Карин Слотер: Cleaning the Gold

Will hadn't had time to study any Army jargon, so he was clueless except for the last bit, which seemed accurate.

“Then—” A page was turned in the file. Lukather's finger trailed down Jack Wolfe's background check. “Two DUIs. Bad divorce. Bad credit. What makes you think I should pay you fifteen dollars an hour and put you up in one of my hotels for the privilege of working on my base for the next few days?”

Will shrugged with one shoulder in the same eat-shit way perps did when he was interrogating them. “Up to you.”

Baldani shifted on his feet, clearly annoyed.

Lukather looked up from the paperwork. Maybe she gave Will credit for honesty, because she didn't tell him to get the hell out of her office. “Do you know what the job is?”

“Janitorial?” Will shrugged again, solely to piss off Baldani. “The posting mentioned something about cleaning.”

She said, “Not your usual butts and elbows. What do you know about gold?”

Another shrug. “I could use some.”

“All right, shitbrain.” Baldani had reached his limit. “Check the attitude. You're talking to a full bird colonel.”

Will turned his chin two degrees, ignoring him, but not ignoring him.

Baldani's fists clenched, which was stupid because the minute he raised his arms, Will could punch the guy's nutsac into his asshole.

“That's enough, boys.” Lukather closed Jack Wolfe's file. The employment decision had been made, but she didn't choose to share it. Instead, she told Will, “Gold is a naturally occurring chemical element with the atomic number 79. It is classed as a soft metal, so it can easily be scratched or damaged. The oil on your hands can corrode or tarnish the finish, diminishing the value. When handling, it's recommended that you wear lint-free, cotton gloves. Masks are required because the moisture from your breath or saliva can leave spots that can't be removed.”

Will waited for the rest of the speech.

“Executive Order 6102, issued by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1933, outlawed the private ownership of gold coins, bullion and gold certificates, which forced citizens to sell those items to the Federal Reserve. In 1936, the Treasury Department began construction of the Gold Vault, eventually transferring via a heavily armored train convoy the majority of the gold reserves to our facility. We currently have deep-stored in sealed vaults north of 147.3 million troy ounces, primarily in the form of 12.4-kilogram gold bars that range from .900 to .999 purity. The rest of the nation's reserve is held by West Point and Denver.”

Will raised his eat-shit shoulder again. “And?”

“By order of Congress, the vaults are examined annually by the Treasury Department's Office of the Inspector General. Eyeballs only. It would take months to check the serial numbers of each individual gold bar against the inventory. Which is what brings us to the here and now, Captain Wolfe. TS/Ultra 42-12 under the 1978 Compartmentalization of Treasury's Governing Acts requires that each item of gold be manually inspected every ten years. We are at our current ten-year mark in that process, and we find ourselves with days to go and one man down.”

Will retired the shoulder shrug. He rubbed his jaw, trying to tamp down the invisible teenage Will that was jumping around like a meth-head on a pogo stick. He had hoped that the undercover job could take him inside the facility, but this was inside the vaults. With the gold. They were talking Oddjob territory.

He had to get clarification. “You want me to handle the gold?”

“You're basically a maid,” Baldani said. “You clean the gold. That's what the Act really stands for. CTG. Cleaning the gold.”

Lukather supplied, “It takes us exactly nine months to get through the full inventory, and I happen to be ahead of schedule right now, which is a very good thing. We work twenty-four-seven, with two teams of six in the daylight hours, two more teams of six from balls to eight. For security reasons, no team gets more than two weeks inside the vaults, and we use outside personnel—preferably former Army—so no one on base gets too familiar with the comings and goings. As I said, we're damn close to the finish line, but day shift needs another cog in the machine.”

Will considered her words. She hadn't actually offered him the job, but she'd read him into an ultra-top-secret program, which was as good as. Now would not be the time to appear too eager. “What does it take?”

“Hard work,” Baldani said, managing to convey with his snarly tone that he doubted Will had it in him.

Lukather said, “Dave's not wrong. The glamor wears off in half an hour. From then on, it's back-breaking work. You're obviously still in fighting shape, Wolfe. Lost your yut-cut, but I still see the soldier in you.” She sat back in her chair, openly appraising him. “What're you, six-four, two-ten?”

Will had been one-eighty-five since high school, but he nodded.

“Dave thinks you're trouble, but I like a little bit of trouble.” She grinned openly at Will. “Besides, the last guy Dave recommended bugged out when he broke his first sweat. Are you that kind of pussy, Captain?”

Will shook his head. “I don't have a lot of quit in me.”

“I bet you don't.” She winked away something in her eye. “I like having a hard-working man underneath me. Are you a hard, working man, Wolfe?”

Will wasn't a stranger to manual labor. “I get the job done.”

“I bet you do, soldier.” She gave a deep, throaty laugh. “Baldani, slot him in. Hooah.”

Baldani looked like he wanted to argue, but Lukather looked like the kind of woman you couldn't argue with, and not just because of the birds on her shoulders.

Baldani grumbled, “Let's go, asswipe.”

The asswipe earned Baldani the pleasure of watching Will take his time getting out of the chair. To rub it in, he made a show of ducking under the low ceiling, mostly because Baldani had a foot of clearance. The major looked up at Will with a specific kind of fury in his eyes. Small Man's Hysteria, Will's girlfriend called it, and she should know because she was taller than Baldani, too.

In the hallway, the major didn't walk so much as toss his boots out in front of him. He was fit for a tubby guy, probably spending equal amounts of time at the bar and the gym. His hair was cut Beetle Bailey tight to his head, which didn't do a lot to hide the bald spot at the crown. Baldani caught Will's eyes on the sunburned patch of scalp. He covered it with his hand, pretending to wipe away sweat. He threw a look at Will, then threw it again when Will chuckled.

“Don't think for a second Lukather's sweet on you,” Baldani warned. “She'd sit on a door knob if it pinched her nipple.”

Will decided to really fuck with the guy. “Who wouldn't?”

Outside, the sun sliced into his face like a razor. Will could hear gunfire in the distance. Then an explosion. Then more gunfire, which really made him wish he had a gun and/or something to blow up.

There was a reason Will was a cop.

Baldani climbed into a blue Impala with mud stalactites hanging from the undercarriage. The air conditioning was set on stun by the time Will got in. He experienced that familiar sensation of sweat dripping down his back while his nose ran from the cold. Baldani swung the car around. The radio was already up loud, but Baldani twisted the knob higher because nothing proved you were a badass like blowing out a subwoofer with “Smells Like Teen Spirit”.

Will summoned his Wikipedia knowledge as the car squealed out of the parking lot. The post sprawled over 100,000 acres spanning three different counties. Nearly 13,000 people lived here with thousands more rotating in for training or support. There were hotels and fast-food restaurants and minimalls and a bowling alley and a medical complex and family housing and K-12 schools. For every 100 females over the age of eighteen, there were 190.3 males, which might explain why Baldani was wound so tight.