Giordino knew the reason why.
Loren.
Pitt kept the craft on the surface at maximized speed as he made a beeline for McKee Manor. The boathouse door was open, and he guided the sub through its narrow entrance and against the dock. Giordino opened the hatch and hopped to the deck with the painter as Pitt climbed out.
“Nice digs,” Giordino said. “Where to from here?”
“You best get Perkins to a doctor with the Nymph. Follow the shoreline to the east. There’s a town called Drumnadrochit about five miles from here. Look for a marina in the cove.”
“You’ll be okay?”
Pitt nodded.
“I’ll come back with help as soon as I can.”
A minute later, Giordino motored the Nymph out of the boathouse with Perkins. Pitt made his way to the boathouse door. He entered the manor’s basement and climbed the corner steps to the main floor. The corridor was empty as he went to his room. With growing unease, he opened the door. The room was empty.
He crossed the front rotunda and checked the dining hall. It, too, was empty. Pitt followed the hallway back toward the loch, returning to the corner stairwell, where he descended to the basement. He stepped past the wine racks, entered the small den, and stopped in the rear doorway. The hallway it opened on was lit, and faint voices came from beyond the double doors at the end.
Pitt hesitated, glancing at the weapons on display in the armory case. Among the bladed weapons, one caught his eye. It was a British flintlock boarding pistol with a spring-loaded bayonet that extended beyond its octagonal barrel. The gun was displayed in a presentation case with a black powder flask, pads of cotton wadding, and a tray of lead balls.
Pitt opened the case and checked the powder flask. It was full. He poured a load down the barrel, wrapped a lead ball in a patch of wadding, and tamped it down the barrel with an attached ramrod. Then he held the gun up, checked the flint, poured some priming powder into the flash pan, and closed the frizzen. He tucked the loaded weapon into his back waistband, then stepped down the hallway.
The side offices were dark as he passed on his way to the doors at the end of the hall. He placed his palm on one of the knobs and turned it in tiny increments. McKee’s voice was clearly audible on the other side. Taking a breath, he shoved open the door and stepped inside.
He was surprised to find a tastefully decorated lounge outfitted like a spa. Potted plants and an indoor waterfall surrounded a large sofa and reclining chairs. A row of raised-back massage tables stood in the center, perched under a bank of violet mood lights. Loren reclined on one of the tables next to the Australian woman, Abigail Brown.
Any sense of casual relaxation was undermined by the arm and leg straps that secured the women to their tables. Each wore a set of earphones and had large virtual reality goggles strapped to their heads. Beside each woman stood a small surgical table with an array of vials and syringes.
Pitt’s sense of revulsion was completed by the sight of the truck-driving receptionist named Irene. She looked up from a computer workstation wired to the bound women and glared.
Standing beside her, Evanna McKee bared her teeth and smiled at Pitt with the warmth of an Arctic wolf. “Hello, Mr. Pitt. I was expecting you. But not alive.”
He took a step toward her, then froze as the cold steel of a gun pressed against the back of his neck.
55
Rachel had been standing behind the door, waiting for him to enter.
Pitt noticed too late that a monitor on Irene’s workstation carried video feeds from throughout the manor. They had watched his every move from the moment he had entered the building.
“I must have misplaced my invitation to the torture session,” he said.
“You were never invited,” McKee said. “And there is no torture taking place. At least not yet. Just a little psychological reeducation, as I like to call it.”
“I believe you know a thing or two about altered minds.”
The gun’s muzzle jabbed deeper into his neck.
“Your lovely wife is not being harmed,” McKee said. “Induced to a relaxed state, she is in a virtual world filled with peace, love, and trust among her sisterhood of women. I’m afraid you may find her less appreciative of men when she emerges. But of course, you won’t be with us long.”
“No men allowed?”
“Not in her