gave me the perfect justification for running Lyudmilla Kruchkov as I pleased without the usual reporting protocols. She was my agent, and I ran her as I chose. Because of the intelligence I gave her, Kruchkov rose rapidly through the ranks of the KGB. By 1987 she was a superspy in the Soviet firmament. I convinced her that America had all but won the Cold War already on account of the paranormal program. This made her focus entirely on things paranormal and argue against the existence of the Time Machine with all her superiors up to the General who reported to the highest levels of the Soviet government.
As Kruchkov rose, her success naturally rankled her ambitious competitors. She was subjected to intense surveillance and periodic polygraph analyses. I was detected as her critical contact with the West. My motives were subjected to detailed review. Traps were set to catch us in flagrante delicto, but they all failed because I simply disappeared, returning to the Chronosphere. I thought my timely vanishings might become a cause for the USSR to suspect the existence of a Time Machine in the US arsenal. In fact, though, the idea never crossed the minds of the master chess players of the KGB.
It never occurred to me that the CIA and NSA would detect my supposed perfidy independently, but that is what happened. My own country tried to catch me in the act of betraying top secret information. Since my team’s caveat was beyond the reach of American spy catchers, I made my re-entries to the Chronosphere just when I could cause most embarrassment to my own country’s counterintelligence operatives. Allegations were made about my having passed government secrets at specific dates, but my alibis for those dates were air-tight. Suspicions shifted to others.
Apparently immune to discovery, I thought I was on a roll. Everything seemed to be working to the Liar’s Dice plan. The Commander orchestrated the continuing disinformation. The General briefed the president routinely about our harvest of intelligence without divulging the sources and methods we used. Yet, inevitably Mr. Murphy of Murphy’s inexorable laws joined our group uninvited. Murphy’s chief law was, “Things will go wrong at the worst possible time with the worst possible consequences.” So it was with the incident of the Cryogenic Operation.
Part of my grand plan was to assure that American experimentation in the area of cryogenic warfare was replicated by the Soviets. Two motives will exculpate my actions. First, the closest thing to a Time Machine of the future is a reliable cryogenic preservation of a person, possibly indefinitely. Second, the idea of extending human life by artificial means had applications appealing to gray old men on both sides of the international competition.
I convinced Kruchkov that America had perfected cryogenics. She was insanely jealous and wanted to know the technical details for use by the USSR. I provided bogus data in support of our “successes,” but her KGB contemporaries made such a mess of executing on those details that numerous corpses were the only fruits of their labor. Finally, they decided to make Kruchkov the subject of a cryogenic experiment. They would freeze her body and bring the body back to life in three years. Kruchkov did not have the opportunity to let me know this plan before she was inlaid in a block of ice at nearly absolute zero temperature. I thought I had lost her forever.
I had nightmares about her beautiful body being thawed only to decay in death. I wrung my hands as my chief conduit for intelligence and disinformation had been removed from the game. This gave her enemies time to smear her legacy and arrange for her condemnation as a double agent for the West upon her revival—if she happened to live through the ordeal.
I was present when she was revived. I could not believe my eyes. She had actually been frozen and, after the prescribed time, revived as if no time had passed from her perspective. The cryogenic experiment actually worked! No such triumph attended the American experiments in which all subjects had died horribly. So I was faced with an ironical outcome. A capability I had delivered to the Soviets wholesale as a joke was now in their arsenal to use against America. This cryogenic capability might have dramatic applications for space travel and the maintenance of corporate history. A good outcome in the case of Kruchkov was that I regained my flesh-and-blood lover with the opportunity to bring her up to date on everything she had missed while she had been frozen.
She said, “Farnsworth, I’m genuinely grateful for the information you told me about my conniving associates. By turning their evidence against them, I managed to avoid condemnation as a double agent. Further, by using the actionable intelligence you gave me, I was able to convince the KGB leadership the success of the cryogenic experiment involving me is a strategic advantage for the Soviet Union. I can’t thank you enough for providing the key to my future as a KGB agent.”
As I took her lovely body in my arms, I gnashed my teeth. Why had I been so stupid as to have delivered cryogenics to the Threat? How could I possibly atone for my secret sin?
After wild glorious sex with a woman who had been trained to elicit secrets, I turned her techniques right back at her.
“Lyudmilla, why do you suppose the cryogenic experiment succeeded with you when it failed in every other instance?”
“Farnsworth, you were correct that the key was the order in which the body parts are frozen. I asked our experts to consider the orchestration carefully before they put me in the bath. I demanded they use a chimpanzee first. The animal was only frozen for three days, but it came back fully alive. I then knew the experiment would work on me.”
“Did you keep a record of exactly what steps the scientists followed? If so, I’d like to have a copy so I can compare it with the American procedure. Since this is important for long space explorations, both our countries could benefit from collaboration.”
“I can give you a copy of the record, but several tweaks were necessary. I’ll have to annotate the record accordingly. Under no circumstances can the perfected record be released generally, or I’ll be at risk.”
“I know a way to classify your document so it will never see the light of day.”
“That’s good. Wait right here while I get you what you need.”
That night I harvested the priceless process for cryogenics. A lie had led to discovery. Now the discovery would make the lie a truth. So it often went in the black world of intelligence. Yet Kruchkov was no dummy.
“Farnsworth, while I was frozen, I got a lot of free time to think. My body was at nearly absolute zero, with no blood flowing through it. Still I could achieve a dream state wherein my brain functioned better than before. I had the distinct impression that you and I were criss-crossing each other’s paths in time. I slowed down, but time hurried forward. You never slowed down but shifted from time to time. Will you please tell me how this happened?”
I was dumbfounded. The Ukrainian spy was close to divining our close-hold secret of the Chronosphere. I knew I had to think and act fast to prevent her making the final connection.
“What happened was hallucination. It’s natural in American subjects because the greater we are constrained, the greater our desire for freedom unblocks our minds. I would have thought homo sovieticus would enjoy orderly confinement rather than rebel.”
Lyudmilla knew I was throwing Soviet doctrine in her face, but she had to admit I was correct. She blushed to think she had confessed to speaking like an American.
“Farnsworth, will you please forget my thoughts of a few minutes ago. If anyone suspected I was a free thinker, my career would be over. I’d be sent to Siberia where I would freeze to death without the option of return.”
I took her in my arms again but recalled I only had a little time before I had to return to 1985.
“Lyudmilla, you should know that my people have made significant progress toward kinetic applications. People still laugh at our spoon benders, but some of our gifted seers have affected the flight of hypervelocity projectiles. Others have caused premature ignition of munitions. You won’t recall the event because it happened while you were frozen, but the explosion of the weapons warehouse in Donbass, Ukraine, was caused by an American experiment. That warehouse was the storage facility for flame-thrower fuel laced with boron.”
“How did you know about the boron experiments?”
“Our envisioneers found them without even trying hard.”
“So you’re making progress across the paranormal spectrum.”
“Yes. And as we do, new programs are being established to capitalize on our successes.”
She shook her head.
“I know you have to go now. I’ve got to go too. I must report everything to my superiors. Will I endanger you by divulging what you’ve told me?”
“Nothing you’ve learned can touch me. My people are convinced their secrets are too complex to decipher. So much depends on the indentified talents of the subjects.”
“Your people still seem to be convinced their citizens are special humans and that no one in the opposing camp can do what they can do uniquely.”
“You’re right, of course, Lyudmilla. In some ways our folly is a blindness. You proved to your people that a woman could be frozen. She can then be thawed and restored to life. Yet you’ve told me you had the experience of thinking clearly while at rest. Tell me truly, which state do you prefer—the living, breathing woman that just made love to me or the block of ice that had the peace of mind to think clearly?”
She smiled but did not answer. I took her in my arms before I departed with the document.
The unanswered question remained as our relationship continued through the Cold War.
When the Berlin Wall came down and we found ourselves in each other’s arms at a five-star hotel in a free Hungary, I asked her the question again.
“Farnsworth, I haven’t forgotten your question. As we have just made wild, glorious love, it may seem churlish of me to let you know the truth. The cryogenic experiment was a fraud. I was never frozen. The document I gave you was faked, part of the KGB disinformation campaign. I was programmed to tell you about my ‘thoughts’ while under cryogenic suspension. They were all lies.”
I laughed. She laughed too.
I said, “The KGB is going to die. Where will that leave you, my sweet spy?”
“I am what I am, Farnsworth. I’ll continue to be what I always have been. Was I good for you all those years?”
“You were the best you could be, Lyudmilla.”
I kissed her one last time before I returned to 1985. When I climbed out of the Chronosphere, The General and The Commander were waiting with keen anticipation.
“Well, Farnsworth, what should I tell the president?”
“Tell him the cryogenic document is a piecework of disinformation. The Soviets never ran a successful cryogenic experiment. The subject confessed the entire story was a KGB fabrication.”
As the The General left the SCIF, The Commander regarded me critically.
“Farnsworth, what are we going to do with you now?”
“Commander, whatever do you mean?”
“Our space program will be set back a decade when your latest intelligence is fully digested. Couldn’t you just have lied?”
“How do you know I haven’t lied? How can you be convinced that the Chronosphere actually works?”
His face turned pale. His eyes were unfocused. He seemed confused. Then he pulled himself together and smiled. He chortled. He went into a full belly laugh. I laughed with him.
“Farnsworth, you surely know how to pull my leg. Now get back to work. Our agencies have information that the SETI stations are receiving alien messages like they did on August 15, 1977. And they all connect to July 8, 1947, and Roswell, New Mexico. When The General has returned from the White House, he’ll put you in the picture.”
I tried to keep a straight face. I almost saluted to deflect The Commander’s flashing eyes.
“What’s troubling you, Farnsworth.”
“Well, Commander, it seems that old UFO chestnut is about to take another spin. It’s irresistible—from a disinformation point of view.”
“The president’s folks would like the alien possibility on the table for our next negotiating session with the Soviets. Do you think the Time Machine can help refine their efforts?”
“Maybe so, Commander. Then again, maybe not.”
“I happen to agree with you, Farnsworth. But don’t quote me on that.”
I decided to devour a Klondike Bar while we waited for The General. As I ate the frozen treat, I thought of Lyudmilla Kruchkov, the icy bitch.
“I feel betrayed. She actually lied to me!” Then I thought that over. “What should I have expected? The program was called Liar’s Dice, after all. The thought of Lyudmilla’s warm, luscious body at absolute zero degrees gives me the chills.”