The Devil Colony(108)
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.