Justin Fisher - The Gold Thief

First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins Children’s Books 2017

HarperCollins Children’s Books is a division of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd,

HarperCollins Publishers ,

1 London Bridge Street,

London SE1 9GF

The HarperCollins Children’s Books website address is

www.harpercollins.co.uk

Text copyright © Justin Fisher 2017

Cover illustration © Marcus Šumberac

Justin Fisher asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Source ISBN: 9780008124557

Ebook Edition © 2017 ISBN: 9780008124564

Version: 2017-03-06

For M and D

Forever

x

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins Children’s Books 2017 HarperCollins Children’s Books is a division of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd, HarperCollins Publishers , 1 London Bridge Street, London SE1 9GF The HarperCollins Children’s Books website address is www.harpercollins.co.uk Text copyright © Justin Fisher 2017 Cover illustration © Marcus Šumberac Justin Fisher asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work. A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins. Source ISBN: 9780008124557 Ebook Edition © 2017 ISBN: 9780008124564 Version: 2017-03-06

Dedication For M and D Forever x

Prologue

1. Christmas

2. Training

3. “ TheeRe yoU arRe.”

4. Holiday

5. Blinking Mice

6. Home

7. Barking Dogs

8. One-way Ticket

9. Hide Park

10. New Recruit

11. Farewell

12. A World of Trouble

13. Madame O

14. Project Mercury

15. Under the Same Sky

16. The Guardian

17. Darklings

18. A Trip to the Museum

19. The Shadow

20. Breaking and Entering

21. Vault X

22. The Mirror in the Museum

23. City of Iron

24. The Central Intelligence

25. Barbarossa

26. All is Forgiven

27. He’s Back!

28. The Circus Travels

29. The Lady Beaumont

30. The Voice

31. A Search for Answers

32. City of Paper

33. The Secret in the Stone

34. The Darkening King

35. The Book of Aatol

36. Sleep Tight

37. Little Devils

38. At-lan

39. Find the Way

40. Eyes and Ears

41. “Tele-pot”

42. Control

43. Anger in the Big Top

44. Whispers from the Iron City

45. Cat Fight

46. Ding! Ding! Round Two

47. Happy Christmas

48. Tick, Tick, Tick …

49. … Tick, Tick, Tick

50. Drip, Drip, Drip

51. Healing

52. A Night of Terrors

53. The Viceroy of St Albertsburg

54. City of Glass

55. Friendly Talks?

56. Cups and Saucers

57. Allies and Enemies

58. Most Wanted

59. Escape

60. Out of the Frying Pan

61. Concentrate

62. An Unlikely Pair

63. And Into the Fire

64. Suits

65. Carrion

66. George the Mighty

67. True Potential

68. All Wrong

69. Old Friends, New Nightmares

70. Help

71. Mum and Dad

72. Into the Breach

73. Charge!

74. The Engine

75. After

76. Turning the Dial to 10

77. The Voice

Epilogue

Acknowledgements

About the Author

Books by Justin Fisher

About the Publisher

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 thCavalry Regiment, the 19 thEngineer Battalion and the 3 rdBrigade Combat Team of the 1 stInfantry, 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.