Ghost Station Part 9
Going Home
1 Missy
9PM EST
June 23, 1961
417 Front Street, Beaufort, NC, USA
Benny, Missy, Maryanne, and I stood in the living room discussing our immediate next moves. I was still reeling from Viktor Brenner’s call, wondering how he had tracked me to this remote corner of the world. Worse, everyone around me was in danger of being eliminated.
“What’s next?” Benny asked.
“We have to get to the Cedar Island ferry tonight,” I said.
“Tonight?” Maryanne asked. “It’s closed.”
“They’re going to have it running for us.”
It was clear to me that Missy was starting to get frustrated. “Just who are you, Bill Radford? And who is going to be operating a ferryboat at night?”
“My actual name is Cross. Charlie Cross.” Might as well give up that part because they were going to know soon enough.
She stared at her husband. “You knew this?”
Husbands do and say strange things under pressure. Benny Jones was no exception to the rule.
“Hey, honey. Charlie here is trying to get Amy Brand back home.”
“What are you talking about? Isn’t she dead? They never found her body."
Benny possessed juicy gossip, unshared with his wife, likely uncommon. He likely felt compelled to continue a losing debate. “No, she’s alive.”
To his credit, he realized he had screwed up in mentioning Amy’s status. Despite his self-awareness, the cat was out of the bag; there was no getting it back in.
“Amy Brand? She’s alive? Where is she?” Maryanne’s face had gone pale. She looked out the living room window and into the sound, like the girl might rise out of the water.
Then Missy grabbed my arm. “Is this true?”
“Yes.”
Maryanne started rambling. “Is she in Germany? How did she get to Germany?”
“Let me tell you what I know,” I said. “There’s a psychologist who met Amy when she broke her legs. He decided he wanted to use her to control the minds of communist spies.”
Missy immediately got angrier. “Mind control? Spies? Bill... I mean Charlie... or whoever you are, this is a bit much for us to take in. And now you’re asking us to go with you to the middle of nowhere in the middle of the night to catch a boat that isn't evening running. Have I got that right?”
“You mean the Hospital-Man is real?” Maryanne asked. “Not just some ghost story I imagined?”
Missy stared at Maryanne. “Who?” Then she turned back to her husband. “You knew about this too?”
She was now spitting out her words.
“Maryanne told us about him.”
“Oh, he’s real?” I said to Maryanne. “Dr. Richard Hardy.”
“What is that sound?” Missy asked.
Outside, a dog barked, and shoes thudded on a porch nearby. To the naked ear, all was normal, but something was wrong.
“Charlie is only trying to help,” Benny said, having a hard time meeting Missy's eyes.
“By dragging us out of our house? It doesn’t feel like help.”
There was a soft knock on the door.
2 McClintock
Waterfront Beaufort
9:15PM EST
June 23, 1961
417 Front Street, Beaufort, NC, USA
The man knocking on Benny's door had spent his career performing odd assignments for military intelligence. He wore khaki pants and a polo shirt; a thirty-eight caliber was strapped to his side.
As the leader of a small special services assault team, his official address was Cherry Point Marine base, but this night had been one of the rare times he would actually sleep at home. That was because of his current role in unofficially assisting us in getting out of Beaufort.
Benny gestured for him to enter.
The visitor paused before crossing the threshold. "Care for a cigarette?"
He produced a pack of Sobraine Black Russians. These, of course, were the same brand Brenner had smoked the night we had dinner.
Before Benny could say anything, I spoke up. "Viktor sent you?"
"Yes sir, my name is Captain Baron McClintock. And yes I was sent by Viktor, who asked me to pass along his greetings."
Then he held out car keys. "It's in the lot across the street. Only car there."
"We being watched?" I asked.
"About a half dozen bad guys out there. My team is taking care of them right now."
He didn't need to say more. The people staking us out were being eliminated.
Realizing I was the one he needed to address he said, "When you get to the station use Challenge Question: Alpha."
"What's the reply?"
"Donkey."
He nodded to the women, who were lurking behind us in the hall. "Ladies."
There was another light tap on the door. McClintock put a hand up to stop Benny from answering the door. "This will be for me."
Stepping out onto the porch, and pulling the door behind him, he disappeared for a moment. As the door reopened, there was the slightest change in the Captain's face. It was the same look I had worn in the past when I got a positive update on my team. Before he spoke, I knew his men had been successful in eliminating anyone who might have tried to stop us.
"You're all clear, good luck."
McClintock left us to join his team, who I assumed had built up a nice body count. There would be a certain amount of cleanup work before they were able to return to their base.
I looked into the faces of my new team; I could only guess what they were thinking.
"We should go."
3 Benny
10PM EST
June 23, 1961
Hwy 70E between Beaufort and Cedar Island
We were cruising along in a red Buick LeSabre that had been waiting in the shadows of a dark lot down the street from Benny and Missy’s home. Knowing the area the best, Benny sat behind the wheel, expertly guiding the car over bumpy gravel and dirt roads. Whenever we traveled over a section of paved road, the quiet hum was noticeable.
We had been on the road for forty minutes, riding in relative silence between the thirty-seven miles that separated Beaufort from Cedar Island. Anyone who has ever traveled in that area will know there isn’t much there besides mostly dirt roads and few signs.
Streetlights are nonexistent.
The trip was not enjoyable. It was so dark that the dim light coming from the dashboard couldn’t begin to penetrate the inky blackness inside the car. But we were making decent time through a part of the world that felt like it might sink into the muck and marsh at any moment.
I was happy not to be the one driving.
Maryanne and Missy had said little since leaving.
I was lost, pondering the mystery of the network Viktor Brenner must have used to track me down.
He had to have coordinated with Cherry Point, the Marine base in Havelock, in order to get the team. The operation had to have been black because getting permission would have taken an act of Congress.
The biggest question for me was Brenner. Was he working for or against me?
I hoped it was the former.
Visibility ebbed and flowed, as the many oak and pine trees created a canopy of pitch black, which would occasionally break when we crossed a bridge and were able to witness an increasingly cloudless and endless starry night.
One thing was certain. My guilt was growing about getting Benny, Missy, and Maryanne involved. I turned from my passenger seat in the Buick to look at the shadows of the women in the back seat.
“I want to apologize for dragging you into this situation.”
Missy was the one to speak. “If you’re telling us the truth. If that little girl is alive, and we can do anything to get her back—well then, it’ll be worth it.”
Then, to show me all was not forgiven. “Maybe it’ll be worth it.”
We rode along in silence for a while, listening to the tires rolling over the dirt road beneath us. Maryanne broke her silence. “How much danger are we in, Mr. Cross?”
“I can only tell you what I know.” We were now driving over a one-lane bridge and under a beautiful star-covered sky.
“There are powerful people who believe having someone like Amy is worth any amount of violence.”
Maryanne huddled with the back of her head against the window.
“Since you knew Amy, they want to know what you know.”
“But I don’t know anything.”
“You had the drawing. There is no telling what they know.”
“Are they after my parents?”
“Don’t know, but I have someone watching over them.” I wasn’t sure what Viktor was doing to protect them, but I needed to give her some assurances.
“What do you mean by violence?” Missy asked.
“Richard Hardy—the Hospital-Man— had my wife and daughter murdered because I exposed what he was doing. So, I would say deadly violence.”
And that seemed to put an end to the questions about what these men could or would do.
4 Captain Mike
11:45PM EST
June 23, 1961
Ferry Terminal
Cedar Island, NC, USA
The drive took nearly three hours, but we finally made it to the lot where the ferry sat waiting for us to drive on board.
My first thought was of being completely let down, since all the lights were off at the terminal.
A man wearing a pea coat, a captain’s hat, and smoking a pipe stood waiting for us. Must have been in his sixties.
Cranking down the window, Benny drove up beside him.
“Evening, gentlemen,” the man said. Then, looking into the backseat, he tipped his hat. “Ladies.”
He had the old English dialect I remembered from my youth. “You got something to ask me?”
I leaned over across Benny. “Alpha?”
“Donkey.”
Smiling, he stepped a little closer to the window, tobacco smoke wafting in on us. “Benjamin and Missy Jones?” he asked.
They nodded at him.
“And you must be Maryanne Tolbert?”
Then he glanced at me. “Evening, Charlie.”
In a flash, I realized I knew this man. “Mike Kenton?”
“In the flesh.”
Captain Mike Kenton had been ferrying boats around the islands since before I had been born. A legend, we had heard rumors of him lending his experience to aid the military in navigating the dangerous, and ever-changing, inlets along the North Carolina barrier islands.
Mike looked at Benny. “You got enough gas left in the tank for... oh, say, a twenty-mile drive?”
“I think so. Why?”
“Let’s see. According to my instructions, and I have very clear instructions, we need to make it look like you lot lost control of your vehicle and drove it off into the Pamlico.” Mike now had a smile on his face.
“Not sure I understand,” Benny said.
“Fred here is going to drive your car back a bit and crash it. We’ll get you on the boat and head out. Gotta warn you though, we’ll be traveling with no lights. So, if you’re gonna smoke, you’ll need to do it below deck.”
A young man had come up beside Mike. Fred.
Benny cut the engine, left the key in the ignition, and got out.
“A shame to destroy a perfectly good car.”
“We gotta make things look fairly gruesome. Not that it’s going to put the men chasing you off completely, but it will delay them a bit.”
I was used to this process, but my three fellow travelers just stared at Mike like he had lost his mind.
Mike smiled, tipping his hat again. “Alrighty. Trip’ll take a few hours. Going to O’Cock (Ocracoke Island). At least that’s the first stop for you.”
I really was going home.
A few hours earlier, we had been four people enjoying a home-cooked meal and friendly conversation on a summer evening. As midnight approached, we were looking like who we actually were.
Fugitives. But fugitives from whom? I couldn’t give an honest answer, because at the moment it felt like the whole world was chasing us.
Leaving the car behind, we walked across the gravel lot that led to the ramp we would have otherwise driven over to board the ferry.
Even though the lights were off, the engines hummed, making the deck vibrate ever so slightly up through my shoes as I stepped aboard.
The ramp was raised and then secured. I felt the ferry move. We weren’t wasting any time.
It was hard not to feel helpless. My only way forward was to move on to the next piece of the puzzle, but each piece was a person. A person who immediately became endangered by my presence.
5 Tommy
1AM EST
June 24, 1961
Rm 118
Holiday Inn, Georgetown, USA
For Tommy Davidson, home was wherever he happened to be. He wasn't picky; a bus seat, an airplane seat, a broom closet, could all work as a base of operations. He carried state of the art communications equipment that might look like a regular walkie-talkie, but was state of the art and allowed him to connect to any corner of the planet.
The beauty was everything he said was encoded and sent to the recipient where it would be translated back. And even then, the language he used was filled with code words that changed every day and that only a few people knew.
At the moment, he was listening to awful updates.
Every one one of the targets in North Carolina had gotten away. Even the college student. Was that level of incompetence even possible?
Tommy would have smashed the receiver to bits on the coffee table if he thought it would help.
Hanging up before the update was complete, he quickly started dialing a new number. The rotary dial was the only sound—well, except for his heart jack hammering so much he thought he might need to call for an ambulance.
It took three rings—an eternity—for the gravelly voice to simply say. "Hey boss."
"Rise and shine, Don. If I'm awake, you're awake."
"Whatcha have for me?"
"We got a problem. A big one."
Tommy quickly explained that Cross had disappeared—again—but this time he had taken all the witnesses with him.
"Take a look at your pillow," Tommy said. "Because you aren't going to see it again until we have those two girls."
"How about Cross?"
"I'm working on it. But you're going to Manhattan."
The new assumption was Hardy must be in New York City, in one of his old hideouts.
"Drain every ounce of information out of the doctor. I want to know how that girl works. Down to the smallest detail."
"And then?"
"Bring both girls to me. Do what you do best with Hardy."
Tommy paused while the message sank in. Then he added one more detail. "Check the safe-houses in lower Manhattan."
"Fair enough."
6 Don
1:05AM EST
June 24, 1961
Undisclosed location, Norfolk, VA, USA
Donald Fulton, placed the phone receiver back on its base. Five minutes ago he had been sleeping soundly. After the conversation with his boss, he was fully awake.
There was work to do. He got up and shaved.
Prior to going by the name Don Fulton, he had been Brian Landon Curtis, a New York native who had dropped out of college to fight Nazis. He then managed to secure a position in intelligence.
After proving himself to his superiors as the kind of man up for any type of mission, Curtis had been sent to Istanbul in 1943 to assist the OSS in figuring out how badly the allies had been compromised.
During the trip, he had made contact with friends from his college days; close friends who held his same beliefs; each of them avowed Communists. He was introduced to at least two men with ties to the NKVD (Soviet Secret Police). At that moment he had become an agent for the Soviets, devoted to defeating the Nazis, and then ushering in the new world order.
Curtis had been informed that the man he reported to, Captain Randy Brown, was an up and coming U.S. government asset. The task for Curtis was to become Brown's confidant. During the war with the Nazis there would be little else for him to do.
When the world was rid of Hitler, Curtis's real work would begin.
Brown suspected none of this. On Wednesday, May 12, 1945, he invited Curtis to take a stroll and discuss his future. A future that included going deep under cover for the United States. A fake death was staged, and Curtis became Don Fulton.
Randy Brown became Tommy Davidson. Very few people knew either man existed.
For all of his smarts, the man I knew as Tommy Davidson had not bothered to do basic homework on his number one confidant, the man who really did the dirty work. Curtis had been influenced by the anti-government ideas around him growing up in New York City, in a neighborhood where you had more socialists than not.
Davidson should have known better.
A decade and a half later, Fulton had no permanent address, but had spent most of his time in Europe where he could work against the growing Soviet threat.
This was the perfect place for Fulton, who believed the communists must win at any cost.
For that to happen his boss wouldn't be getting the mind-control freak. Fulton would get her as a blood sacrifice to the cause.
7 Captain Mike
Approximately 1:30AM EST
June 24, 1961
Cedar Island Ferry
Pamlico Sound, NC, USA
Near Latitude 35.099834, Longitude -76.158836
It had been a long time since I had traveled over water in blackout conditions. Even inside, where the women were resting, only running lights were on.
Benny and I had stationed ourselves near the bow, watching phantom shadows. The crew was operating with night vision, and an innate understanding of every nuance the Pamlico Sound had to offer. It wasn't lost on any of them that once we got to Ocracoke we were officially in the Graveyard of the Atlantic, where there were more shipwrecks than any of us wanted to consider.
"You think we'll be safe out here?" Benny asked.
"We are going to one of the most remote places I know. And I've been to a lot of remote places. We'll be able to spot anyone who doesn't fit in."
"How about us fitting in?"
It was a fair question. Our destination was unlike any other part of the state; even unlike any other part of the barrier islands that protected the inland areas from devastating storms. The residents even had their own way of talking, which went all the way back to the first English settlers.
They were good people. My people.
Even in the black night, with the wind whipping, I couldn't help but notice Benny seemed transformed from the man I had met a day earlier.
"You love chasing the story?" I asked.
"It's been a long time since I've worked on anything that made a difference. If I can play a small role in getting Amy home, then I'm all in."
"I won't lie. This is going to get dicey."
He clapped me on the back. "My friend, dicey already left the station, and we're well on our way to something else. I'm going in to check on the women. Maybe get a few winks in."
After he left, Captain Mike ambled up beside me, spending a long moment peering out of the dark water. "Just wanted you to know, I remember your daddy. As good a seaman as I ever saw. A shame what happened to him."
My father had been with the Ocracoke Island Coast Guard, dying trying to bring in shipwreck victims. That had happened when I was ten.
"Heard about you enlisting at sixteen, then ending up at Duke."
"Long story," I said. "But I get the feeling you've heard a good bit of it."
"Guess I hear a lot of things, but I learned a long time ago no to stick my nose anywhere but my own business."
"Thank you for this." I was looking out into the night. It was beautiful, but I knew the waters were about to get treacherous.
Mike nodded, turning back to go inside, he seemed to change his mind. "Son, I heard about your family. I got no words for that, except I'm truly sorry."
I nodded, thinking he was done.
He wasn't.
"Seems to me you're heading for a real showdown. Just remember, it ain't about you. It ain't even about your wife and daughter. Bless 'em. From what I've gathered there's a lot of bad at the top of this agency that's supposed to be looking out for the citizens. People they've forgotten all about. And this business with taking children from their families smells to high heavens."
"You certainly got that right."
"So, this thing you're doing, make it count. Stop them from hurting anybody else."
8 Benny
Approximately 4:30AM EST
June 24, 1961
Cedar Island, NC, USA
Traveling without lights added extra time to our trip, but no one seemed to care. The women ended up sleeping on the long plastic chairs inside. Benny and I spent the time out on the deck quietly chatting.
Benny told me about bringing down drug smugglers on the Morehead City riverfront. One thing was undeniable, the man was no coward.
He had faced threats, even getting put in the hospital after an attack by some of the dock workers who were on the wrong payroll.
By four, the sky was changing ever so slightly over to what would eventually be daylight. It isn't often one gets to sit back and observe nature's nuances. Whenever I had been out at this time, I had been doing some sort of surveillance that required all my attention.
Here on the ferry I had nothing to do but look out over the water.
Twenty minutes later, a clear land mass was directly off our bow. It was close enough to swim, but nobody would be that stupid. The snakes would get you long before the shore was reached.
For good or bad, I was home.
Benny leaned over the rail. "Don't know about you, but I could use a drink. Any good bars?"
Smiling at Mike, I asked. "Should we tell him now?"
"Might as well."
"Benny, the whole island is dry. You can't even buy a beer in the stores."
"That is a shame."
Mike couldn't help but throw in his two-cents. "I understand Woodchuck Buck has some homemade concoction available, but I wouldn't recommend it if you don't like internal bleeding."
"What's a Woodchuck Buck?" Benny asked.
"Woodchuck is a he," Mike laughed. "And he is best avoided."
9 Tommy
8AM EST
June 24, 1961
Georgetown, DC, USA
Tommy Davidson was nursing a horrid hangover; after we slipped away in Beaufort, he had spent the night drinking in his hotel room.
Now, he sat in a posh à la carte breakfast eatery while a tall glass of orange juice mocked him. Drinking it would do him in.
The man who sat across from him, might well have been the most powerful person—besides the President—in Washington, DC. Tommy knew him only as Andy, which was certainly not his real name. No one wanted to know his real name.
Andy was the one person no one wanted to upset; not even the Director of the CIA was immune to his wrath.
And Tommy Davidson was there delivering bad news. The worst news.
"NIGHTINGALE has gone dark," Tommy said, his head splitting in two.
"Dark because she's running or dark because Richard Hardy is hiding her from us?"
Andy was a big man, who was wolfing down scrambled eggs, sausage, biscuits, hash browns, and toast with grape jelly. This did not help Tommy's hangover.
"We have every reason to believe Hardy is hiding NIGHTINGALE somewhere in the states."
"Didn't we disavow—or excommunicate—or whatever it is we do to men like him?" Andy had conveniently forgotten his role in bringing Richard Hardy back into the CIA.
"Remember, we quietly brought him back in, gave him access to a couple of cutouts. He took that money and stashed it."
A cutout was nothing more than a code name for a money launderer.
"No paper trail," Andy said. "Sometimes I prefer the days when we kept records. Made it easier to know who to blame. And let me guess, he still has that mind-control broad?"
"We now understand she's actually a teenager," Tommy said, as he braved a swallow of orange juice. It was an immediate mistake, roiling his stomach. But he had no choice but to soldier on.
"You do know that it's much worse that Hardy is harboring a mysterious little girl, who supposedly has psychic powers?"
"She is the real deal."
"She's a kid, and we don't need that kind of publicity."
"Understood."
"No, I don't think you do," Andy said, glaring across the table. "You took Cross out of Berlin and sent him back here, then Ernest Wilson told him something."
"That was the plan. Now we just follow Cross; cleanup behind him."
"Wilson blew himself up, along with three of our operators. Is that what we wanted?"
Tommy knew better than to say anything. None of this was his fault; all of it would be blamed on him.
Andy motioned the waitress to bring him more coffee. As soon as his cup was refilled he looked across the table. "Cross got away from you. He is in the wind. Took at least one high value witness with him."
Tommy continued to keep his mouth shut.
"Here's what we're going to do. Hardy... "
Then Andy shook his head slowly. The universal sign for someone who needed to meet an unfortunate end. "Do you understand?"
For as bad as he felt, he had a crystal clear understanding of what Andy wanted. Eliminate Hardy.
"The girls?"
After taking a big slurp of coffee, Andy pursed his lips. "D and E."
Detain and evaluate. In other words, lock them away and study them like animals.
"What about Viktor Brenner?" Tommy asked.
Andy shoved a giant sausage link into his mouth, but it wasn't as repulsive to Tommy as it would have been just a minute earlier. So far, Andy appeared to be allowing him to take the gloves off. "Get creative."
"Cross?"
"Find him. He's getting help from somebody. Find out who, and take care of them."
The hangover vanished, as Tommy realized he was being given a green light to do exactly what he wanted.
Kill Hardy. Burn Brenner. Take the girls.
Let Cross lead them to every soul who knew anything about the existence of Brenner. Then get rid of everybody.
The orange juice actually now tasted good.
Start at the beginning:
Part 1 The Nightingale Operation
Part 4 Welcome To The Inevitable