Crescent Dawn (Dirk Pitt 21)

“Tell us first. What is the significance of the Manifest?” she asked.

“Until it has been authenticated, no one can say for sure,” Bannister said, creeping over to retrieve the parchment with the papyrus inside. “It’s just an old document that some seem to think could rattle the theological powers that be.” He picked up the scroll with his free hand and gently placed it in an inside pocket of his jacket.

“Was Kitchener deliberately killed because of it?” Julie asked.

“I would assume so. But that’s one you’ll have to take up with the Church of England. It’s been nice chatting with you ladies,” he said, backpedaling toward the door, “but I’m afraid I have a plane to catch.”

He stepped out of the pantry and began closing the door behind him.

“Please don’t leave us in here,” Julie begged.

“Not to worry,” Bannister replied. “I’ll be sure and phone Aldrich in a day or so and let him know there’s a pair of lovely lasses locked in his basement. Good-bye.”

The door slammed shut with a whoosh followed by the sound of the dead bolt sliding home. Then Bannister flicked off the pantry’s lights, plunging it into blackness. He quietly crept upstairs to Aldrich’s quarters, stopping to replace the unloaded Webley pistol in a glass cabinet of Kitchener’s military artifacts, where he had borrowed it minutes before. Waiting until the lobby cleared, he slipped out of the manor unseen and quickly hopped upon his rented motorcycle.

Three hours later, he called the Lambeth Palace head of security from a phone at Heathrow Airport.

“Judkins, it’s Bannister.”

“Bannister,” the security man replied with an acid tongue. “I’ve been waiting for you to report. You’ve tracked this Goodyear woman?”

“Yes. She and the American have been down at Broome Park digging up Kitchener documents. Still there, as a matter of fact.”

“Are they going to prove problematic?”

“Well, they are a bit suspicious and have certainly been barking up the right tree.”

“But do they have anything damaging to us?” the security man asked impatiently.

“Oh, no,” Bannister replied, patting his chest pocket with a wide grin. “They have nothing. Nothing at all.”

31

THE SEALED PANTRY WAS AS BLACK AS A CAVE. SUMMER placed a hand on the shelf for balance as she waited a moment for her eyes to adjust to the sudden darkness. But without a source of light, there was nothing to see. She remembered her cell phone and pulled it out of her pocket, the device emitting a dull blue glow.

“No phone signal down here, I’m afraid, but at least we’ve got a night-light,” she said.

Using the cell phone as a flashlight, she stepped to the doo

r, pushing it first with her shoulder, then applying a few firm kicks with the heel of her foot. The thick door didn’t budge at all, and she knew that even a sumo wrestler wouldn’t have been able to snap off the heavy dead bolt. She eased back over to Julie, flashing the phone toward her to find a scared look on her face.

“I don’t like this one bit,” Julie said in a shaky voice. “I think I want to scream.”

“You know, Julie, that’s a good idea. Why don’t we?”

Summer tilted her head toward the ceiling and let out a loud scream. Julie immediately joined in, yelling repeatedly for help.

Muffled by the thick pantry door, the screams registered only faintly upstairs. The few guests who detected the faraway cries assumed it was somebody with an iPod cranked too high. The sound didn’t register at all in Aldrich’s aged ears.

The women took a short break, then tried yelling again. As more minutes ticked by without a response, they resigned themselves to the fact that they couldn’t be heard. The screaming had served as a release, though, helping to expel the anxiety of their imprisonment. Julie, in particular, seemed to regain the composure that she had been close to losing.

“I guess we might as well get comfortable if we’re going to be in here awhile,” she said, pulling a large box onto the floor and using it as a chair. “Do you think he’ll actually call Aldrich?” she asked somberly.

“I suspect so,” Summer replied. “He didn’t act like a trained killer, nor seem psychotic to me.” Deep down, she wasn’t so certain.

“Personally, I’d rather not wait for Aldrich,” she added. “Maybe there’s something in one of these boxes that can help us get out of here.”

Under the dim glow of her cell phone, she began cracking open some of the other boxes. But it became readily apparent that there was nothing but papers, clothes, and a few odd personal belongings packed away in the former pantry. Soon growing discouraged, she pulled a box down alongside Julie and took a seat.