Time Sensitive

by Elyse Douglas

She leaned in close with wild, staring eyes. “You are completely out of your mind,” she said, venomously. “Don’t ever contact me again.”

  She pivoted and marched out of the restaurant, swinging her purse over her shoulder, many eyes following her as she left the restaurant. I sat listless and depressed. But I wasn’t finished with her yet. I’d already set my back-up plan in motion. The letter I’d sent to the NSA might wake her up. All I could do was hope that she’d put two and two together and take the necessary action to save her family.

  But she might not. So as a final plan, I decided I would have to go to the house and somehow get my family out. Young Charlotte probably wouldn’t be there. I would call Paul and warn him, but if he didn’t believe me, then I would wait until just before that terrible hour and I would call the fire department. I’d hammer on the front door, break a window or do whatever I had to do to get them out of that house before the blazing fire collapsed the roof. I would get them out of that house any way I could, as long as my heart kept me alive.

  CHAPTER 24

  I’d blown it, but then I knew I would. I had never been good at diplomacy or negotiation. Paul was skilled at both, but then Paul was skilled at most things. Paul was definitely the better half of our marriage, and I say that not in self-pity, but in all honesty.

  Sunday night, after I left Duke Zeibert’s Restaurant, I walked the streets in an awful expectation. I couldn’t still my agitated mind or my emotions. After a quick drink at the hotel bar, I returned to my room, took a shower, swallowed one of Alex’s blue heart pills, and sat down at the little writing desk. I decided that it was time to write down everything that had happened to me in a clear, logical order, beginning with my initial meeting with Luke Baker, when I first learned about TEMPUS.

  I needed to ensure that young Charlotte would have a true and accurate account of all the facts. I wanted her to know who I was, and why I’d time traveled. I wanted TEMPUS to be held responsible for everything that was about to happen and, in an accompanying letter, I would plead with young Charlotte to save this account. I would request that she return to TEMPUS in fifty years, in 2018, and personally hand deliver my account to Cyrano Conklin. I wanted him to know that I had finally realized what they had been up to: that they had used me to transport Alex for their own devious and unscrupulous ends.

  Of course, I had no control over what my younger self would do with the account. Since I had already nudged the future in a different direction by meeting with her, I didn’t know how she would respond. Would she keep the account, turn it over to Steven Case, her boss, or would she burn it, believing that I was, in fact, out of my mind? Since I wasn’t even able to convince her of the urgency to leave town, I could only hope that after everything unfolded, she would eventually believe me and see that my written account was handed to Cyrano in 2018.

  I wrote swiftly, until my hand cramped and my eyes grew sandy; until I glanced over at the clock to see it was after three in the morning.

  I came bursting out of sleep at 8:30 the following day. It was already June 3rd. I went shuffling to the bathroom to swallow another blue heart pill. I didn’t feel well, but oddly, I was hungry. I ordered breakfast from room service, and while I ate, I returned to the writing desk. As I wrote, I realized I had to do something with the $40,000 in cash I still had with me. I dressed quickly and went to a nearby bank to open a safe deposit box.

  I returned to the hotel and wrote furiously until after four. I was nearly finished, so I laid down on the bed for a few minutes of much-needed rest when the telephone rang.

  “Charlotte, it’s Jay. Did I wake you? You sound sleepy.”

  I sat up and tried to stifle a yawn. “I’m fine. I was just resting.”

  “I know it’s late, but if you don’t have other plans, I was wondering if you’d like to come over tonight and watch a movie with me. There’s a great Western on Channel 4 at nine o’clock. You remember you said you’d watch a Western with me?”

  I smiled. “Yes, Jay, I remember.”

  “Have you ever seen Shane?”

  “I don’t think so. I may have, but I don’t remember.”

  “You’ll love it. I saw it in the movie theatre back in 1953 or 1954, I think it was. It has a great cast: Alan Ladd and Jean Arthur. Dinner is on me.”

  “How can I resist that?” I said.

  “I make the best TV dinners in town. The trick is not to overcook them and to add a little side of cranberry sauce. Then it always feels a little like Thanksgiving dinner.”

  I laughed, and it felt good to laugh. Somehow, Jay could make me laugh when I didn’t feel like it.

  “Chicken, Turkey or Beef?” Jay asked.

  “Turkey will be fine.”

  “I also have beer. That okay?”

  “Good.”

  “Okay then. I’ll come by and pick you up in a half hour.”

  Jay’s house was a simple two-story, with a gabled roof and dormers; a little front lawn, trimmed hedges and a porch where metal chairs, with white and yellow armrests, made it feel homey.

  Inside, the rooms were spacious, with a tan wall-to-wall shag carpet in the living room and avocado colored couch and chairs. The dining room was a woman’s room, with wood floors and lace doily place mats on the polished oak table. Corner cabinets displayed the fine dishes, and on the walls were clumsy and unfortunate wood framed paintings of flowers and seascapes.

  Jay pointed at the paintings, somewhat proudly. “Sally Ann painted them. I used to love watching her paint. She’d get the paint all over herself. I think they’re rather good, don’t you?”

  I nodded, touched by his tenderness for them. “Yes. Nice.”

  He faced the room. “I only use this room now when the kids come for Thanksgiving and Christmas. I left it just as Sally Ann left it the day she died. Call me sentimental.”

  To my surprise, we settled in Jay’s den, a comfortable room of wood floors, a swallow-you-up brown couch and a recliner near the emerald fireplace and two cherry wood book shelves filled with books. The TV, with rabbit ears, stood in the far corner.

  “What a lovely room,” I said. “Obviously, you’re a reader.”

  Jay pocketed his hands and rocked on his heels as he took in his collection of hardbacks and paperbacks.

  “Yes, I do like to read—detective stories, mostly. And some history. I did well in history in school.”

  I noticed the blue shirt he wore heightened his silver-gray hair and deep blue eyes. I hadn’t really studied Jay all that much. I’d been so preoccupied with other things. He had a good face, not especially handsome, but a kind, friendly face and warm eyes. If his nose was a bit big, he had a good jaw, good shoulders and just a little tummy. It was his smile I liked most. It was an honest, joyful smile that seem to say, I like living. I’m comfortable living in my own skin.

  We rested our TV dinners on TV stands, munching the dinners while acutely engaged in the color movie that Jay said was filmed on location in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. For a time, I forgot my life, and all the difficulties, and what was to come.

  As the movie unfolded, Shane made several attempts to put his gun fighting days behind him. But he was forced to draw his guns and kill, to protect his adopted family.

  I glanced over at Jay, whose eyes were glued to the TV screen like a kid. Shane had been wounded in the gunfight, and Jay knew what was to come, having seen the movie at least three times.

  Tears rolled down Jay’s cheeks as Shane mounted his horse and rode away. Joey (the young boy who looks up to him) keeps calling after him “Shane! Come back, Shane!”

  When THE END rolled across the screen, Jay pushed up, abruptly, and left for the bathroom.

  Minutes later, he returned with two more beers. He popped the tab and handed one to me. “That is one helluva movie, isn’t it?” he asked.

  I took a swallow of the beer. “I don’t understand why he rode off like that. Why didn’t he stay? Is he leaving because he doesn’t want to die in front of Joey?”

&n
bsp; Jay eased back down in his chair, set his beer on the stand, and made a tent of his fingers. “Yes, and also because there’s no place left for him anymore in the changing world. His life, as he knew it as a gunfighter in the old West, is over.”

  I didn’t want to think about that too hard. I had returned to a world I’d already lived in, and its culture, technology and character were now somewhat alien to me, and in stark contrast to the one I’d come from in 2018. Assuming I’d be able to prevent the fire from killing my family, I had the feeling that I would want to mount my horse, so to speak, and ride off into the sunset like Shane.

  After bowls of chocolate ice cream and cups of coffee, I stood and reached for Jay’s bowl.

  “I’ll clean up,” I said.

  Jay stopped me. He rose and reached for my wrist, holding it gently. He lowered his earnest eyes and took me in.

  “I’ve got something I want to say, Charlotte, and I don’t want you to say anything until after I’ve finished. Just listen and think about it.”

  I steadied myself with an effort. There was a sharp gleam of hope in his eyes, and I knew what he was going to say. I wanted to turn and go, but I couldn’t hurt Jay’s feelings. He was a good and sensitive man, so I listened, avoiding his eyes.

  CHAPTER 25

  I waited as Jay screwed up the courage to speak.

  He indicated toward the room. “Charlotte… this is nice, isn’t it? I mean, how we sat here tonight, and talked, laughed, ate TV dinners and watched a movie. It was a good thing, wasn’t it?”

  I ducked my head, stooped and picked up his bowl, stacked it in mine and took a step back, so he had to release my wrist. “Yes, Jay. I had a lot of fun.”

  Jay swallowed, shoved his hands into his pockets and stood awkwardly. “I like you, Charlotte. I liked you from the first. You’re good people. You’re fun. You’re smart, and you’re a very attractive woman.”

  I shut my eyes, shaking my head. “I’m not attractive, Jay. I’m an old woman who’s had her day and could die at any minute.”

  “Don’t say that. You shouldn’t say that about yourself—or about your life. None of us knows how much time we’ve got left here on this good Earth. Only God knows that. What we should do is live our life the best we can, for as long as we can. Don’t you think so?”

  I couldn’t face him. “I don’t know. I haven’t had time to think about…”

  Jay cut me off. “… We have fun together, don’t we? I mean, right from the start we had fun. We laugh at the same things. Okay, I guess what I’m saying, and not very well, because I haven’t felt this way in a real long time but… Charlotte, I’d like us to be together. I mean, not just as friends. I’m 68 years old, and I’ve been lonely for a long time. I’m not the loner type. I was married to Sally Ann for 46 years., and I liked being married. I was faithful to her every day of my life. Now, I’m not saying we need to jump right in to marriage or anything. We’ll wait some weeks or months and just see how things go.”

  I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. It jarred me. I liked Jay, but I just couldn’t think about any other thing until I stopped that damned fire from killing my family. That’s why I had come. What happens later? I had no idea.

  We stood in a gathering silence. I heard a dog bark outside. I heard the roar of a car engine starting next door.

  I looked into Jay’s hopeful eyes. “Jay… I’m seventy-six years old.”

  “No, you’re not.”

  “I am.”

  “Well, you look sixty… even younger.”

  “You’re a sweet man, Jay. I like you very much. Ask me again in a few days. Ask me next weekend.”

  I gave him a warm smile and hoped he didn’t notice my lying eyes. I didn’t intend to be in Washington in a week.

  “Thank you, Jay. Thank you for a wonderful evening… and you were right about the cranberry sauce. It did seem a lot like Thanksgiving dinner.”

  Jay took a step toward me, leaned and kissed me softly on the lips.

  “You’re a fine woman, Charlotte. Don’t ever believe otherwise. And you can bet that I will ask you again this weekend. How does Friday night sound?”

  “I was thinking about a date early Wednesday morning,” I said softly. I was relieved when he smiled and nodded, without asking questions.

  The final chance to save my family would take place before dawn on Wednesday morning, June 5, 1968, and I knew now that Jay would be the one to help me carry out my plans.

  Thus, ends my true and accurate account of all events that have occurred since my first meeting with Luke Baker, in February 2018. It is my sincere wish that this account be delivered to Cyrano Conklin of TEMPUS, by Charlotte Vance, in 2018.

  Charlotte Wilson

  Washington, DC

  June 3, 1968

  PART 3

  CHAPTER 26

  Monday evening, June 3rd, 26-year-old Charlotte was working late at the NSA. She sat stiffly in her office chair, a cigarette going in the ashtray, a pile of folders on her desk and two accordion files on the floor to her right. Before her lay type-written memos, correspondence and highlighted hand-written notes on a legal pad. All the data before her concerned Minaret, a top-secret project that few people knew anything about.

  She was distracted and nervous, working hard to stop her mind from racing, from thinking about that old woman in Duke Zeibert’s Restaurant the previous night. She wanted to erase the emotions that meeting had stirred up.

  Charlotte stood and reached for her cigarette, moving toward the windows. She inhaled and blew a cloud of smoke, looking down at the NSA parking lot. Only that morning, Lacey had said, “Mommy, Daddy said you work in a big, glass fairy castle. Do you work with fairies, Mommy?”

  Charlotte smiled at the memory and then returned to her chair, lowering her eyes on a memo she’d received that morning from her boss, Steven Case. She scanned it quickly, her head crowded with thoughts.

  NSA Launches ‘Canyon’ Surveillance Satellites

  The NSA launched the first of seven satellites, code-named “Canyon,” that can pick up various types of voice and data traffic from Earth’s orbit. Canyon will lead to a more sophisticated satellite intelligence system, code-named “Rhyolite.”

  Charlotte leaned back, smoking and thinking. How could that old woman have known about Minaret? Did she also know about Rhyolite? Was she a spy? For whom?

  Equally disturbing, how could she have possibly known about Tommy Webber, the first boy she’d had sex with? Nobody, even Paul, knew about that. She’d always been too ashamed of that incident to tell anyone, including her best girlfriend.

  Tommy had been a lowlife—a bad boy whom all the girls knew was no good, but as young and silly girls often do, they found him sexy. He was two years older than she and he rode a motorcycle, had long, swept-back greasy hair, and wore a black leather jacket. Okay, maybe he reminded her a little of Marlon Brando in the movie The Wild Ones. She did allow herself that one rationalization.

  As usual, the imagination of sex with him was far superior to the reality. He smelled, he was forceful and quick, and he was stupid. No, she’d been stupid for going out with him. She’d been a mindless, love-crazed girl of seventeen, who wanted to rebel and shock her strict and cold father, not that she ever had the courage to tell him. She’d never told anyone about that disgusting night, and she’d never had sex with Tommy Webber again. The last she’d heard, he’d been killed in Vietnam.

  So how did the old woman know? And how did she know about the ceremonial burning of that diary in 1961? There was no possible, logical answer, except that she was working with someone else and they were plotting extortion. But with whom?

  Charlotte crushed out her cigarette and pushed up, wrapping herself with her arms. She was suddenly chilled. It was that woman’s eyes that spooked her; those old eyes that held truth and a weary wisdom. When Charlotte gazed deeply into them, she felt an electric shock. They were familiar and pleading. For just a second, Charlotte saw something, sensed something.
There was a second of some ineffable recognition, and yet she had never met this woman before.

  Charlotte paced the room for a time and then slouched back down in her chair and reached for her paper cup of cold coffee. Absently, she took a sip. Why hadn’t she asked for the woman’s name and address? Simple. The old woman scared the hell out of her.

  Charlotte slid her hesitant eyes toward the wall calendar. It was Monday, June 3rd, and it was 6:30 p.m. The old lady had suggested that Charlotte take June 4th off and leave town with her family. It was preposterous. And yet, there was something about the woman—something about her old, forceful eyes that was unnerving.

  Minutes later, Steven Case entered, a pipe in one hand, a single-typed page in the other, his face filled with concern. He closed the door softly behind him and stood still, staring at her and then beyond her. She’d grown used to that. He always seemed to be living in another world.

  Finally, he sat down, taking a couple of thoughtful puffs on his pipe. Under the artificial light, his brush-cut, steel-gray hair made him look severe. His white shirt was still crisp after a long day, the dark tie perfectly knotted at the neck, and his slacks still holding a crease.

  “Charlotte, Kent Reed and Ed Kazenas just left my office. It seems that late Saturday evening they received a priority correspondence from the outside. It concerns a 24-year-old man named Sirhan Bishara Sirhan, who the letter claims may shoot and kill Bobby Kennedy. They spent most of Sunday, examining the letter and its contents before bringing it to my attention.”

  Charlotte leaned forward, folding her hands on the desk. The information was not especially unusual; some nut was always threatening to shoot some politician.

  Steven went on. “Now, interestingly, the letter then goes on to say that this Sirhan may not succeed in his attempt because he might be killed by a separate, hidden gunman, whom the letter describes in precise detail.”

  Charlotte shifted uneasily, sensing that this was no ordinary letter. Steven never discussed these kinds of things with her.