Green lights flashed. A lock clicked.
The male officer stared at the door in disbelief. “It worked,” he muttered. “It actually worked.”
I grabbed the latch and yanked the door. Squealing loudly, it opened a few inches. An overhead light burst forth, dazzling my eyes. The rushing water shifted course and began surging into the compartment.
“Everybody inside,” I said. “Now.”
Donovan slid through the crack and disappeared into the compartment. The president was next, followed by Graham and Beverly.
As Officer Schultz and the male officer followed suit, Cruzer slid to my side. “The door looks airtight. But how are we going to defeat the flood trap?”
“We’re not,” I said. “We’re going to wait it out.”
He slipped through the narrow opening. Then I slid through the gap and pulled the door shut.
I watched the water level inside the compartment for several minutes. “It’s stable,” I said. “I think we’re safe.”
I twisted around. The brightness momentarily blinded me. As my eyes adjusted, I saw we were gathered inside a ten-foot square room, next to huge stacks of gold bars. They covered the length of the room and rose almost all the way to the ceiling. I’d seen lots of gold bullion in my life. But nothing like this. Even more incredibly, the compartment was just one of many in Vault A. And Vault A was just one of two vaults.
Cruzer grinned knowingly. “Impressive, huh?”
All I could do was nod.
Chapter 52
“Are you sure?” President Walters’ voice was quiet, tense. “You have to be sure.”
“The water is no longer gushing.” Beverly placed her ear against the compartment door. “Of course, the corridor could still be flooded.”
Several minutes passed before sweat started to bead up on my forearms. It trickled past my elbows and collected around my fingertips.
Donovan wiped slick sweat from his forehead. “Why’s it so stuffy in here?”
I took a deep breath, inhaling a mouthful of warm air. “Because we’re running out of oxygen.”
He sighed, wearily. “Can’t you fix it?”
“Sure. But I need your help.”
“What can I do?”
“Stop breathing.”
A few chuckles rang out. But Donovan wasn’t amused. Curling his lip, he stuck his face in front of mine. His breath smelled faintly of fish and cheese. “Do you know how easily I could ruin your life?”
“Hopefully, not as easily as you’re ruining my nostrils.”
The chuckles turned into laughter. Donovan backed off, but continued to stare me down.
Graham hefted a gleaming, brick-sized bar in his hands. “I forgot how heavy gold is.”
“What do you think you’re doing?” Donovan’s nostrils flared. “Give me that.”
“Whatever you say.” Graham dumped the bar in Donovan’s outstretched hands. Donovan misjudged the weight and shrieked as the heavy bar nearly dragged him to the ground.
Wasting no time, Graham hefted another bar. “Are they all like these ones?”
Cruzer wiped sweat from his cheeks. “Not exactly. They weigh twenty-seven and a half pounds apiece. But since purity levels differ, bar sizes differ as well.”
The president took a shallow breath and sagged to the ground. “Why do purity levels differ?”
“It has to do with the gold’s original form. All the bars in this compartment come from melted U.S. coins. So, they’re 90 percent gold and 10 percent copper.”
“They used copper in their gold coins?”
“Yes,” Cruzer replied. “I don’t know why though.”
“It’s because gold is a soft metal,” I said.
Donovan gave me a sharp look. “What does that have to do with anything?”
“Softness isn’t the most desirable trait when it comes to currency. So, a lot of old U.S. coins were built from copper-infused alloys to provide them with a tougher composition.”
“I think…” Beverly pressed her ear against the door. “Yes, I’m sure of it. The water is draining.”
A collective sigh of relief rang out. We waited in silence for another ten minutes, listening to the receding water and doing our best to ignore the increasingly foul air. Eventually, the sounds of water faded away.
We waited a few more minutes in the stifling compartment. Finally, I tried the knob. The door opened wide and oxygen flooded into my lungs. I’d never tasted anything so sweet.
Graham rushed past me, gasping for air. Beverly helped the president into the corridor and sat him down against a wall. Then she attended to Graham.
I sensed movement behind me. Spinning around, I saw a glassy-eyed Donovan stumbling in my direction. He swung a couple of wild punches, which I easily evaded.
As he veered past me, I grabbed hold of his arm and tried to steady him.
“Let go of me,” he shouted.
And so I did. Immediately, he lost his balance and his face pancaked against the hard ground.
Avoiding thin trickles of blood, I stepped over him and entered the corridor. Abruptly, the vault door burst open. Soldiers appeared. They swarmed around me and the others, hooking us up to breathing apparatuses and oxygen tanks.
While I waited for my breathing to normalize, I found myself thinking about that photo of Justin. He’d vanished in late 1949, supposedly while on a trip to the Appalachian Mountains. And now, I had photographic proof that he’d visited some place named Shrieker Tower on December 14, 1949. What had happened to him?
I wasn’t sure. Not yet anyway. But I knew one thing. The answer to that question — to all my questions — was somewhere inside the depository.
Chapter 53
“Rise and shine, maggots!” Graham shouted at the top of his lungs.
His words ping-ponged in my eardrums. Harsh light appeared, stabbing straight through my closed eyelids and deep into my brain. Then metal began to smash slowly against metal in rhythmic fashion.
Beverly wrapped a thin, dense pillow around her head. “Go away.”
Eyes still closed, I grabbed hold of my pillow and threw it across the room. It smacked against flesh. Graham groaned.
“Serves you right,” I muttered. “Now, get lost.”
“No can do, maggot.” Graham maneuvered the light switch, turning it on and off, on and off. Metal smashed against metal a few more times. “Either you guys get up or I’m coming in there.”
Beverly grumbled.
“You know, that bed looks pretty good.” He started toward us.
“Wait, wait.” Pushing my back off the mattress, I sat up. My limbs felt sore and my joints were in need of a lube job.
Stifling a yawn, I cracked my eyes open. We were situated in a small office. Three inflatable queen-sized mattresses, made up with shiny sheets and wool blankets, lay on the floor. One of the mattresses was barely touched and I realized Beverly had abandoned it during the night in favor of mine.
It had been a long night. After leaving the depository, Beverly, Graham, President Walters, Ben, Donovan, and myself had been escorted to another part of the building. We’d gotten showers and a quick meal. Then we, along with everyone else, had been assigned to makeshift sleeping quarters for the night.
I rubbed my eyes. Graham stood in front of the door, grinning like an idiot. He held a garbage can lid in one hand and a giant metal spoon in the other. His grin widened as he banged the spoon against the lid. “At least one of you is listening,” he shouted. “Now, it’s your turn, maggot.”
Beverly, still grumbling, wiped sleep from her eyes. “If you call me maggot one more time, I’ll shove that spoon right down your throat. Got it?”
“Loud and clear, rodent.”
She gave him the look of death.
I rubbed my eyes and checked the time. It was 4:37 a.m. “Can’t this wait?”