Boyd Morrison - The Midas Code

“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.”

I n 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.