Текст книги "The Forgotten Room"

Автор книги: Lincoln Child

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Текущая страница: 10 (всего у книги 19 страниц)

29

Kim Mykolos was so busy with a minute examination of what they had begun to call “the Machine” that she did not hear Jeremy Logan enter the forgotten room. When he softly cleared his throat, she swiveled around with a brief, sharp cry, almost dropping the video camera.

“My God!” she said. “You scared me to death!”

“Sorry,” he replied, setting his ubiquitous duffel down on the nearby worktable.

Mykolos peered closely at Logan. His eyes looked a little puffy and red, as if he hadn’t been sleeping well, and his movements weren’t the usual quick, deliberate ones she’d already begun to expect from him. He seemed preoccupied, even anxious – also uncharacteristic. Perhaps he was upset about the events in the dining room that morning; she had not been there to see Dr. Wilcox, but she’d certainly heard about it. If so, it was understandable: the whole place was on edge. But in her brief acquaintance with Logan, she hadn’t pegged him as the excitable type. Quite the opposite – which was a good thing, given his line of work.

“So,” she said, “you got my message?”

He nodded. “What do you have to report?”

She turned back toward the Machine. Since they had first begun analyzing it, Logan had managed to remove several more cover plates, and it now sprouted nearly a dozen devices, large and small, mostly metal, with the occasional piece of rubber hosing or Bakelite knob, all remarkably preserved in the almost-hermetic atmosphere of the room. The process had reminded her of peeling back the layers of an onion – removing each one simply revealed something else. They had not tried turning the device on again since that first examination.

Mykolos switched off the camera and walked around to what she thought of as the business end of the device: the narrow side closest to the hanging metal suits. She pointed toward the two labels, BEAM and FIELD, and to the attendant rows of buttons, meters, and knobs arrayed above each. “Something about those terms, ‘beam’ and ‘field,’ has been bugging me from the beginning,” she said. “As if they were familiar somehow. Then, just last night, it hit me.”

“What did?” Logan asked, moving closer.

“I realized there might be an analogue in computer science.”

Logan’s eyes drifted down toward the bank of controls. “Enlighten me.”

She considered how best to explain. “In an object-oriented programming language like Java or C Sharp, you have – in the simplest of terms – two kinds of variables, local and global.”

Logan nodded for her to continue.

“Local variables have a scope limited to an individual function, embedded within a larger program. When that function is called, the local variable is created on the fly; when the function ends, the local variable ceases to exist. On the other hand, a global variable can be seen by all functions in the program.”

She paused.

“I’m waiting for the punch line,” Logan said after a moment.

“Well, I’m no electrical engineer, but think about it. Beam and field. Local and global.”

“So you’re saying…” Logan frowned, considering. “You’re saying the Machine has two modes of operation?”

“Exactly. A local mode, very specific and sharply directed: a beam. And a broader, more general mode. A field. And I believe I’ve studied these controls enough to test my theory.”

Logan did not reply. He looked from the bank of controls to her and back again.

Mykolos reached down along the side of the housing, where the primary switches were located. She flipped on the power, waited five seconds, then followed it with the load switch. Then she straightened and returned to the main set of controls.

“I’ll start with the beam mode,” she said, “since it would seem to be the more confined of the two.” She could feel the big machine trembling slightly beneath the palms of her hands. She bent over the beam controls, snapped on a toggle switch marked MOTIVATOR, then another marked ENGAGE. And then she moved her hand to the rotary dial, which was inscribed with the numbers 0 to 10. At present, it rested at the zero setting. Slowly, she turned the knob clockwise to the 1 position.

The trembling increased slightly.

She turned the knob to the 2 setting.

The VU meter came to life, its needle jiggling rightward a few degrees, straining like a dog at its leash.

She moved the switch to the 3 setting. A deep, throaty hum began to emerge from the bowels of the Machine.

All at once, two very strange things happened. To Kim, the room seemed to grow abruptly brighter – not from any one particular light source, but from all around, as if God had suddenly turned up the sun. A curious noise, halfway between the buzz of an insect and the drone of a melancholy choir, began to sound in her head…and then she was roughly pushed aside by Logan. With a quick twist of the wrist, he reset the dial to zero. Then he toggled the switches off, bent down beside the device’s flank, and turned off first the load and then the power. And then he rose again and looked at her. There was a strange gleam in his eye that almost frightened her.

“Why…why did you do that?” she asked, recovering her breath.

“I don’t know exactly what the purpose of this device is,” Logan replied, “but I know one thing – it’s dangerous. We can’t just go around messing with knobs and yanking levers without understanding it better.”

“But you brought me in here to analyze and experiment, and how can I—”

“That was before I realized certain things,” he interrupted. “Look, Kim. I have to establish two ground rules.”

She waited.

“First: no experimentation without first clearing it with me.”

“That’s a given. Why do you think I just called you in here?”

“I understand, and I appreciate it. I’m talking about going forward. And the second rule is that, whenever you’re in this room – or even near this room – you need to wear this.” And, rummaging in his duffel, he pulled out something, which he handed to Mykolos.

She took it up curiously. It was an amulet of some kind: a thin hoop made of metal, copper by the look of it, into which a web of finely spun netting had been woven. Set into the web were several items: a few strings of colored beads; a tiny fetish, apparently of bone; and, at the center, half the shell of a miniature nautilus, cut through longitudinally to reveal its spiral of ever-diminishing camerae.

“What is this?” she asked, turning it over in her hands.

“Something of my own invention. It’s a synthesis of several religions and beliefs: the healing beads used by Santería espiritistas; certain African hex wards; the dream catcher of the Lakota.” Picking it up by the leather laces tied to its left and right sides, he placed it around her neck.

“Let me guess,” she said. “A ghost catcher.”

“I wouldn’t put it quite that way,” Logan said in his normal voice. Something – perhaps handling the amulet itself – seemed to have calmed him. “I’d call it the paranormal version of a bulletproof vest. But I suppose that ‘ghost catcher’ is as good a term as any.”

She tied the laces together, tucked it beneath the fabric of her blouse. The amulet was scratchy and uncomfortable, and she looked at him closely, not bothering to keep the speculation out of her expression. “You do realize this is seriously weird.”

“Perhaps. But it’s the product of many years of research into some very arcane arts. It’s kept me safe and sane – more or less, anyway.” He loosened his tie and opened his collar enough to show her he was wearing one, as well. “Tell me something. Do you enjoy working on this little mystery of ours?”

“You know that I do.”

“In that case, consider this amulet the price of the dance.” He looked around. “I’m feeling a little beat. Can we pick this up again tomorrow?”

Mykolos shrugged. “Sure.”

“Thanks. And – thanks for that.” With a forefinger, he pointed at the now-invisible amulet. Then he smiled slightly, turned, and quietly left the room.

30

Logan approached the building – just a few steps off Thames Street – with significant doubts. It was small, almost swallowed up by the surrounding edifices, and painted a dingy green. The lone window was covered by a curtain, and above it was a weather-beaten sign that read JOE’S RESTAURANT.

Joe’s Restaurant? Logan stopped short, giving the place another once-over. There was no menu fixed beside the door; nothing to reassure him that he, in fact, was not about to endure a most disagreeable dining experience.

And then, from around the corner, Pamela Flood came into view. She was dressed simply, in a red-and-white striped blouse and capri pants, and she had a bottle of white wine tucked under one arm. Seeing Logan, she broke into a smile. “Glad you found the place okay.”

He glanced back at the underwhelming facade. “Actually, I wasn’t sure I had.”

Pamela laughed delightedly. “You just wait and see.”

She led the way into a tiny restaurant that held six tables, all but one occupied. Immediately, a middle-aged bearded man in torn dungarees came over. “Miss Flood!” he said. “Nice to see you.”

“Joe,” she said with a smile and a nod, handing him the bottle.

“Your table is ready and waiting.” And the man led them to the lone empty table and helped them into their seats.

Logan looked around. The small space was sparsely furnished, with nothing but a few prize fish mounted on the walls. The other diners were obviously local; there wasn’t a tourist in sight. No surprise there, he thought.

He realized that Pamela was speaking to him. He stopped his survey of the restaurant and looked back at her. “I’m sorry?”

“I was just saying you look a little weary,” she said. “And distracted.”

“Sorry about that. Long day.”

The man named Joe came back and poured them both glasses of Pam’s bottle of Pouilly-Fumé. Then he took a step back and looked from one to the other expectantly.

“Know what you want?” Pam asked him.

“But I haven’t seen the menu yet,” Logan replied.

She laughed again. “There’s no menu at Joe’s.”

Seeing Logan’s confusion, Joe waded in. “Only thing on the menu is fish,” he said. “Caught local today, prepared to your specification.”

“I see,” Logan said. “What kind of fish, exactly?”

Joe looked skyward, assembling a mental list. “Black sea bass, cusk, fluke, haddock, mackerel, halibut, pollack, shad—”

“Okay,” Logan interrupted lightly, chuckling. The headache that had been gathering around his temples all day seemed to be receding. He gestured toward Pam. “After you.”

“Fillet of haddock, please, Joe,” she said immediately. “Poached in a court bouillon.”

“Very good.” Joe turned back to Logan.

“You did say, prepared to my specification?” Logan asked.

“Broiled, grilled, steamed, seared, sautéed, fried, baked, blackened, breaded, meunière, bonne femme, Provençal.” The man shrugged as if this was just the tip of the iceberg.

“I’ll try the sea bass,” Logan said. “Grilled.”

“Thank you.” And Joe turned away.

“Interesting place,” Logan said. He took a sip of the wine, found it excellent.

“Best seafood in New England,” Pam replied. “But you won’t find it in any guidebook or Internet dining site. We Newporters keep it to ourselves.”

Logan took another sip of wine. “Speaking of Newport, what projects are you working on at present?”

Pam didn’t need any further encouragement. Immediately, she began describing not only the project she was currently engaged in – the conversion of a Thames Street cannery into condominiums – but also her dreams for a large-scale waterfront renovation that would balance the needs of local inhabitants, tourists, commerce, and the fishing industry. It was an ambitious and interesting plan, and as Logan listened the last vestiges of his headache melted away. Their fish arrived – Logan sampled his sea bass, decided it was perfectly prepared – and the talk shifted to himself and how he had fallen into the odd, self-developed profession of enigmalogist. Pam was not only a good talker but a good listener; she laughed easily, and her laugh was infectious; and it wasn’t until Joe had taken away their plates (no desserts offered) and brought cups of fresh coffee that Logan realized they had finished their dinner without ever bringing up the subject that had supposedly brought them together this evening.

“Well?” he said, lifting his coffee cup.

“Well what?”

“Now I know all about you, and you know all about me. And I’m all ears.”

“Oh. Yes.” Pam smiled a little impishly. “I did some digging around this morning through my great-grandfather’s papers.”

“And?”

“And I found some references to your secret room.”

Logan put down his cup. “You did?”

Pam nodded. “It was added to the mansion at the request of Edward Delaveaux. Not only that, but Delaveaux was very specific. He had precise measurements, building materials, and even the location within the main massing of the West Wing.”

“Any explanation as to why, or what it was to be used for?”

“No. It seems my great-grandfather asked, but was never told. But then, Delaveaux was famously eccentric. You know about his mini Stonehenge, of course.”

Logan nodded. “Any additional architectural plans for the room? Specific blueprints or elevations that might shed more light on things?”

“No, just some rough sketches. But here’s the thing.” And she leaned forward conspiratorially. “I think I know how to get in.”

“What? You mean, how to access it?”

She nodded.

“How?”

Pam hesitated. “I can’t tell you that.”

“Can’t? Or won’t?”

Another hesitation. “Well, maybe a little of both. But in order to show you how to get in, I’m going to have to come out to Lux and do it in person.”

“Oh, no. Sorry, but that’s out of the question.”

Pam looked at him searchingly. “Why?”

“Lux is famously reclusive. They’re not going to want an outsider looking into this – especially at such a delicate time.”

“But I’m not an outsider. I consulted extensively with Strachey on the redesign.”

“That’s the problem right there. Strachey – and what happened to him.”

The table went silent for a moment. Pam poured cream into her coffee, stirred. “I’m not being coy here,” she said. “I don’t know enough to tell you how to do it. Some of my great-grandfather’s notes on the room’s construction are a little confusing. I need to see it with my own eyes in order for those notes to make sense.”

“Olafson’s not going to want to okay this. He made a big enough fuss when I asked for an assistant.”

“Just tug on your forelock and look put out. Like you’re doing right now. It’s quite becoming. I’m sure it’ll do the trick.”

Logan paused, realized he was in fact playing with a lock of hair, and immediately let go. Pam giggled.

He shook his head. He couldn’t help but admire this woman’s intelligence and tenacity – not to mention attractiveness.

“Okay,” he said. “No promises. But I’ll give it a shot.”

And when they parted outside the restaurant, he kissed her good night.

31

It was a few minutes after nine the following evening when a figure flitted across the moon-washed greensward that led down from Lux to the ocean. Reaching the deeper shadow of the mansion itself, the figure kept to the darkness of the bushes as it made its way along the rear facade to a small door with a single light beside it. The figure paused a moment, then rapped quietly on the door.

It was opened immediately by Jeremy Logan, who stepped out into the darkness and closed it behind him.

The figure – Pamela Flood – came closer. She held a small leather briefcase in one hand. “Okay. I followed your instructions. Now I feel like an actor in a bad spy film. Just what was it you wouldn’t tell me over the phone?”

“Just this. After thinking about it some more, I realized Olafson would either say no to your presence here, or else announce that he’d have to take it up with the board.”

“I told you, he knows I worked with Strachey. What’s the problem?”

“I didn’t mention it at dinner last night, but there’s been another incident.”

“Incident?”

“Never mind the details, but everyone’s on edge. And Olafson’s a company man. We need to move forward, and I don’t want to waste time wresting permission out of him.”

“They’ll have a record of my passing the security gate. They’ll know I didn’t come in by the main entrance.”

“Only if they compare both sets of records. You’re here on my authorization – if anyone asks, I’ll say we were looking over some blueprints.” Logan opened the door. “Let’s go. If we pass anybody, try to look as if you belong here.”

“Easier said than done.”

Logan led the way down a narrow hallway, around a corner, along a dimly lit gallery, and into the central first-floor corridor. They made their way westward, Pamela clutching her briefcase.

A door opened in the corridor and somebody emerged – Terence McCarty, the linguist who’d told Logan he’d heard voices urging him to walk into the sea. He looked from Logan to Pamela and back again, a puzzled frown coming over his face. But Logan just nodded and continued walking down the passage. He could sense McCarty’s eyes on his back. After a moment, he heard the man’s footsteps, muffled by the carpeting, moving away in the other direction.

After what seemed an eternity, they reached the decorative doors at the end of the corridor. Logan stopped and looked back over his shoulder with what he hoped was a casual gesture. The long hallway was empty. Quickly, he unlocked the doors, ushered Pamela past the velvet ropes and through the doorway into the vestibule beyond.

When Logan closed the doors behind them, darkness immediately descended. He pulled two small flashlights from his pocket, turned one on, and offered the other to Pamela. “Be careful,” he said. “There’s stuff everywhere.”

“I’m an architect, remember? I’m used to construction sites.”

Carefully, Logan led the way down rubble-strewn passages and half-finished chambers to the staircase. Ascending it, he continued along the dim, tunnel-like lateral corridor A. Ahead, a faint glow was now visible.

Logan stopped at the tarp wall with the warning placard. Strong yellow light came through the tear in the rough material.

“Remember,” he said. “You aren’t to speak of this to anyone.”

“Cross my heart.”

Raising the tarp, Logan ushered her through the rude doorway and into the secret room. Kim was there, standing on the far side of the Machine. She looked at them.

“This is Kim Mykolos,” Logan told Pamela. “She was Dr. Strachey’s assistant.”

“We’ve met,” Kim said.

“I’ve told Kim why you’re here,” Logan went on. But Pamela had already stepped inside and was looking around.

“My God,” she murmured after a moment. “What is all this?”

“That’s our problem,” Logan said. “Yours is to find the front door.”

“Right. Right.” She looked around for another moment, as if unable to tear herself away from the bizarre sight. Then she stepped toward the worktable, put her briefcase on it, opened it, and removed some paperwork: old letters, diagrams, and what looked to Logan like a few pencil sketches. Picking up each sheet in turn, Pamela studied it a moment, then glanced around the room, as if to orient herself. The process took about five minutes. Kim looked on silently, arms crossed, an unreadable expression on her face.

Finally, putting the last sheet back on the worktable, Pamela gave the room another careful scrutiny: walls, ceiling, floor, furnishings, equipment. As she did so, a smile slowly formed on her face.

She turned back to her briefcase, pulled out a notepad and a pencil. “We need to go upstairs,” she said, picking up one of the papers.

“Why?” Logan asked, surprised.

“Light the way for me, will you? I won’t have a free hand.” And she pulled something else out of her briefcase: a small device, encased in a protective housing of bright yellow rubber, with a small backlit display and half a dozen buttons.

“What’s that?” Logan asked.

“Laser distance measurer.” And, holding it up, Pamela gestured in the direction of the improvised doorway.

The three made their way along the unfinished hallway, heading in the direction of the staircase. They made slow progress, Pamela stopping several times to measure distances with the handheld device and make notations on her pad. Reaching the staircase at last, they ascended to the third floor. Logan had not been here before and he shone his flashlight around in curiosity. The crews had not yet reached here – at least, the part of the floor not devoted to Delaveaux’s disquieting henge of standing stones – and it was more or less intact. There was no furniture or equipment of any kind – it had obviously been removed in preparation for the renovation – and the old, richly textured wallpaper was frequently defaced by scrawled notations in white marker, no doubt indicating where demolition would take place.

Their progress was even slower here, as Pamela took frequent readings with the measuring device and labored over her notepad. Glancing at the pad, Logan saw that the architect had made remarkably careful sketches of both the second and third floor, and that she now seemed at pains to accurately overlay the third floor onto the second. Kim watched the proceedings from a few paces back. She had not said a word, and Logan sensed – for what reason he did not know – that there was some tension between the two women.

They had made their way across a landing, down a short passage, through two large chambers stripped of all furnishings, and into a larger hallway, before Pamela finally came to a stop. “There,” she said, pointing to a door on the right.

Logan tried it. The door was locked.

A moment of consternation passed before he thought to try the key that unlocked the main doors to the West Wing. It turned in the lock, and he opened the door.

Beyond, the shadow of his flashlight revealed what had once evidently been a storeroom. There were no windows, since the room was situated well within the massing of the wing, and a few old boxes sat in a far corner, covered in dust. In the very center of the room – bizarrely – stood one of the large, marble Solomonic columns, with the familiar corkscrew pattern, that were an omnipresent feature in the architecture of Lux. It must, Logan realized, be a load-bearing structure, and tucking it away within a storage room was as good a way as any of concealing it.

Now Pamela slipped the notepad and distance measurer into a pocket, removed her flashlight, and approached the column. She examined it closely, then placed both hands on it, pressing here, feeling there. After several moments, there was an audible click.

Pamela turned toward Logan. “Your front door.”

He looked at her in confusion. “What are you talking about?”

“Ecce signum.” And, raising her hands toward the column again, she opened it the same way someone might open an armoire.

“Tu es mira,” Logan murmured in turn, shining his flashlight toward the column in astonishment.

It was not – as he’d expected – a load-bearing member that stretched from foundation to roof. Nor was it made of marble. Instead, it appeared to be of metal, its exterior painted to resemble marble. Its two curved, full-height doors, hinges cleverly disguised, opened onto a hollow vertical cylinder with a round floor and a large wheel, such as one might find on the hatch of a naval vessel, set into the rear wall.

Pamela broke the moment of paralysis by stepping inside, shining her flashlight around, then motioning for the other two to approach.

Logan did so, stepping a little gingerly into the hollow column. A moment later, Kim did the same. There was barely room for all three.

Grasping small metal knobs on the insides of the two curved doors, Pamela pulled them tightly shut. The space became a closed cylinder again. Then she undogged a retaining bolt on the winch and gave it a turn.

An odd feeling came over Logan. And then he realized what was happening: the “column” was descending through the floor in a gentle, spiral motion.

“It operates by weight,” Pamela explained.

Sixty seconds later, their descent was stopped by a gentle bump. Pamela opened the doors again to reveal the brilliant white light of the forgotten room. She stepped out, Logan and Kim following.

The column had come to rest in the empty section of the room between the Machine and the back wall, close to where roman numerals had been etched into the floor. Pamela shut the doors again and pressed an almost invisible button on the column’s flank. It began to ascend again, spiraling back up into the ceiling. Watching it, Logan realized that, in this case, the spiral design of the column was not just decorative; it operated in the manner of a corkscrew, working its way back up into the third-floor storeroom. When it stopped, it was flush with the ceiling: reduced to nothing more than the round disc with decorative chasing that Logan had always assumed covered a hole left over from a previously installed chandelier.

He stared at the ceiling for a minute. Then he turned to Pamela. “You must have known about this in advance,” he said. “You can’t have figured it all out just now.”

Pamela laughed. “You’re right.”

“Well, then why the hell didn’t you say something?”

“Because I wasn’t sure. I came across plans for just such a device among my great-grandfather’s papers. But they weren’t filed with the Dark Gables documents, so I had no way of knowing whether or not it was Delaveaux who implemented them. That’s why I needed to see this wing – and this room – to be sure.”

“So how do we bring it back down again?” Kim asked.

“I don’t know,” Pamela told her. “No doubt there’s a retractor, hidden away somewhere around here, probably spring-loaded as it winds down into the room.”

Logan looked back again at the ceiling. He shook his head. To think that the answer had been there, all this time, literally right above their heads. Just another puzzle of the forgotten room.

“Amazing,” he said. “Thank you. Pam, you’ve just earned yourself the best dinner in Newport.”

“We already had the best dinner,” she replied. “Joe’s, remember?”

“The most expensive dinner, then.” And he squeezed her hand. Kim, he noted, was watching them silently.

“Come on,” he told Pamela, motioning toward her briefcase. “Get your things together and I’ll see you to your car.”