The Devil Colony (Sigma Force 7)

She tilted away to speak. “What are you two getting at? What’s so important about this block?”

Gray drew her forward, pulling her against him. He took her fingers and had her feel the sheaf of arrows clutched by the eagle. “There are fourteen of them.”

She turned to him. She remembered the crude sketch of an early rendition of the Great Seal, done when Jefferson and his allies were contemplating the creation of an Indian colony. It also had fourteen arrows.

“This has to be it,” Gray stressed.

“But how can we be sure?” Monk asked. “Shouldn’t we look through the rest of the stacks?”

Gray shook his head. “There’s a way we can double-check. If this plate is hiding a map at its heart, we should be able to tell by merely comparing its weight against one of the others in this series. The map—if it’s inside—is made of a denser material, so the plate holding it will weigh slightly more.”

“What about those giant weight scales we saw coming in?” Seichan said.

“Probably too crude, but we can ask Waldorf to help. With all of this gold around here, they must have a precise scale for measurement.”

Gray lifted the plate himself, guarding the prize. Monk and Seichan worked together to haul a second one, something to use for comparison. They hobbled over to Waldorf and Lyndell.

Gray explained what they needed but offered no reason as to why, which clearly irritated the captain of the guard.

Lyndell stepped between Monk and Seichan. He relieved them of their burden, lifting the plate as if it were made of wood. “Let’s go. There’s a weights and measures office in the hall outside the vault. The sooner we get this done, the sooner you’re all out of here.”

Following him, they paraded back up to the first floor and out the vault doors. They’d taken only a few steps into the hall when a cordon of armed U.S. soldiers accosted them, pointing rifles at their group.

“What’s the meaning of this?” Lyndell asked.

One of the mint officers stepped forward and held out a slip of paper to the captain of the guard. His other hand pointed at Seichan. “Sir, we’ve just received word. That woman’s a known terrorist, wanted by the CIA and several other foreign governments.”

Seichan went cold all over. Her cover had been blown. It made no sense. Her credentials had been perfect. She eyed the security station in the lobby. According to Waldorf, the whole body scan had been newly installed. Could it have triggered some alert, sending out a three-dimensional facsimile of her face and physique that matched a database somewhere, prompting this alarm? No matter the cause, the end result was the same.

All eyes—and weapons—swung to point at her.

The officer continued, “We were ordered to take her and anyone with her into immediate custody. To shoot if they resisted.”

Lyndell turned on them, his face flashing with vindication. “I knew there was something wrong about you all.” He pointed to the gold plate in Gray’s arms. “Officer, return all the gold to the vault immediately. Seal it up tight.”

Seichan turned to Gray, silently apologizing.

Waldorf swung toward Gray, ready to take the treasure away. He removed a pistol from a shoulder holster under his suit jacket, looking disappointed in them. As he stepped forward, he lifted the weapon quickly to the back of Lyndell’s skull and fired.

The blast made them all jump and duck.

Lyndell’s plate crashed to the floor, cracking the marble tile.

It was only the beginning. On Waldorf’s signal, four soldiers at the back of the cordon—the same four who had transported them from the airport—opened fire on the other mint officers. Bodies dropped. It was over in seconds.

A cold-blooded slaughter.

“You bastards,” Gray said.

Monk slid over to check Lyndell for a pulse. He lowered his hand and eyed the dead mint officers with equal dismay.

“Grab that gold plate,” Waldorf ordered the soldiers. “Move the prisoners into your vehicle. Take them to the rendezvous point.” He then pointed to his own leg. “Do it.”

One of the soldiers adjusted his rifle and fired, clipping the man in the thigh. Waldorf twisted and fell with the impact, letting out nothing more than a loud oof.

Seichan understood. They were making it look like Gray’s group had attacked the others and fled. Even the delay at the airport now made sense. She imagined the original escort team was dead in some ditch, replaced by these impostors. She stared over at Waldorf. She knew that the Guild had agents in all manner of secure facilities. How long had it taken Waldorf to snake his way into this position of power? Had the Guild been using the facility as their own personal bank?

Or were their doings more diabolical than that? Had the Guild always suspected something important was hidden at Fort Knox? They just couldn’t find it—until Sigma sniffed out the information for them.

We were used, she realized.

The Guild must have taken full advantage of the emergency to employ Gray’s unique talents and puzzle-solving abilities to do their work for them.

And now the enemy was preparing to run off with the prize.

Unarmed, she and the others could offer no resistance as one of the soldiers grabbed the plate from Gray. Three others kept their weapons pointed, ready to fire if there was any sign of a threat.

The soldiers marched them toward the entrance.

Seichan was under no delusions. She had betrayed the Guild.

Now they would exact their revenge.

Chapter 27

May 31, 6:11 P.M.

Arizona desert

Kai clung to the rope with both hands as the sled under her was lowered from the hovering helicopter. Dust billowed up from below; winds from the roaring rotors whipped all around. She stared down as the top of the mesa rose up toward her, a dizzying view made worse by desert thermal gusts buffeting the sling.

“We’re almost there,” Jordan said.

He shared the aluminum swing with her. Both his eyes were blackened from the gun butt to his face, but he seemed oblivious to the pain. He kept one hand on the rope, too, but he had his other arm around her shoulders. She had never been a fan of heights—and was even less so now.

But at last, soldiers on the ground caught their sled and roughly unloaded them. Kai stood on shaky legs, glad to find Jordan’s arm still around her. At gunpoint, they were led to the chute she’d seen on the video screen earlier. It was a steep descent, but they had no choice.

Reaching the bottom of the chasm revealed a transformed space. A score of soldiers bustled about. Equipment and crates, several broken open, littered the space. Somewhere a drill was grinding into stone. She couldn’t figure out what was happening. In the middle of the chaos, she spotted a familiar figure.