Page 25 of Wild Oblivion

“Spacetime?”

“According to Einstein's theory of relativity, time is affected by gravitational fields. The stronger the gravity, the slower time flows. Spacetime is curved by mass and energy. It's called time dilation. That's why the clocks on Earth run slower than clocks on satellites that orbit. Orbital clocks are adjusted to run slower by a few microseconds to keep in sync with clocks on Earth. This is a well-known and established fact.”

"Are you trying to say the Germans tried to build a time machine?”

"Yes. That's exactly what I'm saying. I'm not saying they were successful. It would take an inordinate amount of energy to create a gravitational field that could bend spacetime in any significant way. Plus, you would have to compensate for the extreme gravitational forces. If you didn't, the occupants of said time machine might be crushed.”

"You’re not saying what I think you're saying, are you?" I said, full of skepticism.

"I know you like to consider all possibilities. I'm just saying, it’s theoretically possible to create a time dilation field. If you could do that, time would move more slowly relative to the rest of the world. What would seem like a few seconds or hours would be months or years. Decades, perhaps. It’s not really a time machine, per se, but a way to move forward in time relative to everyone else. It’s like that movie where they take that spaceship around the black hole. The extreme gravitational field distorted time.”

"This isn’t a movie.”

"Look, I'm not saying that's what happened. But Heissler and von Markov’s bodies were never recovered after the bombing in Prussia. Neither was the device they were working on. Now you’ve got a dead guy in an alley, wearing a Rolex watch from 1939, who is the spitting image of Rudolph Heissler." Isabella paused. "I'm as skeptical as the next person, but that's just too weird to be a coincidence.”

"Let me get this straight. You think that Heissler and von Markov actually got Projekt Zeitspiegel to work, and they used the device to escape the bombing in Prussia? Then they just showed up here in the Keys randomly?” I said, full of doubt.

“Not randomly. Henrik Strauss is 98 years old and living in a retirement facility on the island.”

That hung there for a second.

“Look, I like to think I have an open mind,” I said. “But this?—“

“This is totally within the bounds of known physics. Don’t shoot the messenger. I'm just saying, maybe they found a way to create a gravity field strong enough to warp spacetime. As you can imagine, the CIA was all over this after the war. They spent decades trying to re-create the technology with Strauss.”

"And they never got it to work."

"That we know about.”

I laughed. "This is all too much."

"You know as well as I do, there have been some crazy experiments throughout the years. We can talk about studies on telepathy and ESP. Remote viewing. According to CIA documents, remote viewing has a 66% hit rate among trained operatives. You know as well as anybody else there are things about the Universe we don't fully understand yet.”

I couldn’t argue with that. “So, Jürgen Stahl has been hunting von Markov all this time, waiting for him to show up?”

"It’s something to consider," Isabella said.

In my experience, Isabella was always the rational one. Always fact-based. She had a healthy curiosity and distrust of bureaucracies. For her to even consider this, it had some merit.

“I think there’s a simpler explanation,” I said.

“I know what you’re going to say.”

13

“First, I think you’ve been watching too much TV,” I said.

“Like I have the time,” Isabella replied.

“We know a lot of these cats escaped to Argentina after the war. Von Markov escapes, changes his name, and starts a new life. All these years later, maybe his grandkid comes poking around, wanting to ask Henrik Strauss about the technology.”

“Fair enough. So you think Klaus Brenner is really Klaus von Markov III?”

“Could be?”

“And he just happened to team up with Rudolph Heissler’s grandson,” she said, thick with doubt.

“Maybe they shared a common interest in their grandparents’ work.”