That included disarming all the traps, after just setting them a day ago. Pain in the ass, but that was Dan's end of things. He had the fresher memory.
Ben's territory was illegal weapons or traceable booty. He climbed. Dark and musty, narrow enough that his shoulders brushed both walls, steep, the stairs curved up inside the granite wall of the round tower. They ended side-on to a raised stone threshold and heavy oak door with equally-heavy oak bar. Opening it released him into flooding sunshine and cool salt wind. He blinked and stepped out on the flagstone roof.
The contrast always stunned him, claustrophobia replaced by sweeping views over the roofs and steeples of Stonefort village and the pincushion masts of the inner harbor. Up here, a man could believe he ruled the world. Castles did that for you.
Ben walked the ring of the battlements and tried to see old memories with fresh eyes. Four bronze cannon peered out through the crenellations from iron carriages, long heavy monsters green with age but tompions in place and touch-holes sealed because Morgan tradition said to keep your guns loaded. Always. Those were legal, Dad had filled out the paperwork for the Federal licenses.
But Ben made sure he'd left no trace of the recoilless rifle or the mortar mounts. Hard time explaining them to a nosy cop, but he'd cleaned that stuff out the same day that he'd used the recoilless. Too much chance that someone could tie the tower into the blasts out on the bay, the speedboat that blew up and the lobster boat that vanished into the fog.
Defend yourself, defend your family. Five Morgans had been out there on the Maria that day — Dan and Mouse and Ellie, rescued from the Pratts' tunnels and the brujo. Gary and Caroline, the rescuers. Ben had to count his daughter as a Morgan, whatever name she wore. And the thugs on the Pratts' speedboat had fired first. No one threatens Morgans and lives.
Back down in the top floor, dim and dusty again, he prowled through the two bedrooms and storage there, pulling out drawers and poking into hidey-holes, finding two legal guns, finding and pocketing a diamond brooch and matching earrings he couldn't remember. Might be traceable, might be not. Better safe than sorry.
Which described his dilemma with regards to young Gary and his vanished moll.
Middle floor, bright fluorescents, smell of working electronics, the security console, nothing illegal there. It mirrored the system in the house. Computers — Ben kept them sanitized at all times. Radios — Gary had the ham "Extra" class license to cover them, including some modifications only a micro-electronics engineer would understand or even see. Library, "clean" workshop, all legit. Same with the second floor, old loot that nobody could trace centuries after the crime.
The ground floor couldn't be reached this way, and it always sat empty except for the stairway down to the Dragon lurking in her pool. And a couple of traps Dan would defuse in his rounds. Ben started in on the tunnels.
The tunnels were easy, mostly bare cold granite — hidden exits to the false back of the mausoleum and the dry-well in the middle of a lilac clump and the second cellar of the house and a couple or three body-sized holes in the sea-cliffs that you'd never spot unless you already knew where they hid. Ben checked for live booby-traps as he went, backing up Dan's effort.
Two rooms worth of fallout shelter, legacy of the 'fifties and 'sixties, stocked with cartons of food and canned water, legal weapons, airtight doors, filtered ventilation, a diesel generator in its own sealed room with its own vent system.
But the rooms were clean. And ready, just in case. Best assume the Pratts had the same worries, the same setup.
Ben's "dirty" workshop, familiar smell of grease and machine shop and solvents taking over from raw stone, tools and legal guns again, illegal stuff already gone, reloading bench and indoor firing range and bullet trap to justify any nitrate residue that showed up on detailed forensics. Ben froze, stared at a shelf, winced, and shook his head.
Damn damn damn diddly damn. All his life, this place had been a deep dark secret beyond the reach of the law. He'd never had reason to care what he'd left lying around.
Sitting in plain sight, on metal shelving next to the workbench, lurked two short olive-drab cardboard cylinders a couple of inches in diameter. With black lettering, military jargon and numbers that translated into "boom" — fragmentation grenades, still in their packing.
He picked them up, the heft telling him that the packages still held their original contents. Well, he'd noticed them this time . . . he slipped them into a carry sack and slung it over his shoulder. And shook his head again.
Well, Dan will double-check me, just as I'm doing the same for him.
Ben preferred to act. He hated re-acting with a passion. This whole situation left him rushed, short on sleep, dancing to someone else's tune. He made mistakes that way, inevitable. Like missing those grenades. Like puzzling over the Pratts' tunnels and the brujo that Alice might not have killed.
Like the question of Gary's succubus. That damned girl was rushing Ben into a decision he didn't want to make.
Footsteps whispered on the granite floor, and Dan slipped into the room. Like all the Morgans, you pretty much had to know he was there to notice him. Useful family trait. It probably made Alice's job easier, teaching Peggy and Ellen to vanish in plain sight.
Ben nodded to his brother, watched him prowl the room and then vanish back into the tunnel. Not a word spoken by either of them. Ben felt a dull ache tightening his chest. They were both trying so hard to act casual.
He might never see Dan again. Morgan rules — once they left the tower and compound, they wouldn't ever be in the same place until they'd won this fight. He
