Simple Genius

She could not let that happen. Screw whatever was going on inside her head. Sean was not going to face this without her. If they went down, they’d go down together.

The images in the clouds suddenly dissipated, returning to a grayish white of harmless puff. Michelle grabbed her gear and slipped into the water.

CHAPTER 79

A FEW FEET BELOW THE SURFACE of the York, Sean moved through the water easily with the aid of a diver’s propulsion unit while his flippers made efficient strokes. His oxygen came from a miniature air tank wrapped around the lower part of his face. He also carried a waterproof bag tied to his ankle. The assault tonight on Camp Peary had come together in a whirlwind of seat-of-their-pants improvisation. There were a million ways it could all go wrong, and very few ways for it to turn out all right.

The revelation about the title of the song “Shenandoah” had told Sean that he was on the right track. Shenandoah County used to be Dunmore County. It had been a subtle clue but once uncovered it pointed in one direction only: Dunmore’s hunting lodge on the grounds of Camp Peary, Porto Bello. That must have been where Monk Turing had gone. The only way he would find out why was to follow the man’s path. A path that had led to his death.

He reached shore, some distance down from where Monk Turing had made his own egress, even as Horatio’s late night boat ride hopefully drew the attention of Camp Peary’s perimeter security far away. However feeble, Sean was also counting on the notion that the Camp Peary folks probably wouldn’t believe someone else would be so stupid as to try and breach their security so soon after Turing had been killed.

A flashlight was out of the question, so he pulled NV goggles from his bag, slid them on and fired them up. His line of vision instantly turned to an amorphous green, but at least he could see in the absence of virtually any ambient light.

Sean slid forward on his belly after hiding his propulsion unit under some shore brush. The fence, the point of no return, was dead ahead. Sean pulled out a small device that did one thing and one thing only: It registered the presence of energy of any kind. He aimed it at the fence and waited for a green light to appear. It did. The fence was not electrified, nor was it covered by monitoring sensors.

Sean had learned that the outer perimeter of Camp Peary was so immense that the CIA had not wasted time or budget dollars putting in elaborate security there. The inner defenses that covered every square inch of the facilities, operations and training areas were another story. It was state-ofthe-art in its lethality. Which was why Sean was counting on Heinrich Fuchs, who’d apparently been the only person ever to escape from what Sean assumed was a very secure federal military stockade in its own right.

However, right this instant it seemed ludicrous in the extreme to bet his freedom and more likely his life on something that had happened over sixty years ago. And suddenly an overwhelming sense of panic hit him as he lay in the wet red clay of the York’s shoreline preparing to break into one of the most heavily guarded facilities in the United States. Right now Sean wanted nothing more than to turn around, slip back into the inviting waters of the river and go home. Yet he couldn’t move. He was paralyzed.

He nearly screamed out when he felt it. On his shoulder. Next he heard the familiar voice whispering in his ear in a calm, reassuring voice.

“It’s okay, Sean. We can do this,” Michelle said.

He turned to find her kneeling over him, a look on her face that told him everything he needed to know. He squeezed her arm in return and nodded. What a fool he’d been to even consider for a second that she was not up to this. Hell, she was more up to it than he was. His panic and paralysis gone, Sean drew a deep breath and then moved forward quickly with Michelle right behind. They were now directly in front of the fence. While Michelle kept watch Sean cut out a small section of the chain link. They slipped through this opening with their gear, Sean leaned the cut section of fence back into place and they plunged into the forest.

A minute later they knelt down and Sean pulled out the document that Heinrich Fuchs had given Monk Turing. The paper was now full of new writing and calculations that Sean and Michelle had worked out. They had to chance a light as they peered at the map.

Fuchs had left no helpful marks on trees or an X on the ground to mark the entrance to his tunnel, not that those would have survived over the years anyway. Yet they didn’t have to rely on that because of Monk Turing. On the Fuchs document Monk had carefully noted directions, landmarks, compass points and, through his daughter, left one important clue as to their target. He also knew that Monk Turing had not braved death to cavalierly retrace the escape route of a German POW. Turing must’ve had another reason, a good one.