Arthur Clarke - Cradle

The place was a total shambles. In the living room, just beyond the kitchen area, all of Nick’s precious novels had been scattered randomly about on the floor, the couch, and the chairs. It looked as if someone had taken each book out of the bookcase, held it up and shook it (trying to find loose papers perhaps), and then either dropped it or thrown it across the room. Nick pushed by Carol and stared at the destruction. “Shit,” he said.

The kitchen had been plundered as well. All the drawers were open. Pots, pans, and tableware were strewn on the counters and on the floor. To Nick’s right, the cardboard boxes containing his memorabilia had been pulled into the middle of the second bedroom. Their contents had been partially dumped onto the floor around them.

“What hurricane hit this place?” Carol asked as she surveyed the mess. “I didn’t expect you to be a good house-keeper, but this is ridiculous.”

Nick was unable to laugh at Carol’s comment. He checked the master bedroom and found that it also had been ransacked. He then returned to the living room and started picking up his beloved novels and stacking them neatly on the coffee table. He winced when he found his worn copy of L’Etranger by Albert Camus. The spine of the book was destroyed. “This is not the work of vandals,” he said as Carol knelt down to help. “They were searching for something specific.”

“Have you found anything missing yet?” she asked.

“No,” Nick replied, picking up another novel with a mutilated cover and shaking his head. “But the bastards have really screwed up my books.”

She stacked his Faulkner collection on the easy chair. “I can see why Troy was impressed,” she said. “Have you really read all these novels?” Nick nodded. Carol picked one up that had fallen under the television stand. “What’s this about?” She held up the book. “I’ve never even heard of it.”

Nick had just arranged another dozen books on the coffee table. “Oh, that’s a fantastic novel,” he said enthusiastically, forgetting for a moment that his condominium had just been trashed. “The whole story is told through this exchange of letters among all the principal characters. It’s set in eighteenth-century France, and the main couple, socially prominent and bored, cement their weird relationship by sharing details of their affairs. With other lovers of course. It caused quite a scandal in Europe.”

“That doesn’t exactly sound like your typical Harlequin romance,” Carol remarked, trying to commit the title of the book to her memory.

Nick stood up and walked into the smaller bedroom. He began to sort through the contents of the cardboard boxes. “There are things missing in here,” he called out to Carol. She stopped arranging books and joined him in the bedroom. “All my photographs of the Santa Rosa treasure and even the newspaper clippings are gone. That’s odd,” he said.

Carol was beside him on the floor, in front of the boxes. She frowned. “Is the trident still on the boat?”

“Yes,” he answered. He stopped rifling through the papers. “Down in the bottom drawer of the electronics cabinet. You think there’s a connection?”

She nodded. “I think that was what they were after. I don’t know why. It just seems right.”

Nick picked up a large yellow folder that had been on the floor and replaced it in one of the cardboard boxes. A photograph and some sheets of typing paper fell out. Carol picked up the picture while Nick scrambled after the papers. She studied the photo and read the French inscription. She was surprised to feel a twinge of jealousy. “Beautiful,” she commented. She noticed the pearls. “Also very rich and sophisticated. She doesn’t look like your type.”

She handed Monique’s photograph to Nick. Despite his attempt to be nonchalant, he was blushing. “That was a long time ago,” he mumbled as he hastily stuffed the photo back into the folder.

“Really?” Carol said, eyeing him carefully. “She looks as if she’s about our age. It couldn’t have been too long ago.”

Nick was flustered. He packed some more loose material in the boxes and glanced at his watch. “We’d better leave soon if we’re going to meet Troy at your hotel.” He stood up. Carol remained kneeling on the floor, looking up at him with a steady gaze. “It’s a long story,” he said. “Someday I’ll tell you all about it.”

Carol’s curiosity was piqued. She followed Nick out of his condominium and into the elevator. He was still ill at ease. Bullseye, she thought to herself. I think I have just discovered a major key to Mr. Williams. A woman named Monique. She smiled as Nick motioned for her to precede him out of the elevator. And the man does love his books.

Carol’s room at the Marriott had two entrances. The normal approach to the room was by way of the corridor that led to the lobby. But there was another door that opened on the garden and the pool. When she exercised in the morning, Carol always used the garden entrance.

Nick and Carol were talking casually but quietly as they came toward her room from the lobby. She pulled out her electronic card key just before they arrived. As she started to insert the card into the lock, they heard an unusual sound, like metal banging against metal, from the inside of her room. Before Carol could say anything, Nick shushed her by putting his finger to his mouth. “You heard it too?” she whispered softly. He nodded his head. Using gestures, he asked her if there was another entrance to the room. She pointed out the door to the hotel grounds at the end of the corridor.

Palm trees and tropical hedges covered most of the area to the east of the Marriott swimming pool. Nick and Carol left the walkway leading to the pool and crept up to the windows of her room. The venetian blinds were drawn but they could still see into the room through a crack under the bottom of the blinds. At first the room was completely dark. Then a solitary beam from a flashlight reflected for an instant off one of the walls. In that split second they saw a silhouetted figure in the neighborhood of the television set, but they could not identify him. The flashlight came on again and it paused for a moment on the door to the corridor. The door was bolted. In the brief flicker of the light beam, Carol also saw that all her dresser drawers were open.

Nick crawled over next to Carol in the flower bed just under the windows. “You stay here and watch,” he whispered. “I’ll go get something from the car. Don’t let them know you’re here.” He squeezed her shoulder and disappeared. Carol stayed glued to the window. Once more the flashlight came on, illuminating electronic parts spread out on the far bed. Carol strained for a look at who was holding the flashlight. She couldn’t see him.

She became acutely aware of the passage of time. Her intuition told her that the intruder was getting ready to leave. She suddenly realized she was completely exposed sitting out there underneath the window. Come on, Nick, she said to herself. Hurry it up. Or I may be chopped liver. The figure in the room moved toward the garden door and then stopped Carol felt her pulse rate increase. At just that moment Nick returned, out of breath. He had brought back a long crowbar from the trunk of his car. Carol motioned to him to stand by the door, that the intruder was about to come out.

She saw the figure put his hand on the doorknob and she flattened herself against the dirt. Nick was behind the door, poised to deliver a powerful blow to whoever exited from the room. The door opened, Nick started to strike. “Troy,” screamed Carol from the flower bed. He jumped back just in time, barely missing the downward swoop of Nick’s crowbar. Carol was on her feet in an instant. She ran up to a shaken Troy. “Are you all right?” she said.