“So… they hit a bad storm front,” MacDonald replied. “Are you trying to say they went through a time barrier?”
“Maybe.”
“I see. OK, getting back to the book you read, I would have to question the validity of what the pilot and co-pilot claimed to have seen. The rate of closure had to be at least 600 knots or thereabouts. That’s pretty damn quick to make a solid identification.”
Cameron shook his head, glancing over at Hulk and Tiger. “Those two were trained individuals. Your own pilots, here, I’m sure can establish a visual under the same circumstances. Don’t you think so? It’s their job.”
“All right, I see what you mean. I’ll give you that. Still, though—”
“Captain, I’m looking at this with a clear and open mind. So should you. I think I’m the only one here who has clearly come to grips with this. The Mary Jane and her crew have traveled through a time barrier, pure and simple. By the way, another incident in the book caught my attention.”
“What?”
“Nobody really knew anything about the Bermuda Triangle either until after the war. It all hit the fan when those five US Navy Avenger torpedo bombers disappeared somewhere between Fort Lauderdale, Florida and the Bahamas on December 5, 1945. Six planes, plus a Martin Mariner search plane vanished! Twenty-seven men! The bombers’ last radio messages were something to the effect that they were flying over several islands that according to their maps did not exist and that something was terribly wrong. The squadron flight leader didn’t even know what direction they were flying. He said the ocean looked different to him. It was suggested by the author that the planes had gone back through time, when more islands had existed in that area. The search plane — the Mariner — was sent out and it never came back, either.
“Whatever is out there,” Cameron went on, “is something beyond human comprehension. Call it a magnetic field, a black hole, or whatever. But it exists.”
MacDonald shook his head. “I still can’t believe this.”
“I can, sir,” Les said. “When I contacted the bomber, they called me Little Friend and wanted to know how many home runs Babe Ruth hit in 1927.”
Cameron nodded, smiling. “Little Friend and Big Friend were terms we used in the war for fighters and bombers, and to tell if someone was American or not, we would ask baseball questions.”
“I went alongside his port wing and he wanted to know what kind of aircraft I was flying.”
“You mean he got a good look at you?” Cameron’s eyes grew wide with surprise.
“He sure did. He wanted to know what I had. I told him an F-18 Hornet and added a smart crack like, ‘Where’ve you been the last ten years?’”
Cameron chuckled. “This is fascinating. I have another crazy story for you. Back around ten years ago, I remember reading a book written by Martin Caiden, the air force writer. It was called Fork-Tailed Deviclass="underline" The P-38. The epilogue of it went something like this. A flight of P-38 Lightnings left a North African base during the Second World War to take on some German fighters over the Mediterranean. Over the water, the battle started. When it came time to regroup and turn for home, the P-38 pilots realized that one of their boys was missing, but no one remembered him going down. Anyway, the flight returned to base. Hours later, he was finally reported missing in action, long after it was determined that he had to have run out of gas.
“So, two or three hours later, all of a sudden a P-38 appears over the base, engines roaring away. But before it could land, it fell apart without an explosion. Those at the base saw the pilot fall free, under an open parachute. The medics rushed to him. It was the missing pilot with a bullet in his head. He had been dead for hours, according to the doctors who examined him. Not only that, but when they found the gas tanks on the ground, they were dry. Bone dry! And had been bone dry for hours! The base CO found this whole thing so outlandish that he demanded and received the signatures of nearly 200 witnesses.
“What happened, you ask yourself? Did the pilot and P-38 go through some time warp? Perhaps. How can you account for it? Some hours were lost. That’s for sure.”
No one spoke for several seconds.
“General Cameron?”
“Yes, Tiger.”
“If the Mary Jane really has crossed the time barrier, wouldn’t the crew realize it?”
“Not necessarily. As near as I can figure, what is hours to us is only minutes to them. They are not in our time for too long. Just long enough to be picked up on navy radar. Then they vanish. Why they are suddenly appearing here in 1990, I don’t know. Maybe, the triangle holds the truth to these stories. As far as the crew is concerned, they’re still in 1945 and flying the mission.”
MacDonald had a question. “Assuming what you’re saying is true, wouldn’t they have clued in when they were in contact with Baker Two, whoever they were?”
“Probably not. Baker Two were the scientists on Iwo Jima. They weren’t supposed to answer. Only listen.”
“My callsign must have thrown them,” Les grinned.
“What did you use?” Cameron asked.
“Zulu Two-Four-Three.”
The general smiled. “No doubt. Under the old phonetic alphabet, we used Zebra for the letter Z.” He exhaled heavily. “We have an alarming situation, nonetheless. The bomb — Fat Baby — is now armed. It is real, gentlemen. Let’s accept it, and we’ll all be better off. The quicker we realize it, the better. If this mission of theirs continues to its climax, then the Mary Jane could suddenly and without warning appear over Kyoto with an armed atomic bomb in her bomb bay. If the crew follows orders, they’ll drop it on a defenseless city and kill a quarter of a million people. What day, we don’t know.”
MacDonald gulped at his coffee. “I still don’t believe it.”
“What time was the mission’s H-Hour?” Les asked.
Cameron shrugged. “I don’t remember. I was on Iwo with the scientists.”
“Oh-seven-thirty,” Robert answered.
Cameron looked over at his friend. “Oh, yeah. You were at the briefing.”
“I just realized something, dad,” Les said.
“What’s that?”
“David lives in Kyoto. He’s right in the line of fire.”
Robert’s eyes met his son’s. “I know.”
“OK, listen,” MacDonald said. “Whether the Mary Jane has traveled through a time barrier or not—”
“It has,” Cameron interrupted.
“We have to convince her to turn around,” the navy captain continued.
“You bet, captain. The bomb is armed. We can’t shoot her down.” Cameron looked to his side. “Here comes the breakfasts.”
“Sorry, gentlemen,” the waitress apologized, blushing. “Your order was mixed up with someone else’s.”
Cameron grinned. “That’s quite all right. We had a good, long talk.”
Chapter nine
GUAM
Atop Nimitz Hill, Chief Petty Officer Richard Beatty had just come on duty at the NOCC — the Naval Oceanography Command Center/Joint Typhoon Warning Center. Standing near his desk, opposite a screen displaying a radar image of a cloud formation, he sipped his coffee and studied satellite photos of an area of the Pacific Ocean.
Beatty worked as a satellite analyst for an organization composed of 148 men — five civilians, 28 officers and 115 enlisted from within the air force and navy. The NOCC provided weather forecasts and environmental support for the Western Pacific and Indian Oceans, from the bottom of the oceans to the top of the atmosphere. This vast expanse covered forty million square miles, representing forty percent of the earth’s ocean surface. The navy side of the JTWC — Beatty’s section — furnished the Seventh Fleet of the US Navy and the civilian communities of Micronesia with typhoon alerts and other destructive weather early warnings. In addition to the satellite pictures, he and the others were involved in constant surveillance of the ocean areas, thanks to reports from air force and navy weather planes and ships, weather stations on the islands, and data fed to them from the navy’s largest computer situated in Monterey, California.