“We’ve tried to get a description of what’s on the property there, but nobody seems to know. Can you help us out?”
“Sure.” Patti Kenner took off her riding gloves and leaned against the gate. Mike got out of the car and came around to my side to listen to her.
“My great-uncle bought the piece we’re standing on in the 1940s. He’d been very fortunate with his investments and wanted to get into the business of breeding thoroughbred horses. Land in this part of the world was incredibly cheap then, so he picked up twenty acres to begin with and, over the next decade, kept adding property on both sides of the road.”
I looked around the countryside, which was lush after so much spring rain, with rolling green hills in all directions.
“He wasn’t always so crazed with security. Kenner Stables contributed handsomely to the local economy over the years, employing a lot of the townspeople. Everybody knew where to find us back then.”
“What happened?” Mike asked.
“It was long before I was born, in the late fifties. A ring of arsonists set fire to several of the barns one night,” Kenner said, pausing for a moment.
“I can’t think of anything worse,” I said, looking at the magnificent animal pawing the ground behind her.
“Fortunately, because there were so many farmhands on the property, not a single horse was injured. But in all the confusion of getting the animals out of their stalls and to safety, the arsonists—who were actually horse thieves—were able to steal six thoroughbreds that night. My uncle never saw those horses again.”
“So down came the signs,” Mike said. “And that’s why you love the volunteer firefighters.”
She laughed and told Mike he was right on both counts.
“Is there really a bomb shelter here?” he asked.
“That’s on the part of the land that I sold off,” she said.
“Tell us about it.”
“After the time of the fire, as you might understand, my uncle was more than a bit obsessed about security. Not just the animals, but a bit paranoid about his own life, too. In 1962, a consortium of his bankers and insurance brokers were based in Hartford,” Kenner said. “They got him all fired up about a Soviet ICBM attack. They convinced him that he’d need a safe place to store all his papers—which I don’t really think was its purpose—and to protect them and their families at the same time.”
“So he built one?” I asked.
“Oh yes.”
“How big?”
“It’s a twelve-thousand-square-foot underground bunker, behind a blast wall—”
“What’s a blast wall?”
Mike answered. “Reinforced concrete that can withstand a bomb blast going off anywhere near it.”
“That’s right. So there’s a blast wall and a twelve-ton steel bank vault door. If you get past that, the rest of the interior has walls that are eighteen inches thick.”
“Well stocked?” Mike asked.
“At the time we sold it, fifty years after it was built, the food rations and water cans were all still intact. There were even gas masks ready to go.”
“Do you know anything about the people you sold it to?” I asked.
“They must have more of my great-uncle’s DNA than I do,” Kenner said. “They’re so secretive they make him look like P. T. Barnum.”
“The wine cellar idea, do you know where that came from?”
“I was ready to sell off a lot of this land. And my son—who was
getting his MBA at Columbia—actually brainstormed the proposal for some kind of entrepreneurial planning course he took.”
“A plan to convert the bomb shelter into an upscale wine storage facility?” Mike asked.
“Yup,” Kenner said, her dark eyes coming to life. “He won a prize for it at his graduation. I promised him a nice bonus if his vintage protection plan helped increase the price of the property.”
“I’m sure it did,” I said.
“Quite nicely.”
“Do you know the buyers?” I asked.
Patti Kenner patted the top of the white wooden gate. “Good horse fences make good neighbors,” she said. “I’ve never met them, and I don’t think they’re very keen on having me come by for a cup of sugar.”
“Haven’t you been curious to see the wine cellar?”
“Actually, Ms. Cooper, I’ve never wanted to go near the shelter since the first time I went inside there as a kid. An underground bunker with a thick steel door that’s the only way in—and the only way out? I even got my son to put in a separate entrance when he redesigned the space. But it’s still far too spooky a place for me.”
The entrance drive to Stallion Ridge Cellars was as easy to miss as its owners wanted it to be. There was a turnoff onto a narrow dirt road with no signage and no landscaped greenery. Without the police chief’s detailed directions, we would have missed it altogether.
Mike made the turn and began to drive along the road. He stopped twenty feet in and called Mercer, who was already on the way to meet us, to describe exactly how to find the place.
Both sides were fenced in with posts identical to the Kenner property and probably original to the period when the farms had been developed as one.
“You don’t want to wait for Mercer?” I asked.
“I’m not expecting trouble, Coop. I’m just being nosy. Have you checked your cell?”
“Every five minutes, and not a word.” I had left three more messages for Luc, trying to feign casual concern. The first was a check-in after the hour of my supposed ballet class, then having showered—wondering about a luncheon date—and the last about why there had been no contact. “Nosy about what?”
“Why Mulroy wanted to bring Luc out here.”
“That’s easy. Luc would be fascinated to see the wine cellar and all the great vintages that are supposed to be stored in it.”
“Enough to miss a date with you?”
I didn’t know how to answer that. Luc knew that he and I were walking on eggshells at this point in our relationship. “Maybe I annoyed him by surprising him with a visit last night. Maybe I annoyed him even more by slipping out this morning without saying a word.”
“I say we crash their little party. I love a good wine tasting.”
Off in the distance, in the direction we were headed, a small herd of horses was grazing in one of the pastures. They were all shades of palomino, and the sunlight danced off their backs as they moved away from the sound of our approach.
The path began to twist as we crested a small ridge—the first of many on the drive in from the paved roadway. Out of sight of passersby, on the far side of the slope, the plantings began in earnest. The trees may have been natural to the area, but there were well-tended privet hedges and flowering azalea bushes that suggested an intentional effort to make the property even more appealing—and more private.
The trees got thicker as we drove along, and now there were small posters warning of deer crossing. Another bend and we could see horses in a fenced field, this time off to the left.
There was still no sign of any humans, although I could make out several pickup trucks—empty, it seemed—on different parts of the property.
The fourth ridge was by far the tallest. When we nosed over the top of it, the vista changed entirely. There was a series of barns ahead of us, exactly in the style of the Kenner stables with which they had once been paired. It was a completely tranquil pastoral scene, reminiscent of the Virginia countryside where I had spent my law school years. Real old-fashioned horse country.
And off to the right side of those buildings was the mysterious lump in the ground—an enormous swell on the earth’s surface that looked like a gigantic burrowing mole had pushed up the dirt while
making his home below. It was the old bomb shelter, now transformed into the ideal wine storage site known as Stallion Ridge Cellars.
“Looks like we’re in time for lunch with the boys,” Mike said.
Mulroy’s silver SUV was parked in a gravel-covered area next to the largest barn. Beside it were two white pickups, both with the SRC logos on their doors.
Mike wound his way down the incline to the parking area.
“Aren’t you surprised there’s no security to ask who we are?” I asked.
“I bet there are cameras in half of those trees, Coop. If it’s so high-tech and well concealed here, they don’t need a guardhouse to stop the cars.”
Mike got out of my SUV and stood next to it, to do a 360-degree sweep of the property. There were no unusual noises, just natural sounds of birds and the occasional neigh of a horse.
“Door’s open,” he said. “You got any cheese and crackers on you?”
“Thoughtless of me, wasn’t it?” I said, getting out of the car. “The old K rations will just have to do.”
There was a small wooden shed, low and shingled in the style of the larger barns, which formed the entrance to the bunker. Both its doors were swung back and latched on hinges, creating an eight-foot-wide opening. Bales of hay were stacked to the right and left inside the shed, giving the appearance that it was part of the horse operation.
But standing in the threshold, I could see the gleaming steel door of the storage vault. It looked so out of place in this bucolic setting. I could imagine one just like it at the entrance to the Federal Reserve Bank, protecting the billions of dollars stored there against invasion or assault.
The steel entry was open—displaying its thickness and impenetrability from all angles.
I stopped just short of the massive door when I heard men’s voices from within. For almost the length of the room I could see a long passageway, lined on both sides with wine boxes from floor to ceiling.
“Move along, kid.”
“Let me wait here, okay?”
“Claustrophobic?”
I nodded. “And not feeling very confrontational today.”
“I’ll give you a pass. I’m not planning a confrontation either. No need to let on about any of our suspicions. I’m just making like I want to glue myself to Luc so you guys have a few hours together, and I get to explore this storage facility for a few minutes,” Mike said, patting me on the back. “Don’t leave without me.”
“I won’t go anywhere, so long as you promise to come out with a bottle of nineteenth-century Lafite,” I said. “Just don’t channel yourself into Cary Grant.”
“How so?”
“
Notorious
.” Mike knew it was my favorite movie. The tense scene in the wine cellar of the villain’s mansion in Rio was one of the most exciting in film history. “Black sand—uranium—in the broken wine bottle. Nazis against Cary, and he found the right vintage at the wrong moment. Don’t drop any bottles, okay?”
“That’s an idea,” he said, walking through the doorway. “If I see anything interesting, we can always come back with a warrant.”
I watched Mike walk down the center aisle of the storage shelter until he reached the wall at the far end. He stopped for a minute, as though trying to determine where the voices were coming from, and then disappeared out of sight, off to the left.
I wedged myself between several bales of hay and sat down on a low pile near the front of the shed, where I could still feel the fresh afternoon breeze as it wafted by.
I started to play with my phone, seeing whether I could text or send e-mails. But there was no signal. Maybe Luc hadn’t contacted me because there was no cell availability in the bunker. I composed a few messages and sent them, but the red “x” that popped up seconds later informed me that they couldn’t be transmitted.
Almost ten minutes passed before I heard footsteps coming in my direction. I was used to the pacing of Mike’s walk and the sound
of his well-worn loafers. This wasn’t his tempo at all. I pulled myself back against the wall, in the shadow of the loft above me.
The man who emerged was neither Mike nor Luc nor Jim Mulroy. It was Peter Danton, one of the partners who had acquired the real estate next to Lutèce, as well as this unusual wine cellar.
Danton didn’t notice me, so I sat quietly to see what he was up to.
He stopped in the doorway of the shed and held something up to his mouth. It was a walkie-talkie. I suspected I was right that cell phones didn’t work inside, and perhaps there wasn’t even a tower on the entire property. That was another way to ensure complete privacy, even from intruders who wandered on, unable to summon assistance if they became stranded.
“Where are you?” Danton demanded of the person who answered. “Am I paying for a goddamned security system or not?”
The device crackled and he held it to his ear to get an answer.
“Yes, yes, I see it. A navy-blue SUV with New York plates. The guy that drove it here happens to be a New York City detective.”
More crackles and another comment.
“Yes, I told you we were meeting here at noon, but this cop isn’t part of the meeting, okay? It’s supposed to be Mulroy and Rouget, who came together in that silver car, and Josh Hanson, who’s with me. So as soon as I can get rid of the detective, I’m going to ask you to escort him off the property. Nice and easy, but off. Is that clear enough?”
A static-filled response, and Danton shifted the phone to his right hand. As he tried to keep a grip on the walkie-talkie, I could see the two fingers that had been sliced in half.
“What other person?” Danton asked. “In the blue SUV?”
He waited for an answer.
“Find her for me. Maybe she likes horses, maybe she’s wandering around the barns. Find her and make sure she’s strapped into her seat belt in the car. In the meantime, until we can regain control of the situation,” Peter Danton said, “I’ll go back inside, and I’ll be locking the door to the vault when I do.”
My heart was racing as Peter Danton turned and went back inside the bunker. He pulled the door after him, and it closed as tightly as if it was the breach door on a submarine.
I slid off the hay bale and ran to the great steel handle, twice the size of a steering wheel. I turned and pulled at it, but nothing moved.
Outside the shed, I heard several trucks speeding across the gravel and stopping just in front. It sounded as though there were three different voices, as the men exchanged comments with each other.
“I think she’s got light hair,” the first one said. “I could see it on the tape when they drove in. Danton wants you to check the horse barns. Maybe she’s out walking over to the animals.”