It turned out to be much harder than we'd anticipated. Tony's crowbar and claw hammer were no match for 160-year-old, two-inch-thick oak boards. We then searched for the secret latch, because by now we were convinced there was something behind this damned panel of shelves.
"Maybe it only opens from the other side," Pardee said. "No latch or key on this side."
"Then what's the point?" Tony said, trying once more to pry something loose. The wine rack next to this shelf moved easily.
"Ultimate bolt-hole?" Pardee said. "You keep the door wedged open in times of danger and then close it behind you if you have to run?"
"Let's go outside," I said. "We'll start with the smokehouse. It's the biggest outbuilding."
It was pretty ingenious once we finally found it, and it was in the smokehouse. The building was a tall brick structure, maybe fifteen feet square, with heavily blackened beams overhead and a dirt fire pit right in the middle of the earthen floor. There were two cradle-shaped wrought-iron andirons in the fire pit. A few dozen badly blackened bricks were stacked on one side of the smokehouse. Tony was the one who figured it out. He grabbed the andirons and pulled up. The bottom of the fire pit was actually a wooden hatch, balanced on two thick pins, so that it came up like a trapdoor. Once we had it open we could see that the top of the hatch was a sheet of hammered metal. A few inches of baked-on red clay concealed the metal surface. Underneath the hatch a crude wooden ladder emerged from the cloud of fireplace ashes. It went down about ten feet into a brick-lined tunnel. The direction of the tunnel pointed right back to the big house.
"Bingo," Pardee said. "Who's up for a tour?"
Tony shook his head. He was claustrophobic and said he would stand guard on this end while we explored.
Pardee went down first, and I followed. The tunnel was lined with the same handmade brick out of which everything seemed to be constructed. The mortar looked even more floury than the exterior bricks, and as we walked, our footfalls produced faint wisps of white powder out of the arched ceiling. The air was cold and dry, and the floor was hard-packed earth. Our flashlights lit the tunnel up pretty well, but it was narrow enough that we could not walk side by side. The floor seemed to slope down as we proceeded, and the tunnel bent around to the left before we finally came to an alcove, which required a step down. I noticed that the right-hand wall near the alcove was actually a huge outcrop of granite, which had probably been the reason for the bending in the tunnel.
"Bingo number two," Pardee said, hunched over now because the ceiling was much lower here. We were facing a dogleg turn in the tunnel, first to the right and then to the left, all within four feet. "Somebody thinking tactical," he said. "Nobody could stand in the basement and shoot down the full length of the tunnel while folks were running."
There was a heavy wooden door in the alcove, latched by a solid bar of black wrought iron encased in two brackets on either side of the doorway. The door was hinged at three levels with more black iron. Pardee pulled out the bar, and the door swung quietly on obviously oiled hinges into the tunnel, revealing the darkness of the basement on the other side. Mystery solved: It was a one-way escape door, opening only in the direction of safety.
"You guys cool down there?" Tony called. The tunnel was nearly a hundred feet long, and his voice was muffled by that dogleg turn. Pardee told him we were okay and relatched the door.
"Actually," I said, "let's close it and wedge it with something that will allow us to open it from the other side. This was a bolt-hole, and we may need one."
Pardee looked over at me. "You really think so?"
"We're playing dumb defense right now," I said. "Until we can change that, we're the ones who need options."
He pushed the big door back into its frame and wedged it by crushing a ballpoint pen in the crack. We left the bar on the floor and went back to the smokehouse access ladder. Tony was staring down at us from the hole above.
"You find the door?" he asked.
Pardee described it to him as we climbed out.
"Okay, now what?" Tony asked.
"We look for a second one," I said. "This was too obvious."
We closed up the hatch cover in the smokehouse fire pit, smoothed out the ashes, and went back into the kitchen through a set of steps leading down from the back courtyard. Kitty greeted us as we stepped through the door. The access to the basement level had been through the right-hand pantry room in the kitchen. I hadn't yet examined the left-hand pantry, where we found the electric fuse box, a rusty-looking hot water heater, a blue pressure tank, and what looked like an electric water pump. As the electrician had described, some of the fuses had failed at some point and were now sporting copper pennies under their bases. The box was ancient, and there were only ten identifiable round slots for circuits. The wiring was thick copper, covered in black fabric instead of vinyl.
"Why a pressure tank and a water pump?" Pardee asked, ever the techie.
"Big house?" said Tony. "System needs a booster?"
"Or," I said, "there's no operational well and the water comes from that old springhouse on the hillside."
Tony looked at his watch and announced that it was lunchtime. Tony kept track of such things; he was thin as a rail but ate more than both of us. We went into town for a sandwich. I took Kitty with me and left Frick in the house this time, promising her some fries and ketchup if she was a good girl. Over lunch we kicked around other possibilities for a second escape tunnel and decided to just go back there and do a hand-over-hand search of that whole lower floor. We stopped by the Realtor's office, and I signed a professional services contract for Lawyer Lee, which devoted one line to the title search but covered his fees in exquisite detail. Mr. Oatley gave me the name and contact information for the surveyor he recommended and said it should not be a difficult job because the plantation was essentially a rectangle.
Once back at Glory's End, we searched again for a second passage. If finding the first one was too easy, finding the second was too hard. We gave up after three hours and went back out to the front porch. Tony had a six-pack in his truck cooler, so we each cracked one and watched the afternoon subside. Frick was out on the lawn hunting for any ketchup packs she'd missed. Kitty sat on the front porch next to me, getting an ear rubbed.
"I don't know, boss," Tony said. "Guy says we'll get it on any day now, and then, shit, he could go off to Disney World for the week. Leave us high and dry."
"Somebody put that mask picture on my window last night," I said. "Can't do that from Disney World."
"Still," Pardee said. "Assuming he's been watching, he knows it's three against one now. That's what I would do--wear us out with waiting."
I thought that Pardee was hinting at something besides the fact that we did not have the initiative here. He could only stay out here for so long before Alicia started to complain.
"That's true," I said. "So we need to do something to change that equation. Something he doesn't expect."
"You mean something dumb," Tony observed.
"Probably," I said. "He'll expect us to take up a defensive position. So let's don't. Let's leave here, go three separate ways, meet somewhere else, and then come back tonight after dark with our gear."
"But return separately," Pardee said. "Come from three different directions, converging eventually here at the big house. Maybe we get lucky. Surprise him. Flush his ass out."
"If he's even here," Tony said.
"I think he is," I said. Then I heard the sound of hoofbeats coming up from behind the house.
"Pardee, get inside," I said. "Now."
Pardee gave me a funny look but moved quickly to the front door and went inside the house. A few seconds later, the major came around the corner in full regalia, silhouetted for a moment in the lowering sun. Both dogs reacted and I called them down before they spooked the horse. Tony silently mouthed the words "holy shit."
"Major," I said, surreptitiously hiding my beer bottle.
"Overseer," he replied, reining in
the horse and leaning back in the saddle. The cavalry saber swayed at his hip after the horse came to a stop.
"What news, Major?"
"Spies," he said. "I've seen Yankee spies. I observed one over at the brickworks an hour ago. Lurking amongst the kilns. Wished I'd had a rifle."
That piqued my interest. A lone individual at the brickworks? That could be our guy.
"Perhaps I'll saddle up and go have a look," I said. "I do have a rifle."
"Excellent," he said. "Who is this gentleman?"
"An agent from Richmond," I said. "He's a spy hunter. Looking for Pinkertons. Richmond is very concerned."
"As well they should be," the major said. "Very well. Report what you find, overseer. Do not be circumspect. If you see one of those bastards, gun him down forthwith."
"I'll do it, Major. I surely will."
"Then good day, sir," he said to me. He nodded at Tony, who was staring at him in total amazement, and rode off down the driveway toward Laurel Grove.
"You can come out now," I called to Pardee.
"Mo-ther-fuck," Tony said quietly. "That guy gonzo or what."
Pardee walked back out on the porch.
"Sorry about that," I said, "but a black man sitting up here with the 'overseer' would probably have produced that hogleg he carries."
"So that's the major," Pardee said. "He doesn't look all that crazy."
"Yeah, he does," Tony said. "You see those eyes? Dude's out there, guys; w-a-a-y out there. And what's this 'overseer' shit?"
I explained it to him. "He said he saw a lone individual at the brickworks," I reminded them. "That may be our guy."
"Wanna take a shot?" Pardee asked.
"Yes, I do--but first, let's set the scene a little bit."
It was full dark when we jumped off. Before leaving the house, we'd gone back in and pretended to search for the passage some more. Then I'd announced to whatever bug might be listening that I was getting tired of this shit. On cue, Pardee had suggested that he and Tony go back to Triboro for the night and come back out next morning. I'd argued but then agreed, and we'd left. End of Kabuki.
Now, with field gear and weapons in hand, we executed our plan, beginning from the two-lane. We started up at the western boundary of Glory's End. I would go out first, with my objective being the area above the railroad bridge. From there I would go along the river to end up near the brickworks. Pardee would then let Tony off just past the main driveway. He would approach the house from the front, check out the near perimeter, and then set up behind the springhouse, where he could watch both the house itself and the approaches from the barn area. Pardee would continue down the road to the eastern ridge, park, and come in along the meadow that contained the quarry and the brickworks. We'd gone over the aerials and decided to keep it as simple as possible. Once Pardee and I met up at the brickworks, if there was no action, we'd notify Tony and head for the house.
We had two things to worry about: our target and those Dobermans. One of the things I'd asked Pardee to acquire was a set of police dog trainer's arm and leg pads as defense against dog bites. Additionally, we all carried the latest pepper spray pencils, which were mounted on the backs of our tactical gloves. All you had to do was point your hand, make a fist, and squeeze; the pencils would emit a stream of incapacitating cayenne pepper juice six feet in front of you. We would communicate via text message, using a repeating local cell network box mounted on the top of my Suburban. Combat knives, single-optic night-vision gear, SWAT suits with Kevlar pads, compact head gear with amplifying ear lenses, and a sidearm of choice.
"The Dobes won't bark," I'd reminded them. "They'll just come at a run and go for either an arm, the throat, or the crotch, depending on who trained them. Stand fast, feint one way, and then jump the other way as they spring. They'll land, turn, and that's when you shoot them, spray first, gun second."
"What if we don't see 'em coming?"
"They'll knock you down, so throw up a padded arm or leg and let them bite it. They'll bite and hold on, and it will hurt, even with all that padding. Let that arm go limp, and then use the knife or the spray, whichever you can get at. If you even think they're close, get your back to a tree and ball up. Forget the gun: Get a knife in one hand, pepper spray in the other."
I had brought Frick but not Kitty. I told the other guys that she wasn't ready for this yet, but the truth was, while Frick might or might not win a fight against a Dobe, Kitty was too new at this to have even a chance. Frick, eight going on nine years, would give me precious warning time, and if I was going to lose one, I wasn't going to sacrifice the youngest one. Plus, there would be one less dog in the way if I had to start shooting. I had to keep telling myself that that made it all okay. Frick seemed up for it, but then she always did.
She and I bailed out at the appropriate moment and slipped into the woods. The Suburban's taillights disappeared around the corner. It was a cool, clear night, and we moved off into the trees quickly. The forest here was chiefly pines, which meant we could move quickly across a bed of pine needles without making noise. In twenty minutes we were up on the road end of the western ridge, where I'd first caught the flash of the major's telescope. Frick was ahead, casting for scent, and I could now see down across the cemetery meadow to the remains of the river bridge in the moonlight. The distant house was a grayish shape on its hill, sleeping in the shadow of all those big trees. The outbuildings behind it were clearly visible, so I sat down on a rock and surveyed the house, outbuildings, and barns through my binoculars.
By now Tony should be moving up the line of trees and underbrush along the driveway toward the house, but since the main driveway was sunken below the level of the adjacent fields, it was entirely in shadow. The plan was for him to text me when he reached the springhouse. That would be my signal to come down off the ridge and head for the riverbank. If he hit trouble, I could come downhill rather than uphill to back him up. I continued to sweep the near hillside with the binocs, the slaughterhouse scene of the train robbery, and then the intervening fields surrounding the house on its hill. Frick sat down next to me and kept watch on our close-in surroundings. I didn't fancy the idea of two big Dobes bursting out of the pines behind me at a full run like sleek black torpedoes. My ghost had had a long time to think about this caper, and he'd done the one thing that neutralized my biggest advantage by arming himself with Dobermans.
After twenty minutes of binocular watching, my cell vibrated in its chest holster. I hauled it out.
Tony. IN POSITION, it read. Pardee had rigged the network so that every text call went to both the other phones.
MOVING OUT NOW, I sent back, and then I put it away.
We started down the moonlit hillside, moving from tree to tree as much as possible. I mentally apologized to the sleeping soldiers as we walked over their graves. A screech owl started up back in the pines, and even I could hear the rustle of field birds and startled rabbits scuttling out of our way through the knee-high grass.
I stopped when we got to the railroad embankment. There was no way to cross that while staying concealed. Even with the iron rails long gone, the right-of-way provided a sight channel for a few hundred yards in either direction. Then I remembered the fortified stone bridge abutment to my left. If I went left, down to the river, I could cross under that sight line where the meadow fell off down to the riverbank.
My climb down to the river at the base of the bridge abutment was not entirely graceful. We both ended up at the bottom pursued by a small avalanche of stones and old gravel, some of which rolled into the river itself with what sounded like a lot of noise. So much for stealth, I thought, as I picked myself up and brushed the burrs and dirt out of my clothes. The river was flowing silently by, glossy black in the moonlight. The pale face of the opposite bank abutment looked like a tombstone. Frick had her nose down and was headed upriver. I had to snap my fingers to get her going the right way. A big turtle plopped off a snag as I went under the rail line, and a snake took off into the
tall grass at the speed of heat, causing Frick to jump straight up in the air.
It was much slower going along the riverbank because of all the debris from floods past. There was the usual American riverbank decor of beer cans, tires, plastic bags of all description, an occasional sodden mass of bedding, and more tires. What was it about a big river that made people want to dump their trash? After clambering over snag after snag, I realized that the river bottom was terraced. There was the immediate bank, then a three-foot terrace inland of that, and another one beyond that, perhaps a hundred feet back from the current banks. Most of the debris was littering the first two terraces, so I elected to move right and up. I could still see the actual riverbank, but I could now make some time in my trek downstream to the brickworks.
I had to detour around that creek mouth where previously I'd seen the evidence of a boat landing. First I went down to the water to see if there were any more signs, but I found nothing but yet more tires. Then I walked inland until I found a place where I could get across the stream on a downed tree trunk. Frick wasn't having it. Ever the water-baby, she went down into the creek, splashed her way across, and then shook off on the other side. Then back we went to the edge of the first terrace and continued downstream. My phone vibrated again.
Pardee this time.
HALFWAY TO BRICKS, it read. SLOW GOING.
ON THE RIVER, I sent back. SLOW GOING.
SOMEONE IN THE HOUSE, came up on the screen from Tony.
I stopped in my tracks, and Frick came back to where I was crouching over the little green screen. Some famished gnats began to gather around the tiny light.
I turned around to look across the field and up the long, grassy slope that led to the house, which was maybe a half mile away. I couldn't see the house itself, or even any of the outbuildings, just the big grove of oaks and a smaller blob that might be the springhouse.
Cam - 04 - Nightwalkers Page 15