Simple Genius

Chapter 81

The jet, lights out, swooped past the tree line on the outskirts of Babbage Town, passed over the York, cleared the security fence and kissed the reinforced surface of the ten-thousand-foot-long runway. It came to a complete stop well short of that length as its reverse thrusters and wheel brakes did their job.

The plane taxied to the end of the runway and the pilots turned the plane around in the wide stretch of concrete. A bus, Hummer and cargo truck were already waiting there. The engines were killed and the plane’s aft door opened, portable stairs were brought up and people started walking off. The cargo door at the rear of the plane was opened and the truck backed up to it.

Sean and Michelle crawled forward on their bellies right up to a chain link fence surrounding the runway area. Their NV goggles easily picked up all the activity. Sean was also recording it using a special surveillance video camera that would deliver startling crisp footage regardless of the absence of light. Michelle flinched when the first man dressed in a business suit and wearing a traditional Arab kaffiya on his head emerged from the plane. He was followed by a dozen more, all wearing similar garb.

Michelle pointed toward the back of the plane. Sean started as he saw the cargo being taken off. Along with luggage were piles of black plastic bales.

He looked at Michelle in alarm and whispered, “Oh shit. Is that what I think it is?”

As they continued to watch, a Range Rover pulled up next to the small passenger bus and a person got out.

As soon as Sean saw who it was, he froze.

Valerie Messaline was dressed in a beige pantsuit. She walked up to the Arabs and started speaking to them. Sean could make out around her neck what looked to be a white security badge. She was CIA. And a world-class actress; she’d made him believe every word of her sad story.

Michelle saw how stunned he was and said softly, “Valerie?”

He nodded dumbly.

Valerie continued to speak with the same Arab for a few minutes while the other men were led onto the bus with their luggage. Occasionally Valerie and the Arab would glance at the cargo being unloaded from the rear of the plane. Once Valerie strolled over with the Arab to one of the bales, touched it and laughed at something the man said.

A minute later Valerie climbed back in the Range Rover with the Arab and they followed the passenger bus out, probably toward the nearby complex shown on the satellite map.

With the cargo unloaded all the men except two climbed in the Hummer and drove off. The remaining men jumped in the cargo truck and it pulled away. While the Hummer followed the path taken by the passenger bus with the Arabs, the truck drove off in the opposite direction and directly toward where Sean and Michelle were lying in hiding near the chain link gate.

“Get back,” he whispered urgently.

They fell back, pressing themselves flat against the ground.

The truck stopped at the gate and one of the men got out, unlocked it and the truck pulled through with the man following. He locked the gate and started to climb back in the truck.

Michelle slipped off her backpack and turned to Sean. “Get back to Babbage Town, get ahold of Merkle Hayes and show him the videotape. Then wait to hear from me.”

He stared at her. “Wait to hear from you? Where are you going?”

“The video’s not enough,” she said. “We need to make sure what that cargo is.”

Before he could say anything or even reach out to grab her arm she exploded forward, approaching the truck from behind, threw herself under it, clamped her arms and legs around the metal of the truck’s underbelly and held on as it rolled off.

Sean was so stunned he couldn’t even move. He couldn’t believe what she had just done.

As his partner disappeared into the night underneath a truck, Sean lay all alone smack in the middle of the CIA’s most top secret facility and seriously wondered if he was having a heart attack. He finally seized an element of calm, from where he didn’t know. He put Michelle’s backpack in his, and started to slide on his belly back toward the ancient Porto Bello. By water it was less than five hundred yards away. It might as well have been five hundred miles.

Sean wasn’t the only one wondering why Michelle had impulsively done what she had. The woman herself was having second thoughts and more than once she came close to letting go, dropping to the ground, watching the truck pass over her and sprinting back to Sean. Yet something made her hold on.

Noises other than the truck’s rumblings reached her. They must be getting close to the main gate, she thought, as the truck slowed and then stopped completely. She panicked for a moment. Would they search the truck before it left Camp Peary? Then she realized no one was going to even lay as much as an eyeball on this vehicle. She was right; the squeak of motorized security gates reached her ears and the truck started up again as they left the Camp Peary grounds.

They turned out onto a street and the truck sped up. Michelle’s arms and legs were growing tired, yet she had no choice but to hang on. Letting go now at this speed probably meant at the very least a cracked skull. A minute later she could see the wheels of other cars passing them.

After traveling for a while the truck pulled off the road and turned onto a gravel drive. The gravel soon gave way to asphalt and five minutes later the truck stopped. The doors opened and Michelle saw two sets of legs climb down from the truck’s cab and walk off. When she no longer heard footsteps, she let go, dropped silently to the ground and rolled out on the opposite side from where the men had departed.

She glanced around. The area seemed familiar for some reason, though it was very dark and most of what she was seeing was indistinct.

Michelle heard them coming back and, using the truck as cover, ran behind a small building she’d just spotted. She turned the corner, stopped, and then risked taking a look. As she peered around the edge of the building, the breath caught in her throat. Now, Michelle knew exactly where she was.