MORENO, CALIFORNIA
Bob Culbertson hung up the phone. They had had to go to the old landline inside the radio station to get a clear message out. Their cell service, spotty at the best of times, was completely out. Bob picked up the heavy plastic handset and slammed it down again, feeling his first gesture of frustration was not good enough. For emphasis, he did it one last time as Linda watched from the record stacks that she was inventorying.
“I take it the office didn’t give you good news,” she asked as she moved her bulk from the stacks and made her way to the front of the radio station.
Bob angrily stalked to the window and looked out upon the overcast day. The entire valley had been covered in a fine mist most of the last two days, which didn’t improve anyone’s mood.
“There has been some sort of financial takeover of the company.” He turned and faced his wife. “They say we may not have replacements, that we may be the last security detail assigned to Moreno.”
“What does that have to do with us? Our contract is up as of November 1. Fuck them.”
“I would normally agree, but I was informed to take a gander at section five, paragraph two of that contract. We are obligated to remain on station until we are officially relieved by the new security team. They are holding us to that clause until they find out what new ownership wants to do with the town.”
Linda turned away and in an almost panic looked around the radio station that was disguised as a used record store. She shook her head. “This place is like sour milk; it’s getting worse, not better.” She turned back to face her husband. “You feel it as well as I do, Bob. We have to get the hell out of here,” she said with finality.
“Well lose that ten-thousand-dollar bonus if we do,” Bob said as he watched Linda blatantly light up a joint. Lately, she had become far more than an actress playing a part; she was starting to live the alias. He decided to join her.
Bob had just taken a hit and was coughing when he heard the music and the voice. He dropped the joint on the tattered rug between the record aisles as he looked up and back at the glass partition of the old DJ booth. It was completely dark inside.
“A friendly reminder from your favorite radio station, a day of freedom this Thursday, the day after Halloween! No school, no work. We are officially off so we can party hearty the night before. So, tune in for the announcements of the fright fest planned for Moreno. We are gonna party all night as the anniversary of the birth of Moreno happens right here, covered live, Halloween night on K-Rave. A special hello from the grateful town of Moreno to the president of the United States, John F. Kennedy, who faced the Russians down, and I mean faced them down, and sent them back to Russia with a swift kick in the derrière! What a country, what a town! And now to serve that very point on this cloudy October day, here is the Everly Brothers, and ‘Crying in the Rain,’ this is Freekin’ Rowdy Rhoads at K-Rave!”
As they listened to the speakers overhead, the old song by the Everly Brothers started, and they jumped when they heard the tapping on the glass. Their mouths fell open when they saw the light in the booth was on. They could see the telescoping microphone, and most disconcerting, there was that same beatnik bearded man with the headphones on his ears tapping the glass just as he had three days before. Bob and Linda stared wide-eyed.
“Hey, I told you kids before you can’t be in here!” he said through a static-filled intercom. “Roberta, what in the hell is going on out there? Do I have to run the reception area too?”
Bob finally looked at Linda, who was frozen to the spot as she watched the angry DJ pound on the glass hard enough that it shook. Both startled people turned around to see if someone was behind them, but they soon saw that the DJ was speaking only to them. They turned back and faced the angry man. Freekin’ Rowdy Rhoads threw off the headset and stormed toward the soundproof door. Bob’s eyes widened, and Linda took a step back as the door flew open and then—nothing. The light in the booth vanished as fast as Freekin’ Rowdy Rhoads had as he exited the booth. The door creaked closed on its ancient hinges and then closed completely as the Everly Brothers’s melodic voices faded to nothing.
Security for the town of Moreno stood rooted to the spot for at least a full minute as they stared into the darkness of the DJ booth. None of the equipment inside was seen, because it had been removed in the decades prior to Bob and Linda taking the job. Bob took a very long and deep breath as he finally turned to Linda, who was shaking from her massive thighs to her feet.
“I feel like lunch,” he said, shaking and nodded toward the doors of the radio station. “You feel like lunch?”
Linda turned without a word and headed for the double glass doors of the station. As Bob opened it for her, there was one last insult to their sanity.
“And get a haircut, you damn beatnik!”
The casual stroll from the record store as if nothing had happened only moments before turned into free flight.
VIRGINIA COUNTRYSIDE
The gaggle of reporters pushed and shoved as all the decorum they had shown during press conferences at the White House was a thing of the past. They all needed closing chapters written about the last days of the American Caesar, Dean Hadley.
The president’s press secretary was still on the job, working for the new administration and was not available. Instead, the First Lady had representation consisting of her personal assistant and the lead medical doctor. Catherine stood by with a neutral expression, nodding and looking sad at the appropriate moments. She turned her head slightly as Julie, followed by Gabriel, stepped out onto the front steps underneath the large portico. Kennedy held the report that was supplied by Leonard. The rest of the Supernaturals remained inside.
Gabriel took a sly step toward the First Lady, and she dipped her head for the benefit of the gathered reporters. As the lead physician gave his report on the president’s condition, Kennedy discreetly handed Catherine the large folder.
She smiled and leaned into Kennedy. “And what is this?”
“The opening page will give you the gist,” Gabriel said as she placed her hands over his and the file and then smiled as if greeting a friend for the benefit of the reporters.
Catherine, still smiling, opened the folder and read. She looked up, never missing a beat with the offending smile. “Speculation that would be torn apart in a court of law.”
Kennedy smiled. “But not the important court—the court of public opinion.” He smiled and nodded as if he and the First Lady were having a nice and friendly conversation. “This could dog you for quite some time. As a matter of fact, the assets may have to remain in trust for years until this is figured out. It’s an awful lot of wealth. You would have gotten away with it if you had Avery stick with the insanity thing.”
Catherine closed the file folder and nodded, again playing her role as professionally as possible.
“Do you think you have that much credibility with the public?”
Kennedy smiled, and this time, it was no act. “I direct the same question to you, Madam First Lady. Do you have the credibility to fend off the innuendos printed there?” He eased closer. “Your Mr. Avery left tracks in the snow, so to speak. This report will attract attention. With as many enemies as you and the president have collected over the years—him through actions, you through rumor—I think CNN would have a field day investigating this little gem.”
Showing her teeth but smiling nonetheless, Catherine handed the folder back to Gabriel.
“What do you want, Professor?”
“Time. Not much to ask considering what you stand to gain.” He smiled and then faced her fully. “You give us until November 1, and you can have that file and the two copies we made. It will be our little secret. On the condition, of course, that we don’t find any evidence of your collusion in the president’s predicament. That’s three days and a flight to California. Also, if we find the need, we want to take the president back home.”
“To Moreno? You’ve got to be kidding.”
Kennedy tried to hide his astonishment, realizing Catherine knew exactly where Hadley was from—not the purified, made-up story everyone else knew but the truth.
The First Lady saw the shock on Gabe’s face. “Oh, don’t look so shocked; there’s nothing Hitchcockian about it. Dean always talked in his sleep, the poor tormented bastard. And I know about that little blind slut he cries over too. As I said, the insane son of a bitch talks in his sleep—some things even his maniac father and his cronies in D.C. couldn’t cover up.”
Kennedy remained silent as Catherine made her point. He slapped the file on his thigh as he awaited her answer.
“So, to explain things more on the personal side, I give you the First Lady of the United States, Catherine Hadley.”
She heard the announcement from her assistant, and then without missing a beat, she half turned back, still smiling, and nodded at Gabriel.
“November 1, Professor—not a day later.”
Kennedy took a breath and then turned away as the press corps was fed a line of crap from the First Lady about how a mistake on dates had been made, much to the doctor’s standing alongside of her confusion about the timetable to move Hadley to a hospital for special care. He failed to hear the rest of her presentation as he entered the house.
“Well?” Julie asked as she and the others joined them.
“We’ll be heading to California tonight. We have our two days.”
Sickles’s plan of blackmail had worked, at least for the time being. How long it would last until the First Lady gathered her senses and courage, no one was sure. It would be at least until Catherine got real legal advice from the five-million-dollar-a-case law firm representing her. They could only hope their delay reached the thirty-first of this month—in three days.
“Well, let’s see if we can save this man’s life and find out just what in the hell Hadley’s father brought to the small town of Moreno that killed it in 1962.”
The Supernaturals were again going into the field, all with memories of Summer Place and the horrors discovered there still as fresh in their minds as if it happened yesterday.
VIRGINIA COUNTRYSIDE
After the White House Press Corps returned to Washington, things at the country house settled down. The bedroom upstairs had been quiet after it was decided to monitor the president’s condition remotely. The deaths surrounding Hadley’s illness were garnering attention, and the new administration was finding it exceedingly difficult to keep the details from public view.
It was after ten at night when Gabriel could get everyone together in the study. The arrangements had been made by the Secret Service and the FBI to fly the team to Moreno. They would arrive in Ontario a little after five in the morning and be inside the town no later than seven.
“Before we get started, I think I’m needed out there with you guys. I’m the detective here. You need me,” Damian said, looking far fresher than he had that afternoon after getting a good five hours of sleep. Damian had been informed earlier that he and Leonard would remain behind for security reasons to keep the team informed directly of any change in Hadley’s condition.
“I need you here with Hadley. More to keep an eye on”—he hesitated as he looked toward the back door Catherine Hadley had a habit of popping out of—“certain family members.”
“Babysitter,” Jackson corrected angrily.
“Yes, a babysitter with a gun and legal knowledge. I need you to make sure that woman sticks with our agreement. We all may dislike that man up there in bed just as much as the country—and the world, for that matter—but we need to know what is happening to him. We can all agree we have never seen anything this intense before that is being done remotely.”
Damian shrugged but finally nodded.
“Leonard was able to dig up a little more.”
Leonard Sickles turned away from the two PCs and three laptops he had up and running. He stood and went to the conference table and sat with an armful of papers. He dropped a few, and John Lonetree picked them up. Before he handed them back to Leonard, he saw the agency logo at the top of the page. Leonard smiled when he saw John take notice of the header. He winked at Lonetree, who pursed his lips and whistled softly.
“We have rumor, innuendo, and speculation, but nothing really solid about Hadley Sr. and his wartime activities. For a man with a college degree and no money before the war, he seemed to come out of it in pretty good shape.”
“Did you find out where his windfall came into play?” Gabriel asked as he lowered his glasses and looked over the rims at the computer whiz.
“Again, speculation only. We have a how, but not a why.” Leonard pulled a sheet of paper out and passed it down the line. “Moreno sits on land once owned by the federal government, even before the State of California got involved over the local historical aspects of the area, meaning the old mission and winery. The government had owned it since late 1928.”
“Why would the feds be interested in old ruins?” Jennifer asked as she received the old papers that Leonard had dug up from the National Archives.
“It wasn’t the ruins; it was the small deposits of a mineral found in the hills surrounding the future town. This source of mercury occurs in deposits throughout the world, mostly as the mineral cinnabar, or mercuric sulfide. The red pigment vermilion is obtained by grinding natural cinnabar or synthetic mercuric sulfide into a thick paste. The government needed all the mercury it could find for the war effort in the forties. Thus, the small work camp known as the Alfred Moreno mining concern was started. It was named after some local Mexican cowboy from the western days.”
“The work camp that eventually became the town of Moreno, I take it?” George Cordero asked, not too enthused about his impending trip to the town.
“That clairvoyance never fails you, does it, George?” Leonard joked, and George shot him the finger. “Anyway, I suspect that was the initial basis for Hadley Sr.’s interest in the area. It’s the mercury he needed for his high-tech gauges and meters—not too mention mercury for lighting and temperature variance applications.”
“Was Hadley’s father a chemical engineer?” Julie asked, smelling something fishy in the story.
“No. As a matter of fact, he didn’t even run the day-to-day operations of the company; he was too busy investing elsewhere. And get this—investing before the gauge and meter company even started to turn a profit, meaning—”
“He had a lot of money before he should have,” Gabriel said, heading Leonard off at the pass.
Sickles cleared his throat. “Yeah, that’s right. Where did all of this come from?”
“Obviously, the feds, right?” John asked as he to finally read the investment report.
“Again, speculation only. It’s hard to follow a paper trail when that paper is just money. There is nothing other than a bill of sale in the national accounting office.”
“What did Hadley pay for the land?” Julie asked.
“One dollar in 1946.”
The others looked at each other when they heard that Hadley Sr. had gotten something free from a federal government that was flat broke at the time after the long and costly war.
“I hit dead end after dead end in my search for the hows and whys of this thing, until I thought that if Hadley Sr. had no chemistry background, someone sure as hell had to. Mining cinnabar, or mercuric sulfides, is a process with tremendous dangers and even more state and federal government oversight. They had to have a top man in the field, so I went into the Internal Revenue database.”
Again, the smiles came at the mention of Leonard’s special skills at backdooring computer systems.
“It was reported that the highest-paid person at the Hadley Corp Gauge and Meter Company was an engineer by the name of Alfred McDonald. And guess what? He was also in Hadley Sr.’s intelligence team during the war. I guess he had a lot of partners after the fighting stopped. It was like splitting up the spoils.”
“Spoils of what?” Jennifer asked.
“Spoils of whatever it was they found during the fighting.” Leonard shuffled through his papers and handed George the sheet, who passed it down the line. “One interesting point. A consultant was also on payroll with a salary and a material outlay paid for by Hadley.” Leonard smiled. “It seems this consultant, a Dr. Jürgen Fromm, was paid an annual salary of over three hundred thousand dollars and had a business expense account averaging over two million dollars a year.”
“That would raise eyebrows even in today’s dollars, much less the forties,” Damian said. That was a lot of money being thrown around by former soldiers in the field and possibly their federal backers.
“Background on this doctor?” Gabriel asked, and Leonard smiled.
“I don’t know, but I did hit on an interesting cross-reference when checking the military database. It seems before 1945, a Dr. Jürgen Fromm was listed as a war criminal by the Allied commission on crimes against humanity. After the war, he was taken off that particular list. Why? I don’t know. It was buried so deep I could find nothing.”
“Hadley and his friends had some very interesting acquaintances,” Lonetree said, beginning to see a pattern of bad behavior going far beyond than just the younger Hadley.
“Very,” Gabe said, pushing his glasses back up his nose. “What was this German doctor’s specialty?”
“Don’t know, but I do know where his funding was coming from, no matter what he did for it. The good doctor was paid by the Luftwaffe.”
“Where?” Gabriel asked, knowing beforehand where the doctor practiced.
“Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia.”
“Interesting coincidence, isn’t it?” Julie asked with a smirk. Her reporter’s hackles had gone into full-drive mode.
“So, to summarize, our Robert Hadley, a full-bird colonel in army intelligence who also worked for the OSS, hired and paid for a war criminal that the government was hiding here in America.”
“I don’t know any other way to interpret this,” Lonetree said. “George, do you have any feelings hearing this news?”
“No, other than the fact that Leonard’s telling the truth. If I could be around Hadley when asked about it, I could get a better feel for it.”
“You may get that chance in a few short hours.” Gabriel looked around the table. “Anything else, Leonard?”
“Just this,” he said as he gave them another paper to look at. “Found it in the National Archives database.”
“What is Operation Caged?” Gabriel asked, his brow furrowed.
“Don’t know,” Leonard said, giving them the last paper. “Operation Caged was a code name for some army OSS black mission at the end of the war. I came up with it when I cross-referenced Hadley, Fromm, and S-2 OSS. This is what the operation was about.”
The paper was passed from confused person to confused person. It was headed by the operational order number, and then every single word, line, and signature was blacked out.
“Not very forthcoming, were they?” Gabriel said when he saw the censorship of the operational order and its results.
“Not much to get from the Freedom of Information Act. This was what met the War Crimes Commission when they requested info on the missing Fromm.” Leonard finally sat down and looked around. That was all he could dig up about Hadley’s past. “I am still digging into this Nazi doctor’s specialty. I’ll have something in a few days, as I am still trying to see what the German database has to say.”
“Good. Stay on it.”
A knock sounded on the door, and Julie opened it. A member of the doctor’s staff was there, and she looked quite nervous.
“The president is awake, well, sort of semiconscious. He wants to see someone he called the Indian.”
“We happen to have one of those,” Julie said as she tried but failed to hide her surprise that Hadley was awake and somewhat coherent.
Gabriel stood and gestured for them to follow. Now was the time to get some answers while they had the chance.
* * *
The hostage rescue team commandos allowed the group to enter as the last of the doctors left the president’s side. They gave the team dirty looks as they were shuffled aside for whatever voodoo these people performed. None of the medical staff wanted them there. This was a problem with the mind, and they didn’t need amateurs mucking up their efforts.
Gabriel was the first to see the president, who was sitting up in bed and staring straight ahead at a damaged wall. The group filed in, and John stepped to the forefront.
“Mr. President, do you know or have you ever met anyone in this room?” Gabriel asked as he pulled a chair close and then sat as the others formed a circle around the bed. It looked like they were viewing some form of rare animal in a zoo. Hadley noticed.
“It’s been that bad, huh?” he asked as his eyes moved from damaged wall to damaged wall.
“Let’s just say you’ve made things interesting, sir.”
Hadley finally turned his head and found the man speaking to him. His gray hair was a tangle, and his beard was getting rather long. His eyes were bloodred, and he had a hard time focusing on Gabriel’s face. Then his eyes went to the others, passing each with no knowledge of who they were. His eyes did linger on the last man in line, John Lonetree.
“Don’t know any of you—except for him,” he said, nodding toward John. “It seems I’ve seen you before recently.” He coughed, and Gabriel handed him a glass of water. The president drank deeply and choked, alarming those watching him. He settled and handed the glass back to Gabe. “Or maybe I don’t know you. It’s confusing. A long-ago memory, or recent—I just don’t know.” Hadley closed his eyes. “I’m tired.” He looked at Lonetree. “You saw her, didn’t you?”
John knew exactly who Hadley was referencing. He eyed Gabriel, who lightly shook his head, and John understood. “Who, sir?”
Hadley looked more intently at Lonetree. “I’m too old a dog to play that game, my good man. Now quit being the mysterious Indian you like to personify and tell me if you saw her.”
John nodded. “Yes, I saw her.”
Hadley actually smiled. “It was you in class, wasn’t it?”
John looked shocked at first, and then Gabriel encouraged him when he nodded to answer. Jennifer wasn’t so sure.
“Yes, I was there. World history with Miss Kramer.”
“You weren’t a student; I would have known. I knew everyone who went to high school in Chino, and my friend, you are not from Chino.”
“Not Moreno either,” Gabriel said for John.
Hadley looked from Lonetree to Kennedy.
“And who are you?” Hadley’s brow furrowed. “You look familiar, to say the least.”
“A doctor of sorts.”
“What kind of answer is that? You sound like my wife, always hiding something.”
“You hid quite a bit yourself over the years,” Damian said as he made his large presence known.
“Okay, so you know about Moreno. I’m not concerned with that. I need to ask this gentleman some questions. Can you step closer to the bed?”
John looked at Jennifer and then Gabriel as he did as requested.
Only George saw the change in Hadley’s eyes. From one moment to the next, his demeanor changed from a friendly one to one of malice. His fears grew for no other reason than the vibes he was getting. The room changed as Lonetree stepped up to see Hadley closer. The light dimmed, and George had to say what he was feeling.
“No, it’s a trap; that’s not Hadley!”
The lights went out as the president’s hand grabbed Lonetree’s wrist. Jennifer and Gabriel stood at George’s warning shout, but it was too late. John’s eyes rolled back into his head as he collapsed onto the bed. The others felt the warmth sapped from the bedroom, and they all heard the locking mechanism on the door engage. They could hear pounding from out in the hallway as the power went out throughout the house. Then the electric shock coursed through their bodies, and each person in the room followed Lonetree’s example as they too collapsed. Damian hit his head hard against the wall, and George fell onto the silk-and-wood dressing screen, knocking it over. Julie fell from her chair, as did Jennifer. Gabriel felt his eyes tunnel vision for the briefest of moments, and before his conscious mind let go, he felt the time frame he was in change. The sense of speed hit him, and he briefly remembered the description John had given him once for the initial stages of a dreamwalk. This was what he was feeling, as he too fell back into the chair he was sitting in just as Hadley, or the thing inside Hadley, laughed, and the sound echoed throughout the enormous house, shaking the wooden frame and foundation.
The entity in Moreno was now in control.