Peril at the Top of the World

by James Patterson

  “Good. Because so far, we’ve got nothing.”

  Interesting. Mom didn’t share the latest E-1 clue about the culprit being a local with Uncle T.

  “All right, children,” said Uncle Timothy, “kindly give us the room. Your mother and I need to talk. This is strictly an adults-only conversation. No children allowed.”

  “So,” I said, “how come you get to stay, Uncle T?”

  My sibs cracked up. Mom too. We were laughing so hard, we were holding our sides.

  Uncle Timothy whipped off his sunglasses, a move he made only when he wanted to glare at you to show how serious he was.

  “I’m serious,” he said. (See? I told you.)

  “Like a chess master, I’ve been running an extremely long game against the most cunning, clever, and crafty art thief in the world. He is the mastermind behind this recent rash of museum smash-and-grabs.”

  “Is it the Enlightened Ones?” I asked.

  Uncle Timothy chuckled. “You read too many comic books, Bickford. The Enlightened Ones are a myth. They don’t really exist.”

  “Then why did they send us so many clues about their stolen-art warehouse?” demanded Beck.

  “Because the real culprits wanted your father out of Russia and out of the picture. But that was all part of my master plan too. With your father gone, the top dog would lower his guard. Giving your mother and me a very slim window of opportunity to swoop in and nab him.”

  Mom was furrowing her brow. She didn’t trust Uncle Timothy any more than the rest of us. But I could tell she wanted to hear him out.

  “Go to your rooms, guys,” she said. “Uncle Timothy and I need to talk.”

  “In private!” added Uncle Timothy.

  “Fine,” said Tommy. “Just don’t eat all the cashews too.”

  Uncle Timothy grinned. “Already have.”

  I just shook my head. Of course he had!

  Because Uncle Timothy was a cashew-, cheese-straw-, and cookie-snitching creep!

  CHAPTER 50

  We did not go to our rooms.

  Hey, we’re the Kidd kids. We live for action, adventure, and the adrenaline rush of finding something the whole world thinks is lost forever. Plus, not to brag, but when Mom and Dad were both out of the picture, the four of us did pretty well up against some fairly overwhelming odds and incredibly skeevy characters.

  So we had our own powwow—with no adults—downstairs in the hotel’s super-fancy tearoom.

  “All that talk about minibar food made me hungry,” said Tommy, eyeballing the spread of sweets, sausages, and smoked fish served alongside smoky-flavored black tea.

  “I can’t believe Mom is even talking with weird Uncle Timothy,” said Beck.

  “She kind of has to,” I said. “He might still be working for the CIA on a top secret project.”

  “In a maximum-security prison cell?” said Tommy. “You’d think they’d give him a better office.”

  “Yeah,” added Storm, “one without a concrete bed and pebble pillows.”

  “We should go find the stolen paintings ourselves,” I said. “Like we found the Grecian urns and the paintings the Nazis looted in World War Two. We’d do a better job than Uncle Timothy, that’s for sure.”

  “Fine,” said Beck. “Where do you suggest we start looking?”

  “Russia!” I said. “That’s what the sixth clue said: the thief is a local!”

  Beck narrowed her eyes and scowled at me. “Hello! That just means he or she is a Russian, Bickford.”

  I narrowed my eyes and scowled right back.

  Yep. We were launching into Twin Tirade 608.

  “If he’s local,” I insisted, “then he has to be in Russia.”

  “Not all Russians are in Russia at all times, Bickford,” said Beck.

  “Well, Rebecca,” I replied, “there are more Russians in Russia than anywhere else.”

  “So?” said Beck. “That doesn’t mean that the Russian we’re looking for is in Russia.”

  “Maybe we should forget the Russian angle and concentrate on art haters,” Beck continued tirading.

  “Why?”

  “Because there’s only, like, two or three of them in the whole world!” said Beck.

  “Are you kidding? Lots of people all over the world hate art!”

  “Really?” said Beck, propping her hands on her hips. “Well, I’m not too crazy about them either.”

  “Me neither!” I screamed.

  “I know that.”

  “I love your art!” I told her.

  “Your writing’s okay too,” said Beck.

  “Then why are we yelling at each other?”

  “I forget.”

  “Me too.”

  “Want to go find an art-hating Russian?” asked Beck.

  “Definitely. Let’s start in Russia.”

  “Good idea.”

  And just like that, our tempest in a teapot (or tsunami in a samovar) was over.

  When we’d completely cooled down and Tommy had finished his sixth salmon and cream cheese slider, Storm finally piped up.

  “Let’s go back to the scene of the crime,” she suggested. “There might be a clue in the museum that we missed the first time through.”

  So the four of us hiked over to the Hermitage Museum. Just us kids, no grown-ups allowed. Like I said, we’ve done pretty well treasure hunting on our own without any adult supervision. Plus, children’s admission at the art museum was probably way cheaper than what they charged adults.

  Anyway, what was the worst that could happen?

  CHAPTER 51

  So out we went, around the block to the Hermitage art museum in Saint Petersburg, home of “mostly okay” Russian people, plus a few bad ones who make billions from oil sales and don’t care if they have to melt the North Pole to do it.

  We entered the museum and started to scatter.

  Beck wanted to take a quick side trip to see the Dutch paintings on permanent display. “There might be more Rembrandts!”

  Tommy wanted to see the Armorer’s Art of the Middle East from the Fifteenth to Nineteenth Centuries.

  “They have gnarly-looking swords,” he said. “The kind with curved blades!”

  I was sort of interested in the gift shop because they sold fake Fabergé eggs. Chocolate ones too.

  “Anybody else still hungry?” I asked. “I need a quick candy break.”

  “Not me,” said Tommy. “I ate all those little finger sandwiches, which, when you think about it, is kind of a gross name for food. I mean, who wants to eat a sandwich with a finger in it?”

  “You know, Tommy, the gift shop might sell fake swords—”

  “You guys?” said Storm, sounding extremely frustrated. “We need to focus. We’re not here as tourists. We’re here because we’re treasure hunters!”

  “Storm’s right,” said Tommy. “My bad.”

  “Our bad too,” Beck and I said together.

  Determined to find a clue we might’ve missed the first time, we marched past all sorts of incredible artworks and amazing ceiling decorations to get to the gallery where the four masterpieces used to hang.

  We entered the room where the thief had stolen the four paintings.

  “They’ve been back!” Beck gasped when she saw what was hanging where the stolen art used to be. “The criminals have returned to the scene of the crime.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked, looking around for some suspicious Russian bad-guys.

  “Look! Only an art hater could replace masterpieces by Leonardo da Vinci, Caravaggio, Giorgione, and Rembrandt with these modern mega-monstrosities!”

  She was so upset, I thought her head might explode.

  I looked closer at the new paintings that had been hung up and understood what she meant.

  You see, the last time we visited this gallery, right after the theft, there were four blank spaces where the wallpaper was a little brighter than the rest of the wall because they’d been covered by picture frames for so many years.<
br />
  Now those empty spots were filled with four of the most hideous paintings imaginable: a picture of a clown, a portrait of the late Elvis Presley (both painted on black velvet), a giant cat with big eyes, and a bunch of dogs playing a card game.

  CHAPTER 52

  “Who would dare put those horrible nightmares on the walls of one of the most respected art museums in the world?” Beck fumed.

  “Maybe it’s a new exhibit,” I suggested. “Ugly American Art.”

  “I kind of like the cat,” said Tommy. “He reminds me of that famous grumpy cat on YouTube.”

  “It’s horrible,” said Storm. “Beck is right—only an absolute art hater would hang these four eyesores in a museum as prestigious as the Hermitage.”

  “They’re trying to get everybody to hate art as much as they do,” said Beck, making urping noises like she might hurl. “And it just might work!”

  “Over there,” said Tommy. “That security-guard lady. She probably knows what’s going on.”

  “Let’s go find out,” I said.

  The four of us headed over to ask the security guard a few questions. She looked like she might’ve been the grumpier sister of that guard we’d bumped into at the Fabergé Museum when we first arrived in Saint Petersburg. I wondered if the cat in the painting was hers.

  “Excuse me, madame,” said Storm.

  “Da?”

  Storm never got to ask her question.

  Because Tommy was tapping her on the shoulder.

  Behind the museum guard were six big men, all of them wearing creepy rubber Vladimir Putin masks!

  And it wasn’t Halloween!

  We turned on our heels and started walking fast.

  The six frozen-faced Putins followed us.

  We picked up our pace.

  The Putins did the same thing.

  “We need to go back and find out who hung up that horrible art,” Beck said as she trotted ahead.

  “Chya,” said Tommy. “Definitely. But not right now.”

  With that, he started running.

  The rest of us raced after him down a long hall lined with paintings. We dodged around a statue of a woman wrestling a wild boar (don’t ask me why—there was no time to read the little explanation card) with the Putins still in hot pursuit.

  We finally reached an unbelievably ornate set of steps—what Storm called the Jordan Staircase. It had steps going up both sides.

  “Go left!” shouted Tommy.

  So we did.

  We came to a landing and I looked over my shoulder. “We lost them!”

  “Excellent,” said Tommy.

  We rounded the landing and sprinted down the final set of red-carpeted stairs, taking them two at a time.

  When we reached the bottom, guess who we ran into.

  Yep. The six masked Putins.

  Guess they went right when we went left.

  CHAPTER 53

  “Yikes!”

  They yelped first.

  I think they were as startled to run into us as we were to run into them. Especially when we barreled into them at top speed.

  Then a third party entered the picture.

  The nasty security guard.

  “There is no running in this museum!” she scolded us. “No rubber Halloween masks either. Behave yourselves or leave!”

  Ashamed, the six Putins hung their heads. We did too.

  “Do not make me come running after you again!”

  “Since you’re here,” said Storm, “can I ask you an art-related question?”

  “Nyet,” said the guard. Then she stomped away.

  As it turned out, that was probably for the best.

  Three of the six Putins tugged off their rubber masks. Three did not. The man in the middle stepped forward.

  “Uncle Timothy sent us,” he whispered with what sure sounded like a Russian accent. “We work for the same…company?”

  He gave us a big, knowing wink.

  “The CIA, da?” said one of his comrades, also sounding extremely Russian.

  Now you see why it was a good thing Storm didn’t get her question answered by the art matron lady—if she had, the bad guys might’ve heard the answer too. We had no idea what “company” Uncle Timothy worked for these days. If it was the CIA, how come so many of their operatives had thick Russian accents? We could trust the men in the rubber masks about as much as we could trust Uncle Timothy—not at all.

  “We don’t want for you little ones to get hurt,” said a third unmasked Russian.

  “So is that why you chased us down a slippery marble staircase?” asked Beck.

  “And almost caused us to smack into a statue?” I added. “Those things are made out of rock.”

  “I don’t like running,” said Storm. “Ever.”

  “Me neither,” said Tommy. “It messes up my hair.”

  “Look, small children,” said the head goon, “your uncle Teemothy is most worried. When he could not find you—”

  “Hey,” I said, “we’ve been lost in the jungles of Africa, feared missing in China, and stranded in the middle of the ocean.”

  “I got lost in a mall once too,” added Tommy.

  “But we always end up fine,” I said. “So tell Uncle Timothy, ‘Thanks, but no thanks.’”

  “And then,” said Beck, “tell him good-bye.”

  “Do as the Kidd Family Treasure Hunters suggest,” said a familiar voice.

  It was Inspector Gorky, descending the grand staircase.

  “You three?” he said to the men still wearing masks. “Have you come here to rob a bank?”

  The men didn’t speak but they shook their rubbery heads.

  But they still didn’t take off their masks.

  “Good,” said Inspector Gorky. “Then leave. And take your friends.”

  Surprisingly, Uncle Timothy’s “coworkers” did exactly what the police detective told them to do.

  Inspector Gorky turned to us. “So, Kidds, have you found our missing masterpieces?”

  We all shook our heads.

  “Well, then—have you found any clues?”

  “Maybe,” said Storm.

  “But then those bad guys interrupted us,” I added.

  “It was like a totally major clue too!” said Tommy. “Serious bummer that the masked marauders busted in on us like that.”

  “So go,” said Gorky. “Continue on your quest. Although you may not see me, I will have your back. But be careful—not everyone who wears a hood is a monk.”

  We all just nodded.

  Then we dashed up the steps and headed down the art-filled corridors toward the gallery with the black-velvet portrait of Elvis and the sad clown.

  Where we ran straight into Uncle Timothy.

  And Mom!

  CHAPTER 54

  “Why did you guys take off?” asked Mom, a look of genuine concern on her face.

  “We wanted to get a head start on the investigation,” I said.

  “Yeah,” said Beck. “While you two were chatting, the trail was growing colder.”

  “All right,” said Mom, giving us an annoyed look, “this foolishness has got to stop!”

  “Um, what foolishness are you talking about specifically?” asked Tommy.

  “Taking off without telling me where you’re going. Running up and down the corridors of an esteemed art institution.”

  “Oh, that foolishness. Gotcha.”

  “From now on,” Mom continued, “we only do foolish things together.”

  “Yeah,” said Uncle Timothy. “As a family.”

  “Um, no, you’re not part of this family,” said Beck. “You’re not our real uncle.”

  “Your father always called me Uncle Timothy—”

  “You’re not his uncle either.”

  “Come on, Mom,” I said, jabbing a thumb toward Uncle T, “family? Seriously?”

  “I am absolutely, positively serious about every word I just said.” She looked at all of us sternly. I had a feeling she was
doing this to keep Uncle Timothy close and within our sights. It would be harder for him to double-cross us that way.

  “O-kay,” said Beck, rolling her eyes because Uncle Timothy was smiling so smugly. “Guess we better show the rest of our ‘family’ the huge clues we just discovered.”

  “What clues?” Uncle Timothy was extremely interested.

  Storm stepped forward.

  “We have reason to suspect that the thief who stole the four masterpieces from this museum has serious issues centered around art,” she said because she’d memorized all of those psychology books by Sigmund Freud, Ivan Pavlov, and Dr. Phil. “He or, for the sake of argument, she is what psychiatrists would label an art hater.”

  Storm clasped her hands behind her back and started pacing. She was in full lecture mode.

  “As Professor Gregory S. Parks of Wake Forest University in his critical analysis of ‘Gettin’ Jiggy wit It’ points out, and I quote, ‘No matter what they say, haters are not dispassionate and objective people when it comes to their hated object. In essence, they are emotionally motivated to hate.’”

  Uncle Timothy peered over the tops of his sunglasses. “Huh?” he said.

  “Haters aren’t just gonna hate,” said Tommy. “There’s gonna be a reason for it.”

  “Correct,” said Storm.

  “You guys have completely lost me,” said Mom.

  “We think the sicko art-hating thief returned to the scene of the crime,” said Beck, gesturing toward the adjoining gallery. “It wasn’t enough for him to steal the four masterpieces. He had to replace that beautiful artwork with a collection of grotesque horrors.”

  “Come on,” I said. “We’ll show you.”

  We walked Mom and Uncle Timothy into the portrait gallery so they could see the cat-tastrophe (not to mention the Elvis, dog, and clown disasters) for themselves.

  CHAPTER 55

  “We wanted to ask that security guard over there if she knew who donated the four repulsive paintings,” said Beck. “But Uncle Timothy’s six comrades with the rubber Putin pusses chased us out of the room before we had the chance.”