Boyd Morrison: The Midas Code

He wheeled the handcart through the aperture and into a space far larger than he was anticipating. The twenty-foot-deep vault extended twenty-five feet in each direction to the right and left. Here the work was more complete. On the inside of the vault next to the door was a hostess stand. A bar extended half the length of the long wall where the safety-deposit boxes would have been, leaving enough room for twenty tables. On one end, lumber was piled up in anticipation for laying the hardwood floor.

Tyler pushed the handcart to a stop next to the stacked two-by-fours. A shame that the restaurant would never open now. No one would ever want to eat in a place that had been exposed to high-energy radiation.

Tyler heard the footsteps of someone outside the vault door coming toward him.

“You need to leave now!” Tyler yelled, thinking it was the police officer. He turned from the cart, and out of the shadows he saw the glint of a pistol aimed at his head.

Tyler ducked just as a gunshot blasted. The bullet whistled past his ear. He ran and dove behind the lumber, Orr’s pack digging into his shoulder blades. He drew Crenshaw’s pistol and looked around the side, but two more shots chewed bits out of the wood before he could see anything. He fired blindly around the corner and heard the thump of someone hitting the floor. He peeked out, but he didn’t see a body. A voice confirmed his misses.

“It’s simple, Tyler,” Jordan Orr said. “Either you toss the Midas hand over to me or in four minutes we both die.”

O rr must have come into the back of the old bank building and seen Tyler wheeling the bomb into the vault with the backpack on his shoulders. He was taking cover behind the other end of the bar. The lumber pile was large enough to shield Tyler, but they were in a stalemate. If Tyler made a break for the vault exit, Orr would cut him down.

Tyler was hoping the police had heard the shots, but nobody came running to his rescue. He shrugged off the backpack.

“It’s over, Orr,” he said. “I have the Midas Touch right here.”

“That’s why it isn’t over,” Orr said. “If you give it to me, I’ll go.”

“Where?” Tyler said. “Terrorism is a capital offense. The CIA will track you down wherever you go. You’ll be a wanted man the rest of your life, Orsini.”

Orr was silent at hearing the name.

“Did you know my father and Carol Benedict are alive, too?” Tyler asked.

He heard Orr rasp out “Crenshaw” like a curse word.

“I heard about your father, Orr,” Tyler said. “I know that’s why you’re here. Your big plan is a failure. Why don’t you give up?”

“For what?” Orr said. “To serve consecutive life terms in an eight-foot cell? Or get the death penalty?”

Tyler knew he was right. Orr now had nothing to lose, but Tyler had no intention of letting him get away with his crimes to live a life of luxury courtesy of King Midas. Not after seeing the appalling condition of his father this morning. Besides, even if he were thwarted this time, Orr wouldn’t give up on his vendetta, and with millions of dollars at his disposal he would eventually exact his revenge.

“You failed every way you could, Orr. Grant and I found you. Crenshaw’s in custody. Your men are dead, and your bomb won’t irradiate Manhattan. You’ve left a trail of destruction behind you, and for what?”

“You didn’t mention Stacy Benedict,” Orr said with delight. “She didn’t make it, did she? At least I got that right.”

Orr’s breezy taunt hit home. Tyler’s stomach had been churning all morning because he hadn’t yet heard from Italy whether Stacy had pulled through.

Something in Tyler snapped. With no time to think through his plan, he threw the backpack as hard as he could so that it landed behind the hostess stand.

“You want the Midas Touch so badly?” Tyler shouted. “There it is. Go get it.”

*

Even though his destination was only a half mile away, Grant worried that he wasn’t going to make it. Too many tight corners with this beast of a truck. It was already down to two minutes to go, and he was only turning onto Albany now.

Grant hadn’t told the police why he wanted to get to Albany Street, but it was the only thing he could think of, and he didn’t have time to listen to other opinions. If they’d known what he planned, they might not have paved a path for him.

He didn’t know New York well, but he’d checked the map on his smartphone when he got the idea for where to dump the truck. The closest option had been Albany. The entire route was just eleven blocks.

Now he was four blocks away, and he could make out the blue water of his destination from his perch high in the truck cab.

He was going to dump the trailer in the Hudson River.

As Tyler had hoped, Orr couldn’t resist the chance to get the Midas Touch back. Firing shots as he ran across the open space, Orr dove behind the hostess stand.

If Tyler went for the vault door now, he wouldn’t get within five feet of it before Orr shot him. Orr thought he was safe behind the thick wood of the hostess stand knowing that Tyler’s 9-mm bullets wouldn’t penetrate, but he’d missed one crucial detail Tyler had noticed. The stand wasn’t anchored to the floor, because the hardwood hadn’t been installed yet.

When he heard Orr unzip the pack to make sure the Midas hand was there, Tyler launched himself at the heavy-duty handcart and shoved it with all his strength toward the stand.

As Tyler released the handcart, it fell backward onto its handles, but loaded with the lead box it had more than enough momentum to continue rocketing toward the stand.

Orr heard the scraping of the cart’s handle and looked around the corner of the stand to fire, but the handcart smacked into the stand, knocking it backward into him. The pack went flying.

With Orr down but out of sight, Tyler made a run for it.

With less than a minute to go, Grant blasted down the street, the needle on the speedometer pushing fifty. He kept the pedal mashed to the floor. He needed as much velocity as he could get.

Albany was a narrow tree-lined street, and it dead-ended at a small circle. A courtyard separated the street from the Esplanade, a pedestrian path running along the river.

Grant blew through South End Avenue, the last intersection before the river. The street was free of cars from here on. He pulled on the truck’s air horn, hoping the cops got the message to get out of the way.

Then he saw the courtyard bordering the circle. In addition to a few small trees there were more formidable obstacles: seven brick pillars spanning the width of the courtyard. The police cars could go no farther and had stopped directly in front of them.

There was just enough room separating the last pillar and the apartment building on the left, so Grant aimed the truck between them and opened the driver’s door. The speedometer read thirty-five. He leaned on the horn again to scatter any pedestrians who might not be expecting a forty-ton semi to roar across the Esplanade.

Then he jumped.

Orr shook off his daze and heard Tyler’s running footsteps. Still lying on the floor, he looked past the stand and saw that Tyler was through the vault door.

Orr screamed in frustration at being duped.

“No!”

He fired the pistol until it clicked on an empty chamber, but Tyler was already pushing the massive door closed.

Orr got to his feet, picked up the backpack, and ran to the door. He was pushing against it, trying to prevent Tyler from getting it closed all the way, when he saw the lead container near his feet. The bomb was no more than an arm’s length away.

His eyes widened with terror when he realized that he’d lost track of the time. In disbelief he stared at his watch counting down.