to silence.
Stacy scrambled to her feet after she saw Orr leap over the pool. She rushed to the edge of the terrace, but the lanterns had all gone askew by this point. The odd shadows cast made it difficult to see what he was doing, but she did see him grab the container with Midas’s hand.
Then for a few seconds Orr knelt by the wall, where he rummaged through Gaul’s duffel, his hands still tied together. When he was finished, he picked up his backpack and ran as fast as he could for the stairs exiting the chamber.
A horrible scream registered in Stacy’s ears, but it was in the background with the last of the gunfire. She was too focused on the bag where Orr had knelt before escaping into the tunnel.
Then she realized what Orr had been doing. Gaul’s duffel. The explosives. The timed detonators she and Tyler had found.
Oh, no.
In the center of the pit, Grant was about to emerge from behind the pedestal.
“Get back!” she yelled. “There’s a bomb!”
She turned, but Tyler was right behind her. With all her strength, she shoved him down, and the world exploded.
SIXTY-THREE
F or a few moments, Tyler couldn’t figure out what had happened. His ears were assaulted by a roar that seemed to come from everywhere.
When he could remember his name, he pushed himself up. Two of the lanterns were still working. He looked around and saw Stacy lying facedown. She wasn’t moving.
She had saved him. If he’d been standing when the explosive detonated, he would have been pulverized against the far wall.
He gently turned her over. Blood spilled from her side. A shrapnel wound. He lifted her shirt and saw a gash three inches long. He ripped his shirt tail off and pressed it against the wound. He couldn’t tell how deep it was.
Her eyes fluttered open.
“My side hurts,” she said, her voice more annoyed than anything else.
“I know. But you’ll be all right.”
“How do you know that?”
“Because you’re a tough woman. Now be quiet and hold this down. I’m going to see if Grant is okay.”
He got one of the lanterns and went to the edge. He shined it down and saw Grant laid out behind the pedestal on the side away from the explosion.
“Grant! Get up!”
He heard a moan in response. “Can’t a guy rest for a minute?”
Tyler’s hearing was coming back. He thought the rushing sound in his ears was the residual effects of the explosion, but it was getting louder. He looked down and saw a crack in the wall, and water gushing through it. The pool started to overflow, and the boiling water streamed across the floor, right at Grant.
“Grant!” Tyler yelled. “Get your ass onto the pedestal right now!”
The crack blew open, and water poured into the pit.
Grant had gotten to his feet and saw the water rushing toward him. He scrambled up onto the pedestal and didn’t stop until he was sitting atop the statue. The water splashed against the side, but he was far enough above it to escape injury. However, it would be only a matter of time before he was swamped, and he would suffer the same agonizing death as Sal.
For that matter, they all would.
A shout from across the chamber got his attention. “Tyler! I thought you’d be dead.”
It was Orr. He had returned, and he’d been able to remove the shoelaces binding his wrists. Tyler didn’t know whether he’d come back to make sure they’d all been killed or to gloat.
“This isn’t over, Orr,” Tyler said.
“Looks like it is to me. Then again, you could try to swim across, but that might be a little painful.” The water was already three feet deep and rising fast.
“Before I leave you to your doom and lock you in here for another two thousand years,” Orr continued, “I thought you might like to know that your father’s dead. So is Carol Benedict.”
“You son of a bitch!”
“Yeah, they’ve been dead since I first saw you this evening, and now you get to think about that for the rest of your short, miserable life while I’m off to enjoy my spoils.” He pointed at his eye. “And this? It’s nothing that a little plastic surgery won’t fix. Ciao!”
He smiled a shit-eating grin, waved a salute, and was gone, sure that Tyler would soon be a distant memory.
SIXTY-FOUR
T yler wasn’t going to give up that easily. Orr should have known that by now.
Wading or swimming through boiling acidic water was a death sentence, but Tyler wasn’t going to swim. He had a boat.
He ran over to the gilded wooden sarcophagus and tipped it over to lighten the load.
“Sorry, Your Majesty,” he said as Midas’s corpse tumbled out over the edge of the terrace and into the water. He flipped it back over and heaved the lid onto it.
He had to push the sarcophagus down the stairs, but Cavano’s body was in the way. Tyler grasped her jacket, careful not to touch the flaming-red skin that now covered her entire body like a rash, and pulled her until she was clear. He put her back down, and her eyes popped open, the bloodshot orbs nearly bursting from the sockets. Her face was contorted in agony.
“Wa… water,” she wheezed.
Tyler hesitated, but he couldn’t refuse the dying woman’s last request. He retrieved the canteen and tipped it so that water dribbled into her mouth. She swallowed, then gagged, and some of it streamed down her cheek.
“Is Orr… dead?” she croaked.
“No,” Tyler said. “But I’ll catch him.”
She coughed, barely able to force the words out. “You won’t. You won’t find Jordan Orr.”
“Why not?”
“Because he’s named for his grandfather.” Her breath caught. “His real name… is Giordano… Orsini.”
Her eyes widened as the pain overwhelmed her. She shrieked, but no sound came out. Her head lolled to the side, and her final breath rushed out. She was dead.
But she got her wish to be the golden girl. The rivulet of water on her cheek left a streak of gold. She would be immortalized in the metal when the chamber was submerged.
“Uh, Tyler?” Grant said. “You might want to hurry before I turn into a three-minute egg.”
So would the rest of them if he didn’t act fast. The water was already four feet deep.
Tyler pushed the coffin toward the stairs, his rib protesting the entire way. When the coffin was at the bottom step, he left it there and went back for Stacy.
“Can you walk?” he said.
Stacy nodded as tears streamed down her face. She had heard Orr’s news about her sister.
He helped her to her feet, and she went ashen from the headrush. He threw her arm over his shoulder and carried her to the sarcophagus.
