The Doomsday Box (2 page)

Lives had been lost in the last one. Her father had come close to losing his. Hopefully the new mission would
definitely
not be as dangerous.

“But that doesn't mean you shouldn't take it seriously,” Sir Roland put in soberly. “Your trip comes on the heels of a request from the National Security Agency.”

“The
American
National Security Agency?” Michael asked, surprised.

“There is only one,” Sir Roland said mildly. “You'd better tell them all about it, Gary.”

Carradine perched on a corner of Sir Roland's desk, while Opal slipped into the chair next to Michael, who gave her a small, secret smile. He looked as handsome as ever. They both turned back toward Carradine.

“Before I tell you about the mission itself,” Carradine was saying, “it might be useful to give you a little background—”

“This is classified information,” Sir Roland interrupted. “So please bear in mind you are all signatories to the Official Secrets Act.”

Which meant they could go to jail if they discussed what they were about to hear with anyone. It was typical of her father to remind them. He was very much a spy of the old school.

Mr. Carradine said, “Exactly. Thank you, Sir Roland. So . . . this story goes way back before you were born—more than half a century, in fact. Any of you ever hear of the Philadelphia Experiment?”

They looked at him blankly, then one by one shook their heads. Except Fuchsia, who said, “That's the ship they made invisible. My sister Julie says it's an urban myth.”

Carradine nodded. “Very good, Fuchsia. Except it isn't
all
a myth, although some of the details have been distorted over the years. But let's start with the bit that is a myth. The story you'll find on the internet is that back in 1943, a character called Carlos Miguel Allende was standing on the deck of a freighter in Philadelphia harbor watching another ship, a military escort vessel called the USS
Eldridge.
An escort's not a particularly big ship, but it's not small either. All the same, it disappeared right before his eyes.”

“Cool,” Fuchsia said.

Carradine gave her a sidelong glance. “According to Allende, after fifteen minutes the
Eldridge
reappeared, and when he investigated, he found most of the crew were insane and several of them were actually fused into the structure of the ship. Later he discovered some of the sailors had come back with a weird affliction—they kept twitching in and out of our plane of existence. Two of them got into a fistfight in a Philly bar and disappeared in front of a whole roomful of witnesses before the second punch was thrown. There were even people who claimed the
Eldridge
materialized in Norfolk, Virginia, for a few minutes before vanishing in a green fog. Allende said he found out the whole mess started as a navy experiment aimed at making ships invisible . . . an experiment that went terribly wrong.”

“Whozza,” Danny said. He had the sort of blank look on his face that meant you couldn't tell whether he was genuinely impressed or just fooling around.

Carradine ignored him. “Most of that really
was
an urban myth, Fuchsia, including Carlos Miguel Allende—his real name was Carl Allen. But that's not to say there wasn't a grain of truth in the story. This was during the war, remember—the Second World War. America was very anxious to develop new weapons that would bring it to an end quickly. Since the late 1930s, the U.S. Navy had been funding a top secret program called Project Rainbow, which was set up to investigate the military possibilities of cloaking aircraft and ships using high-frequency electromagnetic fields. Somewhere around 1942, the scientists started to report limited successes using small-scale models. And in 1943, they ran an experiment using a full-sized ship.”

“The
Eldridge
?” Michael asked.

Carradine nodded. “Carl Allen's story was accurate up to a point. The navy wasn't trying to make the ship optically invisible, just invisible to radar, like modern stealth aircraft. But they did use high-frequency electromagnetic fields, and the experiment did go wrong. The
Eldridge
didn't jump into hyperspace, of course, but many of the sailors did suffer mental impairment and had to be hospitalized. Nobody suspected it at the time, but high-frequency magnetic fields can influence the human brain. The fields generated on the
Eldridge
were so powerful they drove half the crew nuts. The navy covered it up, of course—not hard to do in wartime. They paid a few million in compensation to the sailors' families and closed down Project Rainbow. What use was radar invisibility if it drove your crew mad?”

“But they opened it up again in 1953,” Sir Roland said in a cynical tone.

“Why?” Danny asked curiously.

“Yes, why?” Opal echoed. Even though her father worked for the government—even though
she
worked for the government—she didn't have to like what governments got up to.

Fuchsia said, “I bet they thought they could use high-frequency magnetic fields as a weapon. Zap the opposing army. Mad soldiers would be just as useless as mad sailors, except now they're on the other side.”

“That's almost exactly right, Fuchsia,” Carradine said, with undisguised surprise. “They started to wonder about using magnetic fields as a psychological warfare device—mind control, that sort of thing. But I expect the idea of zapping an opposing army occurred to them as well. Anyway, the core group of scientists approached Congress for funding—in a secret session, of course—and Congress turned them down. Apparently, a majority of congressmen thought the project was too dangerous. A lot of them still remembered the Philadelphia Experiment, of course.”

“So that finally killed it?” Michael asked.

“Not at all,” said Carradine. “The scientists went direct to the military, and the Department of Defense offered funding and a decommissioned air force base at Montauk, New York, as a site for the work. This was before Montauk became a tourist center, so it was a sleepy little town that was perfect for a covert operation. And more importantly, the base had a radar installation that worked on a frequency the scientists believed could influence the human mind.”

Why are we going to Montauk?
Opal wondered. Mr. Carradine's story was all very interesting, but so far it seemed to have no connection with the Shadow Project. The Shadow Project was a top secret British-American espionage department that used teen spies like Michael, Danny, and herself, who were able to separate their minds from their physical bodies with a little help from Project technology. That was a long way from mind control.

Or was it?
The thought occurred to her.

But Mr. Carradine was still talking. “By 1967, the Office of Naval Intelligence had become interested and so had the National Security Agency. They helped build a secret underground complex, something like this one.” He spread his hands to indicate the warren that was the Shadow Project, buried deep beneath a crumbling English manor house.

“Why did they need an underground complex, Mr. Carradine?” Michael asked.

“The fact was, the new Project Rainbow didn't confine itself to psychological research, although it was still using exceptionally powerful high-frequency electromagnetic fields. The team was conducting experiments in teleportation, parallel dimensions, and time travel.”

There was absolute silence in the office for a moment. Then:
“Teleportation?”
Michael asked incredulously.

Opal, who was staring at Mr. Carradine, whispered,
“Time
travel?”

“They're interconnected,” said Opal's father soberly. “As I understand the science, high-frequency electromagnetic fields can be used to bend space-time. Once you bend space-time, you can step to a distant location instantly. Or a distant time.”

“And they're doing this at Montauk?” Michael asked.

Mr. Carradine gave a small, dry laugh. “Not anymore,” he said. “They started to run into problems around 1988. The project was super secret, as you might imagine, but there were signs that the cover might be blown. This was during the Cold War—the Berlin Wall hadn't come down, and the Soviet Union was still intact. There was a dissident named Enrico Chekov who defected to America and showed the CIA Russian satellite photos of a strange phenomenon. Fortunately the Russians didn't know what it was, but our people did: it was a huge bubble in space-time centered on the Montauk site. Chekov sold his copies of the photographs to a reporter from the
New York Times
, and we had to steal them back.”

We?
Opal thought.
Had Mr. Carradine been personally involved? He was with the CIA, so he might well have been.
Aloud she said, “But the reporter saw them. Wouldn't he want to investigate further?”

“We shot him,” Carradine said coolly. They stared at him, wondering if he was joking.

After a moment, Danny asked, “What about Chekov?”

“Him too,” Carradine said. He straightened his jacket. “We kept the lid on that one, but it was a close call, and shortly afterward there was a major accident that killed seven of our best scientists and nearly eighty military personnel.”

“What happened?” Danny asked.

“That information is on a need-to-know basis. You don't need to know.”

Danny shrugged. “Fine.”

“After the accident, Project Rainbow was closed down for the second time—this time by presidential order. It was one of the last things Ronald Reagan did before he left office. Except . . .” He pursed his lips. “And this is the part that goes beyond top secret, so please bear in mind it is not to be discussed with
anyone
outside this room, whatever their security clearance. The scientists found they couldn't close down the space-time distortion they'd created.”

“I don't understand,” Michael said.

Opal's father broke in again. “They created a rift in space-time using ultrahigh-powered magnetic fields. They assumed that when they shut the power down, the rift would disappear. But it didn't. Apparently when you tear space-time, it stays torn.”

“You mean there's a time tunnel at Montauk?” Fuchsia asked. She looked delighted.

Mr. Carradine shrugged. “Actually
tunnel
gives the wrong idea. A tunnel goes in a straight line from one place to another. This is a rift in space-time. While we had the magnets on, we could control where it went. Now that they're off, it could lead anywhere.”

“Or any
when,”
Fuchsia added.

“Or anywhen,” Carradine confirmed.

“What did they do about the presidential order?” Danny asked.

“They set up a very sophisticated alarm system that would trigger if the rift was activated. From the other side, so to speak. Very unlikely, of course, since you need high-tech equipment, but nobody wanted to take chances. Then they sealed the chamber under seven thousand tons of reinforced concrete.”

“So Mr. Reagan left office happy.” Danny grinned.

“I should think so,” Carradine said. “I'm not sure anybody actually told him about the little difficulty.”

Opal said, “Mr. Carradine, why are you sending us to Montauk?”

“Ah,” said Carradine. He looked across at Sir Roland.

Sir Roland said flatly, “The idiots are opening up the rift chamber again.”

“Well, I wouldn't necessarily call them idiots,” Carradine said. “There's a great deal of scientific potential in that rift if we can solve the safety problems.”

“Not to mention political potential,” Sir Roland said, a little sourly. Opal knew her father very well, and it sounded to her as if there might be some differences of opinion with Mr. Carradine on this mission.

Carradine said easily, “Certainly if America can control the rift properly, it would virtually assure the security of the free world. It could become a conduit for cheap energy, for one thing. In the past, we used it mainly as a transporter—sending agents to various time periods. But if we modify the machinery, some scientists believe, it may be possible to pump heat direct from one of the prehistoric supervolcanoes. In any case, as Sir Roland says, our new president is interested in reviving the project. We started drilling down about a month ago. Now we're within striking distance of the chamber.”

Opal said politely, “I'm sorry, Mr. Carradine, I still don't understand why you want to send a Shadow Project team to Montauk.”

Carradine looked at her directly. “The alarm we installed went off two days ago.”

I
t was the first time Danny had been on a transatlantic aircraft, and he didn't like it. The plane was a 747 and half empty because of a terrorist scare, so it should have been comfortable, but it wasn't. Danny wasn't a particularly tall boy—in fact his Nan had once remarked how short his legs were—but there still wasn't enough room in his seat. He might have lost himself in the in-flight movie, except he'd seen it before, and it had been lousy first time round. The stale taste of recycled air gave him a headache.