“Indeed, yes.” Canavar nodded. “Many tomb robbers were known to employ youths for their ability to enter small spaces. Is it inconceivable that among them may have been one marked with the lambda? Or have there never been such genetic prodigies in any of the generations before thee?”
His words hung in the stale hotel air.
Cass, Aly, and I shared a look. Of course there had been Selects through the years. Dad and Mom had been studying them. But the likelihood that one had lived in Turkey and managed to get into the Mausoleum?
“I guess it’s possible,” Aly said.
“Of course it is!” Canavar said. “I may be small of stature, but I bow to no one regarding powers of deduction—”
“Get to point!” Torquin was standing in the doorway now. His face was drawn, his eyes swollen.
“I am saying thou must . . . follow the money,” Canavar replied, “as they say.”
“Canavar, are there any records of the thefts in the museum?” I asked. “Have there been projects to recover the stolen loot?”
“No,” the small man replied. “Not at the museum. But in a grand ancient chamber convenes a regular meeting of scholars, the Homunculi, dedicated to the return of such purloined treasures.”
“The Homunculi?” Aly said in an undertone. “You mean there’s a whole group of creepy little humanoids like Canavar?”
Canavar gave her a severe look and raised his voice slightly. “A group to which, I must add, I have been elected Grand Carbunculus Wizendum for twelve years straight.”
“Grand what?” Cass asked.
“Roughly equivalent to treasurer,” Canavar said. He slipped off the sofa and moved toward the door. “Our rituals are sacred, our methods arcane. Thou shall be the first of the noninitiates to enter the inner sanctum.” He smiled. “It is fitting, I suppose, for those named Select.”
CHAPTER FORTY
THE FENCE
OUR VAN PUTTERED to a stop in an empty, weed-choked lot. Torquin parked right up next to the entrance of a warehouse building with corrugated metal walls. A cardboard sign hung lopsided over the front door. On it, in thick marker, were three lines of words in Greek, Turkish, and English. The bottom line read GRAND AND SECRET ORDER OF THE HOMUNCULI MAUSOLIENSIS.
“Behold!” Canavar said, his face pinched with pride.
“I quiver with awe,” Cass drawled.
“Very secret,” I whispered to Aly. She smothered a laugh.
As we poured out of the van, Canavar skittered to the front door and fiddled with the rusty combination lock. After a few unsuccessful tries, he gave the door a swift kick and it swung open.
He reached in and flicked on a light switch. A chain of bare lightbulbs illuminated a vast, musty room. It was lined with metal bookshelves, file cabinets, piles of papers, tables containing unfinished jigsaw puzzles, and a spilled container of congealed orange liquid labeled SEA BUCKTHORN JUICE. Black streaks wriggled along the baseboards as unidentified small creatures ran for shelter.
“Love the scent,” Cass said. “Mold, mildew, or mouse?”
Canavar went straight to a desktop PC with a monitor the size of a small doghouse. He pressed a button on a giant CPU and waited as a logo lit up the screen: WINDOWS 98.
“Even the computer is an antiquity,” Aly said.
Canavar let out a disturbed fnirf-fnirf-fnirf sound, which I realized was a laugh. “Ah youth, thou canst not envision a world without the flash and blaze of computerweb. I shall now use the mouse-clicker upon its pad, to activate the documents folder . . .”
Aly slipped by him and sat in a ragged office chair. “I’ll do it.”
She stared at the screen for a moment, motionless. I gulped, remembering our encounter with the river Nostalgikos. “Aly,” I said. “It’s okay if you can’t do it. You’ll be able to build your skills again . . .”
Aly raised an eyebrow in my direction. “Dude, that griffin scared the pants off all of us. Whatever it was that I lost—it’s back, big-time.” She turned back, clicking confidently away at the keyboard. “Lots of data here. Shipwrecks . . . sonar scans . . . correspondence . . . auction house records . . . periodical archives . . .”
“Yes. That one—the archives!” Canavar blurted. “Most are in Turkish, of course, but owing to my English education, I have endeavored to include many translated pieces from the international press. I would draw thy attention to a newspaper report dated March of 1962 . . .”
“Got it,” Aly said, clicking on a pdf that instantly filled the screen:
“‘Glowing blue ball,’” Cass said. “That could be it.”
“It could be the ale talking,” Aly said. “Do you have anything on this guy Gencer?”
“Naturally,” Canavar said, directing Aly to another folder marked RESEARCH: LOOTING, PERSONNEL.
Another pdf opened on the screen, and Aly read aloud from a blurry image of a typewritten list: “‘Arrested for public misconduct, 1962 . . . arrested for impersonation of public official, 1961 . . . arrested for forging the name of the Beatle Ringo Starr on a check, 1963 . . . arrested for assaulting a prominent German art and antiquities dealer named Dieter Herbst, 1965 . . .’ Nothing on Gencer after that . . .”
“Dieter Herbst?” Cass said. “I would kill for a name like that.”
“Why would an art dealer consort with a small-timer like Gencer?” I asked.
“Fence,” Torquin grumbled.
Cass scratched his head. “They had sword fights?”
“A fence is someone who sells stolen goods,” Dad spoke up, “someone who has a side deal with a thief. Since the fence didn’t actually steal the stuff, he or she can claim ignorance. Fences can be a sleazy lot, but sometimes they run outwardly respectable businesses.”
“It sounds like the two men had a falling out,” Dr. Bradley said, “maybe over a deal gone bad. Canavar, have you collected any info on Herbst?”
“No, but I believe he has a . . . what dost thou call it? Web screen page?” Canavar replied. “Thou canst make a connection with the internet.”
Aly rolled her eyes. “Thanks for the tip.”
In a moment, she was looking at a badly designed site that seemed like it hadn’t been touched in years. “Not a lot about him,” she said. “There’s no date on the site and it looks like it was designed the day after they invented HTML. Opened shop in 1961, but I can’t tell if he’s still in business. I guess we could call or email him. He’d be really old, if he’s still alive at all . . .” She quickly opened a new browser tab and typed “Dieter Herbst obituary” into the search bar. Her face fell. “Died in 2004. While conducting a transaction at an auction house called the Ausser . . . Ausserge . . .”
“Aussergewöhnliche Reliquien Geschäft,” Torquin piped up.
Cass’s mouth dropped open. “You can pronounce that?”
“Professor Bhegad . . .” Torquin began, but at the mention of the name, he let out a squelched sob and rubbed his eyes. “Sorry . . . hrruphm. Sometimes Professor sends Torquin to auctions. Collectors sell relics. Torquin buys. Mostly two auction houses. Smithfield and ARG.”
Aly already had the ARG home page open. “Much slicker site . . .”
I leaned over her shoulder. “What are the chances you can find records from back in the sixties?”
“I’m not hopeful,” she said, as her fingers flitted on the keys, “unless they park the scans in some archive on the FTP site.”
A window popped up, and digits began scrolling in a blur. In about twenty seconds, Aly had broken through the firewall and was rooting around in a company file structure.
Canavar gasped. “In form and movement how express and admirable! In action how like an angel! What alchemy hath possession of this callow child? What arcane wizardry in her soul, what access to worlds unknown—”
“What a gasbag,” Torquin said. “Shut mouth.”
“Woo-hoo!” Aly nearly leaped from her seat. “Check this out.”
“Amazing,” Dad said.
“Old
Herbster was busy,” Cass said. “And in Asia Minor—which is what Turkey used to be called.”
“The guy had a big haul in September,” Aly said. “He sold them off on the same day.”
“And he wasn’t very good at it,” I added. “Look at the other sellers—Heller and Henson. They offered their relics at one price and totally got what they asked for. Sometimes more. But Herbst sells at a way lower price than he asks, every time. Like he’s totally incompetent.”
“Or,” Aly said, “he’s in a hurry. Which he would be, if he knew the goods were stolen.”
“‘Relic, spherical stone,’” I said. “That could be a Loculus, I guess. Sold for four thousand dollars to AMNH. Which is . . .” I took the mouse and scrolled down to the list of abbreviations. “The American Museum of Natural History, in New York City.”
“Yyyesss!” Cass said. “Brunhilda to the Big Apple!”
As we headed for the door, Torquin shouted, “Wait!”
We turned. He had lifted Canavar by the back of his shirt collar, and he was holding him toward us as if he were a kitten. “Must say thank you to Canavar. He helped do the work of Professor Bhegad.”
“’Twas nothing,” Canavar said, his voice choked by the pressure of his shirt collar. “Wouldst thou kindly release me?”
As Torquin set the little guy down, we each shook his gnarled hand. “Peace out, Canavar,” Cass said. “How could we ever repay you?”
Canavar gave us his odd, twisted smile. “When thou hast successfully reached the age of fourteen years, consider returning to Bodrum to give me the joyous news.”
“Will do,” Cass said.
“We promise,” I added.
Dad was heading back toward the door of the warehouse. “Let’s load in some good Turkish grub now,” he said. “Food is expensive in New York City.”
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
CODE RED
ERROR.
Aly’s monitor beeped at her for what seemed like the dozenth time on the flight to New York.
She pounded on the screen and sat back in her seat. “I need a nap . . .”
“Whoa, another new tower on Fifty-Seventh Street near Seventh Avenue,” Cass said, his face plastered to the window. “Construction on the West Side Highway, too—and check out Williamsburg, on the horizon!”
“Will you stop that, Cass?” Aly said, rubbing her forehead. “They’re buildings, that’s all.”
Cass spun around. He looked hurt. “Sorry, Aly. I geek out over this stuff.”
“Apology accepted. Wake me when we’re there.” Aly’s head lolled back in her seat. By the time it clonked against the window, she was fast asleep.
I glanced at Dr. Bradley. She had a newspaper unfolded in her lap, open to a crossword puzzle. But she was ignoring that now, staring intently at Aly.
As Brunhilda began her descent, Torquin yanked the steering mechanism this way and that in an attempt to do tricky moves. Dad was radioing the Marine Air Terminal for runway instructions. Cass was grinning out the window like a little kid.
Aly let out a sharp snoring sound. Her head began to slide downward. As she slipped off the seat, I realized she hadn’t fastened her belt.
“Aly?” I said.
She thumped to the carpet, her legs twitching.
Dr. Bradley was already on the move. She lifted Aly, swung her around to the back of the plane, and deposited her on the reclined seat that had once held Professor Bhegad. “Someone take the phone from my purse!” she shouted.
Aly’s chest lurched up and down. A cccchhhh sound came from her mouth, and her eyes rolled back into her head. I knelt by Dr. Bradley’s purse and fished out the phone.
Cass’s face was bone white. “She’s . . . she’s not due for an episode . . .”
“I have the phone!” I shouted.
“Do exactly as I say,” Dr. Bradley said. “Send a text to one-four-two-eight-five-seven. Two words. Code red!”
Dr. Bradley was holding Aly’s arms down. Trying to keep her from flailing. From hurting herself. My fingers shook as I tried to follow instructions.
CODE RESD.
Steady. Backspace . . .
CODE RED.
I jammed my thumb on send.
“No phone now!” Torquin bellowed. “Give treatment!”
“I would if I could!” Dr. Bradley shouted. “I don’t have my equipment! I may be able to sedate her briefly, but that’s it!”
Aly’s face was turning blue. Dr. Bradley’s hand was in Aly’s mouth, trying to keep her from swallowing her tongue.
The phone vibrated. I nearly dropped it.
Its screen now glowed with a string of characters:
1W72PH4
“What the heck does this mean?” I said.
Cass was out of his seat, staring over my shoulder. “It’s an address,” he said. “Number One West Seventy-Second Street. Right off Central Park. Not sure about the last part—PH four . . .”
“Penthouse four!” Dad said. “The apartment on the top floor, most likely. Is this where we’re supposed to go?”
“Who are we seeing?” I asked.
“Never mind that!” Dr. Bradley said. “And don’t even think of calling nine-one-one. We have no time. We need to land now.”
“We’re third in line for landing clearance!” Dad said.
Torquin yanked hard on the throttle. “Now we are first.”
The taxi screeched to a stop in front of 1 West 72nd Street. Dad had pulled some sort of strings to get us through customs in no time. He also promised the cabdriver double pay if he got us to the address on Dr. Bradley’s phone in twenty minutes. He made it in eighteen fifty-three.
Torquin, Dr. Bradley, and Aly were in another cab. It pulled to the curb directly in front of us.
The building loomed overhead, a brick urban castle surrounded by a black cast iron fence festooned with carved angry faces. In a dark, arched entranceway, two guards stood, hands folded. Cass gazed at them, a spooked look in his eyes. “This is exactly where John Lennon was shot and killed,” he whispered.
“Will you stop it?” I said.
As Dad paid the fare, a man darted out of the archway toward the first cab. He wore a wool cap, dark sunglasses, jeans, and a black leather jacket, and he had something shiny and metallic in his hand.
“What the—?” Dad murmured.
The man leaned into the open back window of Aly’s cab. I couldn’t hear what he was saying, but when he backed out, his hands were empty.
Before we could do a thing, he was pulling open the back door of our cab. “To the river!” he shouted to the taxi driver, yanking open the rear door and squeezing into the backseat with Cass and me. “And step on it.”
In front of us, Torquin was lifting Aly out of the other cab. I caught the flash of silver as her arm flopped limply down.
“Sir,” the cabdriver said meekly, “I must discharge these passengers—”
“I said go!” the man barked.
As the taxi squealed away from the curb, Dad whirled around. “I beg your pardon!” he said. “We have urgent business in that building.”
The man put a hand into his jacket pocket. “If you know what’s good for you, you will do exactly as I say.”
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
HACKED?
IF YOU EVER wondered what it was like to ride down a New York City street in the backseat of a taxi whose driver is whimpering “We are going to die, we are going to die, we are going to die,” I’ll tell you: it’s not fun.
He was careening from side to side. He sideswiped a parked minivan, then cut across two lanes and nearly collided head-on with a baby-supplies truck driver with a potty mouth.
The car screeched to a halt at a red light on Columbus Avenue. “I said go, not kill your passengers,” said the man in the leather jacket. He was holding a leather wallet, which he had just pulled from his jacket pocket. “If you expect a tip, I recommend you drive in a sane manner and deposit us alive at Riverside Drive.”
The d
river looked warily over his shoulder. “This is not a stickup?”
“What? Of course it’s not.” The man sighed and sat back, removing his hat and then his sunglasses. His hair was silver and thick, swept straight back like a marble sculpture. His eyes were a cold blue-gray, set into a rocklike face that was tanned and deeply cragged.
“Who are you?” I demanded.
“Your dream come true,” he said. “Dr. Bradley did well. By calling a Code Red, she was following KI protocol for emergencies.”
“You’re a part of the KI?” Cass said. “But the KI was destroyed!”
“Correction—the island was occupied,” the man said, “but the Karai Institute still exists. For reasons of security, the leader of the KI is never on-island. All Code Red messages go directly to the central office. We have satellites in many places, one of them here.”
Number One.
Omphalos.
Professor Bhegad had told us about a Karai leader, someone who he took orders from. But not much. Not even a name. “Is that who Aly is seeing?” I said. “Bhegad’s boss?”
“Your friend is in very good hands.” The man leaned forward. “Driver, let us off at the far corner, end of this block.”
We climbed out on Riverside Drive, at the entrance to a park. Just beyond the jogging path flowed a wide, silver-blue river. “The Hudson,” Cass said. “And that’s New Jersey on the other side —”
“Quickly,” the man said, ushering us past a low stone gate. He was shorter and older than my dad. Under his leather jacket was a white turtleneck shirt that revealed a little paunch. “You were followed to New York.”
“We couldn’t have been,” Dad said. “We were in Turkey. And before that—”
“Mongolia, yes, we know this.” Reaching into an inner pocket, he took out two thin, silvery bracelets. “Put these on. Iridium bracelets. Aly has one, too.”
I took one and turned it over in my hand. Iridium. These bracelets were replicas of the ones given to us at Massa headquarters in Egypt.
“This is the only substance that blocks our trackers—the ones you implanted in our bodies on the island,” I said.
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