Labyrinth

“All right, then, we’ll go with those. And improvise if something comes up we can’t describe, okay?”

Kessel nodded again, this time a little faster. Annja grunted and pulled on the massive wooden door.

It creaked and then swung open. The smell of horses and hay enveloped her and she sneezed twice. So did Kessel, and it was the first time Annja heard him make any sort of noise.

“I’ll walk out of here with a massive allergy attack if I’m not careful,” Annja said. Kessel grunted behind her and she turned. “See? That’s not too much to ask, is it? We might even get along, you and I.”

Kessel raised an eyebrow.

Annja smiled. “Maybe not.”

She found a switch on the wall and threw it on. Instantly, light flooded the stalls and she saw the one marked number three. Annja pointed. “I think that’s our destination.”

She led him over to the stall and looked inside. Nothing but hay and dust. A giant spiderweb hung in the upper corner, carefully crafted by a master weaver who was apparently hiding. Annja shook her head. “Don’t care for spiders much.”

Kessel nudged her into the stall. Annja looked around. “What do you think? Trapdoor? Would it be that easy?” She knelt and hauled back a whole pile of hay. But all she saw was a dirt-covered wooden floor.

Annja stood back up. “Guess not.”

She backed out of the stall and examined the entry. But the simple latch over the gate didn’t seem out of place at all.

Kessel, for his part, stood still, studying every inch of the stall with his eyes. Annja looked at him. “See something?”

Kessel shrugged, stepped forward and touched a single nail jutting out of the closest wall. Annja heard the click and then saw a portion of wall slide back and in, revealing a black crawlspace.

“Well, look at that. Your first contribution to the cause.” She smiled at him. “It’s a shame you’re one of the bad guys. We might have gotten along well, you and I.” She shrugged. “Oh, well. I’ll take point. Don’t let me catch you staring at my ass.”

She thought she saw a glint of amusement in Kessel’s eyes. Good, she thought. If she could reach him somehow, it wasn’t out of the question to try to turn him against Greene.

Maybe.

The crawlspace was dark and dank. Annja sneezed again as she entered, aware of the moist earth smell. How had Fairclough constructed this thing without his neighbors knowing about it? Surely they would have had to haul away tons of dirt and stone to make this.

Given how utterly massive the estate was, he could pretty much be assured of privacy. Unless, of course, his neighbors could task satellites to fly overhead and spy on him.

Highly unlikely, in other words.

The crawlspace led down at a slight angle for twenty feet. Annja felt her knees bruising against the cold stones beneath them. She shifted her weight and kept moving. Behind her, Kessel made very little noise.

If he was that stealthy just crawling, then what was he like when he wanted to kill someone? She didn’t intend to find out.

The crawlspace turned at a sharp left and she saw ambient light coming from somewhere. She glanced back at Kessel. “Got light up ahead here.”

He nodded, and Annja turned back to the crawlspace. Her head kept bumping the top of it, dislodging dirt on her head. As long as it didn’t get in her eyes. She’d need a nice long hot soak when this was all over, she decided.

Annja followed the crawlspace until it opened up at last and she could stand. Kessel drew himself out of the crawlspace like some winter bear just awakened from hibernation. His massive girth filled the architecturally complete room they found themselves in as he stood and stretched his limbs.

“Glad we’re out of there,” said Annja. “Not crazy about having to find my way through dark small spaces.”

Kessel nodded.

The room was approximately eleven feet by eleven feet with a simple table in the center. In the middle of the table sat a book.

Kessel headed right for it.

Annja stopped him. “Hold it, slick.”

He paused and looked at her. “You really think that’s all there is to this?” she asked.

Kessel shrugged.

Annja shook her head. “You’re smarter than that, Kessel. And there’s no way Fairclough would put the book he’s trying to protect right here. There’s no challenge in this. And he did warn me of puzzles. I’m guessing this must be one of them.”

She looked around the room again. Something seemed odd about it and the third time she looked she finally understood. “There’s no exit.”

Kessel’s eyes blazed. And then he nodded understanding.

Annja studied the table. “So, somewhere, there’s got to be a clue how we’re supposed to free ourselves from this place. I mean, we could go back through the crawlspace—”

But at that moment, she heard a rumble and a cloud of dust poured into the room. The crawlspace had caved in.

Annja sighed. “All right, so much for that. Looks like the only way out of here is to figure out how to move ahead.”

She examined the table again. There seemed nothing special about it. It was made of wood with four simple straight legs jutting down toward the stone floor.

“Nothing there,” she muttered.

But what about the book?

Annja peered at it from all angles but could detect nothing special about it, either. As far as she could tell, it was a hardcover edition of the King James Bible. Fairclough didn’t strike her as religious, but then again, she’d only just met him. He could have been a zealot for all she knew.

But maybe he simply had an appreciation for the book and what it had done for the English language, rather than its content.

Annja glanced at Kessel. “What do you think?”

He shrugged.

Annja agreed. “Yeah, we don’t have much choice, do we?”

Kessel shook his head.

Annja looked at the book again. She could, of course, pick it up and see what happened. But was that the wisest move?

Overhead, a single lightbulb burned in the ceiling. It didn’t appear that some type of guillotine would drop on them if she picked up the book.

She pointed to Kessel. “Do me a favor—check those walls for any hidden firing ports, would you? The last thing I want is to find myself impaled by a spear or projectile I can’t see.”

Together, they ran their hands over every inch of the walls they could reach. But try as she might, Annja couldn’t find anything to suggest something lethal awaited them if they opened the book.