“I read over the physicist’s assessment again,” Gray said, and glanced up. “Did you know he has Asperger’s syndrome?”
Monk shrugged and shook his head.
“Guy’s a genius, likely a superb intuitive, too. He believed the small neutrino bursts he detected—here, out west, and in Europe—came from something closely related to, but different from, the compound that destabilized and exploded both in Utah and Iceland. He posited that the new substance might be a closely related isotope or maybe even a by-product of the explosive material’s manufacture. Either way, he’s convinced they’re connected somehow.”
“So what are you getting at?” Seichan asked, suppressing a yawn with a fist.
“Hear me out. The other ancient nanotech artifacts found inside that Indian cave were the strange steel daggers and those gold tablets.” Gray stared hard at Monk. “Painter has a couple of those gold plates with him out west.”
“Where the other readings were recorded,” Monk said, catching on.
“They also picked up a reading in Belgium, where the Guild team that we tangled with in Iceland originated. I’m guessing the Guild has one of those plates. Look at how hotly they went after Painter’s niece. Maybe their plate is secured in Belgium.”
Seichan lowered her injured leg and sat straighter. “And now all of us are heading to a gold depository.”
Monk thought he understood. “You think there might be some of those gold tablets hidden at Fort Knox.”
“No,” Gray corrected him, and tapped the file on the seat. “I’ve been doing research on the history of Fort Knox and the early United States Mints. Did you know Thomas Jefferson helped found the very first mint, located in Philadelphia? He even had a set of silver coins minted with his face that were sent with the Lewis and Clark expedition. But he also had gold coins minted.”
Monk tried to follow Gray’s train of thought, but it left him at the station.
“The Philadelphia Mint’s first director was a man named David Rittenhouse. Like Benjamin Franklin and Jefferson, the guy was a Renaissance man: clockmaker, inventor, mathematician, and politician. He was also a member of the American Philosophical Society.”
Monk recognized that name. “Like that Frenchman. Wasn’t Fortescue part of that group, too?”
Gray nodded. “In fact, Rittenhouse was great friends with Jefferson, like all the significant players involved in this affair. He was surely in Jefferson’s inner circle, a trusted companion.”
“Okay . . .” Monk said hesitantly.
“According to Fortescue’s journal, the Indian map was hidden by Jefferson.” Gray quoted from the diary by heart. “ ‘Ever crafty, Jefferson devised a way to preserve the Indian map, to protect it, yet keep it forever out of the hands of the faceless enemy. He would use the very gold to hide it in plain view of all. None would suspect the treasure hidden at the heart of the Seal.’ ”
Seichan got it before Monk. “You think Jefferson had Rittenhouse help him hide the map at the mint,” she said. “To hide it in plain view.”
“I do. Then in 1937, the Philadelphia Mint was emptied, and its gold transported to Fort Knox by boxcar. There are reports from that time about the discovery of old bullion caches found deep in the Philadelphia Mint, gold going back to the colonial era. That gold was also moved to Fort Knox.”
“Which means the map might’ve been moved, too,” Monk said. “But how can we be sure? Wouldn’t someone have noted a map made out of gold, especially one stuck on chunks of mastodon bone?”
“I don’t know,” Gray said. “We’ll have to go look ourselves. But one last item. Fortescue described that Indian map as being made out of the same gold that would not melt, the same material as the inscribed tablets.”
Monk understood. “So if the tablets are emitting neutrinos, so would the map.”
Gray nodded.
Monk leaned back, selfishly appreciating how his friend’s unique mind worked. With such insight, they might all just get back to D.C. before midnight.
A squeal of brakes drew his attention back around. A large sand-colored Humvee pulled to a stop alongside the jet.
Monk pushed up. “Looks like our ride’s finally here.”
8:37 P.M.
Could the map truly be hidden at Fort Knox?
Nagged by worries, Gray sat in the rear seat of the Humvee, staring out as the massive vehicle roared down the Dixie Highway and swung sharply to take the Bullion Depository exit. The armored beast also carried their escorts: four combat brigade soldiers from the U.S. Army Garrison at Fort Knox. When they reached the base’s main gates, passes and identification were shown and a guard waved them through. From there, the vehicle forged on through the warm evening, heading toward the country’s most guarded structure: the Fort Knox Bullion Depository.
Gray spotted the fortress ahead, lit up in the night like a granite prison, rising from a cleared field and ringed by fences. Sentry boxes guarded the gates, while four guard turrets rose from each corner of the depository, like stubby towers on a castle. He knew that once they were inside, there would be additional layers of countermeasures defending the premises against attack: alarms, cameras, armed guards, and more esoteric technology, like biometric analyzers, facial-recognition software, even seismic sensors. And that only accounted for the defenses that were generally known. The remaining defenses were classified. It was rumored that the facility could be flooded at a moment’s notice—whether by water, as was done at the Bank of France, or even by toxic gases.
Of course, reaching the ring of fortress gates meant first penetrating the hundred-thousand-acre military base surrounding the depository—a daunting task, considering the base’s numerous helicopter gunships, armored tanks, artillery, and its thirty thousand soldiers.
Gray stared down at his lap.
Entry was a difficult task unless you had the golden ticket.
The presidential order, folded and resting on his knee, bore a wax seal, both official and archaic at the same time. Freshly emblazoned across the front was the signature of President James T. Gant. The depository did not offer tours, visitors were forbidden, and only two U.S. presidents had ever set foot inside. The only way to enter the Bullion Depository was by presidential order. Gray knew that these papers had already been forwarded to the facility’s officer in charge. They were to meet the man at the main entrance.
Gray fingered the seal, wondering what would happen if he broke it before the officer in charge verified the paperwork. It would be a foolish act. It had taken all of Sigma’s resources to wrangle this document on such short notice. But then again, President Gant owed Sigma for saving his ass in the Ukraine, so his chief of staff took Kat’s call.
The presidential orders were specific, covering the three visitors for tonight only. He glanced across the seat to Seichan and Monk. According to the paperwork, they were allowed a single supervised tour of the vault, in order to search for a threat to U.S. national security and remove it from the premises. That was the full breadth of their authority. To step beyond it would be deemed a hostile act.
The Humvee made the turn onto Gold Vault Road. Even with their orders in hand, additional clearances had to be made at a fenced gate flanked by sentry towers. Eventually they made it through and drove down a long road to the front entrance of the fortress.
“Honey, we’re home,” Monk mumbled under his breath.
Gray’s friend reattached his prosthetic hand to its wrist cuff and flexed his fingers. On the thirty-mile drive to the depository, Monk had spent his time running a fast diagnostic on his new hand, clearly still anxious and needing to keep busy. Even after years of wearing the device, he still found it unnerving to see the detached prosthetic move all on its own, like some disembodied appendage from a horror movie. A wireless transmitter built into Monk’s wrist cuff could independently control the motors and actuators of the prosthesis, along with accessing the hand’s other unique features. Luckily, the guards up front missed that little freak show in the
backseat.
At last, the Humvee pulled to a stop. A tall man in a navy-blue suit stepped out of the doorway and approached the vehicle.
He had to be the officer in charge. He was younger than Gray had expected, early thirties, with a blond crew cut and a swagger to his step that had Texas written all over it. He shook Gray’s hand in a firm but unthreatening grip.
“Mitchell Waldorf,” the man said with a slight drawl. “Welcome to the Depository. It’s not often we have visitors. Especially at this hour.”
A gleam of amusement sparkled in his gray-green eyes.
Gray made introductions and proffered their presidential orders. The man barely glanced at them and led them promptly toward the entrance, leaving their military escort outside. As they pushed through the doors into a marble lobby, Waldorf passed their orders to a uniformed man standing inside. There was nothing welcoming about the hulking black man’s countenance. Without a word, he retreated with their orders through a door marked CAPTAIN OF THE GUARD. Gray suspected their papers would undergo a thorough inspection and verification process. Kat had built up an ironclad cover story and supplied them with false IDs and badges—as agents of the National Security Agency. Hopefully, their paperwork would clear.
In the meantime, they had to undergo their own inspection.
“Latest security protocol,” Waldorf explained. “Just added two months ago. Whole body scanners. Have to be thorough nowadays.”
Stepping into the machine, Gray endured the millimeter-wave scan of his physique as a seated technician wearing a U.S. Mint police uniform studied the small screen. Other mint officers backed him up, but the facility looked lightly manned at this hour. Then again, most of the security measures were electronic in nature and hidden out of sight.
Once the scan finished, the technician waved Gray into the main lobby space. As he waited for the others, he stared at a display of a giant set of weight scales positioned against the back wall. They rose twelve feet high, supporting four-foot-wide pans. A bit farther down the hall rose the massive steel doors to the bullion vault itself. Above it rested the seal of the Department of the Treasury, made out of gold.
“You can’t bring that in here,” the technician said behind him.
Gray turned, expecting Seichan to be causing a ruckus at the security post. Had she forgotten about some dagger hidden on her body? It turned out, though, that the true source of the technician’s consternation was Monk.
His friend still stood within the cage of the machine and held up his prosthetic hand. “This is attached to me,” he complained.
“Sorry. If the scanner can’t penetrate it and clear it, it stays out here. You can wait back by the door or leave your prosthesis with us.”
“That’s our policy,” a gruff voice said behind Gray.
He turned to find that the captain of the guard had returned.
By now, Monk’s cheeks had gone scarlet. “Fine.” He worked the magnetic connections attaching his hand to the surgically implanted wrist cuff and tossed the prosthesis to another technician, who deposited it in a plastic bin. Monk passed the scan the second time and stalked over to join them all.
“I’ll have you know,” he said, “that such a policy is not even vaguely ADA compliant.”
The captain of the guard ignored this and introduced himself. “I’m Captain Lyndell. I’ll be accompanying you while you’re here. The officer in charge will answer any of your questions, but before we open the vault, I have a query for you: What exactly is the scope of the national security threat you’re investigating?”
“I’m afraid we can’t divulge that, sir,” Gray said.
The man didn’t like that answer.
Gray understood his frustration. He wouldn’t be any happier if this were his facility. “To be honest, the threat is likely minor, and we may have a challenge even identifying it. Any help you or Officer Waldorf can offer would be appreciated.”
This appeal to cooperation seemed to mollify the man.
Somewhat.
“Then let’s get this done.”
Lyndell crossed to the vault door and dialed in a long combination. Two more people waited to do the same. No single person ever had the complete combination to the lock. After the first two finished, the captain of the guard entered one last additional sequence.
A red light flashed to green above the dial, and the massive steel-plate door began to swing open on its own, all twenty tons of it. It took a full minute to part wide enough for the group to walk through.
“If you’ll follow me,” Waldorf said as he led the way inside. He clearly would be acting as their tour guide.
Lyndell prepared to follow behind, ready to keep a close watch on them.
“At the present,” Waldorf said, “we’re storing around a hundred and fifty million ounces of gold here. That’s enough to forge a twenty-foot cube of solid gold. Of course, that’s not a very convenient method to keep it. That’s why we have the depository. It’s two stories high. Each floor is subdivided into smaller compartments. We’ll be entering the first floor, but there’s a basement level, too.”
Waldorf stepped to the side to allow them to enter and turned to Gray. “That means you’ve got a lot of ground to cover. If there’s any way to narrow that search, now’s the time to reveal it. Otherwise, we’ll be in here for a long time.”
Gray passed through the thick steel door and into a corridor that was broken into smaller vaults. Stacks of gold bars glinted inside them, piled from floor to ceiling. The sheer volume was daunting.
He pulled his eyes away and addressed Waldorf. “I guess the first question to ask is whether anything unusual is stored here, something besides gold.”
“What? Like vials of nerve gas, narcotics, biological agents? I’ve heard it all. Even heard we had the body of Jimmy Hoffa and the Roswell aliens in here. Now, in the past, the depository has stored some items of priceless historical value. During World War Two, we preserved the original copy of the Declaration of Independence and Constitution down here, along with the Magna Carta from England and the crown jewels from several European nations. But for decades, nothing’s really changed here. In fact, no gold has been moved into or out of the depository for many years.”
“Then tell me about the gold itself?” Gray asked. “I see lots of gold bars, but what about gold in other forms?”
“Well, sure. We keep individual gold coins and coin gold bars—made by melting coins together. Beyond the standard mint bars, we also have a mix of older bricks, plates, blocks, you name it.”
“Old gold bullion?” Monk asked, zeroing on target.
“Yes, sir. We’ve got bullion from every era of American history.”
Gray nodded. “That’s what we’d like to see. Specifically anything taken from the Philadelphia Mint that dates back to the colonial era.”
Waldorf’s easy demeanor hardened slightly. “Why would that be of interest to national security?”
“We’re not sure,” Gray said, which was basically true. “But we might as well start there.”
“Okay, you’re in charge of this hunting expedition. We’ll have to go down to the basement, where much of the gold hasn’t been moved since it was first hauled to Kentucky by railroad car.”
Waldorf headed to a set of stairs and led them down to the section of the vault that lay belowground. Gray again wondered if it was true that this place had been engineered to flood if there was a security breach. He pictured the vault filling with water and imagined drowning amid all of this wealth.
“This way,” their guide said, and strode purposefully along the corridor.
The vaults down here weren’t as neatly stacked as above, mostly because of the lack of uniformity in the size of the bars.
Waldorf waved ahead. “This whole section originally came from Philadelphia. We’ve got gold stored here that came from the very first stampings out of that mint. That’s kept in the compartment at the end. Follow me.”
When they reached the
ir destination, Lyndell used a key to unlock the barred gate to the ten-foot-square space. It looked haphazardly packed—but it was also unfortunately full. One section of the room contained irregular rectangular blocks that looked like small anvils, another had stacks of square rods, a third had flat plates about the size of small lunch trays.
Gray stared with dismay, picturing waves of subatomic particles washing out of the space. If this was the right vault, how were they to find the needle in this golden haystack?
Never one to shirk from hard labor, Monk squeezed into the room and began to search around. His friend was more a man of action than deep introspection—and sometimes that temperament paid off.
“Hey, come look at this.” Monk pointed to one of the wide plates on a shorter stack. “It’s stamped with the Great Seal.”
Gray joined Monk, shoulder to shoulder. Crudely stamped into the center of the flat gold block was an outstretched bald eagle, clutching an olive branch and arrows.
“Remember what Fortescue wrote about the Seal,” Monk said.
Gray knew it well: None would suspect the treasure hidden at the heart of the Seal.
“Maybe he meant the Great Seal,” Monk added.
Gray studied the topmost plate. It was roughly fourteen inches by ten and about an inch thick. While there was no precise description of the old Indian map’s dimensions, it had been found lining a mastodon’s cranium. That meant it had to be fairly big—like these flat blocks.
He studied the room. There have to be over a hundred of these plates. Which one could it be? Did one of these plates—buried and hidden among the others—depict a crude map on its surface? There was only one way to find out. He would follow Monk’s example. It was time to simply use brute force.