David Baldacci - Simple Genius

His eyes gleamed. “Once a week I drive my car toward the Camp Peary entrance, see the green metal roofs on the guardhouses, all them damn warning signs saying ‘No Trespassing, U.S. Property’ and I say, ‘Hey, shitheads, that’s my momma’s property, give it back.’ I don’t say it loud enough for them to hear of course,” he added chuckling. “Then I turn around in the little U-turn slot-they have that for people who get lost, or who’re just curious. Turn of last return, they call it, and then I go home. Makes me feel better.” South fell silent for a moment. “Those planes come in once a week, on Saturdays. Always at the same time. And they’re big jets. I got a buddy at Air Traffic Control and he’s got contacts in the military down at Norfolk. Those planes don’t land anywhere else in this country except at Camp Peary. They don’t go through customs, military checkpoints, nothing.”

“But they’re military planes?” Michelle asked.

“Not according to my friend. He thinks they’re registered as private aircraft.”

“Private aircraft belonging to the CIA?” Sean said.

“Hell, CIA’s got its own damn fleet. It’s not like they have to tell anybody what they spend our tax dollars on.”

“Wonder what kind of cargo is on those planes?” Sean asked.

South shot him a penetrating look. “Maybe the living, breathing kind that only speaks Arabic or Farsi?”

“Foreign detainees?”

“I’ve got no sympathy for terrorists but there is something to be said for due process,” South said firmly. “And if the CIA is deciding who to snatch and bring over here without a court looking over their shoulder? I mean their track record on that sort of thing isn’t exactly golden.” He smiled. “Now if stuff like that is going on, there’s a Pulitzer Prize waiting for the journalist who breaks the story.”

“Yeah, it’d be quite a coup for the old Magruder Gazette, ” Michelle said sarcastically.

Sean said, “They recently lengthened the runway so bigger jets could land and they also got money for a new dorm building. What do you think about that?”

South stood. “Let me show you what I think about that.”

He led them toward another room. Sean lagged behind and when South was out of the room, he slipped back and using his cell phone camera snapped a few pictures of the satellite map of Camp Peary before quickly joining them in the next room. In the center was a large table. On the table a detailed map was spread out.

“This is the portion of Camp Peary that used to be Bigler’s Mill and Magruder.” He pointed at various spots on the map. “You see how many houses there are? Well-built houses. You got good streets, access to all points. So you have all this housing and yet you need to build another dorm to put up people. How’s that make sense?”

“Maybe the houses fell into disrepair or got knocked down?” Michelle said.

“Don’t think so,” South answered. “Like I said, I got folks to talk to me who’d worked there. And if you knock down whole neighborhoods, you got to haul the debris somewhere off-site. I would’ve heard about that.” He pointed to another spot on the map. “And Camp Peary is also home to the only property on the National Historical Register that will never be open to the public: Porto Bello. It was the home of Virginia’s last royal governor, John Murray, the Fourth Earl of Dunmore. Even the CIA can’t touch that without getting in big-time trouble.”

“How’d a place like that end up in Camp Peary?” Michelle asked.

“Dunmore hightailed it from Williamsburg where the governor’s mansion was located to Porto Bello, his hunting lodge, when Washington’s army got too close during the Revolutionary War. Then the chickenshit snuck away during the night on a British ship and sailed back to England. There’s a street in Norfolk named after him. Not in his honor, but because it was thought to be the last place he set foot in America, the royal prick. But my point is they got lots of places for people to live, so why the need for a new dorm?”

“You have any contacts at Camp Peary you can work?”

“If I had I would’ve worked them. I just get low-level scuttlebutt from time to time. No one’s gonna be passing me the passenger manifest for those flights if that’s what you mean.” He pointed to some other areas on the map. “They have paramilitary squads training pretty much full-time there. Scary dudes. Practicing snatch-and-grabs, I guess. Or government-ordered assassinations. CIA can kill you better than anybody else. They simulate doing missions all over the world. Hell, they even have big balloons they float up to change the weather. Make it rain or snow, stuff like that. Big wind machines too. Or whopper heat makers. Least that’s what I heard.”

“To simulate desert fighting. Like in Afghanistan,” Michelle commented. They spent a few more minutes with South Freeman, then left after promising that they would keep him in the loop. In return he said he’d let them know if anything interesting came his way. “Who knows,” he said before they left. “Maybe I might get my parents’ house back. Now wouldn’t that be a hoot!”

As they were climbing into Michelle’s truck Sean’s cell phone rang.

“King.”

He sucked in a quick breath as he listened. “Shit!” He clicked off.

“Is somebody else dead?”

“Yes, and two dead men are even deader.”

“What are you talking about?”

“That was Sheriff Hayes. The morgue just blew up.”

“GAS LEAK,” SHERIFF HAYES SAID as they stared at the charred rubble that used to be the makeshift morgue.

“Isn’t that what they always say?” Michelle said.

“And you said the ME died?” Sean asked.

Hayes nodded. “He was in there working on Rivest’s remains. There’s not enough left of him to do an autopsy on.”

“So Rivest’s and Monk’s bodies?”

“Pretty much bone and cinder.”

“That’s way too convenient, don’t you think?” Sean said.

“I thought I told you to keep the hell out of my way,” boomed a voice.

They all three turned to see FBI Special Agent Ventris striding toward them. He came to a stop a few inches from Sean’s face. “Do you have a hearing problem?”

“He’s working with me, Agent Ventris,” Hayes said hastily.

“I don’t give a shit if you’re working with God Almighty Himself, I told you to stay out of my way.”

“I just came down here in response to a call I got from Sheriff Hayes,” Sean said evenly. “And would you care to explain to me how the FBI has jurisdiction over a local death that’s unrelated to any federal matter or person?”

Ventris looked ready to take a swing at Sean. Michelle stepped between them.

“Look, Sean and I used to be part of the federal side too, Agent Ventris. Our main contact was Len Rivest and now he’s dead. Sean discovered the body; it’s only natural that we want to stay informed about the matter. But we will in no way interfere with a federal investigation. All we’re looking for is the truth, same as you.”

Her words seemed to take a bit of the steam out of Ventris.

Hayes quickly said, “Sean, maybe you better fill in Agent Ventris on your theory about Rivest.”

“I don’t want to be seen as interfering,” Sean growled.

“Just lay it out,” Ventris snapped.

Sean grudgingly explained about the absence of towels and the bath mat and the missing plunger and his theory of how Rivest could have been killed. “We’d asked the ME to check the body for a trace of something like that happening.”

Ventris studied the pavement for a few moments. “I actually noticed that there were no towels,” he said. “And the bath mat, but I didn’t know about the plunger.”