The Traveler Page 15

  Henri saw that this room was different from the outer areas. Here there were pictures, old black-and-white photos ensconced in old-fashioned bubble frames. Some were of family but most were of children, two of them in particular. Jack and the others recognized a young Moira Mendelsohn as she was standing next to a small boy with the same color hair and the same soft features of Moira. There were no less than six of these pictures with only the boy and the young woman in them. The rest were old-world European pictures of family that had long since departed this life, one way or the other, in Eastern European standards of the time—especially if you were Jewish or Gypsy or any other malcontent as seen in the eyes of Nazi Germany.

  “You must have very strong contacts in the Israeli government to come up with my name, gentlemen.” The old woman who looked surprisingly healthy for her eighty-seven years slowly lit a cigarette and then fixed Jack with a kind stare. She gestured to four ornate chairs that had been placed in front of the large desk.”Please, I hate people looking down at me … have a seat.”

  “No, Madam Mendelsohn, we do not,” Collins said as he took his chair. “What we did have was a frightened woman searching for a man who has been lost. A very good incentive for treason, at least for some.”

  “Love, while not always sane, is at most times a good reason. Gentlemen, tell me what it is you wish of me. If it’s blackmail of some kind, I’m afraid those money years are far behind me, so, what can I do for you?”

  “Can you tell us about Professor Lars Thomsen?” Collins asked.

  Moira Mendelsohn became silent as she puffed on her cigarette and looked the four men over. Instead of answering she pushed a button on a small device.

  “Angela, please bring in some refreshment for our guests.”

  Collins saw the woman study them as she smoked. She made no attempt to answer Jack’s query as she waited.

  It wasn’t long before the doors were parted and a cart with many bottles on it was rolled in by a petite lady in a nice skirt and blouse.

  “Gentlemen, what will you have?”

  “Nothing for—” Jack started to say but Henri stopped him.

  “I am a man of your own tastes, Madam, I will have a gin and tonic with a twist.” He looked at Collins, hoping Jack would catch on that this woman wanted to sit and talk. Not having a drink was an old-fashioned way of saying just hurry up and spill your secrets. Henri knew how to question people to get what he wanted. “Mr. Collins here and the others will have the same.”

  The old woman nodded toward the woman and she started making ice-clinking noises. When she was done she left the cart, and the bodyguard closed the doors behind her.

  “A true cold-blooded son of a bitch.”

  Jack almost choked on his drink as she said the startling words.

  “Excuse me?” he asked when he gained control of his coughing. Then he realized she was just answering his earlier question.

  “Thomsen was a sadistic bastard who would do anything to prove his theories correct. Anything.” She took a drink of her gin and tonic and then crushed out her cigarette. “But then again you have my debrief file from the Mossad; you know what I said in 1946 about the man. It should come as no surprise that time has not healed all wounds, nor dare I say blurred the memory. It never will.” She became still as the four men saw she was deep in thought of the memory of Thomsen and his brutal displacement theories.

  “As brutal as this Kraut doc was, did he ever prove what it is he was out to prove?” Jenks asked as he quickly drained his gin and tonic, burped, and then looked at the old woman. She lit another cigarette as the master chief rose and poured his own drink; this time it was forty-year-old whiskey. He returned to his seat and awaited the answer to his question.

  “You know he did, at least if you read my file. That is if you believe my tale; the Israeli government did not. They filed it away as insanity brought on by years of incarceration. So, according to the powers that be, I’m insane.”

  “Are you?” Henri asked, cutting directly to the point.

  Moira Mendelsohn laughed out loud and placed the cigarette into a glass ashtray and then clapped her hands together. Even her bodyguard bent over to stifle a laugh.

  “Absolutely, certifiably insane.” She continued to laugh until finally she had to moisten her throat. She looked at Jenks, drained her own glass, and then held it out for a refill and the bodyguard moved to supply it. He also removed Jenks’s glass and refilled it once again.

  “We know it worked, Ms. Mendelsohn,” Jack said as he placed his glass on the desk and then eased back in his seat. The laughter stopped.

  “Blue diamonds, patents on light-emitting technology and power amplification. Yes, we do know you did it, there and here.”

  The old woman looked at Collins and then took a drag off her cigarette. She watched Jack for the longest time—long enough that he thought his abrupt declaration about her involvement had made her scared and thus she’d clam up. Jack decided to push it and nudged Henri’s leg and nodded.

  “Please, tell us what it is,” Farbeaux asked as he took in the shaking fingers of the lady in the expensive wheelchair. “They wouldn’t allow you to elaborate during both your British and Israeli debriefs. Once you mentioned what Nazi science was up to their attention span waned somewhat as the Allied mission at the time was solely concentrating on the criminality of Thomsen and his experiments. Am I correct in assuming this—Traveler?”

  All of them, the large bodyguard included, stopped and watched the visibly shaken woman. She tried to light another cigarette but then noticed she already had one lit sitting in the ashtray. She closed the top of her decorative cigarette box and then looked away from the men. It took a full minute but she finally turned back.

  “I haven’t been called that in seventy-four years.” Her eyes were downcast as she seemed to be going back to a place she did not care for at all. That was when Will nudged Jack and they all saw the numbered tattoo on her forearm. She made no attempt to hide it when she saw them looking. “Please do not refer to me as … well, as that name. It was their name for me, their little code-induced paranoia.” She seemed to calm somewhat when she took a large swallow of her drink. The large man came to her side and leaned down close to her face. She whispered that she was all right and patted his thick arm. With a dirty look at the four visitors, the man made his way to the back of the study and waited in the shadows.

  “Did his theory work?” Jenks persisted, suspecting that the truth of this historical farce would soon be disclosed by the very woman who began the rumors over seventy years before.

  “Yes, six times.”

  The silence that greeted her comment seemed to go on forever. The only thing that happened was a frown from the large bodyguard as he suddenly turned and left the study, closing the doors behind him. “Gentlemen, please, what is it you want of me and the Wellsian Doorway?”

  “Wellsian Doorway?” Jack asked.

  “Yes, their euphemism for the one and only time machine ever constructed. And, yes, it worked. Personally I believe H. G. Wells would roll over in his grave to know the Nazis had crowned their scientific achievement by naming their machine after him. But the Nazis didn’t care for much, as history tells you. As for me, I learned it firsthand.”

  “Six times you traveled?” Jenks asked, still not believing.

  They all saw the hesitant action of Moira as she puffed her cigarette and looked upon her questioners. It was the question posed by Jenks that made her hesitant.

  “Yes, six times I traveled two years into the past. Same space, differing times.”

  Jenks looked at Jack and rolled his eyes.

  “Impossible,” the master chief said, not caring what Collins or the others thought. He was an engineer and if someone told you about the impossible you had to go with what you knew.

  “Yes, it was impossible, until it wasn’t,” she said as she again crushed out her cigarette. “The theory has always been sound, but having the equipment, and for that
equipment to be placed at the right time is the key. Without two corresponding doorways, there is no displacement. The link between time and space has to meet and you need a doorway to do that. And the doorway can only be placed in the past, or otherwise just how are you going to build a doorway in a past that has already happened?”

  “In other words you’re saying that in order to time travel successfully you need to have built an identical doorway to the one you are using. Without that…?”

  She looked at Jack and smiled. “You would end up anywhere but where it is you wanted to be. Even another dimension. The possibilities are endless and unfathomable.”

  “You duplicated the experiments, didn’t you?” Henri asked, pushing just a little more.

  Again Moira became silent as she watched the men before her.

  “I sense you are not bad men.” She looked at Henri for a moment longer than the others. “Not all bad anyway,” she finished as Henri smiled and winked at the old woman. “What do you want the Wellsian Doorway for? If it’s a military application, I would just as soon blow my own brains out than to have that happen again.”

  “We lost someone,” Jack said. “A friend.”

  Moira listened as Jack explained for a few moments. She turned her chair away from them as she thought about their lost friend.

  “I’m sorry, gentlemen, but your friend will forever remain lost to you.”

  Before she explained both Jenks and Jack saw the flaw in what they were asking.

  “We don’t have a doorway in the past for us to lock on to,” Collins rightly guessed at her answer just as his hopes deflated. Jenks was thinking another way but remained quiet.

  “I am so sorry.”

  Henri wasn’t in the least defeated.

  “Can you tell us what it is you have hidden at the Brooklyn Navy Yard, building number one-seventeen, the one with the inordinate amount of protection?”

  She smiled at Farbeaux, knowing she had pegged the man correctly. He was a cad and a bounder and she immediately liked the Frenchman.

  “You are government, aren’t you?”

  “Yes, but we are your government. And if we ever have an opportunity to prove this displacement correct, it would be used once and destroyed, as per orders from our director.”

  She laughed heartily. She stopped and fixed Jack with a glaring look.

  “Then your director must be a highly unusual man to throw away such power.”

  “He is,” Jack and Will said at the same time.

  “Such loyalty gives a man great power when his subordinates love him so much.” She smiled again as she lit her fourth cigarette. “Much like another man in history—he had loyal followers, too.”

  “Madam, our director, how can I explain this? Well, he’s no Adolf Hitler. He can sure as hell come down on you sometimes, but he is the best man outside of this room that I have ever known,” Will said as the old woman looked at Jack, knowing the young black man was referencing not only their director, but the big man sitting right in front of her. She took up the old-fashioned phone receiver that looked as if it could be used as a lethal bludgeon and made a connection.

  “Peter, yes, I will have four men stopping by this afternoon. Allow them total access to building one-seventeen, please. Full cooperation will be given. Thank you.” She hung up and then fixed Jack with her stern look. “I know how it is to lose someone who is close to you and cannot get them back. I know, I have tried on more than those six occasions you mentioned. But since you cannot make any attempt for displacement without a second doorway, I see no harm in allowing you to see it.”

  “See what?” Mendenhall asked.

  Moira Mendelsohn started the silent electric motor on her wheelchair and then made her way to the door, which magically opened as she gestured that their appointment time was up. She did turn and smile as she waited next to the guard. “To see what it is you came to see, gentlemen.”

  The four men stood as they knew they were being asked to leave.

  “And that is?” the master chief asked gruffly as he placed a cold cigar into his mouth.

  “Why, my own Wellsian Doorway, of course.”

  Jenks smiled as did the others with the exception of Collins. For Jack suspected that without a second doorway the mission was lost to them. But Jenks couldn’t contain his enjoyment.

  “Now this I have to see.”

  6

  BROOKLYN NAVY YARD, BROOKLYN, NEW YORK (BUILDING 117)

  They passed through the main gate of the old navy yard, a starting point for hundreds of thousands of American troops in two world wars and was the building site for some of the most famous warships this nation has ever produced. From heavy cruisers to battleships, the navy yard had seen it all, but in 1966 the Department of the Navy decommissioned the yard and she had fallen on hard times since. The yard was now in the middle of a preservation fight and was modernizing most of the old buildings where 70,000 workers once made the United States Navy the most powerful afloat.

  “I have to admit this place is looking better than it did a few years ago. I almost built USS Teacher here but decided New Orleans was better suited to my style,” Jenks said, and then looked over at the Frenchman and gave him a dirty look.

  “Master Chief, I was never on your marvelously designed boat, but from what the colonel says, it was a real kicker.” Henri smiled over at Jenks.

  “All right, you two, we’ll turn this car right around,” Will said, turning in the front seat to face the two opposites.

  “Where in the hell is this Julien fellow taking us?” Jack asked as he maneuvered the rental car around a series of old wharves and warehouses.

  “Maybe the old woman decided not to be so cooperative,” Will said, feeling somewhat better having weapons in the vehicle.

  “No, you can see she’s been a straight shooter all of her life.” Jack looked over at Mendenhall. “Besides, I give anyone who went through what that woman and millions of others went through the benefit of the doubt.”

  “There it is,” Jenks said from the backseat.

  Jack saw building 117 through the rain that had just started to fall. Collins hit the pulse wipers and cleared the glass as he pulled in behind the Range Rover. They all watched as Moira’s man Julien and two others stepped from the navy blue vehicle. They were met by a uniformed guard and together the four men went to the front of the building.

  Jack stepped from the car and as he did he examined the exterior of building 117. It was lined by an old dry dock that might have been used for commercial ships because of its compact size. The building itself was unremarkable. Brick and mortar. The glass windows, about five thousand of them, were all painted over and secured with outside locks. The small arch covering a loading dock and main office entrance had seen far better days as both awnings hung limp and shredded. The building wasn’t one of the oldest built in 1806 when the yard first opened, but it was in the same century range.

  Collins stood in the lightly falling rain and then saw the old dry dock area next to the building. He saw the pile of bricks next to the water and walked the few feet over and then knelt down. Weeds had covered most of the fallen brick but Jack managed to tear some of this loose. Underneath he saw an old green-tarnished bronze plaque and he leaned closer. He removed a handkerchief from his coat pocket and brushed away years of grime that had covered the words.

  ATTENTION

  ON THIS DAY OF SEPTEMBER 21, 1864

  COMMISSIONING CEREMONIES WERE CONDUCTED FOR

  U.S.S. ARGO

  MONITOR CLASS VESSEL

  Jack pulled the kerchief away and then smiled and shook his head. He remembered the tale as told to him by Niles Compton and Garrison Lee over ten years before. He stood up and wiped his hands.

  “What is it, Colonel?” Mendenhall asked as he stepped up to see what had interested Collins.

  “Nothing, just a coincidence, a strange coincidence, but one nonetheless.” With one last look at the old and forgotten plaque, Jack made a promise
to have the dry dock marker removed back to the complex—it needed to go home.

  As Collins turned away, Mendenhall saw what he had been studying. He raised a brow, confused, and then followed Jack to the front doors.

  “Well, shall we see what there is to see?” Jack said as he moved to the steps that led upward toward the office.

  The uniformed guard held the door open for the four men as they entered. The rain started falling harder and the guard quickly closed the door. All four turned as one when they heard the outside locks being engaged.

  “The building is secured on the outside and inside at all times,” Julien said as he stood before a large aluminum door.

  “Yeah, and what does the New York City fire department have to say about locking folks inside a dilapidated building?”

  “They say nothing, because we have paid millions in bribes to keep them from saying anything,” Julien answered as he gave Jenks a curious look, as if bribery was an everyday occurrence.

  “Oh,” was all he said.

  The large man was joined by his two companions and together they unlocked the aluminum door, and then one hit a large red button and the door began to go up. Jack and Henri both noticed that all three men stepped away from the darkness beyond the door as it rose. Julien in particular looked as uncomfortable as any man Jack had seen opening a door. He and Henri exchanged questioning looks.

  Julien swallowed and then reached into the darkness and switched on a light. He quickly pulled his hand out and then faced the four men.

  “Through the door and down the stairs, two flights.” He handed Jack a set of two keys. “One opens the work areas, the other the main laboratory; you’ll know which. The noise you’ll hear are the pumps needed to keep the basement and subbasement clear of water from the river and dry dock area. You have thirty minutes.”