Midas Code (33 page)

SIXTY-EIGHT

T
he lightning-fast gun battle had been a blur to Tyler. Agent Immel went down with a shoulder wound. It wasn’t fatal, but she was out of action and stayed in the car to call for backup. Tyler circled around the truck to see Orr disappear into a deli.

He stooped to pick up the gun of Orr’s injured confederate, ready to give chase, but Riegert stopped him.

“I’ll get Orr!” He pointed at the man on the ground. “You make this guy tell you about the bomb.” Tyler nodded and tucked the pistol into his waistband. Riegert ran for the deli next to the bank being renovated into a restaurant. Tyler wanted to chase down Orr, but disarming the bomb had to be his first priority.

“What’s your name?” Grant said, nudging the man with his foot.

“Crenshaw,” the man said with a grimace, still holding his leg. “Peter Crenshaw. We have to get out of here.”

Tyler grabbed him by the collar. “Crenshaw, is the strontium bomb already set to detonate?”

Crenshaw looked surprised that Tyler would know about it.

“I don’t know what you mean,” Crenshaw said.

“The FBI found a lead hazmat suit at the warehouse you blew up. Half the building showed traces of radioactivity. That jog your memory?”

Crenshaw nodded slowly.

“Did you set it to go off?”

Crenshaw nodded again.

“When?”

Crenshaw held up his watch. It was counting down and just under the eight-minute mark. Even if the bomb squad were on-site now, that amount of time would be slicing it thin, but Tyler had no idea when they would get here. It would be up to him and Grant to secure the bomb.

Grant took the watch and put it on. “How do we disarm it?” he said, taking Crenshaw from Tyler and hauling him to his feet.

Crenshaw shook his head. “You can’t. I designed it so that no one could disable it once it was armed.”

“Where is it?” Tyler demanded.

“It’s in the center of the trailer, but I’m telling you we have to go.”

“Describe it. Now!”

Crenshaw hesitated until Grant increased the pressure of his grip. “Okay! Okay! It’s two separate parts, unconnected but both synchronized to identical timers. The black box is the lead shield for the strontium, and it’s packed with C4, so the shield gets blown apart one second before the main bomb explodes.”

“How big is the main bomb?” Grant asked.

“Five hundred pounds, plus three hundred gallons of gas to incinerate the sawdust.”

Holy God! Tyler thought. That was enough explosive to wipe out the entire block.

“How do we disarm it?” Grant said, shaking Crenshaw, who began to blubber.

“You can’t. No one can. I designed it with a collapsible circuit. Please! We need to leave.”

“I’ll get the Geiger counter,” Grant said, and dragged Crenshaw to the FBI vehicle so that Immel could keep an eye on him.

Tyler recognized Orr’s backpack lying on the ground. He unzipped it and saw that it still held Midas’s hand, the golden hand, and the Archimedes Codex. Tyler couldn’t let Orr get the Touch back, so he pulled the pack over his shoulders.

Armed with the Geiger counter, Grant was first up the trailer’s ladder, followed by Tyler. They trotted along the taut tarp stretched across the open trailer. Tyler sliced it open with his Leatherman. He and Grant pulled it back to reveal the pile of sawdust that filled the truck all the way up to the tarp. It had the consistency of mulch and supported their weight. Grant waved the Geiger counter over it until he found the strongest reading.

They dug, revealing a black metal box buried in the sawdust.

Tyler checked his watch. Seven minutes left.

“Which bomb do you want?” Grant asked. He was already on Tyler’s wavelength. They had to separate the bombs, or they’d have a radioactive cloud over the entire downtown area.

“You’re the better truck driver,” Tyler said. “Find someplace empty.”

Grant glared at him. “In Manhattan?”

“Just do your best. First, help me carry the strontium bomb. We’ll take it off the back of the truck.”

“And then what?”

Tyler remembered the new bank building and turned to look at it, but the bank renovation next to it caught his eye.

Wine and dine inside an actual turn-of-the-century bank vault.

“The old vault in the Safe Cracker restaurant,” Tyler said. “If I can put the bomb in there and close the door, it should contain the blast.” And he wouldn’t have to destroy the new bank’s vault in the process.

They heaved the black box up. Their combined strength was barely enough to lift the lead container. They got back onto the tarp and shuffled to the back of the truck, Tyler’s ribs howling all the way.

After they put the box down, Grant dropped over the side to open the rear doors. Tyler looked over the edge to see sawdust pour out, forming a pile on the asphalt.

“Okay!” Grant shouted.

Tyler sliced through the tarp and fell through the tear with the lead box next to him, guiding it as he slid down the avalanche of sawdust.

Grant met him at the bottom with a handcart.

“Courtesy of the delivery truck across the street,” he said.

They put the lead box on the cart.

“Go!” Tyler yelled as he dashed across the street with the cart.

By this time, four police cruisers had converged on the truck. Immel was directing them despite her injury. Running for the truck cab, Grant shouted at her.

“There’s a bomb in this truck and it’s about to go off! Where’s the bomb squad?”

“Jesus,” she said. “They’re five minutes out.”

“That’s too long. I need a police escort now!”

“All right, where do you need to go?”

Grant consulted his cell phone. “Albany Street. We’ve got five minutes.”

He started the truck and didn’t wait for the police cars to get out of the way. He gunned the engine and smashed two of them aside. The other two cruisers roared off in front of him.

“Agent Immel!” Tyler yelled before he went through the door where the Safe Cracker was being renovated. “This is the radioactive part of the bomb. Keep everyone out of here.”

“You got it.” She pointed at the two remaining officers. “You at the front entrance. You take the back entrance. Get everyone out, and make sure no one else goes in.”

As Tyler entered the old bank, he saw that the renovation was in its early stages. The floor had been stripped to the bare concrete, and the walls were prepped with white primer, ready for a coat of paint.

Many of the workers had already gone outside to see what the commotion was. One of the police officers ran past Tyler, herding the remaining workers out the back door at the far end of the building.

Tyler couldn’t miss the vault on the right. The immense circular door was ten feet in diameter and two feet thick. The bronze still held its luster after a hundred years of service, and the mechanism controlling the six-inch-diameter locking bolts was visible behind a new Plexiglas shield. The door’s massive weight would be more than enough to contain the blast of the bomb and shield the exterior from radioactive exposure.

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.”

SIXTY-NINE

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.

Eight, seven, six …

Tyler strained against the door, but even though it was well oiled, moving its bulk took time.

He had heard Orr yell and then the sound of gunshots. Slowly, the door swung closed. When it was flush with the wall, Tyler spun the wheel until it hit its stops. Just as the lock fully engaged, he felt more than he heard the explosion through the door.

The interior of the vault was now bathed in intense radiation. It would stay sealed shut until a containment team arrived.

Tyler leaned against the door, but he didn’t expect to hear any pounding from inside. He wondered how he would feel if he did. He decided not to find out and walked outside, turning his thoughts toward the fate of Stacy and Grant rather than toward a criminal who’d made their lives hell for one week.

Whatever happened in there, Orr got what he deserved.

Grant got plenty of practice cushioning his falls during his wrestling days, but landing on the dirt trim bordering the Esplanade at thirty-five miles an hour was an entirely different experience. His left knee smacked hard as he tumbled, barely missing the trunk of a tree and collecting about a thousand nicks and cuts along the way. He rolled more times than he could count as the truck catapulted into the Hudson with a tremendous splash. He came to rest on the concrete Esplanade in time to see the truck flip over and begin to sink.

Grant waved for the police officers to get back, then saw two startled joggers, a man and a woman, stop and go to the edge of the Esplanade to watch the truck disappear into the water. He stood, but could put little weight on his leg. He hobbled toward the joggers, yelling, “Get down!”

They turned and saw Grant’s limping form and more police cars screeching to a stop behind him. They gawked in astonishment but didn’t move.

The truck was now underwater. Grant had no time to explain. He used his bulk to crash into them and throw them to the ground. Just as they hit the pavement and Grant covered them with his body, an earsplitting boom erupted from the river.

A wave of water surged over the embankment and drenched them, and parts of the truck pinged on the ground as debris rained down around them.

It took ten seconds for the water to subside, and the three of them were soaked through. After the last bit of truck landed, Grant rolled off the joggers and sat up.

Both of them gaped at Grant, who smiled back.

“Sorry about that, folks,” he said through gritted teeth. “Nice day for a run, eh?”

The lumber pile that had hidden Tyler provided the same protection for Orr when he instinctively dove behind it as the bomb went off.

Smoke permeated the room but didn’t overwhelm it. Orr, deaf from the blast, rose and saw chunks of lead embedded in the wood.

Orr knew what that meant. The air he was inhaling was suffused with radioactive dust. Even if he got out immediately, radiation poisoning was a death sentence. He’d seen the pictures of radiation victims. An agonizing end.

He didn’t want to go out that way. His life would soon be over, but at least he could end it himself, the way his father had. He raised the revolver to his head and pulled the trigger.

It clicked. He pulled the trigger again. Nothing. The cylinder was empty. He’d used all his rounds shooting at Tyler.

He dropped the gun and sagged to the floor. Orr opened the backpack, took out the container with the Midas hand, and wept bitter tears for all that had been taken from him.

Tyler was sitting in the back seat of Riegert’s FBI vehicle when a police car pulled up and Grant got out. With a distinct limp, his clothes sodden and torn, and dozens of scratches and bruises on his face and arms, he shuffled over to the car and plopped down.

“You okay?” Tyler said.

“Feels like a torn ligament,” Grant said, holding his knee. “Nothing a little arthroscopic surgery won’t take care of. How about you?”

“My side hurts like hell, but otherwise I’m fine. The bomb?”

“At the bottom of the Hudson. No one hurt. Except me, that is. And yours?”

“In the vault when it went off. The time lock won’t let us open it for twelve hours.”

“Did they catch Orr?”

Tyler looked back at the bank. “He’s in the vault, too.”

“Think he survived the blast?”

Tyler shrugged. He realized now that he just didn’t care. “Either way, we’ll get the whole story about his plan. Crenshaw’s already talking, hoping to cut a deal.”

“Any other news?” Grant asked gingerly.

Tyler knew that he meant Stacy. The last time they’d seen her, she was being wheeled away in critical condition. Tyler shook his head.

Ambulances had taken away the two cops Orr had injured getting into the vault, so they sat there in silence as they waited for another officer to arrive and take Grant to get his leg examined. After five minutes, Special Agent Riegert walked over, his phone in hand.

“You guys did good today,” Riegert said. Grant and Tyler both nodded a simple acknowledgment.

Riegert held the phone out for Tyler. “Got a call for you.”

“Who is it?” Tyler said, taking the phone.

“Carol Benedict from the hospital in Naples,” Riegert said, his face impassive. “She has something to tell you.”