AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Emerson drilled into twenty more bars. All of them fake.
“You should stop drilling holes,” Riley said. “The bad guys are going to get mad that you’re ruining their stuff.”
Emerson lined the bars up and shot video of them with his smartphone. He tried to send it to his email, but there was no signal eighty feet down.
“Crap,” Emerson said.
He restacked the bars, made sure the drilled sides faced down, and pocketed the drill.
“Now what?” Riley asked. “Are we done?”
“Hardly. I told you when we first met that I wanted to see my gold, and all I’ve seen so far is a vault full of worthless counterfeits. The real question is, where is the real gold, and how can we bring the thief to justice?”
Riley’s heart was beating so fast she thought it was about to burst out of her chest. “Well, for the love of Mike, just how do you intend to do that?”
“We’re going to find the real gold and match the serial numbers with the serial numbers on the fake gold stored in this vault.”
“They’re opening the vault,” Riley said. “I can hear the door beginning to rotate.”
Emerson checked his watch. “It took them longer than I thought.”
“You have a plan, right? Something that doesn’t involve us getting shot or rotting in prison?”
“I don’t think they’ll shoot us,” Emerson said.
“You don’t think?”
“It’s not part of my plan. My plan is to have them rescue us.”
An armed guard was the first to reach them. Varnet followed with Wesley.
“What are you doing in here?” he asked.
“Waiting to be rescued,” Emerson said. “My partner tripped on the way out, and by the time we got her to her feet the vault was sealed.”
Varnet stared Emerson down for a full minute before turning to Wesley.
“We need to finish processing your gold,” Varnet said to Wesley. “And then we need to address this security breach.”
—
Werner looked down from his office window and watched the police cordoning off the street around the Silver Shadow. The office was an exact replica of Werner’s office in Washington. The only difference was the view. Sometimes Werner had to look out the window to remember where he was. If he saw the Manhattan skyline instead of the white dome of the Capitol, he knew he was in New York.
“Who do you think is responsible for this?” Werner asked Hans.
“Someone wanting to go viral on YouTube,” Hans said. “International terrorist organizations don’t usua
lly use stink bombs.”
“That’s a classic car down there,” Werner said. “Maybe one of a kind. And it had a classic plate from the District. I’m going out on a limb and guessing it belongs to Emerson Knight.”
Hans gave a bark of laughter. “You think Emerson Knight stink-bombed Blane-Grunwald? The old man would love it.”
There was a knock at the door, and Werner’s New York assistant looked in.
“Sorry to bother you,” he said, “but I thought you should know there was a security breach in the Federal Reserve vault that coincided with the car bomb. It seems it was an explainable incident, but I thought you’d want to be informed.”
“What sort of a security breach?” Werner asked.
