Matt sits up and crosses his arms over his knees. His breathing settles and his heart slows and his thoughts are clear. He feels the resurgence of hope.
“We need to see the basement of the house,” he says.
“There is no basement,” says Om. “Did you see stairs? No, you did not.”
“There’s an elevator. The security men and your women use it. It’s how they come and go like ghosts.”
“Yes, but the elevator only services the two floors. There is no basement. I do not want you back inside my home, Matt and Mr. Anthony. You must honor my generosity and depart. Right actions follow right minds.”
“Give me a break, Om. Matt, where’s that elevator?”
“It has to be in the kitchen,” says Matt. “I didn’t see it but it has to be there.”
“Om?” says Bruce. “We’re going back inside to confirm your no-basement statement, then we’ll be on our way. Deal?”
“If you are not most rapid, I will have my disciples remove you. They are trained.”
“We’ll be most rapid. Come on, Matt.”
In the kitchen, Mahajad Om scowls at them, arms crossed. His long black hair and gray-white beard glisten with sweat and Matt sees big wet rings on the satin robe. Two disciples look on from behind them, hands folded and feet spread. Two more appear in the dark periphery of the great room.
Matt surveys the big kitchen. Wonders if there might be a secret room like at Mystic Arts World. A moving wall or shelf. He opens cabinets in search of a button or a control of some kind. Tries the pantry and finds not foodstuffs or a secret room, but the elevator he predicted. It’s small and old. But the swami was right, the wood-handled lever only has two positions: Floor 1 and Floor 2.
Nothing more.
However...
“No basement, as I testified,” says Mahajad. “Now be gone, please. You are destroying my good spirits.”
“Come on swami Om,” says Matt, stepping into the elevator. “Help us find her.”
Bruce headlocks the swami and drives him into the elevator car.
Matt slams the collapsible metal gate closed, pulls the lever hard, down past the Floor 1 setting, then pushes the worn brass button.
The old car shudders, and starts its way... down.
“Stop kickin’, you hairy goddamned devil!”
In the scuffle, Matt pulls the swami’s key ring from the pocket of his robe and stuffs it in the wallet pocket of his jeans.
The car lowers and bangs to a stop and the lights come on. Matt slides open the door. The basement is bigger than he expected. The main room is an office with two large desks that form an L. The chairs and wooden file cabinets look as if they were made back in the twenties, when the Vortex was still a seminary. The ceiling is low and the fluorescent tubes give off a jittery glow. Beyond the office is a kitchen and dining room.
Released by Bruce, Mahajad backpedals into the near desk, steadies his big body, rearranges his sweat-soaked robe. To Matt, he looks like a different man than the one he first saw at Mystic Arts World, and later here at Sara’s Evolution, and later at the Feast of the Spirit. His eyes are furtive.
“Now, you have seen the basement. Call out her name. Jasmine Anthony! Your family is here to free you from the Vortex of Purity!”
Om’s smooth, subtly accented baritone rings out, but only silence and the drone of the generators answer back.
“Why did you say you didn’t have a basement?” asks Matt.
“So you would depart the Vortex. Your presence is an offense to me.”
“How many of those disciple bodyguards do you have, Omley?” asks Bruce.
“As with everything, only what I need. Now, you will exit as you promised.”
“Search, Matt. I’ll stay with our gracious host.”
Matt goes room to room. The doors are all open and the light switches easy to find. There are three bedrooms on one side of the hall, three on the other, all with small beds made with crimson bedspreads. Also, two bathrooms and a living room with couches and recliner chairs, a TV, and a cabinet stereo. It all looks ready, but unused.
Back in the office Matt finds Bruce telling the swami about the natural passivity of the Indian people and how the Ganges is the most polluted river on the planet thanks to the people letting their holy cattle shit and piss in it. Om sits in one of the old wooden office chairs, looking exhausted and defeated, his black eyes tracking Matt.
“Nothing, Dad.”
Matt can hardly bear the disappointment on his father’s face. “Okay, son. We tried. Sorry for the intrusion, Omar.”
Matt feels the weight of defeat trying to take him down. He can’t believe that Jazz’s desperate airplanes have guided them here but not to her. He takes one last look around the big room. Walks disconsolately into the kitchen/dining area, flips on more lights.
And sees a door.
“Where’s this go?” he calls back to the swami.
“To the generators.”
The second key that Matt tries unlocks the door and Matt pushes it open to a wall of sound.
A long, dark hall extends straight ahead. He finds the lights. The power station is small and tight, the floor concrete but thrumming with horsepower. The generators, gleaming and large, hum loudly, vibrating Matt to his bones. He turns to see Bruce guiding Om into the room.
Another door waits behind the generators, roughly where Matt gauges the bell tower to be. But being underground it’s hard to tell what goes to where — there’s no perspective and no spatial logic, but as he studies it...
“It goes only to storage,” says Om.
“No,” says Matt.
The same key unlocks the door. He opens it and finds the switch. A nearly empty room, windowless and unfurnished. And metal stairs leading up from this noisy basement.
Bruce wrenches Om in by the peaked shoulder of his sweat-heavy satin robe.
“I told you, Matt — storage!”
Matt considers: plastic gas cans, cases of bottled water, hoes and shovels and concrete mix leaning against the walls.
But from under the stairs something else catches his eye: a brown paper shopping bag stuffed with a loose bundle of material that shows over the top.
Black symbols on a white background.
Peace signs.
Another connection.
“Where is she?”
“You have lost your beautiful mind, Matt Anthony.”
“Jasmine!” he yells. “Jasmine!”
Matt flies up the stairs and out of the basement and into a small, round, plaster-walled room. It’s the bell tower entrance. He sees the door he tried to open. And the stairway spiraling up into the tower itself.
He doesn’t just sense her; he feels her.
“Jasmine!” Matt bellows, taking the steep stairs two at a time in a dizzying circular sprint. The iron steps thrum and vibrate with his weight, and Matt bellows her name again.
Her voice is faint. “Yes. What?”
“It’s Matt! I’m coming!”
“Oh, good, Matt. Good.”
He gets to the top and steps into the belfry.
Jasmine sits at a small desk. She wears a loose crimson gown. She’s pale and her hair is long and combed out. Her eyes are calm and distant. She looks at Matt and smiles. She stands and comes toward him in uneven, labored steps, dragging an iron ball chained to her right ankle.
“It really is about time, Matt.”
He kneels and tries to get the shackle off but it’s padlocked around her ankle.
“Om has the key,” she says evenly.
Matt’s down on the floor again, trying keys on the padlock when Bruce and Mahajad barge in.
Just as Bruce looks to his daughter, the swami whirls and drives his open palm into Bruce’s nose, then stomps hard on the side of his knee. Bruce collapses, hat rolling, nose gushing blood, gasping with pain as he tries to draw his gun. Om kicks him in the jaw.