Timelines

by Bob Blink

  Three minutes later I heard a familiar voice on the other side and a key in the lock. The door swung open, followed by Naiya and Carol. Several of Mike’s men waited outside, armed and watchful. I noticed that Carol was carrying her rifle, the one that had nailed two of the aliens in as many encounters. It had limited charge, but set on widest angle and one of the lower setting she had a couple of shots left. At that setting each shot would cut a thirty or forty degree swath through whatever she shot at. Anyone within fifty or sixty yards would be knocked out. Recovery would be very painful, and the soreness would last several days. It was possible some might even die. Naiya had armed herself with a silenced H&K squirt gun. I knew she hated the under-powered and inaccurate things, but given the circumstances it made more sense than her bolt action rifle.

  “You got Jeff’s message?” I asked as we made our way out the door.

  “That and more,” she replied. “We have to get moving. There isn’t that much time. I’ll explain on the way.”

  As we exited I looked at the men on the floor, unconscious. They would remain that way for another four hours or so if Doc was right. His experimenting was paying off tonight. Someone had suggested we should send them a bill for the service. These men would be out of the action for tonight, but would never again be subject to any type of viral flu. The normal flu meds that all of us carried in our system which prevented us from catching or passing any type of virus worked differently than the heavy duty repair medications that knocked one out for the first day or so. Curious, and playing around as a learning exercise, Doc had discovered that the sleep function was programmable into the micro-devices, and had managed to transfer the sleepy program from the repair devices into a batch of the virus medicines. When he was doing this, no use was seen for the discovery. Other variations he came up with were also just intellectual curiosity. When we asked him the other day if he could come up with something we could use if we needed to put the colonel’s men down for a while, he remembered his experiment. Normally injected, he was able to come up with an aerosol delivery system that we could inject into the residence heating and cooling. Fast acting, it took only minutes once the devices got into the human system. We were not affected by the modified devices because our system already had been fully protected which the devices recognized and remained dormant in our systems.

  I realized Mike had been freed as well. One of his men handed him a copy of the rifle Naiya carried. I was given one as well. Well, they shouldn’t be needed but I was glad to have it. As we made our way down the hallway and then the back stairs, we saw a number of other individuals slumped where they had fallen. I suspected most were in their rooms, and would simply sleep through the inactive period, never realizing anything was amiss.

  “They hadn’t found the tunnel?” I asked.

  It was amazing in a way that more care hadn’t been taken when the colonel had taken over the residence. Other than dismiss the long time retainers who maintained the place for us, and placing his guards around the property, no thought seemed to have been given to checking the place for back doors. Even knowing about the hidden underground rooms and parking, he hadn’t thought about the fact we might have built-in alternate access. From the lowest level, where the special guest rooms were, we had another way to access the facility. Originally planned as a way to leave, it had served equally well to bring Carol and the others inside this evening. We entered the narrow passageway now. Tall enough to stand, but barely wide enough for one to pass at a time, the tunnel made it’s way over three hundred yards to another property behind and down the hill from this one. We owned that property as well, but no one would ever trace it to us. Rented as a time-share in the summer months, it was empty now, just as were most of the others in the area. We made our way under the back yard, the outside guards totally unaware of our passing and the escape from inside the structure they were guarding.

  “He knew about the key I take it?” Carol asked.

  “Sure did. You should have seen him when he took it from me. Did you have any trouble getting out of the complex? He took what looked like Special Forces troops with him.”

  “We saw only a couple men. They were armed, and had radios. Not sure if they were there to tell us about the fact he was holding you, but they clearly weren’t planning an assault. I think the colonel realized that since we must know what was going on, we would be able to easily protect the entrance with the alien rifles we showed him. I’m afraid I didn’t wait to see what they wanted. I fired a blast into the cave area as soon as the tunnel opened. All those men are out and will be out of the picture for a while. I had them disarmed and taken in to Doc. One died,” she added as an after thought.

  We were in one of the cars now and headed back towards the complex. We were taking one of the back roads. It would be a half-mile hike to reach the cave entrance from the side. Another place the colonel hadn’t scouted out very well. All the guards along the front access road wouldn’t hinder our access at all. Carol and Naiya were bringing us up to speed on a number of things. A lot had happened in the few hours Mike and I had been gone.

  “Jeff, Naiya, and I had a long talk,” she informed us as Mike drove. His men followed in another vehicle. “I was able to get back to him after getting the message he left. His boss had discovered what was being planned. Direct orders from the president by the way. The colonel has another group camped out about ten miles from here. Also a variety of other weapons. They hoped to take over the facility, then make some modifications. They were going to build another air lock, and then remove the one the aliens use. From inside the tube which would now be exposed to space they were going to mount a number of rocket launched smaller nukes. They think they might be able to surprise the ship and take it out. They had some other defenses planned as well. Whether the large nukes we saw are real Jeff and his boss are not certain. Based on the history, he thinks they may just be shells. How the military plans to deal with a failure to defend the complex they haven’t learned.”

  “So that’s it then,” I sighed. “I guess we have to lock it up, and hope that our preparations are enough.”

  “Maybe not,” Carol continued. “Jeff and his boss were brainstorming while waiting to hear from us. They have a couple of ideas that offer some alternatives. Long shots, but worth a try. They don’t preclude our existing backup. It just means we delay using the backup as long as possible.”

  “Anything but nuclear weapons won’t help us,” I indicated. Carol knew that. “Did they find a way to get us some other weapons?”

  “Uh-huh. Lost nukes,” she said.

  “Lost?” I asked confused. “We haven’t time to go looking for something they have lost.”

  “Not lost in that sense.” She turned so I could see her better. “Over the years the U.S. has had a number of nukes go astray. Usually when a plane or ship carrying them has an accident or on rare occasion an encounter with an enemy that downs a ship or plane. Most of the weapons have been recovered fairly quickly, but a few have gone missing for long periods. They don’t like to admit it, but one or two have never been found.”

  “And the General knows where they are?”

  “Not those, but there has been a loss fairly recently. They know where the weapons are, but it’s a political problem.”

  “I don’t understand,” said Mike as he drove. So far I could second his confusion.

  “The United States has developed a newer style weapon. This development is contrary to all the claims that no new weapon development has been pursued since the late eighties. The newer bomb, called the B61-12 was developed in just the last two years. It is small, weighing less than 900 pounds fully deployed.”

  “That’s still pretty heavy,” I observed.

  “Much of that is the propellant and casings. Only about three hundred pounds is the actual physics package.”

  “If it’s that small, what kind of yield are we talking?”

  “A lot smaller than the others, she admitted. It’s roughly
a megaton, a little less actually. It is smaller than the yields we researched earlier. The previous version was only 300 kilotons, but they made some improvements. They felt they needed to update the weapon. Aging has become a concern. This one has the new design and has a shelf life of almost seventy years. It is also light enough that modern planes can carry it. The older devices needed the B-52 or a missile. It’s enough Jim. Al agrees we all simply jumped on the big one because that was what we thought most of the devices yielded.”

  “So one of these new devices has gone missing somewhere?”

  “Two actually,” she responded. “They were on one of our planes which was brought down.”

  “Why were any of our planes carrying nukes in the first place?”

  “These are special bombs designed among other things to handle deep bunkers. It’s not advertised, but we have a number of the devices deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan against the possibility of running into terrorist leadership that might have hidden in some of the deep bunkers. If necessary, these devices would get down deep enough to take them out. They are deployed because by the time they were brought from storage and shipped to the combat zone, the need would have evaporated again.”

  “But do they have any idea what happened to them?” asked Mike. “How are we going to get them?”

  “That the rub,” Carol replied. “The bombs are in the hands of some radicals just inside Iran. The U.S. politically can’t just charge in there after them. With all the fuss about our invasion of Iraq, seeing the U.S. start some kind of operation in another Arab country would push the Muslim world over the edge. So we have been keeping an eye on where they are stored, hoping an opportunity will develop to quietly extract them. It hasn’t happened yet. They know the radicals are thinking about an attack on Israel, but I guess no one knows when.”

  “Why don’t they just warn the Israelis? They are pretty damn efficient about taking out threats.”

  “That’s where the problem of the new design comes in. The government isn’t too keen about letting another nation, even one who is usually our friend, become aware of the development. They are pretty sharp on what we have. There even have been cases of the Israelis spying on us. They would realize what we have been up to.”

  “How does this help us?” asked Mike.

  Jeff’s boss has a lot of assets in that area. Remember, General Wilson is the head of some kind of military intelligence. And Jeff? Well it turns out he has friends in Israel. A couple of cousins who are well placed in their military. Jeff and his boss are suggesting an unofficial action, joint between some of the General’s most trusted people and some of Israel’s special forces to go get the bombs.”

  This was too much. I could think of a couple of problems straight off. “Why should we trust him?”

  “We’ve got nothing to lose, for one thing. He has already warned us about the colonel. He’s willing to sacrifice his career for this Jim. He has seen first hand. He knows what we have been telling him is real. Even more, he knows Washington believes it’s real. They just want to grab it for themselves if possible.”

  Mike shared some of my own concerns. “This is impossible. Even if they can get the bombs from whoever has them, somehow they would have to be shipped halfway around the world, then smuggled into the U.S. That’s something they are watching for. Even for the General I can’t see that being easy. Then, somehow the bombs need to be brought here to get moved inside the complex. Can you imagine the guards that will be put up here pretty soon? It can’t be done.”

  “There’s another way. Jeff’s idea and I think it might work.” She explained what Jeff had suggested. It was crazy. So much could go wrong. But it just might work.

  Mike brought the car to rest on the little back road. It was only a short distance through the thick forest to the back of the cave entrance from here. Since we had agreed to the plan, Mike, Naiya and I wouldn’t be going back inside. Carol would guard the fort while we slipped into Canada as the first step of Jeff’s plan. We followed about a quarter of a mile into the forest, where Carol had hidden some things we would need. She had her key to the complex hidden as well. Even knowing it was nearby I never would have found it. She gave us our passports, several sets actually, including a couple in other names we had made up some time ago. I wasn’t happy about her going on without us and said so, even if the three men Mike had brought along to spring us back at the residence would be going back inside with her.

  “I also have this if needed,” she said showing the neural rifle. “But I don’t think the tunnel will be guarded that heavily just yet. Besides, we can surprise them. Here’s the last miracle of the day.”

  She reached into the small pack she had retrieved and pulled out something to hand to me. It was one of the small devices Al had thought was used for communications. Except this one looked different. Instead of a simple slab of metal I could now see a variety of controls and a small screen, dimly lit at the moment.

  “Al got it working?” I asked excitedly.

  Carol nodded. “Naiya can show you how to use it, but briefly it allows communication into the complex whether the tunnel is activated or not. In fact, we can give one of these to Dave, another to you, one for me, etc. and we can all be in contact all the time. It’s fairly easy to choose one, or network a conference.”

  “It works with the tunnel closed?” We were hoping to be able to communicate inside with the tunnel activated. “How’s that possible?” I asked. “With the tunnel closed, there isn’t anything there!”

  “Al explained it this way. With the tunnel closed the complex can still sense the presence of the key and open up the tunnel. So there has to be something remaining that we just aren’t aware of. This device must use the same pathway.”

  I looked at the device in my hand. “So when you said surprise them, you will be in contact with the team inside?”

  “That’s right,” she agreed. “If there are too many troops around the entrance, I can either hit them with this,” and she motioned with her rifle, “or coordinate with Mike’s people inside who can open the tunnel and bring on reinforcements. Don’t worry, I won’t have any trouble.”

  “How did he do it?” I said wonderingly. “After all this time.”

  “You can ask him later, but there were two problems. The one we found was broken. All of these were from the supplies we found on the ship. The other trick is the key. The small slot we wondered about takes one of the keys. Slip it in and it activates the device. It still works to open the tunnel, but it also allows these to work. One problem though.”

  “What’s that?” asked Mike. I was looking at the device and sure enough I could see one of the keys, flush with the surface along the right edge of the device.

  “Al was a bit sheepish about it. He hasn’t figured out how to get the key back out. There has to be a way, but he hasn’t figured it out yet.”

  Small problem. Carol showed me how to select her device so we could stay in touch. Then she set off with Mike’s men and we headed back down to the car. I wanted to wait, but Mike insisted we get moving. Once we were discovered missing, the colonel would start looking. He might even warn the authorities at the border. He had no reason to think we were headed that way, but it was close enough he might think of it. We left the second car to attract their attention. It would give away the secret of the back trail that lead up to the cave entrance. At the same time, with a couple of items left behind, including a sweater Naiya had been wearing today, the colonel might get the idea that the lot of us had slipped back inside the time complex. If they believed that, they might just not look so hard for us outside.

  Carol made it inside without much trouble. No one appeared to have discovered the men assigned to watch were missing. I suspected none of the construction workers were in on the plan, and the colonel and his people were still under the influence of the modified medications. Now we had to do our part.

  Chapter 56

  Seattle, Washington

  Thurs
day, 12 October 2006

  It was 1:30 AM when we finally reached highway 5 and turned north toward Canada. We had made certain no one was following us. What an odd turn of events. I couldn’t believe we were really headed off on a mission that would carry us halfway around the world in search of a couple of lost weapons. The chances of our success had to be incredibly small. I tried to think of another option, but none was available to us. As we had feared, relying on the government hadn’t worked out. While we might be able to damage the station sufficiently with the preparations made by Mike and his crew, all of us would be more confident if the station were totally destroyed. As slim as our chances might be of recovering the nukes, action was better than sitting around inside the complex for two more weeks just waiting.

  “Carol is going to go nuts,” Naiya said suddenly as if she had read my thoughts. “And now it’s just her and Al.”

  Along with one of Al’s people and nearly a dozen of Mike’s people. But I knew what she meant. Normally the three of us were together. She wouldn’t have the company she was used to. I guess there was nothing stopping her from going uptime for part of the wait. It wasn’t like something needed to get done. With the new communication devices we now had, contact could be maintained whether she was in the complex, at the base, or uptime in her other home.

  I took out the device she had given me just before she headed back toward the tunnel entrance. I had two of them at the moment. One was to be left with Ed at the Canadian facility. Carol was going to send one to Dave in the Roman Office and another to Fred at the Dallas office. That would allow all of the groups to stay in contact, and as long as the complex was operational, co-ordination of the on-going activities would be able to continue even with the 21st century access closed off.