Текст книги "Trojan Odyssey"

Автор книги: Clive Cussler

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Текущая страница: 28 (всего у книги 30 страниц)

45

The layer of black haze began to merge with a bright white glow. The stars that had soared inside his head faded to a scant few as Dirk slowly returned to consciousness. He felt cold from the damp. Stunned by a sea of pain inside his head, he rose up on his elbows and looked around him.

He found himself in a small rectangular room, no more than five by three feet. The ceiling, floor and three walls were solid concrete. The fourth wall was filled by a rusty iron door. There was no handle on the inside. A small window no larger than a pie plate was embedded in the roof of his cell. Light filtered through it and dimly lit his tiny gray world. There was no bunk or blanket, only a hole in the floor for sanitation.

He never experienced a hangover to match the throb inside his head. There was a knot above the left ear that felt as big as a computer mouse. Rising to his feet was a major effort. If nothing else but to satisfy his curiosity, he pushed on the door. He might as well have tried to knock over an oak tree. All he wore when he went to sleep on the boat were a pair of shorts and a T-shirt. Looking down, he saw that his shirt and shorts were gone and he was wearing a white silk bathrobe. It seemed so out of place with his surroundings that he could not begin to imagine its significance.

Then his thoughts turned to Summer. What had happened to her? Where was she? He could remember nothing except watching a half-moon rise over the sea before falling asleep on the boat. The ache in his head began to subside slightly. He came to realize that someone must have clubbed him on the head, then carried him ashore and put him in this cell. But what of Summer. What had happened to her? Desperation began to seep into his mind. His situation looked hopeless. He could do nothing trapped in a concrete box. Escape seemed impossible.

It was sometime late in the afternoon when Dirk heard a sound outside his cell. There came the click of a lock turning and the door swung outward. A woman with blond hair, blue eyes and wearing a green jumpsuit stood with a large automatic pistol in her hand, aimed squarely at his chest.

"You will come with me," she said softly, without the slightest harsh quality.

In another setting Dirk would have found her quite attractive, but here, she seemed as nasty as the Wicked Witch of the West. "Where to?" he asked.

She prodded him in the back with the muzzle of her gun without replying. He was marched down a long corridor past several iron doors. Dirk wondered if Summer was behind one of them. They came to a stairway at the end and he began climbing without being told. At the top, they passed through a door into a marble-floored entry with walls embedded with millions of pieces of mosaic gold tile. The chairs were covered in lavender-dyed leather and the tables with inlaid lavender-stained wood. He thought it gaudy and overdone.

The female guard escorted him to a huge pair of gold-gilded doors, knocked and then stood aside as they were opened from within. She motioned for him to enter.

Dirk was stunned at the sight of four beautiful women with flowing red hair in lavender and gold gowns sitting around a long conference table carved from a solid block of red coral. Summer was also sitting at the table, but attired in a white gown. He rushed over to her and grasped her by the shoulders.

"Are you all right?"

She turned slowly and looked up at him as if in a trance. "All right? Yes, I'm all right."

He could see that she was heavily drugged. "What have they done to you?"

"Please sit down, Mr. Pitt," ordered the woman seated at the head of the table, who was attired in a gold gown. When she spoke, her voice was quiet and musical, but touched with arrogance.

Dirk sensed a movement behind him. The guard had withdrawn from the room and closed the door. For a brief instant, he thought that even though the women outnumbered him, he could do enough damage to incapacitate them and make a run for it with Summer, but he could see that she was so heavily sedated that she couldn't run anywhere. He slowly pulled out a chair at the opposite end of the table and sat down. "Can I inquire as to your intentions regarding my sister and me?"

"You may," said the woman obviously in charge. Then she ignored him and turned to the woman on her right. "You searched their boat?"

"Yes, Epona. We found dive gear and underwater detection equipment."

"I apologize for any intrusion," said Dirk, "but we thought the island was deserted."

Epona stared at him, her eyes hard and cold. "We have ways of dealing with trespassers."

"We were on an archaeological expedition to find ancient shipwrecks. Nothing more."

She glanced at Summer, then back to Dirk. "We know what you were searching for. Your sister was most cooperative in providing us with a full report."

"After you drugged her," said Dirk, maddened within an inch of coming across the table after the woman.

It was as if she read his mind. "Do not think of resisting, Mr. Pitt. My guards will respond in an instant."

Dirk forced himself to relax and act indifferent. "So what did Summer tell you?"

"That you and she work for the National Underwater and Marine Agency and that you were here looking for Odysseus' lost fleet that Homer described as being sunk by the Laestrygonians."

"You have read Homer."

"I live and breathe Homer the Celt, not Homer the Greek."

"Then you know the true story of Troy and of Odysseus' voyage across the ocean."

"The reason my sisters and I are here. Ten years ago, through long years of research, we concluded that it was the Celts and not the Greeks who fought the Trojans, and not for the love of Helen but the tin deposits in Cornwall to make bronze. Like you, we retraced Odysseus' wake across the Atlantic. You might be interested in learning that his fleet was not destroyed by huge rocks thrown by the Laestrygonians, but was destroyed by a hurricane."

"And the treasure from his lost fleet?"

"Salvaged eight years ago and used to build our Odyssey financial empire."

Dirk sat quite still, but his hands were trembling out of sight under the table. A warning light blinked on inside his head. These women might allow Summer to live, but he doubted they would let him see another sunrise. "May I ask what the treasure consisted of?"

Epona shrugged. "I see no reason to conceal the results. There is no mystery to our achievement. Our salvage teams recovered over two tons of golden objects, plates, sculptures and other decorative Celtic objects. They were masters of intricate metalworking. These, along with thousands of other ancient artifacts, we sold on the open market around the world, netting just over seven hundred million dollars."

"Wasn't that risky?" asked Dirk. "The French, who own Guadeloupe, the Greeks and the nations of Europe that were once ruled by the Celts, didn't they step in and demand ownership of the treasures?"

"The secret was well-kept. All the buyers of the artifacts wished to remain anonymous and all the transactions were discreetly completed, including the gold, which was placed in depositories in China."

"You mean the People's Republic of China, of course."

"Of course."

"What about the salvage operators and their divers? They would have expected a share of the spoils, and keeping them quiet would not have been easy."

"They received nothing," said Epona, with a sardonic inflection, "and the secret died with them."

The innuendo was not lost on Dirk. "You murdered them?" He said it as if it was a fact rather than an assumption.

"Let's simply say, they joined Odysseus' crews who were lost," she hesitated and then smiled enigmatically. "Nobody who ever came to this island lived to tell of it. Even tourists who anchored their boat in the harbor or simple fishermen who became too curious. They could not tell what they have seen."

"So far I haven't seen anything worth dying for."

"And you won't."

Dirk felt a moment of uneasiness. "Why the fiendishness? Why murder innocent people? Where are you sociopaths coming from, and what do you hope to accomplish?"

There was just the slightest edge of anger in Epona's voice. "You are quite correct, Mr. Pitt. My sisters and I are all sociopaths. We conduct our lives and our fortunes without emotion. That is why we have come so far and accomplished so much in such a few short years. If left to their own devices, sociopaths could rule the world. They are not possessed by morality, nor influenced or hindered by ethics. Complete absence of sentiment makes it easier to achieve their goals. Sociopaths enjoy the highest level of genius and nothing else matters. Yes, Mr. Pitt, I am a sociopath and so is our sisterhood of goddesses."

"The sisterhood of goddesses," Dirk repeated very slowly, accenting each word. "So you have elevated yourselves to deities. Being mortal isn't good enough for you."

"The great leaders of the past were all sociopaths and a few came very close to ruling the world."

"Like Hitler, Stalin, Attila the Hun and Napoleon. The mental institutions are overflowing with inmates who have dreams of grandeur."

"They all failed because they overestimated their power. We do not intend to make that mistake."

Dirk looked around the table at the beautiful women. It did not go unnoticed that his sister's red hair matched theirs as well. "Despite the fact you have the same hair color, you can't all be blood siblings."

"No, we are not actually related."

"When you say we,who do you include?"

"The women of the sisterhood. We,Mr. Pitt, are of the Druid religion. We follow the long-lost teachings of the Celtic Druids handed down through the centuries."

"The ancient Druids were more myth than fact."

Irritation flickered at the corners of Epona's lips. "They have existed for five thousand years."

"They're only the stuff of which legends are made. No records of their religion and rituals existed until one hundred years before Christ."

"No written records, but their knowledge and spheres of power were handed down by word of mouth through hundreds of generations. The Druids originated in the ancient Celtic tribes. Circled around the campfires at night, they offered their people dreams of happiness amid the day-to-day toil to stay alive. They conceived their mysticism, philosophy and perception. They became gifted at creating a religion that inspired and enlightened the Celtic world. They acted as doctors, magicians, seers, mystics, advisors and, perhaps most important, they became teachers who aroused a desire for learning. Because of them, a higher intelligence began to spread throughout the Western world. To become a Druid, young men and women studied up to twenty years until they became walking encyclopedias. Diogenes the Greek said the Druids were the world's wisest philosophers. Many Druids were women who became goddesses and were worshiped throughout Celtic culture."

Dirk shrugged. "Druidism was a pathetic illusion. It was also evil. They held human sacrifice then, and today you conduct murder and go about your business as if the people you killed never existed. Druidism died centuries ago and you won't accept it."

"Like most men, you have stone for a brain. Druidism, though ancient in concept, is as relevant and alive today as it was five thousand years ago. What you don't realize, Mr. Pitt, is that we are experiencing a Renaissance. Because Druidism has a timeless wisdom and is spiritual and charismatic, it has been reborn around the world."

"Does it still include human sacrifice?"

"If the ritual calls for it."

Dirk was repulsed by the thought that these women could actually believe in and take part in religious sacrifice as an excuse for murder. He began to see that if he couldn't take Summer and flee the island, the same fate was likely in store for them. He stared at the polished surface of the table, composing himself, and noted there was a long metal curtain rod that would make a good weapon.

Epona paused. "By adhering to the principles of Druidism, my sisters and I have helped raised a formidable business that reaches around the world in real estate, construction and development, fields that men traditionally dominate, but we found that collectively we could outsmart them at every turn. Yes, we built an empire, one so powerful that soon we will control the economy of most of the Western world through our development of fuel cell technology."

"Technology can be duplicated in time. No one, not even your empire, can hold a monopoly for long. There are too many great scientific minds and the money to back them to improve your model."

Epona spoke equably. "They have all been left at the starting gate. Once our operation is up and running, it will be too late."

"I'm afraid I don't know what you're talking about. What operation?"

"Your friends at NUMA know."

Dirk was only half listening. He was intrigued by the fact that none of the other women around the table spoke. They sat there like figures in a wax museum. He studied them to see if they were drugged, but saw no indication. He began to realize that they were under the total spell of Epona. It looked as if they were brainwashed.

"They apparently didn't bother to inform me. I know nothing of this operation you speak of."

"Under my direction, Mr. Specter…" She paused. "Do you know of him?"

"Only what I've read in the newspapers," Dirk lied. "He's some kind of wealthy eccentric, like Howard Hughes."

"Mr. Specter is also the genius behind Odyssey's success. What we have accomplished is due to his superior intelligence."

"I had the impression you were the brains of the outfit."

"My sisters and I carry out Mr. Specter's directives."

A knock came at the door and a woman in the green jumpsuit entered, walked around the table and handed a piece of paper to Epona before leaving the room. Epona studied the message and her expression crumpled from arrogance to horror. She looked as if she had been struck and a hand flew to her mouth. Finally, as though in a daze, she announced in a voice choked with emotion, "This is from our office in Managua. Our Ometepe research center and the tunnels have been destroyed by a collapse of the Concepcion volcano."

The news was received in utter anguish and astonishment. "It's gone, all gone?" asked one of the women in total disbelief.

Epona slowly nodded. "It's been confirmed. The center now lies at the bottom of Lake Nicaragua."

"Was everyone killed?" asked another. "Were there no survivors?"

"The workers were all saved by a fleet of boats around the lake and helicopters from United States Special Forces that attacked our headquarters Our sisters, who heroically defended our headquarters building, were all killed."

Epona rose and moved away from her chair. She took Summer by the arm and pulled her to her feet. Then the two of them walked haltingly toward the door as if one was in a dream and the other a nightmare. Epona turned, the red-contoured lips spread in a leer. Her head tilted toward Dirk a fraction.

"Enjoy your last few hours on Earth, Mr. Pitt."

Then the door opened, the guard walked in and pressed the muzzle of her gun against Dirk's temple as he came to his feet, knocking over the chair, and made a move toward Epona with murder in his eyes. He stopped dead in his tracks, raging with frustration.

"And bid farewell to your sister. You won't be enjoying her company again."

Then she placed her arm around Summer and led her from the room.

46

The sun blazed down on the asphalt outside the private aircraft terminal of the Managua International Airport as Pitt and Giordino stood under a covered patio and watched the NUMA Citation jet land. The pilot took it down to the last turnout and taxied back to the terminal. As soon as the plane came to a halt, the door was opened from the inside and Rudi Gunn stepped to the ground.

"Oh, no," Giordino groaned. "I can smell it in the air. We're not going home."

Gunn did not walk toward them but motioned for them to approach the plane. As they neared, he said, "Climb aboard, we haven't time to spare."

Without comment Pitt and Giordino threw their bags into the cargo compartment. They had no sooner sat down and snapped their seat-belt buckles than the turbines roared and the plane was speeding down the runway and rising into the air.

"Don't tell me," said Giordino dryly, "we're going to spend eternity in Nicaragua."

"Why the rush?" Pitt asked Gunn.

"Dirk and Summer have disappeared," Gunn said without prelude.

"Disappeared," said Pitt, with a sudden flash of apprehension in his eyes. "Where?"

"Guadeloupe. The admiral sent them to an offshore island to search for the remains of Odysseus' fleet of ships thought to be destroyed there during his voyage from Troy."

"Go on."

"Mr. Charles Moreau, who is our representative for that part of the Caribbean, called last night and said that all communication with your son and daughter had ceased. Repeated attempts to contact them proved fruitless."

"Was there a storm?"

Gunn shook his head. "The weather was ideal. Moreau rented a plane and flew over Branwyn Island, where Dirk and Summer were headed. Their boat had vanished and there was no sign of them on or around the island."

Pitt felt as if a great weight was pressing against his chest. The appalling possibility that his children might be injured or dead was barred from his mind. For a moment he was incapable of believing harm had come to them. But then he looked into the face of the usually taciturn Giordino and saw a look of deep concern.

"We're headed there now," Pitt said, as if it was a point of fact.

Gunn nodded. "We'll land at the airport in Guadeloupe. Moreau has arranged for a helicopter to take us directly to Branwyn."

"Any speculation as to what might have happened to them?" asked Giordino.

"All we know is what Moreau has told us."

"What of this island? Are there inhabitants? A fishing village?"

A grave expression spread across Gunn's face. "The island is privately owned."

"By whom?"

"A woman by the name of Epona Eliade."

Surprise showed in Pitt's opaline green eyes. "Epona, yes, of course, it would be her."

"Hiram Yaeger ran an extensive check on her. She's at the top level of Odyssey and is reported to be Specter's right hand." He stopped and gazed at Pitt. "You know her?"

"We met briefly when Al and I rescued the Lowenhardts and snatched Flidais. It looked as though she was high in the Odyssey hierarchy. I understand she wasn't killed during the fighting at Odyssey's research center."

"Apparently she slipped through the net before the center was destroyed. Admiral Sandecker asked the CIA to trace her. One of their agents reported that her private plane was detected by satellite on a landing approach to the airfield on Branwyn Island."

Pitt was holding in his fear with difficulty. Then he said in quiet certainty, with unshakable conviction in his voice, "If Epona is responsible for any harm that might come to Dirk or Summer, she'll never live to collect her retirement pay."

Dusk had turned to dark when the NUMA jet landed in Guadeloupe and taxied to a private hangar. Moreau was standing beside the ground crew as Pitt, Giordino and Gunn exited the plane. He introduced himself and quickly escorted them less than a hundred feet to a waiting helicopter.

"An old Bell JetRanger," said Giordino, admiring the beautifully restored old helicopter. "I haven't seen one of those in a while."

"It's used for tourist sight-seeing," explained Moreau. "It was all I could arrange on short notice."

"She'll do just fine," said Pitt.

He threw his duffel bag inside and entered the craft, moving to the cockpit, where he conversed briefly with the pilot, a man in his early sixties with many thousands of hours in the air in two dozen different types of aircraft. After he lost his wife to cancer and retired as chief pilot on a major airline, Gordy Shepard had come to Guadeloupe and taken a part-time job flying tourists around the islands. His hair was a neatly brushed bush of gray that complemented his black eyes.

"That's a maneuver I haven't attempted in a long time," said Shepard, after hearing Pitt's instructions. "But I think I can handle it for you."

"If not," Pitt said with a taut grin, "my friend and I will hit the water with the force of cannonballs."

Outside, Gunn thanked Moreau and closed the door as the rotor blades began to slowly revolve, increasing their beat until the pilot lifted the craft off the ground.

It took less than fifteen minutes to cover the twenty-seven miles from the airport to the island. At Pitt's request, once they were over water, the pilot flew without lights. Flying above the sea at night was like sitting blindfolded in a closet sealed with duct tape. Using the light beacon on the island as a guide, Shepard flew an unerring straight line for the south shore.

Back in the passenger compartment, Pitt and Giordino opened the duffel bag and put on wet suits and nothing else except hard rubber boots. They carried no scuba gear, fins or masks, only weight belts to compensate for the buoyancy of the neoprene wet suits. The only equipment Pitt took was his satellite phone inside a small waterproof bag tightly belted to his stomach. Then they moved to the rear of the compartment and opened the cargo hatch.

Pitt nodded at Gunn. "Okay, Rudi, I'll call in case we need a quick getaway."

Gunn held up his phone and grinned. "It shall remain glued to my hand until you tell me to evacuate you, Al and the kids off the island."

Though he didn't fully share Gunn's optimism, he was grateful for the show of confidence. He lifted a phone from a vertical base on the bulkhead and called the pilot. "All set back here."

"Stand ready," instructed Shepard. "We'll be coming up over the harbor in three minutes. You sure you've got enough water depth for your dive?"

"Jump," Pitt corrected him. "If you programmed the correct GPS coordinates and stop on them, we should have enough water to cushion us from striking the bottom."

"I'll do my best," acknowledged Shepard. "Then your friend, Mr. Gunn, and I will make it look like we're flying on toward another nearby island before circling back and waiting for your call to come and get you."

"You know the drill."

"I wish you boys luck," Shepard said over the phone, as he closed communications to the passenger compartment. Then he straightened in his seat with both hands and feet on the controls and focused his mind on the maneuver coming up.

The island looked dark, as if it was deserted, the only light was the beacon above its metal frame. Pitt could just vaguely distinguish the faint outline of the buildings and the Stonehenge replica in the middle of the island on a slight rise. It would be a tricky approach, but Shepard seemed as calm as a mobster in a box seat at the Kentucky Derby, knowing the fastest horse was about to throw the race because he paid off the jockey.

Shepard brought the old Bell JetRanger in from the sea right up the center of the channel into the harbor. In the rear, Pitt and Giordino stood poised in the cargo door. The airspeed was nearly a hundred and twenty miles an hour when Shepard's hands and feet danced over the controls and the helicopter stood on its tail and came to an abrupt stop, twisting to starboard and allowing Pitt and Giordino to jump unobstructed through the door into the darkness. Then Shepard pushed the helicopter forward and picked up speed again, banking around the island and heading out to sea. The entire maneuver went off flawlessly. To anyone observing on the island, it hardly looked like the helicopter came to a stop.

Holding their breath, Pitt and Giordino dropped thirty feet before striking the water. Despite their attempts to fall cleanly feet first, the sudden tilt of the helicopter prevented a smooth jump. They found themselves tumbling through the air and doubled up with arms clasped around their knees to prevent smashing into the solid wall of liquid in a flat position that could have badly injured them or at least knocked the wind out of their lungs and rendered them unconscious. The neoprene wet suits absorbed most of the harsh impact, as they struck the surface and plunged nearly ten feet into the deep before losing all momentum.

Feeling like they'd run a gauntlet through sadists beating on them with flat boards, they stroked to the surface just in time to see a pair of searchlights flash on and sweep the water until they found their target and lit up the helicopter like a Christmas tree ornament. Shepard was an old pro who had flown in Vietnam. He anticipated what would happen next. He suddenly dipped the helicopter toward the sea in a steep dive just as a hail of automatic-rifle fire split the night and sprayed the area a good hundred feet behind the tail rotor. Then he spun the aircraft wildly and clawed for altitude. Again the gunfire went wide.

Shepard knew his antics wouldn't keep the wolves from his door much longer, not with the searchlights clinging to him like leeches. Second-guessing the gunmen on the island, he brought the Bell to a quick stop and hovered for a split second. The gunmen, having learned their lesson, led the helicopter and fired at its intended path, but Shepard had conned them again. The trajectory of their fire tore through the air fifty feet in front of the cockpit.

Incredibly, Shepard had gained over half a mile on the gunners and swooped away as the parting shots stitched the fuselage, worked their way toward the cockpit and shattered the windshield. A bullet struck Shepard's arm and passed through his biceps without hitting bone. Gunn had flung himself down and forward and took a small crease on the top of his head that would have removed half his skull if he hadn't ducked.

In the water, Pitt watched with growing relief as the helicopter flew beyond the range of the island's gunners and vanished into the darkness. Not knowing if Gunn or Shepard had been injured, he knew that they could not return as long as concentrated fire swept the skies above the island.

"They can't return until we take out the searchlights," said Giordino, floating on his back as leisurely as if he was in the pool at his condo.

"We'll worry about that little problem after we find out what happened to Dirk and Summer." Pitt stared at the island, his voice firm with the confidence of a man who was gazing at something unseen by others. Then he saw the searchlights lower their beams and begin sweeping over the waters of the harbor.

They dove under, not wasting a breath on warning the other, knowing their instincts were tightly bonded over the years. Pitt rolled over on his back at ten feet and stared up at the surface, seeing the glow of the brilliant light flash over the surface with the brightness of the sun. Only when the lights moved off did they surface and catch a breath. They had been down over a minute, but neither gasped for air, having practiced the art of holding their breath for deep dives without breathing equipment.

When the light beams above danced away, they surfaced, took a breath and dove again. Warily watching the movements of the searchlight and timing its sweep to gain air, they began stroking toward shore that was little more than a hundred yards away. At last the lights blinked out and they could resume swimming on the surface. Ten minutes later their feet touched sand. They rose to their feet, dropped their weight belts and crept into the shadows beneath a bank of rocks, resting for a few moments while appraising the situation.

"Where to?" asked Giordino in a whisper.

"We've landed south of the house and about two hundred yards east of the Stonehenge replica," Pitt replied quietly.

"A folly," said Giordino.

"What?"

"Fake castles and facsimile ancient structures are called follies. Remember?"

"It's burned in my brain," Pitt muttered. "Come on. Let's scout around, find and sabotage the searchlights. It won't do to have them expose us like a pair of rabbits."

It took them another eight minutes to locate the twin searchlights. They almost stumbled on them in the dark. The only thing that saved them from being discovered by the guards manning the lights was their black wet suits, which made them almost invisible in the night. They discerned the outlines of one man lounging on his back in the sand while another peered out to sea with night glasses. Not expecting intruders from their rear creeping onto the raised stand mounting the lights from behind, they were not alert.

Giordino came out of the darkness silently, but the squeak of his rubber-soled boots gave him away and the man with the night glasses spun around in time to see a shadow coming at him out of the night. He grabbed an automatic rifle propped on its butt against the light mount and swung the muzzle toward Giordino. He never pulled the trigger. Pitt had come up from the opposite side five steps ahead of his friend. He snatched the rifle out of the guard's hands and clubbed him over the head with the stock. Then Giordino was on the guard relaxing on the ground, knocking him unconscious with a well-delivered fist to the side of the jaw.

"Doesn't it give you a comfortable feeling to know we're armed?" said Giordino buoyantly, as he disarmed the guards and handed Pitt one of the rifles.

Pitt didn't bother to reply, as he unlatched the lenses of the searchlights, swung them open and lightly, with the slightest of sound, smashed the filaments. "Let's check the house next. Then your folly."

There was no moon, but they took no chances and moved slowly, cautiously, barely seeing the ground beneath their feet. The hard rubber boots protected their feet from the sharp coral that lay between patches of smooth sand. They found a frond under a palm tree and dragged it behind to obscure their footprints. If they couldn't get off the island before daylight, they would have to find a place to hide out until Moreau and Gunn could arrange a rescue.

The house was a large colonial structure with a wide veranda running around the entire building. They crept onto the veranda, moving silently in their rubber-soled boots. A single light could be seen through a crack in the boards over the windows, put there to protect them from the ravages of a hurricane-inspired gale. Pitt moved on his hands and knees to the window and peered through the crack. The room on the other side was bare of furniture. The interior had the look of a house that hadn't been lived in for years.