The Midas Legacy

  ‘Our daughter.’ Sarah spoke for the first time, her voice barely above a whisper. Nina’s attention had until now been on Mikkelsson; she realised his wife was clothed entirely in black. A mother in mourning for her child. There was no anger in her words, only deep sadness.

  Mikkelsson did not react to her, his attention fixed upon Nina. ‘So I am going to take your daughter from you.’

  ‘Don’t you dare hurt her,’ Nina hissed, filled with sudden rage but powerless to act upon it. If she made a move towards him, he would shoot her before she had gone two steps.

  ‘I am not going to hurt her,’ the Icelander replied. ‘I am going to raise her. As if she were my own. You and Eddie took mine, so I shall take yours.’

  Surprise formed on Sarah’s numbed, blank face. ‘What?’

  ‘Did you really think I would hurt a child?’ he said. ‘I am not a monster; surely you know that after twenty-six years of marriage. No, I am going to give you a beautiful new daughter.’

  ‘You . . . you think you can replace Ana?’ she replied, the words quavering with rising emotion. ‘Like getting a new phone? It . . . it doesn’t work like that!’ The cry exploded from her, startling Mikkelsson with its intensity. Macy wailed, afraid.

  ‘Sarah, I am doing this for you,’ he said. ‘For both of us!’

  ‘Our family isn’t a machine – you can’t just slot in a replacement part! You . . . you haven’t grieved for Ana, you haven’t even cried!’

  The accusation seemed to sting him. ‘I am grieving, Sarah. In my own way.’ Nina risked a small step closer, hoping he was distracted but his gaze immediately snapped back, the gun shifting away from Holly and towards her. She froze again.

  Sarah did not register the movement. ‘You do everything in your own way, Fenrir,’ she said, eyes brimming with tears. ‘You never let me close, and you never know what I’m feeling! You have no idea!’

  ‘Of course I do,’ he protested.

  ‘If you did, you wouldn’t be talking about making another mother go through what I’m going through now.’ Trembling, she looked at Nina. ‘You wouldn’t let anyone suffer like this! N-not even her.’

  The gun rose, now pointing directly at the New Yorker. ‘She will not suffer for long, I assure you. She has lived a good life; now she will have a good death.’

  Macy shrieked and struggled again, slapping at Mikkelsson’s arm. ‘Don’t hurt my mommy! Don’t hurt her!’

  He squeezed her more tightly. ‘Do not worry, Macy. You will have a new mommy.’

  ‘If you kill me,’ said Nina, as fearful for Macy’s psyche as her own life, ‘you’ll traumatise her permanently.’

  ‘She is only three years old,’ was his dismissive reply. ‘She will not even remember.’

  ‘How would you know?’ cried Sarah. She stepped out from his side, moving forward and facing him. He had to shift the gun sideways to maintain his aim at Nina. ‘What do you know about raising a child? You were never there for Ana, you were always away working! She did everything she could to gain your approval and your love, to get you just to be there, but it was never enough. And she tried so hard to be what she thought you wanted her to be that . . . that it got her killed.’

  ‘That is not true,’ snapped Mikkelsson, a flash of anger cutting through his icy mask.

  ‘It is true!’ She stabbed a finger at Nina. ‘Her husband was a professional soldier, even better than Rutger. Ana didn’t have a chance. But you let her go against him anyway!’

  The mention of Eddie made Nina wonder where he was. Even with his wounded leg, surely he should have reached the seventh floor by now? She listened for footsteps or the thud of his crutch from the hallway, but heard nothing. What was he doing?

  A small movement of the gun brought her whole attention back to the scene before her. ‘Anastasia made her own decisions,’ Mikkelsson insisted.

  ‘She would never have made that decision if you hadn’t turned her into a killer! She killed Augustine, but she wouldn’t have done it without your . . . your permission.’

  ‘I did not tell her to kill anyone!’ The ice was starting to melt, heat rising beneath.

  ‘No, but it was what you wanted, and she would do anything to please you! And I won’t let you do that to another child.’ She took hold of Macy.

  ‘What are you doing?’ demanded her husband.

  ‘Giving her back.’ She tried to pull the little girl out from Mikkelsson’s arm. Nina tensed, desperately afraid that if they struggled the gun would go off, but after another flare of surprised anger he let her go. Sarah lifted her away, holding her for a long moment as she turned towards Nina . . . then put her down. ‘Go to your mommy, darling,’ she whispered.

  Macy needed no prompting, running to her mother, who clutched her protectively. ‘Come on, honey,’ Nina said. ‘We’re going. Holly, you too.’

  Holly started towards her, but Mikkelsson stood. ‘No,’ he said. ‘You are not leaving.’

  ‘Fenrir, please,’ Sarah said. ‘Let’s just get out of here while we can—’

  As if in mocking denial, the warble of a rapidly approaching siren became audible from the street below. Nina knew at once what Eddie had been doing on his ascent: calling the police. But that still didn’t explain why he hadn’t yet reached her . . .

  The answer came from outside as a familiar bald head peered around the side of the windows. Rather than come into the room to face Mikkelsson directly, he had entered one of the adjoining offices and climbed out on to the scaffolding. She suppressed any reaction to the sight. If the Icelander turned, he would see him.

  ‘You can’t get away,’ she said, trying to keep all attention on her. She held Macy close so she wouldn’t see her father and give away his presence. ‘Holly, come towards me, slowly. Keep your eyes on me. Everything’s going to be okay.’ Outside, Eddie carefully sidestepped along the wooden boards, heading for the pane behind the Mikkelssons. He still had his crutch, but now held it under one arm like a lance, ready to use as a weapon.

  Nina glanced down. Most of the floor was in shadow, a higher building across the street blocking the sun, but Eddie would have to pass through a line of light angling diagonally across it. ‘The cops will be here any second,’ she said.

  ‘They will not arrive quickly enough to save you,’ Mikkelsson replied. He flicked his gun towards Holly, who stiffened in fear. ‘Stop there. I have no quarrel with you.’

  ‘Please don’t hurt anyone,’ the young woman sobbed, looking around. Nina stopped breathing. If her niece saw Eddie, her surprise would give his presence away—

  ‘Holly, look at me!’ she commanded. ‘Do what he says, stay still.’ To her relief, Holly faced her again. ‘Sarah, thank you for giving Macy back to me. Thank you so much. Please, convince him not to do something that’ll haunt her for the rest of her life.’

  ‘She’s right,’ Sarah said to Mikkelsson. ‘Fenrir, let’s go. Please?’ She reached out and placed a hand on top of the gun, gently pushing it downwards. ‘If you love me, if you loved Ana like you say you did, you won’t do this.’

  The Icelander’s expression remained unreadable, his unnerving gaze still fixed upon Nina. Then . . .

  ‘No,’ he said sharply.

  He shoved Sarah away, sending her staggering as he snapped the gun back up – only to glance down at the floor as a shadow flitted across it—

  The window behind him exploded.

  Eddie swung the crutch like an axe, smashing the glass and hurling himself through the opening. He landed on the crate, rolling off it to tackle the big man and slam him to the floor.

  Mikkelsson reflexively fired the gun as he fell. Sarah screamed as the bullet hit her leg. She collapsed. ‘Holly, take Macy!’ Nina yelled as her niece stared in petrified shock. ‘Run!’ Holly snapped into motion and grabbed the little girl, running with her thro
ugh the door as Nina rushed to help her husband.

  Eddie grappled with Mikkelsson. The crutch skittered away from them. The Yorkshireman managed to hook an arm around his opponent’s neck and squeezed hard, trying to choke him. Mikkelsson drove an elbow into his side, then twisted to point the gun over his shoulder at Eddie’s face. Eddie gripped his wrist and pushed it away as he fired.

  The gunshot deafened him, all sounds replaced by a shrill, dizzying ring. Mikkelsson was little better off, but still delivered another blow to the other man’s injured ribs. Eddie convulsed in pain. Mikkelsson strained and his raw strength overcame his adversary’s grip. He pulled free—

  Nina swung the crutch like a baseball bat. Its padded end smacked the gun from his hand. It spun away and hit the broken window’s frame, landing on the edge of the boards outside. The siren’s howl cut off below as an NYPD patrol car skidded to a stop outside the building.

  She tried to send a second strike at Mikkelsson’s head, but he kicked her legs out from under her. She fell, her head cracking painfully against the floor. The holdall swam across her blurry vision.

  Behind it, Mikkelsson pulled himself up on the crate.

  Eddie tried to drag him back down, but the other man lashed out, hitting his bullet wound. The Englishman screamed. Mikkelsson scrambled to the broken window, about to climb through and use the scaffolding to escape—

  He saw the gun.

  Kicking out the remaining shards of glass, the Icelander ducked on to the scaffold and bent to snatch up the weapon. He turned to kill the couple—

  Nina grabbed the holdall containing the Crucible – and threw it at him. ‘Don’t leave this behind!’

  It hit him in the stomach. He stumbled backwards . . . and slipped over the edge.

  Mikkelsson snatched at a scaffolding pole as he toppled, but missed. He plunged shrieking towards the ground, the Crucible falling with him—

  He landed on the police car. Its roof imploded beneath him, the windows bursting apart and showering the street with glass. People on the sidewalk yelled and ran from the glittering hailstorm.

  The holdall hit the kerb beside the car with a bang, the crystalline sphere inside it shattering into thousands of glassy fragments.

  The Crucible – the Atlantean artefact that had forged the lost civilisation’s supplies of gold, that had driven Talonor’s journeys across the world to find another natural nuclear reactor, that had caused an untold number of deaths as men and women were overcome by greed for what it could produce – had been destroyed.

  Seven floors above, Nina stared at the empty space beyond the window, then went to assist her husband. ‘It’s okay, I’ve got you.’

  He put a hand to one ear. ‘What?’ he replied loudly.

  ‘I said I’ve got you!’

  ‘All right, no need to shout! Jesus, my ears hurt. What happened, where’s—’ He regarded the window, then looked back at Nina. ‘You got him?’

  ‘Unless he sprouted wings on the way down, yeah.’ She helped him up, and they both peered at the street below. ‘Oh my God, he’s still alive!’ A weakly moving figure was splayed across the crushed roof of the police car, embedded in the metal.

  ‘Don’t think he’ll be making a run for it,’ Eddie rumbled. One of the Icelander’s legs had acquired an extra joint halfway down the shin. ‘What about Macy – where’s Macy?’ he barked in sudden alarm.

  ‘With Holly.’ Nina retrieved his crutch, sparing a moment to glance at Sarah, who was moaning as she clutched her leg. The bullet wound was bloody, but not actually gushing; no major arteries had been torn. ‘Keep your hand pressed on it; there’ll be an ambulance here soon,’ she told her.

  Eddie’s accumulated injuries barely slowed him as he hobbled determinedly from the room. ‘Macy!’ he called. ‘Holly, where are you? Macy!’

  ‘We’re down here!’ came a frantic voice from the stairwell. The couple hurriedly descended, finding Holly with their daughter halfway down. Both were crying.

  ‘We’re okay, we’re okay,’ Nina assured them. She took Macy and held her tightly. ‘We’re here now, we’re both here.’

  ‘Mommy!’ cried Macy, wrapping her arms around her mother.

  ‘What’s Daddy, chopped liver?’ said Eddie, managing a pained smile. He joined the huddle, embracing them both. ‘Jesus Christ, love, I’m so happy to see you.’

  Macy let out a little gasp. ‘Daddy! You swore!’

  ‘Get used to it, kid. I’m back.’ He gave Nina a look to let her know he was joking, then turned at the sound of someone running up the stairs.

  A pair of uniformed NYPD officers arrived. ‘You the guy who called Detective Martin?’ one asked Eddie.

  ‘Yeah,’ replied Eddie, adding to Nina at the mention of his friend on the force: ‘Thought it’d be quicker to tell Amy I needed help than go through 911 and have to explain everything.’ He looked back at the cops. ‘Our little girl’s fine, and we’re all okay. There’s a woman with a gunshot wound on the seventh floor; she’s one of the bad guys.’

  ‘There’s another bad guy?’ the second cop said.

  ‘You might want to go check on your car,’ Nina told them. ‘And I mean literally on your car. He went out the window. He’s still alive, though – and currently top of the international most-wanted list, so that should get you some brownie points for catching him.’

  The officers exchanged surprised glances, then one took out his radio and reported in as he continued upstairs at a run, the other clattering back down to ground level. Eddie let go of his wife and daughter to hold Holly. ‘You all right?’

  ‘I’m fine,’ she said, trying not to cry. ‘Oh God! I was so scared. When did babysitting become so dangerous?’

  ‘Welcome to our world,’ said Nina.

  ‘No offence, but you might want to find someone else in future.’

  ‘We won’t be needing anyone. Not any more.’ She nuzzled her daughter. ‘It’s okay, Macy, everything’s okay.’

  ‘Are you sure, Mommy?’ Macy asked.

  She looked at Eddie, who smiled. ‘Yeah, I’m sure, honey. Come on. Let’s go home.’

  Epilogue

  One Month Later

  Nina strolled through the idyllic calm of Central Park’s Shakespeare Garden. It was a beautiful spring morning, the sun climbing in a clear sky and casting a warm light over the carefully maintained flora.

  She was in a mood to match the day. Everything had returned to normal – at least, as normal as anything could be in a household containing a three-year-old – and both she and Eddie were well on their way to recovering from the physical wounds of their recent trials.

  The mental wounds were another matter, but while her husband preferred to deal with them simply by spending time with Macy, she had her own form of therapy. A third book was already well under way, and she had been approached to produce – or even present – a television documentary series about her archaeological discoveries, an offer that was extremely tempting as it would let her correct the fictionalisations of Hollywood. As for The Hunt for Atlantis itself, whatever her personal opinions of the movie, it had been a box-office hit. A sequel had already been green-lit, meaning she was due another payment from Grant Thorn’s production company. She and her family would be financially secure for some time.

  All without the need for anything from the Midas Legacy.

  She rounded a bend in the path to see Olivia on a bench ahead. Her grandmother waved. ‘Nina, hello!’ she said. ‘I’m so happy to see you.’

  ‘Hi,’ Nina replied, sitting beside her. ‘Are you okay?’

  ‘I’m as fully recovered as anyone my age can hope to be, yes. Thank you. And you?’

  ‘All’s good, thanks. Eddie and Macy are both fine. I’ve taken her to see a specialist a few times, but she doesn’t seem to have suffered any trauma.
Thank God.’

  ‘Thank God,’ Olivia echoed. ‘I’m very sorry.’

  ‘For what?’

  ‘For everything that happened. If I’d simply been honest with you from the start . . .’

  ‘What’s past is past,’ said Nina, not wanting to reopen that line of discussion – or argument. Instead, she leaned back, admiring her surroundings. ‘You picked a nice place to meet,’ she said meaningfully.

  ‘Yes, I’d hoped you would know it.’

  ‘Of course.’ It was the setting for the photograph they both possessed of Olivia and her daughter. ‘Was that really the last photo of you and Mom together?’

  ‘It was,’ Olivia said, a little sadly. ‘She went travelling in Europe with a friend over the summer to help her get through losing her father, then started at university that fall, so I saw much less of her. And then, well . . .’

  ‘She met Dad.’

  ‘And my arrogance, my pride, ruined everything.’ She sighed. ‘I miss her so much, Nina. I still do, even after all this time. I wish I could go back and change things, or even just see her one more time, but . . . as you said, what’s past is past. “The moving finger writes, and having writ, moves on: nor all thy piety nor wit shall move it back to cancel half a line, nor all thy tears wash out a word of it.”’

  ‘Omar Khayyam,’ said Nina, recognising the words of the Persian poet. ‘But considering where we are, maybe Lady Macbeth’s “Things without all remedy should be without regard: what’s done, is done” might have been more appropriate.’

  Olivia nodded. ‘Your parents made sure you had a good education.’

  ‘They taught me more than I ever learned in school.’

  ‘I’m glad. I hope you and Eddie do the same for Macy.’

  ‘We will. Although,’ a wry smile, ‘I’m not sure I want to know what he’ll teach her.’

  ‘How to survive everything the world will throw at her,’ said Olivia, with surprising assurance. ‘Though I have no doubt that you’ll do your share in that regard as well. She’s a wonderful girl, very bright, very determined. With you two to set her on the path, she’ll go far.’ Another sigh, this one almost mournful. ‘I just wish I could be there to see it.’