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“And just looking around wouldn’t be considered a felony?”
“We’re going in as a part of the Republic of Mauritius’s security team to make sure their gold is deposited safely,” Emerson said. “We have the permission of the minister of finance, don’t we, Wesley?”
“Indeed,” Wesley said.
“And we are all citizens of Mauritius,” Emerson said.
“I’m not,” Riley said.
“Wesley, could you make her an honorary citizen of Mauritius?” Emerson asked.
“Consider it done,” Wesley said, handing over Kevlar vests and black polo shirts. “Both of you need to put these on.”
Emerson pulled his polo shirt over his existing shirt and slipped into a Kevlar vest.
Riley stared at the vest and polo shirt. “Is this necessary?”
“Protocol,” Wesley said.
Riley tugged the shirt over her head and shoved her arms into the vest. “This isn’t going to be dangerous, is it? The vest is just a formality, right?”
“Right,” Emerson said. “There’s nothing to worry about.”
One of the men handed Riley an AR-15 assault rifle. “Just in case,” he said.
“In case of what?” Riley asked.
“In case someone expects you to follow protocol,” Wesley said. “I hope you aren’t afraid of guns.”
“I’m from Texas,” Riley said. “And my daddy was the county sheriff. I can shoot the eyelashes off a roach half a football field away.”
“Beats me,” one of the men said. “I couldn’t hit the side of a barn.”
Riley turned to Emerson. “You knew Mauritius was making a deposit this week?”
“Serendipity,” Emerson said. “Mauritius is an emerging force in the banking industry. You might say Mauritius is the Cayman Islands of Africa.”
“Not yet,” Wesley said, modestly. “In time.”
The truck stopped and went into reverse. The bands of sunlight from overhead louvers vanished from Wesley’s face. The truck was plunged into semidarkness and came to a halt. The guards stood, rifles at their hips. One of them moved forward and opened the back door. They were met by more men in black with more assault rifles.
Wesley stepped out and was greeted by his opposite number, a drab-looking portly man in a Brooks Brothers suit. “Wesley Bachoo? I’m John Varnet, vault auditor with the Federal Reserve. What do you have for us?”
“A ton of gold, give or take a few ounces.”
One of the Federal Reserve guards rolled a reinforced dolly up to the back of the truck and the gold was off-loaded. Riley counted out seventy gold bricks. The dolly was pushed down a long corridor to an elevator, and all the gua
rds, along with Emerson and Riley, crowded in with it. The doors closed and the elevator began its descent.
“For those guards who haven’t been into the vault before, we’re going eighty feet down, into the substratum of Manhattan Island,” Varnet said.
The elevator doors opened onto a small green hallway. More guards greeted them at this floor, and the dolly was pushed a short way to a massive vault door. It looked like a cartoon version of a safe. Riley expected to see Yosemite Sam come out from behind it, guns a-blazing.
Instead of one dial in front, there were two on either side. One guard turned the right wheel a few times. Another guard turned the left wheel about twenty times, and the door spun slowly around, like a huge childproof top on a bottle of golden pills.
“That’s a steel cylinder, weighing ninety tons,” Varnet said, still in tour-guide mode. “It revolves in a hundred-forty-ton steel and concrete frame. When it rotates, it drops three-eighths of an inch. This creates a seal that is both airtight and watertight.”
The transport dolly was pushed rattling and clinking through the open door, down a corridor, and into a dingy waiting room with floor-to-ceiling metal bars at the far end.
