The Commander moved to the door in time to see Hodges roll over and try to go back to sleep with his back to the rest of the room. Birk seemed to pause for a minute and remember what he was supposed to do next. The Commander watched him with suspicious eyes,
There was always that mental checklist he would run down with every single order. Ubaid was coming up for promotion. How would the boy from the south handle taking orders from her? He felt himself prepare to storm into the room at the slightest sign of disrespect. Should you do that? No, let her handle it. He noticed Ubaid’s head turn to one side and exhaled. Birk knelt beside her and placed a hand on her naked shoulder,
The Commander felt his eyes grow intense. Don’t you dare, son.
Birk kissed Ubaid on the neck, the Commander felt his rage well up inside him.
“Mmmmmmmm.....” The sensual growl escaped Dacia Ubaid’s mouth.
“Hey, how you doing?” Birk’s dog like staccato voice was gentle now.
“I’m better.” Her voice was softer. The precision of her words seemed lost in the suppleness of the moment. “I’m better now that your here.”
She turned her head and kissed him on the mouth. It was a hard, long kiss. There was no noise and their lips parted. Dacia reached out and caressed his face. The Commander suddenly felt ashamed, dirty for spying on them. For a moment, he stepped back from the shadows and coughed. It was so childish and silly. He couldn’t let them know he was watching.
He walked through the door a few seconds later into the room. Damn, it was just like being back in high school.
“Sir.” Birk stood up, straight as a geometric equation, his faced was flushed slightly.
“Commander, sir.” Ubaid looked up and tried to prop herself up on her elbows.
“Please, as you were,” The Commander nodded to Birk and then turned to Ubaid. “How are you feeling, Sergeant?”
“I feel better.” The precision in her voice was back. It occurred to him that he knew so little about this person. He felt arcane, old and out of touch.
“Well, keep getting better.” He tried to smile kindly and still felt the moment was almost embarrassing. He tried to take a different tact. “How you feeling, Hodges?”
“Good, sir.” The man had been pretending to be asleep. He slowly began to roll over but the Commander waved him off. Clearly, he knew about all of this. It had been going on right under his nose.
“Just get some rest, okay?” The Commander advised.
“Yes sir,” Hodges smiled and nodded with the whisky on his mind.
“Birk?”
“Yes sir,” The dog bark voice seemed unsure.
“I need you to hang around here a little more, okay?” He had a hard time making eye contact with him. “I think our nurse seems to be elsewhere.”
“Yes sir,” Birk replied and then added. “It’s a big place, I think she wanders.”
“Okay, just make sure you take care of my people.” He finally found the courage to look at him. Yes, he was okay with this. The Alabama boy and his soon to be Lieutenant, emotions and check lists made strange bedfellows.
*
For a second, it looked like an optical illusion. As her hiking shoes padded down the hallway it became clear. It was a sliver of darkness, a crescent that shouldn’t have been there. It circled the massive entrance almost perfectly from top to bottom. Molly felt her curiosity begin to pique as she took a wary look around for other eyes that might be watching.
The door to the vault, it was ever so slightly open........
Molly found herself breathing slowly as she slipped up the stairs to the second floor and approached the massive oval entrance. It was slightly ajar. There was a moment where she almost paused in her slow and quiet walk. It just felt strange, wrong and out of place. Like a trap, a big piece of cheese beckoning the mouse.
Her hands touched the surface. There was a finite layer of dust on the silver steel skin. Her first push was just a test. It barely moved. Then, when she pushed a little harder with both hands there was motion. It was amazing how something so heavy could swing open with ease. Molly just wanted it open enough to slide in. No sense making this any more obvious to anyone passing by.
The room took her breath away for a second. A full two stories high, as deep as it was wide. She carefully walked down the first set of stairs that she could find. There was an elevator nearby that looked more than capable of hauling heavy loads. Her feet touched the concrete and she began an almost dream like walk along the floor. The gurneys were here and there scattered about like shopping carts in a grocery store parking lot. There were steel jail bars that extended from floor to ceiling on her right side while the left was nothing but double reinforced concrete. There was a feeling of infinity about the room, like it was larger on the inside than the entire complex. Her eyes looked up to the ceiling with more than a touch of wonder as the hanging lights paid witness to the lone visitor. Molly could not help but feel like she was the first person who had been here in a long time. The immensity of the space felt larger by the minute. It felt like being in a tomb of a lost civilization.
It was empty.
“I had heard you were here.” It was a man’s voice. It had more than a touch of an intellectual northeastern accent. His voice could echo through the halls of Princeton and Harvard confidently. He stepped out of a corner with a disarming smile and a slight frame. His blue eyes glittered like Caribbean water behind a pair of wire rimmed glasses. There were a few wisps of blonde hair hanging down from his mostly bald head. They were like bangs, trying to hide the lines of time on his forehead.
“I know you.” Molly’s dreamlike state continued, she pointed at him and tried to remember the face.
“Nelson Anson Bryant.” He extended his hand and Molly took it. His fingers felt frail like a Japanese origami creation. “It’s good to see you again.”
“You’re the secretary of the treasury.” Molly heard herself say.
“I was.” Bryant nodded his head and suddenly his smile took on a mood of sadness.
“Where is all the gold?” Molly leaned a little closer.
“It’s not here, Molly.” Bryant’s voice had a sense of finality to it. “Not anymore.”
“Then where is it?” She focused the question on his glittering, intelligent eyes.
“That would take some explaining.” He walked over to the stairs and seated himself on the third step up. “Do you have some time to hear an old man’s story?”
“For you, I’ve got all day.” Molly rolled one of the trolleys over and reclined into it like it was pool side chair. She crossed her legs, a signal that she was ready to listen.
“Well,” He paused for a second, trying to find a starting point. “Do you remember what the FIAT system is when it comes to international currencies?”
“Sorry,” Molly went for a disarming apology with a smile and big brown eyes. “It’s been a few years since our last talk.”
“Of course,” he smiled, she remembered him as patient, charming and straight forward. For a minute, Molly marveled at an era that had raised gentlemen like these. He continued: “The FIAT system bases the worth of a nation’s currencies on the confidence people have in the money.”
“That’s it?” Molly had to arch an eyebrow at that one.
“The confidence in the money reflects the confidence people have in our country. The power of its industrial base, the ability of the people to pay taxes which fills the treasuries, the stability of the government.”
“Not