The light was vanishing outside. Nick was deep in a memory, recalling the full measure of his storm of righteous indignation from eight years before. “I’ve never understood them,” Carol said quietly. She switched off the recorder. Nick turned and looked at her, a quizzical frown on his face. “You know,” she added, “the people like your friend Jake. Infinite resiliency. No harbored grudges. Whatever happens to them they just shake off, like water, and go on living. Cheerfully.” It was her turn to feel a little emotion. “Sometimes I wish I could be more like that. Then I wouldn’t be afraid.”
They stared at each other in the soft light. Nick put his hand over hers. And there’s that vulnerable little girl again. He felt a deep emotional longing stirring in his heart. She’s let me see it twice in a single day. “Carol,” he said gently, “I want to thank you for this afternoon. You know, for sharing your feelings with me. I feel like I saw an entirely different Carol Dawson.”
“You did,” she said, smiling and making it clear that her protective shield was going up again. “And only time will tell if it was a huge mistake.” She pulled her hand slowly away from his “For the moment, though, we have other business. Back to the menage a trois. What kind of facility is it that they manage and what do they do there?”
“Excuse me?” replied Nick, obviously confused.
“A friend of mine, Dr. Dale Michaels of the Miami Oceanographic Institute, told me that Captain Homer and Ellen have some kind of high-tech operation here. I don’t remember exactly how he described it — ”
“You must be mistaken,” Nick interrupted. “I have known them for almost ten years and they are never anywhere except in that fancy house of his or onboard the Ambrosia.”
Carol was puzzled. “Dale’s information is always correct. He just told me, yesterday in fact, that Homer Ashford had field tested the institute’s most advanced underwater sentries throughout the last five years and that his reports — ”
“Hold it. Hold it.” Nick was leaning forward on the table. “I’m not sure I’m following you. Back up. This could be very very important.”
Carol started again. “One of MOI’s newest product areas is underwater sentries, robots, essentially, that protect aquaculture farms from sophisticated thieves as well as large fish or whales. Dale said that Homer contributes money for the research and then field tests the prototypes — ”
“Son of a bitch.” Nick was standing up. He was bursting with excitement. “How could I have been so stupid? Of course, of course.”
Now Carol was lost. “Would you mind telling me what’s going on?”
“Certainly,” Nick answered. “But right now we’re in a hurry. We have to go by my apartment to look at an old map and pick up another navigation system for the boat. I’ll explain everything on the way.”
Nick put his key card in the reader and the garage door opened. He pulled his Pontiac into his reserved spot and stopped the car. “So you see,” he was saying to Carol, “he knew that we wouldn’t find anything. He let us search both his house and the lot that he had bought for his new mansion, down at Pelican Point. We found nothing. At that time it was still hidden somewhere out in the ocean.”
“Did you look in the water around his new property at that time?”
“Yes, we did. Jake and I each dove there, on separate days. We found a very interesting subterranean cave, but no sign of any of the Santa Rosa treasure. But we must have given him the idea. I bet he moved the stuff there a year or two after Jake left. He probably figured it was safe by then. And he had doubtless worried himself sick that someone would discover the treasure out in the ocean. You see, it all fits. Including his involvement with underwater sentries.”
Carol nodded and laughed a little. “It certainly makes better sense than your idea that Troy was working for the Russians.” They opened the doors and climbed out of the car. “So how much do you think they have left?” Carol asked as they headed for the elevator.
“Who knows?” Nick answered. “Maybe they stole three million out of five.” He thought for a minute. “They must still have a bunch. Otherwise Greta would have split by now.”
The elevator doors opened and Nick pressed the button for the third floor. Carol heaved a big sigh. “What’s the matter?” he asked.
“I’m exhausted,” she said. “I feel as if I’m on a carousel that’s spinning faster and faster. So much has happened in the last three days. I’m not sure I could deal with much more. What I need now is a second wind.”
“Magic days,” Nick replied as they walked out of the elevator. “These are magic days.”
She looked at him with a curious expression. He laughed. “I’ll explain an old theory of mine later,” he said. He entered a sequence of numbers into the small plate on his door and the lock disengaged. Nick moved to the side with feigned gallantry and let Carol enter first. What she saw was chaos.
The place was a total shambles. In the living room, just beyond the kitchen area, all of Nick’s precious novels had been scattered randomly about on the floor, the couch, and the chairs. It looked as if someone had taken each book out of the bookcase, held it up and shook it (trying to find loose papers perhaps), and then either dropped it or thrown it across the room. Nick pushed by Carol and stared at the destruction. “Shit,” he said.
The kitchen had been plundered as well. All the drawers were open. Pots, pans, and tableware were strewn on the counters and on the floor. To Nick’s right, the cardboard boxes containing his memorabilia had been pulled into the middle of the second bedroom. Their contents had been partially dumped onto the floor around them.
“What hurricane hit this place?” Carol asked as she surveyed the mess. “I didn’t expect you to be a good house-keeper, but this is ridiculous.”
Nick was unable to laugh at Carol’s comment. He checked the master bedroom and found that it also had been ransacked. He then returned to the living room and started picking up his beloved novels and stacking them neatly on the coffee table. He winced when he found his worn copy of L’Etranger by Albert Camus. The spine of the book was destroyed. “This is not the work of vandals,” he said as Carol knelt down to help. “They were searching for something specific.”
“Have you found anything missing yet?” she asked.
“No,” Nick replied, picking up another novel with a mutilated cover and shaking his head. “But the bastards have really screwed up my books.”
She stacked his Faulkner collection on the easy chair. “I can see why Troy was impressed,” she said. “Have you really read all these novels?” Nick nodded. Carol picked one up that had fallen under the television stand. “What’s this about?” She held up the book. “I’ve never even heard of it.”
Nick had just arranged another dozen books on the coffee table. “Oh, that’s a fantastic novel,” he said enthusiastically, forgetting for a moment that his condominium had just been trashed. “The whole story is told through this exchange of letters among all the principal characters. It’s set in eighteenth-century France, and the main couple, socially prominent and bored, cement their weird relationship by sharing details of their affairs. With other lovers of course. It caused quite a scandal in Europe.”
“That doesn’t exactly sound like your typical Harlequin romance,” Carol remarked, trying to commit the title of the book to her memory.
Nick stood up and walked into the smaller bedroom. He began to sort through the contents of the cardboard boxes. “There are things missing in here,” he called out to Carol. She stopped arranging books and joined him in the bedroom. “All my photographs of the Santa Rosa treasure and even the newspaper clippings are gone. That’s odd,” he said.
Carol was beside him on the floor, in front of the boxes. She frowned. “Is the trident still on the boat?”
“Yes,” he answered. He stopped rifling through the papers. “Down in the bottom drawer of the electronics cabinet. You think there’s a connection?”
She nodded. “I think that was what they were a
fter. I don’t know why. It just seems right.”
Nick picked up a large yellow folder that had been on the floor and replaced it in one of the cardboard boxes. A photograph and some sheets of typing paper fell out. Carol picked up the picture while Nick scrambled after the papers. She studied the photo and read the French inscription. She was surprised to feel a twinge of jealousy. “Beautiful,” she commented. She noticed the pearls. “Also very rich and sophisticated. She doesn’t look like your type.”
She handed Monique’s photograph to Nick. Despite his attempt to be nonchalant, he was blushing. “That was a long time ago,” he mumbled as he hastily stuffed the photo back into the folder.
“Really?” Carol said, eyeing him carefully. “She looks as if she’s about our age. It couldn’t have been too long ago.”
Nick was flustered. He packed some more loose material in the boxes and glanced at his watch. “We’d better leave soon if we’re going to meet Troy at your hotel.” He stood up. Carol remained kneeling on the floor, looking up at him with a steady gaze. “It’s a long story,” he said. “Someday I’ll tell you all about it.”
Carol’s curiosity was piqued. She followed Nick out of his condominium and into the elevator. He was still ill at ease. Bullseye, she thought to herself. I think I have just discovered a major key to Mr. Williams. A woman named Monique. She smiled as Nick motioned for her to precede him out of the elevator. And the man does love his books.
Carol’s room at the Marriott had two entrances. The normal approach to the room was by way of the corridor that led to the lobby. But there was another door that opened on the garden and the pool. When she exercised in the morning, Carol always used the garden entrance.
Nick and Carol were talking casually but quietly as they came toward her room from the lobby. She pulled out her electronic card key just before they arrived. As she started to insert the card into the lock, they heard an unusual sound, like metal banging against metal, from the inside of her room. Before Carol could say anything, Nick shushed her by putting his finger to his mouth. “You heard it too?” she whispered softly. He nodded his head. Using gestures, he asked her if there was another entrance to the room. She pointed out the door to the hotel grounds at the end of the corridor.
Palm trees and tropical hedges covered most of the area to the east of the Marriott swimming pool. Nick and Carol left the walkway leading to the pool and crept up to the windows of her room. The venetian blinds were drawn but they could still see into the room through a crack under the bottom of the blinds. At first the room was completely dark. Then a solitary beam from a flashlight reflected for an instant off one of the walls. In that split second they saw a silhouetted figure in the neighborhood of the television set, but they could not identify him. The flashlight came on again and it paused for a moment on the door to the corridor. The door was bolted. In the brief flicker of the light beam, Carol also saw that all her dresser drawers were open.
Nick crawled over next to Carol in the flower bed just under the windows. “You stay here and watch,” he whispered. “I’ll go get something from the car. Don’t let them know you’re here.” He squeezed her shoulder and disappeared. Carol stayed glued to the window. Once more the flashlight came on, illuminating electronic parts spread out on the far bed. Carol strained for a look at who was holding the flashlight. She couldn’t see him.
She became acutely aware of the passage of time. Her intuition told her that the intruder was getting ready to leave. She suddenly realized she was completely exposed sitting out there underneath the window. Come on, Nick, she said to herself. Hurry it up. Or I may be chopped liver. The figure in the room moved toward the garden door and then stopped Carol felt her pulse rate increase. At just that moment Nick returned, out of breath. He had brought back a long crowbar from the trunk of his car. Carol motioned to him to stand by the door, that the intruder was about to come out.
She saw the figure put his hand on the doorknob and she flattened herself against the dirt. Nick was behind the door, poised to deliver a powerful blow to whoever exited from the room. The door opened, Nick started to strike. “Troy,” screamed Carol from the flower bed. He jumped back just in time, barely missing the downward swoop of Nick’s crowbar. Carol was on her feet in an instant. She ran up to a shaken Troy. “Are you all right?” she said.
His eyes were wide from fright. “Jesus, Professor,” he said, glancing at the crowbar that Nick was wielding, “you might have killed me.”
“Shit, Jefferson,” Nick replied, the adrenaline still coursing through his system, “why didn’t you tell us it was you? And what were you doing in Carol’s room?” He looked at Troy accusingly.
Troy backed into the room and turned on the lights. The room was a disaster. It looked like Nick’s condominium when Carol had first walked through the front door.
Carol turned to Troy. “Why on earth . . .”
“I didn’t do it, angel,” he replied. “Honest Injun.” Troy looked at his two friends. “Sit down,” he said. “This will only take a second.”
Meanwhile Carol’s eyes were scanning the room. “Crap,” she said angrily, “all my cameras and film are gone. And virtually the entire telescope system, including the post-processor unit. Dale will shoot me.” She looked in one of the open drawers. “The assholes took my photographs from the first dive as well. They were in a large envelope on the right side of this top drawer.”
Carol sat down on the bed looking a little dazed. “All the film from the photographs that I took inside that place has been stolen. So much for my sensational story,” she said.
Nick tried to comfort her. “Who knows. Maybe they’ll turn up. And besides, yal still have all the negatives from the first dive.”
Carol shook her head. “It’s not the same thing.” She thought for a minute. “Damnit,” she said, “I should have kept the exposed film with me when we left the hotel to go to Troy’s apartment.” She looked at the two men and then brightened a bit. “Oh well,” she said. “There’s always tomorrow.”
Troy was still waiting patiently to give his explanation. He indicated for Nick to sit down on the bed next to Carol. “I’ll make this short and sweet,” he said. “Just the facts. I arrived here about seven o’clock. I came early because I wanted to make some modifications to your television set. I’ll explain why in a minute.
“The people in the hotel wouldn’t give me a key to your room so I came down here and fooled the card reader.” He smiled. “It’s no problem for someone who knows how these things work. Anyway, as soon as the green light came on and the guard bolt released, I heard the garden door slam. Someone had been in the room while I was opening the door. I caught a fleeting glimpse of him as he hightailed it around the corner of the building. He was a big man, not someone I recognized immediately. He was moving with difficulty, as if he were carrying something heavy.”
“Part of the ocean telescope,” Carol said.
“Go on,” added Nick. “What happened next? I want to hear why you were in Carol’s room working in the dark. I bet you’ll come up with a good story for that too.”
“That’s easy,” Troy said to Nick. “I was afraid the thief or thieves might come back. I didn’t want them to see me.”
“You’re amazing, Jefferson,” Nick responded. “You’re the kind of person who would tell a cop that you were exceeding the speed limit because you wanted to get to a filling station before you ran out of gas.”
“And the cop would believe him,” Carol remarked. They all laughed. The tension in the room was diffusing.
“All right,” said Nick. “Now tell us what you’ve done to the television. Incidentally, how did you get inside it? I thought these hotel sets were all alarmed.”
“They are,” Troy replied, “but it’s very simple to disable the alarm system. It always cracks me up. Somebody sells the hotel the idea that they can protect their property with these alarms. But the burglars can easily find out what system has been installed, buy the circuit data
sheets, and completely disable the protection.”
Troy glanced around the room. He then checked his watch carefully. “Let’s see,” he said. “Why don’t you two move over here in these chairs. I think you’ll be able to see better.” Nick and Carol exchanged puzzled looks and arranged themselves as Troy had requested. “Now,” he continued in a surprisingly serious tone, “you will see what I believe is incontrovertible proof that my story about the aliens is true. They have told me, through this bracelet, that they are going to televise a short program from inside the vehicle at exactly seven-thirty. If I have translated their directions properly and made the correct modifications, this television should now be able to receive their transmission.”
He turned on the set and put it on channel 44. There was nothing but snow and static. “This is great, Troy,” Nick commented. “It will probably steal rating points from soap operas and music videos. Watching this requires even less intelligence — ”
A picture suddenly appeared on the screen. The lighting was poor, but Carol immediately recognized herself in the scene. She was standing with her back to the cameras, her fingers moving around on top of what appeared to be a table.
An orchestral version of “Silent Night,” featuring an instrument not unlike an organ, accompanied the picture.
“That’s the music room I told you about,” Carol said to Nick. “I guess that warden thing had a video camera in all his paraphernalia.”