The Midas Code

The marble slab, pitched at an angle by the taut straps, slowly scraped around the tower. Any second it would be free of the other blocks of marble. Tyler saw it begin to rotate.

“Now!” he yelled.

Stacy stomped on the gunman’s toe. He yelped and let go of her, and she shoved him backward as he hopped in pain. He steadied himself against the tower of marble to regain his footing. The moving slab came loose and swung around in an arc, spinning wildly toward the gunman.

Tyler had been hoping the action would simply provide a distraction, but as it spun the straps loosened and let go. The block dropped onto the Italian’s head and chest with a sickening smack, crushing him to the ground. His legs twitched for a moment, then went still.

Tyler ran over to Stacy. “Are you all right?”

She was breathing hard but seemed unhurt. “I’m fine. How did you know it would do that?”

“I didn’t.”

Grant came over and bent down to look under the block.

“Can you reach his gun?” Tyler asked.

Grant stood up with a disgusted expression and shook his head.

“Let’s get out of here,” Tyler said.

“How?” Stacy said. “This guy said he had friends at the entrance.”

“There’s another way. Come on.”

He took her hand and sprinted toward the north side of the Acropolis, with Grant at his side. He didn’t have time to explain that when he’d seen the woman in the wheelchair and wondered how her husband got her up all those steps he realized there must be an elevator. He’d noticed its metal cage opening to let another wheelchair passenger out on the north side of the Acropolis when they’d walked past the Parthenon.

As they approached the opposite side of the Parthenon, Tyler spotted two more men sprinting toward where they’d heard the gunshots, both carrying pistols. He reached into the backpack and took out the unused smoke grenade from the day before, which Grant had rigged for use in case Tyler needed a backup in the museum. Tyler activated the grenade and tossed it into the open courtyard, where it began to spew orange smoke. Screams erupted from the few tourists who hadn’t been frightened away by the earlier melee.

When the smoke was thick enough, Tyler nodded to Stacy and Grant, and they ran for the elevator. Shock waves from the bullets pierced the air all around them, but the smoke concealed them enough to prevent the Italians from getting a clear shot.

The next two hundred feet were the longest Tyler had ever run, but the sight of the metal cage off-loading a wheelchair passenger kept his motor going.

They reached the elevator and piled in over the operator’s protests.

“Down! Down!” Tyler yelled. Two men emerged from the cloud of smoke behind them, pumping out rounds without much care for accuracy.

The bullets pinging off the metal silenced the lift operator’s protests, and she slammed the cage closed. The lift lowered below the wall before the men could reach them. The operator screamed as bullets ricocheted off the roof, but the heavy steel was too thick for the rounds to penetrate.

Tyler heard one of their pursuers yell “Polizia!” and the shooting stopped. The police must have arrived on the Acropolis.

When the lift reached the bottom twenty seconds later, Tyler poked his head out, but no one was waiting above to take another shot. They apologized to the terrified lift operator and left her cowering in the elevator as they dodged the wheelchairs of a tour group waiting to get on. In five minutes they were back at their motorcycles. Police cars sped past them up the long drive leading to the closest point they could get to the Acropolis entrance.

As they raced back to the hotel to get the rest of their belongings before heading to the airport, Stacy clung to Tyler’s back, shaken by their brush with death. Normally, Tyler would be high-fiving Grant for coming through enemy action like that unscathed, but he couldn’t bring himself to celebrate. He knew that the worst was still waiting for them in Naples.

FORTY-SIX

P eter Crenshaw hummed along to Metallica’s “Enter Sandman” as he inserted the detonator into the second-to-last container of binary explosive. He always listened to heavy metal while he worked. It kept his mind sharp while he built a bomb powerful enough to turn him into goulash.

Phillips had been Crenshaw’s only companion since Orr and Gaul left for Europe, and all the guy wanted to talk about was baseball. Records, statistics, players, teams-it never ended. For Crenshaw, that made keeping his iPod fully charged a high priority.

Even though the warehouse had no air-conditioning, the high ceilings allowed the heat to rise, leaving his work area relatively cool. He wasn’t worried about the explosives going off prematurely. They were incredibly stable. Fire, impacts, or electrical charges wouldn’t set them off. Crenshaw had been working virtually nonstop except for food and sleep breaks, so stupid mistakes were the biggest threat.