The Midas Legacy

35

Nina dropped into the water, the cold like a punch to her heart. She was going under—

A thud from behind — as Eddie dived and skidded on his belly across the ice to grab her beneath her arms. ‘Keep hold of Olivia!’ he yelled, dragging her out of the new hole. She managed to maintain her grip on her grandmother even through the biting chill assaulting her body. Both women collapsed on to the frozen surface.

Eddie crawled backwards, pulling them with him. ‘Come on, get up,’ he said. ‘We’ve got to find some shelter before she gets hypothermia.’

‘Where?’ Nina asked, shivering as she surveyed the surrounding emptiness.

‘The… the other truck,’ Olivia said, her voice a quavering whisper. ‘In the back, there should… be a tent.’

Anger filled Nina, its heat almost driving away the cold. ‘But you went for the goddamn Crucible first?’ The crystal sphere was only a few feet away in the snow. ‘That thing’s almost gotten me and Eddie killed half a dozen times already — and now you’re joining in as well!’

‘Nina, hey,’ said her husband, trying to calm her. ‘We need to get her warmed up, then you can have a go at her. See if you can get anything out of the other jeep before it sinks. I’ll get her back to ours, it’s the only shelter we’ve got.’ He picked up Olivia, holding her tightly as he limped back towards the Toyota.

Nina shook off freezing water, then, shivering, made her way to the other truck. It was still slowly sinking, trapped air bubbling up as its nose tilted downwards. The rising water had reached the rear bed. She pulled as much as she could out on to the ice and hurriedly examined it. There was no tent, but a waterproof bag contained a bivouac. There was also a small portable gas heater and a first aid kit; she collected them along with a few other items, then hurried after Eddie.

She passed the Crucible. A pause — then, almost disgusted at herself, she picked it up and continued towards the super jeep, the cold wind tearing at her wet clothes like the fangs of a wolf.

Sarah looked back across the snowscape with concern. ‘It’s been too long. Where is she?’

Mikkelsson followed her gaze. Beyond the light from the 4x4’s roof-mounted spots, there was nothing but darkness. ‘She must be out there somewhere.’

‘I can’t see her truck.’

‘I can’t see Olivia’s either. Perhaps Ana has dealt with them and gone back to follow us around the lake.’ The words were spoken with his usual matter-of-fact conviction, but couldn’t disguise an edge of concern.

De Klerx gave his boss a worried glance. ‘Something might have happened to her.’

Mikkelsson took the radio handset. ‘Anastasia, come in. Where are you?’ He waited for several seconds, but there was no answer.

‘Maybe the aurora’s blocking the transmission?’ Sarah suggested hopefully, eyes flicking towards the dim green fog in the sky.

He shook his head. ‘It would have to be much stronger than that.’

‘Something’s wrong,’ said De Klerx. He released the accelerator. The super jeep quickly slowed in the dense snow.

‘What are you doing?’ demanded Mikkelsson.

‘We’ve got to go back and look for her!’

‘Yes, we do,’ Sarah said, nodding. ‘She might be hurt.’

The tall diplomat’s face hardened. ‘No.’

‘What do you mean, “no”?’ his wife asked, confused. ‘You don’t think she’s hurt, or—’

‘We have to keep going. De Klerx, go.’

The security chief stared at him. ‘She’s your daughter!’

‘Yes, and she is as committed to our plan as I am.’ He gestured at the large Crucible in the pickup bed. ‘It is more vital than ever that we get the Crucible out of the country quickly. If Nina warns the authorities before we leave, we will be arrested at the airport.’ Seeing his companions’ disbelief, he went on: ‘If Anastasia is still alive, then Olivia, Nina and her husband are dead and we have nothing to worry about. Even if her jeep has been damaged, she knows how to survive out here.’

‘And if she…’ Sarah couldn’t bring herself to voice the alternative. ‘And if Olivia and the others aren’t dead?’ she managed instead.

‘Then it is imperative that we leave right now.’ He stared at De Klerx. The younger man hesitated, then wilted under Mikkelsson’s unblinking gaze and pushed down the pedal.

‘Fenrir!’ cried Sarah, appalled. ‘You… you’re just going to leave her?’

He faced her. ‘She is okay, I am sure of it. She will catch up with us. But if our positions were reversed, she would do the same thing. You know she would,’ he insisted, reaching out to put a hand against her cheek. ‘Don’t you?’

She almost flinched at the touch, uncertainty clear on her face. ‘I… yes, I do.’ Another look back, but there was still nothing behind her but darkness. ‘She’s okay. She’ll be okay, right?’

‘She will,’ Mikkelsson said, stonily regarding the way ahead.

Eddie watched the super jeep’s lights drop behind a distant rise. ‘Least they didn’t come back to finish us off,’ he said through chattering teeth as he duck into the cramped bivouac. Olivia lay on a groundsheet inside, covered by a blanket with the heater beside her. With no way to swap her wet clothing for dry, all they could do was try to keep her warm.

Nina sat with her, legs curled under a corner of the blanket in an attempt to mitigate her own exposure. ‘Yeah, but that means they’re getting away with the big Crucible — and taking it to North Korea.’

‘North Korea.’ Olivia managed to project disbelieving disdain even through a strained whisper. ‘It’s like something from that terrible movie they made of your book, Nina! Fenrir must be out of his mind.’

‘I don’t know, I can see a kind of demented logic to it,’ she replied. ‘He has the diplomatic connections, he has access to classified intel about their nuclear programme, and he knows how to use the Crucible to make plutonium for them. I mean, the man’s a nuclear physicist!’

‘The man’s insane. I can’t…’ Olivia coughed hard, struggling to recover her voice. ‘I can’t believe I never realised before.’

‘He’s a sociopath. He’s very good at hiding his true intentions, and getting people to do what he wants.’

‘Like Anastasia,’ said Eddie. ‘His own bloody daughter. That’s what I can’t believe. No way would I ever push Macy into doing something that could get her hurt.’

‘I doubt that he pushed her,’ Olivia said. ‘Children naturally want to please their parents…’ She trailed off, shuddering.

‘Are you okay?’ Nina asked, worried.

Olivia gave her a pained look. ‘I just fell in a frozen lake and have never been s-so cold in my entire life. So on balance, I would have to say no.’

‘I see being a smart-arse runs in the family,’ said Eddie. He held his hands over the heater. ‘I’ll try to get the truck’s radio working and send out a Mayday. The battery should still be dry, so hopefully I’ll be able to get power to it.’

‘If Fenrir hears it, they might come back,’ said Nina.

‘We don’t have much choice. That heater won’t last for ever. And we can’t stay out here all night.’

Olivia tipped her head towards him. ‘You mean… I can’t.’

‘No,’ he said, with a heavy sigh. ‘Not wanting to sound like a cock, but… not at your age. If you were forty or fifty, you could probably make it even after a soaking like that. But at ninety…’

‘Eighty-nine, thank you.’ She managed a small laugh, which turned into another cough. ‘There’s a certain irony. I smoked, drank, ate red meat and sugar, all the things that are supposed to kill you, but I never imagined a mountainside in Iceland would finish me off.’

‘You’re not finished yet,’ Nina said firmly. She took her grandmother’s hand — and tried to hide her reaction.

Olivia still caught her flickering change of expression. ‘Th-that cold, am I?’

‘You’re not finished,’ repeated Nina, squeezing her frozen fingers between her palms. ‘I’m not finished with you.’

Taking a flashlight with him, Eddie backed out of the shelter. ‘I’ll get started on the radio,’ he announced, carefully opening the upended truck’s front door.

Olivia let her head loll back to its original position. ‘So you’ve got something to say to me?’

‘You’re goddamn right I have,’ said Nina, her earlier anger resurging. ‘How could you have been so stupid? You went after the Crucible rather than get to safety — and you almost died!’

‘The night’s not over yet,’ Olivia replied. ‘But I had to get the Crucible. I had to. It’s… it’s our family’s legacy. It’s your legacy.’

‘I don’t give a damn about our family’s legacy!’

‘Then why did you save it too?’ Her gaze went to the corner, where the red sphere sat glinting in the low glow of the gas heater. ‘If you don’t care about it, then why make the effort?’

‘Because… because it’s a priceless Atlantean artefact,’ Nina said after a moment. ‘After everything I’ve been through to get it, I wasn’t going to let it end up at the bottom of some lake.’

‘I see. And the real reason?’

‘That is the real reason.’

A small smile. ‘You really are so much like your mother. In so many ways. Including facial expressions. I always knew when Laura wasn’t telling me the whole truth.’

‘I’m not Laura.’

‘Oh, I know. You’re very much your own person.’ Olivia closed her eyes. ‘She would have been so proud of you. Not just for what you’ve accomplished as an archaeologist. For who you are. I’m… I’m proud of you, too. I just wish that…’ She coughed again, her whole body straining before she brought it under control. ‘That I’d told you that many, many years ago.’

Nina felt tears. ‘Hey, hey, stay with me,’ she said, finding her grandmother’s other hand. ‘I’m not done with you yet.’

The old woman forced her eyes half open. ‘And again, you sound just like Laura. Just like her.’ She blinked, a tear of her own slowly running down her cheek. ‘My poor girl… oh, my poor baby girl…’

Her granddaughter squeezed her hands more tightly. ‘What happened with you and Mom — and Dad? What really happened? Was Spencer telling the truth?’

‘I’m afraid so,’ Olivia replied, with a small, sorrowful nod. ‘I was the one who first told Laura to… to make contact with your father.’ A cough threatened to erupt, but she managed to fight it down. ‘But everything after that was entirely her choice. I opposed it, every step of the way, but… but I was wrong. She found true love and happiness with her husband — and her daughter.’ A faint smile up at the younger woman, but it quickly faded. ‘While all I had was… was a big empty house and greedy dreams of gold. I had the choice between family or money, and I made the wrong one. And — and I’m still making the wrong choice, even now! My own granddaughter thinks I’m an idiot for chasing after some damn stone rather than saving myself. And… she’s right.’

‘We’re all idiots,’ Nina assured her, with a sad laugh. ‘You, Mom, me — we all spent our lives chasing after the past. I guess that kind of idiocy runs in the family.’

‘But at least you and Laura had purer motives.’ A bang from outside made her start; Eddie had opened the truck’s hood to access the electrics. ‘I did try, you know.’

‘Try what?’

‘I tried to… do something that wasn’t solely for my own benefit. I got you involved in this, not just for gold, or the Legacy, but because I wanted to pass on a legacy of my own. To you, and to your daughter. Even if I wasn’t… freezing to death on a glacier, I won’t be around for much longer—’

‘Don’t talk like that,’ Nina cut in firmly. ‘We’ll get out of here.’

A glimmer of humour crossed Olivia’s face. ‘Interrupting your elders is very rude,’ she said. ‘Didn’t your mother teach you anything? But I didn’t want my life to end with a house of mourners, and all of them just… acquaintances. Not one of them family. I didn’t want that. I don’t want that.’ A fearful realisation, even revelation, lit her eyes. ‘Oh God, Nina, I don’t want that! I don’t want to have no one to remember me! No one to… to care about me!’

‘You don’t have no one,’ the redhead insisted. ‘You’ve got me.’

‘After everything I’ve done? All the half-truths, all the… lies?’ That seemed the biggest confession of all.

‘Yeah.’ Nina smiled at her. ‘And you know why? Because now that I’ve got a family, I’m not about to let it go. Any of it.’

Olivia’s eyes closed again, her voice a mere sigh barely audible over the wind. ‘You may not… have a choice. I’m so cold.’

‘Oh no. No no no,’ Nina said in defiance. ‘You don’t get to die on me. Okay? I’ve never had a relative come back from the dead before, and I’m sure as hell not letting you renege on that!’ She pulled off the top layer of her own clothing and put it over Olivia, against her grandmother’s feeble protestations. ‘We are going to get out of here, and—’

She broke off at an electronic squawk from the super jeep. ‘Yes!’ whooped Eddie. ‘You fucking beauty.’

‘You got the radio working?’ Nina asked.

‘Yeah. Did a bit of rewiring to run it straight off the battery rather than having to start the engine. Dunno how long it’ll last, so I’d better get cracking.’ He reached into the cabin to take the handset. ‘Mayday, Mayday, Mayday,’ he said. ‘Our jeep has crashed on the way to the Electra hotel in the… What’s the name of this place again?’

‘Thingvellir,’ Olivia said quietly. Nina relayed it to him.

‘In the Thingvellir national park. I repeat, our jeep has crashed on an ice lake on the road to the Electra hotel. There are three of us; two are injured. Mayday, Mayday, Mayday, please respond.’ He waited for a reply, hearing only static on the open channel, then repeated the message.

‘And for a moment I… had hope,’ said Olivia.

‘Someone’ll hear him,’ Nina told her. ‘You said yourself that the main road’s a tourist route, and there’s an aurora tonight. People will have come out here to see it.’

The old lady replied, but too quietly for Nina to make out. She took her grandmother’s hands again, huddling beside her in the meagre warmth of the heater. Outside, Eddie kept repeating his SOS. The hiss of dead air was the only response. Nina turned her head to listen, as if she might somehow catch a message that her husband had missed, then looked back at Olivia — only to find that she had gone still. ‘Olivia? Olivia!’ She gripped her cold hands more tightly. ‘Olivia, wake up! Wake up!’

She shook her — and Olivia’s lips clenched. ‘I’m… I’m here,’ she whispered. ‘Did Eddie… get through?’

‘Not yet, but I know he will. He will.’

‘It’s… too late.’ Another tear swelled in the corner of Olivia’s eye, but even it was too weak to roll free. ‘I’m so tired…’ She fell silent again.

‘Olivia!’ Nina cried. ‘Stay with me! You’ve got to stay, I’m not letting you go now! I’m—’

A new voice cut through the cold. ‘Hello, hello,’ said a man over the radio, his Icelandic accent strong. ‘Can you hear me?’

‘I hear you!’ Eddie replied. ‘Did you get my Mayday?’

‘Yes, I did. We have told the rescue service, but we are coming to you now. We are on highway thirty-six. Can you hold on?’

‘Yeah, but we’ve got someone in hypothermic shock. How fast can you get to us?’

‘Twenty minutes, thirty minutes? Where are you exactly?’

The Yorkshireman gave their position as best he could. He had just enough time to get an assurance that the rescuers were on the way before the jury-rigged radio went dead. After swearing loudly, he returned to the shelter. ‘Oh God, you’re freezing!’ said Nina as he squeezed in beside her.

‘I feel warmer knowing we’re not going to be stuck out here all night.’ He examined Olivia. ‘How is she?’

‘Not good. She’s asleep… or unconscious.’

‘She’ll be okay.’

‘You sure?’

‘I’m sure. I heard what you were saying to her. She’s family — yours and mine. I’m not going to let her go either. Even if,’ a wry half-smile, ‘she did get us into this bloody situation in the first place!’

‘She can’t take all the blame,’ said Nina. ‘I’m just as responsible. And I’ll make sure she knows that when she wakes up.’ She looked down at her grandmother once more. ‘You hear me? You are going to wake up.’

Eddie put an arm around her. Together they sat in silent vigil until the distant rumble of an engine told them rescue was finally drawing near.