FROM ALTERNATING BRONZE-BALL AND BRONZE-flame finials, from cast panels of arabesques, from darts and twists and frets and scallops and leaves, from griffins and heraldic emblems, black and silver rain dripped and drizzled off the Manheim gate.
Ethan braked to a stop beside the security post: a five-foot-high, square, limestone-clad column in which were embedded a closed-circuit video camera, an intercom speaker, and a keypad. He put down his window and keyed in his six-digit personal code.
Slowly, with the Expedition’s headlight beams rippling across its ornate surfaces, the massive gate began to roll aside.
Each employee of the estate had a different code. The security staff maintained computerized records of every entrance.
Remote-control units such as typical garage-door openers or coded transponders, assigned to each vehicle, would have been more convenient than a key-entry system, especially in foul weather; however, such devices would have been accessible to garage mechanics, valet-parking attendants, and anyone else in temporary custody of a vehicle. One dishonest person among them might easily compromise the security of the estate.
[248] If Ethan had been a visitor lacking a personal gate-entry code, he would have pushed the intercom button on the post and would have announced himself to the guard in the security office at the back of the property. If the visitor was expected or was a family friend on the permanent-access list, the guard would open the gate from his command board.
As he waited for the massive bronze barrier to roll out of the way, Ethan was under surveillance by the camera on the security post. Entering the property, he would be scrutinized through a series of tree-mounted cameras angled in such a manner as to reveal anyone who might be lying on the floor of the SUV to avoid detection.
All videocams included night-vision technology that transformed the faintest moonlight into a revealing glow. A sophisticated bit of software filtered out most of the veiling and the distortion effects produced by falling rain, ensuring a clear real-time image on the security-office screens.
Had he been a repairman or deliveryman arriving in an enclosed van or truck, Ethan would have been asked to wait outside the gate until a security guard arrived. The guard would then look inside the vehicle to ensure that the driver was not, under duress, bringing any bad guys with him.
Palazzo Rospo was not a fortress either by modern definition or by the moat-and-drawbridge standards of medieval times. Neither was the estate a cupcake served on a plate to be easily plucked by any hungry thief.
Explosives could bring down the gate. The property wall could be scaled. But the grounds couldn’t easily be entered by stealth. Intruders would be identified and tracked almost at once by cameras, motion detectors, heat sensors, and other devices.
The thirty-foot-wide bronze gate, more solid than open, weighed over eight thousand pounds. The motor that operated the chain drive was powerful, however, and the barrier rolled aside with apparent ease and with more speed than one might expect.
[249] A five-acre plot qualified as a large piece of land in most residential communities. In this neighborhood, where an acre could bring upwards of ten million dollars, a five-acre property was the equivalent of an English country estate of baronial scale.
The long driveway looped around a reflection pond in front of the great house, which was not Baroque, like the bronze gate, but a limestone-clad, three-story Palladian structure with simple classic ornamentation, huge yet elegant in its proportions.
Just before reaching the pond, the driveway split, and Ethan took the branch that led around to the side of the house. When it split again, one artery led to the groundskeeper’s building and the security office, while the other led down a ramp to the underground garage.
The garage had two levels. In the upper, the Face stored thirty-two vehicles in his personal collection, ranging from a new Porsche to a series of Rolls-Royces from the 1930s, to a 1936 Mercedes-Benz 500K, to a 1931 Duesenberg Model J, to a 1933 Cadillac Sixteen.
The lower garage housed the fleet of workaday vehicles owned by the estate and provided parking for cars belonging to employees.
Like the upper garage, the lower featured a beige matte-finish ceramic-tile floor and walls of glossy tile in a matching color. Supporting columns were decorated with free-flowing mosaics in various shades of yellow.
Few high-end automobile sales facilities, catering to the very wealthy, were as beautifully appointed as this lower garage.
The pegboard for car keys hung on the wall outside the elevator, and Fric sat on the floor under the board, holding the same paperback fantasy novel that he’d been reading in the library this morning. He got to his feet as Ethan approached.
To a degree that surprised Ethan, the sight of the boy gladdened him. Nothing else had done so in this long, gray, dismal day.
He wasn’t entirely sure why the kid lifted his spirits. Maybe because you expected the son of the Face, raised in such wealth and with such indifference, to be spoiled rotten or to be dysfunctionally [250] neurotic, or both; and because instead Fric was basically decent and shy, tried to cover his shyness with a seen-it-all air, but could not conceal a fundamental modesty as rare in his glamorous world as pity was rare among the scaly denizens of a crocodile swamp.
Indicating the paperback, Ethan said, “Has the evil wizard found the tongue of an honest man for his potion?”
“No luck yet. But he just sent his brutal assistant, Cragmore, to visit a lying politician and harvest his testicles.”
Ethan winced. “He is an evil wizard.”
“Well, it’s just a politician. Some of them come around here now and then, you know. After they leave, Mrs. McBee does an inventory of the valuable items in the rooms they visited.”
“So ... what’re you doing down here? Planning to go for a drive?”
Fric shook his head. “There’s no point making a break for it until I’m sixteen. First I’ve got to get my driver’s license, have enough time to put together a stash of cash big enough to start over with, research the perfect small town to hide in, and design a series of really cool impenetrable disguises.”
Ethan smiled. “That’s the plan, huh?”
Failing to match Ethan’s smile, with bone-dry seriousness, Fric said, “That’s the plan.”
The boy pressed the button to call the elevator. The machinery hummed into motion, the noise only partly muffled by the shaft walls.
“I’ve been hiding out from the decorating crew,” Fric revealed. “They’re still putting up trees and stuff all over the house. This is your first Christmas here, so you don’t know, but they all wear these stupid Santa hats, and every time they see you, they shout, ‘Merry Christmas,’ grinning like lunatics, and they want to give you these sucky little candy canes. They don’t just decorate, they like make a performance out of it, which I guess most people want, otherwise they wouldn’t have a business, but it’s enough to turn you into an atheist.”
[251] “Sounds like a memorable holiday tradition.”
“It’s better than the paid carolers, on Christmas Eve. They dress like characters out of Dickens, and between songs they talk to you about Queen Victoria and Mr. Scrooge and whether you’re going to have goose and suet pudding for Christmas dinner, and they call you ‘m’l............