Codename: Athena

Chapter Four

“YOU BASTARD! WHY DIDN’T YOU USE A WAAF TO SEARCH HER, AS REGULATIONS CLEARLY SPECIFY? AND WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU ARE DOING, BEATING HER LIKE THIS?”

“That’s my business, Wilson! Now…”

“NOT ANY MORE! The base commander sent me to take charge of the lady here. I should have come quicker! You will pay for this! Now, you and your goon, free her and then get out!”

As Harris and Brannigan stomped out of the room, Wilson turned halfway towards Nancy, avoiding directly looking at her. His voice was now soft, apologetic.

“Please dress now, Miss Laplante. I will be waiting for you in the hallway. Take your time.”

He then left and closed the door behind him. Nancy, who had covered her groin and breasts with her hands as soon as she had been untied, wondered then if this Wilson had really come to help her or if he was playing the role of the good guy in the old ‘Mutt and Jeff’ interrogation technique.   That technique used a good guy that came in unexpectedly to save the prisoner from a bad guy, thus gaining the prisoner’s trust. Unable then to decide which was correct, Nancy quickly dressed and pocketed back her things. Last on was her watch. Sitting on the desk, she tried to collect her wits back and figure out what to do next. Right now, she saw very few courses of action possible. Either she could prove that she was indeed a time traveler, or she could try to invent some more plausible story about herself. She however rejected nearly immediately the second option. Apart from the fact that it would contradict what she had said to Megan, thus hurting her credibility, her car contained too many high technology items to explain them, except if they came from the future.   Even the Germans, whose technology the British held in awe, couldn’t obviously produce what she had: her equipment was simply too advanced for that. Another hard question then came to her mind. If she was to claim that she was an involuntary time traveler, then did she have the right to divulge to the British of 1940 information that could very well rewrite history, thus destroying the World as she knew it in 2012? Would it instead create some sort of parallel timeline, as so many science-fiction novels had speculated about? Nancy felt her head spin as she tried to answer those impossible questions. She finally decided to see how the British would treat her from now on before taking firm decisions.

As she was about to walk to the door of the interrogation room, a deluge of mental images then struck her suddenly, making her vacillate on her legs. She nearly threw up as horrible scenes paraded in her head, showing the atrocities and unspeakable crimes committed in this war. Even closing her eyes didn’t make the pictures stop. The visions of horror went on for nearly a full minute before stopping as suddenly as they had come, leaving a shaking Nancy to wonder what had just happened to her. The one thing she knew was that she didn’t want to see those images, ever again. She then realized that those visions represented what was going to happen in this war if she didn’t do anything to prevent these horrors.

‘’My God!’’ Whispered Nancy to herself, shaken by that realization. She was pale and felt sick to her stomach when she finally went out of the interrogation room.

Flight Lieutenant Douglas Wilson took two minutes to phone Wing Commander Denison, the base commander, to inform him of what had just happened. The way Denison told him then to order Harris to report immediately to his office pleased him. Informing Harris on a dry and severe tone of the order from the base commander was another thing that pleased him. He heard later from Denison’s secretary that Harris, apart from having his head ripped off in a memorable dressing down session, was busted back to the rank of flying officer and thrown out of the base, all of which caused considerable joy to Wilson. He, however, was not totally happy with himself: while he had been careful not to look at the poor woman that had been so badly treated by Harris, what his peripheral vision had shown him of the woman’s perfect body had been enough to cause an involuntary erection. Reacting like a matting bull to a naked girl in distress was not his idea of how to be a gentleman.

The closing of the door behind told him that Nancy Laplante, or whatever her real name was, had finished dressing. He turned and had his first good look at her. She appeared understandably pale and shaken as she stood near the door, looking hesitantly at him. She was really tall and broad-shouldered for a woman and appeared in top physical condition. Her black hair fell to her neck and her face had soft features, making her a definite beauty. Her large, intense green eyes captivated Wilson at once, while her very feminine curves and long shapely legs would certainly make her a pole of attraction at any officers’ mess he knew. More importantly, she seemed to have regained most of her composure. This did not surprise him, considering her earlier exploit with the Junkers 88.

“Miss Laplante, I’m Flight Lieutenant Doug Wilson, the base intelligence officer. Please accept the base commander’s sorriest apologies and mine for the odious treatment you were subjected to. I can tell you that the bastard who did this is going to pay for it, dearly!”

Her green eyes scanned his face while she kept her distances. “Is this a Mutt and Jeff number?”

“HUH?”

This was the last question he expected from her. While he knew about the Mutt and Jeff interrogation technique, where a mean interrogator gets in first, to be followed by an indignant nice guy who would put you back at ease and milk you out of information, this was not the case today. The simple fact that this young woman knew about that technique was worth noting. But wait! Didn’t LACW Thomas say something about Laplante being a reserve intelligence officer?

“Meaning, are you here to arrest me, interrogate me, shoot me as a spy or all of the above?”

He could not help smile at her: she was a cool customer indeed.

“Oh, none of that, I assure you! I just need to establish exactly who you are.”

“Didn’t Meg Thomas tell you about me?”

Wilson rolled his eyes upward.

“You bet she did! However, I… ah… have some difficulties believing all of what she told me!”

“Why does this not surprise me?”

She then looked him straight into his eyes.

“Do you think that a German agent would try to use such a story to try infiltrating a R.A.F. base?”

“Never!” Was Wilson’s instant reply.

“I believe there is a way to back up my story, Mister Wilson. Thomas told you about the crash site and the six-fingered hand corpse?”

His reaction told her that Meg had forgotten to tell him something.

“About the crash site, yes. About the corpse, no. Excuse me for a moment.” Wilson then picked up a telephone on a nearby wall.

“Hello, this is the I.O., Wilson. Is Supervisor O’Connors there? Put her on please… Supervisor O’Connors? Flight Lieutenant Wilson here. I need the assistance of LACW Thomas to guide an investigation team to the crash site she told me about… Yes!… Have her report immediately to the maintenance shop and liaise with the chief mechanic there.”

He then made another call, to the maintenance shop that time, where he ordered the sending of a crash site technical team, with Thomas as a guide and with specific instructions to bring back any body parts found. He then hung up the telephone and smiled at Nancy.

“That’s taken care of. We should hear something from them by the end of the afternoon.

What’s next?”

“Well, I have a number of items in my car that should convince you that I come from the future. I…”

Wilson was alarmed by the sudden look of horror on Nancy’s face. “What? What’s wrong?”

“That M.P. that Harris sent to search my car: everything must be in little pieces by now!” Wilson swore and limped out of the building as fast as he could, an anxious Nancy in his back.

“There! The red car in front of the infirmary!” “AIRMAN! STOP THIS SEARCH IMMEDIATELY!”

When both of them arrived near the Outlander, Nancy was relieved but also puzzled to find that nothing had actually been disturbed in her car. Only the engine hood had been opened. Wilson was as puzzled as her.

“Weren’t you ordered to search this car, Airman?”

The young policeman was red with embarrassment and stammered a bit at first while standing rigidly at attention in front of Wilson.

“Well, sir, miss… this car itself was so fascinating that I had no time yet to search its content. You see, before the war I worked in a small racing car shop and I kept pretty well up to date in terms of car engineering and design. But this…”

He then pointed excitedly at the Outlander.

“… this blows away everything I know about cars.”

A sudden owl made Wilson pivot on his heels, in time to see Nancy collapse from uncontrollable laughter. Wilson and the airman exchanged a puzzled glance and waited for Nancy to put herself back together. She finally leaned on the side of the car, holding her tummy.

“I… I’m sorry about that. I could not resist. Here I was, scared to find my only belongings left to me scattered to the four winds, only to be saved by a car enthusiast.”

Wilson shook his head, a half-smile on his face, then returned his attention to the policeman. “So, what did you find interesting in this car?”

“Everything, sir! For starters, there is no clutch pedal.”

“What do you mean, no clutch pedal? How are you supposed to change gears then?” “I believe that this car has a self-changing gear transmission, sir.”

“It’s called an automatic transmission, actually.” Cut in Nancy.

“Er, right. Next, I could find no carburetor as I know it. Instead, there is something described as electronic fuel injection. The brakes look like disks instead of drums and the instrument panel must be seen to be believed.”

“Alright,” replied Wilson, walking toward the driver’s door, “let’s go see it!”

He made the same mistake as Megan, going for the passenger seat and ending up in the driver’s seat. Nancy smiled apologetically.

“It’s made for the North American market.”

Wilson scanned with growing confusion and bemusement the multitude of electronic controls and LCD displays on the futuristic, yet elegant dashboard, also duly noting the lack of a clutch pedal, before looking at Nancy.

“I am starting to understand how LACW Thomas could believe you. Uh, what is this rectangular glass panel on top of the central console?”

“Oh, that’s the display screen for the navigation and entertainment unit.’’ Answered Nancy, purposely using a dismissive tone in order to prepare her effect. ‘’Let me show you what it can do.’’

Going around the car to go sit in the front passenger seat, Nancy then started the engine and switched on the display screen, on which appeared a number of colored symbols and words. Using the touch-screen feature of the display unit as she explained its functioning made Wilson and the young policeman open their eyes wide from wonderment.

‘’This unit is actually controlled by a computer with a thirty gigabyte-capacity hard drive, which is able to store up to 100 hours of recorded music, or a few dozens movies. It also can display navigational maps but the positioning system associated with it won’t work here: the network’s signal transmitters don’t exist in 1940. I can also switch the display to a rear view camera image, for safer backing up, or use it to tune the radio or select a recorded song or video. If you prefer, you can also control your music by using the buttons on the steering wheel or, if you are really lazy, use the voice recognition system. Play The Corrs, Breathless.’’

Wilson and the policeman nearly freaked out when the song by the Irish pop group started playing after only a very short delay. Nancy then spoke again.

‘’Raise sound volume by two!’’

The volume of the music then increased, even though Nancy had not touched any buttons or controls. Wilson passed a hand on his face, beads of cold sweat on his forehead: what he was seeing and hearing now could nearly be called magic…or sorcery.

‘’This…this is truly incredible.’’

‘’Actually, the car is fairly low tech stuff. The really interesting equipment is in the back.” Replied matter-of-factly Nancy. There was a near race between the policeman and Wilson to the back door, where she interposed herself with a smile.

“Before you start throwing things around, Mister Wilson, is there a safe and quiet place around where I could store and display my equipment?”

“Sure! How about the base intelligence section?”

“I knew you would say something like this.”

“Could I come, sir?”

The eager request of the MP got him a severe look from Wilson.

“Airman, I think it’s time that you return to your duties. Another thing: not a word to anybody about what you saw or heard today, understood?”

“Yes sir!”

He was about to walk away when Nancy cut in front of him, looking a Wilson at the same time. “If you may let me, Mister Wilson, this young man nearly got his head twisted by Harris for trying to save me from the strip search. I would like to leave him a little something as a thank you.”

“Hum… alright! But nothing compromising.”

Nancy then opened the left rear door of her car and searched inside a duffel bag for a few seconds before handing over a magazine to the airman, whose eyes immediately bulged.

“Please keep this strictly to yourself, eh!” “Yes ma'am!”

The young man then walked away with his head in the magazine. Wilson could not resist asking.

“What the hell did you give him?”

“Oh, just a magazine on cars…from 2012. Hop in, I’ll drive you to your office.”