Riley thought that if Rollo used the instruments in the black case, the results would be beyond unpleasant. She squelched a grimace and stuffed the sheathed scalpel into her vest. It wasn’t big, but it was deadly sharp and it might come in handy. They hurried to the elevator and stepped inside the instant the doors opened. Emerson tapped a code into the keypad beside the door and pressed the B3 button.
“No!” Riley said. “That takes us down.”
“Exactly,” Emerson said. “It’s all part of my plan. It’s working perfectly.”
“Working perfectly? You have a black eye and a split lip. We’re being pursued by a psychopathic madman. And we’re probably on television.” Riley looked around the elevator for a security camera.
The elevator doors opened and Emerson stepped out at B3.
“You are really self-destructive, you know that?” Riley said to Emerson’s back as he headed down a corridor.
“Not at all,” Emerson said. “I’m inquisitive and I’m being proactive. You should be pleased that I’m assuming a leadership role. I’m very well suited for it. My analytic abilities and sensory instincts are superior.”
“You are so annoying.”
Emerson stopped at a door with a keypad, fed it the code, and pushed the door open. “If my calculations are correct, there should be another door at the end of this corridor to the right.”
The corridor was long and dimly lit. More of a tunnel than a corridor.
“We haven’t much time,” Emerson said, breaking into a run. “I’m sure they’re scrambling by now, trying to find us. And most likely there will be an alarm going off in a control room somewhere when we open the next door.”
They approached the door, and Riley was chilled to see the Blane-Grunwald logo stenciled on it. The labyrinth of corridors under the busy Manhattan streets had led them to Günter’s “backyard.”
Emerson eased the heavy door open, and they blinked at the glare off the gold bricks that were stacked waist high in the large storeroom.
Emerson took a brick from the stack in front of him and examined it. “I believe this is newly minted. New gold from old. I imagine there’s another room in close proximity where they melt the original bricks down and re-form them into new untraceable bricks.”
“That’s ridiculous. How could they possibly get away with such a thing?”
Emerson looked around. “This is private property, and I’m sure access is complicated.”
“We walked right in!”
“Yes, but first we had to break into the Federal Reserve and get arrested.”
“This is a big operation,” Riley said. “People are needed to move the gold and melt the gold and protect the gold. Where do these people come from? How are they kept quiet?”
“This would be no different from other conspiracy movements. Intimidation, reward, elimination of problem employees…like Maxine Trowbridge. Many of the people involved will be enamored with the cause. Whatever that cause might be. Blind ideologues. And this is probably the tip of the iceberg. I suspect they periodically move the gold to a more obscure holding facility.”
“Holy moly.”
“I had expected ‘crap on a cracker.’?”
“I thought you were getting tired of ‘crap on a cracker.’?”
Emerson grinned. “?‘Holy moly’ is refreshing, but it’s hard to top ‘crap on a cracker.’?”
“What do we do now?”
“We leave as quickly and as stealthily as possible. I’m hoping it will be easier to get out than to get in. Codes and keys are necessary to go down in the elevator but I’m thinking it’s like staying on the concierge level of a hotel. Nothing special is needed to exit.”
They stepped into the elevator on the far side of the room, but the elevator refused to move without a code.
“This is getting tiresome,” Emerson said, tapping a code in and pushing the only button.
Riley stopped holding her breath when she felt the elevator moving up.
“How do you know the door and elevator codes?” she asked Emerson.