The vehicles stopped at the edge of the scenic area. The twenty-plus "tour group" members stepped out one by one, cameras in hand, backpacks on their shoulders, chatting and laughing as they headed up the trail toward the mountain.
Blonde women with blue eyes, high-bridged noses and deep-set eyes on the men—they snapped photos and exclaimed "beautiful," "amazing," blending in perfectly with the real American tourists around them.
If anything, their enthusiasm was just a tiny bit over-the-top, but otherwise their performance was flawless.
They laughed, took pictures, every inch the ordinary sightseers.
No one gave them a second glance.
Raphael blended right into the middle of the group, dressed casually with sunglasses on, looking exactly like one of them.
Team leader Zhang, a man in his forties who could pass for a standard American middle-class dad, walked up beside him and lowered his voice into a perfect Texas drawl.
"Once we reach the mountain, you find the entrance. Can you handle that?"
Raphael gazed at the four giant presidential faces looming in the distance.
"No problem."
Zhang nodded.
"Then it's all on you."
The tourists started moving into the park, but Raphael quietly slipped away from the group and circled around to the back side of the mountain.
His Force perception unfurled like an invisible net, covering the entire mountain body.
The internal structure appeared in his mind bit by bit—rock layers, fissures, cavities…
Found it!
Behind an inconspicuous rock wall lay a naturally formed fissure that extended more than ten meters inward, leading straight into a huge natural cave.
Inside that cave sat an entire golden city.
Raphael's mouth curved up slightly.
He returned to the group and gave Zhang a quick nod.
Zhang understood immediately and began directing the "tourists" to disperse and slowly converge toward the back of the mountain.
Several of them spread out at once, pretending to take photos, using their bodies to block any possible lines of sight.
Two others pulled portable detection equipment from their backpacks and pressed it against the rock wall.
A few minutes later one of them nodded to Zhang.
Zhang took a deep breath.
"Holy shit… there really is something here."
He looked at Raphael.
"How do we get in?"
Raphael walked straight to the rock wall and placed his palm against it.
The Force condensed into a razor-thin line and silently drilled into the stone's natural seams.
The wall looked completely solid, but under Force perception he could "see" every tiny crack and time-sealed joint.
He found the perfect natural fissure—less than twenty centimeters wide but deep enough to reach a cavity three meters behind it.
Raphael pulled his hand back.
"I need time."
Zhang glanced around.
"How long?"
"At least half an hour."
Zhang frowned, but quickly made the call.
"We'll buy you that time."
He turned and whispered a few quick orders.
The entire twenty-plus team immediately launched into a flawless performance.
Some pretended to take photos, some debated routes, some simply sat down for an impromptu picnic.
Their positions formed a perfect semicircle, completely shielding Raphael's section of the wall from every possible angle.
Raphael squatted down, both hands pressed flat against the stone.
The Force surged out again—this time sharper, more focused.
His task was delicate: widen the fissure just enough for a person to squeeze through sideways.
Too little force and nothing would happen; too much and the whole mountainside could collapse.
Raphael concentrated completely. The Force became countless tiny tentacles that probed every crack, then slowly, steadily pushed outward.
Small stones began to trickle down.
Zhang stood right beside him, watching the rock wall split open at a visible speed, pupils shrinking to pinpoints.
"What… what kind of power is this?"
Raphael didn't answer.
Beads of sweat formed on his forehead.
Ten minutes later the fissure had widened to half a meter.
Raphael stopped, breathing hard.
"Should be enough."
Zhang leaned in, staring into the dark crack.
"What's inside?"
Raphael closed his eyes. Force probed deeper.
This time he saw far more.
The cavity dropped straight down about five meters into a natural rock cave.
The cave was huge—at least two hundred square meters, ceiling over ten meters high.
And what stunned him most—
The cave was packed.
Gold bricks. Piles upon piles of gold bricks—or rather, walls built from gold bricks, the super-large kind used for city fortifications.
Neatly stacked like small mountains.
Raphael casually picked one up. It weighed at least a hundred pounds.
And that was just the regular bricks. The massive wall-building ones around them were even heavier.
Without the Force he doubted he could even lift one.
He swept the area with perception. Just the visible section held at least five thousand hundred-pound bricks.
Five thousand times twenty kilograms—one hundred thousand kilograms.
A hundred tons.
And that was only what he could see.
Raphael took a deep breath and began searching the cave.
Soon he found a stone door on one wall.
It was tightly sealed, covered in complex carvings and symbols.
He pushed. It didn't budge.
Force slid into the seam. He "saw" the mechanism behind it.
A trap door that required a precise sequence.
Raphael didn't waste time.
The Force turned into countless tentacles, probing every gear and lever, then—
Forced it open.
Click. Click. Click.
Three soft sounds later, the stone door ground open.
Behind it lay a sloping passage leading deeper.
Raphael walked down.
After fifty meters the passage suddenly opened up.
Another cave.
Even larger—at least five hundred square meters.
And here—
Even more gold bricks!
Stacked higher!
Raphael roughly calculated there were at least three times as many as the first cave.
Three hundred tons?
No—probably more.
He kept going.
The passage continued downward.
Level one. Level two. Level three…
With every descent the caves grew bigger, the gold piles taller.
By the time he reached the fifth level he had stopped trying to count.
These weren't measured in tons anymore.
They were measured in ten thousand tons!
An entire mountain of gold!
Raphael stood before the towering stacks and stayed silent for a long time.
He finally understood why Charles Carroll had hidden the treasure here.
Not because the man was mad.
Because he realized this land would one day become the most powerful nation on earth.
And he wanted to bury a seed right in its heart.
A golden seed.
But now… that seed belonged to someone else.
Raphael took out the camera he carried and snapped several photos.
Then he turned and climbed back up the passage to the surface.
When he crawled out of the fissure, Zhang was waiting anxiously.
"How was it?"
Raphael handed him the camera.
"See for yourself."
Zhang took it and scrolled through the pictures.
His hands began to tremble.
"This… this is…"
"First level—roughly a hundred tons."
"Second level—roughly three hundred tons."
"Third through fifth levels—impossible to calculate. At least ten thousand tons total."
Raphael's tone was calm, like he was talking about the weather.
Zhang's face flushed crimson.
He took several deep breaths, forcing himself to stay composed.
Then he stepped aside and pulled out the satellite phone.
It took half an hour before Zhang finally turned back around, voice already shifting into full operational mode.
"We move at nightfall. Three container trucks are already en route, plus a backup. We're doing this tonight."
Raphael had no objection. His job was simple: dig. The rest was their problem.
After sunset the team went to work.
Over the next month and more, Raphael led a small crew in the actual excavation while the national team handled transport.
They moved the gold out in tiny "ant-moving" batches—split between the east and west coasts.
Everything had to be done with absolute caution. If the entire hoard was discovered in one place, it would be catastrophic.
Even the "Caucasian tour group" members used completely fabricated identities that would trace back to Europe if anyone checked.
No chances were taken.
Raphael understood the gravity. Ten thousand tons of gold was more than America's own reserves—foreign holdings included.
So caution was never enough.
Large machinery was impossible; everything had to be done by hand. Only Raphael could handle the heavy lifting.
Otherwise he would have escorted one of the transport convoys himself.
After nearly fifty days of digging and hauling, almost all the gold was gone.
The few remaining support pillars were left behind—digging them out risked collapsing the entire mountain. Everyone agreed to leave the Americans a little "dog food."
The group drove two hundred kilometers to a small-town motel for the night.
The next morning Zhang found Raphael.
"Beijing has already sent people. Professional teams will now handle the cover-up and cleanup."
He looked at Raphael, eyes complicated.
"You really want nothing?"
Raphael shook his head.
"Nothing."
Zhang was at a loss for words at this "money is dirt" attitude, but he could only reach out and shake Raphael's hand.
"Then… thank you!"
Raphael shook it firmly.
"You're welcome."
After a pause he added,
"Next is the Trinity Church vault in New York. When do you plan to move on that one?"