The Survivalist (National Treasure)

Foreword

The United States Bullion Depository is a heavily fortified vault located within Kentucky’s Fort Knox Army post. It is reported to contain 4,582 metric tons of gold, roughly 2.3 percent of all the gold refined throughout human history. The Gold Vault came into being as a result of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Executive Order 6102, which required that private citizens sell their gold to the Federal Reserve. This controversial act was done largely to help pull the nation out of the Great Depression by increasing its allowable credit, something that was at the time tied to its gold reserves.

To safely store the influx of gold, the Treasury Department began construction of the Depository in 1936. The project required 16,000 cubic feet of granite, 4,200 cubic yards of concrete, and 1,400 tons of steel, and was completed in December of that same year for a mere $560,000 (roughly $10 million, when adjusted for inflation). Gold shipments began to arrive the very next month, with some 500 rail cars used to transport the precious metal.

Specifics of the fortress-like structure remain a closely guarded secret. What is known is that the Gold Vault is a two-story building with a one-story basement. The walls, floor, and ceiling are constructed of poured concrete and steel, with thick slabs of granite acting as the outermost barrier. The vault door itself is twenty-one inches thick and weighs some twenty-two tons. The Depository is encircled by fences and guarded by the Mint Police. In addition, there are alarms, video surveillance, and razor wire. Some also claim that minefields, surface-to-air missiles, poison gas traps, flooded chambers, and even pop-up machine guns protect the fortress, although such reports have never been officially confirmed.

Throughout the years, the Depository has been the home of more than just the nation’s gold deposits. During World War II, it housed the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, along with other priceless documents and relics from Western history, including the Crown of St. Stephen and the Magna Carta. It also held a large stockpile of morphine and opium to treat victims, should the US fall victim to a nuclear attack.

Unofficial visitors have never been allowed into the Depository, except for a single opening in 1974 when more than one hundred journalists and members of Congress were escorted inside. This was done as a rebuttal to longstanding doubts about whether the nation’s wealth remained intact. By all accounts, the gold was still there. Even so, conspiracy theorists have never been shy about reigniting new claims that the treasure has since been plundered.

Chapter 1

Being cooped up day and night on the USS John F. Kennedy had taken its toll on General Carr. More often than not, he felt like he was as much a prisoner as he was the New Colony’s Chief of Security. In an effort to maintain his sanity, he made it a point to leave the vessel at least twice a day as a simple reminder that the world consisted of more than lifeless steel and haze gray paint.

His early morning jog took him around a three-mile rectangular loop along the interior of Norfolk Naval Station. The route was far from scenic, the major attractions being an abandoned bowling alley, a mini mart, and several large fuel storage tanks now covered in anti-government graffiti. Nevertheless, it provided a sense of openness that the Kennedy flatly denied.

It had often been said that prostitution was the world’s oldest occupation. Carr wasn’t so sure. Good old-fashioned panhandling seemed to be right up there with professional fornication. Regardless of the state of the world, there were always those who sought to survive on the small scraps that others were willing to share. Sometimes they succeeded, thrived even; most of the time they went to bed cold and hungry.

Even at six in the morning, two bums had already staked out their locations. One sat with his back pressed against a stop sign, a bottle of Jim Beam clutched in both hands as surely as a businessman might cling to a cup of hot coffee. The other cowed in a nearby doorway like Quasimodo hoping to escape the judgmental eyes of his audience.

Carr’s pace slowed as he approached the men. He did this both as an unspoken courtesy so as not to startle them as well as a result of a lifetime of being hardwired not to charge headfirst into an uncertain situation. Both men looked away as if too ashamed to meet his eyes. That struck Carr as particularly odd, because a beggar who doesn’t make eye contact is a beggar who doesn’t eat.

He slowed even further, studying the man on the ground. Beam’s clothes were wrinkled and his face dirty, yet he barely had a day’s worth of stubble dotting his chin. Why would a bum take the time to shave but choose not to wash the dirt from his face?

The general’s eyes cut to Quasimodo. He was big man, standing hunched in the shadow of the open doorway with his hands tucked inside an old Army jacket. Even though he appeared to be shrinking away from the opening, there remained a noticeable tightness to his frame, as if he were about to suddenly spring out and shout Bazinga!

General Carr skidded to a stop across a thin layer of sand covering the sidewalk. He bent at the waist, his hands hanging down as his chest heaved in and out from the exertion of the run. Something felt wrong, and no amount of not wanting it to be was going to change that.

Realizing that Carr wasn’t going to pass between them, both men turned and looked in his direction. Theirs were not the eyes of hungry men hoping for a handout, but of cold professionals waiting on their mark.

Carr glanced back over his shoulder, wondering if he could outrun them. While he was fit for sixty-two years of age, both men were easily thirty years his junior, and that, of course, assumed that they didn’t just shoot him in the back.

Beam pushed up to his feet, tossing the bottle into the gutter at Carr’s feet. It shattered into thick shards, the golden liquid draining out. Something was definitely wrong—no man in his right mind would waste a bottle of Kentucky Straight Bourbon.

General Kent Carr? he said, sounding more like a military officer than a bum.

Before Carr could answer, Quasimodo stepped out from the doorway, one hand still tucked inside his thick green jacket.

It’s him, he said in a gravelly voice.

Beam inched closer, studying Carr’s face.

I like to be sure.

What do you want? asked Carr.

Neither man answered, nor did they need to. When a pair of thugs sat waiting for you first thing in the morning, it meant that you were either to be the victim of a beating, a kidnapping, or a murder. There were no lucky winning lottery tickets in such matters.

Quasimodo provided a deadly clarity to the matter when he slid his hand out from his jacket. In it, he held a curved knife that resembled the claw of a Velociraptor. Having spent time in Southeast Asia, Carr recognized it as a karambit, a weapon that had originated in Sumatra as an agricultural tool. The curved blade was effective at slashing and hooking, and thanks to a small finger guard on one end of the handle, was damn near impossible to take away from an attacker.

I’m afraid this isn’t your day, General.

Carr once again took measure of his options. Running would likely lead to a quick tackle and slicing of his throat. Strike that one off the list. That left but two choices, negotiate or fight, either of which, he thought, was more likely to succeed if he had a weapon in hand.

Bending over like he was picking up a lucky penny, Carr retrieved the neck of the broken bottle. While not quite up to the standards of a good Ka-Bar, it was nevertheless thick and sharp.

I’m betting it won’t be your finest day either, he growled.

Beam slipped on a pair of weighty brass knuckles that resembled the ones carried by Abraham Lincoln’s bodyguards.

That broken bottle isn’t going to save you, old man.

Probably not, Carr said, weighing it in his hand. But I didn’t think you’d allow me to return home for my .45.

Beam grinned. You’ve got a sense of humor. I like that.

With nothing left to say, the two men separated and began circling him. They moved in practiced unison, an unsettling indication that this was something they had done many times before.

Carr turned with them, doing his best to keep both men in his peripheral vision.

Given that I’m not likely to walk away from this, I’d at least like to know what I’ve done to offend you.

It’s not what you’ve done, said Beam. It’s what you know.

What is it you think I know?

Ask your marshal friend.

Quasimodo growled and cut his eyes over at Beam.

Anyone ever tell you that you got a big mouth?

He shrugged. What can I say? I’m a people person.

It took Carr only a moment to put together the pieces. Deputy Marshal Raines had radioed two days earlier, explaining why he had turned against his team. His actions had stemmed from a discovery that The Farm was using infected humans in the manufacture of their food bars. After hearing the claim, Carr had made an appointment to discuss it with Governor Stinson. Unfortunately, Stinson had been busy with other matters, and that meeting had yet to occur. These men were here to see that it never did.

You’re from The Farm, he muttered. Oliver Locke sent you to—

Quasimodo lunged forward, flicking the karambit like the tongue of a snake. Carr leaned away, but he wasn’t quite fast enough to escape the blade. A fiery pain flooded his senses, followed by warm blood racing down the back of his left arm.

He winced and glanced down at the wound. The cut was only a few inches long, but it went nearly all the way to the bone.

Maybe we can work something out, Carr said, stalling for time.

Now what kind of soldiers would we be if we let ourselves get talked out of our mission? Beam stepped closer and fired a quick jab with the knuckles, the heavy brass striking him in the ribs.

General Carr coughed in pain, stepping back and pushing the man away as he struggled to pull in his next breath.

Come now. Every man has his price. All we need to do is figure out yours. I bet—

Quasimodo feinted with his left hand, and when Carr went for it, he swung the knife overhead like a meat cleaver coming down on the butcher’s block. The curved blade plunged into the general’s shoulder, hooking around his collarbone. Carr screamed in agony and shoved the broken bottle into Quasimodo’s face, shards of razor-sharp glass stabbing into the man’s eye and cheek.

Quasimodo stepped back, batting the bottle away as he jerked violently on the knife. The blade refused to pull free, and Carr stumbled toward him. The pain of the knife cutting against flesh and bone was unimaginable, and the general lunged forward, repeatedly stabbing the bottle into Quasimodo’s throat. On the third strike, the bottle broke, and Carr’s hand slid across the shattered glass, slicing several fingers.

Even so, the damage was done. Quasimodo fell back, choking, as he tried to stem the flow of blood pumping from the jagged wound along his throat.

Before Carr could take advantage of his retreat, Beam shuffled in and began hammering him in the back and kidneys. Carr’s bladder let go, and one of his legs buckled, but he refused to go down. Instead, he whirled around with a short left hook. The blow caught Beam on the jaw, and he staggered sideways. With the bottle now useless, Carr reached up and tried to slide the karambit from his shoulder. Even laying his fingers on its handle caused the world to suddenly become small and dark.

Beam once again closed to fire a series of short body punches. Ribs broke, as did Carr’s forearm when he tried to block the heavy strikes. In desperation, he lunged forward, taking both of them to the ground. It was an ugly fall, and Carr briefly lost consciousness from the pain radiating down his broken arm.

Beam quickly maneuvered atop him. He struck the general in the nose with his bare hand and then reared back with the brass knuckles for a finishing blow. Before he could deliver it, Carr hooked a leg around Beam’s head, flipping the man backward.

As Beam rolled free and tried to stand, Carr used his one good arm to clutch his feet, tripping him back to the ground. Beam twisted and fired a short punch directly under Carr’s chin. Teeth clacked together so hard that if his tongue had been in the way, it would surely have been severed in two. Desperate to stop the brutal pounding, Carr scrambled on top of him and drove his head down into Beam’s face. The blow split the man’s lip and knocked one of his front teeth sideways. Beam swung the knuckles around and hit the back of the general’s head. Lucky for Carr, he missed the mastoid, instead finding only the thick base of his skull.

Accepting that he wasn’t going to win a fistfight against a man wearing brass knuckles, Carr reached up and tried once again to free the karambit from his shoulder. He shrieked in agony as it slowly slid from around his collarbone. Beam used the opportunity to punch him in the sternum, and while bruising, the pain was muted compared to that of the fiery blade pulling free.

With consciousness fading fast, Carr used his body weight to drive the hooked blade down toward his attacker’s face. Beam brought his hands up, but it was a case of too little, too late. The point of the blade pierced his right eye before slicing through his nasal cavity and gouging its way into his brain.

Beam’s arms fell to the ground as his body went limp.

Barely able to see through the pain, Carr looked over to find Quasimodo sitting against the wall, his hands still pressed to his throat. The bleeding had slowed, but his breathing came in short spasms, as he forced air in and out in an effort to hang onto life a little while longer.

Not on my watch, you sonofabitch. Carr dragged himself toward the man, the knife sliding across the concrete like the raspy breath of predator.

Quasimodo extended a bloody hand to ward him off, but Carr brushed it aside and plunged the blade deep into the man’s belly. He drove it all the way to the handle before ripping it free to send bloody entrails bulging out through the man’s open flesh. Quasimodo shifted his hands to his stomach, gurgled something, and then toppled over, his lifeless eyes staring off into the distance.

Carr sat for a moment, looking from one dead man to the other, resigned to the fact that he would be joining them soon enough. But there was still one enemy that remained, and by God, he wasn’t going to his grave without naming him.

Carr dipped his fingers in Quasimodo’s blood and began writing on the wall.

After he had finished, the general curled up next to Quasimodo and closed his eyes. A thin smile touched his lips, a soldier’s satisfaction at knowing that he had not gone easily.

The message above him was as simple as it was damning.

Oliver Locke did this.

Chapter 2

At Issa’s insistence, Tanner woke up early and took a shower in a large bathroom stall at the front of the hangar. Mount Weather’s water was cold and the pressure little more than a trickle, but with enough scrubbing, it did the job. By the time he stepped out with a towel wrapped around his waist, he was both clean and freshly shaven.

Issa stood, leaning back against the bathroom wall with her arms crossed.

Better? he asked.

Much.

He glanced at his clothes draped across a short dividing wall that led to the latrine.

You planning on watching me dress?

She grinned. I am.

Hey, darlin’, it’s your quarter. He strode over, flung the towel aside and started to dress with his naked buttocks facing her.

You need to think about what you’re going to say to Mother, she said, unable to take her eyes off his strong body.

Already know.

Oh?

Figured it out last night, after—

Issa’s eyes narrowed. They both remembered all too well what had transpired the previous evening. At her insistence, he’d had sexual relations with a group of infected widows in the hope that some might become pregnant. Even though Issa had been the instigator of such debauchery, there remained an air of blame surrounding the event that she clearly expected him to carry.

After you’d fallen asleep, he said, hoping to sidestep the quicksand.

Her eyes softened. What did you figure out?

Buttoning up his blue jeans, he turned to face her.

The way I see it, what Mother really wants is respect, for her and for her people. Fortunately, respect is one of many things in this world that can be bought.

Bought? With what?

The only thing that still has any intrinsic value. Gold.

Issa’s brow furrowed. And where exactly would she get this gold?

Tanner sniffed a white t-shirt before slipping it over his powerful frame.

Where else? Fort Knox.

Samantha stepped from around the bathroom’s doorframe. From the excitement in her eyes, it was clear that she had been eavesdropping.

Are we really going to steal gold from Fort Knox?

Not steal, he corrected. Commandeer.

What’s that mean?

It means we’re going to take ownership of it.

That’s not stealing?

Nope.

What’s the difference?

Stealing gets you in jail. Commandeering gets you medals.

Ah, she said, nodding. So, we’ll be like pirates sailing the high seas.

Exactly. He raised a fist. For queen and country. Tanner slipped on a pair of socks and then began lacing up his thick black boots.

How much gold are we going to commandeer?

Every last bar.

But how will we carry it?

Tanner puckered his lips. It was a good question. A bar of gold weighed close to thirty pounds, and they might find thousands, if not tens of thousands. They weren’t going to haul that in the back of a pickup.

She’s right, said Issa. You’d need a fleet of trucks to carry that much gold, not to mention an army of men to load them.

Undeterred, Tanner went back to lacing his boots.

Details that can be worked out later.

Issa considered the idea further. How do you know the gold is still there?

I don’t. Not for sure. But it wasn’t taken here, and I seriously doubt that the New Colony mustered up enough energy to go and get it when they were barely able to keep their people fed.

If we stole—I mean, commandeered—the gold, said Samantha, would we get to keep some?

Of course. They call that a finder’s fee.

She nodded. Then I’m in.

"And what exactly would you do with gold?" Issa said, turning to her.

Samantha cupped a hand around her mouth as if sharing a secret.

I thought I might buy Tanner some new clothes. She tipped her head toward him. See what I mean?

Sitting right here, he grumbled.

Samantha giggled.

Before they could consider the merits of Tanner’s plan any further, the hangar door swung open. The infected man Samantha had nicknamed Musketeer stepped inside. His partner, Tillman, stood behind him, holding a sharp pipe. Both men looked tired from a long night of guarding the hangar, a task they had failed miserably at, considering that a dozen women had managed to slip in and out undetected.

Musketeer said, It’s time.

Tanner straightened and took a quick look at himself in the mirror. He looked more presentable than he had in quite some time. It seemed only fitting, given that he was about to meet a woman as beloved as any queen.

He turned to Musketeer and nodded.

Lead on, good man.

Tanner, Samantha, and Issa stood before Mother like three humble servants might before a monarch. Musketeer and Tillman flanked them to either side. Mother sat atop a thick pile of brightly colored cushions. Her two troglodyte bodyguards stood a few feet away, their black glossy eyes trained on the visitors. The room smelled of spoiled milk, and the faint sounds of babies wailing could be heard through the walls.

I trust that you slept well, Mother said in her melodic voice.

Tanner looked to Issa and then to Samantha. Neither said a word. He, for one, had had anything but a restful night’s sleep, but he wasn’t about to explain that to Mother.

A bit restless, but otherwise fine.

And did you come up with a plan to avoid war with the New Colony?

Straight and to the point. Tanner liked that about Mother.

I did, he said.

Her eyes widened. Oh?

We both know that war isn’t the answer. Even if you were to defeat the colony, you would lose many of your fighters in the struggle, leaving you vulnerable. The colony would also eventually recover and seek to even the score. It’s likely that the conflict would go back and forth, dooming your extended family to a lifetime of suffering and violence.

She nodded thoughtfully. But you have a better way.

I’d like to think so.

She waited for him to continue.

What you really want is peace, and the only way to get that is through leverage.

My army gives me leverage, she said, gesturing to the troglodytes.

True. But there are other types of leverage, types that don’t require people dying.

Go on.

What if you had a mountain of gold at your disposal? With it, you could buy favor and instill action.

Mother cocked her head. Gold?

Gold bars to be precise.

Where would we get this treasure?

Five hundred miles due west of here.

Her eyes flashed in the dim light. The depository at Fort Knox.

Last I heard, it housed several thousand tons of gold. I can’t imagine the government managed to move it. Not yet, anyway.

It may be guarded, or even pilfered by now.

Perhaps. But I’ve found that when people are hungry, they’re more interested in sweet potatoes than they are golden trinkets.

She nodded thoughtfully. "You’re proposing that we seize what’s left of the gold