The Midas Code tl-2

by Boyd Morrison

  She pointed her horse straight across the bridge. They’d get only one try at this.

  Her horse stepped onto the bridge. She nudged it forward, and the horse bolted ahead. The wood groaned under the load, but the bridge held. She was almost to the other side when she heard a tremendous splash behind her.

  When she reached the pasture on the other side, Stacy wheeled around to see that Tyler had plunged into the water. The horse must have lost its footing and jumped into the river. She didn’t think the horse had fallen, because Tyler was still on top of it, although he was now soaking wet.

  His horse charged out of the river, trailing a torrent of water behind it. They rode through the herd of sheep to the top of the next hill and stopped when they saw a hedgerow blocking the way forward.

  “Did you see that?” Tyler yelled. “This is why I hate riding!”

  “You’re no John Wayne, that’s for sure.”

  “And this horse isn’t Seabiscuit.”

  The roar of the approaching engines put a stop to their argument. Safely out of pistol range, they watched as one of the Range Rovers went into a four-wheel drift to avoid the river, barely skidding to a stop before it hit the edge.

  The other Range Rover decided to go for it, but the bridge was too narrow. It plowed into the river with a great splash, burying its nose in the mud, and came to a stop. Men scrambled out of the open windows and waded back to the opposite shore.

  The passenger door of the dry Range Rover opened, and Cavano stood with her hands on her hips staring up at Stacy and Tyler. There was no smile this time, just a look of pure hatred.

  Stacy squeezed her legs to get the horse moving, and they rode along the hedgerow until they found an opening and left Cavano behind.

  “Where to now?” she asked. She was completely lost.

  Tyler pointed to his left. “On the way to Cavano’s mansion, we passed a town about a mile that way, I think. We can try to get a car there.”

  They rode fast, worried that Cavano would find some way to cut them off or intercept them at the town.

  When they arrived at the quaint village, the pedestrians didn’t give them a second glance, as if it weren’t unusual at all to see riders on horseback on the main street.

  The sound of a train horn indicated something even better than a car to hire. They rode two more blocks and found the station. After handing their horses over to two astonished teenagers, Stacy and Tyler hopped aboard the train as it pulled away.

  Stacy asked one of the passengers where they were headed. With a disdainful glare at Tyler’s sopping form, he told her they’d be at London’s Victoria Station in a little more than an hour. By the time Cavano found her horses and figured out their destination, they’d be long gone.

  Stacy felt much better now that they were out of danger. She smiled at Tyler and took his hand to pull him forward, as if they were a loving couple on a holiday trip gone wrong. As they made their way down the aisle, she said, “That ride wasn’t so bad, was it?”

  Tyler gave her a dirty look and said nothing. He waddled to a seat and eased himself down. For the rest of the trip, the only time he talked was to ask the ticket collector where he could get a bag of ice to sit on.

  TWENTY-SIX

  The midday sun poured through the windshield of Clarence Gibson’s semi cab, overpowering the truck’s balky air conditioner. He slammed his hand on the dashboard and swore a streak that the Lord wouldn’t be proud of. With a full load in the trailer behind him, the engine strained as he climbed the twisty back road over the Virginia Appalachians.

  In his thirty years with Dwight’s Farm Services, Gibson had never complained about his job, but he was tired of truck maintenance at the company being a low priority. Just last week he’d been hauling a load of fertilizer to a farm down in Blacksburg when the bearings on the drive axle seized, leaving him stranded for three hours out in the middle of nowhere until a tow truck made it up from Roanoke.

  He rolled down the window, but the wind didn’t help. Not with this humidity. The sweat continued to pour down the back of his neck, and his shirt was completely soaked. At least the radio worked, although there was only one country station.

  It had been ten minutes since he’d turned off the state highway headed for a farm west of Deerfield. In that time he’d been passed twice by cars that didn’t want to wait behind his groaning rig. One of them even jumped the gun and didn’t bother to wait for a passing lane. Probably some doped-up college kids who were going to get themselves killed someday.

  And now behind him was lucky vehicle number three, this time a white van. It was accelerating fast behind him on the first flat section Gibson had seen since the highway. There wasn’t another car in sight, so he waved the van around and pulled over onto the shoulder to let him by.

  The van shot past and roared ahead. Gibson pulled back onto the road and tried to coax a little more speed, hoping to get a bigger dose of the natural breeze. He poked his head to the side to get closer to the airflow, then snapped it back when he saw the van weave back and forth three times and then stop dead across the road, blocking the way.

  What in the world?

  Gibson stuck his foot on the brake. The truck shuddered to a stop less than twenty feet from the van. Though they were sopping wet, the hairs on the back of his neck pricked up. If the van had a flat tire, why didn’t the driver just pull over to the shoulder? Something wasn’t right.

  The van door slid open, and two men clad in black from head to toe jumped out holding M4 assault rifles. They wore balaclavas, so Gibson could see nothing but eyes. He lunged for the Smith & Wesson .38 revolver he kept in the glove compartment for emergencies, but the passenger door was thrown open before he could get to it. He stared into the black depths of the barrel that could introduce him to his maker.

  An accented voice yelled, “Get out now!”

  Gibson put his hands up.

  “Now!”

  He unlatched his seat belt and opened the driver’s door. A hand snaked in and yanked him out, tossing him to the ground.

  The passenger door slammed, and the one who had pulled him out said something Gibson didn’t understand, but he’d certainly heard the language before on TV. Arabic, or at least something along those lines.

  Terrorists? What would they want with him? He was a middle-aged, overweight nobody.

  “I don’t have—” he started.

  “Shut up!” the man yelled, and punched him in the back with the butt of the rifle. Gibson went down on his stomach, sucking for air. The knee in his back made breathing even harder.

  The taller of the two walked over to the plain silver trailer, reached under the metal chassis, pulled out a white box the size of a pack of cigarettes, and pocketed it. That’s why they’d shown up in the middle of nowhere. They’d used some kind of tracking device.

  The other one grabbed Gibson’s hands and twisted them behind his back. He felt cool plastic zipcuffs locking his wrists together. The two of them hauled him to his feet, hustled him to the van, and pushed him inside. He fell to the floor. Another set of zipcuffs went around his ankles.

  The first gunman raised his rifle above his head and shouted, “Allahu Akbar!”

  “Allahu Akbar!” the other cried in response. Then he ran back to Gibson’s truck. The van door slammed shut.

  This was a hijacking? It seemed crazy, but the sound of his truck revving told him that it had to be true.

  Although the past few moments had seemed like a lifetime to Gibson, they couldn’t have been more than thirty seconds. Whoever they were, his kidnappers had planned this well.

  The van took off, rolling Gibson against the back doors. His phone was still sitting on the passenger seat of his cab, so calling for help wasn’t an option. He struggled to sit up, but the winding roads tossed him down every time he made any progress. In twenty minutes he was exhausted. He asked where he was being taken, but he was met with stony silence.

  Twenty minutes later, the van slowed and
turned onto another road. Instead of the smooth hum of asphalt, Gibson could feel the tires crunching over dirt. He thought it must be some kind of driveway, but it kept climbing uphill, and the ride got rougher, bouncing up and down over deep ruts and potholes. They didn’t stop for another half hour.

  When the van came to a halt, the driver, still in his balaclava, wrenched open the door and held a Beretta 9 mm on Gibson. He then unsheathed a wicked-looking blade, but he did nothing more with it than cut the ankle ties.

  “Out,” he said.

  Gibson draped his legs over the side of the van and stood briefly before falling to his knees. His feet had lost all feeling. It didn’t matter, though. He could see where he was now. They were surrounded on all sides by the thick woods of the George Washington National Forest. The weed-covered track they’d crawled along was a barely used fire road.

  He had been brought here to be executed.

  “Up!” the man shouted.

  Gibson’s heart pounded with fear, but he wasn’t going to make it that easy for this terrorist. He got to his knees.

  “Why don’t you make me?” he said, sounding much braver than he felt.

  The terrorist kicked Gibson. He fell over hard and rolled into a ditch. Before he could get up, he heard the crack of the pistol and a searing pain at his right ear. He fell back to the ground, his eyes away from the terrorist. The headshot hadn’t killed him. Should he get up and keep fighting or play dead? He held his breath.

  The door slammed shut, and after making a three-point turn the van accelerated back down the road.

  Gibson remained motionless for another minute until he realized that he must be the luckiest son of a bitch in the world. He sat up and felt blood coursing down his temple, but he was alive. The angle into the ditch must have thrown off the terrorist’s aim. With all the blood, the shooter had just assumed it was a kill shot.

  Gibson thanked the Lord for His mercy and then found the sharp edge of a rock to cut the tie on his wrists. With his hands free, he ripped off the bottom of his shirt and pushed it against the side of his head. It would stanch the blood, although it wouldn’t do anything for his headache.

  As he trudged down the road back to civilization to report the hijacking, he pondered why they had targeted his truck. Sure, he could see Arab radicals taking a load of ammonium-nitrate fertilizer, the explosive compound used to make bombs like the one that blew up in Oklahoma City.

  But he had no earthly idea what two terrorists would want with one hundred cubic yards of sawdust.

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  Tyler wasn’t happy about having to wait for a shower when he and Stacy rendezvoused as planned with Grant at the Heathrow Airport Marriott. For convenience, they’d reserved a suite with a living area between a king room for Stacy and another one with double beds for the guys. Grant was already in the bathroom, so Tyler had to endure the smell of horse and river muck for a little longer. Tyler had their luggage sent over from the plane, and the clean clothes beckoned from his suitcase. After Grant finished, Tyler took his turn, feeling grateful for the invention of indoor plumbing.

  After they ordered dinner from room service, Grant regaled them with his findings at the museum and his fight with Sal. Gia Cavano must have sent her men in London to abduct Grant as soon as she heard from the curator.

  In turn, Tyler and Stacy recounted their visit to Cavano’s estate. When Stacy came to their escape from the mansion, she began to tease Tyler with wicked glee.

  “And when we got to the stable,” she said, “it was obvious the only way we were going to get out of there was on horseback, but Doctor Fraidy Pants here almost blew it because he’s scared of horses.”

  “I am not scared of horses,” Tyler protested. “Not any more. Now I just hate them.”

  “You looked scared to me.”

  “Wait a minute,” Grant said, pointing at Tyler. “You got him to ride a horse today?”

  “Why is that so hard to believe?” Stacy asked.

  “Weren’t you almost killed by one when you were a kid?” Grant asked Tyler. “I thought you said you’d never get on one again.”

  “I didn’t have much choice,” Tyler said.

  “Hold on. What’s this about almost getting killed?”

  Tyler sighed. He didn’t enjoy telling the story. “When I was ten, my father took me and my sister to a ranch for a weekend. I was big into go-karts and motocross, not horses. I hadn’t been to a farm in my entire life until that morning.”

  “I can’t even imagine that,” Stacy said. “I’ve been riding since I was four.”

  “Well, I’d never seen a horse up close until I got to that ranch. I was a little hesitant at first. Those things are even bigger when you’re a kid. We got lessons for a couple of hours — walking, trotting, cantering — and I was feeling okay. Not loving it like my sister was, but okay. As I was dismounting, I put my foot in the stirrup by accident and for no good reason the horse spooked.”

  “That can happen.”

  “Not with a car, it can’t. My Viper has never decided to hit the gas after I opened the door to get out. Anyway, the stupid horse took off running with me dragging alongside, bouncing around like a can tied behind a honeymooner’s car. After a couple of spins around the corral, my boot finally came off, but not before I bashed my head on a fence post. I spent three days in the hospital with a concussion and a torn ACL. Needless to say, I hadn’t been on a horse again until today.”

  “And now you’re cured?” Grant said.

  “Very funny. Next time I hope we get stuck with a couple of ATVs instead.”

  “Still, we couldn’t have gotten away without them,” Stacy said.

  “My horse didn’t have to jump off the bridge to do it.”

  Tyler told Grant about their ride through the fields and the river incident.

  “Sounds like more fun than my day,” Grant said.

  “Why didn’t you tell me that story this afternoon?” Stacy asked Tyler.

  “We didn’t have time,” he replied. “Besides, would it have made any difference?”

  A knock at the door stopped her from answering. Tyler checked to make sure it really was their dinner and let two busboys in. The feast spread out across three serving carts.

  As they ate, they tried to figure out their next move.

  “The most important priority is to get the geolabe back,” Tyler said. “Without it, we’re still missing one of the three keys of Archimedes’ puzzle to find the map.”

  “Can’t you just make another geolabe?” Stacy said.

  “It would take weeks to forge all those gears,” Grant explained. “They require delicate machining. Tyler had to find a bronze specialist to make it the first time.”

  “And we only have another four days. We need that one back, so we’ll have to figure out a way to get back into Cavano’s estate and liberate it.”

  “We can’t. She’s leaving tonight.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “Cavano either assumed I didn’t understand Italian or she didn’t care. When she gave the geolabe back to her bodyguard, she said, ‘Put it in the trunk. We’ll take it to Munich with us.’”

  “Crap,” Tyler said. With Cavano on the move, it would be exponentially more difficult to get the geolabe back. “Okay. I had Aiden send me an audio recording of the call from Pietro’s phone in Cavano’s office. I was hoping we’d get some intel about when they’d be out of the house, but maybe it’ll tell us about her travel plans instead. Intercepting them en route is our only option. We’ll have you listen to it and see if there’s anything useful.”

  Tyler’s own phone had been drenched and was ruined. Before they reached the hotel, they had stopped at a cellular-phone store and gotten a replacement, transferring his number and his backed-up contact list to it.

  “What about the text on the tablet?” Stacy said.

  “And all the stuff about the Parthenon?” Grant said.

  “None of that matters if we can’t ge
t the geolabe back. I’ll talk to Aiden and see if they’ve been able to decode the tracker signal from the geolabe.”

  Stacy’s head snapped up. “Oh, my God! If Orr figures out that we lost it, he might hurt Carol and your father.”

  “Then we need to make sure he doesn’t find out.” He looked at his watch. “Speaking of which, it’s time for our daily check-in. Ready?”

  He dialed and put the call on speaker. Orr answered immediately. “Right on time. How is the search going?”

  Tyler ignored the question. “Are Carol and my father all right?”

  “You go first. Then I send the proof-of-life.”

  Tyler told him about the tablet and its link to the Parthenon, but he left out the details. All Orr had to know was that they were making progress.

  “Where are you off to next?” Orr asked, as if he were talking to a friend about his vacation plans.

  “Munich,” Tyler said. “We’ve tracked down a document there that we think might be helpful.”

  “Good. Then carry on. We’ll talk again tomorrow.”

  “What about your end of the deal?”

  “Check your email.” Orr hung up.

  Tyler opened the laptop and pulled up his email app. In addition to the recording Aiden had sent, he had another message from Orr. Two videos were attached.

  Stacy put her hand to her mouth when she saw the first video, which showed Carol sitting in a chair, her wrists and ankles cuffed, the man with the ski mask and newspaper standing next to her. Carol was alert and wore no blindfold. She looked terrified but unharmed.

  Tyler squeezed Stacy’s arm. “Are you okay?”

  Stacy nodded but said nothing.

  Tyler dreaded seeing his own video, but Sherman Locke sat in the same chair in seemingly good shape, though he was blindfolded and grizzled stubble dusted his face. Tyler checked the USA Today Web site just to make sure of the date on the front-page story.

  Then Tyler saw Sherman’s hands, and he ran the video again, freezing it when his father’s fingers were contorted in a particular orientation for just a second. He showed it to Grant and Stacy.