LACKING VIRTUES (38 page)

“I don’t understand why he doesn’t like dogs. Foreigners, yes, but dogs?”

The footsteps changed directions.

“He might not like dogs, but he likes wine. How about you, Gaston? Do you like wine?”

“Do the thighs of a woman in heat cry to be parted?”

They both laughed.

“You been down here before?”

“Can’t say that I have.”

“Well, Michelet can’t be all bad. He’s got one of the best wine cellars in France. You’re going to see it shortly.”

“You got the key?”

“Yes. The old man gave it to me along with a list of what to bring up for tonight’s dinner. Said it’s getting hard for him to go up and down those stairs.”

The voices grew weaker, the men were moving away.

Steven stayed where he was. Maybe they would take the wine and leave. They didn’t seem overly serious about the search, and he didn’t want to risk changing their attitude with an inadvertent sound.

He heard the wine cellar door squeak open, heard it shut some time later, heard the men’s admiring comments as they headed in the direction of the stairs.

They were going! It was a miracle!

The basement door clanked shut and the lights went out.

Steven felt a smile creasing his face – a big, involuntary smile. If Michelet went to this much trouble to make sure no one listened in on his Wednesday night meetings, you got the idea his secrets were worth listening to. The prospect of delivering them to Sophie thrilled him in a new and wonderful way. She had had faith in him. She had invested a lot of money in him; now she was going to get a healthy return.

But he shouldn’t celebrate yet. A lot remained on the agenda. First, he needed to find out which of the heating ducts went to rooms in which the meeting might be held. Since the security guys upstairs were probably most concerned about electronic surveillance, he reasoned that most of them would end up searching the planned meeting room.

He’d be able to hear their footsteps overhead and determine where they congregated. He would know exactly which ducts to cut. Nice of the French Anti-Terrorist cops to provide such valuable help.

Then there was the problem of getting out. Did the agents stay for the meetings or leave? If they stayed, did they conduct another search afterwards? God, he hoped not.

But he couldn’t worry about that now; the footsteps overhead were drawing a sound map. They were all converging on one room. He followed the noise and ended up at the wine cellar door.

Convenient, he thought, opening it.

Inside the footsteps were even louder. They went in circles, or crisscrossed. He could hear furniture being moved, and muffled voices.

He climbed up on to the stack of Château d’Yquem cases, the same stack on which he had put Nicole down. He followed a trio of silver heating ducts with his flashlight, the ducts he had selected during his previous visit as probable conduits to the library, the drawing room and the dining room. Which went where, he couldn’t say. They all bent into the ceiling within reach.

He took out his pocket knife and sunk the blade into the first duct. It was made of some new insulation material that contained no metal. Quickly and silently, he cut out three sides of a small rectangle. Using the fourth side as a hinge, he bent the rectangle into an open flap.

Nothing.

He cut a flap in the second duct. Again, nothing.

The third duct was the charm. The voices above instantly became less muffled. Here and there, he could even catch a word.

He climbed down, fetched another crate, used it to make his stand higher. He hoisted himself back up and put his ear to the hole in the duct. Now he could hear; God, how he could hear!

Chapter Thirty-One

Warner’s telephone rang at 4:00 a.m. Claire sat up in bed and groped for the reading lamp. “Oh, Frank, not another one.”

He took her hand so she didn’t turn on the light and picked up the receiver.

“One moment,” he said, and hit the Hold button. “Claire, it’s okay. It’s not the emergency line. Go back to sleep. I’ll take it next door.”

“Thank God,” she murmured. “Thank God.”

Warner tugged on his robe and hurried to the phone in the guest bedroom. “Yes?”

“Frank, it’s me, Simmons. Daniels called me about ten minutes ago. He wants us to fly to Seattle this morning. Wants us there as close to eight o’clock as possible, Pacific Time. Can you be at National in an hour?”

“If you pick me up.”

“No problem.”

“Do we have our break, Tim?”

“I don’t know. The cops out there claim they’ve found a bunch of aircraft parts buried in concrete. Maybe they’re not even aircraft parts. Maybe they are, but have nothing to do with our problem. The FBI isn’t making assumptions. Daniels wants the guys who know their stuff to assess the situation immediately. I guess that’s us, chief.”

“He must be hopeful.”

“He didn’t sound it.”

“No?”

“No, Frank. He sounded worried Larsen would use the situation to publicize his firm’s innocence. He feels that such a move could finish Boeing off if this thing turns out to be a hoax or some kind of dumb error.”

“He doesn’t know Hal Larsen.”

“I agree, chief. But I think he’s right about one thing. I think the NTSB should be first to check this out.”

“One more question. Did Daniels mention anything from the other investigations?”

“As a matter of fact, he did. Around the time of the Atlanta crash, Delta’s head mechanic at the engine rebuild facility was killed in a wreck. Seems unrelated. As for Pratt and Whitney, they’ve exhumed Melchior and are conducting another autopsy. No results yet.”

“Bendix?”

“They’ve found something there too. A stocker in the parts department drowned the night Melchior supposedly suffered the heart attack, rammed his boat into a pier. Blood alcohol level, point one seven. Also seems unrelated. But it’s not unrelated, is it, Frank?”

“I don’t know. Come get me. We’ll talk about it during the flight.”

Warner hung up. He showered, shaved, dressed, wrote Claire a note and kissed her good-bye without waking her.

His cool weather bag stood packed and ready beside the front door. He picked it up and walked outside to wait for Simmons.

In spite of the season and early hour, the air was warm and humid, like summer. It was very dark, but Warner could make out a faint glow of dawn along the eastern horizon.

“Pilot’s dawn,” he’d called it when he had flown for the Air Force. Pilots saw that subtle first lifting of night more often than anyone else. You saw it in Winnemucca, too, when you got up while it was still black as a witch’s cave to go hunting. He had always considered a pilot’s dawn something special, though he had no idea why.

He imagined what the world looked like right now on the other side of the Atlantic. It would be mid-morning. Men and women in Germany, Britain and France would be hiring on by the thousands to meet the avalanche of new orders received by Airbus.

In Seattle, by contrast, it was still night. When morning came, unemployment lines would swell down city blocks and around corners. Later, the heirs of the men and women who had built the Flying Fortress would be returning home in droves with nothing to do but watch afternoon TV and wonder what had happened to their careers. America’s best and brightest would be idle at a time when their country desperately needed them.

***

At 9:20 a.m. Pacific Time, the government car pulled into the alley behind Stein’s Tool and Die.

“Here’s where it’s happening,” the driver said.

Simmons and Warner got out. While Simmons did his athletic stretches, Warner groaned and looked around. He felt stiff, tired, and old.

It seemed like any other construction site – dump trucks, a huge backhoe belching diesel fumes, the nerve-jangling chatter of air hammers, laborers in open shirts barking the national blend of profanity and expert opinion.

A big cop with a pleasant face walked over from the excavation site and extended his hand. “I’m Officer King. I take it you are Mr. Warner from the NTSB?”

“Yes, that’s right, Officer. And this is my associate, Mr. Simmons.”

“Well, nice to meet you both.”

King led them to the back of Stein’s building, where workmen had torn down a wall to make room for the backhoe. The bricks that had been removed were stacked on palettes in the overgrown yard. A thick steel beam had been placed across the top of the hole to keep the second story from caving in.

“Have a good look,” King said. “There was a basement below the regular basement. That’s why the hole is so deep. The second basement had been poured full of concrete, but the top basement was still just a basement. We were already eight feet down when we started digging.”

“Impressive,” Warner said, peering thoughtfully into the hole. He counted a dozen men working in the concrete cavern. Some were using air hammers to crack areas circled with rings of red paint. Others, dressed in khaki, probed the rubble-strewn floor with sonar devices.

“Archaeologists,” King shouted over the noise. “Those guys in khaki are archaeologists. They’re mapping where it’s safe to go down another two feet. When the instruments beep, it means there’s metal below, probably aircraft parts. We’re being very careful not to damage anything.”

“Good,” Warner said. “Tell me something, Officer, where did you find archaeologists who would dig up a basement?”

King laughed. “Captain Bullock sent them over here from the university. Look at those guys. They’ll dig up anything.”

“Shall we get down to business? All we know is that the FBI thinks you may have found something we should look at.”

“That’s right, I’d say we have.  Let me start at the beginning. You know, how we made the find and – ”

“If you don’t mind, Officer King, I’d first like to look at the items you suspect are Boeing aircraft parts. If they are, we’ll certainly want to go over the details leading up to their discovery. If they aren’t – if they aren’t, we can save each other a lot of unnecessary talk.”

King had the face of a dejected school boy. He was obviously excited about telling his story. But he soon perked up and smiled. “Sure, Mr. Warner, let’s have a look at them. They’re right over here in the police van.”

Warner and Simmons walked brusquely toward the van. King followed, chattering away. “Gentlemen, slow down, I have to unlock it anyway. You must be hungry. I’m going to let you in on the best-kept secret in this part of town. Believe it or not, there’s a good diner across the street. I already checked the special for today. Chicken and dumplings. They start serving at eleven. We could talk over lunch.”

Warner waited until they had arrived at the van to respond. “Thank you, Officer King. If we’re still here, we’ll do that. Now, why don’t we take a look?”

King unlocked the van. The parts were in the carpeted cargo area. They had been laid out on an archeological template showing where in the basement they had been found, and at what depth.