The CRES code

Chapter Sixty One - The Elevator Shaft

     The workmen found the elevator shaft at around midday the next day.

     Randall heard a shout and emerged from his tent to see all the workmen gathered together in one spot, looking down. He hurried over and to his delight he saw an area of darkness beneath the irregular patches of broken plasteel that still mostly blocked the entrance.

     "Quiet!" he shouted. The excited gossiping ceased and silence fell, broken only by the distant fluttering of tent flaps in the light breeze that was blowing across the abandoned farm. Randall crouched down, putting his ear close to the opening, and dropped a small fragment of plasteel into the darkness. There was silence at first, and he started counting, but he'd only reached two seconds before he heard the distant sound of it hitting something far below.

     "About thirty metres," he said with satisfaction. "This is the right place. I need the entrance completely uncovered as fast as possible."

     He backed away as the men returned to work, just as Jane, Loach and the aristocrats came over to join him. "Is that it?" said Duke Latimer.

     "It certainly is," said Randall, trying to contain an almost childlike excitement. "In the time of the Old Ones a large cabinet would be lifted up and down by cables. People used it to go to and from the basement."

     "I can almost smell the gold!" said Baron Tenby eagerly. "How much is down there, do you think?"

     "It was the most important gold repository in this part of the country," said Randall, the inventive lie coming to him easily. "So probably somewhere in the region of fifty thousand bars."

     "Bars?" said the Baron in confusion. Gold in Saxony was generally found only in the form of small, round coins. "How big is a bar?"

     About the size of a woman's shoe." He beckoned Jane forward and pointed down at her feet. "About that size."

     The four Barons stared at each other in disbelief, which gradually turned to wonder and excitement. Only Duke Latimer seemed unaffected, keeping a stern, calm demeanour. "Fifty thousand?" said Baron Tenby, seemingly unable to keep his eyes off Jane's feet. "Five thousand for me alone?"

     "Even the King himself doesn't have that much gold," said Baron Maddock, fingering his gown as if already imagining himself wearing something much finer and expensive. "Not half as much!"

     "There could be trouble," said a third Baron. "If the King finds out he'll say it's Crown property. He'll want to take it all."

     "Then we make sure he doesn't find out," replied Maddock.

     "That's treason, technically."

     "Not technically. It is treason, pure and simple." Maddock stared at the other Baron measuringly. "Perhaps you don't have the stomach for that."

     The other Baron stared around at the soldiers stationed around the periphery of the camp, alert for orcs. He swallowed nervously and ran a finger around the inside of his collar. "I'm in," he declared. "I'm in all the way."

     Duke Latimer remained alongside Randall while the Barons wandered back to their tents, whispering to each other excitedly. Latimer waited until they were safely out of earshot before turning to the former businessman. "So. Are you ready to tell me what's really down there?"

     "You don't believe the gold story then?"

     "Don't treat me like a simpleton. You could have come here anytime and excavated the place at your leisure. I'm sure you could have found some imaginative way to deal with the farmer and his family and then you would have had fifty thousand bars of gold all to yourself. No, you need us because you need our help to get down there quickly, before VIX finds out what you're up to. Right?"