From the rocky shoals, Lou could see about five feet in any direction, including up. Ankle-deep in frigid seawater, sneakers in his hand, Lou reached out to feel the rocks. They were slick with ocean spray and were going to be a bear to climb, but he found a boulder near the base of the cliff to sit on and put his sneakers back on. Moments later, Vaill settled in next to him, and did the same with his boots.

Following frantic preparation, Lou had caught only a few hours of sleep during the fifteen-hour journey from Atlanta to this remote stretch of Maine coastline, and he worried fatigue might hinder his ascent. Vaill, on the other hand, seemed energized. There was no doubt why. Almost certainly, Alexander Burke was close. The two of them had taken a plane from Atlanta to Portland and from there, caught a flight on a small jet to a regional airport near the Canadian border, some fifty miles from the coast.

A cab brought them to the quaint port village of Mount William, once a bustling community featuring granite quarries, tide mills, and canning businesses. As those companies vanished with the times, fishing became one of the few ways to earn a living. With dwindling catches and mounting government regulations, Vaill and Lou had an easy time renting a lobster boat and seasoned captain to ferry them to this remote section of beach, a quarter mile from the castle. For most of the hour-and-a-half trip, the seas were blanketed in fog and extremely rough. The spray was ice-cube cold, but the tide was receding, and the fisherman managed to get just a few feet from the rocky shoreline.

“It appeared a lot easier on Google Earth,” Vaill said as they peered up, searching for an ascent that looked possible.

“Should we have gotten off the boat closer to Red Cliff?”

“The cliffs along this stretch of shoreline are at a more forgiving slope than the ones closer to the castle. We’d need real climbing gear to make that ascent. Besides, there are woods south of the castle we can use to our advantage.”

On the plane ride from Atlanta, they not only studied maps of the coastal terrain, they also, thanks to the Slugger, had found building plans to go along with a complete history of Red Cliff. They had learned about the eccentric inventor, who had painstakingly overseen the stone-by-stone reconstruction of the castle he had shipped over from Germany.