TIME ASSASSIN

TIME ASSASSIN

I could hardly hold back the tears as they lowered Tony’s coffin into the ground. I knew it was only a matter of time until I suffered a similar fate, even technology couldn’t avoid that. Some how I didn’t think it would end this way for us. There was no color guard, no neatly folded flag, or 21 gun salute, and no words of praise from a grateful nation.

In fact, aside from the preacher and the 2 guys on the grave detail, the only people in attendance were me and Tony’s only daughter. It was kind of a shame, because even though we had worked together for many years, I realized that I hardly knew her and that Tony wasn’t much closer to her then me. Absent, were the typical gathering of friends and family, but that was no surprise, none of us on the team had many of either.

After the brief ceremony it began to rain lightly as I turned and began walking back to my car. I had only taken a few steps when Crystal touched my shoulder and extended her arms. We hugged briefly and then I wiped a few tears from her face. She looked me right in the eyes and asked me very sincerely to tell her about her Dad’s life and his work. My first instinct was to tell her that we were just old friends, but her eyes were like a window to her soul and I felt she deserved an honest answer. I knew I didn’t have much time, but I felt it was the right thing to do. We all had lived with the knowledge that we swore to keep secret, but it had been a long time and we were the last ones, so I decided to tell her what I could.

We drove over to a small diner a few minutes away, and grabbed a booth in the back. After ordering a few coffees, I began to tell her about how we met and the journey we had shared. At this point in my life I think I needed to share my story as much as she needed to hear it.

Back in the early 60’s officials at the Pentagon had hired on a brilliant scientist named Benjamin Opperman. At the time Benjamin was at the forefront of experimentation on Time Travel. He approached the issue from a different viewpoint and perspective than the other leading minds of the time. Benjamin believed that time travel was an inaccurate phase. Going back in time did not mean being mysteriously propelled to another place, it merely meant that an individual would remain exactly where he was as the layers of time were pealed back, much like an onion.

I’m certainly not a scientist but from what I could understand, time is more closely represented as a wave or ripple effect. Much like a pebble thrown into a pond, the waves of time ripple, or radiate outward from the source of the impact. I guess another way of looking at it would be like a radio signal that is broadcast from a tower. The radio waves expand out in ever widening circles until they reach our radio or receptor. As we pick up the signal our radio converts the sounds waves back to recognizable language or music. The part most people find it hard to understand is that the sound or radio waves do not stop resonating out, just because we hear them. A sufficiently powerful wave will continue out for ever and can be converted into a recognizable format again and again with the proper equipment.

In any case, the government and military were very interested in this concept and formed a small group of elite agents to travel back in time with the mission of solving a crime, gathering information, or attempting to alter a past event. The usual protocol was by terminating the person or persons responsible. There were only 12 of us in the program, each of us were sought out due to our high security clearance and military background. We went thru a full year of training as well as psychological testing. The program directors went out of their way to choose men with little ties to family and friends, in a word: loaners. They wanted men that would not be easily missed, because of the inherent danger of the missions.

This entire project was far from an exact since and we were made fully aware that we might never return from our travels or have to live out the remainder of our lives in the time and place that we were sent to. In fact we had to sign a detailed mission letter that included a non-discloser and hold harmless clause. I explained that her dad and I were the only two agents that ever returned, the other were lost or killed in action.

Tony was sent back in time to try to alter the course of events that lead up to the assignation of President John F. Kennedy. It was widely suspected that a second gunman was present that November day, on the grassy knoll, very close to where the motorcade passed by. Your dad, was there that day, in fact his image was capture in several frames of the Zapruder film. He was the man in the shadows behind the fence, that afterward could not be found. He verified for us that there was no second shooter in the Kennedy assassination.

It was then that Crystal asked me about my own mission, and I found that I was unable to lie to her. I’ve had many missions but in this case I was sent back in time, to be here on this day, to be with you, because in fact, your father was the last of the agents in the now defunct program. With that said, I stood up and gave her another hug and then disappeared back into the vapor.

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P.I.B.