building was completed,” Diesel said. “That’s good because I can’t do a lot with a computer chip beyond scramble it.”
He moved his hand a little and listened. He did this three times, spun the dial, and the door creaked open.
Diesel grinned. “Am I good, or what?”
It was a large walk-in vault. Plastic tubs with snap-on lids were stacked against the wall. The tubs were clear and I could see that they were filled with gold and silver coins. Some tubs were bigger than others, and the big ones looked like they held an assortment of jewels, hammered gold goblets, and fancy perfume and spice bottles. The treasure from the Gunsway. Very impressive, but not what caught my attention. Hatchet had my attention. He was sitting on a folding chair in the middle of the room. He was dressed up like an insurance salesman in a cheap suit, and he was holding a samurai-type sword. He had a mask attached to an oxygen tank on the floor beside him.
“Hey,” Diesel said.
Hatchet gave a curt nod.
“So this is a new look for you,” I said.
“I feel the fool,” Hatchet said. “ ’Tis a sorry day when I must wear such cloth as this. Hatchet is of another age, and this is foreign garb for Hatchet.”
“Are you supposed to be guarding the treasure?” I asked him.
He slumped in his seat. “I will guard nothing without tights and tunic.” He blew out a sigh. “Truth is, I have not been asked to guard the treasure. I am locked away here as part of the treasure.”
“You have a sword.”
“I found it in a bin.”
“We need the stone,” I said to Hatchet.
“It is not here. I would have captured it for my true liege lord if given the chance.”
“Do you know where it is?”
“Nay, I do not. It was on Ammon for a while, but the dog part of him grew too vicious under the stone’s influence. Rutherford sometimes transports it in a thick leather pouch. I believe it is currently locked away in a safe, but I don’t know where.”
I looked at the plastic bins stacked against the wall. “So this is what one hundred and ninety million dollars’ worth of treasure looks like.”
“Actually it is a lot less,” Hatchet said. “As in many tales of adventure, the facts have changed with the telling. When evaluated and tallied it was determined this amounted to a mere twenty-five million.”
“Hardly worth worrying about,” Diesel said. “No wonder Ammon left it unguarded in this vault.”
“It’s not unguarded,” Hatchet said. “The silly security men come to check on it from time to time.”
“How long have you been locked in here?” I asked him.
“Since midafternoon. ’Tis getting tiresome.” He looked over at the vault door, which was slightly ajar. “Am I to stay?” Hatchet asked.
“Your choice,” Diesel said.
Hatchet jumped off the chair and rushed to the door. For a moment I was afraid he would lock us inside, but he scurried away.
“Sometimes he really creeps me out,” Diesel said. “He’s like a big, pudgy rodent.”
“This stone search is dragging,” I said. “I vote we let Rutherford and Ammon have it. Not to mention, we don’t even get to keep it. You gave it away to Wulf. So let him get the stupid stone from Rutherford and Ammon if he wants it so bad.”
“I like your thinking, and I’d like nothing better than to get zapped off to an island and a palm tree.”
“But?”
“But it’s not gonna happen. The stone is dangerous in the wrong hands. And it’s my job to put it out of circulation.”
“Are you telling me you have a work ethic?”
“No. I’m telling you my boss is almost as crazy as Rutherford, and I wouldn’t want to piss him off.”
“What would happen?”
“I’d have to fly commercial, for starters.”
“Gee, that’s awful.”
“You want to try it with a monkey?” Diesel was back on his heels, staring at the treasure bins. “We should take this.”
“The treasure?”
“Yeah. All twenty-five million of it.”
“That would be stealing,” I said.
“This stuff has been stolen so many times over the centuries I don’t think it matters anymore.”
“What would we do with it?”
“I guess we could eventually donate it to a museum, but in the short term it might turn out to be useful. We might be able to bargain with it. Or maybe we just use it to make the bad guys mad. Throw them off their game while we search for the stone.”
I didn’t want to steal the treasure. I wanted to get out of the