Kent took the wheel, and I rode shotgun since I had mapped out our route to the Louisville Airport. The drive was uneventful. Our gas tank was full, and so were our bellies. There was nothing to do but drive and stare at the empty cars along the way.
We passed south of Cincinnati and crossed a bridge that spanned the Ohio River. When we hit the far side, we were in Kentucky and about a hundred miles from the Louisville airport.
“So here we are,” Kent said. “What are we supposed to be looking for?”
I wished I had a good answer to that.
“Let’s get to the airport,” I said. “Mr. Hartman said that’s where he would have flown to meet his son. Hopefully the place is close to there.”
“I think we’re wasting our time,” Kent said. “But whatever.”
Driving through Kentucky wasn’t any different than driving through Connecticut or Pennsylvania. I don’t know what I expected to see. There wasn’t going to be some big neon sign reading: “Safe Haven—Next Exit.” An hour and a half later, we arrived at the Louisville International Airport, not knowing any more than when we had entered the state.
Kent pulled to the side of the interstate, turned off the engine, and looked at me expectantly.
“Well, Rook,” he said. “We can’t search the entire state. So come up with something or we’re on our way to Nevada.”
I opened the atlas and gazed at the page that had the full color map of Kentucky… for the five hundredth time. I felt the heat of everybody’s eyes on me.
“There’s a lot of forested land,” I said. “A big camp could have been built most anywhere.”
“‘Most anywhere’ doesn’t cut it,” Kent pointed out. “It’s a big state.”
“Whatever this place is, it has to be fairly close to this airport, or else Mr. Hartman would have flown into another airport.”
“Where’s the next closest big airport?” Jon asked.
I referred to the large-scale Midwest map.
“Looks like we’re more or less centered between Saint Louis, Cincinnati, and Nashville. Cincinnati’s the closest, maybe a hundred miles north of here. The others look to be a couple of hundred miles away to the east and the south.”
Tori said, “So we’re looking for a needle in a haystack the size of the Bermuda Triangle.”
Our quest to find Mr. Hartman’s safe haven was suddenly looking bleak.
“There’s another possibility,” Kent offered.
“What’s that?” I asked hopefully. I was willing to listen to anything at that point.
“The old fart could have been hallucinating.”
“Kent!” Olivia scolded. “The man is dead!”
“Yeah, and we’re stuck here picking our noses because he sent us on a wild goose chase. I say we get the hell out of here and—”
“Wait!” Jon exclaimed. “I hear something.”
If there was one thing we were getting used to, it was the eerie silence of a world that was no longer functioning. The only sound we had heard for a few days was the chirping of birds and the Explorer’s engine.
“I hear it,” Tori said. “I’ve heard that sound before.”
We didn’t have to wait long to know what it was. They came up on us fast… and they were loud. Four gray jet fighters screamed by overhead. They were so low that we could see the numbers under their wings. The sound was deafening. They disappeared as quickly as they appeared, thankfully, and the ear-shattering noise lessened.
“Their gear was down,” Jon said. “They’re landing.”
“Maybe they’re looking for the safe place too,” Kent said sarcastically.
That gave me an idea. I opened the big foldout map of Kentucky and grabbed the compass from my hoodie.
“They’re headed southwest,” I announced. “Tori, you’re the navigator here. Can you figure out the exact path they’re on?”
Tori leaned over the seat, grabbed the map, and spread it out on her lap.
“Get me a pencil,” she ordered.
I dug into the glove compartment and came out with a dull number two.
Tori looked around to get her bearings, placed the compass on the map, and twisted the bezel.
“They were headed roughly two hundred forty degrees,” she declared.
She drew a straight line, using the edge of the compass’s base. She used our position as the center and extended the line to the southwest and the northeast.
“That’s where they came from, and that’s where they’re headed,” she said and handed the map back to me.
The map had a lot of detail. It actually looked like a photo taken from a satellite. I followed the line southwest through what looked like a populated area that gave way to densely forested land. I kept following the line, looking for anything that might give us a clue as to where those planes might be going…
…and saw it.
I held my breath and took a closer look, making sure I wasn’t mistaken.
“This is the exact heading they were on?” I asked.
“Unless they made a sudden turn before landing,” Tori pointed out.
“What?” Kent asked.
“The line goes right over a military base with a very big airfield,” I announced. “I’ll bet anything that’s our spot.”
“How can you be so sure?” Jon asked.
I held up the map and pointed to the base.
“We’re looking for a safe place, right? This is probably one of the safest, most secure places in the country.”
“Seriously?” Olivia asked. “What is it?”
“One of the biggest bank vaults in the world,” I replied. “Fort Knox.”
SIXTEEN
“Why is there a big bank vault in the middle-of-nowhere Kentucky?” Olivia asked.
“It’s not really a bank vault,” Jon answered. “It’s a structure that was built to hold the gold reserves of the United States government.”
“So they’ve got piles of gold coins lying around like some kind of pirate’s lair?” Kent asked.
“Not coins, bars,” Jon said. “Tons of them. Literally. The government has used the vault to secure other valuable items as well, like the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence. They were stored there during World War II.”
“How do you know so much about it?” Kent asked with skepticism.
Jon shrugged, “History is a passion of mine.”
“You are so odd,” Kent said.
“I don’t know that much about the place,” I said. “But look at the map. It’s a big freakin’ vault in the middle of an army base near a small town.”
Everyone took turns looking at the detailed map.
“The vault itself is a whole building. If I were looking to keep things safe, that would definitely be on my list.”
“We’re looking for a place that’s a safe haven for people,” Tori said. “Not gold.”
“I know,” I said. “But there’s plenty of other valuable stuff in the world. The Air Force attack didn’t just happen. Even the president of the United States knew it was coming. He’s the one who ordered SYLO to set up on Pemberwick Island. If he knew war was coming, don’t you think he’d do exactly what Jon just described? Wouldn’t he want some things to be protected? Like the Declaration of Independence? Or the Constitution? Or the Mona Lisa, for all I know? He could be protecting stuff from the Air Force.”
“Or from whomever is controlling the Air Force,” Tori pointed out.
“Exactly,” I said. “This might be the safest place in the country right now.”
“Then let’s go!” Jon declared.
Kent and Tori stared at me, waiting for an answer. Again, I was the one who had to make the call.
“What have we got to lose?” I said with a shrug. “Let’s go check it out.”
I scoped the map and gave Kent directions on how to get there. It looked about thirty miles southwest of the airport on local roads. We followed the course and had traveled for no more than ten minutes when we began to see proof that we were on the right track. It started out as smoke on the horizon. Several fires were burning, spewing huge, black plumes into the air.