The Simeon Chamber (35 page)

Nick looked over Sam’s shoulder, wide-eyed as he stared down at the massive book. His mind reeled. For three hundred years the truth of Drake’s voyage had been relegated to conjecture and debate among scholars. Now for the first time the world would know with certainty where he landed in the New World and what he found when he arrived. Historians could scrutinize Drake’s most intimate thoughts, fears and hopes, and share firsthand the excitement of his exploration and conquest.

They were both giddy with excitement. There before them on the shelf lay the narrative of England’s first great oceanic explorer. A chronicle of adventure and death, of the biting cold and searing heat of the elements, of native peoples whose culture and society had long since passed into history. Sam pawed through the book, stopping to look at charts and drawings of land masses.

He wondered if it would contain a map of Nova Albion—and maybe, just maybe, the location of Drake’s cache of gold and silver? There was no time to look. He had it and now they had to get out before they were caught. If they were stopped by security on the hill it would take days to unravel the entire affair. And he didn’t have days. He had a date with Raymond Slade at the Seven Sisters in less than twenty-four hours.

As they turned to leave, suddenly there were the sounds of footsteps, an eerie echoing from the walls above the balustrade.

“The light,” Nick whispered. There was panic in his eyes as he moved silently to the ladder and down to the switch on the wall. With a click the wall-mounted lamps went dark. The room took on an unearthly glow as four brilliant shafts of light streamed into the room from metal gratings above the book cabinets.

The footsteps grew louder—solid heels on hard marble. 3

Nick removed his shoes and scaled the ladder to join Sam who hadn’t moved from the shelf and the journal.

In silence Nick looked at him, a quizzical expression on his face. Sam shrugged his shoulders and shook his head in puzzlement, his eyes cast toward the ceiling.

Then, motioning, Nick stooped low and coupled his hands together between his knees. Sam placed his right foot into the loop formed by Nick’s hands and, steadying himself with one hand on Nick’s shoulder, he stepped carefully with his other foot onto the bottom shelf of the book cabinet. Pressed against the wall above the cabinet and held firmly in place by Nick’s outstretched hands in the small of his back, Sam peered through the opening covered by the small metal grating.

There before him at floor level stood the immense Assembly Room of La Casa Grande, its opulent gilded columns framing the grand entrance to the room, its massive tapestries hanging from the vaulted majestic walls of marble and granite. Not more than five feet in front of Sam’s face rested the glistening heel of a man’s black boot, and draped over it, the cuff of a pant leg. The toe of the boot flexed as the man took a step away from the wall and the grating. As the figure moved into the center of the room Sam could see the broad back of a uniformed security guard, a revolver strapped to his side. Sam drew shallow silent breaths for fear of being heard. The officer cupped his hands behind his back and walked toward one of the banks of handcarved walnut choir seats lining the wall. Plopping his body down onto the chair, the guard leaned back and cupped his hands behind his head, closing his eyes for a quick nap.

Sam stood perched with his feet on one shelf of the cabinet and his body pressed against the upper shelves. With the weight of his companion off of his arms Nick relaxed, and suddenly it occurred to him—the meaning of Sam’s words as they stood at the end of the tunnel and looked out at the night sky. He knew how Bogardus could be so certain that the journal was back in the tunnel. Documents and oil paintings were susceptible to dampness. Differences in humidity and temperature would take a toll on such items, even over short periods. They could not be stored for long in 445

the dank surroundings of the storehouse near the animal enclosure. Symington knew that. He would never allow the committee to consign precious art or irreplaceable parchments to such a place.

This room had been his sanctum sanctorum. It had escaped the plunder by the committee following their demise. Here, with the careful atmospheric controls of the great house and with dry heat supplied through the grates on the wall, the journal could last a millennium.

With his face pressed against the grating, Sam peered through the metalwork at the guard who was sound asleep. His feet were sprawled on an oriental carpet, his behind resting on the edge of the ornate choir chair, shoulders hunched against the high back of the chair.

Silently, Sam motioned with his hand and Nick guided his foot to the floor of the balustrade.

Sam picked up the oilcloth and rewrapped the journal. Taking off his belt he strapped it around the cloth-covered book and picked it up.

“Let’s get the hell out of here while we have the chance.” 13

“What do you mean you lost them? God damn it!” Notwithstanding his gruff demeanor it was out of character for Fletcher to swear. He reserved it for particular calamities and when they occurred the cops in his division gave him a wide berth.

Mayhew’s only comfort derived from the fact that he was in a telephone booth two hundred miles away. His partner stood in the open door to the booth. Despite the night chill carried on the ocean breezes they were both sweating profusely, their white shirts splotched with motor oil and engine grime.

“We didn’t come up totally empty, Lieutenant. After we got back to the inn we went up to the room. Bogardus and Jorgensen checked out twenty minutes before we got there. The strange thing is that the girl wasn’t with them. According to the desk clerk, she left about an hour before with another man. The desk clerk said he’d never seen the guy before.

“There’s one more thing, Lieutenant.” There was a pause on the line. Fletcher knew it had to be bad news.

“The cleaning lady at the inn said there 447

was scribbling in lipstick all over the mirror in the bathroom when she went into the room to clean it. She was mad as hell.”

Mayhew stopped as if to check his notes.

“Well? What did it say?”

“The maid thought it was a joke. The message said that if they wanted the woman back alive they should be someplace called the Seven Sisters by four o’clock tomorrow.”

Fletcher said nothing for several seconds.

“What does it mean, Lieutenant?”

“It means you guys screwed up. Listen, I want the two of you back in the city and don’t worry about the speed limit getting here. i want both of you in my office by nine A.M.

tomorrow. Do you understand?”

“Yes sir.” Before the words cleared his lips Mayhew heard the click of the telephone as Fletcher slammed the receiver down on the other end.

“Why do they keep sending me all the idiots?” Fletcher looked over at the desk sergeant who sat across from him.

The sergeant shook his head.

“Have you ever heard of a place called the Seven Sisters?”

The sergeant wrinkled his eyebrows. “Maybe a bar?”

“Never mind. Listen, did you get anything on that car—the limousine that we picked up in Chinatown?”

“Yeah. The report’s on your desk. Right there.” The sergeant tapped a single piece of paper on the corner of the desk.

“Thanks.” Fletcher passed his eyes over the brief report.

“Are you sure this is accurate? This is the owner of the car?”

“That’s it,” said the sergeant.

Fletcher looked down at the brief notation: 1974 Lincoln Mark Very (modified “stretch”

limousine)

VIN J387650928

Registered Owner: George Johnson “What’s the address?”

“It turned out to be a phony. Some address on Olstead Street in San Francisco.

There is no Olstead Street in the 9

city.”

“Great. Put an allpoints bulletin out on Bogardus and Jorgensen. They’re not dangerous. Just have ‘em picked up. Make sure the highway patrol gets it. They’re probably on the road somewhere between here and San Luis Obispo.”

The sergeant turned for the door. “Oh, before I forget, you asked me to have that switchblade examined by forensics. It’s negative. The medical examiner says that the dimensions on the blade are all wrong for the wound in the girl’s back.”

“Fine. Any more bad news?”

“Forensics is still checking for pick marks in the lock at her apartment.” The sergeant left the office and Fletcher picked up his notebook and scanned the entries of his interview with Jasper Holmes.

The Englishman exhibited the arrogance of a British lord, but his part in the unfolding drama appeared to be minor. Holmes’s principal interest seemed to be academic. Possession of the four pages of parchment and the Drake journal were to be his ticket to educational glory.

The real player appeared to be the other man, the man Holmes said he had talked to on the telephone and again in the limousine several days before at the campus. The fellow had promised Holmes that he would allow him access to the complete journal if the Englishman could provide him with an accurate translation of the four pages Fletcher had found at Holmes’s Berkeley apartment. Unless Fletcher was wrong, the only tribute the Englishman would ever garner from his translation would come when he entered the collegiate equivalent of Valhalla.

Angie Bogardus had probably saved his life.

Now it was time for Holmes to return the favor. Fletcher picked up the telephone and dialed Jasper’s number in Berkeley. As the phone rang, Fletcher doodled on the scrap of paper, drawing curls and lines around his earlier note—”Four o’clock tomorrow.” He underlined the three words “the Seven Sisters,” as Holmes answered.

The whining of the engine lulled Sam into a shallow sleep as Nick guided the Porsche north up 101 toward San Francisco. A 451

light drizzle peppered the windshield with a driven mist. The journal lay against Sam’s chest, clutched in the deathlike embrace of his crossed arms. Even in slumber, Sam’s mind danced with visions of the Spanish tiled chamber beneath the castle and the dark granite tunnels under the hill, of Jennifer’s face and the grotesque image of Susan Paterson prostrate on the cold hard porcelain of the autopsy table.

The measured cadence of the windshield wipers mesmerized Nick into a state of drowsiness, his head repeatedly nodding toward his chest. The car drifted onto the shoulder and rumbled over potholes in the asphalt. The two of them woke with a start. Nick quickly guided the car back into the fast lane.

“Sorry.”

Sam arched his back and stretched his arms as far as the low roof of the vehicle would allow. Sam was operating on less than an hour’s sleep and Nick hardly any at all. As the countryside streaked by outside the windows both men knew what had to be done. They would take the journal to the Seven Sisters and somehow try to exchange it for Jennifer Davies—if she was still alive.

“I think we should call Jake when we get back,” said Nick. “We’re going to need him.”

“You’re probably right. You can take care of it when we get back to the city.”

Nick nodded.

It was an idle errand. Sam had no intention of involving either of his friends further. He had no right. Because of his own stupidity Jennifer’s life now hung in the balance. She had pleaded with him to go to the police, and like a fool he had refused.

He would not make another mistake. He would not endanger anyone else. He was also abundantly familiar with the inert processes of justice. He had a more accelerated timetable in mind for Raymond Slade, and a more irrevocable disposition, a plan in which he refused to implicate his friends.

Pat’s murder had rekindled Sam’s primordial urge for revenge. The lawyer in him reasoned for due process and the cumbersome procedures of civilized society. But instincts more compelling drove him to meet Slade on his own terms, alone and unseen by any authority. Sam no longer wondered whether he was capable of killing. The only question was whether he would have the opportunity. 3

“I want to go to the office on our way through town so you can show me on a map where this place is —the Seven Sisters. Then I have to run a brief errand, something I have to do alone. You can call Jake from the office and I’ll swing back through town and pick the two of you up before heading back up the coast.”

Nick looked over at him and nodded in agreement.

The Porsche rolled under the ornate wrought-iron sign arching over the gate. MADRIGAL VINEYARDs SONOMA, CALIFORNIa

Sam drove slowly down the long gravel drive toward the house. He was not looking forward to the meeting with Louis Davies, but it was something that he couldn’t do by telephone—tell the old man that his stepdaughter had been abducted and was being held for ransom by a murderer.

He parked the car beside the steps leading to the front door and slowly walked up and pushed the doorbell. He waited several seconds. An old woman wearing a scarf over her hair and a simple print dress partially covered by an apron opened the door.

“Hello.” She spoke with a distinct accent.

“I’m looking for Louis Davies. Is he in?”

“Not at the moment. But I’m expecting him shortly.”

“I wonder if I might wait. It’s very important.”

“May I ask what it concerns?”

“It’s a personal matter.”

The old woman hesitated for a moment and then opened the door wide to admit him. She led him through a large entry hall and past a set of double doors into an elegantly furnished living room.

“Please take a seat. Can I offer you anything to drink?”

“No, I’m fine. Please don’t let me disturb you.”

Sam took a seat on the large couch facing the fireplace. The woman excused herself and left the room.

Sam pushed one hand into the deep 5

pocket of his coat and felt the handle of the small snub-nosed revolver he had picked up at the office. He had removed the gun from a locked cabinet in his desk while Nick was busy on the phone in the other room, trying to reach Jake Carns. As his two friends planned a rendezvous at the office for two o’clock—a rendezvous that Sam would never keep—he’d opened the cylinder of the small handgun and had examined the five thirty-eight-special rounds seated in the chambers.