The Midas Code tl-2

by Boyd Morrison

  “Where’d you get the phone?”

  “Some kid on the street. I saw him talking on it. He told me to buzz off until I offered to trade my Rolex for it. He spoke English, so he helped me with the operator.”

  He handed the phone to Tyler, who dialed Miles Benson’s number, one of the few he had memorized. He prayed that Miles would answer the unfamiliar number.

  He did, on the second ring.

  “Miles Benson,” he said in his curt tone.

  “Miles, it’s Tyler.” He could hear the exhaustion in his own voice.

  “Tyler? I’ve been trying to reach you for hours! Where the hell are you?”

  “I’m in Naples with Grant. Stacy’s badly injured, but we’ve got an ambulance coming. Miles, I think my father is dead.”

  “Dead? Jesus. Last time I heard, the general was just coming out of surgery at George Washington University Hospital. Doctors said he’d be in critical condition for a while, but they expected him to make a full recovery.”

  For the first time in hours, Tyler felt a surge of energy. “He’s not dead? You’re sure?”

  “I know what I heard.”

  “What about Carol Benedict?”

  “Scared, but she didn’t have a scratch on her.”

  “Thank God!” Tyler said. He lowered the phone. “Stacy, it’s all right. Carol’s safe.”

  “Carol?” she said, her eyes flashing open. “She’s okay?”

  Tyler nodded, and this time Stacy wept tears of joy before her eyes closed again. He put the phone back to his ear.

  “Miles, Orr is still alive. Did you find the nuclear material?”

  “No,” Miles said, “but the FBI confirmed that the site where we found your dad had unusual levels of radioactivity.”

  Damn. Sometimes he hated being right. But not often.

  “Have you found anything else?”

  “No, the investigation is just getting under way.”

  “Tell them to keep an eye out for a Giordano Orsini.”

  “Orsini? Who the hell is that?”

  “I think it’s Jordan Orr’s birth name. Have the FBI flag him in case he tries to get back into the US. And he has an injured right eye.”

  “Will do, but they’re pretty fixated on some Muslims for the explosion.”

  “What explosion?” Tyler heard sirens wailing, getting closer. “Never mind. You can tell me on the plane. Can you have the pilots fly the Gordian jet down here from Rome? We’ll meet them at the Naples airport.” Tyler and Grant had made the right decision leaving their passports in the plane. The last thing they needed was a hassle getting back into the US.

  “Sure. I’ll get on it.” Miles hung up.

  The sirens got the attention of the resident priest, who brought Tyler a shirt from the church’s donation pile. A minute later, two EMTs carrying a stretcher came into the cloisters. Grant handled the priest, while Tyler dealt with the EMTs. They didn’t speak much English, but they made it clear that they’d been expecting a heart-attack victim, not somebody with a bleeding wound.

  He eased Stacy onto the stretcher with the EMTs’ help. She looked in bad shape, but still beautiful.

  As they strapped Stacy down and rebandaged her, the motion woke her.

  “What’s happening?” she said.

  “You’re going to the hospital.” He held her hand. “We can’t come with you.”

  The police might get involved, and then there would be questions and delays. Tyler and Grant needed to get back to the US and help stop whatever Orr had in mind.

  “I wish I could go with you,” Stacy said, her voice a thin reed. “You get him for me.”

  “We will.”

  “Tell my sister I love her.”

  “You’ll tell her yourself.”

  “Kiss for luck?”

  Tyler smiled. He leaned down and kissed her softly. Her lips burned with heat, but they welcomed his touch.

  He pulled away and said, “You won’t need luck. You’ll be fine.” Given her condition, he wasn’t sure about that, but what else could he say?

  “The luck isn’t for me,” she said. “It’s for you.”

  She slipped into unconsciousness. Tyler and Grant followed her to the ambulance and stayed there until she was safely on her way.

  Then, before the polizia arrived, they walked to the nearest busy street and hailed a cab. Within two hours, they were winging their way toward Washington, hoping they could find Orr before he detonated his nuclear weapon.

  MONDAY:

  VENDETTA

  SIXTY-SIX

  Twelve hours later, Tyler was in his father’s ICU room getting his ribs wrapped by a nurse. He didn’t know if they were broken, because he’d refused an X-ray. His father was still intubated and continued to float in and out of consciousness during his recovery. Even lying there unconscious, with tubes hanging out of him, General Sherman Locke looked powerful, as if he would wake up any moment, rip the sensors off, and take charge.

  Tyler had slept fitfully on the plane ride home. He felt guilty about leaving Stacy behind, his father wasn’t out of danger yet, and Orr still preyed on his mind. If Orr got away only to cause a catastrophe on American soil, Tyler would never forgive himself.

  Just before the Gordian jet landed in DC, he received an update from Aiden, who had been researching any info he could find on Orr’s birth name. Aiden had discovered a Giordano Orsini from Connecticut who would be the same age as Jordan Orr. Orsini’s parents had been killed in a car wreck when the boy was ten, and the short newspaper article intimated that the crash might have been a murder-suicide. At Tyler’s request, Aiden was following up to see if there was more to the story, but it was really in the FBI’s hands now.

  When the nurse was finished, Tyler put his shirt back on. At least on the plane he and Grant had been able to get a fresh change of clothes, but they both still stank. The compression bandage eased the ache in Tyler’s chest, but he’d turned down painkillers. Not only did most meds leave him nauseated, but he didn’t want his senses dulled. He could stand the pain until he was sure they had Orr in custody, assuming the one-eyed wonder was stupid enough to try to get back into the country.

  Before he had tried to get some rest on the flight, Tyler had a long talk with Miles about Sherman’s escape from the warehouse and how he saved Carol Benedict and the two Muslim fall guys. The body found in the building’s wreckage still hadn’t been identified but was assumed to be one of Orr’s accomplices. Tyler told Miles about Gaul in the hope that the FBI might be able to use the link to track down Orr.

  Grant knocked on the door.

  “Hey,” he said. He glanced at Sherman’s inert form. “How’s he doing?”

  “Still out.”

  “Well, if you have a minute, I’ve got two FBI agents here. I’ve told them what I know, but they want to talk to you.”

  “Sure. Will you keep an eye on my dad?”

  “No problem.”

  Tyler left the room and found a man and a woman in pressed suits standing outside. Only FBI agents could look so fresh at 6 A.M.

  Tyler held out his hand. “Tyler Locke.”

  “Dr. Locke,” the man said, “I’m Special Agent Riegert, and this is my partner, Special Agent Immel. Is your father going to be okay?”

  “We think so.”

  “Has he said anything?”

  “He can’t. He’s got a tube down his throat. Where’s Carol Benedict?”

  “She’s already on her way to Naples to see her sister.”

  Tyler was itching for news about Stacy’s condition, but he hadn’t been able to get an update from the hospital because he wasn’t a relative.

  Riegert flipped open a notepad. “Your friend Mr. Westfield told me quite a story. Care to give me your side?”

  On the way back, Grant and Tyler had agreed to tell most of the tale but to leave out the parts that made them seem like criminals themselves, such as the incident in Munich and the heist at the Athens museum.

  Tyler t
old the agents about the ferry puzzle, their investigation leading them to Gia Cavano, and the fight in the tunnels under Naples.

  Despite the same story from both Grant and Tyler, Riegert and Immel were clearly skeptical.

  “And you don’t have this geolabe any more?” Immel said.

  Tyler shook his head. “It’s underwater in the Midas chamber.”

  “And you don’t have any visual record of this chamber?”

  “We did, but Orr got away with it.”

  “You mean the man you’re also calling Giordano Orsini?” Riegert asked.

  “Yes. Any luck finding him?”

  “We’re looking into all possibilities right now, Dr. Locke.”

  “How could you think Orr isn’t responsible for my father’s abduction?” Tyler said. “Miles told me you found evidence of radioactive material at the warehouse fire, and you have the proof-of-life videos we sent.”

  Riegert put up his hands in a conciliatory gesture. “We are taking you seriously, Dr. Locke. Your credentials are beyond reproach. But you have to admit that your story does sound far-fetched. And, with two Muslim men involved, don’t you think radical fundamentalists are the more likely culprits here?”

  “They’re innocent. I’m telling you, Orr is going to set off a radiological device somewhere in the US, and it might very well be today.”

  “But why?” Immel said. “Where? What’s his plan?”

  “I can think of half a dozen sites,” Tyler said. “DC, New York, Chicago, Fort Knox, Philadelphia. Anything within a twelve-hour driving range.”

  “That’s the entire eastern seaboard,” Riegert said.

  “That’s why you need to have every immigration terminal flagging both his aliases.”

  “We’re doing that.”

  “And what else?”

  “We’re not at liberty to say.”

  Tyler sighed. “I don’t know what else I can do for you, then.”

  Grant appeared at the door. “Tyler, your father just woke up.”

  Grant stepped aside as Tyler rushed into the room and went to the bed. Sherman’s eyes were open, but half-lidded. When he saw Tyler, he held his hand up.

  Tyler thought he wanted reassurance, so he took it in his own hand.

  “I’m here, Dad.”

  Sherman wriggled out of his grip. So much for sentimentality.

  Then Tyler realized that he wasn’t reaching out to his son. He was trying to sign.

  His arms were weak, but he put them up long enough for Tyler to make out the two signs he was making.

  At first Tyler thought his father was hallucinating, but Sherman repeated the sign. Blue truck?

  Tyler turned to see Riegert and Immel standing in the doorway.

  “Was there a truck at the warehouse?” he asked them.

  Riegert narrowed his eyes. “How do you know that?”

  “My father knows sign language. He just told me that the truck is blue.”

  Riegert got his notepad out again. “Anything else?”

  “Dad, can you remember anything else about the truck?”

  Sherman made a slight nod. He used his left hand to spell out letters.

  W I L B I X.

  “Wilbix?” Tyler said. Another nod.

  Grant plugged the word into the search engine on his replacement smartphone.

  “Top find is Wilbix Construction,” he said.

  “Dad, is it Wilbix Construction?” Another nod. Sherman patted Tyler’s hand and fell unconscious again.

  “Where is Wilbix based?” Tyler asked Grant.

  “New York,” Grant said. “Oh, man.”

  Riegert tried to see Grant’s screen. “What?”

  “Wilbix Construction is doing work at New York Downtown Hospital. That’s less than a mile from Wall Street.”

  Immel already had her phone out. “This guy might be trying to detonate the bomb in lower Manhattan?” she asked.

  “Possibly,” Grant said. “Maybe this has something to do with his parents’ deaths.”

  “How?” Riegert said.

  “I don’t know, but we need to get to New York,” Tyler told them. “Grant and I can identify Orr.”

  “I’ll see how fast we can get a plane,” Immel said, looking at her phone contacts.

  “That’s okay,” Tyler said. “I have my own.”

  SIXTY-SEVEN

  After Orr found an all-night infirmary to bandage his eye, even getting an old-fashioned black eye-patch in the process, he indulged in hiring a charter flight back to the US from the Rome airport with the last of his funds. His phone was underwater in the Midas chamber, so before his flight left he found an Internet terminal and emailed Crenshaw that he was on his way to Newark.

  With Tyler, Stacy, Grant, and Cavano dead, the Midas chamber sealed up again, and the warehouse destroyed, there was almost no evidence left of Orr’s true identity and his connection to the Midas Touch. Crenshaw was the final loose end to tie up, and Orr would take care of him after he exacted his vengeance on the smug investment-banking firms of Wall Street and all who profited from their greed.

  Crenshaw picked him up at Newark Airport at seven in the morning in a taxi. The weather was bright and clear, with only a slight breeze. Without a word, they rode to a truck stop where the semi was parked.

  When they got into the truck, Crenshaw looked at Orr’s eye and said, “What happened to you?”

  “Accident. Don’t worry about it.”

  “Let’s see the Midas Touch.”

  Orr reluctantly opened the pack and held up the container with Midas’s desiccated hand inside.

  “That’s it? I was expecting rays to be shooting out of it or something.”

  Orr had to admit that it looked less than impressive.

  “Believe me,” he said, “it works.”

  “I don’t believe you. You have proof?”

  Orr gave him the camera, which Crenshaw hooked up to his laptop. He played back the video that Stacy had shot. Even on a tiny computer screen, the chamber was amazing.

  Apart from saying “Wow!” a few times, Crenshaw was silent. When the video was over, he tapped a few keys on the keyboard and detached the camera. He removed the videotape and, before Orr could stop him, smashed it against the dashboard.

  “What in God’s name are you doing, you moron? We need that to show the auction bidders!”

  “I know. And now we’re full partners. I emailed it to myself. Don’t think I didn’t know you were going to kill me as soon as I armed the bomb. You’ve got the buyers, and I’ve got the video.”

  Orr peered at Crenshaw and then laughed. A full-out belly laugh. “I didn’t think anyone was as devious as I was, Crenshaw. But I underestimated you. That doesn’t happen often.”

  Crenshaw looked as if he didn’t know what to make of Orr, but he seemed satisfied. He put the truck into gear.

  They took the Lincoln Tunnel into Manhattan. Orr noted with irony the sign at the entrance, which said NO FLAMMABLES OR EXPLOSIVES.

  “Which location are we using?” Orr asked. They had five possibilities for where to park the truck depending on conditions, all of them locations where a Wilbix truck wouldn’t be out of place.

  “Vesey Street, just east of Church.” It was just a block from the PATH train station.

  The plan was simple. Park the truck on the street, set the timer on the detonator for ten minutes — too short an interval for any tow truck to respond — and walk away. They’d be on their way out of the city before the semi exploded.

  * * *

  Using every trick he knew, Tyler had piloted the flight from DC to Teterboro Airport in New Jersey in just one hour. Riegert had called ahead and arranged for a helicopter to meet them at the airport so they could avoid the rush-hour traffic. Agent Immel brought a Geiger counter to help locate the bomb. Grant, of course, had insisted on coming along.

  The four of them had landed at the downtown heliport on the East River at 8 A.M. The New York FBI office had arranged for a car
to be waiting for them.

  On the way, Riegert discovered that a man fitting Orr’s description had gone through customs at Newark Airport an hour before under the name of Gerald Oren. The flag hadn’t gone out fast enough to stop him at the airport, but Riegert showed Tyler a photo from the security cameras, and the eye patch made identification easy. It was Orr.

  Aiden had come through with more info about Giordano Orsini’s life. His father allegedly committed suicide because he’d been fired from his position as an investment banker and was up to his ears in debt with no prospect of finding another job. Orsini subsequently went into a never-ending string of foster homes and eventually fell off the map.

  Tyler now understood why Orr was in Manhattan. Orr believed the ultimate revenge was to make himself rich while making the people he blamed for ruining his life suffer. The scope of his vendetta was staggering, requiring patience and planning that must have taken years, even decades. But Orr’s scheme had a twisted sense of poetic justice. Tyler just couldn’t comprehend the boundless reserves of hatred Orr would need to carry out his plan.

  Riegert had taken the wheel and headed straight for New York Downtown Hospital. Given the time Orr had landed, he could already be in the city with the bomb. If Orr wanted to blend in, he’d head to the place where he’d expect to see other trucks from Wilbix. The FBI put out an all-points bulletin on the truck and asked Wilbix Construction to make sure all its vehicles were accounted for. But the search would take time, even with the FBI’s enormous manpower.

  Four police cars had already converged on the hospital site, so when they arrived an officer told them they’d checked every Wilbix truck in the lot. None of them was the model stolen from Clarence Gibson in Virginia.

  They’d stood beside the unmarked car, the wind blowing bits of dust from the construction site over them.

  “What now?” Riegert said. “He’s not here.”

  “He’s got to be in New York,” Tyler said. “I know it. I know Orr. He’d want to complete his mission as soon as possible.”