39 Clues _ Cahills vs. Vespers [03] The Dead of Night

by Peter Lerangis

  Something didn’t smell right to her.

  As she stopped by the elevators, Dan plowed into her from behind. His head was buried in his smartphone. “Sorry, I’m working,” he said. “I’m thinking that stale orb is an anagram.”

  “Well, think with your head pointed straight ahead, okay?” Amy said, looking around the lobby.

  “Vesper One’s note said ‘Let’s mix things up,’” Dan continued. “That’s an anagram hint. Mix the letters up.”

  “Hey, there’s a restaurant here,” Atticus said.

  “No restaurant,” Amy replied. “We have a lot of planning to do.”

  “So what is Atticus supposed to eat, the dust balls under the bed?” Jake asked.

  “I’ve been rearranging the letters,” Dan barreled on. “Want to know what I found? A lobster. Also bat loser. And rat lobes.”

  “Keep working,” Amy said. As the elevator door opened, she felt her phone vibrating. She nearly jumped.

  She was feeling too edgy. That wouldn’t be useful.

  The screen showed Evan’s name. “Hello, Ev?”

  “Ames!” he squeaked. “We just heard the news from Erasmus. All I wanted to do was, you know, touch base? How’s it going? Are you okay?”

  For a moment, Amy felt a smile breaking the stalemate of expression on her face. No one said hello like Evan. He was a ball of sweet eagerness.

  As the elevator door opened, she felt tears rushing to her eyes. It was refreshing to speak to someone whose first concern was her.

  Crying?

  Jake worried about the leadership skills of Amy Cahill. He watched her face carefully. She was talking to . . . what was his name? . . . Tolliver. From the video transmission in the Prague hotel. The nerdy guy. Her boyfriend. She was crying and smiling.

  Funny. When she smiled, all the tension drained from her face.

  She was really pretty.

  And you’re an idiot for thinking that. And, doofus, she’s noticing you.

  Jake turned away from Amy’s eyes. He didn’t care, really. She deserved to have a boyfriend, like anyone else.

  The elevator began to rise. Behind Jake, Atticus was helping Dan with anagrams. Amy finished her call and hung up. Jake noticed her eyes had changed. They were scanning the hotel skittishly.

  What was she so nervous about? So many secrets in this family. So much paranoia.

  “Slob rate!” Atticus exclaimed.

  “I don’t think that’s it,” Dan drawled.

  “What are you toddlers yapping about?” Jake said.

  Amy shushed him. She was staring upward. Jake followed her glance.

  High above, a man leaned over the balcony. He was dressed in a black suit with no tie, a wide-brimmed black hat, and sunglasses. He was scanning the area slowly, as if searching for something.

  “Why is that guy wearing sunglasses?” Amy asked. “The lighting scheme is dark. No normal person would need to wear those.”

  “A Turkish film star?” Jake suggested.

  “He’s on our floor!” Amy said. “Someone hit the button. Any button.”

  They were rising quickly — eleven . . . twelve . . . thirteen.

  “Amy . . . are you okay?” Dan said.

  Amy lunged across the elevator and pressed the seventeenth floor. The elevator came to a stop. “Get out — everyone,” she said, pushing Jake by the shoulder. “That guy is waiting for us. Up on the balcony.”

  Jake stumbled out. The girl was strong. “How do you know?”

  Amy ran past him, onto the floor. She frantically pressed the button to an elevator going down. A door immediately opened. “Get in. Now!”

  The elevator was crowded with other people. Amy shoved Jake and the others inside, then made her way to the glass wall.

  “Amy, chill!” Dan urged. But his sister was fixated on the scene above.

  Bewildered, Jake watched the man in sunglasses. He seemed to freeze as he spotted their descending elevator. Then he began walking quickly toward that section.

  At the same time, the elevator in the tube next to theirs rose to his floor.

  A young woman emerged. She also wore sunglasses and was dragging carry-on luggage. She grinned at the sight of the man, throwing her arms around him. Together they strolled away from the elevator and toward a hotel room door.

  They were guests. Plain and simple.

  “Hi ho the derry-o, the Vesper takes a vife,” Dan sang.

  Amy sank to the floor. “My bad,” she murmured.

  Atticus and Dan cracked up. Jake fought back a grin.

  When the door opened at the lobby, the other bewildered passengers couldn’t get out fast enough. They rushed around a stooped, balding man, who was smiling at Amy and Dan.

  “Excuse to me?” he said in a thick accent. “Is you . . . Daniel and Amy Cah-heel? Friends of Erasmus Yilmaz? I am manager. His cousin Bartu.”

  Amy nodded. “I’m Amy, this is Dan.”

  The man’s eyes watered. He grabbed Amy by the face and kissed her on both cheeks. “Any friend of Erasmus is family to me!”

  Fool. Paranoid.

  Amy breathed deeply, trying to slow her heart rate. She would have to stay cool. Leadership meant knowing when to be afraid and when not to. Alistair’s life depended on not jumping to conclusions. On being alert but not stupid.

  “Come, I have lovely gift — Erasmus pay for it!” Cousin Bartu said, hurriedly padding toward a door marked AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY in several languages. “Sorry, he did not tell me about other two boys. But I find something nice for them, too. You bring back. They will be happy for to get.”

  The Grand Nikia was the friendliest hotel ever. Any place associated with Erasmus had to be.

  The old man led Dan and Amy through the door. They passed through a set of cubicles staffed with hotel personnel. Then he led them through another door, and an alleyway.

  At the end of the alley, about twenty feet away, was a black car with tinted windows.

  “Have a good day!” Bartu said. With a speed Amy never would have imagined in an old guy, he slipped back through the door and into the hotel.

  “Hey!” Dan screamed.

  Amy reached for a doorknob but there was none.

  The car door opened and a burly, rumpled-looking man climbed out. He wore a shabby brown trench coat and a shabbier brown fedora, and the dark circles under his eyes suggested a habit of very little sleep. Amy recognized him right away.

  “We . . . know you,” she said softly.

  “I believe you eluded me on a train to Switzerland,” he said wearily. “But we have not formally met. Milos Vanek. Interpol.”

  Vanek.

  That was the name signed to an all points bulletin to art dealers and museums about Dan and Amy’s theft of the Caravaggio.

  Think.

  “We have a flight tomorrow. . . .” she said, walking toward him. “Please. If we don’t make it, someone will die. Let us go. We’re just kids.”

  “Just kids do not commit thefts of priceless art,” Vanek said. “Come with me.”

  Amy saw the doors of the car opening. She lunged forward, leaping.

  Her right foot made contact with the car door. It slammed shut on a set of fingers. A bloodcurdling cry rang out from inside the car.

  Amy spun. Vanek had jumped away and was reaching inside his jacket pocket. Before she could react, Dan was behind him, quickly lifting the trench coat up over Vanek’s head.

  As Vanek let out a cry of surprise, Amy sprang forward. She pulled the bottom of the coat toward her. Vanek’s arms, trapped by the sleeves, flew over his head, too.

  He shouted in some unintelligible language, whirling around blindly, his coat inside out.

  “Come on!” Amy shouted.

  She grabbed Dan by the arm and ran.

  A gunshot made her stop short. “Hands in the air and turn around!” a gruff voice shouted.

  Behind her, on the opposite side of the car, an agent with thick beard stubble stood with a pistol pointed into the
air. Vanek, frantically unwrapping himself from the twisted trench coat, threw it to the ground. He was facing the wrong way. As he spun to face them, his hair stuck out in all directions.

  The gunman let out a strange, coughlike noise. He looked toward Dan and Amy, then Vanek.

  Inside the car, the other agent climbed out. Seeing Vanek, he burst out laughing. The gunman joined in, both men soon screaming with hilarity at the sight. “I think you have your hands full, Milos!” the gun- man said.

  “No, my friend,” Vanek spat, smoothing down his hair. “They do.”

  Dan hadn’t expected Interpol headquarters to be luxurious. But it looked like the walls hadn’t been painted since the days of Caravaggio. Maybe since Medusa herself. Judging from the smell, that may have been the last cleanup time, too.

  With Amy and Vanek, he reluctantly followed a lumpy, uniformed woman down a dark corridor. Her shoes, which looked like they weighed forty pounds, clomped loudly on the cement floor. She stopped at a metal-barred door. In the next cell, a prisoner yelled in Turkish, causing the guard to strike the inmate’s bars with her key chain. The yells became piercing shrieks. “In, please,” the guard said, opening the door.

  Dan peered inside. The cell was unlit, the only illumination coming from a buzzing, greenish fluorescent light in the hallway. There were two bedlike structures, cement benches with thin mattresses thrown on top. “You can’t mean this,” he said.

  He felt the guard’s hand shoving him inside. Amy stumbled in beside him.

  “We’re entitled to a phone call!” Amy said.

  “Ah, the phone call.” Vanek shook his head sadly. “American demands. Just like the movies. Tell me something. You steal artwork of highest refinement . . . Renaissance treasures. Is it a game for you? Why? You intend to sell the Caravaggio on eBay?”

  “We don’t have the Caravaggio!” Dan said. “Someone took it from us!”

  “Ah,” Vanek said, leaning against the bars. “Who?”

  “A trapeze artist,” Dan explained. “But she was killed. And someone took it from her.”

  Amy shot him a look.

  “I see.” Vanek’s eyes went dead. “You continue to believe that mockery is a sound strategy. Ah, well. In the morning, we will consult with officials in Turkey. They will consult with officials in Italy. They will consult with officials in United States. They will consult with Interpol. They will consult again with Turkey. Maybe in a week, maybe three, we will schedule a hearing.”

  As he turned to go, Amy shouted, “Three weeks? We have to make our flight tomorrow morning!”

  “Someone smart enough to steal a Caravaggio can rebook a plane flight,” Vanek said, without turning around. “Good night. Enjoy your accommodations.”

  Amy sank onto the bench bed. As the wails of the prisoner next door reached an intolerable pitch, she shoved her arms against her ears.

  But Dan couldn’t move.

  All he could think about was another jail cell in another place. Three days from now. He was picturing that cell’s door opening.

  And the look of utter horror on Uncle Alistair’s face.

  The dumbwaiter began to rattle.

  Phoenix Wizard shook like a mouse in an ice bucket. He wasn’t built to be a hero.

  Reagan Holt had managed to pry loose two sturdy metal bars from a rickety bed frame. The poles were hidden in the shadows in another room. Nellie was throwing Reagan a thumbs-up. Everyone was trying to be upbeat.

  Phoenix blew his nose and added his wet tissue to a pile on the floor.

  This part is my idea. I don’t HAVE ideas!

  What if this failed? What if — ?

  A hand landed softly on his arm. Phoenix turned.

  Nellie was grinning widely at him. Love ya, she mouthed.

  As the dumbwaiter neared bottom, Natalie emerged from the other room. From under her prison garb, she pulled out the metal bars and gave them to Reagan.

  The door opened, revealing a plate of stale bread and a plastic container of warm water.

  Now.

  Phoenix swept the contents onto the floor. “The eyes!” he shouted.

  Fiske and Uncle Alistair both scooped up the wet tissues and began flinging them up at the surveillance camera. Their aim wasn’t bad. One by one, the tissues stuck solidly to the lenses, blocking the view.

  “The mouth!” Phoenix said.

  Reagan and Nellie dragged a heavy bed across the cement floor. Phoenix pushed off the mattress, leaving a naked metal frame, which they shoved into the dumbwaiter sideways, jamming the door open.

  The machinery groaned as it struggled to raise the contraption.

  “The guts!”

  This was the trickiest part. Phoenix joined Reagan and Ted, who were lifting the bed frame up, using it as a lever. The front of the bed frame pushed against the dumbwaiter floor, forcing it down.

  Phoenix had figured there must be some clearance, some room in the shaft below the dumbwaiter. They needed the floor to sink about a foot and a half.

  As the dumbwaiter floor slowly sank, he watched the roof. Above it now was a growing black space of about four inches . . . six . . . ten. . . .

  “Now!” Phoenix shouted through gritted teeth.

  Uncle Alistair shoved one of the bed-frame bars into the gap between the dumbwaiter roof and the frame of the wall opening. “Not . . . sure . . . this will hold . . . !” he shouted.

  With a sickening ping, the metal flew into the shaft like a flicked toothpick. Alistair doubled over in pain. “My hand!”

  The bed frame jerked down. Phoenix’s heart skipped a beat. “Keep pushing!” Reagan shouted.

  Nellie and Fiske raced to his side. Their added strength allowed Phoenix to duck away and grab the other pole.

  “You’ll kill yourself!” Alistair warned. “The pressure is too great!”

  Ignoring him, Phoenix reached into the gap. He stuck one end of the pole into a depression in the metal frame of the dumbwaiter. Carefully he slid the other end into a small hole in the wall frame.

  It held. Barely.

  The dumbwaiter began to vibrate violently. A coil of acrid black smoke rose from below.

  And then the motor went dead.

  Phoenix leaned his head into the gap and stared upward. A dull greenish-white light emitted from a wall opening about twelve feet above. “I see them!” he said.

  “Go!” Reagan urged.

  Gripping the dumbwaiter roof, Phoenix hoisted himself upward, into the darkness. He planted his feet on the roof and began shimmying up the elevator cable. He could see Reagan below him, following close behind.

  Phoenix had never been able to climb more than five feet on the rope in gym class. It felt as if someone had plunged knives into his biceps. “I . . . can’t!”

  “You will!” Inches below him, Reagan managed to reach up with one hand, gather the soles of both of his feet, and give them a powerful shove.

  Phoenix vaulted upward and tumbled through the wall opening and onto a cold tile floor.

  He sprang to his feet, blinded momentarily by the fluorescent lights overhead. He was in a long room lined with file cabinets. “We did it, Reagan!”

  Reagan jumped into the room, landing in a crouch. “Don’t just stand there — get ’em!”

  She raced past Phoenix. He blinked away the brightness. At the far wall, two people sat at a bank of computers, facing away from them.

  Phoenix followed, his blood pumping. The people weren’t moving. Now he could see over their shoulders, to the monitors. Each was divided into multiple views: the two prison rooms below. The corridor outside the cell. The dumbwaiter shaft.

  His stomach sank. They’ve been watching us all along!

  That was when he realized that another image on the screen was this room — Phoenix and Reagan running toward a camera like a mirror.

  The two Vespers rose calmly and turned. They were wearing gas masks.

  “Stop, drop, and roll!” Reagan shouted, throwing herself to the floor.

&nbs
p; Phoenix nearly barreled into her. Plumes of smoke swirled out of gas jets in the wall, surrounding them both.

  And all went black.

  “I smell sheep, no?”

  The voice came from just outside the cell door, high-pitched and lilting. Amy opened her eyes and realized she’d fallen asleep. All she could manage was a groggy “Huh?”

  A gray-haired woman appeared outside the door, silhouetted in the harsh fluorescent light. “You have been consorting with sheep earlier this day.”

  Amy suddenly remembered they hadn’t had a chance to change since their encounter with the Wyomings. “Um, yes, sort of.”

  Dan rose from his thin mattress. He stared uncomprehendingly at the shadowy woman. “Don’t tell me. The Ghost of Christmas Past?”

  She opened a shapeless cloth coat and pulled out an ID card. “Amato,” she said. “Luna Amato. Interpol. Perhaps you heard of me? I asked your friends to give you a message. A large boy. And one who is into the rapping music. No? Ah, well, no matter. We meet anyway.”

  Amy cocked her head curiously. The woman had a brusque, matter-of-fact manner, but there was a glint of kindness in her eyes.

  Or maybe that was wishful thinking.

  “If you came to yell at us, too late,” Dan said. “Milos Vanek beat you to it.”

  “I come to transfer you. I trust you will not miss these chambers?” Amato pulled a key and two sets of handcuffs from her coat pocket. She unlocked the door and cuffed herself to Dan and Amy. “Come.”

  She began walking down a long hallway, the opposite way from which they’d come. “Ms. Amato, my brother and I are innocent,” Amy pleaded. “Victims of blackmail. I know it sounds far-fetched, but if we don’t travel tomorrow, a family member will be murdered!”

  She looked at Dan for support, but he looked hopeless.

  Amy had to admit, the explanation didn’t sound airtight.

  Luna Amato led them silently through a door at the end of the hall, and then down a flight of stairs into a moldy cellar. The halls were narrow, lit by bare bulbs. Battered metal file cabinets lined the walls.