* * * *
Lady Jennifer’s exuberance for the material extended their interview well into the early hours of the next day. It was almost four before all was finally ready.
“Wouldn’t that brat shut up?” Maggie muttered quietly as she packed a set of mirrors into the side pockets of her black jump-suit. The man signaled her to be quiet as he typed hurriedly on his laptop computer.
“I have contact. He’s in position and starting the countdown. Will disable video in five minutes and motion sensors . . . what’s going with the motion sensors?” he breathed heavily through clenched teeth as he fingered across the keyboard. “Motion sensors intact. He lost control. It’s on a different system.”
Maggie stared at him with her dark eyes opened wide.
“No, no,” He struggled to maintain his calm as he continued typing. “He said it’s been altered. He’s trying to establish connection with the other mainframe. . . lost him.” He shoved an earpiece into his right ear. “I’ve got audio. Move now.”
The two, suited in black, moved swiftly and silently out the door and down the hall. The man pulled his lapel, which held a tiny microphone, to his mouth. “At the stairs, Harry. Follow us in.”
Maggie reached into her side pocket, turned the corner, and shot a tranquilizer dart into the neck of the startled guard. “Fast now. Hussle!” The two stepped down the stairs with the softness of cats.
Boy around next corner. Got him?” Harry, held by suction cups to the walls of a central air and wire duct, moused his way across his screen as he remotely scanned the castle’s security computer for guard positions. “Maggie, one’s rolling right. No, left . . . sorry. Get him around next corner.”
“Bingo,” she whispered after firing her dart gun. The man hurried along behind her.
“What about the motion sensors in target hallway, Harry? Do we need to prepare measures?” There was a pause. “Quickly, boy! Almost there.”
“Two boys around next corner, Mags.” She fired her darts silently and accurately.
“Never call me ‘Mags’.”
“What about the motion bugs, Harry. I need info now.”
“Still no recognition of your presence. Keep moving quietly. As of now, you’re still ghosts.”
“Keep it that way,” Maggie muttered as they dashed down a long hallway.
No news on the motion stuff. Still disconnected. But there’s another passageway, through an air duct near the floor that you can use to get close enough to the case.”
“How close?”
“Three feet. Nah, too far. They’ll smush you by then.”
“What’s with motion, Harry?!” The man angrily scowled into his mouthpiece. “Where can we get at the case from above? I could lower Maggie down.”
“To a laser field inside that case?” she looked at him incredulously. “I don’t think so. He better get the motion sensors down or we’re going to have to trigger the full alarm and move very, very quickly.” She was surprised to see a guard turn toward her before she fired at the very last second. “Harry, why didn’t you warn me? You bastard!”
“Number one: I’m trying to disable the motion sensors from another line. Number two, darling: you’ve got to shut up for me to talk.”
he man glared at her and she continued in silence.
The two arrived at the end of the hallway in which the paper mache vases were displayed. While Maggie surveyed the hallway behind him, the man blocked the system’s laser beams criss-crossing the room with carefully and quickly placed mirrors.
“Lasers down.”
Nope. Missed one on your right.” Harry laughed as The man swiftly blocked off the last laser emitter. “Getting a bit old for optics?”
“We’ll talk later, Harry. What’s going on with the motion sensors? Everything seems pretty quiet.”
“It is. I’m pretty sure you have a good ten minutes before they call around for the guards. Wait. . .the connection is opening up. Stay tuned.” A pause tightened the very cells making up their bodies. “It’s down. Don’t know how I did it, but I sure did it. Blocked up the whole system for the castle. Move now! I hear someone moving above me.”
They charged into the hallway, unpacking a set of mirrors as they ran. They went to work together on each side of the case, disarming the laser beams one by one.
“I’ve got two.”
“You then have three more in that corner. There are six parallel and two perpendiculars across each side and double that on top and bottom.”
“My, you were perceptive. Good work.”
“Did he say good work?” Harry interceded in their ears. “My, oh, my, Maggie did a good job!”
“You better keep up your good job or I’ll . . .”
“Wait. . .what’s happening?!” Harry shifted in the narrow passageway to look below him. A mechanized steel door was slowly closing beneath him. He struggled to look upward and found that he was indeed being trapped from both above and below. “The doors are closing!! My wires. . .are trapped.” He eyed a DISCONNECTING message blink on his screen. “Abort now! Get out of there!”
As the two masked figures struggled to hear their trapped comrade, a bright light flashed across the windows. The man scrambled to look out, only to see a squad of black cars parking in the driveway and a team of suited men walking toward the side entrance of the castle, only meters from the hallway in which the two stood transfixed. A loud feedback whistle burst in upon their eardrums from Harry’s audio apparatus and then only static. “Abort now. Maggie,” he called after her as she was making her way toward the other window. “Walk away. Walk away now!”
As the night door guard moved toward the entrance hallway, the alarm began to scream. The motion sensors had been activated . . . and alerted. Maggie ran down the hallway and he followed her.
“There’s a dumbwaiter around here. I saw it on the way in, but I’m not sure. . .” she stopped to fire another dart into a guard’s neck. “Out of the way, buddy,” she sneered as she stepped over the body and hurried down the hallway.
The man raised the dumbwaiter door and slid in while Maggie covered him and then followed. Within seconds, they were back on the third floor of the castle, ready to leap out into the guest suite corridor and back into their rooms undetected.
The door was locked. The security computer must have picked up movement on the butler’s dumbwaiter and remotely locked the unit. If they tampered with the lock, their location would be picked up and relayed to the pursuing guards. Maggie swore. “There’s no way out of this thing,” she moaned as she pounded on the metal walls.
“Quiet please, Maggie. We have work to do.” The man reconnected his earpiece. “Come in, Harry. Do you hear me?” No response. “I repeat, do you hear me? Are you online now?” Still no response. “Maggie, take out the cutting laser. It’s our only option now.”
Maggie reached into one of her chest pockets for the instrument. There was no other option. It was either cut out, or be cut down.
Listen to me, Maggie. We can't touch the lock itself. If we climb on top of the dumbwaiter we're trapped again unless we manually lower the whole box using the wires above. . ."
"Betraying our position as they detect the mechanism's movement. Damned either way."
He thought for a second. "But at least we'll have time to get out of the shaft and into our rooms before they get here."
"That depends on the composition of the door and how fast I can cut through it."
"Information that is on Harry's computer. Damn."
But it was their only feasible option. In thirty-four seconds they were both crouching together on top of the dumbwaiter. In another twenty-three seconds, straining to pull upward on the cables, they managed to lower
the dumbwaiter to a level at which Maggie could readily cut through the metal door. In fifty-two seconds Maggie's laser had cut a hole of sufficient diameter for them to slip out into the hall just before the remaining guards began their assent up the majestic marble staircase. Maggie turned right and began opening the doors to their rooms while the man grabbed a chair on his left and hurled it out the window at the end of the hallway. In just over 129 seconds, they were securely in their rooms while the black-suited men were investigating the broken window and climbing out onto the roof in pursuit of the thieves.
A guard knocked on Maggie's door. He called into the room: "Miss Peterson? Miss Peterson? Please remain in your room. There has been a security breach in the castle." She opened the door to ask what was the matter, her hair frazzled and her white nightgown flowing loosely around her as she rubbed her tired eyes in front of the security man. "Sorry to bother you, miss. We just wanted to see that everything was fine." She smiled weakly and nodded a friendly good night.
* * * *
Dean Westerfield and Lynn Peterson walked down to breakfast the next morning with smiles on their faces, only to find an obviously distressed Lady Jennifer greeting them at the open porch on the side of the castle. "Good morning," she said, sitting down with them and calling the butler to bring in some tea and marmalade. "Unfortunately, it seems we had an unwelcome visitor last night."
"I heard the siren at about four. What happened? I didn't leave my room and I don't think Lynn did either," Dean glanced with a concerned expression at his graduate assistant, who shook her head.
"Someone came by to see that I was all right, but I went back to sleep. I did notice the broken window at the end of our hallway this morning. Did someone come in that way?"
"Well, all we know now is that someone entered the castle in search of the vases."
"Did he make off with them? Oh, my God!" Dean fiddled uncomfortably with his napkin, glancing around the room.
"They are fortunately still here. The alarm sounded before they could succeed in their designs. They tranquilized a couple of our poor guards!" Lady Jennifer's expression did not change. Her normal, smiling demeanor was overcome by tension. "Whoever it was knew what he was looking for. As to the window, they think that the bandit, or bandits, made their way out that way."
"So at least they were scared out off the premises," Dean smiled. "Did they find anyone?"
"You don't think that anyone really left that way, do you?" Lady Jennifer looked at him seriously. He nodded and chuckled. "No. Anyone who entered this castle knew what he was looking for and the castle from which he was to steal it. No one in his right mind would go out onto the roof on top of the security station of the castle and overlooking the main driveway. It was foolish to follow anyone out that way because they must have stayed."
"In the castle?" Lynn tried to make the idea seem ridiculous.
"At least for a while. This will be such an embarrassment when the Defense Minister arrives tonight. I have just met with his. . ."
"The Defense Minister?!" both Lynn and Dean blurted out together.
"Yes indeed. He has been informed of the situation but has decided to come anyway. MI5 is sending an additional contingent of men for his security during his stay." The man was perplexed. He didn't know of any visit by the Defense Minister to Scone scheduled for that month. "I am very sorry, sir. It was a last minute decision for him to come here to meet with the Duke and Duchess on his way to a conference in Glasgow. I did send a letter to you in New Haven two weeks ago." Dean laughed and blamed it all on the university mail service. "Well, you are invited, of course, to the ball in his honor tomorrow evening. That is why the rear wing of the castle has been closed off for preparations. As for now, however, I have some business to attend to with the security men. They say you can resume your work with the vases at about three, so until then, you are on your own. Why don't you take a walk along the grounds? The Victorian garden is beautiful at this time of year."