“I hit dead end after dead end in my search for the hows and whys of this thing, until I thought that if Hadley Sr. had no chemistry background, someone sure as hell had to. Mining cinnabar, or mercuric sulfides, is a process with tremendous dangers and even more state and federal government oversight. They had to have a top man in the field, so I went into the Internal Revenue database.”
Again, the smiles came at the mention of Leonard’s special skills at backdooring computer systems.
“It was reported that the highest-paid person at the Hadley Corp Gauge and Meter Company was an engineer by the name of Alfred McDonald. And guess what? He was also in Hadley Sr.’s intelligence team during the war. I guess he had a lot of partners after the fighting stopped. It was like splitting up the spoils.”
“Spoils of what?” Jennifer asked.
“Spoils of whatever it was they found during the fighting.” Leonard shuffled through his papers and handed George the sheet, who passed it down the line. “One interesting point. A consultant was also on payroll with a salary and a material outlay paid for by Hadley.” Leonard smiled. “It seems this consultant, a Dr. Jürgen Fromm, was paid an annual salary of over three hundred thousand dollars and had a business expense account averaging over two million dollars a year.”
“That would raise eyebrows even in today’s dollars, much less the forties,” Damian said. That was a lot of money being thrown around by former soldiers in the field and possibly their federal backers.
“Background on this doctor?” Gabriel asked, and Leonard smiled.
“I don’t know, but I did hit on an interesting cross-reference when checking the military database. It seems before 1945, a Dr. Jürgen Fromm was listed as a war criminal by the Allied commission on crimes against humanity. After the war, he was taken off that particular list. Why? I don’t know. It was buried so deep I could find nothing.”
“Hadley and his friends had some very interesting acquaintances,” Lonetree said, beginning to see a pattern of bad behavior going far beyond than just the younger Hadley.
“Very,” Gabe said, pushing his glasses back up his nose. “What was this German doctor’s specialty?”
“Don’t know, but I do know where his funding was coming from, no matter what he did for it. The good doctor was paid by the Luftwaffe.”
“Where?” Gabriel asked, knowing beforehand where the doctor practiced.
“Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia.”
“Interesting coincidence, isn’t it?” Julie asked with a smirk. Her reporter’s hackles had gone into full-drive mode.
“So, to summarize, our Robert Hadley, a full-bird colonel in army intelligence who also worked for the OSS, hired and paid for a war criminal that the government was hiding here in America.”
“I don’t know any other way to interpret this,” Lonetree said. “George, do you have any feelings hearing this news?”
“No, other than the fact that Leonard’s telling the truth. If I could be around Hadley when asked about it, I could get a better feel for it.”
“You may get that chance in a few short hours.” Gabriel looked around the table. “Anything else, Leonard?”
“Just this,” he said as he gave them another paper to look at. “Found it in the National Archives database.”
“What is Operation Caged?” Gabriel asked, his brow furrowed.
“Don’t know,” Leonard said, giving them the last paper. “Operation Caged was a code name for some army OSS black mission at the end of the war. I came up with it when I cross-referenced Hadley, Fromm, and S-2 OSS. This is what the operation was about.”
The paper was passed from confused person to confused person. It was headed by the operational order number, and then every single word, line, and signature was blacked out.
“Not very forthcoming, were they?” Gabriel said when he saw the censorship of the operational order and its results.
“Not much to get from the Freedom of Information Act. This was what met the War Crimes Commission when they requested info on the missing Fromm.” Leonard finally sat down and looked around. That was all he could dig up about Hadley’s past. “I am still digging into this Nazi doctor’s specialty. I’ll have something in a few days, as I am still trying to see what the German database has to say.”
“Good. Stay on it.”
A knock sounded on the door, and Julie opened it. A member of the doctor’s staff was there, and she looked quite nervous.
“The president is awake, well, sort of semiconscious. He wants to see someone he called the Indian.”
“We happen to have one of those,” Julie said as she tried but failed to hide her surprise that Hadley was awake and somewhat coherent.
Gabriel stood and gestured for them to follow. Now was the time to get some answers while they had the chance.
* * *
The hostage rescue team commandos allowed the group to enter as the last of the doctors left the president’s side. They gave the team dirty looks as they were shuffled aside for whatever voodoo these people performed. None of the medical staff wanted them there. This was a problem with the mind, and they didn’t need amateurs mucking up their efforts.
Gabriel was the first to see the president, who was sitting up in bed and staring straight ahead at a damaged wall. The group filed in, and John stepped to the forefront.
“Mr. President, do you know or have you ever met anyone in this room?” Gabriel asked as he pulled a chair close and then sat as the others formed a circle around the bed. It looked like they were viewing some form of rare animal in a zoo. Hadley noticed.
“It’s been that bad, huh?” he asked as his eyes moved from damaged wall to damaged wall.
“Let’s just say you’ve made things interesting, sir.”
Hadley finally turned his head and found the man speaking to him. His gray hair was a tangle, and his beard was getting rather long. His eyes were bloodred, and he had a hard time focusing on Gabriel’s face. Then his eyes went to the others, passing each with no knowledge of who they were. His eyes did linger on the last man in line, John Lonetree.
“Don’t know any of you—except for him,” he said, nodding toward John. “It seems I’ve seen you before recently.” He coughed, and Gabriel handed him a glass of water. The president drank deeply and choked, alarming those watching him. He settled and handed the glass back to Gabe. “Or maybe I don’t know you. It’s confusing. A long-ago memory, or recent—I just don’t know.” Hadley closed his eyes. “I’m tired.” He looked at Lonetree. “You saw her, didn’t you?”
John knew exactly who Hadley was referencing. He eyed Gabriel, who lightly shook his head, and John understood. “Who, sir?”
Hadley looked more intently at Lonetree. “I’m too old a dog to play that game, my good man. Now quit being the mysterious Indian you like to personify and tell me if you saw her.”
John nodded. “Yes, I saw her.”
Hadley actually smiled. “It was you in class, wasn’t it?”
John looked shocked at first, and then Gabriel encouraged him when he nodded to answer. Jennifer wasn’t so sure.
“Yes, I was there. World history with Miss Kramer.”
“You weren’t a student; I would have known. I knew everyone who went to high school in Chino, and my friend, you are not from Chino.”
“Not Moreno either,” Gabriel said for John.
Hadley looked from Lonetree to Kennedy.
“And who are you?” Hadley’s brow furrowed. “You look familiar, to say the least.”
“A doctor of sorts.”
“What kind of answer is that? You sound like my wife, always hiding something.”
“You hid quite a bit yourself over the years,” Damian said as he made his large presence known.
“Okay, so you know about Moreno. I’m not concerned with that. I need to ask this gentleman some questions. Can you step closer to the bed?”
John looked at Jennifer and then Gabriel as he did as requested.
&nbs
p; Only George saw the change in Hadley’s eyes. From one moment to the next, his demeanor changed from a friendly one to one of malice. His fears grew for no other reason than the vibes he was getting. The room changed as Lonetree stepped up to see Hadley closer. The light dimmed, and George had to say what he was feeling.
“No, it’s a trap; that’s not Hadley!”
The lights went out as the president’s hand grabbed Lonetree’s wrist. Jennifer and Gabriel stood at George’s warning shout, but it was too late. John’s eyes rolled back into his head as he collapsed onto the bed. The others felt the warmth sapped from the bedroom, and they all heard the locking mechanism on the door engage. They could hear pounding from out in the hallway as the power went out throughout the house. Then the electric shock coursed through their bodies, and each person in the room followed Lonetree’s example as they too collapsed. Damian hit his head hard against the wall, and George fell onto the silk-and-wood dressing screen, knocking it over. Julie fell from her chair, as did Jennifer. Gabriel felt his eyes tunnel vision for the briefest of moments, and before his conscious mind let go, he felt the time frame he was in change. The sense of speed hit him, and he briefly remembered the description John had given him once for the initial stages of a dreamwalk. This was what he was feeling, as he too fell back into the chair he was sitting in just as Hadley, or the thing inside Hadley, laughed, and the sound echoed throughout the enormous house, shaking the wooden frame and foundation.
The entity in Moreno was now in control.
12
Julie hit her head. “Ow!” It was an automatic reaction to looking up at the sky and the feeling of falling and then the expectation of the impact. It never happened that way. In the sense of a dream, Julie landed without pain.
Leonard fell on his tailbone, and he lost the ability to breathe as the pain struck with a vengeance. And that was exactly what his mind told him to think.
John and Jennifer bumped heads as they fell to a cold sidewalk, and Damian and George awoke sitting down on a tiled surface with people walking around them and through them. George panicked and crawled away, as did Damian. Men and women simply moved through them as if they weren’t there. Damian crawled until the flood of feet and ankles vanished and he found himself on the sidewalk next to Leonard, who was still trying to catch his breath. Before Damian knew what was happening, hands were grabbing at him as someone helped to get him standing again. He tried to focus as he saw Leonard and George helped to their feet. He saw Lonetree, Julie, Jennifer, and Gabriel as they stood there with the same look on their faces.
“I think I’m going to be sick,” Julie said as she braced herself for the embarrassment that comes from vomiting in front of your friends.
“It will pass in a second. I always feel the same way.” John tried in vain to orient himself. He would later admit the truth to all—he had never experienced a dreamwalk in quite this way. He was not in control, and he didn’t know if the sensation of movement through time was a real one. His head was spinning.
“The same way as what?” Leonard asked, realizing that he was rubbing his ass for no apparent reason.
“I suspect when he dreamwalks,” Gabriel said, trying to focus on where he was. His eyes widened when he saw where Damian was standing. He reached out to pull him back, but knew he was too late. The red Corvette convertible swung toward him, and the hip-high hood passed right through him as the car swerved to the curb and then stopped.
They all saw what had just happened and stood with mouths agape. He swallowed and then stepped quickly out of the street.
The blond driver sat for a moment and then turned the sports car off and athletically jumped out without opening his door. The radio playing Buddy Holly stopped, and the world became silent as each of them looked around.
“Is this—” Leonard began.
“Moreno,” John said as he watched the men, women, and children stroll along the sidewalks. He turned and saw the blond kid walk into a darkened doorway and vanish.
“What?” Damian asked as the others turned to face John as if it was his fault they found themselves here.
“We’re in Moreno,” he said as he faced Gabriel with a questioning look. “Hadley?”
“I don’t think so,” Kennedy said as he too took in the town around them. The passing cars that sprang from another era. The storefronts from out of a back-lot movie studio. The dress of the men, the hats they wore. The children with their Saturday clothes on. The rolled-up cuffs of jeans, the crew cuts on the teenagers.
“It wasn’t Hadley; that was something else in that bedroom inside the bastard. I thought he was too nice and agreeable at seeing us,” Jennifer said just as George nodded in agreement.
“I saw the change in Hadley right before this shit happened. The vibes coming off him were not just a single mind but many. We were ambushed,” Cordero said as he saw the strange dress of the people coming in and out of varying shops and stores. He turned and saw the neon sign in the darkened window that announced that they were standing in front of the Bottom Dollar Bar and Grill. “That was something else in that bedroom. I don’t suppose you can get us the hell out of here.”
“I don’t even know how we got here.” Gabriel looked down at Cordero, and it was plain to see he was confused. “Can you give us the time to work this out, or do you have something you have to do?”
Cordero frowned. “Look, we are not you. I happen to be scared to death.”
Gabriel stepped up and took George’s shoulder and squeezed. He didn’t feel the material of the coat under his fingers. He also couldn’t feel the pressure he was exerting on George either. This was a definite dream state—or a nightmare, depending on the person. George’s stance was clear on the subject.
“Take it easy. We got in; we’ll get out somehow.”
“I guess we can start by seeing what the kid is doing here,” John said as Jenny took his arm and closed her eyes, not believing where they found themselves.
“What kid?”
“That blond kid who would have run down Damian if we were solid and not just a temporary fixture here.”
“Hadley?” Damian asked. “Damn, he was a spoiled kid, wasn’t he?” Damian looked at the shiny Corvette as Gabriel turned and reached for the wooden door handle of the Bottom Dollar. His hand went right through it, and Lonetree laughed.
“That’s not the way things work here.” John stepped past Kennedy with Jenny, and they walked right through the door.
Gabriel smiled. He felt a little nauseated, and then he and Julie went next.
“Hey, hey, can we figure out first how we got here and if we can get back?” Leonard said, eyeing an old lady walking by him and then another as she walked through him. He shivered and then smelled an old woman’s perfume. It was a fragrance his grandmother used to put on, and it curdled the dinner he had in his stomach. Lavender. The old ladies walked into a shoe store with a giant red goose in the store’s window.
“Red Goose Shoes,” Damian read aloud just as a child inside the store went to the felt-covered goose inside the display window. They watched as one of the store’s employees allowed the boy of about ten years old to pull down on the goose’s neck. The long neck and the golden bill bent, and then much to the delight of the laughing and happy child, a golden egg rolled out of the goose’s backside and slid down a winding track and then settled into a nest of the fake bright green grass used in Easter baskets. The employee gave the egg to the boy, and he opened it until candy fell free, much to his delight. Damian smiled.
“My ma”—he choked up a little at the memory—“told me about this place when she was a kid. Used to be a national chain of shoe stores. Went out of business in the late sixties or seventies, I think.”
“Well, I guess that goes a long way to proving we’re not in Kansas anymore, Toto,” Leonard said as he watched the red goose in the window as they finally followed Gabriel and the others into the darkened bar. “Is it me, or was bending the goose’s neck like that a little
creepy?”
“Man, I don’t like this,” George said, standing close to Damian as they literally walked through the door to follow the others. This fact scared the hell out of all of them. They found the others standing in the dimly lit bar.
“I don’t know about you guys, but I’m shaking, I’m so freaked out right now,” George said. “I am getting no thoughts from these people at all. It’s almost like … like—”
“Window dressing for the mind?” John said, wanting to get George back to study and not fear.
Gabriel, John, Jenny, Julie, George, Damian, and Leonard all stood just inside the door as they took in the bar and its patrons. Of course, they couldn’t see the newcomers to town. There were several men and a few women at the bar and even more at the small round tables arranged in the dance area. The smell of old grease and hamburgers, along with stale beer and a smell none of them could place, wafted through the Bottom Dollar Bar and Grill. As Kennedy looked around, John tapped his shoulder and pointed at the bar where the kid was leaning up against it. A smaller man delivered a glass of something dark and placed it in front of their ghostly host—or was he the culprit?
They saw Dean’s face not only in the bar’s back mirror with its myriad of bottled libation but also from the many neon beer advertisements hanging on the walls. Pabst Blue Ribbon, Coors, the Banquet Beer, and Budweiser, the King.
“I’m with George; I’m just about ready to scream. This is too much,” Leonard said, swallowing as he stepped closer to Hadley. He leaned in to study the boy’s face more clearly. Only inches from his left cheek, Dean felt nothing of the intrusion.
“One Coke, no ice,” the bartender said as he placed the coaster and the glass down in front of Dean. “That’ll be two bits, kid.”
Dean looked at the man and smiled. “My good name doesn’t allow for a Coke on the house?” he asked while his smile grew.
John looked at the others and then shook his head. “Told you, a real asshole.”
Dean momentarily looked their way, and Kennedy and Lonetree exchanged looks of interest.
In the Still of the Night--The Supernaturals II Page 21