Simple Genius (30 page)

SEAN DROVE THEM TO THE B&B where Horatio had originally been staying. “Joan is faxing me some info,” he explained.

They got the documents and drove to a nearby restaurant. Michelle’s stomach had settled down enough that they ordered sandwiches and coffee. She told Sean about Monk going up in the plane.

As they ate, they went over the pages Joan had faxed. Sean said, “Monk Turing did visit Wiesbaden.”

“How’d they find that out so quickly?”

“Joan’s firm has an affiliate in Frankfurt. They were able to track him via his credit card receipts. He bought that beer stein he gave Champ there among other things.” He next looked at several sheets of paper. “This is the list of German POWs held at Camp Peary during World War II that I asked for.”

“Okay, how the hell did Joan get
that
so fast?”

“One of their top executives is a former rear admiral and once headed the NSA. He was able to cut through the red tape. And it’s not like this stuff is classified anymore. Just gathering mold in some office in the Pentagon.”

They went down the list of Germans. Each name had the man’s date of capture, rank and what had happened to him.

Sean said, “You can see that most of them were released at the end of the war or else died in captivity. But I don’t see a Henry Fox listed.”

“Wait a minute. Look at this guy.” Michelle’s finger pointed at a blank space. “There’s nothing here that says what happened to him.” She scanned the pages. “And he’s the only one.”

Sean looked at the man’s name. “Heinrich Fuchs.”

“Heinrich Fuchs,” Michelle repeated slowly. “Anglicized, that might be Henry Fox.”

Sean stared at her. “I think you’re right, and for a very good reason.”

“What’s that?”

“Because I’m betting everything I have, little though it is, that Heinrich Fuchs was a German naval radio operator and that he was also the only man to
escape
from the naval stockade that is now the CIA’s Camp Peary. That’s why there’s a blank in the space as to what happened to him. The Navy wasn’t going to admit anyone escaped.”

Michelle drew in a sharp breath. “Escaped and changed his name to Henry Fox?”

“And moved to New York, set up another life, grew old and ended up living in the same apartment building as Monk and Viggie Turing.” He jumped up. “Come on. We need to see Viggie.”

“Why?”

“Horatio says she was programmed. Well, the name Heinrich Fuchs may be the key she needs to tell us more.
Maybe everything.”

They drove to Babbage Town and hustled to the schoolroom where Viggie and the other children were. Only Viggie wasn’t there.

“She said she was sick,” the teacher said.

“She told you in person?” Sean asked.

“No, she sent in a note. It was on my desk this morning when I got in.”

A few minutes later Sean and Michelle were rushing up the steps to Alicia’s cottage. They burst through the door and Michelle called out, “Viggie?
Viggie!”

She hurtled up the stairs and threw open Viggie’s bedroom door. The room was empty and she clattered back downstairs. She and Sean searched the rest of the cottage.

“No sign of her,” he
said,
his voice panicky.

“Where the hell is her guard?” Michelle demanded.

The door to the cottage opened and Alicia walked in. She was holding a bundle of papers and looked very tired. She seemed surprised to see them here and then said in a scolding tone, “Okay, you two, I’ve run every possible configuration of these damn notes through our strongest computer programs and came up with gibberish every time. So either the code is beyond our capability to decipher it, or it’s not code at all, which is the conclusion I’m fast coming to. I did find out the name of the song. It’s ‘Shenandoah,’ from the nineteenth century. Anyway, what do you know, it has
lyrics,
not many, none of it spectacular, but it has words. So I had the brilliant idea that perhaps the lyrics were the key to the code. I hit them with everything we had, in every conceivable combination. And do you know what? It was still all gibberish.”

They just stood there staring at her.

“What is it?” she said suspiciously.

“Where’s Viggie?” Michelle asked quietly.

Alicia looked at her watch. “She’s in school. She’s been in school since eight o’clock.”

“She’s not there, Alicia,” Sean said. “The teacher said someone left a note on her desk this morning saying that Viggie was sick.”

She gave them both searching looks. “I’ve been up all night trying to make sense of this garbage.
You
were supposed to look after her.”

“She was fine early this morning,” Michelle explained. “She came to my room a bit before dawn. Then she went back to her room.”

“Then what?”
Alicia said.

Sean and Michelle looked at each other. Sean said in an uncomfortable tone, “Then we left to run down some leads.”

“Leaving her alone!”
Alicia exclaimed. “You left Viggie alone?
Again!”

“We thought you were here,” Michelle explained.

Alicia threw the papers up in the air. “You
thought
I was here? How the hell could I be here when you gave me this mess to deal with?” She drew several deep breaths. “Her guard is supposed to escort her to school. I requested a new one directly after that other fool let Viggie wander away and almost drown.”

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.

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.”

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!”