The 39 Clues: Cahills vs. Vespers Book 5: Trust No One

by Linda Sue Park

  In her office, Dr. James made a quick call and a young man named Michael came into her office. She introduced him to the group, then sent him to fetch the Voynich Manuscript.

  A few minutes later, Michael wheeled a cart into the office. Dr. James took the manuscript out of its storage box and placed it on a foam wedge to support it.

  Jake gasped. “It’s so small!” he said. “I thought it would be way bigger!”

  The Voynich Manuscript was about the size of an average paperback book, thick, but not large. It looked like a book, too, its pages bound between flimsy leather covers.

  “That’s a common reaction,” Dr. James said. “I think it’s because people who view the manuscript are used to studying the digital images. Those were enlarged to show the detail.”

  Jake reached out with his hand, then stopped and looked anxiously at Dr. James.

  “Go ahead,” she said. She stepped back and let the rest of them crowd around.

  “I can’t believe it,” Jake murmured, clearly awestruck. “I’m actually touching the Voynich!”

  He opened the cover gingerly.

  “Look at the writing,” Amy said. “It’s so tiny!”

  The pages contained line after line of text in perfect, delicate calligraphy. “That must have taken forever to do,” Atticus said.

  Botanical drawings, astronomical charts, more tiny writing. As Jake paged slowly through the manuscript, occasionally sharing comments with Amy and Atticus, Dan started to feel edgy. Am I the only one who remembers why we’re here?

  “The numbers,” he said to Jake. “See the page numbers?”

  Each right-hand page had a number in the corner. Ordinary numbers, not in code.

  “Those were added long after the manuscript itself was written,” Dr. James said, “some think in the seventeenth century. And they’re not page numbers, they’re folio numbers.”

  “Duh!” Atticus said and smacked himself on the side of the head in disgust. “I knew that! With old manuscripts, you almost always talk about folios rather than pages. I can’t believe I forgot.”

  “What’s a folio?” Dan asked.

  “A leaf,” Atticus said. He moved closer and held a sheet of the Voynich to demonstrate; it had the number twenty on one side. “One folio equals two pages, see? The first is the recto — that means ‘right’ in Latin, the right-hand page —”

  “Recto?” Dan snickered. “Any relation to the word rectum?”

  “Actually, yes.” It was Dr. James who answered. “The Latin root for both words means ‘right,’ but it can also mean ‘straight.’ The rectum is straight, as distinct from the other parts of the intestine.”

  “Oh,” Dan said, blushing.

  “Cool!” Atticus said. “Anyway, the other side is the verso, the left-hand page, see?”

  Dan put his mind back on task. “Seventy-four,” he hissed. “Look up seventy-four.”

  Jake flipped gingerly through the manuscript. Dan counted under his breath: “Seventy-two, seventy-three, seventy —”

  “Hey, look — a plumbing picture!” Atticus said gleefully.

  Pools and basins and canals, all filled with naked women. But this time, Dan wasn’t interested.

  “Turn back one,” he said to Jake.

  Seventy-three.

  “Now forward.” To the plumbing picture again.

  Amy frowned and leaned closer. “Seventy-five?” she said, and her eyes met Dan’s.

  About time she caught on!

  There was no doubt about it.

  Folio 74 was missing.

  Dan’s thoughts were crashing into one another like a multicar pileup on the highway.

  Where is it? Who stole it? It couldn’t have been the Vespers — they sent us to steal it for them! How can we steal it if it isn’t here? And if we don’t — can’t — what will happen to the hostages?

  He saw the stricken expression on Amy’s face and knew that she was having the same thoughts.

  Dan forced himself to concentrate. One thing at a time.

  “Do you see that?” He put on a fake-excited voice. “Page seventy-four — it’s missing!” Dan turned to Dr. James. “Did you know that already? Or did we, like, discover it?”

  Beside him, he could feel Amy’s muscles tense.

  “We did know about it, but thank you anyway,” Dr. James said. “There are several folios missing — the online records give a complete list.”

  “Do you know when the missing folios disappeared?” Amy asked.

  Dr. James shook her head. “No, but they were already missing when Wilfrid Voynich bought the manuscript.”

  “In 1912,” Jake reminded them.

  It seemed that Atticus had finally noticed the Cahills’ distress and was puzzling things out, too. “Dr. James, did you just say that the list of missing folios is online?”

  “Yes, that’s right.”

  “Oh,” Atticus said. “That’s nice. That way, ANYONE CAN TELL WHICH ONES ARE MISSING.”

  In Dan’s opinion, Atticus would be well advised to stay away from acting as a career. But his message came through clearly: The Vespers had to know already that Folio 74 was no longer part of the manuscript.

  Then why do they still want us to steal it?

  Unanswerable, at least for the moment.

  The hastily scraped-together plan called for Dan to create a distraction, aided by Amy and Jake. It was Atticus’s job to pilfer the manuscript and get it out of the building somehow, the thinking being that as the youngest, he would look the most innocent.

  Dan moved away from the manuscript and toward Dr. James. Then he clapped one hand to his eye.

  “Ow!” he said. “My contact, I lost my contact!”

  He dropped to his knees right next to Dr. James. Just as he hoped, she bent over and began helping him search for the imaginary contact lens.

  Then Amy grabbed his elbow.

  “It’s okay, Dan,” she said with a forced smile. “You — um, you DON’T REALLY NEED IT, do you?”

  “What?” Dan almost yelped. What’s with her?! She can’t have forgotten the plan already!

  “He doesn’t need his contact lens?” Dr. James looked up in surprise.

  “Of course I need it!” Dan pulled his arm away from Amy and glared at her. “Thanks for your help, Dr. James. ISN’T SHE NICE TO BE HELPING?”

  Amy glared right back at him. “What I meant was, you have all those extra pairs in your suitcase, so THERE’S NO NEED FOR DR. JAMES TO LOOK FOR IT.”

  Meanwhile, Atticus was edging closer to the manuscript and had one hand on it. Amy reached over and brushed his hand away.

  “Atticus, whatever you’re thinking about doing, you can’t do it now. We need to get going because — because IT’S TIME FOR YOUR NAP.”

  “My nap?” Atticus looked utterly bewildered.

  Just then Jake started to say something. “Oh, I get it — er, I mean, you’re right, Amy. YOU NEED TO TAKE A NAP, ATTICUS.”

  Dan still had one hand over his eye. “Will someone please help me find my contact?”

  Amy grabbed Atticus with one hand and yanked Dan up with the other. “We should go now,” she said, her voice so bright it was almost shrill. “That way we can get Dan another contact and Atticus can have his nap! Thank you, Dr. James, we really appreciate your bending the rules for us.”

  “You’re welcome,” Dr. James said, still pleasant but clearly bewildered.

  “Yes, thanks, this was great,” Jake said. “Really, thank you so much.” He put his hand on Dan’s shoulder. It might have looked like a friendly gesture, but Jake had a pincer grip and pushed Dan toward the door.

  Meanwhile, Amy dragged Atticus out of the room.

  Without the manuscript.

  “A NAP?!” Atticus yelled. “What do you think I am, a three-year-old?”

  They were outside the Beinecke once again, after having left the reading area and retrieved their backpacks. On the way out, they had passed two guard stations, as well as the one at the building
’s entrance.

  “Shh,” Amy said and led them to a bench.

  “What was all that in there, anyway?” Dan said angrily.

  “I couldn’t very well yell ‘Abort, abort!’ with Dr. James standing there, could I?” Amy said. “I had to figure out a way to tell you not to steal the manuscript.”

  “I guessed that’s what you were doing,” Jake said. “And anyway, there were all those guards and they were inspecting everyone’s coats and bags. We’d never have gotten away with it.”

  “But a NAP?” Atticus was still outraged. “Couldn’t you have thought of something else?”

  “Sorry,” Amy said. “I just said the first thing that came to me.”

  “Why did you call it off?” Dan said. “There might have been something in the manuscript that would tell us where seventy-four is!”

  Amy shook her head. “Look. Dr. James and the Beinecke people — they’ve had the manuscript for years. They’ve examined it every which way possible. If there was anything in it that pointed to the missing pages, don’t you think they’d have figured it out?”

  “So why would the Vespers send us here?” Jake asked.

  “To see it. So we’d have an idea what we’re looking for. I’m not sure, of course, but that’s my best bet. The Vespers always know exactly what they want from us, and in this case, it’s not the whole manuscript — it’s Folio Seventy-four.”

  Dan refused to be swayed. “I still think —”

  “Jake? Atticus? Is that you?”

  All four heads turned in the direction of the voice. Across the plaza, they saw someone approaching them.

  Atticus couldn’t see the man clearly yet. Beside him, Jake rose to his feet.

  “Hey, guys!” The man’s face broke into a grin and he trotted the last few yards.

  “Dave!” Atticus let out a huge sigh of relief.

  “He was one of my mom’s research assistants,”Jake explained. “Dave, this is Amy and Dan.”

  They exchanged greetings, then Dave noogied Atticus’s hair. “How are ya, kid?”

  “I’m good,” Atticus said. “What are you doing here?”

  “Working,” Dave said. “In the classics department.” Then his face grew solemn. “I know I’ve said it before, but I’m really sorry, guys. Your mom was a great lady. I miss her.”

  I do, too, Atticus thought, but it seemed too obvious to say. Then his mind went back to the day his mother died. Dave had been at the house. Atticus, Jake, and their dad had taken turns sitting by her bed.

  Astrid had been delirious for several days before her death. Tossing restlessly, wringing the sheets and her hands, her eyes open but unseeing. It had been so hard to see her that way. . . .

  And she had mumbled a lot. Mostly streams of incomprehensible syllables, but occasionally a few words. Atticus had tried desperately to understand, responding to her as if they were having a normal conversation in the hope of breaking through her delirium.

  Already his recollection of her mumblings had helped them once, and he had been meaning to search his memory again. Somehow he hadn’t gotten around to it, and he knew why: It was too painful.

  But seeing Dave brought it all back — the hours that were endless because of seeing her suffer, and at the same time, much too short because they were her last. Her words may have been mostly nonsense, but they were his final memory of her.

  The Mad King . . . something about guardians . . . stay friends with Dan . . .

  And there had been more.

  Missing . . . voyage . . . where . . . LaCher . . .

  Voyage?

  Not voyage — Voynich! She was saying ‘Voynich’!

  Atticus was thinking so hard that he held his breath, as if any activity other than recollection would take away his ability to remember his mother’s words.

  “You okay, bud?”

  Atticus blinked. Dave was staring at him, looking concerned.

  But it wasn’t just concern. Atticus frowned. There was something else in Dave’s expression, something sharper and less kindly than concern . . . or was he imagining things?

  I’m just paranoid over this whole Vesper thing.

  “I’m fine,” he said. “Sorry — I was thinking about Mom.”

  Dave nodded. “So, what are you up to? Is your dad here, too?”

  “No,” Jake said. “We’re, um, just here with our friends.”

  “Dave,” Atticus said suddenly, “do you know a friend of Mom’s named LaCher?”

  “Sure,” Dave said. “LaCher Siffright.”

  Siffright — again?

  “Siffright?” Dan said. “That’s —” He stopped for a moment, then went on, “That’s a funny name.”

  “She’s a medievalist — at Brown, I think,” Dave said. “Tall, blond hair . . . Why do you ask?”

  “No reason,” Atticus said, aware of how lame that sounded. Quick — think of something else! “I mean, I was just trying to remember all Mom’s friends. I thought maybe — maybe I’d write and ask if they have any pictures of her.”

  There, that’s better. Pretty convincing, if I say so myself. Besides, it’s a good idea — I should do it for real.

  “Want me to track her down for you?” Dave asked.

  “That’s okay,” Jake said. “I’m sure Dad has her address somewhere.”

  Dave took out his phone. “Sorry, just thought of something.” He took a polite step back, punched in a quick text message, then put the phone away.

  “Can I buy you all lunch?” He smiled at Atticus. “Do you still like peanut butter on your tuna-fish sandwich?”

  Amy looked at her watch. “That’s nice of you, but I’m afraid we need to get going,” she said.

  Dave glanced at Amy’s wrist. “Cool watch,” he said. “Okay, I’ll get back to work, then. Say hi to your dad for me. And take care, both of you.”

  Atticus waited until Dave was out of sight. Then he turned to the group and said, “I know what we need to do next.”

  Ted could sense the heaviness of the depression in the room. He and the other hostages had staked everything on the escape attempt. Now that they had been recaptured, they had nothing left.

  It was quiet, with only the occasional sounds of Nellie and Natalie moving about as they attended to Alistair. Nellie should have been a patient herself: During the escape attempt, she had been attacked by the Vespers’ dogs.

  But Alistair was worse off. He had lost a lot of blood from the deep gash in his leg, which had been cut on a sharp rock as he was trying — unsuccessfully — to keep Phoenix from going over the edge of a cliff.

  The wound had gone septic. Alistair had a high fever, and the girls were using up some of their precious water ration to soak rags and place them on his body in an effort to get his temperature down.

  Ted could have told them it was no use. The combination of Alistair’s advanced years and his weakened constitution left him defenseless. Ted could already smell it — the putrid odor of the infection snaking inexorably through Alistair’s system.

  Then he heard an odd noise like rapid drumming, followed by Nellie’s panicked voice.

  “Quick! Turn him on his side!”

  Natalie’s voice: “Oh, my God, what’s happening?”

  “He’s having a seizure —”

  The noise was Alistair’s feet beating uncontrollably against the floor. The drumming sound slowed, then stopped as the seizure ended.

  “Alistair? Alistair, it’s Nellie. Can you hear me?”

  Ted heard the slow, strained gasp of Alistair’s lungs pulling desperately for air.

  “Brave,” Alistair croaked. “Amy . . . Dan . . . all of you.”

  “Alistair!” The anguish in Nellie’s voice made Ted flinch.

  “Help him!” Natalie’s scream bounced off the walls. “Somebody, please! Hurry!”

  Ted heard another long, terrible breath that made his scalp tingle and the rest of his body shudder. To him, the sound was as bad as what everyone else was seeing.

&
nbsp; Maybe worse.

  The silence that followed was absolute.

  “Here’s what I’m thinking,” Atticus said. “We need to —”

  Amy’s phone sounded with the tone she had programmed for Vesper One’s calls. It was a text alerting them to an incoming video transmission. Quickly, Dan got out his laptop so they could see the video on a full screen.

  The transmission came through as a Skype call. On the screen they saw Nellie, live, her eyes filled with fury even as tears spilled out of them.

  “Amy and Dan? Bad news here. Really bad.” Pause. Sniffle.

  Amy held her breath.

  Nellie looked pale and haggard. She cut her eyes to one side, glancing at something or someone else. After a few moments, she looked straight on again. It seemed to Amy that she was receiving silent cues about what she could and couldn’t say on camera.

  “He was already so weak, and then he got a cut on his leg. It got infected. And the infection spread really fast. There was nothing we could do. . . .”

  Her voice caught; she cleared her throat. “He was thinking of you at the end. He said, ‘Brave, Amy and Dan and all of you.’ And then —”

  Nellie lowered her head and sobbed, unable to speak for a few moments. Then she wiped her eyes and looked into the camera.

  “He’s gone, kiddos. Uncle Alistair’s gone.”

  For a moment, Amy’s vision was blotted out by the black anger that engulfed her whole being. Grief would come later, she knew; for now, she could only feel rage.

  “I KNOW YOU CAN HEAR ME!” she screamed at the computer. “I thought you at least had SOME sense of honor — in your sick, twisted way! HOW COULD YOU DO THIS?”

  The image of Nellie’s face blipped out and was replaced by the program’s placeholder icon. Vesper One’s words were creepily robotic, filtered through an electronic voice distorter.

  “You have forty-eight hours left.” The call disconnected. Dan cursed — not loud, but fiercely. Amy put a hand on his shoulder and felt him trembling with grief and rage.

  Amy put her other hand to her neck and deliberately scraped the small powder burn with her fingernail. For some stupid reason she wanted to feel physical pain . . . to match the anguish in her heart.