Both Lee and Donovan looked up into the baby-faced marine who was looking at the full-page picture and words.
“How do you know that?” Lee asked.
“I have the same book on a shelf back at the barracks, sir. Only it isn’t written in no Russian.”
Lee looked back at the colorful and exciting picture of who had to have been Long John Silver with a broadsword waving above his head. “The kid’s right. This is a Russian-language version of that book.”
Lee compared the picture to the clothing the creature wore. If he didn’t feel as if he were losing his mind, he would have sworn there was a resemblance to the clothing worn by the pirates depicted in the page from the book — the swords, the strange breeches the beasts wore, even down to the tentacles that had been wrapped in brightly colored ribbons. Garrison quickly folded the paper and placed it in his pocket. He eyed Donovan, and the look said, Let’s get the hell out of here.
Hours after the event, Lee was ordered back to South America and to his station. Donovan met with the president of the United States three days later and, through his report, which did not jibe well at all with Admiral Stark’s version, talked the president into not funding any more experiments in the phase shift field — ever again.
Garrison Lee had kept the page from Treasure Island. The depiction of Long John Silver remained with him for the rest of his life. His dreams were always filled with the same memory of that day during the war years. While men of other areas of endeavor were consumed by actions against their fellow men at a time of war, Lee’s were centered around a little-known incident that occurred in home waters during that same conflict.
Yes, he remembered the creature that had scale-covered arms and legs, and what was most disturbing were the tentacles, his memory recalled. The skin had been clear in his mind — like that of a jellyfish, with dull, colored highlights of green, blue, and clear white. The face had been that of a human, with the exception of the clear, large, and very pointed teeth and even larger black, lidless eyes. The braided hair was almost seaweed-like in appearance. Lee remembered the Eldridge’s superstructure and the men who had lost their lives upon it. He swore he would never allow technology like that to ever exist again.
Years later, Garrison Lee would go to his grave without ever fully understanding just what it was that happened in the world’s oceans in the 1930s and ’40s and to tell the truth, he was quite content to go to his final resting place willingly without that information.
On that day in October of 1943, Garrison Lee, future director of Department 5656, secretly known as the Event Group, became a witness to the results of a little-known scientific incident officially labeled as Fleet Action 129871.
Legend would later label it the Philadelphia Experiment.
PART ONE
SHOW OF FORCE
I have seen enough of one war never to wish to see another.
1
Rear Admiral Jon Andersson, the Dutch commander of the immense NATO operation Reforger IV, sat in his command chair aboard the aircraft carrier USS Nimitz and pursed his lips as the mighty warship sank deep into a trough and then fought her way back to the surface. His eyes watched the northern seas as the storm increased in size and ferocity.
Andersson was extremely proud to have been chosen as task force commander for the largest seagoing war games in the history of the NATO alliance. The task: escort a living lifeline of over two hundred transport ships from Norfolk, Virginia, to the NATO base at Scapa Flow in Scotland. The Games and Theory Department and NATO intelligence were concerned that in the ever-increasing standoff with Russia and her new aggressive posture around the world, NATO could not act fast enough to a wartime crisis by getting vital supplies and war matériel to Europe in a rapid enough response time, which would ensure the fall of NATO forces before the full might of America’s military could come into play. This Reforger mission was to prove that no matter the timing, the NATO navies of the world could meet the challenge.
His thoughts about the increasing size and suddenness of the storm were interrupted by the captain of the USS Nimitz, Charles McAvoy. He handed the admiral a flimsy from communications. Andersson read the communiqué and frowned.
“My reaction exactly,” said McAvoy as he reached out to steady himself as the Nimitz once more went on an elevator ride to the bottom of an immense trough.
Both men quietly sweated their anxieties until the forward flight deck finally rose from the sea.
“Orders?” McAvoy asked as he watched the concerned look on the tanned face of Admiral Andersson. He liked the Dutch task force commander. The man was no-nonsense and understood his duties and responsibilities of guiding the most powerful battle group in the history of the North Atlantic. He knew the man would make the right decision.
“Okay, Chuck. That does it. Let’s get the civilian transports turned around and order them back to the coast. Get a coded message off to NATO Maritime Command — Operation Reforger IV has been scrubbed due to heavy and dangerous weather concerns.”
“Aye,” McAvoy said. “You’re doing the right thing, Admiral.” The captain of the Nimitz was about to leave the command wing but hesitated when he saw the admiral was still mulling something over as he watched the heavy seas continue to batter the giant carrier.
“We’ll give the transports thirty minutes to start for home and then get our boys out of here also. Have the Houston hold station until all command ships are clear of these seas. Also, have the frigate De Zeven and the cruisers Shiloh and Bunker Hill standing by with the Houston. All will hold station until the fleet’s egress maneuver is complete.”
McAvoy noted the admiral’s orders. They were in essence leaving a rear guard of the Dutch Provinciën-class frigate De Zeven, the US Navy’s Ticonderoga-class cruisers USS Shiloh and Bunker Hill, and as a guard to the smaller asset, the navy’s Los Angeles — class attack submarine USS Houston. All would form up together to keep an eye on the Russian Red Banner Northern Fleet steaming only two hundred miles to the northeast. The rest of the battle group, consisting of German, Dutch, American, and many other ships of the NATO northern command, would make a slow turn in the heavy seas and follow the transports back to Virginia. McAvoy saw the angst in the admiral’s face. He dreaded seeing the final portion of script on the fleet action report of Operation Reforger IV: Mission Failed.
The admiral remained silent as the seas rose and fell once more. The weathermen under his command had been surprised when the strange storm suddenly turned without warning. Even Norfolk was taken by surprise. He knew he was acting prudently, but that did not make the mission failure any more palpable. He knew the Reforger battle group would have, could have, fulfilled their mission in a time of actual war, but this fact would still be lost on NATO command, and even the Russian Navy would declare NATO assets in the North Atlantic weak in comparison to their mighty Red Banner Group. The humiliation and second-guessing would be silent, of course, but his career would still take a hit. Ridicule, and crap, to put it mildly in his estimation, rolled downhill.