“Police,” Pollock announced, and for a fraction of a second Luckman feared the man already knew who was in here.
A panel of the bookcase swung free. It was about a metre high and half a metre across. Luckman shone his torch through the gap. There was enough room for them both.
“In there,” he ordered.
Luckman switched off the desk lamp. The click sounded deafening, and it occurred to him then that the light must surely have been visible in the hallway under the door to the study. He swung the brass hook plate back into place. He heard the policemen running toward the study as he followed Mel into the secret compartment.
There was more room than he had expected. A handle on the inside of the secret panel allowed him to pull it back in place. He maintained pressure on the door until he heard a click.
They were trapped like rats but out of harm’s way for the moment. As Luckman slowly stood up, half expecting to bump his head at any moment, a small video screen flickered to life, offering enough illumination to outline the dimensions of their cage. Neither of them dared speak – there was no way of knowing if the chamber was soundproof.
The screen flared white and then revealed a CCTV image of Paulson’s office. Pollock and the uniform were in the study and waving torches around the room, noting the books all over the floor.
“Look,” Pollock said, pointing at the window. “There’s your entry and exit point. Probably kids. Just the same we better leave a car out the front.”
Luckman sighed in relief as they began to search the other rooms of the house. He became aware another light had switched on behind them. He turned to discover they were on a small metal landing from which a flight of metal stairs descended at least two storeys underground. Bunker lights illuminated the stairs at regular intervals.
“Lead on,” she suggested.
“Slowly and quietly,” he told her.
After about a dozen steps Luckman tapped lightly on the walls of the stairwell with his knuckle. They were solid steel, had to be at least a centimetre thick. Blast proof. It felt like they were inside a massive gun barrel.
“I can’t get those words out of my head,” Mel whispered.
“What words?” Luckman asked her.
“Alpha and Omega. It’s like a mantra.”
“Don’t knock it – you saved our arses back there.”
At the bottom of the stairwell they discovered a large metal door. It was, of course, locked. But there was a keypad beside the door.
“Alpha and Omega,” Mel repeated.
“Not again, surely?” he queried.
She threw up her hands. “That’s all I’ve got.”
“It can’t be the same combination or there’d be no point in having a second key lock.” He stared in turn at Mel and then back at the lock, trying to puzzle it out. “First and last, first and last. Or first is last. What if we reverse the numbers?”
She shrugged and nodded. “Give it a go.”
“The question is, do I type the entire sequence in reverse, or just swap the order of the keys?”
“We could try both.”
“Why take the risk? What if this door only gives you one chance? The first combo was 1-0-1-3-1-9. So the reverse would be…” he paused to think about it.
“9-1-3-1-0-1” she told him.
“But if I swap the keys around, then it’s 3-1-9-1-0-1.”
They pondered the options. The answer came to both of them at the same time.
“Swap the keys.”
He typed 3-1-9-1-0-1 and they heard a click.
It felt remarkably like they were unlocking a bank vault. The door was a thick slab of hardened steel. Luckman couldn’t imagine how something on this scale had been installed without the whole town knowing about it. But what he saw as lights began to flicker to life in the room beyond took his breath away.
Bathed in a brilliant yellowish hue they crossed through a small concrete tube that opened into a glimmering cavern. It felt as if they were entering Fort Knox – four triangular walls of gold bricks were arranged in courses and sloped evenly to a central apex several metres above their heads.
“A golden pyramid,” Mel realised in astonishment.
A glass floor protected the base of the pyramid, which was likewise made of gold but layered in a fishbone grid. It meant no-one entering the vault had to set foot on the precious metal below. In the centre of the glass floor was a strange-looking metal chair with a red cushioned headrest. Nearby in one corner there was a small desk supporting a computer screen and keyboard, both wireless.
“This can’t be real gold – can it?” he wondered. He touched one of the gold bars. Certainly metallic. He retrieved his Swiss Army knife from a pocket and scraped its blade along the side of one of the bars. It shaved off a sliver of pure gold. Underneath the sliver was still gold.
“It’s real,” he decided.
“There’s got to be a couple of thousand gold bars here,” Mel cried in amazement.
“What would you say it’s worth – 50, 100 million?”
“Mate, try billions,” she said. “Each one of those bars weighs about 12 kilos. That’s more than 400 ounces per brick. What was the gold price before the shit hit the fan?”
“I believe it was about 45 thousand dollars a kilogram,” said Luckman.
“And we’ve just had a global calamity,” she added. “Gold is the only safe haven in an economic storm, so the price is rising. Let’s be conservative and say the price is 50 thousand now. That means each one of these bricks is worth over 600 thousand dollars.”
“So now we know why the good Father needed a vault. This can’t all be his money, can it?”
“It must belong to the church,” Mel decided.
“Why would the Catholic Church stash billions in gold bullion in the middle of nowhere?”
“To prepare for the end of the world?” she suggested.
“It’s possible I suppose,” he admitted. “Fat lot of good it does anyone now. You can’t eat the stuff.”
She grinned at him. “Hopi Indian proverb?”
“Cree actually. People always get those two mixed up.”
He began to examine the bizarre chair bolted to the glass floor. He’d never seen anything like it before. It looked like some sort of Tudor torture device. Its legs were encased in tight coils of thick copper. The well-worn cane seat was in a fibre rush pattern, its square base divided into four triangles. Wooden arm rests projected over the seat and the legs from the arched seat back, into which another fibre as thick as an electrical cord had been woven in a tight spiral. This was fitted inside a thick metal tubular frame. The fibre was molded inside the frame. Around the exterior of the arched chair back a ruby red cushion ran from the seat to the top of the arch, gradually widening into a plush neck support at the top.
It looked so comfortable he decided to test it out but as he laid his head back on the pillow he quickly regretted the move. He leapt out of the chair as if he’d been jabbed with a cattle prod.
“What happened?” she yelled in shock.
“It was doing something to my head.”
He peered underneath it like a mechanic checking for oil leaks.
“There’s some sort of electronic array set up under here. But there are no wires. It’s not hooked up to anything.”
“Just like the computer,” she observed.
“What the hell is it?” he wondered, still staring at the chair.
“There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy,” said Mel.
“I’m fairly certain this wasn’t what Shakespeare had in mind.”
Thirty-One
He turned his attention to the only thing that might offer them a clue – the computer screen. There was a power-up button on the keyboard. The screen immediately came to life.