He continued to scrape for a few minutes, removing enough rock to get a grip on the sides of the bar with his fingers, took a good hold and began to try to work the bar loose. The other engineer helped him, and they pulled, strained, wedged and pushed for about ten minutes, until finally George said, “It won’t move,” and they stopped, perspiring. And it hadn’t moved, not a millimeter.

The two of them glared, for a moment, at the smooth surface of the golden bar, which shone, lustrous, back at them. Then Sam said, “Let’s get a pick.”

“A pick?”

Sam, who knew something of Army history, was patronizing. “Yes. A kind of manual-powered converter.”

George was impressed. “But where?” he said.

“At U-10 Supply.”

They left the uncompleted tunnel, stepped into their Minnijet, field model, officer-type helicopter and flew at a leisurely five hundred miles per hour to U-10. U-10 had been, before the 1980’s Decade of Enlightenment, the University of Tennessee—the 1980’s had held no illusions about what was important to the American Way of Life—and they landed their little olive-drab plastic craft in front of the library. Inside, the librarian, a young sergeant, was put into something of a tizzy at their request for a pick, and explained to them that the library shelves held only weapons of the past, and, as far as he knew, there was no such weapon as a pick. He sent them to the captain.

The captain knew what a pick was, all right; but when the two engineers told him what it was for he called the major. The major was a tall, athletic officer with wavy hair, a very neat mustache, a firm, undaunted jaw, and clear eyes that looked squarely into the future. He smoked a pipe, of course, and was wearing a natty black field uniform with regulation crimson cummerbund and beret. His voice was friendly but there was a “no-nonsense” tone in it. “What’s the deal, men?” he said out of the side of his mouth, the other side being engaged in biting, squarely, on his pipestem.

They told him about the gold bar.

“Interesting,” he said. “Let’s have a look-see.” And he sent for a pick, a heavy-duty converter, a portable lighting system, two quarts of synthetic scotch and three privates. All of these were stowed away in a staff helicopter and then the three officers—the two engineers and the major—flew to the mountains. This being a staff helicopter, the trip took three and one-half minutes.

***