Boyd Morrison - The Midas Code

The bullets pinging off the metal silenced the lift operator’s protests, and she slammed the cage closed. The lift lowered below the wall before the men could reach them. The operator screamed as bullets ricocheted off the roof, but the heavy steel was too thick for the rounds to penetrate.

Tyler heard one of their pursuers yell “Polizia!” and the shooting stopped. The police must have arrived on the Acropolis.

When the lift reached the bottom twenty seconds later, Tyler poked his head out, but no one was waiting above to take another shot. They apologized to the terrified lift operator and left her cowering in the elevator as they dodged the wheelchairs of a tour group waiting to get on. In five minutes they were back at their motorcycles. Police cars sped past them up the long drive leading to the closest point they could get to the Acropolis entrance.

As they raced back to the hotel to get the rest of their belongings before heading to the airport, Stacy clung to Tyler’s back, shaken by their brush with death. Normally, Tyler would be high-fiving Grant for coming through enemy action like that unscathed, but he couldn’t bring himself to celebrate. He knew that the worst was still waiting for them in Naples.

P eter Crenshaw hummed along to Metallica’s “Enter Sandman” as he inserted the detonator into the second-to-last container of binary explosive. He always listened to heavy metal while he worked. It kept his mind sharp while he built a bomb powerful enough to turn him into goulash.

Phillips had been Crenshaw’s only companion since Orr and Gaul left for Europe, and all the guy wanted to talk about was baseball. Records, statistics, players, teams-it never ended. For Crenshaw, that made keeping his iPod fully charged a high priority.

Even though the warehouse had no air-conditioning, the high ceilings allowed the heat to rise, leaving his work area relatively cool. He wasn’t worried about the explosives going off prematurely. They were incredibly stable. Fire, impacts, or electrical charges wouldn’t set them off. Crenshaw had been working virtually nonstop except for food and sleep breaks, so stupid mistakes were the biggest threat.

He placed the lid on top of the fifty-gallon container. Phillips brought over the handcart they’d been using to move the full drums.

“Where do you want this one?” he said.

Crenshaw looked around the perimeter of the warehouse. Identical containers had been placed every fifty feet, as he’d instructed. The wiring between them was complete. That left the walls on either side of the concrete peninsula of cells.

“Put that one next to General Locke’s room,” Crenshaw said. “Against the outer wall.”

By now an expert in handling the drums, Phillips slid the cart underneath and tilted it up. He wheeled it around, and Crenshaw got to work on the last container.

It had been Crenshaw’s suggestion to rig the warehouse to blow after they’d abandoned it. Getting rid of the evidence was paramount if they were going to get away with the crime they were about to commit. And he was proud of his design. The explosives would reduce the entire building to rubble. Three drums of gasoline would char everything that wasn’t blown to smithereens.

Though it was dangerous, working with the powdered explosive was a dream compared with dealing with the radioactive material. That had been more nerve-racking than any other part of the operation, and Crenshaw was glad it was over. He’d worn a heavy lead hazmat suit at all times, but the thought of getting a fatal dose of radiation kept him on his toes. The rewards, however, made the risk worthwhile. Orr thought he didn’t know what this was all about, but Crenshaw wasn’t as naive as he let on.

Orr had no idea that Crenshaw had hacked into his computer and copied the translated Archimedes Codex. The treasure discussed in the ancient document was confirmed when he peeked into Orr’s pack and saw the golden hand. Orr was after Midas’s vast cache of gold, and Crenshaw’s two-million-dollar share was starting to seem paltry.

No, Crenshaw thought as he mixed the last of the explosive powder, that figure just wouldn’t do. Not for the cleverness of his designs. Not for what his efforts were going to do to make the gold quadruple in value overnight.

He looked over at the truck now labeled WILBIX CONSTRUCTION and smiled. His greatest achievement. That truck would make him go down in history as the person who obliterated America’s superpower status once and for all. A pity no one would ever know it was him. But after the truck blew up, the FBI wouldn’t bother looking for suspects because they would think the perpetrators were already dead.

Snatching the Muslims had been Orr’s idea from the start. He picked two who had questionable ties to radical Islam. Or so it would seem, once they were blamed for carrying out an attack masterminded by Al Qaeda. All signs would point to them. Their sudden disappearance. The trucker who had been allowed to live so that he could report that he was hijacked by two Arabs, played perfectly by Orr and Gaul. The Muslims’ identification found seared but recognizable in the warehouse ruins. Their bodies torn to pieces by the truck blast.

No one would suspect that it was anything other than another bold terrorist attack by America’s sworn enemy.

And that would let Crenshaw and the others retire to the island country of their choice to enjoy the spoils of the operation, with no fear of retribution from the CIA, the FBI, or any other three-letter agency sifting through the wreckage.

Of course, Sherman Locke and Carol Benedict would have to be dealt with, but that was fairly simple. Once they were done with them, Phillips would put a couple of bullets in their heads and dump the bodies in the Potomac so they wouldn’t be linked to the dirty bomb.

Now that Crenshaw thought about it, maybe he would let the world know somehow that it was he who had been responsible. Just not until after he was dead. He could leave some kind of testament describing exactly how he outwitted the brightest investigative minds the US had to offer. Even though he wouldn’t be around to savor the embarrassment and disgust aimed at the people who let him slip through their grasp, he would guarantee that his name would be immortalized in history.

The truck-bomb design was his favorite part, and he would revel in divulging the details. Five hundred pounds of binary explosive packed underneath three hundred gallons of gas, buried in sixty thousand pounds of highly flammable sawdust. The strontium shielded in a special lead case of his design that would blow up and aerosolize the nuclear material just before the larger bomb detonated. The explosion would transform the sawdust into highly radioactive ash, which would coat everything downwind for miles.

Air-handling systems would exacerbate the effect, sucking in the microscopic particles and making them an integral part of every building in the vicinity. The buildings would never be cleaned of the radiation. They would all have to be destroyed to make sure the radioactivity was gone. Even if the authorities claimed that a building was below the level of harmful radiation, who in their right mind would ever want to occupy it again?

After the warehouse was nothing but wreckage, the plan was for Crenshaw and Phillips to drive the truck and the van to their destination, and when Orr wired the payments to their accounts, they would park the semi in the pre-designated location, drive away in the van, and detonate the bomb.

By Monday evening the United States would be changed forever. The stock market would be in ruins, the economy would take a nosedive when the world’s financial hub was no longer inhabitable, and trillions of dollars would vanish overnight.