"How much time do we have?"she asked. "There's no big hurry." he said.
"It's about a six hour drive up to St. Augustine. I've always wanted to see St. Augustine" she said.
"The Air Force says we only have to drive 350 miles a day to get paid for using our own car on official travel.That should be just about right."
"You feed Patrick breakfast and I'll pack." she said.
It was only three in the afternoon when they reached St. Augustine. They spent that afternoon and evening touring the historic city. On Friday they made Goldsboro, North Carolina and their home on the base in about seven hours of driving. They had dinner with neighbors and then everyone was happy to be in their own beds.
On Saturday morning Ted and Sally were still in bed when the clock radio came on. They listened to the seven AM news and heard again about the brave passengers on United Flight 93 who fought with their hijackers until the plane crashed in a field in Pennsylvania. This was the same story they remembered hearing since the afternoon of 9/11. But, this time they were both suspicious.
"Do you think the Project made that happen?"Sally asked.
"It would be an awfully cold calculation.â€Ted replied. "Bill and Colonel Landry wouldn't have stopped the flight that way. Let me give a call down there and see if they still want me to go to New Jersey."
Ted reached Bill Wirtz on his cell phone. "How are things going" Ted asked.
"Quiet." Bill replied. "The Colonel says that some folks in Washington wanted to send down an investigating committee after they heard about the attack at your house. But nobody showed up. Washington seems quiet. Colonel Landry says they're all on the warpath. The Congress is up in
arms and their constituents want some revenge for the Twin Towers and the Pentagon. The Vice President is the big hawk in the Executive branch."
"What do you think about the hijacked flight, United Flight 93, the one that went down in Pennsylvania, Bill?Could that have been done by the Project?"
"Not that way. Not unless somebody had a gun to our heads or threw us out of here kicking and screaming."Bill replied.
"Okay, Sally and I are just suspicious of everything."
"It seems like that's a reasonable way to be. I'll talk it over with the Colonel. When will you get to New Jersey?"
"It's about a nine hour drive from here. I'll leave on Sunday morning."
"Okay. I'll tell the Colonel. He'll tell the McGuire OSI to expect you on Monday. He apparently went to school with the OSI district commander up there. That's how it's all setup."
Sally got Ted on the road on Sunday morning after a dutiful Air Force wife's goodbye. Air Force pilots talk about flying as "Kick the tires and light the fires."Air Force wives knew that it was more important to first "Drain the flyers and then let them kick the tires" before they went off away from home.
She wanted to know if the Project had left any evidence behind with Flight 43, but she also wanted to get to the gym, get Patrick on a normal schedule, and check on some of her clients. All of that was easier with Ted on the road. He was out of harm's way and things were good.
The talk radio shows were still dwelling on the destruction and chaos around the destroyed Capitol building, so Ted didn't even want to get close to the Beltway. In order to avoid Washington, Ted routed himself through the Chesapeake Bay-Tunnel onto the Delmarva Peninsula. The trip might have taken longer than trying to navigate around DC, but it was a lot more pleasant. He arrived at McGuire Air Force Base, checked into the Visiting Officers' Quarters, had dinner at the Officer's Club, and went to bed. On Monday morning at 8AM Ted left the VOQ and found his way to the building housing the Air Force Office of Special Investigations. He was in uniform, but the two OSI agents, a man named Biggs and a woman named Colatti were in civilian clothes.
They drove a government Ford Taurus to the police precinct at JFK airport. "It always pays to let the locals know that we're around." Biggs explained. The explanation that the three of them, with Ted in his blue Class A uniform, were checking on aircraft tires, made them uninteresting and invisible to the local cops.
They found the same thing with the local airline maintenance people. As soon as a maintenance supervisor heard that Ted was "checking on tires", he was routed further and further from the offices and toward the flight line shops.
Finally, Ted was stopped by a guy he had to look up to with grey hair and broad shoulders. Ted almost laughed out loud. Ed Glover was the archetype of the typical ass-kicking flight line senior NCO. He confirmed it by saying,"What can I do for you Colonel?"
"Mr. Glover, on the morning of 9/1 1 you had an airplane that had a maintenance abort because of multiple flat tires. That's so unusual that I got sent out here to see if there was anything we can learn."
Glover looked Ted in the eye and wrinkled his nose as if he smelled bullshit. "They sent a rated Lieutenant Colonel out here to ask about tires?Who did you piss off to get this detail?"
"Hey, what can I say?Somebody thinks it's important. Make my day, Chief, tell me about it."Even if Glover wasn't a retired Chief Master Sergeant, he would take the promotion.
"Well, it was spooky. Twelve of them tires. Good one minute and flat the next."
"What did you find when you changed them out?" Ted asked.
"They weren't shot. At least not by a gun. I can tell you that. I've seen tires hit by gun fire and shrapnel.That was the first thing I thought of with everything else going on that day. It wasn't that way with these tires. They were more like melted."
"Did you find anything in the tires?"Ted kept pressing.
"Yeah. Makes no sense. But look here. I kept 'em."
Glover led the way across a hangar to a tool locker. He used a key from a large ring, opened a locked drawer, and pulled out a brown craft envelope. He lifted the flap and slid a dozen glass beads into the palm of his calloused hand. Most of them had melted rubber stuck to them.
"Glass beads. I don't know if they got into the tires when they were mounted on the wheels or what. I haven't really wanted to tell anybody until I figure it out."
"Do you think I could take one of those and show it around?"Ted knew what he was seeing. These were the fuzed quartz beads from the Project. He wanted at least one for analysis. "Maybe I'll come across somebody who has an idea."
Ted shook Glover's hand and left with one bead in his pocket. He passed the time with the OSI agents in small talk on the way back to McGuire Air Force Base. It was almost noon when Ted left the base heading south.
As he drove, he reached for his phone intending to call both Bill Wirtz and Sally, but then he stopped. He thought that it was difficult to monitor cell phone calls, but he wasn't sure. He was positive that the Project had stopped American Flight 43 on the ground before it left on the morning of 9/1 1. He was suspicious that the Project had something to do with United Flight 93 going down over Pennsylvania. That meant that they were somehow involved in the deaths of
innocents. Perhaps the deaths were inevitable, but this was too creepy.
He tried to use logic. If someone in control of the Project had used the Project's resources to somehow take down United Flight 93 over Pennsylvania -the NASA anti-satellite shotgun blast of beads ahead of the plane came to mind -then since they apparently successfully stopped whatever event they were trying to stop, they didn't need to do it. So, in his present timeline they never took over the Project and wouldn't be monitoring calls. Maybe. He needed to talk it all over with Sally, Bill, and the Colonel, but it would have to be face-to-face and secure.
As he got closer to Washington, he took 295 through the heart of the city. Near Anacostia he cut over to the freeway that parallels Independence Avenue. He could see the dome of the Capitol building looking pristine and glimmering in the sunshine.Traffic slowed to a crawl on 395 heading south past the Pentagon. The side of the Pentagon where American Flight 77 hit, by the heliport, wasn't visible, from 395, but he couldn't see any smoke rising from the building. He did see an army of construction vehicles moving around the Mall and River entrances and slowing traffic on Washington Boulevard.
"Why?" he wondered out loud. "Why would the Project have stopped American Flight 43 and probably United Flight 93, but not American Flight 77 that went into the Pentagon?"
When he got back home and found Patrick sound asleep, he and Sally sat in their backyard and talked about next steps. Ted woke up Bill Wirtz when he called to tell him that they would be in Homestead by mid morning. Bill seemed guarded in his reply. "That would be good." was all he said.
FLY OUT AND BACK
Tuesday, September 25, 2001
0830 Eastern
Seymour Johnson AFB, North Carolina
Excerpt from the Personal Narrative of
Major General Ted Arthurs
Recorded April 2008
UNCLASSIFIED
"It is a great thing when leaders step forward. As it happened, The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs was a Cavalry officer. He sure led the charge that saved our day."
Ted didn't think they were going to find anything dangerous, but he and Sally decided to leave Patrick in the care of squadron friends at Seymour Johnson. They had him settled and were at the base aero club by 8:30AM. Ted had made a reservation for the aero club's Diamond DA-40XL. The nearly new aircraft made from composite fiber was a contribution to the base flying club from the Drug Enforcement Agency. It was confiscated in a major drug raid with the help of Air Force units based at Seymour Johnson and the rumor was that the DEA often borrowed it back when they needed an aircraft with plain civilian markings.
The DA-40 cruised at 150 knots and could carry four adults. It would make the trip down to Homestead a short hop instead of a long drive. Since it was an Air Force aero club aircraft, it could land at Homestead Air Base without the otherwise necessary prior approval.
They followed the coast for a little more than four hours. At six thousand feet they had a beautiful view of the coastline of Georgia and Florida. When they landed at Homestead, Ted was surprised when the follow-me truck took them to a hangar at the far end of the runway. The door of the hangar was down, but a pedestrian door was open and Colonel Landry, in full uniform including his round "wheel hat", was standing in the doorway.
As Ted put the chocks under the wheels of the Diamond DA-40, he noticed that Air Force security police trucks were sitting discretely near the two corners of the hangar he could see. He walked with Sally to the Colonel and saluted. Landry saluted crisply and said, "We have company. Big brass. I gave them a tour and now they're chatting. They told me to bring you in when you arrived."
"Big brass?" Ted asked.
"The biggest." was Landry's only reply as he led the way through the hangar.
Inside the hangar Ted saw a shining Air Force C-20, known to the rest of the world as a Gulfstream III. He identified it as belonging to the 89th Airlift Wing at Andrews Air Force Base. Security police and maintenance personnel were alert and busy around the aircraft.
The Colonel led them to a door at the side of the hangar labeled "Training". Obviously, it was a classroom for the line maintenance people. He knocked lightly, opened the door, and entered. Since he left the door open, Sally and Ted followed.
The classroom was arranged with tables in a hollowsquare. Two men sat at the far side of the square talking. Because they were absorbed in their discussion, Ted suppressed the instinct to come to attention and salute. He had seen both of their pictures hanging from squadron walls and in magazines and newspapers. Lowly Lieutenant Colonels don't often get to see a private discussion between the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Chief of Staff of the Air Force. The two four star generals were flanked by one star generals wearing Class A uniforms and the aiguillette, the gold rope, of aide-de-camp to a four star general.
The Chairman noticed them and turned. "General," Colonel Landry said, "This is Colonel Arthurs and his wife Sally."
The Chairman nodded at them and said "What did you find out about that flight that never took off from New York?"
"It was clearly done by the Project. " Ted replied. As he spoke he pulled a small envelope out of his pocket. He rolled the glass bead out on the table. One of the brigadier generals picked it up, looked at it briefly, and handed it to the Chairman. "This bead is one of a bunch that the airline
maintenance people recovered. They had a dozen tires go out on the jet simultaneously. They were melted. That's definitely one of our fuzed quartz beads."
"But you, none of you, have no memory, no knowledge of doing it?"
Ted paused for a moment to see if Colonel Landry would interject, but when the Colonel was quiet, he continued."No Sir. We don't have any knowledge because we really didn't do it. At least not in this timeline that we are aware of."
The Chairman waved his hand. "Yeah. I've heard the discussion. I'd rather hear incoming artillery than think about it again." He paused. "Look, here's the deal. This time transportation capability is damn near a WMD. A weapon of mass destruction. It is certainly a special weapon. There are factions in Washington who want to get hold of it. The SecDef stopped them cold, but he can't stop them from thinking and scheming. We know how to handle special weapons. We have procedures for management and for funding. But, since you folks are the closest to the operation, we want to hear what you've got to say. Missus Arthurs, you first. You know how this works and what it can do. What should we do with it."
Sally didn't even need a moment to think. "I said it before. First, do no harm.You can't do just one thing. Anything you do, anything we do is likely to have unforeseen consequences."
"Okay, good wisdom. Colonel?" he said, looking at Ted. Ted had thought this through before. He said, "This
technology came from university research. We first ran into it in Indonesia. It's high tech, but a lot of the world is high tech. We need some defense. Some way to know if time transportation is being used. Put the button under two man control, but we need some sensors and strategic warning."