‘Not yet, not yet,’ Trakas replied, eyes wide with anticipation. ‘But soon, very—’
Before he could finish speaking, a shrill siren sounded over the bell. The Greek whirled to look back along the accelerator, expression worried, but a shouted report from the technician quickly calmed him. ‘There is no radiation leak,’ he said.
‘Great,’ said Eddie, trying to cover his own relief. ‘I can take off my lead codpiece, then.’
‘Did it work?’ asked Spencer.
‘We will find out soon,’ Trakas told him. The buzz and hum of the linear accelerator ceased as the technician shut it down, then he hurried past the observers to its other end, summoning the other workers to help him begin a series of checks.
It took several minutes before they were completed, but eventually the man smiled and gave Trakas a thumbs-up. His boss congratulated him, then faced his guests. ‘There was a neutron burst,’ he announced. ‘We will soon see if any mercury has turned to gold.’
A loud hiss came from the box as it was refilled with air. The technician made more checks, then collected a Geiger counter and signalled for the hoist to be operated. The chain rattled, and the lid began to open.
The counter crackled alarmingly as vapour swirled out, but the man with glasses seemed unperturbed. He took a reading, then called out to Trakas. ‘It is safe,’ said the Greek. ‘There is not enough radiation to be dangerous.’ He led the group out from behind the wall.
‘So what about the gold?’ Spencer asked.
‘We will soon know.’ With the radiation danger gone, the other workers went into action. They pushed a wheeled stepladder into position alongside the box, a man wearing a hazmat suit and breath mask climbing to its top. The others passed a long tubular probe attached to a hose up to him. He leaned over and carefully lowered the tube into the Crucible, edging it down until it reached the bottom of the crystalline cauldron. ‘Gold is more dense than mercury,’ Trakas explained, seeing that some of his audience were puzzled. ‘It will sink to the bottom. That machine,’ he indicated a portable pump nearby, another hose running into a large empty barrel on a pallet, ‘will suck it out and filter it from the mercury. Then we shall see how much gold I have!’
Another worker started the pump. It rattled and strained, then the hose running from the Crucible pulsed in the arms of the men supporting it. Quicksilver spat from the end of the second tube into the waiting canister.
The pump operator intently watched a glass jar attached to its side as the machine shuddered with the effort of drawing the heavy liquid metal out of the Crucible, then thrust his head nearer as if unable to believe his eyes. He sprang upright, calling out to Trakas in excited Greek.
It took all the tycoon’s effort not to rush over to see for himself. Instead he issued a command. The worker shut down the pump, the other men waiting expectantly as he carefully detached the jar, then hurried with it to his boss.
The cameraman quickly descended from the walkway and joined the group to capture the moment. Trakas took the jar and held it up to the light, making sure the camera had a clear view of its contents. Eddie and the others leaned closer to see for themselves.
Just as in the Midas Cave, another metal had been extracted from the mercury. The system here was more effective than the simple mesh filter used by the monks, the bottom of the jar covered by a layer of what looked like fine sand. Dotted amongst it were larger grains, the biggest a lumpen nugget over a quarter of an inch long.
Their colour revealed that they were more than mere grit.
Trakas gasped in delight, turning the jar to examine the gleaming residuum from every angle. ‘It works,’ he said. ‘It works!’ He reluctantly handed the jar back to the worker, who quickly returned to the pump to reattach it and resume the task of extracting more. ‘The legend is true,’ the Greek tycoon continued to his guests. ‘Midas could create gold. And now, so can I.’
27
De Klerx’s ship squatted in the darkness offshore, all its lights off. From its foredeck, Nina surveyed the boatyard. She saw movement on the distant waterfront. ‘Looks like they’ve got guards patrolling.’
De Klerx stared through binoculars. ‘I see . . . three men along the water. Two by the slipways, and another at the docks.’
‘Let me look.’ The Dutchman passed her the field glasses with what she couldn’t help feeling was annoyed reluctance. ‘It’s all right, I won’t break your precious toy.’
She slowly panned her magnified view from left to right. Part of it was blocked by the rusting hulk of a half-submerged ship about a hundred yards out into the water, behind which was a jetty with a couple of small yachts moored. At its end, concrete took over from rock where a pair of dry docks cut into the land’s edge. One had its gates open to let in the sea. The hull of a ship rose above the other’s closed lock, a temporary cover of scaffolding and plastic sheets over a hole in its deck left where a large part of the superstructure had been lifted away by a crane. Along from the dry docks was a slipway leading up to several large open-sided structures, beached boats on stands inside them. Tall fences ran right to the water at both sides of the boatyard’s perimeter.
‘It’ll be hard to get ashore without being seen,’ Nina said. ‘We definitely won’t be able to take the boat all the way in.’
‘I know that,’ said De Klerx testily. ‘We will have to swim.’
‘I’d kind of expected that from the wetsuits.’ The men aboard the darkened cruiser had, its pilot aside, donned dark neoprene. ‘But I still say taking all that other stuff is a bad idea.’ The stockpile of weapons in the rear cabin had been brought out; as well as several compact UMP sub-machine guns, it included a Steyr AUG machine gun and a Milkor MGL grenade launcher, six rounds loaded in its fat revolver-like cylinder. She was glad they hadn’t been used in the first failed attempt to obtain the Crucible, but now De Klerx could not be dissuaded from employing them in a second. ‘I’m not an expert, but I’m pretty sure that when you’re doing a hostage rescue, it helps if you find out where the hostages are before you start shooting.’
There was acid in De Klerx’s reply. ‘I do know what I am doing, Dr Wilde.’
‘So you shouldn’t have any problems with proving it, should you?’ She focused her view beyond the shoreline. More boats were lined up on stands behind the shelters, while past the crane was a jumbled maze of ship parts, machinery and junk. ‘There are more men farther back, but have you noticed where most of them are?’ She returned the binoculars. ‘The big building, with all the lights in the windows – it’s under guard. There are guys walking around it, and I’m guessing they aren’t trying to prevent deep-vein thrombosis.’
‘Yes, I saw them. And that is the only building here that could contain a particle accelerator powerful enough to use the Crucible.’
‘So the guards probably mean that Trakas is in there.’
‘And Anastasia and the others.’
Nina nodded. ‘Let’s hope he’s the kind of villain who likes to gloat and show off to his prisoners rather than lock them up somewhere. Or just kill them.’ She took in the whole of the boatyard again. ‘Okay, so what are we doing?’
‘We?’
‘Yeah, we. I’m coming with you.’
He didn’t even deign to look at her as he dismissed the suggestion. ‘I do not think so. This is a task that should be left to professionals.’
‘Yeah, you were so professional on the yacht when you brought your girlfriend with you and let her get captured.’ That drew De Klerx’s eyes, which gave her an irate glare. ‘Or when your prisoners escaped and the whole damn boat blew up around you. Real pro work.’
‘I served in the Korps Commandotroepen!’ he snapped.
‘For all I know, that’s the catering corps. What I do know is that charging in there with guns blazing won’t go any better than on the Pactolus. So whate
ver plan you’ve got, revise it so that “kill people and blow shit up” isn’t the first line. Or preferably any line.’
His gaze hardened, revealing actual anger. ‘Dr Wilde, you do not tell me what to do.’
‘Yeah, I get told that all the time. Only as “Mommy” rather than “Dr Wilde”. And I don’t take it from a three-year-old either. So just remember that the point of being here is rescue, not revenge, and let’s see if we can get everyone back safely without having to, y’know, murder anyone. Okay? If you start shooting, Trakas might kill his hostages. That includes Eddie – and Anastasia.’
De Klerx’s mood did not improve when he saw that some of his men were smirking at his telling-off. ‘Of course this is a rescue operation. And I have a plan.’ He pointed at the wreck. ‘We will take the boat in behind the sunken ship so we are not seen, then swim in. There is a ladder at the end of the open dock. We will climb up it and conceal our scuba gear in the hut there,’ his finger shifted towards a small brick ruin close to the dry dock, ‘then use the shadows to make our way to the big building.’
Nina gave the rest of his team a dubious look. ‘You won’t have much chance of sneaking through the place unseen with a squad of huge guys with machine guns.’
‘You are going to suggest again that you come with me, aren’t you?’ said the disapproving Dutchman.
‘It’s not my first time doing this kind of thing, sad to say. Trakas has got someone you love, yes? Well, he’s got someone I love too. If you go, I go. You’ll have to tie me up to stop me.’
De Klerk’s displeased expression suggested that he was considering it, but instead he nodded. ‘Very well. But remember that I advised against it.’ There was a faintly menacing edge to the words. He turned to his men. ‘Beel, wait with the boat behind the wreck until I radio that we have found Miss Mikkelsson and the other hostages, then move in to the dock. The rest of you, once we are safely ashore, swim in and stay in hiding until I signal. If we are discovered,’ he went on, with a look at Nina daring her to challenge his orders, ‘move in immediately and use any force necessary to rescue Miss Mikkelsson. Her safe return is the highest priority.’
‘And everyone else’s safe return,’ Nina reminded him pointedly. She went into the cabin to collect a wetsuit and scuba cylinder. Her deep suit certification had lapsed, but she hadn’t forgotten how to dive. ‘Let’s get them back.’
The man in the hazmat suit ran the nozzle of the hose around the bottom of the now-empty Crucible, then shouted down to the pump operator. The noisy machine wheezed into silence.
The mercury it had extracted had been drained into a line of metal drums, a man in a mask closing the lid on the last. Leaving Axelos and the other guard watching Eddie and the rest of the prisoners, Trakas strode to the pump as its operator again removed the glass jar.
It was considerably fuller than before.
The man grunted with the effort of lifting it. Under his boss’s watchful gaze and the unblinking stare of multiple cameras, he brought it to a weighing scale nearby and carefully lowered it on to the plate. Trakas waited eagerly for the digital readout to settle, then laughed in pure glee at the final result. ‘Seventeen kilograms!’ he cried, hurrying back to his guests. ‘Over seventeen kilograms of gold!’
‘That’s . . . that’s worth quite a lot,’ said Lonmore.
‘It is!’ The Greek produced a phone and brought up an app to enter a figure, getting an answer that widened his smile still further. ‘At today’s price, that much gold is worth over seven hundred thousand dollars! And,’ he went on, becoming more thoughtful, ‘it means that most of the mercury-196 in the Crucible was converted to gold.’
As much as Anastasia was unwilling to help him, she still nodded. ‘Liquid mercury contains 0.15 per cent mercury-196. A thousand litres of mercury would weigh over thirteen metric tonnes, so the numbers add up.’
‘I see you also paid attention to your father’s theory. Yes, it is an efficient reaction.’
‘Except now you’re stuck with a load of leftover mercury,’ said Eddie. ‘And you’ll need a load more every time you use the Crucible. It can’t be cheap.’
Trakas shrugged. ‘It is much cheaper than gold. And I have many factories, many businesses that have legitimate uses for it. I can buy it by the tanker if I want! But hopefully, I will not need to.’ He spoke to the cameraman, who switched off his device. ‘I now have everything I need. I have the Crucible, I have the gold it made, and I have proof that I can create as much of it as I wish.’ He smiled again, this time in triumph. ‘The bankers will have to give me and my country everything I ask for, or I will ruin them!’
After the boat had taken up a position of concealment behind the wreck, Nina and De Klerx rolled overboard to begin their swim to shore. It did not take long, the boatyard’s lights making their destination clear even from underwater. They entered the flooded dock together. The ladder was in one corner; she angled towards it—
A silhouette obscured the lights above: a guard moving unhurriedly along the dockside, a slung sub-machine gun clear at his side even through the distortion of the waves.
Nina froze, hanging beneath the water’s surface. She had cut in front of the Dutchman, who bumped against her. To her relief he also held still the moment he realised the danger, but both of them were close enough to be spotted if any movement drew the patrolling guard’s attention.
Movement like bubbles from beneath the surface.
Nina held her breath. The scuba regulator would only release spent air into the water when she exhaled, but how long could she hold out?
The figure ambled along the dock . . . and stopped.
The redhead felt a surge of fear. Had they been seen already? She couldn’t tell which way the man was looking, his head obscured by the glare of a light. Seconds passed. The waves slapping against the dock’s concrete confines washed her gently back and forth, but she also felt herself slowly rising; there hadn’t been time to prepare her diving weights for exact neutral buoyancy. The tank on her back was blue, not black – it would be visible even before it breached the surface.
One of the guard’s arms moved towards his gun . . .
And withdrew. A moment later, a spot of orange appeared – the flame of a cigarette lighter.
Nina almost let out a breath of relief before catching herself. The man above lit up, taking in a long drag, then turned and walked away.
She let out a surge of stale bubbles, then she and the Dutchman continued towards the ladder.
It did not take long to reach it. She looked up. The only movement above came from rippling water. She rose cautiously to the surface, sound returning as she lifted her head. All she could hear was the endless wet flap of waves against concrete.
De Klerx breached beside her and took hold of the ladder with one hand, reaching down to unfasten his flippers with the other. He wedged them behind a rung at water level, then carefully started to ascend, leaning back to give himself a wider view of whatever was above. ‘It is clear. Move.’
Nina took off her flippers and followed. The crane at the foot of the quay between the two docks came into sight, its elevated control cabin illuminated, but empty. De Klerx reached the top and moved aside. She shook off as much water as she could from her badly fitting wetsuit before climbing from the ladder; a big puddle and a trail of drips would be a dead giveaway that someone had just come out of the sea. The brick hut was not far to their left. Another check for movement, then she dropped low and scurried towards it.
There was a ragged hole in the brickwork. De Klerx paused to check for broken glass or rusty metal on the floor beyond, then squeezed through. ‘Leave your diving gear in here,’ he said, removing his cylinder and harness as Nina entered.
She shrugged off her own equipment. ‘Where do we go now?’
He checked the dock again. Another man had come into view
near the covered workshops at the top of the slipway, but he was far enough distant that he would not see them if they stuck to the shadows. ‘Behind those boxes,’ he said, indicating a pile of broken crates before moving his pointing finger to an overturned rust-scabbed hull, ‘then across to that old boat.’ He took his sub-machine gun from a waterproof bag. ‘Let’s move.’
He scurried out into the night, Nina advancing nervously behind him.
‘Augustine, please,’ said Lonmore. ‘Don’t do this. I know you think it’s the only way to get Greece out of debt, but trust me, it won’t work. You really believe the IMF and the other world banks will just cave in to your demands? They’ll do whatever it takes to find you – and crush you.’
Trakas gave him a small smile. ‘I am not going to walk into the headquarters of the European Central Bank with an ultimatum, Spencer. I will not even let anyone know that I am behind this until Greece is free! They will receive the video proof and perhaps a hundred thousand dollars of gold, to show I am serious, as well as my instructions and the deadline for carrying them out. In the meantime, I will use the Crucible to make more gold – two or three million dollars’ worth should be enough to begin with. If they have not agreed to my terms – and I do not imagine they will, at first – I will sell it all on the open market.’
‘Three million dollars of gold isn’t that much in the global scheme of things. It’s a blip at most.’
‘No, but it will catch their attention. The next instalment will be bigger. The one after that . . . well, you know my business. My planes, my ships, my trucks – imagine them all filled with gold, on its way to be sold.’
‘Nice little rhyme,’ said Eddie. ‘I’ll have to remember it to tell my daughter at bedtime. It’ll make a change from the story about the eggs with legs.’
Spencer frowned at him. ‘Do you ever shut up?’
‘Nope. You need a smart-arse comment or a crap pun, I’m your man.’