Andy McDermott - The Midas Legacy

The old woman forced her eyes half open. ‘And again, you sound just like Laura. Just like her.’ She blinked, a tear of her own slowly running down her cheek. ‘My poor girl… oh, my poor baby girl…’

Her granddaughter squeezed her hands more tightly. ‘What happened with you and Mom — and Dad? What really happened? Was Spencer telling the truth?’

‘I’m afraid so,’ Olivia replied, with a small, sorrowful nod. ‘I was the one who first told Laura to… to make contact with your father.’ A cough threatened to erupt, but she managed to fight it down. ‘But everything after that was entirely her choice. I opposed it, every step of the way, but… but I was wrong. She found true love and happiness with her husband — and her daughter.’ A faint smile up at the younger woman, but it quickly faded. ‘While all I had was… was a big empty house and greedy dreams of gold. I had the choice between family or money, and I made the wrong one. And — and I’m still making the wrong choice, even now! My own granddaughter thinks I’m an idiot for chasing after some damn stone rather than saving myself. And… she’s right.’

‘We’re all idiots,’ Nina assured her, with a sad laugh. ‘You, Mom, me — we all spent our lives chasing after the past. I guess that kind of idiocy runs in the family.’

‘But at least you and Laura had purer motives.’ A bang from outside made her start; Eddie had opened the truck’s hood to access the electrics. ‘I did try, you know.’

‘Try what?’

‘I tried to… do something that wasn’t solely for my own benefit. I got you involved in this, not just for gold, or the Legacy, but because I wanted to pass on a legacy of my own. To you, and to your daughter. Even if I wasn’t… freezing to death on a glacier, I won’t be around for much longer—’

‘Don’t talk like that,’ Nina cut in firmly. ‘We’ll get out of here.’

A glimmer of humour crossed Olivia’s face. ‘Interrupting your elders is very rude,’ she said. ‘Didn’t your mother teach you anything? But I didn’t want my life to end with a house of mourners, and all of them just… acquaintances. Not one of them family. I didn’t want that. I don’t want that.’ A fearful realisation, even revelation, lit her eyes. ‘Oh God, Nina, I don’t want that! I don’t want to have no one to remember me! No one to… to care about me!’

‘You don’t have no one,’ the redhead insisted. ‘You’ve got me.’

‘After everything I’ve done? All the half-truths, all the… lies?’ That seemed the biggest confession of all.

‘Yeah.’ Nina smiled at her. ‘And you know why? Because now that I’ve got a family, I’m not about to let it go. Any of it.’

Olivia’s eyes closed again, her voice a mere sigh barely audible over the wind. ‘You may not… have a choice. I’m so cold.’

‘Oh no. No no no ,’ Nina said in defiance. ‘You don’t get to die on me. Okay? I’ve never had a relative come back from the dead before, and I’m sure as hell not letting you renege on that!’ She pulled off the top layer of her own clothing and put it over Olivia, against her grandmother’s feeble protestations. ‘We are going to get out of here, and—’

She broke off at an electronic squawk from the super jeep. ‘Yes!’ whooped Eddie. ‘You fucking beauty.’

‘You got the radio working?’ Nina asked.

‘Yeah. Did a bit of rewiring to run it straight off the battery rather than having to start the engine. Dunno how long it’ll last, so I’d better get cracking.’ He reached into the cabin to take the handset. ‘Mayday, Mayday, Mayday,’ he said. ‘Our jeep has crashed on the way to the Electra hotel in the… What’s the name of this place again?’

‘Thingvellir,’ Olivia said quietly. Nina relayed it to him.

‘In the Thingvellir national park. I repeat, our jeep has crashed on an ice lake on the road to the Electra hotel. There are three of us; two are injured. Mayday, Mayday, Mayday, please respond.’ He waited for a reply, hearing only static on the open channel, then repeated the message.

‘And for a moment I… had hope,’ said Olivia.

‘Someone’ll hear him,’ Nina told her. ‘You said yourself that the main road’s a tourist route, and there’s an aurora tonight. People will have come out here to see it.’

The old lady replied, but too quietly for Nina to make out. She took her grandmother’s hands again, huddling beside her in the meagre warmth of the heater. Outside, Eddie kept repeating his SOS. The hiss of dead air was the only response. Nina turned her head to listen, as if she might somehow catch a message that her husband had missed, then looked back at Olivia — only to find that she had gone still. ‘Olivia? Olivia!’ She gripped her cold hands more tightly. ‘Olivia, wake up! Wake up!’

She shook her — and Olivia’s lips clenched. ‘I’m… I’m here,’ she whispered. ‘Did Eddie… get through?’

‘Not yet, but I know he will. He will.’

‘It’s… too late.’ Another tear swelled in the corner of Olivia’s eye, but even it was too weak to roll free. ‘I’m so tired…’ She fell silent again.

‘Olivia!’ Nina cried. ‘Stay with me! You’ve got to stay, I’m not letting you go now! I’m—’

A new voice cut through the cold. ‘Hello, hello,’ said a man over the radio, his Icelandic accent strong. ‘Can you hear me?’

‘I hear you!’ Eddie replied. ‘Did you get my Mayday?’

‘Yes, I did. We have told the rescue service, but we are coming to you now. We are on highway thirty-six. Can you hold on?’

‘Yeah, but we’ve got someone in hypothermic shock. How fast can you get to us?’

‘Twenty minutes, thirty minutes? Where are you exactly?’

The Yorkshireman gave their position as best he could. He had just enough time to get an assurance that the rescuers were on the way before the jury-rigged radio went dead. After swearing loudly, he returned to the shelter. ‘Oh God, you’re freezing!’ said Nina as he squeezed in beside her.

‘I feel warmer knowing we’re not going to be stuck out here all night.’ He examined Olivia. ‘How is she?’

‘Not good. She’s asleep… or unconscious.’

‘She’ll be okay.’

‘You sure?’

‘I’m sure. I heard what you were saying to her. She’s family — yours and mine. I’m not going to let her go either. Even if,’ a wry half-smile, ‘she did get us into this bloody situation in the first place!’

‘She can’t take all the blame,’ said Nina. ‘I’m just as responsible. And I’ll make sure she knows that when she wakes up.’ She looked down at her grandmother once more. ‘You hear me? You are going to wake up.’

Eddie put an arm around her. Together they sat in silent vigil until the distant rumble of an engine told them rescue was finally drawing near.

‘This is a most grave situation,’ said Oswald Seretse, shaking his head. ‘I cannot believe that Fenrir Mikkelsson would do this. I cannot !’ The outburst, though little more than his raising his voice, was nevertheless the strongest display of emotion Nina had ever seen from the normally unflappable diplomat. ‘But,’ he continued, ‘whatever I believe, the evidence is undeniable.’ He went to the windows, staring disconsolately across Manhattan.

‘I’m afraid so.’ The speaker was a man named Howard MacNeer, a senior official of the US State Department. ‘We lost track of his jet once it entered the commercial air corridor over Russia, but picked it up again in Chinese airspace heading for North Korea.’

‘You couldn’t intercept it?’ Eddie asked. ‘America’s got loads of planes in South Korea.’