“Fair enough.” Mike snapped his computer shut with a mischievous glint in his eyes. “I know just the place.”
***
The Branding Iron Steak House hurt my eyes. Located in a touristy part of London, it had more neon lights than the Vegas strip. Most of them were in the shape of saddles, boots, and horses. I could hear tinny piano music blaring through the closed doors. “What is this place?” I asked.
“A little bit of Americana in England,” Mike answered.
We pushed through a pair of swinging doors and found a large room styled like a tavern from the Wild West. A long bar ran across one side, complete with a high cabinet filled with glasses. The walls were decorated with ropes and wagon wheels and the long, curving horns of Texas steers. A bulletin board in the doorway held pictures of every customer who managed to consume and hold down a five pound steak.
When a waiter flurried past, wearing jeans, a vest, and a holster, I smirked. “We’d better sit down before someone mistakes Mike for the help.”
“A table for four?” asked the hostess. She counted out menus and led us to a table at the edge of a wooden dance floor. “Enjoy your meal.”
“Line dancing and Karaoke start at six,” Mike told us, rubbing his hands together in anticipation.
“Oh, no. We are so not doing that,” I insisted.
Elena was eyeing the place with interest. “Oh, come on, Taylor. It could be fun.”
“Are you crazy?” I asked. “Remember the Michael Jackson moves?”
“No one knows us here,” she shrugged. “Besides, this was your idea.”
“My idea?”
She grinned. “You wanted American.”
Ranofur sat down in a chair that creaked ominously beneath him. “We can’t do any surveillance till after dark. Might as well stay and enjoy ourselves.”
I dropped my head into my hands with a groan. I was outnumbered.
“Howdy, folks,” a waitress addressed us. Her British accent gave the phrase a whole new twist. “Can I getcha somethin’ to wet yer whistle?”
“I’ll take a Coke,” I said. Elena and Ranofur ordered the same.
“I’d like an ice water on the rocks with a slice of lemon,” Mike added.
The waitress raised her eyebrows and looked Mike up and down. “Livin’ on the wild side?” She winked. “Be right back with those.”
When she returned, she nodded toward my sleeve. “What happened? You get in a knife fight?”
I grimaced. “Something like that.”
We placed our orders and she hustled away to the kitchen. As we waited for our food, the tinny piano music changed to current country western hits. A pair of young women turned out on the floor and began performing a synchronized dance routine.
“I still can’t get over it,” Mike said, almost to himself. “I was certain Swain would have been taken for a pirate. Or maybe for a slaver, though that wasn’t made a capital offense till the 1820s.”
“Hold on a minute. Back up the train,” Elena said, giving Mike her full attention. “Swain was a slaver?”
Mike looked up in surprise, like he didn’t realize he had spoken out loud. “Mere speculation, but it suits his personality. And I find it coincidental that his company changed their image so soon after England outlawed the slave trade in 1807.”
“In that case, Morgen’s was well-named.” Elena spat. Her eyes flashed, and her lips pulled back from her teeth in a snarl. Even in her most biting moments I’d never heard such an edge of bitterness in her voice. “Swain couldn’t have picked a more appropriate mascot of death. I wonder if my grandmother’s people were on his ships.”
I had forgotten that part of her heritage. She had become just Elena—with all her attitude and that something that made her likeable anyway—not a list of nationalities.
“What are you looking at?” she asked directing all her venom at me. “Do you know, Davis, you are the only person I’ve ever seen order a hot dog at a steakhouse?”
Did I say likeable?
“It was a chili dog,” I protested, “and it was on the menu.”
“It’s just plain wrong.”
I sighed. Our food came. The chili dog was awesome.
Mike leaned back with a contented burp and pushed his empty plate away. “Now, my friends, it’s time to do a little boot scootin’.” He tugged his battered hat low over his forehead and headed for the dance floor with what I think was supposed to be a jaunty swagger. Things got worse from there.
Karaoke had already started. As a new singer took the stage, my guardian angel joined a handful of dancers queuing up on the floor and jumped right in. One thing about Mike, he isn’t shy. And he was easy to pick out in his bright costume. Red boots stomping, purple jeans flashing, and tassels flying, he was like a parrot in a cage full of sparrows.
Like a parrot assaulting a cage full of sparrows.
When the dancers slid left, Mike jumped backwards. When the line moved forward, Mike spun in a circle. He whooped and hollered and threw in so many extra loose-kneed steps, I think some folks figured he was paid entertainment. By the time the song ended, he had the whole crowd cheering for him.
As Ranofur looked on, calmly chewing the last few bites of his steak, I hid my face in my hands. “That is something I hope I never have to witness again.”
Elena raised her eyebrows. “Think you can do better?”
“I don’t even know what he did.”
“Let me guess,” she drawled, “they don’t dance in Jersey?”
“Not like that.”
She grabbed me by my good arm and dragged me onto the floor. “We do in Montana.”
I found myself deposited into the middle of a moving, twisting block of humanity. “Just do what everyone else does,” she instructed. I tried. I really did, but about the time I figured out the steps, the song was done. Elena was a natural, of course—fluid and graceful. I’m afraid I made Mike look good.
“Just try one more,” she pleaded as I tried to exit. She was really into this stuff.
I looked up, up—those boots gave her two extra inches—into her brown eyes. I was such a sucker. “All right, one more,” I sighed.
I danced four more. It was even kind of fun. But when Mike got behind the microphone and started belting out Terri Clark’s “Easy on the Eyes,” I put my foot down. “That’s it. We’re out of here.” I approached the table. “Ranofur, can you do something about this?”
When Mike wailed to a halt, Ranofur collected him by the scruff of the neck and directed him offstage. To my eternal relief, darkness had fallen outside.
It didn’t take us long to reach Swain’s building. Ivy Intrepid could have been a printer or a dentist’s office. It was an obscure, one-story structure with a tiny sign out front that gave no indication whatsoever as to the nature of the business. We drove past, turned around, and parked a block away. Ranofur fished in his jacket and pulled out a pair of field glasses.
I sat forward eagerly in my seat. “What do you see?”
“Nothing yet,” he told me. “Sit back and relax. Reconnaissance takes patience.” He handed me a book of Sudoku. I held it up to the gleam of a streetlight. “What’s this?”
“Fit the digits one through nine into every row and column without repeating any of them.”
“But that will take forever,” I protested.
He smiled meaningfully.
“Ah, right,” I said.
After an hour and a half, Ranofur judged the coast was clear. “There’s no one coming or going,” he announced. “Let’s take a closer look.”
He started the car and parked behind the office. The alley was dark and creepy, every window a hollow, staring eye. I double-checked the makeup case in my pocket.
“This is where we enter,” Ranofur whispered. He fished out his pick and attempted to jimmy the lock. After a few minutes, he shook his head. “It’s no good. It must have a deadbolt. Mike and I will go in and open it up.”
Before we could protes
t, the two angels had disappeared through the wall of the building. “That is so cool!” I blurted out.
“Shh!” Elena scolded with a glance around the alley. We stepped further back into the shadows. I pulled my arms inside my sweatshirt and rocked back and forth in an effort to stay warm.
“What’s taking them so long?” Elena muttered after three or four minutes.
The door popped open and Ranofur waved us inside. “Sorry,” he whispered. “This place is equipped with a top-of-the-line alarm system. It took Mike a few minutes to figure out how to shut it down. Seems like Swain doesn’t want any unauthorized visitors.”
We found ourselves in an employee lounge in the back of the building. Mike swung a flashlight in a low arc. A fridge and microwave hunkered together in one corner, beside a sink holding a selection of dirty coffee mugs. Against the outside wall slouched a beater couch, one end of which was littered with magazines and old newspapers. Three vinyl chairs with most of their stuffing ripped out hid beneath an antique metal table overflowing with cigarette butts.
“Nice place,” Elena said. “Looks like Swain’s interior decorator hit some garage sales on the way over.”
The décor improved somewhat as we passed into a hallway of offices. I continued on to the public end of the building. Light filtering in through the windows showed fake plants, industrial carpeting, and indestructible furniture. It looked identical to a hundred other lobbies I’d been in, but it gave no clues to the company’s products or services.
“What do they do here?” I wondered out loud.
Mike was picking through a stack of papers on the receptionist’s desk. “Looks like Ivy Intrepid handles internet sales of edgy marine products. Personal underwater propulsion devices, underwater video cameras, underwater communication systems, that type of thing.” He tossed a product magazine my way.
I flipped through it. “That’s all? I thought Swain would be more diabolical than this.”
Ranofur emerged from one of the offices. “I’m finding the same,” he said. “Product lists, receipts, sales logs, customer information. I also found a line of geological products: metal detectors, seismographic indicators, even mining equipment. It appears Swain has a strong interest in water and land.”
“It’s a front for his real activities,” Mike insisted. “It has to be. Why would he care about this stuff?” He snatched away the magazine and tossed it back on the desk.
“Let’s split up,” Elena suggested. “Each of us take a room. We’ll scour this place from top to bottom. Look for secret drawers, hidden ledgers, anything out of the ordinary.”
“But be careful not to let your light show through the windows,” Ranofur cautioned as he handed Elena and me each a flashlight. “And leave no trace. We don’t want Swain to know we’ve been here.”
I entered the office next to the lounge and drew the blinds. Then, with careful precision, I removed the contents from each desk drawer and stacked it in piles. I ran my hands along the insides of each drawer. I pulled the drawers out and checked inside the desk. Then I sifted carefully through the contents.
“Hey!” I exclaimed, examining a memo printed on company letterhead. “I’ve seen this logo before.” I brought it out to show the others. “Do you guys recognize this?” I asked, pointing to a triangle with a dolphin inside.
“Sure,” Elena answered. “It’s the same symbol that was carved on the crypt in Luxet.”
Mike snapped his fingers. “You’re right! I wonder what it means.”
Elena shrugged. “A dolphin for the nautical half of the business, a triangle for the geological?”
“It means that the same fellow who started this company purchased grave markers for his parents,” Ranofur said. “We already knew that.”
We stared at the logo under the wavering yellow beam. “You’re probably right,” Mike admitted. “Keep looking.”
I put the memo back in the drawer it came from and sifted through the remaining piles. When the desk was in order, I moved to the pictures on the walls. The plaster behind them…the backing of each frame…nothing seemed out of the ordinary. I searched meticulously through a low bookcase, removing each item and shaking out its pages. My only discovery was a bookmark from Windsor Castle.
I checked the bathroom last. It held a toilet, a sink, and a large wooden cabinet. Pulling open the cabinet door, I found toilet paper, paper towels, a few cleaning products, and several shelves of office supplies. It was a rather odd place to store extra copy paper, but then the office was rather small.
After leaving the office, I helped Ranofur ransack the employee lounge. We moved on to a dank, tiny basement but turned up nothing of interest. Finally, tired and sweaty, we met Elena and Mike in the lobby. “Find anything?” Ranofur asked.
Mike looked crestfallen. “Absolutely nothing,” he mourned. “We’ve just wasted several hours. There’s nothing here.”
“He’s slick,” Elena said. “Whatever Swain’s up to, he’s hidden it well. We might as well check into a hotel for the night—what’s left of it, anyway.”
No one had a better suggestion. We moved toward the door in a gloomy pack. “Give me a few minutes,” I requested. “All those Cokes I drank are finally catching up to me.”
“We’ll meet you in the lounge,” Ranofur said.
I’d seen a public restroom off the lobby, one of those single unisex rooms. But the bathroom off the office I’d searched was closer. “I’ll just be a sec,” I said, closing myself inside.
Afterward, I washed my hands, dried them with a paper towel, and tossed it into the empty trash can. Then I thought better of it. What if whoever used the office happened to notice the crumpled towel? Chances were slim that anyone would conclude the office had been broken into, but with the enemies I’d faced, I didn’t want to risk any questions. I bent to retrieve the towel.
That’s when I noticed it.
The cabinet stood next to the waste basket. As I leaned over, my light flickered across an odd smudge on the floor. Peering closer, I observed it was a scrape mark worn into the tile. It was short and arching, as if the cabinet had swung away from the wall and caught in that one spot. As if the cabinet had opened.
The towel forgotten, I peered behind the cabinet. It was so tight against the wall a piece of paper couldn’t have slipped behind it. I tried to move it but it was stuck fast. This was a job for someone stronger than me.
“Ranofur!” I called softly down the hall. “Come here. I think I found something.”
All three of my companions rushed into the office. “In here,” I said and showed them the scrapes in the tile. “Do you think you can move it?”
Ranofur’s massive arms wrapped around the cabinet. It creaked and groaned but held fast. “It’s fastened to the wall.”
“There has to be a way,” Mike mused, examining the marks. “It’s opened many times before.”
Elena already had the cabinet door ajar and was removing items one by one. “We just have to find the catch.”
As she emptied shelves, I felt along the smooth wood grain of each one, running my hand up and down the sides and under the shelf above. I found no irregularities. Ranofur explored the top shelves. Mike inspected the varnished exterior.
We were down to the very last shelf. Elena knelt and pulled out a spray bottle and several cleaning products. Then she grabbed the handle of a toilet plunger lying on the floor. “It won’t pull free,” she said, dropping to her hands and knees to peer under the shelf. She tugged at it again. “It’s attached at the wall.” She gave it an upward jerk and we heard the click of a latch giving way.
We exchanged eager grins and backed up expectantly as Mike eased the cabinet forward. It caught on the tile then swung outward without a sound.
Behind it yawned the black mouth of a hidden room.
Lesson #13
Even Line Dancing Is Preferable to the Tyburn Jig
“Weapons ready,” Ranofur whispered. I plunged my hand into my pocket and held my breat
h as I followed him through the darkened doorway.
The beams of our flashlight flickered eerily in the pitch black room, creating shadows that darted across the walls like living things. I don’t know if I expected mounds of treasure, dungeons, or armed resistance, but we found none of those. We had stumbled upon a simple boardroom.
The room was plain but orderly. One entire wall held shelves of cardboard boxes, which were braced on one end by a pair of filing cabinets. In the middle of the room, directly under a hanging lamp, sat a rectangular folding table. The top was strewn with piles of loose-leaf papers and with larger documents that were rolled up in tubes. Mike set his light down so he could sift through them with both hands.
Elena and I moved on to a bulletin board hung with an antiquated map of the world. America stretched only to the Mississippi River, with much of the continent still a vast white emptiness. Antarctica wasn’t even plotted yet. In the margins, I could barely discern notes scribbled in faded ink.
“What do you think all these circles are for?” I asked, indicating the marks scattered across the paper. There were two in the Atlantic Ocean, five in Europe, several on the eastern coast of Africa, and dozens circling the Pacific.
“I bet they’re volcanoes,” Elena stated. “We had a similar map hanging in our science room when we studied plate tectonics last year.”
“Huh. I wouldn’t have taken Swain for a vulcanologist. Why do you suppose he crossed so many out?”
She shrugged and tapped at what may have been Oregon. “Maybe he finally found what he was looking for. This is the only one marked with red Sharpie.”
I clicked a picture of the map with my iPod.
“Kids, come here,” Mike urged. “Look at this!”
He spread out a blueprint of what appeared to be a ship, but I’d never seen anything like it. “What is it? Plans for another Ivy Intrepid product?”
“I don’t think you can buy one of these on the internet,” Mike guessed.
Ranofur studied the drawing with a somber expression. “It appears to be some sort of experimental underwater vessel.”
Taylor Davis and the Flame of Findul Page 10