Shatterproof

by Roland Smith

  Luna snatched the gun off the floor with her good hand and pointed it at him. “In three minutes this building will be rubble, but you will not hear the explosion. The pleasure of killing you will be mine.”

  “No!”

  Jonah Wizard flew into the room, with Vanek’s lost gun steady in his hands. He fired three times — Bam! Bam! Bam! — hitting Luna Amato in the torso at point-blank range. But this was not Gangsta Kronikles or his other action movies. The bullets were not blanks. They knocked her backward into the wall, where she slid to the floor, a look of shock and terror on her old face.

  Jonah stared in horror at her — at what he had done to her.

  He was no longer Jonah Wizard, platinum-selling recording artist and movie star.

  He was Jonah Wizard, murderer.

  Hamilton ran over to Erasmus and tried to stanch the blood pumping out of his chest. “I’ll call an ambulance.”

  Erasmus shook his head. “Too late. In my pocket . . . Thumb drive. Hurry.”

  Hamilton fumbled with the zipper slick with blood and pulled it out.

  “Give it to Amy. Only Amy.”

  “Okay,” Hamilton mumbled.

  “Take all the cell phones. Do a data dump to Attleboro. Get out of here. Safe house on my phone . . . In London. Hide. . . . The Vespers are . . .”

  But Erasmus didn’t have the breath to finish his sentence. His chest gave a great shudder and then he was gone.

  Jonah stood over them. He could barely speak. “Is he . . . ?”

  “He’s dead,” Hamilton said, his big face streaked with tears.

  “You must go,” Vanek said. “Luna said the building is going to explode. It was a trap.”

  Hamilton nodded dully and picked up the cell phones. “Where are the keys to the handcuffs?”

  “There is not time,” Vanek said. “Leave me!”

  Hamilton handed the cell phones to a silent Jonah. He picked up Vanek, chair and all, and hurried down the stairs.

  Hamilton set the chair, with Vanek still attached to it, down in the alley just as the explosion ripped through the night air.

  “Call the police. I will explain everything to them,” Vanek said. “They will not keep you too long.”

  “They won’t be keeping us at all,” Hamilton said. “We’re leaving.”

  “No! You do not understand. I am on your side. If you will just call, I will —”

  Hamilton shook his head. “You don’t understand. We’re leaving. You’re staying.”

  Vanek fixed Hamilton with his cool blue gaze. “What is happening to you children? Who is doing this to you?”

  Hamilton ignored him. “We’ll give the police a call once we’re clear.” He looked at Jonah. “You want to drive?”

  Jonah shook his head and climbed into the back of the rickshaw.

  “Are you okay?” Hamilton asked, expecting Jonah to say, “Word.”

  But Jonah had sunk somewhere deep inside himself. He said nothing at all.

  Riding a camel was just as uncomfortable as it had always looked in the movies to Dan. Bart had gone to the camel market and rented three of the cantank-erous beasts. Dan rode with Atticus behind Bart and his son, whose real name they learned was Aza, which meant “comfort.” Amy and Jake were on the third camel in the rear.

  “I don’t know why they call them ships of the desert,” Dan said. “This is nothing like sailing. It’s like riding a category-six rapid in slow motion. I think a kidney just dropped out of my pant leg.”

  Atticus laughed.

  Amy smiled. The ride on the third camel was just as bumpy, but it didn’t bother her. She had her arms wrapped around Jake’s waist to steady her.

  “I might have been wrong about the margin,” Jake said.

  “We don’t know that yet.”

  “I just hope Dan has it right,” Jake said. He leaned back against her and looked up at the bright stars against the black sky. The desert stretched all around the small group, vast and peaceful. And yet the Cahills could only think of the clock ticking ever forward, of the seven lives on the line.

  By the time they arrived at the ruin, there was only an hour and a half left before Vesper One’s deadline.

  “If we found the ‘Apology’ right this minute, we wouldn’t have time to get it back to Timbuktu,” Amy said to Jake.

  “Vesper One didn’t say where we had to deliver it,” Jake pointed out. “He just said we had to find it.”

  “This is the outer wall of the city,” Bart said. “Aza says that he and his friends come here all the time. He knows the place well.”

  “Then he’s our official tour guide,” Dan said.

  They grabbed flashlights and started following the decaying wall with Aza and Bart in the lead.

  “Here it is!” Bart called out.

  They ran up to him.

  The compass rose was carved into the mud-brick wall, just as Mr. Tajamul had painted it.

  “You were right, Dan,” Amy said. “It matches the de Virga! But what does it mean?”

  They spent ten valuable minutes searching along the city wall, but all they found was sand and two scorpions, which they were all careful not to step on.

  Atticus gave the second scorpion a dubious look. “Did you know more people are killed by scorpions than snakes? I hear it’s a very painful way to go.”

  This sort of talk was normally right up Dan’s alley, but even he seemed entirely focused on the approaching deadline. “C’mon!” he said, ignoring Atticus. “We have to check out the second Koldewey mark.”

  It took them twenty precious minutes to reach the well.

  “Koldewey’s mark,” Atticus said. “Exactly like the other one.”

  Dan shined his light down the well. “It’s only about four feet deep. It must be filled with sand.” His whole body slumped.

  “Think!” Amy said. “We have forty minutes left!”

  Jake walked very slowly around the well, covering every square inch with his flashlight. Then he shined the light down the well’s opening, circling it once again, leaning over to peer in.

  “Thirty-five minutes,” Amy said.

  Jake popped his head out of the opening. “It’s not a well!”

  “What is it?” Dan asked.

  “It’s an air vent.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Because my dad’s an archaeologist, and I’ve been on dozens of digs. The wall around is too high for a well and the opening is too narrow.”

  “An air vent for what?” Amy asked, excitement growing in her voice.

  “An ancient mine,” Jake replied. “There’s an opening on the side near the bottom. They built them this way so water didn’t flow into the shaft.”

  “I’ll go check it out,” Dan said, and threw his leg over the side.

  “Me first,” Jake said, pushing him aside. “I’m taller. There’s no telling how far the drop is to the mine floor. If it’s safe I’ll give you a shout.”

  He started to climb into the opening. Amy put her hand on his shoulder. “Be careful.”

  Jake shot her a grin, then disappeared.

  They waited an anxious few minutes before Jake called up, his voice echoing hollowly against the rock of the shaft. “It’s safe!”

  Dan jumped down the hole like a rabbit. Amy and Atticus followed, leaving Bart and Aza behind.

  The tunnel was only five feet tall, so the only one who didn’t have to stoop was Atticus. He shined his light on the walls. “There’s Latin graffiti!”

  “Anything good?” Dan asked.

  “Just your run-of-the-mill bathroom humor.”

  “The tunnel’s collapsed just beyond the vent,” Jake said. “But we can go the other way.”

  As they followed him down the tunnel, Atticus skimmed the walls for the words apology or transgression. The others crowded around him, but he didn’t find anything.

  Amy looked at her watch. “We only have twenty-five minutes!”

  “There’s a room up ahead,” Jake said
.

  They hurried forward. The small room was built into the side of the tunnel before the tunnel continued on. Inside were two raised platforms of different heights, and leaning against the wall were slabs of salt like Dan and Atticus had seen at the Grand Marché.

  “Is it a storage room?” Amy asked.

  “I don’t think so.” Jake shined his light on the lower platform. “I think this is a bed. And the other one is a worktable.” He pointed his flashlight above the table. “It’s definitely some kind of table. See the torches?” He reached up to a piece of wood sticking out of the wall and touched it. “Charcoal. This was someone’s hideaway. Someone important. It wouldn’t have been easy to build. They wouldn’t give a slave a room like this.” He walked over to the opening and shined his light around the edge. “Hinge marks. There used to be a door here, and probably a lock as well. They wouldn’t lock up salt slabs. The salt was only valuable when it got to market. It was worthless out here in the desert.”

  “I think I found something!” Dan called.

  He was looking at one of the salt slabs.

  “It’s just salt,” Amy said.

  “I know what it is,” Dan said. “I just went through every slab in here, but this one’s different. There’s something carved on it.”

  Jake carefully blew the sand off the surface. “Dan’s right! There are words, and they’re in Latin.” He turned to Atticus. “Your Latin is better than mine.”

  Atticus tried to get the right angle with his flashlight. “It’s hard to read in this light, but it’s a long piece of writing. It must have taken forever to carve.”

  “We only have fifteen minutes!” Amy cried.

  “It was written by a centurion named Gaius Marius. The first line reads ‘apologia pro meus valde delictum.’ It’s the ‘Apology!’ ”

  The little group collapsed in relief.

  “Wow,” Dan said.

  Amy looked at her watch. “With thirteen minutes to spare!” She threw her arms around Dan and Atticus and hugged them both, much to their disgust.

  “Why would anyone write on a salt tablet?” Jake asked.

  Amy remembered what Bazzi had said. “In the ancient world, paper was worth more than gold. That’s why scholars wrote in the margins of the manuscripts.”

  Atticus pored over the tablet. “The centurion says that he volunteered to come out here in ‘self-exile’ to do ‘penance’ for murdering a great man and stealing an invention, or some kind of machine from him. Apparently he was in charge of the salt mine. Below the writing is a drawing. I can’t make it out in this light.”

  “Yoo-hoo!” A familiar and horrible voice echoed down the tunnel. “Olly olly oxen free!”

  Atticus flinched.

  “Cheyenne,” Amy said. “How’d she find us?”

  “We have your friends,” Cheyenne shouted. “Do you have something for us?”

  “Leave them alone!” Amy shouted back. “They have nothing to do with this and we have” — Amy looked at her watch —“ten minutes!”

  “Casper says that you have five minutes. And that he hates mice, so the little boy goes first.”

  “Can you translate the rest of it in five minutes?” Amy asked Atticus.

  “Are you kidding?” Atticus squeaked. “It would take me at least five hours under perfect lighting conditions. And then there’s the carving.”

  “Take a photo of it with your camera phone.”

  Dan shot a quick photo, but the results were a white blurry blob of nothing.

  “Tick-tock, tick-tock,” Cheyenne cooed.

  “Wait!” Amy shouted back. “It’s connected to the tunnel wall. I don’t think Vesper One would be too happy if we destroyed it.”

  “I guess we have to give it to them without reading it,” Dan said.

  “No, we don’t,” Jake said. He looked at Atticus. “Do you have paper in your pack?”

  “Of course, but I told you, I can’t do a trans —”

  “We’ll do a rubbing,” Jake said.

  Atticus looked at him in despair. “We don’t have charcoal.”

  Jake stood up and pulled the old torch out of the wall. “Yes, we do.”

  Atticus tore sheets of paper out of the notebook he always carried and slapped them on the slab.

  “How long will this take?” Amy asked.

  “Three or four minutes.”

  “I’ll go up and see if I can stall them.”

  “I’ll go with you,” Dan said.

  Casper had the dagger in his hand. Bart and Aza were on their knees in front of him with their hands tied behind their backs. Aza was cowering into his father’s side, and Bart was doing his best to inch his son behind him.

  “They climbed down a ladder from the sky,” Bart said. “And were on us before I could do anything.”

  “It’s not your fault,” Amy said, tears pricking behind her eyes. “I’m so sorry.”

  “Shut up,” Casper said. “Do you have the ‘Apology’?”

  “Jake’s bringing it. It’s heavy.”

  “What’s it written on?” Cheyenne asked.

  “Salt.”

  Dan’s head appeared from the hole and his eyes flashed over to Bart and Aza. “Don’t worry. The thing they want is right behind me.”

  “It better be, or a lot of your friends are going to die,” said Cheyenne. She looked at Bart.

  Atticus emerged from the hole next. Dan helped him over the lip.

  “Where’s your brother?” Casper asked.

  “Right behind me.”

  Jake appeared with the salt slab. He balanced the ‘Apology’ on the edge as he hoisted himself out.

  Cheyenne rushed over and looked at the slab with her flashlight. “It’s in Latin.”

  “This thing’s heavy,” Jake said. “You’re going to have a hard time lifting it with one arm.”

  “I’ll manage.” She reached for the slab.

  Jake tipped it toward the opening. “Careful.”

  “What are you doing, you idiot?” Cheyenne shrieked.

  Jake ignored her and looked at Casper. “Cut them loose.”

  “You’re in no position to dictate anything to us,” Casper said. “You’re forgetting that we have your friends. One call from me and a hostage dies.”

  “You know what?” Jake said, his face like granite. “They’re not my friends. I’ve never even met them. But I do know that man and that boy. Free them or I’m going to tip this slab right back into the pit.”

  “Jake!” Amy shouted. But the harsh look froze what she was going to say on her tongue.

  “You wouldn’t,” Cheyenne said.

  “Really?” Jake tipped the slab.

  “Stop!” Casper said. With a quick sweep of his knife, he cut Bart’s and Aza’s flex-cuffs.

  “Get the camels ready,” Jake said.

  Bart and Aza untied the camels and made them koosh, or lie down.

  “Mount up,” Jake said. “Here’s how we’re going to work this. I’ll be the last man on the camel. I’m going to take my hand off the slab and you’re going to have to balance it or it’s going to fall. It weighs over seventy pounds and it’s slick. You can’t lift it by yourself with one arm.” He looked over at the camels. Everybody was on board. “Here you go.”

  He took his hand away and Cheyenne barely caught it. Casper rushed over to help her.

  “See you later,” Jake said, swinging up in front of Amy.

  Bart gave the command for up. The camels got to their feet and the small group took off at a run.

  Behind them, Dan could see Casper pick up the heavy slab and walk off into the darkness with it.

  “They must have a four-wheeler,” Amy said. They listened for the start of an engine, but there wasn’t a sound.

  “Oh, one more thing,” Cheyenne said. Her voice came from somewhere above them.

  “What the —” Dan couldn’t believe his ears.

  “It was a ladder in the sky,” Bart insisted.

  They looked up and
saw an airship silhouetted against the stars.

  “Remember this,” Cheyenne continued, “and then there were six.”

  She and Casper started laughing.

  “And then there were six!” Her voice faded away as the airship rose. “And then there were six!”

  Evan Tolliver was asleep with his face on his keyboard after a miserable evening of trying to reach Amy without success. He woke up and stumbled into the comm center bathroom to wash his face. As badly as he wanted to hear from Amy, he hoped she didn’t Skype him until after the key dents faded from his forehead. He came back out and went directly to the espresso machine even though the last thing he needed was another shot of caffeine.

  But coffee is the only thing keeping me functional. He rubbed his bloodshot eyes. Barely functional.

  He stirred in a scoop of artificial creamer and way too much sugar and brought the golden elixir back to his computer terminal. As he was sitting down, the phone rang. Hot coffee spilled all over his hand and lap. He leaped up and grabbed the Bluetooth off the desk as he shook his scalded hand and tried to pull his boiling underpants away from his skin.

  “Yes?” he growled.

  “It’s Hamilton.”

  Evan was glad it wasn’t Amy. After their last conversation, the last thing he wanted to do was snap at her.

  “How’s Mumbai?”

  “We’re leaving.”

  “What about Luna?”

  “She’s dead.”

  “What?”

  “D-E-A-D.”

  “I heard you,” Evan said, forgetting all about his burns. First McIntyre and now Luna. Before he’d met Amy, he’d never known anyone who had died. Not even a distant relative. “How?”

  “Jonah shot her.”

  Evan sat back down.

  “Are you there?” Hamilton asked.

  “I’m here.” Evan had never shot a gun.

  “There’s worse news. Much worse.” Hamilton hesitated. “Luna killed . . . Luna killed Erasmus.”