Shatterproof

by Roland Smith

  A wave of dizziness washed over Evan, and he couldn’t quite figure out how to respond. He had never met Erasmus, but he’d e-mailed him dozens of times each day. He’d become very fond of him through their exchanges. From what everyone had told him, Erasmus was an awesome guy.

  “I’m so sorry,” Evan said. It sounded pitifully inadequate, but he didn’t know what else to say.

  “It was horrible,” Hamilton said, his deep voice cracking. “But I can’t think about it right now. Just before he died, Erasmus asked me to do a data dump.”

  “What kind of data dump?”

  “From three cell phones. Erasmus’s, Luna Amato’s, and Milos Vanek’s.”

  “Agent Vanek was there?”

  “Yeah. We left him in the alley. It’s a long story. I don’t have time for the details. We’re about ready to take off.”

  “Okay.” Evan forced himself to concentrate on the data. “Plug the phones into a computer and download the information. It’s easy. I’ll walk you through it.”

  “I don’t have a computer.”

  Evan frowned. “I’m sure there’s one on Jonah’s jet.”

  “We’re not on his jet. We’re on a commercial flight in coach.”

  “Coach?” Evan blinked. “People must be going crazy with Jonah Wizard in the cheap seats.”

  “They don’t know he’s here. I got him pretty well disguised. He’s barely spoken since he shot Luna. I’m worried. I think he’s gone off the deep end,” Hamilton said. “Oh, no,” he groaned. “They’ve closed the door and are making us turn off our cell phones.”

  “Wait! Where are you headed?”

  “I better not say. Talk to you later.”

  The line went dead.

  Evan ran downstairs. He had to tell Sinead what had happened. Ian was sitting on the sofa with a Bluetooth in his good ear and a laptop on his lap.

  “What’s the hurry?” Ian asked.

  Evan glared at him. He wasn’t about to tell Ian anything. “Nothing,” he said.

  Ian pointed at his pants. “You need to time your bathroom breaks better.”

  “It’s coffee!”

  “Right.”

  “What are you doing?”

  “Working, as you can see. Someone has to figure this whole thing out. And I’m making some progress.”

  Someone has to prove that you’re a traitorous swine.

  Evan cut through the kitchen, which was the shortest route to the guesthouse in back. Saladin slipped through the door as he opened it. He didn’t think about it until he heard Ian scream from the living room. Normally that would have made him laugh, but he was too stressed out to even smile.

  Erasmus is dead.

  He couldn’t believe it. He hurried across the backyard to the small house and burst through the front door without bothering to knock.

  Sinead was sitting at her desk, working on her laptop. She snapped it shut and turned around. “What’s happened?”

  “Erasmus is dead! Amy’s in Timbuktu! Hamilton and Jonah are on the run!”

  “You better sit down and take a breath,” Sinead said. “Start from the beginning.”

  It was almost five in the morning by the time Amy, Dan, Atticus, and Jake arrived at the Timbuktu airport. They were exhausted, but pleased. So were Mr. and Mrs. Tannous. Even though the ‘Apology’ hadn’t been found in the manuscripts, Amy wanted to repay Mr. Tannous’s kindness with a ride to Morocco.

  “Where to?” the pilot asked.

  “Morocco,” Amy said. “After we get there we’ll let you know where we need to go next. Do we have Wi-Fi?”

  “We will when we reach altitude.”

  As soon as they were up in the air, Atticus and Dan unbuckled and started laying the rubbings out on the floor.

  Dan stared at his cell phone, waiting for a signal. At twenty thousand feet the bars went full. He got a text, but it wasn’t from AJT. It was from Sinead.

  Erasmus dead. Luna Amato dead. I have proof that Ian is the traitor. Have Amy call or Skype me ASAP.

  Dan stared blankly at his phone, as if he couldn’t quite arrange the letters in his mind. As if something so awful couldn’t possibly be real.

  Erasmus dead. He can’t be dead.

  He walked back to where Amy was sitting. She was booting up her laptop, fussing through her papers the way she liked. For once she looked calm, relaxed, as if every waking second of their lives wasn’t a walking crisis. And Dan was going to shatter her hard-won calm.

  “Amy?” he said, reaching down to touch his sister’s shoulder. And then he broke the news.

  Amy had to read the text several times before the information fully computed. Her brother was sitting in the seat across from her, staring at the blackness out the window with hollow eyes.

  “This can’t be true,” Amy said. “It simply can’t be true.”

  Tears streamed down her face. I sent him into the stronghold. I said yes. I’m responsible for his death.

  A Skype call came in on her laptop and she picked up automatically. Ian Kabra’s face filled the screen.

  “Hi, Amy,” he said cheerfully. “Where are you?”

  “You know exactly where I am,” Amy answered, a storm of raw fury building in her chest.

  “Actually, I don’t,” Ian said. “The reason I’m calling is to tell I’ve made some progress. My mother is —”

  “How could you do this?” Amy screamed. “How could you do this to your own sister?”

  “What are you talking about? I’m trying to find out where Natalie is, just like you —”

  “Erasmus is dead!”

  “Erasmus is what?”

  “I hate you, Ian Kabra!” Amy slammed the laptop closed so hard that the screen shattered.

  The Vesper phone rang. Amy grabbed it from her bag and nearly smashed it, too. She took a deep breath and pushed the button. A photograph appeared. The hostages. They looked terrible. Nellie’s jumpsuit was torn to shreds and her face and arm were swollen. Alistair Oh’s jumpsuit was torn as well, and there was blood on his exposed knee. All of them appeared to have injuries except for Ted Starling and . . .

  “Where’s Phoenix?” Amy said, shoving the phone at Dan because the flood of hot tears had obscured her vision. “Tell me you see Phoenix!”

  “What are you talking about?” Dan asked.

  “Phoenix,” she said. “He’s not in the photo, is he?”

  Dan got up, grabbed the phone, and looked at the photo. His face whitened, and then two angry splotches of red appeared on his cheeks.

  “It doesn’t have to mean anything,” he said. It was as if he couldn’t bear to believe otherwise. “Maybe they just took him somewhere else.”

  “‘And then there were six!’” Amy said bitterly. The plane was starting to blur as the shock coursed through her.

  The Vesper phone chimed again. A text message appeared. The two siblings read it together.

  Phoenix Wizard sat on a wall. Phoenix Wizard had a great fall. All the Vespers’ horses and all the Vespers’ men couldn’t put Phoenix together again. You didn’t really think that I would reward you for your failure with the Jubilee? And as you can see, the others paid a price, too. I suggest you get to the United States in the next 24 hours or another Cahill will fall.

  Vesper One

  Sneak Peek

  The race to stop the Vespers continues with more dangerous heists to perform, historic treasures to find, and hidden traitors to unmask. Stay one step ahead of your enemy and help save the kidnapped Cahills by following Amy and Dan's next adventure.

  Turn the page for a sneak peek! (Just keep your eyes peeled for Vesper spies . . .)

  The plane made its final approach into New York City. It was morning on this side of the ocean. Who knew what time it was in Timbuktu now?

  Along with his sister, Amy, and two friends, Dan Cahill was a passenger on a private jet. The jet was owned by their distant cousin, hip-hop superstar Jonah Wizard. As Dan gazed out the window, he downed the last of the fresh
strawberry and pineapple smoothie made to order by the cabin attendant.

  It was a pretty amazing way to travel.

  Dan leaned sideways a little to get a clearer glimpse of the skyline. He loved the view of all the iconic structures: the Empire State Building, the Chrysler Building, the Brooklyn Bridge.

  And most of all, the Statue of Liberty, standing proud in the harbor. Dan would never have admitted it out loud, but whenever he flew into New York, he always felt like she was welcoming him personally, as she had so many travelers before him.

  The cabin attendant, a calm and efficient man named Victor, came by to take Dan’s empty glass. He leaned over Dan’s shoulder and pointed out the window toward the southern end of Manhattan.

  “That’s where the towers used to be,” Victor said. “The World Trade Center buildings. You probably were just a baby when they went down.”

  It was true. Dan had never seen them in real life, only on video. It was easy to recall the footage from that day in September of 2001: the hijacked plane crashing into the first tower, then the second, gouging huge, jagged holes into the buildings. Floods of black smoke and fierce orange flames everywhere.

  Even more horrific than the crashes themselves were the unbelievable moments that followed, when both of the massive superstructures collapsed and crumbled into dust, as if they were no sturdier than sand castles. The first time Dan saw the footage, he thought it looked like something out of a Hollywood action movie.

  But it had been all too real. Nearly three thousand people had died.

  “That part of Manhattan always looks so empty to me now,” Victor said.

  The southern end of Manhattan was hardly empty. There were hundreds of buildings massed together, short, tall, taller. It reminded Dan of a crowd jammed into one of Jonah’s concerts: The tallest buildings were like the people who sit on their friends’ shoulders so they can see better.

  It was hard to imagine how or where two massive towers could have squeezed into that jumble.

  “So sad,” Victor said, “the things people will do to each other.”

  Dan sat back against the seat cushion and let out a sharp breath. Victor’s words had hit him like a body blow.

  The Vespers.

  They had already done terrible things to people Dan cared about. If they got everything they were after . . . Dan couldn’t imagine what they might do next.

  He had to stop them. And he knew exactly how to do it.

  All he had to do was finish assembling the serum — and then take it.

  Amy had her phone out and ready. The moment the plane’s wheels touched the ground, she turned it on. It seemed to take forever before the home screen finally lit up.

  And sure enough, there it was: a text message from Vesper One.

  The winding trail now leads to Yale,

  and four-oh-eight is oh so great!

  Seventy-four and out the door.

  You have three days — or someone pays.

  Observe the tetrameter and perfect rhymes. I could have been a poet, don’t you know it?

  For weeks now, Amy and Dan had been gofers for the Vespers, a shadowy cabal and nemesis of the Cahill family for centuries. With the help of Dan’s best friend, Atticus Rosenbloom, and his brother, Jake, Amy and Dan had traveled the globe stealing artifacts, manuscripts, artwork, even jewels, at the behest of the anonymous Vesper One.

  Why? Because the Vespers were holding hostages. Seven people whom the Cahills cared about deeply, including two members of their immediate family —

  their guardians, Nellie Gomez and Fiske Cahill.

  Vesper One had threatened to kill the hostages if Dan and Amy did not perform the specified tasks. This was the latest assignment: Go to Yale and steal — what?

  Amy forwarded the text to Evan, who was overseeing the Cahill headquarters in Attleboro, Massachusetts. She added nothing further; Evan would know from the message where they were headed next.

  Besides, she had absolutely no idea what to say

  to him.

  “Hi, how’s it going?” Utterly banal, given the circumstances.

  “We need to talk.” Like they could take the time for a cozy heart-to-heart in the midst of this Vesper-induced insanity.

  “I have something I need to tell you. I know we’re dating, but yesterday I kissed another boy.”

  Amy felt her face get hot. She didn’t know if it was because she was mortified about even the idea of telling Evan . . . or if it was the thought of the kiss itself. She shut her eyes tightly, trying to blank out the memory of Jake’s arms around her, the warmth of his lips . . .

  STOP IT! Amy scolded herself inside her head. Don’t get distracted — you have to stay focused! Nellie, Fiske, Phoenix, all the rest — they need you!

  Maybe someday Amy would get to be a normal teenager with nothing to worry about except grades and friends and boys.

  Maybe. But first, she had hostages to rescue.

  Amy and Dan dashed through the terminal, with Jake and Atticus right on their heels. Amy couldn’t remember the last time she had been able to walk through an airport.

  She handed her phone to Dan so he could read Vesper One’s text.

  “Yale?” he panted. “What about the rest of it?”

  “Don’t know,” she gasped back at him. “Guess we’ll find out soon enough.”

  “Hey, wait up!” Fifty yards behind, Atticus was struggling with his jacket and backpack. Amy glanced over her shoulder and saw Jake turn around to help his brother by grabbing the pack. She plunged on,

  darting and weaving past knots of people.

  They all caught up with each other at the taxi stand. The line wasn’t long; they were able to get into the third cab. With Evan still on her mind, Amy took the front passenger seat so there wouldn’t be any possibility of ending up thigh-to-thigh with Jake.

  “Yale University,” Amy said to the driver.

  “Where is?” the driver asked.

  “Connecticut. New Haven.”

  The driver shook his head. “No. No go that far.”

  Jake reached for the door handle. “Let’s go,” he said decisively. “No use wasting time — we’ll find someone else to take us.”

  Who died and made him boss? Amy thought. She turned to the driver.

  “We need to get to Yale,” she said, “and we’ll make it worth your while.”

  The man muttered to himself, then put some info into his GPS.

  “Two hour there, two hour come back . . . I do it for six hundred,” he said.

  “Six hundred dollars?” Atticus yelped.

  “Fine,” Amy said.

  The driver looked surprised; clearly he had picked an amount he thought they would never be able to afford.

  “See money first,” the driver said skeptically.

  Amy took out her wallet, counted off six hundred-dollar bills, and flapped them at him. “There,” she said. “Now can we please get going?”

  As if the sight of the cash were a turbo-fuel injection, the driver gunned the engine and pulled out from the curb so fast that the tires squealed.

  Amy raised her eyebrows at Jake. “Watch and learn,” she said.

  He snorted, then swept his hand from his forehead toward her in an exaggerated mock bow. “As you wish, m’lady,” he said.

  Dan had put his backpack into the trunk of the cab but kept his laptop with him. Now he turned it on, clicked through to a search engine, and hesitated with his fingers over the keyboard.

  “What should I type in?” he asked. “Yale, of course. And then what — four-oh-eight? Or maybe seventy-four?”

  “No way!” Jake exclaimed.

  Startled, Amy turned to see his eyes widening.

  “Yale and four hundred eight? That has to be —” Jake stopped and shook his head.

  Amy could see the shock in his expression.

  “Amy, we can’t — it’s not —”

  He took a breath. Then he looked at her pleadingly and said, “Please don’t tell me w
e’re going after the Voynich?”

  Toothpaste. Very important. That nasty feeling when you hadn’t brushed in a while even had a name now: “biofilm.” Yuck.

  Enough of the idle thoughts. Hurry.

  Some clothes (clean underwear also very important), phone charger, laptop and charger, camera, digital recorder . . . what else might be needed?

  A couple of false IDs, just in case. And finally — most important — a piece of electronic equipment

  specially modified for the task. Can’t just toss it in, gotta be gentle with it —

  Was someone coming up the stairs? No, but they could be, any minute now. . . .

  Get out, quick.

  But quietly. Don’t let the door slam.

  Phoenix had never really been cold before.

  He was cold to the very middle of every single one of his cells. His scalp and hair were like a cap knit of ice. He couldn’t see his face, but he knew that his lips were Crayola blue. Even his toenails were cold.

  Never before had he shivered as long and hard as he was shivering now. And shivering was hard work. After a fitful night dozing against a tree trunk, Phoenix woke with deep aches in all his muscles.

  As if being cold wasn’t bad enough, now it hurt to shiver.

  He was wandering through an endless forest where everything looked the same.

  The trauma of the kidnapping, the confrontations with an enemy he couldn’t even see, the physical and psychological deprivations of captivity, the escape

  and near drowning — his ordeal had drained his

  body and apparently his brain, too.

  He just kept stumbling around in a stupor.

  He tried to remember the books he had read about kids surviving in the wild. Hatchet — that kid had lived for weeks in the wilderness on his own, right?

  But he had had — duh, a hatchet.

  In frustration, Phoenix kicked at an old rotting stump. It cracked open a little, revealing an active colony of small white grubs.

  Grubs. Bears ate grubs.

  Humans did, too. He’d seen it on one of those crazy food shows.