A Glint In Time (History and Time) (17 page)

Rajesh and Fahd worked on a plan. A cousin of Fahd had a gun he had stolen from a store where he worked. They would enter the house through the sliding door, threaten the child with the gun, and get all of the information on the time project from the officer. Then, they would transmit the information to Al-Qaeda. Fahd assured Rajesh that there would be plenty of time to train the whore to serve him.

PROTECT AND DEFEND

Thursday, September 18, 2001
1800 Eastern
Homestead, FL

Excerpt from the Personal Narrative
of Brig Gen Fred Landry, PhD, (USAF Ret)

Recorded July 2006
CLASSIFIED TOP SECRET/TA

"We
didn't do anything special about security. We didn't conceive of a threat of any kind to the Project."

Excerpt from the Personal Narrative
of Major General Ted Arthurs

Recorded February 2008
CLASSIFIED TOP SECRET/TA

". . . . .we were
so focused on New York. What could happen in Homestead, Florida? The fact that the hijackers had trained at an airport about ten miles up the road from us in Kendall, Florida never entered our minds."

After they cleaned up their work space for the day, Ted and Sally gathered Patrick and joined Bill at a local restaurant in Homestead. "Cuban food?" Ted observed. "What do you recommend?"

Bill replied while still looking at the menu. "Simple food. Good stuff like fried pork chunks, roasted chicken, or Ropa Vieja. Of course with side dishes of plantains, black beans, and rice."

Sally said, "Pork for Patrick. He'll eat a ton of rice."Sally and Ted hadn't ever introduced Patrick to chicken fingers. Sally wasn't sure why kids were addicted to them, but she was sure it wasn't a good thing. Ted went for the Ropa Vieja and Sally said she'd try the Vaca Frita. "Fried cow. How nice."

It's marinated flank steak." Bill supplied. "I think fried cow has more dignity." Sally told him.

Still looking at the menu, Bill grunted. "Moros."He said. "It's the short term for black beans and white rice. But, the long name is Moros Y Cristianos. That means Moors and Christians. There is history there going back to seven hundred AD when the Arabs occupied Spain."

"This little argument has been going on for a very long time." Ted observed.

"Western Europeans and North Americans don't tend to remember much beyond the last news cycle. But this conflict goes well beyond last week."Bill said.

They spent some easy time drinking Sangria and talking about the things they'd done over the past five years. Bill was, as he said, "Between women." right now. Sally was pretty sure that meant that he had more than one on the

"Wait a minute." Sally said. "Whoever is waiting out there expects to see both of us. If you go back to the house alone they might not do anything. I'll leave Patrick here, but I'm going with you. Do you have another one of those?"She pointed at the automatic.

"Now you wait a minute." Julie said. "I'm not easy with all this firepower going out my door."

Sally put Patrick down on the floor and walked over to her husband. "We've both got permits to carry concealed in North Carolina that are recognized in Florida. My Beretta PX4 is locked in a small strong box at the house."She held her hand out for the gun and Ted handed it to her without a pause. Sally dropped the clip, jacked the slide, hit the slide release, removed the slide, removed the barrel, retained the spring, and handed the parts to Ted. He reversed the process and put the automatic into his waistband. In the few seconds it took Ted to reassemble the Smith, Woody had done his disappearing act again and reappeared with a Glock Model 26. "For a small gun, I like that 26 better than the PX4." he said as he handed it to Sally.

They spent about thirty seconds coming up with a plan. Jocko left silently though the back door. He was going to get his own vehicle and get into position at Ted and Sally's rental house. Woody would follow the guy who was following them. A few minutes later, Ted, Sally, and Bill waived a noisy goodbye at the door of the condo. Sally carried a pillow wrapped in a blanket to simulate a sleeping Patrick. On the way out the door they were introduced to two off duty Homestead officers who were coming to visit Julie in response to the phone call she just made. Patrick would have some pretty fierce babysitters.

"Bill," Ted said. "It will look suspicious if we don't go back and get our car. We'll trade cars at the restaurant. Will you go back and look after Patrick?You should also tell Colonel Landry."Bill was about to object, but he knew he didn't have any of the skills this kind of situation called for. "Also," Ted added, "you have to plan the beads. You know what, where, and when to shoot them."

"Yeah, it already occurred to me that the beads appeared in the restaurant just about a minute after the time that's on my credit card receipt. I guess I already know how to do what I must have done. Or will do. I guess."

"Oh God."Sally said. "Not that again."

Their laughter drained a little nervous tension.

After changing cars and saying goodbye to Bill, Ted and Sally drove back to their rental house following the posted speed limit. They turned on the lights and rummaged around for half an hour in the kitchen and living room before

moving to the bedrooms. Sally did some normal things in the bedroom and bathroom, went to a single reading light in the bedroom, and then went totally lights out. The difference was that while Sally made noise in the bathroom, Ted stood in the dark hallway watching the living room and the bedroom windows.

When they went lights out, they sat down back-to-back in the hallway. Now, each one was armed with two weapons: Their own that they retrieved from the small safe and the ones they got from Woody. They supported each other with their backs and rocked rhythmically and silently in the dark. After about an hour, Ted felt Sally freeze. She reached back and dug the nails of her left hand into his waist. He slowly turned halfway so he could see the bedroom windows and doors and the entry to the hallway from the living room where Sally was focused. With his left ear pointed down the hallway, he heard a crunching sound. Then, he felt and smelled the outside air and sounds as a sliding glass door off the pool area was forced open.

They had discussed the concept of letting intruders get well into the house before challenging them or opening fire.You could defend yourself in your home in Florida, but some left-leaning prosecutors wanted to hear that you had retreated and had your back to the wall before resulting to deadly force. Otherwise they might call it murder. Particularly if you were armed better than the local SWAT team.

Ted was turning and moving next to Sally. He was bringing his own Springfield Armory M191 I into line down the hallway when he heard two grunts and thuds. "Friendlies coming through. All clear. Safe 'em up.â€Ted and

Sally uncramped from their positions on the hallway floor and pointed their weapons at the ceiling. In the living room, Woody and Jocko were each standing over an inert form on the tile floor. "These guys are not good." Woody said. "No talent. We were three steps behind them all the time and they didn't have a clue. I could have tapped this guy on the shoulder and given him a heart attack. But, still it was something real. One thing, they were speaking Arabic out there. One guy speaks it like a Saudi native. He was so nervous he wouldn't shut up. The other guy is something else. Not native. They kept talking about where they were going to take you. This was supposed to be a snatch."

Sally's face was white and her jaw was tight. "What did you do to them?" She asked.

"A sleeper hold. Illegal for law enforcement in most states, but effective. They'll only be out for a few minutes. Let's hog tie 'em Jocko."Jocko and Woody slipped plastic wire ties around the wrists, elbows, knees, and ankles of the inert bodies on the floor. Then Woody pulled out a mobile phone and made a quick call to Julie. "Here." he said handing he phone to Ted. "Wirtz wants to talk to you."

"Are you guys all right?" Bill asked through the phone.

"Oh yeah.â€Ted said. We didn't do a thing, but we've got two intruders here. Broke in through the sliding glass door. We need a next step. Oh, how's Patrick?Woody says this was supposed to be a kidnapping. Is he safe?" Sally looked at him intensely, waiting for Bill's reply.

Bill replied. "He entertained the Homestead police force for a while, but then he dropped off. He's snoozing on the couch between two cops who are watching Letterman. The Colonel is fit to be tied at being out of the action. He has the FBI standing by and calling every five minutes for an update. It sounds like Elliot Ness getting ready to bust Al Capone. I'd say wait for the FBI. They'll probably break down your doors as soon as he gives them the go-ahead."

After he hung up, Ted told Sally "He's good. He's got the cops surrounded."

Woody and Jocko wanted no part of the "Feebs" as they called them. Woody retrieved his weapons. He paused a moment to look over Sally's Beretta. "Forty caliber!Goodness."He nodded with approval and the two SEALS left through the back door.

About five minutes later the FBI did not break down the door because it was wide open, but they did enter through the front door and the pool area at the same time. Ted had his Model 1911 automatic unloaded with the action open on the dining room table as the agents flowed in like a flood of suits. Sally's Beretta was back in the safe.Ted and Colonel Landry arrived only seconds later. By this time the two guys on the floor were awake and struggling. Ted and Sally recognized one of them as the man who was standing in back of their car in the parking lot. The Colonel and Ted were more amazed. "That's Rajesh Mishra. He's one of our IT guys. Database specialist."Ted said. They didn't know the other man and neither one had any ID. But, what they did have when the FBI patted them down was a case with

syringes and vials, duct tape, rolled bandages, and a small . 38 caliber revolver.

Most of the agents left with the two guys who broke into the house. The two agents remaining were young and not happy about being left behind. They had been told to "get statements."But, they decided to try to do their own interrogations. The Colonel watched for a while and then went outside to make phone calls. At one point a Homestead police cruiser delivered a sleeping Patrick and Sally put him in his bed. The FBI agents weren't sympathetic to anyone and when they started acting like Ted and Sally had done something wrong, Colonel Landry stepped outside again with his cell phone. A few minutes later two Latinos, one male and one female, each dressed a lot better than the FBI agents, walked in looking like they just stepped out of a courtroom. The two FBI agents looked at them and scowled.

"Colonel and Missus Arthurs, we're your attorneys. I'm Flaco and he's Guerrero " The woman said speaking English with a clear Cuban accent. "We caution you not to say a single word to these people. We'll help you with your statements."

The night was long, but Ted and Sally stuck to the statements that Flaco and Guerro seemed to have preloaded in a laptop computer. Two guys broke into the house. Ted woke up and got them at gunpoint while Sally cuffed them with wire ties that she had in her bag. She had wire ties because she was an electrical engineer. Yes, they worked on a classified project. They had PENTTBOM access. No, they

didn't know why these guys would want to interrogate or kidnap them. That was their story and they stuck to it.

Bill Wirtz left after midnight. He said he "Had things to do.â€The Colonel spent a lot of the night on the phone. When his cell phone battery ran down he began using the house phone. The two FBI agents seemed to be getting a lot of phone calls too. After one call where the agent simply stammered and said "Yes Sir" a number of times, the FBI agents began to ignore Ted and Sally and concentrated on vacuuming the tile floor for evidence.

The sky was light when Ted, Sally, Colonel Landry, and the two attorneys sat in the living room. The FBI was gone. "Maria and Michael, thanks for coming so quickly."Landry said to the attorneys.

"No problem, Fred."Maria replied. Throughout the night she had done the talking. Michael had watched and made notes of everything. "We know those two FBI boys. They don't like coming down here from Miami and they get an attitude. All of the good FBI guys that we know apparently left with whoever broke in here."

"I know Maria and Michael from church." Landry explained to Sally andTed.'They have quite a local reputation as defense lawyers and one of the things I did after Bill called me was to get them ready to represent you if you needed it."

"Fred had us ready to defend you on a home invasion shooting."Maria said. "This was much more interesting."

Sally said, "Interesting isn't the word."She had been pretty quiet all night.Ted sensed that she was wound tight.

As the attorneys left, Colonel Landry said,“There's nothing you can do at the Project today. I'm going to see Bill out there now. When the Cuban restaurant opens we have to take a few final measurements and then we'll take care of sending the warning beads. Those computations and shots will take up the computer system all day, so we'll put off the 9/1 1 shots until tomorrow. Unfortunately, this business tonight has raised our profile in Washington. I have a feeling we're going to get more supervision than we care for. So, first thing tomorrow we'll get going on stopping Flight 43."

"The one guy was from the Project?" Ted asked.

"Yes, he's supposed to be from Pakistan." Landry replied. "He is the database supervisor."

"As the database supervisor he could see the searches I setup in the data mining software. Sally said. "Even if he just had access to the database log files, he could drill down to see the queries if not the results. He might see the results too for that matter."

"And he wanted to either know more, or to stop you. Maybe both.â€Ted observed.

"But, my question is, what did these guys do to us in the other reality, the other timeline or whatever. What made all the warnings necessary?"Sally was more angry than