It was after midnight when Leonard and Jennifer connected the last of the leads that would monitor John’s health as he walked among the thoughts of a dead girl. John sat in a high-backed chair as he watched Jenny sticking the last lead to his chest. He smiled, but she didn’t return it. She slapped his muscled arm.
“If you think you’re going to get stuck in there”—she tapped his temple hard enough to make the big man flinch—“you’d better find a way to come back and get me. I would rather live in the days of Old Yeller and Khrushchev than here without you.”
“Hell, Jen, if he gets stuck there, he’d damn well better find a way to make money off fifty-plus years of Super Bowls and World Series winners,” Leonard joked as he finished hooking Lonetree up to the monitors. “If you’re going to be stuck in pre–civil rights America, it’s better to do it with money, right, Chief?” he said as he too slapped the large Indian on the bare shoulder and then wiggled the pain from his fingers.
“He’ll be back, or I send Bobby Lee McKinnon after him,” Jenny said, finally smiling and then quickly kissing the top of John’s head as Gabriel eased her aside and looked at his friend. He held up the syringe.
“Ready for Professor Gabe’s Magic Carpet Ride?” he asked.
“Dream between the sound machine? You bet,” he said with a nervous smile as George Cordero placed the glasses into his hand.
“Good luck in there, my friend,” he said and then left the bedside. With a look at Hadley, George shook his head. “Risking too damn much for this guy, that’s for damn sure.” He looked at Kennedy as he wiped an alcohol pad across John’s skin. “You know this man was responsible for killing that little girl, don’t you? Just because I can’t read this guy’s thoughts doesn’t mean that mean bitch downstairs doesn’t know the truth. It just turns out this guy is worse than even she is. A match made in hell.”
Kennedy nodded that Cordero had a point as he eased the needle into John’s arm and swabbed it again, covering it with a small Band-Aid. Gabriel patted Lonetree’s leg and nodded.
“Watch your ass in there. You are definitely the visiting team, and I don’t think this thing will be too welcoming if it knew you were again coming unannounced into its backyard. I forget who said nothing is darker than a dream of love and life,” Gabriel said. “Oh, wait, that was me.”
“Boy, you guys should write Hallmark greeting cards—real sentimental stuff,” Lonetree said. He felt the first heaviness start to creep into his eyes, and the sounds of voices had an echo-type quality to them. His eyes closed as he gripped the broken pair of dark glasses.
The Supernaturals watched as Lonetree drifted away on a tide of Demerol and the other special mixers Gabe had made for him. Kennedy looked at Leonard, who was going to be monitoring Lonetree’s vitals. He nodded that everything was up and running. Gabriel made sure the syringe was close by in case he needed to be brought out of his state if needed. The Adrenalin was placed in two locations for quick access. He looked at everyone and nodded at Damian, who used the bedroom’s rheostat to lower the brightness of the lamps. Kennedy went to the far corner and looked up into the camera. He gave the doctors out in the hallway a thumbs-up and returned to John’s side. Jenny finally released his hand as Lonetree had told her to do. He must not have any physical contact with anyone during the walk.
John’s eyes started playing under the lids, and Gabe got a knot in his stomach as Lonetree returned to the world they had just come from. He just hoped this worked.
“We’re going to be late! Let’s get a move on, girl!”
The voice was not John’s. Jenny’s eyes widened when the familiar snarl escaped his lips. She looked at the others around the room and could see that they had also recognized the voice. It was Gloria’s father, Franklin Perry, the very man that they had seen only an hour and a half before. Then John was gone. The eyelids still showed movement with the REM sleep he had achieved.
Lonetree was now a part of America’s past—a past they hoped he could return from.
* * *
The music was the first thing John recognized. The song seemed distant at first as he tried to open his eyes but failed as it always did. His vision and clarity would come; he just had to be patient.
Many a tear has to fall … but it’s all, in the game …
John smiled, or at least he thought he did in his dream, as he recognized the old song from the late fifties. Tommy Edwards, if he remembered correctly from when his grandmother hummed the tune while she cleaned houses for a living when he was a kid on the reservation.
All in the wonderful game, that we know as love …
“We’re going to be late! Let’s get a move on, girl!”
John’s eyes opened wide and he immediately jumped back as he saw his own reflection in the full-length mirror. He stumbled but steadied himself, realizing he had been frightened by his own image. For the first time in a dreamwalk, he found his own face. He shook his head as the man left the door without opening it and went about his business in another area of the house.
Somewhere, a radio was turned down, and then he heard her voice. It wasn’t what it should have been. It was like that of a younger child. He turned and saw the bathroom door open, stumbling as the young girl suddenly appeared with a blue below-the-knee-length skirt with a small dog or something on its hem. She was only wearing a bra. He turned his head as she lowered the antenna on a small radio and placed it down on the bed. She then slipped into a white blouse. Lonetree assumed this because he was too embarrassed to actually turn and see. The girl, maybe twelve years old at the most, had dark hair and blue eyes. Once she was covered, John braved a look at the girl as she finished dressing. The way she fumbled with the blouse and the way she tilted her head told John he was looking at a younger version of Gloria Perry. Confused, Lonetree stood next to her as she reached for the mirror and removed a pink scarf from its frame. She fluffed her hair as she pulled it back and fashioned a ponytail with the use of the silky scarf.
“I’m ready!’ she called out.
The bedroom door opened after a brief but firm knock. Frank Perry, Gloria’s father and onetime officer assigned to Robert Hadley’s OSS unit, was smiling, not irritated as the voice had been a moment before. He saw his daughter and shook his head. She sensed his good humor, which had been short lately.
“What’s so amusing?” she asked as she turned around, placing the dark glasses on her nose.
John smiled as he saw the young woman she would become in a few years. Why he was at this point in her life, he didn’t know.
“Not used to seeing you in those clothes.”
“I know you would be just as happy with me never taking off that Catholic plaid skirt you like so much, but I like this.” She twirled until the skirt unfurled as she spun. She stopped and felt her way to the door. She found her father leaning against the doorjamb and hugged him. “Thank you for giving in.”
“I didn’t have a choice, did I?”
“Never did,” Gloria said as she released her father’s neck and turned and grabbed her new school supplies from her dresser.
“Well, I guess it’s time to see if you can handle public school. Can’t hang on to you forever, can I? Next thing you know, you’re off to Washington to help Ike settle things there.”
She pursed her lips and made a kissing action as she moved past her father at the door. “Eisenhower doesn’t need my help. After all, didn’t you and Ike win the war all on your own?”
“Funny girl,” he said, reaching for an item on her bed. “Hey, are you forgetting something?”
Gloria stopped and then held out a slim-fingered hand as her dad gave her the telescopic walking stick. She took a deep breath, and John could see that she hated her predicament of blindness. Lonetree followed them out of the house.
The day was warm, and he sensed it was September. Gloria and her father went to an old 1952 Dodge pickup truck. John turned to see the small house that was well maintained. The yard was green and freshly cut, and the house looked to be painted just the year before. He could almost smell the newness as the sun warmed the exterior. He shook his head, and before he knew it, he was sitting between Frank and Gloria as they drove away from their cozy house.
The truck took the back way, or so Lonetree was thinking, because they skirted the town of Moreno as the pickup truck climbed a hill. The manual transmission of the Dodge was kept in low gear as it strained at the uphill fight on the old dirt road that no one ever used. John sensed that the kids out to neck after the movies avoided the place they were going. He knew in advance through his inner sight that they were heading to that place.
“This won’t take long, will it? I don’t want to be late on my first day of real school.”
Frank looked at his daughter right through John’s head as he sat there feeling uncomfortable in his spying.
“Real school?” he asked.
Gloria smiled as she turned her head to face her father. “Real as in real teachers, real students, and not nuns running the dog and pony show.”
“You’re getting as saucy as your mother used to be.”
“Yes, I am. You bet she would have never have been as paranoid as you about public schools.”
“Paranoid?” Frank Perry shook his head as he turned onto another dirt road even steeper than the first. John turned and saw the town of Moreno sitting below them, confirming where they were going. “Where are you learning words like that?”
“The Twilight Zone.”
“Damn, isn’t this world strange enough without adding that crap to it?”
Gloria turned and gave her father a condescending look.
“Good writing is good writing, and Rod Serling is the best. And that’s what I’m going to be. The best damn writer in the world.” She huffed and then moved her head as if she were looking away.
Her father smiled as he pulled up to a fenced off area and stopped the truck.
“Rod Serling, huh?”
“Yeah, and it wouldn’t hurt you any, sir, to get a little imaginative in your television watching. There’s more to life than Wagon Train, Dragnet, or Wanted: Dead or Alive. I can’t even see, and I know those shows are a little bit formulaic.”
“Where in the hell are you learning these words?” he asked as the pickup was approached by a man in a uniform. John could see the MP armband and knew that he had struck pay dirt. He watched the army cop tap on Frank’s window and gestured for him to roll it down. “Never mind, The Twilight Zone again, right?”
“You got it, daddy-oh.”
“Smart-ass,” he said as he rolled down the window with the use of the crank and then held out his ID to the sergeant. The man checked it and then looked inside.
“Your daughter will remain within the confines of the vehicle, Captain Perry?” the military police officer asked as he handed back the identification.
“I’m not a captain anymore, Sergeant, and yes, she knows not to leave the truck.”
“Fascist,” Gloria mumbled loud enough for all to hear.
John cringed as the gruff-looking sergeant leaned in to look Gloria over.
“Excuse me?” he asked.
“I said Fabian; you look like Fabian.”
“Uh-huh.” The sergeant stood back and opened the gate. “The colonel is inside the security office, Captain.”
Frank hit the accelerator, and as he passed the uniformed guard, he said, “Mr. Perry, not Captain.”
He rolled up the window and looked at Gloria. “Fascist is not a word you toss around lightly these days, young lady.”
The truck bypassed the security hut and a 1956 Cadillac parked next to the two army jeeps used by military police.
“Sorry. I just don’t like the men here. They’re mean and always seem to be on edge. You know that one of them actually pulled a pistol on Ronnie Granger last summer?”
“And what was Ronnie Granger doing to get a gun pulled on him?” Frank asked as he shut off the motor. John sensed Frank had business to perform—unpleasant, more than likely—so he parked far enough away to protect her from hearing too much.
“He was just trying to get his dog that had wandered off. He was looking around … on the other side of the fence.”
Perry opened the door but hesitated. “I’m sorry about that. But you know as well as I that this place is dangerous. These ruins could collapse at any time.” He looked at the winery and then over toward the ruins of the Santa Maria Delarosa mission. “Ronnie Granger got off lucky. This is no place to get caught wandering around.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Oh, don’t give me the poor blind girl routine; it only works on special occasions. Now stay in the truck; this won’t take long. Then we can get you to that real school you’re so anxious to get to.”
Gloria smiled and nodded as she opened one of her braille books and ran her fingertips over the special characters.
Frank smiled, shaking his head and closing the door, only to turn and see a man in a ragged white coat exit the old winery. He gave Frank a look that said he was not pleased to see him, and then with a huff, he moved off toward the mission. Perry joined him, and together they walked the hundred yards toward the mission and the meeting that would end their commitment.
John found himself outside the truck, watching the two men as they moved off. He was convinced the man in the long white coat was the very same man who had accosted Gabriel in the earlier dream of Moreno. The man wearing the glasses was most assuredly the German.
He turned away from the two men and saw Gloria as she read and hummed the same tune she had been listening to earlier in her room. Lonetree could hear the squeaky preteen voice as the beautiful one it would eventually become in just a few short years. Then he saw her stop reading, and her humming trailed away as she looked up and tilted her head to the left and then slowly to the right. Lonetree thought she was frozen, because she sat so still with the exception of her head movements as she seemed to be listening for something. Another tilt of her head in the opposite direction, and then just as quickly back again. She closed the book and then rolled down her window. John heard her start humming again. A few bars and then she would stop and listen. Again, she hummed “It’s All in the Game” by Tommy Edwards and then stopped once more. This time, her head bobbed up and down as she heard what she was listening for.
John’s eyes widened when Gloria opened the door. He turned to see if her father had noticed but instead saw him vanish into the oddly overly large aluminum guard shack on the far side of the mission. He wanted to stop her but was powerless to do so as he realized her father was right: the winery did look like it would fall at any moment. Lonetree even said, “Hey, do what your father said,” but Gloria of course couldn’t hear him. She used her white cane to ease forward across the gravel lot toward the thirteen steps leading to California’s oldest documented winery. Lonetree fell in beside her with unease clouding his thoughts.
Gloria stopped and listened only thirty feet from the crumbling steps of the winery. Again, that tilt of head told Lonetree she had heard something. After a moment, John heard it also. It was at least two men laughing. The sound had an echo to it, and he could hear that it was coming from the large double doors of the ruin. Gloria deftly hurried to the side of the south adobe wall, rapidly swishing her cane side to side, scanning for obstacles. John was surprised just how confident the girl was without sight. John caught up to her and saw that she was leaning against the wall, listening intently. He stayed where he was on the gravel lot.
The left side of the partially restored oaken doorway opened, and two men exited the ruin. They were both army MPs and were armed with M1 carbines slung on their shoulders. One of the men turned and started fumbling for his keys.
“No need,” the second man, a PFC, said as the first looked up at him. “This screwed-up assignment will be officially over in”—the second man looked at his wristwatch and then over toward the guard shack—“hell, it’s probably over with already.”
The first man stopped looking in his pockets and then shrugged. “Can’t say as I feel sorry for that bastard. I hope they deport his sorry ass.”
The two men turned away from the doors and started down the steps.
“Hell, scuttlebutt says the son of a bitch may be tried for war crimes if he gives the bigwigs any grief when they shut him down.”
“Nah, they can’t do that without explaining why he was here under our protection. No, the Nazi bastard will just slip away like all of them generals and such after the war, head to Argentina or someplace like that. That’s where True Detective says they run to.”
“Yeah,” the second said as they slowly moved off. “Bullshit science anyway. The guy was just milkin’ the gov’ment tit.”
Lonetree watched the two men avoid the security shack and move off toward the back of the property and then to the front gate to have a smoke with the guys there. John smiled when he saw how fast Gloria left her hiding spot behind and started tapping her cane along the damaged wall of the winery. She carefully moved up the steps, only stumbling once, and even then Lonetree saw himself trying to help her. She finally made it to the partially collapsed overhang at the top of the thirteen steps, with John eyeing the crumbling structure they now stood under. She stopped before reaching the door and again cocked her head to the left and then right. She turned until she faced the mission and the guard shack, then back again at the ruin. She placed her palm on the left side of the large, sturdy door.
With a deep breath, she depressed the old wooden handle on the door and pulled it open slowly and carefully. She stopped when the dangling lock banged and swayed in its hasp. Lonetree also took a deep breath as she stopped at the threshold and listened. He thought she was going to satisfy some curiosity and then leave the ruin, but his hopes were dashed when she entered the winery. John stepped in before the door closed as if the heavy oak would have crushed him if he didn’t hurry. The dreamwalk was confusing at most, silly in the least. Sometimes, no matter how hard he concentrated, he did things that didn’t make sense. He could not get used to being in someone else’s mind.
The interior of the winery was far worse than the exterior. Fourteen-inch-wide beams of nearly petrified wood had collapsed into the immediate space upon entering. Gloria navigated these beautifully, easing around the fallen roof and its support like a champ.
John took this opportunity to look around the interior. For something so important that it needed U.S. Army personnel to safeguard it, this place was a mess. One item left over from the original winery was a small alcove, in the wall, and inside was the Virgin Mary. The small statue captivated Lonetree, and the image, headless and with only one arm, gave him the creeps. He was glad deep inside his soul that Gloria didn’t have to see it. He didn’t know why that image found purchase in his fears. Gloria was brave, but that one sight alone would chill anyone. The damaged statue symbolized a place that had gone bad, and as John looked around, he knew this was indeed a bad place.
Many a tear has to fall … but it’s all in the game, Gloria sang soft and low. After the first verse, she paused and listened. Lonetree saw the smile slowly come to her lips as she tilted her head to the right and listened, gently swaying to a sound only she could hear.
“Damn, this is not good.” John took a few steps closer to Gloria and almost stumbled as he backed away when she suddenly moved as if she had working eyes. She quickly tapped across the old mud floor and suddenly stopped and listened again. John saw that she was nearing the far wall of falling adobe mud and near a door that looked very much out of place.
All in the wonderful game … that we know … as love.
Lonetree watched as the second verse was sung by one of the more sensitive and beautiful voices he had ever heard outside of his own Jennifer back when Bobby Lee McKinnon would perform through her.
The girl listened intently as her smile grew. She had the look of a child on Christmas morning. She tapped her way toward a steel door which, as John noted a moment before, looked very much out of place. She leaned forward and hit the steel twice with her cane’s tip. The hollow clicking sound returned. Her smile faltered.
“Damn it,” she grumbled as she straightened. “Stairs!”
Lonetree was amazed that she could tell that the door was hiding stairs behind it. He guessed that she could hear a return echo of space that he couldn’t.
Lonetree cursed when Gloria reached out with her hand and took hold of the latch-style handle and pushed down. It opened with ease. She stepped through the threshold until a chill from far below stopped her.
“Thank God, you’re coming to your senses,” he said, trying to be loud.
Once in a while he won’t call … but it’s all … in the game, she sang, somewhat louder than before. It was loud enough that John flinched, thinking that had to have been heard all the way into Moreno.
“I know I left the chorus out, but I forgot where I was,” she called down the darkened stairs.
John saw the light switches on the wall just inside the door but was again helpless to turn them on, and Gloria, bless her, didn’t need them. He also saw that the electrical lines were relatively new. The high-wattage bulbs were encased in that cagelike shell that most government buildings are equipped with for outdoor use, which the old winery most definitely came close to being with all the damage done throughout the nearly two centuries since it had been built.
Gloria was humming the tune as she listened to something only she could hear and understand.
“If you would all sing together, it would be a lot better,” she called down the stairs. To Lonetree’s horror, she actually took a step down, then another, and he again tried to reach out and grab her arm, but his fingers caressed nothing but damp air.
“Damn!” he said loudly, hoping that she would at least get a sense that he did not want her to go down that stairwell. She did just that. She moved fast for someone with no eyesight. John hurriedly followed as he too knew he would not fall, or if he did, he would just open his eyes and he would be safe at the bottom—dreams, he thought, not bad at times.
Gloria reached the bottom of the stairwell and faced another door. This was also new and made of steel. John saw light coming from under the door. The girl tilted her head and was listening to someone, or something, through the door.
“No, I’m alone,” she said, leaning close to the door. She suddenly turned, and John thought for sure she was looking right him. Even in the darkness he could see a slight reflection of himself in her dark glasses, though it could have been just his imagination. Gloria returned her attention to the door once more, and her hand went slowly to the same type of latch as upstairs. John froze. She listened once again. She huffed and then lightly slapped the door with her hand. “I said there is no one with me; I’m all alone. If you would talk one at a time, I could understand you far better.”
Again, she listened. She cursed something John couldn’t hear and then turned the latch and opened the door.
The world once more had light, and Lonetree was never so grateful for it. He never liked the absence of light, but he lived with it because of the line of work he was in. He hated the dark more than anything.
The basement was not the basement that had been dug out by Mexican labor almost two centuries before. Instead of the earthen walls used for ancient wine-making and storage, these were concrete and very much new. John was amazed as he looked around the large room. There were even three or four of the old three-hundred-gallon wine casks used for fermenting purposes in the day. Two of these had collapsed since the days of the monks, but one was still showing an old wooden spigot at its base.
The room was L-shaped, and Gloria started walking toward the bend. Lonetree saw equipment that was old to him but would be considered new to someone in this time period. Large boxlike machines were wired up, and others that looked as if they came from the set of a Universal monster movie from the thirties. All of this sat upon a rubberized flooring used to disburse electricity and provide grounding. Lonetree didn’t like the way this was shaping up at all. Gloria looked as if she knew exactly where she was going, like she had been here before.
Stainless steel tables lined walls that had been reinforced by not only wooden beams but steel. A fire-suppression system had been installed, and there were places where the ceiling had come under intense renovation. John wondered why the federal government would set up shop in this manner.
“I think I’ve known for some time that you were down here,” Gloria said.
She felt her way past four massive steel tanks with warning signs stenciled front and back. These tanks fed into the farthest area of the basement. Gloria seemed to follow these pipelines without even knowing it. John ran his fingers along one of these steel-jacketed lines, and he could see the frozen condensation adhered to the metal. They were carrying something akin to nitrogen or some other mysterious chemical Lonetree didn’t understand. As he moved past the large tanks, he saw the manufacturer’s plate. He pursed his lips as a connection was made.
“R. D. Hadley Container Company—Los Angeles, California. Manufactured 11/19/1948.” John saw the welded-on plate and raised his brows. “More than likely a division of Hadley Corp Gauge and Meter Company of Moreno, California.” John knew the links in the chain were coming together, and he wondered what affairs of business Hadley Sr. had with the federal government that had to be guarded by armed military personnel. He was startled out of his thoughts when the girl spoke once more, seemingly to no one—no one he could hear, at any rate.
“Was it you singing in the night?” she asked as she rounded the corner and stopped, her hand with the cane tapping out a spot that seemed to be clear. “They were wonderful! I couldn’t understand them, but they used to lull me to sleep most every night. I thought it was my inner voice singing. You harmonize better with your songs. More so than mine, I guess, because you don’t know them as well.”
John eased around the bend in the L-shaped room and found Gloria standing in front of a large steel boxlike structure that dwarfed her. Spotlights shone on its shiny surface and reflected back on Gloria’s upturned face. It reminded him of a neighborhood bank vault; there were vents and sliding portals for viewing inside the box. It stood at over fourteen feet in height and at least twelve in width. Electric motors were installed every few feet around its bottom and circulating fans at its top. The strange lines from the tanks ended atop and looked to feed two large steel tanks there. It looked as if they left those tanks and then lines spiderwebbed across its top, bottom, and sides. The lines appeared welded to its frame. He leaned in and read, LINES UNDER PRESSURE.
“What in the hell is this?” John asked himself as he stepped past Gloria and placed a hand over the cold exterior. At least he was assuming it was cold because of the dripping of melted ice from the lines that were fed by the mysterious tanks. More feed lines running through from the tanks were directed right down into the top of the enclosure. He could make out the words EMERGENCY VENT LINE—DANGER stenciled on the tanks.
“My father says that I hear things that others can’t,” Gloria said as if she were answering an unheard question from someone. Without knowing it, she had heard John. Her own words were directed at the large vaultlike containment box. “I guess because I’m blind, my other senses are more acute than others with sight. I learned that in health class at school.”
Lonetree tilted his head like Gloria did when she was straining to hear something. It was a habit he hadn’t known he picked up by watching her.
“Yes, school. Did you go to school?”
John froze at sounds seemingly coming from the interior of the steel vault. He couldn’t place the words, but he could hear something for the first time. For a reason he couldn’t understand, the sound was filled with a kind of sorrow that he hadn’t heard since he was a child, when he used to listen to the old folks on the reservation talk of better days from their pasts. This was like that. The sounds were almost foreign in nature, but Gloria seemed to have no trouble hearing or understanding them.
“That’s so sad,” she said as she stepped closer to the giant vault. “All of you?”
For a dream, John realized he had never once been this apprehensive. Even while in the mind of a killer and reliving a murder, no matter how gruesome, in the old days of law enforcement, he had never felt he was in danger. While inside a basement of an old ruin, he found that he was terrified of what was with Gloria, even while behind at least four inches of solid steel.
“Why would someone do that to you?”
Lonetree stepped back as the vault shook on its concrete block foundation. Dust filtered in from the newly installed rafters over their heads, and for a moment Lonetree thought the entire winery would come down around their ears.
“I am so sorry for you.” Gloria moved to the vault’s front by tapping her way past steel tables and machines John couldn’t recognize. “Can you get out of there? Do you need help? Maybe I can tell my father and he can help get you out. He’s a good—”
This time, the response was unmistakable. The vault’s door actually pushed outward. It popped three small steel rivets, and then the room became silent as the steel relaxed. A small warning bell dinged from somewhere, and Lonetree froze as he heard those very same lines he had been examining vibrate as they were filled with a chemical. The lines had been flushed and charged, and two little red lights came on at the topmost tanks that fed directly into the vault from above. All of this seemed to be an automated reaction to the assault on the vault’s door. John stepped back.
“What in the hell did you people bring back?” he asked himself.
“I said no one was with me. Why do you keep asking that?” Gloria said as she placed a hand on the cold steel of the door and pressed. Then she turned, and again her dark glasses settled right on the spot where John stood staring at her. “No, no one.” She gently and lovingly moved her small hand over the steel. “Yes, I can come back. For a blind girl, I can get around better than people think, but that’s our secret. I can tell you like secrets.” A sad look came to the girl’s face as she lowered her hand. “Sometimes, secrets are all that I have, besides my daddy.”
Again, there was a loud thump of what could only be described as anger from inside the vault. Gloria placed her hand on the door and pressed once more, and the vibe inside the basement changed as whatever was trapped in the steel cage calmed.
“I’ll bring books to read to you,” she said, and then her face was a mask of excitement. “I can also bring you music. I got a battery-powered record player for Christmas last year. I have all the best records. The guys down at K-Rave give me all their duplicates.” Again, she tilted her head as she listened. “K-Rave is a radio station. They play all the cool stuff. Bobby Vee, Roy Orbison. They are even starting to play some of the new beach stuff. Freekin’ Rowdy Rhoads is even beginning to like the new music. He’ll never admit he’s still in mourning for Buddy Holly.”
John smiled as Gloria made promises to whatever was inside that she would come back.
“I have a hundred books in braille.” She listened. “They are books for the blind,” she said, answering the unheard question. “I can’t read regular books.” She stopped and listened with a small smile coming to her lips. “I can come on Sunday mornings, I promise. Since my mother died, Daddy doesn’t make us go to church anymore. He said I should, but he lets me skip it while he sleeps in because he works late on Saturday nights. That’s when I can come and visit. And maybe someday we can get you out of there.”
The lights dimmed momentarily, and John felt that Gloria’s new friend was pleased at her prospect of return to the outside world, or just excited for the chance at escape. The thing in the vault sought to get out. He looked around and realized that this structure was made to keep something inside.
“What are you doing in here?” came the loud voice that startled Gloria and Lonetree.
John turned to see the very same man who had left the ruin only fifteen minutes before with the two guards. Still wearing his white coat, he slammed a set of files down on one of the stainless steel tables. His glasses were askew, and he looked like he was fit to be tied. His graying beard was a mess as he came at Gloria.
“Was there a reaction from the containment area?” he asked as he angrily stepped past Gloria and eyed the vault.
“I … I … don’t know—” The man took Gloria by the shoulders and shook her. John became angry when he saw her glasses fly from her head.
“Who were you speaking with? Was there activity inside?” The man shook her again, this time even harder.
“Let go of her, you son of a bitch!” Lonetree shouted, and he was shocked when Gloria acted as if she had heard him.
This time, the vault shook as his words escaped his mouth. Then it quickly settled.
Suddenly, large hands grabbed the madman from behind. He was thrown to the floor where he sprawled. He grabbed a steel table leg and started to pull himself up, but a foot came down on his back with enough force to send him back down.
“If you even look at my daughter again, I’ll do to you what we should have done in Yugoslavia, you murdering son of a bitch!”
John saw Frank as he moved away from the German and then took his daughter into his arms. He bent down and picked up her glasses and wiped them on his blue chambray work shirt. He eased them onto her nose and pulled her close once more.
“What are you doing in here? I told you never to leave the truck.”
“She was interacting with the elements!” the smaller man said as he started to rise. Frank left Gloria’s side and then lashed out with his boot once more, sending the man back to the cold floor.
Lonetree smiled, thinking the man was getting off lightly.
“That young lady has my proof that they are still viable,” the man said as he felt at his chest where Perry’s boot had connected. “The orders from your government must be rescinded.”
“As far as I’m concerned, we can send your ass to Israel. Try explaining yourself to a tribunal there, you sick bastard. I think they may have a few tough questions about your life’s work.”
“That is one can of worms we and our associates would rather not have made public.”
Lonetree saw a man standing just at the bend of the room, and he had the MPs with him. The two enlisted army men moved to assist the German scientist to his feet.
“Colonel, that girl was interacting with the experiment. They must have been communicating!”
The well-dressed man stepped forward, and John recognized him immediately—Robert Hadley. He was tall, and his hair was silver, just like his son would be in the future. He wore an expensive suit and had the distinguished look of a man that had life by the short and curlies. Hadley stepped by the man that all of this was built for and handed him a handkerchief as he did so.
“Wipe your mouth, Doctor; you’re drooling all over your lab coat.”
Lonetree watched as Robert stepped up to Gloria as she hugged her father. Frank pulled her back as her father’s hand came up to her chin. The rich man raised his brows, and Perry relented. He touched her cheek, and she reflexively flinched as his fingers made contact.
“Don’t let this man frighten you, Gloria; his bark is far worse than his bite. He’s used to pushing around smaller people.”
John looked to his left and saw the German doctor was fuming. His hatred was directed at Hadley and no one else.
“Now, were you speaking with someone down here?” he asked.
Gloria shook her head and remained silent.
“Really? I know my own boy would lie to keep the truth from me, but you? No, I have watched you for a long time and find you far more intelligent and factful than Dean. Now were you speaking with someone down here?”
“No, I was just curious, and then I got lost,” she said as she buried her face in her father’s chest once more. Hadley looked at Perry. Frank shook his head in warning that Hadley had gone far enough, and it looked as if Gloria was one subject he would not push with his wartime buddy.
“Good enough for me.” Hadley turned to face the doctor. “Gloria, this is Dr. Jürgen Fromm; he works for me as a chemical engineer. He handles our most dangerous chemicals; that’s why we keep him ensconced in a secure place where his chemicals can cause no one in Moreno harm. He keeps monitoring our mercury containment, you know, to protect us all.” His head turned as he moved his eyes away from the angry Fromm.
By the look on Frank’s face, Lonetree could see that Hadley was lying. That was not this man’s job. He was here for a whole other purpose, and it surely wasn’t to protect the citizenry of Moreno.
“But his job here is at an end.”
“It is too soon! This girl can prove it!” Fromm cried from the arms of the two MPs.
Hadley turned back to face the German. “And this little blind girl did in moments what you could not do since 1952? An amazing feat.”
“Perhaps it has something to do with her handicap. I must be allowed to speak with this child and then study what happened here today. You must allow me to carry on my work!” Spittle again flew from the man’s bearded face.
“All those files are empty observations, Doctor. The government is pulling you off the federal tit, so to speak.” Hadley turned and faced Perry and his daughter. “And you, young lady, my guess is that you have learned your lesson as far as wandering into dangerous places?”
Gloria merely nodded and kept her face hidden.
“You don’t have to have guarantees from my daughter, Robert.” Perry hugged her even closer. “If she says she was lost, she was lost. She’s not like all the other kids; she tells the truth.”
“You mean like my boy?” Hadley asked with a smug smirk even though he had just offered the same observation on Dean Hadley himself.
“I mean kids in general, Colonel, and you know that.”
Hadley smiled for real this time and then faced the two MPs. “Allow the good doctor to collect his personal belongings from the lab. Nothing of company property is to leave here with him. Certain people will arrive soon to take custody of Dr. Fromm and escort him to another location, where he will be debriefed. Until said time, the man is to be under constant surveillance. Keep him in his motel room. Is that clear?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Gloria, please excuse this man for his bad behavior. He’s upset, but he should have known better than to harm a child.” He turned and looked at Fromm. “Any child.”
“You cannot do this. My work is too important.”
Hadley smiled as he started for the door and the long climb up into the real world.
“Doctor, I assure you, I can. And if you keep talking about wild things in front of strangers, you’ll find I can do far more. With President Eisenhower wrestling with the Reds in Europe and Berlin about to burn once again, the time for subterfuge with former enemies must come to an end. There are other, more important concerns. The United States Air Force may have saved your ass after the war, but your rhetoric about power from the mind has scared even them off. They will use the benefits of your altitude experiments, but your other theories, well, they are a little far-fetched, and your own failed experiments prove it.”
“Robert, that’s enough,” Frank said, nodding at Gloria, who was still holding onto him.
Hadley knew he was saying too much in front of Gloria, so he nodded.
“We’re finished here, Professor. Good day, sir. Captain Perry, will you and your daughter join me upstairs, please?” Hadley said and then vanished around the bend in the room.
“My name is Frank,” Perry called out to remind the man that he was no longer his subordinate. He was a partner, and he now wanted that partnership dissolved just as they had dissolved their connection with Fromm.
Franklin smiled down at Gloria, who had remained silent throughout the confrontation with Fromm. Fromm was being led away by the military police, still with a look of fury and hatred directed at Gloria.
“Come on. Let’s get the hell out of here and get you to that new school.”
Gloria nodded, and with a last look back at the enormous vault, they left.
John had learned a lot on this trip. He was starting to feel the fatigue that came with dreamwalking and knew he was close to waking. He started to follow the two toward the door when he felt the cold fingers around the back of his neck. He was lifted from his feet and turned in midair. He was facing the vault with his feet dangling four feet off the floor. He fought the grip that held him with frantic movement. He shouldn’t have been able to be physically touched by anything or anyone inside a dream, but here he was being treated like a rag doll in the grip of some horror he could not begin to fathom. Then he knew that the questions Gloria had been answering made sense to him. The thing inside knew John was there and didn’t like it.
The coldness of the hand, something he shouldn’t be able to feel, chilled his blood. He was shaken once, twice, and felt his neck being strained beyond endurance. Then, before Lonetree knew what was happening, he was flying through the dank air of the winery’s basement.
* * *
Everyone in the bedroom saw John’s body lifted out of the chair and watched as his large hands went to his throat as he was lifted free of the chair and the floor. He was shaken until they heard his joints pop, and then his six-foot-five-inch body was flying across the room until it hit the drywall at the opposite side, his limp frame sliding to the floor. Jennifer was the only one to scream as the others stared wide-eyed.
* * *
Gabriel sat at the long table inside their assigned meeting area. He was drinking whiskey and trying to decide how best to tell the team that they were now finished with this case. He took a long swallow of the burning liquid and stood to get a refill. Leonard, Julie, and Damian watched from their seats and exchanged looks of worry. As Gabriel poured his fourth drink, the study door opened, and Jennifer stepped inside.
“He’s awake and he’s fine. A little sore he said, but he’ll live. He’s changing clothes and will be here soon to present his report. George is drinking pretty heavily with some of the nurses in the kitchen. I think he’s more scared than even John.”
Gabriel turned as he capped the crystal decanter of bourbon. He nodded at Jennifer and then gestured for her to sit, draining the glass as he returned to his own seat. He placed the empty on the table and sat down.
Most of the group had only seen Kennedy drink on very special occasions, maybe a holiday or two. But this was different, and they saw it in his eyes.
“I want all of you to put your observations down on paper. Anything that you think is relevant. I’m putting an end to this. I have a feeling it’s too much for us. Hell, maybe it’s too much for any defense. Whatever this thing is, it wants confrontation. I’m not losing John or anyone else. Kelly was too much.”
The room was silent.
“John took a risk, and that is enough. I don’t care what he learned on the dreamwalk. Something threw him out of that dream with enough force to kill him. That’s enough. If we go into this without any advantage as to what we are dealing with, we could all end up like that torn soul upstairs.”
They had never heard Kennedy speak like this before. His guilt over Kelly’s death was evident, but he was showing fear where there had never been any before. It was the fear of the unknown power at work here. Nothing they had experienced in the past two days fell into any category of haunting ever documented.
Damian pulled a cigar out of his coat pocket and lit it.
“I thought you quit those disgusting things,” Leonard said, waving away the smoke cloud that gathered around him and Jackson.
“And so did I until I saw a man that weighs two hundred and fifty pounds and stands six foot five fly through the air like fucking Peter Pan.” He puffed until the cigar flared to full life and then gave Leonard a dirty look. His fixed Kennedy with his dark and intense eyes as he puffed away on the smelly cigar. “I say we finish this thing. Then, if you want to quit, we’ll quit this bullshit altogether. But I say we see this thing through.”
“No. It’s too damn expensive,” Gabriel said as he looked around the table. “And that man upstairs is not likable enough to risk the people I love and respect.”
“Professor Gabe, I’m sure we are on the right track with this thing. We need to know how this entity works in our world. To have the power to cross over decades to affect the time frames of two completely different worlds and eras? Man, oh, man, we can’t ignore and just walk away from that. The boy in me tells me to run like hell, that the beast inside the closet is real and coming for my ass, but the analyst in me says to stay and finish this. I agree with Sergeant Friday here; let’s do what we do.”
“This isn’t up for voting. Once we complete some semblance of a report and hand it to the First Lady and the Secret Service, we leave.”
“And let that dragon lady claim her spoils? I dislike her as much as the rest of the world hates Hadley,” Julie said. “Vote nothing; it’s what we do, Gabe. We can’t run from that after we claimed that hauntings are so rare that they are practically nonexistent. Kelly would hate us for quitting over her death. She was a lot of things, but a quitter she wasn’t.”
Jennifer remained silent, listening. She knew that if she threw her weight behind leaving, there would be no talking Gabriel out of walking out on Hadley. She would remain noncommittal until she had John’s feelings on the situation.
Kennedy was about to speak again when the door opened and George came barging in. Breathing heavily, he closed the door like he was holding back Frankenstein’s monster. It was so startling that Damian rose from his chair and, with cigar clamped in his mouth, reached for his gun in its shoulder holster.
“With as much crap as we’ve seen around here, it’s not wise to scare the already scared!” Damian said angrily, sitting back down.
George tried to get his actions and breathing under control.
“They’re getting ready to move the president,” he said as he finally removed his weight from the door and John Lonetree pushed his way inside.
“Hey, they’re moving Hadley to another location,” Lonetree said as he closed the door and then assisted a still heavily breathing Cordero to a chair. Lonetree looked none the worse for wear after his flight through the bedroom. He was dressed in a white shirt and black slacks, and his shortened black hair was still wet from the hot shower he had taken.
“I was having a drink with the nurses in the kitchen when they were called upstairs to prepare the president for travel,” George said as Leonard slid a drink down to him.
“That is no longer Gabe’s concern,” Jennifer said as she placed a hand over Lonetree’s when he sat down next to her. “He said the investigation is over.”
“The hell you say,” John said as Jenny stopped him from rising from his chair. “You decide this before I file my report on the dreamwalk? Being dictatorial is not your strong suit, Gabriel.”
“Am I supposed to allow another friend—or friends,” he said, looking around the table, “to die for this?”
“After almost seven years of nothing, we come on a case that exhibits actions that have never once been documented in a haunting, and we just quit?” Julie Reilly said, reaching out and removing the drink from George’s hand and downing it in one gulp before slamming the empty back into his suspended hand. “I say bullshit,” she said, hissing out her breath as the burning liquid slid down her throat.
“Wasn’t Kelly enough?” Kennedy asked. “People dying for a science that is only good for entertainment? The world doesn’t want to know the truth; it would shatter too much delusional thinking about the afterlife. Why do you think we were being sued? It wasn’t because we outed the television networks about the hoaxes they perpetrated on the public. It was for shattering people’s belief in what-if and pointing to the other person and saying, ‘I’m glad that’s not me,’ while not thinking about the real problems of the world, and that’s just the way the controllers of this country want it.” Gabriel lowered his head. “The chance John took was the line we won’t cross again. I cannot handle the thought of losing another friend for a science that will never be proven, just speculated upon at cocktail parties and in spook novels.”
“Perhaps we should hear from John about the chance he took.”
All eyes went to Jennifer, who was looking at Lonetree. She smiled. “Is Gloria as much of a charmer as you thought?” she asked, squeezing his hand.
Lonetree surprised them all by smiling, but he also rubbed at the sore spot on his neck that was bruised and discolored. “Charmed? You bet,” he said as he fixed Gabriel with his brown eyes. “Hell, she even charmed the thing that used me as a lawn dart. Yes, we made a connection.” John released Jennifer’s hand and then leaned forward in his chair until he knew he had Kennedy’s attention. “She needs our help, Gabe; we have to help her and that town if we can. Kelly would agree. We all agree; we need to see this thing through. I know now that this thing is not just about Dean Hadley.”
For the longest time, Kennedy remained silent, even when Jennifer got up and went to the bar and poured a drink and then returned with the glass and placed it in front of John.
“Explain why we have to help, John,” she said as she kissed the top of his head and sat back down. “Take us on a journey to Moreno.”
Lonetree looked at Gabriel, who pursed his lips and nodded.
“My firm belief is,” John said, stopping long enough to drain his glass, “that Moreno was never a town in a real sense. I believe it was like a movie set and the people on that set didn’t know they were even in a movie. It was window dressing. It was real, but all of it was a cover up, and when I say that, I mean a cover up that makes others seem feeble by comparison.”
* * *
An hour, one full decanter of whiskey, and another of vodka later, John had completed his tale of time travel to a place they all now feared even more than the haunting at Summer Place. It wasn’t until the knock on the door that Gabe’s mind was made up.
Julie Reilly, feeling a little tipsy, walked to the door and opened it. Catherine Hadley was standing there as if she were posing for a photo op inside the White House. One of her delicate hands was placed in the other at her waist, and she was smiling. Her hair and makeup were perfect for that time of night.
“A chartered 737 will be waiting at Andrews in three hours.” She stepped aside just as the gurney carrying President Hadley made it to the bottom of the stairs. “My husband, if he is to die, will die in what he considers his home. I am taking him there.”
“You know that will kill him?” Gabriel said as he remained seated as a point to his denial to continue the investigation.
“That is the opinion of many, but not my husband. He wants to go home.” She smiled again and then started to turn away, and then stopped, with the smile still in place. “There is a rumor about that you and your team are discontinuing your investigation. Even after so much work toward your blackmailing of me. What a shame. Good luck, Professor. I’m sorry you fell short in … well … everything.”
Gabriel Kennedy stood and walked calmly to the door. After John’s take about his visit with the young Gloria, he had decided to take this thing to its inevitable conclusion with the help of the arrogant woman who had just left.
“Madam First Lady?” Gabriel called out as he poured another drink.
They could see through the open door that Catherine had stopped but not turned. “Yes?” she said.
“What terminal at Andrews?”
“Very good, Professor, very good. Private concourse thirteen.” She moved off, Gabriel watching her back as she followed her husband and doctors from the house.
“The bitch needs her scapegoats along for the ride,” Julie said as she watched Gabriel from behind.
“Terminal thirteen. Lucky number,” Leonard said with an uncomfortable chuckle.
Kennedy finished his drink and then shook his head in wonder at the woman who wanted to control everything. This time, they could all see it was his turn to smile.
“Little does she know that it’s not scapegoats traveling to Moreno. Just us.”
Damian raised his glass and surprised everyone with his belated enthusiasm.
“Just us! The goddamn getting-drunk-on-their-asses-and-on-their-way-to-California Supernaturals!”
* * *
Two thousand, five hundred and thirty-five miles away, laughter sounded from two different locations within the city limits of a small town that officially died fifty-five years before.
The Supernaturals would make a stand at Moreno.