Boyd Morrison - The Midas Code

“Why are you telling me this?” Tyler asked her.

Stacy put both her hands on his. “Because I want you to know that you’re not alone in this. One way or another, we’re going to get through this. All of us.”

The air seemed to be sucked out of the room, and Tyler got tunnel vision. He was focused solely on Stacy’s bright blue eyes. His breathing came to a standstill.

She leaned closer, her gaze passing from his lips to his eyes. Her grip on his hands tightened. If he moved even an inch more toward her, he wouldn’t be able to stop himself.

Instead, as if they both sensed how wrong what they were contemplating would be, given that Sherman and Carol were still being held prisoner, the moment passed. Tyler turned away, one of the hardest things he’d ever done. He dropped her hands and stood.

“Well,” he said, “I, uh, I should probably get some sleep.”

She stood and crossed her arms, blushing in embarrassment. “Yeah, that’s probably a good idea.”

“So… good night.”

“You, too. I mean, see you in the morning.” She gave a halfhearted wave and retreated to her room. “Night.” She closed the door.

Despite the gravity of the situation, it seemed that a tiny portion of the weight on Tyler’s shoulders had lifted. He quickly brushed his teeth and stumbled into bed.

As he closed his eyes, a feeling of serenity settled over him at having Stacy and Grant by his side. No matter what the next day held, they would all be facing it together.

A damo Cavano climbed the path to the Acropolis with Dario and two other cousins Gia Cavano had added to their ranks when she heard about the theft at the Greek National Archaeological Museum the night before. Some kind of box. Adamo didn’t care. All he knew was that he’d get another shot at that black bastard who had decked him and Dario outside the British Museum.

After arriving in Athens at six in the morning, the first thing they did was buy four pistols and ammo from a local supplier the family knew. Now it was eight, and they could get up to the Acropolis. They bought four tickets and began the long walk up to the summit of the famous hill.

Many who had never been to Athens thought that the Acropolis and the Parthenon were one and the same. In reality, the Acropolis referred to the entire massive rock plateau, while the Parthenon, a temple dedicated to the goddess Athena, was one of several ancient buildings atop the Acropolis. Adamo knew that the buildings were even older than those in his hometown of Naples, but the stone walls and ruins didn’t impress him. It looked like a mess. From this vantage point, the Parthenon was literally a shell of its former glory. The entire thing looked as if it would collapse at any moment.

The sun was already beating down hard, and there was little shade to be found. None of them had really thought about what to wear. Adamo had on his slacks, Ferragamos, and a loose silk dress shirt to hide the gun tucked into his belt. Every tourist they passed was in shorts, a T-shirt, and sandals or sneakers. Adamo and his crew stuck out like flies on a ball of mozzarella.

Nothing they could do about that now. Two of them would take up post at the entrance, while the other two stayed at the ready, nearby. With only one entrance to the Acropolis, Locke and his friend Westfield would have to pass them.

Adamo kept an eye out as they approached the Propylaea, the narrow staircase that led through the portico and onto the main expanse of the Acropolis.

The stairs were already crowded with a group of tourists. How could that be? Adamo and his group had been the first ones through the gate. Then he saw more visitors approaching from his left, and he realized that the path they’d taken wasn’t the only way up to the entrance.

They had each memorized what Locke, Westfield, and Benedict looked like. The three of them were distinctive and wouldn’t be hard to spot. Adamo checked out the tourist group. None of them matched the photos.

He looked around for a good place to sit down. It was going to be a long day, and he didn’t want to be on his feet the whole time. But first he supposed that for the sake of thoroughness he should check the Acropolis to make sure Locke hadn’t arrived first.

He pulled Dario and the other two aside.

“We don’t want any trouble up here,” he said in Italian. “If we spot Locke, take him as quietly as you can. The other two we take for a ride and cap them in the garbage dump. And remember, Westfield is for me and Dario.”

“What if they don’t come so quietly?” Dario said.

“Then Gia said we leave the Greeks some corpses next to the Parthenon, but make sure you get whatever they’re carrying. Dario, you’re with me. We’re going to get the lay of the land.”

Adamo passed the crowd and went up the steps. He squinted at the sun.

If they were going to be up here all day, he would have to get a bottle of water before he settled in.

Because they’d taken the shorter route up, Stacy thought she, Tyler, and Grant would be the first ones on the Acropolis plateau, but that notion was disabused when she saw workmen moving heavy marble blocks with the help of a gantry crane. She was surprised to see them on a Sunday morning, but then she remembered a guide they had passed saying that there was some rush to get part of the restoration completed for an event happening later in June.

She was also surprised to see an elderly man who was pushing his wife in a wheelchair, thinking he must be very spry to get up there so fast.

Stacy had been to the Acropolis a dozen times, but the sight was always breathtaking. Despite the destruction over the millennia, the Parthenon had lost none of its grandeur. Some architects thought it was the most perfectly proportioned building on earth, and she would be hard-pressed to argue with them. The columns were imperceptibly tapered like a cigar to counteract the optical illusion in which parallel straight lines appear to bow toward each other. In addition, to give the Parthenon the appearance of strength the columns leaned inward, but so slightly that they would meet only if they were extended one mile into the sky.

The brilliance of people dead for thousands of years continued to awe her.

As they took a direct route toward the opposite end of the Acropolis, Tyler and Grant couldn’t help but gawk at the array of immense marble columns that supported the remnants of the temple’s roof. Stacy wished she were seeing it for the first time, as they were.

She yelped as she lost her footing on one of the many slick marble slabs that were exposed in the gravel path. Tyler caught her before she could fall.

“You okay?” he said.

“I always forget about the stupid marble. One time I went down on my butt. It’s like standing on inclined ice.”

“Thanks for the tip.”

He looked at her and smiled before walking one. She had awakened late, so she hadn’t had a chance to talk to him about their brief connection last night, but there really wasn’t much to say. She supposed the attraction was the result of the stressful situations they’d faced together. Under the circumstances, however, acting on it was not only inappropriate but a serious distraction they didn’t need.

As they walked next to the temple, she said, “Isn’t it amazing?”

Tyler just nodded.

“How long has it been here?” Grant asked.

“Since 2500 B.C. Back then, all the relief sculptures that ringed the temple would have been painted in bright colors.”

“I can’t imagine that.”

“Most people see the pictures and think it was always white, but spectrography tells us differently now, even though weather has wiped almost all traces of the paint away.”