May 31, 9:33 P.M.
Fort Knox, Kentucky
The plan had failed...
Gray folded his hands atop his head. Seichan and Monk did the same as rifles pointed at their backs. Soldiers forced them at gunpoint past the bodies of the mint officers, the marble slick with their blood.
Waldorf limped behind them, nursing his wounded leg, leaving bloody footprints. "Take them out the gates," he instructed the man carrying the plate of gold. "I'm heading to my office. I'll sound the alarm in five minutes. You want to be out of here by then."
"Yes, sir."
As they passed through the security station in the lobby, Gray spotted the Humvee idling outside, its tailpipe smoking as the night grew cooler. They had only one chance.
One of the soldiers dashed ahead to the door, moving sideways, still keeping an eye on them. Now was as good a time as any. Gray glanced to Monk, who already knew what to do. His friend gave the smallest nod, a sign that Gray understood. Atop his head, Monk's fingers blindly tapped a code onto his wrist cuff, preparing to transmit a wireless signal.
"Eyes closed, hands over ears," Gray whispered to Seichan.
She looked momentarily confused, then her gaze shifted to the plastic tray holding Monk's disembodied prosthetic hand.
"Now," Gray said breathlessly.
Monk tapped the go signal, activating a small flash-bang charge built into his prosthesis, one of its unique new weapons system upgrades. Gray slipped his hands over his ears and squeezed his eyes closed. It wasn't much protection. As the hand exploded, the flash of the charge outlined his fingers against his eyelids, and the bang stabbed into his head.
Men screamed as they went temporarily blind and disoriented.
Rifles fired wildly.
Gray had only seconds before their sight returned. He twisted around and hauled the gold plate out of the arms of the team leader. He continued his turn, dropping and pivoting on his toes, swinging back full around and heaving the heavy plate into the legs of the same soldier. Bones shattered. The man's scream turned high-pitched.
At the same time Seichan had grabbed a gunman's rifle out of his dazed grip, expertly flipped it around, and fired point-blank into his chest. His body flew back into another soldier. Seichan continued firing, taking down that other man, too.
Monk had lunged low toward the door, out of firing range. He threw a meaty fist up, square into the guard's nose, crunching deeply. His target fell limply against the door and slid down. Monk retrieved the man's weapon.
Seichan continued to fire, strafing deeper into the lobby.
Gray spotted her target.
Waldorf limped and fell through his office door, slamming it shut behind him. Seichan continued to fire, but the rounds pelted into steel. The door must be reinforced like the rest of the fortress.
"Damn," she said.
Seconds later, an alarm Klaxon rang out, echoing throughout the building. Waldorf must have hit a panic button in his office. Monk stood beside the exit as a blast shield began to trundle down from above, preparing to seal the place up.
"Time to go!" he called out, and held the door open.
Gray and Seichan sprinted toward him. Even with her bad leg, Seichan reached the exit first and dove out. Slower, encumbered by the heavy gold plate, Gray had to duck to get under the lowering blast shield.
Monk followed, gasping. Sirens rang throughout the base, spreading the alarm. "I thought breaking into Fort Knox was hard," he said. "Breaking out may be even harder!"
"Into the Humvee!" Gray ordered.
They ran for the idling truck. Gray hopped behind the wheel. Monk took the passenger side. Seichan leaped into the backseat. All three doors slammed at the same time.
Gray shifted into gear and wheeled the Humvee around, gunning the massive engine and barreling up speed along the entry road. In the rearview mirror, he spotted Seichan sidling over to a window and cracking a side panel so she could poke her rifle out.
"We don't shoot!" Gray said. "These are U.S. soldiers just doing their job."
"Oh, this just gets easier and easier," Monk complained.
They had one hope.
Gray had already noted their ride had been outfitted with an "up-armor" kit for combat use, which included reinforced doors, bullet-resistant glass, side and rear plating, and a ballistic windshield capable of withstanding explosive ordnance. It was not an unusual vehicle to find here, since Fort Knox was home to the U.S. Army Center for Armored Warfare. It was a proving ground for tanks, artillery, and all manner of armored beasts.
To avoid killing anyone, they needed to ram their way to freedom. For the moment they had the advantage of surprise-and confusion. It wasn't like someone broke into or out of Fort Knox on a regular basis.
Gray aimed for the gates, which had already closed. Sentries milled about, plainly unsure if this was a false alarm or merely a training exercise. The Humvee charging at them cleared up that confusion.
Rifles were raised. Rounds cracked against the windshield.
From the sentry tower, someone fired a rocket-propelled grenade, but in his haste, the shot went wide, blasting through the fencing to the side.
"Hang on!" Gray called.
He didn't slow, trusting the soldiers to leap out of the way in time.
They did.
The Humvee's armored grille hit the gates and bulled through with a screech of torn fencing. Then they were flying down Gold Vault Road. Rifle fire peppered the rear of the truck.
"They'll have birds in the air in less than five minutes," Monk said. Birds being Apache helicopter gunships. "It should take them longer to mobilize a more significant armored threat. But we could get hit by-"
A sharp whistling cut through the engine's roar.
"- mortars," Monk finished.
The rocket shot past their hood and exploded in the neighboring field, casting up a fountain of grass, dirt, and rock. Smoke billowed across the road.
Gray roared through it and quickly reached the end of the road. But instead of turning onto Bullion Boulevard, he drove straight across the street, bounced across a ditch, and crashed through another fence, clipping a sign that read THORNE PARK. He trundled overland across a field dotted by woods. The Humvee's wide tires trenched deep tracks. He headed south through the park, aiming for the Dixie Highway that ran alongside the base.
Another rocket exploded into an oak tree, shattering it into flaming splinters. The Humvee smashed through the remains with a great wash of fire and smoke, blinding them all.
Then they were past it.
"That one was closer," Monk said.
"You think?" Seichan asked sarcastically.
"They may not even be trying to hit us, only slow us down." Gray yanked the wheel and sent the vehicle into a slightly new trajectory, trying to make them a harder target if he was wrong.
"I see lights rising from the airfield," Seichan warned.
"Maybe that's why they're trying to delay us," Monk realized aloud. "They're sending out the gunships."
Gray sped faster. They needed to get clear of this base and into civilian territory before serious firepower was employed. If they could escape from this place, the military would be confined to tracking them from the air, utilizing civilian police forces on the ground.
A line of lights appeared through the trees, moving slowly, car headlamps marking the Dixie Highway. They were almost there. He floored the accelerator.
"Here come the helicopters!" Seichan called out.
The Humvee rocketed toward the highway, churning mud and weeds. Then they hit the slope of the highway embankment, shooting up over the gravel and concrete apron. Gray looked for a break in the stream of car lights, found it, and skidded the massive vehicle around on its side, fishtailing into traffic.
Horns bleated in protest. Tires squealed, smoking rubber on asphalt.
A small SUV bumped their rear.
Gray did not slow. He gunned the engine and set off down the highway in a wild, careening course, blaring his horn to help clear the way. The small town of Radcliff appeared as a sea of lights ahead. He raced toward it, barreling at twice the speed limit as the highway became a road at the city's edge.
"We got company!" Seichan yelled.
A brilliant light speared the darkness behind them, reflecting from the truck's mirrors. It was the spotlight from a helicopter sweeping down the highway toward them.
"Take the next turn!" Monk yelled.
Gray trusted him and swung around the corner onto a narrow street, not bothering to slow. Seichan slid across the backseat.
Fourplexes and taller apartment buildings lined both sides of the avenue, likely off-base housing for military personnel. The tight row of buildings offered them a temporary reprieve, blocking them from the helicopter's view.
But that wouldn't last long.
"There!" Monk said, and pointed. "I saw the sign from the road."
Up ahead, a neon advertisement slowly turned atop a tall pole.
That would do.
It was another necessity around off-base housing.
Gray swung into the parking lot of an all-night automated car wash. Individual enclosed bays with coin-operated hoses and vacuums lined one side. He swung into one of the bays, pulling fully under the enclosure, hiding them from sight by air.
"Bail out," Gray ordered.
He grabbed the gold plate. Monk and Seichan snatched up their rifles and some extra ammunition they'd found inside the Humvee. They heard the whump-whump of searching helicopters and stared skyward. Three helicopters patrolled the town, sweeping the streets with their searchlights. Gray and the others had to be out of here before roadblocks locked the place down.
There was another patron of the car wash who was also watching the air show.
Monk crossed to him, a tattooed and pierced kid in a dirty T-shirt with a Harley emblem and ragged jeans.
Monk pointed his rifle.
Wide- eyed, the kid stared from the weapon to Monk's face and said, "Shit." He pointed to an older, rust-pocked Pontiac Firebird and backed away, sliding a bit in the suds. "Listen, man. Keys are in the car."
Monk pointed to the Humvee. "So are ours. Feel free to take it."
The kid did not seem so inclined. He was no fool. He had taken stock of the situation.
Gray hurried to the Firebird, threw the priceless plate in the trunk, and got behind the wheel. Keys hung from the ignition, along with a silver skull-shaped fob. He hoped that wasn't a bad omen.
The others piled in, with Seichan taking the front passenger seat this time. Monk clambered into the back. A minute later, they were crossing out of the city limits. Gray had them yank the batteries from their cell phones, to keep anyone from tracking them. He couldn't take any chances, not with the treasure that was sitting in the trunk.
Before pulling his battery, he noted an unopened voice mail from his parents' home number. He didn't have time to deal with it at the moment. He also didn't want to risk drawing undue attention to himself and the others by calling his parents. Besides, he had supplied his mother with a list of emergency numbers. That should hold them for a while.
Eventually Gray knew that the three of them would have to buy disposable phones, something that couldn't be connected to them, in order to reach Sigma and determine the best course of action from this point. But for now they had to keep moving, keep under the radar.
With all their electronic tails severed, Gray headed due south, using a map he purchased with cash from a gas station. He edged his speed up along the back roads, avoiding major thoroughfares, eking out as much power as the old V-8 engine could muster. The only trail he left behind was oily smoke rising from his tailpipe, coming from a bad cylinder head.
At least he hoped that was the only trail.
As he drove, the tiny silver skull kept knocking against the steering wheel column, as if trying to warn him.
But of what?