39 Clues _ Cahills vs. Vespers [03] The Dead of Night

by Peter Lerangis

  Out of the corner of her eye, Amy spotted another small critter racing across the ground. It stopped just beyond a massive gravestone, near a soft, ragged lump on the ground. It looked like a freshly killed squirrel. “There’s its breakfast,” Amy said.

  Dan was walking closer to the lump, squinting. He stopped and turned, his face pale. “It’s not the only dead thing.”

  Amy followed his glance to the silhouette of a foot, sticking out from behind the tombstone.

  Atticus gasped.

  “Is that . . . Olga?” Dan whispered.

  Amy moved closer, girding herself against her worst fear. That Vesper One had found a total stranger and killed her. Just for kicks. As a warning.

  A hostage by proxy.

  Overhead came an angry cawing. Move away and let nature take its course. Leave the dead for the living. Every instinct told Amy to run from this creepy scene. Just drop the astrolabe and run.

  “The foot . . .” Atticus said, holding tight to Amy’s arm. “It’s too wide for an Olga.”

  Amy could see a leg now, wearing jeans. “H-h-hello?” she called out.

  Dreading what she would see, she came around the front of the stone. A young man was sprawled on the grass, his head angled back into a shadow.

  She stepped forward to see his face.

  “Jake?”

  The first thing Jake Rosenbloom realized upon awakening was that it was raining. The second was that something was screeching high above.

  The third was that the rain was actually Amy Cahill crying into his face. “Jake, you’re alive!”

  Jake sat forward. He felt as if someone had split his head open with a pickax. “I hope so,” he said.

  “Oh, man, I thought I would never see you. . . .” Now Atticus was hugging him, sobbing. “What happened?”

  “I’m not sure . . . it was confusing. . . .” Jake touched his head and immediately jumped from the pain.

  “We should have faced the police together,” Dan said. “If we had, the Vespers would have taken the astrolabe. That’s all they wanted to do.”

  “So why don’t they just take it now and leave us alone?” Atticus asked, looking around the cemetery. “Where are they?”

  “I don’t know,” Amy said, reaching down to help Jake up. “They told us to meet someone here at exactly five-thirty. Olga Sakarov.”

  Jake groaned as he rose. He blinked his eyes, taking in the surroundings.

  And suddenly he understood.

  Although he had made a commitment to the Cahills, he hadn’t fully appreciated what they were up against. As he looked at Amy, he could read the lines on her face. They traced out a map of trouble, an old person’s pain on someone only sixteen. The Cahills, he knew, were in a hole so deep there might be no way out. A hole that he and his brother were in now, too.

  He had never felt so right about his decision to join Dan and Amy in the fight against the Vespers. “They did this to me,” Jake said, “to teach you a lesson.”

  He stood away from the tombstone behind him so that the others could see:

  Atticus swallowed hard. “Olga Sakarov.”

  “She was a prop,” Jake said. “A symbol of what could happen to any of us. He put me here, noted the name, and texted you. A morbid scene he wanted you to see.”

  He looked at Amy’s watch. 5:30.

  A loud scream rang out overhead. All four of them craned their necks upward.

  The vulture, which had been hovering hungrily, was now flying away. Swooping down from the sky, its wings spread wide, was another creature — a thick-bodied raptor with a long neck and a sharp beak.

  “Move!” Amy said. “It’s going after the dead meat!”

  They scrambled back the way they came. With a tilt of its body, the bird followed. As it neared Amy, it opened its talons and let out a chittering squeal.

  “Amyyyyy!” Dan was yelling.

  Amy screamed. There was a brush of feathers against her hair. Talons clamped solidly on the astrolabe and pulled upward.

  Amy felt the disc lift out of her clutches. The hawk soared into the rising sun, the astrolabe hanging like a helpless animal.

  Amy raced to the top of the hill to watch. The bird was descending now, toward a distant road.

  There, the solid black window of a black limousine rolled down. A leather-gloved hand reached out toward the sky, palm up.

  The bird dropped fast, braking its descent just short of the car. The hand reached out, grabbed the astrolabe, and pulled it into the window.

  Now Amy could see a man with sunglasses inside. He was blowing them all a kiss.

  Sinead looked like she was going to jump through the laptop screen. “Amy, you are a hero!”

  “Um . . . just Amy?” Dan said.

  Amy stuck out her tongue at him. Cackling, Dan flopped back on the stone bench outside the Shah-i-Zindi mosque and watched the sun playing on the turquoise tiles. The place was quiet enough — and private enough — for a link to Attleboro.

  “Well, everyone helped,” Amy said. “Atticus figured out the final code. Jake nearly sacrificed his life. And Dan . . . let me think. . . .”

  Amy braced herself for a protest. But instead, Dan seemed preoccupied with his phone. “Guys . . .” he said. “We’ve got confirmation.”

  He held his phone up to Amy, Atticus, and Jake — and then to the screen, for Sinead to see.

  The drop was lovely. Many thanks to all who made it possible. Including dear Olga Sakarov.

  Well, time to celebrate. And what better place than the cheerful city of Berlin? Home of a priceless jewel, in a heavily guarded museum. I trust you have heard of it. Because your next assignment is to liberate it. And deliver it to me.

  Thanks in advance. And a jolly “Guten tag!” from Uncle Alistair.

  “Germany?” Jake said. “Why? And what jewel?”

  Dan shrugged. “Let Amy do the research. She likes that part.”

  “I wish Vesper One wouldn’t joke about Uncle Alistair like that,” Sinead said.

  Amy nodded. “I’ve been thinking about him all day. About what he avoided.”

  “Thanks to all of you,” Sinead said. Her eyes darted left. “Um, Evan and I do have some news to report.”

  Evan leaned into the screen. “Sinead and I are friends again. She totally nailed the lizard. Well, not actually impaled it with a nail. I mean, the identity of the lizard. And its type. Which is actually given away by its name, funnily enough —”

  “Your brilliant guardian Nellie,” Sinead said, “was holding up an Argentine giant tegu.”

  Amy nearly leaped off the bench. “Argentina! That’s amazing data. You pinpointed it!”

  “Yesss!” Dan shouted.

  Sinead eyed Evan, then turned back to the screen. “I’ve also been running a trace on Ian. We have confirmation he visited his mother. The good news is that he wasn’t kidnapped. The bad news is that immediately after seeing her, he changed his flight.”

  “He’s in Argentina, Amy,” Evan said.

  “Which also happens to be the location of one of Isabel Kabra’s strongholds,” Sinead added.

  Amy rocked back on the bench. Isabel. Was she the master kidnapper? Could she be Vesper One? “Ian must have found out about the hostages’ location,” she said. “From his mother. And he went straight there.”

  “Without contacting us?” Sinead said with an exasperated sigh. “He’s off the Cahill grid, Amy. Total radio silence.”

  “I never did trust that guy,” Evan said. “I mean, with all respect.”

  Amy shook her head. This didn’t add up. Ian couldn’t be involved with the Vespers. He was every bit as strong a Cahill as Sinead and Evan were. “Give him some time . . .” she said.

  “We have our people on the case, inspecting every lead . . . ” Evan said, his voice trailing off. “Um, Amy? Are you okay?”

  Amy’s eyes were misting. “I’m fine. Thanks, Evan. For all the amazing work. You’re the best.”

  “Somebody cue the viol
ins,” Dan said.

  “Uh, sounds to me as if Sinead is actually the one who deserves the thanks,” Jake said.

  Evan arched his eyebrows at the remark. “Amy Cahill is the head of the family. She can think for herself.”

  Another airport. Another flight. Another delay.

  At least this one had a good gift shop. With a collection of small aloe plants.

  Seventeen ingredients.

  Progress.

  Dan sank against the wall, near a group of backpackers from Germany. Three flights were leaving from the same gate, and already two had been canceled.

  Amy and Jake were off to get food. Atticus was sacked out against the opposite wall. Snoring.

  Cautiously he snapped open his phone and read the message that had come in from AJT.

  Hello, Dan! Figured maybe you had some downtime. Contact me when you want. Patience is my middle name. Just ignore the J. :)

  The tone was so appalling, Dan nearly laughed.

  He’d murdered Mr. McIntyre. He’d had Jake beaten up in a graveyard . . . as a stunt!

  What would he have done if I hadn’t pressed SEND in time to save Uncle Alistair?

  Dan wanted to throw the phone under the wheels of a jumbo jet. Hire a hypnotist to wipe the memory of the messages from his brain.

  But the feeling was back.

  Against all odds, against every atom of human reason, the message gave him a strange sensation. A tingling from the bottom of his toes. Something like hope.

  Bordering on insanity.

  He snapped the phone shut and stuck it in his pocket. Then he closed his eyes, counted to ten, and opened them.

  He took several deep breaths. He reminded himself that he was hungry. He pulled a squashed candy bar from his backpack and began to unwrap it. Each of these things was calming him down.

  “’Allo?” said one of the Germans, a rosy-cheeked girl about Dan’s age.

  “Hello,” Dan said.

  “You have ’allo?” the girl persisted, pointing inside the pack — to a green leaf that was jutting out of a plastic bag.

  “Oh, aloe?” Dan said. “Yup. To . . . um, to rub on my —”

  “Sunburn.” The girl pulled down the collar of her T-shirt to reveal a patch of bright red skin below her collarbone.

  “TMI . . .” Dan murmured, quickly breaking off a piece of the leaf and giving it to her. “Okay? Auf Wiedersehen. Whatever. Gotta book.”

  He shoved the candy bar in his mouth and found a seat under a picture window. Rain pounded on the glass.

  He had to be more careful about hiding the ingredients. One glance at the aloe plant, and Amy would know.

  Overhead, a news report blared on an airport TV monitor. There was a report about a father and a little boy finding each other after a tornado. They were grinning, and they looked so much like each other.

  Like twins, separated by a generation . . .

  Amy’s words echoed in his brain. When you were little, he’d hold you up to everyone and say, ‘Moon face!’ You both would flash this big, identical grin.

  Dan sat bolt upright.

  Of course. He could settle the AJT problem once and for all. Why hadn’t he thought of this before? No stranger could possibly know that fact.

  He checked left and right, then opened the phone again. This time he composed a message and sent it right away:

  If you’re really my dad, can you tell me what special thing you said to make us smile together?

  The answer came back far faster than he would have expected.

  Moon face.

  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 . . .)

  On a bus to Berlin, Germany

  “Bluetooth earpieces are so geeky,” Dan Cahill said.

  “But they free up your hands for surfing the web, stealing priceless jewels, and eating pastry,” Atticus said, taking a huge bite out of an apple strudel.

  “And picking your nose,” Dan added, which caused Atticus to blow a mouthful of strudel all over the seat in front of them occupied by Dan’s sister, Amy, who was trying to sleep.

  Amy had heard the entire lame exchange — and felt the half-chewed pastry chunks splatter the back of her head — but she resisted the strong urge to turn around and tell the boys to shut up. She was happy that the old, goofy Dan was back, acting like a complete idiot. He had grown up way too much in the past few weeks, and she hadn’t liked what he was turning into. Dan had seen too much, too fast, and lately she’d caught glimpses of something dark inside him.

  And the pressure on the two of them was growing. Vesper One was not just a step ahead, he was miles ahead of them. He not only knew what they were going to do before they did it, he even seemed to know what they were thinking. But so far, no hostages have died, she reminded herself. We have handled every ridiculous and dangerous task Vesper One has thrown at us. Our friends are still alive.

  She wondered how much longer it could last.

  Seven members of the Cahill family had been kidnapped and a man known only as Vesper One was threatening to kill them one at a time unless Amy and Dan delivered a series of bizarre ransoms. He was pulling their strings like a puppet master, teasing them, commanding them, and they had no choice but to obey. Which is why Amy found herself on a bus, in a snowstorm, moving doggedly toward their next target even though their flight had been canceled.

  “I’ve discovered that Berlin is not the only place having weird weather,” Atticus said to Dan.

  Their long flight from Samarkand had barely landed in Heidelberg when the airport was closed due to the earliest snowfall in Germany’s history. The airline company put the grumbling passengers on buses for a slushy six-hour drive to Berlin.

  “There’s a heat wave in Attleboro — upper nineties. In the Pacific Northwest, where some places get one hundred twenty–plus inches of rain, they’re having a drought. Climatologists are scrambling to figure out the strange weather shift.”

  Dan wasn’t paying attention. “You strudel-chunked your laptop!” he said.

  This started another round of hysterical giggling, causing several other passengers to curse in German and “Shh!” them, which the boys completely ignored.

  Amy shook her head in wonder. Listening to the two boys, you wouldn’t know that a couple days earlier, Atticus had almost been murdered. She pulled a strudel chunk out of her hair. It’s as if none of it ever happened. But it did happen. Worse things have happened. . . .

  Amy looked out the window at the blowing snow in the gray waning light and pushed the worries firmly out of her mind. They were just entering Berlin, the site of their current assignment. Vesper One had sent them yet another cryptic ransom note on the satellite phone he had so kindly provided for them. Every time it chimed, Amy felt dread surge deep in her belly.

  Well, time to celebrate. And what better place than the cheerful city of Berlin? Home of a priceless jewel, in a heavily guarded museum. I trust you have heard of it. Because your next assignment is to liberate it. And deliver it to me.

  Thanks in advance. And a jolly “Guten Tag!” from Uncle Alistair.

  Vesper One

  The puppet master at work, Amy thought bitterly. No mention of the name of the museum, which jewel, or how long we have to steal it before he murders one of our friends.

  Jake Rosenbloom, Atticus’s older half brother, was sound asleep in the window seat next to her. He was an arrogant jerk, but she had to admit he was easy to look at, even with his brown eyes closed, his lips half open, and a tiny drop of drool leaking from the corner of his mouth. Looking at him, she found her lips fluttering upward into a smile until she caught herself and abruptly frowned.

  There’s nothing to smile about! she reminded he
rself.

  The boys were uncharacteristically silent. Amy leaned out of her seat and looked back to see what trouble they had found. Dan had the window seat and was looking at his smartphone. Atticus was hunched over in the aisle seat, his dreads dangling over the laptop screen as his nimble fingers flew over the keyboard like a virtuoso pianist.

  “Any luck figuring out which museum we’re supposed to . . .” Amy didn’t want to say “rob” for fear of being overheard.

  Atticus shook his head. “There are over a hundred and seventy museums and galleries in Berlin. It’s impossible to say which one of them has —”

  “What we’re looking for,” Amy interrupted. Atticus was a genius, but he was only eleven years old. He sometimes forgot that anyone could be eavesdropping.

  “Uh . . . right,” he said, darting a quick look at their fellow passengers.

  “We’re here,” Dan said, wiping the fog off the window with his hand. He looked at Amy. “What’s your plan?”

  “I don’t have a plan, uh, Frederick.”

  “Frederick?” Dan said.

  “Frederick Wimple,” Amy said. It was just the latest of a series of fake identities, counterfeit passports, and forged birth certificates cooked up by a team of Cahills at their command center in Attleboro. Where is Sinead coming up with these names? Amy wondered.

  “Just kidding,” Dan said loudly, trying to cover his lapse. “You know I hate it when you call me Frederick. Call me Fred. If you don’t, I’ll start calling you Fi instead of Fiona.”

  “Sorry, Fred.” Amy rolled her eyes.

  The bus stopped and the interior lights came on.

  Jake’s eyes snapped open and he flinched in his chair. “Where are we?”

  “Brandenburg International Airport,” Amy answered.

  Atticus stuck his head between the seats. “Berlin, bro. It’s still snowing.”

  “Great,” Jake said, wiping the corner of his mouth and working the kink out of his neck.

  Amy smiled again, but when Jake caught the look and smiled back, she frowned and glared at him.

  Dan narrowed his eyes. “What’s with you, Fiona?”