by Bob Purssell
THE
O’LEARY
ENIGMA
Bob Purssell
iUniverse, Inc.
Bloomington
THE O’LEARY ENIGMA
Copyright © 2011 Bob Purssell
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, names, incidents, organizations, and dialogue in this novel are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
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ISBN: 978-1-4620-1501-6 (sc)
ISBN: 978-1-4620-1502-3 (hc)
ISBN: 978-1-4620-1503-0 (e)
iUniverse rev. date: 07/12/2011
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
Without my wife’s steadfast support and critical review, I would not have written this novel. Thank you, my love, for your hard work and tolerance.
A thank you to the members of my writing group for reviewing and critiquing this work. Barbara Barker, Robert Desbiens, Samantha Do, Joanna Stone Herman, Allison Kohl, Morleen Novitt, and Sandra Vazquez your comments were most helpful.
To Laura Zinn Fromm, my writing instructor, thank you for the guidance and instructive analysis that helped to shape this work.
To Anne Barcelona, Krista Hill, and Laura McGinn for their assistance in editing the manuscript.
INTRODUCTION
My brother-in-law opened the sliding door to the barn. I followed him inside and then up a flight of stairs to what had been a hayloft. As I watched, he moved some boxes, exposing the one on the bottom. Still bent over, he looked up at me and said, “I picked this up at an estate auction two weeks ago. At the end, they let people take stuff away that hadn’t been sold. Stupid, huh?”
I nodded, wishing I were somewhere else. But I wasn’t. Once again, the traditional family get-together, held every Thanksgiving at my sister’s place, had ensnared me. I didn’t think much of her or her husband. He was a wheeler-dealer, and she was the wheeler-dealeress. And, for them, Thanksgiving was a celebration of all their triumphs in expanding their wealth and their collection of possessions.
“I figure,” he explained, “that since you’re an engineer, you’d know what all this means.” When I nodded again, he removed a three-ring binder from the box and handed it to me. “Read it. It looks important. We could make a fair penny if it is.”
My sister’s husband automatically characterized any of his schemes—legal, ethical, moral or otherwise—that resulted or could result in money flowing in his direction as “making a fair penny.”
“I’ll read it during the game,” I replied, feigning enthusiasm.
Happy at the thought of increasing his prosperity on a holiday, my sister’s husband led the way back to the house. Carrying the binder, I dutifully followed behind.
* * *
Following the tradition that allowed the women to complete preparations for our Thanksgiving dinner, I joined the other males in the living room. They were watching the first of the two nationally televised football games. At the beginning of the second period, fearing the dull game would put me to sleep—as it so often had done in the past—I opened the three-ring binder and began reading the first document written on the letterhead of a middling defense contractor.
To: Ms. Alice Conklin
Director Special Research Projects (EM)
Advanced Research Projects Agency
From: Dr. Reginald Hoffman
Subject: Anomalous Signals Intercepted During Initial Test Phase of Igloo Warrant
Date: April 27, 2005
Enclosed is a partial decoding of a long intercept we processed on March 4, 2005. While most of the intercept remains un-deciphered, I have forwarded to you, under this cover, the portion of the transmission that Muriel Walensky, my assistant, and I were able to decipher. Considering its specific, potentially verifiable content and its most detailed predictions, we have kept the information separate from all other Igloo Warrant documentation. Although this document and the un-deciphered intercepts are currently unclassified, this situation should not continue. Therefore, I am asking for your guidance and instructions in this matter.
The intercept raises some questions. First, what is the source? Our measurements indicate the transmissions are emanating from a region near the star Arcturus[1]. The source is definitely not terrestrial or satellite.
Second, since the transmission clearly references earthly events occurring decades in the future, how can the transmissions exist now? Here is our hypothesis: Igloo Warrant technology, in order to transmit information faster than the speed of light, effectively shifts the time of signal origination backward. Therefore, we surmise that people in the future, using a variant of the Igloo Warrant technology, transmitted the message we have deciphered. Somehow—possibly by reflecting off ‘dark matter’—part of that transmission bounced back to Earth. This of course raises all kinds of causality problems for which I do not have an answer.
In closing, I would like to emphasize that work on Igloo Warrant continues. Although we have gone over budget and are considerably behind schedule, I feel the results to date—particularly this result—are most encouraging. I assure you that we intend to heed your advice and present a strong technical case for continued funding during Igloo Warrant’s Phase III review.
Signed Dr. Reginald Hoffman
Interested, intensely interested, I turned the page and read a series of memos between Dr. Hoffman and Ms. Conklin. The correspondence focused on DARPA’s[2] increasing exasperation with the management of the Igloo Warrant project. The last memo written on DARPA stationery was the kiss of death from Conklin. She was cancelling the funding for Igloo Warrant because the project had not met its scheduled milestones. None of the memos, except the first, mentioned transmissions, deciphered or otherwise, from the future.
* * *
Out of habit—paranoid behavior can have its advantages—I looked around the living room. The men and their sons were still focusing on the game, in spite of its dullness. No one was paying me the slightest attention. Why should they? I was the geek/nerd. It would come as no surprise that I would read from a binder while they did the manly thing and watched football.
I leaned my head back so it rested on the couch and thought about what I had just read. Transmitting information faster than the speed of light: What would that mean? For one thing, it would change some deeply held scientific beliefs. I smiled at the thought of professors scrambling to explain how bedrock truths had now become examples of hidebound thinking. But then I focused on the practical. Transmitting information faster than the speed of light would make extraterrestrial communication across the cosmos possible. Able to surpass the speed of light, communication systems would h
ave vastly expanded bandwidths. Superfast electronic devices, in theory, would be possible.
Getting back to the reality of the memos in the binder, I refocused. Igloo Warrant was dead. Alice Conklin, she of the bucks, had killed it. How does the line go? No bucks, no Buck Rogers.
This I pondered. Why? Okay, so the project was messed up. But could you walk away from a transmission from the future? No way! Get a new manager onboard. Bring in the talent. Make it happen. That’s what I would have done.
Sitting up, giving the room another glance to assure myself that the avid football fans were properly ignoring me, I closed the binder and slid it under a cushion. Reassured, I again rested the back of my head on the couch, closed my eyes, opened my mouth slightly and assumed the position of the average fan watching a Thanksgiving Day Detroit Lions football game. Inside my cocoon, I analyzed the memos. Possibility number one: Conklin felt Hoffman and his supposed message from the future were an attempt to buffalo her into continuing Igloo Warrant’s funding. Seeing through his fabrications, she chopped the charlatan and his project.
Possibility number two: Conklin believed Hoffman. Considering the implications of a demonstrated ability to transmit information faster than the speed of light, she and her bosses would have to cloak the project in secrecy. That would be hard to do with an already established, visible-to-the-public project. Better to kill it and then reconstitute it as a secret “black” or unacknowledged project.
Was all this business back and forth nothing more than a cover? Was the government lavishly funding a black Igloo Warrant project at a secret facility?
I smiled. I had a new hobby.
* * *
Late in the second period, the hostess attempted to serve Thanksgiving dinner. I was the only one who got up. The others, with the exception of my sister’s husband, who was carving the turkey, ignored the women’s pleading. Speaking to him over the bird, I began, “I read what was in the binder you gave me.”
Eyes lighting up, he asked, “What’d you think?”
“I wasn’t too impressed.”
“But he was talking about a message from the future.”
Ignoring my brother-in-law’s statement, I asked, “The guy who wrote the memos, Hoffman, it was his estate?”
“Yes.”
“Hoffman was writing to get money. Conklin, the DARPA person, didn’t believe him. Who could?”
“But he had data. He had deciphered the message. Well, at least part of it.”
“Pure science fiction.”
“I checked him out,” countered my sister’s husband. “He received a doctorate in physics from Cal Tech. He had fifteen patents. He was good.”
“Listen to yourself,” I replied. “He received; he had; he was. All past tense. Look, I don’t know what happened, but his story … nobody in the technical community would believe it.”
“You think it’s bullshit?”
“One hundred and ten percent.”
Crestfallen, my brother-in-law capitulated. “Damn, I thought I had something.”
“If it’ll make you feel better, I could use a three inch, D-ring binder. How much do you want for it?”
His face brightening, my brother-in-law went into “deal mode” and began to bargain. “There’re eight more in that box I got at the estate sale. There’s also a batch of DVDs; you might be able to still use them. The binders alone would cost you at least seventy-five bucks retail.”
I wanted the box and its contents. I was willing to pay the seventy-five dollars, probably more. But it pissed me off that my superrich brother-in-law was going to screw me for the list price on the binders. Discount, I could get ten new ones at Costco for fifty-five dollars.
Seeing me stiffen—maybe it was part of his pitch—he expansively offered, “Tell you what. I never know what to get you for Christmas. Take the binders, and we’ll call it even. Okay?”
Last year he had given me an un-wearable Hawaiian golf shirt that no self-respecting golf club would allow on its links.
Trying to hide my enthusiasm, in a quiet voice, I said, “Deal.”
Having made money, or at least avoided an expense, my brother-in-law beamed as he shook my hand. “Good. Done.” Then, to the other males in the living room, he shouted out, “Come on, guys. Let’s eat. We don’t want to miss the start of the Dallas game.”
To the relief of the hostess and the other women, the men and boys marched noisily into the dining room, and we ate our Thanksgiving dinner.
* * *
Since it was a four-hour drive back home, we stayed over at my sister’s house that night. Lying on the guest bedroom’s convertible sofa bed, my wife already asleep, I reopened the binder and turned to the bound transcript of the information that Igloo Warrant had deciphered. Attached with a paper clip, the cover memo stated:
The deciphered section is a biography of Barbara O’Leary (published in 2081), recounting her life from the mid-1990s (her childhood) through 2019. Additionally, her biographer, James R. Callahan, has annotated the text with Editor’s Notes, which date from 2033 through 2064.
In the chapter entitled “Aunt Barbara,” which serves as the work’s prologue, Callahan alludes to Barbara O’Leary being a historically important person. He does not explain how or why she obtained that recognition. I presume the answer to that question resides in the transmissions we have yet to decipher.
Occasionally, the author references names, places and events that occurred or existed prior to 2005. In all cases, having verified these references, we feel confident in concluding that the document is genuine.
Signed Dr. Reginald Hoffman
Having worked my way through all the preliminary correspondence, I turned the page wondering what, if anything, I had purchased.
CHAD
My temporary, at most two-week, assignment to assist in straightening out the Dwight D. Eisenhower’s communication center had dragged into a month. Worse yet, so I could help the ship do well in an important fleet-wide exercise, the executive officer had pressured me into staying for at least three more weeks. The result was one unhappy LTJG[3] Barbara O’Leary.
Then a funny thing happened while we were making our preparations for the exercise: reality intruded.
* * *
Today we learned that in southern Chad a rebel faction had abducted eleven aid workers, three of whom were Americans. This development was not all that surprising; the country has had an on-again, off-again civil war for decades.
In response to this crisis, although Chad is landlocked, the Eisenhower powered up and raced toward the Cameroon coast, which was as close as she could get to the region where the aid workers, who were now hostages, had been working. Before we arrived, the intensity of air operations increased as the ship’s air group sent manned and unmanned reconnaissance flights over Cameroon into Chad in an attempt to locate the abductees. In the communication center, we diligently monitored transmissions from our planes, but other than jungle, desert, and unrelenting poverty, their reconnaissance saw nothing of significance.
A contingent from the CIA arrived. As requested, the communication center established communication links back to CIA headquarters. Telling us nothing of their plans, rumors spread that the Eisenhower was to be the base for a rescue operation, but nothing materialized because our technology-based information systems could not provide actionable information.
* * *
At 1800 hours on the fourth day of the crisis, the XO[4] summoned me to his office and asked, “Lieutenant O’Leary, you’re fluent in French, aren’t you?”
“I speak the language, sir.”
“Good. Our embassy in Chad has asked for a French-speaking communications expert. Interested?”
Not very happy with my Eisenhower experience, I didn’t want yet another temporary assignment. Instead, I most desperately wanted to wrap up this supposedly tempor
ary duty on the Eisenhower and return to my tour at the Advanced Naval Communication School in College Station, Texas. With this in mind, I spoke up, “I think my work here is done. I was hoping to go stateside.”
That was not what the XO wanted to hear. “Lieutenant, when the embassy people heard about you, they were very excited.”
“You told them about me?”
“Had to. The request was marked ‘Priority Urgent’.”
Really pissed, I bit my tongue. Best to say nothing, I thought.
Trying to smooth things over, the XO said, “I know you want to go back to the ANCS. This is just a more circuitous path.” Realizing that I was not buying his assurances, he added, “I forwarded your commendation letter to the captain.”
That clinched it. At least I would get something out of all this. Fearing that yet another emergency would arise and I would again be stuck on the ship, I decided getting home via Chad would be quicker than staying on the Eisenhower, which was beginning to feel like my own personal prison barge. Coldly, I said, “Thank you, sir. When do I ship out?”
“I’ll pass the word that you’re coming. Be ready to leave immediately.”
As instructed, I frantically packed my stuff into my sea bag. After signing some forms and receiving numerous injections for tropical diseases, I was ready to begin my trip to Chad. Two hours later, the XO contacted me and said, “There’ve been some delays in arranging transport. Stand easy until we get this worked out.”
I thought of saying something, but again I kept my annoyance to myself. In the time-honored tradition of “hurry up and wait,” I cooled my heels until 0530 hours the next morning when the C-2 Greyhound[5] assigned to transport me took off for Cameroon.
* * *
Upon landing at the airport that services the port city of Douala, Cameroon, a man in civilian dress stepped into the cabin and, after identifying himself as Doug, said, “You’ll be flying on a commercial flight to the capital of Chad. Here’s your passport and your ticket.”
Nobody had mentioned anything about a commercial flight, but before I could ask a question, the man asked, “You have any civilian clothes?”
