‘For all I knew, going into the cave would have killed you,’ said Trakas, his geniality fraying. ‘It is a natural nuclear reactor! Perhaps the monks themselves wanted to silence you by letting you go inside, hmm?’
Lonmore broke out of his self-tortured gloom, looking at the Greek in surprise. ‘Wait – how did you know about the reactor? I couldn’t have told you that in Santorini, because I didn’t know myself! It was Fenrir who figured it out, and that wasn’t until he had his doctorate . . . which was after the dive in Greece.’
Trakas smiled. ‘No, you did not tell me, Spencer. But you could say that without you, I would not have been able to find out.’ His amusement growing as he saw Lonmore’s confusion at his riddle, he spoke to Axelos. ‘Petros, please fetch my other guest.’
Axelos went back down the passage and knocked on a door. It opened, and someone else accompanied the Greek back to the lounge.
Neither Nina nor Eddie recognised the trendily and expensively dressed young man who entered. But the Lonmores reacted with open-mouthed shock. ‘What . . . what are you doing here?’ Lonmore spluttered.
The new arrival treated him to a contemptuous sneer, folding his arms defiantly across his chest. ‘What do you think? I want my share of the Midas Legacy . . . Dad.’
23
On the Pactolus’s foredeck, a crewman named Velis squinted into the sun with growing suspicion at an approaching motor yacht. Augustine Trakas was both a rich man and someone who had accrued enemies, and kidnappings of either were far from unknown in Greece.
One of his shipmates had also spotted the craft, ahead off the port side. ‘Is it coming at us?’
‘It’ll be close.’ While the Pactolus had engines, at the moment it was using its sails alone to make around nine knots. The motor yacht was slightly faster, pounding through the waves on a course that would cut in front of the sailing vessel – or even intercept it. ‘I’ll warn the captain.’
He jogged aft, glancing through the lounge windows as he passed. His boss was engaged in what looked like a heated discussion with the visitors. Not wanting to interrupt, he continued on along one of the narrow side decks and entered a door to climb a ladder to the bridge at the front of the level above. Rouphos was at the wheel. ‘Captain! There’s a ship coming towards us.’
Rouphos nodded. ‘I’ve seen it. We’re to her starboard, so we should have the right of way, but . . .’ He regarded the cruiser warily, then made a decision. ‘Take the wheel – if she gets to one hundred metres without changing course, turn hard to port and start the engines to get us clear.’ The crewman nodded and stood at the controls. ‘I’ll go and warn Mr Trakas that we might—’
He stopped. The incoming cruiser was now less than two hundred metres away, but its pilot had apparently realised at last that the vessels were converging. It swung lazily to port, angling away from the yacht as it crossed its path.
Rouphos retook the wheel. ‘Bloody tourists,’ he complained.
‘I don’t like that it came so close,’ said Velis. ‘Especially when we’ve got these people aboard with Mr Trakas. Should we issue weapons?’
‘Not yet.’ Rouphos watched the ship as it pulled away. ‘It can’t do anything to us from there.’
The cruiser was indeed retreating from the Pactolus . . . but just before it crossed the yacht’s course, some of its passengers had dropped unseen into the sea from the far side of its superstructure.
Beneath the choppy surface, several scuba divers approached the sailing vessel. Each was being pulled along by a diver propulsion vehicle, essentially a powerful electric motor with a propeller. Even the fastest DPV couldn’t keep up with a ship moving at almost ten knots, though, which was why the group had entered the water ahead of the yacht. Now, they had only one chance to intercept it.
The sailing ship closed on them in eerie silence, the only sound reaching the divers over the hissing whine of their own DPVs was the slap of the waves above. The leader and two of his companions curved across its course to run parallel to its starboard side, the others staying on its port. The keel sliced through the water between the two teams of divers, rapidly overtaking them even with the DPVs at full power—
The leader clamped a disc-shaped object hard against the yacht’s hull as it swept past. The others did the same, their limpet-like suction devices all sticking firmly in place. One by one they let their DPVs fall away, then used second limpets to climb upwards.
The yacht continued onwards, its occupants unaware of the new stowaways beneath the waterline.
‘So, we going to get any introductions?’ said Eddie loudly over the angry babble that had erupted in the lounge. ‘I’m assuming from the whole “Dad” thing that this is Junior Lonmore.’
‘Don’t call me that!’ snapped Spencer Lonmore Jr. ‘I’m not some adjunct of my father. I’m my own man, and I live my own life. At least,’ a poisonous glance towards the elder Lonmore, ‘until he cut me off!’
‘I did everything I could to support you!’ Lonmore protested. ‘And I still am – I’m paying your allowance!’
‘My allowance? You say it like I’m ten years old and I’m using it for candy and Pokémon cards!’
‘You’re still paying for everything he wants?’ Petra said to Lonmore, surprised and also annoyed.
‘He’s my son, what else am I going to do?’
‘You could maybe tell him to grow up and earn his own money instead of mooching off of you!’
‘Mooching?’ cried Spencer, with a bitter laugh. ‘That’s rich, coming from the gold-digger!’ Petra drew in an affronted breath.
‘Hey, hey!’ said Nina, blowing a shrill whistle. ‘Time out, okay? Everyone shut up and calm down.’
‘You can tell she’s got a three-year-old, can’t you?’ Eddie said, amused.
‘If people act like three-year-olds, what do they expect? All right, what’s going on?’ She looked to Trakas for an explanation.
The Greek nodded towards the new arrival. ‘I have known Spencer ever since he was a boy. When he found himself in, ah, financial difficulties,’ a faint smile, ‘he came to his godfather for help.’
‘He wasn’t in financial difficulties,’ Petra responded sarcastically. ‘He was kicked out of the Legacy for going on a spending spree with everyone else’s money!’
‘And you were all set to replace me, weren’t you?’ snarled Spencer. ‘Poisoning the others against me so you could have my seat!’
‘It wasn’t like that,’ said Lonmore. ‘I gave you every chance I could to turn things around.’
Petra sneered at the young man. ‘But you liked being a playboy too much, didn’t you? You just couldn’t give up the cars and the casinos and the hookers.’
‘At least hookers are honest about what they do,’ he fired back.
‘Do not make me whistle again!’ Nina cut in before the furious Petra could reply. She turned back to Trakas. ‘You were saying?’
‘I wanted to help Spencer, of course,’ Trakas continued. ‘And I knew from my investigators that he had been a member of the Legacy: the same people, meeting in the same place at the same time so often? So I offered him a deal that would help us both. He accepted.’
Lonmore stared at his son, shocked. ‘You told him about the Midas Cave? You told him everything?’
‘No more than you did when you were drunk off your ass,’ Spencer replied. ‘And you had the nerve to criticise me for having a good time?’
‘I used my own resources to try to find the cave,’ said Trakas. ‘With no success. But then I learned that Olivia had contacted you, Dr Wilde.’
Spencer’s expression slid into smugness as he swaggered to the last place at the table and sat facing his father. ‘You and the others met Olivia in New York right afterwards. That must have pissed you all off, that she went ahead and did it without discussing it first. Not that I??
?d expect her to change after all this time.’
‘And then,’ Trakas went on, ‘my sources learned that you were going to Nepal, Dr Wilde. To find the Midas Cave.’
‘Which brings us back to why we came here,’ said Nina, anger simmering. ‘Are you going to turn over the Crucibles, or do I have to get international law enforcement involved?’
‘International law!’ barked Trakas, almost spitting out the words, as if they tasted foul. ‘International law is a sick joke, Dr Wilde. Do you have any idea why I want the Crucible?’
‘To make enough gold to turn leprechauns even greener, I’m guessing,’ Eddie offered.
Nina nodded. ‘I’ve met a lot of very rich people over the years. The one thing they had in common is that they all wanted to be even richer.’
Trakas drew back in his chair, almost offended. ‘You think the gold is for me?’
‘It isn’t?’ asked Lonmore, confused.
The tycoon banged a fist on the table. ‘I am a patriot! Greece is my motherland, and I will fight for the honour of my country, whatever it takes. We have been betrayed and humiliated by the banks, by politicians, by our so-called friends and allies.’ He rose to his feet, glaring down at his visitors as if they were personally responsible for his nation’s grievances. ‘I will avenge that humiliation! And I will use the Crucible to make our betrayers beg our forgiveness!’
The remaining crewman near the bow, a man called Galatas, watched the cruiser as it headed away from the Pactolus. It hadn’t been a threat, then, just bad seamanship. Nothing to worry about . . .
An odd noise, somewhere behind him. He looked around. There was nothing loose on the foredeck, and it hadn’t come from the headsail or its mast; he was experienced enough to know the sounds made by a ship at sail.
It came again, a dull thud. He crossed the foredeck to investigate. Nobody on the starboard walkway. Another muffled bump. He headed past the lounge and down the side deck to a hatch. It was open, but there was nobody inside. So what had made the—
Something stabbed into his calf from behind – and every muscle in his body locked solid in paralysed agony as fifty thousand volts coursed through him.
Galatas fell to the deck. Unable even to scream, he could only watch helplessly through pain-clenched eyes as two wetsuited figures clambered over the railing. One drew a silenced handgun from a large waterproof pouch and aimed it at the crewman’s face. He didn’t need to speak to communicate his intent: make a sound and you die.
The current cut out, Galatas slumping. ‘How many crew?’ demanded the gunman, in English.
Even in his dizzied, nauseous state Galatas still thought to feign ignorance of the language, but the man’s cold expression warned that he would be considered either cooperative or useless – and the latter would not be good for his chances of survival. ‘Eight,’ he gasped.
The second intruder – a woman – produced a gun of her own. ‘If you’re lying, you’ll be the first to die.’
‘We have eight regular crew, and the captain,’ Galatas insisted. That seemed to satisfy the gunman, though the woman was reserving judgement.
Another man, the one who had shot the taser into his leg, climbed over the railing. How they had scaled the yacht’s smooth side without lines the Greek didn’t know, but he had no chance to investigate as the latest arrival secured his hands behind his back with a plastic zip-tie.
The leader donned a headset, speaking quietly into the mic. ‘Everyone’s aboard,’ he told the woman after others responded, then he issued a command. ‘Secure the crew before we move in on Trakas. Use tasers to subdue them, but shoot anyone who’s a threat. Okay,’ he continued, addressing his companions, ‘let’s move.’
The second man forced Galatas through the hatch, the leader and the woman heading aft. Even if he hadn’t still been suffering the after-effects of the electric shock, the zip-tie prevented the Greek from taking any action against his captor. A feeling of shame flooded through him at the realisation of how completely he had failed his boss.
But all was not lost. While he had technically told the invaders the truth – that the Pactolus had eight full-time crew including himself, plus the captain – he had not mentioned the chef, whom Trakas had brought on board for the day specifically to cook for his guests.
And she, like the yacht’s regular crew, was also a trained bodyguard.
‘What humiliation?’ said Lonmore, bewildered. ‘Augustine, what are you talking about?’
Trakas snorted. ‘How typical. When you are safe and secure in your own rich little world, you think you can ignore everything outside it. But when everything is suddenly taken away’ – a glance at Spencer, who nodded knowingly – ‘then you will understand.’
Eddie regarded their luxurious seagoing surroundings. ‘Kept this from the bailiffs, did you?’
‘I still have my wealth,’ the Greek replied. ‘But my country does not! Before the financial crash, the banks and the European Union encouraged Greece to borrow, borrow, borrow – as much money as we wanted. So she borrowed, because we were told that nothing could go wrong.’
‘And then it did,’ said Nina.
‘It did,’ he echoed. ‘The crash came, and suddenly the banks wanted all their money back – with interest. Billions of euros of interest. And the European Central Bank, and the International Monetary Fund, which had encouraged my country to borrow in the first place? Now their plan became clear! They would lend us the money we needed to survive, but only if we obeyed their orders. Sell off our assets, destroy our welfare system, let foreign companies take over our infrastructure – turn us into a third-world nation, a puppet of banks and bureaucrats!’
‘But you could have said no,’ Lonmore pointed out. ‘If you’d left the euro, you would have been able to control your own exchange rate, set interest rates—’
‘Do you think I do not know that?’ Trakas barked, slamming his hand on the table again. ‘I pushed for Greece to leave the euro! But the people voted to stay, and our fate was sealed. As long as we are in the eurozone, we cannot control our own economy. We will be in debt for ever, and everything we built will be sold to foreign vultures to pick apart!’
‘Yeah, that’s a bit crap,’ said Eddie. ‘But what’s it got to do with the Crucibles?’
‘It has everything to do with the Crucible, Mr Chase. Do you know how much gold is held by the European Central Bank and the IMF?’
‘Not off the top of my head, no.’
‘But I’m sure you’re going to tell us,’ Nina said.
A sarcastic chuckle. ‘Yes, I am. The ECB has reserves of over five hundred metric tonnes of gold, worth more than twenty billion dollars at today’s rate. The IMF holds almost three thousand tonnes, worth over one hundred and twenty billion dollars!’
‘That’s Dr Evil money,’ said Eddie, impressed.
‘All that gold is used to stabilise the world’s economies. And the Crucible,’ said Trakas, his anger metamorphosing into something close to expectant glee, ‘can make it all worthless. If I choose, I can wipe them out. Not just the global banks, but the other countries that tried to crush Greece under their boots. Germany, France, Italy, all the others. With the Crucible, I can turn their gold into nothing.’
‘But the Crucible makes gold,’ said Eddie, puzzled. ‘Was there a reverse button on it I didn’t notice?’
Nina suddenly realised what Trakas intended. ‘You’re not just going to make gold,’ she exclaimed. ‘You’re going to make a lot of gold. Enough to flood the market and drive down the value of their reserves.’
Lonmore gaped at the Greek. ‘But . . . but that would destroy the entire global economy!’ he stammered. ‘It’d make the 2008 crash look like a blip. You’re talking about causing a worldwide depression!’
‘I am,’ said Trakas, satisfied. ‘But . . . there is a simple way that
I can be persuaded not to do it.’
‘And that way is?’ demanded Nina.
‘I will use the Crucible and a particle accelerator to create gold. The process will be recorded and witnessed to prove it is not fake. Once that is done, the threat of my making more will be enough to force the banks to do what I wish: to wipe out all of Greece’s debts, every last cent. If that does not happen, then I shall release the proof of what I have done to the media, which will terrify and destabilise the markets . . . and then I shall sell tonne upon tonne upon tonne of gold. Its price will crash.’ He smiled. ‘If they know what is good for them – and they do, they are very clever people –’ the words sounded more insult than compliment, ‘I will not need to do that.’
‘It’ll never work,’ said Lonmore. ‘The US government has the world’s largest gold reserves – they’ll never let anyone hold them to ransom. They’ll stop you, whatever it takes.’
‘The American economy is backed by more than gold,’ Trakas replied. ‘They will survive a crash and recover quickly, just as they did after 2008. And they can even profit from it; they will be able to set their own terms to help those who were wiped out. Germany and the others will know how Greece felt!’ Another smile, more gloating. ‘But I hope it will not come to that. It will be much easier for everyone to give me what I want, and help one small country. Then after I have rescued Greece, who knows? Perhaps she will reward me with something more valuable than money.’
Nina almost laughed at his sheer gall. ‘What, this is your presidential bid?’
‘Why not? With no debt, the banks will have no power over us. The country can be run for its people, not for vultures and parasites. If I am chosen to lead, I shall be honoured. But even if I am not, I have still done my duty as a patriot. I will reclaim the legend of Midas for Greece, Dr Wilde. But this time, my golden touch will not be a curse.’
Lonmore stared at him in disbelief, then turned to his son. ‘Spencer, why on earth would you want to go along with this? It would wipe out the value of the Legacy’s gold as well. We’d be ruined!’