Читать книгу Shock! - Donald Ph.D. Ladew - Страница 11

Rachel followed Grace out into the garden. Gilbert stood for a long time staring after her, going over everything they'd said. I really don't want this now. I have things to do. She's right; of course, I've seldom been the aggressor. But I know how, I do know how.

He walked slowly across the room to the French doors, closed and locked them, and then more purposefully walked to the other side of the room and opened a smaller door. Two colorful still life paintings covering it made it almost indistinguishable from the rest of the wall.

He went through the door and down a hallway toward the back of the house. Beneath a paneled staircase, he pressed a piece of molding and a small door, only slightly higher than his head, opened silently. Beyond it a light went on automatically. All that could be seen was another staircase going down, and a dark wall covered with unfinished oak planks.

When his great grandfather built the place at the turn of the century his only experience with houses had been those in the East and in England where he'd lived as a boy. A house should have a cellar, he said, in this case a wine cellar.

His grandfather, had for reasons of his own, paneled the area beneath the stairs, and had hidden the entrance to the cellar.

At the bottom of the stairs, Gilbert flipped a switch and the whole area was lit by hooded hundred-watt light bulbs.

Directly in front of the stairs were ten rows of double-sided racks. They stretched from the floor to the ceiling and were filled with bottles. If wine were the only thing of value in the cellar, there was good reason to protect it. Gilbert, like his father, didn't see it in those terms, but as part of his heritage. Like the house, the paintings and other treasures, the wine was something to be protected, preserved and appreciated.

Opposite the last row of racks light shone into a smaller room. It contained a dozen cases of unracked wine and a small desk with a ledger on top and ten other ledgers inside. On a small extension leaf on the side of the desk were several old crystal decanters, a funnel, a sieve and candles.

He leafed through his father's wine log. He'd posted each purchase of wine and spirits, along with the date and his comments regarding the vintage. On the opposite page were entries showing when each bottle was used, with notes on what guests were present, how the wine had fared and other personal comments. His father had been meticulous about keeping the log up to date until the day he died.

He looked forward through the log and saw that his mother had tried to keep it up also. He'd do an inventory one of these days.

He needed a houseman. His father's servant had died a year to the day after his father. Gilbert understood that it would be difficult for him to find someone with that kind of loyalty. Perhaps Mr. Nakamichi could help.

He moved further into the cellar, turned right and moved across an open area toward a solid oak door. On the door was an old brass U-shaped handle. It had a keyhole for a large old-fashioned key, but no lock mechanism.

Near the right side of the door, out of sight on the backside of a twelve-by-twelve oak post, was a small square metal box with a black matte finish. He reached up and snapped a catch on the front and a hinged door dropped down. On a panel above a keyboard red and green LED indicators flashed alternately once every second.

He quickly punched in a series of numbers and the lights stopped flashing, leaving only the green LED lit.

After the last number the door jumped back and a light inside the room came on automatically. When he went in, the door closed quietly behind him.

The room, compared to the rest of the cellar, was surprisingly bare. In the center there was a Spanish refectory table, twelve feet long and three feet wide. There were drawings and charts spread all across the top of the table.

The most prominent was an architectural floor plan of a large building covered with marks and notations in different colors. In the lower right corner in the clear style of the professional draftsman, it said:

PLAN VIEW-CABRILLO SPRINGS PSYCHIATRIC HOSPITAL & CLINIC

Included were areas showing exterior grounds, entrances, paths, delivery spaces and fences; it was all there in elaborate detail. Weaving through the whole drawing, yellow lines had been added to the drawing. In small neat letters next to a small red box, which joined all the yellow lines at one location, was the legend, 'Alarm System'.

At the other end of the room on a low table covered with electronic equipment sat a modern computer. Surrounding it were several display screens, a high-speed laser printer and a separate rack of telecommunications equipment.

In an office upstairs he'd installed an IBM PC, and a printer connected to a stock-market program. It was a fully functional system that served no practical purpose except to give a legitimate reason for all the phone lines that went to the room in the cellar.

Gilbert wasn't interested in the stock market. It certainly wouldn't have accounted for the almost continuous traffic on three different lines since he'd returned three weeks earlier.

In a world of computer hackers, unknown except to those with his security clearance, Gilbert was a master among amateurs. As an engineer he never undertook a project without all the facts and a thorough plan.

Spread across the rough-planked walls of his subterranean CIC—Combat Information Center—were the products of his training. A close look by someone trained to understand flow charts and the symbols of the systems engineer, would reveal no information about the number of products shipped to customers. There were no graphs showing on-time delivery of sub-systems performing at or above customer expectations. No blocks on his carefully created charts contained engineering information.

What appeared at the top of an elaborate flow chart were four names; the names reduced to code. Beside each name a timeline of one week had been created. The last date noted was two weeks in the future. The closest to present time was one week in the past.

On or about the dates entered beside those names, the persons represented by the codes in the blocks were scheduled to die. To die in ways the public wouldn't understand, but those in the business of clinical psychiatry who committed murder in the name of therapy would surely understand.

At the moment Gilbert applied power to the computers, Grace Melville sat down with her grandmother for afternoon tea. She was late for the event and in a state of high excitement.

Her grandmother was a Porter from Boston and would have been as comfortable in an upper-class English drawing room as she was here, in this house in Los Angeles. A shrewd judge of people, she knew her granddaughter very well.

At five foot one, with rounded cheeks, bright-blue eyes and a cap of pure-white hair she might have been taken by some as a harmless old lady. She was anything but.

"Sit down, Grace, stop fidgeting. You've been up and down four times. You're making my neck sore trying to follow you around the room."

Grace sat, but even sitting she looked in motion.

"Tell me what's happened, dear, I can't stand the suspense any longer. You've met a man that much I'm sure of." She smiled. "Nothing else I can think of would have a girl your age in such a state."

Grace giggled like a schoolgirl. "You're too smart for me, Grams. I went looking for Rachel and found her next door at the Piers'." She smiled to herself, remembering.

"Oh, do go on, Grace. This isn't a serial to be continued next week. Tell me about him," the diminutive lady demanded.

"Well, you know his mother died recently. I gather that he was overseas somewhere at the time and rushed home. I don't know any of the details of her death, but it must have been strange, I mean I'm sure if everything were normal, you and I would have been invited to the funeral.

"Anyway, Rachel was with him. He feeds her sardines and they've become friends. Do you know he named her Rachel without even knowing her name? He's very sad and tries to hide it. When I got there he was reading to Rachel: So strange, Grams, about torture and electroshock. I was in the garden and he didn't know I was listening. Whatever happened to his mother has affected him deeply."

"Grace, you're going to drive me to drink. What does he look like? Is he presentable? What did you talk about?"

"Oh, Grams, I did something really stupid. I wanted to see him again so I told him he should invite me to dinner. He didn't say anything for the longest time. I was mortified," Grace said.

"You should be. Good Lord, girl, you were taught better than that. I don't care if these are the liberated nineties. You can't go around scaring off every eligible man that comes along. He is a bachelor, I hope, not like that contemptible Grayson Dawes."

Grace had met Grayson four years earlier and they'd had an affair, until she discovered that he was already married, which somehow he'd neglected to mention.

"I don't know." She looked worried. "Oh, I hope not."

"Don't worry, his mother and I had some lovely chats. I shall miss her, such an intelligent woman, always so cheerful. Anyway, she said he never seemed to have any interest in specific women or marriage. She imagined he must have girlfriends, living overseas and all; but quite certain there were no particular ladies he'd taken a fancy to."

"Good!" Grace spoke with such force her grandmother looked at her and broke out laughing.

"My, my, you do have a case, don't you?"

"No, no, Grams. I just think he's very nice: A bit unusual, very intense and passionate. I think he'd be nice to have as a friend."

Now her grandmother really began to laugh. "Grace, it's not like you to be dishonest. You're just trying to avoid being hurt. I do understand. Strong feelings bring the strongest pain."

Grace smiled ruefully. "Well, I think he's a very," she grinned, "attractive man. He's only a few inches taller than me, but he stands erect, like a military man. And he moves very fine, like a dancer. I'm not sure he has that much experience with women. Sometimes he seemed as if he didn't quite know how to deal with me. You know, after I asked him out and he finally answered, that he would like to by the way," She smiled at her grandmother conspiratorially, "he came and sat next to me on the sofa, took my hand and kissed it. He did it so naturally, so intensely, oh, Grams, I'm ashamed to admit it, if he wanted, he could have done anything he desired."

"I do understand. I may be an old gel now, but I do remember what it was like to have strong feelings." Her eyes twinkled. "It appears he didn't press or you wouldn't be here for our tea."

Grace laughed. "No, Grams, he didn't press. In fact, he said I should set the pace of our friendship; that he wasn't at his best yet and was afraid he wouldn't be all I deserve."

"Well, he's apparently a very charming young man. You invite him over to tea soon. I want to have a look at him."

"I don't know about that, you can be pretty overwhelming when you want. I remember that man, the Vice-President or something and you had him tongue-tied," Grace said.

"Don't you worry, my dear, that fella was just a politician, this is not the same thing; not at all."

They sat quietly for a while drinking their tea, each immersed in her own thoughts, one in the present and the other in the past, the subject the same.