5:23 P.M.
“It’s time,” Karl says to the man next to him, the driver of their nondescript white van.
They’ve been monitoring the police channels. Every cop within a hundred miles has converged on Portland, responding to what is clearly a major terrorist attack.
The driver presses down on the accelerator until the van hugs the bumper of the unmarked tractor-trailer. Both he and Karl are dressed in dark coveralls topped with reflective vests. Except for a half-dozen orange traffic cones, the back of their van is empty.
Karl raises the fob in his gloved hand and presses the button.
Instantly, the cab of the eighteen-wheeler ahead of them is filled with a cloud of pepper spray. For the three guards inside, the effect is instantaneous and overwhelming. It’s like being kicked in the chest by a donkey. Every inch of exposed skin is now on fire.
As his eyes involuntarily clamp shut, the tractor-trailer’s driver manages to pull over to the side of the road. The three guards stumble out of the cab, coughing uncontrollably, mucous streaming from their noses. One of them starts to vomit. Another flees the cloud spilling out of the cab’s open doors, blindly running into a tree so hard, he’s knocked off his feet. The third presses his hands to his chest as if his heart is going to burst. But the gas is already dissipating.
Parking behind the tractor-trailer, the van’s driver puts on his flashers. He and Karl pull on ski masks and jump out of the van. It’s no work at all to relieve the guards of their guns, zip tie their hands behind their backs, and order them to walk into the woods that border this quiet stretch of road. The guards stumble off under threat of being shot. Karl has no intention of shooting them, not if he doesn’t have to. It’s not like the authorities won’t look hard for missing money, but when murder is also involved, they will never give up the search.
Karl and the driver set out the orange cones to make it look like everything is under control. They open the back of the van, then take the keys from the ignition of the eighteen-wheeler and open the trailer. A few seconds later, they start moving the buckets of gold from the larger vehicle to the smaller one. They also retrieve a few of the lighter—and less valuable—buckets of silver, stopping once there’s no more room in the back of the van.
Fifteen minutes after Karl pressed the button on the fob, they’re gone. Without firing a shot. And with twenty-two million in untraceable precious metals.