Unwritten Laws 01(328)
Sleepy’s teeth flashed in the moonlight. “Swan Norris,” he said, as though hearing a song he’d forgotten years ago. “Lord, that man in there owes for a lot of people. For a long time, too. He’s got a big account to pay.”
“Maybe it’s time we collected.”
Sleepy nodded, then turned and started toward the great dark house beside the lake.
Holding his shotgun like a balancing pole, Henry followed in his wake. When they neared the front porch, Henry covered the approaches to the house while Johnston opened the front door with the guard’s key. Holding a finger to his lips, Sleepy stepped over the threshold, into a dark foyer. Henry followed, trying not to stumble.
No alarm sounded.
There was a lighted keypad on the wall, but the LED read DISARMED. Henry saw no other light, except the flicker of a television far down a hallway to their right. Gripping his shotgun like a lifeline, he started forward, but Sleepy caught his arm and held him back. The black man reached down to a credenza in the foyer and lifted an envelope from a pile of mail. Then he took a cigarette lighter out of his pocket and set the envelope alight.
Henry watched in bewilderment. Was Sleepy Johnston crazy, or was it that Henry’s addled brain couldn’t keep up? Johnston scanned the ceiling, then walked over to a smoke alarm and held the burning envelope directly beneath it. At last Henry understood. Even with the security system disarmed, the fire alarm should sound and summon the fire department.
He waited for an earsplitting Klaxon, but again none came. Sleepy stretched up higher, until the flame actually touched the smoke alarm.
Still nothing.
Henry went back to the keypad on the wall and punched the fire alarm and police buttons. When nothing happened, he pressed several buttons, trying to arm the system, but the readout didn’t change.
“Don’t make sense,” Sleepy whispered. “Something ain’t right.”
Why would Brody Royal disable his own alarm system? Henry wondered. Especially when he’s holding people prisoner downstairs? He shuffled quietly into the first darkened room off the hall, watching the light of the television flicker at the end of the long corridor.
A guest room. There. A telephone sat on the bedside table. A landline. Laying his shotgun on the bed, Henry dialed 911 with shaking hands, then lifted the receiver to his ear and waited. He heard neither a ring nor an answer.
“Hello?” he said, wondering if the drugs were playing tricks on him.
“Hey, Lee!” called a male voice from the direction of the TV’s glow. “What the hell you doing inside? Mr. Royal said not to leave your post unless we relieved you.”
Still confused by the silent telephone, Henry set down the receiver and considered trying to fake a response. Before he could try, Sleepy raised his finger to his lips, then pointed at the shotgun. Tensing for the shock of pain, Henry bent at the waist and picked up his father’s old Winchester.
CHAPTER 93
I COME AWAKE with my head pounding like a kettledrum, but a baritone counterpoint of voices penetrates the pain. My captors must be close. Keeping my eyes closed, I try to glean what I can of my surroundings. I’m lying on my side, on a cold concrete floor. The voices belong to Brody Royal and Randall Regan, and they’re coming from beyond my head, not my feet. Before I can make sense of their words, Caitlin’s higher-pitched voice asks a question. As the old man answers, a stunning realization hits me: my hands have been freed. The sticky residue of duct tape remains on my wrists, but the tape itself is gone. After a moment, I carefully open one eye and realize why. My left leg has been manacled to a ring bolt set in a cinder-block wall.
My chain appears to have about five feet of play in it. The slightest leg movement will make it rattle. As slowly as I can, I arch my neck back, searching for Caitlin. There. Fifteen feet away, she stands trussed to a steel pole like a witch condemned to burn at the stake. Her right cheek looks pink and swollen, as from a blow, and her eyes are bereft of hope.
Beyond my line of sight, Brody says something to Randall Regan in a low voice, but I hear nothing of the men from the van. With any luck, they’re gone. Hoping to further assess our situation before Royal or Regan realizes I’m awake, I tilt my head a little farther back, taking great care to keep my eyes barely open.
Brody Royal’s firing range appears to be a long tunnel cut deep into the earth. Five shooting lanes wide and forty yards long, it’s lined with cinder-block walls, floored with cement, and fitted with ceiling-mounted sprinkler heads every few yards. Steel support poles rise from the concrete floor to the basement ceiling, and it’s one of these to which Caitlin has been tied. Harsh fluorescent light floods the vast space, giving it the look of a chamber Reinhard Heydrich designed to torture Czech resistance fighters.