Andy McDermott - The Midas Legacy

‘The grandmother who only told you she was still alive because she realised she could get you to find the Midas Cave? Yeah, she’s worth standing up for. Just like the rest of them.’ Spencer gave his father a look of disdain. ‘All that crap you fed me about using the Legacy’s money to do good for society? What a bunch of hypocritical bullshit. We all know it’s just to cover up how our families got rich in the first place.’

‘That’s not true,’ said Lonmore, but with an uncomfortable defensiveness.

‘No? And what about you, Dr Wilde? You want to join the Midas Legacy even after finding out the truth about it? You’re as bad as the others.’

‘I don’t want to join the Legacy,’ Nina shot back. Spencer’s surprise at learning that was plain. ‘And what truth? What are you talking about?’

Spencer gave his father a mocking laugh. ‘You haven’t told her? Oh my God! Olivia never even… Damn.’ He shook his head, laughing again. ‘I never thought even she’d be that stone cold.’

‘About what?’ Nina demanded.

Trakas smiled. ‘Perhaps you should tell her the family secret, Spencer.’

‘Spencer, no,’ said Lonmore in a warning tone.

His son ignored him, turning to Nina with a smug expression. ‘You know why Aldus Lonmore and the others were actually in Nepal? They sure as hell weren’t explorers.’

‘So enlighten me,’ she said, frowning — but also wanting to find out more.

‘I thought you’d know, but I guess you’re an archaeologist rather than a historian.’ A smirk at his little joke. ‘Nepal was falling apart in the 1840s, with power struggles between the royal family and other nobles. It got so bad that when someone murdered the queen’s favourite general, she had everyone she thought might have been even slightly involved rounded up, brought to her palace and executed on the spot. So it wasn’t exactly the most stable country. But you know what kind of people you’ll always find looking to make a fast buck in that kind of situation?’

‘Mop salesmen?’ Eddie suggested.

‘I’ll tell you,’ Spencer said, ignoring the interruption. ‘ Arms dealers! ’

The intruders spread out silently through the yacht, hunting down the crew.

One man was caught as he cleaned Trakas’s stateroom, turning at a noise over the whine of his vacuum and taking a taser dart to his chest. Another man emerged from the head to find a wetsuited stranger just feet away, not even having time to shout in alarm before one shock was overpowered by another.

The other crewmen were also quickly taken down. Out on the open sea, they had thought they were safe, and paid the price for their complacency. One by one they fell, whether to the paralysing power of a stun gun or more physical blows.

The last to be taken was Captain Rouphos in the wheelhouse; focused on guiding the Pactolus through the choppy waters, he didn’t register someone entering behind him until thousands of volts sent him sprawling over the controls. His attacker, the woman, secured the sailor’s hands behind his back, then brought him at gunpoint down to the lower deck.

A burning smell made her nose twitch, her concern rising as she realised a thin haze of smoke was coming from the galley. She peered in to discover that the cause was a large fish on a grill. One side was black, the flesh turned to charcoal.

She almost walked on, but then it occurred to her that the smoke could trip a fire alarm, warning Trakas that something was wrong. Keeping her gun fixed on her prisoner, she turned off the grill’s twin propane burners. ‘Okay, keep going.’

Rouphos trudged aft down the central passage. The other bound crew were crammed together in a storage hold under armed guard. The leader of the attackers shoved the captain down with his men, then spoke into his headset. ‘Is Trakas still in the same room?’ The reply was in the affirmative. ‘Okay. Let’s go. Honnick, stay here and watch them.’ A man with a cut and bruise on his forehead took up position at the door. Everyone else headed for the main deck.

The woman glanced into the galley again. The burnt fish was still smouldering, but the smoke was being drawn out through an extractor fan. Since the alarm hadn’t already gone off, it was unlikely anything would trigger it now. Reassured, she trailed the leader to the stairs, the other men behind her.

The only movement in the galley was the gentle swirl of smoke rising from the half-incinerated swordfish… then a cabinet door slid open.

The chef, a Greek woman called Sperou, leaned out, listening. All she heard was the clump of retreating feet. She carefully slid out of the cabinet.

It was sheer fluke that she had escaped capture. She had been about to turn the fish when she glanced to check a simmering pan and caught a reflection in its gleaming stainless-steel side. Even distorted by the curved surface, she instantly recognised that the figure in the passageway was not one of the crew… and was holding a gun.

By the time he entered the galley, Sperou had already found a hiding place. Assuming that one of his companions had already captured the cook, the intruder gave the room a cursory search, then departed.

Now Sperou blew a relieved kiss at the pan before going to a wall cabinet. Assorted packaged ingredients were within, but she pushed them aside and retrieved a box, opening it to reveal a compact Glock 26 handgun and magazine.

It took only a moment for the woman to load and check the pistol, her six years in the Greek army and specialist bodyguard training beyond that familiarising her with a multitude of weapons. What had happened to the yacht’s crew she didn’t know, but she assumed from the number of people passing the galley that they were being held prisoner in one of the holds.

She had to free them.

‘That’s right,’ Spencer went on, seeing Nina’s dismay. ‘Our ancestors, the founders of the Midas Legacy, weren’t in Nepal to make any amazing discoveries. They were gun-runners! They were selling rifles — to both sides.’

‘And that’s how they got their gold?’ she asked.

Spencer nodded. ‘The monks at Dragon Mountain were allied with… I don’t even know who, but it doesn’t matter. All that Buddhist peace and love crap didn’t get a look-in when they had a chance to arm up their side. And they were so happy to get the guns that as well as paying their suppliers a fortune in gold, they also showed them their biggest secret — the Midas Cave. And our three families have been living off the back of that ever since. Just with the embarrassing part about how they actually got rich in the first place pushed aside.’

Nina looked at Lonmore for a denial, but could tell that one would not be coming. ‘And I don’t suppose you or Olivia or anyone else would have mentioned this if I had decided to join the Legacy?’ she asked him.

‘It’s not something we’re proud of,’ said Lonmore. ‘But it happened, and since then the three families have tried to do what they can to make up for it.’

‘Yeah, I’m sure you’ve been making regular donations to charities in Nepal,’ Eddie said scathingly.

‘But now you know,’ Lonmore continued. ‘So what are you going to do, Nina?’

Nina drew in a breath, trying to control her anger. ‘I’ll tell you what I’m not going to do,’ she said. ‘And that’s have anything more to do with your pathetic little secret society. And believe me, the next time I see my grandmother — if she’s ever brave enough to show her face to me again — I’m going to tell her exactly what I think of her for using me to do her dirty work! Right now, though? I came here for a reason. Which was,’ she turned back to Trakas, ‘to ask you to turn over the Crucibles to the IHA.’