The Midas Code

NINETEEN

A strong tailwind helped get the Gulfstream into Heathrow ten minutes before 2 P.M. Tyler had requisitioned a motor pool car from Gordian’s London facility for him and Stacy to drive west to the estate leased by VXN. He had also called ahead to ask for a meeting with the estate’s owner or resident, but the assistant he talked to said the owner of the company was very busy and had no time for them. Only after Stacy jumped in and used her celebrity credentials to explain that the request involved an ancient puzzle devised by Archimedes did the assistant tell her that the owner would agree to an audience if Stacy and Tyler could get there by four o’clock.

Grant would be heading in the other direction, straight into the heart of London during rush hour, so he opted to ride the express into Paddington Station, then take the Underground to the stop nearest the British Museum. His appointment had been easier to make. With a few carefully worded clues revealed by the codex, Grant had persuaded an archaeologist named Oswald Lumley to provide his expertise on the Parthenon.

Tyler had placed the cushioned pack containing the geolabe in the back of the Range Rover in case they needed to consult it when they were at the estate. He then wished Grant good hunting and left the airport, with Stacy riding shotgun.

On the drive, Tyler called Aiden MacKenna hoping to get an update on tracking down Jordan Orr.

Over the SUV’s speaker, Aiden’s answer came out sounding groggy. It was just a little past six in the morning in Seattle.

“Were you up all night?” Tyler asked as he drove on the M3 motorway toward Basingstoke.

“Caught a few winks between database searches,” Aiden said. “I’ll sleep later.”

“Thanks, Aiden.” Tyler was truly appreciative that he worked with friends who would go all out to help him like this. “Any luck?”

“Of course, the credentials he gave us when he hired you to build the geolabe turned out to be bogus. Now he seems to have disappeared off the face of the earth. Without prints, we don’t have much to go on.”

Before Tyler left Seattle, he had the geolabe dusted for fingerprints, but as he suspected, Orr hadn’t been that sloppy.

“What about the auction-house heist?” Stacy asked.

“Scotland Yard ran into a dead end on that,” Aiden said. “None of the perpetrators were ever caught, and none of the art objects resurfaced.”

“You’d think he would have made enough money on the robbery to retire to Fiji in style.”

“Maybe it wasn’t enough for Orr. During my search, I ran some calculations based on the size of the block of gold Orr told you he found in the Midas chamber. You said the golden statue of the girl was lying on top of a solid-gold cube six feet on each side, right?”

“Along with walls made of gold,” Tyler said.

“And who knows how thick those are. But just consider the pedestal itself, and remember how dense gold is. If it’s twenty-four karat, it would weigh about a hundred and eighteen thousand kilograms, or around four million ounces. If it were melted down and sold on the open market, the cube alone would be worth around four billion dollars.”

Stacy coughed. “Four billion? With a b?”

“Give or take, depending on the price of gold.”

Tyler had been so busy worrying about his father and trying to interpret the clues in the Archimedes Codex that he hadn’t calculated the money involved, but hearing the figures made him realize what they were up against. Criminals would kill their own families for a hundredth that amount. No wonder Orr was going to such elaborate lengths to get the treasure.

Any legitimate treasure hunter would get only a small percentage of the take, if anything, once the Italian government got involved. That’s why Orr was so desperate to keep it a secret.

“What about the tracker?” Tyler said. “Has Miles decoded the signal?”

“Still working on that. I’ll get back to you when we’ve got it.”

“Okay. And let me know the minute you have anything on Orr.”

“Absolutely,” Aiden said, and hung up. Tyler had no doubt that, if there was a way to track down Orr, Aiden would find it.

“If Orr is really after the gold in that chamber,” Tyler said, “why would he make up that story about seeing the Midas Touch in action?”

“Because he’s messing with us,” Stacy said. “I’ve met guys like him before. They like to manipulate people. They get off on it.”

“I’m just trying to figure out his angle. What about the hand?”

Stacy shook her head. “You’ve got me. Archimedes does talk about the hand in the codex. He saw it in person, which means the golden hand is at least twenty-two hundred years old.”

“I know. That’s what bothers me.”

“Because the hand is so old or because it looks so real?”

“Both.”

“Like I said before, I don’t have a scientific background, but it did look pretty convincing.”

“However it was made, there was nothing magical about the transformation.” Tyler simply refused to believe that a magical power could perform alchemy in violation of every known chemical law.

“Would you bet our families’ lives on that?” Stacy asked.

Tyler didn’t answer, because it didn’t matter what he believed. His mission was to find the map left by Archimedes so that he could get his father back.

They were silent for the rest of the drive. When they reached the gates of the estate thirty minutes later, Tyler pressed the buzzer.

“What is your business?” a man said in a thick Italian accent.

“My name is Tyler Locke. We have an appointment.”

“Yes. Drive to the house.”

The ten-foot-tall gates slowly drew apart. Tyler wheeled the Range Rover along a winding brick driveway toward a gray stone mansion a half mile away.

As they got closer, he realized how immense the home really was. The front façade alone was at least a hundred feet long. He could picture the original owner reigning over a vast estate of feudal vassals.

Several cars were parked in front of the mansion, but only one caught his eye. It was a red Ferrari 458 Italia, with a top speed of more than two hundred miles per hour. Tyler was a connoisseur, regularly driving loaners when Gordian tested them for auto and insurance companies at its track in Phoenix, but he hadn’t yet driven an Italia.

He parked the Range Rover next to it and got out to take a closer look before they knocked on the door. For just a moment, he imagined himself hearing the roar of the car’s mid-engine V8 behind his head.

The clop-clop of approaching hooves made him turn around.

A chestnut horse trotted toward them. Tyler instinctively backed away.

“What’s the matter?” Stacy said.

“I don’t like horses,” Tyler said, eyeing it warily.

Stacy looked at him as if he’d said he hated rainbows. “Who doesn’t like horses?”

“Me.”

“Why?”

“They’re big and they’re unpredictable.”

“They’re friendly.”

“I forgot. You grew up on a farm.”

“I practically lived on my horse, Chanter, when I was a teenager. Have you ever ridden one?”

“Yes,” Tyler said, but he didn’t elaborate.

The rider pulled on the reins and expertly guided the horse to a stop. She was a striking woman in her thirties, dressed in impeccable traditional English riding togs and helmet. A black ponytail flicked back and forth every time she moved her head.

“She’s a beauty, isn’t she?” the woman said to Tyler, her Italian accent softer than the security guard’s. “I saw you looking at her.”

Assuming that the woman was either the home’s owner or related to the owner, Tyler didn’t want to kick off his introduction by insulting her.

He nodded cautiously and said, “Definitely. What breed is she?”

“Breed?” She looked down at the horse and laughed with a throaty roar. “You must not be much of a rider.” She patted the horse’s neck. “This is Giuseppe, and he’s a male. An Arabian. The beauty I meant was my Ferrari.”

Tyler joined in the laughter at his gaffe.

“Prancing horses I know,” he said, meaning Ferrari’s logo. “Five hundred and sixty horsepower, in the case of this lovely lady. She must be a treat to drive.”

The Italian looked Tyler up and down, almost as if he were a horse she was considering purchasing.

“She is. Maybe I’ll take you for a spin later.”

Her inflection left no doubt that the double entendre was on purpose.

The woman dismounted and led Giuseppe toward them. Tyler willed himself to stand his ground. Stacy, on the other hand, held out her hand and stroked the horse’s nose. In return, Giuseppe nuzzled her palm.

“See?” she said to Tyler. “He’s a sweetheart.”

Tyler wondered what it was about women and horses.

“He doesn’t care for our equine friends?” the woman said.

“I’m more of a mechanical type,” Tyler said. He held out his hand. “I’m Tyler Locke, and this is Stacy Benedict. We called earlier today.”

The woman took his hand in a strong grip, and then shook Stacy’s.

“When I heard what you wanted to talk about, I couldn’t resist meeting you,” she said. “Welcome to my home. I am Gia Cavano.”

Stacy stifled a tiny gasp too late at hearing the name Gia. Tyler held his own amazement in check. It couldn’t be a coincidence that the woman who owned the next key in Archimedes’ puzzle had the same name as someone they’d heard about the day before from Orr, who had told them two things about his childhood friend Gia.

One, that Orr had discovered the Midas chamber while exploring the tunnels of Naples with her. And two, that if Gia found out that they were also searching for it after all these years, she would kill them.

TWENTY

As he exited the train at Holborn tube station, Grant wasn’t swept along with the crush of rush-hour passengers, one of the benefits of being a big man. Instead, the mass of people flowed around him or stepped aside when he approached. He strode briskly along the station’s platform trying to make up for lost time, a backpack containing the Archimedes translation slung over his shoulder.

The trip on the Underground had taken longer than he’d expected, so he had only fifteen minutes until his appointment with Dr. Lumley. Grant stopped at streets only long enough to remember to look right instead of left so that he wouldn’t be run over. He hadn’t been to England in years and would have loved to explore the neighborhoods and see how much things had changed since his last visit, but that would have to wait for next time.

Despite Tyler’s determined optimism, Grant knew that his friend was worried about his father. Tyler and his dad had their icy patches, but Grant had perceived some thawing lately. The two had started speaking again, even if it was sporadic. But when someone threatened your own blood, it didn’t matter how close the two of you were.

Grant and Tyler weren’t blood, but they might as well have been, and if Grant could help his friend by solving this crazy riddle, he would do whatever he had to.

In another five minutes, he walked through the front courtyard of the British Museum and into the entryway. Though admission was free, a small display asked for a donation to enter the museum. Grant hadn’t had a chance to get any British currency, so he took out a twenty-dollar bill and tucked it into the slot before heading into the Great Court.

The soaring ceiling made the space feel airy despite being packed with tourists wandering around the beige marble floor in search of antiquities like the famed Rosetta Stone. Steel latticework supported the impressive glass skylight that wrapped around the central reading room.

Grant waited at the information desk until the confused American in front of him could be convinced that the museum did not have a display of Harry Potter’s Quidditch broom.

“I’m looking for the office of an archaeologist named Oswald Lumley,” he said.

After a quick call, a curatorial assistant arrived to guide Grant down to see Dr. Lumley. She led him through a maze of halls and stairs before showing him into a cramped office stacked high with books on every surface. So much for the modern paperless office.

A short balding man in his sixties circled from behind the desk as the assistant made her exit. His striped dress shirt had seen better days and was stretched by a slight paunch. Like most archaeologists, Lumley wasn’t likely to be cracking any bullwhips.

“Dr. Lumley,” Grant said.

“And you must be Grant Westfield,” Lumley said. He didn’t say it, but his arched eyebrows made it clear that a brawny ex-wrestler was not what he’d been expecting. “I’m happy that you sought me out.”

“And I appreciate you seeing me on such short notice.”

“Not at all. Not at all. After I saw the sample from your manuscript, I was eager to hear more.”

When he had first called the museum, Grant had used his connection to Stacy, hoping her reputation would get him an audience with someone. He claimed that he was a consultant for the TV show Chasing the Past, which was researching an ancient manuscript owned by a private collector. After being routed to several different archaeologists, his call was taken by Lumley.

To make sure he got Lumley’s attention, Grant had faxed one sheet of the original Greek codex from the section he needed the archaeologist to examine. There was no mention of Archimedes or Midas, just the allusion to Herakles and Aphrodite. Since the Archimedes Codex had been stolen before the auction house could catalog it in detail, there was no way Lumley might suspect that Grant’s manuscript was the stolen one.

Lumley waved to a chair. “Please sit down.”

They each took a seat, and Grant gave Lumley an abbreviated rundown of his interest in the codex, especially the reference to the seat of Herakles and the feet of Aphrodite. Then he showed Lumley the full section of the translated codex. Lumley spent ten minutes reading it, gasping in astonishment every few paragraphs.

Finally, he looked up and said, “Remarkable.”

“Can you help us decipher it?”

“I think I might. Or, at least, part of it. But I’d like to review the Marbles in person before I draw any conclusions.”

“Great,” Grant said as he stood. “Let’s take a look.”

Lumley held up a finger. “Forgive me, but I must make one call before my colleague leaves for the day.”

“No problem. I can go on ahead.”

“Perfect. If you return by the route you took to arrive at my office, you’ll see signs leading you directly to the display containing the Elgin Marbles. I shall join you momentarily.”

Buoyed by the prospect of new information in their quest, Grant took the stairs back up two at a time. He was eager to see what clue the Elgin Marbles held. He just hoped the archaeologist wouldn’t take long.

When Grant Westfield was safely out of earshot, Lumley took out his cell phone. He didn’t want the call to go through the museum’s central switchboard. He chose the contact listing that had no name, just the number he’d been given if any ancient Greek documents relating to the Parthenon came to his attention. As a senior archaeologist in the museum, he had been able to wrest Westfield’s original inquiry away from a more junior staff member.

Lumley’s call was answered on the second ring. He didn’t need to say who it was. His voice quavered as he spoke.

“I think I’ve found what you’ve been looking for.”

TWENTY-ONE

If Tyler thought he had any other choice, he and Stacy would be long gone from Gia Cavano’s estate instead of sitting in the study of her mansion. The wood-paneled room at the rear of the house had a spectacular view of the stables and the hundreds of acres of pastureland beyond. Flames in the brick fireplace warded off any chill the drafty windows let in.

A tanned and muscled “assistant” with enough gel in his hair to rival a major oil spill had escorted them to their waiting spot while Gia Cavano excused herself to take her horse back to the stables and change into fresh clothes. The door to the study was closed behind them, but Tyler had no doubt that the man was standing guard. It was also quite possible someone was listening to them.

“Do you think Orr knew his old friend Gia Cavano had the tablet?” Stacy said in a whisper. She leaned so close to Tyler that her lips brushed his ear. He felt goose bumps on his arms in response to the light touch.

“No, but we should have anticipated it,” he whispered in reply. “VXN Industries.”

“Of course. Vixen. Orr called her the Fox. That must be her nickname.” A vixen is a female fox, and Cavano had shortened it to VXN. They had simply never considered that his nemesis would be holding one of the important clues that they needed.

“Do you think she knows why we’re here?” Stacy asked.

“If she doesn’t, we’ll get a look at the tablet and then get out of here.”

“And if she does?”

Tyler raised an eyebrow. “Then we’re in trouble.”

Not only did he not like the coincidence of running into the one person Orr had warned them about; his first impression of Cavano reminded him of the Cheshire Cat, the smile and purr hiding mischief just beneath the surface.

The door opened behind them. They both stood while Cavano swept in, now dressed in a stylish gray pantsuit tailored for her curvaceous figure. Her raven hair draped across her shoulders, framing sculpted cheekbones and mahogany brown eyes.

As she glided to her desk, Cavano never took her gaze off Tyler.

“My apologies for keeping you waiting,” she said, “but I’m feeling much refreshed.” She took a seat and indicated for Tyler and Stacy to do the same.

“Thank you for taking the time to meet with us,” Tyler said.

“I understand this has to do with an ancient tablet I purchased a year ago. May I ask what your interest in it is?”

Before Tyler could respond, Stacy cleared her throat. “I’m the host of a television show called Chasing the Past, and we’re interested in featuring it in an upcoming episode.” Not bad. Using her position as a TV personality just might work. Even though Tyler didn’t understand the craving for fame, he knew that most people would do anything for their fifteen minutes.

“And you are the producer?” Cavano said to Tyler.

“I’m an adviser to the show,” he said.

“And what is your interest in the tablet, Ms. Benedict?”

“We believe it may represent a significant highlight of Greek culture from the time during the Second Punic Wars, which would be of great interest to my viewers.”

“I see. So you are an archaeologist?”

“A classicist specializing in Greek culture, with a PhD from Duke.”

“Impressive. And you want to film my tablet?”

“Not today. We just want to inspect it to see if it’s the piece we think it is.”

“I don’t think that should be a problem. In fact, it is in this very room.” Cavano pulled out a drawer and pressed a button. Two panels in the wall slid apart, revealing a glass case displaying several ancient objects, including two illuminated manuscripts, a bronze short sword, and a wax tablet the size of two hardback novels.

Stacy practically jumped out of her chair and reverently approached the display, followed by Tyler. Cavano joined them, putting her hand on Tyler’s arm. Subtlety wasn’t her strength.

“I think it’s exquisite,” she said. “Can you read it?”

“Yes,” Stacy said without hesitation. She concentrated on the tablet, which was hinged and separated into two halves. Exposed wood around the edges surrounded rectangles covered in beige beeswax. The Greek words were quite legible, as if they’d been written the week before instead of two thousand years ago. Despite their precarious situation, Tyler was agog at the sight. If Stacy’s suspicions were correct, he was now looking at the handwriting of Archimedes himself.

“It says, ‘Whosoever desires truth shall divine the greatest treasure. Do not look outside of yourself, but within. The skies, the stars, the moon, the sun, and the planets will be forever yours. The Parthenon provides the key.’”

Cavano clapped her hands. “Excellent. That is precisely how my own expert translated it, although it took him much longer than you did. Do you have any idea what it refers to?”

Stacy glanced at Tyler and shook her head. “It’s quite mysterious. Just the kind of thing we like to feature on our show.”

Cavano laughed and returned to her seat.

“Please, Dr. Benedict. There’s no need to go on with this farce. If you’ll sit down, I have something to tell you that I think you’ll both find very interesting.”

A flash of alarm crossed Stacy’s face. Tyler shared the sentiment. This wasn’t good. But they were committed now. Might as well hear what Cavano had to say. He and Stacy went back to their chairs.

“You have seen a document that was stolen before I could buy it,” Cavano said. “A manuscript referring to a map that leads to the treasure of King Midas.”

“What makes you think that?” Tyler said.

“Because Dr. Benedict called to ask about a puzzle created by Archimedes. That is the only reason you would ask to see my tablet.”

“You’re jumping to conclusions.”

“Not at all.” Cavano took a deep breath. “When I was nine, a boy and I were exploring the basement of a condemned apartment building in my home city of Naples when we came across a hidden room that led into a network of tunnels. We heard two men speaking around a corner and crept forward until we could see them stacking bags of white powder into crates. We immediately realized that the room was being used to hide smuggled drugs where the police would never find them.”

Cavano’s eyes glazed over as she recalled that night.

“The men must have heard our whispers because they stopped talking and ran after us, one waving his crowbar, the other taking shots at us with a gun. We were cut off from our entrance, so the two men chased us into the tunnels, screaming that their boss would kill them if we escaped to tell his enemies where they were. In the mad scramble, we became lost, but we couldn’t elude the men. We ran for what seemed like miles until we saw a glow reflected in our flashlights. We thought it was daylight and charged ahead.”

Tyler hadn’t realized until this moment that he was sitting on the edge of his chair. Cavano’s tale was much more detailed than Orr’s.

“We skidded to a halt in a chamber made entirely of gold. You may think I’m exaggerating, but every single surface was covered in a yellow metallic sheen. In the center of the room was a golden pedestal, and lying on the pedestal was a life-size statue of a woman who was perfect in every detail except that her left hand was missing. At one end, a pool of water bubbled, drenching the chamber in a steamy fog. On a high terrace at the other end of the room was a golden coffin, the sarcophagus of King Midas.”

“How could you possibly know that?” Stacy said.

“Because of what happened next,” Cavano said. “We took shelter behind the pedestal, where we were sure to be found, but there was no other exit. We were trapped. However, when the men entered, they completely forgot about us.”

“I can understand why,” Tyler said.

“After a few moments of staring in awe, the two men began to argue about what to do with their find. Neither was planning to report it to their boss, but they couldn’t decide how they were going to get the gold out without being discovered. They thought there might be bricks of gold or coins in the sarcophagus, but when the one with the gun turned toward it, the man with the crowbar bashed him over the head, killing him instantly. After putting the gun in his waistband, the second man pried the coffin open just far enough to reach inside. He pulled his hand out with a scream, as if he’d been bitten, and the lid slammed closed again.”

“What happened?” Stacy said.

“I don’t know. He held his hand like it was on fire. He tried to wipe it on his pants, but the screaming got louder. Then his hand went to his throat. As he staggered around in agony, he slipped and fell into the pool of water.”

Cavano’s eyes gleamed, thrilled at recounting the tale, no fear at all.

“Then the most marvelous thing happened. When we emerged from our hiding place to look at the man in the water, we saw that his hand had begun to turn to gold. It started at his fingertips and worked slowly toward his palm. In five minutes, nearly his entire hand had been consumed. He was a victim of the Midas Touch. There is no other possible explanation.”

Tyler struggled not to roll his eyes, because the yarn was too fantastic, the fevered dream of some scared kids.

“And why don’t you just go back and find it?” he said.

“Believe me, I’ve been trying to ever since that day. We told our parents about the gold chamber, leaving out the part about the two dead men, but they were so mad about our all-night absence that they thought we were making up the story to avoid punishment. The apartments were torn down soon after, and a building for the Italian Ministry of Health was put up in its place. I ventured into the basement once after the construction was complete, but the concrete foundation had covered the entrance to the tunnels.”

“That’s an amazing story,” Tyler said. “And I don’t believe a word of it.”

“I think you do,” Cavano said, “otherwise you wouldn’t have taken on the job to find it. How much is he paying you?”

“Who?” Stacy said a little too quickly.

“The person who stole that codex from me.”

“From you?” Tyler said.

“The codex and the golden hand — the same one missing from the statue in the Midas vault — were to be auctioned, and I had a plan to obtain them before anyone else realized the secret those two treasures held. They were stolen from the auction house along with other valuables, and not a single item in the theft ever resurfaced. Until now, I thought the perpetrator of the heist was dead.”

“Why do you think we know anything about that?” Tyler said.

“Because this afternoon I received a call about an inquiry into an ancient Greek document, one involving the Parthenon, and the bearer of that manuscript happened to say he was working with Stacy Benedict.”

Tyler felt his stomach drop to the floor. She was talking about Grant.

“The only way you could have seen that manuscript is if you’re now working with the person who stole it,” Cavano said. “You see, the boy with me that night long ago in Naples grew up to be the thief who took the Archimedes Codex. He wasn’t just my friend; he was also my cousin from America. His name is Jordan Orr, and I plan to kill him.”

TWENTY-TWO

In the Duveen Gallery, specially built to display the Elgin Marbles, Grant wandered along the sculptures lining either side. The captions called them metopes, which were square reliefs that had decorated the exterior band running around the top of the Parthenon. Most of them were damaged in some way, whether by an explosion that blew the Parthenon apart in 1687, by weathering, or during their removal.

At either end of the long gallery were the large three-dimensional pediment sculptures that had adorned the eaves of the Parthenon’s pitched roof. Like most of the sculptures Grant had seen in museums, a majority of the Elgin Marbles were missing their heads and hands.

“Magnificent, aren’t they?” Dr. Lumley said behind him. The curator had followed a group of tourists into the gallery, so Grant hadn’t noticed him.

“Couldn’t ask for better,” Grant said, even though they didn’t impress him. Maybe he was missing something. “The captions said something about the Parthenon getting blown up. What happened?”

“A true tragedy. During its first two thousand years, the Parthenon had undergone damage when it was first converted into a church and then a mosque, but it was still recognizable as the temple of Athena. In 1687, the Ottoman Turks occupied Athens and were at war with Venice. For some reason, they thought the Acropolis was the best site to locate a gunpowder magazine. The Venetians lobbed mortar shells at the ammunition storehouse until one of them connected. The entire building blew apart, destroying many of the columns and sculptures.”

Grant nodded knowingly. He and Tyler had been working on the modern version of an ammo dump for the Bremerton naval base. During the design phase, they had reviewed several case studies of ammo storage and transport that had resulted in calamities, such as the World War I transport ship SS Mont-Blanc, which had collided with another ship and exploded in Halifax Harbor. It had been carrying the equivalent of three thousand tons of TNT when the ship blew up. Almost two thousand lives were lost, and five hundred acres of the city were destroyed, either by the pressure wave or by the sixty-foot tsunami caused by the blast. It was the biggest man-made explosion in history until Little Boy leveled Hiroshima.

The devastation of the Parthenon hadn’t made the case list, probably because it happened so long ago. But Grant wasn’t surprised that the explosion had caused so much damage. In fact, he was more surprised that any of the building was left standing.

“That’s a shame,” Grant said.

“Indeed.”

“So these are all the sculptures?”

Lumley chuckled. “Goodness, no. Lord Elgin only procured half of the Marbles. The rest now reside in the New Acropolis Museum in Athens. Of course, they’d like to have them all, but we’ll let our governments wrestle with that.”

“What do you mean?”

“Oh, the Greeks continue to argue that the Turks illegally sold the Marbles to Lord Elgin, who in turn sold them to the British Museum. The museum has maintained for years that the Marbles are safer here, but now that the New Acropolis Museum has a state-of-the-art facility for preserving the sculptures, the Greeks are keen to have the Marbles returned.”

“And what do you think?”

“There is great risk in moving them at all, but I prefer to remain neutral. I am an archaeologist, not a politician.”

“So do you have the sculptures that are referred to in the manuscript?”

“I think we may. You see, the manuscript refers to ‘the seat of Herakles’ and ‘the feet of Aphrodite.’ You may know Herakles better as Hercules.”

Though Grant’s grasp of ancient mythology was limited to what he’d seen in the Disney movies his nieces watched, he nodded. “Sure. Herakles.”

Lumley pointed at a reclining male figure from the east pediment. His head was intact, but his hands were missing. “Do you see that paw there?” Grant squinted and then nodded. Just the barest form of a great cat’s paw peeked out from under the robes the figure lay upon.

“We believe that is a lion’s paw, which would indicate that the figure is Herakles.” Lumley moved to the opposite side and indicated two female torsos, one lying against the other. “No one has been able to determine with certainty who these figures represent, but I favor the theory that it is Aphrodite relaxing upon her mother, Dione.”

The seat of Herakles and the feet of Aphrodite will show the way.

Grant looked beneath the statues and saw that they were supported by a marble base.

“What should be under the statues?” he asked.

“They would rest on the pediment itself, which rests atop the pillars.”

“So the seat of Herakles and the feet of Aphrodite are reference points. For what?”

“It may help if I knew what you’re looking for.”

Grant couldn’t reveal the link of Midas, but he knew that being too evasive would only raise more questions. He hesitated while he decided what to reveal.

“We think this may be a clue to finding a map,” he finally said. “Maybe something about the architecture of the Parthenon.”

“A map? How interesting. Perhaps the golden rectangle is important.”

“How?”

“Architects consider it the most perfect rectangle because it is so pleasing to the eye. Golden rectangles are a recurring feature in the design of the Parthenon. The symbol phi, which represents the golden ratio, is named after the Parthenon’s architect, Phidias. Let me show you.”

Lumley took a notebook from his pocket and drew a line and then a dot two-thirds along its length. He labeled the longer section A and the shorter one B. “In the golden ratio, A divided by B is equivalent to the sum of A plus B divided by A.” He drew a rectangle whose sides were length A on the short side and length A plus B on the long. “A golden rectangle has sides proportional to the golden ratio, which makes it aesthetically pleasing.”

“And the Parthenon is built in that layout?” Grant asked.

“No, but the façades of the Parthenon are in the shape of a golden rectangle, and one can see many more of them in the spaces between the columns making up the façade.”

Grant would bring up Lumley’s speculation with Tyler and Stacy, but he had no inkling of how it would help them find the map.

“Thanks a lot, Dr. Lumley,” he said, shaking Lumley’s hand. “If I have any more questions, is it all right if I call you?”

“Of course.” He gave Grant his cell-phone number. “Any time of the day or night.”

Grant turned to leave, but Lumley tapped his arm to stop him.

“Mr. Westfield, may I ask if your manuscript will be displayed anywhere in the near future? It will provide fascinating insight into the culture of ancient Greece.”

“I don’t know what the plans for the document are.”

“It would be a shame if such an important piece of history were not studied by appropriate scholars. Our museum would treat it with great care.”

“I’m sure it’ll get a good home.”

“On the other hand, if you are interested in selling it, I know a buyer eager to purchase it.”

“What do you mean?”

“That is, of course, unless you’d care to lend or donate it to the museum.”

Why would Lumley have a buyer lined up for the manuscript already? Unless …

Grant grabbed Lumley’s arm. “You haven’t told anyone about this, have you?” Lumley winced at the pressure, and Grant released him.

“I’m terribly sorry,” Lumley said, “but my contact has been looking for this codex for quite some time. She has indicated that she would pay a handsome price to anyone who could proffer a deal for it.”

“You would sell it?” Grant asked in astonishment.

Lumley cast his eyes down in embarrassment, like a chastened teenage boy who’d been caught joyriding in his father’s car.

“Facilitating the sale is a better way of putting it,” Lumley said. “Being a curator is not a high-paying profession, and my divorce has been messy and quite costly. I thought there would be no harm—”

“When did you tell her?”

“While you were waiting. I assure you, I have the best of intentions.”

But she might not, Grant thought as he scanned the gallery for anyone who looked out of place.

“Who is she?”

Lumley bit his lip. “Her name is Gia Cavano. She simply paid me a retainer to keep watch for this kind of document. I do hope I haven’t inconvenienced you.”

Grant recognized the name immediately. Orr’s childhood friend Gia. She was using her contact with Lumley to keep an eye out for the codex.

As Grant reached for his phone to text Tyler that Cavano was now onto them, he spotted a huge man in a gray suit studiously reading a museum map. Twice in one minute, he glanced up and looked at each person in the gallery, but his eyes stayed on Grant just a little longer. Amid the tourists in shorts and rain jackets, the dark-haired muscleman looked as out of place as a wolf at a sheep ranch.

Grant thought he was just being paranoid until a third surreptitious glance in his direction convinced him that someone really might be out to get him. And he’d bet that someone was hired by Gia Cavano.

TWENTY-THREE

For the past ten minutes, Tyler and Stacy had listened to Cavano explain her background with Orr, and Tyler didn’t like what he was hearing, mainly because it showed how much bad blood there was between them.

Jordan Orr was Gia Cavano’s second cousin on her mother’s side. When Orr was just a boy, his family decided to take a trip back to his grandparents’ home region of Campania. Cavano’s parents welcomed them and hosted the three of them for two weeks while the Orrs visited Naples. It was during that time that Cavano and Orr went exploring and stumbled onto the Midas treasure.

The Orrs returned to the United States, planning to come back to Italy every year or two, but Cavano didn’t hear from Orr again until many years after his parents died. She said it had never occurred to the authorities to send him back to Italy to live with his extended family. And by the time Cavano was an adult, and ready to follow up on what she’d seen in the tunnels, she couldn’t track Orr down.

Five years ago, Orr took a trip to Europe and reconnected with Cavano. Only then did he learn that an Italian Ministry of Health building had been built atop the original entrance to the tunnel they’d discovered. It would take major demolition to cut through the foundation, and days more to map out the tunnels before finding the chamber again. But Orr and Cavano remembered the well opening they’d seen and realized that there might be another way in. He proposed that they search for this entrance to the vault.

For three years, they combed through every available historical document that had even a passing reference to Midas or gold, but they could find no mention of the Midas chamber.

Then the Archimedes manuscript and the golden hand were discovered in an English landholder’s attic and made headlines around the world. When she and Orr saw the golden hand, which matched the statue in the Midas chamber, they knew the one line from the manuscript that had been released to the public was not just a fable.

He who controls this map controls the riches of Midas.

The codex would lead them to the treasure map. Orr and Cavano realized that they would have no chance to get the manuscript once the auction house’s appraisal and cataloguing were completed and the document’s full contents were known. So they came up with the plan to steal it before the appraisal was done.

The heist went off without a hitch and then … nothing. She had provided the muscle, including two men who had been loyal to her and reported Orr’s movements back to her without his knowledge, but everyone in the crew had disappeared without a trace. Cavano assumed the escape boat had gone down at sea with all hands.

“I purchased the tablet several months later,” Cavano said, finishing the story. “It had been found with the hand and the manuscript, but it wasn’t part of the original auction. After the theft, the seller didn’t trust the auction house, so I was able to make a generous preemptive offer. I believed that tablet might have something to do with the search for Midas, but I could not divine its purpose. I thought I never would. Until now.”

“What makes you think we know anything about this search for Midas?” Stacy said.

“Because Jordan must be alive and in possession of the manuscript. He knows I’m days from returning to the Midas chamber myself, and he’s trying to beat me to it. Loyalty is prized above everything else in my culture, and Jordan betrayed me. For that, I will make him pay.”

She pressed a button, and her bodyguard opened the door. He came in carrying the pack Tyler had put in the Range Rover’s trunk. The bodyguard laid it on the desk. Cavano reached in and pulled out the pack’s only content.

The geolabe. Cavano’s eyes glittered as she looked at it.

“Fascinating device. You’ll have to explain what it does later.”

She put it back in the pack and spoke to the man in Italian. This went back and forth for a minute, and the man finally said, “Sì,” and left with the pack.

“What do you want?” Tyler said.

“I want you to help me find Jordan.”

“We’d like to,” Stacy said, “but we don’t know how to find your cousin.”

“You’re not a very good liar, Dr. Benedict.” Cavano drummed her fingers on the desk. “So. How much for you to give up your search and tell me where he is?”

“How much?”

“I’ll give you a share of the gold.”

Tyler and Stacy looked at each other as if they were contemplating the offer. Tyler knew this offer would be made only once. If they turned it down, they would be forced to do what she wanted anyway. Tyler briefly considered allying with Cavano against Orr, but it was too risky. If he and Stacy weren’t able to complete their task, Orr would know they had failed. Then Sherman Locke and Carol Benedict would die.

“Supposing we know anything about this,” Tyler said. “How do we know you can deliver our share if we turn him in to you?”

Cavano smiled. “Remember the Ministry of Health building? I now own it. Or I will on Monday. Italian austerity measures forced its sale. Once I take possession, my demolition team will tear the foundation apart until we find the tunnel. After that, it will merely be a matter of time until I find the chamber. You can either get nothing with Jordan or you can name your price with me.”

“And if we don’t know him?”

“I’ll soon find out the truth if you don’t cooperate.” Cavano obviously meant torture.

Tyler paused, then said, “Three million dollars. Each.”

Stacy swung her head around so fast, her own hair hit her in the face. “What are you doing?”

Tyler put a hand on her arm. “It’s okay. If she wants to triple the million Orr is paying each of us, I’m happy to go with the high bidder.” He looked at Stacy, who nodded slowly.

Cavano arched her eyebrows. “Done. Three million.”

She pressed the button again, and the bodyguard returned, this time holding a gun. He frisked Tyler and took his Leatherman multi-tool and cell phone. Stacy handed over her phone as well.

“What’s this?” Tyler said. “What about our deal?”

“I’m sorry,” Cavano said, “but I’ll have to detain you until our business is complete. If you fulfill your end of the bargain, you will get your three million dollars each, but until then you will have to remain here as my guests.” She spoke Italian again, leaving Tyler to guess that she was telling the bodyguard which room to lock them up in.

“I am needed elsewhere at this time, so Pietro will show you where you’ll be staying. I assume you don’t mind sharing a room.” She grinned at her intimation and left.

Pietro motioned with his pistol for them to get up. English didn’t seem to be his forte.

Tyler and Stacy stood.

“You know,” Tyler said, “you could shoot your eye out with that thing.”

Nothing. The bodyguard’s face didn’t change a bit. Not that Tyler thought his joke was funny, but if the man understood even a bit of English, he’d at least expect a roll of the eyes.

They began the walk down the hall, confident that they could talk without being understood.

“So what do we do now?” Stacy said.

“We get out of here.”

“How?”

“I’m working on it.”

“Work faster.”

The bodyguard said something in Italian and gestured for them to start climbing a wide marble staircase that wound around and up to a second-story balcony.

At the first corner, an enormous porcelain vase was precariously perched on a wooden pedestal.

Tyler nodded at it. “Be careful.”

Stacy shot him an annoyed look. “You’re worried about a stupid vase—” That’s when Tyler pushed her into it with his hip.

Stacy bumped the table, and the vase teetered over. Her instinct was to try to steady the delicate artwork, and that was exactly the first impulse of the bodyguard as well.

Pietro was distracted for only a moment, but it was enough. He reached out to catch the vase, and when he did, Tyler slammed him into the wall. Pietro’s head knocked against the hardwood, and Tyler bashed his wrist at the same time. The pistol dropped to the marble, and so did Pietro, who cracked his head again. He tumbled down the stairs, still breathing but out cold.

Tyler picked up the gun and took back his Leatherman and his phone. He also took Pietro’s phone and handed Stacy’s back to her. “Fast enough for you?”

It had all happened so quickly that Stacy was still holding the vase.

“What … I … ” she stammered as she pushed it back onto the stand.

“Come on.” Tyler grabbed her arm, raced down the stairs, and turned toward the study.

“Aren’t we getting the hell out of here?” Stacy said, looking over her shoulder.

“Not without that tablet.”

They ran into the study and closed the doors. Tyler flipped the gun around and used the butt to shatter the glass around the tablet.

“Let me take it,” Stacy said. “It’s very fragile.”

She plucked the hinged pieces of wood out of the display case and folded them together. Tyler was about to open the door for a dash to the Range Rover when shouts outside the office stopped him. Somebody had found Pietro.

“Crap! What do we do now?” Stacy said.

Tyler pointed to the field outside. “Through the window.”

He took out Pietro’s phone and dialed a number as quickly as he could. He was relieved when it was answered on the first ring.

“Aiden MacKenna.”

“It’s Tyler.”

“Whose phone are you—” Aiden started before Tyler interrupted him.

“Aiden, start recording this call, and whatever you do, don’t hang up.”

Tyler took the phone, reached as high as he could on the bookshelf, and placed it out of sight on top of a row of books.

Stacy waved her hands at Tyler to hurry. “Let’s go!”

He threw open the window. By now, alarms would be going off throughout the estate. Tyler didn’t know how many other Pietro types Cavano had, but he wouldn’t be surprised to see a small army materialize.

He lowered Stacy to the ground, then jumped down. She started to run around the house, but Tyler pulled her in the other direction.

“But the cars are that way,” she protested.

“That’s where they’ll expect us to go.”

“Aren’t we going to get the geolabe?”

“We can’t right now. This way.” They ran for the stables. Tyler was hoping to find a workman’s car inside because it wouldn’t be long before Cavano’s men realized where they had gone.

In half a minute, they’d crossed the lawn and reached the stables. Tyler motioned for her to stay behind him. With the pistol in front of him, he opened the stable door and swept the room. Clear. No stable hands visible. Except for the chuffing of horses and the clopping of hooves pawing at the hay in the stalls, the stable was silent.

There wasn’t a single vehicle in sight.

“We’re out of luck,” Tyler said. “I thought they might have a pickup or something in here. Without a car, we’re stuck.”

“What are you talking about?” Stacy said, pointing at the stalls. “These are even better than cars.”

Tyler blanched when he realized what Stacy was suggesting. She wanted him to ride a horse.

TWENTY-FOUR

After a few more profuse apologies, Lumley went back to his office, leaving Grant on his own. As he walked through the hall of Greek statues and vases, Grant texted Tyler to tell him that someone had picked up the scent of the codex and warn his friend to be careful. Tyler replied immediately.

That didn’t sound good, but at the moment Grant had to deal with his own situation. No doubt he could take the man tailing him in a fight, but an altercation might get the police involved, which would complicate things. If he had to, Grant would test his skills with Krav Maga, a style of fighting perfected by Israeli commandos, but he remembered an old joke about the merits of martial arts. When an elderly man was told that karate was the oldest form of self-defense, the man replied, “It ain’t older than running.”

Running wasn’t something Grant did often, because speed wasn’t his strength. Strength was his strength. He looped the backpack around both shoulders, leaving his arms free, and he looked at his map of the museum. He was one room over from the gallery with the Elgin Marbles. There were only two exits. He could either go back and exit through the Great Court, or he could keep going forward, which would lead him through the gift shop.

He didn’t like backtracking. Forward. Once he was outside, he would head back to the Underground and lose his shadow in the maze of passageways.

The man stayed thirty feet behind him. Grant checked out his follower in the reflection of the glass cases.

With acne-scarred cheeks and bushy black eyebrows, the guy wasn’t going to win an award in a Brad Pitt look-alike contest. But what he lacked in looks he more than made up for with his size. At least four inches taller than Grant, he had the bulk of a grizzly. The only place the guy would be inconspicuous was coming out of an NFL locker room.

He carried himself as though no one would ever dare give him trouble, which meant that he likely got by on intimidation and brute force rather than any skill, so Grant wasn’t too worried even if the guy confronted him. He just had to make sure he lost the man before reinforcements could arrive.

After the next archway, Grant turned left and picked up his pace, walking through two galleries and past the gift shop to the front entrance. Outside, it was a clear path through the courtyard to the entrance gate. From there it was just three blocks to the tube station.

At the gate, Grant realized that he wouldn’t get that far. As he walked through the gate, two men got out of a BMW and penned him in. Both looked like uglier relatives of the big man following him. One of them had a thin, perfectly shaped mustache that must have taken an hour to trim, and the other had a widow’s peak sharp enough to be classified as a weapon.

Grant turned and saw that the guy behind him had made up ground and was now only ten feet away.

The man with the mustache called the big guy Sal and said something in Italian.

“Sì,” Sal said. “Mr. Westfield, you come with us.”

Grant took a look at the three of them, who now had him surrounded. “What if I don’t feel like it?”

Sal held his coat open to show a holstered pistol, warning Grant that he wouldn’t get twenty feet without becoming a bull’s-eye.

“You know, those are illegal in London,” Grant said. “You could get in big trouble if the bobbies caught you with that.”

“You are in trouble.”

“Gia Cavano sent you, didn’t she?”

Sal’s eyes flickered at the mention of her name. “Get in the car.”

“You really want to cause a stink out here?”

Sal narrowed his gaze in confusion. He probably didn’t know what Grant meant. “Get in the car.”

The three of them moved closer.

Grant remained still, his muscles tensed. “So you want me to get in the car?”

“Now.”

They were within five feet of him.

“I’m going to have to say, screw you,” Grant said.

That got exactly the response he was hoping for. Sal nodded to the other two, who reached for Grant’s arms.

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.

“Say ‘canter’!” she yelled.

Tyler cried, “Canter, dammit!” and his horse took off, with him barely holding on. He looked like an idiot, but he was moving.

They’d gotten fifty yards when Cavano’s men burst out of the stable. One of them lifted his weapon to fire, but Cavano raced out and pushed him aside, sending his shot awry.

“They’re worth more than you are,” she screamed in Italian loud enough to be heard even at that distance. Stacy couldn’t tell if Cavano meant them or the horses.

Two Range Rovers raced around the drive and skidded to a stop to let Cavano and her men pile in. They weren’t giving up. Cavano just wanted to get closer so that they wouldn’t injure one of her precious horses. The Range Rovers took off after them, spraying gravel from all four wheels.

Stacy angled her horse toward a stand of trees to the right. If she and Tyler could get through, it would give them some breathing room while Cavano and her men went around the long way.

Tyler’s eyes kept darting up to her and down to the horse. He didn’t look terrified, but he sure didn’t look happy, either.

She slowed to a trot to get through the dense thicket of oaks and shrubs. They wove through, Tyler cursing as branches swatted him.

“You okay?”

“I’m fine.” He sounded anything but.

In seconds they were through to another pasture. Stacy kicked into a canter, and they raced across the field. To Stacy, it felt perfectly natural. Tyler, on the other hand, crashed into the saddle instead of using a half-seat, a method of supporting yourself in the stirrups during a gallop. She could only imagine the amount of pain he must be experiencing to his privates. From his grimace, she’d say extreme.

They’d put a few hundred yards between themselves and Cavano, but the Range Rovers were catching up fast. Any moment they’d decide to take another shot, no matter what happened to the horses.

Up ahead, Stacy saw a potential lifesaver. A river, forty feet across, knifed through the field. The only visible crossing was a wooden footbridge just large enough for the sheep grazing on the other side. It would be tricky, but the horses could make it if they stepped carefully.

“Head for the bridge!” she yelled.

“Are you crazy?” he yelled back.

“I don’t want to die!”

“Neither do I!”

Despite his protests, she didn’t stop, but slowed to a trot, allowing time for Tyler’s horse to get nose to tail with hers.

She pointed her horse straight across the bridge. They’d get only one try at this.

Her horse stepped onto the bridge. She nudged it forward, and the horse bolted ahead. The wood groaned under the load, but the bridge held. She was almost to the other side when she heard a tremendous splash behind her.

When she reached the pasture on the other side, Stacy wheeled around to see that Tyler had plunged into the water. The horse must have lost its footing and jumped into the river. She didn’t think the horse had fallen, because Tyler was still on top of it, although he was now soaking wet.

His horse charged out of the river, trailing a torrent of water behind it. They rode through the herd of sheep to the top of the next hill and stopped when they saw a hedgerow blocking the way forward.

“Did you see that?” Tyler yelled. “This is why I hate riding!”

“You’re no John Wayne, that’s for sure.”

“And this horse isn’t Seabiscuit.”

The roar of the approaching engines put a stop to their argument. Safely out of pistol range, they watched as one of the Range Rovers went into a four-wheel drift to avoid the river, barely skidding to a stop before it hit the edge.

The other Range Rover decided to go for it, but the bridge was too narrow. It plowed into the river with a great splash, burying its nose in the mud, and came to a stop. Men scrambled out of the open windows and waded back to the opposite shore.

The passenger door of the dry Range Rover opened, and Cavano stood with her hands on her hips staring up at Stacy and Tyler. There was no smile this time, just a look of pure hatred.

Stacy squeezed her legs to get the horse moving, and they rode along the hedgerow until they found an opening and left Cavano behind.

“Where to now?” she asked. She was completely lost.

Tyler pointed to his left. “On the way to Cavano’s mansion, we passed a town about a mile that way, I think. We can try to get a car there.”

They rode fast, worried that Cavano would find some way to cut them off or intercept them at the town.

When they arrived at the quaint village, the pedestrians didn’t give them a second glance, as if it weren’t unusual at all to see riders on horseback on the main street.

The sound of a train horn indicated something even better than a car to hire. They rode two more blocks and found the station. After handing their horses over to two astonished teenagers, Stacy and Tyler hopped aboard the train as it pulled away.

Stacy asked one of the passengers where they were headed. With a disdainful glare at Tyler’s sopping form, he told her they’d be at London’s Victoria Station in a little more than an hour. By the time Cavano found her horses and figured out their destination, they’d be long gone.

Stacy felt much better now that they were out of danger. She smiled at Tyler and took his hand to pull him forward, as if they were a loving couple on a holiday trip gone wrong. As they made their way down the aisle, she said, “That ride wasn’t so bad, was it?”

Tyler gave her a dirty look and said nothing. He waddled to a seat and eased himself down. For the rest of the trip, the only time he talked was to ask the ticket collector where he could get a bag of ice to sit on.

TWENTY-SIX

The midday sun poured through the windshield of Clarence Gibson’s semi cab, overpowering the truck’s balky air conditioner. He slammed his hand on the dashboard and swore a streak that the Lord wouldn’t be proud of. With a full load in the trailer behind him, the engine strained as he climbed the twisty back road over the Virginia Appalachians.

In his thirty years with Dwight’s Farm Services, Gibson had never complained about his job, but he was tired of truck maintenance at the company being a low priority. Just last week he’d been hauling a load of fertilizer to a farm down in Blacksburg when the bearings on the drive axle seized, leaving him stranded for three hours out in the middle of nowhere until a tow truck made it up from Roanoke.

He rolled down the window, but the wind didn’t help. Not with this humidity. The sweat continued to pour down the back of his neck, and his shirt was completely soaked. At least the radio worked, although there was only one country station.

It had been ten minutes since he’d turned off the state highway headed for a farm west of Deerfield. In that time he’d been passed twice by cars that didn’t want to wait behind his groaning rig. One of them even jumped the gun and didn’t bother to wait for a passing lane. Probably some doped-up college kids who were going to get themselves killed someday.

And now behind him was lucky vehicle number three, this time a white van. It was accelerating fast behind him on the first flat section Gibson had seen since the highway. There wasn’t another car in sight, so he waved the van around and pulled over onto the shoulder to let him by.

The van shot past and roared ahead. Gibson pulled back onto the road and tried to coax a little more speed, hoping to get a bigger dose of the natural breeze. He poked his head to the side to get closer to the airflow, then snapped it back when he saw the van weave back and forth three times and then stop dead across the road, blocking the way.

What in the world?

Gibson stuck his foot on the brake. The truck shuddered to a stop less than twenty feet from the van. Though they were sopping wet, the hairs on the back of his neck pricked up. If the van had a flat tire, why didn’t the driver just pull over to the shoulder? Something wasn’t right.

The van door slid open, and two men clad in black from head to toe jumped out holding M4 assault rifles. They wore balaclavas, so Gibson could see nothing but eyes. He lunged for the Smith & Wesson .38 revolver he kept in the glove compartment for emergencies, but the passenger door was thrown open before he could get to it. He stared into the black depths of the barrel that could introduce him to his maker.

An accented voice yelled, “Get out now!”

Gibson put his hands up.

“Now!”

He unlatched his seat belt and opened the driver’s door. A hand snaked in and yanked him out, tossing him to the ground.

The passenger door slammed, and the one who had pulled him out said something Gibson didn’t understand, but he’d certainly heard the language before on TV. Arabic, or at least something along those lines.

Terrorists? What would they want with him? He was a middle-aged, overweight nobody.

“I don’t have—” he started.

“Shut up!” the man yelled, and punched him in the back with the butt of the rifle. Gibson went down on his stomach, sucking for air. The knee in his back made breathing even harder.

The taller of the two walked over to the plain silver trailer, reached under the metal chassis, pulled out a white box the size of a pack of cigarettes, and pocketed it. That’s why they’d shown up in the middle of nowhere. They’d used some kind of tracking device.

The other one grabbed Gibson’s hands and twisted them behind his back. He felt cool plastic zipcuffs locking his wrists together. The two of them hauled him to his feet, hustled him to the van, and pushed him inside. He fell to the floor. Another set of zipcuffs went around his ankles.

The first gunman raised his rifle above his head and shouted, “Allahu Akbar!”

“Allahu Akbar!” the other cried in response. Then he ran back to Gibson’s truck. The van door slammed shut.

This was a hijacking? It seemed crazy, but the sound of his truck revving told him that it had to be true.

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

Tyler 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?”

Tyler sighed. He didn’t enjoy telling the story. “When I was ten, my father took me and my sister to a ranch for a weekend. I was big into go-karts and motocross, not horses. I hadn’t been to a farm in my entire life until that morning.”

“I can’t even imagine that,” Stacy said. “I’ve been riding since I was four.”

“Well, I’d never seen a horse up close until I got to that ranch. I was a little hesitant at first. Those things are even bigger when you’re a kid. We got lessons for a couple of hours — walking, trotting, cantering — and I was feeling okay. Not loving it like my sister was, but okay. As I was dismounting, I put my foot in the stirrup by accident and for no good reason the horse spooked.”

“That can happen.”

“Not with a car, it can’t. My Viper has never decided to hit the gas after I opened the door to get out. Anyway, the stupid horse took off running with me dragging alongside, bouncing around like a can tied behind a honeymooner’s car. After a couple of spins around the corral, my boot finally came off, but not before I bashed my head on a fence post. I spent three days in the hospital with a concussion and a torn ACL. Needless to say, I hadn’t been on a horse again until today.”

“And now you’re cured?” Grant said.

“Very funny. Next time I hope we get stuck with a couple of ATVs instead.”

“Still, we couldn’t have gotten away without them,” Stacy said.

“My horse didn’t have to jump off the bridge to do it.”

Tyler told Grant about their ride through the fields and the river incident.

“Sounds like more fun than my day,” Grant said.

“Why didn’t you tell me that story this afternoon?” Stacy asked Tyler.

“We didn’t have time,” he replied. “Besides, would it have made any difference?”

A knock at the door stopped her from answering. Tyler checked to make sure it really was their dinner and let two busboys in. The feast spread out across three serving carts.

As they ate, they tried to figure out their next move.

“The most important priority is to get the geolabe back,” Tyler said. “Without it, we’re still missing one of the three keys of Archimedes’ puzzle to find the map.”

“Can’t you just make another geolabe?” Stacy said.

“It would take weeks to forge all those gears,” Grant explained. “They require delicate machining. Tyler had to find a bronze specialist to make it the first time.”

“And we only have another four days. We need that one back, so we’ll have to figure out a way to get back into Cavano’s estate and liberate it.”

“We can’t. She’s leaving tonight.”

“How do you know that?”

“Cavano either assumed I didn’t understand Italian or she didn’t care. When she gave the geolabe back to her bodyguard, she said, ‘Put it in the trunk. We’ll take it to Munich with us.’”

“Crap,” Tyler said. With Cavano on the move, it would be exponentially more difficult to get the geolabe back. “Okay. I had Aiden send me an audio recording of the call from Pietro’s phone in Cavano’s office. I was hoping we’d get some intel about when they’d be out of the house, but maybe it’ll tell us about her travel plans instead. Intercepting them en route is our only option. We’ll have you listen to it and see if there’s anything useful.”

Tyler’s own phone had been drenched and was ruined. Before they reached the hotel, they had stopped at a cellular-phone store and gotten a replacement, transferring his number and his backed-up contact list to it.

“What about the text on the tablet?” Stacy said.

“And all the stuff about the Parthenon?” Grant said.

“None of that matters if we can’t get the geolabe back. I’ll talk to Aiden and see if they’ve been able to decode the tracker signal from the geolabe.”

Stacy’s head snapped up. “Oh, my God! If Orr figures out that we lost it, he might hurt Carol and your father.”

“Then we need to make sure he doesn’t find out.” He looked at his watch. “Speaking of which, it’s time for our daily check-in. Ready?”

He dialed and put the call on speaker. Orr answered immediately. “Right on time. How is the search going?”

Tyler ignored the question. “Are Carol and my father all right?”

“You go first. Then I send the proof-of-life.”

Tyler told him about the tablet and its link to the Parthenon, but he left out the details. All Orr had to know was that they were making progress.

“Where are you off to next?” Orr asked, as if he were talking to a friend about his vacation plans.

“Munich,” Tyler said. “We’ve tracked down a document there that we think might be helpful.”

“Good. Then carry on. We’ll talk again tomorrow.”

“What about your end of the deal?”

“Check your email.” Orr hung up.

Tyler opened the laptop and pulled up his email app. In addition to the recording Aiden had sent, he had another message from Orr. Two videos were attached.

Stacy put her hand to her mouth when she saw the first video, which showed Carol sitting in a chair, her wrists and ankles cuffed, the man with the ski mask and newspaper standing next to her. Carol was alert and wore no blindfold. She looked terrified but unharmed.

Tyler squeezed Stacy’s arm. “Are you okay?”

Stacy nodded but said nothing.

Tyler dreaded seeing his own video, but Sherman Locke sat in the same chair in seemingly good shape, though he was blindfolded and grizzled stubble dusted his face. Tyler checked the USA Today Web site just to make sure of the date on the front-page story.

Then Tyler saw Sherman’s hands, and he ran the video again, freezing it when his father’s fingers were contorted in a particular orientation for just a second. He showed it to Grant and Stacy.

“Another message?” Grant asked.

“I think so.”

Stacy frowned. “What do you mean, another message?”

Tyler hadn’t told her about the first message when he received it because he didn’t want to raise false hopes that his father might be able to free Carol.

“You were surprised yesterday when I said he wasn’t going down without a fight,” he said to Stacy.

“No, I thought you were nuts.”

Tyler brought up the previous day’s video. “Look at his hands. He sent me a message.”

Stacy peered at the video, and then her eyes went wide. “Sign language.”

“If you weren’t looking for it, you’d think he was just straining against the cuffs.”

“What did he say yesterday?”

“He couldn’t do full signs because they require motion, so he just formed letters. Two sets. The first two letters were M and K. I think he was saying ‘I’m okay.’”

“And the second set?”

“F and M.”

Stacy thought about it for a moment and then laughed. “Eff ’em?”

“Right. His way of saying that he was planning to fight back.”

“What did he say today?”

Tyler played the second video again. “Today’s message is a little harder to figure out. Again two sets of letters. Actually, the first are letters and the second are numbers.”

“Maybe he’s trying to tell you how many kidnappers there are,” Stacy said.

“I doubt it. The numbers are nine and zero. Ninety.”

“And the letters?”

“S and R.”

“SR 90?” Stacy clapped her hands together in triumph. “State Road 90! He’s telling you where he is!”

Tyler didn’t share her enthusiasm. “Possibly. But that wouldn’t help us narrow down the search very much. There must be hundreds of miles of State Road 90s in the US. It’s got to be something else.”

“I’ll see what Google comes up with,” Grant said as he tapped on his own laptop. His face fell when he saw the results. “This is not good.”

“Why?” Tyler said.

“Because the first result that comes up for SR 90 is an entry for strontium-90.”

Tyler shuddered as a chill ran up his spine. Given that his father used to head up the agency responsible for rooting out weapons of mass destruction, it wasn’t a huge leap to guess that strontium-90 was what he meant. Grant rubbed his forehead as if he were massaging a headache.

“What’s strontium-90?” Stacy asked.

“It’s a highly radioactive isotope,” Tyler said. “My father could be saying that Orr has gotten hold of some Sr-90.”

“How radioactive is it?”

“Sr-90 is one of the key constituents of the radioactive dust from the Chernobyl disaster.”

“Where could Orr get his hands on something like that?”

“Radioactive materials are available on the black market,” Grant said. “It says here that Sr-90 is found in spent nuclear fuel. It’s also used as a power source in old Soviet thermal generators.”

“And if Orr has some,” Tyler said, “he could be planning to make a dirty bomb.”

“Which is what?” Stacy asked.

“It’s also called a radiological weapon. A poor man’s nuclear bomb. You set off a conventional bomb along with some radioactive material and it coats everything around it with fallout dust. The radiation could be dangerous enough to render a major city uninhabitable for decades. For some reason, Orr may be in possession of a weapon of mass destruction.”

“And both my sister and your father were kidnapped in—” A gasp caught in Stacy’s throat. “Oh, God.”

Tyler slowly nodded. The last time anyone had seen Sherman and Carol was in Washington, DC.

TWENTY-EIGHT

Tyler wished he hadn’t eaten so much for dinner. The idea that Orr was building a WMD was turning his stomach.

“I hate to bring this up,” Stacy said, “but maybe we should reconsider calling the FBI now.”

“And tell them what?” Tyler said.

“That Jordan Orr has his hands on strontium-90.”

“Does he?”

“You just said he did.”

“That’s what I say. You said it could be a state highway, which it also could be.”

“Or an address,” Grant said. “Or someone’s initials. Or any one of a hundred other things.”

“Then there’s the question of why Orr would want a dirty bomb. If he’s planning to blackmail the US government, he wouldn’t need us for that.”

“Maybe he wants to nuke the Midas chamber once he finds it,” Grant said. “It almost worked for Goldfinger.” When Stacy gave him a confused look, he continued, “You know, the James Bond movie where the villain Goldfinger is going to set off an atomic bomb inside Fort Knox.”

“But Goldfinger already had a stockpile of gold that would rise in value once the nuke went off,” Tyler said. “I don’t think Orr has a stack of gold lying around that he wants to increase in value.”

“But what if talking to the FBI could lead to finding Carol and your dad?” Stacy said.

“Let’s think about what would happen if we got the FBI involved right now. I’m not saying it’s the wrong thing to do, but we have to be smarter than Orr about this. Grant, you play the FBI.”

“Okay, but I’m not putting on a suit.”

Tyler got up and paced. “I call you up and tell you that my father and Stacy’s sister have been kidnapped.”

“When were they kidnapped?”

“Yesterday morning.”

“And you’re just calling now? From London?”

“We were worried about Orr killing them.”

“And you’re coming forward now because …?” Grant asked.

“Because I have new information that the kidnappers may have an unknown quantity of strontium-90.”

“What’s your evidence?”

“My father sent us a message via sign language. I have the video.”

“Maybe he’s sending you his location. Why jump to the conclusion that it’s strontium-90?”

“My father is a retired general who specialized in tracking threats from radioactive materials.”

Grant shook Tyler’s hand. “Thank you, Dr. Locke. We’ll start our manhunt for this Jordan Orr and alert every agency in the country that there is the possible threat of a nuke. By the way, we’ll need to tap your phones and have you come back to the US.”

Tyler stopped and pointed at Grant. “And now Orr finds out he’s being investigated and kills Carol and my father.”

“Or maybe he sets off his radiological weapon prematurely,” Grant said. “Or he doesn’t set it off, because we can’t be sure he has one. Right now it’s just a hunch.”

Stacy threw up her hands in defeat. “Okay, okay, okay. You’ve made your point. We don’t call the FBI. So what’s the alternative? We’re just going to go along with Orr’s demands?”

“No,” Tyler said. “If he really has a WMD and my father has seen it, Orr will never let him live whether or not we can lead him to the treasure.”

“And Carol?”

When Tyler didn’t say anything, Stacy folded her arms and crossed to the window.

“I know it looks hopeless,” he said, “but the good news is that if we can get the geolabe back, we can stop playing defense and go on offense.”

“Offense?” she said.

“The next time we see Orr, we won’t let him get away.”

“What about your dad and Stacy’s sister?” Grant said.

Tyler took a deep breath. “We trade with Orr. His life for theirs. Then we bring in the FBI.”

“Let’s just tell him we’ve solved Archimedes’ puzzle and meet him in Naples,” Stacy said. “Why are we going through all this?”

“Because I’m sure Orr has some way of knowing if we’re lying about where the entry to the tunnel system is. He wouldn’t go to all this trouble without that kind of safeguard. We have to show up holding some aces because I’m sure he’d call our bluff.”

“So what’s the plan?”

“The plan is to figure out a way to get the geolabe back from Cavano. Let’s listen to the audio file from Cavano’s office.”

Tyler played it back. The voices on the phone were muffled, and they faded in and out as people walked around the room. He just hoped Stacy could catch enough of it to do them some good.

She peered intently at the computer as she jotted down notes. Tyler admired how she was handling all of this, never complaining, focusing completely on the job at hand. But he could see that the strain was beginning to wear on her. He’d seen it before with soldiers in his command who were suddenly thrust into battle. They wanted to stay strong for their buddies, but the haunted stares and creased brows betrayed their fears.

That’s why he and Grant had joked around when things got too grim on their tour of combat duty. Some of their subordinates appreciated it, but a few found it off-putting. Those were the guys Tyler had to worry about the most. So far, Stacy didn’t worry him.

After a couple of playbacks, Stacy stopped the audio. “Here’s what I could understand. After Cavano finished swearing about the mess you made of her office, a man said, ‘Do you still want to leave on the six-twenty tomorrow?’ Cavano said, ‘No, move my reservation to the eight-thirty. Just make sure the Ferrari is ready to go in Brussels by the time I get there. I’ll call Rödel in the morning and tell him I may not reach Boerst until four. The meeting shouldn’t take more than twenty minutes.’” Stacy looked up from her notes. “Any idea what all that means?”

“Apparently she’s flying to Brussels,” Tyler said. “But you said earlier she was going to Munich.”

“Maybe she’s stopping in Brussels on the way.”

“I’ll see if I can find the flight,” Grant said as he tapped on the keyboard. After a few minutes he said, “Not a flight. Eurostar. The high-speed Chunnel train. Leaves from St. Pancras.”

“So she must be taking the train to Brussels, then driving to Munich from there,” Tyler said. “That’s why the geolabe is in the trunk. The car is being shipped ahead to meet her in Brussels. What about Boerst and Rödel?”

Grant checked again. “I can’t find Rödel, but Boerst is a German commercial real-estate brokerage headquartered in Munich. Rödel might work there.”

“We’ll find out tomorrow. Anything else about the brokerage?”

“Says they specialize in international transactions.” Grant scrolled down the page. “Boring … boring … boring … Wait a second. This is cool. Their new headquarters building in the heart of Munich features a state-of-the-art robotic parking garage.”

“A what?” Stacy said.

Tyler got a distant look in his eye. “You drive into a bay and park your car on a movable platform. You get out, take your ticket, and the platform automatically slides out of sight to an empty spot inside the structure. No valet ever touches the car. The purpose is to maximize space in crowded areas like city centers.”

“You thinking what I’m thinking?” Grant said.

Tyler nodded. “If she leaves the geolabe in the car during her meeting, Munich might be the best opportunity to get it.”

“Do we leave tonight or tomorrow?” Grant asked.

“It’s been a long day,” Tyler said. “Let’s get some sleep and clear our heads.” He looked at Stacy. “You, too. You can try to interpret the tablet in the morning.”

Tyler and Grant stood, but Stacy didn’t turn for her room.

“Can I talk to you for a minute?” she said.

Grant yawned. “I’ll call our pilot and tell him to be ready at seven. Should get us into Munich before nine. Night.” He closed the bedroom door behind him.

Stacy and Tyler sat down. He locked his eyes on hers. Every time she started to speak, the words caught in her throat. Tyler finally interrupted the silence.

“We’re going to catch Orr,” he said. “I promise.”

She gave him a thin smile. “You don’t have to promise. You can’t, really.”

“I know.”

She paused again before speaking. “I was going to say I’ve never been through anything like this before, but I realized how stupid that would sound.”

“That’s okay. I haven’t been through anything like this, either.”

“Yeah, but you’ve been in the Army. You’ve faced death before.”

“So have you.”

“My parents, yeah. But this is different.”

“Yes, it is.”

She held his gaze. “I just wanted you to know that Carol was going to law school because she wanted to become a prosecutor.”

“If she’s anything like you, she’ll make a damn fine one.”

“What I mean is, she wanted to catch the bad guys. She would never forgive me if we let Orr use a nuclear weapon. Even if she … ” Her voice trailed off with the scenario she couldn’t utter.

“My father would feel the same way. But it won’t come to that.”

“I won’t ask how you know that. But thanks for saying it.”

She stood to leave, and Tyler did the same. Before she went into her room, she surprised Tyler and gave him a hug, her hands tight against his back. She barely came up to his shoulder, and he held her head gently to his chest. He soaked in the comforting warmth of her body against his. Until that moment, he hadn’t realized how much he needed it. Before Tyler realized it, he was tenderly caressing her hair.

They stayed like that for a minute, neither wanting to let go, before Stacy silently pulled away and went into her room. Tyler was acutely aware that he was now alone.

He was also exhausted, but before he could go to bed he had one call to make.

“Hey, Tyler,” Aiden said. “Was Stacy able to translate the audio I sent?”

“She was. We now have an idea where the geolabe will be, but we need the tracker location to make sure it’s where we think it is. Did our guys have any luck deciphering the signals that the geolabe was emitting?”

“I’m able to help you there. The recordings you made in the lab ended up being comprehensive enough for them to decode the tracking signal. It’s broadcasting GPS coordinates every thirty seconds. Off-the-shelf technology. I’ll send you the URL where you can get the updates.”

“Will it alert Orr that we’re tapping his feed?”

“You know me better than that. I’ve cloned the Web page where he gets the tracker feed. He’ll never know.”

“Outstanding work.”

“Even better, I’ve got some info on your new lady friend, Gia Cavano.”

Tyler had texted her name to Aiden in the hope that he could track down some information on her. Tyler wanted to know what kind of woman he was dealing with. He was already convinced that she was as dangerous as Orr had warned them.

“What about her?”

“You’re not going to like it.”

“Why?”

“Because I found her name using some creative and not technically legal searching of the Interpol database. Apparently, they think she’s an up-and-comer in the Camorra. I found pictures of what she supposedly did to some of her enemies. The worst involved a meat grinder. The authorities haven’t been able to pin anything on her, though.”

Aiden was right. Tyler didn’t like it.

“What’s the Camorra?” he asked, though he thought he knew the answer.

“The Camorra is to the Naples area what the Cosa Nostra is to Sicily, but more vicious. You’re being chased by the Italian Mafia.”