Cursed Blessing

by J. M. LeDuc

  “If this map was found with the letters in the vault,” Maddie said, “then whatever buildings are on it must be related to The Endowment. Think about it. The bank is where the box was kept in an underground vault. The library has these secret rooms. They had to have been built for a specific purpose. Your home has been here since the town’s inception, and the Endowment has been kept here for the same length of time.”

  “What about Lucille’s home?” Chloe asked.

  “Maybe it was added later.”

  She shook her head. “No, these are all original.”

  “How can you be sure?”

  “All the markings on this map were made with a lead-based pencil. You can tell by the residue it leaves behind. If it were added later, it would have to be drawn in with a non-lead based pencil.”

  “Based on their design, they were both built at the same time,” Brent said. “My great-great-grandfather built my home, so I have to assume he built both. So it makes sense.”

  “What about that sliver of a box up by the point?”

  “Maybe a lighthouse. I kind of remember hearing of one that was destroyed in a hurricane. But let’s not forget about the airport building.”

  “Transportation?” Chloe interjected.

  “I’ll buy that.”

  While Brent and Chloe tried to figure out the last couple of boxes, Maddie had picked up the blank sheet of paper. She held it to the light. “Find something, Maddie?” Brent asked.

  “I think so, but I can’t be sure. I need to bring this back to S.I.A. headquarters and look at it with special equipment. Would you mind if we continued this discussion there?”

  Brent said, “Lead the way.”

  They put everything back in Brent’s backpack and left the secret rooms. Brent closed and secured the door and bookcase.

  “Hold on a second,” he said. He removed a painting that exposed a safe. “It’s where we keep important papers,” he said, intercepting their questions before they could ask. He punched in the code, 24563—which stood for Chloe—turned the handle, reached in and removed two military-issued satellite phones. “These phones are synced up to each other on an obscure wavelength that can’t be traced or picked up by surveillance equipment, not even by our Mr. Ferric.” He handed one to Maddie. “All communication from this point on goes through these phones, understood?”

  Maddie said, “Understood.”

  Brent picked up the phone and paged Joan.

  “Where the hell did you go? I went to bring you coffee and you’d disappeared,” she said.

  “I’ll tell you later, I promise. Is everything quiet out there? Any unexpected guests or inspectors come by?”

  “All quiet.”

  “Thanks, Joan, I’ll call you tomorrow.”

  The trio left the office, heading for the back door.

  Joan watched them leave. She thought, Two go in, three come out. She shook her head.

  “You lead, Maddie. We’ll follow. Where did you park?”

  “End of the alley, behind the building.”

  “We’ll be right behind you.”

  “You’re not driving a black Hummer, are you?” Chloe asked.

  “Mercedes SL. Why?”

  “Just checking.”

  CHAPTER 31

  As they drove to the warehouse, Maddie’s cellphone rang. She dug in her purse, and when she saw it was Ferric’s number, she sarcastically thought, Great, just who I wanted to talk to. “This is Maddie,” she answered.

  She heard sucking and wheezing sounds from the other end. “You disappointed me this morning, Miss Smith. It was very amateurish on your part. Not at all what I would expect from an S.I.A. agent. Maybe Joseph kept you around for your more personal attributes.”

  Maddie knew he was trying to rile her, so she didn’t respond.

  More wheezing and coughing and then, “Miss Smith, since I’m a generous man, I’m going to give you one more chance to redeem yourself. I told you Lucille was a liability. Well, it’s time we cut our losses. She is scheduled to leave the ICU this afternoon. When her bodyguards leave, I have arranged for two police officers who owe me a favor to stand guard from three until eleven this evening. During that time, you personally are to dispose of Lucille Conklin. I want one bullet to the head.”

  Maddie was taken aback. She hadn’t expected she would be given the assignment. “I told you this morning, sir, Lucille knows nothing about any formula. She’s smart enough not to say anything to the authorities.”

  “This issue isn’t about her anymore. This is about you and me. You have fallen from my good graces, Miss Smith. In order to get back in them, you’ll do this little favor for me.”

  “And if I refuse?”

  “Then my men will do the job and I will consider you a liability. You’ll be dead, by the same means, before the light of day.”

  Maddie’s cellphone went dead. She looked at the LCD screen and realized that Donavan Ferric had hung up. She put her mobile down and picked up the satellite phone, then changed her mind, as she pulled into headquarters. She’d tell Brent in person.

  Brent and Chloe could see that Maddie had been talking on the phone most of the trip and wondered who she had been talking to. “You don’t think she’s double crossing us, do you?”

  “My instincts tell me no,” Brent replied, “but I haven’t had to use them in a few years. I hope they’re not too rusty. Stay close to me when we get out. If I suspect anything, do as I say without hesitation. Got it?”

  “Got it.”

  Maddie pulled into the abandoned industrial park and drove to the back of the building. “I guess we now know why these abandoned buildings weren’t torn down.”

  “Yeah, I guess we do,” Chloe said as they watched the back wall slide open.

  CHAPTER 32

  Brent followed Maddie’s lead and drove into the building. There was actually a parking lot inside the building. As soon as his rear bumper cleared the back wall, the wall automatically started to close. They parked next to Maddie.

  “Nice operation you have,” Brent said. His voice echoed in the empty parking lot. “How long has it been here?”

  “It was finished three years ago last June.”

  The pride came through in Maddie’s voice.

  “Your idea?”

  “Mine, with the help of some amazing engineers.”

  They walked across the parking lot to a set of double doors. “How did you do the demolition to the interior and rebuild it without drawing attention to the project?”

  “It was done from the inside out. All construction was performed from midnight till five in the morning. Everybody on the project was S.I.A., and everyone wore night vision goggles, so lighting wasn’t an issue.”

  “It must have been loud with all the machinery. How did you hide the noise?”

  “Do you remember the sinkhole, the very large sinkhole that appeared three-and-a-half years ago on the corner?”

  “I sure do. The detours were a real pain.”

  “We caused it to happen, and then outbid everybody else to do the road rebuild. We kept all the heavy equipment outside in the parking lot. We did that work at night, too, to help with road congestion. Everyone just assumed the noise came from the construction site.”

  “Amazing.”

  As they reached the glass doors, Maddie placed her hand on a black screen. “It works by palm recognition,” she said as a light flashed below her hand. The doors opened inward and the overhead lights turned on. Brent and Chloe looked around in amazement.

  “No expense spared, I see,” Chloe said.

  “Our tax dollars at work. Come on, what I have to show you is way at the other end of the complex.” Maddie led them down a long corridor, through another set of double doors, which were activated by hand recognition. Again, the lights in this building
came on. Brent looked to his left and saw the infirmary entrance.

  “How’s your infirmary set up?” he asked.

  “Triage, pharmacy, surgical suite and a four-bed, in-patient hospital, as well as all the newest diagnostic equipment, including MRI, CT and PET scan. You name it, you can find it in this building.”

  “Would you mind if we went into the pharmacy? There are a few things that I may need.”

  “Not at all,” Maddie said, and she showed Brent the way there.

  “May I?” he asked before going to the shelves where the meds were stored.

  “Be my guest. Mi casa, su casa.”

  Brent went through the shelves and gathered a few bottles he thought he could use. He opened them and took out the pills he needed. “All set, thanks.”

  “Follow me,” Maddie said as she led them back into the hallway. At the end of the corridor, they approached another set of doors on the right. Like before, Maddie used her hand to gain access. “This was the agent training center. It houses a firing range, gym and classrooms.” They stopped almost at the end of the hall at a door with the letters I.R.S. stenciled on it.

  “Don’t tell me you have your own branch of the Internal Revenue Service, too?” Chloe said.

  Maddie laughed and told her that this I.R.S. stood for Infra-Red Scanner. She unlocked the door again using palm recognition.

  “Why is everything so automated? I mean, how come there are no light switches or door handles? You know, that kind of stuff?” Chloe asked.

  “It’s just a precautionary measure. If the complex is ever infiltrated, which is highly doubtful, they’ll find no fingerprints. All the equipment is voice-automated and all the entrances need an authorized hand or eye scan to unlock them. Nothing is ever touched except in the infirmary and computer lab.”

  “May I have the blank sheet of paper?” Brent handed Maddie the translucent paper from his backpack. “Chloe, would you please get me a sheet of paper from the shelf on your right,” Maddie requested. She examined the two pieces of paper. “I knew this paper looked familiar, but it took me a moment to place it. It’s a material developed by the S.I.A., which is a low-tech way of transferring messages. The company will use it as packing material but, in reality, it carries vital information. That’s why I don’t think it’s blank.”

  “It’s read with an infrared scanner?” Brent asked.

  “Yes, but not a broad spectrum infrared scanner. Only the bottom band of the spectrum used by itself can pick up anything on it.” Maddie placed the paper on a piece of equipment that looked like an old-fashioned overhead projector, then handed them glasses. “Put these on, they’ll protect your eyes.”

  Then she commanded the scanner, “Scanner number five on.” The light under the glass lit up, but nothing appeared on the paper. “Spectrum, begin to narrow one wavelength at a time.” The light didn’t seem to change much, but they could hear a beeping sound coming from the scanner.

  “If I’m right, we should start to see something in a few seconds.”

  One last beeping sound came from the machine. This one was longer so that the operator would know it was at the bottom of the spectrum. The three looked eagerly, but nothing showed up on the paper. They were all disappointed.

  “I was so sure I was right,” Maddie said, dejectedly. “Scanner number five o…”

  “Wait, not yet,” Brent interrupted. “Let’s think about this. Go back over everything we’ve discovered and see if anything helps us figure it out. This paper thing makes too much sense for you to be wrong, Maddie.”

  The more they thought about what they had discovered, the more frustrated they became.

  “Joseph used to end all of our conversations with the same phrase. He’d say, ‘Remember, Brent, enlightenment takes time. Don’t rush it.’ I never understood what he meant, but I think he was trying to tell me something.”

  Maddie smiled, “He used to always tell me to slow down, that subtlety will bring more to light than being overt.”

  “I have an idea. Maddie, can you dim the light being emitted from the scanner but keep the same wavelength?”

  “I’m not sure, why?”

  Brent tried to think of a way to explain his idea. “It’s something you just said about subtlety. It’s kind of like taking an x-ray. If you blast through an object or a part of the body with too much speed, the x-ray beams don’t have enough time to be absorbed into the tissue or the film, so when you look at the film, it appears blank. If you slow the speed, they’ll get absorbed and the picture materializes.”

  “I get it.”

  “Believe it or not, me too,” Chloe said.

  Maddie turned back toward the scanner and told it to dim its light source. As the light became dimmer, an image appeared on the paper. As the light continued to get darker, the image went away. “Scanner number five, slowly brighten.”

  After four beeps, Maddie told it to stop. They hovered over the top of the scanner, looking down on a bunch of intersecting lines, not knowing what they meant.

  “I’m getting a headache trying to see through these glasses,” Brent said. “Maddie, is there a way we can view this under normal fluorescent light?”

  “Yeah, my head is starting to pound a bit, too,” she said. “Scanner number five, burn image.”

  A quick, very bright burst of light emitted from the scanner, almost like the flash of a camera. Then it turned off completely.

  “We can take the glasses off now.” They studied the lines on the paper.

  “Maddie, you said this paper is transferred as packing material, right?”

  “That’s right.”

  “But that’s not how we found it,” Brent said, thinking aloud. “We found it lying directly on top of the map.” Holding it up to the light on the ceiling, he could see that the paper was completely transparent except for the lines. “Chloe, lay the map down on the counter over there and let’s put this back on top of it,” he said. The lines seemed to run haphazardly all over the map.

  Maddie turned the paper ninety degrees counterclockwise, and all the lines lined up with all the boxes, connecting one box to the next. “Roads?”

  “Not roads, Maddie, at least, not the roads that exist in the town now.”

  Chloe was confused. “Why would there be a road going out to Fisherman’s Point?”

  Brent closed his eyes and tried to visualize what he was looking at. He suddenly opened his eyes and gave Chloe a big kiss. “That’s why I love you.”

  “Huh?”

  “You’re a genius.”

  “Okay, I think you finally snapped. What the heck are you talking about?”

  “Fisherman’s Point. When I was a kid, I used to row out to the point to fish. At the very tip of the point, there was a grate built into the rock. It was below sea level and could only be seen by diving below the surface. I discovered it while I lobster hunted one year. The grate was completely sealed off. When I asked my grandfather what it was, he said it was the end point of a failed attempt at an aqueduct system. He said the system was built to help drain off floodwaters in case of a storm, but it was a complete failure so they sealed it off. I knew he wasn’t telling me the truth because it was under the water, but I also knew that I’d never get a straight answer, so I let it go. I think it’s an underground tunnel system that allows travel from place to place.”

  “That’s crazy, isn’t it?”

  “Think about it, Chloe,” Brent said, his voice filled with excitement at the prospect of the breakthrough. ”When we were at the bank, the manager told us, without the shadow of doubt, that nobody had accessed the vault in the past fifteen years. But that can’t be true. Joseph had to have gained access in order to put the two new envelopes and this sheet of paper in the box, not to mention my gun.” Pointing to the map, he said, “He did it through the tunnel system.”

  “I don’
t know, that seems so Indiana Jones-ish.”

  “There’s only one way to find out. We need to get into it and the most logical place to start is my house.”

  He turned to Maddie and asked if they could make copies of the map and the “roads.”

  “Copy machine’s right behind you.”

  While the copies were being made, Maddie was very quiet, almost distant. Chloe placed a hand on Maddie’s shoulder. “Are you okay?” Maddie looked up at her and tried to speak, but couldn’t. Instead, she threw her arms around Chloe and started to cry.

  “Hey, why all the tears? We’re going to be all right.”

  “That’s not it,” she said. “On the way here, I received a phone call.”

  That got Brent’s attention. He turned to face the girls.

  “It was Ferric. He told me that I had to kill Lucille personally and that if I refused, he would have her killed and that I would be dead by morning.”

  “Did he give you any details?” Brent asked.

  “He told me that she would be taken out of ICU this afternoon and that he had arranged for two cops, who are on his payroll, to stand guard in front of her room until eleven tonight. He told me he wanted one bullet to her head while his guards were there so he’d have witnesses.”

  Chloe continued to comfort her while Brent thought out loud. “Okay, this is how it’s going to go down,” he said. “You’re going to wait until ten forty-five before you make your move. At that time, the shift change will be taking place and you’ll have less chance of being noticed. Make the hit just as you were instructed. Make sure you use a hollow point bullet and I want it entering through the back of her head. Leave everything else to us.”

  “But…”

  “No buts. Do exactly as you were told. Once it’s done, you’re to go back to the library. The fire door will be left unlocked and you are to meet us behind the wall.”