Curious Minds

by Janet Evanovich

  “These shoe covers are made of magnesium. They might seem silly, but if you drop one of those bars on your foot you won’t be laughing.”

  Everyone slipped the covers onto their shoes and walked, with clinking Tin Man–like feet.

  Labels on each of the gold lockers had the names of the countries of ownership on them.

  THE FRENCH REPUBLIC

  THE KINGDOM OF SPAIN

  JAPAN

  THE DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF THE CONGO

  They appeared to be in no order. Some of them, like the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland or the Federal Republic of Germany, were piled high with gold and filled up two or three lockers. Others, like the Republic of Mauritius, had a more modest stash.

  The dolly was rolled up to a gigantic balance scale.

  “We have to weigh the gold because each gold bar is unique,” Varnet said. “We have to know precisely what we have here, before we can enter it into our records.”

  They loaded twelve gold bars at a time onto a metal disc at one end of the scale. Large counterbalances were placed on the opposite end, and the two ends of the scale shifted into place like a child’s teeter-totter.

  “This might seem old-fashioned,” Varnet said while the vault custodian carefully observed the needle moving in the middle of scale, “but it’s very accurate. We’ve been doing it this way, with this exact scale, since the vault first opened in 1924.”

  A red light flashed and a siren blared. Everyone froze. Varnet’s face turned ashen.

  “We’re under attack,” Varnet shouted. “Everyone out of the vault. We need to lock it down.”

  There was a mass exodus to the gate, and down the corridor to the door. The two custodians spun the wheels and the massive door slowly rotated shut.

  Varnet looked around. “We’re missing two people,” he said. “The woman isn’t here. And one other.”

  Five minutes before John Varnet announced that the building was under attack, Hans Grunwald’s town car pulled up to the front of Blane-Grunwald’s New York office. Hans and Werner got out and stood on the sidewalk while Werner shrugged into his suit jacket.

  “I hate these monthly meetings with the old man,” Werner said. “Sometimes I leave thinking he’s a genius, and sometimes I leave thinking he’s a bloodthirsty sociopath.”

  “Despotic fascist would be closer to the truth,” Hans said. “And we’re irrevocably tied to him.”

  Werner buttoned one button, took the briefcase the driver had been holding for him, and the classic cream-colored Rolls parked two cars in front of them exploded.

  The noise was deafening. BAROOOM! Black smoke poured out of the Rolls, clogged the street, and billowed into the sky.

  The three men froze for a beat.

  “What’s happening?” Werner asked.

  “Fucking terrorists,” Hans said. “They’re everywhere. You can’t throw a stick without hitting one of them.”

  —

  “Get off me!” Riley yelled at Emerson, struggling to be heard above the screaming siren. “What the heck are you doing?”

  “I’m restraining you,” Emerson said.

  Riley was flat on her back with Emerson on top of her.

  “You tripped me!” Riley said.

  “Actually I wrestled you to the ground,” Emerson said, “but I suppose that’s splitting hairs.”

  The siren stopped wailing, there was the sound of rushing air, and then phunnf. Total silence.

  “Omigod,” Riley said. “Did we just get locked in the vault? Tell me we’re not locked in.”

  She looked around. They were alone.

  “Crap on a cracker,” she said. “We’re going to die.”

  Emerson rolled off her and helped her to her feet. “You have nothing to worry about. It’s all part of my plan.”

  “I hate your plan.”

  “Nonsense. It’s a brilliant plan. We have five minutes until they figure out the explosion was harmless and come in after us.”

  “Explosion?”

  “The car. Why else do you suppose we left it parked on the street?”

  “You didn’t tell me there’d be an explosion.”

  “Are you sure I didn’t tell you?”

  “Yes! I would have remembered a plan to blow up a Rolls-Royce Silver Shadow.”

  “Well, at any rate, it was harmless. A lot of noise and a smoke bomb. I can’t take full credit for it. Vernon made the bomb, which wasn’t truly a bomb. It was more of a delivery system.”

  “That was your car!” Riley said. “Everyone will know you were responsible. You’ll be investigated as a terrorist.”

  “Vernon and I have the explanation all worked out. It was all a simple miscalculation. This is the advantage to being an eccentric. Everyone expects you to be eccentric.”

  Emerson crossed to the Republic of Germany locker and opened it.

  “They don’t have locks on the doors?” Riley asked.

  “Why should they? Who could get in here?”

  “We did.”

  “Yes, but we’re special.”

  Emerson took a small battery-operated drill from his pocket, selected a gold bar from the locker, and drilled into it.

  “Just as I suspected,” Emerson said, examining the bar. “As you can see, there’s a thin veneer of gold covering a block of tungsten.”

  “Crap.”

  “You say that a lot.”

  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.

  “When the alarm was raised and the vault was cleared, two foreign nationals were locked inside.” He referred to his notes. “They were from the Republic of Mauritius. Mauritius was making a deposit at the time.”

  “Do you have a description?”

  “A young man and a young woman. The young man was tall and lean. The young woman had red hair.”

  Hans and Werner turned from the assistant and looked down at the Silver Shadow. Werner blew out a sigh, and Hans tapped a number into his cellphone.

  “Thank you,” Werner said to his assistant. “That will be all.”

  “Detain the two Mauritius nationals who were involved in the security breach at the Federal Reserve,” Hans said into his phone. “My man will want to speak with them.”

  —

  The gold was weighed and stored, and everyone solemnly filed out of the vault and walked down the narrow corridor to the elevator. Doors opened onto a second elevator, and several men in gray suits got out. They pulled Varnet aside, whispered to him, and Varnet nodded his consent.

  Emerson and Riley were culled from the group, their rifles were confiscated, and they were ushered into the second elevator.

  “What is this about?” Riley asked.

  “Protocol,” one of the men said. “Standard security debriefing.”

  Riley saw him punch in a code and press the down button, and she fought back panic. They were already eighty feet below the surface. How much lower could they go?

  After a long descent, the door opened, and they were led through another long, narrow corridor. They reached a spot where the hallway split in two, and Riley was alarmed to see Emerson led down the left while she was led off to the right. She was shown into a room that was empty except for three straight-backed chairs and a small table with a couple disposable plastic cups and a pitcher of water on it.

  “Someone will be in shortly,” a suited man said. “Make yourself comfortable.”

  The door was closed and Riley was alone, the silence disturbed only by the beating of her heart. As a teenager, when she’d yearned for something more exciting than her north Texas town, this hadn’t been what she’d imagined.

  She sat in one of the chairs and waited. She looked at the water. No way was she drinking it. It could be laced with truth serum. Not that it would make a difference. She was going to spill her guts. She was going to tell them whatever the heck they wanted to hear. Whatever it took to get her out of the room, out of the building, out of New York…that’s what she was going to say.

  Anyway, she was just doing her job. Following Werner Grunwald’s orders. She was an innocent pawn. What was the worst they could do to her? A long list of hideous possibilities flew through her mind. Good thing she was sitting down, because suddenly she wasn’t feeling all that great. Her stomach was sick, and her heart was thumping in her chest.

  She was debating the wisdom of waiting as opposed to trying to find her way out when the door swung open and Rollo walked in.

  Riley jumped up. “You!” she said.

  “You’re looking pale,” Rollo said, closing the door. “Maybe you should have some water.”

  Riley looked at the water but didn’t make a move.

  “Not thirsty?” Rollo asked.

  Riley shook her head.

  Rollo poured himself a glass and drank it. “It’s excellent water,” he said. “Why didn’t you keep me informed as to your whereabouts?”

  “I assumed you were following me with the phone. And half the time I didn’t know my whereabouts until I was there. Besides, you’re the NSA spy. The NSA knows everything. They don’t need someone phoning information in. That’s so low-tech.”

  Yeah! Riley thought. Score one for Harvard Law. The best defense is always an aggressive offense. Especially when you might not have a very good defense.

  The door opened, and Werner Grunwald stepped into the room. William McCabe and Hans Grunwald were standing a step behind Werner. McCabe looked far more imposing in his custom-made suit than he had in his fishing gear at Fletcher’s Cove. Hans Grunwald in his uniform was even more impressive. Riley thought they were the nightmare version of the Scarecrow, the Tin Man, and the Cowardly Lion.

  “I don’t think we’ll be needing you just yet,” Werner said to Rollo. “You’re excused too, McCabe.”

  Rollo nodded subserviently and left the room. He was followed by an obviously sullen William McCabe.

  “Fancy meeting you here,” Werner said to Riley.

  “Just doing my job,” Riley said. “You told me to assist Emerson, and that’s what I’ve been doing.”

  “Understood,” Werner said. “You were working as an operative for Blane-Grunwald. You obviously are everything we hoped you would be.”

  Riley wasn’t so sure that was a good thing.

  “Emerson clearly went to a great deal of effort to get himself into the Federal Reserve vault,” Werner said. “Why was that so important to him?”

  “He wanted to look around,” Riley said. “He wanted to see his gold.”

  “And did he see his gold?”

  “No. He couldn’t find it.”

  “He couldn’t find it because he was in the wrong vault,” Werner said. “His gold is in the Blane-Grunwald vault. Surely he knew that.”

  “Sometimes it’s hard to tell what he knows,” Riley said.

  Even as she said it, she knew she was in trouble. She was being evasive with Werner because she didn’t like and didn’t trust any of the men who were in the room with her. In her heart she knew there was something bad happening to the world’s gold supply, and the Grunwalds were tied to it somehow. And there was a good possibility that people were getting killed over it. Bye-bye, dream job. Hello, unemployment.

  Werner reached for the water, thought twice about it, and withdrew his hand. “As you know,” he said to Riley, “our brother is about to take his seat on the Supreme Court next week. His seating will coincide with the Red Mass being held at the Cathedral of Saint Matthew.”

  “I’m not familiar with the Red Mass,” Riley said.

  “The Red Mass is celebrated annually by the Catholic Church to request guidance from the Holy Spirit for judges, attorneys, law school professors, students, and government officials. Needless to say, the last thing we need is a scandal disrupting the proceedings. It doesn’t matter if it’s a genuine scandal or a bogus rumor started by a conspiracy theory nut.”

  “Like Emerson.”

  “Exactly. Like Emerson.”

  “Have you spoken to him yet?” Riley asked.

  “Yes, and he didn’t have much to say. We were hoping you would have an explanation for his behavior. We know he set off the bomb in front of the building.”

  “I don’t know anything about a bomb, but we did park his car in front of Blane-Grunwald. Emerson said it was equipped with a special delivery system.”

  “Indeed,” Werner said. “And when Emerson was in the vault alone, he did nothing more than look for his gold?”

  “So far as I know. I wasn’t with him the entire time. I waited in front of the Germany locker.”

  Riley resisted the urge to scan the room for security cameras. Hard to believe they wouldn’t have any. Her hope was that she’d have a chance to escape before they reran the tape.

/>   “We found a drill on him. What did he expect to do with the drill?” Werner asked.

  Riley did a palms up. “Don’t know. He’s odd. And he doesn’t talk a lot. Maybe he was going to drill into his gold when he found it. He’s worried that his gold is fake.”

  Werner and Hans exchanged glances.

  “His family has a long history of crazies,” Werner said. “My father was very close to Emerson’s father, so we feel somewhat protective of Emerson. Still, there’s a limit to what we can tolerate.”

  “Sure,” Riley said. “I get that.”

  The Grunwalds stared at Riley for a beat, and Riley stared back.

  They’re trying to decide if I’m a team player, Riley thought. They’ve been using me to keep an eye on Emerson, but now they’re worried I might know too much. And they’re not sure where my loyalties lie. And it’s possible they’re trying to decide whether they need to kill me. And who knows if they’ve already killed Emerson?

  Werner took a step back. “I think our business is concluded here. Emerson won’t be needing your assistance any longer, Moonbeam. You can report to work as usual on Monday. Wait here and I’ll send someone to escort you out.”

  The three men left the room and the door clicked closed.

  Riley had no confidence that someone would escort her out. In her gut she felt like the escort would be Rollo, and he’d escort her out tortured and dead. She supposed there was a slim chance that Werner had decided she’d come over to the dark side and was usable, but she wasn’t going to count on it. She was going to sneak out like a thief in the night, and she wasn’t going to stop running until she was safe at home in Texas.

  She tried the door and was relieved to find it unlocked. She poked her head out and looked up and down the hall. No one there. She retraced her steps down the empty corridor and came to the intersection where she and Emerson had gone in separate directions. The elevator was in one direction. Emerson was in the other.

  Riley moved toward the elevator, got about twenty feet, and stopped. She couldn’t do it. She couldn’t leave Emerson behind.

  “Crap!”

  She put her head down and marched back to the other corridor. The first four doors she came to had labels. MECHANICAL ROOM, HOUSEKEEPING, WOMEN, MEN. There was a chunk of hall without doors and then there were doors without labels. Someone was whistling behind one of those doors. It sounded like the stuff Emerson listened to when he meditated.