Peril at the Top of the World

by James Patterson

  “Hey, you put that there!”

  “Well, duh.”

  “It’s very realistic-looking.”

  “I picked up some tips about playing with light and shadow from the grand masters’ collection at the Hermitage art museum today.”

  “Oh. That’s pretty impressive.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Um, what were we fighting about?”

  “I forget.”

  “Yeah. Me too.”

  “Let’s go help Storm with that clue.”

  “Cool.”

  And just like that, Twin Tirade 607 was done.

  We headed into Storm’s room to start work. We were going to help Dad find the Enlightened Ones’ world headquarters, no matter where it might be.

  (I really hoped it was hidden inside a volcano crater! That would be so cool!)

  And all we had to help us was the first clue, the one the museum guard handed to Dad:

  Even Storm was stumped. And if that’s the case, you know this one’s going to be a doozy.

  CHAPTER 14

  That night, we said our good-byes to Dad.

  “Make me proud, kids,” said Dad.

  “They will,” said Mom.

  “I’m going to miss you, Sue.”

  “I’ll miss you too, Tom.”

  And then they hugged and kissed and junk. I tried not to watch.

  Finally, Tommy cleared his throat. Mom and Dad knocked off all the mushy stuff.

  “Um, you guys?” said Tommy. “Before Dad goes, we wanted to give him, uh, you know, something.”

  “It’s a bon-voyage gift,” I said, because Tommy was sweating profusely. He always gets tongue-tied whenever he has to say anything semi-emotional. That’s another reason we call him Tailspin Tommy.

  I handed Dad a gift-wrapped box.

  “We were going to give this to you next week, on your birthday, but since you may not be here, we figured we should give it to you now.”

  “What is it?” Dad asked as he tore off the wrapping paper.

  “You could call it a replacement. For the one we tossed overboard off the coast of the Cayman Islands.”

  “We thought you were shark bait,” blurted out Storm, who always says whatever’s on her mind whenever it happens to show up there. Even if no one wants to hear it. “So we gave you a burial at sea.”

  “Without a body,” added Tommy. “Because, you know, you and your body weren’t there. Probably because you were, like, alive somewhere else…”

  Dad took our gift, a brand-new captain’s hat, out of the box and popped it on his head. He tugged down the brim to give it the jaunty angle he preferred.

  “We sort of tossed your old one into the Atlantic Ocean,” said Beck.

  “It was very symbolic,” I added. “And moving. Even though I never actually thought you were dead.”

  “You’ll keep in touch?” said Mom as Dad grabbed his duffel.

  “Definitely.” He turned his wrist to check his dive watch. “I need to take off. The secretary of state is letting me hitch a ride on his C-17 transport plane. Group hug?”

  And the six of us formed a rugby scrum in the middle of the living room.

  “I’ll be fine,” said Dad. “And I’ll send you any clues I happen to pick up along the way!”

  Great, because we could use all the help we could get!

  CHAPTER 15

  The next morning, we were sitting in the living room of our hotel suite eating the black bread, porridge, blini, and oladyi—which are served with butter, sour cream, jam, and caviar—brought up by room service for breakfast. We were watching Good Morning, Russia on the state-owned Channel One.

  We don’t usually watch much TV (we’re too busy having adventures), but Mom told us TV could be a valuable tool when attempting to learn a new language.

  I guess. I still didn’t understand a word of what the giggly early-morning-TV people were saying or why they were dressed in aluminum foil.

  Suddenly, a high-pitched beeping noise pierced all our eardrums.

  “That’s my secure line,” said Mom, rummaging around inside her backpack.

  She pulled out a pretty awesome-looking satellite phone. (I think Mom and Dad still get the CIA discount on all their supercool spy gear.)

  “We’re on our way,” Mom said into her phone before she powered it down.

  “What’s going on?” I asked.

  “There’s been a burglary,” she reported. “Next door. At the Hermitage art museum. Several masterpieces are missing—including a priceless Rembrandt.”

  “No!” gasped Beck. “Not the Rembrandt! He’s my favorite!”

  “Everybody go and grab your gear,” said Mom. “We’re heading back to the museum.”

  “Do we have to pay the admission fee again?” asked Tommy.

  “No, Tommy. We’re going back as official consultants. The Russians know we’re in town. They also know that, when it comes to finding stolen artworks, the Kidds are the best treasure hunters in the world!”

  Larissa Bukova met us outside the Hermitage.

  “It is a madhouse in there,” she said. “This is the most horrible crime against the Russian state and people since 1980!”

  “What happened way back then?” I asked.

  “The amateur United States hockey team defeated the far superior Soviet Union national team at the Lake Placid Winter Olympics,” said Larissa sourly.

  “Woo-hoo!” shouted Tommy. Then he started pumping his fist in the air. “U.S.A.! U.S.A.!”

  Mom arched an eyebrow. “Thomas? Remember where you are.”

  “Right. No patriotic fist-pumping allowed. ”

  We hurried into the Hermitage. We were in the same wedding-cake room we’d been in the day before, only now the place was packed. I saw Russian police, reporters, tourists, the Russian army, and even Vladimir Putin.

  A schlumpy little man in a trench coat waddled over to where we stood staring in horror at the blank spots on the walls. You could still see the outlines of the paintings that should’ve been hanging there.

  “Zdravstvuyte,” he said. “I am Inspector Gorky. You are the world-famous Kidds, no?”

  “That’s right,” said Mom. “And this is our tutor, translator, and tour guide, Miss Larissa Bukova.”

  Tommy put his hand beside his mouth and whispered, “She’s also a hottie.”

  Inspector Gorky clicked his heels and bowed slightly. “Zdravstvuyte, Miss Bukova. Ne yavlyayutsya li eti americanskie ‘ohotniki za sokrovishchami’ na samom dele inostrannymi shpionami?”

  “No,” said Storm, “we American treasure hunters are not foreign-espionage agents.”

  “If I may,” asked Inspector Gorky, “where is your world-famous leader, the renowned art historian and treasure hunter Professor Thomas Kidd?”

  “He was called away last night unexpectedly,” said Mom.

  Gorky cocked a skeptical eyebrow. “Last night? Unexpectedly?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “We weren’t expecting it. Neither was he. It was like a surprise party but without any of the good stuff like ice cream or cake.”

  “I see,” said Inspector Gorky. “Tell me, then, is Professor Kidd still working for, how you say, the Agency?”

  “No,” said Mom.

  “Ah. Then who or what is he working for?”

  “The good of humanity. Now then, Inspector,” said Mom, nodding toward one of the blank spots on the wall, “I believe we have work to do. What did they take?”

  The inspector pulled a spiral notebook out of the inside pocket of his rumpled trench coat and read a list.

  “Leonardo da Vinci’s Madonna Litta, The Lute Player by Caravaggio, Giorgione’s Judith, and Danaë by Rembrandt.”

  “No!” gacked Beck. “Not the Rembrandt!”

  “Yes,” said Gorky, rechecking his notes. “The Rembrandt.”

  “This is unbelievable,” muttered Mom. “Thomas leaves to pursue the Enlightened Ones, and the very next day, this happens?”

  “I�
��m sorry,” said Inspector Gorky, “you were mumbling. I did not understand.”

  “Nothing,” said Mom. “Just that this has to be one of the biggest art heists in history.”

  “Yes,” said Inspector Gorky. “It is big. Very, very big.”

  Like Mom, I had a hunch that the despicable Enlightened Ones were somehow involved. They’d probably already submarined all four of the missing paintings to their secret volcano treasure vault.

  That’s why they sent Dad that coded clue.

  They wanted the cat to go away so their sticky-fingered mice could come to the art museum and play.

  And by play, I mean steal!

  CHAPTER 16

  Mom and Storm went over to examine the wall where some of the missing art used to hang. The rest of us sort of tagged along.

  “We were just in this room yesterday,” Mom said to Storm. “Notice anything different?”

  “Give me a second.”

  Uh, the paintings are missing? Even I know that one.

  “Okay,” said Storm. “One—four priceless paintings are missing from the walls. Two—those potted flowers weren’t here yesterday. Three—somebody painted a mustache on the guy on the bottom row near the horse. Four—the horse paintings have been switched around. Five—the benches have been rearranged. Six—somebody dropped an envelope with a wax seal, identical to the envelope the guard handed Dad yesterday, on the floor next to that bench over there.”

  “The Enlightened Ones!” I whispered to Beck. I could see the waxy red splotch from ten yards away.

  Tommy was heading over to pick it up when the strangest thing happened: A kid in a long fur coat (even though it was the middle of summer) and sunglasses strode into the art gallery with two Russian wolfhounds on leashes. He was maybe thirteen years old and surrounded by six bodyguards, their muscles bulging under tight business suits.

  He stopped in front of Tommy, blocking the way to the envelope. “Do not trouble yourself with the trash,” he said to my brother. “I pay people to pick things up for me.”

  Before Tommy could answer, the young teenager snapped his fingers. One of his bodyguards scurried over, scooped up the envelope, and tucked it into his pocket without, of course, showing it to us.

  “May we see that?” asked Mom.

  “No,” said the kid in the fur coat. “You may not.”

  “But it may be evidence.”

  “And it may be musor.”

  “That’s ‘trash, rubbish, or litter,’” translated Storm.

  Mom put her hands on her hips. You know how Storm gets super-mad sometimes? Guess where she learned it?

  “And who, exactly, are you?” demanded Mom.

  “He is Viktor Zolin,” said Inspector Gorky. “One of our most eccentric and generous Russian billionaires. He is only thirteen.”

  “Da,” said Zolin, “this is true. But for your information, Inspector Gorky, I will be fourteen in three months. I also donate many rubles, euros, and dollars to this marvelous museum.”

  “It is why we let him bring his dogs,” added Gorky.

  Zolin marched forward and stared at the blank spots on the walls.

  “No!” he exclaimed. “They told me what had happened but I refused to believe them. Now I see it for myself and I find my soul filled with the same dread, despair, and remorse that so many brooding Russians feel in our many depressing novels and stage plays. This is too, too cruel. Such beauty has been stolen from us? How can this possibly be?”

  “Easy there, cowboy,” said Storm, the girl with no filter between her brain and her mouth. “Some bad guys busted in and ripped paintings off the walls. We’ll get them back. Now, if you’ll give us that clue your stump-necked muscleman just snatched off the floor—”

  Zolin held up his hand to silence Storm.

  “No. First I must weep. I must weep and mourn Mother Russia’s loss!”

  And so he wept.

  Then his bodyguards wept.

  And then the pair of wolfhounds started howling.

  Viktor Zolin dried his eyes with a silk handkerchief. He blew his nose in another silk handkerchief. Then he dabbed his eyes with a fresh hankie. The guy pulled out so many different-colored silks, he reminded me of a magician. At last, he took a deep breath, spun around, and scowled at us.

  “How could your horrible husband do this to us?” he screamed at Mom.

  What?

  “I beg your pardon?” (That’s my mom’s polite way of saying “What?”)

  “I know where Dr. Thomas Kidd went last night!” Zolin shouted. “He came here to the Hermitage to steal our beloved national treasures, then he fled the country like a snake! But he made one terrible mistake—leaving his family behind to take the fall. Arrest these greedy American thieves! Arrest them immediately!”

  The nearby Russian soldiers, who were armed to the teeth, drew their weapons and lunged forward like the witch’s guards in The Wizard of Oz. They had us surrounded!

  Did they think we had the stolen da Vinci and Caravaggio in our backpacks?

  “You’re making a mistake!” cried Mom as my wrists were pulled behind me and locked together with plastic zip ties. I saw Tommy struggle against the army guards but there were too many of them.

  “Where is your husband, Mrs. Kidd?” demanded Inspector Gorky.

  “I… I… I don’t really know,” Mom said.

  “Where was he last night?”

  “He went away. On a mission.”

  “Da!” snapped Viktor Zolin. “A burglary mission! Soldiers, take the Kidd family and their double-agent tutor-spy out of here! Lock them up! Throw away the key! Dr. Thomas Kidd has stolen our priceless national treasures. For this, his wife, children, and hired help must pay!”

  I couldn’t believe what was happening even as they dragged us out of the museum and into police vans.

  The Russians thought Dad had stolen their priceless and precious artwork?

  He would never, ever do that.

  Or would he?

  CHAPTER 17

  Did Dad really steal the paintings from the Hermitage like the weepy Viktor Zolin said he had?

  I’d have a lot of time to ponder this question (and many more) because the six of us were thrown into jail with no one around who could help us.

  It was the kind of dark, dank, and dingy prison where you can’t do much besides ponder, think, brood, and, generally, get stinky.

  “Russia is famous for its brutal prisons,” said Larissa because, I guess, she never quit being a tour guide. “This place is nothing compared to Petak Island, the most isolated prison in all of Russia. There, inmates spend twenty-two hours a day in their cells, pace about in a cramped outdoor cage during yard time, and can receive parcels and packages only twice each year.”

  Larissa kept going. “Then there is the high-security Black Dolphin Prison near the Kazakhstan border, where prisoners are blindfolded when they arrive and whenever they leave their cells so they cannot memorize the layout and plan escapes.”

  We were all getting kind of queasy but Larissa kept babbling on.

  “Of course, there is also the notorious Lefortovo in Moscow, long a favorite of the KGB for, how you say, ‘enhanced interrogations.’ A dreaded place of isolation, torment, agony, torture, and pain—”

  “Enough!” shouted Mom. “Stick a sock in it, Larissa. School is out for the day. Tour time is over.”

  “But—”

  “Tishe! Be quiet!”

  “As you wish, Madame Kidd. I will no longer enlighten you with fun facts to know and tell—”

  “Larissa? You’re still talking.”

  “This is true. I am, indeed, talking. Blabbing and blah-blah-blahing, as you Americans might—”

  “Shh! Not one more word. Not a single peep-ski,” growled Mom.

  And, believe it or not, this finally shut Larissa Bukova up.

  For about ten seconds.

  “These iron bars,” she said then, moving on to geography, “were most likely manufactured in Ma
gnitogorsk, an industrial city in Chelyabinsk nestled at the base of the Ural Mountains…”

  The rest of us jammed our fingers into our ears.

  Until Mom’s watch started chirping.

  CHAPTER 18

  “What, may I ask, is that chirping?” inquired Larissa.

  “Papa Bird,” said Mom excitedly.

  Tommy and I shuffled down to the other side of our cell so we could be closer to Mom, Beck, and Storm.

  “Good thing they didn’t confiscate your watch,” Beck whispered to Mom.

  Mom nodded. “Yes. I wondered about that. Very lax security.”

  “Chya,” said Tommy. “Especially given all that junk Larissa was telling us about Russian prisons and how awful they are—”

  “What are you Kidds blabbing about down there?” called Larissa, because we were all speaking so softly she couldn’t make out a word we were saying. “I am the designated blabbermouth. What do you speak of in such hushed tones?”

  “Um, this bird,” I said. “It must’ve flown in through a window or something.”

  “Impossible,” said Larissa. “This prison has no windows. It is a bleak and soulless place without light or a shred of hope.”

  “Um, maybe it’s a pet of one of the guards.”

  “This is possible,” said Larissa. “Is it a parrot?”

  “Uh, yeah,” I said, shrugging to everybody who was staring at me while I fibbed my head off. “A parrot.”

  Finally, Storm helped me out. “Polli khochet kryeker?” she squawked in her best Russian-parrot voice.

  “A very smart bird,” said Larissa because, in the darkness of the prison cells, she didn’t realize the parrot was actually our big sister saying “Polly wants a cracker” in Russian.

  Our tour guide/tutor launched into another fact-filled, boring monologue. “Many Russians enjoy spending time with domesticated animals. Parrots, cats, dogs, ferrets, mini-pigs, chinchillas, hedgehogs, decorative fish…”