The Midas Code

Orr waggled a finger at him. “You know I wouldn’t have come here without thinking of that. Remember that binary explosive? I’ve got about ten pounds of it under this jacket and a trigger in my other pocket. What happened to that truck could happen here if you try something stupid.”

Stacy gasped and glanced at the crowds of families around her. “You wouldn’t.”

“Honey, you have no idea what I’d do.”

“I agree with her,” Tyler said. “If I put as much planning as you did into this operation, I wouldn’t literally blow it like this.”

Orr pursed his lips. “I don’t know you very well, Locke, but I can already see what your weakness is.”

“Oh yeah? What’s that?”

“You think everyone has to be as sensible and logical as you are.”

“And you’re not?”

“The brave do what they can. The desperate do what they must. The crazy do what you least expect. Where do you think I fit in?”

Tyler mulled that over. Orr seemed to be smart, sane, and rational, but he did want them to find something as outlandish as the Midas Touch. Tyler really didn’t know what was coming next, and the hand still in Orr’s pocket made him nervous, so he had no choice but to continue the status quo.

“Okay,” Tyler said. “We’re just going to talk. You said you had proof that the Midas Touch exists?” Tyler couldn’t wait to see what constituted proof in Orr’s mind.

“I do,” Orr said. “But first I have to tell you a story.”

“A story?” Stacy said. “We know the Midas story.”

“That’s not the story I’m going to tell.”

“My point is that you’re sending us on a wild-goose chase,” Stacy said. “The Midas Touch doesn’t exist.”

“I beg to differ,” Orr said, “and I’ll tell you why. Because I’ve seen it in action.”

Tyler couldn’t suppress a guffaw. “You’ve seen the Midas Touch? You mean, you actually met the old king himself?”

“In a way, yes.”

“How?”

Orr heaved the backpack off his shoulder and lowered it slowly to the ground. By the way it sagged, Tyler guessed it was carrying one item the size of a loaf of bread.

“When I was nine years old,” Orr said, “my parents took me on a trip to Italy. Naples. The homeland, if you couldn’t guess by looking at me. While I was there, I spent a lot of time roaming the streets with a girl named Gia. It was when we were exploring the tunnels that we found it.”

“The tunnels?” Tyler asked.

“Naples is built on volcanic tuff. The Greeks, who founded the city, discovered that the tuff was very easy to carve into. They tunneled into it for building material, but they soon realized that they could dig cisterns and link them to aqueducts carrying water from nearby aquifers and lakes. There are miles of ancient tunnels snaking under Naples, many of which have never been fully explored.”

“And that’s where you found Midas?” Stacy asked, the contempt in her voice apparent.

Orr nodded, a fire in his eyes. “I’ll never forget it as long as I live. We found a chamber made entirely of gold, including a solid-gold cube in the center that was six feet on each side. And on top of this cube rested the golden statue of a girl. She was entirely intact except that she was missing one hand.”

Now Tyler had no doubt the guy was crazy. Why would he walk away from something like that? Wouldn’t he have told someone?

“So what’s your proof?” he asked Orr. “I don’t suppose you got a couple of photos.” Even if he did, what good was that in the age of Photoshop and special effects?

“Better. I’ve been waiting all morning to show this to you.” Orr hefted the backpack and held it out to Tyler. “Be careful. And don’t take the contents out of the bag.”

The bag was heavier than Tyler thought it would be. He gently set the pack on the ground and unzipped it. He knelt with Stacy next to it and peered inside.

At first the interior of the bag was too dark for them to see anything, so Tyler twisted the bag to let in more light. During the move, he felt the spongy give of Styrofoam, not the hardness he was expecting from an object so dense. Then something reflected the cloudy sky with a yellow metallic glow, and Tyler understood what he was looking at.

Stacy gasped at the sight.

Set carefully into the packing material was a golden hand.

FOURTEEN

S tacy couldn’t believe what she was seeing. The golden hand ended at the wrist. But what made the hand even more remarkable was that it wasn’t solid.

Tyler lifted it out of the Styrofoam a few inches so that they could see it more clearly. The exposed veins, ligaments, muscles, and bones in the cutaway of the wrist were shaped with exquisite detail down to the smallest capillary. Every pore and wrinkle on the back of the hand was replicated. Even the marrow of bones was represented in its delicate latticework. It was as if they were looking at a cross-section drawing in an anatomy textbook.

“The missing hand of Midas’s daughter,” Orr said proudly. “I acquired it last year. It matches the sculpture I saw all those years ago.”

“This can’t be real,” Tyler said.

Stacy shook her head slowly. “I’ve seen this hand before.”

Tyler looked at her in shock. “You have?”