thinking, it was nothing that a few minutes in the confessional wouldn’t take care of.
SIXTY-TWO
S tacy tried not to shake as she walked down the steps carrying the container with Midas’s hand inside. She was more afraid of the Midas Touch than she was of Cavano.
When Stacy got to the bottom of the stairs, Cavano was waiting for her, a black automatic rifle aimed at her. Sal was behind his boss on the other side of the pedestal, with his own gun leveled at Grant.
“Put it down,” Cavano said.
Stacy stopped and put the container on the floor. She turned to go back up the steps.
“Wait!” Cavano yelled. “Leave the gloves.”
Stacy gulped. She carefully removed the gloves by the fingers and laid them down next to the container.
“Now back away, but don’t go up the stairs.”
Stacy did as she was told, her heart pounding. She didn’t know what the next few seconds were going to bring, so she had to be ready for anything.
Cavano put her hand in her pocket and took out a twenty-euro note. Smart, Stacy thought. Easy to rub the microbe onto and dip into the pool to test it.
Cavano put the gun down and donned the left glove first and then the right one. She picked up the container and was about to open it when she got a puzzled look on her face. She peered at her hands with dismay. Too late, Cavano realized that it was she who’d been tricked.
Tyler had seen the opportunity when Cavano insisted on testing the Midas Touch herself. He whispered his plan to Stacy as they were shielded from Cavano by the coffin. With Stacy’s uncontaminated right-hand glove turned inside out, Tyler quickly rubbed Midas’s hand on the fingertips of the glove. He then gently pulled the glove right side out using his Leatherman pliers, careful not to touch the inside lining. Stacy had put the glove on delicately, making sure to ball up her fist so that her fingers wouldn’t touch the microbes.
That was why she’d been so terrified. She was deathly afraid that her hand would slip and make contact with the Midas Touch.
Cavano had been unable to detect the subterfuge, and had assumed the gloves were safe because Stacy had been wearing them. Now Stacy could see the mixture of fear and pain on her face as she endured the toxic side effect of the Midas Touch.
Cavano dropped the container and inadvertently kicked it behind her past the pedestal in her desperation to tear off the gloves. She held up her hands, and Stacy could already see the blisters forming on her fingers.
“What’s the matter?” Sal said.
“Kill them!” Cavano screamed as she dove for her gun. “Kill them all!”
Cavano’s cry was Grant’s cue. He’d been patiently waiting for something like it ever since Cavano took him captive.
Sal raised his gun to fire at Tyler, but Grant charged him. Sal got off a wild volley of shots, and Grant couldn’t tell if they’d hit anything. Sal brought the gun down to smash Grant, but not fast enough. Grant aimed his head at Sal’s midsection like a battering ram and knocked him backward.
Sal’s mammoth frame absorbed the blow without falling. He continued to fire shots, and Grant could feel the hot barrel against his shirt. He grabbed for the gun. They wrestled for it face-to-face, each determined to shoot the other.
Tyler hit the deck when Sal’s gun blazed at him. Stacy raced up the stairs to get out of the line of fire, but Cavano already had the submachine gun in her hands. Tyler covered Stacy’s retreat by snapping off three quick shots with the pistol. He had only one magazine, so rounds would soon become a precious commodity.
Although Tyler missed Cavano, his shots made her duck for cover behind the pedestal in the pit. She fired off random bursts that hit nothing but wall.
Stacy ran along the terrace, but she didn’t dive behind the sarcophagus as Tyler had expected. Instead she lunged for Orr’s legs, missing them by inches.
While Tyler had been engaged in the firefight with Cavano, Orr had taken the opportunity to grab his pack from behind Tyler and was running for the opposite end of the terrace, trying to make an escape. Stacy popped back up and gave chase.
Tyler took aim at Orr, but he didn’t shoot. He couldn’t risk killing Orr until he knew where his father and Stacy’s sister were.
More shots came from Cavano, and Tyler could do nothing more than turn to lay down covering fire for Stacy.
When the shooting started, Orr’s first thought was that this was even better than he had been expecting. They were all fighting one another, and he saw his chance to slip out.
While Tyler returned fire, Orr scrambled over and grabbed his bag, which held the golden hand, the Archimedes Codex, and the video camera. His hands were still bound, but he was mobile. He planned to get off the terrace by jumping over the pool.
Then Stacy had seen what he was doing. She knocked him down, but he kicked her in the stomach. His depth perception was gone, or he would have hit her with a more crushing blow. Still, it was enough, and she went down clutching her belly.
Orr got back up and took a running leap from the terrace. The pool was narrowest in this part of the pit, maybe only ten feet across. He soared into space and landed just inches beyond the edge of the steaming water.
He rolled and saw his target: the container with Midas’s hand. Its exterior was uncontaminated. He scooped it up and stuffed it into his pack.
Orr used the chaos of the gunfight to dig into Gaul’s duffel, still lying against the wall near the water spout. A few button pushes, and he ran for the stairs to the exit tunnel.
He thought ten seconds should be plenty of time.
Cavano knew she didn’t have long for this world, and she wasn’t going out cowering behind some monument to death. Her right hand burned so much from the Midas Touch that she could do no more than prop the gun up with her wrist, shooting left-handed.
She felt as if her veins had been injected with molten lava. If she was going to die, she would take Stacy Benedict and Tyler Locke with her.
After awkwardly slamming another magazine into the gun and racking the bolt, she stood and fired at Tyler’s position. As she stumbled for the stairs, nearly blind from the pain, she kept firing bursts, hoping to hit someone, anyone.
She took the steps two at a time, but her stomach suddenly spasmed, and her head pounded in agony, as if an animal were tearing it apart from the inside. She collapsed at the top step, her finger clenching the trigger back until the gun was empty.
Grant was pinned against the pedestal holding the statue, Sal’s submachine gun choking the life out of him.
Sal was one of the few men Grant had ever met who actually had a weight advantage, and the Italian used it. He leaned his bulk into the gun, and Grant’s vision began to tunnel.
They were near the corner of the pedestal. If Grant could just work his way a few more inches to his left, he could use Sal’s weight against him.
He edged over with a few solid lunges. One more should do it. Grant could see almost nothing at this point, but he felt the open space to his side.
With his last bit of strength, he jostled left and fell backward. Sal couldn’t keep from falling forward.
Grant thrust his legs upward and tossed Sal’s body over his head. With a howl, Sal went sliding and rolling along the floor. The slick surface gave him no purchase, and before he could stop himself he splashed into the boiling water.
Despite the heat, Grant’s blood chilled as Sal’s primal scream echoed through the chamber before gurgling
