Morris and Chastain Investigations: Play With Fire & Midnight at the Oasis

by Justin Gustainis

Keeping the pendulum swinging, Libby changed position slightly, so that its arc was along a different angle. After a few moments, she repeated, “Mark it.”

  They did this four more times, then Libby stopped, and stepped back. She looked at Reinhart. “See if that gives you anything useful.”

  The three men pored over the map, although Morris hung back a little to stay out of the way.

  “South of Hertford,” Pearson said. “Almost in – what’s this – Albermarle Sound.”

  “Looks closer to that peninsula there,” Morris said. “See – where the land juts out like that?”

  “You’re quite right, Mister Morris,” Reinhart said, still bent over the map. “The center point does seem to be on that peninsula, and I believe I know why.”

  Reinhart straightened up and looked at Libby. “Congratulations, Miss Chastain. I do believe you’ve given us what we needed – the start of it, anyway.”

  He turned to Morris. “What your colleague seems to be indicating is something called the Harvey Point Defense Testing Facility. The Navy once used it to test munitions, hence the name.”

  “‘Once’?” Morris said. “Past tense?”

  “Yes, indeed,” Reinhart said. “For the last forty years or so, it has been one of the most secret training facilities used by the CIA.”

  “Again,” Morris said, “how is it you know?”

  “Well, what specifically goes on there is highly classified,” Reinhart said. “But the base’s purpose is pretty much an open secret in certain circles. I believe you can even look it up on Google.”

  “I’m glad I found you a promising location,” Libby said. “Is that it, then?”

  “Not quite, Miss Chastain,” Reinhart said. “As I understand it, the facility at Harvey Point is sizeable. We can’t expect to take over the whole place and search the buildings, one at a time, at our leisure. This is a raid we’re planning – get in, get our man, and get out again, fast. So we need to know exactly where Father-Captain Dalton is being held.”

  “I don’t mind continuing,” Libby told him. “But if this place is highly classified, I doubt that Rand McNally has published a map of it – or that anybody else has, either.”

  “I wonder,” Reinhart said musingly. He turned to Pearson. “Satellite photos?”

  The Major nodded slowly. “Could be, sir. Stranger things have happened.”

  “Find out – ASAP.”

  “Yes, sir.” Pearson turned and marched out of the room.

  Morris looked at Reinhart. “You guys have your own satellites?”

  “Unfortunately not. But it may be that we don’t need to, in this instance. Services like Google Maps and Bing provide access to hundreds of thousands of satellite images taken over the last ten years or so.”

  “But the government wouldn’t let classified stuff get into those databases, would they?” Morris asked.

  “Not deliberately, no. But there are so many satellites in orbit, taking so many pictures every day, that a lot of stuff gets past the censors, just due to sheer volume. You’d be surprised at some of the things we’ve found online.”

  “Can you work with satellite images?” Reinhart asked Libby. “As opposed to maps, I mean.”

  “I never have,” Libby said, “but I don’t see why it shouldn’t be possible. Any image I can swing the pendulum over would probably be okay.”

  “Good,” Reinhart said. “I hope to have some satellite photos for you shortly. In the meantime, I’m afraid I must ask you to spend a little more time in our day room.”

  Libby shrugged. “We’ve spent time in worse places.”

  Twenty-Nine

  IT WAS NEARLY three hours later when Father-Major Pearson came to the day room and brought them back to Reinhart’s office. On the short walk through the corridors, Libby asked him, “Success?”

  “The Father-General will tell you about that.” Clearly, “discretion” was listed near the top of Pearson’s job description.

  The news was good, it seemed – when they came in, Reinhart was bent over the table, studying a sheet of paper about three feet square.

  Reinhart looked up and smiled. “It took a while, but we found an image of Harvey Point on Bing Maps that the CIA had neglected to classify. It’s quite detailed.”

  Libby walked closer to the table. “Bing Maps gave you something this size?”

  “No, we fed the image into our computer and had it enlarged,” Reinhart said. “We sometimes have to make our own tactical maps, so we’ve got the necessary software and a very large printer.”

  Libby got out her pendulum and went to work. It did not take her long to cover the entire facility. Before long, Morris was next to her, working with the ruler and pen to mark on the sheet of paper the arc that Libby’s pendulum was making.

  “Mark it,” Libby said. Then she moved a little, changing the angle. “Mark it.”

  Soon there were six lines drawn on the satellite image. They intersected on a rectangular building near the bottom of the page, set well away from the others.

  “It figures that these people would want as much privacy as possible,” Reinhart said. “They probably don’t want the screaming of their prisoners to disturb the other people working there – most of whom probably have no idea about the monsters in their midst.”

  “So now you have to plan and carry out your rescue mission,” Morris said. “And I hope all goes well – I really do. But as the Lone Ranger used to say, ‘I think our work here is done.’”

  Reinhart turned his attention away from the satellite photo. “Yes, Mister Morris, it is. I hope you and Miss Chastain here will accept the Order’s gratitude.”

  “With pleasure,” Libby said. “I’m also ready to accept the Order’s fragment of the Seal of Solomon.”

  Reinhart stared at her. “Miss Chastain, I hope I did not create the wrong impression,” he said slowly. “We will honor our part of the bargain, of course – once we have determined that you have fulfilled yours.”

  “I was under the impression,” Libby said, “that I’ve just spent the last hour doing exactly that.”

  “I’m afraid not,” Reinhart said. “Your work was certainly impressive, and the fact that you ended up with the Harvey Point Facility gives it a degree of verisimilitude. But we do not yet know for certain that Father-Captain Dalton is being held there.”

  “For the love of the Goddess, what more do you want from me?” Libby said sharply.

  “From you? Nothing more,” Reinhart said. “I agree that you’ve done everything you can. But we won’t know if you were right about Father-Captain Dalton until we actually see him. And that won’t happen until we go in there to get him.”

  Libby was clearly on the verge of losing her temper – something that Morris thought would benefit none of them right now, least of all Libby. He laid a gentle hand on her arm and said to Reinhart, “So you’re saying that after your raid on this place in North Carolina, we can have your piece of the Seal.”

  “Assuming that Father-Captain Dalton is there, yes. The Order keeps its bargains, Mister Morris.”

  “Forgive me for being blunt,” Morris said, “but what if you get there, and he’s dead?”

  “He won’t be,” Reinhart said. “He is no good to these people as a corpse. They’ll keep him alive because they want him to work for them, although when he declines they may try methods of persuasion that are... unpleasant.”

  Morris was persistent. “And what if he decides to escape these ‘unpleasant methods’ by killing himself?”

  “He won’t do that, Mister Morris.”

  “And you’re sure of that because...?”

  “I’m sure of it because he is a Catholic priest, and our church teaches that suicide is a mortal sin. Dying with such a sin on your soul means that it is consigned to Hell.”

  Morris stared at Reinhart for the length of two breaths. He made sure that his voice was calm when he said, “So when is your raid on this place going to take place?”

  �
��That’s impossible to say, since I just learned of Father-Captain Dalton’s presumptive location. And even if I knew, I couldn’t tell you.”

  “Security,” Morris said. He kept most of what he was feeling out of his face and voice.

  “Exactly. But I can tell you this much: we won’t waste any time. The sooner we get Father-Captain Dalton away from these CIA renegades, the better – and in the process, perhaps we can teach them the folly of interfering in the Order’s affairs.”

  Libby had been studying Reinhart’s face. Now she said, “You’re going to kill them, aren’t you? The people in that building – you’re planning to kill them all.”

  “That information is classified, Miss Chastain.”

  “Of course it is.” The bitterness in Libby’s voice could have curdled milk.

  “Aren’t you afraid of retaliation?” Morris asked. “I don’t figure you can kill a bunch of CIA guys without risking some pretty serious consequences.”

  “There will be no consequences, Mister Morris.”

  “You sound very certain,” Libby said.

  “That because I am certain – for two reasons. One is that the ‘CIA guys’ in question are, remember, renegades. They have been operating without the official sanction of the Director of Central Intelligence, and if he knew about them, he would disavow them instantly. The organization will not avenge them – they might even thank us, if they knew who we were, which they will not.”

  “I sure hope you’ve got that figured right,” Morris said. “What’s the other reason you feel safe?”

  “Our obsession with security, which your associate seems to disdain so deeply. We are not here in Ohio with the permission of the United States government – we are here without their knowledge.”

  “A few people know,” Morris said. “David Kabov, for one.”

  “Mister Kabov is an old comrade-in-arms, and is to be trusted. The very few people who know about this facility are all trustworthy. They also know that if they were to betray that trust, they would die.”

  Reinhart picked the satellite photograph up from the table.

  “Now, if you’ll both excuse me,” he said, “I have a great deal to do. Leave your contact information with Father-Major Pearson here, and then he will have you returned to your car. You’ll hear from us, assuming matters reach the conclusion we’re all hoping for.”

  “And what if they don’t?” Libby asked. “What if you pull off your commando raid, and he’s not there?”

  “I imagine you’ll be hearing from us then, as well.”

  Thirty

  AL’S SHOOTING RANGE on West Thirty-Fourth Street was usually closed until noon on weekdays. But Peters had slipped Al a few bucks and got him to open – just for Peters and his friends – today at 10:00 a.m. He wanted to be able to carry on a conversation about the ballistics of fruit pits without the competing noise from other shooters.

  Peters was already there when Libby and Morris arrived, although they were punctual. And Peters wasn’t alone.

  “Hello, Libby,” Ashley said. “Long time no see.”

  “Hi, Ashley.” Libby was friendly, but reserved. Morris shook hands with Peters and gave Ashley a brief hug.

  Libby had pretty much decided that she wasn’t going to have sex with Ashley anymore. If, as Hemingway once said, “What is moral is what you feel good after, and what is immoral is what you feel bad after,” then Libby’s trysts with the demon-made-flesh who called herself Ashley didn’t meet the criteria for morality. Sex with Ashley left Libby feeling sated, weak in the knees, and... vaguely soiled. It wasn’t worth the ‘dirty’ feeling – not even for the best sex she’d ever had in her life. At least, Libby was pretty sure it wasn’t.

  Fortunately, Ashley didn’t bring up their past love life, or even act especially flirtatious. Being Ashley, she couldn’t help being at least a little flirtatious.

  “I started with avocado pits, since they’re the biggest, but I also tried out a few others, just for shits and giggles,” Peters told her. “You said any fruit stone could take out an afreet, right?”

  “That’s what the expert told me,” Libby said. She glanced toward Ashley, who merely smiled. That smile was enough to make Libby’s undies a little damp, but she forced herself to concentrate on what Peters had to tell her.

  Peters had been a CIA assassin in a prior existence. Killed in the line of duty and consigned to Hell almost thirty years ago, he had been sent back to earth, along with Ashley, to assassinate a demon-possessed presidential candidate whom one faction in Hell feared was about to bring on Armageddon – a battle that the demons in that faction feared their side would lose. Since then, the divisions in Hell had led to all-out civil war. Amidst the chaos, Peters and Ashley had apparently been forgotten about – although they both knew that could change at any time.

  “Come on over to this target bay,” Peters said. He was a big man, but he moved easily, the way some football players do.

  Libby had expected to see some paintball guns ready for use, but instead Peters had left on the shooting bench a rifle that looked like a real firearm, and a couple of slingshots. One of the slingshots was the standard Y-shaped base with an elastic band attached, but the other was decidedly odd-looking. As if reading her mind, Peters said, “I tried working with paintball guns, but gave it up as a lost cause.”

  “Really? How come?”

  “Problems with range, mostly. Of course, one of the problems here is that we have no idea how far you’re going to be from this fucking afreet, assuming you ever go up against him. But I figure there’s a good chance it’ll be more than fifty feet.”

  “As you said, there’s no way to know,” Libby said. “But why are you using fifty feet as a benchmark?”

  “Because that’s the maximum effective range of even the most powerful paintball gun. Am I using terms you’re not familiar with?”

  Libby gave him a lopsided smile. “Well, maybe that ‘maximum effective’ thing.”

  “Okay, then – a quick lesson. Any propulsive weapon, whether a gun, bow and arrow, or slingshot, has two kinds of ranges we can talk about. ‘Propulsive,’ by the way, just means it shoots stuff through the air. Okay?”

  “So far, so good.”

  “The two kinds are ‘maximum range’ and ‘maximum effective range.’ Maximum range refers to the farthest the weapon can shoot something. Take the M-16, the standard infantry rifle, back in the day. Maximum range is about three thousand, six hundred meters – that’s how far you can expect the bullet to go before it drops to the ground. Okay?”

  “Sure.” Libby had learned in the past that when men talk to women about guns, they tend to act as if they’re dealing with five-year-olds. But since she liked Peters, she didn’t let his unconscious condescension bother her. Much. She glanced toward Morris, who combined a shrug with a wry expression to say, The guy’s doing us a big favor. Let him show off, if he wants to.

  “But since you’re firing a weapon in order to hit something specific, maximum range is a useless concept. Instead, you worry about maximum effective range – the furthest distance at which you can reasonably expect to hit what you’re aiming at. The maximum effective range of the M-16, for instance, is about five hundred and fifty meters. Beyond that distance, the chances of you nailing your target will drop off big-time. Okay?”

  “Gotcha. So you’re saying that if I’m expecting to hit something more than fifty feet away with a paintball gun, then it’s Tony Soprano time.”

  Peters frowned at her. “Sorry?”

  “Fuhgeddaboudit.”

  He laughed. “Yeah, that’s about it.”

  “And that’s why you’ve brought this rifle? I didn’t think regular guns could fire fruit stones.”

  “They can’t,” Peters said. “This is an air rifle.”

  “Really? I remember a guy who lived across the street from me when I was growing up – he had an air rifle. But it looked nothing like this.”

  “His was a toy, really. This thi
ng is a weapon.”

  She nodded toward the rifle. “May I?”

  “Sure, go ahead.”

  As she picked it up, Peters said, “When it comes to air rifles, that’s the crème de la crème. It’s a Sam Yang Dragon Claw – .50 caliber, and about twice as powerful as anything else out there.”

  Morris gave a soft whistle, but made no other comment.

  Libby estimated that the air gun was about three and a half feet long. It was lighter than she’d expected: less than ten pounds, she was sure. The stock and grip were of highly-polished walnut. “Does it have two barrels?” she asked Peters. “Like an over/under shotgun?”

  “No, that thing underneath the barrel is where you charge it with compressed air.”

  “And where do you get that?”

  “For something you can carry around with you, I’d recommend a scuba tank.”

  “Seriously?”

  “Afraid so,” Peters said. “The gun applies a lot of air pressure to the projectile. To get strong air pressure in the gun, you need a high-pressure source for the air.”

  “Does every air gun need its own scuba tank?”

  “No, most of the others use gas cartridges that you attach right to the gun. But that gives you a lot less power.”

  Libby gently put the air rifle back on the firing bench. “And I need that much power, because...?”

  “Because it gives you the greatest range. And that’s why this situation is so frustrating – we don’t know what range you’ll have to shoot from, or how big your target will be. But this thing gives you the best possible chance.”

  “Speaking of target size...” Libby turned to Ashley. “You’re the expert on afreets, Ashley. How big are these guys, anyway?”

  “That question’s not as simple as it sounds,” Ashley said. “Afreets, like all djinn, lack physical bodies. So when they manifest to humans, they can take any form or size they want.”

  “Terrific,” Libby muttered.

  “But the good news is that they usually want to impress, if not terrify humans. So they tend to pick a size that’s pretty damn big – which should mean an easy target.”