Simple Genius

South stubbed out his cigarette, picked up a newspaper lying on his desk and seemed to be reading it. “What do you want to know?” “What can you tell us about Camp Peary? I’m more interested in current events.”

South shot him a glance over the newspaper. “Current events?”

“Yeah, like from the air.”

“So you noticed the planes coming in? I guess you do get a nice view of them over at Babbage Town. They’d land right after they passed over the river. Am I right?” “But at two A.M. you don’t really get a good view of anything, especially when they have their running lights off.”

“Yeah, I know.”

“You’ve seen ’em?” Michelle asked.

“Hey, the damn government doesn’t own all the land around here. Grab me some world-class barbeque from Pierce’s right down the road from Spookville, and head on across the river to a buddy of mine’s place. Sit out on his dock and wait for that plane to drift on in with stuff the government doesn’t want you or me to know about. Let me tell you, I knew something was up before Gulf One and Afghanistan and Iraq started because that damn runway at Peary looked like Chicago’s O’Hare what with all the traffic going in.”

His eyes gleamed. “Once a week I drive my car toward the Camp Peary entrance, see the green metal roofs on the guardhouses, all them damn warning signs saying ‘No Trespassing, U.S. Property’ and I say, ‘Hey, shitheads, that’s my momma’s property, give it back.’ I don’t say it loud enough for them to hear of course,” he added chuckling. “Then I turn around in the little U-turn slot-they have that for people who get lost, or who’re just curious. Turn of last return, they call it, and then I go home. Makes me feel better.” South fell silent for a moment. “Those planes come in once a week, on Saturdays. Always at the same time. And they’re big jets. I got a buddy at Air Traffic Control and he’s got contacts in the military down at Norfolk. Those planes don’t land anywhere else in this country except at Camp Peary. They don’t go through customs, military checkpoints, nothing.”

“But they’re military planes?” Michelle asked.

“Not according to my friend. He thinks they’re registered as private aircraft.”

“Private aircraft belonging to the CIA?” Sean said.

“Hell, CIA’s got its own damn fleet. It’s not like they have to tell anybody what they spend our tax dollars on.”

“Wonder what kind of cargo is on those planes?” Sean asked.

South shot him a penetrating look. “Maybe the living, breathing kind that only speaks Arabic or Farsi?”

“Foreign detainees?”

“I’ve got no sympathy for terrorists but there is something to be said for due process,” South said firmly. “And if the CIA is deciding who to snatch and bring over here without a court looking over their shoulder? I mean their track record on that sort of thing isn’t exactly golden.” He smiled. “Now if stuff like that is going on, there’s a Pulitzer Prize waiting for the journalist who breaks the story.”

“Yeah, it’d be quite a coup for the old Magruder Gazette,” Michelle said sarcastically.

Sean said, “They recently lengthened the runway so bigger jets could land and they also got money for a new dorm building. What do you think about that?”

South stood. “Let me show you what I think about that.”

He led them toward another room. Sean lagged behind and when South was out of the room, he slipped back and using his cell phone camera snapped a few pictures of the satellite map of Camp Peary before quickly joining them in the next room. In the center was a large table. On the table a detailed map was spread out.

“This is the portion of Camp Peary that used to be Bigler’s Mill and Magruder.” He pointed at various spots on the map. “You see how many houses there are? Well-built houses. You got good streets, access to all points. So you have all this housing and yet you need to build another dorm to put up people. How’s that make sense?”

“Maybe the houses fell into disrepair or got knocked down?” Michelle said.

“Don’t think so,” South answered. “Like I said, I got folks to talk to me who’d worked there. And if you knock down whole neighborhoods, you got to haul the debris somewhere off-site. I would’ve heard about that.” He pointed to another spot on the map. “And Camp Peary is also home to the only property on the National Historical Register that will never be open to the public: Porto Bello. It was the home of Virginia’s last royal governor, John Murray, the Fourth Earl of Dunmore. Even the CIA can’t touch that without getting in big-time trouble.”

“How’d a place like that end up in Camp Peary?” Michelle asked.