A poor man brought a gold bar to sell. A scanner detected that the core wasn't gold, but steel. Everyone thought he was a fraud. But when they cut the bar open, they found a small metal plate inside with engraved letters, which prompted him to immediately call the police…
The smell of cold coffee and the anxiety emanating from Elias Vance's worn-out jacket as he entered the “Gold & Glory” precious metals shop in downtown Denver, Colorado. Elias's calloused hands trembled as he clutched the only thing he possessed: a heavy, gleaming gold bar.
Elias was a thin, middle-aged American man who struggled as a freelance carpenter. He had found this gold bar in an abandoned, dilapidated chest while clearing out the basement of a building slated for demolition.
“I want to sell this bar,” Elias said, his voice hoarse.
The manager, a young woman named Sarah, raised an eyebrow. The bar was standard size, but its surface was strangely dull.
Sarah placed the bar on the X-ray Fluorescence (XRF) metal analyzer. The screen flickered: “99.9% Au.”
“Looks fine,” Sarah muttered. “But with a volume this large, we need to check the core. It's mandatory.”
She placed the metal bar on the state-of-the-art **Digital Ultrasonic Scanner**. Everyone held their breath in anticipation.
*Beep… Beep…*
The image appeared on the screen: A **solid, black core** running inside the thin gold plating.
**”A… a steel core?”** Sarah exclaimed, her voice a mixture of astonishment and anger.
The atmosphere in the store suddenly froze. Three security guards immediately approached Elias.
“Sir, this is gold-plated steel,” Sarah said coldly, pointing to the screen. “You are trying to **deceive** us. The market value of this thing is zero!”
Elisa's face turned pale with shock, not from being accused, but from the truth he had just seen on the screen.
“No! It can't be,” he stammered, raising both hands. “I found it. I know nothing about this!”
“Found it? Yes, certainly,” Sarah sneered. “We hear that story every week. Call the police, Joe!”
But before anyone could make the call, Elias yelled, “Wait! Please, **cut it open!** Cut it open! If there's a steel core, I know absolutely nothing. If it's steel, I'll leave and take all the consequences. But if I've been framed, I need to know!”
The desperation and sincerity in his voice made Sarah hesitate. To avoid legal trouble, she decided to comply.
“Okay,” she said. “Cut it open. Just to be sure.”
In the lab behind, the metal ingot was placed into a high-speed cutting machine. The saw blade gnawed at the thin gold coating, then stalled slightly upon reaching the core.
When the gold bar was split in half, everyone could clearly see: **a rusty block of steel** in the center.
“See, you fraud…” one of the employees began.
But Sarah held up her hand silently. Her eyes were fixed on what lay at the boundary between the gold and the steel.
It wasn't a single solid block of steel. The steel was cast around something smaller, precisely in the center.
An employee used tweezers to pick out a thin, rectangular piece of metal, about the size of a postage stamp, pressed tightly between the gold and steel. It was made of a stainless steel alloy.
The piece of metal was wiped clean. The group bent down.
On its surface, there was neither a chemical formula nor a romantic message. Instead, it was a rough, deeply engraved inscription, just a name and a number:
> **THOMAS W. BELL**
> **KIDNAPPED**
> **CALL NYPD 813.00.784**
The room fell silent. **”THOMAS W. BELL,”** **”KIDNAPPERED,”** and a phone number that appeared to be from the New York Police Department (NYPD).
They no longer saw Elias Vance as a poor con artist. They saw him as someone who had inadvertently grasped a crucial clue, possibly evidence in a serious criminal case.
The confusion on Elias's face turned into a chilling horror. He was the last to touch this gold bar, and now he held the evidence.
Immediately, **Elias snatched the landline phone** from Sarah's counter. His hands, trembling from hunger and cold, now trembled for a different reason.
“I need to speak to the New York Police Department,” he declared forcefully and decisively. “I'm Elias Vance, from Denver. I just found a hollowed-out gold bar containing evidence of a kidnapping. I have a name and an emergency number!”
He stared at the piece of metal carefully placed on the table.
This **fake gold bar** wasn't a scam for money. It was a **coded message, a desperate cry for help**, perfectly disguised to be discovered only when the seller was suspected and forced to cut open the bar.
Elias, the impoverished man, had now become an unwitting witness in a major criminal case. His life was about to change, not with money, but with danger and responsibility.
Elias Vance's call quickly bypassed local departments and was routed to a joint task force of the New York Police Department (NYPD) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) at their Denver office. In less than an hour, two FBI agents, Agent Harris (the seasoned, cold-blooded one) and Agent Morales (the young, sharp one), were at the “Gold & Glory” store.
They demanded that Sarah and Elias recount the entire story, down to the smallest detail. Sarah produced the halved metal bar and the small piece of alloy.
Agent Harris held the engraved piece of metal with his gloved fingertip, his eyes narrowing. “Thomas W. Bell… Kidnapping. This phone number…”
Morales immediately verified the number: **813.00.784**. “Sir, this isn't a public NYPD number. It's an internal number, probably an old extension or an internal identification code.”
They quickly determined the extension belonged to the NYPD's High Crimes Division. This confirmed the message wasn't a prank, but a **code** designed to be understood only by the police.
“Elias Vance,” Agent Harris said, his voice deep and authoritative. “You must know that this gold bar is crucial evidence. We need to know exactly where you found it, and who touched it before you.”
Elias recounted the details of the basement of the abandoned building on the outskirts of Denver. “It's an old building, vacant for years. I was hired to clean it up before demolition. The gold bar was in an old, locked iron chest that had been pried open.”
Harris and Morales exchanged glances. This wasn't an ordinary kidnapping. The case involved a meticulously crafted fake gold bar, hidden in a pried-off trunk, and containing a coded message. It conjured up the image of a spy or a wealthy individual abducted during a major smuggling operation.
The FBI quickly checked the identity of **Thomas W. Bell**. They discovered a shocking truth: Thomas W. Bell wasn't the missing person. He was a **renowned chemist**, specializing in rare earth materials and super-durable alloys. Bell was presumed dead in a hypothetical Caribbean plane crash three years prior. His death record had been closed.
“A kidnapping disguised as an accident?” Morales whispered. “And this person managed to hide the evidence in a discarded item?”
Agent Harris directed: “Check everyone who knows about Bell's death, especially his wife and former associates. And send a team to that abandoned building immediately. Find everything related to the trunk, anything at all.”
Elias, after being cleared of any involvement in the fraud, was temporarily transferred to a safe place under FBI supervision. He was no longer an unknown poor man, but a central figure in a federal case.
The FBI went to the luxurious apartment of **Elara Bell**, believed to be the widow of Thomas W. Bell. Elara was a beautiful woman, elegantly dressed, but her eyes held a profound sadness.
“My Thomas is dead, agents. It's been three years,” she said, her voice trembling. “A plane crash. We had a funeral. Why are you digging this up again?”
Harris placed a photograph of the metal object in front of her. “Do you recognize this name, Mrs. Bell? It was found inside a fake gold bar in Denver.”
Elara looked at the photo. Her face turned pale, but only for a moment.
“This is a sick joke,” she said. “I know nothing about this. Perhaps someone is using my husband's name.”
However, Morales noticed something unusual. When she mentioned the plane crash, Elara had detailed Thomas's plans for a short trip to a small island for a “vacation.”
“Are you sure Thomas was on vacation?” Morales asked. “We have information he was investigating a top-secret project involving new materials before the accident.”
Elara suddenly stood up and walked to the window. “I'm sorry, I need a lawyer. I've answered enough.”
Her excessive caution aroused suspicion in the agents. They checked Elara's bank account history. After the accident, she had sold all shared assets, except the house, and transferred a large sum of money of unknown origin to an offshore account.
At the abandoned house, the FBI technical team discovered that the iron chest hadn't been pried open with ordinary tools. The lock had been **selectively melted** by some kind of extremely potent acid or chemical.
More importantly, they found a small piece of cloth hidden under the floorboards. The cloth was dyed a deep orange, with a faint logo of a private research organization, **”Aethelred Labs.”**
The FBI immediately investigated Aethelred Labs and discovered that Thomas W. Bell was the person behind it.
Its founder kept it a secret. Aethelred Labs was founded to research a **superlight, superconducting alloy** that could replace gold in high-end electronics applications, dubbed **”Aurum-X.”** Aurum-X was worth many times more than gold and could completely revolutionize the technology market.
Bell's “plane crash” occurred just before he was scheduled to announce Aurum-X.
Agents realized: The fake gold bar wasn't created for fraudulent sales. It was created to **conceal** a secret.
**Gold (Au)** has an atomic number of **79**. **Steel (Fe)** has an atomic number of **26**. XRF (external atom) scanners were fooled by the gold shell. Ultrasonic (internal density) scanners were fooled by the steel core, which had a density comparable to some precious alloys.
But Thomas W. Bell deliberately added a small, engraved piece of alloy so that when cut in half, the message would be revealed. He used a fake gold bar as a **”floating bottle”** containing the message, hoping it would reach an honest seller and eventually the police.
Morales eventually found the connection: Elara Bell wasn't a widow. She was the **sister of Marcus Thorne**, a tech billionaire and owner of a struggling rival company.
The FBI deduced: Marcus Thorne had kidnapped Thomas W. Bell to force him to reveal the Aurum-X formula. When Thomas tried to send the message, Thorne sent people to retrieve the gold bar, but they failed and had to use acid to pry open the chest, inadvertently leaving behind the piece of cloth with the logo.
Based on Elara's transaction history and international calls, the FBI located Thomas W. Bell: an isolated complex in the Nevada mountains, owned by a shell company of Marcus Thorne.
A SWAT team was quickly dispatched to the complex.
Upon raiding the heavily guarded basement, they found Thomas W. Bell. He was unharmed, but held captive in a makeshift laboratory. Thomas was working frantically at a table overflowing with tools and chemicals.
“Thomas Bell, we're the FBI. You're safe,” Agent Harris said.
Thomas lifted his head, his eyes bloodshot from lack of sleep.
“I knew. I knew you'd come,” Thomas said with a chillingly calm tone. “I sent my last message.”
He pointed to a computer. “Thorne wants Aurum-X. He made me synthesize it.”
Then Thomas pointed to a slightly ajar safe. Inside, there was no gold or Aurum-X. Only a piece of paper.
“He doesn't need the formula. **He needs a small amount of it to trigger a chain reaction** that I created,” Thomas whispered, his voice trembling. “Thorne used it to build an **electromagnetic weapon (EMP)** that could disable the entire West Coast power grid.”
“Does he have it?” Harris asked urgently.
Thomas shook his head, his eyes fixed on the piece of paper in the safe. “No. But I know where he'll take it. **That piece of paper… is a map.** It's written in a special ink that only I can decipher.”
The FBI realized the gravity of the case: It wasn't just a business kidnapping, but a nationwide economic terrorism plot.
All the clues begin with a poor carpenter in Denver, and his seemingly worthless fake gold bar.