The Gold Thief. Justin Fisher

       PROLOGUE

       United States Bullion Depository, Fort Knox, Kentucky

       3.32am

      eavy boots pound the tarmac, as officers bark their orders and sniffer dogs whine, blinded by the rows of steaming halogen floodlights. More and more arrive by the second. A never-ending procession of armoured cars and trucks loaded with soldiers. Above them, a dozen gunships, with their ground-shaking propellers, scan for signs. But there is nothing, only the appalling certainty that this is not a drill.

      Beyond their fences and walls and barricades, a president is being woken, and powerful men in charge of a nation’s currency, its digits and its dollar bills are meeting and shouting and blaming.

      Far below the chaos and the panic of the search, Shwartz and Greer sit in a bare grey cement room. It has no windows and no discernible features of any kind, except for the small surveillance camera in the far corner and its pulsating amber light.

      Private Marvin L. Shwartz, slumped in one of the room’s two plastic bucket-chairs, is in considerable trouble and the man he reports to, Staff Sergeant Greer, on the other side of the bare metal table, is losing his patience.

      “No, sir, I don’t remember. I have no idea how the vault was opened. I was walkin’ and then I wasn’t and the next thang I knew I was here, sir, with you, sir.”

      “Shwartz, you are in an inordinate amount of doo-doo and there ain’t a damn thing I can do to help you, till you start explaining how half of this nation’s gold reserve just up and vanishes in less than an hour!”

      The Bullion Depository at Fort Knox was protected not only by the United States Mint Police, but also by the 16^th Cavalry Regiment, the 19^th Engineer Battalion and the 3^rd Brigade Combat Team of the 1^st Infantry, along with their tanks, attack helicopters and artillery. A force totalling well over thirty thousand men. The actual gold, all four and a half thousand metric tonnes, lay behind a one-of-a-kind, twenty-one-inch thick door, proofed against drills, lasers and explosions, designed by the Mosler Safe Company. It was monitored by twenty-four-hour orbital satellite and ground-sweeping radar. Automated machine guns covered every possible entry point, and it was rumoured that the entire surrounding grasslands were carpeted with land mines, a rumour Greer had been careful to encourage.

      It was, to all intents and purposes, completely impregnable. That was, of course, until today – and on Private Shwartz’s watch.

      Greer’s earpiece crackled.

      He listened for a moment.

      “They’re here! Already? Are you serious?”

      It was at this point that Private Shwartz started to perspire.

      “Son, I’ve known you a long time and I think I know the answer but I gotta ask anyway: