Gettysburg Revisited: A Novel of Time Travel

Chapter 1

Carlisle Barracks, Pennsylvania,

Wednesday, June 30, 2010, 4:45 a.m.

Colonel Bill Parker arose early at 4:45 a.m., as was his custom, put on his jogging suit and running shoes and quietly went out the front door of his quarters so as not to disturb the rest of his family. Parker was one of those rare individuals who ran not just to keep fit, but for the sheer joy and exhilaration of running. He had been an avid runner everywhere he had been assigned, even in Kuwait during his deployment there during the first Gulf War. Running in Kuwait was dicey at times but he managed to get in his daily road workout throughout the buildup.

At Carlisle Barracks, running was especially good. Parker enjoyed his early morning runs mostly because at this hour he usually had the road to himself—no traffic, no vehicle fumes, no other people. Carlisle Barracks was a relatively small installation, just a little over 200 acres, four fifths of a mile long and half a mile wide, located about two hours north of Washington, DC, in South-central Pennsylvania. Founded in 1757, the post reflected an eclectic mix of building construction that had accumulated gradually during almost 250 years of history. The installation was thickly forested with stately old deciduous and pine trees. Parker enjoyed running the road network on the periphery of the installation. It gave him the feeling of running through a national park.

Parker was feeling particularly exhilarated this morning. He had had a great night’s sleep and he was looking forward to a full work day ahead of him once he got to his office at the War College. His mind wandered ahead to the seminar lesson he was to conduct later that morning but he stopped himself short and came back to the present to enjoy the moment in the calm of the morning. As he came to the corner, he decided that for a change of pace, he would run the installation counter-clockwise and maybe even take a turn around the post golf course. He ran down Forbes Avenue, passed in front of Root Hall and Bliss Hall and turned north toward the Ashburn Gate. Just short of the gate, he veered off to his left and ran on down Lovell Avenue passing the Jim Thorpe Gymnasium on his left. He could just make out the outline of the Wheelock Bandstand by the light of several street lamps arrayed along the far sidewalk at the top of the commons. He glanced over to his right at the front entrance to the Letort View Community Center and continued on down the road. Passing Coren Apartments, he turned left at the intersection and headed up Guardhouse Lane.

The asphalt roadway surface was slippery with leaves and crushed chestnuts that had shaken loose and fallen some days earlier during a thunderstorm and had been crushed by traffic. The musky odor of decay filled his nostrils. As he moved up the street, he started pumping harder to increase his pace up the slight incline. The morning was cool but muggy. There was a strange energy in the air and the odd smell of electricity that he usually experienced when he played with his boys and their electric train set in the basement. The hair on his arms and legs began to stand on end as if in warning of some perilous threat. He slowed down as he came up adjacent to the statue of Frederick the Great on his left at the top end of Coren Apartments. Suddenly, a blinding white light enveloped Parker and he disappeared from view as if he had fallen into some unseen excavation in the middle of the street. One second there….next second gone—out of sight.

Chapter 2

Carlisle Barracks, Pennsylvania,

Wednesday, June 30, 2010, 5:00 a.m.

Colonel Barton Stauffer rolled over in his bed. He had been startled into semi-wakefulness by a bright flash of light through the small bedroom window that faced Garrison Lane and the Hessian Guardhouse. He waited for the noise of thunder that he thought would follow shortly so he could judge the distance of what he thought was an approaching storm.

Nothing.

Nada.

The lightning had been extremely bright—there should be some kind of thunder accompanying it. Puzzled, he slowly swung his legs out from under the covers and over the edge of the bed as he sat up. He stood up and shuffled over to the window, parted the white lace curtain and looked out. It was still quite dark but he sensed that the sky was clouded over and that rain was in the air. Odd—there weren’t any flashes in the distant sky—no thunderstorm. He wondered what the light might have been. He turned and walked back to the bed with the notion of getting another hour of sleep, but a large mixed breed German shepherd bounded up to him and pulled excitedly on his pajama bottoms with his teeth.

Klondike, settle down. It isn’t time to get up yet, he whispered, trying not to awaken his wife.

But the dog wouldn’t have any of it. He kept tugging at the pajama bottoms and swiping his paws at Stauffer’s feet and legs. Finally, Stauffer gave in and opened the door to the bedroom and softly padded down the hallway to the staircase. He shuffled sleepily down the wooden stairs to the front entryway. The over-sized shepherd puppy bounded past him, almost knocking him over on the last step. The dog had impossibly large paws in contrast to the rest of its still-developing body. He raced back and forth and finally jumped up placing his huge paws on the breast pockets of Stauffer’s striped pajama shirt.

You’re going to be one humongous dog when you finally grow into these paws, he laughed, …that is, if you live long enough. And then he added more audibly making sure the dog could hear, If you don’t get this urinating-in-the-house problem fixed fast, you’re going to be a former dog. He emphasized his last words… former dog…and directed them in a slow, stern voice pausing on each syllable as if to increase the dog’s awareness, pressing his face up close to the dog’s muzzle, now almost directly at his eye level. The dog happily lashed out with its tongue in response and Stauffer just barely got his head turned in time to catch the long wet tongue lick on his ear.

Auggh, stop that. He pushed the dog’s paws back down to the ground and, wiping the side of his face with the sleeve of his pajamas, fumbled for the deadbolt lock. Finally getting the door open, he stepped out onto the front porch into the brisk morning air. A thick gray mist hung over the broad expanse of grass in front of the Stauffer quarters. The sky was still quite dark. He could barely make out the tree line along the roadway leading over to the post medical clinic. The dog bounded happily past him down the cement steps and around the iron grating and out onto the patio stones. He scurried around excitedly sniffing trees and shrubs and assorted spots on the wet grass.

Stauffer stood impatiently on the porch. A sudden chill sent a shiver through his body and he trembled slightly in the cool dampness of the morning. Get it over with Klondike, he subvocalized, projecting his voice into the dimly-lit patio. Don’t make a major production out of it.

The dog paused and looked over at him quizzically for a brief moment. Then, he turned away and continued his olfactory tour of the yard, energetically sniffing everything there was to be sniffed. Colonel Stauffer waited for several minutes for the dog to complete his morning ritual and then finally lost patience. He stomped down the cement steps and out onto the flagstone patio. He ignored the wet stones and grass on his bare feet and crossed over to the edge of the patio where the dog was intent on checking out the ivy.

He whistled softly and the dog bounded over to him, looking up into his face. Stauffer put on his military command voice. He was exasperated by this time. You’re tougher to train than a new recruit, he said, adding, …or even a… a …. teenager, for emphasis. It just isn’t all that tough, troop. The first rule that all soldiers learn in boot camp is to never pass up the opportunity to urinate. He paused and the puppy looked up at him questioningly. Stauffer continued more slowly in a flatter, more impatient tone, Look soldier, all you have to do is take a leak so we can get back in our nice warm house and I can get back into my nice warm bed. You do not have to sniff out every new smell in the yard for inspiration. He raised his voice as he emphasized the word not. Just pee and get it over with. The dog just stood there watching, clearly not getting the gist of his remarks.

Stauffer had an out-of-the-box thought. It was time for some puppy boot camp training. He assumed his sternest military command voice and with a clipped monotone voice said, Demonstrator…front. Stauffer moved forward two steps with kind of an exaggerated mock military marching step and stood next to a tall arborvitae bush in the hedge on the border of the patio. The dog followed him and sat down at his side expectantly. Stauffer pulled down the top of his pajama bottoms and looked down at the dog. Demonstrator….by the numbers…one…raise your leg. Stauffer mechanically lifted his right leg up off the patio flag stone and looked to see if the dog was watching. Satisfied the dog was somewhat attentive, he continued, Demonstrator…pee, and began to relieve himself into the hedge. He continued talking to the dog, You see…by the numbers…there’s nothing to it…all you have to do is sidle up to your spot…spread your legs…and pee. It doesn’t require a complete yard inspection with your nose first to do it. It’s a waste of time. Just pee. He spoke to the dog as if he was speaking to a group of soldiers on the art of laying down fields of fire in a defensive perimeter. You’ve been holding it in all night. You don’t have to smell every blasted blade of grass on the place before you get the inspiration to pee.

The puppy stood there observing intently the demonstration of what his master wanted him to do, and then, walked over to the hedge and raised his right leg and began to urinate. Stauffer was elated. Good job! Great job! Smart dog! He finished his business and straightened his pajama bottoms, then leaned over and patted the puppy on his head to reinforce the training. As he turned to go back into the house, he heard an unexpected voice calling from the roadway on the other side of the trees across the green expanse of lawn.

Yo….that you Bart?….Out for your morning constitutional?

Out on the road that ran past the quarters, he could just make out the figure of a man jogging around the curve coming in the direction from the post clinic. Stauffer immediately recognized the voice. It was one of the guys from the War College faculty, Colonel Garner Stuart Wilson, IV. Wilson had been in Stauffer’s graduating class from the Army War College a few year’s back. He always thought that anyone who habitually used three names and a number when he introduced himself was just a little pretentious. Wilson was one of those rare officers who had actually been born and raised here in Carlisle. He had received his commission through the Military Academy at West Point and, following a highly successful career as a Special Forces officer, came back to the War College as a student and stayed on as a member of the faculty. Stauffer thought that Wilson had an ego the size of Montana. He hadn’t liked Wilson much back then in the War College class and he didn’t particularly care for him now.

In fact, Stauffer considered Wilson a genuine pain in the butt. He annoyed Stauffer because he frequently encountered him when Stauffer was out hitting the pavement for his own lackluster PT run. Wilson would stealthily run up behind him, startling him from his reverie, and then pass him by with some smart remark about his leisurely old man’s pace. Nope, he thought. Garner Stuart Wilson, IV, is clearly a butt head. Stauffer had a sudden thought. He wasn’t sure if Wilson had seen him urinating on the hedge. If he has, he muttered, he’ll probably tell the whole blasted school.

He mustered up a pseudo-positive response, Hey Garner, run an extra lap for me this morning…I’ve got to get to the office for an early meeting.

Ah, you’re working way too hard—can’t get the job done in the time allotted? Wilson needled him and then without missing a beat, he added, Later, disappearing out of sight down the road around the corner of the house. Stauffer could hear his footsteps fading in the distance as the runner came up on the intersection with Garrison Lane and turned down Guardhouse Lane toward the Community Center.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

As Wilson passed the old Hessian Powder Magazine, he felt a strange tingling sensation. He passed under a street lamp that flickered as he passed and then went out, leaving the street in darkness. He ran on ahead and stumbled as he stepped in a slight depression in the center of the street. It seemed to be filled with something sticky and slippery and Wilson lost his balance and fell backward. He landed on top of the depression and rolled over on his side. The black liquid in the depression was boiling hot and stuck to the front, back and sides of his warm-up suit. He brought his hand up to the thick black stain and touched it. It burned his skin and he yelped in pain. He was trying to stand up as another brilliant flash of light consumed him and he disappeared from sight.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Meanwhile, on the other side of Quarters 17, Stauffer called to his dog to come and follow him back into the house. He scampered on past his master up the steps to the front door. As he turned the handle of the screen door, a bright flash lit up the early morning sky. Stauffer thought that it must have been lightning somewhere off to the north on the other side of the house. He paused and looked up at the sky for threatening clouds. I didn’t think it was supposed to rain today…I better remember to take my raincoat, he muttered. Then, as an afterthought, he realized that if it did rain, Garner Stuart Wilson the Fourth just might get drenched before he could get back to his own quarters. Maybe there’s justice in the world after all, he mused. He pushed on the door and reentered his house. As he paused on the landing to shut the door and reset the deadbolt lock, he was vaguely troubled by the fact that the lightening flash hadn’t been followed by a clash of thunder. Storm must be pretty far away, he thought absently as he closed the door.

Stauffer climbed the stairs with the dog hot on his heels, walked down the hallway and back into the master bedroom. His wife, Gwen, was sitting up in bed. Did you get Klondike out in time? she asked, Or do I have another cleanup mess to take care of? The hint of a smile on her face let Stauffer know that she had awakened in good spirits.

I didn’t mean to wake you, Barton spoke softly as Klondike bounded past him and up onto the bed covers where he began wildly licking Gwen’s face. Gwen rolled backward in a fit of giggles, hugging the big dog and scratching him behind the ears.

Oh, you didn’t wake me up, she replied between fits of laughter. The radiator started banging again and it woke me out of a sound sleep. After that, there was no dozing off again. I’ve just been lying here waiting for you to come back up. Was that lightning? It lit up the whole room.

Stauffer walked over to the window on the Garrison Road side of the house and looked out. I don’t know, he acknowledged. I thought it was lightning but I didn’t hear any thunder. Maybe there’s a thunderstorm over the ridge in Perry County. As an afterthought, he added, still staring out the window, I don’t see any storm clouds coming at us from over the ridge though. Stauffer turned back to his wife and laughed, So the radiator clatter got you again. You probably need to wear earplugs or headphones to bed.

No, she responded. The Garrison Commander sent out a newsletter earlier this week saying that they were working on a contract to upgrade the whole heating system…maybe within a month or two.

Yes, he answered back skeptically over his shoulder as he headed for the bathroom to get cleaned up. And I believe in the Tooth Fairy and the Great Pumpkin too.

Gwen’s reply was a well-aimed pillow in the back of his head.

Meanwhile, across the street, halfway down Guardhouse Lane, a flume of steam rose up slowly from the center of the road. The asphalt surface of the roadway was still bubbling in a small circular puddle….

Chapter 3

Carlisle Barracks, Pennsylvania,

Wednesday, June 30, 2010, 6:00 a.m.

After showering, Stauffer quickly dressed and made his way back downstairs, walking softly on the old creaky floor to avoid waking anyone up. Gwen had drifted back to sleep with Klondike curled up on his side of the bed. Worse yet, he noted, the dog had his head and big wet nose on his pillow. The puppy was in desperate need of more training. He moved quietly past the kids’ bedroom doors. They had been up late the previous evening watching a new DVD and he figured they would sleep until noon if no one disturbed them. He didn’t pause in the kitchen but walked straight through to the back of the house. He stepped out the back door of their quarters and walked down the sidewalk past the garage to Garrison Lane. Rather than turning down Garrison towards Bliss Hall, he kept on walking straight down Guardhouse Lane thinking that a walk along the lower post road by the Letort stream would energize him for the day ahead.

Halfway down the street, he stepped on something sticky that adhered to the sole of his right shoe and stuck with each successive step down the street. Stauffer stopped to examine his shoe. It looked like tar or asphalt or something like that. He walked over to the side of the road to wipe the sole of his shoe on the grass and succeeded in getting an assortment of dead grass, twigs and broken chestnut shells stuck to the bottom of his shoe. He turned back onto the street, scraping his shoe on the curb as he went until he got it cleaned off sufficiently so as not to be so noticeable. At the intersection, he turned briefly to the left and then to the right, dropping down to Letort Lane. He walked alongside the stream bed in silence, taking in the freshness of the morning air as the sun occasionally broke through the foliage of the trees. He passed under the stone bridge overpass which marked the front gate entrance to post. A trout was languishing in the shadow of the bridge and when it sensed his presence, darted back upstream. I’ll be back for you later this evening with my pole, he called after it. He continued on past the rear of Root Hall, crossed over Barry Drive to the right, angled over to the left and hurried down the final leg on Brooke Avenue to the Collins Hall parking lot.

As he neared the gnarled old gingko tree by the sidewalk steps on the edge of the parking lot next to Collins Hall, a pungent odor invaded his nostrils. It was the kind of smell that made you check the bottom of your shoes to see what you might have stepped on and Stauffer involuntarily checked out the bottom of his shoe again, still sticky with tar. The smell from the gingko tree was overwhelming. Stauffer thought back to what his young preschool daughter, Corbie, had remarked the previous week when Gwen and the kids had dropped by in the minivan to pick him up after work. In the heat of that afternoon, the gingko odor was overpowering and really smelled foul. They had looked it up on Google when they got back to their quarters to check it out. One site said that female Gingko trees produce an abundance of seeds that smell like spoiled cream and that the smell stayed on your skin and clothes just like the smell of a skunk.

But Corbie had been much more descriptive when she first smelled it. Corbie had taken a big whiff and whined, That smells just like dog poop.

Colin had quickly chimed in, That smells just like when Dad gave Klondike leftover spaghetti after dinner and he had diarrhea all over the basement floor….dogarrhea….Uggh.

Corbie and Colin were right, he mused. That smells nothing like spoiled cream…darned tree smells just like ….dogarrhea. Stauffer shuddered involuntarily. He knew all too well about dogarrhea because Gwen had tasked him to clean it up since he was the culprit in giving Klondike the spaghetti in the first place.

He gave the tree wide berth. He didn’t want that smell adhering to his sticky shoe. He took the steps up to the level of the sidewalk two at a time and hurried over to the front entrance of Collins Hall, anxious to get away from the fetid smell and out of the humidity and heat that were just beginning to become uncomfortable. As he passed through the electronic security doors, he glanced to his right towards Pagonis Hall. From the outside, the new building complex appeared large and imposing; deep below it, the secret, subterranean complex where he worked was much larger. In fact, it was massive—a five-story facility tunneled below Carlisle Barracks with the upper level fully fifty feet below ground level. It was part of the Army's construction strategy that called for subterranean structures whenever possible to defeat a potential surface terrorist bomb threat.

Stauffer passed through the first of several security check points at the entrance to Collins Hall and hurried down the marble staircase to an imposing door with a hand pad recognition locking system. On the other side, he walked a short distance down a hallway and responded to a voice recognition security cue and passed through another door on his right. Eventually, he came to an elevator entry door with a security key pad. Stauffer entered the password and waited for the elevator to arrive. Once inside, there were several floor buttons, each with a corresponding number pad. He pressed his floor key and entered another code. The elevator plunged quickly to a much lower level and when it stopped he exited into another long corridor. There were unmarked doors on each side of the hallway. He knew the occupants of some but Barton didn’t know who worked in all of them. At the final door on the right, he placed his hand once again on a palm pad. As the door swung open with an audible click, he entered quickly, the door closing silently behind him.

Stauffer’s office was austere but comfortable: oak paneling on the walls; a large desk and credenza; a couple of overstuffed chairs and a long conference table with chairs. The far wall opposite his desk was his I Love Me Wall, the final resting spot of all the military awards, certificates, signed pictures, and other memorabilia symbolic of his long military career. On the wall over his desk was a large framed print of the Battle of Gettysburg. Next to it hung a cross stitch that Gwen had made for him that reflected his mood and philosophy in trying to conquer his Type A behavior:

The only reason for time is so that everything doesn't happen at once.

- Albert Einstein (1879-1955)

Stauffer strode across the room and around the desk, and sat down with a sigh of relief. Getting to his office was a real hassle. It reminded him for all the world of the opening credits of the old Get Smart TV series of the 1960s. But then again, he thought, they had copied Star Trek’s communicators to make cellular telephones. Maybe the designers did have Get Smart in mind when they put the whole security system for the facility together. The phone rang. Colonel Stauffer had two telephones on his desk, a black one for routine communication and a red one for classified calls within the facility. The red phone was the one that had sounded. He picked it up and said, Stauffer.

The voice on the other end replied in an excited voice, Boss, I’ve got some good news and some bad news. Which do you want first?

Stauffer rolled his eyes and looked at his watch. Ski, it’s only zero six thirty. How can you possibly have bad news for me already? He paused and then added, Or good news for that matter? He started to say something else and then stopped himself. Ski?

Yes, boss.

Ski, why don’t you just come up and we’ll discuss it here.

Are you sure?

Sure Ski, I have to get ready for another appointment and I don’t have time to come down.

Roger that, I’ll be up in a few minutes.

Thanks. Stauffer checked his watch. An inveterate Myers-Briggs ENTJ, he had arrived over an hour early to get ready for his meeting. Now, he was going to have to deal with Bob Zazworsky and whatever crisis Bob had detected already at this unforgiving hour.

Chapter 4

Carlisle Barracks, Pennsylvania,

Wednesday, June 30, 2010, 6:45 a.m.

Stauffer quickly sorted through the paperwork in his inbox trying to get some work done before Bob Zazworsky arrived. He had worked his way through the first three files when a rapid knocking on his office door alerted him that Zazworsky had arrived. He pressed the lock release button and a tall, heavy-set man dressed in grey slacks, white shirt open collar, and a navy blue blazer lunged into the room as if he had been leaning on the door when the lock was released. It was Bob Zazworsky, out of breath. Stauffer reasoned that he must have come up the staircase on the run instead of taking the elevator at a more leisurely pace. This didn’t portend well. Stauffer motioned to him to come over to his desk. So we’ve got a good news/bad news dilemma already this morning?

Yes boss. The good news is that we’ve finally discovered what’s been causing all of the temporal anomalies, Zazworsky offered.

And just what is it that causing the problem? Stauffer responded.

Ahhhhh. Now that’s the bad news.

Didn’t we get to the bad news a little too quickly? Surely there was something more to the good news than that?

Zazworsky grimaced. Well, we do have a problem, boss. We ran a number of diagnostic tests last month and found that each time we rev up the time travel portals, a certain amount of excess energy is generated. We’ve come to believe that this energy has temporal qualities and when the excess energy has built up sufficiently, it tends to spike and release the energy into the air in unpredictable ways.

Stauffer leaned forward in his chair, As I recall, we discussed this problem several weeks ago at our monthly staff meeting and I thought that we had it licked. As I remember it, the engineering team found a way to vent the energy harmlessly into the atmosphere. Stauffer paused and then added, Refresh my memory Ski, just what did they come up with to vent the excess energy?

Well actually, at the time, I thought it was just this side of brilliant. They brought a shielded conduit up from one of the labs in the far south west corner of the Hole and vented it right up through the old bronze statue of Frederick the Great next to the Coren Apartments. It didn’t require any new construction and so we achieved venting without anything showing topside that would attract attention.

Okay so far…. so what’s the problem?

Well, we thought that the temporal energy was venting directly overhead into the air. But when we ran an analysis on the conductive characteristics of the statue this morning, we found that it was working as an omni-directional transmitter. Anyone or anything standing close to the statue when the energy builds up to a spike could be affected by a temporal energy burst.

Okay…., that could be a real issue. It’s good that you caught it before it became a problem.

Stauffer could tell from the shadow that immediately passed over Zazworsky’s face that they hadn’t caught it in time and that in fact they had a problem. Okay Ski, you’ve been delivering it up in small slices. Let me have the whole pizza. What’s the bad news here?

Well, we had two temporal energy spikes early this morning that vented through the statue. It appears that the first spike snagged someone and projected him into the past.

Do you know who it was?

Well, immediately following the surge, we ran a temporal observation survey front and back fifteen minutes each way. It looks like Bill Parker got plucked right out of his morning run.

Stauffer sat back in his chair and sighed, That’s not good. Definitely not good. You mentioned two spikes. What about the second one?

Well, we ran an observation survey on that one too and we think that Garner Stuart Wilson might have been scooped up by that one.

Garner Stuart Wilson the Fourth? What do you mean scooped up? What did you see during the follow-up temporal survey scans?

Well, both officers were running around the post roadways from different directions, but when they came up abreast of Frederick the Great next to the Coren Apartments, there were flashes of light and each of them disappeared.

Stauffer’s mind was racing. He thought back to the lightning flashes he had observed earlier that morning. So it wasn’t lightning after all but bursts of temporal energy….and they somehow had grabbed Parker and Wilson. Stauffer fired another question at Zazworsky, Do we have any idea to what time period they might have been transported?

Zazworsky frowned, Not yet but I’ve put all our observation teams to work on it. We’ll find them soon enough I wager. We had been working on a Gettysburg observation team placement at the time and so we suspect that it may have thrown them into the Gettysburg time frame.

Stauffer did a quick mental inventory of Parker’s and Wilson’s background. As far as he knew, neither of them was privy to any knowledge about the Hole or temporal operations. This was going to get sticky real fast. Okay Ski, get back on it. Let me know as soon as you have something. I’m going to have to go down and brief the old man. Call me on his red phone if you get something within the next few minutes or so.

Zazworsky wheeled and hurried out of the office. Stauffer leaned back again in his chair to catch his breath and digest the information he had just received. Ski had it all wrong with his good news/bad news thing, he groused. What he had was bad news and even worse news.

Stauffer leaned back in his chair and shut his eyes to reflect a moment in order to organize his thoughts before going below to brief General Goldwyn. He had been at Carlisle on and off for a very long time. He had first come to the Barracks to serve as a faculty instructor in the War College’s Department of National Security and Strategy in 1995. Later on, after a number of subsequent, highly classified black assignments at the Pentagon, he had worked his way free and managed to get himself reassigned back up to Carlisle where he took over as the Director of the Center for Strategic Leadership—CSL—in 2004. The job was challenging, and at times the pace was killing. But, it was removed two hours north from the Capitol Beltway and Stauffer found that on most days, he was in charge of what went on—he was the one who fashioned the work schedule and duty roster.

Running the CSL operation was demanding but Stauffer found that he could balance his life between professional obligations, family activities and personal time. He was just beginning to enjoy the pace when Dr. Harvey Price, a relatively obscure researcher at the Bell Laboratories in Murray Hill, New Jersey, made several breakthrough discoveries that presaged the development of time portal observation and time travel technology.

At least, that was the official story recorded in the classified reports he had read that were on file in the classified vault. But Stauffer had his doubts—after all his experience on black assignments, he was of the opinion that the Government routinely prepared plausible cover stories of disinformation to hide the truth of the sometimes clandestine reality it was involved in, cover stories even for its own supposedly inside players, people otherwise in the know. The circle of people who were privy to the whole truth behind most issues of major import was in fact quite small. He half suspected that the ubiquitous, semi-paranoid UFO abduction folks may have been right all along. This invention of time portals was so out-of-the-box that it appeared to be an alien technology de-engineered and adapted for DOD purposes. The time portal mechanism employed a broad range of interconnecting up-until-then-unheard-of technologies involving very complex plastics, ceramics, metal alloys, and highly miniaturized nanotechnologies. Integrated together, they made it possible to see and move through time.

Whatever the source of the technologies, the demonstration of a time portal potential at the Murray Hill facility was quickly put under tight wraps. In recognition of his extraordinary discovery, the hapless Price was offered a lucrative research grant and shipped off to a DOD research facility in Antarctica.

Meanwhile, research and development continued on time portal technology in compartmentalized task force work groups at high security research facilities located at various DOD installations around the country, and at universities all funded in some way or another by the military. Many of the people involved in the research were the best minds in their fields. Much like the compartmentalized black project that resulted in the Air Force’s Stealth technology, few scientists and engineers working on the temporal technology suspected the ultimate objective of their research work—where the project was leading. None had any idea that when combined with other new technologies simultaneously being developed at other research facilities, time portal observation was imminently possible.

Several years later, when the various task forces had matured their technologies sufficiently, the secret underground facility tunneled deep under Carlisle Barracks was just reaching completion and each element of the project was gradually transferred over to the facility.

For Barton Stauffer, any hope he might have had for slowing down a little evaporated overnight. He turned over operational responsibilities for CSL and Collins Hall and moved from his sumptuous office on the main floor of the building and into his present office in the new subterranean facility. He quickly became decisively engaged in the Time Observation Portal Project or TOPP, as each decentralized research facility task force completed its work and turned over its piece of the project. Stauffer’s role was to supervise his own on-site task force of highly specialized scientists and engineers as they attempted to integrate all the disparate pieces of the puzzle into an operational military capability, a functional time observation portal. That goal kept him working 16-to-18-hour days for the next year.

Although Stauffer was responsible for the operational integration of the new system, he was not in charge of the project overall. DOD had recalled Cubby Goldwyn, a retired Army 4-star general, back to active duty to oversee the whole TOPP project operation and provide an interface with Washington. Goldwyn reported directly to the Secretary of Defense. It was apparently a very smart move. Goldwyn had spent the last ten years of his distinguished military career working inside the Beltway heading up a variety of intelligence organizations and high-security projects. He still had many friends in high places and his presence at TOPP relieved Barton of the need to play politics and run dog-and-pony shows for the occasional VIPs who visited the facility. Most importantly, Goldwyn had the dubious talent of being a very convincing liar and he was absolutely superb at maintaining the project's sensitive cover operation.

That part amused Stauffer most of all. Although construction of the complex could not be hidden from Congress—after all, they had to pay the bills—Defense planners also realized that Congress collectively could never maintain the secrecy that the project required. And so, a careful classified cover story was worked up to justify the project to the majority of the Congress people who were peripherally aware of the work going on in the subterranean laboratories beneath Carlisle Barracks.