Murphy was about to add that, out of all the UFO sightings and abductions he had investigated in ten years with the OPS, he had yet to find one which panned out in terms of hard evidence. He had interviewed dozens of people who claimed to have been taken aboard extraterrestrial spacecraft and collected enough out-of-focus photos of disc-shaped objects to fill a file cabinet, yet after a decade of government service, he had never found an alien or an alien spacecraft. He let it pass, though; this was not the time nor place to be questioning his agency’s mission or methods, nor were these the people to whom he should be expressing his doubts.
“Not th’ same thing, man. Not th’ same thing.” Although there was still some beer left in his mug, Harry reached for the pitcher, but Kent snagged it first. “If’n there was time travelers, they’d sway… stay hidden. Nobody would know they were there. They’d do it for their own good. Right?”
Kent barked laughter as he poured the last dregs into his mug. “Yeah, sure. Like we got people from th’ future all ’round us now…”
“Well, shit, we might.” Harry turned toward some guys seated nearby. “Hey, any of you fuggers from the future?”
They glared at him, but said nothing. Cindy was wiping tables and putting up chairs; she shot them a dark look. It was getting close to last call; she didn’t seem to be happy to have garrulous drunks harassing her last remaining customers. “You wanna cool it?” Kent murmured. “Geez, I didn’t meanta make it a federal case…”
“Hey, it is a federal case, man! Thass what we do, izzn’it? I say we bust this place for acceptin’ time-travelers withoutta… withoutta… fuck, I dunno, a green card?”
Harry reached into his suit pocket, pulled out his badge holder with the OPS seal engraved on its leatherette cover, started to push back his chair. That was enough for Murphy; he grabbed Harry’s wrist before he could stand up. “Hey, hey, take it easy…
Harry started to pull his hand free, but Murphy hung on. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Cindy giving the bartender a discreet hand signal; they were about a second away from being thrown out. “Calm down,” he murmured. “Keep this up and we’re going to land in jail.”
Harry glowered at him, and for a moment Murphy wondered if he was going to throw a punch. Then he grinned and dropped back into his chair. The badge folder slipped from his hand and fell onto the table. “Shit, man… I was just kidding, thass all. Jus’ makin’ a point, y’know.”
“Yeah, that’s right.” Murphy relaxed, pulled his hand away. “I know. You’re just kidding.”
“Thass right. Y’know an’ I know… ain’ no such thing as… geez, whatchamacallit…”
“I know, I know. We got the point….”
And that was it. Murphy hung around long enough to make sure that Harry had a cab ride and that he wouldn’t cause any more trouble, then he pulled on his parka and headed for the door, pausing at the bar to guiltily slip a five-spot into Cindy’s tip glass. The sidewalk was empty; the night frigid and silent. Pale exhaust fumes from the waiting taxi lingered above the curb like pallid ghosts; he climbed in, gave the driver directions to his place in Arlington, then settled back against the duct-taped seat and gazed out the frosted windows as they passed the floodlighted dome of the Capitol building.
Time travel. Jesus. What a stupid idea.
Thursday, May 6, 1937: 7:04 P.M.
The leviathan descended from the slate-gray sky. At first it was a silver ovoid, but as it turned northeast, it gradually expanded in size and shape, taking on the dimensions of a vast pumpkin seed. As the drone of its four diesel engines reached the crowd gathered in the New Jersey meadow, Navy seamen in white caps jogged toward an iron mooring mast positioned in the center of the landing field. Everyone else stared up at the behemoth as it cruised six hundred feet overhead, its great shadow passing across their faces as it began making a sharp turn to the west. Now they could clearly see the swastikas on its vertical stabilizers, the Olympic rings on the fuselage above the passenger windows, and—above its control gondola, just aft of its blunt prow, painted in enormous Gothic letters—the giant’s name.
Within the airship, passengers stood at tilted cellon windows on A Deck’s promenade, watching as the Hindenberg made its final approach to Lakehurst Naval Air Station. They were arriving thirteen hours late, due to high headwinds over the Atlantic and an additional delay while a thunderstorm swept out to sea, but few people cared; during the last few hours, they had gazed down upon the spire of the Empire State Building, caused a Dodgers game to grind to a halt as they passed over Ebbets Field, and watched whitecaps breaking on the Jersey shore. Stewards had already carried their baggage to the gangway stairs aft of the staterooms, where it now lay piled beneath the bronze bust of Marshal von Hindenberg. It had been a wonderful trip: three days aboard the world’s largest and most glamorous airship, a flying hotel where mornings began with breakfast in the dining room and evenings ended with brandy and cigars in the smoking room.
Now the voyage was over, though, and everyone wanted to get their feet on the ground again. For the Americans, it was homecoming; in a few minutes, they’d be reunited with family and friends waiting for them at the aerodrome. For the sixty-one crew members, it was the Hindenbergs seventh flight to the United States, the first this year. For a couple of German Jews, it was escape from the harsh regime that had taken control of their native country. For three Luftwaffe intelligence officers posing as tourists, it was a temporary layover in a decadent nation of mongrels.
For the passengers listed on the manifest as John and Emma Pannes, it was the beginning of the final countdown.
Franc Lu raised a hand from the promenade rail to his spectacles, gently tapped their wire frame as if absently adjusting them. A readout appeared on the inside of the right lens: 19:11:31/–13:41(1).
“Thirteen minutes,” he murmured.
Lea Oschner said nothing, but gripped the rail a little harder. Around them, passengers were chatting, laughing, pointing at baffled cows in the pastures far below. The airship’s faint shadow was larger now, and moving closer; according to history, the Hindenberg would drop to 120 meters as it turned eastward again, heading back toward the mooring mast. The passenger decks were soundproof, so they couldn’t hear the engines, but Captain Pruss should now be ordering the engines reduced to idle-ahead; in another minute, they would be reversed to brake the airship for its docking maneuver.
“Relax,” he whispered. “Nothing’s going to happen yet.”
Lea forced a smile, but furtively clasped the back of his hand. Everyone around them was having a wonderful time; it was important that she and Franc appear just as carefree. They were John and Emma Pannes, from Manhasset, Long Island. John Pannes was the Passenger Manager for Hamburg-American German Lloyd Lines, the company that was the American representative for the Zeppelin airship fleet. Emma Pannes, fifteen years younger than her husband, was originally from Illinois. She had followed John’s job from Philadelphia to New York, and now they were returning from another business trip to Germany.
Nice, quiet, middle-aged people who wouldn’t be at all nervous about being aboard the Hindenberg despite the fact that thirteen… no, make that twelve… minutes from now, they were destined to die.
Yet John and Emma Pannes wouldn’t perish in the coming inferno. In fact, they were very much alive, well, and living somewhere in the twenty-fourth century. The CRC advance team had quietly abducted them from their hotel suite at the Frankfurter Hof in the predawn hours of May 3, 1937, and delivered them safely to its safe house outside Frankfurt; by now they should have been picked up by the Miranda and transported to A.D. 2314. Franc hoped that the real John Pannes wouldn’t object too strongly to being kidnapped; given the alternative, though, he rather doubted that he would, once the facts were explained to him and his wife.