Peril at the Top of the World

by James Patterson

  CHAPTER 34

  We all raced back to our cabins to put on our warmest expedition gear.

  I wasn’t so sure this was a smart idea (the same way I wasn’t sure that the North Pole was the answer to the Enlightened Ones’ clues).

  “Um, Mom?” I said as we climbed up the decks to our cabins. “A couple hours ago, Viktor Zolin’s flunkies were sort of threatening us. Now they want to loan us their snowmobiles? Don’t you think that smells kind of fishy?”

  “Nah,” said Tommy. “That’s the salmon from the barbecue. Wasn’t it awesome? Amahle liked it too.”

  “I’m serious, you guys,” I said. “Something’s not right about this. I don’t trust those Zolin Oil guys. They’re too… oily!”

  “You’re right, it’s a risk,” said Mom. “But, Bick, never forget who we are.”

  Right. We are the Kidds. The Wild Things. We live for action, adventure, and doing risky stuff like diving into freezing-cold water or borrowing skeevy henchmen’s snowmobiles.

  “Besides,” said Mom, “if we have a chance of seeing a polar bear up close and personal in its native habitat, well, that’s something I don’t want you guys to miss. It’ll remind us all why protecting the Arctic Circle is so important.”

  But then she told us to grab our go bags, just in case.

  Whenever we’re on an expedition, we all keep our most essential gear in small gym bags—our go bags—so we can grab them if we need to make a fast exit or escape. For me, that’s clean socks (after our adventures in Africa, you know why clean, dry socks are always super-important), some spare clothes, and my baseball cap. Oh, and the most important thing for me is my journal, to record our treasure-hunting escapades. For Beck, it’s her sketchbook. For Tommy? Duh, hair gel. And Storm always makes sure to tuck a few Hostess Twinkies into her go bag.

  So even though we are like the Wild Things in that book by Maurice Sendak, we are also semi–Boy Scoutish too. We are always prepared. Like Dad says, “Hope for the best, prepare for the worst.”

  Once we were all squared away with our subzero expedition gear and go bags, we headed back down to the ice.

  “Enjoy,” said Nikita and his thug buddies, who stood next to five snowmobiles. “We have checked your gas tanks. All is as it should be. Have much fun. Take many selfies with polar bears to post on Instagram. We shall see you when you return to the ship!”

  We zoomed off across the frozen tundra. Fortunately, the trail of polar-bear prints was straight and clear.

  We zipped along following the prints, and in no time at all, I couldn’t even see the ginormous icebreaker boat behind us when I checked over my shoulder. I was starting to worry we wouldn’t be able to find our way back, that our tracks would get buried by the blowing snow we were stirring up as we raced across the ice.

  After about thirty minutes, the paw-print trail came to an end. But instead of the big white bear we were expecting, we came upon a cluster of men dressed in combat camo. Some were armed with guns and grenades.

  And the reason the paw prints were so clear? One of the men was wearing paw-shaped snowshoes!

  And he was holding a bazooka.

  CHAPTER 35

  “Back to the boat!” shouted Mom.

  She fishtailed her snowmobile hard to the right.

  The four of us cut skidding arcs close behind her, our runners stuttering over frozen speed bumps in the ice.

  “Stoy!” shouted one of the Russians. “Stop!”

  Tommy cut a doughnut, spewing up a whirlwind of frosty white ice in his wake, so he could whip out his binoculars and see what we were up against.

  “They’re Russian Airborne!” he shouted. “Elite paratroopers! They have skis and they know how to use them!”

  “Good thing we have snowmobiles!” I hollered at Tommy, circling back to make sure he didn’t spend too much time gawking at our Russian pursuers. “Come on! We can outrun ’em!”

  Tommy and I popped snow wheelies and sped across the rutted ice. We were forced to swerve away from our ship when bullets started popping into the ice near us.

  “Gun it!” I heard Beck shout up ahead.

  Mom, Storm, and Beck sent their snowmobiles sailing in the air like they were leaping horses.

  Bringing up the rear, Tommy and I soon found out why.

  The sleek white landscape we were jetting across was basically an ice island. We were running out of frozen tundra fast.

  Tommy and I would need to make the leap too.

  We twisted our throttles to gun our engines while squeezing hard on the brakes.

  “Now!” shouted Tommy right before we hit the jagged edge of the ice floe.

  We let go of the brake handles and took off!

  We made it across.

  Mom, Beck, and Storm were waiting on the other side, engines idling.

  “No way are those guys making that leap on skis!” said Tommy.

  “They don’t have a ramp!” I added.

  “I snapped a shot of you two flying between ice floes,” said Beck.

  “We looked totally awesome, right?”

  “Sure,” said Storm. “But the real reason for the photograph was to document the breaking up of the Arctic ice pack due to climate change. Animal lives are at risk.”

  “Um, so are ours,” I said, because I could see that pack of speed-skiing Russian paratroopers schussing after us in hot pursuit.

  “Let’s rock and roll,” said Mom. She revved her engine.

  It sort of sputtered.

  Then mine started knocking and pinging.

  Tommy’s just wheezed and conked out. Beck’s belched a black cloud of exhaust. Storm’s shivered like it was suddenly cold.

  Then all five snowmobiles died.

  “Nikita!” Beck and I shouted at the same time. (It’s a twin thing.)

  I punched a gloved fist into my gloved palm. “This is what he meant when he said they’d checked our gas tanks and all was ‘as it should be’!”

  “They wanted us to run out of fuel,” said Beck, “so we’d all die of exposure after an unfortunate and mysterious snowmobile incident.”

  “How ironic,” said Storm, who’s big on gallows humor. “Our dying wish will be for a few more gallons of gasoline, which, of course, can be obtained only by pumping oil out of the earth.”

  “You guys?” said Tommy. “Maybe we should all put up our arms like we’re surrendering. And if anyone has a white flag, now would be a good time to start waving it.”

  “Why?” demanded Beck.

  “Because,” said Tommy, “those Russian paratrooper dudes are Navy SEAL good. They just ski-jumped the water gap without a ramp and they’re headed right for us. With guns!”

  CHAPTER 36

  We all did as Tommy suggested and threw up our arms.

  “Don’t shoot!” I shouted at the Russian soldiers skiing straight at us across the ice. “We surrender-ski!”

  Storm rolled her eyes. I guess just adding ski to the end of a word doesn’t make it Russian, even when the Russians you are talking to are on skis.

  “Ne strelyayte!” shouted Storm. “My Kiddsy!”

  “We know who you are, Kidd Family Treasure Hunters,” said the squad leader as the Russian paratroopers skied right up to us.

  The squad leader, who was wearing a white ski mask that made him look like a wrestler from the WWF (or a jack-o’-lantern snowman), crunched slowly across the pack ice to Mom.

  “I am Colonel Dragunov, here to tell you that Minister Szymanowicz is not pleased,” he said menacingly through the mouth hole of his mask. “He sent you here to the North Pole to find stolen art masterpieces, not to take a joyride across the ice.”

  “And why did he send you?” asked Mom, who, don’t forget, used to be a spy and didn’t threaten easily. “We only just arrived at the pole a few hours ago. We were out here on a scouting expedition. Getting the lay of the land. Looking for any unexpected storage structures.”

  “That’s right,” I said. “The art thieves might’v
e built themselves a frozen Fortress of Solitude out here somewhere. You ever heard of cold storage? Well, that’s what this would be. A subzero warehouse, filled with all sorts of treasures. Rembrandts, Picassos, those other guys…”

  Dragunov squinted at me like I was an annoying narwhal. “Is this true?” he asked Mom. “Were you searching for this fortress of ice?”

  “It is one possibility we are considering,” said Mom. “Definitely.”

  “Here is something else for you to consider.” He reached into his chest pocket.

  I flinched because I was half expecting him to pull out one of those gnarly survival knives with a sawtooth blade on top.

  Instead, the Russian pulled out an envelope sealed with wax.

  Another clue from the Enlightened Ones!

  I noticed a small hole in the top of it as he handed it to Mom.

  “This was found nailed to a wall of the Hermitage Museum in the blank spot where our revered Rembrandt used to hang. Minister Szymanowicz gave us the order to fly north and parachute over the North Pole to deliver it to you. Apparently, it is a very important document, da?”

  “It could very well be,” said Mom.

  She tore open the envelope.

  “Is it a ransom note from the art thieves?” asked Colonel Dragunov.

  Mom shook her head. “No. It’s another clue.”

  “A clue about what?”

  “Where your country’s lost treasures might be stored, along with priceless art objects and antiquities stolen from collections all around the globe!”

  Dragunov leaned in close to Mom. He was twice her size. But you know what? Mom had had so much martial arts training, I think she could’ve taken the guy.

  “Use this clue,” said the soldier. “Find our art. Do it fast. Because my boots are thin and my feet are cold!”

  After checking out this fourth clue, I was positive about one thing.

  We were freezing our butts off in the totally wrong spot.

  CHAPTER 37

  Mom studied the new clue.

  She passed it to Tommy, who passed it to Storm, who passed it to Beck and me.

  “One hundred and three above?” mumbled Beck so the paratrooper couldn’t hear. “That sounds like the temperature of that mosquito-riddled African jungle we nearly died in!”

  “But it didn’t go down to thirty-five below, ever!” I mumbled back. “Not even at night when we were so cold we were shivering.”

  “So?” said Dragunov. “Have you solved the riddle and discovered where you will find our missing masterpieces?”

  Mom smiled. “Colonel, it’s not that simple. This is only one clue of many that we need to analyze, consider, and—”

  The colonel tugged off his ski mask so we could see how mad he was.

  “Find our treasure now! No more talking. You twirl your tongue like the cow twirls its tail!”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “It’s another Russian saying, Mom,” Storm informed her.

  “Well, it’s not a very pleasant one.”

  Six soldiers knelt in the snow. They weren’t praying. They were aiming their rifles at us!

  “You will follow the clues and take us to the secret treasure-hiding place right now,” threatened the colonel, “or else!”

  Mom grinned. Propped her hands on her hips.

  “Or else what?” she asked. (See, I told you she didn’t threaten easily.) “What are you going to do, Colonel? Order your men to shoot us? With the whole world watching?”

  “Pah. The world is not watching.”

  “Yes, it is.” She gestured toward the crisp blue sky. “There’s a CIA drone overhead right now. It’s recording every move we make. And every one you make too.”

  “I do not believe this. Why would the CIA send a drone to watch over you?”

  “It’s part of the benefits package,” I said, since I’m the best at spinning stories and making junk up. “When you retire from the CIA, which Mom just did, you can sign up for their drone-protection plan.”

  “You are like your mother, little boy,” snarled the Russian. “You lie with every word.”

  “Did you just call my twin brother a liar?” asked Beck angrily.

  “He did,” I said. “But first he called me a little boy!”

  “That’s even worse.”

  “I know. Makes me a little liar!”

  “And we’re both the same height!”

  “So you insulted my sister too!”

  Yep. The two of us were in total Twin Tirade mode, but this one didn’t get a number because we weren’t directing it at each other. This one was just for the Russian bullies in the white snowsuits. Our faces were so hot, we melted every snowflake that dared to come within an inch of our skin.

  “Enough!” shouted the colonel. “Silence! Rope is good when it is long; speech is good when it is short!”

  “Did you memorize a Russian proverb book on the flight up or what?” snapped Beck.

  “Zamolchite! Zatknite!”

  “Oh, they’ll shut up,” said Mom, who knew enough Russian to translate that one. “The second you quit hassling us!”

  Mom was totally backing us up as we faced off against the elite Russian menace. It was so cool. In a totally life-threatening sort of way.

  “Your youngest children are very cute and clever, Mrs. Kidd,” said the colonel. “But in Russia, we do not care for cute or clever. So we will shoot them. Then we will shoot you and the other two. Then we will bury you and your four children under the ice.”

  “Whoa,” said Tommy. “Sounds like you’ve blocked out a pretty busy afternoon, dude. Did you guys bring shovels and ice picks? For the burying part, I mean.”

  Before Dragunov could threaten to throw our bodies to the sharks instead, a chirp-chirp sound rang out cheerfully.

  The colonel held his hand out while glaring at us. One of his soldiers gave him a sleek black communications device with a stubby antenna: a satellite phone!

  “Da? Ochen’ khorosho, gospodin. Ya zdelayu, kak vy skazali. Ya by predpochitayu, chtoby postrelyat’ ikh vsekh. Khorosho. Ya ne eto zdelayu. Khoroshevo dnya.”

  “What’d he say?” Mom asked Storm.

  “That he’ll do what the caller told him to do even though he’d rather shoot us all. Then he told the caller to have a nice day.”

  The colonel tossed the satellite phone back to his radioman.

  “So,” he finally said to Mom, looking disappointed that his superiors wouldn’t let him shoot us. “Do you have a plan as to where you will search next?”

  Just then, several dogsleds appeared on the horizon.

  “Of course,” said Mom. “In fact, here come our rides now.”

  CHAPTER 38

  Three sleds, each pulled by a team of panting huskies, glided across the ice toward us.

  Every sled carried a driver wrapped in fur. As the sleds drew nearer, I noticed that the drivers were Eskimos, who, as I learned from Storm, I should actually call Inuit.

  “Well, hello!” Tommy called out to the dogsled in the middle. “Thanks for dropping by. You’re the answer to all our prayers. Especially mine.”

  Tommy wasn’t just saying this because the Inuit dogsleds had shown up in the nick of time. Judging by his frostbite-risking hair-smoothing, he’d already fallen in love at first sight with the pretty Inuk girl driving the middle sled.

  “These are our local contacts,” Mom said to the Russian colonel, who was scratching his head in confusion. “They’ve discovered a few leads that might help us in our investigation. Please tell Minister Szymanowicz that we will contact him the instant we know more about the location of your stolen art.”

  “You will contact him?” asked the Russian. “How?”

  Mom held out her hand. “You will give me your satellite telephone.”

  “That is unacceptable,” said the Russian. “We will accompany you and your so-called local contacts until you find the paintings.”

  “Great,” I said, “you guys can b
e in charge of scooping the dog poop.”

  “What?”

  “Those sled dogs don’t run on oil,” said Beck. “They run on meat. They eat, they poop, they run, they poop. Get it, poop-head?”

  “You children are disgusting!” said the Russian, scrunching up his face like he just smelled a bad batch of carbonated bread juice. (Seriously. That’s a thing in Russia. They call it kvass.)

  “You think we’re disgusting now?” I said. “Wait till you spend some quality time with us.”

  “Bick seldom bathes,” added Beck.

  “Well, not when it’s freezing out.”

  “You didn’t bathe in the tropics either!”

  “Because when I am exploring the earth, I enjoy smelling earthy!”

  “The earth doesn’t reek as bad as you!”

  “Says who?”

  “Me and half the people in China. They built that Great Wall to keep you and your stench out!”

  Yep. We were really whaling on each other, big-time—battling like the most obnoxious brats in the world. When we’re in full-blown Twin Tirade mode, there’s not a grown-up on the planet who wants to spend more than ten seconds anywhere near us.

  “Quick!” shouted the colonel. “Summon the helicopters. Initiate the extraction package.”

  The radioman made a fast call on the satellite phone.

  “Give me that!” said the colonel, grabbing the phone from his radio operator. He tossed it to Mom. “Call Minister Szymanowicz when you find the paintings. We are out of here!”

  The Russians scrambled into the helicopter and took off.

  “Works every time,” said Beck.

  “Mission accomplished,” I replied, giving Beck a high five.

  Mom went up to the eldest of the Inuit.

  “We seek help,” she said.