The Devil Colony(107)
The Humvee made the turn onto Gold Vault Road. Even with their orders in hand, additional clearances had to be made at a fenced gate flanked by sentry towers. Eventually they made it through and drove down a long road to the front entrance of the fortress.
“Honey, we’re home,” Monk mumbled under his breath.
Gray’s friend reattached his prosthetic hand to its wrist cuff and flexed his fingers. On the thirty-mile drive to the depository, Monk had spent his time running a fast diagnostic on his new hand, clearly still anxious and needing to keep busy. Even after years of wearing the device, he still found it unnerving to see the detached prosthetic move all on its own, like some disembodied appendage from a horror movie. A wireless transmitter built into Monk’s wrist cuff could independently control the motors and actuators of the prosthesis, along with accessing the hand’s other unique features. Luckily, the guards up front missed that little freak show in the backseat.
At last, the Humvee pulled to a stop. A tall man in a navy-blue suit stepped out of the doorway and approached the vehicle.
He had to be the officer in charge. He was younger than Gray had expected, early thirties, with a blond crew cut and a swagger to his step that had Texas written all over it. He shook Gray’s hand in a firm but unthreatening grip.
“Mitchell Waldorf,” the man said with a slight drawl. “Welcome to the Depository. It’s not often we have visitors. Especially at this hour.”
A gleam of amusement sparkled in his gray-green eyes.
Gray made introductions and proffered their presidential orders. The man barely glanced at them and led them promptly toward the entrance, leaving their military escort outside. As they pushed through the doors into a marble lobby, Waldorf passed their orders to a uniformed man standing inside. There was nothing welcoming about the hulking black man’s countenance. Without a word, he retreated with their orders through a door marked CAPTAIN OF THE GUARD. Gray suspected their papers would undergo a thorough inspection and verification process. Kat had built up an ironclad cover story and supplied them with false IDs and badges—as agents of the National Security Agency. Hopefully, their paperwork would clear.
In the meantime, they had to undergo their own inspection.
“Latest security protocol,” Waldorf explained. “Just added two months ago. Whole body scanners. Have to be thorough nowadays.”
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.