Free The Double Eagle by James Twining Page B

closer she saw that it had, in fact, the squat solidity of a small white mountain.
     
    Set in a wide compound, it was a two-story building, the upper story smaller than the lower one, its roof slightly tiered like the first few steps of a ziggurat. Steel-framed windows had been evenly set into the walls of both stories like embrasures in a castle wall. The only access came through a single gate in the fifteen-foot-high steel fence that encircled the compound, itself flanked by two armored sentry boxes. Once inside, a service road with neatly cut grass verges on each side ringed the building, which had four concrete bunkers surgically grafted onto each of its corners. A lone lawn mower patrolled the outer verge, its engine buzzing.

    “It was built in 1936 and the first gold shipments arrived in 1937,” Sheppard shouted over the whine of the cart’s electric motor, angrily gesticulating soldiers scattering in front of them like ninepins. Jennifer nodded. She couldn’t imagine it having ever actually been built. It seemed to have been there forever, as if it had erupted out of the solid bedrock millions of years ago and then been shaped and polished by tens of thousands of years of sun and rain and frost.

    “Usage peaked in 1941, when it held about six hundred fifty million ounces,” he continued. “Course these days, the main reserves are held at the Federal Reserve in New York, about five stories down. You should go and check it out sometime. I’m told the security there makes this place look like Disneyland.”

    She slowed the cart as it approached the gate and then accelerated hard again as they were waved through. The sentries saluted Sheppard, their arms snapping to attention at the side of their head, their hands stiff, thumb tucked in, seemingly unfazed by his clothes and the sight of Jennifer at the wheel of the careering golf cart.
     
    Up close, the building was even more formidable. The sheer mass of its granite walls seemed to weigh down on everything around it: a dark, dense, oppressive energy that compressed and squeezed and stifled. Jennifer found herself strangely conscious of the sound of her own breathing, of the sheer effort of moving, as if underwater.

    Surveillance cameras, positioned high on the granite walls like glass eyes on white steel stalks, covered every inch of the building’s walls. Twin floodlights perched atop black poles gazed out at the surrounding compound on all four sides. A huge Stars and Stripes snapped in the wind outside the main entrance. The golden seal of the Treasury Department that had been carved into the lintel glinted overhead like a small sun.
     
    “Stop here,” Sheppard shouted.

    Jennifer immediately threw the cart into a tight skid, the tires biting the tarmac as it slowed to a stop.

    “Wow,” Sheppard breathed. “I think you just set a new record.”

    “It sure is quick.” She jumped out and tossed the keys over to him. “What did you do? Change the gearing?”

    “Trade secret.” Sheppard smiled. “What d’ya think of the handling?”

    “Slight understeer. You want to tighten up the front left suspension.”

    “I’ll do that.” He winked at her. “Come on. Rigby will be waiting and boy, does he hate that.”

    Turning on his heel, Sheppard disappeared through the depository’s massive black doorway into the cold marbled darkness of the building.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN
    10:27 A.M.

    A s Sheppard had predicted, the officer in charge, Captain Rigby, was standing in the large entrance atrium ready to greet her. He gave her a brief handshake and what looked to Jennifer like a forced smile as Sheppard introduced them.
    He was tall, perhaps six foot four, his uniform immaculate, his hair clipped short, his eyes bristling with well-drilled efficiency. From his snatched glances, Jennifer could tell that he was struggling to reconcile Sheppard’s garish golfing outfit with his well-ordered world. She decided to keep it short and businesslike, sensing