The Book Of Schemes
Marcus Calvert
Copyright © 2011 Marcus Calvert
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior consent of the publisher.
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2011-11-02
Dedication
I’d like to thank Ed Buchanan (my editor) for his expertise and blunt-force candor. I’d also like to thank Lincoln Adams (my cover artist) for his time, patience, and wicked-awesome skill. Thank you both, friends.
Also, I’d like to thank anyone brave/curious enough to read my first book. It means a lot to me.
Acknowledgements
To those who had a hand in this twisted thing being written (living or not), I thank you.
To anyone reading this piece of my life’s dream, I salute you.
Enjoy.
THE INHERITANCE
Rosa Fernandez sat on a tree stump, warmly dressed for the chilly autumn evening. The youngest of six half-siblings, the plump waitress looked up at her father’s manor with an unshakeable sense of foreboding. Under the cloudy Maine sky, it looked haunted.
A few centuries old, four stories high, and made of age-darkened bricks and mortar, the manor had been transported piece-by-piece from England in the 1920’s and rebuilt here by her great-grandfather. The building and its antique furnishings were easily worth tens of millions. The mansion itself was surrounded by one hundred acres of manicured lawns, exotic gardens, and pristine forestland, which only added to its value. Then there was the half-billion dollars worth of precious stones reputedly hidden inside.
That’s why the teams were here.
Hugh Nokrum had fathered six children – including Rosa – under various aliases. He went to extreme efforts to ensure that they were each born out of wedlock. Hugh chose poor, working-class mothers to impregnate. Once each child was born, Nokrum left town and covered his tracks well enough to avoid discovery.
His disappearance did result in each abandoned mother miraculously receiving a six-figure “sweepstakes prize,” equivalent to eighteen years of child support payments. Rosa’s mother blew her allotment and ended up raising her daughter in near-poverty. But her five other siblings all made something of themselves.
Reuben Turner was a vascular surgeon.
Naomi Secreo-Thornton was a senior project director at a bioresearch firm.
Todd Gheter was a clinical psychiatrist in Malibu.
Rhea Benton was a commercial airline pilot.
And Peter Jurpin was a concert pianist for the Boston Philharmonic.
Two weeks after Nokrum died of prostate cancer, all of his children were notified and asked to assemble here on this exact date. They received a tour of the estate and were informed of the inheritance provision in their father’s will. Nokrum’s lawyer, Anthony Murgathol, explained that each of them would have one million dollars wired to their respective checking accounts by the end of the next business day.
Then Murgathol gave them two options.
They could take the money and move on with their lives. In doing so, they would forfeit any future claim to the multi-billion-dollar Nokrum family fortune: corporate holdings, real estate, stocks, et cetera.
Or, with their million dollars, any of the siblings could assemble a team of experts and search the house. Five hundred million dollars worth of precious stones had been strategically hidden within the mansion. Any sibling who wanted a claim to the inheritance had to personally lead his/her team on a search for the stones – or be ruled ineligible. Each team would then be randomly assigned its own sector to explore. Once inside, they had from sundown to sunrise to conduct the search for the stones.
Murgathol also declared that the house was booby-trapped.
The lawyer explained to the surprised heirs that the late Hugh Nokrum had a knack for inventing “dangerous toys” in his day. These booby traps were all linked to a central data server, which was located somewhere within the estate. The traps would be activated one-by-one and in random sequence. As the night went on, the level of danger would exponentially increase. By dawn, anyone still inside would have – in Murgathol’s opinion – absolutely no chance of survival.
Still, explained Murgathol, anyone who went in could exit at any time and keep whatever valuables they could find … but forfeit their claim to anything else. Whichever heir made it out alive, after sunrise, and with the most jewels in his/her possession, would be awarded the remainder of Nokrum’s estate.
Todd asked why their father had not just left the valuables to them in his will. The lawyer gave him an odd smile and explained that Hugh Nokrum believed that wealth should be earned, not given. Also, the lawyer pointed out, their father had left them each one million dollars, which could be turned into true wealth, given time and planning. But inside that mansion was the opportunity to earn billions more … in one night. In the late Mr. Nokrum’s opinion, Murgathol explained, that kind of money should only go to someone bold enough to take it.
Now, exactly thirty days later, the other five siblings had arrived with their teams on a cold Friday evening. Rosa showed up alone and told the lawyer that she had no interest in competing. Her greedy siblings thought she was nuts. Although they each came prepared for a scavenger hunt of the manor, Nokrum’s other children didn’t believe the part about the lethal booby-traps. Each of them had at least six people as backup, with Naomi having the most (twelve) people on her team. They were going in with weapons, tools, and detailed maps of their respective sectors, which Murgathol personally marked off as they entered the mansion.
At five minutes to sunset, Murgathol gave them the go-ahead to enter the manor house through the main entrance. Murgathol had a heated tent set up on the front lawn and invited Rosa to wait along with him. Two uniformed medics and a well-dressed manservant waited in the red tent, which contained a small stash of medical supplies and assorted refreshments. As the last of the five teams entered, Murgathol pulled out an ovular remote control. With the press of a button, he activated the mansion’s server and the game commenced.
Then, the lawyer asked Rosa why she had come here in the first place. She told him that she had taken a portion of her payout and had researched her father in-depth. Apparently, Hugh Nokrum had designed highly lethal booby-traps for governments, drug cartels, and anyone else who needed their valuables/secrets protected. Based on her research, Rosa had learned that her father was once the best trap maker in modern times.
Murgathol put on his best poker face as she spoke.
Rosa was equally intrigued by her father’s deep and abiding interest in the occult. In his youth, Nokrum had traveled the world as something of a grave robber. His knowledge of bypassing booby traps had saved his skin time and again in his thirst for occult knowledge. And, while they were given that tour of the manor house, Rosa couldn’t help but notice the assorted hieroglyphs carved into the ceilings and walls. Something of a doodler, she put a few images down on paper and had them researched. The images were a mixture of Mayan and Egyptian incantations of a sacrificial nature. The experts she hired could not quite agree on what they would do.
As a result, Rosa decided to show up and see what would happen.
Somewhere around the half-hour mark, a burning body crashed