Time Sensitive

by Elyse Douglas

  In 1968, I was thin, fit, pretty and, as Steven Case assured me, smart. Many people, including Steven, said I favored the movie star Faye Dunaway, even though I didn’t think so.

  Although Steven’s been dead for nearly thirty years and that night was fifty years ago, I remember him and that night as if it had happened only a week ago. That is my curse. To remember. I have an excellent memory and a sharp mind. I always did. I recall nearly every detail of what happened that terrible night.

  On Tuesday evening, June 4, 1968, I left work before six so I could be home for dinner. Paul’s arguments that morning had been persuasive, despite my initial defensiveness. We put the girls to bed, drank a few glasses of wine, made love and fell asleep.

  At 3:45 in the morning, the phone rang. Stumbling in the dark, I pulled the phone into the hallway in the hopes that Paul and the girls wouldn’t wake up.

  “Hello?” I whispered.

  “Charlotte, it’s Steven Case. I just got word that Robert Kennedy’s been shot.”

  “Oh, no.”

  “I’m asking everyone to come to work as soon as possible. President Johnson wants a report on this ASAP.”

  I didn’t hesitate. “I’ll be there in 30 minutes.”

  I put the receiver down softly and walked quietly back to the bedroom. Paul didn’t stir, so I grabbed some clothes, dressed quickly in the bathroom, wrote him a note and softly closed the door.

  There was little traffic at four in the morning. I sped down the highway, listening to a local radio station’s coverage of the shooting. At 4:30, I walked into Steve’s office. He and two colleagues were standing in an alcove adjacent to his office, where the three TV stations (ABC, CBS, and NBC) carried updates on the assassination. All three kept returning to a photo of RFK sprawled on the floor, a busboy named Juan Romero kneeling beside him. Juan had been shaking RFK’s hand when he was shot.

  We were all visibly shaken. Once again our country’s fiber had been torn apart by an assassination, and our intelligence agencies had been unable to prevent it.

  The suspect was a Palestinian named Sirhan Sirhan. His motives and affiliations were unknown. Questions filled the room. Would RFK survive the multiple gunshot wounds? What were the ramifications of the shooting for the Democratic party? If RFK survived, would he still be able to secure the nomination and run for president?

  Steven finally gave us our assignments and I walked slowly into my office, determined, despite fatigue and depression, to complete my mission.

  It must have been 5:35 when Steven knocked on my office door. An unusual silence surrounded him.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked, jumping up. Something else must have happened.

  Steven was tall and thin, with iron-gray hair and black-rimmed glasses. He reminded me of a gentle praying mantis, and if he often gave the appearance of being kind and gentle, he could also be as hard as granite.

  He stood next to me, staring down at the floor for a good 30 seconds before he spoke. His expression was grim. “Charlotte,” he said, in his proper New England accent. “I’ve just been notified that there was a fire.”

  I thought he was referring to our building. But why weren’t the alarms ringing? I made a motion to move when he held up the flat of his hand.

  “Charlotte, it seems that… well, about an hour ago, I’m afraid your house caught on fire and burned to the ground.”

  I remember stiffening and glancing down at my watch. It was 5:40 a.m. Why did I glance at my watch? Why did I not react immediately? I’m not sure. In retrospect, I think I was so shocked about RFK that I couldn’t shake the mist from my bloodshot eyes and focus on something that seemed a complete impossibility.

  “Did you say my house burned down?” I asked, positive I hadn’t heard him correctly.

  Steven nodded. He reached for my arm, considering his words.

  “Charlotte… I am so sorry to have to be the one to tell you. It seems that no one managed to get out of the house before the roof collapsed. The fire inspector who called me said that your family most likely died of smoke inhalation.”

  My mind couldn’t take it in. I kept thinking about time. “What time did the fire start? I mean how…”

  “The inspector thinks it started around 4:30. A neighbor called the fire department at 4:43. There will be a complete investigation as to the cause.”

  Even now, after all those years, I still feel the sharp impact of his words that stab into my heart. I can still feel the coldness grow within me.

  My wounded, stricken heart began to pound. Then it raced, and I felt panicked and lightheaded. I struggled to stay on my feet, lost energy and dropped to a nearby chair, stunned.

  Steven was an intellectually aloof man, not a passionate man. He dealt in facts and pragmatics. He was not capable of offering comforting words or arm-around-the-shoulder compassion.

  “Are you all right, Charlotte? Do you need anything? Do you have anyone you can stay with? Anyone I can call for you? If you want, I’ll book you a room at the Willard Hotel. In any event, I don’t think you should drive anywhere. I’ll drive you there or call a car service when you’re ready to leave.”

  I stared ahead, not seeing anything. The silence became deafening, my eyes blurry.

  “Did you say they’re dead, Steven? Are they all dead? My daughters, are they dead? Paul? No, Paul must have gotten them out. He’s a light sleeper sometimes. I’m sure he got Lacey and Lyn out of the house. He did, didn’t he?”

  I looked up at Steven with what must have been pleading eyes. “They did get out, didn’t they?”

  Steven’s eyes searched the room for words, but when they finally settled on me, they were vacant.

  “No, Charlotte. From the report I received, Paul and your two daughters died in the fire. I’m afraid they are all dead.”

  CHAPTER 4

  “I’m here to see Cyrano Conklin,” I told the 20s something receptionist, who had midnight black hair, combed smooth and straight, with small suspicious eyes and lots of frosty reserve. I was impressed.

  “Is he expecting you?” she asked.

  I stared back at her with equally chilly eyes. “You must be joking,” I said flatly. She did not like my manner and she gave me a little arrogant lift of her chin.

  I continued. “We both know I would not be here if I didn’t have an appointment with him.”

  We were in a small, close room with a tiled floor, one window that looked out onto a sooty brick wall, one orange reception chair, one mahogany desk holding a laptop, and not one picture on the bare gray walls. The building itself was an old, three-story brick in an old and not so prosperous neighborhood. But it was private and non-distinct and that suited these people just fine, so I learned later.

  The receptionist pouted a little. “Even if you have an appointment to see Mr. Conklin, he may not see you, depending on his schedule. He is not a man who is…” she searched for the right word, while I waited with rapt curiosity. “He sometimes forgets things,” the receptionist concluded. “May I have your name, please?”

  I looked at this young woman and softened. I didn’t need to be rude. After all, she could have been my granddaughter, if my daughters had lived.

  “My name is Charlotte Vance.”

  “Thank you, Ms. Vance.”

  Minutes later, I was buzzed into a very square room containing an open brick wall with a boarded-up window, three gray walls, same color as reception, one card table with a chair, and one uncomfortable looking high-backed wooden chair. The receptionist asked me to sit in the high-backed chair facing the card table, saying Mr. Conklin would be with me as soon as he could.

  I sat, glancing about, feeling the rise of nerves. Again, there were no adornments on the walls, and I noticed a second door to my right. I figured Mr. Conklin would appear from that door, and about ten minutes later, he did.

  Cyrano Conklin was a stout, broad man with a square face and a humorous expression. Even the dimple in his chin appeared humorous. He was probably in his mid-5
0s, and his eyes twinkled with a boyish friendliness. His pug nose seemed all wrong for his face. His messy grayish hair was thinning on top but long on the sides, and he wore a rumpled brown corduroy coat, loose fitted jeans, and a denim shirt. He also wore sandals with no socks.

  “Well, well, Ms. Charlotte Vance, I am indeed happy to meet you,” he said, with an outstretched hand and in a British accent.

  I was on my feet, taken by his enthusiasm and warm greeting. He pumped my hand with gusto and asked me to sit. He rounded the card table and sat behind it, his folded hands resting upon it, an easy smile relaxing me.

  “Quite a room, isn’t it?” he said, glancing about. “No frills. It’s the kind of room I imagine police detectives would use when grilling a suspect. Don’t you think so, Ms. Vance?”

  It seemed an odd thing to say. Still, I nodded and answered, “Yes.”

  “But, of course, we don’t have that damn blinding light glaring in your face like they used in those old 1930s and 1940s cop movies, do we? So, not to worry,” he said with a chuckle.

  I didn’t know what to say, so I said nothing.

  “Now, I have heard a lot about you, Ms. Vance.”

  “You can call me Charlotte, Mr. Conklin,” I said, trying to appear calm, although I was anything but. What I was there for was something so unbelievable and so extraordinary that I had difficulty relaxing. I gently twisted my hands.

  “Okay, then you must call me Cyrano. Can you imagine the ribbing I took at Eton College when I was a boy, Ms. Vance? What a name, Cyrano. What a silly revealing name, huh? My father gave it to me because he said when I was born, my nose was so small, he hoped my name would help make the little pug thing grow. Well, there you go, Ms. Vance. My father was a bit of an eccentric as you can readily see. A brilliant scientist, yes, but also a bit out of touch with the real world, if you know what I mean. Well, then look at me now. Many say the same thing about me, don’t they, Charlotte? Well, I mean to say, look at what I’m involved in here. Time Travel. Who would have believed such a thing? Did you know that I was going to study classics at Oxford, Charlotte?”

  “No… And you didn’t?”

  Cyrano leaned back and stared up at the ceiling as if his past were on display up there. “Literae Humaniores, the study of the literature, history, philosophy, languages and archaeology of the ancient Greek and Roman worlds. Yes, Charlotte, I was keen to study the classics. Somehow, I wound up at Cambridge University studying physics. Well, who would have thought such a thing? Did you know, Charlotte, that by 1642 the study of physics became required at Cambridge?”

  “No, I didn’t.”

  “Well, after that, I was off to MIT and into things I never thought I’d fall into. But I did fall into things, and here I am. And here you are, Charlotte.”

  Cyrano rearranged his mood. He turned serious, focused. His eyes narrowed, and he stared at me in an hypnotic way. I couldn’t pull my eyes from his.

  When he next spoke, his voice was deeper, and filled with conviction. “Charlotte, I was captivated by your story. I was moved by your story. To be completely direct, I am enthusiastic about the possibilities of your time traveling back to 1968.”

  I stared, feeling my eyes widen. He’d spoken so matter-of-factly, so casually, as if time travel involved nothing more than booking a flight to Europe. It electrified me. I trembled, and my eyes stung with tears, startled by his declaration and the storm of emotions his words provoked.

  I struggled to speak, but the words choked in my throat. I tried again. “Can it be done, Cyrano? Is it truly possible to time travel? You hear so many things these days. Most of what I’ve read says it can’t be done, at least not in the way we think. Is it possible?”

  Cyrano closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Charlotte, I am a scientist who believes in practical magic.”

  “Magic?” I answered, again taken aback by his words.

  “Practical magic,” he stressed, with a pointed finger. “Yes, because the entire world is made up of a kind of magic. We simply have to learn to speak the language of magic. Now, some of that language is mathematics and some of that language concerns quantum mechanics, but a very important component of that magic concerns a mystical word called intent.”

  “Intent?” I asked, not comprehending, knowing I sounded like an echo.

  “Yes, Charlotte, but all that will come later. Right now, be assured that time travel is possible. I will confide in you this much: we have proved that time travel is possible because we have accomplished it on a small scale.”

  He looked into remote distances. “Our first experiments were simple ones. We once sent a cat named Missy back into time—two days. We clipped her nails before we sent her, and when we went to retrieve her, her nails had not been clipped. We had also used a kind of atomic clock that proved the cat had indeed traveled back in time.”

  He smiled broadly. “As you can imagine, we have come a long way since then, and we are ready to take the next large step.”

  Cyrano paused, stood up and laced his hands behind his head. “You are here, Charlotte, because I believe you may be the right person to time travel into the past, in your case, back to 1968.”

  I stared hard, feeling as though I were talking to an alien. “Time travel…” was all I could say, in a tart, skeptical voice.

  Cyrano eased back down in his chair, measuring me.

  “I wasn’t going to explain much to you until we completed some tests, but I’m going to let you in on a few things. I think you deserve that. Charlotte, as difficult as it may be for you to believe, we have discovered that we live in a digital universe; that is, we are truly made up of bites and bits or 1s and 0s, just like bites and bits on a hard drive in a computer. We are like animated avatars in a computer game. At the quantum level, Charlotte, the world is less defined than a simple yes and no, or 1s and 0s. We do not live in a deterministic universe as Newton believed. We live in a probabilistic one. In other words, we can manipulate future probabilities with our intent. Intent being a very important and necessary element. Also, since we are essentially digital, and the universe is informational and digital, we can move ourselves around—if one learns the practical magic—the same way we move around things on a computer desktop.”

  Cyrano paused, gathering his thoughts.

  “So, you’ve already sent others back in time?” I asked, struggling to comprehend.

  He shook his head. “We have sent a cat named Tiger back in time, and a dog named Spot. The problem is, we are not so sure we placed them in the time and place we were aiming for, and we were not able to bring them back. Simply and frankly put, we don’t know where they are or where they went.”

  He smiled, meekly, opening his hands. “You see our problem?”

  “But what about the first cat? The one you sent back for two days?”

  “Ah, yes. Well, you see, the clock has limitations and our technical device had to be, shall we say, expanded and, with the expansion came our discovery of intent.”

  I looked at him pointedly. “So, what you need is a human to add the final component: intent.”

  “Exactly, Charlotte. Well thought out. You have grasped the so-called ungraspable very quickly. I’m impressed.”

  I wasn’t flattered. I was worried, even scared, seeing that this man firmly believed in what he was saying.

  I sat up a little straighter and adjusted my shoulders. “So, let’s get to the bare-bones truth of this, Cyrano. What you need is someone who has already lived her life, has a weak heart, has few friends and family, and who desperately wants to travel back in time to save the family that perished in a fire in June 1968. You need somebody like me, who has nothing else to lose by taking a chance—a wild and, frankly, crazy chance that could very well kill her. A chance that she may never be heard from again. But that’s okay, because no one will miss her. And, anyway, if she is killed, she should have died long ago in that burning house with her family.”

  Cyrano ran a hand across his f
ace. When he looked at me, his eyes held warmth and understanding.

  “We want this time travel adventure to be a win-win for all of us, Charlotte.”

  Diplomatic, I thought. “Forgive me if I’m not especially optimistic, although, as I implied, what do I have to lose?”

  Cyrano fixed his serious eyes on me. “Charlotte, have you ever heard of Lord Kelvin?”

  “No.”

  “He was a British mathematician and physicist. Very well-known and respected in his day. In 1895, he said heavier-than-air flying machines were impossible.”

  CHAPTER 5

  Having worked for a government agency until my retirement at 70, I can say with some experience and confidence that many government agencies are staffed by dedicated, hardworking and patriotic people. But they are, like many families and most organizations, sometimes dysfunctional, territorial and disorganized. Nearly all are incapable of achieving the herculean feats that most conspiracy theorists and spy novelists suggest.

  Luke said TEMPUS is the exception. It is run by six or seven front people—I’m not entirely sure of the exact number, and there are more who work behind the scenes. They are a close, secret, highly intelligent, fiercely loyal and territorial group. Luke mentioned that the President and Vice President of the United States, along with most senators, know nothing about TEMPUS, which I found a bit alarming. Funding comes from private money and money siphoned away from two other secret organizations, which I will not disclose.

  I met Cyrano Conklin again a week after our first meeting, at the same location, and this time I met the rest of the six-person front team. First was Alex Mason, a 30-year-old physicist who wore a blue t-shirt and khakis and had auburn boot-camp short hair and the youthful expression of a smartass know-it-all. He was muscular and well built, looking more like a warrior than a physicist. He was also quite handsome, in a dangerous sort of way.

  Next was Maggie Greer, a 35-year-old computer programmer specializing in Nano technology, who had a tight cap of red curly hair and big, red-framed glasses that she was constantly adjusting.