Fire the Depths
Page 21
EPILOGUE
“SO is it true that you managed to flag down a helicopter by sending smoke signals from a homemade raft?” a woman asked over the phone.
Here we go again, Max thought.
He leaned back in his new Barcalounger. It still smelled of fresh leather. It was noisy in the living room. It had been chaos for nearly two days. He pressed the Mute button on the remote for his new sixty-five-inch TV. By now he was used to the image of himself and Alex on the screen. Especially this one—the two of them waving from the deck of the SS Nutterdam as it pulled into a Norwegian port. Behind them was the treasure container with a big, red bow wrapped around it. In the next image, three armed guards stood at attention while Alex took the big bow and wrapped it around them. They were smiling.
Max never got tired of watching that.
But he did get tired of phone calls with the same dumb old questions. “Max? Are you still there?” the voice said.
“We were on the beach when we were rescued,” Max explained as politely as he could. “There was a boat there, but that was a cutter that Spencer Niemand had stolen. We didn’t use it. And there were no smoke signals, just lots of hand waving.”
“One more thing: Is it true that Spencer Niemand has been detained in a house for the criminally insane, where he accuses his jailers of stealing a puppy from him named Kissums?”
“Absolutely false,” Max said. “It’s not a puppy. It’s a pinkie finger.”
The moment he hung up, the phone rang again. “This is Rob Markum from KHTY. We just received word from the Enquirer that your fortune is worth thirty million dollars. Can you confirm this?”
“No!” Max rolled his eyes. “It’s worth thirty-one million, one hundred seventeen thousand, eight hundred twenty-two dollars and seventy-four cents. But that amount changes day to day based on the price of gold.”
“So basically, the answer is ‘Yeah’?”
“No!”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah . . . No!”
Max hung up. “I can’t believe this!” he yelled.
Alex came running in from the kitchen with two huge bowls of ice cream. “Will we ever get tired of watching ourselves?”
“Probably tomorrow.” Max looked over his shoulder through the slats of the half-drawn blinds. Three news vans were parked at the curb. Reporters were flagging down neighbors, taking photos, and speaking into cameras.
As Alex opened the front door to check the mail, cameras flashed. Smriti ran in from outside, rolling a small suitcase. “I can’t believe we’re going to Minneapolis and back in one day.”
“That’s why they invented private planes,” Alex said, lugging in an entire USPS mail sack that had been left on the porch. “What’s the latest report on your mom?”
“I spoke to Dad a couple of hours ago. Mom got her first results from the experimental treatment,” Max said. “She’s stable. Stable is good. We’re flying in a specialist from Stanford later today.”
“That’s awesome!” Smriti said.
“Totally awesome,” Alex said, opening the mail sack and digging in.
Smriti was agog at the enormous sack. “Is that mail just for today?”
Alex nodded. “People love us, I guess.”
“Dad needed to rent a room in a hotel just for the flowers people are sending Mom,” Max said.
“Oh! Oh!” Alex was ripping open a piece of mail. She let the envelope fall to the floor and read the note aloud: “‘This is to inform Mr. George and Ms. Michele Tilt that the Savile Bank relinquishes any and all liens and claims on the property at 34 Spruce Street, upon the recently notarized and accepted full payment of mortgage’—in other words, the whole house is paid for to the last penny!”
“Woo-hoo!” Smriti shouted.
“Follow me into the Food Preparation Chamber, for the Ceremony of Fire!” Alex announced.
All three ran into the kitchen, where Alex held the eviction notice over the sink, lit a match, and watched the last of their debt go up in flames.
“OK, now I need some ice cream, too!” Smriti cried out, running to the freezer.
As she pulled it open, Max’s phone rang again. “No, there weren’t any smoke signals!” he said, anticipating the same old press questions.
“Uh, this is dishthedirt.com,” the voice said, “and we’re investigating a report of a secret message found at the bottom of your world-famous treasure discovery. Would you care to comment?”
Max felt the blood rush from his face. He cast a glance into the study, where a leather-bound volume sat on a table where Alex had been working on it. They’d seen it the moment they’d finished emptying the chest in the presence of the Tilts’ accountants. But Max was certain he and Alex had snuck it away without anyone noticing.
Neither of them had expected to find another part to The Lost Treasures. Not after the treasure was found. And neither of them could have imagined that this part would be worth much, much more.
Smriti and Alex were looking at him curiously. Max put the phone on Speaker and set it on the kitchen table. “Yup, thanks for asking, we did find a secret message!” Max replied. “Right at the bottom of the chest! Just sitting there!”
“What are you doing, Max?” Alex mouthed.
Smriti nearly dropped a quart of Ben & Jerry’s Phish Food. “How do they know?” she whispered.
“Cool,” the voice said. “So . . . could you tell us what it said?”
“Yup!” Max replied. “It said ‘Redeem This at Your Nearest General Store by July 1890 for a Free Supply of Mustache Wax!’”
“Uh . . . wait . . . mustache . . . ?” said the voice at the other end.
“Have a nice day!” Max said and hung up the phone.
Alex flopped into the chair. “You scared me. I didn’t know you knew how to lie.”
“How could they have found out about the note?” Smriti said. “No one was there but us and the accountants.”
Max shrugged. “It doesn’t matter. They’ll lose interest. All anyone wants to talk about is money.”
At the ringing of the doorbell, Alex sprung up from the chair. “I’ll get it! I think it’s the new foosball table. Come on!”
Smriti set down the ice cream and ran after her, but Max remained in the kitchen. “I’ll be right there!” he called after them.
As the two girls disappeared, Max headed the other way. Into the study.
He sat at the table, opened the leather-bound volume, and slid out the translation Alex had printed. He’d already read it a hundred times, but it never, ever got old.
THE LOST TREASURES
—PART FOUR—
Dearest reader, you cannot imagine the joy upon my face for knowing the joy that must be upon yours. For if you have reached this note, you are in possession of two valuable things: this remarkable fortune and the knowledge gained through the voyages to reach it. It is my fervent hope, dear reader, that the schemes of my nemesis No One have been dashed to the rocks of failure.
As you now possess the freedom for great excursions without financial pressure, I implore you to consider the bargain I propose.
I led you to this treasure not as an end, but as a means. It would pain me to know that you ignore this entreaty. For what I have described thus far was merely my beginning. What follows from my adventure with Nemo is a wonder greatly surpassing the glitter of earthly wealth. For wealth, as we know, does not travel with the possessor after death.
As it happens, death itself was the subject of my further adventure. Namely, the reversal thereof. There exists in human biology a vexing problem: cells within the body so vigorous, so alive with growth, that they devour all around them and destroy the very body they occupy.
This condition goes by the name of the greedy beast visible in the night constellations, Cancer the Crab.
Who knew that my tragic voyages with Nemo would bring into my possession one specimen (among thousands collected) that would lead to a discovery too powerful to expose to the world in
my lifetime. A cure to that disease which knows no mercy.
For this, dear reader, one cannot begin without Isis hippuris . . .
Max read the last line again. Another time, a different set of circumstances, and he would have thought it was some kind of code.
But it wasn’t. And that was a fact.
He reached into the desk drawer, pulled out an envelope, and carefully spilled the contents onto the table.
Sea fan, Basile had called it. Isis hippuris.
Max smiled.
Tomorrow morning, as soon as the noise and the chaos died down, they had to get back to work. Their adventure had barely begun.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Photo by Joseph Lerangis
PETER LERANGIS is the author of more than one hundred and seventy books, which have sold more than six million copies and been translated into thirty-three different languages. These include the five books in the New York Times bestselling Seven Wonders series, The Colossus Rises, Lost in Babylon, The Tomb of Shadows, The Curse of the King, and The Legend of the Rift, and two books in the 39 Clues series. Peter is a Harvard graduate with a degree in biochemistry. He has run a marathon and gone rock climbing during an earthquake—though not on the same day. He lives in New York City with his wife, musician Tina deVaron, where they raised their two sons, Nick and Joe. In his spare time, he likes to eat chocolate.
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BOOKS BY PETER LERANGIS
THE SEVEN WONDERS SERIES
THE LOST GIRLS TRILOGY
THE DRAMA CLUB SERIES
THE SPY X SERIES
THE ABRACADABRA SERIES
THE ANTARCTICA SERIES
THE WATCHERS SERIES
39 CLUES: THE SWORD THIEF
39 CLUES: THE VIPER’S NEST
39 CLUES: VESPERS RISING
(WITH RICK RIORDAN, GORDON KORMAN, AND JUDE WATSON)
39 CLUES: CAHILLS VS. VESPERS: THE DEAD OF NIGHT
CREDITS
Cover art by Antonio Javier Caparo
Cover design by Andrea Vandergrift
COPYRIGHT
MAX TILT: FIRE THE DEPTHS. Copyright © 2017 by Peter Lerangis. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
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Library of Congress Control Number: 2017943442
ISBN 978-0-06-244100-3 (trade bdg.)
EPub Edition © September 2017 ISBN 9780062441027
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FIRST EDITION
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