The Forgotten Room

50

Even though he’d driven through the hurricane on his way back to Lux, the redoubled, elemental fury took him by surprise. The wind pressed him against the dressed stone of the mansion’s facade, ballooning his jacket up and away from his shoulders, threatening to pluck the contents from his pockets. Within seconds he was soaked to the skin.

Forcing himself back to the exit, he peered carefully around the doorjamb and through the little panes set into the door. The short corridor beyond was empty; no armed figure was rushing toward him. He had made his escape from the building without arousing notice.

He leaned back against the building. But now what?

He glanced down the gray sweep of lawn toward the ocean. The waves were beating against the rocky coast with a fury he had never before seen; spume and spindrift tumbled angrily upward to mix with the lashing curtains of rain, blending together so completely that it was impossible to tell where sea left off and rain began. The rain, driving straight into his eyes, stung badly and he turned away, shielding his face with his hands.

He glanced to the left. He could barely make out the vast bulk of the East Wing, standing like a Gibraltar against the fury, a few dim lights glowing on its three floors. He could make his way to the edge of the wing, then sneak around it to the parking lot, and...

And what? Might not his car be under surveillance, as well? He’d seen no sign of it upon his arrival — if he had, he’d have been more wary about meeting Laura Benedict in her basement office — but that didn’t mean it wasn’t there. These men were pros, and they weren’t just here to send a message... not anymore.

Even if he managed to make it to his car, and get away from his place — what then? What about Kim? As he’d raced through the labyrinthine underground labs of gleaming steel, as he’d waded through the dim chambers and grottos of the ancient subbasement, he’d cursed himself for not thinking first about her safety. Instead of telling her to round up the transmitting devices for safekeeping, he should have ordered her to go someplace, anyplace, where she could hide.

Then again, he thought, Kim was a smart woman. She might have seen the strangers, put two and two together, gone to ground somewhere...

But this thought was immediately answered by another: Pamela Flood had been a smart woman, too...

He drove this from his mind as best he could. There was something else to consider: the Machine itself. If he simply ran away, there would be nothing to stop Laura Benedict and the team of Ironhand enforcers from dismantling and making off with the equipment, under cover of the storm. After all, Lux was all but deserted. True, she’d said she was still days away from completing the work she needed to finish miniaturizing the technology to make it suitable for transport... but after what had just transpired, that impediment wouldn’t stop her. She’d take whatever she could, now, and then disappear.

As he stood there, in the black shadow of the vast facade, the words he’d spoken to Benedict in her laboratory came back to him. This device of yours is... unthinkable. To drive somebody, perhaps an entire army, insane... There are reasons chemical weapons were outlawed. Just how long do you think it will take for the technology to be leaked — and the same diabolical ordnance used against our own men and women?

The device had to be destroyed. She still needed it if she was to complete her work — she’d said as much. But what could he do? He was unarmed, facing a trained squad of killers. As he stood there in the shelter of the mansion’s south wall, he patted at his pockets, even though he knew the gesture was futile. A flashlight. A kitchen knife. A digital recorder. A cell phone...

As his hand closed over this last item, the vaguest outlines of a plan began to come together. And as it did, his heart began to accelerate once again. He took a deep breath, then another, looking around to make sure the coast was clear. But there was only him and the howling storm.

Logan pushed himself away from the protective wall and forced himself out into the wrath of the elements. Turning his back to the East Wing, he began plodding forward. The hurricane was like an animal force, trying its best to spin him around, force him back, prevent him from staggering on. He took one step at a time, laboring against the appalling force of nature. As he did so, the shriek of the storm intensified, as if outraged by his attempts to defy it. His injured leg, and the blow to his head, throbbed and protested with the effort. Once, his feet slipped from under him and he fell face forward into the sodden grass. It was so thick with water that, for a crazy moment, he felt as if he was lying at the lip of a lake. It would have been easy, so very easy, just to close his eyes and drift into unconsciousness. Instead he forced himself to his feet once again, but was almost immediately knocked down once more by the hurricane. The howling of the banshee wind rang painfully in his ears. Against all reason, the tempest was still escalating.

Logan realized he couldn’t fight against the elements. The storm would sap all his strength before he even reached his destination... strength he would need for what lay ahead.

He veered out of the teeth of the storm and made his way back to the facade of the mansion. It seemed to tower endlessly over him, its crenelations and beetling gables invisible in the raging night. But here, under its eaves, the storm abated somewhat. Not much — but enough to allow him to continue forward.

One step, another, another. He soon lost track of time and, stupid with exhaustion, could not even begin to guess how far he’d come. The only way he was able to orient himself, to know that he was making any progress at all, was by sliding his right hand along the stonework of the mansion...

And then, directly ahead, something loomed up out of the darkness, black against black. At first, he sensed rather than felt it. And then, as he began to trudge forward yet another step, he walked straight into it. Half blinded by the wind-driven rain, he pressed his hands forward, feeling his way, trying to determine what it was that impeded his progress.

It was another wall of dressed stone, taller than he could gauge and perpendicular to the one he’d been following, dark and unlit and uninhabited, stretching away to his left into unguessable distances.

The West Wing.

Turning now ninety degrees to the south and leaning against this new support, Logan moved forward until he found what he was looking for: a small window, low, barely at knee height. Dropping to the ground, heedless of the pain in his leg, he applied numb fingers to the sash, tried pulling it upward.

Locked.

Taking shallow breaths, coughing out the rainwater that kept filling his mouth and eyes and ears, he took off his jacket, placed it against the glass, and then beat at it — first with his fists, then with his left shoe. On the third blow, the window gave.

Using his jacket for protection, he gingerly plucked away the remaining shards of glass. Then he slipped through the window, careful this time to slide down to the floor feetfirst.

He shook the glass from his jacket. A brief circuit with the flashlight showed him he was in a small storage room, apparently used by the workmen who’d been engaged in the reconstruction. There were wooden sawhorses; stacked cans of paint; boxes full of caulking tubes; carefully folded tarps covered with Pollock-like drips and sprays in a multitude of colors.

His flashlight made out an open door on the far side of the room. He’d grab one of the tarps and stuff it into the window, then close the door behind him as he left the room; that would mute the sound of the storm, conceal the fact that he’d broken into the wing.

Just as he grabbed the topmost tarp, he hesitated. No, he told himself. First, there was something he had to do.