Resistant (40 page)

“Yeah, Drake here. I’m not seeing any sign of trouble. Still no word from Collins?… Let me finish checking this side, then I’ll go take a look for him.… Yeah, I know it’s getting dark. I’m not a fucking ninny, Ronnie. I can see. I got a flashlight right here.”

Out in the open, with no place to run to or to hide, Lou and Vaill were just seconds away from being discovered. They remained flattened on the damp grass, asking questions of each other with their eyes. To Lou, their only option, a poor one, was somehow to disappear over the bank and slide down into the moat. But even if they tried, it was doubtful they could complete the maneuver without being detected.

After pausing to use his radio, the huge guard was on the move again. And as if locked onto their position, he was lumbering directly toward them. The behemoth was perhaps twenty feet away when his gaze hit on what must have looked like a boulder.

The seconds it took him to work out what the odd shape was proved lethal.

Vaill sprung to his knees and fired a single shot that seemed muffled by the heavy air. The bullet struck Drake square in the throat, and the big man instantly crumpled to the ground, spewing crimson from the hole in his neck and from his mouth. Inside the study, Lou saw stirring. The portly man approached a window and peered out. Drake lay on his back in dense shadow, sputtering as he drowned in his own blood.

With the odor of gunpowder wafting around them, Lou and Vaill remained motionless, staring across the moat at the majestic windows. Fifteen seconds … twenty. They could see the portly man searching from side to side. Finally he turned and headed back to wherever he had been sitting. The dreadful gurgling from Drake was dying away. A few spasms of his arms and legs, and he went still.

Lou stared spellbound at the corpse. Vaill had been right. It was just point and shoot. Just like a camera. He was wondering if he would ever have the cool to do the same if he had to, when he became aware of Vaill tugging at his Windbreaker sleeve.

“There can’t be too many of these monsters about, or one of them would be here by now,” he said. “But just the same, I think we should get around to the north side.”

At that moment, following a burst of static, the dead man’s radio went on again.

“Drake, you big baboon, where in the hell are you? Drake, it’s Ronnie. Did you find Collins?”

“As a matter of fact,” Vaill said as he and Lou raced across the expansive lawn, giving the melancholy castle a wide berth, “he did.”

The west side of Red Cliff was also the main entrance. There was a circular gravel driveway abutting islands of lawn adorned with stone fountains, concrete planters shaped like Grecian urns, flower gardens, and even a topiary. Several high-end luxury cars were parked along the drive. Wealth was clearly consistent with the Society of One Hundred Neighbors’ philosophy. Graduated income taxes, on the other hand, almost certainly were not.

Linking the driveway to the castle was another raised drawbridge, with a narrow footbridge crossing the moat next to where the main bridge would lie. The oversized rusting portcullis looked capable of withstanding the sort of battering ram featured in Hollywood films. Vaill examined the massive door with a small pair of field glasses and verbally confirmed that impression.

“We’re too exposed out here to cross the footbridge and set up a detonation,” he said. “Even if we manage to blow that monster without killing ourselves, we might as well announce our arrival with a bullhorn. I say we move north.”

The moat essentially turned Red Cliff into an island, with the east face resting atop the imposing cliff for which the place was probably named. Though he took pride in his ability to solve complex problems, Lou was as yet unable to connect with an idea for getting the two of them inside. Meanwhile, the darkening evening sky was becoming their ally.

At the edge of the north woods, their luck continued. Lou discovered a small building with a single window on the west side nestled ten feet or so inside the tree line.

“A guardhouse,” he said, leading Vaill around the fieldstone structure. “The matted brush and these broken branches suggest it gets used. No idea what for. And look, right here, headed back toward the castle, tire tracks.”

He shined a flashlight through the window and Vaill came over to look with him. The place was dusty and a little cobwebby, but there were sconces on the wall, a coffeemaker and cups on a low shelf, a small wooden table with two chairs, some cookie tins, a hot plate, and a boom box.

“What in the hell do you think this place is for?” Vaill asked.

“It doesn’t really make sense just standing here like this, disconnected from the castle.”

“Maybe it was there in the sixteenth century or whenever it was built, and the inventor just brought it over.”

“Maybe,” Lou said, “but that explanation sounds a little thin and … Bingo! Tim, look there in the floor behind that chair.”

Vaill took the flash and trained it on the outline of a two-by-two square cut into the wood of the floor. There were two hinges on one side and a rusting metal ring in the center of the other.

“Bingo is right, brother,” he said. “Any doubt as to where that trapdoor leads?”

Lou pumped his fist.

“None,” he said. “Absolutely none. All we got to do now is get in there.”

The unadorned door to the stone house, probably steel, was facing south. Without being told, Lou unholstered his Glock, stepped back two paces, and discharged three well-aimed rounds into the keyhole, each sending out a small burst of sparks. The rippling echo of gunfire rolled away like a cresting wave. Vaill inspected the keyhole, tested the thick metal handle, and shook his head. Then he removed his backpack and opened it up.

“Time to sic the Doberman on it,” he said. “His Christian name is C-4, but he’ll answer to almost anything. Stand by, my friend.”

Lou knew very little about plastic explosives. Obviously, it was a moldable material, but he had little knowledge of the chemistry that made it work. Vaill took a wedge of the whitish putty from a tinfoil wrapper, and shaped it in and around the keyhole and along the hinges.

“As with most decent explosives,” Vaill said, “serious energy is needed to initiate the chemical reaction. That’s what these blasting caps are all about.” He inserted one into each lump of putty, and rolled out enough detonator wire for them to get a safe distance away. “You can shoot bullets into C-4 all day and it won’t go off,” he went on. “Put a match to it and it’ll just burn slowly. What we need is a smaller explosion to trigger a bigger one.”

Vaill held up a black metal box about the size of a deck of cards—the detonator. He flicked a switch and a green light came on. Then he attached the three wires to a spool. His thumb hovered over the red button on top of the box.

“Ready?” he asked.

“Are we far enough away?”

“We’re about to find out. Move behind that tree and hold your ears, pal.”

Lou shrugged and did as asked, and his partner depressed the button. The three simultaneous blasts were more intense than Lou would have ever anticipated given the size of the explosives. Even behind the tree, the shock drove him back a foot and seemed as if it momentarily stopped his heart. Debris shot out in all directions. Lou peered out as the wall of smoke quickly dissipated. Astonishingly, the door was still standing.

“What happened?” Lou asked, stunned.

Vaill looked nonplussed as well. Then he strode to the door, inspected it for a moment, grabbed the handle with just two fingers and tugged lightly. The steel rectangle fell toward him as if it had fainted, landing with a muted thud facedown on the forest floor.

Vaill turned to Lou, his expression a mix of pride and absolute amazement.

“To Red Cliff,” he said.

“You don’t have to ask twice,” Lou replied.

CHAPTER 51

           If financial solvency is of concern to any of us, then Mr. Roosevelt’s entitlement programs should be of grave concern.

        
—LANCASTER R. HILL, LECTURE TO THE COLLEGE OF WILLIAM AND MARY, VIRGINIA, FEBRUARY 22, 1937

Lou was standing on a rough-hewn, centuries-old plank floor, staring down through a trapdoor that might have been the gate to hell. And in that instant, in what seemed like a heartbeat, realization caught up with him.

Their presence had to be known.

The element of surprise was gone.

Soon, he was likely going to die—painfully and violently.

Maybe it was the horrible deaths of the two guards. Maybe it was the realization of how much was at stake—how many lives. Maybe it was the notion of never seeing Emily again … or Cap …

It had been twenty-five years since he last felt as panicked as he did at that instant, and as he stared down into the abyss, memories of that night so long ago filled his thoughts.

It was the second of July. He was in his final year of internal medicine residency and had made the decision to switch to emergency medicine the following year. First, though, he had to rotate as chief resident in a large V.A. hospital. The day, his first as chief, had gone easily. He loved the vets and the challenges of caring for them, and was gaining confidence by the hour in what he knew.

Then night came.

The hospital, with hundreds of patients, many of them quite ill, quieted down. Much of the support staff went home. And soon, responsibility for medical care fell to a pair of interns, a junior resident, and him. Always in the past, when he looked over his shoulder in a tense situation, someone senior to him was there with a calming word and useful advice. That night, there was no one. Weighed down, it seemed, by various beepers, he stood in the doorway of the ICU, staring at the monitors and watching the intern in her first harried day as a doc, going about her mountain of work.

It was then that legitimate, gut-wrenching, throat-tightening panic took hold.

His stomach knotted. A wave of nausea swept over him, and he knew he was going to get sick. Just one day earlier, he had been a junior resident. Now, whatever happened in the hours ahead to hundreds of patients putting their trust in their caregivers, he was the ultimate authority. There was no one looking over his shoulder. No one with reassurance that he was doing the right thing—making the right decision. His panic lasted for more than an hour, and he twice got physically ill. But when the first code blue was called, the fear ended abruptly, and his life as a doc moved up a notch.

Now, as then, he was paralyzed.

“Hey, pal, what gives?”

Vaill’s voice, ironically, from over his shoulder, brought him back to their reality.

Lou turned slowly, wondering if, as in the V.A., he was going to get sick. “I’m okay.”

“That isn’t the look of someone who’s okay,” Vaill said, pulling his flashlight from Lou’s face and directing it through the trapdoor, where a flight of corrugated metal stairs disappeared into darkness. “I’m surprised this didn’t all hit you awhile ago.” He set his hand on Lou’s shoulder. “You’re doing amazing, doc. Better than I could have ever expected. Look, we have no idea what’s waiting down those stairs. I’d be worried if you
weren’t
scared. You didn’t bargain for any of this, but you never backed away. And you could have. There have been plenty of chances. Hell, this is a chance right now. I promise I wouldn’t think any less of you if you decided to just head into town and take your chances with the locals there.”

“Don’t worry, I’m in,” Lou said. “Thanks for the props.”

He turned, about to go down the stairs, but Vaill brought him back by the elbow. The agent’s eyes were flint.

“If you’re in, you’re in all the way,” he said. “Somebody could be down there right now waiting to ambush us. If they are, I don’t want any hesitations. None.”

Lou unholstered his Glock and straightened his Kevlar vest. God, but he wished he could hold Emily one more time.

“I’m ready,” he said.

“Just keep doing the next right thing, doc. You do that and don’t hesitate, and we’ll be all right.”

The stairs, maybe ten of them, led down to a surprisingly wide, dank, coal-black tunnel, hewn into the rock, and permeated with the distinct odor of the ocean. The rugged ceiling was low enough to make for an uncomfortable, stoop-shouldered passage. Footprints in the dirt-covered floor, like the tire tracks outside, suggested the setup was still in use.

“We’ve got to be passing under the moat,” Lou said.

Vaill panned his flashlight over the ceiling, where a row of inlaid light fixtures ran the length of the tunnel. High-tech. At the far end of the passage was a metal door. Where the other one was latched, this one, rusted in places from persistent exposure to salt air, had a knob.

“I’m surprised nobody’s come for us already,” Vaill whispered. “Either they didn’t hear that explosion, or with two guards dead, there aren’t that many more left in there, and they’re gonna wait for us to come to them. That’s what I’d do.”

Lou was first to reach the door.

“I got this,” he whispered back.

Vaill took up position to the right, with his back against the wall, gun drawn.

“If it opens, it’s gonna swing toward us,” he said. “Use it for cover. If it’s locked, we may have to unleash the Doberman again and fight it out right here. No hesitation, though, right?”

“No hesitation.”

Lou’s pulse was hammering as he turned the knob. The door pulled open easily and he slipped behind it, creating, for a moment, a makeshift shield. Vaill dropped to a crouch and sprang forward, his weapon leveled at the darkness ahead.

“We’re in,” Lou said with some excitement.

There was nobody waiting on the other side, no targets for him to shoot. Vaill had to be right. What remained of the fortress guards were waiting for them inside.

Lou’s nerves were crackling now. They banished the blackness with their lights. To his left, Lou could quite clearly discern waves churning.

“You hear that surf?”

Vaill nodded.

“How could we be close to the ocean here? The tunnel went straight and level. The ocean would be down and to the left.”

Again, Vaill panned his beam through darkness. He settled it on a rectangular corrugated metal platform, no more than ten feet away. On the other side of the platform was a set of five metal stairs that ascended to a narrow elevated area, lined by a metal pipe railing. Vaill crossed the platform and climbed up to the new space. Lou followed. Below them was a man-made shaft—a long passageway that extended down through the rock, almost certainly to the ocean below.