Scavenger (5 page)

“It might as well have stayed forgotten. Short of tearing the building apart, no one knows ...”

Amanda discovered that she lay on a bed.

“. . . how to remove the capsule from under its eighteen-ton shield.”

She felt groggy and nauseous. Her head throbbed. But its rhythm didn’t match the sudden, frantic pounding of her heart.

“The third is the
M*A*S*H
Capsule.”

Amanda jerked upright.
Where’s Frank?
she thought. Stifling a moan, she scanned the room. Beamed ceiling, stone fireplace, log walls, wooden floor. Sunlight streamed through a window, hurting her eyes. In the distance, she saw jagged mountains capped with snow. She feared she was going insane.

“In 1983, cast members of the popular television program
M*A*S*H
put costumes, props, and other items related to the series into a capsule and buried it on the Twentieth Century Fox film-production lot.”

The voice belonged to a man and came from everywhere around her.

“But the studio changed so much in the intervening years that no one can identify the capsule’s location. Possibly it lies under a hotel constructed on property the studio once owned.”

Amanda rolled from the bed. She realized that the voice came from audio speakers hidden in the ceiling and walls.

“The fourth is George Washington’s Cornerstone. In a Masonic ceremony in 1793, George Washington supervised the placement of a time capsule into the cornerstone of the original Capitol Building.”

Amanda looked down at her clothes. She wore the same jeans, white blouse, and gray blazer that she remembered putting on. Straining to focus her jumbled thoughts, she sensed that she’d been unconscious for quite a while. But her bladder didn’t ache with the need to relieve it, which meant that the drug she was given, like a date-rape drug, allowed her to obey commands. Someone must have carried her to the bathroom, taken her pants off, and coaxed her to urinate.

“The Capitol has grown so much since then that the first cornerstone and its unknown contents have never been recovered.”

Her arms and legs trembled. Her stomach felt heavy. She was as overwhelmed as she’d felt a year earlier when she’d regained consciousness and found herself in the Paragon Hotel.
Again
, she thought.
My God, it’s happening again
.

“The fifth is the Gramophone Company Capsule. In 1907, in Middlesex, England, the Gramophone Company placed audio discs into a time capsule in the cornerstone of its new factory.”

The voice was sonorous. Despite her grogginess, she guessed she was hearing the continuation of the speech Professor Murdock delivered at the Manhattan History Club. But the voice did not belong to the professor.

“These recordings included music by several then-famous opera stars. During demolition sixty years later, the capsule was found. But before the recordings could be played for an audience, they were stolen, the irreplaceable voices on those discs never to be recovered.”

Amanda fought to control her breathing.
Frank?
she thought.
Where
are
you?
She started toward a door, only to whimper when the voice returned to an earlier part of the lecture.

“Of the thousands of time capsules that have been misplaced ...”

Amanda almost screamed.

“. . . five are considered the most-wanted.”

Chest contracting, she realized that the voice was on a recorded loop. While she was unconscious, it must have played repeatedly. That explained why the words seemed familiar, even though she had no memory of having heard them.

“The first is the Bicentennial Wagon Train Capsule.”

I’m in hell, Amanda thought. She ran to the door and grabbed the handle, fearful that it wouldn’t budge.

“On Independence Day, 1976 . . . ”

The handle moved when she pressed down. Heart pounding faster, she yanked at the door.

“... a capsule containing twenty-two million signatures was driven to Valley Forge, Pennsylvania.”

When she pulled the door open, she found a log-walled corridor. She peered to the left and right, seeing doors and paintings of cowboys.

“President Gerald Ford was scheduled to officiate.”

She eased out and shut the door, the only sound a muffled continuation of the recording.

A long carpet occupied the middle of the corridor. On her right, Amanda saw a dead end. She crept silently to the left, hearing the faint voice behind the doors she passed.

“But before the ceremony occurred, someone stole the capsule from an unattended van.”

2

She came to a staircase. Its fresh smell of wood and varnish suggested that the building was new. At the bottom, a large open area led to a door with a window on each side.

She hurried down, reached the door, and grabbed its handle.

Electricity jolted her, knocking her backward. Her mind went blank. The next thing she knew, she landed hard, slamming her head on the floor. Pain shot through her. She groaned and managed to focus her vision.

“Jesus,” someone said.

Turning toward the sound, she saw a man charge down the stairs. Midtwenties. Short, dark hair. Gaunt, rugged features. Beard stubble.

She raised her hands to defend herself, then realized he wasn’t attacking her.

“Are you hurt?” He helped her up.

“Sore.” She wavered, dazed, grateful not to be alone.

“Where
are
we?” he asked.

“I have no idea.” Amanda stared at her tingling hand. “But I don’t recommend touching that door handle.”

“The voice in my room.... The last thing I remember ...” The man’s haunted eyes scanned the area around them. He struggled to concentrate. “I was in a bar in St. Louis.”

“I was at a lecture in Manhattan,” Amanda told him, baffled. “About time capsules.”

“Time capsules? The same as the recording in my room. What the hell’s going on?”

“I’m afraid to imagine.”

“There’s got to be a way out.”

An archway beckoned on the right. They went through it and reached a long dining table flanked by chairs, everything rustic. Windows provided a view of more mountains. Through a further archway, Amanda saw an old-fashioned wood stove, a refrigerator, other windows, and a door.

Her companion hurried toward the latch.

“Don’t touch it,” Amanda told him. “We’ve got to assume all the doors are electrified.”

“Then we’ll break a window.”

A shadow appeared at the entrance to the dining room. Amanda swung around.

3

In the archway, a woman stared at them. She wore camel slacks and a taupe blouse, highlighted by an expensive-looking necklace, watch, bracelet, and several rings. In her thirties, she was taller than Amanda, thin in a manner that suggested she was a compulsive dieter. Her auburn hair was pulled behind her ears. Her tan features were handsome more than beautiful. Her expression was stark.

“What
is
this place?”

Amanda gestured in frustration. “We don’t know.”

“How did I get here? Tell me who you are.”

“Ray Morgan.”

“Amanda Evert.”

“Who drugged us? I was at a cocktail party. A boat show in Newport Beach. Suddenly I was in that bed upstairs.” The woman shook her head. “I heard that recording. Time capsules? This doesn’t. ... Who on earth would do this?”

“I’m getting out of here before I find out,” Ray said. He grabbed a chair and swung it toward a window.

Amanda jerked her arms up to shield her face from flying glass, but all she heard was wood cracking. Twice. Three times. Louder. Ray grunted with effort. When the pounding stopped, Amanda lowered her arms and saw that a leg on the chair had broken off but the window remained intact.

“The glass is reinforced.” Ray studied it. “Almost as thick as a jet canopy.”

“Jet canopy?” The comparison seemed odd.

“I was a Marine aviator in Iraq.”

His tone suggested he meant to impress her, but all the reference to Iraq did was send a further spasm of fear through her. For Frank. It reminded her of the terror he’d endured there.
Frank.
She was certain that he too had been drugged. Otherwise, if he was conscious, he wouldn’t have let anything happen to her. Where
was
he?

“You haven’t told us your name,” Ray said to the woman.

“Bethany Lane.” She frowned at her bracelet and watch. “Whatever this is about, it isn’t robbery.”

“That doesn’t encourage me,” Amanda said.

Two more figures appeared behind the woman in the archway.

Ray picked up the broken chair leg, holding it as a weapon.

“It’s okay,” a man said. He raised his hands to show they were empty.

“I heard what you said. I don’t know anything more about this than
you
do.”

A woman was with him. “And we’re just as scared.”

The man was black. In his twenties, he had thick, black hair and a lean build. The woman was Anglo, the same age, with cropped brown hair. She too was lean. They wore khaki pants with numerous extra pockets down the sides. Camping clothes.

“Derrick Montgomery,” the man said.

“Viv Montgomery,” the woman said. She wore a wedding ring. “The last thing I remember, we were drinking tea next to our tent, getting ready to go to sleep.”

“In Oregon,” Derrick said. “But that’s not Oregon out there. This looks like Colorado or Wyoming.”

“Stand back.” Ray grabbed another chair and stalked past them into the front hall, where he swung the chair at the window to the left of the door. He struck repeatedly. The impacts made the window vibrate but otherwise had no effect.

“Son of a bitch,” Ray said.

Derrick reached for the latch.

“No,” Amanda warned. “It’s electrified.”

Derrick jerked back his hand.

“Find the electrical panel,” Bethany said. “Shut off the juice.”

“I like the way you think.” Ray went through the dining room toward the kitchen.

“We shouldn’t split up,” Amanda told them.

They hurried to follow Ray and found him standing in the kitchen, staring down at a trapdoor handle.

“Maybe it’s electrified, too,” he said.

“I’ve got an idea.” Amanda pulled a hair from her head, wetted it with saliva, and eased it toward the handle. When it touched the metal, she felt a tingle and jerked her hand away. “Yes, it’s electrified.”

“Test the handle on the cupboard under the sink,” Viv told Amanda.

Wondering why the cupboard was important, Amanda obeyed. “I don’t feel any current.”

Viv yanked the doors open and groped under the sink. She pushed aside a long-handled brush, a bottle of dish detergent, and a box of scouring pads. “Yes!” She straightened, holding a pair of long yellow gloves, the kind used for washing dishes.

Rubber gloves
, Amanda realized.

Viv put them on and went directly to the kitchen door. She hesitated, then tapped the handle with a gloved hand. Nothing happened. “We’re out of here.” But when she pushed on the handle, it wouldn’t move.

“There’s no key hole,” Bethany said. “It must have an electronic lock.”

“Which takes us back to the trapdoor and trying to find the electrical panel,” Ray said.

With her hand protected, Viv lifted the trapdoor. They stared at the darkness below.

“I don’t see a light switch.” Amanda turned toward the counter next to the sink and put the strand of hair against the drawer handles. When she didn’t feel a tingle, she yanked at the drawers.

One contained a hammer, a screwdriver, wrenches, and a flashlight.

Derrick aimed the light through the open trapdoor, revealing a short, wooden ladder and a dirt floor. “Not deep enough to be a basement.”

“To move around down there, you need to be on your hands and knees,” Bethany added.

“Any volunteers?”

No one answered.

“Hell,
I’ll
do it.” Ray crouched. “Anything to get out of here. Give me the flashlight.”

“Wait,” Amanda said.

“What’s the matter?”

Amanda studied the ladder. “Shine the light over there.”

It revealed an electrical wire attached to a rung in the steps.

“Change of plan,” Viv said. “Back to the door. With the gloves protecting me, I can use the hammer and a screwdriver to take the hinge pins off.”

“Excellent.”

But none of them had said that word.

“Who . . .” Derrick peered up.

From the ceiling, the voice continued, “Really, I’m impressed.”

4

Amanda’s heart lurched.

“Jesus,” Ray said.

Everyone jerked toward the side of the kitchen and gaped above them.

“I never expected you to demonstrate your problem-solving talents so quickly.” The voice belonged to a man. It was deep, sonorous, like a TV announcer’s. Amanda recognized it from the recording that had wakened her.

“A speaker hidden in the ceiling,” Bethany said.

“But how did he know what we ...” Ray studied the upper corners of the room. His eyes narrowed. “Cameras. They’re small, but once you know what you’re seeing . . . ”

Amanda concentrated and saw tiny apertures in each corner, near the ceiling. She went through the archway into the dining room and frowned upward. “Cameras here also.” Something seemed to turn over in her stomach. “The house must be lousy with them.”

“Welcome to Scavenger,” the voice announced.

“Scavenger?” Derrick asked. “What’s
that
supposed to mean?”

“Please, go into the dining room and make yourselves comfortable. I’ll explain.”

“To hell with
that
.” Viv grabbed the hammer and screwdriver from the drawer. Still protected by the gloves, she rammed the screwdriver under a hinge pin in the kitchen door and whacked the hammer against it. As metal rang, she knocked the pin free.

“Please, go into the dining room,” the voice repeated.

Viv knocked another pin free. She started on the third.

“This isn’t productive. You have only forty hours,” the voice said. “Don’t waste time, Vivian.”

“I’m Viv! Nobody calls me ‘Vivian’! I hate it!”