The Midas Code

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

T yler 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?”