One end of the device was wider than the other, covered partly by a metal plate screwed onto its surface. About four feet beyond, Logan noticed that the roman numerals I through VI had been etched into the floor.
The narrower end was covered in yet another piece of wood, monolithic, edged in metal, and locked in two places to the main housing. Logan ran his fingers over one of the keyholes. As he did so, he noticed there was a small brass plaque screwed into the wood, just below the locked section. It was tarnished and age-darkened, but he could make out two words on it, one at each edge: BEAM and FIELD. There was no clue as to what these referred to.
Searching, he found two other plaques, smaller, and screwed into place near the bottom of the device. One read ROSEWELL HEAVY INDUSTRIES, PERTH AMBOY, N.J. and the other — on another section — read ELEKTROFABRIKEN KELLE AG. Plucking a digital recorder from his jacket pocket, Logan dutifully notated all this.
Putting the recorder away, he analyzed the room with both a trifield EM meter and an air-ion counter. He jotted the readings in a small leather-bound notebook for later comparison to other readings he’d taken in Strachey’s rooms and various locations around Lux.
Now he moved over to the light and switched it off. Total blackness was the result. He felt his way back to the large, mysterious machine, sat down on the floor with his back to it, cross-legged, and closed his eyes, waiting to see if the room had anything to tell him. He was curious, and a little apprehensive, as to whether there would be a repeat of the strange and sinister music he had heard in Strachey’s apartment.
At first there was nothing, save the faint awareness of lurking danger. And then, gradually, the sense of unease and disquiet he’d felt in Strachey’s rooms returned, along with a feeling of confusion. And then, quite suddenly, there it was again — the haunting, maddening passages of music, harsh and malevolent, washing over him in waves of sinister minor-key arpeggios, any sense of calm romantic beauty now utterly gone.
Logan leapt to his feet and rushed back to the light, almost knocking it over in his haste to turn it on again. And then he stood there, breathing hard, the disembodied music still echoing in his mind.
This was strange. Most strange indeed.
He walked slowly around the room, not looking at anything in particular, until his heart had slowed and his breathing had returned to normal. At last, when he felt himself again, he continued the investigation.
Above the worktable was a row of bookshelves, all empty. Beside it was a filing cabinet. Logan opened each drawer, only to find all of them empty as well.
Had this laboratory been planned and built, but then abandoned before any work had actually begun? If so, why all the apparent secrecy? On the other hand, if research of some sort had been conducted here, and then brought to a halt, why hadn’t this odd device been removed and destroyed, along with, apparently, all the books and papers?
Returning his tools to the duffel, he now removed something else: a small rubber mallet in the shape of a triangle, of the kind doctors use to test reflexes. Ear to the wall, he made a slow, careful circuit of the room, tapping the mallet against the wall every now and then, listening for the telltale echo that would betray a hollow space or a hidden door. He knew there had to be an entrance — whoever had built and worked in this place had not entered the way he had. But nothing was forthcoming. He replaced the mallet with a sigh. Had this room been entered via the floor or ceiling? No — that would have been ludicrous.
It seemed the answer would have to wait.
Now, adjusting the angle of the lamp somewhat, he began to examine the ash he’d noticed in the fireplace. It wasn’t, as he’d initially assumed, wood ash. Rather, it appeared to be the remains of carefully burned paper. Stretching out a hand, he grabbed a handful of ash and let the tiny, curled bits of blackened paper sift between his fingers. Then he raised the fingers to his nose. The charred smell was faint though detectable, but this meant nothing — the papers could have been burned the day before or five decades before.
Near the rear of the fireplace, he found a few items that were not quite as carefully burned. There were half a dozen bits of paper, each with a few decipherable letters. Most contained too few letters to be of any use — mere fragments — but as he sat down he carefully put them to one side nevertheless. Of more interest were the remains of an old photograph: perhaps one of the pictures that had been removed from the walls. While most of it had been burned away, the bottom edge still remained. He could make out a portion of a desk, apparently the worktable that still stood in this room. A few pieces of paper were visible on it, along with some journals or periodicals, all too blurry to be readable.
Behind the desk stood three people in lab coats. Only their torsos were visible; everything higher in the camera’s field of view had been burned away. Logan put this to one side, too.
The final piece of recoverable paper appeared to be a memo. It had been typed on a manual typewriter, and was obviously many decades old. It was badly burned and faded, but — taking a seat at the worktable and peering at it very closely — Logan was just able to make out one fragment: “Project Sin.”
Project Sin. The page had been burned away along the right edge, and the second word was evidently incomplete.
Or was it?
Just at that moment, Logan froze. His instincts, which he had learned to trust without question, had suddenly gone off five-alarm, dumping adrenaline into his bloodstream. What was it?
And then it came again: what sounded like the stealthy tread of a foot, the faint creak of a floorboard. It seemed to be coming from beyond the wall — the wall opposite that from which he had entered the room.
Logan stood up quickly — too quickly. The chair he’d been sitting on fell backward, crashing to the floor.
He remained utterly motionless, listening intently. For a long moment, all was silence. And then came what he thought was the soft patter of steps, quickly receding.
Grabbing his flashlight, he ducked out of the hole in the wall and hurried down the hallway, moving as quickly as he could through the confusion of deconstructed offices, abandoned equipment, and intersecting hallways, trying to make his way over to the far side of the wing. After five minutes of fruitless searching, he stopped, breathing hard. He turned off his flashlight and listened in the dark. There was no sound, no light to betray the presence of another. The West Wing appeared utterly deserted.
Turning the flashlight back on, he began making his way — more slowly now — back to the forgotten room.
15
The elevator doors whispered open onto a dimly lit basement hallway. Jeremy Logan knew that — as with several other areas of the mansion — Lux’s underground complex was strictly off-limits to visitors, day researchers, and even some part-time staff. As a result, it did not need to maintain the rococo elegance of the more public spaces. The hallway in which he found himself, for example, had walls of dressed stone and a curved ceiling faintly reminiscent of the Roman catacombs. The air was pure and chill, however, with no smell of damp or niter.
He glanced at his watch: quarter after one in the afternoon.
The discovery of the forgotten room, along with its overpowering foreignness and mystery, had affected him more than he’d initially realized. He had awoken that morning with an uncharacteristic sense of listlessness, as if he did not know what to do next or where to turn. Newport, however, was possessed of a remarkably comprehensive public library, and a visit to it after breakfast — in particular, to its microfiche and DVD collections — had dispelled his feelings of doubt. If he did not know precisely what to do next, he at least had the germ of an idea.