Shattered Valor (7 page)

“And we’ve had the place under surveillance,” Max said. “No one’s come in or out.”

“You cleared the house?” Owen asked Kit.

“It’s clear. And bug free.”

“Eden, start your thing,” Owen told her.

She led Tank up the wooden steps made of halved logs, getting him to sniff as he went. Twice he doubled back to do a second sniffing, but he didn’t point anything out. The wide staircase turned twice as it continued its way up to the second floor. Its iron balustrade was decorated with an intricate design of elk, bear, buffalo, wolves, and big horn ram silhouettes, all bordered in fanciful branches and leaves. It was gorgeous, in a heavy, masculine way.

The upstairs was open to the entranceway and the two-story living room below. A bridge connected the two sides of the house. Eden went to the right. There were four bedrooms, each with its own walk-in closet and bathroom.

As with downstairs, the bedrooms were trashed. She and Tank climbed over and around toppled furniture, checking the walls and furnishings, then the walk-in closets and bathrooms. He found nothing of any interest.

At the end of the hall, there was a short hallway that led into the northern wing. It contained three more bedrooms, an enclosed porch, and a much smaller staircase. Tank found nothing of interest in any of the rooms. There was a sitting nook and a closet in the front hallway that they checked on their way back. Nothing stirred his interest.

They crossed the bridge that overlooked the entranceway and led to the main stairs. Ty watched her progress from the foyer below. He stood with his legs braced and hands behind his back. He hadn’t moved more than a few steps inside the front door, but she couldn’t think about his odd behavior now—she had to stay focused on what Tank was doing.

The other half of the upstairs was a mirror image of the one they’d just inspected, right down to the bedroom wing. Tank found nothing. Eden refused to look at Owen, who watched her with the same intensity he watched Tank.

She took the stairs in the southern wing down to the first floor, then started through the bedrooms. Tank was focused and attentive, but still not finding anything. Eden tried to keep her anxiety from communicating itself to him. If someone had been doing anything with drugs or weapons in the house, it was highly unlikely they were doing those activities in the bedrooms, she reasoned. It made sense that he wasn’t scenting anything yet.

They moved into the last bedroom in the lower, southern wing. Tank found nothing in the bathroom or bedroom. The closet was empty except for some hangers. This one had built-in chests of drawers, various cabinets, some lined with cedar. The paneling on the walls was as detailed as that in the living room.

She walked Tank over to the back wall, the last area they had to check. He jumped up at it and barked twice. She drew him away, had him scent the space again, and when he came to the back wall, he again jumped up at it and barked twice.

Eden stepped out of the closet to let the guys move in closer. She felt like an idiot. Tank had barked at a wall. A beautiful freaking wall. She waited in the enclosed porch outside the bedroom while Rocco and Max checked out the closet.

Owen came out with her. She ventured a look at him, waiting for his condemnation. He said nothing, and his face showed no anger or blame. After a few minutes, the guys declared there was nothing to find. Owen waved her on.

She walked down a short hallway that led to the public rooms on the main floor. There was a powder room and storage closet against the front wall. The first door on the opposite side of the hall led to a media room with stadium seating for twenty viewers. Tank found nothing of interest in that room or in its attached equipment room. They moved next door to a game room that also didn’t spike Tank’s curiosity.

They went back into the hallway. Ty still stood by the front door, watching them. Why hadn’t he joined their inspection? She led Tank through the cavernous living room and bar, then into the dining room, the butler’s pantry, a walk-in wine cellar, and the enormous kitchen. On that front side of the hall, there was another powder room and a second storage room. Nothing caught Tank’s attention, again. The last room they had to check on the ground floor of the main wing was a large, paneled den. They climbed over upended furniture, went through the den’s full bathroom and closet.

Tank was very curious about a bookshelf. He worked quickly from the lower areas to the fourth shelf up, where he jumped and barked once. Eden moved him away from the bookshelf, then led him back to it again. He jumped at the same shelf.

She wanted to cry. There was nothing unusual about the shelf. Nothing. She patted Tank’s head and led him deeper into the den, letting the guys check the shelf out. Owen and Kit waited with her.

“I’m sorry. I thought he could do it,” Eden admitted her failing.

Owen frowned and looked at her. “I’ve yet to meet a dog that could lie.”

Eden swallowed a lump in her throat, forced a calming breath of air into her lungs. “No, but they can make mistakes. So can their trainers.”

Owen ignored that as he watched the guys examine the bookshelf. The silence in the room was brutal. Eden jumped when Max shouted, “Fuck. Me.”

The guys hurried over to where he and Rocco were fussing with the shelf that Tank had barked at. Max was showing them something.

“Do it again,” Val told them.

“It’s this lever here. Push it,” Max directed.

She heard a mechanized sound. Her heart began a staccato beat. What were they looking at?

Max came away from the shelf, grinning at her, an expression that was extremely unnerving. She backed up a step, but he didn’t stop until he’d grabbed her face and planted a kiss on her forehead. Val followed him over and gave her a sideways hug.

“Well done, Eddie!”

“What is it?” she asked Val. “What did you find?”

“A hidden staircase behind the bookcase.”

“Val!” She grabbed his shirt. “Tank barked only once. There could be explosives!”

He nodded. “We’ll be careful. The guys are checking it out now. It might be that someone with bombs or guns has come through that area recently. We’ve had a couple of run-ins with explosives and gunmen in the past few days.”

“Eden, let’s finish your inspection while they’re exploring that passageway,” Owen said. They went into the hallway and turned to the right where a short hallway led to the main floor of northern bedroom wing. She inspected all three bedrooms and the enclosed porch, then took Tank up the stairs and back down again. Nothing further caught his interest.

The only place left in the house to inspect now was the basement. Eden and Owen went back down the hall toward the door to the basement stairs. Instead of going down, Owen walked over to Ty, who was still standing inside the front door.

“Did you know about the hidden passageway in the den?”

Ty didn’t immediately respond. Eden wondered what he was thinking—it was impossible to read his stoic expression. “No, but I’m not surprised. My father was all kinds of sneaky. The guys should be careful. It could be booby-trapped.”

Owen nodded. “While they’re checking it out, Eden and Tank are going to inspect the basement. Would you care to join us?”

“No.”

“Not at all curious? Tank has discovered two areas of interest, one of which has proven very useful.”

“I’m glad he helped.”

“Join us in the basement.”

“No.”

“You’re going to disobey an order?”

Ty gave a raw laugh. “Do what you want with the house. Consider it yours. I’m not going in that fucking basement.”

“That’s the line?”

“That’s it.”

“What are you afraid of? Ghosts?”

“You know, Owen, you should go fuck yourself.”

Eden cleared her voice, reminding the men that she was standing right there. Owen pivoted and walked past her as he led the way to the lower level.

CHAPTER FIVE

The basement was a typical, unfinished space. It was as large as the entire main wing of the house. It had high ceilings and big windows, a few of which along the back wall were overshadowed by the wide decking that ran a good portion of the back of the house. There were support beams here and there, but only one finished room—a ten by ten foot area against the front side of the house that turned out to be a bathroom.

There were a few boxes and pieces of furniture scattered about, but the basement was mostly empty. Tank found nothing of interest down there. Eden looked around, wondering what had caused Ty’s extreme reaction to this level of the house. Nothing looked unusual.

She exchanged glances with Owen, who seemed to be coming to the same question. “Let’s go back up,” he said, waving her on to the stairs. When they rejoined Ty in the entranceway, Kit, Val, and Rocco were coming out of the den.

“Blade!” Val exclaimed. “You didn’t tell us you had a bunker under your house.”

“I didn’t know.”

Kit shook his head. “We didn’t. We climbed all over this house as kids.” He exchanged looks with Ty. “You need to see this. You won’t believe it. The bunker is under the basement. And Eden—Tank will need to check down there, too.”

They moved as a group into the den, and then to the bookcase. At the entry to the hidden stairs, Eden stopped Kit. “I’d like Tank to go first.”

Kit stood back as Eden led Tank into the passageway. A light turned on as they stepped inside the stairwell. The winding spiral staircase was made of steel steps covered in sound-deadening rubber mats, wide enough to allow two men abreast. Soundproof panels lined the walls. Lights turned on or off with each section of staircase they descended.

When the stairs ended, a sliding door opened into a cavernous room filled with bunks at one end and picnic tables at the other. She could see a hall through a door at the back of the room, leading to yet more rooms.

She walked Tank around the sleeping area. It contained ten racks with two bunks, each rack terminating in a set of tall lockers. The beds were unmade, and several pallets were on the floor in the aisles between the rows of bunks. Someone had been in the space recently, though nothing caught Tank’s attention as she walked him around the room.

They went into the back hall. The first room was a multi-stall bathroom with two showers and a double sink. The next room was a kitchen. Dirty dishes were still on the counters and in the sink, the food still fresh on the dishes. Whoever had been in here had cleared out recently.

The next room, large enough to be a conference room, was empty. A closed door blocked the end of the hallway, secured by a numeric keypad that Max was fiddling with. Tank sniffed at the base of the door. He scratched at the floor, but didn’t bark.

Unable to go farther, they circled back to the bunk area. The pallets on the floor were nothing more than a blanket and a pillow. Ten of them. Easily thirty people had been sleeping in these quarters—more if they slept in shifts.

Kit used the tip of his knife to unlatch a locker door. Inside were white, cotton clothes that looked Middle Eastern to Eden, a worn Qur’an with fraying prayer strings, various papers, and notebooks.

Kit looked at Owen and grinned. “Looks like we found the hole those camel spiders crawled out of yesterday.”

“I’ll get a forensic team in to collect the bedding, locker contents, and dishes, then take it to the lab,” Owen commented as he took out his phone.

“We have a lab?” Ty asked.

Kit met Ty’s look. “We have everything we need to do the job we’ve been hired to do. Leave the notebooks after you have them processed,” he said to Owen. “Rocco and I can work on translating them.”

They opened the other lockers and found similar items, some with notebooks, some with letters. A beep sounded from the hallway where Max was working the lock.

“We’re in!” he called.

Kit took the lead and Rocco the tail as they moved into the backroom. Automatic lights flashed on, illuminating a large command and control room with security monitors, communications equipment, and servers. A laptop was on its side on the floor, as if the occupants had left the room quickly, grabbing what they could.

Val whistled. “You and Greer are going to have a field day here!” he said to Max.

There was another doorway on the far wall, again protected by a keypad lock. When Max got the second door opened, long fluorescent lights blinked on, illuminating rows of semi-automatics, pistols, RPGs, and knives.

“Jesus H Christ. It’s like micro-NORAD down here,” Val observed.

Eden set Tank to searching the room. He made a quick pass around the room, sniffing at the built-in weapons cabinets, then went back around checking the brushed steel bases beneath them. Half way around the room, he stopped and barked once.

“Owen, we got something,” Eden announced. Tank was sitting in front of a blank base, wagging his tail. Eden wondered if he wasn’t getting his signals crossed, scenting all the weapons in the room. She pulled Tank back to give the guys room to check out the panel.

Ty eased to a crouch with the help of his cane. He tapped the panel where Tank had barked. The compartment sounded hollow. Something was behind the door. It had no lock, no handles or knobs, nothing to indicate how—or even if—it opened. He began pushing on different areas, seeing if it was pressure-released. As soon as he pressed on the bottom of it, it flipped opened to reveal a storage compartment filled with C-4 bricks.