Breakaway

by Jeff Hirsch

  Amy held her breath as they started down the road into the medina. It was incredibly narrow, hemmed in by lines of merchants’ stalls stacked up against the two- or three-story buildings on either side. The kiosks were teeming with goods, laid out on tables and hanging from the roofs of the stalls. Everywhere the kids looked, there were glittering stacks of brass and tin, along with elegantly shaped ceramics and bolts of fabrics in brilliant reds and greens and lapis blue. Dark alleyways and winding arteries shot off the main road in a confusion of directions.

  When Amy turned to Dan, she saw he was doing the same thing she was. Scanning rooftops and open windows, examining the faces of the sellers that seemed to be everywhere. It was second nature to them now, to look for an ambush.

  Something caught Amy’s eye and she veered off the street to a merchant’s kiosk.

  “What’s up?” Dan asked, moving in next to her.

  “Look at these, Dan, aren’t they pretty?”

  Amy picked up one of the man’s beaten copper pots and handed it to her brother. “One o’clock,” she whispered. “By the rug merchant’s stall.”

  Dan lifted the copper pot up into the light, then turned it like he was examining a defect. Jake and Atticus appeared behind them.

  “What’s going on?” Jake asked.

  “Oh, nothing,” Amy said to Jake just loud enough so he could hear. “We were looking at these for Nellie. You know how she loves to be ambushed with gifts.”

  Dan put the pot back. “Guy in the hat?” he asked. “Doesn’t look like any of the ones we’ve seen.”

  “Who knows how many guys Pierce has,” Amy whispered.

  “There’s another one,” Atticus said. “Near the flower stall. Westerner. New to the area.”

  “How can you tell?”

  “His face is pink,” Jake said. “Sunburn.”

  “What do we do?” Dan asked.

  “Follow him,” Jake said. “See what we can learn.”

  Amy thought a second, then backed away from the table. “No. We go back to the hotel.”

  “But he could lead us right to their base,” Jake whispered urgently. “We could see how many of them there are, find out their plans —”

  “Get ourselves killed. No,” Amy said. “We stick to the plan! Get the silphium and get out.”

  But Jake was already on the move. Amy reached for his sleeve but he was too fast. Jake threw himself into the river of shoppers and disappeared around a corner. Amy whirled around to find that the man in the hat was gone, too.

  “Stay here!” she yelled at Dan and Atticus before diving into the crowd. Did Jake even care that he could get himself killed?

  Amy struggled through the crowded medina. Despite her best efforts, she seemed to slam into shoppers at every step, earning her insults in at least three languages. She searched the chaos for a glimpse of Jake or the man with the hat, but all she saw were kiosks and bodies and twisting roads.

  “There he is!” Dan called out.

  Jake appeared at the other end of an alley, speeding down a street that ran parallel to their own.

  “I told you two to wait!” Amy yelled over her shoulder as she took off after Jake.

  Amy screamed inwardly as Dan shot past her, pounding down the alleyway that connected the two streets. Jake had disappeared again by the time they spilled into the road, but Amy caught sight of the man with the hat as he headed toward a towering mosque.

  “If we take that road, we can get between him and Jake,” Amy said.

  Brass and iron clattered against the ground as Amy barreled past more merchants, jostling their stalls. She ignored their cries, keeping her eye on the man as he slipped expertly through the crowds. When they were just feet from the plaza, the man turned down a stone-roofed alley. Half a second later, Jake emerged from the crowds and followed him in.

  Amy, Dan, and Atticus stopped at the mouth of the alley, panting. Amy peered down its length. It was long and even narrower than the streets. The harsh sun only managed to light the first few feet, and beyond was a murk so dark it looked like night. Somewhere down there, Jake was alone with a monster.

  Amy looked back at Dan wheezing behind her. He nodded and they both began to move. Atticus started to join them but Amy held him back.

  “We need a lookout,” she whispered.

  “But —”

  Amy raised a finger to her lips to silence Atticus and then followed Dan into the alley. It was even darker than she imagined and full of the vinegary smell of moldering trash. The sounds of the city and the markets were muted by the alley’s walls, filling the tunnel with a whispering hush. Amy crept forward, her body on high alert. Dan had slipped farther ahead and was lost in the shadows. Amy felt panic building up in her. Then a single shaft of sunlight from a gap in the stone roof fell some thirty feet ahead. There was a flash of white as the man in the hat stepped into it.

  “Amy Cahill,” the man said. His voice was pleasant, but had a flinty British accent. “And Dan and Jake. I believe that’s Atticus Rosenbloom watching the alley. Am I right?”

  Amy found a loose paving stone at her feet. She grabbed it and held it at the ready. “What do you want?”

  “To talk.”

  “About what?”

  The man turned toward her, one hand reaching inside his jacket.

  “He’s got a gun!” Jake cried as he exploded out of the gloom only feet from Amy. The man was ready for him, though. He pivoted toward Jake, but Amy leaped up and shoved Jake into the brick wall, putting herself between him and the British mercenary.

  “Amy! Jake!”

  It was Atticus. A tide of bodies was pushing past him and into the alley. More of Pierce’s goons. It was a trap! Amy turned back to the man in the hat just as Dan slammed into him from behind.

  “Dan!”

  There was nothing to do now but fight. The man stumbled at Dan’s strike, but managed to push him aside so Dan went reeling farther into the alley. It was the perfect distraction. Jake appeared by Amy’s side and together they took the man by the shoulders and flung him around and into the wall. He hit the brick with a satisfying oof, and Jake swung for him. There was a crack as he connected with the man’s chin, sending him slumping into the dirt.

  Jake looked back at Amy, but they barely had a second to relax before a blast of white light filled the alley. Amy staggered back, shielding her eyes. There was another flash, and another. This time from the man on the ground. His hand had emerged from his jacket and he was holding some sort of a device. Not a gun but . . .

  “Smile, kids!”

  Everything snapped into focus. Not a gun. A camera. A flash went off and Amy turned toward the charging mass of people to face a firing squad of flashes. Everyone was shouting. A slight woman in a tan suit pushed a microphone in her face.

  “Amy! Do you plan to brutalize any other people while in Tunis or just this innocent reporter?”

  Amy’s mouth fell open, stunned. The reporters surged forward, crowding the kids deeper into the alley. Dan picked himself up and joined Amy and Jake. The man in the hat got up, camera in hand. There was blood running down his chin, but he was smiling.

  “Hey, Jake! How does it feel to join a global criminal conspiracy?”

  “Was it hard to bring your innocent little brother into it, too?”

  “Dan! Will you ever be able to wipe your nose without your big sister’s okay?”

  “Leave us alone!” Amy shouted, and ran at them, driving her way through the crowd, which had become as thick as a forest. Hands reached out to her from every direction as the reporters pushed their business cards into her pockets.

  “Call me, Amy!”

  “How does it feel to be personally responsible for the death of Evan Tolliver?”

  Amy spun toward the reporter, her hand curling into a fist. But Jake appeared on one side of her and Dan on the other. They dragged her back through the crowds as the reporters took picture after picture. Atticus was waiting at the head of the alley with a cab idl
ing behind him, its back doors thrown open.

  Jake and Dan tossed Amy into the cab and then jumped in behind her. Atticus hopped into the front seat and slammed the door.

  “Go!” Atticus shouted. “Now!”

  “Unbelievable,” Jake said, cradling his bruised hand. “They’re worse than Pierce’s goons.”

  Amy glared at Jake across the backseat of the taxi.

  “Yeah,” she said. “And you gave them exactly what they wanted.”

  To make sure they evaded the reporters, Atticus had the driver lead them on a high-speed ramble through Tunis. They were on a highway, then off again. By the lake, on the Habib Bourguiba, back in the medina. A tense silence filled the cab the entire way. Amy stared out one window while Jake stared out the other. Dan squirmed between them.

  “Where to now?” Dan asked Amy, breaking the quiet. “The hotel?”

  “Those reporters are going to be staking out every hotel in Tunis looking for us,” Amy said. “Att, have the driver take us to your dad. We might as well get something accomplished.”

  Minutes later, the taxi skidded to a halt outside the gates of an ornate building. The three of them tumbled out of the backseat of the car as Atticus paid the driver. Once Jake introduced himself to the guard just inside the library, they were all given badges and shown through a set of double doors.

  “Can I see Olivia’s notebook again?” Atticus asked.

  Amy dug in her bag and handed it over. It was amazing to watch him, she thought. Ninety percent of the time, Atticus looked like any other twelve-year-old on the street, but not when he read. He seemed older than her then. He lost himself in it, his forehead furrowing into thin ridges and his eyes going sharp as cut glass. She had the decoded notes in her bag, but it was like Atticus didn’t even need them. Once he had broken the code, he could read right through it.

  Jake was watching his brother, too, clearly just as amazed as she was. When Jake felt Amy watching him, he turned toward her, his face brightening in a smile. Amy felt a jolt of nerves and turned away from him, continuing on down the hall.

  Small offices lined the hall on either side, each one filled with enough scientists in tweed and lab coats to fill a university. All of them were bent over ancient rocks and scrolls of paper. Even their murmurs sounded smart.

  “Wow,” Dan said. “This place is nerd central. Amy, we have got to get you a job here.”

  They came to the end of the hallway and an office with Dr. Rosenbloom on the doorplate.

  “Okay,” Jake said. “You two wait out here while Atticus and I see what we can learn.”

  Jake was about to close the door behind them but Amy shoved her hand between the door and the jamb. She hissed with pain but managed to keep it open a crack without attracting Jake’s attention.

  Dr. Rosenbloom’s office reminded Amy of a library that had been struck by a tornado. Books and journals and newspapers covered every square inch of the place, most of them underlined and highlighted and powdered with dust. Old dishes and tea-stained mugs were stacked in listing towers beside walls of half-opened mail. The place didn’t seem dirty, exactly, it just seemed like the space of a man with a million thoughts going through his head at once.

  The only part of the office that was at all well-ordered were the shelves stuffed with books relating to Dr. Rosenbloom’s singular obsession — ancient or lost civilizations. Amy was stunned by the sheer number and variety of them. Books on the Ancestral Pueblo People and the Minoans and the Olmecs sat beside ones on more fanciful lost civilizations like El Dorado. Two whole shelves were filled with nothing but books on Atlantis.

  We’ve definitely come to the right place, Amy thought.

  “Atticus! Jakey!” Dr. Rosenbloom appeared at the office’s back door, beaming. He threw his arms open and gathered his sons into his chest, glowing with joy. Amy had to admit that Dr. Rosenbloom was quite something. He was a perfect mixture of Jake and Atticus. He had the broad shoulders and square jaw of an athlete but the unkempt clothes and the thick-rimmed glasses of a globe-trotting slob/genius.

  The best thing of all was how much he clearly loved his sons. Amy felt a twinge deep in her chest. She looked at Dan and guessed from the dark, focused look on his face as he watched them that he was feeling the same thing. A real parent. Something they’d had for such a short time.

  Dr. Rosenbloom swept stacks of books and papers off the chairs in his office and sat the boys down. He had two paper sacks in hand and set them on his desk.

  “Okay! First things first, I grabbed us some lunch. Tajine malsouka! This is going to blow your minds, guys. It’s like a chicken pie made with phyllo dough. My friend Amina makes it.”

  Jake and Atticus shared an amused look. Their dad always had a woman friend who was making him things to eat. Dr. Rosenbloom opened the bag and pulled out what looked like thick pieces of pie wrapped in waxed paper. The office filled with the smells of spicy chicken and warm bread. Amy had to grab on to Dan’s shoulder to keep him from busting through the door and into the room.

  “So tell me everything!” Dr. Rosenbloom said through a mouthful of pie. “How’s school?”

  “Good!” Atticus said, maybe a little too quickly. “The independent study is going really well.”

  “Awesome,” Dr. Rosenbloom said. “Harvard won’t know what hit them when you get there. What brings you guys from Rome, though? I’m happy you came, of course, but it’s such short notice. Is everything all right?”

  “Fine!” Jake said. “We just wanted to see you. And Atticus had some questions. About his independent study.”

  “Happy to help. What is it?”

  “Well, I’m looking at agriculture,” Atticus said. “Particularly the major Roman crops and who produced them outside of Italy.”

  “Fascinating topic.”

  Dan rolled his eyes and Amy elbowed him hard in the side.

  “It is,” Atticus continued. “But I keep coming across one crop that I can’t find much about. Silphium.”

  Dr. Rosenbloom nodded eagerly, swallowing a mouthful. “Mmm. Well, that’s probably because there’s not much anyone can say. It was one of the biggest and most sought after crops of its time, which was about the seventh century B.C. to the first century A.D. The Romans said it was worth its weight in silver.”

  “So what did it do?” Jake asked.

  Dr. Rosenbloom laughed. “Everything, apparently. People used it as a seasoning in their food and as a general-purpose remedy. Cured just about anything you could name. Or so they said. Here, guys, have some more.”

  Dr. Rosenbloom loaded Jake and Atticus up with fresh slices of pie.

  “Well, if it was so great, how did it go extinct?” Jake asked. “Why didn’t people just grow more?”

  “No one really knows,” Dr. Rosenbloom said, leaning back and brushing crumbs off of his rumpled tie. “Maybe they went through it too fast and then there was a crop failure. Some people said it only grew wild and couldn’t be cultivated, but that seems unlikely.”

  “Was it grown here in Carthage?”

  “Carthage?” Dr. Rosenbloom asked. “No, the main grower was Cyrene if I remember correctly. That’s Libya today. It’s close by but I don’t remember reading anything about it being grown here. Why?”

  “Just part of the project,” Atticus said quickly. “Kind of like a scavenger hunt. We’re supposed to try and find some, and my adviser thought we could try here.”

  “A scavenger hunt? For something that doesn’t exist? Atticus, that’s a total waste of your time. Who’s your adviser? I should call and straighten him out.”

  Dr. Rosenbloom reached back to a phone on his desk.

  “No!” Atticus said. “It’s fine. Really.” Atticus jumped up to stop his dad, and when he did Olivia’s notebook fell out of his hand and onto the table.

  “What’s this?”

  “Nothing! It’s just —”

  Amy suppressed a gasp as Dr. Rosenbloom took the notebook off the table and opened it.

&
nbsp; “Really,” Jake said. “It’s not anything. Just —”

  Jake stopped. An almost physical transformation came over Dr. Rosenbloom as he read. His soft and bright features turned a hard, ashy gray. Amy started forward, but Dan held her back.

  “I thought you said you came because you wanted to see me,” Dr. Rosenbloom said with a dark frown.

  “Dad . . .” Jake started.

  “Olivia CAHILL!?” he shouted, brandishing the notebook in their faces. “I told you I didn’t want you getting involved with the Cahills ever again.”

  “We’re not. We’re just —”

  “Don’t lie to me, Jake!”

  Dr. Rosenbloom’s shout echoed in the small office.

  “We told them we’d see what we could find out about the silphium,” Atticus said. “That’s all.”

  “You’ve seen the stories about them in the papers,” Dr. Rosenbloom said. “On TV. Is that what you want to be a part of? You want to be famous?”

  “Those stories aren’t true!” Atticus protested.

  “Think about your future, Atticus. And Jake’s. I know you think Amy and Dan are your friends, but if they were, they wouldn’t let you get involved in these things.” He held up the notebook between them. “The Cahills don’t care about anybody but themselves and their stupid games, and they never have!”

  Amy fell back from the door, squeezing her eyes shut as if she could block it out, but his words were like knives tearing into her. There was a thump as Dr. Rosenbloom threw Olivia’s notebook onto the tabletop.

  “They’re not games,” Jake cried. “This is important, and Amy and Dan —”

  Jake suddenly went quiet, and Amy looked back into the room. Olivia’s notebook was lying open on the desk and Dr. Rosenbloom was leaning over it, completely absorbed in something inside that had caught his eye. Dr. Rosenbloom drew the book off the counter and into his lap, flipping quickly through the pages.

  “Dad?” Atticus said.

  Dr. Rosenbloom held up one hand and turned another page. The lines of hurt fell away and his face took on the same diamond-like focus that Atticus had when he was reading.

  “Not possible,” Dr. Rosenbloom muttered to himself, shaking his head. “It’s not possible.”