Legacy of a Mad Scientist (36 page)

The foil wrapped pots were set in front of doors,
behind doors, and to the sides of doors. They were also set well
away from the doors, in the middle of rooms. Trays and cups were
set against the few items of furniture, or under the liberal pieces
of newspaper or magazines.

Corresponding surveillance cameras were set up for
each position, along with trip wires for the places that the
cameras didn't cover. Ross showed the children how to mount an
armed cookie sheet on the wall of the shower and attach the trip
wire to the shower curtain. Or to rig an armed cup above a door, so
once opened, the cup falls, detonating between the door and
intruder.

In one of the entry rooms, they placed several
charges in a large copper tub and set it on its side. In front of
it, they stacked a few books and added some crumpled paper bags.
From the back, you could see the insulated wires, secured to the
floor by duct tape, but from the front, you could see nothing.

By the time Ross and the kids secured the last of the
wires, it was well past midnight. They'd eaten light meals of fruit
and energy bars throughout the night, pausing for a break every
couple of hours, but they were exhausted and still not finished
yet.

Sunday, July 26, 2308

UK Officers escorted Stanwood and Von Kalt from
Glasgow to Douglas. Halfway across, new officers replaced the first
group and accompanied them the rest of the way in.

Von Kalt wired ahead and booked appropriate
lodgings.

Angus had a seven am tee time scheduled at the Mount
Murray golf course and Stanwood suggested they make use of the
intervening time to get some shuteye.

In his adjoining room, Von Kalt used the Metachron to
organize and execute a thorough search of MacPhail’s office and
residence. He’d given the executing officers some idea of what to
look for, anything concerning the USS Midway or anything resembling
a Micronix prototype. Just before dawn the searches were called off
with zero success.

Ross chose a partitioned basement room as their
command center. He carried over clean plastic wrapped mattresses
from the far end of the crowded storeroom to set under the sleeping
bags.

The couch had been pushed back against a wall to make
room for the mattresses and conference table. The table came with
corresponding chairs and all held boxes of electrical
equipment.

Ross sorted the dozens of cables, running in from the
various wings of the facility. There were three suites, four
singles and one group of rooms for the administration. The small
patio sported sun bleached chairs, a plate-glass table with no
plate-glass and a shallow pool that had long ago evolved into a
shallow weed-infested garden.

Once they finished setting the individual charges,
Ross asked Geoff and Ash to help him connect the monitors to the
surveillance camera feeds. The monitors blinked to life and soon
displayed the various cameras spread throughout the seven grouped
sleeping environments and their adjoining showers, closets and
toilets.

Ross showed the children how to create and label the
wiring grid, from scratch. He laid out the rough diagram of the
facility on a large wooden board and tacked a nail at the top left,
where he tied the motley crew of labeled and taped-off detonation
cables.

There were at least four cables for each of the
rooms, the suites having six and the caretakers’ quarters sporting
eight. The hallway was a maze of nearly invisible tripwires, their
charges covered by debris. Several cameras covered a dozen wired
explosives, camouflaged among the tripwires. There were half a
dozen cameras and an equal number detonation cables running from
the garage.

Ross wrote numbers on the board, flawlessly
remembering where they'd set the munitions. He drew dotted lines
denoting the concealed tripwires and doubled the drawing below,
sketching the garage.

Once he'd finished numbering the diagram, he handed
Ashley the hammer and a remaining box of nails. "To the right and
up from the numbers, please," he said.

Ross moved to the outside edge of the board, and for
each of Ashley's nails, he hammered a nail along the edge. Ross
attached extensions to the incoming wires and after peeling back
the insulation, tied the bare wire around the nails. It was clear
he'd set up the rooms anticipating a rooftop entry, or through the
balcony. The central hallway was the most defended position, as it
led to the basement stairs.

Ross explained how to manipulate the matrix based on
which screens showed intruders. "If they show up in room two,
entering from the balcony, to the living room, hit switch 2LR,
detonating the living room. Those pots we set behind the thin
closet doors and the flat pan, mounted to the back of that old
framed poster," Ross said.

He went on until the children understood which
cameras represented which rooms on the board. There were almost
sixty separate devices, not counting the ones with old-fashioned
tripwires. Ashley calculated almost one hundred in all.

Ashley and Geoff bunked down behind the surveillance
screens. They could easily access the triggers, and the armor plate
set against the legs of the table concealed them from anyone who
actually made it down the stairs and through the soon-to-be rigged
basement hallway.

The couch sat to the side of a small square hatch
that opened to an empty sedan. The old car was garaged in a break
away housing, designed to be dropped from the building at the touch
of a button.

Should all the above defenses fail, Ashley and Geoff
would retreat to the sedan and trigger a massive final explosion,
dropping them and the car away from the facility, as if just
another piece of debris.

By the end of the night, it had become clear to
Ashley that Ross had given the same speech a dozen times. She could
tell by the leading questions he asked that he was aware of the
knowledge that would be imparted to the student. She suspected he'd
taught dozens of agents or officers the fundamentals of wiring a
safe house.

Ross tucked the children in, explaining that there
were a couple of errands he had to run and that he'd return in a
few hours.

"Wait. There's something I want to ask you," Ashley
said.

"What's that?" Ross asked.

"Before we leave, for Canada or wherever you want to
go, before we leave, there must be some evidence at home. My dad
had a great security system. There must be some recording of what
happened. We have to try.”

"That's pretty risky; way too risky for all of us to
go. We've got a few days. I'll check it out before we go, but I'm
not promising anything. And just so we're clear, once our paper
comes through, we are leaving, and that is non-negotiable.”

"Aren't we breaking rule number two by staying here?”
Ashley asked.

"Have you ever been here before?" Ross asked.

"Of course not, but you have, haven't you? It looks
as if it's been through a war.”

"Yeah, but not any war you or I were ever a part of.
This is a safe house all right, but not for the cops or the feds.
This is mob house," Ross said with a grin. "We got a hold of it in
a judgment against one of the families. I made some of these bullet
holes myself.”

"Nice," Ashley smiled.

"Now, lock the door and set the shotgun in the brace,
like I showed you, and I'll see you in the morning," Ross said.

Ashley set the Mossberg in the metal brace, as he'd
shown her, and positioned it in a chair, in front of the door. She
ran the trigger line from the spool through the brace, past the
trigger guard and out to the door. Where the line passed the
trigger, she attached the lanyard and clipped it to the line. It
was done, armed.

If the locks were picked and the door was opened in
the night, the line would retract, spinning back on the spool,
pulling the clip and lanyard fitted over the trigger, firing the
gun. Ashley had been careful to position the chair so the weapon
wouldn't go off until the door cleared the Mossberg's barrel.

Sunday, July 26, 2308

As Stanwood and Von Kalt approached the first tee at
Mount Murray Golf Course, a sharp and active old fellow rose from
the bench. “I was expecting more of you,” he said, smiling.

“Sorry to disappoint,” Stanwood replied, extending
his hand.

MacPhail took Stanwood’s hand in both of his and gave
it a firm shake. MacPhail was tall and thin, but he seemed strong
and healthy.

Von Kalt nodded to the bodyguard slash caddy standing
nearby.

MacPhail glanced at his watch. “Right on time,” he
said.

“You were expecting me?” Stanwood asked.

“I’ve been expecting you for almost twenty years,
son. Of course, I had no idea it would be you, whoever you are, but
I knew this day was coming, without a doubt.”

“Then you’ll understand my desire to cut to the
chase.”

“Do you play?” MacPhail asked, ignoring Stanwood’s
impatience.

“I do, occasionally,” Stanwood answered.

“Fancy a round.” Angus gestured to his cart and a
second set of clubs, clearly rentals, tucked into the small bed of
the cart.

Stanwood rubbed his forehead and forced a smile.
“Sure, why not?”

“You can tell a lot about a man by the way he plays
golf.”

“They do say that.”

Over the course of the next eighteen holes, Stanwood
held his own against the aged MacPhail. They traded jokes, clever
and insightful observations and war stories about the recently
deceased Dr. Fox.

At the clubhouse, Stanwood covered the tab, and at
the end of the match, which he lost badly, he also covered the
overpriced green fees.

After a massive lunch of steak and lobster, with no
mention of Manx kippers, Stanwood again picked up the check. He’d
genuinely enjoyed the old man’s company, but the requirements of
hospitality had clearly come and gone.

Angus was still one step ahead, however, and beat Joe
to the proverbial punch. “Gentlemen,” Angus included Von Kalt as
much as possible, making eye contact and in general treating him as
a friend, not a servant. “If you’ll join me on the cigar patio, I’d
like to address the reason you’ve traveled all this way.”
Ironically, MacPhail hadn’t acknowledged or even spoken to his own
bodyguard during the entire encounter.

Once ensconced in a leather chair, in a room with a
completely opened west-facing wall, MacPhail handed out cigars.

“You know, when Andrew first asked me to take on this
responsibility, I truly had no idea just what he had in mind.

“You see, I knew him as a youngster, that bright red
hair and fire in his eyes to match. I knew his father and
Grandfather, who’d been classmates with my old man. So, we go back
a wee little bit.

“When he first entrusted me with the package, I
honestly didn’t know what to think. I was honored and every day
since then has been blessed.

“However, every blessing, every gift, every act of
grace, comes with a price. I’ve paid mine; I know I have. I’ll go
to meet Saint Peter with a clear conscience, which is more than
most can say.

“But I’m rambling and you’ve been more than patient.
Indulgent, I’d dare say.”

Angus fell silent for a few moments and then leaned
forward. “You’re not wired, are you, son?” MacPhail answered his
own question. “No, I didn’t think so. I haven’t seen your eyes
doing any of that flickering nonsense.” Angus leaned forward,
examining Stanwood’s pupils. “You ain’t got any lights going on in
there either, as far as I can make out.”

“No, Sir.” Stanwood said. “I take it you aren’t
networked yourself?”

“I’m old school. We don’t believe in anything
stronger than a fermented mash of barley and rye. A bunch of
computerized-what-nots messing with your noggin… No, thank
you.”

Stanwood smiled. “I know a couple of fellows who
might disagree with us, but to be completely honest, it’s always
scared the shit out of me.”

“You don’t seem like the type that scares easy.”

“Stupid scares me. Putting something in you head that
doesn’t belong there… Well, sir, I’d think you were just asking for
trouble.”

Angus sat up straight, looked around the room and
took a deep breath. “Speaking of which.” He leaned back in the
luxurious leather chair. “Is there anything you’d like to ask
me?”

Stanwood smiled. “Yes, actually. I’ve heard the Manx
kippers are amazing. Would you agree?”

Angus narrowed his eyes. He waited. He blinked.

He turned his head a little bit and sat up
straighter.

“The Manx kipper rouge, I mean” Stanwood corrected
himself. “They’re good here?”

Angus laughed, clapped his hands and rocked back in
the chair, grinning broadly. “Yes, yes indeed. Best smoked herring
you’ll ever eat. Fresh in from over in Foxdale, just down the
road.”

“Imagine the coincidence,” Stanwood said.

Angus laughed heartily and waved one of the servants
over. “I dropped off a chest with the manager this morning. Could
you have it brought around, please? I think we’re ready for that
now.”

“Yes, sir,” the waiter answered.

Angus gingerly rose from his chair. “If you’ll excuse
me for just a moment, my bladder is screaming.”

Stanwood raised an eyebrow.

“Oh don’t worry. I’ll be right back. I wouldn’t miss
this for the world.”

Angus had only just stepped into the nearby restroom
when the waiter returned with a heavy chest. He hadn’t bothered to
try and carry it and instead wheeled it out on a serving tray.

Stanwood waited almost ten minutes before sending Von
Kalt into the restroom to retrieve the old timer. The bodyguard was
nowhere to be seen.

Von Kalt promptly returned, as the restroom was
predictably empty.

They both looked at the chest, growing more nervous
with each passing moment, imagining a rather large bomb sitting
before them.