“Fine,” she said and turned back to the group at the table. “Lunch break, gang?” She looked at the small watch on a chain around her neck. “Let’s be back here, say, at one-fifteen.”
She followed Ted out the door as the others gathered their laptops and left in small groups.
At one-fifteen, the History Trackers wandered back into the room and took their seats. Ted had already set the drone up and left, closing the door behind him.
Maryellen Muldey ran her fingers through her short, wavy, white head of hair. It was a habit she had from her university days when she was under pressure. She realized they must find this kink in time and fix it before it caught up with them and becomes a reality.
She studied the other History Trackers as they took their seats. They all looked calm, but she knew they were going through their own private doubts and each was trying to keep a stiff upper lip. As soon as they were assembled, she stood and activated the hologram.
DATELINE: 2007 PLACE: WASHINGTON, D.C.
The setting was the Oval Office in the White House. James Cribbens sat behind the president’s desk, and once again there were the two Soviet military men who sat on either side of him. He was a younger man in this hologram as were the Russians, but his hair, even then, was snow white. He smiled as the camera went to a close-up only to be suddenly pulled back to include the Russians in the same scene.
“Good evening comrades,” he said, “once again I bring you good news. In exchange for wheat from the heartland of America, the USSR will provide us with the Volga automobile. And to lessen the burden at harvest time, they have graciously offered to provide thousands of their soldiers to do the harvesting, at no charge for their services.”
He smiled at the two sour-faced Russians who sat with him. “Even as we speak, their large Antonov aircraft are landing at various airports and bases in America. I urge you to stand aside and allow our partners to do their part in our quest to unify the globe into a single, united world.”
Muldey shut off the hologram and said between gritted teeth, “Damn! This is a big problem people. During lunch I ran some computer scenarios and got nothing but bad news back. If it continues to go this way, the U.S. and the Soviet Republic pretty much take over the world by a combination of economic and military threats. We have to find the point that this began.”
Sullivan raised his hand and stood. “I did some looking back at the past too and came up with a theory. The Cold War between the U.S. and the USSR came to an end in 1991. The consensus was that then-President Ronald Reagan saw a crack in the Kremlin wall when he was in office, and decided to exploit it. He started a new weapons program that forced the Soviets to do the same, except they were broke. The Cold War came to an end just after his watch. I suggest we send a probe back to his term and take a look.”
Maryellen Muldey sighed, nodded and looked around the table. “All in favor?”
There was a chorus of yeses, and she went to the door again to summon Ted.
A little over an hour later they were back in their seats and Muldey activated the new hologram.
Once again it showed the Oval Office, but behind the desk sat a heavyset, dark-haired man. He was reading a speech without looking at the cameras.
“We have invited the three members of the USSR leadership to sit with us and come to an agreement as to which bases we should close and how many ships our Navy can keep on active duty. Although some in Congress have quit because of this turn of events, I urge you all to see the prudence of opening our borders to them.”
He suddenly looked deep into the camera’s lens and the dark rings around his eyes could be seen through the makeup. “When my predecessor took this job as president, he promised you jobs and a cut in taxes. While it’s true the military took a big cut to accommodate this promise, no one raised any objections to the good times we had. But now . . . now, that the Soviets have developed a missile defense, well, it’s to our advantage to walk with them rather than prostrate ourselves before them.”
His eyes drifted back to the papers on his desk. “I have their word that if we join them they will let us live as we wish. All they ask is that we disband most of our military and put our resources into agriculture. They will take over defending our borders for us. I know this is not what we are used to, but think of the money we can save by not having a military.”
He looked again deep into the camera. His eyes were dark hollows in his face and he had a tick in one. “This is President Falloway saying good night and God bless America.” The hologram froze with the president’s face staring out at them.
Muldey walked over and shut it off.
“Now,” said Muldey, as she sank into the leather chair, “we have to find out what happened to Ronald Reagan.”
Sergi stood and addressed them. “I think what we have to do is send another drone back and see when the line of presidents was interrupted. We’re assuming that Reagan was the first to be replaced. Well, what if it started with Carter or Nixon?” He sat back down.
Muldey nodded and once again summoned Ted.
Two hours later the weary group reconvened. The hologram Ted had set up showed President Jimmy Carter conceding to the newly elected president of the United States, Francis Falloway.
“It was Reagan,” Muldey said, as she stood up and walked closer to the hologram. “The ripple started with the disappearance of Ronald Reagan.”
Anthony Landi spoke up. “Evidently, with him out of the picture, this Falloway guy ran in his place and won. Somehow, Falloway sized up the Soviet Union wrong and they won the Cold War. He cut military spending and the Soviets developed an anti-missile shield and painted the U.S. into a corner. Now they call the shots.”
Muldey looked up from her laptop. “It’s worse,” she said, her voice trembling. “The computer is getting a feel for this new U.S. and USSR so-called partnership. Gulags are popping up in all the countries as fast as they are taken over. Politicians, military, teachers, clergy people are all disappearing. The computer’s theory program is pointing to large-scale brainwashing and work camps in Siberia, Alaska and in the middle of vast deserts.” She looked back at her screen. “We must send someone back and fix this right away.”
“And do what?” They all turned and looked at Alexis Shuntly as she stood up. “What does the person we send back do? I suggest we send back more probes before we act. Let’s see when Ronald Reagan stopped being an actor and got into politics. We know he was the Governor of California so let’s start there. Send a probe back to his early political days and see what he’s doing.”
Once again Muldey agreed and had Ted send back a probe to the actor’s early days as Governor of California.
Another hour passed by and once again they sat around the table as Ted activated the hologram.
The scene depicted a press conference at the governor’s mansion in California. A tall, thin man with a shock of red hair was at a lectern as reporters fired questions at him. A woman raised her hand and when she was called on, said, “Governor Mills, what are you going to do about the illegals taking jobs from hard-working Californians?”
The History Trackers looked at each other and mouthed the words, “Governor Mills?”
This brought Sergi to his feet again. “We have serious problems here. Somehow Ronald Reagan is out of the picture and we seem to be in the dark.”
“What would you suggest we do, Joseph?” asked Muldey.
Sergi shoved his hands into his pockets and sighed. “I think we should send back five, six, maybe seven or eight probes at the same time. Assign each one to a different time period and place where we know Reagan was and look at the results. I know it’s a burden on the probe group but doing this, one at a time, is hurting us as these events start taking hold.”
He sat back down and the room was quiet. Muldey once again opened the door and Ted entered. She briefed him and turned to the others. “Let’s have dinner and come back in four hours. Ted will send out as many probes as it takes to find
the elusive Ronald Reagan.” They all nodded and slowly left the room.
It was a rare, evening meeting of the History Tracking Council when they returned and took their seats. Muldey talked quietly with a visibly tired Ted in the corner of the room. She patted his shoulder as he left, closing the door behind him. She turned to the group.
“Well, we finally got to the bottom of the Ronald Reagan mystery. It seems that if we don’t do something, he will never even be born. His line stopped in 1772. Watch this hologram taken in 1772 in Epsom Common, Surrey, England.”
They watched as the scene unfolded.
DATELINE: 1772, PLACE: EPSOM COMMON, SURREY, ENGLAND
The hologram showed a small rural town with a dirt road that ran between the houses, all built close to each other. The dwellings were a combination of stone and wood with heavy wooden doors and small windows of thick, wavy glass. The drone perched itself on the windowsill of the house that John Elsey lived in with his wife Anne Weeks Elsey.
The glass was imperfect and the scene inside was slightly distorted as the drone started to adjust its lens. It suddenly turned its mechanical body to face outward, away from the house as a small, noisy crowd surged down the street. Ten burly men were dragging six other men whose hands were tied behind their backs. Two of them were bleeding from head wounds. Women and children, whose crying and moans had attracted the drone’s attention, followed the group.
As they approached the house the drone was perched on, the door opened and John Elsey, a tall well-built man of thirty stepped out fixing his leather vest. He smiled at his wife and she mussed his long dark hair as she kissed him good-bye. “See you this evening, m’love,” he said, as he turned to cross the dusty street.
He stopped short as he saw the group approach, turned and started to run the other way. From behind a house in the direction he was heading came another group with five more tied men being dragged by them.
A big man stepped out in front of John and said, as he raised a wooden club, “Halt! In the name of the King of England and the Royal Navy. I hereby take thee into the custody of Captain Maurice Suckling of his Majesty’s warship the Raisonnable. I beg you, sir, resist not, for I am empowered to impress any and all men into His Majesty’s service!”
John hung his head in acceptance and the man lowered his club. In that second, John tried to run past him. The big man reacted faster and brought his club up under John’s chin and he was down and out. “Bring him along,” was the last thing he heard as his hands were tied behind his back.
The hologram froze with the picture of the gang taking the captured men away and Anne Weeks Elsey as she joined the group of women and children who followed their loved ones in anguish.
DATELINE: 2066 PLACE: HISTORY TRACKING CENTER, NEW YORK CITY
Jerry Sullivan was the first to speak, “Who was that man and who were those rowdy men?”
Maryellen Muldey stood and addressed them with a paper printout in her hand.
“In England during that period, the Royal Navy was empowered by the government to impress or ‘press,’” she emphasized by using her fingers to make quote marks in the air, “men into the Royal navy to fill the ranks depleted by war, death and desertion. The pressed men worked on the ships in a capacity that the captain thought they did best. The older men cleaned the decks, helped cook the food and did menial tasks while the able-bodied men were used working the sails, cannons and semi-skilled maritime tasks.” She paused to let the methods sanctioned by their government used on the innocent men, sink in.
“They were taken away from their wives and children for years at a time and many died. When the press gangs roamed the cities and countryside the men hid from them, but, as you saw, many times they were caught off guard.” She turned to Sullivan and said, “As to who is John Elsey, he was the great-great-grandfather of Ronald Reagan. Now I have to assume he was impressed and never returned to his family, because Anne Weeks died alone twenty-one years later and their line stopped at that time.”
Muldey sat back down and looked into the distance. “I suggest we send someone back as soon as possible.” She motioned toward the door and Joseph Sergi walked over and opened it and asked Ted to come in.
Muldey pointed to a chair. “Ted, have a seat. You’re just as tired as we are, so relax a bit while we brief you about this mission.” He smiled and sat down as she continued.
“We have to go with the best time-group we have available for this mission. Would you agree that the one most adaptable is the Bill Scott group, from The 1800 Club in 2011?”
It took just a second for him to answer, “Yes, Ms. Muldey. They have traveled to any time period we have asked them to and have had fantastic results. In fact, by using them we never had to send back a second team. I do believe they are the most adaptable team we have.”
“That’s what I thought too,” she said, once again looking off into the distance with thoughtful eyes. “How do you think they’ll react to a trip back to 1772?”
Ted shrugged his shoulders. “The only other group that operates in that era is the ‘Merrie Olde England Club’ we started in 1965, but they failed a few times. In fact, once we had to send back a person from The 1800 Club to straighten it out.” He lowered his head and scratched his chin in thought. “No, I’d count on The 1800 Club team making whatever the mission is, work out.”
Muldey nodded and looked at the council. She raised her eyebrows and said, “Do we agree? The 1800 Club goes back?”
There was a unanimous show of hands. She turned back to Ted. “Will you set this mission up? I’ll give you the hologram to brief Bill Scott.”
DATELINE: 1865 PLACE: PADDY DIAMONDS’ BAR & GRILL, NEW YORK CITY
Bill Scott had a tall glass of beer in front of him and chatted with a heavy-set, dark-haired man, Bob “Fats” Bellsito, who nursed a beer himself. The big man was dressed in a deep blue suit with light blue, thin stripes running in a vertical direction. His heavily starched white shirt showcased his deep red cravat and light blue vest. He appeared even bigger thanks to his love of western, snake-hide cowboy boots. If you didn’t know him personally, you would think he made his money as an investor or stockbroker but in fact he ran a prosperous junkyard in downtown Brooklyn.
Fats loved to talk about the thriving junkyard business that he owned with his friends. He was animated as he spoke of its merits.
“Bill, ya gotta believe me, it’s all profit! People want to get rid of their junk, not keep it. Believe me, I know. I mean we even pick it up from them. I give ‘em one penny for every five pounds of metal I remove from their houses and I resell it after I heat and mallet it into slabs. The shipbuilders down in the Brooklyn Navy Yard buy it from me for ten cents every five pounds. It’s a killing! And it’s not like I have to lug the stuff myself. I have a team of guys that meet every morning and if I have work, they come with me. See? No overhead, just the yard and a little shack for when it rains. Now does that change your mind?”
Bill smiled at the big man who smiled back after trying to sell him on the advantages of the junkyard trade. Bill shook his head no and said, ”Fats, believe me, there’s going to be more money in that old stuff later on as antiques. I have an idea. Why not save one item for every six or seven that you melt down? Put it in a shed and let it stay there for about twenty-five years.”
“Twenty-five years!” Fats almost dropped his beer. “Are you crazy? What am I gonna do with all that stuff in twenty-five years?”
Bill laughed and responded, “Put your kids through college.”
Fats slapped Bill’s back, as he laughed. “Ha! Do ya really think they need college ta run my business when I decide to relax? Bill ya really are something else. Boy, I just love walking by and seeing you in here. You make me think in ways nobody else does.” He took a sip of his beer. “Old stuff! Ha, imagine people wanting that.”
He put down his glass and looked out the window at a fruit wagon being pulled by a gray and white speckled horse. The driver walked beside it
as he bagged fruit and gave it to a woman who had come up to make a purchase. Fats turned back to Bill and said, “Tell ya what. Ya made me think that maybe I’ll do just that. Keep one out of five and stick it in the shack till my kids want to melt it down, or whatever they want to do with it. I’ll be too old to give a hoot anyway.”
He drained his glass as a short man in a two-piece tan-and-dark-brown-striped suit tapped on the window. They both turned to look at him, and Bill said to the big man, “Got to go, Fats, that’s a business contact who wants to talk to me.” He put his hand out and they shook hands.
“I look forward to seeing ya again,” said Fats. “You’re one of the few guys, who doesn’t give a darn that I lug junk around for a living.”
Bill walked outside into the beginning of a light drizzle of rain. The short man opened an umbrella and held it up to shield both of them.
“Matt,” Bill said, “it’s just like you to know it rained on this date.”
Matt shrugged his shoulders and answered, “Took a moment to look it up on the computer, sir. I’m sorry to disturb you and your friend, but I thought this to be important.”
“What’s up?”
“It’s your future grandson, Edmund Scott. He was here, so I thought I’d come and get you.”
“Is he still here?” Bill asked, irritated with himself that he had missed his visitor.
“No sir, he left. But he left a hologram for you and said he’d return when you text him.”
They reached the garden entrance of the club and went up the stairs.
DATELINE: 2011 PLACE: THE 1800 CLUB, NEW YORK CITY
Bill took off his jacket as Matt set up the hologram.
“Some hot chocolate, sir?”
Bill nodded as he sat back and removed his wet shoes. He activated the device and watched as the six-inch tall image of Maryellen Muldey materialized and explained what was taking place on the hologram. Matt returned, put down the beverage and left as Bill watched the press gang take the men away. He shook his head as he went to his text communicator and typed in a message.
Time Travel Adventures of the 1800 Club. Book III Page 9
