Chapter 70 - The Echo from Isle Royale
By nightfall, the blizzard had exhausted itself, leaving Duluth wrapped in three feet of pristine, silent snow.
The Department of Justice had placed Ruby and me in a secure, high-floor executive suite at the historic Fitger’s complex on the lakefront, guarded by a round-the-clock detail of U.S. Marshals stationed in the hallway and the lobby below. Thomas was resting comfortably across town at St. Luke’s Hospital, his concussion treated, surrounded by a police guard that guaranteed the syndicate would never touch him.
Inside the suite, a wood fire crackled merrily in the stone hearth. Ruby was fast asleep in her crib, her small chest rising and falling beneath a soft wool blanket. For the first time in what felt like an eternity, the air smelled of cedar shavings and clean laundry instead of diesel exhaust, cordite, and frozen lake water.
Marilyn had gone down to the lobby to finalize the protective custody waivers with Agent Lin.
I stood by the arched window, looking out over Lake Superior. The vast sheet of black ice stretched all the way to the northeastern horizon, glistening beneath the cold light of a crescent moon. Somewhere out past the Apostle Islands, sixty miles into the frozen expanse, Isle Royale lay hidden in the night.
The room was utterly quiet until the desk phone beside the sofa began to ring.
I froze.
The phone in the suite was an unlisted internal extension, wired exclusively through the federal marshals’ temporary switchboard down at the concierge desk. Outside, the two marshals stood stationed right outside my heavy oak door; I could see the shadow of their boots beneath the threshold gap.
The phone rang a second time. A third.
I walked over to the mahogany side table, my heart suddenly knocking hard against my ribs. I picked up the receiver and pressed it to my ear.
"Hello?" I said.
There was no crackle of long-distance static. The line was crystal clear, filled only with the rhythmic, low mechanical hum of an industrial marine engine idling in deep water.
"You have Donald’s stubbornness, Amanda," a voice said.
The voice was rough, scarred by smoke, but unmistakably Arthur Vance.
The blood drained instantly from my face. I opened my mouth to shout for the marshals, but the next words stopped the air in my throat.
"Don't bother calling the guards outside your door," Arthur whispered softly, his tone chillingly intimate. "They checked the locks, they checked the lobby, but they never checked the ventilation conduit behind the stone mantel. The same conduit Donald had installed when he built this hotel wing thirty years ago."
I whipped around toward the hearth. In the stone wall beside the chimney, a small bronze intake vent hung slightly ajar, a faint wisp of cold exterior air drafting into the heated room.
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"You signed away the dirt in Michigan, my dear," Arthur’s voice murmured into the receiver, accompanied by a soft, metallic click from the vent. "But Donald lied to you about Isle Royale. The lithium wasn't in Vault Nine. Vault Nine was the decoy. And now that you've used Donald's key to clear the federal registry... Vault Zero is officially unlocked."
The line went dead with a dry click, and from the deep shadows of the stone fireplace behind me came the unmistakable sound of a heavy brass lock sliding open.
