SWNOVELS Chapter Chapter Fifteen
The hum of traffic on a distant highway was the only sound besides the small rhythmic splashes created by Leslie and Gary as they paddled “Sir Nessie” across the lake. The swamp monster-themed inflatable was not meant to carry two full-grown men on a covert mission, but it was the best option they had. The sight of Leslie straddling the dragon figurehead made Gary chuckle.
“What’s so funny?”
“A Norseman rowing a boat shaped like a dragon.”
“You dare scoff at my proud Viking heritage?” Leslie queried in an accent that landed somewhere between Swedish and Canadian.
“A berserker you ain’t!” Gary laughed again.
“Ah, but there is berserker in my blood. Are you familiar with the painting of that overly muscled barbarian riding a polar bear, severed head in one hand, a scantily clad girl in the other?”
“Sure,” Gary answered.
“My uncle Thor was the model for that.”
“Thor?”
“A little. We’ve been rowing for a while.”
“Ughh!” Gary groaned. “That’s awful!”
The two rowed in silence for a while.
“Thor,” Gary sighed under his breath and shook his head.
The mansion in the distance grew larger. The grounds on the backside of the house were draped in shadow, a far cry from the circus of lights that illuminated the public-facing areas of the estate. As they approached, they could see the boathouse, a more modest-sized version of the mansion whose garage sat upon the water, was dark and empty. The overhead door was raised a few feet above the water which allowed the duo to lay back in the boat and limbo under it to access the docks inside. They maneuvered Sir Nessie into one of the open slips. To their surprise, they managed to disembark without capsizing. Leslie pulled their boat out of the water and set it on the pier.
“So far, so good!” He gave a “thumbs-up” to Gary.
“Yep, we’re here. What’s the next step?” Gary asked.
“We find a way into the mansion. Easy, peasy.”
“And how do you suggest we commit this felony?”
“It’s only a felony if you steal something,” Leslie corrected. “Otherwise we’re facing a misdemeanor.”
“Remind me again, why are we doing this? Why didn’t we call the police and report the guys as missing?”
“You and I both know that something isn’t right. The cops aren’t going to look for two adult men that haven’t even been missing for twenty-four hours. I’m afraid they are in trouble and I am not willing to wait around for them to turn up dead.” Leslie’s voice cracked.
“If they are here, we will find them,” Gary guaranteed. He scanned the area for an exit. “Let’s try going that way.”
Gary pointed to an archway at the far end of the pier. They walked to the opening and peeked inside. The area was a small landing between flights of stairs. The staircase to the right led up to the main room of the boathouse. The route to the left led down into darkness. A shard of moonlight sliced across the steps and down into the beginning of a hallway.
“I’m thinking we go that way.” Gary pointed down and to the left.
“Why that way?” Leslie hesitated.
“I’m guessing that it is a passageway to the house. A tunnel for those times the weather didn’t cooperate. It’s either that or a wine cellar. We win either way.”
Leslie turned and looked at the room at the top of the stairs.
“But, if we go up that way, then work our way through the yard we will have more room to run if we get caught.”
He turned to face the space where Gary once stood. The glow from a cell phone illuminated the bottom half of the stairway to the tunnel.
“Bad dog!” Leslie muttered quietly. “Gary, wait for me!” Leslie whisper-yelled as he scrambled down the steps toward the bobbing light from Gary’s phone. “I guess we’re going the tunnel route.”
Leslie caught up to Gary but had to walk a few paces behind him due to the narrow width of the hallway. Every twenty or so feet there would be a set of three stairs that dropped the pair deeper and deeper underground. After a couple of drops in elevation, the hallway’s aesthetic changed from the warm, wood-paneled interior of the boat house to that of a porcelain-clad subway tunnel. The bluish light from the cell phone ricocheted from its surface giving off the eerie vibe of a single shooter video game. The two stopped at the start of the tile floor. Ahead of them the tunnel widened and split into two corridors. Gary swung his phone from side to side to see what lay ahead of them in each hallway. They were equally uninviting.
“Gary, I think we should go back and take the outside route,” Leslie urged.
“We’ve got to be close to the house by now,” Gary estimated. “I’m going to guess that the left leads to the garage and the right to the house.”
He redirected the light from the phone in each direction as he spoke. He headed right, crossing in front of Leslie.
“Ugh!” Leslie groaned and followed.
Walking down the seemingly never-ending tiled hallway reminded Leslie of watching the looping background in the action sequences of the cartoons from his childhood. Hundreds upon hundreds of white subway tiles moved past him, occasionally interrupted by a rosette of black and gray mosaic tile arranged in an art-deco sunburst pattern. Then, the repetition of white tiles would begin again.
Gary stopped abruptly as the beam from his flashlight app reflected off a wall that sat perpendicular to their path. The hallway ended at a set of framed steel panels adorned with the same rosette they had seen along the walls. Closer inspection revealed a phone-like keypad next to the frame.
“Everything was going a just little too smoothly,” Leslie sighed.
“Hold on. Give me a minute,” Gary insisted.
He lowered his face closer to the keypad and then sniffed and scrutinized the surface of the touchpad.
“Hmmm,” he nodded knowingly. “The buttons for THREE, FIVE, and SIX have the most wear and hold the most scent. The FIVE gets used a little less than the others.”
“That’s pretty impressive,” Leslie praised.
“Dude on the outside, doggy on the inside,” Gary replied. “Now we just need to decipher the password. They relate to something important to the user. What is important to DeLeon?”
Leslie stepped forward and tapped in an entry. The doors opened on the first try. “I didn’t even need to use the numbers as a starting point for that one.”
“Let me guess,” Gary responded. “DeLeon?”
“DeLeon,” Leslie confirmed.
The two boarded the elevator. Its interior was as white and sterile as the hallway, but much more futuristic in appearance. Each wall was almost totally covered by one glistening porcelain panel that floated in front of a stainless-steel back panel. A hidden light source created a halo between the two. The control panel consisted of two buttons, one containing a triangle pointing up and the other containing one pointing down. Gary pushed the “UP” arrow. Nothing happened. He pushed it again, getting the same results. He turned to Leslie.
“Maybe we are already as ‘up’ as the elevator goes.”
He hit the other button and the doors closed.