Evenfall (155 page)

He scrutinized the southwest corner again, checking the ground as well as the walls, and still saw nothing that stood out to him. Even so, the numbers seemed off to him; he'd been counting his steps around the room, and this wall seemed to be moved in even further than he'd expected from the blueprints. If he was right, the entrance was there but wasn't accessible directly through the wall or floor or even some sort of lever that would trigger a hidden opening. Which meant he just had to do this the hard way.

He looked up at the ceiling with the same polished wooden beams spread above the walls. This time, however, he paid more attention to the fact that the beams did not extend past the western wall; all the north, south and eastern walls were short enough that the beams passed over them and left a gap between the beams and the ceiling. However, the western wall had no beams; it simply extended to the ceiling the way walls normally would and cut off any access from this room to whatever was on the other side. Now that he thought of it, that had been the case in the other rooms along this side of the hallway, yet the rooms along the eastern side of the hallway had beams extending across both sides. That verified to him that what he wanted to access was on the other side of the western wall.

With that in mind, he headed directly toward the tall couch. It was far too large and heavy for him even attempt to move so instead he carefully crawled onto the back of it, balancing with one hand extended toward the nearest wall to catch himself if he needed to. He looked up at the beams, which still seemed to extend far too high above him even if he tried to jump. For a moment, he wished that he possessed far more prowess and strength like Sin, who would have probably been able to jump straight up to the beams from the floor without any help at all. Of course, Sin also had the advantage of being several inches taller.

Boyd's eyes narrowed as he considered the gap between him and the nearest beam, then he looked at the northeastern corner thoughtfully. This was the only corner with no art displayed in it; presumably because the couch would impede the view and the designer did not wish to make anyone seated feel uncomfortable, as though they would need to crane their necks to view all the art. He looked back across the room, noting how it was empty other than the art along the wall. Quietly, he climbed off the couch and checked up and down the hallway briefly to ensure he didn't hear or see anyone coming. He was probably going to make a little bit of noise here but he couldn't help it since he didn't have any rope.

He backed across the room until he was nearly to the southwestern corner, then ran as quickly and silently as he could toward the northeastern corner. He jumped onto the couch, then the couch's back, and jumped up with one foot against the eastern wall followed by the other against the northern wall, one hand against the wall as if for support while he stretched the other above him. He jumped as far upward as he could at an angle and threw both his hands up toward the beam, just barely catching it before he would otherwise have fallen to the ground.

For a moment he just dangled there, eyes narrowed as he tried to get a better hold on the beams even as his gloves made it feel unnervingly as if his hands were slipping. In the end, he managed to get himself close enough to one wall to partially walk up it until he was finally able to pull himself on top of the wooden beam. He rested there a moment, heart pounding and mildly out of breath, and found that with that height he had a very good view of the other rooms surrounding him except for the fact that it was too dark to be able to tell much. However, he didn't see any movement in the hallway or other rooms that implied someone was there, and he didn't think he'd made much noise so he hoped it wouldn't sound an alarm. A quick glance down to the room also showed that, as far as he could tell in that dim lighting, he thankfully hadn't left any telltale marks on the wall.

Satisfied, he crawled across the beam until he reached the southwest wall, where he was able to see that the beam did in fact pass over the wall into a small dark space rather than the next room. The shadows were deeper in that small room than they had been in the room behind him, which was likely due to the fact that the only light that could make it into there was any ambient light that made it above the wall. He peered down into the area and although couldn't see or hear anything, he knew it was empty.

Boyd paused a moment to listen again for any other sounds behind him but there were no guards making the rounds, no one to hear or see him. He was just reaching into his pocket when the transmitter in his ear made a soft sound and Sin's voice breathed, "Target area possibly in sight. Will verify shortly." Boyd paused, studying the room below him; even if Sin found where Thierry was, he still felt there was something to look into here so he didn't intend to stop. He didn't reply at first because he felt that any sound, even a whisper, that was so close to the ceiling would be more likely to echo into all the surrounding rooms. It would be better to wait until he was in a less uncertain position.

He pulled a black hand-held device out of his pocket that was a combination flashlight and hidden trap detector. It had a series of buttons and switches that he pressed in order to gain a quick idea of the layout and any possible obstacles with regular light and any traps by using a thin but wide red beam and a pale, quickly-dissipating mist. He noted a black fuse box was attached to the far wall and what appeared to be a hidden door on the western wall. Satisfied that there did not appear to be any alarms or traps in the room, he hung from the beam into the small room and dropped with a roll to the wooden floor. He couldn't help making a soft noise as his weight hit the floor and he immediately pressed himself against the wall beside the door he'd noticed earlier, ready to attack anyone who may come through searching for the origin of the sound.

He heard no movement on the other side and no one came to investigate, so he used the device to look more closely around the room with the light. The room was empty and small, just a few feet wide but spanning the length of the room he'd just come from. It was dark but not dank, and although it did not look as though it saw much use, there were no cobwebs which led him to believe that this space had to be accessed on a regular basis, even if it was not very frequently.

"I think I found something too," Boyd responded quietly to Sin, partially as acknowledgment for the previous transmission and partially just to alert him.

The black box he'd noted earlier drew his attention before anything else so he walked over and studied it more closely for a few seconds. It appeared to be a fuse box of some sort with flip switches that weren't labeled properly but he suspected had something to do with whatever was hidden on the other side of the door. Although in other contexts the box would have been helpful, at that moment it was irrelevant to him; their ideal outcome was to get in, get Thierry, and leave without ever being noticed. Flipping random switches would only draw attention not only to the fact that there was an intruder, but also to his exact location since he doubted they had other fuse boxes scattered around with access to the same systems.

He shut the box quietly and turned toward the wall with the hidden door, feeling along the edges and searching for any other traps. He crouched down and peered at the bottom, seeing the slightest slit of light peering from beneath. That was equally good and bad for his situation; if it had been dark on the other side, he wouldn't have dared to use his flashlight along the edges of the door to search for a way to open it because the light would probably have bled to the other side and made his presence obvious. On the other hand, if there was light on the other side it also meant that if he entered the space on the other side he would be more likely to be seen or caught.

It took a few moments of intense scrutiny, but Boyd ultimately noticed that there was a slight line in one section of the wall next to the door. Once he knew where to look, it didn't take him long to figure out that there was a panel there that he was able to access by a combination of pressing on one side of it and prying on another. The panel came open with a soft noise of protest and he paused again, listening intently for any indication anyone was in the vicinity, but he didn't hear anything. It revealed a number pad that required a password to open the door. He used the light at different angles and was able to see that all of the numbers except for 3, 6 and 7 were covered with a thin layer of dust.

It was clear that the password involved those numbers but he had no idea how many digits it was or what combination to use. He also had no idea whether there was a computer program monitoring the pad and if it would be alerted if he inputted the incorrect password or even if, should he guess correctly, it would alert the program that the door had been opened with it. Any of those cases would result in an alert going out and he didn't want to deal with that, especially not if Sin was close to finding Thierry. The last thing they needed was for Sin to make his way silently all the way to their destination and for Boyd to trip an alarm; as ironic as that would be, it wouldn't help their mission at all. Besides, Sin wasn't even certain he knew where Thierry was and Boyd didn't know what was on the other side of the door. He could walk right into the wing that held Thierry and it would turn out Sin found something else; there was just no way to tell.

He stepped back from the door and frowned to himself, trying to think this through. The door appeared to be the sort that slid into the wall, so there was no way he could just break the hinges or somehow pry the door open so he would have to work on the password.

He'd brought a simple decoding box with him in case he needed it for this type of situation, but the problem was that it functioned by telling the user how many digits the password had and then inputting random numbers and letters in until it found the correct code. In some situations, that was perfectly fine; a person would have the time and ability to let it try some wrong answers before it found the correct one. But Boyd had no way of telling the decoder that only those three numbers needed to be used and he was fairly certain its first attempted code would include more than 3, 6 and 7. If the decoder inadvertently tripped an alarm, he'd be right back to the scenarios he was trying to avoid. Really, this electrical room was designed quite well to trap intruders; even though there were no hidden alarms within the room itself, if a person used the fuse box or used the wrong code, they would probably alert the building to their presence and have no way of getting out unless the person had some way of reaching the beams from the floor.

He suspected this was the back entrance to the hidden wing or whatever was on the other side of that western wall; there was no way Clemons went to all this trouble every time he wanted to enter the area. They probably couldn't reroute the circuits in the electrical room in order to cut off any excess access to the hidden area; so, instead, they'd made it as inconvenient and difficult as possible. Clemons had probably never expected anyone to pay attention to the dimensions of the other public rooms and compare them, then deduce that there was a small, secret room pressed between that art gallery and the sitting room on the other side. At least the fact that the electrical room was so awkward to access implied to him that if he'd just wandered around longer he may have found an easier way into the hidden area, which also meant he should conceivably have an easier time of getting out rather than having to come back through here.

Boyd decided to use a combination of guesswork and the decoder to figure out the password. He pulled out the decoder and quietly hooked it up to the system, letting it run just long enough to flash that the password was seven digits; he stopped the device before it could attempt to try any codes. Using that bit of information, he studied the three numbers he knew it had to be and tried to approach this from a different angle.

What did he know of Hale Clemons? Judging by the lavishness of the complex, he seemed to have immense pride, a sense of arrogance, expensive taste, and he was paranoid enough to make the secret areas difficult to access, but daring enough to keep them intermixed with th
e public, open spaces. At the sa
me time, he seemed to utilize misleading clues as traps.

What that told Boyd was that he also was a man of subtlety who knew that human nature was to dismiss minor inconsistencies in anything that seemed familiar while at the same time searching for the simplest, easiest solution elsewhere. He also knew Hale Clemons was the sort of person who took his job seriously and, Boyd's eyes narrowed darkly, who held grudges and had the capacity for cruelty and revenge necessary to ensure that Sin was tortured the way he had been.

That also meant he took very seriously the safety of at least Jessica and, presumably, those he cared for or was close to. Of course, added to all of this, Janus would be very important to the man and he was probably just like the other followers of the organization. If that was the case, Janus would be his driving force, the center of his identity, an organization he took pride in belonging to. He was probably also fairly cocky because he had a high enough rank to be in charge of JKS as well as the fact that his property appeared to house the local interrogation center and safe house, which also meant he was trusted to be in contact with defectors, prisoners, and the sort of secrets only those people could betray.

The numbers on the pad caught his attention again and he thought through all the information he'd learned about Janus, about its people, and especially that which he'd overheard or had been told to him when he'd been posing as Kadin Reed. There were a few key phrases and words that seemed to be at the center of the Janus philosophy, but perhaps the most central... He thought of the number of letters it contained, then a cell phone pad and the numbers which were associated with each letter, then raised an eyebrow. Surely it wasn't that simple...