The Midas Legacy

50

Oswald Seretse gazed out of the limousine’s window as it crossed the Queensboro Bridge into Manhattan, the afternoon sun shining on the rectilinear forest of brick and concrete and glass. ‘You have been through a great ordeal, that is for sure,’ he said, having listened to Nina and Eddie’s account of events in North Korea on the ride from the airport. ‘One for which I feel in large part responsible.’

‘Mm-hmm,’ Nina said stonily, nodding.

He turned back to them. ‘Again, you have my most profound and sincere apologies. Had I known that Fenrir was still in the country waiting for you… But,’ the diplomat went on, ‘it at least had a somewhat happy ending.’

Eddie rattled the end of his military-issue crutch against the floor. ‘Yeah, I’m smiling like the fucking Joker.’

‘I admit, more on an international level than a personal one. The illegal North Korean weapons facility was destroyed, the nuclear warheads it had already produced were captured, and an extremely dangerous escalation of tensions in the Middle East has been averted — to say nothing of the renewed diplomatic pressure that will be placed on North Korea from all sides. You may not appreciate that right now, but I assure you, you have done a tremendous favour for the world. Thank you.’

Nina nodded. ‘Has there been any word on Fenrir and the Crucible?’

‘Not yet. He seems to have travelled to China, but then we believed that before. The CIA and other agencies are still trying to track him down.’

‘Thirty million dollars and a crate of gold bars buys you a lot of anonymity, I guess.’

‘So it would seem.’ He shook his head. ‘I am still in a state of shock about Fenrir, as indeed are many others at the UN. The idea that someone we trusted could have betrayed his principles so completely…’

‘Some people’ll do anything for a shitload of gold,’ said Eddie.

Nina knew the comment was not referring entirely to Mikkelsson. ‘Yeah. But some of them might realise that other things are more valuable in the end. I hope.’

‘Maybe. Right now, though,’ he shifted, stretching his injured leg, ‘I just want to see our most valuable thing.’

‘Are you calling our little girl a thing?’ The couple grinned at each other.

‘I am returning to the United Nations,’ said Seretse, smiling again, ‘but my driver is at your disposal. He can take you home, or wherever you wish to go.’

‘Macy’s at her nursery,’ Nina told him, checking her watch. ‘I already spoke to our niece when we landed; she’ll be waiting for us there. They’ll be finishing soon.’

‘Then I shall delay you as little as possible.’ The limo reached the end of the bridge, turning on to 2nd Avenue to make its way southwards.

Seretse said his farewells and exited at the United Nations. Nina gave the driver the nursery’s address, and the limo headed back uptown. ‘We made it home,’ she said, watching familiar surroundings slide past outside. ‘I honestly thought we wouldn’t, that we’d never get to see Macy again, but… we did. We actually made it.’ She closed her eyes for a moment, but found the darkness filled with unwelcome visions of everything she had recently endured. ‘I’m never going to leave her again.’

‘I know how you feel,’ said Eddie, his voice filled with weariness. ‘But sooner or later, she’ll leave us. It’s what kids do. Holly’s out here doing her own thing. One day, Macy’ll be the same.’

‘One day. But not now. And definitely not today.’ She leaned against him, holding his hand. ‘Oh God, I’ve missed her so much.’

‘Me too, love. Me too.’

The journey to the nursery seemed to take as long as the flight from South Korea. At last they arrived. ‘Do you want me to wait for you?’ asked the driver.

‘Yes please,’ said Nina. ‘We shouldn’t be long.’

He surveyed the street. Parking spaces were, as ever in New York, at a premium, and a section of street alongside scaffolding erected outside the nursery’s building had been closed off by road cones. ‘I’ll circle the block until you come out, if that’s okay?’

‘No problem,’ Eddie told him as they pulled up. ‘Don’t pick up any hitchhikers, though.’

The driver pulled over and got out to open the door for them. A few passers-by looked on curiously, wondering if celebrities had arrived. ‘What, nobody recognises us?’ the Yorkshireman mock-complained. ‘Tchah! What’s the point of having a movie about us if we don’t get mobbed by fans every time we’re out in public?’

‘I’d rather not end up like John Lennon, thanks,’ said Nina, helping him out and passing him his crutch. The limo pulled away as they skirted the scaffolding and entered the building.

An unwelcome sight greeted them. ‘Oh, great,’ Eddie said, seeing a sign on the elevator warning that it was out of service due to the renovation work.

‘You want to wait here?’ asked Nina.

‘No, I’ll follow you. It’s only one floor up. Just hope the lift in our building’s working — I don’t want to have to limp up eight flights of stairs!’

‘See you up there, Hopalong.’ She kissed him, then went to the stairwell and jogged up.

There was nobody in the hallway outside the nursery. Half expecting another reprimand for tardiness, she entered. No one was in reception either. ‘Hello?’

Penny Lopez emerged from one of the rooms. ‘Oh, hi, Nina. You’re back— oh!’ She saw the bruises and cuts on the redhead’s face. ‘My God, are you okay? What happened?’

‘I’m fine,’ Nina assured her. ‘We had a fender-bender.’ She saw there were no coats on the hooks. ‘Did Macy go with Holly already?’

‘Yes, about ten minutes ago. Holly said you were coming, but I assumed she and Macy went to meet you on the street.’

‘They weren’t outside…’ Alarm bells started to ring in her mind, worry rising. She went back into the hallway. ‘Holly? Macy?’

No reply from either, but Eddie responded from the stairwell. ‘What is it?’

Nina looked down over the railing to see him awkwardly ascending. ‘Penny said Holly already left with Macy.’

His brow furrowed with concern. ‘She knew we were on the way, she wouldn’t have left without us.’

‘I know. Macy! Holly!’

Her shout echoed from the walls — then a faint cry came from somewhere above. ‘Mommy!’

The couple regarded each other with sudden fear. There was absolutely no reason why Holly would have taken their daughter higher into the building.

At least not of her own volition.

‘Macy, I’m coming!’ Nina shouted as she ran up the stairs.

Eddie struggled up behind her, his crutch thudding off each step. ‘Fucking shit!’ he gasped as he stumbled. ‘Find her, don’t worry about me!’

Nina pounded up the staircase. Macy’s wail had come from one of the higher floors, but she didn’t know which one. She reached the third-floor entrance and pulled it open. ‘Macy!’

No answer. A wall sign told her this floor was occupied by an accounting firm. The door to its reception area was glass, a woman visible at a desk beyond. She looked up in surprise. Macy and Holly hadn’t been here.

She hared up the next flight. The fourth floor was vacant, the lights off. Nina tried the door to the offices. Locked. The next level was undergoing renovation work, piles of drywall panels waiting to replace old plaster and lath. ‘Macy!’

A reply came, another cry of ‘Mommy!’ from above. Not the next floor, but higher. Nina scaled the stairs even more quickly and rushed into the seventh-floor hallway. This too was being renovated, new glazing units propped vertically on a trolley waiting to be installed. The nearest door was open. She rushed through it—

And froze.

Fenrir Mikkelsson sat on a crate in front of the windows, Sarah standing beside him. He held the frightened and crying Macy on his lap with one hand and a gun in the other. It was not raised, but still pointed in the general direction of Holly, who stood trembling in a corner of the empty, half-decorated room. ‘Nina,’ said the Icelander with unnerving calm. ‘I am so glad to see you again.’

Nina had no time for pleasantries or subtlety. ‘Let her go, you bastard! Macy, are you okay?’

The little girl struggled against his unbreakable grip. ‘Mommy, I’m scared.’

‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry!’ said Holly, tears streaming down her cheeks. ‘I was bringing Macy downstairs to meet you, he had a gun…’

‘It’s okay, it’s not your fault,’ Nina assured her. ‘What do you want, Fenrir?’

His cold blue eyes flicked towards the door behind her. ‘Where is Eddie? I would have thought he would be here to meet his daughter.’

‘He’s on his way.’

‘Then we shall wait for him.’ He leaned back slightly, watching her with what seemed almost like admiration. ‘I understand that you two achieved what years of diplomacy and military posturing could not by ending part of North Korea’s covert nuclear programme.’

‘You don’t seem too upset about that.’ She kept her voice slightly above its normal volume, wanting to give Eddie advance warning of the situation.

‘I got what I wanted from the North Koreans.’ A glance at a holdall on the floor. From its shape, it contained something spherical, about the size of a basketball: the Crucible. ‘Anything that happened subsequently is not my concern.’

‘You brought the Crucible with you?’

‘Having gone through so much to obtain it, I was not going to leave it behind. I hope you appreciate that I was correct about US hypocrisy, by the way: the Americans kept the warheads for themselves.’ He straightened. ‘But congratulations on your success. I am sure you returned to this country as heroes.’

‘How did you get into the country?’ she demanded, wanting to keep him talking. As long as he was engaging with her, he would be less likely to hurt Macy. ‘You should be on the top of the international most-wanted list.’

‘I have my ways. Similar to ones that I know Eddie has used in the past. All of which are considerably easier when backed by large sums of money.’

‘So why are you here? Why not just use that money to hide?’

Mikkelsson’s expression barely changed, a slight narrowing of the eyes and a tightening of the lips, but he became almost infinitely more menacing. ‘You killed my daughter.’

‘Our daughter.’ Sarah spoke for the first time, her voice barely above a whisper. Nina’s attention had until now been on Mikkelsson; she realised his wife was clothed entirely in black. A mother in mourning for her child. There was no anger in her words, only deep sadness.

Mikkelsson did not react to her, his attention fixed upon Nina. ‘So I am going to take your daughter from you.’

‘Don’t you dare hurt her,’ Nina hissed, filled with sudden rage but powerless to act upon it. If she made a move towards him, he would shoot her before she had gone two steps.

‘I am not going to hurt her,’ the Icelander replied. ‘I am going to raise her. As if she were my own. You and Eddie took mine, so I shall take yours.’

Surprise formed on Sarah’s numbed, blank face. ‘What?’

‘Did you really think I would hurt a child?’ he said. ‘I am not a monster; surely you know that after twenty-six years of marriage. No, I am going to give you a beautiful new daughter.’

‘You… you think you can replace Ana?’ she replied, the words quavering with rising emotion. ‘Like getting a new phone? It… it doesn’t work like that!’ The cry exploded from her, startling Mikkelsson with its intensity. Macy wailed, afraid.

‘Sarah, I am doing this for you,’ he said. ‘For both of us!’

‘Our family isn’t a machine — you can’t just slot in a replacement part! You… you haven’t grieved for Ana, you haven’t even cried!’

The accusation seemed to sting him. ‘I am grieving, Sarah. In my own way.’ Nina risked a small step closer, hoping he was distracted but his gaze immediately snapped back, the gun shifting away from Holly and towards her. She froze again.

Sarah did not register the movement. ‘You do everything in your own way, Fenrir,’ she said, eyes brimming with tears. ‘You never let me close, and you never know what I’m feeling! You have no idea!’

‘Of course I do,’ he protested.

‘If you did, you wouldn’t be talking about making another mother go through what I’m going through now.’ Trembling, she looked at Nina. ‘You wouldn’t let anyone suffer like this! N-not even her.’

The gun rose, now pointing directly at the New Yorker. ‘She will not suffer for long, I assure you. She has lived a good life; now she will have a good death.’

Macy shrieked and struggled again, slapping at Mikkelsson’s arm. ‘Don’t hurt my mommy! Don’t hurt her!’

He squeezed her more tightly. ‘Do not worry, Macy. You will have a new mommy.’

‘If you kill me,’ said Nina, as fearful for Macy’s psyche as her own life, ‘you’ll traumatise her permanently.’

‘She is only three years old,’ was his dismissive reply. ‘She will not even remember.’

‘How would you know?’ cried Sarah. She stepped out from his side, moving forward and facing him. He had to shift the gun sideways to maintain his aim at Nina. ‘What do you know about raising a child? You were never there for Ana, you were always away working! She did everything she could to gain your approval and your love, to get you just to be there, but it was never enough. And she tried so hard to be what she thought you wanted her to be that… that it got her killed.’

‘That is not true,’ snapped Mikkelsson, a flash of anger cutting through his icy mask.

‘It is true!’ She stabbed a finger at Nina. ‘Her husband was a professional soldier, even better than Rutger. Ana didn’t have a chance. But you let her go against him anyway!’

The mention of Eddie made Nina wonder where he was. Even with his wounded leg, surely he should have reached the seventh floor by now? She listened for footsteps or the thud of his crutch from the hallway, but heard nothing. What was he doing?

A small movement of the gun brought her whole attention back to the scene before her. ‘Anastasia made her own decisions,’ Mikkelsson insisted.

‘She would never have made that decision if you hadn’t turned her into a killer! She killed Augustine, but she wouldn’t have done it without your… your permission.’

‘I did not tell her to kill anyone!’ The ice was starting to melt, heat rising beneath.

‘No, but it was what you wanted, and she would do anything to please you! And I won’t let you do that to another child.’ She took hold of Macy.

‘What are you doing?’ demanded her husband.

‘Giving her back.’ She tried to pull the little girl out from Mikkelsson’s arm. Nina tensed, desperately afraid that if they struggled the gun would go off, but after another flare of surprised anger he let her go. Sarah lifted her away, holding her for a long moment as she turned towards Nina… then put her down. ‘Go to your mommy, darling,’ she whispered.

Macy needed no prompting, running to her mother, who clutched her protectively. ‘Come on, honey,’ Nina said. ‘We’re going. Holly, you too.’

Holly started towards her, but Mikkelsson stood. ‘No,’ he said. ‘You are not leaving.’

‘Fenrir, please,’ Sarah said. ‘Let’s just get out of here while we can—’

As if in mocking denial, the warble of a rapidly approaching siren became audible from the street below. Nina knew at once what Eddie had been doing on his ascent: calling the police. But that still didn’t explain why he hadn’t yet reached her…

The answer came from outside as a familiar bald head peered around the side of the windows. Rather than come into the room to face Mikkelsson directly, he had entered one of the adjoining offices and climbed out on to the scaffolding. She suppressed any reaction to the sight. If the Icelander turned, he would see him.

‘You can’t get away,’ she said, trying to keep all attention on her. She held Macy close so she wouldn’t see her father and give away his presence. ‘Holly, come towards me, slowly. Keep your eyes on me. Everything’s going to be okay.’ Outside, Eddie carefully sidestepped along the wooden boards, heading for the pane behind the Mikkelssons. He still had his crutch, but now held it under one arm like a lance, ready to use as a weapon.

Nina glanced down. Most of the floor was in shadow, a higher building across the street blocking the sun, but Eddie would have to pass through a line of light angling diagonally across it. ‘The cops will be here any second,’ she said.

‘They will not arrive quickly enough to save you,’ Mikkelsson replied. He flicked his gun towards Holly, who stiffened in fear. ‘Stop there. I have no quarrel with you.’

‘Please don’t hurt anyone,’ the young woman sobbed, looking around. Nina stopped breathing. If her niece saw Eddie, her surprise would give his presence away—

‘Holly, look at me!’ she commanded. ‘Do what he says, stay still.’ To her relief, Holly faced her again. ‘Sarah, thank you for giving Macy back to me. Thank you so much. Please, convince him not to do something that’ll haunt her for the rest of her life.’

‘She’s right,’ Sarah said to Mikkelsson. ‘Fenrir, let’s go. Please?’ She reached out and placed a hand on top of the gun, gently pushing it downwards. ‘If you love me, if you loved Ana like you say you did, you won’t do this.’

The Icelander’s expression remained unreadable, his unnerving gaze still fixed upon Nina. Then…

‘No,’ he said sharply.

He shoved Sarah away, sending her staggering as he snapped the gun back up — only to glance down at the floor as a shadow flitted across it—

The window behind him exploded.

Eddie swung the crutch like an axe, smashing the glass and hurling himself through the opening. He landed on the crate, rolling off it to tackle the big man and slam him to the floor.

Mikkelsson reflexively fired the gun as he fell. Sarah screamed as the bullet hit her leg. She collapsed. ‘Holly, take Macy!’ Nina yelled as her niece stared in petrified shock. ‘Run!’ Holly snapped into motion and grabbed the little girl, running with her through the door as Nina rushed to help her husband.

Eddie grappled with Mikkelsson. The crutch skittered away from them. The Yorkshireman managed to hook an arm around his opponent’s neck and squeezed hard, trying to choke him. Mikkelsson drove an elbow into his side, then twisted to point the gun over his shoulder at Eddie’s face. Eddie gripped his wrist and pushed it away as he fired.

The gunshot deafened him, all sounds replaced by a shrill, dizzying ring. Mikkelsson was little better off, but still delivered another blow to the other man’s injured ribs. Eddie convulsed in pain. Mikkelsson strained and his raw strength overcame his adversary’s grip. He pulled free—

Nina swung the crutch like a baseball bat. Its padded end smacked the gun from his hand. It spun away and hit the broken window’s frame, landing on the edge of the boards outside. The siren’s howl cut off below as an NYPD patrol car skidded to a stop outside the building.

She tried to send a second strike at Mikkelsson’s head, but he kicked her legs out from under her. She fell, her head cracking painfully against the floor. The holdall swam across her blurry vision.

Behind it, Mikkelsson pulled himself up on the crate.

Eddie tried to drag him back down, but the other man lashed out, hitting his bullet wound. The Englishman screamed. Mikkelsson scrambled to the broken window, about to climb through and use the scaffolding to escape—

He saw the gun.

Kicking out the remaining shards of glass, the Icelander ducked on to the scaffold and bent to snatch up the weapon. He turned to kill the couple—

Nina grabbed the holdall containing the Crucible — and threw it at him. ‘Don’t leave this behind!’

It hit him in the stomach. He stumbled backwards… and slipped over the edge.

Mikkelsson snatched at a scaffolding pole as he toppled, but missed. He plunged shrieking towards the ground, the Crucible falling with him—

He landed on the police car. Its roof imploded beneath him, the windows bursting apart and showering the street with glass. People on the sidewalk yelled and ran from the glittering hailstorm.

The holdall hit the kerb beside the car with a bang, the crystalline sphere inside it shattering into thousands of glassy fragments.

The Crucible — the Atlantean artefact that had forged the lost civilisation’s supplies of gold, that had driven Talonor’s journeys across the world to find another natural nuclear reactor, that had caused an untold number of deaths as men and women were overcome by greed for what it could produce — had been destroyed.

Seven floors above, Nina stared at the empty space beyond the window, then went to assist her husband. ‘It’s okay, I’ve got you.’

He put a hand to one ear. ‘What?’ he replied loudly.

‘I said I’ve got you!’

‘All right, no need to shout! Jesus, my ears hurt. What happened, where’s—’ He regarded the window, then looked back at Nina. ‘You got him?’

‘Unless he sprouted wings on the way down, yeah.’ She helped him up, and they both peered at the street below. ‘Oh my God, he’s still alive!’ A weakly moving figure was splayed across the crushed roof of the police car, embedded in the metal.

‘Don’t think he’ll be making a run for it,’ Eddie rumbled. One of the Icelander’s legs had acquired an extra joint halfway down the shin. ‘What about Macy — where’s Macy?’ he barked in sudden alarm.

‘With Holly.’ Nina retrieved his crutch, sparing a moment to glance at Sarah, who was moaning as she clutched her leg. The bullet wound was bloody, but not actually gushing; no major arteries had been torn. ‘Keep your hand pressed on it; there’ll be an ambulance here soon,’ she told her.

Eddie’s accumulated injuries barely slowed him as he hobbled determinedly from the room. ‘Macy!’ he called. ‘Holly, where are you? Macy!’

‘We’re down here!’ came a frantic voice from the stairwell. The couple hurriedly descended, finding Holly with their daughter halfway down. Both were crying.

‘We’re okay, we’re okay,’ Nina assured them. She took Macy and held her tightly. ‘We’re here now, we’re both here.’

‘Mommy!’ cried Macy, wrapping her arms around her mother.

‘What’s Daddy, chopped liver?’ said Eddie, managing a pained smile. He joined the huddle, embracing them both. ‘Jesus Christ, love, I’m so happy to see you.’

Macy let out a little gasp. ‘Daddy! You swore!’

‘Get used to it, kid. I’m back.’ He gave Nina a look to let her know he was joking, then turned at the sound of someone running up the stairs.

A pair of uniformed NYPD officers arrived. ‘You the guy who called Detective Martin?’ one asked Eddie.

‘Yeah,’ replied Eddie, adding to Nina at the mention of his friend on the force: ‘Thought it’d be quicker to tell Amy I needed help than go through 911 and have to explain everything.’ He looked back at the cops. ‘Our little girl’s fine, and we’re all okay. There’s a woman with a gunshot wound on the seventh floor; she’s one of the bad guys.’

‘There’s another bad guy?’ the second cop said.

‘You might want to go check on your car,’ Nina told them. ‘And I mean literally on your car. He went out the window. He’s still alive, though — and currently top of the international most-wanted list, so that should get you some brownie points for catching him.’

The officers exchanged surprised glances, then one took out his radio and reported in as he continued upstairs at a run, the other clattering back down to ground level. Eddie let go of his wife and daughter to hold Holly. ‘You all right?’

‘I’m fine,’ she said, trying not to cry. ‘Oh God! I was so scared. When did babysitting become so dangerous?’

‘Welcome to our world,’ said Nina.

‘No offence, but you might want to find someone else in future.’

‘We won’t be needing anyone. Not any more.’ She nuzzled her daughter. ‘It’s okay, Macy, everything’s okay.’

‘Are you sure, Mommy?’ Macy asked.

She looked at Eddie, who smiled. ‘Yeah, I’m sure, honey. Come on. Let’s go home.’