Chapter 12 - Discovery

Sheldon did not sleep well, the Army officer's room he was given completely unsatisfactory in cleanliness as far as he was concerned. The only thing that let him sleep at all was the fact that he found himself wore out by the time he got to the room the night before. There were now only three days left, since when he got there and although he was at first happy he was close to the date he wanted, he now wondered if he would have enough time to do what he wanted to do. The Wing Commander, had given him a schedule, for the week, and although Sheldon liked schedules this one really didn't meet his goal. He only had three days left and according to the Wing Commander's schedule, he wasn't to inspect the airplanes till the fifth day, which would be too late, Sheldon needed to modify his plan.

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They had Sheldon's notes, but they were almost three thousand pages long, he had started putting them on the computer months ago and they covered everything that he had done the last year. Leonard and Howard knew it would take a long time to go over all the notes so they got a laptop for everyone to load a copy and they all went through them, as fast as possible. It was only a couple of hours later that the seven of them sat in the room, each pair of them quietly reading a section of the notes, except Amy who was reviewing all the data on the test animals Sheldon sent through time.

Amy was the first one to speak, "I'm going over to the animal holding area and check on the monkey he used, but to be honest, Sheldon's post animal test review and conclusion is very concise and I don't expect there to be any errors." She couldn't help the little bit of pride she felt in the way he did his work.

"So you think he confirmed that organic life could safely travel through time with no ill effects, which would mean he must have done it successfully himself." Leonard asked, silently knowing Sheldon would never take a risk with himself, so it must be true.

Amy nodded, it actually made her feel good after she read his notes, she was now sure he traveled successfully and would not be hurt. She also didn't have any illusions that he would not create time ripples and she still held the hope they would be together in the end. "I'm going to check the animal now, just to make sure." Leonard and Howard nodded and she went off.

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Howard, after reviewing the notes for hours, finally determined how the date coordinate system worked, a little after supper. They hadn't left the room all day and the pizza boxes from their evening supper where now scattered over the room. Penny, who was a much faster reader now since her graduate school days, found the date, Sheldon wanted, while skimming through the notes quickly, while Leonard read them in depth.

"May 27, 1944." was all she said, everyone turning to her immediately.

"What date is that?" Howard responded first.

"It says here, it is the best date to accomplish his task. Something about a Colonel Owens and an airbase." Penny explained as she skimmed over the notes.

"What page?" Leonard and Howard almost said at the same time. It was only a few minutes later everyone was reading that area of the notes.

Leonard was the first one to voice what they all were reading, "He is going to do something to an airplane it says here, something that will change things!"

"That stupid bastard, he is trying to change history only a little over a week from D-Day." Howard exclaimed, surprising them all with his outburst.

Leonard's eyes went wide, he forgot about D-Day being so close, 'CRAP' he thought, if Sheldon changes something about World War Two, the ripples are going to be huge, they would change everything, 'CRAP' went through his mind again. Leonard glanced at Penny, the thought of loosing her and the baby or even that she may never be born, terrified him. However everything that had happened, over the last couple days, only confirmed his worst fears, it was like living a nightmare.

"Doesn't he know the risk of changing something before an important world event?" Bernadette added.

"How bad is this?" Penny now looked directly and her husband, realizing that even though she had a masters she knew so little about the science knowledge Leonard used every day.

It shocked them all that it was Amy that answered in a calm almost robot like voice. "If what he does impacts the events of D-Day it could basically change the whole economic and political make up of the world."

Penny stared at Amy then back to Leonard, "Could it make people…." Leonard looked back at her, he knew she was scared but he couldn't lie to her, so he just nodded to her.

No one said a thing for a few moments, just looked at each other, no one knowing what to say, it was so overwhelming. Finally Leonard looked at Howard and asked him to get coffee with him. Penny watched Leonard, him asking Howard to get coffee was so uncharacteristic of him. She was just about to ask him what the hell was happening, when she suddenly thought maybe she didn't want to know. It was so surreal, she worked on crimes and real world things everyday, but this was incredible, it reminded her of one of those SiFi movies she watched with Leonard, a horrible event happening to the world and only scientists could save them. She looked over at Bernadette who just looked back at her with an expression that told Penny she didn't know what was going on either, so both girls said nothing, as their men looked at each other with understanding.

Howard nodded, at Leonard's request, his eyes wide, it was so obvious something was up, and Leonard wanted to talk in private. Leonard didn't say a thing till they had already left the room and were leaving the basement. "Howard we have to go back and stop him."

"Stop him from doing what?" Howard couldn't help snapping at him, everything that was happening was all just too much to take.

"He went there to do something, that involves an airplane, it has to be about this whole thing with the Nobel, there has to be a logical reason he picked that time. We have to find out what."

"Leonard, we need to try and find out more before we do anything. England was full of troops, both English and American, plus many other countries, it would be like trying to find a needle in a haystack." Howard watched Leonard as his words sunk in.

Then suddenly, Howard and Leonard looked at each other, the same thought came to both of them at the same time. "Lewis!"

Howard turned around and moved quickly back, the way they came, to the room grabbing his laptop and typed Lewis and World War II into the search section of Google. Leonard wasn't sure it would do any good but he stood over his shoulder watching, "Howard, with there being millions of soldiers in the war, finding one is going to be hard without some serious help."

Howard just looked at Leonard with surprise, "Not for Lewis, there are references to a bomber pilot in the war, named Lewis, who flew out of a bomb wing in England during that time."

'The airplane' Leonard thought, as he quickly sat down on Howard's side and started reading. The other five people in the room, who watched Howard and Leonard run back into it, to use the computer, now came up behind them and started reading the screen with them, again no one saying a word.

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Day three for Sheldon had been almost more than he could stand, he was escorted by a senior officer, from the Wing Commanders staff, around all the maintenance facilities that day, finally ending the day with the Wing Commander, for a review of the days events. The Wing Commander obviously didn't like Colonel Owens so only talked with him about the inspection and findings, which was a huge relief for Sheldon. However, the day had turned out to be tedious and useless when it came to Sheldon's plan and he was still at a loss on how to accomplish his goal.

Tomorrow was the last full day he had till the mission on the fourth day and Sheldon still hadn't figured out a way to get to the airplanes and the one he wanted. He sat at the desk in his room and picked up his knapsack to pull out the devices he had brought for that airplane. The were four of them and they were small and their design he had actually gotten off the internet, you could almost get anything off the internet. They were also simple, each had a cheap electric watch, a small circuit board, a solenoid, battery and one of his grandfather's bullets from his World War II revolver he brought back from the war, that Sheldon also had in his knapsack.

The devices themselves used a watch to time their operation, while the small circuit board would operate the solenoid at the right time, using the battery for its power. The solenoid purpose was to cause a pin to hit the firing pin of the bullet, resulting in a very small explosion confined to a very small area. A cartridge, without a chamber to hold it, would just explode like a small bomb, the bullet and case acting like shrapnel. The idea was if these four little small bombs, were placed near a cylinder of each of the four engines of a bomber, their blasts would be just large enough to break an engine piston cylinder, leaking all the oil out and causing the engine to seize and stop working, making the plane crash. Sheldon needed to get to a particular aircraft and plant one of these bombs into each engine compartment to make this happen and that was his problem. Sheldon needed to plant these so the aircraft named "Happy Jack" crashed that day and its pilot Major Lewis went down with it, because Major Lewis was Dr Raymond Lewis' grandfather.