Timelines

by Bob Blink

  “If we can get the files, we can decrypt them,” I stated simply hoping John and Carol were right.

  Jeff relented. “Maybe you can at that. If I help you get the files, you’ll let me go? That’s the deal?”

  I shook my head. “Sorry. You know we can’t do that. For now, we need you out of circulation. Sort of like Kurt.” I offered Kurt as a parallel of someone who had eventually come back. He needed some assurance we wouldn’t kill him afterwards. “Things change, so I can’t say for how long.” It might be the rest of his life, but I couldn’t tell him that.

  “So I’ll be a prisoner somewhere? Indefinitely?”

  “Not a prisoner. At least not in the usual sense. You just won’t be able to come home. You might even learn some things that will amaze you.”

  He really didn’t have much choice. We were in charge. The files might just buy his life. They weren’t going to be of interest to anyone else. Not after all that had happened. Not based on the word of an agent that might well be destined to jail as punishment for his role in multiple deaths today. “Okay, I can get you the files.”

  “How will we do this?” I asked. “Can you get us into the Morris house? We can’t release you to go alone. Or do we have to get them from the crypto lab somehow?”

  This time it was his turn to smile. “Nah,” he said. “I have them at my place. I pulled the hard disks from Morris’s computers, and the lab gave ‘em back to me after they made copies. Thought I might need them for something.”

  I realized he was telling the truth. Satisfied he was going to help, I gave him one answer he had sought so desperately. “You were right about the gun,” I said.

  He looked shocked at my admission. “But how?”

  I smiled and spoke as seriously as I was able, knowing the disbelief my statement would generate. “I have a time machine.”

  It was what he wanted to hear. It was what he was afraid he’d hear. Now, having the words spoken, he couldn’t really believe it. I had to be kidding, just saying what everything had led him to conclude. “Bullshit!” he insisted. “Just tell me the truth.”

  I smiled. “I’ll do you one better. I’ll let you try it out”.

  Chapter 21

  Tuesday, 30 May 2006

  Seattle, Washington

  It had been late evening when the matter had been resolved the previous day. As much as I had wanted to rush into town immediately and verify the presence of the disks with their precious files, a wiser course of action had been to wait until this morning. The accident and the death of agent Williams had just occurred yesterday, although given everything that had taken place since, it seemed it should have been a couple of days ago. Mike had described the intensity of the tanker blaze. With the agent’s car being in the center of the raging fire, there would be little left to aid authorities in identifying the driver, or even how many occupants had been in the destroyed vehicle. As far as the NSG knew at this time, both Agent Williams and Agent Cohen, I had finally learned his full name, were still alive. We had learned from Cohen that Williams had no family and lived alone. Cohen was far from his family, and had only periodic contact. Being currently unattached, there was no girlfriend who would raise an alarm at his sudden disappearance. They should be at home awaiting official direction. That meant no concerns about visiting his home for a look around. In a few days, all that would change. Eventually a connection would be made. Especially when the bodies in the second car were found to be the long missing Kurt Morris and his daughter. Whether they would be able to determine if both, or only one of the agents, had perished in the fire, I could only guess. But by then, Cohen would be as far out of their access as Kurt had been the previous year.

  We had microwaved the dinner I had purchased, as it had long gone cold. That really didn’t do much for the taste, especially the burritos, but we made do. After dinner Jeff wanted to know more about the time device, but I put him off after telling him a bit more about the trip downtime that had resulted in the loss of the gun. And the loss of my friends. The agents hadn’t even considered there might be a connection there. It gave him something more to think about. When the time came to turn in, he reluctantly submitted to another shot from Doc, not that he had any real choice. He would be out until we were ready to leave in the morning. I didn’t think he would try and slip away, but I’ve been wrong before.

  This morning we had all made our way into Seattle. I was driving alone, with Doc, Mike and Agent Cohen riding in the other vehicle ahead of me. That allowed Doc to drive, and Mike to keep an eye on our prisoner. I watched as the other car signaled and pulled over to the curb. This was an up-scale neighborhood, nicer than I would have guessed the man could afford. But he had indicated that he was single and was kept quite busy at work as lower level agents typically were. That meant little time for other activities, and he had apparently put his discretionary income to work in real estate. I had to applaud his initiative.

  I stepped out of the X5, and walked up beside the other car. The rear window on the passenger side was down allowing me to kneel alongside and talk.

  “He says it’s in this wing on the first floor,” said Mike from the other side of the back seat. “Number 125.” It might look a bit strange to have two men sitting in the rear, and the shotgun position open, but it made good tactical sense.

  Jeff looked through the open window at me. “There’s a side entrance through the hedges about twenty-five feet ahead of us. We can go in that way, through the side door. Thought maybe you would prefer that to going in the front way by the offices.”

  I had to digest this. He easily could have taken us the other way. We couldn’t have known about the short cut. So what’s the gain to him? Showing cooperation? Maybe hoping we would be less vigilant later? I didn’t know. But after I thought for a moment I decided he wasn’t really losing anything by his actions. If we were a little more trusting as a result of his being so forthcoming, great for him. If he made points, again great. If not, well, he wasn’t out anything. Going through the front entrance wouldn’t have generated any attention. Mike and Jeff would have gone in first, walking together. Doc and I would have followed, entering separately, as if we didn’t know each other. It is unlikely anyone would care or remember a few days from now if asked.

  I looked up and down the street. Even though I knew there couldn’t be anyone searching yet, it was hard not to check. Other than the last of the morning’s traffic, and one very old lady walking her tiny white dog, there was nothing to see.

  “Okay,” I said. “Let’s go take a look.” I reached down and opened the door and stepped back so Agent Cohen could exit. He knew I was armed as well as Mike, who had already stepped out behind him. Doc closed his door and pushed the little button that locked all of the doors, complete with the usual sound effects.

  The four of us stayed together, as he led us down the walkway towards the side entrance. A locked gate blocked our way when we got there. It was the type that required a numeric code, rather than a key card to open. I was pleased to see this. A key card might contain user identification and could potentially have been recorded. I would rather a search for agent Cohen didn’t disclose he had entered this way the day after the car fire. It would be better if no evidence could be found of his where-abouts after that event. The gate opened with a quiet beep, and we pushed through and into the courtyard of the complex. This was the back side, not the more showy frontal area, but it was nicely done. Green and thick with trees and shrubs, the cobbled walkway towards the building was quite nice.

  We walked past the back side of the two-story building, one of four buildings that made up the full complex I now saw. Each of the buildings in the back appeared to have four units on each floor, set side by side so the owner had front and rear views. The buildings in the front where the offices had to be were larger, and might have had twice as many units in each. A small door showed there was a back entrance, but when I pointed to it he shook his head.

  “The alarm is set. If w
e go through the front it will be simpler to disable it than trying to run through to get to the control in time. Especially with you guys probably not reacting well to my running. Guns and all.” He looked meaningfully forward of my right hip where I knew he had detected a small bulge. It wasn’t that easy to conceal from someone trained to know what to look for.

  I nodded assent, and we continued around to the front. His was an end unit, and he led us to the first door. Making sure we were all aware of his proposed actions he explained. “I’ll open the door, or you can if you prefer. Then someone needs to go down the right hall about ten feet. There is a control box recessed in the wall. Type in 8-9-5-4-1 to disable the alarm.”

  Moment of truth. We didn’t need to warn him not to pull any tricks. On the other hand, he knew we needed him until we retrieved the files. Could we afford to shoot him? This might be his best chance of alerting someone to his predicament. Not many options to chose from.

  “You do it,” I suggested, pointing at the door.

  The entry went smoothly. He did exactly as he had outlined to us, and we were soon inside with the door closed. Mike looked closely at the alarm. A green disabled light showed on the face of the control unit. “I know this model,” Mike noted. “It ‘s silent, sending a signal to the monitoring station but not triggering any sound inside the residence. The way the control is hidden, he could have tried to trick us. If he hadn’t told us about it . . . .” He let the thought trail away. “How come?” he directed his question at our prisoner.

  “I told you I’d get you the files. Maybe I feel I owe them to you. We settled this last night. I help, maybe I have a future. I don’t, well, then maybe I find out I’m wrong about you. Despite all your threats, all the background information I’ve seen supports the fact you’re good guys. And I want to see how much of what you have been telling me is real. If what you’ve said is true then maybe. . . .” He stopped.

  “Maybe what?” I asked.

  He looked embarrassed, “Forget it,” he said. “Come on, let’s get this over with.”

  He told us where he wanted to go, and Mike led the way. I followed behind, and Doc waited by the door. As we walked down the hallway towards the back of the unit, I noted a number of large, framed photographs. Our agent was in several of them. In one he had his arm around another man, who bore a certain resemblance. Brother? Cousin, maybe? They stood next to a jet plane on what had to be a military base somewhere. There were many more of the planes in the background. The planes weren’t American though. I didn’t recognize the markings, but they weren’t any of those used on our planes. Another photo showed a group of eight men, all kneeling with rifles. This time a target range showed in the background. I looked closer. The rifles looked more like assault rifles than the target variety. A third photo showed our agent again, this time with another man. The background this time was mostly barren desert.

  The back room was his office. Unlike the rest of the residence, the office was somewhat of a mess. Stacks of papers and files were piled around. There were boxes with odd assortment of junk, plus three computers. He had a current model Macintosh; a somewhat dated Dell PC, and a new Toshiba laptop. This one had the wide 17” color screen. The man appeared to know and like computers. CDs lay scattered about, with several boxes of older ZIP disks sitting on the desk to the right.

  “In the bottom drawer over there,” he said pointing to a three-drawer cabinet across the room. Mike went over and opened it. Inside was a pair of hard disks sitting on top of a stack of old computer magazines. He lifted them out and turned back towards us. Jeff nodded, indicating those were the two disks.

  “Why two?” I asked. “There’s plenty of room on one for all of the data.”

  He shook his head. “I don’t know. Maybe more deception. He had things spread around between the two disks. Made it look more like work files than it would have if everything were bunched together in a single directory. Your people will see when they take a look.”

  It was that easy. We had the files, and now it was time to get them back to where they could be processed. We had Jeff grab a few clothes and personal items. Not enough to make it looked like he had moved out. We left his suitcases, carrying the selected items in a plastic trash bag. We pulled the door shut behind us locking it, but left without resetting the alarm. There was nothing to gain by doing so. Back at the cars, I gave Doc the two hard drives and the keys to the BMW. He would take them to the office. Mike and I now had to escort Agent Cohen out of town and downtime where I planned to stash him.

  We took him to downtime base. No repeats of the Kurt experience. Besides, I didn’t think Jeff would be as passive a guest. No, he would be safe enough at the base. I’m sure he had a few bad moments when we drove out into the empty country. If he thought we were going to kill him despite everything, he shouldn’t have been worried. Not yet, anyway. Until we verified we had the real files, we might still need him. Still, I could sense the tension leave him when we walked to the back of the cave and he found himself walking through a tunnel into the secret complex. I even noted a bit of a smile as he took in the tunnel room before we moved across to the tunnel that took us to the base.

  We made sure he didn’t make the connection on how the tunnels were opened, not that he could leave anyway without access to a key. Still, it was a secret I’d like to keep as long as possible. If he wanted to wander off outside the base he was welcome to do so. He would learn soon enough there was nothing to be found. He couldn’t hurt anything. He didn’t know enough. If there were any problem with him, the facilities existed to detain him. Besides, in the back of my mind, I was thinking along the same lines as Mike.

  “Maybe we can recruit him,” Mike had suggested earlier. “We have had to take a chance on everyone that’s joined us. Of course, there we chose in advance, and this guy’s been dropped in our laps. But somehow I think he might be interested.”

  “I’ve kind of been hoping it might work out that way. But we aren’t going to know for a while. It will take months before we can be sure. Let’s see how it goes. Maybe you should tell Ed and see if we can find a way to nudge him along.”

  Mike stayed behind. I returned to the car I had parked outside the cave entrance. I didn’t like doing it that way, but this had been a quick trip, and I was anxious to get back downtown and see how things were going with the translation of the files.

  -----------------------

  I made it back to the office just before three in the afternoon. Doc had brought the hard drives before noon, so we should have some idea by now if the contents of the drives were as advertised. Nervous anticipation followed me down the hallway to Carol’s office. I had called in on the drive back into the city, but at that time there was no news. The data had been transferred, and John had initiated the decryption software. Now all the rest of us could do was wait while the software and John did their magic. No one in our group had any previous experience with breaking coded files. It would take however long it took.

  Naiya was with Carol, and both were grinning as I walked through the door. “John just called,” said Naiya excitedly. “The program worked. They have verified the files. It all looks like copies of the National Geographic as we were told.” We had obtained a copy for purposes of comparison.

  Relief surged through me. Not only had Jeff been straight with us, but also the decryption that had been a major stumbling block for the government systems, had apparently been a cake walk for us. Less than four hours. “So how long before we see if Kurt’s instructions are real?”

  “John was having his team pull all of the 1946 files when I called,” Carol said. “His estimate was 1-2 hours to try the various decoding schemes. Less if they were lucky and hit the right scheme at the beginning.”

  In the end, it went quicker than expected. Within an hour, John walked in carrying half a dozen sheets of paper. “It’s all there!” he uttered with a grin. “It didn’t look so good at first. The first three picture files yielded nothing. They were j
ust pictures. But on the forth, we found a text entry. A report on one of the artifacts he had found. The man was thorough. Every detail on where, when, and circumstances was captured. Also everything on any testing they had done. Plus a picture. Every artifact has a picture supplied. A picture hidden within a picture.” He shook his head wonderingly.

  “What about the translator device?” Carol was quicker than I was.

  John waved the papers in his hand. “It was buried back in section a bit, but we searched ahead looking. I didn’t bring everything we’ve printed so far. There’s a lot more to come. These are the pages that summarized the device you are interested in.” He handed Naiya the documents. “And this,” he held up another page dramatically, “is a picture of it.”

  I was faster this time. I grabbed the photo and laid it on the conference table so we could all look at it. Just as Kurt had described. The photo was a composite, showing the object from all four sides. A small metal ruler was included in each view to allow one to judge its size. Perhaps ten inches long and four wide. The thickness varied from an inch at one end, to more than three at the thickest. Basically smooth everywhere, but covered with a variety of the symbolic writing we hoped the device would help us understand. One side had the flat metallic looking gray screen that covered almost the full width, and perhaps two-thirds of the length. The other was mostly smooth, but had a small rectangular indentation at one end, perhaps a half inch deep. No indication of possible function. Surprisingly, there was no provision for easy holding or carrying. If it were a portable device, one would have thought such a provision would exist. The edges were detailed with more of the writing, much smaller. There were a number of small square areas above the writing, but from the photo it was impossible to say if they were indented, or flush with the surface. One of the squares glowed a faint purple. Power indication, I thought, thinking of the equipment at the center. Maybe the other squares were other types of status. Nowhere were there any controls. I remembered Kurt saying that he found no moving parts. That too, was typical of the equipment we had found. Of course, it was the corroded blue-green characteristic of the alien devices.