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Chapter 13

Langley, Virginia

March 30, 2002

The traffic out to Langley was heavy today. People trying to get into the secured parking lots of the Central Intelligence Agency buildings were snarling at each other and snarling at the guards checking their entry credentials. The thin woman with long red hair dodged an overly aggressive FedEx van as she scuttled across the parking lot, giving the driver her middle finger. In doing so, she managed to spill coffee all over the front of her navy-blue suit.

“Shit,” she said aloud. Why the hell were all the foreign official briefings held during lunch time? Didn’t foreign officials eat lunch or were they so jet-lagged they didn’t bother eating at all? Cresta Leigh usually worked from home unless some matter involving her expertise as a clinical psychologist arose within her work team. Tossing the coffee carton in a waste bin, she banged the elevator button for the third floor. Brushing ineffectually at her coffee-stained suit, she registered that the guy on the left of her had unwrapped and was chowing down on a pungent burrito; the largish woman on the right was…slurping a Slurpee. Burrito-guy got off on the second floor, and apparently, the Slurpee was going to an upper level. The woman with the stained suit got out of the elevator, turned right, and entered the office marked Dr. C. M. B. Leigh, PsyD, Department of Internal Development.

“Stacie? Stacie! There you are. Come help me. The briefing starts in ten minutes, and I’ve got coffee all over myself.”

Stacie Clayton, the chirpy secretary, team fixer, and friend of Dr. Leigh, took in the situation. “Oh, here. Let me have the jacket. Navy blue isn’t going to show coffee once I treat it with some seltzer. Tug the jacket a bit to the right when you go in and no one will see the coffee stain on your blouse. Our guests have already arrived and Doctor Sanford is passing around Danish.”

As Cresta pulled her slightly less stained jacket back on, she smiled. Dr. James Langton Sanford never failed to have a plate of Danish, a couple of vats of coffee, and a pitcher of orange juice at the ready. Didn’t matter, really, if he was briefing an ambassador, a prime minister, or the President. He believed human beings would pretty much accept whatever was presented to them if their stomachs were full.

This briefing room was large enough to seat fourteen comfortably, and as the rest of her colleagues entered the room, the woman took her seat on one side of the polished conference table. Dr. Sanford immediately left off his fussing around and poured her coffee.

“Everyone here? Good. Now then, I would like to offer some introductions before we begin. What? Oh. Well, I’m supposed to also tell you the restrooms are right out this door and down to the left. I am Doctor James Sanford, and I am the lead scientist and director working on the CATE project. Our project is within the authority of the Special Activities Division and overseen by the Secretary of Internal Development. It is our mission to keep working on technologies which may have an impact on the safety and preservation of the world order.”

The good doctor waited briefly until a translator at the far end of the table spoke to two unsmiling gentlemen on either side of him.

“I’d like to welcome General Andrew Klingman of the Department of the Armed Forces of the US.”

Klingman nodded.

Sanford continued, “General Michael Magruder of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Secretary of Internal Development, Doctor Rick Berstem. Lieutenant Joe Rico of the US Navy. Gentleman, may I introduce General Andrei Polovochenko and Captain Evgeni Vikansnetskaya from the Russian Delegation as well as their translator, Mister Yuri Zeitzan.”

The translator spoke briefly to his charges, General Polovochenko and Captain Vikansnetskaya, before indicating Dr. Sanford should continue.

“This is most of my team. Doctor Robert McGuire, who is a physicist, Doctor Edward Wolffe, also a physicist, Doctor Vernita Connor, in charge of archaeology and anthropology, and Doctor Cresta Leigh, our resident psychologist. You’ll meet our chief engineer in a few minutes.”

All the team members nodded as their names were mentioned. Cresta had rushed here from home after receiving a call from Stacie Clayton, informing her Dr. Sanford was giving a briefing to some special guests. So, Cresta thought, our group today is Russian, and the army and navy seem to be quite interested as well. She tugged her suit jacket over the stain on her blouse. We’ll have to be on our toes.

Moving on, Dr. Sanford turned on the over-head projector, got no image on the screen, tugged on the electrical cord, and was finally rewarded with a slide that read, “CATE PROJECT. COMMON ALTERATION THEORY EXCHANGE.”

Receiving no applause for this accomplishment, Sanford hurried along. “Yes. Well, as you gentlemen know, my project team has been exploring the process known as Transplacement Theory, also referred to as time process movement. Not to be technical, scientists have long suspected that if space and time warps could be properly bent and controlled, man could attain some type of time travel.”

Noticing his audience listening intently, Sanford smiled. “Yes, time travel. Can you imagine the benefits to mankind? Oh, I’m not talking about anything monumental. At least not in the beginning. Trying this type of time warp in a spacecraft would be problematical since the craft would have to accelerate beyond the speed of light. But!” He held up his hand for attention. “If we can use an energy source to bend space and time in a controlled environment, there is a possibility.” Sanford had a habit of veering off topic from time to time, and this was one of those times. “Just think. The movie about a time machine whisking Jack the Ripper around. The story of Rip Van Winkle being asleep for twenty years and waking in a future he didn’t know. Charles Dickens writing about spirits from a past, present, and future. The idea has been there for a long time, gentleman!”

There was a pause while the translator tried to explain to the General and the Captain what had been said. The General nodded and then said in heavily accented English, “What is this energy source of which you speak? Nuclear power? Atomic energy?”

Dr. Cresta Leigh knew this little trick was one many of the foreign diplomats and visitors used. Pretend to need a translator before admitting to speaking the native language of their hosts.

Sanford frowned slightly. “It’s a mathematical theory that the right unstable element can cause a warp in the time continuum. Einstein admitted the possibility using general relativity although he cautioned against the danger of accidentally creating a process that would send a subject either to the past or present where he, or she, theoretically could not exist. But the idea that we can perhaps use exotic matter to create shortcuts…for instance, technetium is an unstable element and there isn’t any single naturally occurring isotope which is stable. That is what we are pursuing.”

It was obvious the Russians weren’t quite “there” yet. Sanford rushed on. “Just think, gentlemen. If we can master the past or the present, the possibilities.” That sank in, and the table erupted in chatter.

“Gentlemen, please! Please. And my apologies to the fair ladies present who are on my team. I didn’t say we had succeeded—I am saying that we are experimenting. If you would all come with me?”

The lab wasn’t large but quite impressive. Sitting off the conference room, it was obviously designed, not for serious experimentation but for show-and-tell. Standing at the ready was a rotund man in a white lab coat who was introduced as Dr. George Montoya—the team’s chief engineer who supervised his own team of four. Nearby was a young man who looked much too young to even be in such illustrious company, one of Montoya’s engineers, Kurt Kaufmann.

“All right, George, show us what you’ve got.”

Sanford moved to one side so his chief engineer could proceed. Montoya explained the small device on the left was a miniature reactor. No, not the huge things inhabiting the inside of nuclear power plants…just a small one was all he needed for now. It held, he pointed to the inside, a small amount of a very rare element called quanlawtium, which when bombarded carefully with lasers could produce enough energy to move objects to the past or future. Inside a glass display box was a toothpick and a watch.

“As you can see, the watch is set to precisely 1:03 p.m. Please put on these safety glasses. Fine. Now observe as I carefully, carefully apply a small laser to the element. I mean, done incorrectly, I might blow us all out of the room! No, no, just a small joke. Now see the toothpick? This small tubing running from the reactor to the box will warp the time inside the box.”

For an instant, the toothpick did shimmer, vanish, and then reappear. The watch in the box now said 1:02 p.m.

Both George Montoya and James Sanford looked smug and pleased with themselves. As Sanford escorted the company back into the conference room, he beamed. “So you see, gentlemen, we are making progress. We have proven we can move an object back in time by a minute.”

General Klingman had a question. “Ahem. And how long do you theorize it will take until you can move something substantial, say a tank or a plane, to the past and future?”

Sanford blanched. “Oh, no. You’d have to be very careful. Especially moving to the past. Anything you alter in the past can affect the future. Remember Einstein? If you change history in the past, you might cause extreme repercussions in the present or the future. We are working on the theory that this sort of technology may someday give us the ability to analyze the past and look for clues for the future. Just think! We could visit the past and interview great generals or philosophers or painters! Answer questions that no one has answered before. Who was Jack the Ripper? Learn when famines will occur and, if possible, prevent them. Think of all the good we could do for the future!”

Clearly none of the military contingent was impressed nor did they heed what Sanford was saying. As they thanked the team and filed out of the room, you could just see the wheels turning as battles were planned and strategies formulated.

Everyone left with the exception of Rick Berstem, Jim Sanford, and Cresta Leigh. Rick started to take out a cigarette and then stuffed the pack back in his pocket. Damned building and their no smoking rules. He sighed. “You think they bought it?”

Sanford sat down heavily in a chair. He was a tall, well-built man of middle age with longish brown hair and, most of the time, a faraway expression.

“I don’t know. We’re obligated to keep our ‘friends’ up-to-date on what we’re working on to try to avoid sliding back into a cold war, but you can damned bet you if the Russians had something like this, they wouldn’t be telling us about it. We stage these little shows and fulfill our obligations.”

Berstem considered and took in the two with his gaze. “You SOBs have got something, don’t you? I can see it on your faces. Do I even want to know?”

Sanford smiled. “Not yet. Keep the funding coming and you’ll be the first to know.”