Looks were exchanged and the room became just as silent as before. Niles cleared his throat and then nodded for Virginia to answer the question.
“Approximately two hundred and sixty-five thousand years. Exact location, unknown, the location we have — Antarctica.”
Moira was silent as the outrageous answer stunned her. She did notice the young dark-haired woman lower her head and then the smaller woman saying something to her softly, both expressing the bad news on their faces.
“Considerably further back than I have traveled, my dear. The astronomy calculations alone would take a supercomputer a full three years to even get a bearing on a location that far back.” She shook her head and then used her wheelchair’s toggle to turn away from the group of curious eyes as she thought about the difficulties involved in a dimensional transfer that far back.
As for the group, none wanted to say they had the most powerful supercomputer ever devised at their disposal, but what would that serve? What the Traveler was trying to explain went over the heads of most everyone in the room. “I hope someday you will allow me to know how the subject of this far-flung dimensional jump managed to achieve this.”
“It happened during the recent war.”
She turned in her chair and looked at Compton with excitement on her face.
“The wormholes?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“I knew that would be the only way they could get here from such a distance. They actually time-warped here?”
“Yes,” Niles said. “Is that helpful to you?”
They all saw the sadness in the Traveler’s face. She shook her head. She looked at the fallen face of the woman with jet-black hair as she swallowed hard and then held the smaller woman’s hand tighter. Moira wanted to reach out to the young woman but held back as she knew she had not delivered the news that was so badly needed to be heard.
“We did uncover something concerning our Traveler friend here,” Master Chief Jenks said, shrugging off the warning elbow poke he received from Virginia.
“What is that?” Niles asked, not wanting any more bad news at the moment.
Jenks tossed a small device onto the table with a clang. The wires leading from it looked like it was attached to a bomb, but then most saw the old clock face and digital readout were blank. Jenks quickly connected the wires to an adapter and then plugged the device in and the clock face flared to red and blue brightness. Moira was the only person in the room besides Jenks and Virginia to know what it was.
“The time stamp,” Moira said as she eased in closer to the table as Jenks picked up the small timepiece.
“Time stamp?” Niles asked.
“Yes,” answered the Traveler. “It records the date and time of the displacement jump.”
“Do you remember the very last date of your final dimensional shift?” Virginia asked, now curious to hear her explanation.
“Of course, September 25, 1973. The time should be frozen at zero three forty-five hundred hours and fifty-one seconds on that date.”
Jenks held the recorder up so all could see: 05/17/1987 0120 hours and 22 seconds.
All eyes went to the Traveler, who was in deep thought as she read and then reread the numerical display.
“That cannot be correct. Maybe the water damage?”
“It’s a sealed unit, ma’am, you know that,” Jenks said as he sat back in his chair, not feeling too good about confronting the Traveler with a false statement on her last use of the Wellsian Doorway.
“I have no explanation for that.”
They could all see the consternation that Jenks and Virginia’s revelation had caused the old woman. She lowered her head in thought.
Niles was about to speak when the main monitor that had been installed flared to life. On the screen was Xavier Morales as he sat in the clean room in Nevada.
“What have you got, Doctor?” Compton asked, knowing nothing could assuage the news they had already received.
“Europa may have something, a little out of the ordinary, but you may wish to investigate on your end.”
Moira looked up into the young face of the man she had met earlier.
“We were poring over the original blueprints for the Brooklyn Navy Yard buildings. It took Europa to uncover the original specs for the renovations made during the sixties and seventies. It seems in late 1985 building number one-fourteen was purchased. No design specs were ever turned in by the contractor other than a sprucing up of the building. Janitorial reports mostly and some asbestos removal, nothing major.”
“What has that to do with this building?” Jack asked.
Xavier looked sad for a moment as he looked at the people gathered in Brooklyn. “It seems the building was purchased by Grenada Holdings.”
Everyone looked over at a stunned Moira Mendelsohn.
“Ms. Mendelsohn’s own corporation,” Morales finished.
“I don’t have a second property here,” she said in her defense.
“Signed by your corporate board, a Mr. Joaquim Wachowski. Europa says he is a former associate of yours, ma’am,” Xavier added, still not feeling good about placing the old woman in a corner.
Moira Mendelsohn felt physically ill.
“My God, they constructed a second doorway.”
“Who?” Niles asked as he was sorely tempted to stand and shout the question.
“Some very unscrupulous men with whom I once trusted with far too many secrets”—she looked away—“and lives.”
Questions stirred and hopes were raised, for how long this saving grace would exist, none of the Event Group knew.
“May I suggest you get someone over to building one-fourteen?” Morales said as he watched the stunned inactivity on his own monitor from Nellis.
Before anyone could issue orders, Jack had assisted Henri from his chair and along with Will and Jason, hurriedly left the room.
“Now, perhaps we better go into a little more depth on your past financial partners.” Niles was watching her as Jack and his men exited the makeshift conference room.
An angry look crossed the Traveler’s countenance. “Yes, let’s do that.”
10
Collins checked with his outside security and found that the last team of news vans and reporters had left the navy yard twenty minutes before. Jack, Will, Jason, and Henri all stood underneath the pewter skies as they examined building 114 from a distance. The 150-year-old redbrick building had its facade renovated in the eighties to make it aesthetically in line with its occupied neighbors. The owners of the property spent money on the outside to keep the navy yard development people in check, but according to Europa and Morales, refused to refurbish the inside. Europa unscrupulously uncovered the plans from the city building inspector and saw that no refurbishment of the interior was ever ordered, or at least reported. It was purely a real estate investment for the Grenada Holding Corporation and their extensive real estate portfolio.
“You say the last reporters left some time ago?” Jack asked as he took a step toward building 114 situated across from the newly flooded dry dock that separated building 114 from its sister, 117.
“According to Lance Corporal Ramirez, yes, sir,” Will answered.
Collins glanced at the rain clouds above them and acted as casual as he could.
“Well, someone with a camera seems to be lost,” he said as he walked toward the building and then stopped. The others stopped with him. Only Henri knew why. “Mr. Ryan, eleven o’clock, building one-eleven, rooftop, two men, one with a camera and one observing,” he said without turning to look at the abandoned ghost of building 111.
“Correction, three men total, two of them are armed with more than a camera,” Henri said as he reached down and acted as though he was looking at something.