I slid my smart-goggles on and gave them an order. “Perimeter security cameras.”
The lenses showed a live video of the hutong, which was now filled with mercenaries. It wouldn’t be long until they worked out where we really were.
“I’m with Mum on this one,” I said.
Pan swore at me and turned back to the holosphere. Her hands sped around the glass screen, tapping keys and turning hologram dials. The projections spun in the air, separating into sections that rotated in different directions. It was like someone doing three Rubik’s Cubes at the same time.
“Wait,” she called. “I’ve got something. A single word repeats on all the tablets.”
Dad rushed to see. “What word?”
Pan extracted a section of one of the holograms, a sliver of light. “Here,” she breathed. “This is it.”
“Run it through a linguistic analysis programme,” Dad said.
Mum pulled a rug away from the floor, revealing an iron hatch. She yanked it open and began dropping duffel bags into the underground tunnel.
“John,” she called, “set the charges for two minutes. We can’t let them get that information.”
“I need more time,” Pan protested.
“We have to go right now,” Mum insisted.
Dad typed into the screen beside Pan and a flashing red dot projected from the glass. He’d set a self-destruct timer to delete the information stored in the holosphere. In two minutes all of our research would be gone. We needed to be too.
“Jake,” Mum called. “Where are they?”
My goggles showed eight mercenaries by the entrance. “Right outside,” I replied. “They’re being cautious, but they know we’re here.”
“The translation is so close,” Pan groaned.
“So are the bad guys, Pan!”
I tried to pull her away, but she shrugged me off. Her eyes glowed with the light from the word she’d extracted from the tablets, which was now a high-speed scroll of characters from ancient languages.
“Look, it’s working!”
Even Mum couldn’t stop herself from looking as one of the symbols stopped spinning and settled on a single character.
“It looks like a six-letter word,” Pan said. “The first is a K.”
The red light flashed brighter. “Thirty seconds until charges detonate,” Dad warned. “Get away from the screen; the whole thing’s going to blow.”
“Twenty seconds,” Pan hissed. “That’s all it needs…”
“The mercenaries are in the courtyard,” I gasped.
“Let’s go!” Mum demanded.
“Ten seconds…”
“Our time is up, Pandora.”
“There! Look!”
The translation was complete. A single word hung in the air, turning and twisting, making it hard to read.
“It says … Kailas,” Pan said. “OK, now let’s go.”
We raced to follow Mum and Dad through the hatch, but all their urgency had suddenly vanished. They stood staring at the word spinning above the holosphere, as if a ghost had risen from the screen.
Mum touched the amulet around her neck.
“Kailas,” she whispered.
That word meant something to my parents, but there was no time to ask because right then four things happened. The charges detonated in a chaos of electricity, a lightning storm across the holosphere. At the same time one of the windows smashed, an energy pulse grenade flew through the broken glass and ten mercenaries burst into the room.
We didn’t see the explosion – by then Dad had slammed the hatch and bolted it from the inside – but we heard it, and felt the tunnel walls tremble, as we fled together through the underground darkness. All of our information had just been destroyed, and all we had to show for it was a single word.
And I really needed a wee.
6
“No trace at all?”
The mission report trembled in the mercenary’s grip. He scanned it again, as if he might somehow locate the Atlas family among its densely typed notes.
“Unfortunately not, Councillor,” he said, in a voice as unsteady as his hands. “They believe the boy alerted his family. Apparently he followed them as they approached the hideout.”
“He followed them?”
“Apparently.”
Marjorie breathed in deeply, held her breath, and let it go. It was a calming technique she had learned from Jake Atlas, but it didn’t work.
“The team that raided the family’s headquarters,” she said. “They were, I was assured, among the best surveillance squads in any military.”
“I…”
“And yet they were undone by a twelve-year-old boy.”
“I… He is a very gifted—”
“Very gifted, yes I know. But he hasn’t served in the military. He wasn’t part of the protection unit for a United States president, or an intelligence officer with Mossad. Or was he, this twelve-year-old boy?”
“No. None of those things, ma’am.”
“No. None of those things. Yet still the family escaped.”
“The council are gathered, ma’am. They wish to speak with you.”
“Of course they do.”
The mercenary took this as his cue to scuttle off, whimpering with relief.
Marjorie stepped up to the headquarters’ only window, a sliver of bombproof glass with a view across Paris to the Sacré-Cœur, a space rocket-shaped basilica that soared above the patchwork rooftops. The council were waiting. Well, let them wait. Too often they whistled and she came running.
Music began to play in her head, as deep and rich as if she stood beside her record player. It was an aria from Puccini’s La Bohème, the tragic tale of the Parisian seamstress and her lover. It played in her head almost every day. It haunted her. It was silly to think she could ever know love like that, but she had never known anything like that. This job was her whole life.
She looked down, only now realizing that her hand was clasped tightly around her brooch, the emerald symbol of the organization, the sign of a snake eating its own tail. Her work was the most precious thing in her life. She had sacrificed everything to serve the organization, but now the entire operation was on the verge of collapse. It shouldn’t have been that hard to locate nine emerald tablets, decipher their codes and discover where they led. The organization had unlimited authority and budget, guaranteed by a classified treaty of thirty-two nations. They had headquarters around the world, mercenaries to guard their secrets, and agreements with a dozen professional treasure hunters. All of the tablets should now be in their possession. They should be well on their way to unlocking their secrets.
But.
But, but, but.
The Atlas family had got involved.
Two treasure hunters past their prime – although still the best in the business – and two children with limited training, yet surprising natural skills. At first they had been a thorn, an annoyance that should have been plucked out. But they had survived ambushes, attacks, a plane crash, a flood. An entire mountain had fallen on them in Honduras. They had broken into her home and stolen highly classified information. They had been a step ahead of the organization for months.
It was that boy, Jake, who had caused the most trouble. It was hard not to admire his determination, and at times she had felt something almost like affection for him. But she also despised him. He had stood over her, gloating, as his family stole her files. He had even given her that nickname, the Snake Lady. Marjorie was aware that it was known among the organization, and that they snickered about it behind her back.
But maybe Jake wasn’t really to blame. Maybe she just wasn’t up to the responsibility the council had given her. Maybe that, ultimately, was why they were about to take it away.
She entered the council chamber and again found herself alone. The other eight members attending were in hologram form – black shapes, living shadows, standing around a table.
“Councillor number nine,” one of th
e shadows said. “Thank you for joining us.”
She recognized the sneering tone and overweight shadow. It was Lord Osthwait, a pompous British aristocrat whose only achievement was leading the operation to locate the first emerald tablet in Ethiopia. That was four years ago, and they had found four others since without his direct involvement, yet he still gloated about it at any opportunity. She had never seen the man in person – the council were never in the same place physically – but she detested him, and the feeling, she knew, was mutual.
“Quite some mess you have in Beijing,” the shadow figure said.
Bite your tongue. Watch your words. It had been tough enough convincing them to let her continue after the Atlas family had invaded her home, but she hadn’t been removed from the operation yet.
“It has been a difficult week,” she conceded.
Lord Osthwait’s shadow snorted. “Locating the Ethiopian tablet was difficult, but I achieved it, did I not?”
“You did. Some time ago.”
“This operation has not been difficult. It has been a shambles.”
“There remain positives.”
“We cannot find any.”
We. So they had met behind her back.
“We are in possession of five of the nine tablets,” Marjorie explained. “We hope to locate another one here in the Paris catacombs by the end of the month. We will have six in total, which is—”
“Councillor number three?” Lord Osthwait interrupted. “You are responsible for the finances of this organization. How much would you estimate has been spent so far on the operation to locate the emerald tablets?”
“Tens of billions,” came the reply.
“In what currency?”
“In any currency.”
“Tens of billions,” Lord Osthwait repeated. “And yet we only have five of nine tablets. And how much, at a guess, would you estimate the Atlas family have spent so far in the course of their search?”
“A few thousand,” Councillor number three confirmed.
“A few thousand!”
He sounded surprised, but Marjorie knew this had already been discussed. It was a script, a trap.
“A few thousand against tens of billions,” Lord Osthwait continued. “And yet they have three of the tablets. Tell me, number nine, what exactly are the positives in that?”
“We expect them to come to Paris,” Marjorie replied. “This is the last remaining tablet.”
“You expect that, do you?”
Oh, God. She recognized that smug tone. They had new information.
“Is there something you need to tell me?” she asked.
“How much of your Beijing team’s report did you read, number nine?”
“I … I have yet to read the report fully. The family escaped. My focus has been in preparing for their possible arrival here in Paris.”
“Well, had you taken the time to read the report,” Lord Osthwait sneered, “you might be aware of the technology the Atlas family were using moments before their escape.”
Why hadn’t she looked? She’d been in such a rush that she’d forgotten to do her job.
“What technology?” she asked.
“A lexical analysis programme. Do you know why they might have been using such technology?”
“It is used for a high-level language decryption.”
“Precisely. They were attempting to decipher the emerald code, with just three of the tablets. Meanwhile, we have five and are yet to read a single sign. How is that possible?”
“We … are not the Atlas family.”
“More’s the pity.”
The councillors chuckled like witches around a cauldron. There was no point in saying much more: it was over. Marjorie closed her eyes, trying to listen to the aria in her head, the seamstress singing about her love, far away from this place and these people.
“We have to assume that the family succeeded with the decipherment,” Lord Osthwait continued. “And they have a clue to where the tablets lead, to the Hall of Records left behind by the lost civilization. So it seems that they know considerably more than we do. While we, with all of our tens of billions, know absolutely nothing. More than ever, the Atlas family must be stopped.”
“I will devise a plan to—”
“No.”
And, just like that, she was done.
This organization had taken everything from her. She had given them her whole life. She wanted to roar at them, to insist they’d have to forcibly remove her from this place. But when she finally opened her mouth, she couldn’t think of a single thing to say.
“I am assuming control of this operation,” Lord Osthwait continued, “by unanimous council consent. I am instigating an open hunt on the Atlas family, as I did to locate the Ethiopian tablet. Are you aware of the term ‘open hunt’?”
“I … I am.”
“It is very simple, really,” Lord Osthwait continued. “So far we have relied on our mercenaries to capture the Atlas family, and professional treasure hunters to search for the tablets. Now we will use the hunters to track the family. Four hours ago, every hunter on our books received the same communiqué: locate and catch the Atlas family. The reward is a quarter of a billion dollars for each family member, dead or alive.”
“But … you can’t.”
“We can’t? We have spent ten times that so far, and still they are ahead of us. Should we catch them, we shall have their clues to locating the Hall of Records. A billion dollars is a small price to pay for such a gain.”
She knew it made sense. Most treasure hunters were glorified thieves; there was little honour among them. They were skilled trackers, and stood a far better chance of finding the family than the organization’s mercenaries. Only, how would they know where to start looking?
“There was something else, wasn’t there,” she asked. “In the report?”
“Indeed,” Lord Osthwait confirmed. “The family were seen purchasing train tickets to Lhasa, in Tibet. Security footage shows them boarding the train in Beijing.”
“Tibet?” Marjorie said, thinking aloud.
Her mind raced, joining up dots, seeking information from mental files. Something occurred to her, something that might be very important to locating the family, but Lord Osthwait spoke first. He tried to sound professional, bored even, but he failed to hide the delight in his next words.
“I am sorry, Marjorie, but this is now a private council meeting. Would you please leave?”
7
Things were pretty tense for the next two days, even though all we did was sit on a train. We stayed together in our sleeper cabin, jumping every time the train jolted, and flinching at each shout from a steward.
“We need to calm down,” Dad insisted, although his knee was twitching in a way that suggested he wasn’t at all calm. The Snake Lady had tracked us to one spot in a city of twenty million people, so we had to assume she was still on our tail.
“Jake, you’re sure you destroyed our old passports?” Dad asked.
“Burned them all,” I replied.
“Jane, you have the new ones? And the travel visas?”
Mum tapped her rucksack, where she’d stashed our new identities. We often travelled under assumed names, with fake passports sent by our friend Sami, who built gadgets for our missions. We’d been the Brown family, the Von Dorns, the Davidsons… Over the past six months Mum had dyed her hair a dozen different colours, and Dad had worn wigs and different glasses, even a weird prosthetic nose. I used hoodies to hide my face, but Pan always refused to wear disguises. She moaned that she wore what she wore and if the bad guys didn’t like it, they could get stuffed.
Sometimes it’s hard to remember that my sister is a genius.
Mum had taken her lucky necklace off. She wound its chain around her hand and clutched its amulet in her palm. “We’re the Zolotaya family now,” she told us. “From Russia.”
“Wait.” Pan pulled a headphone from her ear. “We don’t speak Russian.”
<
br /> “Your father and I do,” Mum said.
I wasn’t surprised. I’d grown used to discovering new things about our parents – languages they spoke, vehicles they drove, weapons they could handle – skills they’d picked up long before me and Pan were born.
“Pandora,” Dad asked, “did you swap our train tickets?”
Pan nodded, shoving the headphone back in her ear. “Some American family is in our cabin, and we’re in theirs,” she said.
All Pan had to do at the station was find a target family, bump into whichever of them was holding their tickets, and drop ours too. The swap was made, big apologies all round.
We’d watched our backs, done everything right. We should have been relaxing. But still we sat on the edge of our bunks, knees twitching faster with every passing minute.
The train gathered speed, leaving the city and heading into the countryside. Outside, house lights grew fewer, and the night began to close in.
“We should get some sleep,” Mum suggested. “We have a forty-hour train ride ahead.”
“You think any of us can sleep?” Pan replied. “Where are we even going? And when are you going to tell us what that word from the tablet means?”
I tried to hide a grin. I’d wanted to ask that too, but I knew Pan would crack first.
“Kailas,” Pan said. “We know you know.”
Dad looked at Mum, and they had one of their wordless arguments: rolls of eyes, sighs and shrugs. I don’t think Mum planned to keep it a secret for ever, and the time had come to let us know.
Dad pulled out one of our duffel bags from under his bunk and brought out a glass rectangle the size of a smartphone. It was a mini holosphere, one of the few bits of kit we’d been able to save from the Beijing headquarters, other than our smart-goggles. He laid it on the table between the bunk beds, and tapped it in three specific spots. The device came to life, projecting a hologram keyboard onto which he started typing until the image changed to a map of China. Using a finger, he traced our path west across swathes of countryside.
“We are here now, leaving Beijing.”
I sat forward on the bed, following the route. It looked like we were travelling across all of China. Our destination was so far away that Dad had to scroll the map for several seconds to find it.
Jake Atlas and the Quest for the Crystal Mountain Page 3