Paladin Prophecy 2: Alliance (12 page)

On one of the cameras he saw the hungry guard rush into the main house kitchen. The help had just finished setting up lunch, and Will chuckled when he saw the guard attack the buffet like a ravenous dog.

Will noticed five monitors in a row featuring views from the five cameras hidden along the island’s northern shore, all of them slowly scanning from left to right at different intervals. He studied their pattern of movement, consulting his watch to time their sweeps along the beach, timing a brief pause when they were all turned away from the right side. He also noticed a switch on the console for infrared vision; whoever was monitoring this station would be able to see the entire northern beach just as well in the dark.

One person might be able to sneak on shore unnoticed, if they were both lucky
and
good, but five people crossing the lake on a boat carrying equipment? They could forget about a direct approach. He’d have to make some changes to their landing plan.

He spotted a more challenging problem on one of the other monitors: Another camera, in a fixed position, was focused directly on the wooden structure and hatch leading down to the tunnels. He also realized, in this closer angle, that the wooden hatch they’d encountered last year hadn’t just been reinforced but completely replaced by one made out of metal.

And the hatch had a big honking security lock on it, thick and steel-plated.

Will searched the rest of the office for a key that might open that lock. Spotting a square metallic cabinet on the wall near the door, he walked over to open it. Glancing out the small window next to it he saw that the security guard was heading back toward his post. Carrying two plates stacked high with food, the man was speed walking at an almost comic pace, trying not to spill any of his bounty.

Will dashed to the only other door in the room, one that led farther into the building. Locked. Just as the guard pushed open the outside door with his sizeable rear, Will leaped over and stepped behind it as the man backed into the room. Will grabbed the inside doorknob and held it open.

The guard set down his plates on the desk, humming a happy little “I’m about to stuff my face till it hurts” tune. Will leaned out and watched the guard lift a dripping roast beef sandwich the size of a softball, dip it in au jus, and gnaw into it. Will took a deep breath, centered himself, and pushed the first nonsensical image that came into his mind at him: A full-grown Indian elephant appeared on the closest monitor, standing around the corner of the castle’s west wing.

The guard looked up at the monitor, midbite, juice dribbling down his chin. He stopped chewing when he “saw” what was there and froze.

“What the hell … ,” he mumbled.

Will altered the image. The elephant raised its trunk and trumpeted. The guard “heard” it. The sandwich plopped onto the desk as he shot back in his chair, jumped up, and hurled himself outside, activating his comm system while he reached for the pistol holstered on his hip.

“I need backup,” he said into the microphone of his communications rig. “Animal on the western edge of the west wing.”

He never even noticed the outside door was still open. Will quietly eased it forward, stepped back, and opened the metallic cabinet.

Keys inside, on hooks. All shapes and sizes, some hanging in clusters. Row after orderly row, maybe a hundred of them. Printed labels fastened to the box below each hook, describing each key. His mind quickly tried to process what he was reading as he worked his way down, scanning row after row.

There, near the bottom right:
Tunnel Entrance.

He wanted to keep looking, but the clock in his head said time was running out. He grabbed the small key ring hanging above
Tunnel Entrance,
shut the box, and jumped back outside, making sure the door closed behind him. He could hear voices around the corner to his right where he’d placed the “elephant” and knew that more guards would soon be on their way. Not enough time to get back inside through the door he’d originally used to leave the house.

Besides, it was opening right now, another guard exiting in response to the alert.

Will turned on his speed and headed for the woods. Once he was far enough in to gain cover, he stopped, turned, and waited to see if anyone had noticed him. He heard voices to his left and saw five guards who’d responded to the “elephant” call returning to the house. The heavyset guard who’d alerted them sheepishly brought up the rear. Once they passed, Will quick-stepped to the nearest door on the west wing and reentered the house.

A laundry facility. Half a dozen washers and dryers stacked against a wall, a few of them churning away. Tables with piles of folded sheets and towels next to a row of ironing boards. No one in the room.

Will moved quickly to an open inner door and listened. Hearing workers down the hall, he leaned out and saw them clustered around a window. Looking out at the security guards to see what the commotion was about.

Will hurried down a rambling hallway to his right, feeling his way back toward the center of the castle. He glanced at his watch: a few minutes after noon now. He needed to get to the kitchen before Clegg started looking for him. Emerging a few doors later, Will found himself back in a marbled hallway of the main residence. He followed that to its end and turned right through a swinging door, instinct telling him that was the way to the kitchen.

He had instead walked into an intimate private dining room, filled with antique furnishings, including a long, magnificent mahogany table. High ceilings, with a fireplace at one end and high, leaded windows. Two distinctive chandeliers rested over the table, heavy black iron with bulbs disguised as candles, with matching candle sconces on the wall.

He’d seen these fixtures before, and then he remembered where.
This is the room in the photograph. Where the Knights had their dinner in 1937 with Henry Wallace.

On a cabinet straight ahead was what looked like a guest ledger. He walked over and was about to open it when he heard, “Looking for something, Mr. West?”

Will turned. Lemuel Clegg was standing in the doorway, looking stern, arms crossed. Will smiled broadly and crossed to him.

“Boy, am I glad to see you,” said Will, falling back into character of brash, teenage idiot.

“Why is that?”

“Hello, starved? Lost so much weight up there I was about to eat my own foot. I tried to follow back the way you took me up there and got so totally lost.”

“Is that so. And how did you end up in the private residential area?”

“Honestly? I have no idea,” said Will. “Zigged when I should have zagged about twelve times. Tell me I didn’t miss lunch?”

“The kitchen is
that
way,” said Lemuel, angrily thrusting a finger at another door. “And if you’re unable to find your way in the future, I’ll assign someone to escort you.”

“Thanks, Mr. Clegg, but I’m good,” said Will, walking past him to the door.

“Don’t let it happen again,” said Lemuel.

“Mr. Haxley must so appreciate your sense of humor—”

“Get!”

After a quick lunch, Will returned to the tower room to discover a tall man standing across the room, his back to the door, looking at a folder he’d apparently taken from one of the boxes. The man heard the door close behind Will and turned.

Mr. Elliot. Haxley’s elderly friend from last night. Wearing expensive-looking black wool slacks, a white dress shirt buttoned to the neck, and a gray cashmere cardigan sweater. His finely wrinkled face widened into a toothy smile.

“You’ve discovered my secret,” said Elliot.

Will said nothing, worried that he’d been found out in some way.

“This tower is my favorite section of the house. The entire history of the estate is in these boxes. It’s all been sadly neglected for years.”

“Yeah, everything was in pretty rough shape,” said Will, moving toward him.

Elliot smiled again—beamed actually—as Will reached him, and Elliot patted him on the shoulder.

“I’m so delighted that Stan’s found the right person to put it all back in order.”

“I’m not sure why he’d think I’m the right person,” said Will. “I mean, this is a pretty big job, sir.”

“Oh, Stan is an excellent judge of character. I trust him to make the right decision about a task as important as this one,” said Elliot sincerely.

Will noticed that Elliot was holding the same folder that Will had looked through earlier, the one with the checks from the 1920s.

Strange … What were the chances of that? But Elliot made no effort to hide it from him, so he either didn’t know, didn’t care … or he wanted Will to see it.

“Have you had time to go through any of this material?” asked Elliot, opening the folder.

“No, sir. So far I’ve just arranged boxes,” said Will, straightening one with his foot.

“Perhaps you should organize them by year. Chronological order.”

Elliot smiled again, in a way that Will was starting to find unsettling. The man really threw him off balance.
Why is this guy taking such an interest in all this, and in me?

“I take it you work with Mr. Haxley in some way, sir?” asked Will. “If you don’t mind my asking.”

“I’m an advisor to him, yes.”

“About business.”

“About many things,” said Elliot, looking down as he paged through the folder again. “Including business.”

“I wondered if you might be connected to the school in some way.”

“Not in any official capacity. Unofficially, I like to think of myself as its … amateur historian.”

Will looked around at the boxes. “I guess the history of the school must be pretty interesting.”

“History is one of my many interests,” he said, still without looking up. “The story of this school fascinates me. You might wonder why there’s so much material about the school, stored here in a private residence.”

Will didn’t know what to say about that, but Elliot seemed to know what he was thinking.

“The Crag was the residence of both headmasters at one time or another. This archive includes many of their private papers.”

“I thought they lived at Stone House,” said Will.

“You must also be wondering if I was a student here myself,” said Elliot, ignoring his question. “If only I’d been so fortunate. The number of extraordinary men who’ve passed through these halls is remarkable. For instance …” Elliot turned around the folder he was holding and showed a picture of—who else?—the thirty-third vice president of the United States, Henry Wallace, one that Will hadn’t seen before.

“One of our country’s most unusual public figures,” said Elliot. “Do you know much about him?”

“I’m afraid I don’t.”

“You’d do well to study Henry Wallace. You’d learn quite a lot of useful things. Are you interested—may I call you Will?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And you may call me Mr. Elliot. Are you as interested in history as I am, Will?”

“I don’t know, I mean, I wasn’t that much, at least before I got here. Maybe it was the way they were teaching it.”

“No doubt. The educational methods employed in most American schools turn good minds to stone. The past has many things to teach us, and we ignore them at our peril. If you don’t know where you’ve been, how can you know where you are?”

Will wasn’t sure if Elliot wanted him to answer. “And if you don’t know where you are,” he said, “how do you know where you’re going?”

Elliot beamed at him again. “I couldn’t have put it better myself. Mr. Haxley expects you’ll do very well here. By that I mean he expects you to do a good deal more than simply arrange the boxes. The material
inside
the boxes needs to be organized as well.”

“I see. Mr. Clegg didn’t mention that—”

“Mr. Clegg doesn’t speak for Mr. Haxley,” he said with a slight edge. “The material needs to be organized chronologically. In
all
the boxes.”

“That’s good to know.” Will was secretly thrilled to hear that he’d have more time with this stuff but tried not to show it. “Mr. Elliot, this is such a big assignment I’m thinking about asking Mr. Haxley if I could bring a friend along next time to give me a hand.”

“Oh?”

RULE #80: GO EASY ON THE HARD SELL. PERSUASION IS THE ART OF MAKING OTHERS BELIEVE IT WAS
THEIR
IDEA.

“I want to do a really good job,” said Will, trying not to sound too enthusiastic, “and I think two heads might be better than one.”

“I assume this friend is a student here?”

“One of my roommates,” said Will. “And he’s really good at this sort of thing. Think I should ask Mr. Haxley about it?”

“He’s out of town for a while,” said Elliot, pausing to study Will, who tried not to flinch under the pressure of his pale eyes. “But I believe I can speak for him on a matter like this. Let me think about it.”

“Thank you, sir.”

Elliot kept staring at him, a straight poker face. If he had an opinion about the idea, Will couldn’t tell which way he was leaning.

“Why don’t you put that back in the box you already started going through,” said Elliot as he handed over the folder. “Then come with me for a moment. Speaking of history, I’d like to show you something outside. Won’t take long.”

Elliot started walking, not toward the spiral staircase but away from it toward the rear of the room. Will stuck the folder back into the 1937 box, but not before sneaking a glance inside; the canceled check written by Thomas Greenwood to Henry Wallace was gone.

Elliot preceded Will through a door that Will hadn’t noticed before, seamlessly set in the middle of the dark wooden back wall. Not exactly a secret door—it did have a tiny visible knob—but it was the closest thing to it. They entered a small, windowless vestibule that led to what Will decided was the oldest elevator he’d ever seen.

There were no doors. Elliot slid open a small collapsible steel grating and gestured for Will to enter ahead of him. The inside was paneled with dark wood and banded with cast iron. Elliot followed him in and closed the gate.

“I’m afraid that old staircase is a bit of an ordeal for me these days,” said Elliot.

There were no buttons to push. Elliot turned a metallic crank on a rotating disc—silver and shiny with age, the kind Will had only seen in really old movies—that operated the motor. The elevator, after a fitful start, began to slowly descend. Will could see the rough stone walls of the tower through the grating as they moved down.