Authors: Boyd Morrison
C
oncussion.
That’s the word that swam into Grant’s mind as he was driven across Naples. He’d experienced one before when a wrestling move went wrong and a chair hit the back of his head. With effort, he focused on recalling the symptoms.
Fuzziness:
check— squinting helped a little.
Nausea:
if he’d had a bigger dinner, the backseat would be a mess.
Lack of concentration:
had he already thought of that?
Loss of memory:
that was a tough one.
He remembered some of the fight in the galleria, but he didn’t know how he ended up in the car. He tried to focus on the two men on either side of him. One was massaging his knee and the other was holding his stomach. Only the driver and Sal in the front passenger seat looked unharmed. Grant knew there were more guys, but they would be in even worse shape. As far as he could recall, he’d kicked the crap out of five of them. Not bad, but not good enough.
The car was waved through an iron gate and up the driveway to the gaudiest mansion he’d ever seen. Eggshell color, pillars dominating the front, ornate decorations curling around the windows and doors, cherubs adorning the eaves. It looked like the White House redecorated by Liberace.
Two new guys yanked Grant out of the car and hauled him up the steps into the house. He was taken through the foyer and to an outdoor patio that was situated on a cliff a hundred feet above the sea.
He’d only gotten a glimpse of Gia Cavano when she’d hopped into the sports car outside the Boerst building in Munich, but the woman sitting in front of him was unmistakable. Her voluptuous form was squeezed into a tight black T-shirt and black jeans. Her long dark hair was wrapped on top of her head in a sexy updo. She looked sleek and curvy all at the same time. If Grant had been in a bar, he would have sidled up to her by now and offered to buy her a drink.
“Welcome to my home, Mr. Westfield,” Cavano said.
The fuzziness was fading, but Grant had to hold himself steady to keep from falling over. “If you want to invite me over to tea, an engraved invitation would be appreciated next time.”
“You’re a tough man to bring down, I hear.”
“Give me one of those batons and I’ll really show you what I can do. You know, I’m kind of parched.” He nodded at Sal, one of the three men hovering around them, guns at the ready. “Could you ask your girlfriend to get me an ice water? And a Scotch chaser. Neat.”
Sal glared at Grant. Apparently his English was good enough to get the insult.
“Get Mr. Westfield his drinks,” Cavano said.
Sal left, and Grant took a seat without asking.
“You’ve got your tentacles into everything if you could get the police to intercept my men,” he said. “Where are they?”
“Oh, they’ll be fine. A night in jail and then they’ll be free in the morning. Long enough for my purposes.”
“Which are?”
“Jordan Orr. You know where he is?”
“Not exactly.”
“What does that mean?”
“Well, I would have known precisely where he is if your meatheads hadn’t interrupted the party.”
Sal returned with the drinks.
“Thanks, Sallie.” Grant took them, chugged the Scotch, and pressed the cold glass of water to his temple.
“Can you find him?” Cavano said.
“Why should I?”
“Because if you don’t, I will have my men throw you off the patio.”
Grant took a sip of water and looked at the long drop to the Mediterranean below. “That is a darn good reason. I’ll have to call Tyler Locke to find out.”
“Tell me his number.”
Grant thought about it for a second and decided it couldn’t hurt to try. He gave her the number and she dialed. She listened for a few moments, then hung up.
“Straight to voice mail.”
That can’t be good, Grant thought. “I don’t know why he wouldn’t be answering.”
“I have a possible reason. I received an anonymous call ten minutes ago telling me that he’s with Jordan. Where are they going?”
Grant’s heart sank. He was hoping that Tyler had gone to ground when he lost contact with the security team, but this must have been Orr’s plan all along. Orr was the only one who could have tipped Cavano off about the tracker. He must have cornered Tyler and Stacy virtually simultaneously, although Grant didn’t know how that was possible. If Tyler wasn’t dead or free, that meant Orr was taking him to find the treasure.
“I have an idea where,” Grant said.
“Show me.”
“First, I want some guarantees.”
“The only guarantee I’ll make is that you’ll die slowly if you don’t tell me what I want to know.”
“That
is
magnanimous of you, but I need something more. I know you mafia types are people of your word.” Grant didn’t believe that for a second. Criminals were criminals. But he couldn’t just acquiesce to her demands without negotiating. They preyed on weakness, and he wasn’t going to show her any. His words hit their target.
Cavano’s eyes narrowed. “What do you want?” Grant knew that she hungered for the treasure and her vengeance on Orr too much to kill him if he could lead her to them.
“I want a promise on your mother’s grave that you will let me, Tyler, and Stacy go once you have Orr and the treasure.”
“My mother’s still alive. She’s upstairs right now.”
“Okay, swear on your dear departed husband’s soul.”
“You’re working with Jordan. How do I know you weren’t sent here to lure me into a trap?”
“We were forced to work with Orr. We’re just pawns to him.”
“Can you prove it?”
Good question, Grant thought. What would be irrefutable proof?
Proof. He had just the thing.
“Do you have a computer?” Grant asked. “I need to show you an email.”
Sal brought a laptop, but he wouldn’t let Grant touch it. He gave it to Cavano.
“Tell me what to type,” she said.
He gave her the login and password for his email and told her to click on one of the emails that Tyler had forwarded to him with the video of Sherman Locke.
She watched it twice and closed the laptop.
“Okay, I believe that Jordan is forcing you to work for him,” she said. “But if we do find the treasure, and I agree to free you, how do I know you won’t talk about it to anyone?”
“Who would believe us? You won’t let us get away with any evidence.”
Cavano thought about that. “All right. I swear on my husband’s soul that I will not kill you, Tyler, or Stacy if you fulfill your part of the bargain.” She made the sign of the cross.
“No, promise that we will be safe. I don’t want an ‘accident’ to befall us on the way to the airport.”
She sighed. “Yes, you will be safe. I swear it on my husband’s soul.”
Grant stood. “Then we have a deal.” He knew the deal was a sham, but the longer he stayed alive, the longer he had to work out some kind of scheme to find Tyler and get out of this mess.
“Where are we going?” Cavano said as she stood.
“To some place called Piazza San Gaetano. We’re going to church.”
T
yler couldn’t tell whether the belt Orr made him wear really was rigged with explosives, but it was definitely uncomfortable. It was tight enough that he couldn’t possibly slide it down over his hips. The belt was made of heavy-duty nylon. Even if he found a cutting tool, it would take him several minutes to saw through it. The clasp and key-release mechanism were integrated into the unit housing the explosives, so if he tried to pry it apart, he might set it off.
He wasn’t worried about the C4 itself. The explosive was extremely stable and couldn’t be detonated by impact, even by a gunshot. Tyler always hated movies that showed someone blowing up a brick of C4 by shooting it, because the scenario was complete fiction.
Stacy looked as uncomfortable with her belt as he did, and Tyler was beginning to have second thoughts about how hastily he’d assumed that she was helping Orr. Maybe it was just his rationalization for not wanting to seem like a sucker, but he didn’t want to believe Stacy was capable of betraying him.
But if she wasn’t in league with Orr, Tyler couldn’t figure out how Orr knew every one of their movements. Orr might have learned about the museum heist from the news, but with the tracker on the plane during their stay in Athens, there was no way he could have known that the shootout at the Parthenon involved them. It was almost as if he had access to a second GPS signal …
Tyler suddenly remembered Orr smashing their cell phones. Stacy’s phone had been the only piece of electronics they’d had with them the entire time. Tyler’s phone had gotten ruined when it was dunked in the river. Orr could have been tracking the signal in Stacy’s phone from the beginning. Tyler had been so fixated on the tracker in the geolabe that it never occurred to him that Orr had a backup, which must have been why Orr had made it so easy to find.
Tyler couldn’t be sure that he was right, but he had renewed faith that Stacy was innocent. So Orr was either toying with them or he was trying to keep Tyler and Stacy from trusting each other. Divide and conquer. Tyler would play along for now.
Gaul found a rare parking spot two blocks away from the church at Piazza San Gaetano. They got out and began walking, with Gaul and Orr careful to stay behind Tyler and Stacy. The shops lining the narrow streets were all closed, and the bustle of activity Tyler had seen earlier in the day had dwindled. Scooters occasionally passed them, and the few pedestrians were making their way to tiny restaurants or the entryways of their walkup apartments.
Along the way, Tyler saw a sign for Napoli Sotterranea, the tour service that took people through the ancient passageways winding their way under the city. When he and Stacy had come this way in the afternoon, Tyler had stopped in to ask some questions.
A tour guide explained that no one knew how many tunnels and chambers actually existed underneath Naples. With subways and structural foundations constantly being excavated, new tunnels were found yearly, and some archaeologists speculated that more than thirty miles of tunnels remained undiscovered. Churches and private buildings often refused requests to map out the tunnels underneath them. Tyler had obliquely asked him about the San Lorenzo Maggiore well and whether it connected to the maze that the tourists trod. He told Tyler that he regularly traversed all the known tunnels and had never seen a connection, so the well must lead to one of the still unexplored areas.
The basilica loomed over the tiny Piazza San Gaetano. Like that of most of the other centuries-old churches in downtown Naples, the front door was set back only a few feet from the street. A sign advertised the archaeological excavation under part of the church that had exposed an ancient Greek marketplace.
Though there was no Mass that evening and the archaeological exhibit was closed, the door was wide open to allow worshippers a chance to pray and confess their sins. As the four of them walked in, Tyler mused that the priests would have to be in the confessional a long time to hear all the sins committed by this group.
They bypassed the nave, which was empty of visitors. The well stood in the center of an outdoor courtyard bordered by a cloister. The well opening was topped with a elaborate sculpted frame that was designed to winch the water up in a clay amphora from a pool in the cistern below. The aqueducts had been shut off long ago, so the cistern would now be dry. The well’s frame was now decorated with flowers, hardly the starting point Tyler would ever have imagined for a treasure hunt.
When they were standing at the well, Tyler tried to guess how the spy in the story from Archimedes’ wax tablet wound up here. Had he swum through the tunnels that served as the aqueducts? Tyler pictured the man climbing up the rope that was tied to the winch.
“Show me the mark of Scorpio,” Orr said.
Tyler walked around to the opposite side and pointed inside the well.
The light was fading quickly with the setting sun. Orr played the beam of a flashlight over stones dating from an era hundreds of years before Christ. The marks were just barely visible, fifteen dots carved out of the rock by the spy of Syracuse’s king to identify the location where he intended to return but never did. Tyler had checked the constellations online. The dots matched exactly the arrangement of stars that depicted Scorpio.
“Congratulations, Tyler,” Orr said, while Gaul extracted a rope and climbing gear from the duffel. “I knew this whole mission was a long shot, but you both came through with flying colors.”
Tyler wanted to strangle him right there. “I’m so happy you approve.”
“We’re not done yet. We still need to get down there.”
“We could jump. You go first.”
“Funny,” Orr said, looking around. They were still alone in the courtyard. Tyler didn’t want to find out what Orr would do to someone who innocently stumbled onto them.
Gaul looped the rope around the well’s frame and tested it for strength. It held, so he lowered himself into the well. Three feet down, he hammered a piton into the stone and put a carabiner on it. Gaul tested the metal spike and D-ring to make sure it would hold his weight, then attached a second rope to it.
Tyler understood what he was doing. Both ends of the rope around the frame extended all the way down to the bottom of the cistern. Once the four of them reached the bottom, Gaul would pull one end down and that rope would fall free. That way, no one walking through the courtyard would see the rope attached to the frame and investigate. To climb back up, the second rope would be left attached to the piton and out of sight.
“Okay,” Gaul said. “It’s simple. We’re going to climb down one at a time. I’ll belay you on the way down. Got it?”
They all nodded, and each of them was given a three-belt harness to put on. Tyler put his legs into each of the smaller loops and then buckled the third around his waist. The brake rope was already attached, with the carabiner dangling on the end. Gaul also gave Tyler and Stacy small headband lights that they would use on the climb down.
Gaul went first, his duffel strapped to his back. It took him several minutes to reach the bottom while Tyler and Stacy waited up top with Orr, who stood away from them with his finger ready to trigger the bombs strapped to their waists if he had to. When he was down, Gaul radioed up that he was in place and ready with the Taser.
Stacy went next. Tyler helped her into the well and made sure that her harness was attached properly. She wasn’t tentative about the climb at all. Tyler remembered her talk about exploring ancient ruins and caves with her cameramen in tow, so this descent was nothing new to her. He watched her skillfully climb down until she was out of sight.
For the first time, Tyler was alone with Orr. He stared at Orr, who returned his gaze with his lip curled in a half smile.
“How do you think you and Gaul are going to carry out a hundred and twenty-five tons of gold?” Tyler asked.
Orr laughed quietly. “You think I’m after the gold? I told you. I want the Midas Touch itself.”
“You really are crazy,” Tyler said, shaking his head.
Orr looked as if he was disappointed at Tyler’s skepticism, paused, then said, “Have you ever heard of extremophiles?”
“It sounds like someone who enjoys jumping off buildings wearing a parachute.”
“No. An extremophile is an organism that can exist in conditions that would kill most other life forms. They’re found around volcanic vents on the ocean floor or in acidic hot springs like at Yellowstone Park. They’re microbes called archaea. Some of these microbes have been known to actually digest metals in solution and excrete the solid form. That’s why companies have been trying to mine the ocean floor around these black smokers.”
“And you think that’s what the Midas Touch is?”
“As ridiculous as it sounds, yes. I have researched this my whole life, and that’s my theory. I think Midas’s skin was somehow afflicted with this kind of microbe, perhaps exposed to it during a visit to a hot spring somewhere, but he was immune to its effects. I discovered that many people live with chronic skin diseases. Believe me, you don’t want to see the photos.”
“So how does he turn things to gold?”
“Any object he touched would become contaminated with this microbe. If the object was then submerged in a solution with dissolved gold in it, the object would be transmuted to gold by the microbe.”
“So you think you’ll get rich if you can recover this microbe?” Tyler said. “What makes you think it’s still alive?”
“Over twenty years ago, in that chamber somewhere below us, I saw a man turn to gold in front of my eyes.”
He must have meant the drug runner from Cavano’s childhood tale who chased her and Orr into the chamber. Tyler recalled her saying that the man had touched something inside the golden coffin, something that had caused him excruciating pain. If that was truly the Midas Touch, the king himself may have been immune through some divine providence, but anyone else who came in contact with it would experience mind-bending agony, maybe even death.
“These archaea can remain dormant for thousands of years under the proper conditions,” Orr continued. “Whatever they used to embalm Midas could have preserved the microbe.”
However far-fetched Orr’s theory sounded, he believed it. He almost had Tyler convinced.
“You said the Midas chamber had a pool with a hot spring in it,” Tyler said. “How do you know that’s not the source of this magical ability?”
“I don’t, but I have a way to test it. I have two vials of water with me, one with water containing an acidic mixture of dissolved gold, and another with seawater. If the Midas Touch is real, it will work with those samples as well.”
“Seawater?”
The call came up from Gaul that Stacy had reached the bottom. Orr gestured for Tyler to go next.
As Tyler climbed over the lip of the well and attached his harness, Orr said, “Seawater has minute amounts of gold dissolved in it. If the Midas Touch proves to be as effective as I think it is, you could extract huge quantities of gold from the oceans.”
Tyler’s mind reeled at how much gold that could be. “We’re talking millions of ounces, then.”
Orr shook his head. “You’re thinking way too small. I’ll give you a hint. There are over a billion cubic kilometers of seawater in the world, and the average solubility of gold is thirteen parts per trillion. Now get going.”
Tyler began climbing down. Steadying himself wasn’t too challenging, and the mindless activity allowed him to calculate the staggering sum that was driving this whole venture. Aiden had been far off when he’d guessed that Orr and Cavano were each after a block of gold worth four billion dollars. Tyler went through the math twice and came up with the same stunning figure both times.
If what Orr told him was true, even the most conservative estimate would put the value of all the gold in the world’s oceans at twenty-five trillion dollars.