POINT OPTION: A Time-Travel Military Thriller

by Ian A. O'Connor

  “Aye, Admiral,” Gowdy replied, “but I'll be back, never fear, I have all the information I’ll need to make a good intercept of the LBJ written down right here on my kneepad, and my backseater has it too.”

  At twenty minutes past eight A.M., CAG roared off the carrier, circled once, climbing all the while, and headed south. Navigation had plotted his course to fly directly to Rome, turn north, then fly inland over Siena and Florence, and from there, he would head out to the coast to over-fly Pisa, then back to the LBJ over the water. Mission time was seventy minutes.

  The weather around the carrier had cleared to the point there was now a fifty percent cloud cover, and the temperature had climbed to fifty-four degrees. Lieutenant Commander Birdwell had personally made a sun shot using a sextant to plot their position. He soon realized he must have made a mistake, because minutes later he was back on deck shooting the sun again. The results were the same. The information was then fed into the computer for a cross-check. It confirmed his computations. He took his findings to Blizzard. The skipper was with the XO, and both men listened to the navigation officer's report with disbelief.

  “There's no mistake, then?” Blizzard asked.

  “None, Captain. The sun is simply not where it should be for this date in June. My figures have been verified by the computer using an existing internal program, not one requiring downloading information from the Cloud. For some unexplainable reason we are smack-dab in the middle of March, only I just can't tell you which year.”

  “This is insane,” mumbled Paige, looking from one to the other.

  “I tend to agree,” replied Birdwell, “but I'm relying on mathematics for my answers, and the numbers don’t lie. This is March; last night was June.” After a momentary pause, he added in a whisper, “Major Fleming could be right after all.”

  “OK, let's wait and see what CAG's recon flight produces. I'll pass your findings along to the admiral at that time.” The worried look on Blizzard’s face spoke volumes.

  The carrier proceeded on a northerly course at twenty-two knots, churning its way through a leaden sea. A couple of wooden vessels were sighted far off in the distance, but the LBJ sailed on with no intention to intercept or to even maneuver closer for a better look.

  * * * * *

  CAG kept his transmissions to the CDC brief, giving no indication of what he was seeing as he flew up the coast from his starting point over Rome.

  It was on his return flight that things began to unravel. CAG keyed his mike to report to the CDC that he was returning to the carrier.

  “Bigfoot, this is Ajax, do you copy?”

  Silence.

  His backseater, Lieutenant Liam Prescott, came over the intercom. “CAG, I seem to have lost the LBJ’s TACAN signal; are you still tuned in up front?”

  This was critical information, and CAG immediately checked his receiver. Without a TACAN signal beacon from the carrier he was in essence lost, and flying blind. The TACAN station gave him his bearing and distance from the carrier out to a range of almost four hundred nautical miles. Gowdy’s immediate thought was that he inadvertently tuned into the wrong channel, but no, he could see the frequency selector was correct. Prescott came back on the intercom.

  “CAG, I can’t raise Bigfoot on any frequency. The Air Boss and the Mini Boss are both silent, yet we know the CDC has been tracking us since we launched.” A few seconds later he was sounding more worried. “I’ve just lost all of my instruments. I mean, I’m looking at nothing but empty screens back here, especially my radar. I can’t paint the carrier. How about you, CAG?”

  “You’re right, it’s the same up here. My entire panel is also dark which means we need to get on the horn and declare an emergency. It’s possible the carrier can still hear us even if we can’t receive. I’m going to fly to our Point Option for recovery on the LBJ.” Gowdy sounded calm, but inwardly was feeling anything but. His first thought was that something dire had happened to the carrier, something like what Major Fleming had encountered, which meant they were now alone in a very hostile world; a world Liam Prescott still had no idea even existed.

  “CAG, I’ve broadcast an in-flight emergency and informed the LBJ of our intentions, but I can’t be sure it’s been picked up by the CDC. We can only hope, but I’ll continue to update them as we head back to the boat. Also, I’ve plotted our new course. We know the LBJ is on a heading of 280 degrees and moving at twenty-two knots, which means we need to come right fifty degrees to intercept that track. We’ll take up the 280 degree heading in twelve minutes at our present airspeed of three six five hundred knots. I’m also showing we have 7000 pounds of fuel from our initial load of 14000, so that’s good news.”

  CAG stole a glance at the notes strapped to his thigh and agreed that Prescott’s calculations looked right. He turned towards the new heading while maintaining his current flight level at three zero zero. His mind was racing at a million miles an hour, and it was all he could do to keep the darkest thoughts at bay. He physically shook his head as if to rid it of demons, knowing his prime mission was to keep his wits about him.

  “CAG, my magnetic compass is starting to show a significant precession, and it’s not just a turning error. I mean, it’s now totally unreliable.”

  Gowdy’s eyes immediately went to his own compass. The same thing was happening. His skin turned ice-cold. Without instruments, or at the very least a reliable standby compass to guide us back to the LBJ, we have no hope of ever seeing the carrier again!

  The minutes slipped by until Prescott broke the silence. “Boss, my compass semes to have righted itself, so I suggest you begin your turn left to intercept the 280 degrees heading in thirty seconds. Drop down to two thousand feet, and maintain three six five hundred knots. I’ll call out the seconds and the “go” command to begin your turn. That new altitude will put us below any cloud cover. We should come up on the LBJ in eight minutes, but we’ll have a visual in five.”

  “Roger that. I see my compass has also stabilized,” CAG replied.

  One minute later the silence was shattered.

  “CAG, CAG, check six, check six!”

  Gowdy heard the raw fear in Prescott’s voice as he looked into his left rearview mirror in time to see a swirling black mass closing in on them at an incredible rate. He only had enough time to brace before the plane was swallowed into a seething cauldron of something out of hell itself. The Hornet was flung violently onto its back, and a second later it began tumbling inverted towards the sea.

  The huge mass blew passed them at supersonic speed, then, as if on command, abruptly changed direction and spiraled upward. It then self-destructed into an infinite number of glistening fragments, and disappeared in the blink of an eye. The Hornet righted itself, and once again began flying straight and level.

  “Are you OK back there?” Gowdy gasped, his voice sounding like that of a runner who had just finished a marathon in record time.

  “I … I think so,” came the tentative reply. “What in the hell just happened?”

  “I have no freaking idea, but I sure don’t want a repeat of whatever it was. Right now I need to see if this bird is still airworthy.”

  Less than a minute later, Gowdy triggered his intercom mic. “Liam, did you happen to see a flash of green light, or hear an explosion right after that black cloud thing hit us?”

  Prescott’s answer was immediate. “Negative, CAG. Should I have?”

  Gowdy breathed a silent sigh of relief. Thank God! He could safely assume they had not been thrown further back in time to where a rescue, or any hope of a return, would have been rendered impossible. “No, no, everything’s good,” he said. “Now all we need to concentrate on getting ourselves back to the carrier.”

  Four minutes later they were down to flight level two zero and flying just below the cloud cover on their designated heading when Prescott asked, “What are you showing for fuel, CAG?”

  Gowdy looked at his fuel flow meter gauge. “Wh
at the …!” he inadvertently blurted out.

  “Boss, we must have sprung a leak when we hit whatever that thing was. I’m showing us down to thirty-five hundred pounds and dropping, but I suggest it could be way less.”

  Yeah, that’s what I’m also showing,” Gowdy replied, wondering how that particular gauge could still be working. His eyes shifted outside for any sign of the carrier, or its telltale wake. Nothing. The gray sea was empty from horizon to horizon. They should have spotted the LBJ by now. He willed himself to breathe normally. Things were starting to look grim. He knew there could be no talk of flying to Italy and bailing out; there was simply not enough fuel left to find dry land. And if they didn’t come across the carrier in the next few minutes, they would be forced to eject to a certain watery death, or ride the plane down and suffer the same fate.

  “BOSS! Do an immediate one eighty right-hand turn; I saw a flash in my mirror, there’s something on the surface. It was at our four o’clock!”

  Gowdy banked into a steep turn and peered down, all the while wondering how could they have overflown their Point Option? It was next to impossible, but apparently it had happened. He shuddered. What if Prescott hadn’t caught that flash out of the corner of his eye …

  Bingo, Bingo, “Bitchin Betty’s” twangy voice filled both of their earphones, warning they were coming up on minimum fuel, and to find somewhere to land immediately.

  “CAG, it’s the LBJ, she’s at our two o’clock. Yes, sir, it’s definitely the LBJ, Boss!’ he repeated, his voice exploding with excitement, then immediately turned serious. “I’m now showing we’re well below 2000 pounds of gas which means we’ll have to fly a straight in approach and land. No time to do a no-radio fly-by to give the Air Boss a heads-up,” Prescott said, reminding Gowdy of the obvious, which was their engines could flame-out any moment.

  “Roger. I’m descending to 800 feet and setting up our approach. There’s no time for them to deploy the emergency barrier, so we’ll only get one crack at this. We definitely won’t be a bolter, so prepare for a rough landing.”

  * * * * *

  His plane was placed on the forward elevator and dropped to the hangar deck with both crewmembers still in their cockpits. While the Hornet was being tied down, photo technicians unloaded the camera bays and hurried off to the processing section, and to review by the intelligence officers.

  “How did it go, Sean?” Blizzard asked as he walked along the hangar deck with Gowdy and Prescott, both loosening their partial G-suits as they went. They looked done in. “We heard all of your transmissions, so we had a good idea of what you were going through up there, but let’s wait for a full debrief until we’re with the admiral.”

  Gowdy nodded his agreement. “Miles, Major Fleming's one hundred percent right; we're in the middle of a frigging nightmare. Nothing over there is recognizable,” he continued, jabbing his thumb toward the coast. ''The only structure I recognized for sure was the Colosseum in Rome, and all I can say is that it's in one hell of a lot better condition than it was when I last saw it ten days ago. Anyway, you'll soon see for yourself once the pictures are downloaded into the computer. I flew low over Rome, Siena, and Florence, but climbed higher as I approached Pisa because the weather had improved. I got some pretty good imagery.”

  The admiral joined Blizzard, Paige, and Gowdy in the photo interpretation area, and while the digital film footage was being scanned onto a computer screen, Gowdy pointed out to the technicians which frames he wanted enlarged and printed.

  Five minutes later, the digitally printed photos were passed among the group, each man silently comparing a print to a similar image being displayed on the large computer screen. Their silence was deafening. What they were looking at was Italy of long ago. Like CAG, none recognized the city of Rome except for the Colosseum. The same held true of the photos taken over Siena, and Florence. Absolutely nothing was recognizable. Each photo had a frame-counter in its top right hand corner, a digital clock readout of the time-date the picture was taken.

  The color photo printouts of those frames shot over Pisa clearly showed the effects of the better weather. There was more activity on the streets and in the harbor. Gowdy pointed a finger to the lower left hand corner of the last print. Plainly visible was the tower which had made Pisa such a famous landmark for centuries. It was eerie seeing this historical building in a setting so stark and strange, but most shocking of all was seeing that the angle of the tower showed it to be leaning only slightly off vertical, and not its “ready to fall over” condition so well known to untold generations.

  Admiral Taylor was first to comment. “Tell me I’m not seeing ...!” he whispered, his face the color of putty.

  Blizzard looked to Gowdy. “Sean, was there anything you saw during your flight that would indicate what century we’re now in?” Gowdy pursed his lips, then shook his head. “Sorry, Miles, I don't know enough history other than those important dates and places I had to learn for school exams, so your guess is as good as mine.”

  Paige offered up a suggestion. “Well, let's get rid of some centuries by a process of elimination. All we have to do is a Google search for the history of that tower in Pisa.”

  “We can’t do a Google search, remember?” Blizzard said. “There is no Internet, which means we can’t access most of our files because they’re stored in the Cloud. The only ones we keep internally are those necessary for running the ship’s day-to-day operations. No, Al, we’re on our own in this brave new world.”

  “Tell you what,” interjected the admiral, unwilling to dwell on that uncomfortable reality. “We’ll call down to the ship’s library and ask Father Caffarone to look up the Leaning Tower of Pisa in the hardcopy Britannica Encyclopedia we have onboard. Have him find out the date the tower was built, and then in what year it started to lean. That should tell which century we're now in.”

  “Can’t hurt,” replied Blizzard, “even though that presents us with another problem, Admiral, but I think you've just given me the answer. Those folks over there probably don’t speak a language we know, so how are we going to powwow with them if it becomes necessary?”

  Taylor answered while still studying the last photo. “We have five thousand sailors on board. There must be a bunch of second-generation Italians who speak the lingo. They should have no trouble making themselves understood.”

  Blizzard shook his head. “I don't agree with you, Admiral. Back in the day, most Europeans spoke localized dialects. Oftentimes they couldn’t understand someone from only a couple of hundred miles away. And forget about the Italians understanding Frenchmen, or Germans, or Englishmen. No, the only language common to most of Europe back then was Latin. What we need is someone fluent in Latin.”

  Admiral Taylor threw up his hands. “That counts me out. I know less Latin than CAG knows about history." He looked questioningly at Blizzard. “But you say you have the answer?”

  “I think so.” Blizzard got on the ship’s intercom. “This is the Captain speaking. Father Caffarone, please report to the bridge immediately.”

  The priest arrived five minutes later, his face reflecting a twinge of apprehension at being summoned so abruptly, and he thought, for a meeting with the captain and the admiral no less.

  “Father, we need your help and expertise with something important …”

  “Yes, Captain,” the priest said, cutting Blizzard short, “you requested information about the Leaning Tower at Pisa.” He turned to Admiral Taylor. “Admiral, for your information, Britannica no longer publishes an encyclopedia. They went out of business years ago. There’s only one company left that makes a print edition, and that’s World Book Encyclopedia in Chicago. Along with universities and schools, the Defense Department is one of their best customers.” Caffarone then glanced down at a sheet of paper and began reading.

  “Construction of the tower at Pisa began in the year 1172 and continued until its completion 199 years later. The structure began to sink shortly af
ter the second floor was added in 1174, and all activity was halted for almost a century to allow time for the unstable ground to settle. The bell floor was finally added in 1372, completing the tower.”

  “Good work, Father,” said the admiral, “and fast too. Now, can you tell us how many degrees the tower is leaning, and what was the date when it stopped tilting?”

  “I have that information right here also, Admiral. The angle of slant is 3.97 degrees, which places it exactly 12 feet 10 inches off of vertical. The sinking process actually stopped in 2001 when engineers finally stabilized the ground around the tower and managed to reduce the angle from 5.5 degrees to its current 3.97. They say there is no fear of it toppling over now.”

  “So, what you’re suggesting is that we really can’t tell what the tilt might have been in say, the year 1400, just to use that as a random date?”

  “I’m no engineer, Admiral, but my guess is it would still have been pretty close to standing upright around then.”

  “I tend to agree with you, Father. Now, I have one other question. Do you speak Latin?”

  “I do.”

  “And read and write it as well?”

  “Yes.” Caffarone now wore a worried look. Where is this conversation going?

  The admiral read Caffarone’s face correctly. “Relax, Father. You see, we have a big problem to solve, and your knowledge of certain matters will go a long way in helping us.”

  Caffarone let out a long exhalation, the worried look fast disappearing. He waited for Taylor to continue.

  “Father, please sit. I’m going to let you in on a subject that’s top secret, which means you cannot discuss it with anyone aboard other than these officers.” For the next five minutes Admiral Taylor told the chaplain about the misfortune that had befallen the carrier and ended by showing him Gowdy’s photos. Taylor waited for Caffarone’s response.