The Short Forever(55)

He picked up the corkscrew, which was of the waiter’s type—small, flat, with a folded knife blade at one end. He opened the knife and poked it between the two racks, finding the strip of metal. It moved when poked, and he tried inserting the blade underneath the strip and pushing upward. Almost to his surprise, the metal strip moved easily. It had been holding the two racks together; now, with it out of the way, Stone pulled on the two racks and they quite easily swung into the cellar like double doors. He could now see that each rack had a solid wood back that was fixed to the wall by four heavy hinges.

Behind the two racks was another door that, surprisingly, seemed to have no lock. Stone turned the knob and pushed it open, revealing a small room of about eight by ten feet. He found a light switch, and a fluorescent fixture brightly illuminated the space. He had found Lance Cabot’s office. The room was equipped with everything a home office requires—office supplies, file cabinets, and a multipurpose printer/copier/fax machine, connected to a substantial-looking computer with a flat-screen monitor.

Stone tried the filing cabinets: locked. He switched on the computer and waited for it to boot up. Finally a screen appeared, demanding a password. Stone tried Lance, Cabot, Erica, Monica, Ali, Sheila—all the names he knew to be connected to Lance. None worked. Frustrating. He could do this all night and get nowhere. The steel desk on which the computer keyboard rested was locked, too, every drawer, and there was nothing visible or searchable in the office that could tell him anything. Indeed, except for the secret location of the room, it was like any other home office—well equipped, but utilitarian. Nothing exotic—no high-frequency radios, no mysterious equipment. Of course, with the Internet, who needed long-range radios these days?

Stone knew a little about picking locks, and he looked around for something he might use for a lock-pick. Nothing but a letter opener and some paper clips. He examined the desk lock and got a small surprise. He had expected standard office locks, the kind that anybody with some picking skills could open, but these were more substantial. Each was an inch or so in diameter, and when he examined the small space between each drawer and desk, the bolts were larger than usual. It would take a much greater expert than he to deal with these locks, which had no commercial names on them. It appeared that the old locks had been drilled out and replaced with the larger, more secure ones. The locks on the filing cabinets were identical.

As Stone sat staring at the desk, wondering what to do next, he heard a noise above his head. It occurred to him that he was sitting directly below the main foyer of the house, and what he had heard was a footstep, followed by the sound of the front door closing.

There was no way out of the cellar, except the way he had come, and that opened into the foyer. Quickly, Stone turned off the wine cellar light, then pulled the two rack/doors closed and secured the metal strip. Then he closed the office door, fearful that light might escape around the door, and switched off the lights. Nothing to do now but be quiet and wait.





Chapter 33



STONE LISTENED AS AN OCCASIONAL footstep struck the wooden floor above, instead of a rug, and it became apparent that more than one person was in the house, and, from the sound of the heavy steps, they were men. They moved in and out of rooms on the floor above, and then they stopped. Either they were standing still or walking on rugs.

Then Stone heard a noise in the wine cellar, and dim light appeared around the edges of the door to the little office. He could hear voices now, though they were muffled, and the men appeared to be speaking a foreign language. He put an ear to the door, trying to hear better, but it didn’t help much. Then there was a louder voice and two sharp reports, which Stone knew could only be gunshots. They were not very loud, but not silenced, either—probably a small-caliber handgun. A moment later, there were two further shots, and he knew what that meant. The light disappeared from around the door, and then there was nothing but silence, until he heard footsteps in the foyer, and the sound of the front door opening and closing.

Stone checked his watch, the hands of which glowed in the dark, and waited a full five minutes. Then he switched on the office light. Something made him look down, and he did not like what he saw. Blood was seeping under the door. He pulled it open slightly and listened; not a sound. He opened the door, raised the latch holding the wine racks shut, and pushed. They moved a couple of inches, then stopped against something soft.

Stone got as low as he could, put his shoulder against the racks, and pushed hard. Slowly, whatever was blocking the racks moved, and he was able to open them wide enough to step through. Light from the office fell on a man’s back. Stone stepped between the racks and over the body and found the ceiling light. Not one, but two bodies lay on the floor of the wine cellar; they were the two men who had abducted him, and each of them had two new orifices in his head.