The basement of the Federal Reserve smelled of mold and cold ambition.
Jason dropped from the coal chute, landing in a pile of anthracite dust. O'Malley landed beside him with a heavy thud, his submachine gun already up and sweeping the darkness.
"Clear," the Irishman whispered.
The rest of the team dropped down—Sarah and the four mercenaries. They looked like ghosts covered in soot.
"The vault should be through the boiler room," Jason whispered.
They moved past the silent, hulking furnaces. The building above them was quiet, but it was a heavy silence. The kind that waits to scream.
They reached the main corridor. At the end stood the vault door.
It was a masterpiece of industrial art. A massive circle of Krupp steel, twelve feet in diameter, with a combination wheel the size of a shield.
"Krupp Steel," Jason muttered, running a hand over the cold metal. "German engineering. Nearly indestructible."
"Do we have the code?" Sarah asked, shining a dim flashlight on the dial.
Jason instinctively reached for his pocket. He patted his chest.
Nothing.
The iPhone was at the bottom of the Potomac.
"No code," Jason said, feeling the phantom limb of his lost technology. "And no drill. The steel is too hard."
"So we knock?" O'Malley asked sarcastically.
"We use chemistry," Jason said. He turned to the mercenaries. "Bring the fire extinguishers. All of them."
The mercs raided the hallway brackets. They returned with six heavy red canisters.
"Carbon Dioxide," Jason explained. "Compressed gas. When released rapidly, it drops the temperature to minus 70 degrees Celsius."
"We freeze it?" Sarah asked.
"Steel is tough," Jason said, taking a canister. "But cold steel is brittle. Aim for the hinges."
They lined up.
"Now!"
HISSSS!
Six plumes of white, freezing fog blasted the massive steel hinges on the right side of the door. The metal groaned. Ice crystals formed instantly, coating the black steel in a layer of frost.
"Keep pouring!" Jason yelled over the noise. "Until it screams!"
The hinges popped and cracked as the metal contracted.
"O'Malley!" Jason shouted. " The sledgehammer!"
The big Irishman stepped forward. He swung a heavy iron sledgehammer in a wide arc.
"Open sesame!"
CLANG!
The sound was like a gunshot in a cathedral.
The top hinge shattered. Chunks of frozen steel flew across the room like shrapnel.
"Again!"
CLANG!
The bottom hinge gave way.
The massive door groaned. Without the hinges, ten tons of steel leaned outward.
"Back!" Jason yelled.
They scrambled away.
The door fell forward. It hit the concrete floor with a sound that shook the building's foundation. Dust billowed up.
Silence returned.
Jason walked through the dust cloud into the vault.
He stopped.
Gold.
Floor-to-ceiling stacks of gold bars. The dim light of the flashlights reflected off the yellow metal, creating a warm, seductive glow in the cold room.
"Mother of God," O'Malley breathed. "There must be forty tons."
"The Dead Dollar," Jason said, picking up a heavy bar. It was cold and smooth. "This is the anchor. This is how we survive."
"Load the carts!" Jason ordered, snapping out of the trance. "We have five minutes before the noise brings the Knights."
They grabbed the heavy wheeled carts used for moving bullion. They began stacking the bars, sweating despite the cold.
CRACK-THUMP.
A sound from the stairwell. Boots on concrete.
"Contact!" O'Malley yelled, spinning around.
The door to the boiler room kicked open.
Blue uniforms. Bayonets.
"Halt in the name of the Trust!" a voice screamed.
"Light 'em up!" Jason roared.
TAT-TAT-TAT-TAT-TAT!
The Thompson submachine guns roared. The noise in the enclosed basement was deafening. Brass casings rained onto the concrete.
The first wave of Knights fell, their blue uniforms torn apart. But more were coming down the stairs.
"Push!" Jason yelled, throwing his shoulder against a cart loaded with gold. "Move!"
They ran. Pushing the heavy carts down the hallway, firing blindly behind them.
They burst out the back delivery doors into the alley. The cold ocean air hit them.
"To the pier!" Sarah screamed.
They sprinted down the boardwalk, shoving the carts over the rough planks. Bullets chipped the wood around their feet.
The Icarus loomed above them in the fog, its spotlight searching.
"Lower the winch!" Jason screamed into his headset.
The cargo container was still sitting on the end of the Steel Pier.
They shoved the carts into the container. Gold bars spilled onto the floor.
"Get in! Get in!"
Jason dove into the container last as bullets sparked off the metal sides.
"Lift us!" Jason yelled.
The cable went taut. The container lifted six inches... and stopped.
The winch motor whined. A high-pitched screech of straining gears.
"What's happening?" Jason shouted.
"It's too heavy!" Hughes screamed over the radio. "The physics don't work! The motor is burning out! Cut the weight!"
Jason looked at the gold. The floor of the container was covered in bars.
He looked out the door.
The mob of Luddites was running down the pier from the beach. The Knights were firing from the boardwalk. They were trapped in a metal box ten feet in the air.
"We can't leave it!" O'Malley yelled. "That's our payroll!"
"You want to be rich and dead?" Jason screamed. "Or poor and alive?"
He grabbed a stack of gold bars.
"Dump it!"
The mercenaries hesitated.
Jason kicked a pile of gold out the open door.
SPLASH. SPLASH.
Millions of dollars in 1920 value hit the dark water.
"Do it!" Sarah yelled, grabbing bars and throwing them.
The men joined in. Throwing wealth into the ocean. It was madness. It was survival.
With half the weight gone, the container lurched upward.
"We're rising!" Hughes called.
The container swung wildly in the wind as it ascended. Below them, the Knights fired their rifles, but the bullets fell short. The Luddites screamed and shook their axes at the sky.
Jason collapsed onto the remaining pile of gold. He was panting. He looked at the bars they had saved. Maybe twenty tons. Still a fortune.
They rose into the belly of the Icarus. The bay doors clamped shut.
Silence.
Jason lay on the cold metal floor of the container. He started to laugh.
"We did it," O'Malley said, wiping blood from a graze on his cheek. "We actually did it."
Jason stood up. He walked out of the container onto the hangar deck.
The crew was cheering. They saw the gold. They saw the food it would buy.
Jason didn't cheer. He walked to the command deck.
He needed a drink.
He poured a glass of stale water from a pitcher.
The radio console lit up.
Not the standard frequency. A high-band channel.
Jason frowned. "Sparks? Who is that?"
"Unknown signal, sir," the operator said. "It's encrypted. German encoding."
Jason picked up the headset.
"This is Prentice," he said.
A voice crackled through the speakers. A distinct, sharp Austrian accent.
"Herr Prentice," the voice said. "I watched your escape. Very... inefficient."
Jason froze. He knew that voice. He had heard it in history documentaries.
"Who is this?" Jason asked, though he already knew.
"I am a friend of order," the voice said. "You have gold, Herr Prentice. I have grain. Lots of grain. The Midwest is very fertile this year."
"Hitler," Jason whispered.
"I do not want your money," the voice continued, ignoring the name. "Gold is heavy. I want something lighter."
"What do you want?"
"The schematics," Hitler said. "For the weapon you used on Washington. The Logic Bomb."
Jason felt the blood drain from his face.
"The device is destroyed," Jason lied.
"The device, yes," Hitler agreed. "But the idea? The idea lives in your head. Bring the idea to Chicago. And I will feed your ship."
Click.
The line went dead.
Jason stared at the radio.
"Who was that?" Sarah asked, stepping onto the bridge.
Jason looked at the map on the wall. The Midwest was labeled "Disputed Territory."
"I thought I broke the world to save it," Jason whispered.
He looked at his hands. They were still stained with the dust from the coal chute.
"I didn't open a vault, Sarah," Jason said. "I opened Pandora's Box. Every warlord in America saw D.C. fall. And now they all want the remote control."
He turned to the window. The sun was rising over the Atlantic. It was red. Blood red.
"Set a course for Chicago," Jason ordered. "We have a date with the devil."