David Baldacci - Simple Genius

Michelle wheeled Sandy into her room and saw the large bouquet of flowers on the nightstand. “You have a secret admirer?” she asked.

“Don’t all women?” Sandy fingered a rose petal. “Speaking of admirers, who was that tall, gorgeous man I saw you talking to when you first got here?”

“Sean King. We’re partners.”

“Partners? So no ring yet?”

“No, we’re partners in a detective agency.”

“You’re a detective?”

“And ex-Secret Service.”

“I wouldn’t have pegged you for being a fed.”

“Why, are we supposed to have a certain look?”

“No. But I’m usually pretty good at telling the goodies from the baddies.”

“You’ve had a lot of experience with both?”

“Let’s just say I’ve had lots of experience period. ” She patted Michelle’s hand. “So this Sean King and you? Anything happening outside of work?”

“Now you sound like my shrink.”

“Is he as good inside as he looks on the outside?”

“Even better actually.”

“Then honey, can I ask why you don’t have a ring on your finger?”

“We’re business partners.”

“There’re lots of ways to make a living. But it’s been my experience that handsome men with hearts of gold are as rare as a woman leaving a bar without getting her bottom grabbed. Find one like that, you better reel him in or someone else will.”

Michelle thought of Sean and Joan working together again while she was stuck in here having a fight for her soul with Horatio “Harley-Davidson” Barnes and getting peeped on by Barry the Dickhead. “It’s not that simple,” she finally said.

“Oh, women tell themselves that all the time. That’s partially because nothing for women is simple. It’s only simple for men and that’s because, God love the little bastards, they just can’t see any higher than they can grope.”

“Sean is different.”

“Then you’re just making my point for me. Screw the complex and keep it simple. A ring on the finger. That’s all it takes.”

“Assuming for argument’s sake that I’m willing, what if he’s not?”

Sandy ran her gaze over Michelle. “Then, frankly, he needs to be in here more than you. He might be a cut above most men, but I’m assuming he still has a zipper and something behind it.”

“Relying on physical attraction doesn’t work long term.”

“Of course it doesn’t! But you bait them with the curves, haul them in and use the time till your looks fail to train them properly.”

“Have you ever been married?”

“I was. For about ten minutes.”

“Quickie divorce?”

“No, I was shot on my wedding day and ended up like this. My husband of ten minutes wasn’t so lucky.”

“My God, he was killed? During your wedding!”

Sandy nodded. “The wedding planner was pretty much speechless. She’d been fussing about the shrimp and the ice sculpture. She didn’t have a clue how to do triage.”

“How did it happen?”

Sandy nimbly lifted herself out of her chair and onto the bed. She had on a short-sleeve shirt and Michelle saw the ripple of triceps muscles and the veins down both the woman’s biceps. Sandy sat back on the bed. “What it was, was a long time ago. I only had the love of my life officially for ten minutes. But let me tell you I wouldn’t have traded it for a lifetime with anyone else. So you think about your Mr. King. You think long and hard. And realize he won’t always be there. Because there are lots of women out there who could give a damn about complex. They just take what they want, sweetie. They just take what they want.”

SEAN HAD SPENT HIS FIRST NIGHT at Babbage Town alternating between trying to sleep and looking out the window at the darkened grounds. His room was in the mansion on the second floor overlooking the side of the property close to where Champ Pollion’s house was and also within sight of Hut Number One run by the very blunt and very one-legged Alicia Chadwick. The mansion’s decorations had a European flavor, and each guest room, he’d quickly discovered, came equipped with its own computer and WiFi high-speed Internet connection.

Around two A.M. Sean saw some movement near Champ’s house. He thought it was the physicist he’d seen climbing the steps to the front door and going in, but the moonlight was weak and he couldn’t be sure. Then Sean heard a noise that took him completely by surprise. He flung open his window and looked out.

It was a plane coming in, and not just any plane. It was a jet, a large one judging by the sound of the engines, and from the level of noise, the damn thing was landing. He leaned out the window but saw nothing, not even a blink of lights against the black sky. He listened for a while longer and heard the plane’s engines being thrown into reverse to stop the aircraft after it touched down. Yet where had the plane landed? Camp Peary? The Naval Weapons Station? And what the hell was a large jet flying without lights doing landing across the river in the middle of the night?

Nearly two hours later he’d awoken again and taken a seat by the window. He saw two guards standing on the pebble path, talking and sipping coffee. Even from up here he could hear the squawks coming from their portable radios.

At five o’clock, Sean gave up on sleep, showered, dressed and headed down the stairs with a knapsack slung over his shoulder. In the broad, barrel-vaulted entrance hall, there was the smell of coffee and eggs and bacon coming from the dining room.

He ate breakfast and carried a Styrofoam cup of coffee with him as he stopped by the security desk set up near the mansion’s front door and showed the guard stationed there his badge. The stocky man nodded but said nothing as he took Sean’s card and swiped it through a slot on top of his computer screen.

Apparently they want to know where everyone is at all times, Sean thought to himself. Including their own hired detective.

“You hear that plane come in earlier?” he asked the guard.

The man didn’t answer. He simply handed Sean his card and turned back to his computer monitor.

“Love you too,” Sean muttered as he headed out.

It was still dark and Sean stood there for a bit wondering what to do. Alicia had been wrong; he wasn’t just doing this for the money. He wanted to find out what had happened to Monk Turing. Every child should know what had happened to his or her parents. And every murderer should be punished.

Monk had left the country eight or nine months ago. Where had he gone? His passport would show where if he had used the normal channels of international travel. But if he had traveled under a fake name or via another country’s planes? Was he a spy? Had he gone out of the country to pass Babbage Town secrets to another country willing to pay well for them?

He breathed in fresh air devoid of the toxic fumes of the Washington Beltway and listened for a moment to scurrying feet from the nearby woods. Squirrels and deer probably; people made far different noises when they were moving. Sean had been trained to deduce the motive behind a person’s movements. It wasn’t actually all that hard to do. Most people couldn’t hide their motives to save their lives. If they could, far more than four American presidents would have been assassinated.

Sean had some FBI Hostage Rescue buddies who’d trained at Camp Peary with the CIA’s paramilitary units. These units traveled the world doing things no one at the CIA or anyone else in the government would ever talk about. Sean definitely did not want to cross swords with them. But had Turing?

Sean walked on, finally arriving at Len Rivest’s place. It was pretty early as yet and Rivest had really hung one on last night. He decided he’d let the guy sleep. He tossed his coffee in a trash can, passed the security office and a one-story squat building that appeared to be a garage and turned left where a sign that read “Boathouse” pointed down a gravel path. As he walked along Sean was quickly engulfed by forest.