Boyd Morrison - The Midas Code

That was why she’d been so terrified. She was deathly afraid that her hand would slip and make contact with the Midas Touch.

Cavano had been unable to detect the subterfuge, and had assumed the gloves were safe because Stacy had been wearing them. Now Stacy could see the mixture of fear and pain on her face as she endured the toxic side effect of the Midas Touch.

Cavano dropped the container and inadvertently kicked it behind her past the pedestal in her desperation to tear off the gloves. She held up her hands, and Stacy could already see the blisters forming on her fingers.

“What’s the matter?” Sal said.

“Kill them!” Cavano screamed as she dove for her gun. “Kill them all!”

Cavano’s cry was Grant’s cue. He’d been patiently waiting for something like it ever since Cavano took him captive.

Sal raised his gun to fire at Tyler, but Grant charged him. Sal got off a wild volley of shots, and Grant couldn’t tell if they’d hit anything. Sal brought the gun down to smash Grant, but not fast enough. Grant aimed his head at Sal’s midsection like a battering ram and knocked him backward.

Sal’s mammoth frame absorbed the blow without falling. He continued to fire shots, and Grant could feel the hot barrel against his shirt. He grabbed for the gun. They wrestled for it face-to-face, each determined to shoot the other.

Tyler hit the deck when Sal’s gun blazed at him. Stacy raced up the stairs to get out of the line of fire, but Cavano already had the submachine gun in her hands. Tyler covered Stacy’s retreat by snapping off three quick shots with the pistol. He had only one magazine, so rounds would soon become a precious commodity.

Although Tyler missed Cavano, his shots made her duck for cover behind the pedestal in the pit. She fired off random bursts that hit nothing but wall.

Stacy ran along the terrace, but she didn’t dive behind the sarcophagus as Tyler had expected. Instead she lunged for Orr’s legs, missing them by inches.

While Tyler had been engaged in the firefight with Cavano, Orr had taken the opportunity to grab his pack from behind Tyler and was running for the opposite end of the terrace, trying to make an escape. Stacy popped back up and gave chase.

Tyler took aim at Orr, but he didn’t shoot. He couldn’t risk killing Orr until he knew where his father and Stacy’s sister were.

More shots came from Cavano, and Tyler could do nothing more than turn to lay down covering fire for Stacy.

When the shooting started, Orr’s first thought was that this was even better than he had been expecting. They were all fighting one another, and he saw his chance to slip out.

While Tyler returned fire, Orr scrambled over and grabbed his bag, which held the golden hand, the Archimedes Codex, and the video camera. His hands were still bound, but he was mobile. He planned to get off the terrace by jumping over the pool.

Then Stacy had seen what he was doing. She knocked him down, but he kicked her in the stomach. His depth perception was gone, or he would have hit her with a more crushing blow. Still, it was enough, and she went down clutching her belly.

Orr got back up and took a running leap from the terrace. The pool was narrowest in this part of the pit, maybe only ten feet across. He soared into space and landed just inches beyond the edge of the steaming water.

He rolled and saw his target: the container with Midas’s hand. Its exterior was uncontaminated. He scooped it up and stuffed it into his pack.

Orr used the chaos of the gunfight to dig into Gaul’s duffel, still lying against the wall near the water spout. A few button pushes, and he ran for the stairs to the exit tunnel.

He thought ten seconds should be plenty of time.

Cavano knew she didn’t have long for this world, and she wasn’t going out cowering behind some monument to death. Her right hand burned so much from the Midas Touch that she could do no more than prop the gun up with her wrist, shooting left-handed.

She felt as if her veins had been injected with molten lava. If she was going to die, she would take Stacy Benedict and Tyler Locke with her.

After awkwardly slamming another magazine into the gun and racking the bolt, she stood and fired at Tyler’s position. As she stumbled for the stairs, nearly blind from the pain, she kept firing bursts, hoping to hit someone, anyone.

She took the steps two at a time, but her stomach suddenly spasmed, and her head pounded in agony, as if an animal were tearing it apart from the inside. She collapsed at the top step, her finger clenching the trigger back until the gun was empty.

Grant was pinned against the pedestal holding the statue, Sal’s submachine gun choking the life out of him.

Sal was one of the few men Grant had ever met who actually had a weight advantage, and the Italian used it. He leaned his bulk into the gun, and Grant’s vision began to tunnel.

They were near the corner of the pedestal. If Grant could just work his way a few more inches to his left, he could use Sal’s weight against him.

He edged over with a few solid lunges. One more should do it. Grant could see almost nothing at this point, but he felt the open space to his side.

With his last bit of strength, he jostled left and fell backward. Sal couldn’t keep from falling forward.

Grant thrust his legs upward and tossed Sal’s body over his head. With a howl, Sal went sliding and rolling along the floor. The slick surface gave him no purchase, and before he could stop himself he splashed into the boiling water.

Despite the heat, Grant’s blood chilled as Sal’s primal scream echoed through the chamber before gurgling to silence.

Stacy scrambled to her feet after she saw Orr leap over the pool. She rushed to the edge of the terrace, but the lanterns had all gone askew by this point. The odd shadows cast made it difficult to see what he was doing, but she did see him grab the container with Midas’s hand.

Then for a few seconds Orr knelt by the wall, where he rummaged through Gaul’s duffel, his hands still tied together. When he was finished, he picked up his backpack and ran as fast as he could for the stairs exiting the chamber.

A horrible scream registered in Stacy’s ears, but it was in the background with the last of the gunfire. She was too focused on the bag where Orr had knelt before escaping into the tunnel.

Then she realized what Orr had been doing. Gaul’s duffel. The explosives. The timed detonators she and Tyler had found.

Oh, no.

In the center of the pit, Grant was about to emerge from behind the pedestal.

“Get back!” she yelled. “There’s a bomb!”

She turned, but Tyler was right behind her. With all her strength, she shoved him down, and the world exploded.

F or a few moments, Tyler couldn’t figure out what had happened. His ears were assaulted by a roar that seemed to come from everywhere.

When he could remember his name, he pushed himself up. Two of the lanterns were still working. He looked around and saw Stacy lying facedown. She wasn’t moving.

She had saved him. If he’d been standing when the explosive detonated, he would have been pulverized against the far wall.

He gently turned her over. Blood spilled from her side. A shrapnel wound. He lifted her shirt and saw a gash three inches long. He ripped his shirt tail off and pressed it against the wound. He couldn’t tell how deep it was.

Her eyes fluttered open.

“My side hurts,” she said, her voice more annoyed than anything else.

“I know. But you’ll be all right.”

“How do you know that?”

“Because you’re a tough woman. Now be quiet and hold this down. I’m going to see if Grant is okay.”

He got one of the lanterns and went to the edge. He shined it down and saw Grant laid out behind the pedestal on the side away from the explosion.