Amy blinked back tears. “You all have other jobs to do.”
“The blackmailers told us to come alone,” Dan said. “If they spot you, it could make things worse.”
“I can stay here and monitor communications with them,” Pony said. “I mean, you know, I volunteer to —”
“Thanks, Pony,” Amy said. “That’s the perfect job for you. If we get into trouble, you can call the others.Dan and I will be okay on our own,” she continued. “We need all five of you to stay together. You could be sabotaged on your way to the temple, just like last time.”
Jake turned to Dan. “And you’re going along with this?”
Dan pushed his plate away untouched. He was in charge now, and that made him so tense he lost his appetite once and for all.
“Amy and I discussed it, and we agree,” Dan said. “You guys need each other for protection. With her power, the two of us should be okay on our own.”
“Possibly,” Ian said. “But you don’t know that for sure. In fact, you don’t know what you’re getting into at all.”
“Pony will be monitoring the lines of communication for signs of trouble,” Amy said. “We’ll be okay — I promise.” None of the others looked satisfied with her word, but Dan sensed that they hesitated to challenge her as vigorously as they normally would. They didn’t know how to behave around someone who was dying.
“We need that crystal,” Dan told the others. “I want the five of you to go into the jungle and find it tonight. And come back safely. Period.” Dan heard himself speak the words — giving orders to five boys who were older than he was — but it didn’t feel real. He felt as if he were watching himself take charge from outside his own body. Watching some other boy, some boy who looked exactly like him but who had way more confidence than the real Dan would ever have.
But, to his surprise, everyone listened. He may have been faking it, but he was faking it real enough to make it work.
The Callender Institute
New York City
Nellie found Fiske propped up in bed in a hospital gown. There was a new tension in the air at the Callender Institute. For one thing, the staff had changed, and some of the health care workers she’d passed in the hall looked awfully buff for nurses. When she opened the door to Fiske’s room, his eyes widened in fear. He relaxed when he saw it was her. But she didn’t like that first look on his face. What usually happened when the door to his room opened?
“Fiske, how are you doing?” She moved a chair next to the bed.
Fiske licked his lips. “Nellie, thank goodness . . .” His mouth seemed dry. He had trouble speaking.
“Want some water?” Nellie had brought some gourmet treats for him, but he didn’t seem capable of eating, let alone enjoying them. She poured water into a paper cup. His hands shook so badly he could hardly hold it. “Here, let me help you.”
She held the cup while he took a few sips. She had never seen him so weak. He wasn’t getting better at all. He was getting worse. “Fiske, I need to talk to you,” she said. “I need you to tell me anything you know about the serum. Anything at all . . .”
Fiske stared at the wall. Was he listening? Nellie followed his eyes, trying to figure out what was so fascinating. She couldn’t see anything on the wall besides a painting of a seascape.
“It’s a matter of life and death,” Nellie went on. “You see, Amy —”
He wasn’t listening, she was sure of it. He gaped at the wall in horror, unable to tear his eyes away. “Fiske? What is it?”
He didn’t answer, but he got that frightened look again. “Fiske?”
“There’s a portal. Do you see it?” He pointed a shaky finger at the wall, which looked completely solid to Nellie. “A hole has opened up right there, leading to another dimension. . . .”
Nellie went to the wall, touched it, knocked on it. “I don’t see anything. No portal, Fiske.”
“Grace! For heaven’s sake, Grace, get away from that portal!”
Nellie ran back to Fiske’s side. “I’m not Grace. I’m Nellie.”
“Shh! Hide, Grace. They’ll hear you!”
He’s hallucinating, Nellie realized.
“Wait!” He leaned away from her. “You’re not Grace!”
Good — he was coming back to his senses. “That’s right, Fiske. I’m —”
“I know who you are,” Fiske hissed. “You’re out to get me, aren’t you? You’re trying to kill me!”
“Fiske, no, I’m Nellie! I’m trying to help you!”
“Nurse! Nurse!” Fiske hit the call button and one of the buff nurses burst into the room.
“Is everything okay in here?”
Fiske didn’t answer. He was shaking and confused. “Everything’s fine,” Nellie said. “He got a little worked up over a joke I told him, but he’s okay now.”
“He looks worn out. Visiting hours are over.” The nurse pulled Nellie to her feet and pushed her firmly to the door.
Nellie pushed back. “Wait, please. Just give me a few more minutes with him. Just a few more minutes.”
The nurse’s biceps bulged as she crossed her brawny arms over her chest and frowned. “Five minutes. Then you’re out of here.”
Nellie shut the door firmly behind the departing nurse. What was going on here? The Callender Institute was revered as one of the best hospitals in the world. And yet . . . Fiske’s symptoms struck Nellie as eerily familiar: tremors, visions, paranoia, extreme mood swings. . . .
The serum.
Was Fiske taking the serum? Or was it being given to him? And if he was, how did the hospital get their hands on it? It didn’t matter, Nellie decided. The main thing was to get Fiske out of there before he was poisoned to death.
She sat on the bed next to Fiske, who had calmed down a bit. She gave him more water. “Feeling better?”
He nodded.
“Fiske, I think they’re testing the serum on you.” She didn’t finish the rest of that thought — that the serum was killing him — and killing Amy, too. “I’ve got to get you out of here. Can we check you out? I’ll drive you to Attleboro or take you somewhere else where you’ll be well cared for. The main thing is you can’t stay here.”
“Yes,” he rasped in a hoarse voice. “I want to leave.”
“Good. I’ll talk to Dr. Callender and arrange it. I’ll be back in ten minutes.” Nellie hurried through the busy halls. There were cameras every few feet, and more nurses’ stations than most hospitals had. Nurses’ stations or security stations?
She found Dr. Callender’s office. His secretary stopped her from going in, saying he was on the phone. Nellie waited, and a few minutes later the secretary said she could see him. The doctor smiled when Nellie walked in. “Ms. Gomez. To what do I owe the pleasure?”
“I’ve just been to see Fiske Cahill and . . . he told me he’d like to check out of here. Today.”
Dr. Callender’s smile faded slightly and he touched the tips of his fingers together. “I see. Well, I’m afraid that isn’t possible.”
“It isn’t? He’s here voluntarily, isn’t he?”
“Yes, he was admitted voluntarily, and normally he’d be allowed to come and go as he pleased.”
“So what is the problem?”
“You say you’ve just been to see him. How did he seem to you?”
“Well . . .” Nellie hesitated. If she admitted that he seemed very sick to her, that would weaken her case for dismissal. “He seemed fine. The main point is, he wants to leave. So if you’ll just give me the papers to sign or whatever we have to do —”
“Mr. Cahill cannot leave. I’m sorry.” Dr. Callender’s grin was wide and wolfish now, and Nellie’s pulse began to race. She sensed danger but wasn’t sure why.
“He can and he will. I’m taking him out of here right now, and you can’t stop me.”
�
��Ms. Gomez, Mr. Cahill is not mentally competent. Legally, I must hold him here if I deem him a danger to himself or others, and he is certainly a danger to himself, at the very least.”
It seemed impossible for that wolfish grin to grow wider, and yet it did. Nellie shivered. “He’s perfectly fine,” she insisted. “I want a second opinion.”
“You’re welcome to it. Any doctor who examines him would come to the same conclusion.”
He’s right, Nellie thought bitterly. Fiske was hallucinating — because they were drugging him. Her eyes fell on a paper in Dr. Callender’s inbox. A report on the results of some drug research — from Dr. Huang at Trilon Labs. Nellie’s skin prickled. Suddenly she knew.
He was in on it. In on the whole thing.
She couldn’t breathe.
“And now, Ms. Gomez, if you would kindly leave?” Dr. Callender said. “Or would you like me to have one of the nurses escort you out?”
She was trembling, but tried to hide it. She couldn’t trust anyone. Not even a famous doctor. She felt as if a noose were tightening around her neck. Fiske was being held prisoner, and poisoned in the name of research. Amy was four days away from death. And Dr. Callender was working for Pierce.
Dr. Callender pressed a button. “Marco, will you please show Ms. Gomez out?”
The door opened and a burly bald man in a security uniform stepped inside.
“That won’t be necessary.” Nellie slipped past the man and out the door. “I can find the way myself.”
She shook the whole drive back to Delaware. She had to find a way to spring Fiske from Dr. Callender’s Hospital of Death.
That would have made a good name for a punk band if it weren’t so real.
If only Sammy were free, he could help her. But his work at the lab was too important. He was her only hope now.
She went into her office and checked her Level 1 account. Someone had sent her a recipe for chicken tagine. Weird. Who at this place even knew she liked to cook?
Sammy, that’s who.
The recipe was a coded message. It had to be, because any dish that called for a cup of salt was not going to taste good.
Nellie set to work decoding the message. She recognized the recipe from her favorite Moroccan cookbook. She found the recipe online. It didn’t call for a cup of salt, of course — it called for a teaspoon. There were forty-eight teaspoons in a cup of salt. Maybe this was a simple alphabet code. Nellie hoped so — coding was so not her strong point. She counted forty-eight characters from the numeral 1 in “1 cup of salt” and landed on a G. So maybe G equaled A? She tried decoding the message but it didn’t quite work.
Come on, Sammy. Don’t make this too hard for me.
But she knew he couldn’t make it too easy — or too obvious — or he would get caught.
Then she noticed that Sammy’s recipe called for two cups of butter — truly insane — and that the real recipe called for two tablespoons.
Aha.
There were sixteen tablespoons in a cup. Maybe the sixteenth letter was the equivalent for letter number 2, B?
Yes. Working through a few more kinks like that — three pounds of couscous gave her the equivalent for C — Nellie managed to decode Sammy’s message:
Pierce knows about the antidote. He wants to use it to make a less lethal version of the serum. Forced me to switch gears and work on combining antidote and serum. If he succeeds, Amy’s antidote will not work on Pierce’s serum. We will have no way to stop him. We will be powerless.
Will try to sabotage. Once that’s done, I want to blow this place. And leave nothing behind.
Nellie bit her lip. How did Pierce know about the antidote? There was only one way she could think of: Olivia Cahill’s book. His men must have found it when Dan lost it in the jungle.
So they were in even more trouble than they knew. Amy was dying. They still had to find the riven crystal, and they’d lost the book that would tell them how to make the antidote. And on top of all that, Pierce knew that the kiddos had found a way to stop him.
The Attleboro boys had flown down to Guatemala to help Dan and Amy get the riven crystal and the book — which they thought was being held by blackmailers. The whole thing was a trap. The book wasn’t even there. And only she could warn them.
Tikal, Guatemala
“Shhh! Wait! Lights out!”
Hamilton Holt held out his arms as a signal to freeze. Jake clicked off his flashlight. A few yards ahead, one of the park guards crossed the causeway on security patrol. He was whistling, his rifle slung over his shoulder.
Jake held his breath. He and the others — Hamilton, Atticus, Ian, and Jonah — waited without moving until the guard’s whistling faded, then disappeared. Once he was out of earshot, they relaxed. “Okay,” Hamilton said. “Onward.”
“That guy has no idea what’s going down tonight,” Jonah said.
“Let’s hope nothing does go down,” Jake said. “Let’s find the crystal and get back as soon as possible.” He was anxious to find out if Amy and Dan had gotten the book back — and made it out of that trap alive. If they needed help, he wanted to be there, ready to go.
He flicked on his flashlight and shined it at the map Atticus held. Atticus was in charge of navigation — tracing the mirror image of their earlier trek to find the hidden temple that contained the riven crystal. The group had left at sundown to avoid being detected by the park guards. But the jungle seemed to be swarming with them.
“They’re on high alert because of the poachers,” Atticus theorized. He studied the map and then pointed down a narrow path. “That way. It’s not far now.”
They set out again, pushing the thick vegetation away from their faces. The night was humid and sticky, and mosquitoes buzzed in their ears. A full moon rose over the treetops, lighting their way but also lighting them up, making them more visible to the guards, or any enemies that might be waiting to pounce. Luckily, the trees made lots of shadows to hide in.
The path forked unexpectedly into two smaller trails. “Which way?” Jonah asked.
Jake looked from the map to the fork. “This way,” he said, aiming his flashlight at the trail on the right.
“No, mate,” Ian said. “You’re reading the bloody map wrong. We’re headed south — see?” He drew one well-groomed fingernail along the paper to the temple they were trying to find.
Jake was annoyed, but he tried to restrain himself. “I know how to read a ‘bloody map.’ And I know this park pretty well by now. You just got here. We’re taking the right fork.”
“Listen,” Ian said through gritted teeth. “I wouldn’t make a fuss if Amy’s life wasn’t at stake. But every second counts.”
At the mention of Amy, Jake’s muscles tensed. “I know Amy’s life is in danger. That’s why I’m here. If we hurry, we might get back in time to go after her and Dan —”
“They were told to come alone. If we show up, they could be killed.”
“They’re probably going to be killed anyway,” Jake said. “And you’re willing to stand by and let that happen?”
“I never said any such thing —”
Jonah stepped between Ian and Jake, who were glaring at each other in the dark. “Whoa, let’s cool it now. We’re all here for Amy. It doesn’t matter who’s right or wrong. All that matters is that we find this freaking crystal and get back to Dan and Amy in one piece. Hamilton, which way should we go?”
Jake sighed and let it go. Jonah was right. Normally, everything about Ian made Jake want to shove him into the messiest mud puddle he could find, just to watch him weep over his ruined designer shoes. Yet tonight, the smug expression seemed forced, more of a mask to hide what he was really feeling. He was the most arrogant person Jake had ever met, but he also cared about Amy. They all did. Maybe more than they’d admitted.
A lot more than they’d admitted to her.
> Hamilton gaped at the map and shook his head. “This path winds around a lot, so it’s hard to tell . . . .”
“Okay, Hamilton is stumped,” Jonah said. “Atticus?”
“The right path. I’m pretty sure that’s the one on the map.”
“The right path it is.” Jonah led the way, taking the right fork. Jake and the others followed, Ian grumbling something about brothers sticking together.
“That’s right.” Jonah stopped short and turned around to school Ian. “Brothers stick together. And we’re all brothers in this. So we stick together. Got it?”
Ian nodded, and they continued down the path. Tell him, Jonah, Jake thought in silent satisfaction.
After trekking another half hour, Atticus stopped in front of a dense cluster of trees. “This is it.”
Jake strained to see. From where they were standing, the temple looked like a mound of green under the moonlight, but he could just make out the ruined remains of a pyramid near the top leaves.
“This temple hasn’t been excavated yet,” Atticus explained. “The altar could be buried under tons of stone.”
“Or some of that stone could crumble while we’re digging around in there,” Jonah said. “And crush us.”
“We won’t know until we start.” Hamilton had already cleared away some vines until he found a round stone hole. He ripped off more vines. The hole began to take shape in the moonlight.
“It looks like — like a mouth,” Atticus said.
“A jaguar’s mouth,” Ian added.
“With teeth,” Jonah finished.
They worked at clearing the vines away, removing fallen stones and clumps of dirt, until the hole became a long, dark tunnel. “Is that the way into the temple?” Jonah asked.
Atticus peered inside, nodding. “There are other ruins in the Tikal complex that have intimidating entrances, serpent’s maws for doors, that sort of thing. But this looks pretty scary.”
“Who’s going to go first?” Ian asked.
“I will.” Jake bent down and crawled into the tunnel, his flashlight in one hand. The others followed. Something brushed against his face. He recoiled, sat up, and hit his head on the top of the tunnel.
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