Will Jarvis had acknowledged the giant security breach and admitted that whoever signed B. Wicks’s name had forged it. He agreed to let us eyeball the contents of Dalton Portovaults number seven and eight, in light of the subpoena, and because whoever visited a year earlier had been unauthorized to do so. “You can physically get into the vaults without the owner, can’t you?” Mike asked. “Certainly. We have to be able to do that in case of a fire or an emergency like that. We’ve had two or three abandonments as well, when owners died without heirs.” Four workmen had followed us up in the service elevator, and Jarvis pointed them to the units we wanted to view. One of the men stationed himself near the control switch. When Jarvis gave him the signal to start, the system generated a noise that was frightening in its volume and intensity. The huge steel vault shook awake like a hibernating bear, whatever motored it growling at us in the dark space.
