The Midas Code

by Boyd Morrison

  “They found these bits in the shipwreck off the Greek island of Antikythera in 1900,” Stacy said. “For years nobody paid much attention to them until an archaeologist realized that the gearing predated anything else as sophisticated by fifteen hundred years. Some people refer to it as the world’s first analog computer. It would be like finding an IBM PC hidden in the dungeon of a medieval castle.”

  “What does it compute?” Grant asked.

  “Debate has raged for years, but most scientists think it was used for astronomical prediction of some sort. Planetary movements, solstices and equinoxes, perhaps even solar eclipses. Ancient planting cycles and religious worship depended on knowing important calendar events, and this device might have been used to calculate them.”

  She brought up another photo, this time of a shiny bronze mechanism behind a protective glass. The face of the device had two circular dials like a clock, and a knob on the side. The sides were transparent, so that you could see the gearing inside. Some of the points on the dials were etched with Greek lettering.

  “That’s a replica at the National Archaeological Museum in Athens,” Tyler said. “Built from what they could glean from X-rays of the recovered pieces.”

  “Looks like the geolabe you built,” Grant said.

  “They’re very similar, but the markings on the face of mine are complete, and it has two knobs on the side instead of one.”

  “So this codex seems to be an instruction manual for building an Antikythera Mechanism,” Stacy said.

  “Or something along those lines,” Tyler said. “But the most exciting part is that the codex provides evidence that Archimedes may have been the one who designed it.”

  Grant grinned. “You mean, the guy who yelled ‘Eureka!’ when he created the Archimedes Death Ray?”

  Stacy could tell by his smirk that he knew very well he was conflating two well-known stories about the inventor, engineer, and mathematician. “You are so close,” she said.

  According to legend, Archimedes was in the bathtub pondering how to solve a problem for the king of Syracuse, his patron on the island now called Sicily. The king was given a crown that was supposedly made of gold, but he wanted to verify the claim without destroying the gift. When Archimedes realized that the material’s displacement in water could be used to discern its density, he ran into the street stark naked yelling, “Eureka!” which translates to “I found it!”

  The king also called on Archimedes to design weapons of war to repel a Roman siege during the Second Punic War in 214 B.C. Historians of the time recount a death ray Archimedes invented that focused the sun’s light with such intensity that it made the enemy ships in the Syracuse harbor burst into flames. His feat couldn’t be duplicated in spite of many attempts, including experiments by students from Tyler’s alma mater, MIT, and TV’s MythBusters, so it’s assumed that the claims were exaggerated.

  Nonetheless, Archimedes’ reputation as an inventor and scientist was so great that even such wild assertions were given credence.

  “Not only does the codex describe how to design the geolabe,” Tyler said, his excitement obvious, “but it could be the only known copy of his long-lost treatise called On Sphere-Making. It has designs for dozens of mechanisms, not just the geolabe.”

  Stacy wished she could be as excited as he was, but she was more worried about how they could use the geolabe to free her sister.

  “This is all very cool stuff,” Grant said, “but what in the hell does it have to do with old King Midas?”

  Tyler glanced at Stacy, and she shrugged for him to answer.

  “We think the geolabe somehow leads to a map—a map that will show us where the treasure of King Midas is buried.”

  Stacy pointed at the laptop screen. “This line says, ‘He who controls this map controls the riches of Midas.’”

  “Ah, treasure!” Grant said, rubbing his hands together. “Now we’re talking. How does it work?”

  Stacy leaned back and laced her hands behind her head. “We don’t know. There are two pieces of the instructions missing.”

  “Remember when we were building that Swedish modular home-entertainment center you bought?” Tyler said. “The one with the missing instruction page? Same problem.”

  “It’s good we’re engineers, otherwise it would’ve taken us more than a half hour to realize we’d put it together backward.”

  “In this case, the missing pieces explain how to operate the device,” Stacy said. “The first step was to get all three dials pointed to the noon position, like calibrating a scale. Solving the Stomachion told us how to do that, but now we don’t know how to proceed. The codex talks about how there are three keys to deciphering the geolabe, and that they form some kind of safeguard so that the owner of the codex wouldn’t be able to find the map without the other two keys.”

  “Like a password and fingerprint scanner on the same security system,” Tyler said.

  “So the first key is the instruction manual for building and calibrating the geolabe, which we think may also be a version of the mysterious Antikythera Mechanism?” Grant said.

  She nodded. “Now that we have the device built and we figured out how to calibrate it, we need the other two keys to operate it.”

  “And the other two keys are …?” Grant said.

  Stacy highlighted another section. “This part talks about a message that’s hidden. This word is steganos, which means ‘covered,’ and this one is graphein, which means ‘writing.’”

  “Steganography.”

  “Literally, ‘concealed writing.’ Whatever the message is, it’s concealed, and I think I know where.”

  “The wax tablet that was separated from the codex before the auction,” Tyler said. “That’s the second key.”

  “Let me guess,” Grant said. “The tablet’s buyer lives in England.”

  “Right. The tablet was bought by a holding company called VXN Industries, which also happens to lease an estate in Kent.”

  “Think the buyer will let you take a look at it?”

  “That’s what we’re hoping. Stacy and I will drive out there to make our plea in person.”

  “While I look for clues in as many pubs as possible?”

  Stacy liked these guys. Even in a situation as dire as this, they lightened the mood to keep their spirits up.

  “You wish,” she said, joining in. She scrolled to another part of the codex. “Here’s where it mentions the third key.”

  “So what’s that mean for me?”

  “You’re going to the British Museum,” Tyler said.

  “A museum?” Grant said, as if he’d been asked to wade through a Dumpster full of trash. “What for?”

  “Orr said that the tomb of Midas is somewhere under Naples,” Stacy answered. “The codex says that the third key will be revealed by ‘the room of the ancestor of Neapolis.’ Neapolis is the Greek name for Naples.”

  “Is the British Museum the best place to learn about Naples?” Grant asked.

  “Not necessarily, but it does have experts on the Elgin Marbles.”

  “So?”

  “The Elgin Marbles are marble statues and sculptured panels that were taken from the Parthenon in the early 1800s by Lord Elgin. They’re currently on display at the British Museum.”

  “I don’t follow.”

  “I think Archimedes was being clever,” Stacy said. “Neapolis was originally called Parthenope, making Parthenope the ancestor of Neapolis. So when Archimedes said ‘the room of the ancestor of Neapolis,’ he could have meant ‘the room of Parthenope.’ Parthenope means ‘the virgin city,’ so we can further reduce it to ‘the room of the virgin city’ or more simply ‘the room of the virgin.’”

  “I think I’ve got it,” Grant said. “The third key will be revealed by ‘the virgin’s room.’” He thought about it for another second and shook his head, “Nope. I still don’t get it.”

  “The Greek word for a ‘virgin’s room’ is Parthenon.”

  Gr
ant laughed in disbelief. “As in the temple on top of the Acropolis in Athens?”

  Stacy pointed to the manuscript. “In essence it says, ‘Take the geolabe to the Parthenon. The seat of Herakles and the feet of Aphrodite will show the way.’”

  “But what does that mean?”

  She shrugged, both frustrated and embarrassed that she didn’t know the answer, particularly with her sister’s life on the line. “My specialty was classical literature, not architecture. That’s why we need an expert. I don’t know how or why, but the third key to finding Archimedes’ map is the Parthenon.”

  EIGHTEEN

  Sherman Locke’s watch had been confiscated, so he didn’t know what time it was when the opening of the garage door woke him. Given that he was still full from the takeout sandwich and water they’d given him for dinner, he suspected it was the middle of the night. He rose from his cot and went to the portal in the door. The room’s single bulb had been turned off for the evening, but the crude covering over the hole left a small crack that let in a sliver of light. Sherman also discovered that it gave him a limited view of the warehouse.

  He didn’t know what they were trying to keep him from seeing, but it wasn’t their faces. He’d gotten a good look at both of his captors, which wasn’t very comforting because it implied they had no intention of letting him out of here alive.

  That made escape priority number one, both for him and for the girl they’d called Carol. He’d heard her cry out a few times, but the sound was muted, which meant that she’d been placed in the room farthest from his. He’d tried tapping on the wall a few times, but she hadn’t responded. Speaking to her through the cinder blocks wouldn’t work because he would have had to yell so loudly that Gaul would have heard as well.

  As he peered through the crack, Sherman saw that another van had just backed into the warehouse next to the one in which he’d been abducted. He watched as two white men got out, the driver trim and dark-haired, the passenger pasty and doughy. They circled to the back of the truck, where they met Gaul and Phillips, who were still rubbing their eyes from their naps on the cots. They stared at something in the back of the van.

  “You sure it’s safe to touch, Orr?” Gaul asked. He was speaking to the driver. Their voices were barely audible to Sherman.

  “Crenshaw,” Orr said to the passenger, “show them the readings.”

  Crenshaw had his back to Sherman, so he couldn’t see what the man had in his hand. Crenshaw motioned his arm back and forth several times and then held up what looked like a voltage meter.

  “See?” Crenshaw said. “No problem.”

  “I still don’t like it.”

  “Do you like two million dollars?” Orr said. Because of the authoritative way Orr said it, Sherman was sure he was the leader of this gang.

  “I love two million dollars,” Phillips said.

  Two million dollars each? Sherman thought. How much were they asking for him?

  “Consider it hazard pay,” Orr said. “Now help us get it on the floor next to that table.”

  The four of them lifted something from the van, and just before they disappeared from view Sherman spied a black metal box that couldn’t have been more than a foot on each side. Even though the object was small, they were straining from the load. Whatever was in there was surprisingly heavy.

  Once it was down, they went back to the van.

  “How are our guests doing?” Orr asked.

  “The general was a pain in the ass, but we handled it. The girl is still groggy from the roofies.”

  Orr looked directly at the hole in the door, but Sherman didn’t think there was any way he could be seen.

  “What about the rest of this crap?” Gaul said.

  “Drive the truck to the far end of the warehouse and dump it,” Orr said. “We don’t want some kids to stumble onto it in a junkyard and alert the FBI.”

  Gaul and Phillips did as he ordered, stopping the van at the far wall fifty yards away. With the van facing toward him, he couldn’t see what they were tossing out, but pieces of metal clanged onto the concrete every few seconds, with some of the impacts noisier than others.

  Orr’s and Crenshaw’s voices lowered, so Sherman could hear only snippets of their conversation. “… truck … by Monday … enough dust … bank … thirty years …”

  That was all he could make out before the van started up again and returned to its original parking spot.

  With the van out of the way, Sherman could now see what they’d tossed out. One of his greatest assets as a fighter pilot was his vision, and although he needed reading glasses now, his distance acuity was as good as ever.

  His eye was drawn to a green cylinder with fins around its core lying on its side. Something about it was familiar. At first he thought it was an unusual compressor design, but then he saw the stenciled Cyrillic letters on the base and realized where he’d seen a photo of it.

  During his final three years in the Air Force, Sherman had been the deputy director of the Defense Threat Reduction Agency, whose mission was to determine ways to counter weapons of mass destruction. As the agency’s highest-ranking military leader, he had been briefed on every major risk to national security posed by nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons. In fact, his keynote address the previous morning had been on unconventional tactics that could make the effects of these weapons more widespread and deadly.

  Two years ago, he was part of a team that went to Moscow to discuss the security of rogue nuclear weapons and materials. The fear was that terrorists would be able to get their hands on uranium or plutonium to fashion their own crude atomic bombs, then smuggle them into American cities.

  As part of the discussion, they also talked about other sources of nuclear material. One potential hazard was from radioisotope thermal generators, similar to the power sources used in American space probes like Voyager. Russia had hundreds of unmanned lighthouses and signal stations ringing the coasts of the country in locations so remote that maintaining them on a regular basis was costly. So, instead of conventional diesel generators that would have to be fueled and repaired routinely, the Soviets constructed RTGs to power them and provide guideposts for their Navy. Then they forgot about them.

  With the collapse of the Soviet Union and the subsequent cost cuts in the military, little emphasis had been placed on safeguarding these power plants, and they were abandoned. Because they were unmanned, they made tempting targets for thieves hoping to scavenge the metal for profit. In taking the devices apart, the thieves would sometimes expose the core capsules that held the radioactive strontium-90 power source.

  In the former Soviet republic of Georgia, three villagers had either stolen or come across two of these capsules containing ten pounds of the highly dangerous material. The capsules generate their power using heat, so the men thought they would make a good replacement for their campfire in the winter cold.

  Within hours, they became sick with radiation poisoning and would have died without immediate care. Two of them were hospitalized for months and never fully recovered. The only reason they didn’t die within days was that the capsules were still partially shielded by lead. The entire town of Pripyat, near Chernobyl, had been permanently evacuated for a radiation reading lower than the output of one of these unshielded capsules.

  The green object sitting a hundred yards away looked exactly like one of the RTGs his DTRA team had been shown during the trip to Moscow. Now Sherman understood why the container they’d been carrying was so heavy. It was made entirely of lead.

  For whatever reason they had taken Sherman and Carol, this was no simple kidnapping. His captors had something far grander planned. He had to get a message to Tyler, had to make him understand the deadly danger they faced.

  Escape was no longer Sherman’s highest priority.

  THURSDAY

  THE ARCHIMEDES TABLET

  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.