A Glint In Time (History and Time)

by Frank J. Derfler

  Making contacts and building a network was part of Willy's bones. During his time at the consulate in Japan, he made many contacts with men in Japanese business and government.Although Willy left Japan in '84, Mansfield stayed on as Ambassador through 1988 and the commercial links between Montana and Japan grew strong. Everyone benefited.

  Today, Willy was meeting with a man he had known, to their mutual benefit, for thirty years.

  He exited the elevator and was greeted by a beautiful hostess who bowed deeply. "Welcome Abrahamson-San." She said.

  Willy didn't bow. He would get the depth of the bow wrong by a millimeter and lose face, so he opted out of the tradition. He explained to his Japanese friends that he respected the tradition so much that he didn't want to get it wrong and appear a fool. They understood.

  The hostess gracefully guided him to a conference room. Willy was almost shocked to see that it had a table and chairs. The hostess took his coat and was turning for the door when a Japanese man of Willy's age came through quickly. She executed a bow that was every bit as deep as the one she had given Willy, he thought maybe even more so, and then quickly exited.

  Isho Morita gripped Willy's right hand, put his left hand on Willy's shoulder, and looked him in the eye with a grin. "Willy, you look great! How good to see you."

  Willy reflected that this guy's body language, vocabulary, and especially the pronunciation of his name had really benefited from coaching since they had first met. "Isho, it is wonderful to see you and wonderful to be back in Sapporo. But Isho, I think I'm in the wrong place. I understand that the window has a beautiful view, but chairs? Why are we using chairs?"

  Isho smiled. "Old age and the Chinese." He replied. "You are getting older and we are doing more and more business with the Chinese. The Americans sit cross legged on Japanese cushions to do business because they want to be liked. The Chinese don't care about being liked and they do not like cushions." Isho grinned and gave a shrug he had learned on television.

  "Oh, Isho. You wound me twice. Once more and you should just take my head!" They laughed.

  A hostess entered to present the tea. Willy and Isho traded gossip about people and deals. An hour passed quickly.

  At one point Isho expressed interest in a road construction machinery contract being put out by the state of Montana. Willy assured him that a bid from a Japanese heavy machinery company would receive careful consideration.

  At one point Willy observed that the party had received many bundled contributions from workers in companies, particularly chemical and agricultural companies, partially owned by Japanese investment trusts. Willy said that he admired the spirit and generosity of those employees. Privately, he doubted that those thousands of good citizens of Montana even knew that they had each contributed between $100 and $200 to the party, but that was fine as long as the paperwork was meticulous. Nobody was going to ask each of them personally to confirm their contributions.

  Finally, Willy judged that enough time had passed. "Isho, I have a challenge and an opportunity. " The other man simply inclined his head to show interest. "You will remember that my brother, named Charles, disappeared in late 2001.

  "Yes, of course. It was soon after the attacks on your country."

  "He was in Montana staying at my house on September 1 1. He was awoken by calls from Washington and he woke me up. As we watched the story on television, he was very frustrated. In his frustration, he spoke to me of a secret project. And, what I am going to tell you will sound very strange, but it is a secret project that has the ability to change past events."

  Isho's face was attentive. Willy had played poker with Isho and knew that the man didn't have a tick or a tell. He didn't give feedback unless he wanted to. So, Willy pressed on.

  "This secret project has the ability to send small objects back into time. They can send a simple message or they can use these things, think of a glass or light metal bullet, to destroy something. My brother heard about it from some experiments done with the US Space Agency and because they came to his Congressional committee for funding. He wanted to use this capability to prevent the September 1 1 attacks from ever happening."

  Willy took a break and Isho signaled a pause by pouring more tea that neither of them really wanted.

  Finally, Isho said, "But the attacks, did happen. That is fact."

  "Maybe or maybe not. The problem is that you might never know. What if there were more attacks that should have taken place, but they were somehow prevented? There are many stories about hijackers on other planes who did not carry out their plans. As I understand it, and since my brother disappeared I have asked careful questions of people in many fields, if the event was prevented in full, then it is as if it never happened. The actions you took to prevent the event would disappear along with the event."

  Isho sucked in his breath loudly through his teeth. It was a very Japanese action that Willy thought was probably inadvertent. "How is this done?" he asked.

  "There is a file on a Website." Willy replied. "The file is hidden in plain sight on a Website describing Montana exports. The file appears to contain only old historical information about exports, but it is encrypted. With the right code, it will open to provide all of the information I was able to get from my brother's notes and a classified file he left me from the NASA experiments."

  "You are being unusually clever." Isho observed.

  "I believe my brother disappeared because he talked about or tried to do something about this project. It is impossible to have an excess of caution."

  "Why would you share this challenge and opportunity with us?" he asked.

  Willy noted the use of the plural "us." An American would have said "me." But, that group identity was another thing he liked about the Japanese.

  "Katakuichi" Willy used that Japanese word for revenge because it is loaded with medieval wrath. He understood spoken Japanese quite well. But he knew that his accent was awful and it often benefited him if others didn't know how well he understood what they were saying. This was a word he had practiced saying.

  "So-desu" Isho replied with a slow bow. He understood the concept of revenge very well.

  "I believe my brother was either killed or imprisoned by my government. If you can make this information into a weapon, I would like your promise that we use it in some way to find the truth."

  The give and take continued off and on for another hour. Isho took the position, as Willy knew he would, that he could make no promises. He finally did say that he would use every means to see if he could find what, if anything, the American government might have done with Willy's brother. Willy knew that meant the Japanese would spread money around Washington looking for information. That's what he wanted.

  In the end, he gave Isho the password to the protected file on the open Website.The rest of the evening they spent relaxing as old male friends should in downtown Sapporo.

  STEAK AND SILK

  Monday, June 8, 2009 Noon Mountain 4B's Restaurant

  Great Falls, Montana

  * * *

  Excerpt from the Personal diary of Montana State Senator William G. "Willy" Abrahamson.

  Dated, June 8, 2009

  ... was that a setup? Why so clumsy?......a warning?

  * * *

  illy was at his favorite table in the 4B's in Great Falls. The restaurant was over 50 years old and it had seen a lot of use, but they still served some of the best food and certainly had the best service in town. He was meeting a Japanese business woman registered as a lobbyist. His office administrator, Arlene Boyd, was with him to keep everything looking up and up. Perception meant a lot around Great Falls and gossip defied the speed of light.

  Arlene had her back to the front window, but Willy was sitting with a good view of the parking lot and 10th Avenue South. A taxi pulled up to the front of the restaurant and a tall expensively dressed oriental woman emerged after paying the fare. "Arlene, she's coming. Would you please meet her at the door so we don't make a show." />
  Arlene turned to the window as she got to her feet. "She's a show all by herself, Boss."

  "Miss Ito. "Willy said when she reached the table. The woman's entry had quieted the lunch crowd, but they buzzed all the more when they saw who she was meeting. He stood and the beautiful woman, standing six feet tall in three inch heels, towered over him as she offered a professional handshake. She was dressed in a silk blouse with a scarf at the neck, a short skirt, and a few pieces of jewelry. She looked like she has stepped off the front page of a fashion magazine. Her shoes and purse would probably take his entire legitimate annual salary as a Montana State Senator.

  "Senator, so nice to meet you. Call me Kiko, please." She said. Her English sounded just like the news readers on CNN, but softer.

  They spent the lunch discussing the desire of two Japanese financial groups to take a bigger share of some Montana chemical industries. Willy assured her that local and state regulators would look on the investments very favorably. Near the end of the meal, Arlene called her a cab to go back up the hill to the airport.

  Kiko spoke to him directly, "Senator, Morita-San asked me to give you this." She removed an envelope from her purse and tried to hand it to Willy. He visibly flinched. Receiving a sealed envelope from a lobbyist, even in a very public place, was asking for trouble. In his mind he could immediately see the picture in the Great Falls Tribune.

  "Would you open it, please?" he asked her.

  She smiled, lifted the flap with her thumb, and poured the contents on the table. There were only two things inside, a glass bead and a coin. "I believe the coin is a special issue." she said. But I do not know the meaning of the piece of glass."

  "Well, I'm sure it's a joke from Isho. I'll ask him about it the next time we speak."

  That night, in his study at home, Willy used the tip of his pocket knife to pry open the gold foil covering the edge of the beautiful coin. Inside an opening was a tiny black chip with gold connectors gleaming on one end. He opened his desk drawer and retrieved a common looking USB "thumb drive" used for portable data transfers. This drive was a little different from normal in that it had a tiny compartment with a sliding door at one end. He opened the door and, using tweezers from his desk drawer, dropped the small chip into the drive and closed the door.

  He attached the USB device to his computer, selected the correct drive letter, and saw that it contained a file. When he opened the file, it was a personal letter addressed to him, discussing the plans of a Japanese firm to acquire a mining company in Montana before the Chinese could buy it, and asking his personal opinion of the action.

  Willy smiled. The content was just enough to justify the secrecy, but it wasn't enough to get him into big trouble if it was discovered. Secrets within secrets. Isho had finesse.

  Willy read the letter over again. He would send word to his agent in the Cayman Islands to buy the stock. He had just

  paid off his third wife and he lived pretty simply. None of the three wives even had a sniff of his offshore accounts.

  Willy clicked on the thirteenth period in the letter, provided their shared password in response to the prompt appearing on the screen, and was rewarded with a pop up window showing a completely different letter.

  In brief sentences, Isho wrote that the information Willy had provided two years ago had led to "important advances." He also told him that the best intelligence available confirmed that his brother was alive and was being held in captivity. Apparently the cause of this action was related to the Project to change time. In 2000, this mysterious Project was located at a military base in Homestead, Florida, but more current information had not been found. They were continuing to look for information while being careful not to raise any interest from US intelligence agencies.

  Willy removed the chip from the drive, took it out to the garage, and smashed the chip to bits with a hammer on the garage floor. Although he was not a violent person, using the hammer to smash the chip into powder made him feel a tiny bit better.

  TD

  Monday, June 6, 2011

  1300 Eastern

  Homestead, Florida USA

  * * *

  Excerpt from the Personal Narrative

  of Colonel Jose Valenzuela

  Recorded July 2015UNCLASSIFIED

  ". . . . .when I reported in I didn't know what to expect and whatever I might have expected wasn't what I found!"

  * * *

  Major Jose Valenzuela, United States Air Force, wasn't sure who he had pissed off. He looked at himself as a fast burner. He had made major "below the zone" or ahead of others with the same date of rank and he was a brand new honor graduate of the Air Force's Command and Staff College -a year long course that was the equivalent of an MBA to an Air Force officer. He was in the top 5% ... and he realistically thought it was probably the top 2%of his peer group. Then what in the name of all that was holy was he driving through Alabama on his way to an assignment in nowhere Florida?

  He was born in the US while his parents were conveniently vacationing in Miami from their home in Cuba. They wanted him to have the benefits of US

  citizenship. He had parlayed his good looks, intelligence, and drive into graduation from the Air Force Academy with honors, flight school, 200 combat missions in Iraq flying F-16s, and a master's degree in international relations. With a wiry 180 pounds on a six foot frame, dark eyes, and good hair, he had known many women along the way, in every sense of the term. But, women he was serious about already had careers that weren't compatible with his. So, he was single, casually involved with several women, but not serious about any of them.

  Jose's contact at the USAF Officer Personnel Center could only tell him that this was a joint assignment with great responsibility and that he had been hand-selected. Jose didn't believe a word of it. Nobody at the Air University at Maxwell Air Force Base had even heard of the Technical Defense Agency.The only thing he could find on the Internet was some mundane blurb about protecting the Nation's technical resources. He couldn't even find out what kind of technical resources they were defending. As far as he could tell they didn't have any airplanes and they were in a place he despised, Homestead Florida.

  Jose knew that it was time in his career for a tour of duty with other military services, a "joint" tour. He knew that he was too young for command of a flying squadron. He knew that he had to put time into a staff job to prove his capabilities. But Homestead?He had gone to high school in Miami and he knew that Homestead was a mix of migrant pickers and NASCAR fans. He wanted to have nothing to do with any of them.

  Seven hours later, driving south of Miami, he was still angry, but he had convinced himself that he wasn't going to show it. Maybe this was his time to boondoggle for a while and spend some time commuting up Florida's Turnpike to civilization in Miami. Or, he could hop a plane and fly to Havana on extended weekends. At least he was sure of getting a good meal anytime he wanted it with any of the five cousins he had in Miami and his network of relations in Cuba. Although any time any of them heard he wasn't married at 32 they rolled their eyes and dialed friends with eligible daughters on their cell phones.

  As he left Florida's Turnpike, he had to admit that this wasn't the Homestead Florida he remembered. Major shopping centers filled every corner and new housing crowded every block. The fields of palm trees, sugar cane, and ornamental plant nurseries he knew from the 1990s had vanished.

  The security guard at the gate of Homestead Air Reserve base checked his ID card, gave him instructions in the form of right, left, left, and he started looking for the headquarters of the Technical Defense Agency. Near the end of the runway he saw a building painted a brilliant white that looked like a miniature nuclear power plant complete with a containment dome. It covered half a block, sat next to a power substation, and had only one standard size doorway in the front. Sure enough, the plain sign, unadorned by any crests or logos, said TECHNICAL DEFENSE AGENCY. The parking lot held about twenty cars, but he didn't see a sign of life. After he parked,
he walked to the door and saw a sign "Visitors Ring Here" under a speaker and button set next to the door. He pushed the button, the door

  clicked, and a voice in the speaker said, "Please come in, major."

  The room he entered reminded him as much of an air lock as a reception area. It was white, windowless, bare of any furniture, and featured only two doors on the far wall in addition to the entry door that was now behind him. In a moment the door on the right opened and a beefy guy wearing a gun at his waist politely said, "Sir, will you come in here please?"

  This room looked like an interview room straight out of the old Law and Order TV shows. A plain table, clean white walls, lightweight chairs, and a wall mounted TV camera defined the whole room. "Sir, I need a saliva sample please."was his greeting from the guard. The guard used a swab to take some saliva, and probably skin cells, from inside his cheek and said, "Someone will be with you shortly."

  This was unlike the in-processing at any military facility he had ever experienced. But, he sat in the chair, stared at the walls, and waited. The walls were obviously very thick or very well insulated, because he couldn't hear a voice, a footstep, or a vibration. He waited in total silence.

  About fifteen minutes later the door opened and his jaw dropped as a strikingly beautiful woman walked in. He sprang to his feet. In a split second, a microsecond, Jose recorded that she had great legs, a thin waist, tremendous grace, and a beautiful face. She was also married and had about ten years on him, but they were good years. Her dark hair was shiny, just touching her shoulders, and she

  smelled great. Her impact in the sterile room simultaneously left him subjectively rocked and objectively amused at himself.