At that moment he noticed something else. Behind the bank of shutters still covering a third of the doorway he could see a second, old-fashioned electrical switch just like the one he’d stumbled across by the door to the outside. Moving over into the opening, Jack reached behind the shutters and tried the switch. Like the first one, it turned and there immediately followed the same whomping sound as the passageway filled with light from antique overhead light fixtures. By crouching down, Jack was able to see along a perfectly straight corridor to a distant flight of stairs leading upward, most likely into the Bennet House.
For a few nervous minutes after the unique and rather loudsound of the lights going on, Jack froze and strained to listen for any sound of activity, like a distant door opening. He was momentarily fearful that the electrical sound could have been heard inside the house if someone happened to be on the opposite side of a probable distant door. After several agonizing minutes of silence, he began to relax.
There was no doubt in Jack’s mind that any or all four of his captors could show up at any given moment once they had recovered from their initial shock of his appearance, especially since they had witnessed his snooping into the barn window at their laboratory. At the same time, he thought there was a slight chance they could have decided to immediately flee Essex Falls, although he did consider that idea wishful thinking. They certainly hadn’t flown the coop when they had been apparently confronted by Ethan Jameson or by whomever else they had killed.
Instead, he began to consider whether or not he should take the time to cover up as best as possible his escape route, meaning returning the aged cruise trunks and as much as he could of the discarded window shutters. Ultimately he decided it wasn’t worth risking the time because with the locked and intact door to the outside, they’d look for and undoubtedly quickly find the tunnel no matter what he did to conceal it. What became clear to him was he had to take advantage of the tunnel immediately and hopefully hide someplace in the sprawling house until it was dark enough to make a run for it into the nearby forest. Even that was not going to be easy since he was shoeless.
Although he was fully aware of the dangers of his plan, he felt he had no choice. He couldn’t trust that they wouldn’t just let him languish in the icehouse until he froze or starved to death. The only thing he did do was quickly walk over and get the shovel, his onlyweapon, then turn off the overhead lights in the room. In contrast to the strange, rather loud noise the lights made when turned on, they were completely silent when turned off. He then hustled back to the tunnel doorway and quickly descended the five masonry steps to the packed earthen floor.
Moving at a jog despite his bare feet, Jack covered the distance to the house in short order. Reaching the masonry stairs at the opposite end, he quickly climbed, being careful to be absolutely silent, which was made easier without shoes. It was a surprisingly long stairway. Reaching a small wooden landing at the top facing a closed door, he silently leaned the shovel against the wall. He then checked the door which was made of solid mahogany but unfinished. It had a normal appearing doorknob on one side and hinges on the other, indicating it opened inward. He then squatted down to carefully put his ear against it. Hearing nothing after several minutes, he leaned back and looked for an electrical switch equivalent to the one at the tunnel doorway in the icehouse. As he expected, there was one, and he was able to switch off the tunnel lights, which he thought wise to avoid any line of light escaping into the house when he cracked the entrance door. He had no idea where in the house the tunnel door was located but hoped it was in some out of the way location, which seemed probable since the Netherlanders were seemingly unaware of the tunnel’s existence.
Grasping the doorknob, he slowly and silently turned it all the way in one direction. He then cracked the door very slowly, which required a bit of force as it had apparently not been opened for a considerable amount of time. When it was open enough to allow in a narrow, vertical beam of dim light, he held his breath and listened. He heard absolutely nothing, making him wonder anew where in the house this access door might be located. Originallyhe thought it would have connected to the basement level since it was an underground passageway. But with more than a full flight of stairs, he assumed it was going to be somewhere on the first floor. Since it had served as a conduit for ice for food preservation, it made sense for it to be near the kitchen and servants’ area.
Slowly pulling open the door enough to afford a very narrow, slit-like view of the room beyond, Jack was quickly able to see it was a moderately large, pantry-like storeroom probably just off the kitchen with an opposite wall of fancy mahogany shelving. The shelves were filled with various foodstuffs and other household necessities. From the quality of the light, Jack assumed the room was windowless with the ambient light coming in from an open doorway and not windows.
Just when he’d built up his courage to pull the tunnel door open a bit wider to see more of the room, he heard approaching voices, causing him to quickly but silently push the door shut in a minor panic. Painstakingly careful not to make a sound, he slowly let the latch bolt return into its striker plate. Then equally quietly, he leaned his ear against the door and found he could hear the people beyond with ease. What surprised him was that they were speaking English instead of Dutch or perhaps some other language, which he assumed they’d be speaking when by themselves. In keeping with all the other surprises, he wondered what the nationality of these men was in reality. Somehow their being Dutch seemed to make progressively less and less sense, especially when not speaking the language when they were alone.
“I think we’re done except for these snacks and drinks,” one man said. There was the sound of bottles gently hitting up against each other as if in a carton being lifted. “Once we get these in the truck, it’s fully packed and ready to go with keys in the ignition, meaningwe can all just run out, climb aboard, and leave the moment Viktor gives the word.”
“All except for our backpacks,” the second man said, his voice straining as if he too were lifting something weighty.
“Obviously,” the first man said. “What do you think the likelihood is of Viktor deciding to leave in the next day or so? We’ve accomplished what we came for, and I’m getting worried like Alexei. Maybe not as much as Alexei, but the longer we stay the more the risk we’re taking.”
“Viktor has our backs but…” the other man said as his voice trailed off, such that Jack could not make out the rest despite straining to do so. The men had obviously left the room. Then he heard a third voice chime in but could not make out anything that was being said. A moment later there was the sound of a heavy door closing. Then silence.
Jack let out his breath. He’d been unaware he’d been holding it. Unfortunately, the icehouse tunnel terminated in a storeroom most likely near the kitchen, where he suspected this third person now was. Knowing the Bennet Estate was similar to the Hiram House, only larger and grander, there was no doubt the colossal kitchen was by far the most used room, making it more dangerous for Jack to leave his current hiding place. On the positive side, the Netherlanders were clearly oblivious to the tunnel’s existence. Perhaps the door on its storeroom side was designed to be hidden. Seeing how fancy the mahogany shelving was on the opposite side of the room somewhat supported this idea, which he now hoped was the case. Also on the positive side was the realization that if and when it was discovered that he’d managed to escape from the icehouse and how he’d managed it, the lights in the tunnel would suddenly come on.Although that would mean he was being pursued, at least it would give him a warning.
With a moderate sense of acceptance and resolve tinged with appropriate fear, Jack turned around and sat down on the top step. In the near total darkness, he rapidly fanned his arms to try to generate a bit of heat as he was shivering and had been for some time. Luckily, where he was currently sitting as part of the Bennet House, the temperature was significantly higher and less humid than it had been in the icehouse or the tunnel.
When he felt a bit warmer, he stopped his fanning and checked the time, congratulating himself for still wearing his old-style, radium dial watch. It was just about seven fifteen, and he wondered if Laurie had gotten back to the Hiram House yet, and if she had, when she would start worrying about his absence. It pained him to think how upset she was invariably going to become, especially when she became aware the Hiram House canoe was missing only to be found empty either floating someplace in the middle of the lake or blown against the eastern shore. If the situation were reversed, he knew he’d go ballistic with worry and fear.
He then made out what sounded like the same heavy door he’d heard moments earlier opening and closing followed by distant voices. Although he didn’t get up, he glanced back at the outline of the door to the storeroom, which he could just barely discern in the darkness. The voices got mildly louder before dropping off again, making him believe that the men he’d heard earlier had briefly cut through the corner of storeroom to pass into the kitchen. He then noticed the light defining the door got marginally brighter, making him guess lights had been turned on in the kitchen.
Facing back around to again stare into the darkness, he tried to console himself that he was in for a long wait.
Chapter 28
Friday, July 25, 8:05p.m.
Bennet Estate
Hamilton County, New York
Alexei Ivanov had never felt quite so on edge as he did back when he’d arrived at the barn, half expecting at any given moment to hear approaching vehicles or worse yet, police sirens announcing an active search for Jack Stapleton. His level of anxiety had been such that he wondered how he was going to get through the next few hours, much less the next few days. It was as if he were on a precipice, and General Viktor Mikhailov was deliberating nudging him closer and closer to the edge.
As if in response to his angst, Alexei had never worked quite so intensely and with such concentration as he had while doing the third premature determination of the theta prion concentration. From the moment he’d donned the protective gear, he’d thought of nothing other than what he was doing as a way of calming his otherwise frazzled nerves. Thanks to his intense concentration he was almost done.
Using a calibrated pipette to add the calculated amount of colorimetric analyzer, Alexei swirled the graduated vial for several minutes to make certain it had mixed evenly. He then compared the color achieved with the accompanying chart. Once again he was impressed that there was any theta prion detectable at all, and interestingly enough, the detected concentration was again slightly higher than the previous one, confirming that this current batch of Saccharomyces cerevisiae yeast was definitely a wonderfully robust strain. But Alexei didn’t write this result down in the logbook. Instead, he arbitrarily doubled it to make the level harvestable, even if on the low side. His plan now was to bring the logbook itself up to the house and show it to Viktor as proof he could immediately do a rapid harvest, and then he and Dmitry could drive it into town and dump it into the municipal water supply. His hope was for the four of them to get the hell out of Essex Falls and be on their way north to the border late that night or early in the morning the latest.
As Alexei removed his protective gear, all his earlier anxieties, which had been temporarily masked by his work intensity, came back in a rush. With his pulse and blood pressure rising all over again, all he could think about was getting back up to the house and getting the meeting with Viktor behind him. He certainly wasn’t looking forward to it, which was the understatement of the year, especially since Viktor and his volatile reputation so intimidated him.
And on top of everything else, Alexei had a new concern. He’d never in his career falsified data before and considered it a major violation of principle, and he worried he might do or say something stupid and thereby give himself away. He hated the idea of having to lie about his work, but at the same time, he thought he had no choice.
Leaving the barn and pulling the door closed behind himself but without bothering to reengage the padlock since he hoped to be returning forthwith to do the supposed harvest, he started power walking up toward the house clutching the logbook to his chest. The sooner he got the meeting with Viktor over with, the better off he’d be. But with the very first steps the Glock in his pocket thumped heavily against his thigh, reminding him of the damn forensic pathologist, Jack Stapleton.
Coming to a sudden stop, Alexei briefly glanced over at the front of the icehouse while the question flashed through his mind whether or not he should take the time to detour and shoot the goddamned man to at least take care of one loose end. But he immediately nixed the idea as he acknowledged that what he really wanted to do was not just kill the meddling freak but get rid of him completely, meaning having him join Ethan and JD. But he quickly recognized getting that done would take too long, and he couldn’t do it by himself. Just getting the body from the icehouse to the dock on his own would be nearly impossible.
Alexei recommenced his power walking. Turning his attention back to the main house and the tense issue at hand, he found himself now worrying that his growing nervousness alone might give himself away and cause Viktor to question the results. This new concern brought Alexei to a second stop. Recalling Viktor’s capricious and violent reputation, there was little doubt in Alexei’s mind that falsifying data on a major governmental sanctioned operation could very well cost him his life.
