T yler hung up the phone as he and Stacy exited the hotel.
“Grant says we’re a go,” he said. They were both dressed in shorts, with Tyler in a T-shirt and Stacy in a tank top. He noticed a tattoo of two small Chinese symbols on her shoulder. “What does that mean?”
She pulled her shoulder forward to look at it and said, “A promise I made to myself when I was a teenager itching to get off the farm. It means ‘adventure.’ I guess I found it.”
“I like it.” Tyler lifted the sleeve of his T-shirt to reveal his own tattoo: a castle with a sword through it. “That was my battalion’s insignia. It was a popular tat in the unit, so I decided, what the hell? Grant has the same one on his arm.”
Tyler watched as she traced the outline with her finger and nodded in appreciation. The intimate moment lingered until he lightly cleared his throat.
“You ready?” he asked her, putting his helmet on.
“Hell, yeah,” she said, donning her own helmet. “I love motorcycles.”
Tyler started the second of the two BMW motorcycles that he and Grant had rented. It would be much easier to zip around in the dense Athens traffic with it.
While Grant was scouting the museum, Tyler and Stacy had called various stores looking for the supplies he’d need. Since Tyler didn’t speak Greek, Stacy had done all the talking. It had taken almost an hour to find a paint-ball store and an electronics store that sold what they required.
Armed with the addresses on his phone, Tyler would drive while Stacy navigated. He gave her the backpack to wear.
Stacy hopped on the back of the BMW and pressed herself against Tyler, wrapping one arm around his waist.
“Just tell me where to turn,” he said, and roared off.
In twenty minutes, they were in the western part of the city. Even though Tyler had looked at the map before they left, he felt disoriented. He couldn’t even pronounce the words on the signs.
Stacy pointed to a store on the right. This sign he didn’t need to read. It had a picture of a paintball splatting against a stylized figure, so he knew they’d arrived at the first location.
He pulled to a stop, and they dismounted. Stacy removed her helmet and shook out her hair, her blond tresses bouncing back and forth. Just a hint of perspiration glistened on her neck, and her tank top and shorts revealed her toned form.
He eyed her until she said, “Undressing me with your eyes?”
Tyler felt blood rush to his face. “No, actually I was trying to dress you.”
“I’ve never heard that one before.”
“It just occurred to me that no clerk in his right mind would forget you.”
“Why, thank you.”
“I’m not objecting to how you look, but we don’t want someone making that connection between this sale and what goes on later. So just pay in cash and get out as fast as you can.”
Tyler took the backpack from her and pulled out his Mariners cap.
“Hold still,” he said. He took off her sunglasses and gathered up her hair until it was piled on top of her head. She kept her eyes on him as he tried not to tug on her hair. She didn’t help, amused at his struggle.
Holding her hair in place with one hand, he plopped the cap on, then put the sunglasses back on her. “Don’t take them off inside.”
“That was very gentle of you,” she said.
Tyler flushed again. “When you work with bombs, you have to have a light touch.”
“Is that right?” She tilted her glasses down.
“You getting saucy with me?” he asked.
“Twelve near-death experiences in three days make you appreciate life.”
“We’ll try to minimize those from now on. You know what we need in there?”
Stacy nodded. “A flameless electric-ignition smoke grenade. It’s not a phrase I learned studying ancient Greek, but I’ll get the point across.”
“Great. And make sure it’s the half-million-cubic-foot model.”
“I’ll get two, just in case.”
“Good. And buy other supplies with it. Doesn’t matter what, but make the smoke grenades seem like an afterthought.”
“No sweat. Be right back.”
Tyler waited by the motorcycle. Stacy came back out five minutes later.
“Any problems?” he asked.
“Piece of cake.” She opened the bag. “Is this what you wanted?”
He looked inside the bag and saw the two grenades. He couldn’t read the writing, but they were the right dimensions. She’d also bought two bags of paintball ammunition and a generic black baseball cap.
“That’s them,” he said.
“The hat’s for you, since I took your Mariners cap.”
Stacy stuffed the bag into the backpack and took off the sunglasses. Her smile was gone.
“You sure you want to go through with this?” she said.
“You mean at the museum?”
“I mean, the possibility of you spending ten years in a Greek prison if you get caught.”
“Believe me, I wish there was another way. I like my freedom as much as the next guy.”
“But don’t you think this is insane?”
“Absolutely. I also think it’s insane that someone kidnapped my father and your sister to force us to find a treasure map created by Archimedes so that this criminal can find the Midas Touch. But if Orr really has nuclear material for a dirty bomb, we have to do everything we can to stop him.”
Stacy considered that. “Why do you think Orr would want a dirty bomb?”
“Who knows? Maybe it’s his backup plan. If I don’t go along with him, he threatens to detonate the bomb. Or if he can’t find the Midas vault and get rich that way, maybe he’ll blackmail the US with the nuke.”
“Or maybe the two aren’t linked at all.”
Tyler shook his head. “I’m sure to Orr they are. He has some kind of plan, but I have no idea what it is.”
“And you’re sure Sr-90 means strontium?”
“No, but my father is an expert in WMDs. If that’s what he was trying to tell me, he’d know we’d connect the dots when we looked it up.”
Stacy peered at him for a few seconds, and then smiled.
“Then we better go get this remote igniter that you need,” she said as she put on her helmet.
Tyler did the same. “Sounds good to me.”
Stacy gave him the backpack and held out her hand.
“What?” Tyler said.
“The keys, please.” She winked and flipped down the visor. “It’s my turn to drive.”