In Too Deep - 39 Clues 06

by Jude Watson

  "Robinson Crusoe," Amy corrected. They reached the lush tropical forest and struck out on the path."I bet Troppo will be glad to see us," Dan said. "We're just one big happy family, right?"Amy was filled with foreboding. The sun had gone down behind the hill, so the shadows were lengthening. She was suddenly afraid of what they would find.

  Dan stepped out into a clearing. "Whoa," he said. "Look at this."The shell of a large building stood by a stand of palms.

  Construction equipment still littered the ground, big concrete blocks, thick coils of wire, clay tiles. "It looks like they were going to build a hotel," Dan said. "Look, there are more buildings down there."

  "Dan," Amy said. "Look."She pointed to the sand. Footprints were clearly outlined. Dan put his own foot next to one. The footprint was much larger, the footprint of a man. Amy's doubts about Dan's theory were suddenly crowded out by her fear.

  They followed the footprints past the abandoned hotel and through the clearing. Down the path they could see a small crescent beach, the sand colored pink by the setting sun.

  Tall palms surrounded it. The footprints disappeared, melded into the dimples of the soft sand.

  Amy caught a flicker of movement out of the corner of her eye.

  A hammock was strung between two palm trees. It swayed back and forth gently. She couldn't see the person lying in it, just one bare foot gently pushing the ground to keep it rocking.They walked closer, hardly breathing.

  As they reached the hammock, they could see a pair of perfectly pressed lemon-yellow linen shorts. A crisp white shirt. And, his eyes closed, a smile on his face ... their cousin Alistair Oh.

  CHAPTER 24

  Alistair opened one eye. If he was surprised to see them, he didn't show it."Welcome to paradise," he said.

  He swung both legs down so that he was sitting up. "You look disappointed."

  "We didn't expect to see you here," Dan muttered."I could say the same," Alistair said. "Except it wouldn't be quite true. I'm getting to the point where I'm never surprised when you pop up."

  Dan wanted to punch a tree. He was sure he was on the trail of the oldest man in the world. Instead, he'd only found another Cahill cousin.

  And he still wasn't sure how he felt about Alistair. Amy had cried when she'd thought Alistair had died in the cave-in back in Korea.

  Even he had gotten a little damp. Well, okay, he'd cried. A little. But then it turned out Alistair was alive. Which meant he'd totally scammed them.

  It hadn't been the first time, either. He was an Ekaterina, just as intent on finding the 39 Clues as they were.

  Still, he'd helped them in Egypt.

  It wasn't his fault his submersible -- which he'd invented -- had sunk. Well, maybe it was his fault. They'd almost been fish food under the Nile.

  "What are you doing here, Alistair?" Amy asked."Same thing you are, I expect," Alistair said. "Trying to figure out what Robert C. Henderson did here. A brilliant man. An Ekat, of course."

  "We guessed that," Dan said. "We tracked him in Australia."

  "Did you now." Alistair's eyes gleamed. "I'd hate for you to come all the way to Indonesia without satisfying a bit of your curiosity. How about another information exchange? You tell me what you learned in Australia, and I'll tell you what I've learned here. Deal?"

  Dan and Amy exchanged a glance.

  They'd shared information with Alistair before. It usually worked out okay."You probably know he was a scientist," Alistair said. "Like so many of our branch, he had a brilliant and inventive mind. He ascended the ranks of the Ekat elite very quickly and attracted the notice of the branch leaders. He was headed for great things. And then he made a great mistake."

  Alistair paused. "He fell in love with a Lucian."

  Dan groaned. "Oh, please. Barf control! Not a love story."

  "Yes, a love story. But many love stories are also ... betrayal stories. She was highborn, a cousin of Queen Victoria. Which gave the Ekats an idea. There had been a rumor -- well, more than a rumor-- that about sixty years before a highborn Lucian in the Russian monarchy had assembled most-- or even all -- of the thirty-nine clues.

  The Madrigals destroyed his evidence in a raid. But he had retained one copy for safekeeping. It was passed to Lucian headquarters in London sometime in the 1880s. We suspect that the Madrigals killed Tsar Nicholas II and his family in 1918, searching for that list. But that's another story.

  Only the Ekats knew that the list had been passed to London."Amy didn't look at Dan. Dan didn't look at Amy. They had found the evidence of the assembled Clues back in Russia, but they weren't about to tell Alistair that.

  "However-- and this is so typically Lucian - even if they had been able to steal and trick enough to get so many, they didn't have the skill to figure out amounts. That is a job for the Ekats.

  So they gave Robert Henderson a choice. His fiancee's father was the branch leader of the Lucians.

  If Robert didn't spy on him and try to ascertain whether the Lucians had the thirty-nine clues, he would be kicked out of the Ekats forever."Amy gasped. "That's terrible!"

  Alistair turned his dark eyes on her. "After all this time, all this effort, you still don't understand how important this is, do you?"

  "I do. It's just that-"

  He shook his head. "No. If you truly understood what was at stake, you would know that it's sometimes necessary to be ruthless.

  At any rate, Robert Henderson was torn. Apparently, he was deeply in love. But he was also something else -- a scientist. The temptation to find the clues and assemble them -- he couldn't resist that challenge.

  So he successfully stole the only copy of the clues the Lucians had. Naturally, they knew perfectly well it was he who had done it, so ... the marriage was off.

  The Ekats got him on a ship to the South Seas and made up a story about him following Darwin.

  But he really went to Indonesia. Then, of course, he made his fatal mistake. He built his lab on a known volcano. There were reasons for it -- it was uninhabited, and he was able to harness its geo-thermal energy to power his lab.

  He was an Ekat, after all. He was taking a chance, and he knew it. Of course, he lost the gamble."

  "What happened?" Amy asked. "I mean, we know that Krakatau erupted, but where was he?"

  "Ah, the Krakatau eruption. Who knows what triggered it? Some Ekats believed the Madrigals blew up Henderson's lab, which started a deadly geothermal chain of explosions.

  But Henderson? He was lucky. He was on his way to collect a shipment he had ordered for the lab. He knew that the volcano was active.

  There had been considerable activity on the island, earthquakes, steam ... he knew very well the danger he faced. But he was close.

  So agonizingly close that he left187the island at the last possible second -- the night before the main eruption.

  He barely made it out alive, and his laboratory blew up in one of the first eruptions. That's when he got burned. That next morning he was across the strait in the coastal town of Anjer when the tsunami came. He ran up into the hills to escape it. The population tried to outrun this gigantic, overpowering wave a hundred feet tall ... can you imagine the terror? Hundreds were sucked back into the sea or pummeled against the rocks.

  He saw horror and suffering and he made it out alive. We know he went to Jakarta. We know weeks later he booked passage to Sydney. We lost track of him after that. We think his mind was broken.

  He just... disappeared." Alistair turned to them. "So. Did you find him?"

  "We found out that he was in jail," Amy said. "They called him Bob Troppo. We traced him to a place called Coober Pedy, where he became an opal miner called Fossie. He died in the 1950s. But he never said another word. Or left a hint. Just a bunch of gibberish on the walls of a mine."

  "But he did leave a hint," Alistair said. "I know because I have it."

  "Where did you get it?"

  "Ah," Alistair said. His gaze slid away from them. "Perhaps that revelation should be left for another
time."

  "Can we see it?"Alistair took an old paper out of his shirt pocket. "If you figure it out, we shore the clue. Agreed?" After they nodded, he handed it to Dan and Amy.

  Far from home I set up my endeavour

  Risked all -- love, even life, to sever

  If need be. Yet with all I had

  The Clues given, brain nearly mad

  With knowledge gained and lost and gained again

  With chance and right to rule all men I failed.

  By merely one, cruel fate Left for me to calculate.

  The very waves sang the song I knew

  Though I knew it not. Merely rue.

  One morn despair to me befell In a

  I could not dispel

  To have come so far and risked it all

  To try, to fail, to fall.

  I threw myself upon the strand

  This exile I could scarce withstand

  And yet then at the blackest hour

  There, as in Newton's bower

  The answer thundered down.

  The price? A sodden crown.

  Reward? Ah, 'tis merely this:

  End and answer, elixir, bliss."

  Well, that clears everything up," Dan said. "I think I get part of it,"

  Amy said. "He left everything behind, risked his life, in order to put together the thirty-nine clues.

  And he almost got the answer-- he was missing one only clue.

  By merely one, cruel fate “Left for me to calculate."

  "He was wrong about that," Alistair said. "We know he didn't actually have thirty-eight clues. But he was close. Very close.""But what does it mean that the waves sang a song and he knew it but he didn't know it?"

  "It means he'd already gone troppo,"

  Dan said. He groaned. "I'm flashing back to Mrs. Malarkey's English class, and it's not pretty. What's rue?"

  "It means sadness," Alistair said.

  "He tried so hard and for so long, and he came so close, but he lost. But here's the part I can't figure out. He's in despair, so he comes and throws himself on the strand-- a fancy word for beach. Then all of a sudden he's talking about Newton.

  Was there something that Newton discovered that he needed?

  I know he figured out gravity, but what does it have to do with the thirty-nine clues?"

  "The price? A sodden crown," Amy repeated. "What does that mean? That he was almost king of the world or something?"

  "Crown can mean 'head,' too," Alistair said. "As in 'Jack fell down and broke his crown' but it still doesn't make sense to me. I believe the reference is to the story of Newton -- that he thought of gravity when he was lying under a tree and an apple fell on his head. So he could be saying that he had a sudden revelation. But why doesn't he say what it is?"

  Alistair sighed. "Maybe he was already losing his mind." "Ya think?" Dan asked.

  A strong breeze rattled the paper. It had grown suddenly dark. The palm trees were bending with the gusts."It's going to storm," Alistair said.

  "We'd better get inside. Don't worry, these tropical storms blow themselves out quickly. I can call for a launch and get you home in time for dinner."

  CHAPTER 25

  Hours later, Dan stared out at the pounding rain. The palm trees were bending like dancers. From here he could just make out the white line of the surf.

  The sun had set long ago. They were trapped for the night."Not exactly blowing over," he said. "More like blowing."

  "Who knew?" Alistair said sheepishly. "I haven't been watching the weather. As soon as I get a clear signal, you can call Nellie. There's plenty of room here for you to spend the night."Alistair was staying in the only finished house on the island, on the edge of the construction site. It had been planned as a resort, but the Ekaterinas had bought it as a site for a possible stronghold. They were still deciding whether to finish it, but, in the meantime, Alistair came now and then.

  The house had one large room downstairs that was open on all sides and had a double-height ceiling. Alistair had closed sturdy wooden shutters when they had come up from the beach. Upstairs was a complete living area, with two bedrooms, a sitting room, and a small kitchen.

  The rain was still pattering lightly while they finished a meal of vegetables and rice. Alistair tried Nellie on his phone and she answered. He put her on speaker."Who is this?" she barked.

  "It's Alistair Oh, Ms. Gomez. I'm calling to tell you that Dan and Amy are here with me and .." "Are they safe?"

  "We're safe, Nellie!" Amy called. "I'll come and get them." "No need. The weather-- "

  "I don't care about the weather! Where are you?"

  "Nellie, we're on an island. We'll be back in the morning," Amy said. She could hear real concern in Nellie's voice. "We're sorry we didn't leave a note."

  "We can talk about the fact that you totally freaked me out for an entire day another time. Right now I'm coming to get you.""Ms. Gomez -- Nellie -- I'm afraid you will have to wait until morning," Alistair said reluctantly. "I swear I will deliver the children to you myself."

  "Don't bother. I'll be there tomorrow morning."After Alistair gave her directions and assurances that he'd fed them dinner and Dan had chimed in about the sad lack of dessert, Nellie said a reluctant good night and she'd see them tomorrow. Early.

  "Now, I think it's been a long day and we should all retire," Alistair said in his formal way. "You'll be safe here tonight."A few minutes later, Amy did feel safe as she snuggled under the cotton quilt. Alistair had loaned them each one of his soft white cotton T-shirts to wear to bed because their clothes still smelled like fish and saltwater.

  The wind and rain had stopped, and a fresh breeze wafted through the window. Amy fell asleep listening to the faint rustling of the palms. Far away, a motor softly purred out on the dark sea. She was so tired that she hoped she wouldn't dream

  .* * *

  At first she thought she was still hearing the whisper of the leaves outside.

  The noise was so soft. She turned over and felt herself slipping back into sleep. She could still smell the smoky trace of their dinnerShe sat up.

  She could smell it now. She could see the wisps of smoke curling in the moonlight.

  Panic shot through her. But she couldn't seem to move. She was seeing another night, another time.

  Fire. Amy holds her mother's hand. She cries as they run down the stairs to the first floor.

  "Get the children out!" her father shouts. He's in the den, pulling books down off the shelves. Looking for something ... "Daddy!" she screams. She holds out her arms and he stops for a second. "Angel," he says, "go with Mommy."

  "No!" She sobs as her mother pulls her away. "No! Daddy!"

  "Arthur!" her mother shouts. But she continues on with Amy and Dan.Cool night air, damp grass against her bare legs. Her mother leans over her.

  She takes Amy's face in her hands. "Look at me," her mother says, the way she always does when she wants Amy to listen hard.

  "Take care of your brother. I love you." Amy screams, begs her to come back even as her mother races back into the burning houseShe was so intensely part of the memory that it wasn't until she started to cough that she realized fully this wasn't a dream. The house was on fire!

  Alistair appeared in the doorway. She saw the shadows of flames flickering on his face, and it sent a jolt through her body.

  Alistair was there that night, too.

  He had damp towels in his hands, just like her mother had on that night so long ago. He closed the bedroom door and put the wet towel against the crack. Then he bent over double, coughing.

  He was standing next to the fireplace, his face in shadow. Pants ironed to a knife-crease. Gray suit, bright yellow tie.

  He coughed politely. "Let's calm down. We are only here to take what is ours."

  Dan sat up in bed, coughing. The sound of his distress helped Amy to move.She threw off the sheet.

  Alistair rushed toward Dan. He pressed the wet towel against Dan's face. He put an arm around him
and started to lead him to the window.

  "Hurry!" he called over his shoulder to Amy.When she got to the window, she saw smoke rolling out from below.

  She looked behind and saw the eerie sight of smoke blasting through the cracks surrounding the closed door. There would be no escape that way.

  "The ledge," Alistair said.

  Outside the window was a ledge wide enough to stand on. She heard the sound of shattering glass as the window blew out in the room next door. Alistair stepped out on the ledge and held out a hand to Dan. "Come on. The wind is blowing the smoke the other way. You can breathe out here."Dan stepped out onto the ledge. He gulped in the fresh air. Amy stepped out next. The wall behind her back was hot.

  She looked down. Far below was the construction debris. Twisted coils of wire, concrete, nails, tangles of rusty rebar. There was no clear place to land. Even if they could survive the jump, they could be impaled on the sharp objects. Dan's breathing was heavy and constricted. Alistair kept his arm around him. The flames roared. No help was coming. No sirens.

  ’I’ll jump," Alistair said. "Maybe I can find a ladder or something. I'll find a way to get you down.""You can't jump!" Amy cried. "You'll be killed!"He smiled as he touched her cheek briefly. "It's our only chance."Alistair braced himself against the wall. He looked down, searching for a clear spot to land. There was none."Wait!"

  Amy hung on to his sleeve. "Look!" "Irina," Dan said.

  The smoke rolled and cleared, and they saw her running below, fast and strong, her legs pumping. She had a bamboo pole in her hand. As they watched in astonishment, she dug the pole into the ground and made a spectacular vault up to the roof.

  They heard the soft thump as she landed. Amy leaned out. She could just make out Irina above. Irina slid the pole down and steadied it against the lip of the roof."What is the word?" she called to them. "Shimmy?

  Shimmy down the pole! One at a time, it's not very strong.""Can we trust her?" Alistair asked Dan and Amy. It was Amy who spoke. She kept her eyes on Irina's intent face."Yes,"

  she said.

  Dan went first. He wrapped his legs around the pole and half slid, half shimmied down. As soon as he hit the ground, Amy took a deep breath of relief."Go, Amy," Alistair said.