They stepped onto the escalator and joined a long line of passengers waiting to be screened. The wait only compounded their anxiety. When it was their turn, they presented their boarding passes and identification to the TSA agent, who briefly looked them over and then indicated they step into the queue for the metal detectors.
Ryan chose a line that looked like it was moving faster then others. A portly black woman standing opposite the scanner looked purposeful but also relaxed. Her demeanor lifted Ryan’s sprits. He began putting his belt, money clip, and cap in the basket to be checked; Sarah was doing the same with the laptop and her purse.
Ryan stepped forward when the attendant signaled it was his turn and she said, “Excuse me, sir, but you’ll have to remove those boots.”
His heartbeat was already over a hundred beats a minute, but forgetting to remove his work boots put him squarely in the woman’s spotlight. Damnit, how could I have forgotten the boots? He gave Sarah a forlorn look. Her face was ashen. The line behind them came to a complete halt while Ryan stooped over to begin unlacing his ankle-high work boots. He worked feverishly, his hands noticeably shaking. He felt as if everyone was watching him. Calm down…calm down, he thought.
“Are you two together?” the attendant asked, looking past Ryan to Sarah.
“Yes,” Sarah simply replied.
“Come ahead, then,” the attendant motioned with her hand.
Sarah held her boarding pass for the TSA agent to see, and calmly walked through the metal detector. It remained mercifully silent and she moved to the end of the screening area to retrieve her purse and laptop.
Ryan awkwardly removed both boots and put them through the scanner. He held his ticket at chest-level and walked through the machine when the attendant signaled. The alarm blared, causing the attendant to stop him. She asked that he step back through the device and try again.
“Have you removed everything from your pockets?” she asked authoritatively.
“Yes, I believe so,” Ryan replied, feeling like he was caught in a spiraling vortex. He lost focus and became uncomfortably warm. He began perspiring, which he figured would be a dead giveaway that he was trying to hide something. Why is this happening? What have I missed? He fumbled through his pockets again and came up empty.
Then he remembered Amerigo’s coin. He ran his index finger into the coin pocket of his Levis and found his lucky 1899 Liberty silver dollar that he faithfully carried. He held it up for the attendant, smiled guiltily, and then put it through the machine. His third attempt to get past the TSA attendant was successful. The alarm remained silent and the woman seemed pleased to be rid of him, turning to focus on the next passenger. Ryan collected his boots, the coin, and his hat and walked out of the screening area without stopping.
They had successfully made it through security in LAX. Ryan’s chest was pounding; he felt like he was having a heart attack. He looked at Sarah, who was relieved, but the look on her face conveyed volumes about her feelings: Don’t you ever do that to me again.
Sarah grabbed Ryan’s free hand and they walked briskly to gate C 13, their plane departing for Houston in fifty-five minutes. They were safe for the moment.
AUGUST SEVENTH
FIFTY-TWO
West Point, Kentucky
06:00 hours
It was just approaching dawn when Kilmer began rousting the team from their overdue slumber. As he stepped from the luxury bus he was able to see the Wildcat Catfish Farm for the first time. It wasn’t hard to see that the owner of this property took great pride in his business. The operation appeared very orderly-the buildings had a fresh look; signs directed visitors to the office, hatchery, and other key parts of the facility; the Wildcat Catfish logo dominated one side of a huge feed silo; a series of tanker trucks were lined up next to a busy loading station. It looked to be a productive day at the farm.
Kilmer stopped for a few moments taking in the scene. His attention was caught by two tractors pulling a huge net through one of the ponds, presumably corralling catfish. Several men wearing chest waders were scooping huge nets of fish into a purse seine hooked to the outstretched boom of a backhoe. When the net was full, the backhoe lifted the fish from the water and positioned it above the hatch of the tanker. With the purse seine in position, it zippered open and the fish were indelicately dumped into the tanker as quickly as possible. The loading operation looked very efficient, if labor-intensive. Kilmer was enthralled. He had had an affinity for aquaculture ever since he first visited a hatchery in Brisbane as a young boy. Had he not been otherwise preoccupied, he would have liked watching the men load the trucks. When the Knox job was completed, he intended to spend some time learning how Struffeneger grew catfish on the property.
As Kilmer walked between the bus and the main house, he guessed that Sully and Travis were about to go wheels up from the Hilton Head airport. His final duty before retiring the night before had been to notify Sully of the team’s arrival, who promised to deliver Sela Coscarelli the following day. Holloway had previously made the decision that Sully would move her to Kentucky to be held together with the other hostages. This would eliminate another reason for Conrad to withhold his cooperation through the next phase of the operation. But Holloway was also cognizant that the police could show up at his estate. He figured they would likely come snooping around when his phone number was discovered in Penburton’s records, and while he had a ready explanation for this association, he didn’t want to run the risk of the Coscarelli woman being found if they searched the premises. There would be no explanation for that.
After waking the men, Kilmer returned to the bus, poured hot water on the black teabag in his mug, and began skimming the pre-plan for the upcoming operation. Without Weaver and Krilenko, it was especially important to wring every bit of efficiency from the remaining personnel. Having Farley would be a big help; he would guard the hostages while the rest of the team carried out the mission. Farley was a psychopath and would act without hesitation or remorse when the call came to eliminate the hostages. But that couldn’t happen until Conrad had carried out his last operation with the antigravity machine. Until then, they would keep all the hostages alive; afterwards they were expendable.
Kilmer still didn’t know what to make of Struffeneger and his wife. This was a niggling problem for him. Emil would be the only link-apart from his teammates-to the Knox operation after it was completed. Emil had mentioned, shortly after the men arrived, that his wife, Helene, had taken their twin daughters to her relatives. She was not planning to return until after the men were gone. “You’ll have full access to my home and its amenities,” he’d said hospitably. While the privacy was reassuring, he still wondered if the man and his wife could be trusted. This was a disquieting uncertainty. He decided to inquire about his allegiance to Alastair Holloway, if only to satisfy his own curiosity.
Kilmer went through the plan one more time before the walk-through with the men. He knew Rafie would again be the most difficult, so he paid particular attention to identifying weaknesses Rafie would possibly expose.
The breach of Fort Knox was relatively straightforward: Colt and Rafie would arrive with the semi at the main security checkpoint of the Army base. Kilmer and the rest of his men would be hidden in the back with Dr. Conrad. Holloway had procured the requisite transport documents that showed they were delivering top-secret surveillance equipment to the base. The documents promised to pass even the most discerning inspection by the MPs, and because the load was highly classified, the military police wouldn’t inspect it. This first step admitted them onto the base. The containment building and the gold vault were still some three miles away. That was where the state-of-the-art security would begin.