In the Still of the Night--The Supernaturals II

by David L. Golemon

  “As I mentioned yesterday, Sacramento Security has only three holdings. One now, after the state took over two of those properties. There is only one property requiring security, and they require security, as I said, 24-7. I found the payroll outlay for two employees on a long-term contract. I even found their marriage license in the State of California records. The security team actually married.”

  “Well, being cooped up together twenty-four hours a day will do that to people,” Damian said as he sipped coffee.

  “Leonard, what are you saying?” Gabriel asked.

  “It’s the lead we needed.”

  “Why?” Julie asked as she finally placed a cup of coffee in front of Gabriel and then sat down.

  “It’s what they had been contracted to secure.”

  “Come on, Sickles. Stop playing this out,” Damian said, trying to get the frustrating kid to get on with it.

  “Who hires people to watch an entire town?” Leonard said with an impish grin.

  “Town?” Kennedy asked, confused but now more interested.

  “Yep. It’s called Moreno, and let me tell you, this place has a history. And guess what?”

  They all stared at Sickles, not saying anything and surely not rising to his climatic bait.

  “The town was incorporated after World War II—1947, to be exact, when the first real business went in. Moreno, California, was the first investment of one Robert Hadley, the father of the president.”

  Gabriel smiled. He finally sat down. “Go on.”

  “I figured the key here may not be Dean Hadley but his father. His past isn’t that well covered, except for a few specific areas in his wartime service. Can’t get much out of the system because those war years are so highly classified that even I couldn’t get into the army’s file at the main database in St. Louis. But I did get into a system that stores payroll information for an agency that didn’t think past payroll was a high priority for security. Robert Hadley was a spook during the war.”

  “A spook?” Jenny asked.

  “A spy, worked for the old OSS, and served his last few months in Europe in Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia. What he was doing there, no one says on paper. But guess who came home from the war a rich man?”

  “Robert Hadley,” Gabriel said as his smile grew. He wanted to stand up and give the small black man a kiss.

  “Exactly. His newfound wealth started the Hadley Corp Gauge and Meter Company of Moreno, California, in the summer of 1948. It employed over three hundred workers, who were set up nicely in Hadley housing and basic services. The man basically owned these people and housed them too.”

  Leonard turned and paced as he left the file on the table. “Now we know his son was born before the war ended. Now we know he went to Chino High School and not Chaffey, as his official record states, but why there? Well, Moreno was large enough for kindergarten through eighth grades, but there weren’t enough older students to justify a high school class, so they were bused to Chino, eighteen miles away. We now know it was all a lie. Real records show he went to Chino High School and graduated in 1963. Now let’s assume that Chino is somehow relatable to Moreno.” Leonard turned one of the computer monitors around and then pointed at a Google map. “Here’s Chino, Ontario, Pomona, Corona, and here is”—he tapped the screen hard—“Moreno. Eighteen miles away in the hills surrounding the valley.”

  “I’ll be damned; it was right there,” Julie said, admiring Leonard.

  “What happened to the town?” Gabriel asked as he examined the screen.

  “Industrial explosion. The equipment they made used mercury, the deadliest heavy metal. The building exploded one night and killed thirty-six factory workers. The fire rained down on the town below, where many more were burned and killed. The town was officially declared dead in 1965 because of groundwater contamination from mercury poisoning. The security is there to supposedly keep the town off limits to squatters.”

  “When did all of this happen?” Jennifer asked as she reached out and took John’s hand. She didn’t like the way he was listening to Leonard’s report.

  “That is the real capper here. The plant exploded on one of the busiest nights of the year. Halloween 1962. It seems the town had a kids’ holiday and the adults had another.”

  “What do you mean?” Gabe asked.

  “The Cuban Missile Crisis had just ended. For weeks, the population thought they had seen the last days, but instead, at the last minute, reprieve from Armageddon.” Sickles finally sat down. “Everyone was happy. The kids, the mothers, the fathers. Then it suddenly turned into a town of death. One night wiped out a whole community, and the world never even noticed.”

  “Hadley had that much clout?” Damian asked, incredulous at the idea.

  “No, he didn’t. But the people who owned the old winery and mission in town did. Those were the two properties that the State of California took over in the seventies. The Santa Maria Delarosa mission, and the winery occupying the same property, were owned by none other than the United States government at the time, and then Moreno later, at least until the State of California sued Hadley Corp and wrested the property from them for historical sake.”

  “When did the U.S. government go into the historical preservation business?” John asked, with his hackles rising.

  “They didn’t.” Leonard pulled out a sheet of paper from the file and slid it down the table to Kennedy. “As far as I can see, the government was working with Hadley Sr. on something, and whatever that was revolved around this property. That something was important enough that he was well compensated for his trouble. Compensated well enough that he became one of the richest men in the world through that initial seed money from Uncle Sam.”

  “Anything else?” Gabriel teased.

  The computer whiz looked taken aback and then caught on and smiled. “Remember, this is mostly speculation.”

  “Your speculation is better than hard evidence sometimes, kid,” Damian said as he fixed Leonard with his police officer’s eternal stare.

  “As a matter of fact, a little article online caught my attention. It seems our Hadley Sr. influenced his son from the start for a career in politics. That’s from Hadley’s own mouth, and the interviewer at the time felt the future president was not all that pleased about being pushed in that direction. I guess he had changed after that night long ago—if he was even there, of course, which we cannot prove at this time. That’s all I have, and I don’t think the feds will give us any more. Everyone here knows what eventually became of the old OSS, right?”

  “The Office of Strategic Services?” Julie said with a quizzical look on her face.

  “The CIA.” Damian helped her place the history. “And I don’t think our little criminal friend can get into their system all that easily.”

  Sickles gave Damian a dirty look. “Give me time and that would change, copper.”

  The room became silent as Leonard finished.

  “You know and I know how we can fill in the blanks,” Lonetree said as he angrily slid the coffee cup toward Gabriel. “And we only have four hours to stop that transfer from taking place.”

  Gabriel Kennedy looked around the table until he finally settled on Jennifer. He raised his right brow above the rim of his glasses as he asked the silent question. She closed her eyes and nodded. Kennedy angrily slid the folder away from him and then stood.

  “Okay,” Gabriel said with a resigned sigh. “Get the prep work started, and I’ll clear out the bedroom of the security detail. I’ll get some alone time with the president. I think it’s dangerous, as this thing is more powerful than any one of us could have imagined. Since this is likely to kill not only John but Hadley also, I should have no trouble in getting the First Lady to agree. Let’s move. Leonard, get a computer upstairs in case John relays something we need you for. Damian, you’ll act as security.”

  “Yeah, since all these heavily armed men has helped thus far, I’m thrilled.”

  Gabe smiled as did the other
s, and they prepared for one of the more dangerous scientific experiments ever conducted.

  It was time for John Lonetree to dreamwalk with an insane man.

  10

  VIRGINIA COUNTRYSIDE

  It took John and Jennifer thirty minutes to prepare. Lonetree had been given a depressant by Gabriel that would allow the large Blackfoot Indian to set his mind free. The task would take complete silence with only the team in the bedroom as witnesses. The hostage rescue team members, the Secret Service, and the medical staff complained bitterly about being excluded from the room during the experiment but eventually complied, with official protests being lodged to their superiors. Catherine Hadley had come to their rescue, not for humanitarian reasons but for the mere fact that the team would be expelled from the property soon after that.

  The last of the tinfoil went on the windows, and Julie pronounced the room as ready. Towels had been stuffed under doorframes and windowsills to absorb sound. Any external interference from either noise or light could bring John out of the dream state he needed to achieve. Gabriel checked Lonetree’s pulse and, upon removing the stethoscope, pronounced him as ready as he would ever be.

  Leonard had his setup in the far corner of the room, and the others would be placed in chairs around the bed. They would try to protect Hadley the best they could. Damian chose to stand by the door.

  Two candles were brought in, and the door was locked and sealed by Damian. Jennifer lit the candles and placed them on either side of the bed. Gabriel would be nearest John’s left and Jennifer his right, as his chair would face Hadley and be the closest to the patient. The team was as ready as they would ever be.

  “George, do you have any feelings coming from Hadley?” Kennedy asked as he took a chair to the left side of the president. He wanted to be in position to view both him and Lonetree.

  “Nothing but ease coming off him in waves. I think he knows we’re here. As for whatever threat there may be, I get nothing.” George swallowed as he closed his eyes one last time to make sure he didn’t miss a feeling he should have seen.

  Gabriel was tapped on the shoulder, and Leonard informed him the video system was recording and that a live feed was being sent to the security team in the hallway, where it looked like a platoon of fully armed combat troops waited.

  The room went silent as John closed his eyes and then touched Jennifer’s hand for a moment. He opened his eyes and then gave her a quick wink. “Tell Bobby Lee to watch himself while I’m gone, or I’ll excise his ass.”

  “You got it.” She kissed his hand as he once more closed his eyes.

  As everyone watched, John said a prayer in his native tongue, asking for guidance into the dark world. His last dreamwalk was in Summer Place, where he had connected with an inanimate object, the house itself. Here he would match brains and souls with a human being, which meant that, at least for a while, Hadley’s insanity just may well be his own.

  “Okay, John, watch your ass in there,” Gabriel said as he watched Lonetree drift off. The lights went out, and the candles cast an eerie sort of shadow play on the bed and the man lying there.

  Leonard threw a small blanket over the video monitor to cut down on the light in the bedroom.

  For the briefest of moments, as Lonetree went into a deeper sleep, everyone in the room felt John pass through their minds. It was like his thoughts reached out to connect with all. Then they felt the sensation pass, and they saw Hadley jerk in his slumber. The IV line went taut, and Jennifer started to rise to keep the line securely attached to the president, but Gabe held up a hand as Hadley settled. Lonetree tensed in muscle and facial expression, and in the candles’ weak light, they saw his eyes working under the lids. He was now entering REM sleep.

  * * *

  John saw blackness, and then he saw a bright flash of red and then white and then blackness again. The light was blurry, and John felt a powerful wind and a cold chill as his body sped through the dreamworld his mind was creating with the help of Dean Hadley. He was now mentally connected and there in Hadley’s time and space of the past.

  The speeding car passed a school bus, and John heard the blare of the driver’s horn and then the laughter of the boy sitting next to him. Lonetree looked over and saw the letterman-jacketed teen with the wavy blond hair. The speeding Corvette screeched to the right and into a large parking area. The car’s engine was shut off with a powerful roar as the kid hit the accelerator one last time. This was the time in every dreamwalk where John was more confused than he was aware.

  Lonetree watched Dean pause as he stepped from the Corvette, and his eyes went to a dark-haired girl who stepped easily from the bus he had just sped past. The girl then unfolded a walking cane. John saw that her eyes were hidden by dark sunglasses as she was greeted by several of the local high school girls. The group moved away with the rest of the bused students from other areas. Lonetree watched Dean move off arrogantly to class.

  John suddenly found himself inside and sitting atop a vacant desk at the back of a large classroom. He looked around and momentarily felt dizzy because of the time jump. Not that he wasn’t grateful for not having to run to class like he had in his own past. Hadley was seated in the back and from the looks of it had very little interest in world history.

  “Hey, look,” came a whispered command.

  Dean took some gum out of his mouth and firmly planted it under his desk. “What?” he growled at a boy with a bad case of acne, seated across from him.

  “Look at Gloria’s blouse; you can see her bra through the material,” the boy said and then giggled as his pimples turned a brighter shade of red.

  Dean looked up and saw the back of the same girl who had exited the bus. She sat at her desk, listening to the old female teacher who was busy pointing at a map of the Ottoman Empire. Dean made a face and then turned on his friend.

  “Knock it off, you backward-thinking Alley Oop. Gloria’s blind,” he snarled.

  John watched as the girl named Gloria turned, and though he couldn’t see her eyes, he knew Dean had drawn her attention. Along with another.

  “Is there a problem, Mr. Hadley?”

  “No, Miss Kramer; do you have one?” Dean replied.

  The class nervously chuckled.

  John raised his brows at the arrogance of the boy.

  “Young man, you are on thin ice with me. One more trip down to the counselor’s office and you’ll have some explaining to do to your father. That wouldn’t be conducive to an active weekend of fun, would it?”

  Dean took a breath as the class erupted in laughter at his embarrassment. Even Lonetree smiled at his predicament.

  “No, ma’am.” He saw Gloria as she listened. Although she was blind, John felt as if she were aware of her surroundings just as much as the kids with sight. She smiled at the uncomfortable silence from the back of the room.

  “And, Mr. Weller, I think we have heard quite enough on the accessories of women’s clothing from you. Is that clear?”

  “But I—”

  “‘But I’ nothing. Now use that book for something besides a prop, please.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  John looked up, and then he saw that the girl was no longer smiling. It was quite evident that she had heard the remark about her bra also but was willing to let it go until the teacher called Jimmy Weller out on it. The blind stare was not at the boy with the serious cratering problem on his facial skin; it was directed at Hadley. Gloria’s unseeing glare was so intense that Dean looked away. John felt the girl intimidated the boy for some reason. Maybe it was the fact that she had the ability to stare without the use of her eyes.

  “Thanks a lot, asshole!” Dean hissed as he finally picked up his own volume of world history and opened it to cover his talking.

  “You know you like what you see. She must be lonely, right? How many dates could a blind girl have? And you’ve been through most of the bitchin’ babes in this school, so why not go for the trifecta?”

  “Gloria is t
he daughter of one of my dad’s partners. Leave her alone.”

  “Oh, the man’s in love.”

  “I’m going to kick your ass, you little—”

  “Mr. Hadley!” the voice was much louder than the first assault. The smallish woman took her pointer and stormed down the row, slapping the four-foot-long wooden stick on the students’ desks as she moved. Dean closed his book, and his eyes widened. “I guess we have to speak with your father. That won’t do much for your weekend. Nor the new car I understand he bought you … on the condition of good grades, I believe he said at our last parent-teacher meeting.” The small, short-haired woman, who John suspected had been teaching at Chino High School since the days of Prohibition, slapped the wooden pointer on the desk in front of Dean. To give the boy credit, he didn’t jump or even flinch. But he did not answer back.

  Lonetree smiled, not believing this session of dreamwalk would bear any fruit, when he saw the teacher turn and start back to the front of the class. Then she stopped and turned with a smile.

  “But we don’t need to do that, do we, Mr. Hadley?”

  Dean didn’t comment, as he suspected a far worse punishment was on its way.

  “I think an extra credit assignment is in order. I believe that will take care of that weekend I just spoke of. I have assigned Miss Perry to do a special report for the class in honor of Halloween next Wednesday. It is to cover historical haunted properties. I suspect she may need some help doing her research. Isn’t that right, Miss Perry?”

  The dark-haired girl stood so suddenly that her braille copy of world history fell to the floor.

  “I don’t think that I need any help. Especially from him. He would only be in the way. I’ll need this grade for my scholarship if and when I get one.”

  Again, the classroom erupted in laughter at someone saying that Dean Hadley, the handsomest boy in school, would be in the blind girl’s way.

  “No, I think he needs to adjust his busy weekend schedule to accommodate a straight-A student. Don’t you, Mr. Hadley?” The teacher again turned as Gloria faced Dean and flipped him the finger, causing his friend Jimmy Weller to laugh uncontrollably.