Admiral Dwight Tanner, who both Jack and I agreed was a really good guy, invited us to have dinner with him and his wife Margaret. Their house was only a couple of blocks from ours on Admiral's Row so we could walk, rather than drive the car that Tanner had nicely provided us. He was also kind enough to loan us $50 for some walking around money. Jack and I did some shopping for new uniforms at the Navy Exchange on the base that afternoon, so we didn't have to wear our flight fatigues to dinner. Ike had also arranged a credit line for us at the Exchange. We both wore the standard blue officer's uniforms. I'm afraid I caused quite a stir when I asked to have my Rear Admiral's insignia sewed on.
What a house! Being commandant of a base had its material benefits, obviously. After strolling up a long walkway, lined with rhododendrons and other evergreens, we walked up the four front steps of the Georgian mansion through tall white stately columns. We turned and looked out at a panorama of the base. Because it was a working shipyard, the view wasn't exactly bucolic, but it was a fascinating glimpse of history in the making.
“Do you think we'll get to live in a nice place like this when you get your first command?” said Jack as he squeezed my waist.
“Well, it's not much more opulent than your Manhattan brownstone or your lake house in South Carolina, Mr. Moneybags.”
“Hey, that's our brownstone and our lake house, hon.”
“I know,” I said, “I just like to be reminded that we're married.”
I wondered, and I'm sure that Jack did as well, if we'd ever see the brownstone or the lake house again.
On the door of the house was an old fashioned brass knocker, adding to its elegance and charm.
A young Asian woman, wearing a maid's uniform – an actual maid’s uniform – opened the door and escorted us in.
The hallway was magnificent. The ceiling was 18 feet high, and the walls were covered with mahogany paneling. Paintings and photographs of the Navy Yard through its history since it became an active shipyard in 1806 lined the walls. In the middle of the hallway was a winding staircase with carved wooden banisters. At the far end of the marble-floored hall stood a shiny, antique brass engine order telegraph. As a family tradition, Admiral Tanner would later tell us, he’d move the handles to “Stop” before they retired for the evening, and to “Full Ahead” when he came downstairs in the morning.
Tanner greeted us, with his wife Margaret at his side, a tall, pretty woman with light brown hair and a ready smile.
Tanner led us into a spacious den that reminded me of an Ivy League hall. Like the entrance hallway, the walls were covered with wood paneling, which looked like walnut. The paintings on the walls reflected Admiral Tanner's fascination with the Wild West. He showed us to sumptuous leather chairs in front of a large fireplace. The young maid took our drink orders.
“So Admiral Patterson, you and Lieutenant Thurber have come a long way,” said Tanner with a smile. “I'd love you to tell Mrs. Tanner all about your trip.”
“And we'd be happy to share our strange story with you both,” I said, “but may I make a request?”
“Of course,” said Tanner.
“I'm not sure what the protocol is in 1940,” I said, “but where we come from it's a bit less formal. Please call me Ashley, and call Lieutenant Thurber, Jack. After all, admiral, you and I hold the same rank, and my husband Jack is really a civilian, just on a brief active duty assignment with the Naval Reserve.”
“Of course,” said Margaret, “please call us Ike and Margie.”
Tanner smiled and nodded.
***
“Ike staggered me when he told me that you two have time travelled,” said Margie. “This is the most fascinating thing I've heard in a long time. How did you know that you hit the portal, the wormhole?”
“We felt a strange turbulence,” I said, “and then the day turned dark, and light again in a few seconds. Jack and I have experienced this before, so we both assumed we went through a wormhole, although at first we were both dumfounded. Time travel is something you never get used to. Fortunately I once had a job as a New York City tour guide the summer before I started at the Academy, so I know the landmarks of the city as well as my own neighborhood. We flew around and looked for what wasn't there. Because I remembered all of the dates that certain buildings and bridges were built, we were able to grasp the fact that we were somewhere in the late 30s or early 40s.”
“You seem interested with the time travel, Margie,” said Jack. “Are you familiar with the phenomenon?”
“I've written a book on the subject, entitled A Time Away.”
Jack grabbed his head as if a moth just flew into his ear.
“Margie is humble,” said Ike. “She won't mention, but I will, that the book hit number one on The New York Times Best Seller List two years ago. Margie's a history professor at NYU, so she had a lot of credibility.”
“God, that title sounds familiar,” said Jack. “I know that book. I’m sure I know it.”
“Well, not to be outdone,” I said with a laugh, “my old man here has also written a bestselling book on time travel, Living History – Stories of Time Travel through the Ages. Ike, I think you and I married well.”
Margie stood up and walked over to a bookshelf and grabbed a copy of her book. She signed it, “To my friends, Ashley and Jack, visitors from another time.”
“I'd love to reciprocate,” said Jack, “But I wrote my book in 2010 and left all my copies in 2016. If you wait 70 years, you can pick it up in a book store.”
We all laughed. Jack and I are used to non-time-travelers missing the humor in stories about the other side of a wormhole. Although Margie and Ike never experienced it, they were more familiar with the subject than most people we’d ever met.
Jack flipped through the book with me looking over at it. It was 750 pages in length with an extensive index.
“Hold on!” Jack yelled, “I can't believe this. It just came back to me. This book was one of my primary sources for Living History. I must have cited it hundreds of times. I cannot believe I'm sitting next to the brilliant woman who wrote the book. I remember one reviewer of my book in the Times said that it was the first serious time travel investigation since Professor Tanner, and here I am sitting next to Professor Tanner.”
“And when you did your research in my book,” said Margie, “I was not living history, I was history. This is amazing. I'm so glad Ike invited you folks over. Tell me more about your book, Jack.”
“Well my book actually picked up where yours left off. You interviewed people who said they time travelled just as I did. And one of your conclusions was the same as mine, that to go back to where you came from, you have to find the exact location of the wormhole. I've time travelled myself five times, yesterday being my fifth trip. In all my prior experiences, two of which I shared with Ashley, finding the wormhole was critical. We once had to find it in the ocean, a difficult operation. All of the other people I interviewed, just like the ones in your book, encountered a wormhole at a location on land. But yesterday has us stumped. How do we find a wormhole in the sky?”
“Do you have a good navigational fix?” asked Ike.
“Yes and no,” I said. “My plane, excuse me, the Navy's plane, has a sophisticated instrument called a Flight Data Recorder, also known as a ‘Black Box.’ All modern aircraft carry one of these things. It's a way to determine all of the actual flight information, including navigational coordinates. The idea is to enable investigators to reconstruct an event if the plane crashes. It would also be our ticket back to the wormhole, except for one insurmountable problem – there is no device in 1940 that can enable us to read the data. So we have a Black Box, but its contents are hidden from us.”
“Do you have an approximate position?” asked Ike.
Ike's a sailor, like me, and he knows to ask the right questions.
“We have a vague, and I mean vague, approximate position. As we flew along the coast of New Jersey, I headed over land so I could give Jack an a
erial view of Princeton University, his alma mater. About a minute after we flew over Princeton, we hit the wormhole.”
“Well that's a wonderful start,” said Ike. “You told us that the plane can fly over 1,100 miles an hour. It may be a dizzying flight but you can cover a lot of sky with that aircraft.”
“Problem is, Ike,” I said, “We have no way to refuel. That plane is a jet, and runs on highly refined aviation fuel, stuff that doesn't exist here in 1940. We could experiment, of course, but I’d be risking my life, Jack’s life, as well as a 60 Million dollar airplane. Not worth the risk. We could zig zag all over the coast of New Jersey until we run out of fuel, but then we're out of luck. If we could only figure out a way to access the data in the Black Box, we'd be on our way.”
“There's got to be a way,” said Margie. “I know some top scientists at NYU. Let me put my thinking cap on.”
“Dinner is served,” announced the young maid.
Chapter 16
Dinner began with a delicious potato leek soup, seasoned to perfection. The main course included filet mignon with oven roasted potatoes, carrots, and asparagus. This admiral business isn't bad, I thought.
“I'm dying to know something, and I think Ike is as well,” said Margie. “Since your past is our future, what's in store for us in the next few years?”
I looked at Jack and nodded. Because he carries an enormous amount of historical information in his head, I thought he should take the lead in this conversation, a discussion we knew was inevitable.
“I’ll be happy to share the future with you,” said Jack, “but first let me tell you what we’re planning. Ashley and I have come up with a mission, an operation. Ashley is a damn fine military officer, and I'm an obsessive-compulsive planner. Our mission has two parts. The first is to warn, and the second is to go home. That’s where the Black Box comes in. So Margie poses us with the first part of our operation, the warn part.”
“I think I'll have another drink,” said Ike.
“I'll get right to the major point and then we can go into details, as many details as Ashley and I can remember from history.”
“Don't worry,” I said. “Jack has such a good memory it's almost scary at times, and the news is not good.”
“At 7:55 AM,” Jack began, “on a beautiful Sunday morning of December 7, 1941, about 14 months from now, Japan will launch an air attack on Pearl Harbor, killing or wounding over 3,000 Americans and destroying over 18 ships, including eight battleships, and 300 aircraft. It will be the start of America's entry into World War II. Four days later Germany will declare war on the United States, and we will reciprocate that same day. The war will last for close to four years. Total deaths have been estimated at about 80 million, including 55 million civilians. The United States and its allies will win the war, but the cost will be gigantic.”
Jack's soliloquy did nothing for the dinner conversation. Ike and Margie just stared at him.
“So that's the warn part of our mission, folks,” I said. “We feel it’s our obligation as naval officers and as patriotic Americans to sound the alarm.”
***
Ike and Margie looked stunned. Ike had his face in his hands, and Margie was quietly crying. She blew her nose and looked at Jack.
“Is there anything in our recent history,” Margie said, “that confirms your prediction based on your knowledge from the future? I know you've researched the new encyclopedia.”
“Yes,” said Jack. “In December, 1938, less than two years ago, British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain signed the Munich Agreement with Hitler. In a radio broadcast Chamberlain hailed it as a document that would ensure ‘peace in our time.’ It won't work out that way.”
“I remember that broadcast well,” said Ike. “A lot of people, myself included, thought that conciliation with Hitler was impossible. Now you're telling me that it was, or should I say, will be impossible?”
“Even in the day we came from, in 2016, ‘Munich’ has become a synonym for ‘appeasement’ and a warning that sometimes force is necessary to stop a tyrant. Hitler will continue to march across Europe and it will take millions of lives to stop him.”
“God knows Hitler is a tyrant,” said Ike. “My mother is Jewish and lives in Germany since my father died. Things are not good for Jews in Germany.”
“Get her out!” both Jack and I shouted simultaneously. “Get her out, now.”
“My God,” said Ike, obviously shaken by our outburst. “How bad can it get?”
“Once again I'll give you the bottom line, Ike,” said Jack. “Jews will be rounded up like cattle and imprisoned in what will become known as concentration camps. Then it will get worse. Over 6 million Jews will die in gas chambers, killed on orders from Hitler. History will record what will happen to the Jews of Europe as The Holocaust. Ike, get your mom out of there before it's too late.”
“How will the war end?” asked Margie, choking back tears.
Hitler will commit suicide in a bunker in Berlin in April 1945, and Germany will surrender in May. In August of 1945, Japan will surrender on the deck of the battleship USS Missouri which will be built here at the Brooklyn Navy Yard in 1944. Japan will surrender after two atomic bombs are dropped on Japanese cities.”
“Atomic bombs?” said both Ike and Margie.
“They're also known as nuclear bombs,” said Jack, “the most destructive power on earth. The bomb that will be dropped on Hiroshima will be the equivalent of about 15,000 tons of TNT. The bombs will be dropped on the order of President Harry Truman, who will be Roosevelt’s running mate in 1944. Truman will succeed President Roosevelt, who will die in April 1945.”
“I hope that Jack and I didn't ruin your evening, but what we had to tell you is a critical part of our mission. We may be from 2016, but we're still Americans and we both felt that we have a moral duty to warn people of what's coming.”
“I know I speak for Margie and myself when I say that we've found a couple of great new friends,” Ike said. “We'd like to have you around longer, but we understand the second part of your mission is to go home. We'll do anything possible to help you to make that happen.”
It was 10 PM and chilly as Jack and I walked back to our house.
“Did we do the right thing, Jack? Did we go too heavy on what's coming up?”
“If we accomplished one thing, Ashley, I hope we convinced Ike to get his mother out of Germany.”
Chapter 17
“Could we get to like it here in 1940, Jack? Would it be the worst thing in the world if we can't find our way back to 2016? I don't want to sound negative, but I have no idea how we can find the wormhole without getting the data off the Black Box.”
“I can't help thinking the same thing, hon. We have each other, and that means everything to me, but hey, we’re from the 21st Century. Your folks, my folks, our friends, our careers – all of that goes away if we're stuck here. Also, are you willing to do without your iPad, cellphone, Google, and all that other good stuff we got used to? We're from 2016. That's where we belong.”
“That's where we belong, but only if we can figure out how to get there,” I said.
“Tonight we made two great friends,” Jack said. “They know time travel, although they haven't experienced it. They get it, especially Margie. I can't believe she wrote the book that I relied on for mine. I think they're committed to helping us find the way home.”
“Oh, did I mention?” I said. “Admiral Ike is finding us employment. He told me he couldn’t figure out a way to pay us our Navy salaries, because there’s no record of our existence, so he arranged to pay us as civilian consultants, close to our equivalent military rank. I’ll get $850 a month and you’ll get $200 a month. So, I figure, with no housing costs and regular salaries, at least we won’t have finances to worry about.”
“One less thing,” said Jack.
“You're right Jack. The Tanners are good people and now I believe they’re good friends. But there are just so many things we don't know
.”
“Well, there's one thing I know for sure,” said Jack.
“What's that, hon?”
“I love you. Let’s go to bed.”
“That's the best idea you've had all day.”
Chapter 18
“Senator Magnussen, please, Admiral Dwight Tanner calling.”
“Ike,” said Magnussen, “good to hear from you my old friend. What can I do for you?”
Senator Jerome Magnussen was the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations committee, and was a classmate of Tanner at Annapolis.
“Jerry, I'm calling you to ask for your help. Yesterday I met with an interesting couple who have given me something to worry about.”
Tanner didn't think it was a good idea to discuss time travel, or even the fact that Ashley is an admiral. He concentrated on Jack's background.
“The gentleman, a Navy Reserve lieutenant, is an accomplished journalist and author. He convinced me that the situation in Germany is turning critical, especially for Jews. My mother's most recent letter pretty much confirmed what the man said. As you know, my mother is Jewish and she lives in Berlin. My young friend was emphatic. He said I should get my mother out of there now. I don't know if he has some inside information (Tanner politely lied), but he seemed to know what he was talking about.”
“Leave it to me, Ike. I have a good friend who's the Deputy Charge´ d’Affaires to Germany. His name is Phil Townsend, and he's a man who knows how to make things happen. I'll send him a telegram and briefly explain the situation. I'll let you know what to do within a day or so.”
“God bless you, Jerry. I’ll owe you a big one.”
“Let's not worry about that, Ike. Let's just get your mom the hell out of there.”
Chapter 19
My name is Brigadier General Dominic Mumford, United States Air Force, and I'm standing here at LaGuardia Airport with my stomach in a knot. I'm the Public Affairs Officer for the Department of Defense.
Box Set - The Time Magnet Series Page 59
