Andy McDermott - The Midas Legacy

Trakas considered his offer, then nodded. ‘Okay. You do it. But I will tell you what to say, yes? No tricks, no hidden codes.’

‘Okay,’ said Eddie. The Greek nodded again, then turned away to speak to the cameraman. Axelos lowered his gun, but kept it pointed in Eddie’s general direction. Spencer went for a closer look at the gold.

Anastasia sidled up to the Yorkshireman. ‘Why did you do that?’ she whispered. ‘You shouldn’t have given in to him!’

‘Because the guy’s just conjured up over half a million dollars of gold and could make as much as he wanted, but all he cares about is putting the boot in to the banks,’ Eddie replied. Lonmore and Petra took an interest, leaning closer to listen. ‘He’s not going to stop, not now he thinks he might actually win. And when someone gets to that point, especially when they’re a rich bastard who’s used to always getting their way, they stop caring if other people get hurt.’

‘And you’re here to protect us?’ Anastasia asked snidely.

‘Someone’s got to. I don’t see your boyfriend here to do it.’ That prompted a startled reaction. ‘Oh, come on, you couldn’t have made it any more bloody obvious if you’d started shagging each other on the yacht’s dining table.’ Lonmore raised his eyebrows, while Petra suppressed a giggle.

‘It’s not a secret,’ the Icelander huffed.

‘ I didn’t know,’ said Lonmore, with a mixture of amusement and prurient interest.

‘You didn’t know your own son’d sold you out to your best mate either,’ Eddie pointed out, to the older man’s embarrassment. ‘And another thing: we’ve been kidnapped . I know that should be obvious, but I thought I’d better point it out, since you still think Trakas is your friend. He can’t let us go now, not until he’s got what he wants. We’d give him away.’

‘So what do we do?’ asked Petra.

‘Play along, try to drag things out for as long as we can. Some of your guys got away,’ he told Anastasia, ‘so they might be able to figure out where we are. Trakas can’t have that many places where he can put a particle accelerator—’

He fell silent as the tycoon returned. ‘Mr Chase. We are ready to begin. Are you?’

‘Yeah, I am,’ Eddie replied. ‘What do you want me to say?’

De Klerx and Nina reached the shadows behind a small brick hut close to the much larger industrial structure dominating the boatyard. The concrete sidewalk around the factory was brightly lit, with no cover or hiding places. A guard made his leisurely way down the building’s long side. His gun was slung at his hip, one hand resting upon it. Trakas’s men were prepared for trouble, but not actually expecting it.

They waited for the man to pass on the other side of the hut and move on, then climbed up on to it and made running jumps across to the top of a long single-storey extension abutting the large building. The ladder was near the far end of its roof. Staying low, De Klerx reached it and started to climb. Nina followed, quickly finding that she couldn’t match his pace. By the time she reached the top, he had already climbed across the sloping roof to investigate a skylight. ‘Wait for me, dammit,’ she muttered, cautiously crawling over the tiles after him.

She caught up at the window and looked down through it. The interior appeared to be a factory, conveyors and overhead tracks snaking through the space. Everything was stationary, but the low rumble of machinery suggested that something was active…

Nina shifted position, and saw what was making the noise.

Running the length of the far wall was a hefty tube mounted on stands. Trakas’s particle accelerator? It seemed likely; each end was contained inside a large box bearing radiation warning symbols—

Her heart jumped as she saw Eddie at the furthest.

He was with the Lonmores and Anastasia, Axelos and another armed man keeping watch on them. Nina brought her head lower and spotted Trakas addressing his unwilling guests. Spencer stood with him, smirking. ‘They’re all down there,’ she whispered.

De Klerx brought up his radio and told his men that they had found the hostages, and to move in on the factory. He saw Nina’s disapproving look. ‘We have to be prepared to get them out under fire.’

‘It’d be preferable if we got them out without any shooting.’ She moved to get a better view of the interior. ‘There’s a catwalk a couple of windows over,’ she said, gesturing towards it. ‘We should be able to climb down if we can get the skylight open.’

‘The guards will see us,’ the Dutchman warned.

‘Not if we stay behind that pillar. Besides, they’re watching the prisoners — and their boss.’

‘Okay. But if we are seen…’ He brought a hand closer to his gun.

‘Just don’t do anything stupid, please,’ Nina told him wearily. She started across the roof, De Klerx behind her.

‘Hold on, hold on,’ said Eddie as the man with the camera prepared to start filming. ‘Is my eye light set up properly? And I might need some powder, I’m a bit sweaty.’

Trakas frowned. ‘What are you talking about?’

‘You want this to look good, don’t you? I’ve been on a film set. This is what Grant Thorn was like for every single shot.’

‘You are a very funny man,’ said Trakas, with a noticeable lack of amusement. ‘Just say what I told you to say.’

‘Okay, all right. But if you shoot from this angle, you’ll cross the action line and have to spend a fortune to fix it in post.’ Reluctantly accepting that he had delayed for as long as he could, Eddie faced the lens. The shielded box at the end of the linear accelerator, out of which the Crucible had been hoisted to be visible to the camera, was framed behind him. ‘Okay. You rolling?’ He cleared his throat. ‘Right. Hi. My name’s Eddie Chase, and I’m married to Dr Nina Wilde, the world-famous archaeologist. I’m making this video to tell you—’

‘Stop, stop,’ Trakas cut in irritably.

‘What?’

‘You are doing a stupid voice.’

‘No I’m not!’ Eddie protested, offended. ‘I’m from Yorkshire — this is how I talk!’

‘You do kind of sound like that guy from The Simpsons ,’ said Petra. ‘You know, the bad actor?’

‘Troy McClure? Tchah! Everyone’s a critic.’

‘Just do it properly!’ snapped the Greek. ‘Start again.’

‘All right, bloody hell.’ Eddie shook his head, then composed himself for a retake. ‘I’m Eddie Chase, and I’m married to Dr Nina Wilde, the world-famous archaeologist. I’m doing this to let you know that what you’ve been told about the thing behind me, the Crucible of Midas, is all true — I’ve seen it with my own eyes. It can be used with a particle accelerator to turn mercury-196 into gold, and do it on an industrial scale…’

He paused. With everyone else’s eyes on him, he was the only person facing away from the accelerator and across the rest of the factory — and he had just glimpsed movement past the long partition, somebody dressed in black briefly coming into view as they climbed over part of the production line. Since Trakas had dismissed all the workers, that meant someone else was now in the building…

‘The other video you got with this one hasn’t been faked,’ he hurriedly continued. ‘The Crucible made about seventeen kilos of gold — you’ve been sent some of it as proof.’ Both Trakas and Axelos gave him odd looks as they registered that his speech was becoming more urgent; he tried to moderate it, but was all too aware that his acting skills didn’t even match up to those of Grant Thorn. ‘The bloke who’s got it says he’s going to keep making more and more gold to make the price crash, unless you give him what he wants. I reckon he’s willing to do it, so—’