The Midas Code

Whoever they were, they were street brawlers, not trained in hand-to-hand combat as he was. If they had been, they wouldn’t have left themselves so open to attack.

Grant swung his arm around and smashed mustache man in the back of the neck with brutal force. Before the guy with the widow’s peak could react, Grant threw his elbow back and slammed it into the side of his head. Both men went down in a heap.

During the time it took for Grant to put the two men out of action, Sal drew his pistol, but he’d made the mistake of standing too close. Grant chopped his wrist, sending the gun to the sidewalk. Then he smashed his knee into Sal’s groin. Simple, but effective. Sal fell to his knees and toppled over, cradling his crotch and screaming in pain.

Like most real fights Grant had been in, this one had lasted less than five seconds. Shaking his head at how easy it had been to disable the three men, Grant reached into their jackets and removed their guns. He ejected the magazines and removed the slides from each of the pistols before dumping them on the ground. There was no reason to make it easy for them to give chase, so he ran around to the driver’s side of the still-running car, shrugged off the backpack, and got in. He’d drive the BMW three blocks to the Underground station and dump it there.

Putting the car in gear, Grant smiled at the men still lying on the ground. Through the open window, he called out, “Piece of advice, Sal. Next time, bring more men.”

Then he stepped on the gas and left Sal still on his knees, shouting curses at him. Grant didn’t know what he said, but the Italian sure made it sound classy.

TWENTY-FIVE

I’ m not getting on one of those death traps,” Tyler said.

He kept watch at the stable door while Stacy hurried to cinch up the straps on the saddle of a second horse. Out of the corner of her eye, she caught him nervously changing his grip on the pistol and realized that he was more scared than she was. She had marveled at how he had calmly disarmed a massive explosive, faced down Orr, and dispatched a gunman without breaking a sweat. Now she was the one trying to quiet his nerves.

“Come on, you big baby,” she said. “It’s just a horse. How else are we going to get away?” Cavano and her men would discover their hiding place any minute.

“You go. I’ll try for the car.”

“Don’t be stupid. You’ll get yourself killed. Don’t tell me you’ve never ridden.”

“I have. About twenty-five years ago. That’s why I’d rather take my chances with Cavano.” He wouldn’t look at Stacy.

They’d already gone over their options, and there weren’t any. The cars at the front of the house would be impossible to reach without getting captured. Calling the police wouldn’t help. At best, Cavano would say they assaulted her bodyguard and destroyed her property. Tyler and Stacy would be hauled off to jail, endangering any chance of meeting Orr in Naples on Sunday.

Some of Stacy’s fondest memories were of riding her horse, Chanter. Dressage and jumping occupied a big part of her childhood, not to mention chasing rabbits around the fields after the harvest. She hadn’t had the opportunity lately, but saddling the horses had brought it all back. Technology marches on, but riding equipment hadn’t changed significantly in hundreds of years, so she finished outfitting the horses in record time.

“We’re ready,” she said. “Are you coming or not?”

“Not.”

“You’ll ride a motorcycle and not a horse?”

“A motorcycle goes where I tell it to.”

Now she got it. He was a product of the mechanical age, and he didn’t like it that a horse had a mind of its own. Something must have sparked this irrational fear, but she didn’t have time to dig into that now.

She marched up to him and grabbed him by the arms. “You are going to get on that damned horse, and we’re going to get the hell out of here, do you understand me?”

Bullets ricocheted off the door, and both of them dove to the ground. Through the crack in the door, she could see four men running toward them, snapping off shots with their pistols.

“All right,” Tyler growled as he rolled to his feet. “We’ll do it your way.”

Stacy leaped up and handed the reins of the nearer horse to Tyler, who acted as if she’d given him a used tissue. He eyed the horse, but another crack of gunfire goaded him into action. He put his foot in the stirrup and, in the most ungainly display of horsemanship she’d ever seen, clambered into the saddle. He pawed at the leather.

“Where is the horn thing?” He was talking about the grip on the front of Western saddles.

She mounted her own horse. “It’s an English saddle, so it doesn’t have one. Just keep your feet in the stirrups and don’t let go of the reins. Follow me. Your horse will do the rest.”

Stacy trotted to the large door that was open at the opposite end of the stable. With a jab from her heels, the horse launched into a gallop.

Over her shoulder she saw Tyler’s horse go into a trot, with Tyler bouncing up and down like one of those rubber balls on a paddle board.