“Do you have any specific recommendations to avoid a similar occurrence from ever happening again?”
This wasn’t a yes/no question. It was a question to solicit ideas from the Board members. All Miller saw was shaking heads and hunched shoulders.
“Well, I have a recommendation,” said Admiral Miller.
He held up a large card, which simply read:
STAY AWAY!
N 32° 41’ 41”
W 78° 34’ 27”
“What’s that, Hoss?” asked Admiral Ferguson.
“The coordinates of the wormhole,” said Miller.
“This Board of Inquiry is officially closed.”
Chapter 102
Ashley and Jack left the ship at different times. Ashley was concerned about appearances. This crap shall soon end, she thought.
They were both on a 30-day leave, 30 days of relaxation, freedom from stress, and also 30 days to get to know each other. They met for lunch at an out of the way diner near the rental place where they’d pick up a car. Jack owned a vacation home on a lake about two hours away. As Jack drove, they passed the time telling jokes and guessing the states of passing license plates. No decisions, no boatswain’s pipe, no uniform of the day, no meetings. Their mission was to relax and be in each other’s company. They were both dedicated to the mission.
“So, Operation Jack and Ashley has begun,” said Ashley. “As I recall I put you in command of the operation, Lieutenant. A house on a lake is a commendable start.”
“I take this operation very seriously, Captain,” said Jack, as he reached over and squeezed her hand.
“Jack, isn’t it about time you started calling me Ashley?”
“Aye aye, Ashley. How about Sweetheart?”
She leaned over and kissed him.
They drove down a winding road to the house. Jack’s caretaker had arranged things for their visit.
Ashley drew her breath as she looked at the house and the view of the lake. The house rose two stories high with dark shingling and a roofline inspired by Frank Lloyd Wright. In front was a gravel parking area, marked off by logs and surrounded by wild flowers. They walked out onto the huge mahogany deck. In the distance, two small mountains converged, providing a viewing frame for the lake. They inhaled the fresh air blowing across the water. A stairway led from the deck to a floating dock, to which was tied a shining antique wooden Chris Craft powerboat. The boat was named Wordsmith. They sat down to take in the view, Ashley in an Adirondack chair, Jack stretched out on a lounge.
“Where do you live when you’re not at this beautiful place, Jack?”
“I have a place on East 66th Street in Manhattan.”
“You own an apartment on East 66th?”
“Well, it’s a Brownstone.”
“What do we pay lieutenants these days?”
Jack smiled. “Book royalties do add up.”
“Speaking of books, I think you should write another novel after you’re done with the big Gray Ships book. Maybe something inspired by the last few months.”
“I have been working on an idea for a novel, and I’ve been looking forward to bouncing it off you.”
“Fire away,” said Ashley. “I’ll play the part of your literary agent.”
“Okay, but try to act short, fat, and bald.”
“Here goes. Two lonely people meet on a ship at sea in a scary and troubling time. They’re frightened and confused, and they don’t know what will become of them. As the time passes, they become closer. They fall in love, and with all the uncertainty they know one thing. Whatever happens, their love will never go away.”
Ashley brushed a tear from her eye, reached over and touched Jack’s hand.
“Now that’s a book that deserves a big advance,” Ashley said softly.
“How big?”
Ashley got up from her chair and lay next to Jack on the lounger. They embraced as if trying to squeeze away the events of the last few months. Their lips met, and they both lost track of time.
A loud screech interrupted them. Ashley sat up with a bolt, expecting to hear, “Captain to the bridge.”
“Relax Hon, it’s just an osprey.” Ashley collapsed back into his arms, laughing.
***
The sun was setting behind the mountains, and a gentle breeze came off the lake through the screen doors of the master bedroom suite. Jack was taking a shower. As he lathered up, he heard a soft tapping on the shower door.
“Don’t you believe in conserving energy, Lieutenant?” Ashley said as she opened the door and stepped in.
“Wow, I’ve never seen you out of uniform before,” Jack said as he wrapped his arms around her. “Did I mention, Wow?”
“You’re not too bad looking yourself, sailor.”
They caressed amid the steam, water, and soap.
Although they both needed sleep, there was little to be had that night. They recalled the months of longing, the months of wanting to reach out, to touch and embrace. Those months seemed like an eternity ago. But that night there was no tentativeness or timidity. There was no looking both ways, no listening for footsteps. They abandoned themselves to passion and made love into the wee hours.
***
Ashley awoke before Jack. She took a quick shower, threw on a robe and went downstairs. As she walked into the kitchen she had a great idea. She would cook a country breakfast for herself and Jack. She rummaged through the well stocked refrigerator, piling ingredients on the counter.
A thought intruded. She had no idea how to cook. Anything. Can’t be that hard, she figured. Just common sense, right?
Jack came down a half hour later. Ashley placed a folded napkin over her left forearm, bowed and gestured toward the table with her right hand. She didn’t identify the offerings, which was just as well. They were unidentifiable. She and Jack leaned over and kissed, and then began eating.
The food was inedible.
At first they chuckled. Then they laughed until tears rolled down their cheeks.
“I’ll just toss this stuff in the lake,” Ashley said, still laughing. “Biodegradable, right?”
Jack envisioned hundreds of dead fish floating along the shoreline.
“That’s okay, Hon. I’ll just put it out in the trash.”
***
“I’ve got a place in mind that you’ll love,” said Jack. “There’s a nice little restaurant down the lake. The food’s great and the view is almost as good as it is here. We’ll take the boat.”
As they boarded Wordsmith, Ashley ran her hand over the mahogany decking and the leather upholstery. Jack stood behind the wheel and turned the key, the boat’s inboard diesel engine growling to life. Ashley tossed off the lines and they motored down the lake. Rather than sit, Ashley chose to stand next to Jack as he steered the boat. For months on the California, they stole glances, blew kisses, and occasionally touched hands. Now, neither of them wanted to be apart from each other. She put her arm around his waist.
Jack maneuvered Wordsmith next to the dock at the restaurant, aptly named Lakeside. Ashley jumped onto the dock and secured the lines. I can’t cook, she thought, but I sure as hell know the ropes.
They were seated on the open deck, shaded by a stand of tall deciduous trees. The waiter brought two cups of steaming coffee while they perused the menu. Jack was right. The place was beautiful, and the view even better. They could almost see Jack’s house at the far end of the lake. Two snowy egrets patrolled the flats as if it were a buffet line, plucking fish and pointing their beaks skyward to swallow. Along the shoreline to the left, a great hawk circled, looking down for inattentive prey. A sailboat rocked in the distance, her sails luffing in the light morning wind.
The waiter came to take their orders.
They finished their breakfast, sat back and sipped coffee, while taking in the view and holding hands. Jack glanced down at an advertisement on the placemat.
“Hey Hon, it says here that there’s going to be a nineteenth-century antique fair at the
old farm just down the road from my house. Sounds like fun. It’ll be like a trip to the past.”
“Shut up, Jack,” Ashley said, as she leaned over and kissed him.
“Let’s talk about the future.”
“Aye aye, Captain.”
THE END
The Thanksgiving Gang
Book Two of The Time Magnet Series
Russell F. Moran
Copyright © 2014 by Russell F. Moran
All Rights Reserved
Coddington Press
ISBN-10: 0-9895546-4-3
ISBN-13: 978-0-9895546-4-0
Preface
The Thanksgiving Gang is Book Two of the Time Magnet Series. The Gray Ship was Book One.
The Thanksgiving Gang, like the other books in The Time Magnet series, is a novel about time travel, a genre that many authors love because it poses the wonderful question—what if?
I suppose I should say here that The Thanksgiving Gang is a book of fiction, and any resemblance to real characters is coincidental except for historical figures who are identified. But don’t think of it as fiction, even though it is just that. Think of it as a journey that I’m inviting you to join. Soon you’ll get to know Jack and his old friend Bennie, Ashley, Jack’s beautiful Navy captain wife. Wally is new, as is Janice.
Some of the characters in this book are radical Islamists, hijackers of one of the world’s great religions. Nothing in this book is intended to cast dispersion on the faith of Islam itself, only the radical fundamentalists who have perverted it.
Like many an author, I felt a relationship with the characters I created in my first book in the series, The Gray Ship. I wanted to see what they would do in the future, how they would respond to new challenges, and how they would handle the weird situations I put them in. Part of the joy of writing a series is that I get to continue enjoying the characters and share this joy with my loyal readers, who, after all, are what a book is all about.
I’ve done a couple of different things in this book. First, I’ve added a list of characters. I don’t know why all novelists don’t do this. If you meet a character on page five, and then encounter her again on page ninety-five, you’ve probably forgotten who she is. Bookmark that page and use it to enhance your enjoyment of the book.
Second, I’ve put in a time line. Time travel can be dizzying as one goes back and forth through the dimension, especially if, like Jack Thurber, you go into the future and skip over a life-changing event.
So join me, Jack, and the gang as we step, once again, through a wormhole.
Dedication
To Lynda, my wife, collaborator, and editor. We’ve travelled through time together, forty-six-years and counting.
Characters in The Thanksgiving Gang
Abboud, Ayham - al Qaeda official and mentor to The Atomic Five
Akhbar, Gamal - CIA agent, aka Buster
Basara, Hussein - al Qaeda operative in Denver
Bettenhurst, Jerome, Admiral - Chief of Naval Intelligence
Blake, Oliver - Deputy to CIA Director Bill Carlini
Bollinger, Ike - Captain, USS Carl Vinson
Boulos, Amjad - Sheik Ayham Abboud’s driver and assistant
Burton, Wallace - Reporter, The New York Times
Buster - CIA agent, aka Gamal Akhbar
Carlini, Bill - CIA Director
Carter, Richard - former XO of the USS Abraham Lincoln
Cooper, Jerry - Deputy to Paul Rizzuto of JTTF
Cummings, Mike - current XO of the USS Abraham Lincoln
Guarino, Sal - Construction foreman at the wormhole site
Haddad, Abbas - Senior al Qaeda official
Hakimi, Ali - al Qaeda operative in Detroit
Martin, Ralph - Weapons Officer, USS Carl Vinson
McMartin, Trevor - Australian bank examiner, aka Yousef Salem
Monahan, Janice - Wife of LCDR Joseph Monahan
Monahan, Joseph, LCDR - Weapons Officer, USS Abraham Lincoln
Murphy, Philip, LCDR - Weapons Officer, USS George Washington
Patterson, Ashley - Captain, USS Abraham Lincoln
Peyton, Frederick, LCDR - Weapons Officer, USS Theodore Roosevelt
Quentin, George - Weapons Officer, USS Harry S. Truman
Riordan, Seamus - See Benjamin Weinberg
Rizzuto, Paul - Head of the New York FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force
Sampson, Father Rick - Priest and friend of Ashley and Jack
Sharif - waiter/CIA operative, Hotel Al Saeed
Thompson, Frank - Rear Admiral, United States Navy
Thurber, Jack - The Time Magnet
Trushenko, Vladimir - Russian bomb expert.
Watson, Sarah - FBI Director
Weinberg, Benjamin - NYPD Psychiatrist
Yousef, Salem - aka Trevor McMartin
Time Line - The Thanksgiving Gang
May 17, 2014 - Jack and Ashley are married
August, 2014 - Ashley takes command of the Abraham Lincoln
July 1, 2015 - Jack slips through the wormhole
July 1, 2017 - The other side of the wormhole
October 1, 2015 - Jack returns to 2015
October 16, 2015 - Operation Tango Delta
November 26, 2015 - The Thanksgiving Attacks
Chapter 1
It happened again.
I didn’t see it coming.
I never do.
My name is Jack Thurber, and I’m a time traveler, not a title I thought I’d aspire to, but having done it three times before, I guess it’s who I am.
I slipped through wormholes before, once travelling back to the 1920s, once to Pearl Harbor in 1941 while it was being attacked, and once to the Civil War. This is getting old.
But this time it’s different. I’ve tripped into the future, two years to be exact. Moments ago it was 9 AM on July 1, 2015. Now, according to a news ticker on a building, it’s July 1, 2017. I had been walking through an abandoned lot on the upper East Side of Manhattan doing research for a feature magazine article for the Washington Times on underutilized real estate, when I stepped on a storm grate. I felt dizzy, a little nauseated as I always do. Think of the feeling you have when you get off a roller coaster. The scenery didn’t change much. The lot was still abandoned but it had sprouted two more years-worth of weeds. It was pouring rain. In 2015, a few moments before, it had been a bright day without a cloud in the sky. It’s a strange feeling to step on a metal grate and go from sunshine to rain in an instant. The gloomy weather wasn’t helping my mood.
I’ve got the drill down by now. The grate was a wormhole, also known as a time portal. Step on it and you’re in for a weird trip. Your world changes fast, very fast. Here’s what I’ve learned: When you step through a wormhole, the way to go back is to find the wormhole and just step on it again. So right now I can simply step on the grate and go backwards two years. But I’m an investigative journalist. How can I pass up a story, even one that I may never tell? Could you resist the urge to know what happened in the past two years?
My first impulse was to go to my New York apartment. I didn’t have too much cash on me so I took the subway. As the train clacked along the tracks I stared at an ad for a Broadway play that I never heard of. At the other end of the car, a kid was playing a song on a boom box, a song I’d never heard.
When I got to my condo on East 66th Street, my world became even stranger. The block looked the same as the last time I was there. The brownstone building looks beautiful as always. It cost me a fortune when I bought it a few years ago but I have the money. My book royalties and my job kick off a nice income. My key didn’t work, so I rang the bell. With any luck, Mrs. Carlucci the cleaning lady would be there. I noticed that the wooden door had been freshly stained. A tall guy, maybe 60 years old, answered the door and asked me what I wanted. I blurted out a simple truth, at least it was simple to me.
“I live here,” I said.
He asked my name. When I told him he said, “Of course, Jack Thurber, the famous writer.
I bought this place from a trust in your name about a year ago. The attorneys handled the closing.”
The guy looked nervous, even frightened. Can you blame him? I stood there, wet and disheveled, telling him that I live in his apartment. I didn’t think it a good idea to tell him that I time tripped from 2015, so I just apologized and said that I must be confused. Time travelers have to choose their conversations carefully.
I was tempted to go to a library and Google myself to see what I’ve been up to for the past two years, but a knot formed in my stomach, a sudden fear that I may see something I didn’t want to see. Time travel has that effect on me.
The rain had stopped so I didn’t need shelter to make a call. I took out my phone to call my wife Ashley, but I stopped. There’s no one in the world I like to talk to more than Ashley, but I didn’t want to upset her. A Navy captain, she had just taken command of the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln, and they’re putting to sea today (today?) for a two-week training cruise. I knew she had her hands full. Also, she hadn’t just taken command, that was in 2014. Then the thought occurred to me: how can I make a phone call two-years into the past? Time travel plays strange tricks with your head.
Bennie, of course! Dr. Benjamin Weinberg is a psychiatrist with the New York City Police Department and my best friend. He collaborated with me on a book I wrote about, what else, time travel. Bennie’s popular with prosecutors for his ability to detect lies from people on a witness stand. He vetted some of the people I interviewed for my book, Living History – Stories of Time Travel Through the Ages. He also saved my life, pulling me back from the brink of suicide over the death of my first wife, Nancy, in a horrible car accident.
I called Bennie’s number, but the phone showed a message, “Your account is no longer in service. To set up a new account please call Verizon or visit our website.”
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