The Midas Code

“Don’t worry. That’s not what it’s for. We just need you out for a few hours while we take care of some other business.”

“What do you want?”

“We need your sister to do something for us,” Wilson said.

“What have you done to Stacy?” Carol said, slurring out the S in Stacy. She couldn’t keep her eyes open any longer and rested her head on the floor.

“Nothing. She’s going to be more worried about what we’re going to do to you if she doesn’t cooperate. Or if she isn’t able to…”

Wilson kept talking, but Carol’s eyes could focus no longer, and darkness swept her to oblivion.

TWO

Answer your phone, Dr. Locke. You don’t have much time left.

T yler Locke peered at the text message and tried to decide whether it was a joke or some kind of marketing gimmick. He was ten minutes into his one-hour ferry commute to Bremerton, and three times his cell phone had rung with an unknown number. Tyler had ignored the calls, but the text message came soon after, again from an unknown number. The only people who had his cell number were in the phone’s contact list. As a rule, he didn’t answer calls from numbers he didn’t know, figuring that if it was important the caller would leave a voice mail. So far, no new messages.

The boat was only half full, so Tyler had the bench to himself, with his long legs propped up on the facing seat. Any other morning, his best friend, Grant Westfield, would be next to him playing games on his phone, but Grant was planning to beat the afternoon rush hour for a long weekend in Vancouver, so he’d taken an earlier ferry. They’d been making the trip from Seattle to Bremerton three days a week for two months to consult on the construction of a new ammunition depot at the naval base.

The phone rang again. Same number. Tyler drank his coffee and looked out at the receding Seattle skyline. It was eight-forty in the morning, and even though it was June sixteenth the sun was nowhere to be seen. Low clouds and drizzle made it a typical “June-uary” day, as the locals called the cool, overcast weather that usually preceded a sunny July.

Couldn’t be a cold call, Tyler concluded. A telemarketer wouldn’t call him Dr. Locke. Tyler wasn’t an MD. He had a PhD, and the only time anyone called him doctor was on one of his consulting gigs. None of his co-workers used the honorific unless they were making fun of him.

The call might be work-related, but he had fifty emails to plow through before he reached Bremerton, and he didn’t want to be sucked into a long conversation. He again let voice mail handle it and put the phone away. Eventually, the caller would get the hint to leave a message.

A minute after he began working on his laptop again, the phone beeped with another text message. Tyler sighed and pulled the phone from his pocket.

Dr. Locke, unless you answer my call you will be dead in twenty-eight minutes.

Tyler had to read the message three times to believe what he was seeing. He closed his laptop and sat up straight, taking his feet off the seat. He slowly scanned the passengers around him, but no one seemed at all interested in him.

The phone rang. Same number.

Tyler tapped the screen and said, “Who is this?”

“This is the person who is going to kill everyone on that ferry if you don’t do what I say.”

Tyler couldn’t detect an accent in the gravelly voice on the other end. “Why don’t I just hang up on you and call the police?” he said. “Should make your day when the FBI drops by.”

“You could do that, but what would you tell them? My number? It’s a prepaid phone bought with cash. Believe me, I’ve thought this through.”

For a moment, Tyler considered doing just what he’d threatened: hanging up and calling the cops. But the man was right. He had little to tell them.

“What’s this about?” Tyler said.

“It’s about you, Dr. Locke. Actually, that sounds pretentious. I’ll just call you Locke.”

“This is ridiculous.”

“It may seem like that now, but it won’t in a few minutes.”

Tyler paused. “Why are you calling me?”

“Because you’re exactly who I need. Bachelor’s degree from MIT in mechanical engineering. PhD from Stanford. Former Army captain in a combat-engineering battalion, which makes you an expert in demolitions and bomb disposal. Now chief of special operations at Gordian Engineering. And all of that before you’re forty. You know, you sound very good on paper.”

“So you know who I am. I should take all of this seriously because

…?”

“Because I just emailed you a couple of pictures that show how serious your situation is. I know the ferry has Wi-Fi. Take a look at them. I’ll wait. Better hurry, though.”

With the phone propped in one hand, Tyler reluctantly opened his laptop and checked his in box.

One new message from an email address he didn’t recognize. The subject line read 27 minutes left.

Tyler opened the message. The body of the email had no text, just two images.

The first showed a two-axle truck with the name SILVERLAKE TRANSPORT on the side.