by Tony Abbott
“It could be a dueling dagger,” she said. “You know the way in movies sword-fighting guys have a sword and a dagger? And they use the dagger to block the other guy’s sword? Ours looks like that kind.”
“I hope it doesn’t mean that we’re supposed to fight someone,” Wade said, keeping his voice low.
“No one’s going to use this thing,” his father said.
“But why did Uncle Henry hide it in a secret crypt under his tomb?” whispered Darrell. “And what does it have to do with Copernicus? He was an astronomer. A mathematics guy. Stars and numbers. He wasn’t a fighter.”
Becca leaned over her. “Lily, see if there’s more info on where that kind of dagger comes from. Or the initials on it. AM.”
Lily leaned back. “Yes, ma’am.”
“Dad, do you think this might have belonged to Copernicus?” Wade asked. “Maybe it’s valuable.”
His father stroked his beard. “We don’t know enough to make any guesses.”
Which sounded to Lily like something a science teacher would say. The tram made another s-l-o-w stop. Three passengers got off. Probably going to sleep. How much longer . . . ?
“I’m thinking that some clues might just lead to other clues,” Becca was whispering, “and that the real secret—whatever it is—isn’t the dagger at all. It makes sense, right? I mean, Uncle Henry didn’t make it easy to get this far. The email, the birthday clue on the star chart—which he wrote six-and-a-half years ago!—Frau Munch’s message in the dust, the tomb, the gnomon. It’s all codes and half clues, places, word games, quotations, number tricks. If the codes and tricks are clever enough, you shouldn’t be able to figure it out. Unless you have the key. Maybe the dagger isn’t the final secret but a key to the next thing. Maybe the real secret is pretty far down the line from the dagger.”
Lily stopped swiping the screen and turned to her. “Becca Moore. Those are more words than I’ve ever heard you say at one time.”
Becca blushed. “I just get the feeling that we’re at the beginning here.”
Which may be true, but Lily didn’t like the sound of it. Searching for clues and never getting to the end seemed like it might get boring really fast. Then again, she’d have a chance to shine. She knew better than anyone where to find stuff online, and that would totally speed up the solving of clues.
“You might be right, Becca,” Roald said. “If Heinrich’s secret was big, he’d have layers of clues to hide it. He loved word clues. Maybe the dagger is even a word clue. What they call a rebus.”
Darrell twitched so much then, Lily could practically see the goofy gears in his brain grinding to come up with some joke involving the word rebus and school bus or something. He finally shook his head slightly, which meant that his brain had failed him.
“What’s a rebus?” he asked.
“An object or a picture that doesn’t mean what it usually means,” Roald explained, “but is referring to its name or the sound of its name or something else about it.”
Wade frowned. “You mean like a picture of an eye might mean ‘I,’ as in ‘me, myself, and I’?”
“Exactly,” Roald said. “So, because a dagger has a point, maybe the clue is that it’s pointing to something. Or its letters spell out a clue. Or maybe it’s a key.”
“Maybe it’s all of those things,” said Becca. “In books where there are footnotes on the page”—she rustled in her backpack and took out her book—“sometimes they mark footnotes not with numbers, but with symbols. Little ornaments. There are asterisks—stars. There are little paragraph symbols. See. Here are some.”
She held up a page where there were symbols in the text corresponding to the same symbols at the bottom of the page.
* ¶ §
“There are also tiny little daggers, like this.”
†
Wade leaned over Becca’s book. “So the symbols in the text point to the footnote at the bottom of the page. Then maybe the dagger really is pointing to something. Or somewhere.”
And links do the same thing. Lily followed one to another until she discovered a photograph of a short weapon that had the very same manner of wavy blade as theirs. “Are you ready?” she whispered. “This exact kind of dagger is called a pug . . . pugnale . . . pugnale Bolognese—”
“A baloney slicer?” That was Darrell again, hoping everyone would laugh. They didn’t. They were more interested in what Lily and her computer had to say.
So there.
“A fighting dagger from Bologna, Italy,” she said.
“Interesting,” Roald said, looking past them through the tram windows. “I actually know someone in Bologna.”
“The article says that this kind of dagger is associated with a special way of dueling that began in Bologna, in places called sale d’armi. Salons of fighting. Fighting schools. Some are still around. One of the most famous teachers was—aha!—a guy named Achille Marozzo—”
Becca clapped. “The A and the M on the handle part!”
“Hilt, Becca,” said Darrell. “It’s called a hilt. Have you never read The Hobbit?”
“Those nasty little guys with hairy feet?” said Lily.
“Wait,” said Darrell, “you’ve read The Hobbit?”
“By accident!” said Lily. Score! “Anyway, AM was a fencing master who lived from 1484 to 1553.”
“So he was around at the same time as Copernicus,” said Becca. “Maybe they met. Copernicus went to Italy.”
“Everybody knew everybody back then,” Darrell said, hovering over Lily’s shoulder. “The whole population of the world was only a couple of thousand people.”
Lily laughed. “The fencing school seems to be still there—”
Wade stood up. “That’s why he said it twice!”
“Who said what twice?” Roald asked. “Uncle Henry?”
Wade was practically bouncing now. “Yes! It bothered me that he would say ‘follow the gnomon, follow the blade,’ because why would he say follow the same thing twice? It’s because he didn’t. He was telling us to follow the gnomon inside the tomb, then to follow the blade that we found in the vault. He meant that we should follow it to Bologna, where it’s from. I bet the fencing school is the next clue!”
That’s good, thought Lily. Really good. Smart Wade.
Roald’s slow nod meant he liked it, too. Then his expression changed. “Except we’re not the ones to continue this.” He paused to glance around at the other tram passengers. When he spoke, his voice was low and firm. “Heinrich was killed because he was hiding this. Maybe he wanted me to somehow take up the task—I’m not sure—but I am sure he didn’t want my family put in danger. This weapon should really go to the police, but after tonight we can’t be certain about them. So I’ll take it to the US embassy in the morning and tell them everything.”
Wade frowned up his face, then nodded slowly. “I guess.”
“Or maybe just tell the embassy we have it,” said Darrell. “They could be part of the conspiracy.”
Roald smiled and patted Darrell on the arm. “I doubt it, but maybe.” Lily realized it wasn’t easy for him to know what to do. When something bad happens, you go to the police. But they couldn’t. Plus Sara was out of the picture for the next few days, so he couldn’t consult with her.
“Let’s sleep on it,” he said finally, patting the dagger inside his coat. “Things will be clearer in the morning.”
She hoped so. The tram was finally nearing their hotel, and the rain was turning to wet snow again.
Noon was heavy and gray when she woke with a splitting headache. It took her a long minute to realize where she was before the combined smell of diesel exhaust, mildew, and burned coffee reminded her that she was in a cheesy hotel in Berlin.
They had returned so late the night before, and after running all around town, they had decided to leave everything until morning—the murder, the dagger, the men pursuing them, everything—and get some sleep.
Which she would have done except for Becca�
�s snoring. Her roommate looked like a ghost, pale and drawn, and coiled in a dingy bedsheet. Becca was so smart and everything, but she so wasn’t the type of person to go running from bad guys. Lily was pretty sure Becca did her best work in a library. Still, their little group hadn’t done so badly. Evil gunmen might have chased them all over a big cold city, but they were all still alive. Plus, they had discovered a major thing. An ancient baloney slicer.
“Keep sleeping,” Lily whispered. She unplugged her tablet from the wall and woke it up.
“Lily’s Travel Blog. March 11. Day Three. Or is it two? Or four? Whatever. You won’t believe it. We’re being chased by goons in black suits—”
Knock.
Her heart stopped. “Yes . . . ?”
“It’s Wade. You guys should get up. Dad’s decided we’re ending this now. We’re going to the embassy, then flying home this afternoon.”
Lily felt something crash inside her as she turned off the tablet. “Okay. Sure. It’s too bad, though. Wade?” He had already gone back to his room. “Becca, wake up. We’re going home—”
She bolted upright. “I’m awake!”
For the next ten minutes, they ran around getting themselves together, stuffing their clothes back into their bags.
“By the way, you were awesome last night,” Becca said, brushing her hair over the sink in their tiny bathroom.
Lily looked up from her bag. “Are you talking to yourself in the mirror?”
Becca laughed and leaned around the door. “No! You! All that information so fast. It’s too bad it’s ending, though. It was kind of fun, actually. Some of it. Anyway, we wouldn’t be anywhere without you.”
Lily didn’t know whether to scoff or hug her. “It’s all on the internet.”
“But you know how to get it off the internet and into the rest of us,” Becca said, lobbing her hairbrush into her bag.
Darrell tapped on the hallway door. “Five minutes, ladies.”
Lily unplugged her charger and crammed the last of her things in her bag. “Look,” she said, wondering if she should go anywhere near completing the sentence she was thinking of, then plunging ahead. “I know I can be prickly.”
“What?”
“My mom says I’m like her. She says it’s hard for her to get close to people. She says she’s a cactus mom. I know I’m a cactus, too.”
“You are not.” Becca’s eyes were suddenly moist, and she buried her face in her bag, pretending to look for something at the bottom of it. “You are . . .” She paused. “If it wasn’t for you, I’d be sitting at a sticky desk in a tiny study carrel on the third floor of the Faulk Library! This was the best—”
The door thundered. “Now,” boomed Dr. Kaplan.
Two minutes later they were rushing into the lobby, where Wade and Darrell were huddled around their father, who was on his phone.
“Uh-huh. Really? Was anything . . . I can’t right now, we’re in . . . we’re out of town. Yes. Yes. Please. As soon as I can. Thank you.” He closed his phone.
“Dad? What is it?” asked Wade.
“Is it about Mom?” Darrell asked.
Uncle Roald shook his head. “No, no. She’s fine. I mean, that wasn’t her. It was the police back in Austin. Our house was . . . broken into last night.”
“Oh no,” said Becca.
“What’s gone?” said Darrell. “Not my Strat!”
“The police aren’t sure anything was taken,” Roald said. “That’s what worries me. A rear door was forced open, but the house was in good shape. Except . . .” He turned to Wade.
“Dad? Except what?” asked Wade.
Dr. Kaplan looked at him for what seemed like forever before he said, “Your room was really torn apart. It looks like the thieves went straight to your room and ransacked everything, top to bottom.” He patted Wade’s arm. “I’m sorry. This is terrible. The police are investigating . . .”
“They won’t find anything,” said Darrell. “These guys are too good. Not to mention international. They have to be the same bunch.”
Wade’s face went pale. Then he unzipped his backpack and slid out the leather folder. “This. They were after my star map. Dad, they know who we are. But how?”
“Wade, I can’t tell you,” his father said. “This is so far beyond what I’ve—”
Beep!
The woman behind the desk waved over to them. “Cab is here for Keplens. Embassy and airport. Heppy travels!”
“Are we still going home?” Wade asked. “Will it be safe?”
Roald looked around the small lobby. Besides them and the staff, there were three other people. Then he glanced down at the bag at his feet. Lily knew the dagger was in there. Suddenly, he picked up the bag and nodded them all out of the lobby onto the busy sidewalk.
He looked both ways. “You know what? No. We’re not going home. Not yet.” He moved them past the waiting taxi and down the street from the hotel, where he hailed a second cab.
“No! No!” The first driver yelled loudly, storming into the hotel.
A second taxi pulled over. “Everyone in,” Roald said.
They got in. “To the embassy then?” said Wade. “Where after that?”
“Drive down the street,” Roald said as the cab pulled away from the curb. “I’ll call the embassy. We need to get out of the city as quickly as we can. I don’t like it here for us.”
“Where will we go?” asked Becca.
“Italy,” Roald said.
Darrell nearly jumped. “Dad, are you kidding?”
“My friend will help us. I don’t . . . I don’t like it here and I don’t trust anyone. Call it irrational. I hope it is irrational. But there are two mur . . .” He glanced at the driver and whispered. “Two incidents so far. Going home is not exactly safe right now. I believe we should keep on the move until things settle. Lily, trains might be the best way—”
“Already on it,” she said, reading from the tablet. “There’s an overnight train to Verona in forty-five minutes with a connection to . . . our destination.”
“Bahnhof, bitte?” said Becca.
The driver nodded. “I get you zere plenty time!” He roared through the next intersection as if he were on a mission, making green lights from Strasse to Strasse in a kind of blur. Between being crushed by Darrell on one side and Becca on the other, Lily kept her eyes peeled for any silver SUVs.
Luckily, the journey didn’t last long. Spinning almost completely around on the street—which pushed Wade and Becca pitch-pipe close—the taxi screeched to an impossible stop directly in front of a giant complex of white and glass.
The driver boomed, “Tren station!”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Wade was still trying to process the scary news that their home had been burglarized when they entered the expansive central Berlin train station. It was a madhouse, a vast modernist structure of glass and steel, roaring with voices and constant movement. The floor rumbled nonstop as heavy trains arrived and departed on dozens of tracks leading off the main concourse.
Darrell nudged him. “Dude,” he whispered. “Our home.”
“I know. Who are they?”
His father herded them toward the ticket counter, then stopped. “Listen. To understand what Uncle Henry wanted us to find, we have to stay ahead of these people, whoever they are. I told you I have a friend in Bologna. Isabella Mercanti. She was married to Silvio Mercanti, one of the Asterias students. He died in a skiing accident last year, but Isabella and I have kept in touch off and on.”
“An accident, Uncle Roald?” said Becca.
His father’s face darkened momentarily. “I don’t think there’s any doubt about that, but maybe . . . Anyway, she teaches art and literature at the University of Bologna. We’ll find her. She can locate this fencing school for us. She’s a good person. She’ll help us.”
Urging them to the ticket counter across the chaotic room, his father seemed to shift himself into gear, which was more comforting to Wade than he realized. But
Becca had asked it, and it suddenly seemed possible that nothing was an accident anymore. From ships sinking to skiing accidents.
What in the world was the Copernicus Legacy, and who were these killers who wanted it?
They stood quietly in the shortest line together, their documents ready. Within minutes his father distributed tickets for five seats in a sleeper cabin to Verona and secondary tickets for the ninety-minute connection to Bologna.
“For twenty minutes, we lay low,” his father said, pulling them under an awning as he searched for their platform. Wade unzipped his backpack and peeked inside. The celestial chart was safe. Of course it was, but how safe was he? How safe were any of them?
“Did everyone see the silver gun that woman had?” Lily asked
“Of course we saw it. And her,” Darrell said. “How could we not see her? How could we look away?”
“Isn’t the most bizarre part of the whole thing that there was this young woman in the middle of a nasty group of killers?” said Becca. “I mean, what?”
“No, no, no,” his father suddenly said, tugging on the end of his beard. “I shouldn’t have done that.”
Wade turned. “Done what?”
“The credit card,” Roald said. “I bought our tickets with the card.”
“What’s wrong with that?” asked Lily.
But Wade got it instantly. “Because they’ll know. They can track credit cards. If they have friends in the police, it means they can do all that kind of stuff. They’ll know we’re here right now.”
“Stay here five minutes, then go to the platform,” his father said. “I’m going to get some cash. We can stay off the grid after that. There’s an ATM by the book stall.”
Off the grid.
“I’ll meet you on Platform Nineteen in a few minutes. It’s just over there. In the meantime, take what I have, a hundred euros—that’s a hundred and thirty dollars, give or take.”
“Shouldn’t we all go with you, Roald?” Lily asked, though Wade wasn’t sure if she was afraid for his father or for them.
“No,” he said. “I don’t want us all to go across the big room again. We might be spotted.”