“Yes. One day after the Kyoto mission.”
“Just the bomber?”
Cameron nodded. “Yes, Bob. The Mary Jane was discovered, intact, resting in the jungle near Agana Naval Air Station. The bomber didn’t have a mark on it. I saw it. No signs of a crash landing. No bodies found on Guam or in the water. There was approximately five minutes of fuel left, if that, in the wing tanks. The fuselage contained four bullet holes. Under attack, I suppose. To add to it, a series of bloodstains led from the cockpit all the way to and inside the bomb bay. It was the craziest thing I had ever seen. It should have had crash damage to it. But didn’t. The vegetation wasn’t touched, except for underneath the wheels. It was as if she had plunked down neat as could be in the middle of the night, and someone found it next day.”
“So, what happened to her after that?” MacDonald asked.
“We sensed something evil about the whole thing. Seeing that the mission was never completed, anyway, and the crew were never found, the bomber was supposed to be disposed of. At least, that’s the story I got. Our scientists had no more atomic bombs. Three days later, the Japs surrendered. We were all sworn to secrecy. Captain, you wanted to know about the callsigns?”
“Yes.”
“I hear Les had made contact with the Mary Jane. That true?”
“That’s correct, sir,” Les replied.
Cameron smiled slowly. “Les, did the pilot have a Georgian accent?”
“Yes, sir, he did. A very slow southern drawl.”
“Captain Clayton,” Cameron said to Robert. Then to MacDonald he said, “The callsigns are correct, captain. The ones used on the actual 1945 mission. Hawkeye Three-Six was designated for Clayton’s bomber. Baker Two was Iwo Jima. When Clayton said that Number Eight was complete, he was notifying the scientists on Iwo Jima that Number Eight on the checklist of eleven points for arming the bomb was complete. The critical stage was done. An explosives expert from the US Army, an odd fellow we called Four Eyes because he wore a pair of thick glasses, was to accompany the flight and was to arm the bomb with the flight engineer’s help.” The general paused for a moment, reflecting on the crushed glasses he had found on the cockpit deck forty-five years ago. “‘Fat Baby wired for sound’ was the signal to tell the scientists that the bomb had received the first arming stage, with the final arming coming later in the flight, where Fat Baby would be fully live. Over Iwo Jima, they were to climb to 9,500 feet. Where was your interception made, Les?”
“South of Iwo Jima, sir.”
“What altitude?”
“Five-thousand feet.”
“So, they must have climbed by now.”
“You’re speaking as if they are… still on the mission.”
“That’s right, captain. I am. This might sound totally insane and after this you might have me committed, but I am convinced that you have intercepted the real Mary Jane. And she’s carrying a lethal atomic bomb.”
The men fell silent.
“A real atomic bomb!”
“Yes, captain.”
“This isn’t the movies,” the captain said. “This… this is 1990.” He rubbed his face. “You’re talking like some science fiction novelist.”
“No. Not at all. But I am talking time travel.”
“That explains it,” Les exclaimed. “When the bomber refused to land, I told the pilot that I’d blast him from the sky. And he said that I better not do that because there wouldn’t be anything left of the bomber or me.”
“I don’t believe it,” MacDonald scoffed. “General, how could you arrive at such a hypothesis? You’re no scientist.”
“I didn’t say I was. I’m looking at this as level-headed as I can, considering all sides.”
“Time travel is only a theory.”
“No so, captain.” Cameron pulled out a paperback from the pocket of his windbreaker. “On the flight over from Los Angeles, I was reading an interesting book that I purchased at the LA Airport.” He showed the cover to the navy captain.
“The Devil Seas. So?”
“The author,” Cameron said, “has documented evidence of two areas of the world where strange disappearances have occurred over the last forty years or so. One of these areas is the Bermuda Triangle in the Atlantic. The other is in the Pacific, another triangle, directly opposite the Bermuda Triangle, should one drill a hole through the center of the earth.”
The general showed the others the paperback’s second page, a map of the portion of the Pacific that stretched from the Mariana Islands to Japan. A triangle was drawn over a large piece of the map. To the left of the middle of the triangle was Iwo Jima. Just outside the northerly point was Kyoto. Nudging the southern edge was Guam.
“Inside the triangle,” Cameron went on, “hundreds of disappearances have taken place. Ships, subs, people, aircraft. Many of those military aircraft. All have vanished without a trace. The largest vessels were over 200,000 tons. Very few radio signals were recorded, signifying that they vanished too quickly to even reach a transmitter to voice an SOS.”
MacDonald folded his arms. “How does this book prove time travel?”
Cameron held up two fingers. “Two stories. The first, October, 1962. Broad daylight. A DC-8 passenger jet en route from Tokyo to Guam. Just after take-off, several people aboard claimed to have seen a Japanese World War Two Betty Bomber pull up near the port wing, then bank away. One of the passengers was in the US Navy and knew his aircraft.
“The second, 1968, at the height of the Vietnam War. Many of us know that Andersen Air Force Base on the north end of Guam was used as a bomber base for the B-52s during the bombing campaign. This same field deployed Superfortresses during the Second World War. North Field, we called it then. Anyway, in 1968, also in daylight, a B-52 took off on a training run, turned north and flew 300 miles before turning south again. Twenty miles out of Guam, during the descent, the pilot and co-pilot both swore they saw a B-29 Superfortress flying in the opposite direction, a thousand feet below.
“What’s so unusual about these sightings? Well, according to the author, neither aircraft — the Betty bomber or the B-29 — existed in vintage form in those years. There may be a reconditioned Betty somewhere today, although I doubt it. But I know for a fact that there were absolutely no B-29s in flying condition in 1968. Fifi was not resurrected until the seventies, cannibalized from several other B-29s in the Mojave Desert. This Pacific triangle is a time barrier,” Cameron concluded, tapping his finger on the map.
MacDonald smacked his lips. Still unconvinced, he asked. “Tell me something, general. Do you recall anything, any stories at all, about this Pacific Triangle while you were stationed here during the war? Crazy things must have happened then too.”
“Hell! We had enough to worry about fighting the Japs.”
MacDonald smiled. “Well—”
“OK, I do remember one. I knew a pilot from the 40th Bomb Group who were based on Tinian with us, over on West Field. His group were on a mission to Japan in the early part of 1945, I think it was. May or June. Other B-29 groups too. Five hundred bombers or so in all. Over Iwo Jima they picked up a fighter escort, 150 Mustangs. Near the coast of Japan, a storm from sea level to 25,000 feet moved in out of nowhere. The fighters and bombers had no choice but to go right through it. Due to a cross-up in communication, several flights of Mustangs turned back, while other flights pushed on. Fifty P-51s went through the front. Because of their weight and better stability in the air, the B-29s made it to the other side. Twenty-five of the fifty fighters didn’t. No trace was found of any of them. Nothing! No bodies. No planes. No scraps of planes!”