The Midas Code

The sarcophagus rested on a golden support platform about three feet high near the edge of the terrace above the boiling pool. Tyler ran his hand over the intricately carved lid. Something felt odd, and he pressed into the gold. Instead of the hard metal surface he was expecting, it gave under his push.

He had been considering how to open the lid. If it had been solid gold, it would have weighed hundreds of pounds. But now he realized that the coffin wasn’t pure gold. It was made of wood. The gold leaf was merely a protective covering.

Tyler unfolded his Leatherman knife and drew it across the platform supporting the wooden sarcophagus. Gold flaked off in several spots, revealing tuff underneath.

Stacy knelt to get a better look, focusing the camera on the slash. “So the pedestal, the walls-everything is just gold leaf?”

“Apparently only organic substances are completely transformed into gold, and even then they would have to be completely submerged in the hot spring for a significant length of time. That would explain why the coffin is only gold leaf. The only substantial amount of gold in this room is in the two dead bodies.”

“As I told you,” Orr said, still on his knees in the corner, “the real value is the Midas Touch itself.”

“Yes, you told me,” Tyler said. “Good for you.”

“Should we see if it really works?” Stacy asked.

Tyler nodded, handing one set of the rubber gloves from Orr’s pack to Stacy. “We’ll need to be careful. Remember, according to Cavano the drug runner was poisoned by whatever he touched in the coffin.”

They put the gloves on. The lid wasn’t hinged, so they lifted it from either end and leaned it against the side.

The mummified corpse of King Midas grinned at them, the skin stretched taught over his leathery withered cheeks. He was wrapped in regal purple robes, and a gold crown adorned with rubies and sapphires capped his head. One desiccated hand lay across his chest, but the other was twisted at his side. Each finger was encircled with a magnificent gold and jeweled ring.

Orr and Cavano’s pursuer must have grabbed the hand, eager to take the rings off, but when he brushed against Midas’s skin, he released the hand before he could remove the rings, and the lid dropped back down.

Orr strained to see. “Is it Midas?”

“He’s here, all right,” Tyler said. “In the flesh, so to speak.”

“He must have spent months or years preparing this chamber and ordered his loyal servants to place him here after his death,” Stacy said. “Then they closed up the chamber behind them.”

Tyler rummaged through the sack and took out the two full water bottles.

He needed an object to test. He turned and saw the skeleton of the Italian drug runner, whose shoes were still intact. The nylon shoelaces would be perfect. Tyler untied one of the shoes and unlaced it.

He took both ends and rubbed them on Midas’s hand.

“Open the bottles,” Tyler said. Stacy started with the seawater bottle.

Tyler dipped the shoelace into the water while Stacy filmed. Within seconds, a blush of gold encrusted the tip of the lace. They repeated the steps with the gold-bearing fresh water. This time the effect was even greater, because the solution had a stronger concentration of gold than the seawater. Tyler took the golden lace out and marveled as the water dripped from it.

Stacy gaped at it. “My God! It works!”

“Incredible,” Tyler said. He wouldn’t have believed it if he hadn’t seen it for himself, and he knew others might feel the same.

“Let’s take a sample to test when we get back,” he said. “Take that Tupperware container out and open it.” Stacy hadn’t yet touched anything, so her gloves were clean.

While she got the container, Tyler took a breath and ripped Midas’s hand off, rings and all. He dropped it in the empty container, and Stacy put the lid back on. He removed his gloves as carefully as he could to avoid exposure to the microbes and set them aside. Stacy took her gloves off as well.

Tyler held up the laces for Orr to see. “This is what you were searching for,” he said. “I hope it drives you nuts coming so close and not getting it.”

“Nothing has changed except for who’s holding the gun,” Orr said. “We can still make a deal for the information you want.”

“The only deal I’m going to make with you is that I will guarantee you a short, miserable life if anything happens to Sherman or Carol.”

“That’s too bad, because now you’re too late.”

“Really? Why’s that?”

Orr smiled and nodded behind Tyler.

He turned to see Gia Cavano silently entering the cavern. Behind her was a man with a submachine gun pointed at Grant’s head.

SIXTY-ONE

C avano didn’t care if Tyler and Stacy were helping Orr by choice or against their will. She knew Orr well enough to believe that he had taken Tyler’s and Stacy’s relatives hostage, but that didn’t make her inclined to share the treasure with anyone. If she let them go, the Italian authorities would be on her before she could get a tenth of the gold out.