“Oh, yeah, a lot going on. Like I told your buddies, there were two towns over there, Magruder and Bigler’s Mill. Magruder was named after, what else? A Confederate general; seems to have been a trend down this way.” He snorted. “My parents obviously had different reasoning when they named me South.”
“South Freeman,” Horatio said. “Clever.”
“Yeah. Anyway, Bigler’s Mill was built on the site of a Civil War hospital. So the stage was all set when the Navy came knocking on the door.”
“I wonder why the military picked that area?”
“You mean aside from it being occupied by colored folks who didn’t have any voice? Well, you got a lot of cheap land, water nearby—we are talking the Navy after all, and the C&O Railway ran a spur track down from Williamsburg and made Magruder’s Station.”
“Why was that? For bringing sailors and supplies down?”
“Yep. Most folks don’t realize that back then the railroad was how most troops got around in this country. But there was another reason for the spur.”
“What was that?”
“When the Navy operated the place it also held a military stockade.”
“Stockade? You mean a prison for American soldiers who’d committed crimes?”
“Nope. It was for German prisoners of war.”
“Germans?”
“They were sailors mostly. They came from subs and ships that were sunk off the East Coast. Crazy man Hitler thought these fellows had been killed of course. That’s why all the secrecy. The government didn’t want anybody to know those Germans were being held there.”
Horatio said, “Why? What was the big deal?”
South pointed at him and grinned. “Now that’s the sixty-four-thousand-dollar question, ain’t it?”
“You’ve obviously thought about it. What’s your take?”
“Well, there’s an obvious one. If we were getting those boys to talk, spill secrets or capturing them with Enigma codebooks the German navy was using, then Hitler and his cronies would move heaven and earth to kill them. And make no bones about it, there were a lot of German spies and assassins over here then. At the very least it seemed that the tide in the Atlantic war turned about the time those POWs showed up at Camp Peary, so I’m betting our boys got them to talk about the Enigma code.”
“What happened to the prisoners after the war ended?”
“I figure some of them went back to Germany. I mean after the war what was the point in holding them? But I don’t think all of them went back to Germany. What was back there except dust, rubble and chaos? And people thought they were dead anyway. So I think some of them just stayed in America.”
As Horatio digested this information South continued his narrative. The war ended, the Navy left and the land was turned into a state forestry and game reserve. Then the Navy came back in 1951, shut it down and it had remained closed to the public ever since.
“The CIA took the place over in June of 1961 even though it was still officially listed as a military base. Pretty ironic when you think about it. That date.”
Horatio jerked to attention. Sean had informed him about Monk Turing’s reference to “irony” as he and Len Rivest floated past Camp Peary while fishing.
“Ironic? How’s that?”
“That was two months after the CIA fiasco at the Bay of Pigs in Cuba. At the time the Navy said it was officially opening a new facility in place of what they called a Seamaster base. And they transferred some of their training, like demolitions and unconventional weaponry, to another facility. But that was all bullshit. I’m sure June of 1961 is when Camp Peary became the CIA’s main spy school. They were embarrassed after the Bay of Pigs screw-up and they should have been. Guess they needed a place to really train their people to do the job right. Yep, right after Bay of Pigs. But that’s not the only irony.”
“What else?”
“I told you the town was named after a Confederate general? Well General ‘Prince John’ Magruder was one of the true masters of deception during the war. Now the town that bore his name is home to people who make their living lying.”
“I see your point. That is ironic,” Horatio agreed. Although he couldn’t see how it tied into what Monk had said to Rivest that day. “Anything else?”
South Freeman glanced around even though they were all alone. “Started to tell this to your friends, but then decided not to. But what the hell. There’s a part of Camp Peary most folks have no idea about. Maybe even some people who work there.”
“So how do you know?”
“Those folks have to eat and have their places cleaned, right? Well, I know lots of cooks and cleaners. Same old shit, a lot of ’em have my skin color, how about that?”