"You can get out," she said in that same expressionless voice. "But don't even think of running anywhere."
She can't stop both of us, Amy thought. Maybe I could distract her and Dan could make a run for it. ...
Amy got out of the car and looked around. Moore Town wasn't like any town she had ever seen before. The houses hopscotched to either side of a dirt track that led up the mountainside. Some were painted in tropical colors--blue, pink, lemon yellow--faded but still cheerful. The mountains beyond were draped in a blue-gray mist that blurred their edges.
Dan walked around the car and stood next to her. "What now?" he asked anxiously.
"That's up to you."
The voice had come from behind them. Soft, raspy ... As Amy turned around, she grabbed Dan's hand, knowing exactly who she would see.
The man in black.
Who was dressed all in gray now.
Amy stood paralyzed. She saw that he was holding a familiar canvas-wrapped parcel.
The box.
Nellie had given it to the man in black.
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CHAPTER 20
* * *
"NOOOOO!"
Dan wrenched his hand out of Amy's and launched himself forward. His rage was palpable. Amy knew there was no way he was going to allow the box--Lester's box--to remain in the hands of the enemy.
For an old guy, the man proved surprisingly agile. He sidestepped Dan's charge and thrust out his foot. Dan tripped and ended up sprawled in the dirt.
Amy rushed to his side.
He looked up at her wildly. "We can take them--you go for Nellie and I'll--"
"Oh, please," the man in gray said. "And then what--run to escape us? Exactly where do you plan on running to?"
In desperation, Amy realized he was right. He had probably chosen this location for exactly that reason. It was miles away from anywhere safe, and Dan was surely still too weak to run very far.
"Perhaps you should hear me out instead," the man
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said. "Shall we go somewhere more comfortable where we can talk?"
"You tried to kill us!" Dan shouted. "In Austria! Why would we ever sit down with a murderer?"
The man looked surprised. "You have misunderstood. Forgivable, given that you do not have all the facts. I'm afraid I must insist on our sitting down together. I am alone at the moment, but I have help nearby." He held up a cell phone. "I assume you would rather talk to me than to some of my less genteel colleagues."
The threat could not have been any clearer.
They sat under an awning at the side of one of the buildings, a combination bar and general store. Nellie took the box and locked it in the car. Then, oddly, she did not sit down with them but went to stand by the side of the road.
Amy and Dan sat next to each other, opposite their adversary.
"Do you know about Moore Town?" the man asked.
Amy had already decided not to say one word more than necessary to him. Neither she nor Dan replied. It was apparently a rhetorical question anyway; the man continued speaking, unfazed by their lack of response.
"It was one of the original settlements of the Windward Maroons," he said. "Another was Nanny
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Town, named, of course, for The Right Excellent Nanny."
Amy shivered. It seemed that he already knew about their Nanny investigations. Of course. Nellie must have told him.
Nellie must have told him everything.
"It was both her home and her base of operations," he continued. "I wish Nanny Town could have been our meeting place, but it's been abandoned for many years now."
He took a sip of his drink. "The bridge you crossed over is the only access to the town," he said. "The Maroons were very clever; all of their settlements had only one point of entry. It made the towns easy to guard. Just a few Maroons could hold off much larger numbers of British troops. Nanny Town had a similar defense; it was on a high spur overlooking a river."
Amy glanced at Nellie, whose back was to them. Nellie seemed to be watching the road back toward the bridge.
The man followed her gaze. "Yes, that's right," he said. "She's standing guard. With her there, no one can sneak up on us, because the only way into Moore Town is along that road."
"Not interested in a geography lesson from someone who tried to kill us," Dan snapped.
That was the only good thing about the mess they were in: Dan's anger had made him much more himself.
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The man inclined his head. "But of course. Your impatience is understandable."
He interlaced his fingers and put his hands on the table in front of him.
"The first thing I should tell you is that I am speaking to you on behalf of the Madrigals."
Amy nudged Dan under the table. She could feel his anger seething. Stay calm, she tried to tell him telepathically. Focus. We have to find a way to get that box back and then get out of here. ...
"The Madrigals have been following your progress with great interest," the man said. "They are quite impressed. I have been charged with the task of discovering how you perform on a particular task they have set for you."
"We're not doing anything for them!" Amy burst out.
The man shrugged. "Fine. But I must tell you the consequences for not cooperating. Without going into too much detail, you should know that we are holding your other companion."
"Our other--?" Amy stopped, aghast.
Saladin! She had been so exhausted at the hotel the night before, she hadn't even noticed that the cat wasn't there.
"You--you better not--you just leave him alone!" Dan could barely get the words out.
"Wh-what have you done to him?" Amy's voice quavered. She didn't even want to imagine what they
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might do to Saladin. ... Who were these people who would threaten a poor innocent cat?
"Why, nothing," the man said. "He's perfectly fine. And will continue to be, so long as you cooperate. It's quite simple: All you have to do is get the box to open."
"I want your word on something," Dan said. Amy could tell from his voice that he was still struggling to suppress his fury.
"You're hardly in a position to negotiate."
"You're wrong about that. You want us to do this. If you didn't, you'd just do it yourselves. So I want something in return."
The man said nothing.
Dan went on. "Once you get your precious little secret out of the box, I want it back. The box--and Saladin."
The man shrugged. "I believe that can be arranged."
"I want your word on it," Dan said doggedly. He looked at the man with an expression of disdain. "That is, if your word is any good," he added spitefully.
The man winced, then held up his hand.
"You have my word," he said with a bow of his head. When he glanced up at Dan, Amy was startled to see a look of--could it be respect? Or maybe even pride?--in his eyes. Only for the merest second, though; maybe she had imagined it.
"If you're finished," she said coldly, "we'd like to get started."
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"Miss Gomez?"
Nellie trotted back from her sentry position.
Like his lapdog, Amy thought in disgust.
But beneath that disdainful thought, she could still feel a deep ocean of sorrow over Nellie's betrayal.
"Please retrieve the box," he said, "and then you and I will be leaving these two in peace to attempt the completion of their task."
"What?" Nellie frowned.
"I believe you heard me quite clearly."
"No!" Nellie shouted. "That was not part of the deal--you said I could help them!"
Amy's heart leaped in her chest. Could Nellie be--a triple-crosser? Amy tried to quash the thought; she couldn't bear to get her hopes up only to have them crushed again.
"The deal, Miss Gomez, is whatever we say it is."
Nellie narrowed her eyes. "You think?" She ran to the car, opened the door, and held up the keys.
/> "If you don't let me help them," she yelled, "I'll drive off right this minute. With the box."
The man in gray seemed unperturbed. "How long do you think it would take us to track you down?"
"Long enough for me to give the box to the Kabras," she shot back.
A flicker of unease crossed the man's face, but in the
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next moment he was back in control. "Now, now," he said. "No need to be hasty about this."
"I mean it!" she yelled. "Just try me!"
The man held up his hands. "Calm down, please," he said, then shrugged. "You may remain with them if that is your desire."
"You got that right," Nellie muttered. She stalked back to the table.
Amy stared at her.
What's going on?
One way or another, they were about to find out.
Nellie removed her nose ring and got out Miss Alice's matching snake. Amy put her dragon necklace and the wolf fang side by side in front of her. Dan took the bear claw off its chain.
"You'll need these," the man said, and produced a small pair of pliers.
Nellie used them to snip the post off her nose ring and Miss Alice's earring. She passed the pliers to Dan, who clipped the hanging ball from the claw.
Amy took up the pliers. She hesitated for only a moment before cutting the dragon medallion free from Grace's necklace.
The man unwrapped the carved box and handed it to Nellie. She fitted the snakes into place on one side.
Dan did the same with the bear claw.
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Then Amy put the fang on the third side of the box. She picked up the dragon medallion and held her breath.
The dragon snapped into place neatly.
The box did not open. Amy let out her breath. Of course not, she thought. It's not magic, for heaven's sake.
She tried opening it the way you would a normal box.
No luck.
"Here, let me try," Dan said eagerly. He worked his way around all four sides trying to open it; he even turned it upside down.
Still no good.
The man in gray was watching them, leaning back in his chair a little with his arms crossed. He had donned sunglasses; Amy couldn't see his expression.
Nellie took a turn, too. For the moment, Amy had decided to stop wondering whose side Nellie was on; right now she and Dan needed all the help they could get.
They went around one more time. Amy tried opening the side panels, then sliding the top instead of lifting it.
Nothing.
The man in gray stood. "It appears that you have failed," he said, and reached for the box.
Dan snatched it up and put it behind his back. He glared at the man so ferociously that Amy almost shivered. She'd never seen him look like that before; she
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didn't know what would happen if the man tried to take the box away from Dan.
"Please," she said in desperation, "can't we have just a little more time? We have the icons, they all fit, we just have to figure out ..." Her voice trailed off.
The man walked away a few steps. He took out a cell phone, dialed a number, and spoke quickly. Then he turned and looked at them.
"It is now five minutes past twelve," he announced. "You have exactly one hour. If the box is not open by one-oh-five, you will have failed. Is that understood?"
Amy nodded.
"Young man?"
Dan was still glaring, but he nodded, too.
"I will be back in"--the man glanced at his watch--"fifty-nine minutes." He paused. "Remember, all sides of this are really one, and you need us to succeed."
The man walked away, leaving them with the box.
Forty minutes later, Nellie looked at Amy helplessly. Amy was near tears, and nothing Nellie could say would comfort her.
They had tried everything. They had taken the icons out and put them back in again, in every possible order. They had put all four icons in at the same time. They had stood the box on each of its four sides; they'd tried
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having two people push on different parts of the box at the same time. They had tapped and poked and prodded every square centimeter of it. Nothing worked.
Amy's head was bowed in a vain attempt to hide her weeping. Sweat was running down Dan's face as he examined the box yet again.
Nellie felt like her head was about to burst. There had to be some way she could help. ...
"Think!" she said. "We must have forgotten something. Think back to the very start--to the Bahamas."
Amy lifted her head a little. "The bear claw," she said. "That was the Bahamas."
Dan stopped fiddling with the box and looked up, too. "After that we came here--to Jamaica--and we found Miss Alice's snake."
Clearly, it was making them feel a little better to focus on something other than the box. "Then what?" Nellie encouraged them.
"Then you called your dad," Amy said, "and--"
"THE RIGHT EXCELLENT NANNY!" Dan shouted. "The gold strip from the horn!"
Amy was already digging into her backpack. She took out the little piece of metal, which had been carefully wrapped in a piece of paper.
Nellie saw her frown almost immediately.
"It doesn't fit," Amy said. "Look. It's longer than any of the sides."
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"What about diagonally?" Dan suggested. "Still too long."
"Maybe it's supposed to be bent," Nellie said. "But how?" Amy asked.
Nellie's heart sank. Amy was right; there were probably about a million ways the strip could be bent. They'd never figure it out in time.
"This has to be it, this HAS to be it," Dan kept saying.
"Let me see it," Nellie said. "The strip, I mean."
She inspected it closely. Those tiny letters ...
ektomaluja ektomaluja ektomaluja ektomaluja
"Why would it have lettering on both sides?" she asked. "I mean, if it fits into the box like the other pieces, there should be a 'right side' and a 'wrong side.' But there isn't. Both sides are the same."
Dan and Amy bent over the strip in Nellie's hand. Then Amy gasped. She dived into her backpack again and took out her notepad.
"I thought about this once before and then I forgot about it," she said. "Look."
She showed them the page where she'd written down the mystery word:
EKTOMALUJA EK - Ekaterina TOMA - Tomas LU - Lucia n JA - Janus
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"I wondered why Tomas got four letters when all the others had only two," she said. "It's because it's not T-O-M-A for Tomas." She scribbled furiously, then showed them the page again.
EK - Ekaterina TO - Tomas MA - MADRIGAL LU - Lucian JA - Janus
"Brilliant!" Dan shouted.
Nellie closed her eyes in concentration. "Remember what he said when he left? Something about how we needed them to succeed. The Madrigals."
"The four branches, one icon on each side of the box," Amy said. "Madrigals, in the middle of the code word ... Madrigals in the middle somehow ..."
Dan was frowning fiercely. He looked at Nellie. "What did you say before? You said something--I'm trying to remember--"
"About the man in black? I mean, gray?"
"No. Before that."
Nellie thought for a moment. "Oh, I remember. I was asking why the letters are on both sides."
She saw Dan go very still; she could almost hear the effort his brain was making.
"The lettering is raised," he said, "and on both sides.
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That means the letters fit--somewhere we can't see. Give me that strip."
Nellie watched as Dan fashioned the strip into a circle by joining the ends.
"See?" he said. "It could go like this, edgewise, not flat, and if you put it in exactly the right place--"
The three of them nearly cracked heads as they bent to examine the box again.
"It has to be the top," Amy said excitedly. "It's not any one of the four sides, so the top is like the middle."
It was Dan who found it: a narrow slit in the carvings on the top of the box. The slit was shaped like a loop, a rough oval into which the strip would fit.
Except that it didn't. The strip almost fit, but not quite. No matter how they positioned it, shifting it a tiny bit at a time, it wouldn't slide into the slit.
Nellie let out a moan of frustration. She took out her cell phone to check the time.
"It's one-oh-two," she said urgently. "He'll be back any minute now."
"There was something else," Amy said suddenly. "He said something else before he left. Besides the part about us needing the Madrigals."
"He said"--Dan narrowed his eyes in concentration--"he said to remember that all sides are really one."
"All sides are one," Amy whispered. "All sides are one. ..."
There was a moment of complete silence.
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Then Amy smiled. It was, Nellie thought, a radiant smile--there was no other word for it.
"Mobius strip," she said.
"What kind of trip?" Dan said.
"Not trip, strip," she said. "Mobius strip. It's a geometric shape that has only one side."
She took up the piece of gold and formed it into a loop again. But before joining the ends, she put a half twist into it. It now formed a wobbly ovalish shape.
"Look," she said. "If I were to put my pencil point here and trace a line down the middle of the strip, I could go all the way around until I came right back to where I started. And the line would show up on both sides, without me ever lifting my pencil. Which proves that it really has only one side."
"I don't get it," Nellie said.
"I'll show you again later," Amy said. "It works better with a strip of paper."
"FORGET IT!" Dan said. "Just see if it fits that way!"
"Okay, okay," Amy said.
Nellie could tell that Amy wasn't in any hurry now. She looked utterly calm and supremely confident.
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