Boyd Morrison - The Midas Code

“Where are the sculptures that England didn’t get?”

“At the New Acropolis Museum built at the southern base of the Acropolis. The old museum is over there.” She pointed at a tired building on the western side of the Parthenon. Wires stretching around it made it clear that the building was closed.

“Looks like it’s seen better days.”

“It was too small and antiquated to house the treasures properly, so they built the new museum not only as a state-of-the-art showpiece but also to counter the British Museum’s insistence that the Elgin Marbles were safer in London.”

“And the Greeks don’t agree, apparently.”

“It’s been a sore point for two hundred years, but the Greeks didn’t have much of a case until the new museum was built.”

They passed the eastern end of the Parthenon. The east pediment was almost completely destroyed, with just the slanted edges of the roof visible on each side. The only statue on the pediment was the reclining Herakles on the left end. With the original still in the British Museum, the Greeks had constructed a reproduction to show what it would have looked like in place. Eight columns supported the roof. Counting from the left, Herakles was between the second and third columns.

Stacy took out a printout of the pediment as it would have appeared in ancient times. Aphrodite’s feet would have been just to the left of the seventh column.

Tyler took another few dozen steps and removed the geolabe from his backpack. Stacy had helped him recalibrate it at the hotel using the Stomachion puzzle, so the dials all pointed to the noon position once again. He turned it on its side as Archimedes had instructed and held it up. Stacy could tell they were too close. It blotted out the entire structure, including the pediment. They would have to back up until it barely covered the columns from end to end, with the top of the geolabe lined up along the base of the pediment.

They stepped back until they were near the edge of the Acropolis, behind a small stone wall surrounding a raised circular platform. Now the geolabe lined up perfectly. While Stacy steadied it, Tyler rotated the first knob until the left-hand dial pointed to Herakles’s rump. Then he flipped the geolabe over and read off the reading from the notches etched in the dial.

“Thirty-two degrees.”

Grant jotted it down. “Got it.”

Tyler flipped the geolabe back and repeated the steps by pointing the right-hand dial where Aphrodite’s feet would be.

“Seventy-one degrees.”

Grant took out a map of Naples and laid it on the stone railing. He traced the lines at those angles from the Castel Dell’Ovo and the Castel Sant’Elmo until they intersected.

“And here we are. The entrance to the tunnels leading to the Midas chamber is going to be somewhere in the vicinity of Piazza San Gaetano.”

He pointed to a square in the heart of Naples. There was no Roman fortress in the vicinity, but it could have been razed thousands of years ago. Or the Syracuse spy just got lost in the tunnels.

Stacy looked up, amazed at how quickly they’d completed their task.

“Really?” she said. “Could it be that easy?”

“It’s not,” Tyler said. His eyes were riveted on something to the right of the Parthenon. “Don’t make any sudden movements.”

“Why?”

“Grant, does that look like a tourist to you?”

Stacy moved only her eyes and saw a man sauntering toward them dressed in a shiny silk shirt and dark pants. Grant slowly turned his head and got the barest glimpse before turning back.

“Nope,” Grant said. “Not a tourist. He’s one of the Italian meatballs I punched out at the British Museum.”

I t didn’t look as if the Italian had seen them yet. Grant was sure it was the same guy. That arrowhead widow’s peak was unmistakable even from this distance.

They’d all flattened behind the wall. Cavano’s man may not have recognized them, but now he might be curious why they had suddenly disappeared.

“How did they find us?” Stacy said.

“I’m guessing it’s my good friend Lumley,” Grant said. “Cavano probably heard about the theft at the museum last night and put two and two together.”

“There’s too much open space to make a run for it,” Tyler said.

“What’s the plan?”

“We need to get this guy isolated. When we capture him, Stacy can act as our interpreter so we can find out who else might be lurking around.”

“Should we use the old bait and tackle?”

Tyler nodded. “And since he knows you, it looks like you’ll have to be the bait this time.”

“He’ll have at least one friend with him,” Grant said. “Probably a guy with a mustache that looks like it was drawn on with a Sharpie.”

“Head around the back of the old museum. When he follows you, I’ll come up behind him.”

“What about me?” Stacy said.

“Stay here.” Tyler handed her the backpack and put his earpiece in. “You’ll be our eyes. If you see mustache man coming, let me know.”

She dialed his phone, and they were connected. “Got it.”

He looked at Grant. “Let’s do this.”

Grant slithered over the railing and dropped down through some scaffolding that had been set up to rebuild part of the wall. He was now below the eye level of Cavano’s man. He scrambled over the rocks until he was next to the rear of the shuttered Old Acropolis Museum.

He looked back and saw that the guy was thirty feet from Tyler’s position and getting closer. He purposefully kicked a rock, and the man’s head jerked around. Grant took off behind the building. A mountain of garbage bags was piled in the corner of the Acropolis next to an unused crane lying against the citadel’s southern wall.

Grant turned the corner. He glanced behind him, but it didn’t look as if the man had followed him. That meant he was going to try to cut Grant off.

Grant took off, running along a narrow-gauge railroad track that had originally been built to transfer artifacts from the Parthenon to the crane so that they could be lowered to the new museum for relocation. A railroad handcart was in his path.

Before he could reach the handcart, the man appeared from around the corner and drew a pistol on Grant, who stopped and put up his hands. The Italian slowly moved forward.

“Hey, I know you,” Grant said with a smile. He knew the man might not speak much English, but it didn’t really matter. “How’s your noggin? I bet you’ve still got a nasty headache.”

“Zitto!” He began to creep toward Grant, the gun never wavering.

Grant understood the universal tone for “Shut up!” but he just needed a few more seconds.

“Listen, I’m really sorry about knocking you out in London, but I thought you were a Hare Krishna asking for money.”

“Zitto!” the man yelled again.

Tyler, who had sneaked up behind the one-word wonder, pressed the knife of his Leatherman to the man’s carotid artery.

“How about you zitto instead?” Tyler said.

The man froze. His lips were twisted with contempt. He wasn’t happy about getting played. His gun remained aimed at Grant.

“Got him?” Grant said.

“Yeah,” Tyler said, “but we’ve got to do this fast. Company’s coming.”

*

Stacy hadn’t seen the man with the thin mustache sooner because he had gone around the opposite side of the Parthenon. She had been following Tyler fifty feet behind him, keeping an eye out for his blind side, but the gantry crane shack next to the Parthenon had obstructed her view. The only reason she had spotted him at all was because of the blinding reflection of the sun off his silk shirt. He must have seen Tyler, because he had his pistol out.