Simple Genius

by David Baldacci

  Sean looked at her curiously. “Who did you request the guard from?”

  “Champ.”

  Michelle said, “Champ picked me up at nine to go to the plane.”

  “What are you talking about, what plane?” Alicia said fiercely.

  “Just calm down, Alicia. Viggie might have just gone off by herself,” Sean said.

  “Look what happened the last time she did that!”

  “She’s right, Sean. I’m going to check down by the river.”

  “I’ll get a security team to start looking over the grounds here,” he said.

  They both headed out, leaving Alicia Chadwick staring helplessly down at the mess of papers.

  CHAPTER

  74

  VIGGIE WAS NOT ON THE RIVER. All watercraft were accounted for. A search of Babbage Town had turned up nothing. The note that had been left with the teacher had been written on a computer. No one had seen who’d delivered the note.

  The guard that had been assigned to look after Viggie said he’d gone to the cottage that morning at a few minutes before eight, but there had been a note on the door inside the screen porch saying that Viggie was ill and would not be attending school that day. So he’d left. He produced the note. Like the other, it had been written on a computer and was untraceable.

  “So anyone could have done it,” Sean said. He, Michelle and Horatio were standing outside the grounds of Babbage Town. The psychologist had joined them in the search for Viggie. They had just scoured the area with Sheriff Hayes and a group of volunteers and turned up not a single clue as to what had happened to the girl.

  As they were standing there a black sedan pulled up.

  “Oh, shit,” Sean exclaimed. “Not him. Not now.”

  Special Agent Ventris climbed out of the car and walked over to them.

  “I understand you lost the girl. Again!”

  “What do you want, Ventris?” Sean demanded.

  “I want you to get out of here. Your presence here is counterproductive.”

  “What exactly have you produced? Other than confusion?”

  Michelle put a warning hand on Sean’s shoulder. “Just stay cool, he is a federal agent,” she muttered.

  “Better listen to your friend,” Ventris said, who’d overheard her warning. “If the girl has been kidnapped, we’ll find her. It’s a Bureau specialty.”

  “Would that be dead or alive?” Sean said bitterly.

  Ventris got back in his car and drove off as Sean stared angrily after him. “You son of a bitch,” he screamed after the departing FBI agent.

  Horatio said, “Okay, I think we all need to take a deep calming breath.”

  Sean snapped, “I don’t want to take a deep calming breath. I want to kick the shit out of Special my ass Agent Ventris.”

  “Okay, venting violent thoughts can be positive,” Horatio said awkwardly.

  All three turned their heads toward the road as a line of passenger buses rumbled up, stopped at the front gate and then were allowed through.

  Sean and Michelle hustled over to the guard stationed there. “What’s going on?”

  “We’re clearing out Babbage Town, at least for now.”

  “Why?” Michelle asked.

  “Two mysterious deaths and now a little girl’s gone missing. The people working here and their families are scared. They’re being transported to Williamsburg until things get cleared up.”

  “Who ordered this?” Sean demanded.

  “Actually, I did,” a voice said. They all turned to see Champ Pollion striding toward them. “Do you blame me?”

  “Can we stay?” Sean asked.

  “No! I’m not going to be responsible for anyone else getting hurt.”

  He turned to leave.

  “Where are you going?” Michelle asked.

  “I’m leaving too. Not even the discovery of quantum computers is worth my life.”

  CHAPTER

  75

  TWO HOURS LATER BABBAGE TOWN was empty except for a few guards. Michelle and Sean had continued to walk around the grounds looking for any clue to Viggie’s disappearance, while Horatio had gone to his room to get his things together.

  While they were at Alicia’s cottage packing to leave, Merkle Hayes called Sean with news that was hardly surprising. “It’s like the girl’s vanished from the face of the earth.” Then Hayes made a comment that caused Sean to nearly drop his phone. “Even the CIA pitched in, but they couldn’t find her either.”

  “The CIA!”

  “Yeah. Ian Whitfield said he’d heard about Viggie being missing and offered to send resources to help in the search. But they found nothing.”

  “Wow, who knew the CIA had such a big heart,” Sean said. He clicked off and tossed his phone onto his bed in disgust. He went to Michelle’s room and relayed to her what Hayes had said.

  “We need to go get Horatio from his room and clear out of here,” she reminded him. In response, Sean turned and headed off. “Where are you going?”

  “Down to the dock. To think. Come on. We’ll get Horatio in a little bit.”

  They walked through the forest path to the boathouse and sat on the dock.

  “Where could Viggie be?” Michelle asked miserably. “Where?”

  Sean looked across the river. “I think she’s there,” he said, pointing at Camp Peary. “I think she’s in the same place where her father was killed.”

  “And Whitfield offering to help was just a cover?” He nodded. “So you think she’s dead?”

  “It doesn’t look good.”

  “But why, Sean? Why Viggie?”

  “Because her father told her things, Michelle. She told us things and somebody found out. And they didn’t want her telling us anything else.”

  “But how could they know?”

  “Between Babbage Town and Camp Peary no secret is safe apparently.”

  She stared across the calm water. Calm at least for now. “I know they’re the CIA, Sean. I know that. But killing a little girl?”

  “You’re kidding, right? In the interests of national security they’d kill their own grandmothers.”

  She said, “What could Monk Turing have found out that would make the CIA come after him? And then kidnap Viggie?”

  “I don’t know enough and I’m apparently not smart enough to figure it out from the little I do know. But this I’m certain of: Monk was murdered, and so was Len Rivest. I don’t know the motives yet, and they might have been killed by different people or organizations and for different reasons but murdered they were. And Monk Turing knew an old man who it seems probable was a prisoner over there, and who told him something about that place. Something that led Monk to go there. And die.”

  “So Henry Fox escaped the place, but Monk didn’t. That’s ironic.”

  “Seems that way,” Sean said miserably.

  “And now Viggie.” Michelle choked back a sob and Sean put his arm around her.

  “I’m sorry, Michelle. I’ve really messed things up on this one.”

  “We both left her alone, Sean,” she replied. “Both of us.”

  Sean looked thoughtful. “We left the cottage this morning around six. It was still mostly dark. Alicia was at Hut Number One working on the code. So basically anyone could have come and taken Viggie after that. In a fast boat she’s across the river to Camp Peary in minutes.” The tears trickled down Michelle’s cheeks as he was speaking.

  He handed her his handkerchief and she dried her eyes. “Now what?” she asked.

  He stared across the river. “Now I go over the fence.”

  She pulled away from him. “What?”

  “It’s the only way, Michelle. I messed up and left Viggie unprotected. I can’t sit by and not do anything. I have to try and save her.”

  “Okay, when do you want to go?”

  “You’re not going.”

  “Then neither are you.”

  “Michelle, I can’t let you do it. Hell, I could be wrong about the whole thing. I
can’t let you throw your whole life away.”

  “What life, Sean? I don’t even know who I am some days. The only life I care about right now is Viggie Turing’s. So if you’re going over that damn fence, so am I.”

  He stared at her, partly with pride over her refusal to abandon him. And partly with fear as Joan’s and Horatio’s warnings came back to him.

  “Sean,” she said, “the CIA flight will be coming in tomorrow night. Do you think they may try and get Viggie out that way? Maybe they’ll keep her alive until then.”

  He didn’t answer. Sean looked out at the river. Did he really want to mix it up with the likes of Ian Whitfield? Did he really want to take it to this guy? The answer was no. And, of course, yes.

  An idea suddenly interrupted these thoughts. He jumped up. “Come on!”

  CHAPTER

  76

  TOBY RUCKER CALLED HORATIO back while he was packing up. He’d been successful, he’d told the psychologist.

  “Around the time you’re talking about, a car was found abandoned about an hour’s drive from here, up in the Smoky Mountains. I was just a freelance reporter at the time, but after reading the story from the archives I remember it fairly well.”

  “Who was the car registered to?”

  “A William Joyner, sergeant in the Army. He was assigned to the recruitment office they used to have down here. This was back in the late Seventies.”

  “And what happened to him?”

  “Nobody knows,” Rucker said. “They found the car, but not him. Local police investigated, and the Army sent its people down, but they never did uncover anything.”

  “Was Joyner married?”

  “Nope. He was in his late twenties. Joined the Army at eighteen. Fought in Vietnam, stayed in the military and had been back in the States about six years when he disappeared.”

  Horatio said hesitantly, “Any romantic involvement? Girlfriend?”

  “Nothing in the archives about that. Why, you know different?”

  “No,” Horatio said quickly.

  “Can I ask what your interest in this is? South didn’t fill me in on that.”

  “Just call me a curious soul. So the investigation simply hit a dead end?”

  “It often does when you can’t turn up a body. Maybe Joyner got tired of the Army and found a better opportunity somewhere else and went AWOL. It happens.”

  Horatio thanked the man and clicked off. It looked like William Joyner had had an affair with Frank Maxwell’s wife and then disappeared. His body, assuming he was dead, had never been found. What had Michelle seen all those years ago that had damaged her so badly? Horatio knew the only place he would get those answers was from Michelle herself. Even if her conscious mind had long since buried the memory, he also knew her subconscious would never forget it.

  Sean and Michelle pinched some tools from the garage and hid them in a bag. They walked up to the mansion and explained to the guard there that they had come for Horatio. “We’re clearing out, like Champ said to.”

  The guard let them through and Michelle and Sean raced up the stairs to the top floor and down the hall toward the room that Sean had first stayed in. Going inside the room, they stopped in front of the wall where Viggie had calculated the secret room, if it existed, would be located.

  Sean said, “There has to be a door somewhere, but we don’t have time to find it.” Attacking the wall with their tools, they methodically cut a large hole in it. Shining a flashlight through Sean peered in the hole. “Damn!”

  “What is it?”

  “You’ll see,” he replied. “Hurry!”

  With renewed vigor they attacked the wall. Soon they stepped through a large hole and stared at walls of electronic devices. On the other side of the wall there appeared to be a door. Sean pointed at it. “It’s accessed from the other room, the one that was dead-bolted.”

  There was a bank of TV screens against one wall that was showing the interior of all the huts.

  “That’s Hut Number One,” Sean said, pointing to one screen.

  “And Champ’s Hut Number Two,” Michelle said, pointing to another screen.

  She motioned to a bank of computer screens against another wall. Streams of numbers were flowing across all of them.

  “They’re secretly recording the data on the computers in Champ’s hut,” Sean exclaimed.

  “So Len Rivest was right. There is a spy at Babbage Town, an electronic one,” Michelle said. She glanced up at a red light blinking on a device on one wall. “Oh, shit, is that what I think it is?” she cried out.

  They plunged through the hole and ran toward the stairs as the silent alarm burned red.

  “What about Horatio?” Michelle called out.

  Sean stopped dead, turned back and raced down another corridor. He pounded on Horatio’s door. When Horatio opened it Sean grabbed him and hustled him down the hall.

  “Why are we running?” Horatio puffed.

  “Avoiding death,” Michelle snapped.

  At that, the little psychologist put on an enviable burst of speed.

  “How are we getting out of here?” Michelle asked. “The front entrance is guarded.”

  “By boat,” Sean answered. “Come on!”

  The three made their way quickly down to the boathouse catching only two glimpses of guards along the way and neither one seemed to know about the break-in at the secret room.

  “Are we sure that silent alarm was even working?” Michelle said.

  “Should we call Sheriff Hayes?” Horatio suggested.

  “I’m not trusting anyone right now,” Sean replied firmly.

  They reached the boathouse and Sean broke open the storage shed, grabbed the keys for the Formula boat, lowered the lift and they were soon in the water and drifting down the York on idle throttle with their running lights off.

  “Keep a lookout,” Sean warned.

  Michelle seemed puzzled.

  “What’s the matter?” Sean asked as he looked at her from the captain’s chair.

  “Why did Viggie come down to the boathouse, get in a kayak and paddle out into the river?”

  “You said she didn’t say why.”

  “We’d come down here once before and gone out on the kayak. She said it was one of the best times she’d ever had. Then we raced back to the