David Baldacci - Simple Genius

“Why do I think she was trying to tell me something? Why do I think she was trying to get me to come down to the dock?” Michelle stood there looking across the water at Camp Peary. “Something else was really odd. Viggie told me this story out of the blue.”

“What story?”

“That she knew that Alan Turing had killed himself by eating a poisoned apple. She told me how it reminded her of the Snow White story. You know the wicked old queen turns into a hag, takes a boat down the river and tricks Snow White into eating the poisoned apple and Snow White almost died. Like Viggie almost died on the river. She said something like whoever holds the apple is definitely powerful. Why would she tell me that?”

“I don’t know, but how does that help us?” Sean said.

Michelle suddenly exclaimed, “Omigod! Boat? Apple?” She raced to the Formula boat’s stern, leaned over and stared down at the name stenciled on the transom: “ The Big Apple, ” she read.

“ The Big Apple as in New York,” Sean said.

“No, the apple as in Snow White,” Michelle corrected. “Come on, we have to tear this boat apart.”

“Why?” Horatio asked.

“Just help me! Help me.”

An hour later, the three of them sat in the stern seats staring at it. The rolled-up paper had been hidden in the enclosed head of the boat, behind spare rolls of toilet paper in a storage compartment.

Michelle said, “She must’ve come down here that day to hide the document. She probably planned to leave me another clue or maybe just bring the document to me like she did the others if I said the magic words. Only she never got the chance.”

Horatio added, “And the fact that she thought she needed a hiding place suggests she was afraid.”

“Well, her fears turned out to be well founded, didn’t they?” Michelle said bitterly.

“It’s old,” Sean said, as he held the document. “Second World War old. This must be what Henry Fox aka Heinrich Fuchs gave to Monk Turing when he visited him in Germany.”

“It’s a map,” Horatio said, studying it.

“Of Camp Peary or what it used to be when the Navy ran it. I recognize the topography from the map in South Freeman’s office,” Michelle added.

Sean pointed at a line that ran from near the river’s shore into the heart of the facility. “The only thing is there’s no inlet there. The map must be wrong.”

“It’s not wrong if the line isn’t delineating an inlet of water, ” Michelle countered.

“A road then.”

She turned the document over. There was written the initials “H.F.”

“Heinrich Fuchs,” Horatio said.

“And there’s writing down here, but it’s in German.”

“Look over there,” Sean said, pointing to fresh writing done in another hand.

Michelle added, “It’s in English. Maybe Monk Turing’s. Look, there are compass points, directions, everything.”

“Right, but to what?”

Michelle flipped the map back over. “To that line, it has to be. Wait a minute. Sean, if you’re right, Fuchs escaped from Camp Peary.”

“Okay.”

“So how did he do it?”

“I don’t know. I guess the best way was to get to the river. If he went by road or even through the fields and forest the scent dogs could follow him. Water nearly always makes a clean escape, but you have to get to it first. And I’m sure they had a lot of guards back then.”

“I’m sure they did, above ground,” she said.

“Above ground?”

“Sean, that line may represent a tunnel, right into Camp Peary. Or in Heinrich Fuch’s case, a tunnel right out of Camp Peary, and freedom. A tunnel is a pretty popular way of breaking out of prison.”

“But why would Monk go to all that trouble to get a map of a tunnel leading into Camp Peary? He was killed.”

“They didn’t kill him in the tunnel. They must have caught him after he got out of the tunnel. They might not know anything about it.”

“That doesn’t answer why he would risk going in the tunnel in the first place.”

Horatio spoke up. “Maybe Fuchs told him about something there. Something located at Camp Peary. Something, I don’t know, something valuable. ”

“This all sounds crazy, Michelle, but the discovery of this map provides us with one very critical thing: a way to get into Camp Peary.”

“So you really do think Viggie’s there?”

“Even if she isn’t, we might be able to find out something important. Important enough to use it as leverage with those people so they’ll release Viggie.”

“But what if I’m wrong and they do know about the tunnel?”

Sean looked at the other two solemnly as he carefully folded up the map. “Then I’m afraid we’re dead.”

THEY DECIDED TO TAKE THE BOAT downriver to pick up the equipment that Sean had ordered for their assault on Camp Peary. After that Sean led them on a detour to see South Freeman. Arch, Virginia, wasn’t on the river, so they had to dock the boat at an old pier and hike about a half-mile inland. Sean used Michelle’s cell phone to call ahead and although it was late they found South seated at his desk smoking a cigarette as usual, his hands flying over the keyboard. “Girl disappears from Babbage Town. It’s all over the place. Hot stuff. And even better it’s Monk Turing’s little girl. Gonna bring out a special edition. Make my whole life and please tell me it’s got something to do with the spooks across that river.”

“It has something to do with a little girl who might be dead, ” Michelle said severely. “Do you journalists ever stop and think about that?” He stopped typing, wheeled around in his chair and scowled at her. “Hey, I got nothing against that child. I pray they find her safe and sound and arrest whoever took her. But news is news.”

Michelle looked away in disgust.

Sean said, “South, was there any talk of something valuable over at Camp Peary? I mean back when the Navy operated it during the Second World War?”

“Valuable? Not that I can recall. Except for the old neighborhoods and the CIA’s facilities, it’s just woods, mostly, and a few ponds. Why?”

Sean looked disappointed. “I was hoping you’d say there was buried treasure there, you know from a ship sinking or something.”

Freeman cracked a smile. “Well, now there is a legend about that, but trust me, it’s a load of bull.”

Horatio said, “Tell us about it, South.”

“Why? You sure as hell can’t get to it if it’s at Camp Peary.”

“Humor us,” Sean said.

Freeman leaned back in his chair and settled down to tell his tale. “Well, this takes us back, way back, into colonial times, in fact.”

“Can you just get to the point?” Michelle snapped impatiently.

He jerked up straight. “Hey, lady, I don’t have to tell you a damn thing!”

Sean held up a calming hand. “Just take your time, South.” He sat down in a chair across from Freeman and glared at Michelle, who reluctantly perched on the edge of the desk and gazed stonily at the journalist.

Freeman looked appeased, sat back and began again. “You remember me telling you about that Lord Dunmore character?”

“The last royal governor of Virginia, yes,” Sean said.

“Well, local legend has it the British sent over tons of gold to help finance the war. They were going to use it to pay for spies, for the German mercenaries fighting for the Brits and also to get the population on their side. And Dunmore was supposed to get the Indians riled up against the Americans so they’d have to fight them at the same time they had their hands full with the redcoats. A lot of people don’t realize it but back then most citizens kept flip-flopping on which side they wanted to win. Mostly, it was based on who’d won the last big battle and which army was in their backyard. So the gold Dunmore supposedly had could’ve caused a lot of damage.”