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 their 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 welclass="underline" None would suspect the treasure hidden at the heart of the Seal.