Chapter 48
Two helicopters, each carrying 12 SEALs, landed in the parking lot of the old Chrysler plant. The SEALs’ top objective was to secure the table with the bombs. They set plastique explosives and blew the doors off each of the four sides of the building. The men then rushed in and fired their carbines at anyone in sight. A man with an AK 47 stumbled from behind a cabinet and opened fire, knocking one SEAL to the floor. The bullets hit his flak jacket and he wasn’t seriously injured. Another SEAL opened fire on the man, killing him instantly. Four SEALs ran to the bomb table, spun around and trained their weapons out toward anyone who approached. Four more SEALs dropped from the ceiling on ropes. The firing stopped after 45 seconds. The SEAL leader counted all of the enemy bodies and determined that the building was secure, except for one man.
Their second most important objective was to try to capture Abbas Haddad and take him alive if possible. But Haddad was nowhere to be seen. Apparently he worried enough about satellite and drone surveillance to have a look-alike slip in and out of the building. A man who resembled Haddad was tackled by two SEALs. They looked at their photos and then at the man. It wasn’t him. Haddad had gotten away.
***
As soon as each of the arresting teams on the five ships got the word that the bomb factory was secure they moved in on the Atomic Five.
On the USS Abraham Lincoln, Joseph Monahan was surrounded and handcuffed as he emerged from his office. Monahan went quietly with his captors, his head turned down.
George Quentin had just assumed the quarterdeck watch on the USS Harry S. Truman.
“The good news is that you are relieved from your watch duty today,” said the SEAL lieutenant. “The bad news is that you’re under arrest for attempted murder and treason.”
Ralph Martin, the weapons officer on the USS Carl Vinson, tried to run. He sprinted across the flight deck, intending to leap to the water, not expecting to live. He was tackled by the ship’s Master at Arms who had been alerted to the operation.
Frederick Peyton was intercepted as he walked to the weapons department on the USS Theodore Roosevelt. As he was placed in handcuffs he cursed the SEAL lieutenant in Arabic, who returned the abuse in Spanish.
Philip Murphy had just completed lunch in the wardroom of the USS George Washington. As he walked down the companionway he was arrested and handcuffed by two Navy SEALs.
Operation Tango Delta was over in 25 minutes.
Chapter 49
It was 5:30 PM, October 16, 2015 and we had just gotten word that operation Tango Delta was a success.
“I think it’s time for a party,” I shouted.
Ashley called the Officers’ Club and reserved a private room. Admiral Bettenhurst had to leave to get back to Washington where he’d debrief the Chief of Naval Operations. Just as well. The Thanksgiving Gang wanted the evening to ourselves.
“So, Jack, my amazing friend,” said Bennie, “you’ve done it again. You changed history. You also saved your beautiful wife, not to mention yourself and about 26,000 people.”
“A slight correction, Bennie,” I said. “We changed history. I couldn’t have pulled this off without you guys. You’re the best friends any man could hope for.” With that I abandoned my steely demeanor as a journalist and broke down crying. Ashley walked over and wrapped her arms around me.
“You’re the best friends I could ever have too,” said Ashley. “I had almost given this guy up for dead, and you brought him back to me.” Then Ashley started to cry.
“Hey gang,” said Janice. “This is supposed to be a celebration not a friggin’ funeral. Let’s stop crying and remember some of the funny parts about this whole operation.”
“Funny parts?” said Buster. “What funny parts?”
“Give me some time, I’ll think of something,” said Janice.
“I think it was kind of funny the way Janice shot that guy in the restaurant in Yemen,” said Wally. We all cracked up, except for Ashley.
“Janice shot a man in a restaurant and you think that’s funny?” said Ashley.
“You hadda be there,” said Wally.
We talked and reminisced till the wee hours of the morning when we all realized that we needed sleep. Bennie said he’d call a couple of cabs.
“There’s a limo on the way for us,” said Buster. “Hey, we CIA guys know how to spend taxpayer dollars.”
As we waited for the limo Ashley and I just stared into each other’s eyes. It’s good to be alive.
Chapter 50
Abbas Haddad took a taxi to an industrial area of Denver, Colorado. The air was chilly and a light rain fell. He got out of the cab, waited for it to drive away, then turned and walked in the opposite direction. Keeping a lookout for any passersby, he ducked into a fence opening and walked up to an industrial warehouse. It looks just like the old Chrysler building in Detroit he thought. His approach to the building was detected from the inside and the door swung open without his having to knock. The inside of the building looked almost exactly like the one in Detroit only smaller. The same walled-off area was over to the right, and two men with AK 47s stood at its entrance. The walls were the same height and color. The table holding five nuclear suitcase bombs looked the same as the one in Detroit
“May peace be with you Sheik Haddad,” said a man with a rifle slung around his shoulder. “Brother Hussein awaits you, sir.”
Hussein Basara bounded out of his office adjacent to a large walled off area. He smiled at his old friend.
Haddad didn’t smile back. He grabbed Basara by the shoulders, looked him in the eyes and said, “Are you ready to raise the fist of Allah against the infidels, my brother?”
A Time of Fear
Book Three of The Time Magnet Series
Russell F. Moran
Copyright © 2014 by Russell F. Moran
Coddington Press
All Rights Reserved
ISBN-10: 0-9895546-4-3
ISBN 13: ISBN-13: 978-0-9895546-4-0
Kindle Edition – ASIN: B00NCDJBF2
Library of Congress Control Number: 2014916051
Coddington Press, Islip, New York
Preface
A Time of Fear is Book Three in The Time Magnet Series. The Gray Ship is Book One, and The Thanksgiving Gang is Book Two. The next in the series is Book Four, The Skies of Time.
A Time of Fear picks up where The Thanksgiving Gang left off, and joins the gang on their next adventure through time. Like the other two books in The Time Magnet series, this is a novel about time travel. Is time travel possible? Theoretically, yes, but I wouldn’t try it. What I would try is jumping into this wonderful genre of fiction and lose yourself in the endless possibilities.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
You will see some familiar characters in A Time of Fear if you’ve read the other books. If you haven’t, fear not – A Time of Fear, although part of a series, can be read as a stand-alone book. Once again you’ll meet Ashley Patterson, the beautiful African American Navy Captain. Jack Thurber is back and he’s now Ashley’s husband, a man she calls The Time Magnet, because he can’t seem to avoid wormholes. Dr. Bennie Weinberg, the NYPD psychiatrist reports for duty, with a much larger role. You will again meet the lovely and feisty Janice Monahan, as well as Wally Burton the reporter from The New York Times. Buster, the mega spook CIA Agent and Thanksgiving Gang Leader is here, and he hasn’t slowed down. Yes, the gang’s all here, and they’ve really gotten themselves into it this time.
Strange as it may sound, I feel a kinship, a real friendship, with these characters. But my job isn’t complete unless you, the reader, feel that you’re part of the gang as well.
Once again, as I do in all of my novels, you will see a Cast of Characters. Nothing is more annoying than reading a book and tr
ying to remember a character that you met briefly – a couple of hundred pages ago.
So welcome to the gang. Join me as, once again, we slip through a wormhole.
Acknowledgements
The creative process doesn’t exist in a vacuum, but is a result of your experience with life. An ongoing joy of creating fiction is, for me, creating a different world with the help of my wife. After my first draft, Lynda and I spent hours discussing the characters, the scenes, and the story itself. Lynda gave me more than her editorial skills and critiques; she was part of the process, part of the creation. One of the main characters was the result of one of our brain storming sessions.
I also thank my editor and friend, John White for his enthusiasm and dedication to the project.
Characters – A Time of Fear
Abboud, Ayham – Al Qaeda official.
Allheimi, Sheik Abdul – al Qaeda operative, runs a recruiting school.
Akhbar, Gamal – CIA Agent, aka Buster
Billings, John – Navy SEAL lieutenant
Bouchard, Woody – Captain, The Sea Bounder
Bradley, Jerome – Shooting victim at CIA
Carlini, William – Director, Central Intelligence Agency
Cropsey, Wayne – Yacht Captain, retired CIA agent
Crowley, Marcus – FBI Agent
Haddad, Abbas – Senior al Qaeda operative
Jefferson, Ezekiel (Zeke) – Commander, aide to Admiral Thompson
Jones, Gordon– Yachtsman
Kabani, Abdul – al Qaeda gunman
Lopez, Phil – Buster’s assistant
MacDevitt, Molly – Physics professor and nuclear bomb exert
McMartin, Trevor – Australian bank examiner
Monahan, Janice – HVAC Expert/ Provisional CIA Agent
Monahan, Joseph LCDR – Imprisoned would-be terrorist
Mulrooney, James – NYPD Bomb Disposal Unit
Reynolds, Michael – Professor, Virginia Tech
Thompson, Frank – Rear Admiral, United States Navy
Weinberg, Benjamin – Psychiatrist, NYPD
Williams, Max – Warden, Leavenworth Prison
Prologue
If you think that time travel sounds like fun, I suggest you take up something tamer like skydiving, snake charming, or raising scorpions. Maybe you could catch a ride on top of a moving train or play Russian Roulette with an AK-47. Perhaps you could walk into a radical mosque, loudly reciting the Hail Mary.
There are a lot of things that you could do that are safer than time travel. Other things may be safer, but sometimes time travel is useful.
My name is Jack Thurber, and everybody knows me as a time traveler. I've done it four times to date. My wife Ashley even calls me a “time magnet.” I don't time travel intentionally; nobody does. It just happens. Step on a wormhole and you're in for a wild ride, a sickening, weird ride.
Avoid wormholes. How? I'm not sure I'm the guy to tell you because I sure can't seem to avoid the damn things.
Right now I'm relaxed and happy and living in the present. It's October 18, 2015, and I'm with the woman I love, my wife Ashley. Until recently we thought we were dead. How can you think you're dead when you're alive? I'll explain. Well, I'll try to explain.
About four months ago on July 1, 2015, I was on assignment as a reporter for the Washington Times, on location in Manhattan to do research for an article I was writing on underutilized real estate. Exciting? No, but soon it became a thrill that I wasn't looking for. As I walked through an abandoned lot I stepped on, you guessed it, a wormhole. Like a flash, and it really was like a flash, I was standing there in the lot on July 1, 2017, two years into the future. I didn't plan it, didn't think about it, didn't try to make it happen. The future just showed up, and I was in it. Confused, as I always was on one of my time trips, I called my old friend Bennie Weinberg, a psychiatrist and detective with the NYPD. Bennie knew about my time-tripping proclivities, but he treated me like some kind of an apparition, a freak, a ghost. It seemed that, according to Ben, I had been killed about two years prior to arriving in 2017, along with my wife Ashley and about 26,000 people on five different aircraft carriers in a series of nuclear terrorist attacks. That's right, according to Ben, Ashley and I were blown to bits on November 26, 2015. Ashley was the commanding officer of one of the ships and I was aboard as her guest for a Thanksgiving Cruise.
Bennie and I teamed up with my friend Wally Burton, a reporter with The New York Times, and a woman named Janice Monahan, the wife of one of the terrorists. We called ourselves The Thanksgiving Gang, and proceeded to go back in time (thank God I remembered where the wormhole was) and prevented the disaster.
It worked. With help from the FBI, the CIA, and a lot of other agencies, it worked. I'm here, Ashley's here, and we're both alive and in love.
My good friends and fellow “gang” members, Ben, Janice, and Wally decided to go back (back?) to 2017 where they came from. They left for the future on October 18, 2015.
So that clears it all up, yes? No? Wait. It gets weirder.
Chapter One
Something's wrong.
Something's terribly wrong.
This isn't the way it's supposed to be.
My name is Janice Monahan, and I'm scared out of my mind. I just went through a wormhole (or time portal) along with my friends Wally Burton and Ben Weinberg. We came from October 18, 2015 and arrived in October 18, 2017. I realize that sounds insane, and I would agree that it is, but it's also true. The three of us just time tripped two years into the future.
I'm living an exciting life, and I owe it all to my terrorist, would-be mass murdering husband. More about him later. Until about a month ago I was a diligent HVAC engineer working on a major project and minding my own business. I had no idea where my husband was, nor did I care. I had fallen out of love with the man, a man who I didn't know anymore, a man who turned his back on me and his country.
It was only three weeks ago that I answered the doorbell at my house in Brooklyn. Three guys, Jack Thurber, Ben Weinberg, and Wally Burton appeared at my door. They gave me a story that they were reporters from The New York Times and were writing a magazine article on the impact of what we knew as the Thanksgiving Attacks, nuclear attacks on five American ships. Actually, Wally Burton really is a reporter with the Times. They wanted to interview me because I was the widow of Joseph Monahan, an officer on one of the ships. What they didn't know, and what I didn't know at the time, was that my husband was one of the murderous bastards who conspired to bomb the ships. Their ruse about writing an article was just that, a ruse. Jack Thurber and his friends were trying to find out everything they could about the attacks. It seemed that Jack Thurber, in our “then history” of 2017, was known to be dead. He was killed, along with his Navy captain wife, on one of the ships, the one my charming husband was supposed to be on. Jack convinced Ben and Wally, and eventually me, that he actually travelled two years through time, skipping over the attacks on the ships and avoiding his death. Jack wanted to go back to 2015 and prevent the disaster. Who could blame him? He believed he had the power to undo a tragedy, his death and that of his wife. After many discussions and meetings that included the FBI and CIA, we all decided to go back in time with Jack to help him prevent the attacks.
Along with Jack, we dubbed ourselves the Thanksgiving Gang, a collective Mighty Mouse that would save the day and avert a big disaster on Thanksgiving Day 2015.
We pulled it off. The Thanksgiving Gang, along with the FBI and the CIA, stopped the attacks on the five carriers and saved about 26,000 people, including Jack and his wife Ashley. We all thought we'd live happily ever after. Nice thought. Or was it a dream?
***
As I stepped on the wormhole, I felt like I was plunged into ice water. Ben and Wally agreed with my assessment. The temperature was fine, a typical late October day, about 60 degrees, bright and sunny. But we may as well have landed on the surface of Mars. We expected to arrive at a construction site on 1st Avenue and 118th S
treet in Manhattan. It appeared somewhat familiar, until we looked south. Instead of the endless view of monumental skyscrapers, there was rubble, except for some buildings a few blocks from us. In large part, lower Manhattan had been destroyed. I looked up at a strange instrument on a telephone pole. It was marked “radiation meter." It indicated that we were in a place of low to moderate radiation. We guessed that what happened to lower Manhattan was a nuclear explosion.
We expected to arrive in a different 2017, a happier 2017, a year that didn't have a history of five aircraft carriers destroyed two years before. The Thanksgiving Gang had saved the day. But what were the carrier attacks replaced with?
Chapter 2
I feel like I'm going to throw up. The three of us concluded that a nuclear attack happened in Manhattan and God knows where else. We all figured that it was a nuclear attack because of the devastation. The radiation meter on the pole seemed to confirm our conclusion.
When the gang tripped back the last time we found that time in the past goes faster than the present. Don't ask; it just does. Three weeks of 2017 time amounted to three months in 2015. Oh my God. In a matter of weeks (2015 weeks that is) Manhattan will become a nuclear target. From our view, in 2017, it already had.
***
Ben, Wally, and I went to Wally's office at The New York Times on Eighth Avenue. We needed to find out exactly what happened, and figured what better place to get information. Because we had discovered that time goes by faster in the past, our recent journey to 2015 was only a matter of a couple of hours in 2017.
Box Set - The Time Magnet Series Page 39