The Fallen

by David Baldacci

  “What did you find?” asked Jamison.

  “Exactly what I thought I would: nothing.”

  “And inside?”

  “They broke through the floor, but it was just set on a thin concrete slab with dirt under it.”

  “So what does that mean?” said Riley.

  “That means we keep going to where the treasure really is.”

  They took the paved road that led off to the right. As they approached the end of the road, Decker stopped and wheeled Ross off to the side.

  He took out his gun and Jamison did the same, while Baron brandished the shotgun. They all followed Decker down the road. They cleared the curve and looked up ahead.

  There was a lot of activity going on.

  They noted a large dump truck parked in front of the gates of the family cemetery. Attached to it was an empty flatbed trailer. They watched as a Bobcat sped past the truck and entered the burial ground. Two SUVs were parked next to the dump truck, and through the open gate they could see people moving around inside the burial ground.

  Decker skittered forward with the others close behind him. The sounds of the Bobcat covered any noise they made. Decker opened the back door of one of the SUVs and looked inside one of the duffels piled there. It was filled with the same bottles he had found in Ross’s secret closet.

  He quietly closed the door and they edged up to the gate and peered inside. A group of people were gathered around the mausoleum. Portable work lights had been set up, illuminating the area around the crypt.

  “There’s Ross,” hissed Jamison.

  “And Lassiter,” whispered Riley. “But I thought she’d been shot?”

  One of the detective’s arms was in a sling and she was moving slowly.

  Decker said, “She was, but not nearly as bad as everyone probably thought.”

  A large hole had been dug next to the mausoleum and they could hear what sounded like a powerful drill being operated. After a few minutes, Ross took a light and disappeared into the hole, with Lassiter right behind him.

  Decker counted ten other men with guns standing around.

  A few minutes later, Ross and Lassiter came out of the hole. Neither looked pleased.

  “Decker,” said Jamison, pointing to her left.

  Off to the side, seated on the ground, their backs against a large gravestone, were Amber and Zoe. They were tied up and gagged.

  Decker slipped away and returned a minute later pushing Fred Ross in his wheelchair.

  He rolled him past the dump truck and edged the wheelchair into the open gateway of the graveyard. He traded his pistol for the shotgun Baron was holding, and then pressed the barrel against Ross’s neck.

  He looked at the others and nodded. Baron and Jamison took up positions on either side of the brick wall, their guns pointed at Lassiter and the others. Cindi Riley peered anxiously over Baron’s shoulder.

  Decker called out, “Okay, we’re here for the exchange.”

  Everyone next to the mausoleum froze. Then Lassiter and Ted Ross slowly turned and saw the elder Ross with Decker holding a shotgun against the old man’s head.

  Ross shook his head, put his hands on his hips, and smiled. He glanced at Lassiter. “How many damn times did I tell you we had to get rid of this guy, Donna!”

  Lassiter called out to Decker, “This was not smart coming here.”

  Decker used his free hand to point to Amber and Zoe. “It’s the only place we could go. The exchange, remember? You set it up, not me.”

  “This is not going to end well for you,” said Lassiter.

  Decker said, “You really should have posted some lookouts, Ross.”

  “I guess I underestimated you, Decker.”

  “I like it when people do that. I assume you have an escape plan. You give us Amber and Zoe. And we give you this piece of scum, and you make your run for it.”

  “It’s not that simple,” said Ross.

  Decker glanced at the mausoleum. “Because you haven’t found it?”

  Ross’s smile faded. “Found what?”

  “The treasure that Baron the First left behind.”

  “How do you know anything about it?” snapped Lassiter.

  “I know all about it. But why do you need the treasure? You haven’t made enough off the fentanyl?”

  Ross glanced at Baron. “It has nothing to do with that. It’s about the fact that I can take it from him!”

  Fred Ross was wriggling in his wheelchair.

  “You want to throw in your two cents?” asked Decker. He reached down and ripped the tape from the man’s mouth.

  Fred Ross screamed, “Shoot the son of a bitch, Teddy. Kill his ass!”

  “Shut up, Pop,” said his son derisively. He looked back at Decker. “Well?”

  “Like I said, I think we can work something out.”

  Ross looked at the mausoleum. “Okay, you tell us where it is and you can have mom and the daughter.” He pointed his gun at his father. “And you can keep him too, because I’ve had enough of his crap to last the rest of my life.”

  Fred Ross screamed, “You little piece of worthless shit! I was the one that told you about it. You ungrateful bastard!” A long flow of obscenities followed, all directed at the man’s son.

  “See what I mean?” said Ted Ross as he raised his pistol. “Shut up, Pop, or I swear to God, I’ll shoot you myself.”

  Decker said, “Fred, you’re not that smart, are you?”

  “What the hell is that supposed to mean, fatso?”

  “You knew about the exchange. But when we got there, nobody would be around to exchange for you. So your son was going to leave your butt high and dry. You go to prison while he jets off to a new life.”

  The elder Ross said nothing, but he now glared at his son.

  Decker said to Ted Ross, “That was the other reason I knew your exchange request was probably a sham and that you were up here trying to get the treasure.” He glanced at the malignant Fred Ross. “Why would you want him back? The guy who was so cruel to you and your mother? Just so he couldn’t testify against you? Hell, if it were me, I’d take my chances over having to listen to this asshole and I think you would too.”

  A fresh burst of obscenities from Fred Ross was only halted when Decker put the duct tape back on.

  Decker looked at the hole next to the mausoleum. “You thought it was either under the potting shed or under the crypt? Because of the letter to the O’Reilly company?”

  “Not nearly enough concrete for a textile mill addition,” said Ross. “Besides that, old man Baron would not have built one at that point, because the business was going south. But he used it for the foundation under his crypt. We know that now.”

  Decker nodded. “Green told me about the textile business petering out when he was giving us a little tutorial on Baronville. Although he couldn’t have known that later I would see a letter that would put that knowledge to good use. So what do you think the treasure is?”

  “Precious jewels, maybe. Coins. Cash would have rotted.”

  Decker nodded. “Did you find anything down there?”

  “A big hollow space inside the foundation they laid with all that concrete.”

  “With something other than treasure?” said Decker. “Like some skeletons maybe?”

  Ross said, “There are some bones down there. But how did you figure that?”

  “Baron was an old man. He didn’t hide the stuff personally. So how could he leave behind the guys who did hide it? They’d just come here and try to steal it after he died, or else they’d tell somebody. And that space would make a convenient burial spot.”

  “But where is the treasure?” snapped Ross impatiently.

  “The O’Reilly order told you, but you focused on the wrong parts of the letter.”

  “Then enlighten me,” growled Ross.

  “I read a letter from Baron’s butler, Nigel, to his son. Costa read it too. That was a clue to the treasure.”

  “Costa never told me abo
ut any letter like that.”

  “But he obviously thought it was under the mausoleum.”

  “Costa had done a ton of research. He’d read a lot about the history of the estate and he thought he had narrowed down the location, but he wanted to be sure. We needed somebody to come up here. So I called Toby Babbot.”

  “Why Babbot?”

  “He’d gotten hurt working on the FC. I was throwing him a bone. Anyway, he did some poking around. See, Costa had determined that there were only two new structures put up after Baron wrote the letter to O’Reilly ordering those supplies: the potting shed and this place. So Toby came up here and took precise measurements of both. He figured the footprint of either one pretty much aligned with a concrete foundation built with the materials that Baron bought from O’Reilly’s.”

  “And Baron caught him trespassing and filed a police report?”

  “Well, actually Mike Swanson was also up here when Toby was poking around. He and Baron chased him off the property. Swanson knew Toby and apparently identified him to Baron, and Baron filed the police report. But that was no big deal,” Ross added offhandedly.

  “Actually, it was a very big deal for Babbot and Swanson. Because that signed both their death warrants, in your eyes,” added Decker. “Baron now had a beef and a possible motive against Babbot, so you could include him with the others you killed in order to incriminate Baron. And because of Babbot, you knew Swanson was up here, probably with drugs. You could also use that to frame Baron, and you needed to get Swanson out of the picture.” He paused. “And I think you had another reason to get rid of Babbot.”

  Ross stared darkly at Decker but remained silent.

  “He found out about the space in your office, where you kept the fentanyl shipments. He was obviously good at measuring: the mausoleum and your office footprint.”

  “I thought there was a bottle missing from one of the boxes. That was you?”

  “That was me.”

  “Donna told me about your finding out Toby had the construction plans for the FC. But I never thought you would put two and two together. You made it sound to her like Toby just had a beef with Maxus because of how they treated him.”

  “I got lucky there because I didn’t know at the time that Lassiter was a bad cop.”

  Lassiter barked, “You know nothing about me.”

  “I know enough,” said Decker.

  Ross said, “So getting back to business, what was in the letter from this Nigel guy?”

  “It told about a trip that Baron and Nigel took to Australia.”

  “Australia? What about it?”

  “They visited the typical places. But then there were a number listed that I’d never heard of. I googled them before I came here. Only one of them interested me: Kalgoorlie.”

  “What’s so special about this Kalgoorlie place?” asked Ross.

  “I’ll show you. You got a sledgehammer?”

  Ross glanced at the mausoleum. “Why? The treasure’s not here.”

  “I think it is here. It’s what I meant when I said you’d focused on the wrong parts of the O’Reilly letter. Have one of your guys take a sledgehammer to the wall of the mausoleum.” Decker pointed at the wall right behind Ross. “That wall.”

  Ross jerked his head around. “Why?”

  “Just do it, you got nothing to lose if I’m wrong,” said Decker.

  Ross ordered one of his men to grab a sledgehammer and attack the mausoleum. The man hefted the tool and slung it against the wall. The marble cracked. He did it again, and then again. A chunk of the marble fell off. The man kept hitting it until revealed behind the marble was a large section of mortared bricks framed by the marble.

  Ross looked over at Decker. “What the hell is going on? They’re just damn bricks!”

  “Loosen one up and take it out.”

  The man did as Decker said, using a crowbar. When he finally pulled out a brick, he stumbled under its weight and nearly dropped it on the ground.

  “It’s heavy as hell,” said the man as he set it down in the dirt.

  “Gold usually is,” said Decker.

  Ross exclaimed, “Gold! You’re saying the whole mausoleum is made of gold?”

  “No, I think just that wall.” Decker pointed to the ground. “That’s why the crypt is only sunken on this side. That was the reason for the concrete foundation—to keep it stable because of the added weight of the gold. Only over the years it didn’t work out so well. The gold’s under the brick veneer.”

  “Check it,” Ross ordered another of his men.

  The man grabbed a chisel and hammer and worked away at the brick until he had chipped off part. He gasped and looked up. Ross held a work light over the brick. The veneer of brick was gone and underneath was a lustrous gold color.

  Decker said, “Now you can see the connection to Australia.”

  Ross glanced at him. “But what is this Kalgoorlie place?”

  “Kalgoorlie is the site of the Golden Mile, perhaps the greatest concentration of gold deposits on earth.”

  Lassiter said, “But how did you figure that out?”

  “I couldn’t think of another reason why Baron would have gone there. From all accounts, he just cared about making money, not taking vacations. He engaged a private ship, and brought back a fortune, probably in gold dust and nuggets. And then he turned it into gold bars covered by a brick overlay, using the molds he ordered from O’Reilly’s.”

  Ross looked at the large wall of bricks and did a swift calculation. “There must be hundreds and hundreds of gold bars in there.”

  “Must be,” agreed Decker.

  “But Decker, how did you work out it was in the wall of the mausoleum?” asked Lassiter. “Not just from the thing being partially sunk in the dirt.”

  “I knew something that you didn’t, and neither did Costa.” He pointed to Baron. “He let me in the mausoleum when we first came up here. Inside, I saw that a couple of walls were fouled with the stains that you would expect to see in an old burial vault. But on the interior that wall was all covered with white streaks just like it is on the outside. Over time brick and mortar will leach out white alkaline. You’ve probably seen it on brick chimneys and walls. It actually happened to my house back in Ohio, and the guy who repaired it told me about it. Now, marble is a porous material, so what’s underneath it will eventually end up on the outside of it. Knowing from the O’Reilly letter that Baron had purchased molds and clay, I knew he was going to make bricks. I also figured the brick was probably under the marble and that the white alkaline had eventually leached through. Coupled with the trip to Kalgoorlie, it made me think that concealed in the brick were the gold bars. And on the inside of the mausoleum I noticed that the interior was about a foot narrower on that side of the wall.” He rubbed his leg. “I smacked my leg on a crypt because it was jutting out farther than the ones on the other side.” He glanced at Ross. “Sort of like in your office. The extra space was to accommodate the brick. The other walls didn’t need that additional space. They were just solid marble.”

  “But why bother covering the gold with brick veneer if the bars were going to be inside a wall?” asked Ross.

  “Well, even though they were heavy, it would at least hide the gold bars from the workers who built the mausoleum, and if the marble ever got damaged it would just reveal bricks underneath and nothing more, just like you thought when your guy opened up the wall.”

  “But who killed the men and put them under the crypt?” asked Baron.

  Decker shrugged. “For all I know, Baron the First and his butler did. They could have put the bodies inside that chamber and then had somebody come in and close it up. In fact, in the letter to his son, Nigel said it was possible that he might end up in hell and he was sort of asking for God’s forgiveness. That might have been his guilt as a murderer coming out.”

  “What would a wall of gold be worth, do you think?” Ross asked.

  Decker quickly tallied the number of bricks on the wal
l. “Gold’s over thirteen hundred bucks an ounce now. A gold bar like that weighs over twelve kilos or about twenty-six pounds. So that one bar would be worth nearly six hundred thousand dollars.”

  Lassiter exclaimed, “Oh my God. Each bar?”

  “Yeah,” said Decker as he ran his gaze over the crypt wall. “I’d say you’re looking at maybe nine hundred bricks or so. Maybe more.”

  “So that means…” said Ross, obviously trying to do the math in his head.

  But John Baron answered. “That comes to over half a billion dollars in gold.”

  “And despite the old saying, Baron the First apparently wanted to take it all with him when he died,” quipped Decker. “That’s why I knew the gold wouldn’t be in the potting shed.”

  Lassiter said, “God, I knew old man Baron was rich, but damn.”

  Decker said, “Well, gold was a lot cheaper back then. Turned out to be a good investment.”

  Ross lifted his gaze from the gold bar to Decker. “So, do we have a deal?”

  “Actually, I don’t really see how that could happen,” said Decker. “You’ve killed at least ten people that I know of, including my partner’s brother-in-law, not to mention thousands more who’ve overdosed on the crap you’ve been selling. So I’m actually here to arrest you.”

  Ross looked at Decker like he was insane. “Okay. But you’re outgunned and in no position to negotiate. And I’ve got hostages you want back. All you’ve got is my old man, who I could give a damn about.”

  “No, you’ve got it all wrong, because you made a big mistake.”

  “What’s that?” said Ross warily.

  In answer, Decker used his free hand to take out his phone. It was on, and in speaker mode. “Assuming I’d be stupid enough to come here without any backup.”

  Chapter 73

  THE LIGHTS HIT them from all directions.

  Long guns slid over the brick walls of the burial ground as the men there stood on breach ladders.

  A voice on a PA called out, “Federal agents! Guns down! On the ground, hands behind your heads! Now!”

  A chopper emblazoned with DEA on the side suddenly roared over the tree line and cast its spotlight down on them. Assault rifles were trained from the bird on Ross and his group down below.