The Copernicus Legacy: The Forbidden Stone

by Tony Abbott

  Wade moved to whip the dagger from his pack but settled for kicking one guy sideways in the knee. He fell headfirst on the platform. Becca and Lily took turns slapping another on the ears, while he cursed at them. Darrell jumped at the remaining guy, pushing him off balance on his way past, and the kids found themselves back in the baggage compartment.

  Redface fumbled in his coat for something, but Wade and Darrell together pushed him back outside, where he fell over the others on the platform floor. Together, Lily and Becca slammed and barricaded the door.

  The guard hustled over, his mustache flapping in anger. “I hev called ze conductor!”

  Wade pushed his hand into his pocket and pulled out the wad of bills his father had given him. “Help us. I’ll give you euros. Just go away and leave us the key.”

  The men battered on the door. “Open or ve’ll shoot!”

  Leaning hard against the door, Wade peeled off a couple of bills, but the guard snatched the whole wad of cash. “Sank you!” He locked the platform door, then rushed away, tossing the key to Wade as he slipped into the forward car.

  “Hide behind the bags!” said Becca.

  Wade quickly opened the far door halfway, then joined the others behind a wall of baggage just as the three gunmen and Redface broke down the rear door and burst into the car. Seeing the far door open, they raced through it without looking. After the men had gone through, Darrell rushed over and double bolted the door behind them.

  “I can’t believe we’re still alive,” Becca breathed.

  Lily burst out with something between a laugh and a scream.

  “Just wait!”

  Chapter Thirty

  Wade knew they had only moments before the creeps battered their way back in. “We need another plan.”

  “Don’t ask me,” said Darrell. “I’m all planned out.”

  “Plus you just threw away one of our clues,” Lily grumbled. “What if we need a pitch pipe again?”

  “We won’t,” said Darrell. “I have perfect pitch.”

  She narrowed her eyes at him. “I don’t know exactly what that is, but you’d better have it!”

  “Guys, we need to get off the train before it stops at another station,” Wade said. “Or worse, a border checkpoint. How soon will we reach Austria? Anybody?”

  “I’m looking,” Lily said, tapping her tablet.

  The train rolled through forests and valleys surrounded by mountains dotted with the occasional castle, mile-wide rivers, and twisting highways.

  “Probably less than an hour,” Lily said.

  Wade paced the length of the car. “We can’t depend on being lucky again. We’ll wait for the train to slow down and since we’re at the end of the train, we can just jump off and hide before anyone sees us.”

  Darrell tilted his head at Wade skeptically. “That’s your plan? Jump off the train?”

  He knew he could try to bluff it, but after crossing that bridge, the train hadn’t reached top speed again, which probably meant a station was not far, so he just said, “Yep. That’s it.”

  He opened the rear door and stepped onto the platform. As slowly as the train was going compared to the distant trees, it was speeding swiftly relative to the ground. He was pretty sure Einstein had a name for that phenomenon, but he didn’t have time to search his memory for it. “Who’s first?”

  “You’re first,” Lily said instantly. “If you don’t die, we’ll send Darrell. If he doesn’t die, Becca and I will go. Right, Bec?”

  “Yeah, sister,” she said.

  Wade grumbled. “Fair enough.”

  The train slowed more as he lowered himself to the bottom stair. The ground on the left side of the tracks was a ridge of tufted grass. Gripping his backpack strap with one hand, he jumped, slamming hard on the ground, then rolling over twice. He looked back. The train slowed even more. Hurry! Becca wrapped her arms around her bag and dropped off the platform. A little gawkily, but she rolled smartly. Lily and Darrell went at the same time. Darrell landed nearly on his feet, while she rolled on the ground and came to a stop in a heap.

  Pushing himself to his feet, Wade’s forearm ached sharply, but not as badly as when he’d fractured it playing baseball. He turned it gently and it felt better, so he ignored it. “Everyone okay?”

  They all mumbled something and wobbled toward him, which was good enough. The train rolled for a half mile or so down the rails before it disappeared behind the trees around a curve in the tracks. It whistled twice, and the brakes squealed.

  “As soon as they discover we’re not on the train, they’ll comb the area,” Becca said. “We need to be long gone.”

  “Comb the area,” Darrell said with a smile. “Official spy talk.”

  “Shh.” Wade listened for the sound of the train leaving the station. It didn’t come. “Stops are usually shorter than this. I think the train is still there. We should see what’s going on.”

  Lily gave him a look. “That seems risky.”

  “It is, but right now they don’t know where we are,” he said. “The more we find out the better off we’ll be.”

  “You’re saying we should spy on the spies?” said Darrell.

  “Yes.” Without waiting for them to argue, Wade darted off through the tall grass, hoping his friends would follow him. He’d feel pretty stupid if they didn’t. Thankfully, they did.

  Staying close to the shelter of the trees, they made their way stealthily around the bend in the track toward the station. A black SUV and two police cars were parked and idling next to the platform. Three thugs and Redface had exited the train and were standing near. The man who had jumped after the pitch pipe hobbled out of one of the police cars. He pointed both up and down the tracks with his one good arm, which also glinted with the silver pitch pipe. The others seemed to agree with whatever he told them. Finally one of the tree-size men reentered the train while the others drove away. The train started up again.

  “So,” said Lily, “what did we learn, Professor Wade?”

  He released his breath. “That by keeping a guy on the train, they’re not sure we’re not still hiding on it. This is good. They know we’re heading to Bologna because I stupidly told them—”

  “We all would have done the same thing,” Becca said.

  Wade half smiled. “Thanks. But as long as they don’t know that we found a dagger in the crypt, they don’t know about Achille Marozzo or any fencing school. If we’re smart, we can get there without them finding out. Plus we have Dad’s friend to help us get him back.”

  “Fine, we learned a lot,” said Lily. “Good work.”

  “But no way are we done with them,” Darrell said.

  Becca nodded. “So what’s next. How do we get to Italy?”

  “For starters, we’ll have to find a ride that keeps us off the grid,” said Lily. “Darrell, come with me. You two stay here. Two kids aren’t as suspicious as four.”

  “Good,” Wade said. As he watched the two of them head into town, he was pretty sure he heard Darrell humming. Even better.

  Becca stared down the tracks long after the train had vanished. “Wade, did we do the right thing? Leaving without your dad? I mean, I know we didn’t have a choice then, but we do now. Part of me thinks we should go back and just tell everyone what we know. Go to our embassy or the newspapers, and ask for help. I don’t know. It’s kind of crazy to be going farther away.” Her eyes were dark with worry, as Wade imagined his own were.

  “Yeah, I don’t know, either,” he said. “Except that Dad said not to trust anybody. He’d want us to stay free.” He drew out the dagger. It glinted in the waning sunlight. “This is some part of the Legacy and the reason at least two people are dead. Those creeps wanted it. I think keeping the dagger safe and away from them is the only leverage we have right now.” It was quite a speech, and he wondered if it even made sense.

  Becca searched his face. She was quiet for a long minute, then said, “All right. We’ll try to get to Bologna and Isabella Mercanti. B
ut at the first sign of a black suit, we’re heading for the embassy.”

  Wade laughed. “Black suit? We’re going to Italy, don’t forget.”

  “You know what I mean,” she said, cracking a dimply smile.

  Wade wanted to keep talking like this to her. It was surprisingly comfortable and comforting, and it kept him from thinking too deeply about what his father was going through in Berlin. He really hoped the men on the train were bluffing when they said, “If you ever want to see your father alive again . . .”

  In fact, he needed to believe it was an empty threat. Or else he wouldn’t be able to go on another minute.

  There was a sudden pop from the end of the street as a truck rumbled toward them, snorting and coughing up a cloud of blue smoke. It gained speed, then suddenly slowed down and swerved to the roadside.

  Instinctively, he took Becca’s arm. “Into the trees—”

  “Wade!” Darrell poked his head out of the truck cab. “Wade! Here’s our ride. A supermarket truck!”

  The driver howled with laughter as he pulled up and hopped down from the cab with Darrell and Lily.

  “He said we have kind faces,” Lily said. “Which, of course, we do.”

  “I go Bologna,” the driver said. “Two times week. Come.”

  Becca wrinkled her nose at Wade. “What about ‘don’t trust anyone’? Do you think—”

  “Come, come!” The driver opened the back flap for Darrell to climb in, thrashing the canvas when the others hesitated. “I no bad. I hev family. Chiddren. Two. Come. Is good truck!”

  When neither he nor Becca moved, Lily marched over to them. “He has a nice face, don’t you think?”

  “I know, but . . .” Wade started.

  “You can tell a lot about a person from his face. And his Facebook. He’s posted the cutest pictures of his kids. Look.” Lily showed them her tablet. A boy was giving a girl for a ride on his shoulders. He wore a fake mustache. “I know it’s crazy, but he looked okay. He had a truck, he sounded Italian, so Darrell and I made a leap. Plus he has chiddren. Two. And now we have our ride. Come on, guys. Darrell’s already made himself at home in the back.”

  The driver did have a pretty good face, after all. Mostly one big smile. Not all that different from Uncle Henry’s. “Okay,” he said. “Thanks a lot, sir.”

  “Ticky tocky!” the driver replied, laughing and flapping the canvas for them to hurry. “You hide. You sleep. We be Bologna for lunch!”

  Chapter Thirty-One

  The truck was jammed with crates of what Darrell told them turned out to be a chief German export to Italy: soft drinks and mineral water.

  “People,” he said, “we are now officially German cargo!”

  “Hiding in a soda truck,” said Lily, grinning as the driver secured the flap and started up again. “This is so going into my blog.”

  For the next three hours, the truck wove slowly down through the hills to the Austrian border checkpoint, where the driver was a twice-weekly visitor. When the guards lifted the flaps, they saw only crates of bottles and cans and quickly waved him on.

  After that the truck made stops at markets and stores along the way. The final border crossing into Italy was swift and the route more or less direct to small shops and village markets until there were only a few crates left.

  Judging by a dream about his ransacked room in Austin—from which he woke in a sweat—Wade realized he must have slept through at least part of the bumpy overnight ride. Sitting up, he found that his arm throbbed from the elbow down, but not into the wrist, which moved more or less easily. That meant a muscle injury and not any kind of bone fracture. Darrell was sound asleep, his mouth open. Becca was awake, her arms wrapped around her knees with Lily leaning on her shoulder. She didn’t look like she wanted to talk.

  By late morning the truck was all but empty and parked at a depot with lots of other trucks. They thanked the driver again, he wished them luck, and they were soon out on the streets of Bologna.

  As their first attempt to contact Isabella Mercanti, Lily dialed the University of Bologna, then handed the phone to Becca, who stuttered some halting Italian into it. She was put on hold several times, and finally connected to someone.

  Becca asked for Dr. Mercanti, then listened, frowning, for several minutes, saying, “Ciao?” a few times, before shutting her eyes, saying, “Grazie,” and hanging up. She moved the phone from her ear and looked at it. “It was all crackly for a few minutes—Lily, I think your battery is going—but I got most of it.”

  “What did they say? More bad news?” said Darrell.

  “This is, what, Wednesday?” said Becca. “Isabella Mercanti missed her lecture two days ago. And the university hasn’t been able to get in touch with her since then.”

  “Two days ago we were in Berlin,” said Wade.

  Lily folded her arms around herself. “This can only mean one thing, right? We’re all thinking it. They kidnapped her. Or killed her—”

  “No,” Becca said. “Not that.”

  “Well, her husband was in Asterias, and he didn’t die in any accident. He was killed. And now they took care of her.”

  Wade’s legs felt suddenly as weak as his forearm. He slumped down to the curb, stared at the cobblestones, then looked up at the others. “So we’re alone. We have no idea what’s going on with Dad, we’re alone, and we have no cash or friends. We have to do something.”

  Becca held out the phone to Darrell. “Start by calling your mom again. Leave a message. Tell her we need help. But that’s all. She’ll call back when she can.”

  Darrell took it and tapped in the number. He tapped it in a second time. “Uh . . . this isn’t working.”

  Lily pulled it back. “Uh-oh. Becca, you were right. My battery’s dying. That’s what all that crackly business was.”

  “Send Sara an email,” Wade said. “You can do that on a tablet, right?”

  Lily threw her phone into the bottom of her bag. “She won’t get it until she’s out of the jungle, but yeah.”

  Darrell tapped in a quick message and hit Send. “Let’s find what we came here for,” he said.

  “The Sala d’Arme,” Becca said. “The fencing school.”

  Swiping her tablet, Lily said, “Achille Marozzo’s school is on Via Cà Selvatica,” pronouncing the street name slowly and still apparently managing to mangle it enough to make Becca laugh.

  “It’s their own fault for having so many letters in a word,” Lily said. “What’s wrong with ‘Main Street’? Anyway, according to Google maps, we can walk to it. Follow the guide . . .”

  The route was not straight, but Wade couldn’t imagine that any route in what was essentially a medieval Italian city would be. After making their way along a couple of broad avenues, they entered an older, narrower series of streets that wandered and crossed and looped and sometimes ended in blind alleys.

  An hour later, they were deep among ancient ways bordered by low stone buildings, all topped with red tile roofs. And there it was, the Via Cà Selvatica, a narrow flat street at the end of which stood a motley collection of school-like buildings clustered behind a high rough-stone wall. It took them a few minutes to find a door in the wall. It was locked.

  “Over the wall. Come on,” said Darrell. He and Wade hoisted the girls up and followed them inside the wall to a large paved courtyard. Among more modern school buildings, and not visible from the street, stood an old church-like structure with a set of wide stairs leading up to its main doors.

  “The Sala d’Arme is still a fencing school,” Lily said, half looking at the building, half at her tablet. “It teaches the same technique that Achille Marozzo originated in the sixteenth century and that he probably taught Copernicus when he studied in Bologna in the early fifteen hundreds. Pretty cool, huh?”

  “Pretty cool,” said Becca, starting up the stairs with her.

  The windows were dark. And they heard nothing. Neither the clash of blades nor the yelling, shouting, and taunting that might be
expected from a school of swordsmanship.

  Together Wade and Darrell pulled on the bronze handles on the doors. They wouldn’t budge.

  “They’re closed,” Lily said. “We’ve had this problem before.”

  On the wall next to the doors was a sleek alphanumeric keypad with a slot for a security card under it. Clearly it would take only the right combination of digits, and they had no card.

  In addition to the keypad, there was on the right-hand door a small bronze plate with the entwined letters AM in the center.

  Between the two letters was a keyhole, though it was unlike any keyhole they had seen before. The hole was not round but slot-like, narrow at either end and wider in the middle, with little dimples on each side.

  Darrell pounded on the doors. They listened and waited. Becca stood away from the doors. “Hey! Anyone! Apra la porta?”

  No response.

  “Now what?” said Lily.

  Wade couldn’t take his eyes from the keyhole on the door. He bent down to examine it more closely. There were no scratch marks directly around the keyhole, which he thought was odd for what looked like a very old lock. Instead, there was a perfect circle scratched into the plate at a radius of about two inches from the center of the lock, as if the key had something attached to it that scratched the plate when it was turned in the lock.

  Lily pounded on the doors to no result. “Open up, AM! We hid in a soda truck to get here—”

  “Hold on.” Wade unzipped his backpack and unwrapped the dagger from its velvet cover.

  “You’re kidding, right?” said Darrell. “You’re going to stab your way in?”

  “Not really,” Wade said. He studied the keyhole again to see if it was big enough, then he carefully slid the dagger’s blade into it.

  “Okay, careful . . . ,” Lily said.

  With each wave of the blade, the dagger shifted up and down. It stopped when the handle guard was up against the groove scratched into the plate. Once the dagger was all the way in, he turned it gently clockwise. It wouldn’t move. When he turned it the other way—counterclockwise—the lock mechanism clicked and shifted.