Gray waved at the stacks. “Let’s start taking them out.”
9:10 P.M.
Seichan stood to the side as Gray and Monk labored, carrying each gold block out of the small compartment and stacking them outside. Her bad leg precluded her from helping. But even healthy, she’d have struggled to lift one. Each weighed over seventy pounds.
She didn’t know how Monk managed the effort with only one hand.
By now, the two men had stripped out of their jackets and rolled up their sleeves. Their forearms bulged as they hauled the blocks out, one by one. Gray examined both surfaces, plainly looking for some evidence of a map. He’d also asked the two mint supervisors to let them do this alone. Cooperating, Waldorf and Lyndell had backed away a couple of compartments, talking in low whispers, but keeping a close eye on Gray and Monk’s efforts.
The captain of the guard looked darkly dubious.
And rightfully so.
They were halfway through the stacks with no success.
Gray came out with another plate. Seichan noted that his lips had gone bloodless and thin as he settled the plate to the pile. It wasn’t from the strain, but from frustration. He dropped to one knee to examine both sides, teetering the plate up on its edge. Sweat streaked his brow.
She limped next to him. “I’ll search this side, you take the other.”
“Thanks.” He eyed her over the top of the upended block. “Are we on a wild-goose chase here?”
“Your assessment sounded solid to me.” Seichan ran her fingertips over the gold surface, feeling for any evidence of a faint map. “All we can do is keep looking.”
“Anything on your side?”
“No.”
He manhandled the plate and settled it atop the others. He lowered his voice. “Something’s been nagging me. If Jefferson embedded the old map onto one of these plates, why didn’t someone see it? Comment on it?”
“Maybe the map wasn’t minted onto the plate, but into it.”
“What do you mean?”
“According to that French guy, the map was made of that nano-gold, a much denser gold that wouldn’t melt at normal temperatures. So to preserve and hide the map, why not pour regular gold over it, cover it completely? There’s no risk. If the map was needed later, you could always melt the ordinary gold off of it, since the nano-gold would require a much higher temperature before it softened.”
Gray raised a palm to his damp forehead. “You’re right. I should have thought of that.”
“You can’t think of everything.”
And you can’t take care of everyone.
She had noted him checking his phone regularly during the trip. The sun had set in D.C., and she knew he was worried about his father’s mental state.
“It was right there in Fortescue’s journal,” Gray said, kicking himself. “ ‘The treasure’s hidden at the heart of the Seal.’ ”
Monk called from the vault. “Better look at this.”
Gray and Seichan joined him inside the compartment, but it was cramped.
Supported by his one palm, Monk leaned over the next plate on the stack. He shifted back. “Look at this one’s seal.”
Seichan stared over Gray’s shoulder, feeling the dampness of his back through his thin shirt. She didn’t understand what had Monk all worked up, but noticed that the muscles across Gray’s shoulders tightened to hard rocks.
“That’s got to be the one,” Gray said.
“But there’s no map on it,” Monk argued. “I checked both sides.”
“You didn’t check inside it . . .” Gray said, glancing back to Seichan, his lips almost touching her cheek.
She tilted away to speak. “What are you two getting at? What’s so important about this block?”
Gray drew her forward, pulling her against him. He took her fingers and had her feel the sheaf of arrows clutched by the eagle. “There are fourteen of them.”
She turned to him. She remembered the crude sketch of an early rendition of the Great Seal, done when Jefferson and his allies were contemplating the creation of an Indian colony. It also had fourteen arrows.
“This has to be it,” Gray stressed.
“But how can we be sure?” Monk asked. “Shouldn’t we look through the rest of the stacks?”
Gray shook his head. “There’s a way we can double-check. If this plate is hiding a map at its heart, we should be able to tell by merely comparing its weight against one of the others in this series. The map—if it’s inside—is made of a denser material, so the plate holding it will weigh slightly more.”
“What about those giant weight scales we saw coming in?” Seichan said.
“Probably too crude, but we can ask Waldorf to help. With all of this gold around here, they must have a precise scale for measurement.”
Gray lifted the plate himself, guarding the prize. Monk and Seichan worked together to haul a second one, something to use for comparison. They hobbled over to Waldorf and Lyndell.
Gray explained what they needed but offered no reason as to why, which clearly irritated the captain of the guard.
Lyndell stepped between Monk and Seichan. He relieved them of their burden, lifting the plate as if it were made of wood. “Let’s go. There’s a weights and measures office in the hall outside the vault. The sooner we get this done, the sooner you’re all out of here.”
Following him, they paraded back up to the first floor and out the vault doors. They’d taken only a few steps into the hall when a cordon of armed U.S. soldiers accosted them, pointing rifles at their group.
“What’s the meaning of this?” Lyndell asked.
One of the mint officers stepped forward and held out a slip of paper to the captain of the guard. His other hand pointed at Seichan. “Sir, we’ve just received word. That woman’s a known terrorist, wanted by the CIA and several other foreign governments.”
Seichan went cold all over. Her cover had been blown. It made no sense. Her credentials had been perfect. She eyed the security station in the lobby. According to Waldorf, the whole body scan had been newly installed. Could it have triggered some alert, sending out a three-dimensional facsimile of her face and physique that matched a database somewhere, prompting this alarm? No matter the cause, the end result was the same.
All eyes—and weapons—swung to point at her.
The officer continued, “We were ordered to take her and anyone with her into immediate custody. To shoot if they resisted.”
Lyndell turned on them, his face flashing with vindication. “I knew there was something wrong about you all.” He pointed to the gold plate in Gray’s arms. “Officer, return all the gold to the vault immediately. Seal it up tight.”
Seichan turned to Gray, silently apologizing.
Waldorf swung toward Gray, ready to take the treasure away. He removed a pistol from a shoulder holster under his suit jacket, looking disappointed in them. As he stepped forward, he lifted the weapon quickly to the back of Lyndell’s skull and fired.
The blast made them all jump and duck.
Lyndell’s plate crashed to the floor, cracking the marble tile.
It was only the beginning. On Waldorf’s signal, four soldiers at the back of the cordon—the same four who had transported them from the airport—opened fire on the other mint officers. Bodies dropped. It was over in seconds.
A cold-blooded slaughter.
“You bastards,” Gray said.
Monk slid over to check Lyndell for a pulse. He lowered his hand and eyed the dead mint officers with equal dismay.
“Grab that gold plate,” Waldorf ordered the soldiers. “Move the prisoners into your vehicle. Take them to the rendezvous point.” He then pointed to his own leg. “Do it.”
One of the soldiers adjusted his rifle and fired, clipping the man in the thigh. Waldorf twisted and fell with the impact, letting out nothing more than a loud oof.
Seichan understood. They were making it look like Gray’s group had attacked the others and fled. Even the
delay at the airport now made sense. She imagined the original escort team was dead in some ditch, replaced by these impostors. She stared over at Waldorf. She knew that the Guild had agents in all manner of secure facilities. How long had it taken Waldorf to snake his way into this position of power? Had the Guild been using the facility as their own personal bank?
Or were their doings more diabolical than that? Had the Guild always suspected something important was hidden at Fort Knox? They just couldn’t find it—until Sigma sniffed out the information for them.
We were used, she realized.
The Guild must have taken full advantage of the emergency to employ Gray’s unique talents and puzzle-solving abilities to do their work for them.
And now the enemy was preparing to run off with the prize.
Unarmed, she and the others could offer no resistance as one of the soldiers grabbed the plate from Gray. Three others kept their weapons pointed, ready to fire if there was any sign of a threat.
The soldiers marched them toward the entrance.
Seichan was under no delusions. She had betrayed the Guild.
Now they would exact their revenge.
Chapter 27
May 31, 6:11 P.M.
Arizona desert
Kai clung to the rope with both hands as the sled under her was lowered from the hovering helicopter. Dust billowed up from below; winds from the roaring rotors whipped all around. She stared down as the top of the mesa rose up toward her, a dizzying view made worse by desert thermal gusts buffeting the sling.
“We’re almost there,” Jordan said.
He shared the aluminum swing with her. Both his eyes were blackened from the gun butt to his face, but he seemed oblivious to the pain. He kept one hand on the rope, too, but he had his other arm around her shoulders. She had never been a fan of heights—and was even less so now.
But at last, soldiers on the ground caught their sled and roughly unloaded them. Kai stood on shaky legs, glad to find Jordan’s arm still around her. At gunpoint, they were led to the chute she’d seen on the video screen earlier. It was a steep descent, but they had no choice.
Reaching the bottom of the chasm revealed a transformed space. A score of soldiers bustled about. Equipment and crates, several broken open, littered the space. Somewhere a drill was grinding into stone. She couldn’t figure out what was happening. In the middle of the chaos, she spotted a familiar figure.
Rafael Saint Germaine leaned on his cane, standing over a hole in the ground. She was pushed toward him from behind. He noted her approach.
“Ah, there you two are. Looks like we’re all in attendance now.”
A shape emerged from the hole, thick with black body armor and wearing a bulky helmet. Still, even without seeing his face, Kai knew it was the blond giant named Bern. When he did look up, she saw that his face was streaming with sweat, which dripped from his eyelashes and off his nose.
“Sir,” he said to Rafael, “we’ve got the ambush site locked down. We just need the bait.”
His gray-green eyes flicked toward Kai.
“Très bien, Bern. Then we’re ready. We’ll take them both down. No reason not to play all of our cards.”
Kai turned to Jordan. He had been staring to the side—toward a shape half covered in a tarp, booted legs sticking out. She again pictured the rifle shot that had taken out the park ranger and began to shake. Jordan turned, noting the focus of her attention, and stepped to block her view. He put his other arm around her and held her.
Impatient, Bern reached to rip them apart, but Jordan knocked his arm aside. Surprisingly, he was successful.
“We can move on our own,” Jordan said coldly, and helped Kai along.
They both knew where they were headed.
Down that black hole.
But what fate awaited them below?
6:22 P.M.
Alone, Painter climbed up the remaining length of the passageway toward the cavern that contained the boiling mud fountain. He’d left Hank down below at the Anasazi tomb. Kowalski had Painter’s pistol in hand and had taken up position behind an ice-encrusted rock fall a few yards behind him.
Painter’s mind ran through various scenarios, doing his best to anticipate every eventuality, to think a dozen steps ahead of his opponent. He advanced unarmed. What was the use of a weapon? He and the others didn’t have enough firepower to lay down a barrage and storm their way out of this hole without getting killed. Instead, he needed to be smart.
He reached the end of the tunnel and stepped into the sulfurous, sweltering cavern. Again a mix of awe and gut-wrenching terror struck him as he viewed the surge of bubbling and roiling mud that flowed down the wall and across the cavern. The heat seemed worse than before, but maybe that was because of the chill of the tomb below.
Steeling himself for what was to come, he stepped out of the tunnel and into the open. Beyond the bridge, a spread of lamps revealed a tight knot of soldiers gathered on the far side. They weren’t trying to hide themselves. The enemy must have guessed that the fleeing dog had alerted their quarry.
Figures rose out of the rubble of dark boulders to either side of him, with rifles mounted at their shoulders. Painter held up his arms, palms open, showing he had no weapon, and continued forward. All he had on his person was his backpack with his flashlight secured to it. He hadn’t wanted anything in his hands to be mistaken for a weapon.
One of the soldiers attempted to enter the black tunnel behind him, to go after the others. The pop of a pistol discouraged him.
“I have a man at a bottleneck down the passageway!” Painter called out without turning. “He’s got plenty of ammunition and can pick you off one at a time. Stay back. I know what you want! We can settle this quickly!”
Painter continued forward, step by step, heading toward the bridge.
Across the way, a thin man broke from the knot of soldiers and moved toward the bridge, too.
One of the mercenaries accompanied the man forward. Painter recognized the commando who’d shot Professor Denton back at the university lab. He pictured the blood on the dog leash. It was smeared on his pants where he’d wiped his hands. That was another death he knew he could lay at that soldier’s feet.
I’m sorry, Nancy . . . I should never have involved you.
Darkness narrowed his vision as he studied the helmeted giant.
But now is not the time for revenge.
That was clear enough. The commando was dragging a young man behind him, all trussed up and gagged. It was Jordan Appawora. Painter was not overly surprised to see the young man here. He’d already worked out in his head that someone had to tip off the Guild team to his location in Arizona. That left few choices.
Outnumbered, he had to get their attention and gain some control.
“I’m not going for a weapon,” Painter called out, and slowly reached to the open side pouch in his pack. With one hand, he carefully extracted the two gold tablets and held them aloft. “I believe this is what you came after, yes?”
From across the bridge, the thin man eyed Painter suspiciously, clearly struggling to figure out what angle was being played here. After a long breath, he simply relaxed with a shrug, perhaps deciding he still had the upper hand.
“Monsieur Crowe, my name is Rafael Saint Germaine.” His accent was French, cultivated, with just a touch of a Provençal lilt, placing his origins somewhere in the south of France. He pointed a cane. His arm shook with a very fine tremor, which continued down the length of the cane. The palsy was unusual for someone so young, likely something he’d been born with, made worse by the climb down here and the heat. “I believe I will take those from you.”
“Of course,” Painter said. “But you can have them freely. As a sign of good faith.”
Still, a soldier stalked up from behind and tore them from his grip.
The Frenchman motioned for the soldier to hurry over, but his focus never left Painter. Despite the air of frailty about the man, a dark cunning shone from his
eyes. Painter dared not underestimate him. A hunted animal was most dangerous when it was wounded, and this man had been wounded since birth. Yet, despite that, he’d survived amid a group that tolerated no weakness—and not only survived, but thrived.
Rafael examined the plates. “Such generosity is most confusing. If I may be blunt, I expected more resistance. What is to stop me from killing you right now?”
Weapons were cocked behind him.
Painter took another step forward, stopping at the edge of the bridge. He wanted to make sure this man understood.
“Because,” he said, “that was a sign of my cooperation. Because what we found down below makes the worth of those two plates pale in comparison.”
The man cocked his head, turning his full attention to Painter.
Good.
“May I?” Painter asked, reaching to the open pouch on the other side of his pack.
“Be my guest.”
Reaching inside, Painter removed the sculpted top of the gold jar they’d found. He held up the wolf’s-head totem.
The man went weak at the knees at the sight of it, barely catching himself with the cane, slipping into French in surprise. “Non, ce n’est pas possible . . .”
“From that reaction, you must know what we found.”
“Oui. Yes.” The man struggled to collect himself, raw desire shining in his face.
“At the moment another of my companions is far below. If I don’t return, he is ready to cast the gold bottle into another boiling mud pit, where the sludgy current will carry it away forever.”
The man trembled, frustrated, but his eyes also danced with the challenge. “Fair enough. What are your terms?”
“Your men will pull back from this side of the bridge. I want the boy as a sign of your goodwill. Then I will go below and fetch the jar. After that, we will make our final trade.”
“For what?”
“You know very well what I want.” Painter let some of the fierceness he’d been suppressing leak out. “I want my niece.”
6:28 P.M.
Très intéressant . . .