"There's no place really safe," Mark replied, "But this place I only went to twice before. The building is totally owned by me, under one of my shell corporations. The building has motion detectors and alarms that never tripped. Also, this inside is very hard to access. Even if the Confederation knew about it, they'd probably not know what the hell it was for."
"So where is it?" I asked again, and Mark grinned and looked at me.
"You talked about redemption and paying my debts before, right? Well, I can't think of a better place to start than from Mount Zion."
"No way. Mount Zion?" Mount Zion was one of those sites that every city of sufficient age has. Built in the mid 1800's, it was originally a Methodist seminary before becoming an insane asylum (excuse me, hospital for the mentally disturbed) around World War I. After the war, the Methodist church wanted to unload the property, and it went into that limbo old properties tended to do. It was too old to get fixed up, but not quite old enough to become a historical monument. Besides, mental hospitals didn't exactly make good historical landmarks. There were dozens of stories about Mount Zion, your standard ghost story fare, but nobody really knew what was up with the property. "You're the owner of Mount Zion?"
"Well, the main church at least, with the minister's quarters upstairs," Mark replied. "The rest of the property I placed into a trust in order to take care of the taxes. The hospital is under an option to buy from three different developers who want to tear it down in order to put up things ranging from a strip mall to an apartment building. My shell corporation that controls the trust is playing them against each other, and the game could have gone on for a few more years."
We drove over to the Heights section of town, the rolling hills that the city had first been founded on, and Mark drove us to Mount Zion. As we approached I could see how perfect it was as a location. Relatively centrally located in the city, it was still isolated in the hills, with acres of unoccupied land around it. The driveway was nearly a half mile long, giving us plenty of isolation and warning if anyone wanted to drive up to the site. In addition, the ghost stories and other superstitions limited the number of teenage lovers or homeless who'd be willing to try and use the old buildings for unauthorized purposes. Mark pulled in, and shut off the engine.
"After I purchased the building, I used my corporation to hire a very discreet handyman, who came up here and did some renovations to the bell tower of the church. The old door was replaced with a steel core security door, and the stairs were reinforced along with the room at the top being cleaned and sparsely furnished. I apologize there is only a single thin mattress, but it was created as an emergency base, not a permanent residence."
"It'll be fine," I said, looking up at the old church. It still looked abandoned, but solid, in a Neo-Gothic style that intimidated. I thought about Tabby's fixation with The Crow, and thought it was an appropriate place to start from. "When we get Tabby back, we should bring her here. She'd like this place."
We went inside with our bags, and I was surprised. While the main sanctuary was still an abandoned mess, the stairwell to the belfry was concealed well, looking like the door frame had been bricked over. Mark used a remote control that looked just like one for a car door to unlock the entrance. It even beeped like a car door system would. "Yeah, I copied it. A lot of supposedly high tech gadgets are nothing more than applying old solutions in new ways."
The belfry itself was spartan, mostly scrubbed down hardwood that was stained almost black. "The handyman sent the lawyer for my shell corporation a few pics of what it was before, and I liked the old color, so I just had him seal all the wood after making sure none of it was rotted out. They built the platforms of cedar, actually, so it's still solid as a rock. I don't know if the color is a result of the original stain they used, age, bat guano, or a combination of all of them, but I liked it."
A little bit of natural light filtered in from the slat sides on the north side of the tower, which had years ago allowed the sound of the bells to come out. I could see the massive beams above us where they had once hung, but had been removed decades before. Along the other three walls the slats had been sealed up. There was a thin mattress on the floor along the west side of the floor, a small table, and a series of metal footlockers. "What's in these?" I asked, tapping them with my foot. "Your supplies?"
"And my tools," Mark replied, unlocking two of the lockers. The tops lifted open, revealing an arsenal. "We should contact the people who have Tabby, and learn more."
I took out my old cell phone, and looked at him. "Here?"
"No, we'll go back on the road," Mark said, taking out two pistols. "You ever fire a gun before?"