A Glint In Time (History and Time) (9 page)

Friday, August 25, 1995
Ammero Group Compound
Indonesia

Excerpt from the Personal Narrative,
of Dr. William E. Wirtz, PhD

Recorded July 2006
CLASSIFIED CONFIDENTIAL
/
TA

"Ted was full of questions, but no suggestions for action.Only
weeks
or months later did I get background information that helped me understand his predicament."

After lunch, Ted and Sally practically carried Bill and Janet out of the building and out to the walkway going down to the river. As they walked, Ted and Sally explained what they found when they ran the scenario on the Florida computer.

Sally said, "If we can keep the two Russians distracted, I'll find a way to link two consoles to the network in Florida. Your access won't be real fast, but you'll have the big screens and the analysis tools. Hopefully, you can see why the two computer systems show such different outcomes.

"I understand, Sally" Bill said. But his face showed confusion and concern. "How are you going to keep the Russians occupied?"

"With Ted's help, I think we can setup a glitch in the two front consoles. Hopefully, that will let us modify two consoles in the back of the room so you two can work through the satellite link to the Florida network. Ted, here is a safety pin ~ it came from the cleaning tag on my blouse— I want you to push it through the coaxial cable feeding the wiring hub in the front of the room. You have to get it right through the center so it shorts the braid of the coaxial cable to the center conductor. This is a trick we used to play on people in engineering school. If you bend the pin back and forth to break it off flush with the insulation, they'll never find it."

"Ted, what did you see when you tried the scenario with the laptop computer?" Janet asked. Bill was confused, but Janet seemed very focused.

"All, I know for sure is that it was very different from what we saw here. Bill was concerned by the fact that so little changed when we ran various scenarios here. Well something big changed when the Florida computer looked at it." Ted explained.

Bill swore and muttered under his breath. "I knew it wasn't right. Let's get back."

"No." Ted said. "Let's finish our walk and act naturally. The Woo family has a lot at stake here and they seem to get things pretty much their way. They won't want us screwing things up for them. Keep cool. We're a long way from the good old USA."

When they finally got back to the computer room, Ted busied himself with a little pinpoint sabotage. Just seconds

after Ted had broken off the pin in the cable and walked into the kitchen, the Russians emerged from their room in a cloud of strong cigarette smoke. They were obviously investigating an operational alarm from their computer management system.

"Those consoles in back seem to have lost their network connections." Sally offered. "See what you can find and I'll check these out."

The two Russian technicians seemed happy to let her do just that, so she set each of the two front consoles in maintenance mode, accessed the underlying communications program, and set each console's network address to that of a computer in Florida. As soon as she was done, Bill and Janet quickly sat down. "Give me a minute." Sally said quietly. "I have to re-program the routers and then you'll be in."

The Russians worked for over an hour on the consoles in the back while Bill and Janet worked quietly in the front. Finally, the Russians replaced the sabotaged cable. Sally heard them talking quietly as they examined the old cable. They took it with them as they left the main room.

Ted and Sally sat down at the rear consoles, put on headsets, and tapped into the discussion and interaction between Bill and Janet.

"Tag that event, Jan. Now let's move down and make the system work the problem and show us what it thinks is causing this branch to terminate. Okay, now let's go to text."

The text Bill was talking about was really a shorthand script produced by the computer to explain its links and logic. Bill and Janet could read it quickly, but it was an unknown language to Sally. She and Ted kept quiet as they monitored. Bill and Janet were on a roll and they didn't want to slow them down.

"We changed the Cuban Missile Crisis." Bill said as he skimmed the text. "Nuclear explosions in the Florida straits. One to two million instantly die in Florida. Then there are two branches. One shows terrible economic conditions in the US for decades and the other shows a short nuclear exchange between the US and the Soviet Union. The chances of going down either branch are 50/50. No wonder this scenario showed no Vietnam war. The US became an introverted and paranoid country after it suffered a nuclear attack. The reliability of the projections quickly falls to zero after that. There is no reliable basis for any scenario projections beyond the nuclear explosions."

"How come this didn't show up on the local computer" Janet asked.

"The program isn't identical." Bill said. "That can be the only answer."

"But why would they be different?" Janet asked.

"Because somebody put in a sub-program to block out catastrophic events." Bill replied. "Let me see this reference, Janet. Pull it down in plain text." Bill said.He highlighted a reference to known data in the timeline.

Bill read aloud in a quiet voice."In a 1989 meeting in Moscow, people who had participated in the Cuban Missile Crisis candidly exchanged information on their capabilities, motivation, and knowledge at the time. The US was worried about twenty long range missiles. Unknown to the US, the Soviet commander in Cuba had an additional nine tactical missiles with nuclear warheads and the authority to use them. During the 1989 meeting, he stated firmly that he would have launched the tactical missiles against any US invasion fleet or in the event of a US air strike on his forces. All of south Florida, Miami, US Naval facilities at Key West, and Air Force facilities at Homestead were in his range."

"So somehow the survival of Joe Kennedy Junior kicked off stronger action against the Soviet missiles in Cuba and the Soviets launched the tactical missiles with nuclear warheads!" Janet exclaimed.

"Yes, and there is a 20% chance that the longer range R-12s were launched too." Bill replied. "What's also driving the scenario is the fact that the US Strategic Air Command, under the control of Curtis LeMay, sent nuclear armed bombers beyond their fail safe points at the time of the deadline. Both sides had their fingers much tighter on the nuclear triggers than anyone thought before the 1989 meeting. We were right on the brink and the computer thinks that the presence of Joe Junior, either as president or as the primary advisor to the president, would have pushed us over."

Janet said, "One nuclear explosion down there would have poisoned the Straights of Florida, Lake Okeechobee, and then the whole Gulf of Mexico. The effects on the environment would have been awful!"

"And we gave the Woo family the bullets for their gun." Bill said.

Sally was unable to speak. Either the horrible Vietnam War would continue to be a part of her life or she had contributed to the death of millions of Americans and maybe as many Russians. She wanted to bang her head into the console, but she tore off the headset and put her head down on her arms and started to cry instead. A minute later she gasped when she felt a hand on her leg.

Sally's eyes popped open and she looked down to see Ted on the floor under her chair. He had a finger to his lips and his eyes begged for silence. He moved his hand from her leg to her shoulder and slowly but firmly pulled her down. Then she became aware of a commotion at the front of the room. Bill was speaking loudly. "You can't do this to us! What are you doing?"

From her position under the console, Sally could hear a short reply and then some scuffling. Janet yelled, someone flew across a chair and fell heavily, and there were more shouts and sounds of blows. It became apparent that someone was pushing Bill and Janet out of the room. The sounds moved away and toward the kitchen. Sally felt Ted pushing her in the other direction, toward the door that led to the bathrooms and an outside hallway. She crawled her

way toward the back of the room and then stood up when she got to the door. Ted pushed her against the wall next to the door and then opened it quickly. There was no one in the hallway.

Ted grabbed her wrist and they walked briskly down the hall. Sally almost screamed when the door to the bathroom opened and a tall Indonesian walked out, holding a wad of toilet paper to his bleeding nose. He was the burly and sullen fellow who had taken their bags at the airport. Ted moved like a blur. He punched the man below the belt, forcing him to double up. Ted's knee caught him in the nose and his head flew back up. Ted rapped the man's head against the door jam and then pushed him back into the bathroom and closed the door.

"Out the door and run for the river." Ted said.

IN THE RIVER AND THROUGH THE WOODS

Friday, August 25, 1995
Indonesian Countryside

Excerpt from the Personal Narrative
of Brigadier
General Ted Arthurs

Recorded May 2006
CLASSIFIED SECRET/TA

"Hostage rescue was always the plan we worked from. But I know that there were other agendas running."

Sally knew the route very well, so she just ran. Ted was at her side and out of the corner of her eye she noticed that he was pushing buttons on his pager as he kept pace with her. Then she heard a shout.

Two men came out of the other side of the building, hopped into a golf cart, and started after them. Sally quit running in any rhythm and just pumped her legs as fast as she could. Ted was still with her as they made a turn around an ornamental planting. She heard the golf cart right behind. Suddenly, a figure seemed to unfold itself from the ground next to the path.The figure pointed a stubby pipe at Sally and she saw a cloud of smoke. She heard the golf cart engine die out and then the sounds of the cart crashing into shrubbery.

"Shit man, cool. It worked!" the green suited figure said.

Sally stopped and turned to see Ted and the green figure looking at the crashed golf cart. As they turned back toward Sally, she heard Ted say, "The aerosol fiberglass?"

"Damn straight." The other man replied. I hit the driver in the arms and chest and it was like an instant body cast."

Sally now saw that the green figure had on a kind of green body suit and camouflage paint to match the foliage. She saw a grave-like opening in the grass under a tree. Apparently their jolly green savior had been laying in a hole covered with sod.

"How far to the hide?" Ted asked.

"Had to be across the river. This place has video cameras everywhere. They can see us now, by the way." the other man replied.

Ted looked at Sally and said, "Come on, let's get to the river."

"Spare air?" Ted asked as they ran. "Yeah, I've got five.Any more coming?" "No, " Ted said, "this is it for now.

"I know you!" Sally said as she ran. "You helped move my satellite antenna in Florida. You're part of the volley ball team."

The green man laughed, "Yeah, and now the other side has the serve."

It only took them a couple of minutes to reach the river. Then the man in green reached into his pack and came out with three silver pressure bottles -each one about the size of a baby bottle. Each silver bottle had a small mouthpiece.

"Sally, this thing is called Spare Air. It's just a small Scuba tank. It's good for quite a few minutes at the shallow depth we'll be at." He tore at an envelope at the side of the tank and gave her a pair of swimming goggles. “Put these on. Keith, what's the track?"

The man in green, now identified as Keith said, "It's a thousand beats to the crawl. Then one click on a one two zero. I'll cover and divert."

Ted said,"He means it's a thousand flipper beats, about a thousand yards, down to where we'll crawl out of the river. Then we'll head southeast for one kilometer to the place we'll hide. Our guys will be watching for us. We'll keep you between us, but if we get separated, then follow that plan. Go for a thousand steps, get out of the river, put the sun on your right ear and head out. Keith will be in back covering our tracks and acting as a diversion."

"But Bill and Janet!" Sally said. This was all too wild and she wanted to slow things down.

"We'll worry about them when we get safe. Right now we're going to disengage, assess, and reorganize. We have

friends, safety, and communications on the other side of the river. Now let's get going."

Ted's words were punctuated by the sound of more voices and golf carts coming in their direction.

Ted led the way over the wall and down the slope to the river. Keith stayed at the wall. When she got her feet into the water Sally looked back up the slope to see Keith throwing four black spheres down the path and into the brush on either side. Then he unrolled what looked like a strip of soft putty two feet long and an inch wide and laid it on the wall. He attached a small black one inch cube to one end, unwound a thin wire from the back of the cube, and stuck it into the other end of the putty. Finally, he took a Beretta automatic with a silencer out of his bag.

Ted pulled the pin on the Spare Air and handed it to Sally. "Take a breath."

She put it in her mouth and pulled in canned air. "Try to keep your breathing rate down. We're going to be right on the edge of the supply."

Sally put the goggles over her eyes and followed Ted into the river. It was a dark green soup with strange brown things floating in it.

"Are those... ?"

"Who knows, but don't drink the water. Remember, you'll be breathing air under pressure just like from a big

tank. Exhale even if you go up one or two feet. We don't want you to pop something. The real problem is staying submerged without weights. Breathe shallow. Let's go."

Sally slipped in the mouthpiece and let herself sink into the warm water of the river. Her wet clothes weighted her down. After she put her head under, the light only filtered down a few inches below the surface before everything was dark.