Blizzard answered without missing a beat. “Admiral, we were very much aware of Yakutsk’s presence and had been for quite some time, but yes, we were surprised when she actually surfaced. Every sailor knows that a submarine will never surface under such conditions unless it was in imminent danger of sinking. We assumed that was the case with the Yakutsk. Remember, your captain informed us almost immediately that he had lost his communications and navigational aids and admitted that all of his anti-submarine countermeasures were useless. He was down deep and sailing blind. Obviously, he had no way of knowing our strike group was on the surface directly above him, so I can only imagine the utter disbelief he must have felt when he saw us. But by then only one thought would have been on his mind: ‘I must surface my boat and save my crew.’”
The others sat silent as they listened to Blizzard’s bald-faced lie.
“I agree, Captain Blizzard.” Again, Admiral Gorshkov whispered something to the ambassador, who murmured a lengthy reply. The Americans sat in silence. Both Russians seemed to have reached an agreement because the ambassador shrugged, then switched to English. “Admiral, you have my approval to divulge any classified information if you think it will help us all understand what really happened to the Yakutsk that day.”
Admiral Gorshkov gave an involuntary sigh, took out a pristine handkerchief and wiped his brow and upper lip. Fleming saw the gesture as merely a delaying tactic while he pondered his next move. Moments passed. The Russian admiral had reached a decision. He opened an attaché case that had been parked by his feet and took out a solitary sheet of paper.
“Captain Blizzard, Gentlemen, I have not been entirely candid with you,” he began, “not because I was trying to deceive or mislead, but I just did not know how to broach the subject.” He shook his head and held open both hands in supplication. It was a gesture of resignation.
The Americans all leaned forward in anticipation of what was about to be revealed.
“Something terrible happened aboard our submarine that day,” the Russian began, “but it was only the last in a long sequence of events which had begun two days earlier. I will tell you what we do know, and what we don’t. First, the entire crew is dead. All one hundred twenty-four officers and sailors have died; we don’t know why and probably never will. When our medical officers boarded her, they were shocked at what they found. Those sailors who were already dead had taken on the appearance of old men. No, that is not correct. They were old men.” He waved a polite, but silencing hand, indicating there was more. “I know that is a preposterous statement to make, but it is how our doctors described the situation. Captain Gasparin was the last to die, but he was able to tell us a little about what had happened. He said the Yakutsk hit something that had surrounded his boat at a depth of two hundred meters. He told of an object that had no physical characteristics that his sonar could identify, yet it was most assuredly real, nonetheless. And for lack of a better word, he just called it a forcefield. The Yakutsk hit that forcefield twice within the same hour, and it was the second encounter that destroyed his submarine. But not right away.
“They surfaced off the coast of Southern Spain to radio the Northern Fleet Headquarters but were unable to acquire a satellite. The captain spoke of not being able to contact any other ships in the area, and said that he couldn’t receive any signals from civilian AM stations in Spain. Later that night, and still sailing on the surface, they stayed close to the shoreline, but for an entire hour they saw no signs of civilization anywhere. He described it as if the entire country had turned off all of the lights. His officers concluded that there must have been a massive power outage up and down the entire Iberian Coast that night, but of course, we know that was not the case. Shortly after that, the Yakutsk dived to a depth of two hundred meters, and that’s when the reactor shut itself down. Of course, they lost all of the boat’s operating systems and could not raise it to the surface. Even the emergency surfacing procedures didn’t work. They could not communicate with anyone to ask for help, and the crew had resigned themselves to dying a slow, agonizing death as their oxygen ran out. All they could now do was pray. A few hours later, sometime in the morning hours of June 20, the Yakutsk was unexpectedly hit again by a similar forcefield which blew the boat to the surface, right in the middle of your strike group.”
Admiral Gorshkov paused to steal a quick glance at his ambassador, then continued his tale for the enthralled audience.
“But the truly unexplainable phenomenon which occurred that day was this: Our submarine was now fifteen hundred kilometers from its last verifiably known position, a fact that was indeed corroborated by your Tacoma. We know this is true because the Yakutsk never transited the Straits of Gibraltar, for if she had, our satellites would have tracked that movement. Our acoustical monitors would have done the same, as I’m sure yours would have too. That never happened. So how did a submarine suddenly find itself transported such a huge distance while submerged and crippled, and did so in the blink of the proverbial eye? It’s just not possible, gentlemen, and that’s where we need your help.”
“Admiral, can we back up for just a moment?” asked Admiral Christensen, speaking for the first time. “You said the crewmembers are all dead, and they died of old age. Did I hear that part correctly?”
“You did, Admiral, but it gets worse. We now had the Yakutsk under tow, hoping to take her back to our Northern Command Submarine Base. But we soon had to abandon that idea because the boat had literally begun to fall apart. It was aging, and at an extremely rapid pace, just like her crew had aged. In less than six hours the Yakutsk was no longer seaworthy. The frigate captain called and briefed me personally on the situation. I gave the order to get the salvage crew off and to scuttle her. She went down with all hands entombed. The reactor was fully cold. A nuclear engineer from one of our frigates reported that the reactor was showing the same signs we see in all reactors that have reached the end of their useful life cycle. It was my decision. I did not want the families to know what had happened to their loved ones. How could we possibly say these young sailors had all died looking like old men? No, I want these brave mariners seen at home as the heroes they are. We will have a national day of mourning soon after our president tells the people of this tragic accident.”
The Russian ambassador pointed to the paper in front of the admiral. Gorshkov nodded, and picked it up.
“Gentlemen, this is a copy of a letter emailed to me from the senior medical officer who boarded the Yakutsk and treated the dying as best he could. Captain Gasparin was the last to die. Here is what the doctor wrote.”
TO: Admiral of the Fleet Yuri Gorshkov
Dear Admiral,
What I saw today no man should ever have to witness; a human being aging right before my eyes at a terrifying rate, and finally succumbing to the ravages of extreme old age. It happened in the space of ninety minutes.
When Captain Gasparin died, I estimate he was two hundred years old, possibly more, and the fate for anyone living so long is almost impossible to describe. The face was barely recognizable as human. All the upper and lower teeth were long gone, causing the mandible - that’s the lower jaw - to shrink to an extent that the maxilla - the frontal bone of the skull that supports the upper part of the mouth and teeth - to overhang the lower jaw. That change to the maxilla caused the nose to actually lengthen and hook, so much so that it became a hideous caricature of itself. The eyes were covered by such thick cataracts that I suspect any surgical intervention would have been impossible. The man was now totally deaf, lying in bed in a vegetative state, and I had no way of knowing whether or not he was in pain. His skin had become so thin and translucent - not unlike ancient vellum - that I could actually see the blood slowly moving through the veins, while the nails on the hands had withdrawn almost all the way back to the cuticle, and were a ghoulish gray-black color. I did not disrobe the corpse because, frankly, I did not want to see more. I was that disturbed. But I did take several photos which
I have transmitted to you as attachments to this email.
Respectfully,
Captain, Second Rank, Boris Soltzhenitsyn
Fleet Medical Officer
Gorshkov looked at his hushed audience and simply shook his head. After what seemed like an eternity to Fleming, he continued.
“The photo attachments did not transmit with the letter, so I asked the doctor to resend them. He replied an hour later that all of the digital photographs he had taken while aboard the Yakutsk no longer existed; they had disappeared from his camera. It was as though they had aged along with Gasparin to the point those particular digital images had simply vanished due to the passage of time. Yet all of his other photos remained intact. I have no idea how that’s even possible, and I cannot offer you any better explanation.”
Admiral Christensen replied for them all. “Admiral, I too find myself at a loss for words on how to reply to what you have just shared, so I will say nothing other than to say thank you.”
Admiral Gorshkov glanced at his watch. It was almost nine. “Captain Blizzard, let me make a suggestion. Maybe a request would be the better English word. Tomorrow morning, could you and your officers go over again what we have just discussed, and search amongst yourselves to see if there was something that slipped your minds, some little thing that could help shed a revealing light on what exactly happened to the Yakutsk? Anything at all, no matter how insignificant? I could postpone my return trip home.”
Blizzard looked to Admiral Christensen for guidance. The CNO nodded, giving tacit approval to Blizzard to reply for the group. “Admiral, that’s an excellent idea, so yes, we’ll go over everything again in the morning and get back to you.”
Admiral Christensen spoke. “Let me wrap up by again thanking you for your candor. I know it wasn’t easy, and you have our deepest sympathy for the loss of a very courageous submarine crew. I will inform President Bradley of this conversation. I am sure he will want to express his feelings of sympathy on behalf of all Americans to the Russian president and his people.”
Christensen held out his hand. “Good night, Admiral.”
CHAPTER 28
Washington Dc
Wednesday Morning – June 30th
The meeting started at eight o’clock sharp. Admiral Christensen’s senior aide had made sure coffee and Danish pastries were on hand, and the admiral pressed the group to dig in and enjoy. After ten minutes of light back and forth, he called for their attention.
“We’ll kick this meeting off by going around the table, and each will get a chance to tell the rest of us what you made of last evening’s meeting and how you think we should respond to Admiral Gorshkov’s request. Remember, there is no right or wrong answer, so feel free to say whatever’s on your minds.”
Fleming was the last to speak. He’d had the advantage of listening to all the other opinions, observations, and recommendations, and had jotted down bullet points on the pad before him. At the end of the meeting, all notes would be placed in a garbage bag and burned.
“So, what did you make of the Russian admiral, Major Fleming?”
Fleming unconsciously sat up a little straighter. “Admiral, I agree with the consensus opinion which is that Admiral Gorshkov’s a worried man who has no idea of the consequential magnitude of the event that destroyed the Yakutsk. And nor could he. The crew certainly never knew that they had traveled back in time, a journey that sealed their fates. Because if they had made a clean passage through the time portal as we did, they would be alive today. But they were not so lucky. Remember, the submarine captain told of colliding twice with the unknown forcefield, and I’m thinking that it was the first encounter, and not the second, that ended up killing them,. They spent way too much time hanging on the cusp, bouncing back and forth between two or more different centuries. God only knows how far apart those centuries were, and that’s what destroyed their bodies down at the cellular level.” He shook his head. “And I cannot begin to imagine how painful their deaths must have been. Remember, our two pilots suffered a similar fate. Do we tell the admiral what happened to those men, and how they, too, had aged before they died?”
He paused, and looked around the table at each in turn. “But I think there are bigger problems that we haven’t given any thought to, such as: Which century, or centuries, did the Yakutsk travel back to, and what other time-space cosmic force made it possible for that boat to journey over a thousand miles underwater in a matter of milliseconds to be thrust to the surface in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea? I suggest everything points to the very real possibility that they did not go back to the fifteenth century as we did, but were transported to some other moment in time. They could have visited some prehistoric age or anything in-between. But we can be certain it was not back to a time we experienced. And how do I know this? Because had they had gone back to the seventeenth or eighteenth centuries for example, the captain would have spotted signs of civilization, even at night. In the hour that they sailed along the Spanish Coast, they would have seen at least one fire, more likely multiple fires, but definitely torchlights in any number of villages and towns. But we know they saw nothing of the kind, which suggests they never went back to the same time that we were in, but to one many centuries earlier. So how would we present such a wild hypothesis to a Russian who doesn’t trust us to begin with?”
Blizzard was the first to reply, but his frown spoke volumes. “Major Fleming, you’ve just forced us to consider somethings we hadn’t given much thought to, the possibility of traveling back to any number of waypoints along the timeline continuum. Well, if that’s true, and I’m beginning to believe that it is highly probable, then our return wasn’t just remarkable, it was nothing short of a miracle.”
Fleming nodded his agreement. “Admiral, Captain,” he said, addressing both, “that is why my recommendation is to say nothing about our travel back in time to the Russian admiral.”
Admiral Christensen bolted upright. “You suggest we say nothing further to the Russians? That they don’t deserve to know what really happened? An explanation only we can provide?”
Fleming firmly shook his head, wondering if maybe he had gone too far. He realized he had better explain himself and do so quickly. He stood up. “Admiral, it’s not a matter of doing the morally correct thing because doing that will not alter the truth. We can tell the Russians what we know to be factual, but after that it’s sheer speculation as to what we think might have happened to their submarine. And Admiral Gorshkov will return home and tell the Russian President that what he’s learned from the meeting with the Americans is that the submarine traveled back in time. So, what will happen? He will immediately be relieved of his command as being mentally unfit for believing a tale no six-year-old would fall for. Instead, the Russians will think that we caused their submarine to surface in the middle of our strike group after crippling it with some newfound technology. They will conclude that we’re sending them a warning: Don’t screw with America, because we have developed a weapon that neither you, nor any of our other enemies will ever be able to hide from. The Russians are a paranoid people, and that goes for their leaders, in spades. They’ve stayed in power all this time by convincing their subjects that America has always wanted to destroy them; it’s been that way since Lenin’s rule, and nothing will convince them otherwise. Admiral, I recommend we say nothing.”
Fleming sat down, allowing his words to find a home in the minds of the five Naval officers around the conference table.
Admiral Christensen glanced at his watch and rose without showing his hand. “I have to leave you gentlemen. The plan is to wrap up your individual debriefings today and collate the information overnight. I had mentioned when we first met on Monday that there would be experts working around the clock to come up with a definitive answer to the overarching question: did you really travel back in time, and can we prove it beyond a reasonable doubt? That’s quite a tall order, but it’s one we have to get right.” He looked d
irectly at Fleming. “Our young Air Force friend here makes a compelling argument, and it’s one I will consider seriously. I will give you all my decision later as to what we’ll tell Admiral Gorshkov.”
The group stood at attention as the Chief of Naval Operations left the room.
* * * * *
Fleming was surprised to find two interrogators present for this final session; Eric, and a woman who introduced herself as a practicing parapsychologist. “Do you know what parapsychology is, Major Fleming?” she had asked.
“No, ma’am, I sure don’t, but my guess is that you’re here because you suspect I might be more than just a little crazy.” The look on his face told her that Fleming was deadly serious.
She emphatically shook her head. “No, Major, I think nothing of the kind, so let me start by telling you exactly what it is that I do. A parapsychologist studies those anomalies of human behavior and human experiences which, when bundled together, form a grouping of a select few disciplines which are labeled as being paranormal. But what is unique to this singular scientific field is the fact that these paranormal phenomena transcend the boundaries of time, space, and force. Our government and our universities have been in a collaborative engagement for over seventy years studying these paranormal happenings. So, too, have the Russians, the Israelis, and for a while, the English. You might be surprised at just how much we have learned, yet shocked at how much we still don’t know. The expression, ‘I don’t know what I don’t know,’ is a profound truth. So, when I learned of last week’s incidents in the Mediterranean, I knew that just maybe we could finally get an answer to that elusive, age-old question: Is time travel possible? Well, I assure you, Major, I have an open mind as to what the answer might be. And lastly, I do not think for a moment that a group of highly intelligent military officers experienced the same unexplainable event only to be written off at some later date, and pigeon-holed as a non-medical mass hysteria simply as a matter of expediency. I can assure you, that will not happen.”
POINT OPTION: A Time-Travel Military Thriller Page 22