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

by Peter Lerangis

  The guide paused. He turned to Atticus with a smile and nodded amiably. “Why, yes, of course I do.”

  Four pairs of eyes snapped to the old man’s face. “You do?” Amy cried out.

  Bewildered, Atticus said, “Can you tell us how to find it?”

  Umarov laughed as he reached into a pocket of his long, flowing robe. “Indeed I can. But if you call her it, I’m afraid she will kick you out.”

  He handed Atticus a card:

  Estelle Urb . . . a stale orb.

  Brilliant, Atticus thought, as the taxi raced past the graveyard into town. Not a mathematical hint, not a strange word game, but a homonym!

  “This doesn’t seem right,” Jake said. “I think it’s a mistake. A coincidence.”

  “In this life,” Amy said, “there are very few coincidences.”

  Jake scoffed. “Thank you, World-Weary Winifred.”

  The driver was arguing on his cell phone, swerving wildly. He screeched to a stop in front of a small building with curtained windows. “My boss call,” he said. “Someone call him looking for two American kids. So he want to know your names. I tell him I have four kids, and I hang up.”

  Jake murmured, “This means, ‘I covered for you, so give me a big tip.’”

  Atticus leaped out of the cab as Amy paid up. “Come along, Arthur . . . Julius . . . Leonard!”

  Dan nearly fell out of the taxi, laughing. “What?”

  Atticus waited until Amy and Jake were out. “It’s the real names of the Marx Brothers,” Atticus said. “To disguise our own names. Because maybe it was Interpol who called him!”

  “It was a good instinct,” Amy replied.

  “I agree, Julius,” Dan said.

  Jake walked toward the door of number 137. “You’re all crazy.”

  He knocked loudly. It was a dingy, neglected storefront nestled between two newer office buildings. The bell hung from a rusty electrical wire, and a faded, hand-drawn sign drooped low over the front door.

  Atticus heard shuffling footsteps. The door pulled open an inch, and a pair of bloodshot eyes peered out. “Who is calling?” a woman’s voice asked.

  “Are you Estelle Urb?” Jake asked.

  The face retreated, the chain slid back, and the door opened.

  Stale, musty air wafted out. Cautiously Atticus stepped into a small, dark room. As his eyes adjusted, he saw fringed lamps, lopsided chests of drawers, faded rugs, and ticking wooden clocks. A thick layer of dust had settled over everything.

  “Shop is upstairs,” she growled, heading toward a rickety staircase. “You come. But do not wake Ruhan.”

  Atticus assessed her accent. Latvian or Finnish. Maybe Estonian. He followed Amy and Jake up the steps, turning to look for Dan.

  But Dan was standing in the middle of the living room, wheezing, his face pale. “Can’t breathe. . . . asthma . . .”

  Amy spun around. “He can’t stay in here!”

  “I’ll get him outside,” Atticus said, leaping to the floor. “You stay. Don’t leave my brother alone.”

  He rushed Dan through the door and onto the sidewalk. Gasping, Dan pulled an inhaler out of his pocket and took two puffs. “Sorry,” he said. “It hardly ever happens anymore. I need to walk.”

  Atticus took him by the arm and headed down Kuk-Saray Street. Sheltered by the buildings, the air still had a hint of morning coolness. Atticus loved the desert dryness in Samarkand. It seemed to sharpen each scent, so that a trip down a street was like a journey through forests of sweet juniper and cinnamon.

  Now, as he breathed with Dan, he caught a whiff of something familiar.

  Plov.

  Years ago, Atticus had traveled with his dad to Tashkent and watched men filling a huge cauldron with layers of mutton, yellow carrots, currants, spices, and rice. They worked with amazing speed, their faces still and solemn — then they let it cook for hours in a pit, buried under thick blankets. Plov tasted so good, it nearly made him . . .

  “Cry,” Dan said.

  “What?” Atticus replied, snapping out of his fantasy.

  “I think I’m going to cry if I don’t eat whatever that is,” Dan answered.

  Atticus nodded. “But it’s dangerous to split up.”

  “Dangerous,” Dan said dubiously.

  “Unless we . . . ” Atticus said.

  Dan nodded. “Grab something quick.”

  Together they raced down the block. People were already leaving offices for lunchtime. The street was crowded with women in long, patterned dresses and bright-colored head kerchiefs. Many men wore small black-and-white-patterned skullcaps sewn with four seams at the side, so that the top formed a square.

  At the end of the block, a set of stone steps led to a small market area lined with shops. In a food stand, a burly, mustached man stood over two simmering pots. They were small versions of the cauldron Atticus had once seen. He knew the smell. His mouth was already watering. “Is that plov?” Atticus asked.

  The man nodded proudly. “Also nochas. Sweet yellow peas. Delicious.”

  “It’s like that song,” Dan murmured. “All you need is plov . . .”

  Atticus grinned. “Plov makes the world go around . . .”

  “I’m just a plov machine — ”

  “Also we have non bread,” the man went on. He gestured toward a deep oven, where puffy breads were plastered to the inner walls, as if they’d grown there. “And katyk to drink. Made with yogurt and watermelon. Very nice.”

  Dan was looking over his shoulder, across the plaza. “Order two of everything,” he said, shoving cash into Atticus’s hand. “I’ll be right back. I need to get a souvenir.”

  “Souvenir?” Atticus said. “Wait. Shouldn’t we stay together? I mean, people are after both of us!”

  “No one knows who we are,” Dan said. “I’m just going, like, twenty yards away. For a second. We’ll be able to see each other. Don’t worry.”

  He scampered toward a fabric shop just across the plaza. Before ducking inside, he gave a reassuring wave.

  Atticus brought the food to a café table. He broke open some non bread, inhaling the yeasty warmth. He spooned some plov on top and folded it into a bite-sized hunk. As he raised it to his mouth, he spotted a figure sitting on a stool across the street.

  Where’d he come from?

  A moment ago, he hadn’t been there. He was enormous and sweaty, the buttons of his white shirt straining against his expansive belly. He held a guitar but he was not yet playing. When Atticus looked up, he quickly turned away.

  Atticus took a deep breath. It was easy to get paranoid. He needed to calm down. He took a bite and washed it down with katyk.

  When he put the drink down, the wide-girthed guitarist had slid his stool closer.

  Atticus’s gaze darted across to the fabric shop. Dan had disappeared inside. The crowd was thickening now, and Atticus could barely see the door. He took another few bites and then stood.

  As he moved across the plaza toward where Dan had gone, the man quickly got up. Placing his guitar on his stool, he headed for the shop. With a much smaller distance to cover.

  “Dan!” Atticus shouted.

  His voice was absorbed by the noisy throng. He pivoted, running back in the direction they’d come, weaving through the crowd, pushing people aside. A bearded old man shook his fist, yelling something in Uzbek.

  He took the stairs two at a time. There were fewer people at the top. It was a clear shot back to Estelle Urb. He leaped to the top and began to run.

  To his left, a man on a bike pedaled out of an alleyway. He skidded to a stop in front of Atticus.

  “Hey, watch it!” Atticus shouted, veering to the right.

  The guy swerved, matching his motion.

  Atticus stumbled, falling to one knee. He rose, panicked, glancing over his shoulder.

  A beefy arm clasped his shoulder and spun him around. Atticus was face-to-face with the guitarist. The man was breathing heavily, his face red with exertion.

  “
Greetings, Atticus Rosenbloom,” he said with a thick Uzbek accent.

  “It is the dried pupa of moth,” said the old man behind the silk shop’s counter, holding out a plate of shining giant insect shells. “Delicious.”

  “Uh, thanks,” Dan said, holding back a wave of nausea, “but my true plov awaits outside.”

  “Eh?” the man replied.

  “Never mind. Bad joke. I was wondering about something. These moths — they make the silk you sell, right? Are they Bombyx mori moths?”

  The man looked impressed. “Ah, a serious young man! Yes, indeed, on both questions. We grow the Bombyx mori carefully. Use their cocoons for the silk. The shell for food. We are . . . how you say . . . a green business!”

  Dan could barely contain himself. The secretion of the Bombyx mori silk moth. Of all the thirty-nine Clues, this was the hardest one to find.

  What better place to find it than on the Silk Road?

  “I was wondering,” Dan said. “How much do you charge for the secretions?”

  The man looked confused. “Secretions? You mean, silk liquid — not silk itself? We can do this for you. Perhaps give it to you in a tube. But it must not be exposed to the air — ”

  Dan slapped a wad of cash on the counter. “I need what you’ve got, please.”

  The man’s confused expression suddenly cleared. “Right away.”

  Moments later, Dan was walking out the door with a small tube of thick, white fluid. And his sixteenth ingredient. “Hey, Att!” he cried out. “Did you save me any — ?”

  Dan stopped at the table, where three middle-aged men were working their BlackBerrys. His and Atticus’s meals were piled neatly on an empty seat.

  “Did you see the kid who was just here?” Dan asked.

  One man shrugged, one grunted, the other yelled at his screen.

  “Atticus!” Dan turned around, scanning the crowd. At the top of the stairs, where they’d just come from, he saw a commotion. A large body. Flying dreadlocks.

  He ran as hard as he could. Atticus was struggling with a guy on a bicycle and a human moose.

  Dan powered up the steps, aiming his shoulders for the big man’s knees. The guy teetered and dropped forward like a redwood. He grabbed on to Atticus.

  All three of them fell to the street.

  A small crowd had gathered around, staring in confusion. The large man sat up, placing one hand on Atticus’s shoulder and the other on Dan’s. “I did not know,” he said, “it would be this hard to deliver message from Mark Rosenbloom. Atticus, your father asked me to tell you. Go home. He is very angry.”

  The sound of footsteps worked its way into Nellie’s dream.

  In it, she had set out a lavish buffet in her fantasy restaurant, Gomeztibles. But now dirt-encrusted jackboots were squashing her puff pastry. They were kicking veal scaloppine onto the wall, squirting blood from the blood pudding. . . .

  “No!” she cried out.

  The loud rap from the outside made her scream. She awoke into the familiar fetid air of the prison.

  Curled against the wall, Natalie murmured in her sleep, “Kenilworth, will you be a dear and open the door?”

  “Nat? Guys?” Nellie said. “They’re here.”

  The entrance slid open. It hit the inner wall with a loud whack, raining dust onto the floor.

  Three men in white suits stepped in. Each was wearing a black mask and had a holstered gun. One of them threw a pile of clean uniforms on the floor. Another shoved a large sheet of cardboard at Alistair, along with a small handwritten note. The old man read it. He looked bewildered. “You want me to copy these words onto this sheet? Whatever for?”

  The man lifted his foot and drew it back to kick. Alistair flinched.

  “Leave him alone!” Nellie shouted. “Al, just do it. Everyone, change into the uniforms. No questions. Now.”

  When they were changed, the men gestured for them to line up by the wall.

  “Dear heavens,” Fiske murmured, “if they’re going to shoot us, what is the point of the clean clothing?”

  “Shows off the blood better,” Nellie drawled.

  “That is not funny!” Natalie said, shaking violently as she backed against the wall.

  Still doubled over from his injury, Phoenix led Ted to the wall. Ted put his arm around Natalie and stared defiantly ahead. Reagan stood next to him, arms folded. Nellie knelt in front, next to Alistair, who was still writing something on the cardboard. Fiske stood behind them, one comforting hand on each of their shoulders.

  Nellie spotted a lizard skittering in through the open door. It was heading along the wall, behind the group. She was hoping Natalie the Squeamish wouldn’t notice it.

  No such luck.

  “Eeeeee!” Natalie’s screech was earsplitting. “That thing touched me! I’m poisoned! Get me a specialist!”

  Nellie turned. The lizard was crouched by the wall, looking scared. It was beautiful, its complex black-and-white skin pattern like a mysterious, pixelated photograph. She reached over and picked it up. Its heart was beating a mile a minute. “You’re scaring it, Nat,” she remarked. “Whoa. Easy, boy. Girl. Whatever.”

  It seemed to calm down in her hand. Nellie smiled. If she was going to die, her last act would be to give comfort to another living thing.

  A metallic sound echoed sharply. Nellie set her jaw and looked up.

  One of the guards was holding up a cell phone camera. “Say cheese,” he said.

  “What the — ?” Reagan sputtered.

  “Is this some sort of joke?” Fiske demanded.

  “I don’t think so,” Alistair replied, lifting the cardboard sheet.

  Nellie’s pulse quickened. A digital photo. Which meant someone was going to see it. Which meant a possible connection to the outer world.

  Make it count.

  With a sudden, crazy idea, she raised the reptile toward the camera.

  And she smiled.

  “Cheese.”

  They looked terrible.

  Staring at the image of the hostages on her phone, Amy could barely hold back tears. Vesper One had sent it just as they’d walked back into their hotel room.

  On the laptop screen, Sinead and Evan huddled around the image, which Dan had patched through to Sinead’s phone.

  “Wow,” said Sinead on Dan’s laptop. “They sure look . . .”

  “Battered,” Jake said.

  “Desperate,” Atticus added.

  “Alive,” Dan interjected.

  All seven hostages were accounted for. That was the good part. The bad part was everything else. They stood against a flaking hole in the wall. Phoenix Wizard had a bloody gash on his forehead. Reagan Holt’s wrist was bandaged and Natalie looked shrunken. Nellie seemed half-crazed, thrusting forward a lizard as if it were a sword.

  But what had scared Amy the most was the sight of Uncle Alistair. He was glaring at the camera, defiant. He clutched a handmade sign:

  “That handwriting is familiar,” Amy said.

  On the screen, Evan nodded. “It’s Alistair’s. Vesper One made him draw his own sign. I’m figuring he didn’t want anyone in the Vesper organization to do it. That would give us a handwriting sample to analyze. Pretty shrewd.”

  “Pretty paranoid,” Dan said.

  “Props to Dan for his quick thinking,” Sinead said. “He forced Vesper One to take the photo. It may not look it, but the tide is turning, guys. Hostages alive, Atticus outwitting the Wyomings in Göreme — and we just heard from Jonah and Hamilton. They’ve arrived in Pompeii. Any progress on the stale orb?”

  “It’s not Estelle Urb,” Jake said bitterly, touching a bandaged arm. “That was a wild-goose chase — just like I predicted.”

  “What happened to your arm?” Sinead asked. “It looks all scratched up.”

  “The old lady told us ‘Do not wake Ruhan,’” Jake replied, “but who knew Ruhan was a chimpanzee? Apparently I said something that sounded like ‘I ate your bananas’ in Estonian. Then I was rewarded for my pains by
learning that Atticus had gone rogue.”

  “In actuality, Dan and I were just getting some plov,” Atticus said, “but Dad had been trying to track us by calling cab companies. It must have been the call our driver took — and the guy ratted us out. So Dad contacted an old student who’d moved here to get a PhD. He was also making some money as a musician — and he found me. Oh, by the way, Jake, Dad wants us home.”

  “I’ll talk to him,” Jake said.

  Amy was zoning out of the conversation. She stared at the image of the hostages. A pair of eyes seemed to be reaching out at her.

  Nellie’s.

  The au pair seemed manic. Borderline deranged.

  I know that expression.

  It was exactly the way Nellie looked when she would thrust out her iPod. Amy, you just HAVE to listen to this!

  “What’s with the lizard?” Atticus asked, looking over her shoulder. “That girl looks possessed.”

  “Maybe she was bitten,” Jake chimed in. “Reptile venom can cause hallucinations. Which you would know if you had watched the recent National Geographic special on South Africa.”

  Amy’s breath caught.

  She’s not asking us to listen. She’s asking us to see.

  “Do you know that the lizard is South African, Jake?” Amy asked.

  “I was being illustrative,” Jake said. “I don’t really know where it comes from.”

  Amy grinned.

  Nellie’s not crazy. She’s the only one in this photo who’s still thinking.

  “Jake, thank you!” she exclaimed, grabbing him by the shoulders and planting a kiss on his cheek.

  Jake’s eyes widened. He touched the side of his face. “Wore yelcome. I mean —”

  On the screen, Evan’s jaw hung open in shock. “Amy?”

  “Evan, Sinead — look at Nellie in that photo!” Amy said. “She’s trying to tell us something. What do we know about that lizard? The size, the pattern of its skin — they’ll indicate what part of the world it’s from. We’ll know where the hostages are being held!”

  “Sister, you are the best!” Sinead exclaimed. “We’ll get to work on it, stat.”