Rotating the watch around, he noticed four identical hooks set inside the metal at each of the corners. The barbs looked like they could cause serious damage to the skin if they popped out. With a delicate touch, Ethan gave the watch some more clicks in different combinations, but his efforts yielded nothing. He abandoned his attempt to unlock the mechanism by pressing the first button one last time. The blue glow of the light faded out, although his curiosity was far from extinguished.
He turned to the newspaper clippings. They seemed useless, but for reasons unknown his uncle had saved these particular sections, preserving them between clear sheets of plastic. One of the clippings was a front page headlined in big bold letters: ‘TOLL RISES TO 136 IN COLLISION OF PLANES OVER NEW YORK CITY’.
Then he saw another clipping and frowned. It read: ‘CAR CRASH KILLS TWO’. Obviously his uncle had also been troubled deeply by the passing of Ethan’s own parents and had saved the article about the car accident that took their lives. It struck Ethan then that he’d done the same thing. He hadn’t thought about it for years now, but when he was in the hospital he’d asked for — and kept — the newspaper report on his parents’ deaths. Coincidentally, it had been this same article. For some reason, that realization gave him a strange feeling.
Ethan pushed away the sad memory and picked up the book with the decorative green cover. The title from its binding read: The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyam. The spine creaked as old glue protested against the strain, and he took care to be gentle with the pages. He read a few quick passages, but they seemed to be nothing more than the ramblings of a Middle Eastern mystic, prophet, or philosopher. The book appeared to be of no consequence, but his uncle must have had some compelling reason to place it in his hidden safe. Why? Ethan had no answer to this question and just shook his head in frustration before putting The Rubáiyát back into the brown file folder, careful not to mar the cover.
The next item of interest was the faded and worn leather journal which appeared to have garnered plenty of use during its lifetime. The twine that was wrapped around the book to fasten it closed had dry rotted with age. He gingerly pried it loose and opened the pages. They were yellowed and required careful handling. He skimmed through the first entry:
Adelaide, Australia — March 1945,
I feel like I barely survived the trip to this place. It’s a completely different world here — things move at a much slower pace. I must have been crazy to take this assignment.
I hope to complete my mission so I can get back to the States and find my family.
Ethan perused the journal for a moment longer before moving on to the other documents splayed out on the desktop.
A sudden ringing split the air and he flinched, then realized it was just the phone. He shouldn’t answer; it wouldn’t be good for his presence to be known here. The telephone wailed several times and he lost count. Finally, the noise died down, and he went back to the contents sitting on the desk.
Before he’d even found where he left off, the phone blared again. He tried to ignore the intrusion as he returned to the items in front of him, but when the phone kept ringing and ringing, it dawned on him that he’d already breached the scene for more than forty-five minutes. He had to leave soon before the police or detectives came back and recognized his vehicle parked on one of the side streets several blocks over.
With haste, he shuffled the papers together and slid them back into the dark brown folder, then put the watch in his pocket and tucked the folder inside his coat. He started to leave the room, but stopped and reversed course to close the safe door and push the false wall back into place. Then he moved down the long corridor, descended the stairs, and ducked under the tape once again.
Ethan could still hear the phone as he pulled the door closed and headed down the steps, making his way to the perimeter of the property. He edged along the wall to look through the slats in the gate and saw the police officer still monitoring the front entrance.
This was going to be difficult. There was no way to scale the wall without the aid of a tree this time. The bushes lining the wall weren’t nearly bulky enough to elevate him to the top. Mentally berating himself for not planning this out better, Ethan retraced the fifty yards he’d just come. He climbed back up the steps to the rear entrance, entered the house again and opened the panel on the wall by the door jam. Behind the panel was a button marked ‘SET’. He pressed it and a red light pulsed on and off. The burglar alarm was now active. And that damn phone was still going at it.
For a fourth time, Ethan played limbo, crossing beneath the tape barricade. He pulled the door behind him, but left it ajar just a crack. When the alarm sounded it would engage the automatic gate out front. Ethan was counting on the gate’s inexplicable movement, along with the blaring noise emanating from the mansion, being enough to prompt the patrol unit outside to come up the driveway. The bushes may not be able to get him over the barrier, but they would provide excellent cover as he made his exit through the gate while the cop was occupied. He was getting pretty good at this whole ‘create a diversion’ thing.
Roughly fifteen seconds after Ethan crouched behind a shrub, the alarm tripped, its screech rousing a flock of birds from the surrounding trees. The gate mechanism initiated with the turning of gears, and the iron fence began to open with shaking hesitance, making its thirty foot trek along the rails.
THOOOOMP, THOOOMP, THOOOMP
What was that noise? At first, it was barely audible over the ear piercing din from the security system. But in between the alarm’s waxing and waning blares Ethan could tell that — whatever the source — it was getting closer.
THOOOOMP, THOOOMP, THOOOMP
Ethan was unable to discern where the loud rhythmic pulse was coming from, but it was quickly making its presence known, in competition with the wail of the alarm. He didn’t know which fracas was louder, but his heart seemed to join the fray and was racing now, the impulse for fight or flight stirring to life.
THOOOOMP, THOOOMP, THOOOMP
Outside 2752 Yorkshire Way, Officer Bailey’s wish for action was about to be granted. A high-pitched wail coming from the house pulled him away from the crossword. Then something moved in the periphery of his vision and he looked over to notice the large entrance gate to the mansion was creeping open.
— the hell?
He cranked the engine and slammed his foot on the accelerator. The wheels let out an earsplitting whine as they burned against the asphalt, rocketing the vehicle away from the sidewalk. The car tore through the tape at the gate and careened up the driveway. Stan smashed his foot down on the brake pedal, and the car skidded to a halt. He swung open the door, inertia propelling it to full extension, and slid out.
Using the car as a barrier, Stan withdrew his firearm and aimed at the front of the mansion. There was no need to call in for backup — the alarm had already dialed out on an emergency line and he knew the dispatchers would do the rest. All he had to do was keep the area secured until more officers arrived.
“Come out with your hands up!” Stan bellowed, straining his voice to be heard over the scream of the siren. He could barely hear himself; there wasn’t any way someone inside would. Then he heard a different sound — a powerful, vibrating rhythm that created a vacuum effect on his eardrums.