Midas Code (20 page)

FORTY-ONE

G
ia Cavano stormed into the entryway of her villa along the Mediterranean coast just west of Naples and picked up the first thing she could grab, a crystal Steuben vase displayed on the hall table. She hurled it into the wall, showering the floor with glass shards.

The destruction felt good, but she still burned with fury.

As a maid rushed over to sweep up the remains of the vase, Cavano stomped through the living room and onto the terrace overlooking the sea. Her cousin Salvatore followed her. He wasn’t too bright, which Cavano liked, but he was efficient and provided the necessary brawn. He’d been a faithful servant since her husband died.

“Quell’idiòta, Pietro!”
Cavano yelled, kicking one of the chairs over. “If he weren’t already dead, I’d kill him,” she continued in Italian.

“Locke will pay. I’ll make sure of it.”

“Do you realize what yesterday cost me? The wrecked Lamborghini and the repairs to the Ferrari will cost over three hundred thousand euros, not to mention the destroyed BMW and the Zonda I had to buy.”

“And we lost three men.”

“Yes, of course. Three more families to feed.” The Cavanos looked after their own, especially when soldiers died. It guaranteed their loyalty to know that their families would be secure.

Rödel had sent a car to pick her up when the Zonda ran out of gas. She left the police to investigate the death in the Boerst garage and the disintegrated Lamborghini. The Ferrari was found not long after with two bullet holes in it. Through Rödel, she reported it stolen and left the city before they could ask her any questions.

Now she had full ownership of the Ministry of Health building, but demolition work couldn’t begin until Monday morning. Even with her power, she couldn’t compel the Italian unions to bring in the heavy machinery she’d need on a weekend.

As long as she kept Orr at bay until she broke through into the tunnels, the gold would be all hers.

But Locke had followed her specifically for the device. The video recordings that Rödel had supplied for her showed that Locke had tried the BMW first and had fought Pietro, eventually pushing the car over the edge. The cap Locke wore had hidden his face, so the police wouldn’t be able to make a positive identification, and she certainly wasn’t going to report him. She wanted to take care of him herself.

She just had to figure out why he’d risked so much to get it. It was obviously critical to his search, as was the tablet he’d stolen. Eventually he would come to Naples. He and Orr would have to.

“Are we keeping watch on the airport and the train station?” she asked.

“I have men waiting at both. If Orr, Locke, Benedict, or Westfield shows up, we’ll know.”

She wasn’t so sure about that. Orr was a master at hiding his identity, and he’d know he would be vulnerable in Naples. Locke, on the other hand, seemed determined and resourceful, but he wasn’t a criminal skilled at covering his tracks.

“Put feelers out to all the hotels, too. Have them look for anything different from the typical tourist or businessman.”

“What should we do if we spot any of them?”

“Protecting the gold is the first priority.” Sal was the only one of her men who knew what they were searching for.

“So we should kill them when we find them?”

Cavano paused. Killing them on sight was the smart thing to do. Three shots, execution style. Naples had the highest murder rate in western Europe, and the
polizia
made few arrests.

But unease crept over her. What if Orr or Locke already knew how to find the gold? If she killed either of them, she wouldn’t know what the other was planning. If they got to the chamber before she did, she might lose out on the Midas treasure altogether.

“Kill them only as a last resort. Capture them if you can. But do not let them get away, no matter who has to die to prevent it.”

“Understood.”

Cavano paced as she tried to think like her adversary. “Orr is looking for some other way to the gold. I’m sure the tablet and Locke’s device have something to do with his search, but I don’t know what.”

“What about the British Museum?” Sal said. “When I was following Westfield, he talked to Lumley for a long time.”

“When I called Lumley back, he told me that he couldn’t decipher what the codex meant.”

“Maybe the device has something to do with the codex and that’s why Locke took it back from us.”

That stopped Cavano. Maybe Sal wasn’t as dumb as she thought.

She felt her blood pressure rising again. Lumley had withheld information from her. She retrieved her phone and dialed the archaeologist’s cell.

“Hello,” he said tentatively.

“It’s me. Don’t lie to me this time. Tell me what you told Westfield.”

“I didn’t lie. I really couldn’t help him—”

She didn’t have time for this. “If you don’t tell me what you know, I will strap you to a table and make you watch as I pull out your entrails one by one.”

Lumley gulped audibly. “All … all right. Of course. Mr. Westfield was particularly interested in two statues of the Parthenon’s west pediment—Herakles and Aphrodite.”

“Why?”

“The codex referenced those two figures as a key to some kind of puzzle, but I don’t know what.”

“Have they come back to the museum?”

“Oh, no. I don’t think they would.”

“You mean they solved the puzzle?”

“I don’t know. The codex implied that one would have to be at the Parthenon in person to understand what it meant.”

At the Parthenon.
“
Grazie,
Doctor.”

“Am I free now?”

“No. I may call again at any time, and if you don’t answer, I will take that as a sign of disrespect. Do you understand?”

Lumley wheezed into the phone. “Absolutely.”

She hung up.

With a day’s head start, it was possible she was already too late to get Locke, Benedict, and Westfield, but it was the only lead she had.

“Get Adamo and Dario,” she said to Sal. “Since they were at the museum, they’ll recognize Grant Westfield. Send them to Athens tonight. I think Locke and his friends may be there already.”

“Should I go with them?”

“No, I want you here in Naples. If they slip through, they’ll come here next.”

“What should Adamo and Dario do in Athens?”

“Find photos of Locke and Benedict to give them. I want them at the Parthenon from opening to closing.”

“And if they find all three of them?”

Getting them all back to Italy would be difficult. The best bet would be to charter a boat.

Cavano could already feel her heartbeat ease and her muscles relax. For the first time in twenty-four hours, she felt back in control.

“We don’t need all three,” she said. “Capture Locke. Kill Benedict and Westfield.”

FORTY-TWO

I
t was 2:45 in the afternoon, and with the 3:00 closing time fast approaching, the visitors at the National Archaeological Museum were beginning to wander back toward the entrance. Using the tickets Grant had bought earlier in the day, Tyler and Stacy had entered the museum separately.

Tyler had put on a collared shirt and jeans for the operation, with the backpack slung over his shoulder. His earpiece was in and connected to his cell phone’s open line to Grant, who was with their motorcycles next to the emergency exit.

“You ready out there?” Tyler said.

“A little crowd at the bus stop, but otherwise we’re good to go.”

“Give me a shout if something wicked comes that way.”

“Will do.”

Tyler wore the new black cap on the off chance that his Mariners cap would be connected to the Munich garage incident. He pulled the bill down and made sure to keep it between his face and the cameras in each room as he followed Grant’s directions to the room with the Antikythera Mechanism. Having studied the photos thoroughly, Tyler knew exactly what to expect, but seeing it in person for the first time he was still amazed at how much the replica sitting behind the glass looked like the geolabe he’d built. Other than the single knob on the side of the Antikythera Mechanism, as opposed to the dual knobs on the geolabe, they were virtually identical.

The attendants from this room and the one with the emergency exit were chatting, paying no attention to Tyler. No other tourists were around, giving him the chance he needed.

He positioned himself directly beneath the working camera next to a display case that had a small space between it and the wall. Tyler knelt as if to tie his shoe, plopping the backpack next to him. With a smooth motion, he removed the smoke grenade from the pack and rested it behind the display case. Unless someone was looking for it, it wouldn’t be seen.

He stood back up and pretended to spend a few more minutes reading the captions on the Antikythera Mechanism. A walk around the case holding the replica showed him the keyhole that would unlock the front glass.

He strolled back out the way he’d come, just another visitor browsing relics from Greece’s ancient past. He really did wish he had more time to inspect the fragments of the Antikythera Mechanism. It was incredible that he’d been looking at a device more sophisticated than any other created for fifteen hundred years.

They’d planned to set things in motion in the gallery containing tombstone sculptures, about a hundred feet from the room with the Mechanism. When he turned into the hall, he saw Stacy peering intently at the statue of a robed man carrying a bowl into which offerings would be placed.

She made a slow 180-degree turn, and Tyler nodded as her eyes passed over him. It was a go.

Grant had noted the locations of all the fire alarms, and Stacy found one near a group of elderly tourists listening to a guide speaking English. She pulled it discreetly as she walked by. A Klaxon began to blare.

The sound came from horns in the ceiling, so no one turned to where Stacy had just been standing. She looked as confused as the rest of the patrons.

Attendants began to appear from both ends of the hall. Fire was a major threat to the artwork, but the sprinklers were not set to come on automatically for fear of damaging the statues unnecessarily.

Tyler gripped the unfolded Leatherman in his pocket, waiting for his cue.

Within seconds, a guard appeared. He was speaking loudly into his walkie-talkie and headed directly for the alarm pull. He stopped in front of it and swung around, looking for any hint of a fire.

The tour group was watching the guard, not moving toward the exit as Tyler had hoped. He sidled up to one of the group members, a gentleman who looked to be in his eighties.

“Did you hear that?” Tyler said.

“Hear what?” the man said.

Tyler pointed at the guard. “I think that guy said there was a fire in the back of the museum.”

That seemed to be confirmation enough for them, and the tour group began shuffling toward the front exit.

Stacy was already engaged in an animated conversation with the guard in Greek, performing her bit to perfection. She gestured at the ceiling as if the fire might be up there. She put her hand on the guard’s back. Two attendants who had joined them also looked up. Whatever Stacy was saying, they were buying it.

Tyler took the Leatherman out of his pocket, the wire cutters at the ready. The guard’s keys were dangling off his left hip. Tyler stood next to him as if he were also trying to see the cause of the alarm.

Stacy yelled, and that was his cue. He bent slightly, grasped the keys, and snipped the cord. The guard didn’t feel a thing.

Tyler turned and headed back toward the Antikythera Mechanism.

As soon as he made the turn into the next room, he bumped three display cases with his hip. According to Stacy, each case would have a silent alarm built in. The sudden motion would set them off, creating more distraction.

Then he flicked the button on the remote, igniting the smoke grenade. Grant had spent his lunchtime rigging the igniter. The flameless paintball grenade could be set off just by holding a nine-volt battery to the leads, but it could also be attached to a simple electric ignition switch and activated with a push-button remote.

The grenade began to spew out enough smoke to cover a football field. In three minutes, the entire hall would be full of the nontoxic gas. Tyler just needed it to fill the room that held the Mechanism replica.

He flipped through the keys until he found the odd-shaped one that opened the display cases.

The attendants in the room cried out in alarm. Tyler was only twenty feet away now and saw an orange cloud of smoke billowing through the entryway. The two attendants came out hacking and coughing, convinced that the gas was poisonous.

Tyler had expected them to go out the emergency exit. Their sudden appearance complicated things, but he decided to just go for it.

Tyler skirted around them and plunged into the room, which was now completely engulfed in smoke. Unable to see more than a foot in front of him, he moved to the display case by feel.

He was about to insert the key when he felt someone latch on to his arm. One of the attendants had gotten brave and gone back into the smoke to save Tyler. She pulled on him insistently shouting at him in Greek.

Tyler nudged the attendant forward and made as if to follow her out. But once she got two steps ahead, he stopped and went back to the case, confident that she wouldn’t know where he’d gone. He ran his hand along the top until he found the keyhole. He inserted it, and with a twist the case popped open. Orange smoke flooded into the purified air inside the case.

Tyler unzipped his backpack. He snared the Antikythera Mechanism replica and stuffed it into the bag. Then he wiped the keys down with his shirt and tossed them into the case.

“Got it,” he said.

“You’re clear,” came Grant’s reply.

Tyler walked toward the exit door, pushed it open, and tumbled through, holding his hand over his face and wheezing for the benefit of anyone who might be watching.

He stumbled to where Grant waited with the motorcycles. No one else was near the bus stop. Any looky-loos were drawn to the museum entrance.

They both got on their bikes, rocketed away, and made a circuit around the museum. When they reached the front, Stacy was running toward them.

She hopped on Tyler’s ride, and they took off.

Three intersections later, they stopped at a red light. They heard some sirens, but all of them were headed toward the museum.

“Any problems?” Grant shouted above the traffic.

“Other than the attendant making a last-second grab for me, it went off without a hitch,” Tyler replied. He turned to Stacy. “Nice acting job. I almost looked up at the ceiling myself.”

“I have to please my public,” she said. “Think the attendant will be able to identify you?”

“With all that smoke? She’ll be lucky to remember it was a man.”

“You mean,
you’ll
be lucky.”

The light turned green. “I’m highly skilled at being lucky,” Tyler yelled over his shoulder as he opened the throttle, putting more distance between them and the scene of the crime.