Footprints in the Snow

“Lucky you,” she whispered back.

Shana knew her behavior was suspicious. If she actually had been a secret agent, her first order of business would be to get close to Dr. Fermi, to encourage him to trust her so she could kidnap him. But a far different agenda was taking form in her mind. There had to be a scientific explanation for how she’d traveled back in time. What could be better than to have one of the greatest theoretical physicists of all time helping her figure out the process? Unfortunately, she didn’t think time travel and relativity were Fermi’s specialty. “Do you know Dr. Einstein?” she asked.

“Albert? Sure, I do.”

“What do you think of his theories of speed and time?”

Fermi gave an elaborate shrug, a gesture that reminded her of her Italian grandfather. “Until we are able to exceed the speed of light, his ideas will be untested. This is not to say they are untrue. Physics shows us that almost anything is possible.”

“I like the way you think.” Nothing was impossible. She’d shot backward in time. Reversing the process ought to be within the realm of possibility.

“You are an interesting woman, Shana Parisi. Bella e brillante.”

She tossed a glance over her shoulder at Luke, who was positively fuming. His tense jaw made it look as if he was grinding his rear molars together. Too bad! If she had Dr. Fermi on her side, she didn’t need Luke’s approval.

They left the long whitewashed administrative building and stepped onto the sanded, hard-packed pathway that led through the snow. Dr. Fermi directed her toward the large two-story house where he and his crew were staying.

As they walked, two soldiers in full battle gear fell into step behind them. She assumed that their assignment was to protect Dr. Fermi, but they could also be keeping an eye on her because she was so terribly suspicious. The thought made her grin. Her personality had always been straightforward, direct and responsible. Hardly a woman of mystery.

In spite of the size of the camp and the number of barracks, there were only a few soldiers on the pathway. She asked, “How many men are stationed here?”

“There are only a couple of administrative types and four rifle squads left. About sixty people altogether,” Luke said. “Everybody else has shipped out to Italy. The Po Valley.”

Dr. Fermi’s fingers tightened on her arm. “The Apennine Mountains. In better days, it was a magnificent place for skiing and climbing.”

“The war will be over soon,” she promised. In May of 1945, it was almost a year since the D-day invasion. The Allied Forces were close to victory in Europe.

“Not soon enough.” He turned to Luke. “In the meantime, we ski. Yes?”

“We will try to accommodate your request, sir.”

“Tonight, I will commandeer the kitchen and make pasta for everybody. My wife’s recipe is—” Fermi kissed his fingertips “—perfecto.”

“Down!” Luke shouted.

Before she had a chance to react, he’d thrown himself on top of her and Fermi, dragging them both to the snow and covering them with his body.

From faraway, there was the sharp crack of a rifle being fired. She heard the thud of a bullet hitting the barracks behind them.

The two soldiers who had been guarding them moved into position and returned fire.

Cautiously, Shana lifted her chin from the snow and peered up into the forested slope leading into camp. She couldn’t see the person who’d fired at them. When she tried to rise, she couldn’t move. Luke ordered, “Keep your head down.”

His muscular thigh pinned her to the ground. He had saved her life. Again. Rescuing her was turning into a full-time occupation for him.

While barking orders at his men, he yanked her and Fermi to their feet and hustled them into the main building. Inside, he brushed the snow from her shoulders. “Are you all right?”

She nodded, aware that her heart was beating faster. Camp Hale was turning out to be a dangerous place for her. Either she was going to be locked up as a spy or someone was going to shoot her.

They rushed up a staircase to the second floor and entered a large room with a conference table. Two other men stood in front of a blackboard that was covered with mathematical equations. Their eyes were watchful. Their manner, tense. One of them asked, “What happened?”

“Sniper,” Luke said. “Don’t leave this room. Stay away from the windows.”

As he turned on his heel and left, the enormous implications of the sniper attack sank into Shana’s consciousness. What if Fermi had been shot? Or killed? The Manhattan Project was only a few months away from the first test in Alamogordo. If Fermi wasn’t there to oversee the final stages, the project might fail. History would be changed.

Fermi smoothed his thinning hair across his forehead. He seemed little affected by the fact that someone had been shooting at him. In Italian, he muttered a curse. “I suppose this means there will be no skiing today.”

“Probably not,” Shana said. “The risk is too great.”

He led her toward the other two men and introduced them: Dr. Schultz and Dr. Douglas. Both wore thick glasses. Both had the distracted air of men who spent more time thinking than working out.

Fermi added, “Dr. Douglas is a physicist. He is very interested in theories of time.”

A shy grin twitched the corner of his mouth, and his long face brightened as he shook her hand. “Call me Dougie.”

“Tell me, Dougie. What do you think of time travel?”

“Interdimensional reality.” He gave a curt nod. “Relative planes of existence. And psychology.”

“Okay.” She had no idea what he was talking about. “How does psychology relate to time travel?”

“You’ve heard the phrase living in the past,” he said. “Sometimes, when we think about past events, they seem real. We recall details—very specific sounds and smells—that were not evident at the time they happened.”

“But those are memories,” she said.

“Are they? Isn’t it possible that we have actually returned to a prior event?”

With a glance toward Dr. Fermi, she said, “Anything is possible.”

Dougie nodded. “There’s so much more to learn. We haven’t yet begun to explore the nonlinear functions of the brain.”

Though Shana didn’t exactly understand, she was encouraged. The sheer brainpower generated among the three men in this room was enough to move mountains and possibly return her to her own century.

“Good news,” Dr. Fermi announced to his colleagues. “We no longer need to wait for the geologist from Denver. Miss Parisi can take his place.”

“Excellent,” Schultz said. “We can complete our analysis of tuballoy from the four sites and return to Los Alamos by the weekend.”

“I’ve never heard of tuballoy,” she said. “Is it a mineral?”

Fermi studied her intently for a moment before he spoke. “Tuballoy is a code name. I wonder how much I can trust you, Miss Parisi.”

Again, she was faced with the dilemma of having no one in this time period who could vouch for her. She could only rely on herself. Shana straightened her shoulders and spoke in a clear voice. “If there’s anything I can do to help you in your work, to help you end this terrible war, I’m ready, willing and able.”

He glanced at the other two men, then back to her. “I believe you.”

His vote of confidence touched her. Unfortunately, she didn’t think it would be so easy to convince Luke.

LUKE STALKED DOWN the second-floor corridor of the main house with Shana following close behind. They turned the ninety-degree corner leading to the uninhabited south wing.