Once there, Shep assigned everyone to rooms and they dispersed until dinnertime, and afterward they reassembled in the library, where Doug conducted a chalk talk on the approaches to and the layout of the Troutman Industries plant. “Our goal,” he said, “is to put that gentleman” — he pointed at Sol — “in this room.” He tapped on the floor plan with his pointer. “We will enter the factory here” — he pointed at a door — “take the elevator to the third floor, and enter the office. We will encounter locks here, here, and on the safe we seek, here.”
Sol spoke up, “Locks are my métier,” he said. “Locks of all sorts, but particularly on safes.”
“All of us,” Doug continued, “will be wearing coveralls with the company name, DuctoVac, emblazoned upon them, face masks — part of our story is using strong disinfectants in the cleaning of ducts — and weapons concealed underneath. No man is to draw a weapon unless he is convinced that he is about to be fired upon, and no shots intended to be lethal will be fired. Is that understood?”
There was an affirmative mutter from the group.
“When we leave this house, you will take with you everything you brought. When our mission has been completed, we will reboard the vans and be driven directly to Pittsfield Airport, where we will reboard our airplane and depart for: first, the Vineyard, where we will deposit one group, and then, to Teterboro, where the remainder of you will deplane and continue back to where you came from. Mr. Fink, Stone’s car will await you for the trip back to Brooklyn. This will be properly conducted, a simple mission, if we don’t fuck it up. Any questions?” He answered a couple, then dismissed the group. “Departure from the house will be at nine am.”
After dinner, Stone and Brooke went to their room, while the others went to theirs.
“This is a beautiful house,” Brooke said, looking out a window. “I’d like to take a walk in the garden.”
“You are not here,” Stone said, “so you cannot take a walk in the garden.”
She looked at him blankly. “Then where am I?”
“In bed with me,” Stone said, “and you cannot be seen outside the house.”
“So this is all a big secret?”
“It is.”
“What is this document you’re trying to retrieve?”
“I’ll tell you that after we have retrieved it and made our escape.”
“Who are we escaping from?”
“The bad guys.”
“Oh, in that case...” She fell into bed with him.
The following morning their bags were collected, and they went downstairs for breakfast. At eight-forty-five, the group assembled in the drive and boarded the vans. As Stone entered and found his seat, he heard somebody’s cell phone ring. Not his.
In the front passenger seat, Doug put his phone to an ear and spoke for a couple of minutes, then hung up. He turned and looked at Stone. “Unforeseen circumstances,” he said.
“What?”
“Our people on the Vineyard picked up a conversation aboard Nostrovia between a man they think was Kronk and another man.”
“What were they saying?”
“That they were boarding a helicopter to be taken to the Troutman Industries factory, in Lenox.”
Stone was alarmed. “When will they leave?”
“About ten minutes ago.” He turned to his driver. “Hit it,” he said. “The most speed you can make without getting arrested.” Then he turned to Stone and the others behind them. “This operation is going to be conducted at double speed. Everybody got that? Not a moment wasted.”
“How long will it take them to get here?” Stone asked.
“I don’t know what chopper they’re flying, but let’s say they’ll fly at somewhere between 140 and 150 knots, so about an hour, if we’re lucky.”
“Swell,” Stone said.
“We couldn’t have predicted that,” Doug said. “Oh, the patent and the safe were mentioned.”
Ten minutes later, they pulled up to the entrance to the building that Doug had selected for entry. Shep Troutman ran to the door and started trying keys from a clump Rod had given him. It took another five or six minutes to find one that worked, then they were inside.
Two men stayed with the vans and began pulling yards of tubing from them, to make them look busy cleaning ducts, while the others followed Doug inside. They took the elevator to the third floor and got out, facing a large door.
“Uh-oh,” Shep said, pointing at the door. “That is a new lock, and none of my keys will fit it.”
“Excuse me,” Sol said, sweeping Shep aside. He set down his tool kit, opened it, selected two lock picks, then went to work. “Very clever lock,” he muttered as he worked away. Ten minutes passed before there was a loud click, and the door opened. Across the room, a beam of morning sunlight illuminated the Excelsior.
Sol walked over to it and ran his fingers around the edges of the door, then he stopped at one point. “Here,” he said, looking at his fingers, which were sticky. “This is where the combination was, but the tape has been removed.”
Shep got into one of his pockets under the jumpsuit and produced three slips of paper. “My dad wasn’t sure he could remember the combination,” he said. “Try one of these, Sol.”
Sol accepted the papers and looked at them. “There are three combinations here,” he said. “We get only two tries, then the safe locks itself, and if that happens, it will take me more than an hour to open it.”
“I thought it was three attempts,” Shep said.
“Two,” Sol replied. As he stepped forward toward the safe, the beating of a helicopter’s rotors could be heard approaching.
“They’ve got a faster chopper than I had planned on,” Doug said. “Get it open, Sol. I’m going downstairs to deal with our visitors and buy some time. When you’re done here, put on your masks before you go out to the vans, and keep them on until we’re off the property.” He ran out of the room.
Thirty-Seven
Shep took Sol’s elbow and helped him toward the safe. “Take your time, Sol,” he said.
“I always do,” Sol replied. He fanned out the three pieces of paper, each with a combination. “Pick one,” he said to Shep.
“I should think you’d be better at that,” Shep replied.
“It doesn’t matter who picks it. Only one of these is correct, maybe none at all.”
Shep reached over and, without looking at them, picked one and handed it to Sol.
Sol pinned the piece of paper to the safe with thumb and forefinger, and read off the combination as he dialed it in. Sol pumped the lever on the door. “That ain’t the one,” he said. “Pick another.”
Doug came out of the building with a coil of tubing over his shoulder. There were four men gathered with his two at the rear of a van. One of them Doug recognized as Gregor Kronk.
“Ah, here he is now,” Doug’s man said. “Sir, I’ve been explaining about our annual service and about the toxins involved.”
“What’s to explain? If you go in there before the toxicity has abated you’ll get lung cancer pretty soon and die not long after that.” He looked at his watch. “You’ve got another thirty-seven minutes before you can enter unharmed.”
“Do you have any extra masks?” Kronk asked.
“Nope. Each man is custom-fitted with his own mask. It fits only him, and we don’t have any spares. Excuse me, please.” He turned and went back into the building.
Upstairs, Sol entered the second combination and worked the handle. “No good,” he said.
“But isn’t it irretrievably locked up now?”