15:40 (GMT)
Monday, September 2, 1940
Base intelligence section, R.A.F. Northolt
“Please sit down, miss.”
Wilson waited until Nancy was installed comfortably before talking again. The door of his office was firmly closed and he had told Flight Sergeant Sanders that only a group captain or above could disturb them. It was time that he dealt properly with Nancy’s case and that he clarified a few things with her. She cut him off first.
“Mister Wilson, you may not have women who are commissioned officers in the R.A.F. but I am a captain. We thus have equivalent ranks, I believe. You can call me by my rank or simply call me Nancy.”
“Er, alright, Nancy. As you can understand, I must produce a report and an assessment on you as soon as possible, so that the sector commander can relay some recommendations about you to London. I have to say that, up to now, he is very much impressed with you and feels like me that you are no security threat. However, it is not his decision to make. I suspect that the intelligence and security services will in fact have the most to say about that. This said, I would like you to tell me yourself, from the start, how you ended up here.”
Nancy complied good-naturely, starting her story when she left for her cottage in 2012, until her arrival with Meg Thomas at the base main gate. Wilson took copious notes of her account, then straightened himself in his chair. If he was doubting her story, he was not letting it show up.
“So, you do not know who or what sent you here, how or why. Do you have any ideas or theories of your own on that?”
She contemplated her answer for an instant.
“The only things I can go on are that strange craft that I saw over my cottage and the six-fingered hand in the crash site near here. Let me say first that the craft was way beyond the technology of 2012, and I can say that I know a lot about aerospace and military technology. It was thus either extra-terrestrial in origin or, more probably in view of my own time displacement, some kind of time machine from a far future. The six-fingered hand, if it belonged to a human rather than an extra-terrestrial, would tend in my mind to indicate an evolved human, something that would put him or her thousands if not tens of thousands of years in our future. If that is the case, then it will probably be next to impossible to fathom their motives in abducting me and sending me here. Now that they are dead, I will probably be stuck here forever.”
Wilson detected the bitterness in her last sentence and hurried to try to reassure her.
“Nancy, if this means anything to you, I can assure you that you now have friends here that are ready to help and support you. You are not alone, Nancy.”
“Will that really count to the bureaucrats and security officials in London?”
“I frankly cannot promise anything, except my full support. That is why you must give me convincing proofs that you are really from the future, so that I can go and convince them.”
“Doug, I have to warn you that some people will probably react violently when they learn of what I know. You could get hurt.”
“I will deal with that as it comes. Please help me, so that I can help you.”
“Alright! I propose that we do two things: first, you inspect my equipment; then I give you a list of things to pass on to specific persons and wait for a reaction.”
“Christ! You are that sure that your info will disturb someone that much?”
“Actually, Doug, I expect that they will send immediately some of their top dogs here once I whisper certain words in chosen ears. You have no idea of what I know about this time period. Let’s see my equipment now, if you will.”
It took fifteen minutes to set up her equipment and prepare her belongings for inspection on top of two tables inside the intelligence section. The junior ranks were then told to take a long break, leaving only Nancy, Wilson, Sanders and Latham inside the section. She let first Wilson search her personal items and her wardrobe. Apart from some very modern and scanty underwear that brought some red to Wilson’s cheeks, he found nothing of interest in her civilian clothes. Her guitar got Nancy a questioning look from Wilson.
“Are you a musician?”
“No, but I play guitar as a hobby. My friends say that I’m not bad at it. I also like singing.”
Nancy’s dress uniform earned a good look from Douglas Wilson, who then examined the mounted medals that went with it. Her Medal of Bravery attracted a respectful look from Douglas, while her various peacekeeping medals, with the words ‘IN THE SERVICE OF PEACE’ and ‘U.N.’ struck on the medals, left him wondering. Nancy’s Diamond Jubilee Medal, with the words ‘ELIZABETH II DEI GRATIA REGINA’ and the profile of an old Queen Elizabeth II confused Wilson at first. Frowning, he looked sideways at Nancy.
‘’Is this who I think it is?’’
Nancy gave him a disarming smile.
‘’It is in fact the one presently being called Princess Elizabeth of Windsor, Doug. She will sit on the throne after the war, after the death of King George VI. I will not talk further about this if you don’t mind, as I would consider it bad taste in the present situation.’’
All the British men around her nodded their heads slowly, understanding her misgivings. Her web gear and kevlar helmet were next to grab the British’s attention, along with her tactical and undershirt bullet-resistant vests. Nancy put on her tactical vest and helmet to show them the overall appearance, attracting an amused comment from Sergeant Latham.
“You look like one of those imperial guards out of ‘Flash Gordon’, miss.”
Next came her weapons. They already knew about her Glock 26 and Desert Eagle pistols from her adventure with Latham and the Germans, but saw her three other handguns for the first time. Wilson quickly put aside the Ruger Mark II .22 calibre target pistol and the Colt Python .357 Magnum revolver as being fairly contemporary weapons. The Glock 17 9mm pistol was another matter. For one thing, the frame of the weapon was made from a polymer, not from metal. The other feature that caught Wilson’s eyes was the Bushnell Holosight, which looked like a small, one-inch square window on top of an elongated support base.
“What is this?”
“An holographic 3-D combat sight. I use it in combat pistol competitions. It places a red illuminated cross hair in line with the bore and the target. You can acquire the target much faster, without having to line up two sets of sights. Try to point at something quickly, but keep both of your eyes open.”
Wilson did just that and was suitably impressed.
“This really makes pointing faster and easier. I wish we could have something like that for our Hurricanes and Spitfires.”
“Actually, Doug, this was adapted from a system used in modern jet fighters for target tracking. My smaller pistol also has another type of targeting system used in a way on aircraft.”
Nancy took out her Glock 26 and showed to Doug that it was unloaded before touching a small contact on its side and then pointing the pistol on Sergeant Latham.
“What is this red light under the muzzle?” Asked Latham.
“You mean the red dot dancing on your chest?” Corrected Wilson.
“Sergeant Sanders, please close the lights.” Requested Nancy. Once the room was dark, the laser beam became visible, attracting a chorus of exclamations. She played the dot around a bit.
“This is a laser targeting beam. It places a dot of red light where you point your weapon, thus making it easier in combat.”
“What is a laser?” Asked Latham.
“It is a beam of coherent light, where all the light waves are parallel, thus tightly focused. At very small power levels, like this, it can be used to point a target or as a rangefinder. At medium power levels it can blind a person temporarily or damage optical sights. At high power levels, meaning 100 kilowatts or more, a laser can actually damage or destroy soft targets. Lasers have not been invented yet in 1940.”
Wilson quickly noted that down: they were definitely getting somewhere now.
Nancy passed over her radio scanner, since Wilson already had seen what it could do. Next was a device about the same size as the scanner, with a display screen on it. She looked at it sadly, then put it besides another item.
“These, I’m afraid, are totally useless here: the communications infrastructure needed for them to work do not exist yet anywhere. Your scientists will be free to study them at will. This one on the left is a Magellan global positionning system receiver, or GPS in short. It could give you your exact location down to less than 30 yards anywhere in the world, that is if the support satellites would be in orbit yet.”
“…A satellite? What is that?”
“How is your knowledge of astronomy, Doug?”
“Well, I’m not a regular observer but I do read on it from time to time.”
“Good, then you know a bit about orbital mechanics?”
“Yes, of course: a celestial object will stay around another body if it is on the right path and space velocity.”
“Excellent! Now, this GPS receiver is made to receive signals from emitter stations orbiting around the Earth, then calculates its own position from the time difference between multiple signals. In 2012, there were thousands of varying types of satellites in orbit, plus one permanently occupied orbital space station.”
The three British looked at her in awe: space flight was really possible? Wilson scribbled frantically on his notepad as Nancy went on.
“This one besides the GPS receiver is the latest in communications technology in 2012 and a ‘must have’ item for a war correspondent like me: it’s a cellular telephone capable of transmitting computer data and images from anywhere in the World via satellite. Unfortunately, it is now useless, like the GPS. I will take the batteries out of them and save them for other electronic items I have.”
Opening small access panels in the back of the devices, she took out the ‘AA’ batteries. Wilson took one of them between two fingers and examined it.
“If this can make you happy, Nancy, we have similar size batteries available here.”
“You do? Thank God for that! I was afraid that most of my equipment was going to turn into dead junk within days.”
“O.K., now tell me what are exactly computers.”
“I believe that words would not suffice for that. The best way to explain is by a demonstration. Come here, please.”
They all moved in front of Nancy’s MAINGEAR F131 Super Stock desktop computer, already hooked up to a multifunction center, a UPS power regulator and a small transformer.
“I was bringing this equipment to my cottage in order to work on a story that my editor was screaming to get. I also was just back from a five weeks field trip in Afghanistan, where I used some of my portable equipment, including my portable notebook computer. It also explains the duffel bag full of dirty clothes: I was due to wash them at my cottage.”
The British smiled at her explanation and at Nancy’s embarrassed look.
“I can have a steward from the officers’ mess wash and press your clothes and uniforms without a problem, if this is convenient for you.” Proposed Wilson. She beamed at him at those words.
“You’re a darling! I am certainly going to take you on your offer, Doug. Alright, here we go. Computers like this one are essentially data storage and handling machines, plus are used to communicate World-wide via an international network called ‘Internet’. In 2012 they are everywhere and were being improved constantly. In 1940, there are only a few clumsy, ultra-slow and dumb electro-mechanical computers in service that are used mostly to break codes. They take up complete rooms and are less powerful than my pocket calculator. What you are going to see is way beyond even the imagination of your technology. You can’t even duplicate this, since your materials technology is not advanced enough yet to produce the necessary semi-conductors.”
Wilson looked at her with a dubious expression on his face.
“We will try to follow you through. Proceed!”
“In my intelligence unit, we used a list of what we called Priority Intelligence Requirements, or P.I.R.s. Do you have such a list here?”
“Yes. Do you need to see it?”
“Not if you can remember some of it. Give me one of your top requirements and I will see if I can find something about it in my computer database.”
Cold sweat appeared on Wilson’s forehead: if she was telling the truth, she may be about to give him in minutes the answers to questions that had been bothering the R.A.F. for months.
“One of our top priorities as a Fighter Command airbase is to find anything about new German aircraft and their performances and armament in particular.”
“Fair enough! Here we go!”
Nancy turned on her desktop computer, then the monitor and the multifunction center. The three British held their breath while the monitor screen came alive in seconds and the computer self-checked for glitches and viruses. In the meantime, Nancy opened a small briefcase, showing the dozens of laser discs and USB memory sticks inside. She took one laser disc out and showed it to Doug.
“This briefcase holds my professionnal war correspondent database and historical files, enough to fill a small public library with the equivalent in books. While the embedded memory inside my computer possesses a huge capacity, I reserve it to save in it my current professional files and programmes, while I keep on disks and memory sticks historical data and other information that I use less often. This particular disk is used by me to store data on World War II military equipment and armament, collected from scanning books and copying available datafiles.”
She inserted the 700 megabites-capacity laser disk in the computer’s DVD/CD drive, then turned towards Wilson.
“Have you seen anything yet on the Focke-Wulf 190 fighter?”
“Er, no!”
Nancy’s reply to that was to select a file on her disk’s menu and access it. The black and white picture of a small, compact propeller-driven aircraft appeared on the screen, along with lines of text. The three RAF men crowded behind Nancy, examining every detail on the screen. Nancy initiated a print program as she spoke.
“Focke-Wulf 190A fighter. Entered service in September of 1940. Maximum speed of 653 kmh, or 408 mph if you prefer. Armament of two 13mm machineguns above the engine, plus two 20mm cannons in the wing roots and two 20mm or 30mm cannons in the outer wings. It is equiped with a BMW 801 radial engine rated at 1700 hp, with emergency boost to 2100 hp. Extremely agile and very robust.”
“My god!” Exclaimed Latham, “It is faster and better armed than our own Spitfire.”
“Yes and, starting next year, it will cause you a lot of grief. Here, the printout on it is starting to come through.”
The men looked at her portable multifunction center as two pages of pictures, drawings and text were coming out with a low humming noise. Taking the first page off the printer’s tray, Wilson scanned it with growing excitement. He finally returned his eyes on Nancy, grinning to her.
“Do you realise what your machine and its data could mean to us?”
“I understand that very well, Doug.” Replied Nancy, her face most serious. ‘’I thought hard during the last hours about the possible consequences of what I just did. By giving to your government access to my knowledge and technology, I will most certainly change history and shake the future as I knew it. On the other hand, doing nothing would have condemned over 57 million people, most of them civilians, to die in this war, as dictated in my history. If my actions now can save at least a few millions by shortening this war, then I will be able to look at myself in a mirror after this war.’’
‘’And what if you would have decided not to give us your knowledge?’’ Asked Wilson, after he had gone over the shock caused by the number of dead mentioned by Nancy.
‘’Then, I would have torched my car, with my equipment inside, and would have shot myself in the head.’’
Looking into her green eyes, Wilson could see that she was not bluffing about that.
“Very well! Latham, take these pages and have them retyped in three copies, along with photographs of the pictures and drawings.”
“Wait! No need for that!”
Nancy’s shout stopped Latham as he was halfway to the door. The three men looked at her in puzzlement as she smiled and pointed at her multifunction system.
“Why do it the hard way? This can also be used as a copying machine. Give me those sheets. Three copies you said?”
“Correct!” Answered a bemused Wilson.
As the British stared at the machine that was soon spitting out pages after pages, Nancy selected more files on the disk’s menu and ordered a fresh print program. When Wilson had just picked up what he thought was the last of the copies he had asked for, more pages kept pouring out on the tray.
“What is this? I have three cop…”
He strangled on his words when he realised that these pages concerned a totally different aircraft. Nancy chuckled at his expression.
“I took the liberty of ordering a printout run of three copies each of the files on the Messerschmitt 262 jet fighter, the V-1 flying bomb, the V-2 ballistic missile and the radar-equiped night fighter variant of the Messerschmitt Bf 110. You don’t need to touch anything. If it stops printing, do not attempt anything and wait for me.”
“Where are you going?”
“To the washroom: my bladder is about to burst.”
When she returned to the intelligence section, Nancy was directed again into Wilson’s office.
“Nancy, even after seeing it, I can barely believe it. Did you say that you have complete historical files on these disks?”
“Correct, Doug. I have on file the main political, military and technological events up to the year 2012, plus details on weapons systems to be produced between now and then.”
“My god, this means…”
“… That I could show you what the RAF looks like in 2012, or how this war was won by 1945, according to my own history of course.”
Wilson paled at that. Nancy kept going on, becoming very serious.
“Doug, I believe that now is a good time to place a few phone calls.”
Taking a notepad, she wrote for a short while on it, then passed it to Wilson.
“Please call Group Headquarters at Uxbridge and ask to speak to the officer in charge of the Special Liaison Unit attached to Air Marshal Park. Then tell that officer those words and from whom you got them. Then warn the sector commander that a rocket may be coming down his way on my account.”
Wilson looked at the notepad, then at her and finally picked up the telephone. As he was waiting for a connection with Uxbridge, Commodre Nicholls entered the office, making Doug and Nancy shoot up to their feet at attention. Signaling Doug to continue with his call, Nancy spoke politely to Nicholls, a man with graying hair wearing one of those moustaches so popular in the R.A.F..
‘’Commodore, Lieutenant Wilson is in the process of calling Marshal Park’s headquarters in Uxbridge at my request. You may want to stay to see the result of that call.’’
‘’Uxbridge?’’ Said Nicholls, surprised. ‘’Who exactly is he calling, Captain?’’
‘’The officer in charge of the Special Liaison Unit attached to Marshal Park, sir. You probably don’t know the exact mission of that unit, as it deals with highly classified materiel.’’
‘’Uh, I effectively don’t know well that unit, but I do hold a ‘Most Secret’ security clearance, Captain.’’
Seeing that Doug had finally been connected to the officer he wanted to speak to, Nancy made a sign to Nicholls to listen, which he did with some impatience.
“Hello, this is Flight Lieutenant Wilson, Northolt’s intelligence officer. To whom am I speaking, please?…Sir, a person that arrived on this base this morning has asked me to read a few words to you and wait for your reaction… No Sir, I’m dead serious. That person, apart from shooting dowm a Junkers 88 and capturing two Germans, gave us truly valuable intelligence on German aircraft and weapons…Yes sir! Here are the words for you: Ultra, Bletchley Park, , Hut 3…”
At that point, Wilson had to take the phone away from his ear, as even Nancy could hear the officer at the other end yell. Wilson also seemed irritated by what he heard, as he then also raised his voice.
“Commander Kelly, before you continue talking about putting that person in jail, let me remind you that she suggested contacting you!…Yes, it’s a she, sir! She also brought with her some equipment that is, in my humble opinion, well beyond our technology or that of the Germans… What I am trying to say is that we have here a young Canadian woman with extremely valuable information and some amazing equipment, who claims to be coming from the year 2012…Yes sir, I believe her and I think that she can convince anybody of it… Sir, I’m sorry but I refuse to put that woman under arrest.”
‘’Give me that telephone, Wilson!’’ Grumbled Nicholls, who then took the receiver from Doug’s hand and then spoke on a firm tone.
‘’Commander Kelly, this is Commodore Nicholls, Commander of the Northolt Sector. I have met this woman and seen her information and I am ready to put my trust in her. I do not know what is bugging you so much but I can assure you that nobody here will put Captain Laplante in jail, unless someone much higher in rank than you gives me the order to. Don’t worry about informing Marshal Park about this: I will do it myself.’’
Nicholls then slammed the phone down and looked at Nancy, a question in his eyes.
‘’What do the words you made Wilson say on the phone really mean, Captain? That Commander Kelly seemed positively furious.’’
‘’They are connected to the most important military secret held presently by Great-Britain, Commodore.’’ Answered soberly Nancy. ‘’That secret is known by only a select few senior officers and politicians, including the Prime Minister. Its importance in this war is actually priceless and I can thus understand perfectly why this Commander Kelly was so agitated.’’
‘’But, if this secret is so important, how come you know about it, Captain?’’
‘’Simple, Commodore: the ULTRA file will be declassified and opened to the public nearly forty years after the end of this war and was part of the historical archives in 2012. Believe me, sir, when I tell you that I know about every dirty little secrets in this war and the years to come, be they German, British, American, Japanese, Soviet, Italian or French. If I was in fact a German spy, do you think that I would reveal such information to you? The Germans would in fact kill to learn that you are able to decipher their coded messages, Commodore.’’
Nicholls, beads of cold sweat appearing on his forehead, nodded slowly his head after a few seconds and spoke in a subdued tone.
‘’I now fully believe you, Captain. I will go call Marshal Park right away on my encoded telephone line. Do you think that you could produce more information on the Germans in the meantime?’’
‘’Certainly, Commodore. I will go select and print a chronological list of significant events for the months to come. I must however warn you right now about a radical change to German air tactics soon. On September 7, in five days, the Luftwaffe will cut down on its attacks against R.A.F. airfields and radar stations and will launch a massive bombing campaign against the city of London. The first raid, in the late afternoon of September 7, will be made by a total of over 900 bombers and fighters and will target the London East Docks area. A smaller raid will follow that night, then daily raids will hit the city. The German goal will be to break the morale of the British population.’’
‘’My God!’’ Said Nicholls, becoming pale. ‘’Are you certain about that information, Captain?’’
‘’Positive, sir! I will have more informations on paper within an hour.’’
‘’In this case, I will not take more of your precious time, Captain. I will now go make that call to Marshal Park.’’
As Nicholls walked out of the intelligence section at a near run, Doug looked with near reverence at Nancy.
‘’God must have sent you, Nancy.’’
Nancy smiled gently at that.
‘’Maybe! Doug, I need a favor from you.”
“Anything you ask!” Replied Wilson with a smile.
“Doug, the more people will know about me, the better the chances that some of them will want to eliminate me. Know this, but keep it strictly to yourself: your government is thoroughly infiltrated by communist sympathizers working for Moscow. What do you think Stalin will do when he learns that someone knows everything about his post-war plans for Europe or about his secret operations?”
Wilson suddenly looked like he was going to be sick.
“He will probably order you kidnapped or killed. Your life would become a hell.”
“The favor I ask of you, Doug, is to not let me be defenseless. Too many people will want me dead too soon.”
Wilson hesitated for a moment.
“If I let you carry a gun and my government tries to arrest you, what will you do with it?”
“I will probably shoot myself.”
Wilson’s look was now one of pure horror. Nancy kept on.
“Please understand me, Doug. I love life, passionately! I do not want to die young, but I do not want to end up spending my life in a jail or a mental asylum.”
“Alright, you can have your gun, but don’t be obvious about it.’’
“Thank you, Doug. It is very much appreciated.”
17:15 (GMT)
Headquarters, British Secret Intelligence Services (MI 6)
54 Broadway Street
London
The RAF officer excused himself with the young scientist he was talking with before picking up the telephone.
“Air staff liaison office, Winterbotham here.” He suddenly paled as his interlocutor spoke.
“What do you mean, ULTRA may be compromised?”
Doctor Reginald Victor Jones’ head snapped up when he heard the horrified exclamation of his superior: ULTRA was the codename for the code-breaking operation in charge of intercepting and decyphering the German high command radio traffic, encoded via Enigma machines. The Germans were certain of the impossibility of Enigma ever being decrypted and were using it for all their high level traffic, including Hitler’s orders to his field commanders. ULTRA was probably the most sensitive and best kept secret in Great Britain. Until now that is, if he could go by what he could hear now. Winterbotham was by now completely agitated.
“Thanks for warning me. I will make sure that that woman does not endanger ULTRA anymore. Inform me of any new developments on this.” He then put down the receiver and faced Jones.
“This morning, a young woman showed up at RAF Northolt and served up a ridiculous story, claiming to be coming from the year 2012. The base staff claims that she has some amazing equipment with her and that she has given them valuable information on German weapons. What do you think of that story?”
“A rather fantastic one, sir, but even if she is lying I would like to see that equipment of hers and her information. Why do you say that she is compromising ULTRA?”
“She had the base intelligence officer call our SLU at Uxbridge and read out the words ULTRA, Bletchley Park and Hut 3, supposedly in order to prove her story of being a time traveler.”
Jones thought furiously for a moment. Bletchley Park was the name of the estate north of London where the Enigma decyphering was done, while Hut 3 was the one where the deciphering experts worked. This was shaping up to be a most interesting case.
“Sir, I think that we should not be hasty in judging that woman: she obviously knows about ULTRA but chose to warn us directly instead of, lets say, go to the Germans with that information. On top of that, she gave supposedly good intelligence to our own people. These are not the actions of a hostile person.”
“So, what kind of person could she be?”
“Think about it, sir! You know better than me how rigid our security around ULTRA is. How could a complete stranger know about it? Furthermore, if the Germans knew somehow that we are breaking their Enigma codes , telling us about it would be the absolute last thing they would do.”
Winterbotham was silent for a moment, bobbing his head up and down.
“What you are saying makes sense. But a time traveler from 2012?”
“I don’t know about that, sir. However, ULTRA will be eventually declassified and become public knowledge. 2012 is 72 years in the future: the chances are that ULTRA will be by then an open secret. Whoever she is, I would love to go meet her and check her equipment. If she really is from 2012, the technology in that equipment should be a good indicator for someone like me. Imagine what one of our radars would look like to a radio technician from 1914!”