by Tony Abbott
“This is all so beautiful,” Becca said.
Wade scanned the water. “Beautiful, yeah. There are a lot of boats, but I don’t see Marceline anywhere. Though I guess that’s the point. She’s good.”
“Forty-five minutes before ten o’clock,” said Sara. “Let’s find a good spot and sit.”
They found a bench looking back at the island from the very tip. They had views not only of the park, but of both sides of the embankments and of the bridge crossing the river.
Wade couldn’t sit but stood behind both Sara and Becca, ready to move at a moment’s notice if he saw anyone who looked the least bit like Darrell or Lily. Or an agent of the Order.
Sara stood, too. “I’ll take first patrol. I’m going to walk around, see what I see.”
“Stay in view,” Wade said.
“You know it,” she said, meandering down the south side of the park.
“I can’t believe we’ll finally be together again,” Becca said, glancing up at Wade.
“Bec, we should find you another doctor. I mean, you seem stronger than in Bologna. More so each day, but . . . well . . . how do you feel?”
“Wade, I need you to promise me something.” She nodded to the bench next to her.
He sat. “Anything.”
“Right now, it’s just a headache. Or not an ache so much as a squeeze. I don’t know. It comes and goes. But, listen . . . I’m not going to lie to you—I usually don’t feel great. I couldn’t sleep last night. I’m not sleeping. My arm burns sometimes. I know I should keep seeing doctors, and I will. Sara’s right about that. But I don’t want to go to the hospital.”
“But if you have to—”
“No,” she said. “Wade, I need to be a part of this. I want you to cover for me.”
“Cover for you?”
“If I look bad. Say it’s something else. Or that you feel lousy, too. Or back me up when I say it’s food poisoning, or whatever. I . . . hate hospitals, and I can’t go there. Maybe it has something to do with my sister, Maggie, almost dying in the hospital. I’ll be fine, I will be, but only with you guys. I know I need to get some real treatment for whatever this arm thing is. It’s not healing right. My tiredness. All that. But we’ll do it after. This is important, and I can’t not be with you guys. Not until this is done. You have to promise me.”
He looked into her face, her eyes. There was something in them he had never seen before. Or maybe he’d always seen it. A kind of frailty, maybe, but something else. He loved those eyes, so green and deep and dark. Then she put her hand on his.
“Promise me?”
What could he do but what he did. “Okay. Okay, Bec, I will. But there’s going to be a time when I see something happening with you and I’ll have to—”
“I know, but not until then. Okay?”
Wade cared a lot about Becca. She was . . . well, she was a big part of what he thought about, and he didn’t want to lie to her. He couldn’t.
“Okay,” he said. “Promise.”
She breathed in. Her face relaxed; she grinned. “Good. Thanks. Until then, I’m fine.”
She wasn’t, but in a way, none of them were. They were all saying essentially, “Never mind me. I’m okay. We have a world to save.” Which Wade totally understood. He understood it all. So he would cover for her. Until he couldn’t anymore.
Sara was back and stood next to the bench. “There are two of Marceline’s people in the park. A folksinger and a woman in a gray scarf.”
“Good, I feel safe,” Becca said, trying her best to beam. “While we wait, let me read you what I found in the diary.”
Wade studied her as she opened her notebook and slipped on her reading glasses. Her hands were steady. Her movements normal. All right, then.
“I keep finding codes that unlock different levels of text,” she said. “It’s strange. What I thought I’d already done, I now find has a hidden passage in it.”
“Good catch,” Wade said. “Does the new part tell about another relic?”
“You decide,” she said, then read it out to them.
“Frombork, Poland
January 22, 1516
Nighttime
“Out of the fiery snowstorm, emerging from the smoke and storming ash, rides a man on an enormous black steed.
“He is Albrecht von Hohenzollern, Grand Master of the Knights of the Teutonic Order of Ancient Prussia.
“Nicolaus stares him down. ‘Make your demand, so that I may know it all.’
“‘I know what your device can do,’ Albrecht says, sliding down from the saddle, planting his boots in the flame-red drifts. ‘My spies have made reports. You shall take a third journey. You will transport my cargo.’
“‘A third journey will destroy our world,’ the Magister states.
“‘Let it.’ Albrecht steps forward, towering over Nicolaus. ‘I demand you take this cargo to the future. You know where. You know when. Or the boy dies.’
“It is my fault that Nicolaus does not refuse the Demon Master, for Nicolaus drops his sword and says, ‘Leave Hans be, and I will do as you ask.
“‘But now I have a demand,’ Nicolaus adds. ‘I will take your cargo where and when you seek, but Hans and I must do it alone. No one will accompany us to the site of the astrolabe’s launching. Agree, or you may kill me now.’
“‘And me,’ I say. ‘I’m not afraid to die.’
“Albrecht eyes the two of us in the light of the flames. He nods his head once. ‘Agreed. Douse the flames!’ he calls to his men.
“The promise is made. We will transport Albrecht’s cargo to the future.”
“Cargo,” said Wade. “Albrecht wanted the astrolabe to carry cargo. What was it? And where did he want it to go? And when? Could something of Albrecht’s be in our world?”
“Or . . .” Sara raised her finger. “I wonder. Maybe this cargo, whatever it is, is what Galina is after. It’s why she needs the time machine. She wants the cargo, but it’s stuck, trapped in time somehow, and she wants to retrieve it.”
“Whoa, Mom,” Wade said. “Yeah. That could be it.”
“I haven’t found anything directly about that yet,” Becca said. “And the cargo isn’t explained. But there are tons of questions. Like sometime after fifteen sixteen, Hans Novak goes away. He’s not around when the relics are given to the original Guardians. Copernicus doesn’t say where he went, or if he died, or anything. He just drops out of the picture. Did Albrecht kill him like he threatened to? To say nothing about the Frombork Protocol.”
“Right,” said Wade. “The Protocol still feels like a black hole, and it’s getting bigger the closer we get to needing to follow what it commands. It’s supposed to tell us how to destroy the relics. But if they’re indestructible, how in the world is it even possible?”
Becca sighed. “The more I can translate, the more we’ll know.”
“I agree,” said Sara. “We should probably move to another part of the park.”
They switched to another bench, where Wade again remained standing. He checked his watch. “A little after ten now. We’ll wait another hour?”
Sara nodded. “Until we’re sure nothing’s going to happen tonight.”
The loudspeaker from a big tourist boat called a bateau-mouche crackled as the boat cruised past, and its glittering lights rippled across the surface of the water.
Becca suddenly jumped to her feet. “I see Darrell! Wait, is it? Yes! Look! Look!”
Even through the trees and even with Darrell in a long hooded sweatshirt, it was easy for Wade to spot his stepbrother, loping quickly down the stairs into the park, Lily as close to him as if chained by handcuffs.
“Oh my gosh, Lilllleeeee!” said Becca.
“Wait!” said Sara, holding her back. “Look over there.”
A man walked slowly along the upper deck of another bateau-mouche, this one traveling downstream. He was staring steadily at the park and was on a cell phone. At the same time, a pair of motorboats roared upstream, one o
n each side of the island, traveling west toward the park.
“We’ve been spotted,” Wade hissed, running toward the stairs. “Darrell, run!”
Darrell heard and swung around to Lily, who started quickly back up the stairs. A spray of bullets pinged on the stones suddenly. Shots came both from the water and the street above.
Darrell and Lily reversed direction and ran to Wade, who was hurrying toward them, Becca and Sara on his heels. One of the motorboats tore alongside the embankment, then cut the engine. Two agents in black jumpsuits armed with handguns leaped onto the island, and the people in the park started running.
“The other side of the park. Go!” said Sara, snagging Becca and Wade with her.
Meanwhile, a third boat appeared, racing toward the island from downstream. This was Marceline. She had three agents with her. Flashes of gunfire flickered, and one Order boat collided with a passing tourist craft, sending both up onto the bank. The Order’s agents stumbled out of the damaged vessel. Marceline fired more warning shots, and the thugs ducked behind the stairway foundation.
“Get in!” Marceline yelled. She pulled up to the tip of the island. Becca and Lily scrambled over the low wall onto the deck. The three armed detectives fanned out into the park. A series of shots exploded in the night. People screamed. Wade jumped on board Marceline’s boat, then helped Sara, Darrell, and Lily in. They motored swiftly away from the island.
“Nice reception!” Darrell yelled.
“We try!” said Wade. “Let’s move!”
Lily clutched the side of the boat as Marceline tore away upriver. The first two Order agents to hit the island fired at them, striking the outboard motor and the hull at the waterline. Marceline lost control, and the little craft careened into the side of a houseboat. A narrow ladder hung from the deck down to the water. The motorboat was filling fast with water.
“Up the stairs and to the street!” Sara said.
Marceline crouched and returned fire. There were sirens now, from the street above and incoming from somewhere upstream. The children and Sara clambered up the ladder to the houseboat’s deck, where they were helped to the ramp on the far side by the boat’s owners, who barraged them with questions. Lily didn’t get a word of what they were talking about, though both Sara and Becca thanked them.
Then they were out on the busy embankment, up the stairs, and in the crowded street before they heard Marceline stop firing.
Minutes later, breathless and exhausted, they pushed into a quiet creperie on the rue Saint-André des Arts, closed the door behind them, and fell into one another’s arms.
As haggard and ragged and exhausted as she was—as if she’d been lost for a month in the wild—Lily jumped up and down at seeing the others. “You guys! I can’t believe it. You guys!”
“So good to have you back again!” Becca said, wrapping Lily in her arms as Darrell bumped fists with Wade and gave Becca a quick hug before glomming himself onto his mother. Lily wanted to hug her own mother then, but somehow Sara’s embrace made her feel at home again. They were back together.
Becca and Wade led them all from street to street to the next safe house, this one near the south entrance to the Luxembourg Gardens.
Lily collapsed on the nearest sofa the moment they entered a small suite of rooms, and felt her muscles relax for the first time in days.
“The Guardians!” she said. “You can’t believe them. I mean, you can, but the ones we met were—are—the most amazing people. Guys, there are kids—Darrell, that supercool girl—”
Darrell dropped down next to her. “Quirita—”
“—was so awesome, I can’t even, I can’t—” Lily choked up.
Darrell was up again, and it was clear he could hold it in no longer. “Mom . . . Bartolo Cassa. He might be . . . Mom, I think he’s out of the picture. For a long time at least.”
Lily glanced up at him. “He fell from a balcony. I saw him. We both did.”
Sara jammed her eyes shut, nodding gently. “Well, good. I mean, no, not good. When someone is . . . you know, no. It is good. A world without Bartolo Cassa killing people is a better world for the rest of us.”
“There are plenty of other nasty agents,” Wade said. “You guys know about the purge of Guardians, right? Simon Tingle must have told you.”
“So did our old friend Papa Dean,” Lily said. “He told us a hundred so far.”
“More now,” Becca said. “Some people we knew, too. But Chief Inspector Yazinsky has checked in with Marceline, and Silva, too. The housekeeper from Nice is also up and around. Julian’s researching Galina’s movements from the apartment in Nice.”
“We’re not defeated by a long shot,” said Sara, busily making tea in the small kitchen. “As soon as we have your father and Terence back, it’ll be full steam ahead.”
“And what about Dad?” Darrell asked. “Is he okay? It’s been so many weeks. There’s nothing in the newspapers or on TV about it.”
Lily watched Sara glance quickly at Wade, then sigh.
“He . . . we don’t know for sure,” Sara said. “Marceline heard only once from Paul Ferrere. His message was cryptic, short, and a bit frightening: ‘We’re going in.’ He’s been joined by the thief, Mistral, if you can believe it. But that was weeks ago, too. Since then, nothing. We’ve been hiding. The remaining Guardians, as much as they want to, are forced to go into hiding, too.”
“Everyone’s pretty generally on radio silence,” said Wade.
Lily put her hand on Becca’s. “You know, you seem a little tired.”
Becca looked at Wade and Sara. “I am. There’s a doctor visit in the morning, right, Sara?” Sara nodded. “Just to check. But I’m mostly good. Tell us about Corvus.”
Darrell took a breath. “First off, I died about six times. The usual. Lil and I agreed to send the relic to CI Yazinsky. He can get it back to us immediately when we need it.”
“Smart. The safest thing to do,” his mother said.
“Now that Crux has been stolen, we still have only three. Galina has four. And the astrolabe,” Becca said. “We need to move so much faster. With Guardians being eliminated, time is running out.”
“We have a solid clue,” said Lily. “I think it’s a solid clue. We’re to find the clock of Floréal Muguet. Floréal Muguet sounds like a kind of dessert to me, but I don’t know why a cake would have a clock. Anyway, a boy told Quirita that years ago. He’d be older now.”
“If he’s still alive,” said Wade. “I don’t suppose she remembers his name?”
Darrell shook his head. “He never told her his name.”
Becca leaned back on the sofa. “I think I’ve reached my limit of escaping from the Order today. I need to sleep, even for a bit.”
Darrell watched Wade and Becca share a look. “Right. It’s superlate. I can barely stand. We’ll start searching for Floréal Muguet and his—or her—clock in the morning.”
It was long past midnight when everyone chose their beds and sank into them with few words. Lily and Becca shared the largest room, Sara took the room by the apartment door, while Wade and Darrell set up in a corner bedroom.
“Dang, it’s good to have you back,” Wade said when the lights were off.
“I’ve changed, Wade.”
“We all have, I think. I’m not sure I like it.”
“You didn’t let me finish. I’m saying I’ve changed, but I still have it. The sea at night. The moon on the water. Even from the greasy porthole in our secret cabin—sssss—our secret cabinsssss. One night I looked out at the rippling waves, moonbeams, a few thin clouds blowing by. It was so beautiful. Bro, this is an incredible world we live in. We have to do everything we can to keep it that way.”
Wade drew in a breath. “We can. Because of people like you.”
“And you, bro.”
“That goes without saying.”
“And Becca. My mom, of course. And Lily, too. Wade, Lily is awesome in ways I can’t even talk about.”
“Me, too
,” Wade said softly. Then he snorted and soon began to snore.
Fine, thought Darrell. We’re all beat. He stared at the ceiling.
Thinking of his stepfather and Terence and their possible rescue by Paul Ferrere and Mistral, and now with most of the family finally together, Darrell felt they were rebuilding their group again and it was good.
Becca would see a doctor in the morning, then they’d get to work. It was the final push now. Darrell had no idea what the clock of Floréal Muguet was all about, or where to start their search for it, but they’d begin the day running and not stop until they had the answer.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Paris, France
July 22
11:49 p.m.
Clutching the gold coin recovered from the dig at El-Alamein in Egypt, Galina stormed down the hall of her headquarters under the Place de la Concorde.
“Is this my fault, Markus? The failure of the attack at Vert-Galant?”
“Never doubt yourself, Miss Krause,” Wolff said. “The assault was hastily arranged. A failure, perhaps, but in the end we keep the Kaplans moving, on the run, disoriented. We will retrieve the relics. We are so close to our goal.”
She stopped, turned to him. Despite, or maybe because of, his austere appearance—the long leather coat, the short-cropped white hair—Markus Wolff was the calmest man she knew. He never spoke in haste. He always considered the minutest details while keeping his gaze firmly on the larger vision. Her heart slowed, her anger ebbed.
She studied the coin in her palm. “Strange how the thread of Aquila takes us from the desert to the streets of Paris, exactly when the Kaplans are here.”
