Death Instinct - Jed Rubenfeld [168]
Littlemore squirmed out from under the manhole cover and scrambled to his feet, staring at the convulsing Drobac. “Think I should arrest him?” asked Littlemore.
“I think we should get out of here,” said Younger, gesturing toward the fallen iron beast of a furnace. It was glowing red and seemed to be getting redder by the instant. The heat in the room was appalling.
“Jesus—she’s going to blow,” said Littlemore. “There’s got to be a door somewhere on the other side of that gold.”
They ran around the mountain of gold bars, passed a table covered with playing cards and whiskey glasses and, at the other end of the subterranean chamber, came to a steel door. There was no knob or handle or latch. They pushed at the door—threw their shoulders into it—but it wouldn’t open.
From the furnace, a low sound began to issue, so deep it was like the note of a cathedral organ. Then the note grew deeper still. Out of the two men’s sight, a smoldering body, cheekless, lipless, stretched out a hand and grasped a gun lying on the floor nearby.
“That’s not good,” said Younger, referring to the organ sound filling the air. “I don’t think that’s good.”
“Wait a second,” replied Littlemore. He ran back to the card table, grabbed one of the chairs, and returned just as quickly. “We’re going to be all right. I told Houston to listen for us.”
He smashed the chair against the door and did it again and again. The chair broke into pieces, but the door didn’t budge.
Next to the furnace, the faceless creature rose slowly to its feet in the pulsing crimson light of the overheated furnace. Several of Drobac’s teeth, along with a fragment of his jawbone, were visible.
The low note pulsing from the furnace grew so deep that no man-made musical instrument could have made it. It also began to swell in volume. Littlemore smashed the remains of the broken chair against the door.
Drobac staggered to the side of the mountain of gold. The bellow from the furnace had become so loud that it vibrated the floor and shook Littlemore up and down. Leaning against the gold bricks, Drobac caught sight of Younger at the far door. He raised his pistol with two hands, arms wavering, unsteady.
Littlemore, unable to bear the noise, covered his ears with hands. The steel door remained shut. He and Younger looked at each other.
The gun in Drobac’s trembling hands grew still. He squeezed the trigger.
All at the same moment, the furnace exploded, the gun fired, and the door swung open. Younger and Littlemore were blown through the doorway into a corridor crowded with men, as a bullet flew somewhere above their heads. In the furnace room, Drobac’s body slammed into the gold bricks and burst into flame, while the wood beams supporting the walls and ceiling were engulfed in fire as well. The beams collapsed; the ceiling caved in. The room was an inferno.
“Shut that damned door,” ordered Secretary Houston at the top of his voice as tongues of fire lashed into the corridor.
The steel door was slammed and bolted, suddenly muffling the deafening rage of fire. The corridor was silent. Younger and Littlemore, rising, found themselves stared at by a half-dozen Secret Servicemen and an equal number of well-dressed bankers, including Thomas Lamont.
“What’s in there, Littlemore?” asked Houston.
Lamont, not Littlemore, answered: “It’s nothing but an old abandoned foundation. We closed it up long ago. No one’s been in there for decades. I don’t know how you even knew where to find it, Houston.”
“I didn’t; my man Littlemore told me where to go,” said Houston. “And he told me to bring Secret Servicemen in case you tried to stop me, Lamont. What did you find, Littlemore?”
“Just some gold,” said Littlemore. “I’d say about four million dollars’ worth.”
There was a buzzing among