by Watson, Jude
No, he did not want to get her started on polyfill.
Debi Ann kept on talking, but Pierce lost the thread of her conversation. What he did not foresee after he boosted his Lucian quotient was how boring he’d suddenly find his wife. Too late to change now, though.
Pierce looked at himself in the mirror again. Actually . . .
Once he was in office . . . a little sympathy for a grieving widower went a long way, didn’t it?
Chapter 27
As soon as they landed and were taxiing to the terminal, Jake’s phone rang. An unfamiliar number came up in caller ID.
Amy answered it nervously. To her great relief, it was Nellie.
“Amy, is that you? Why are you on Jake’s phone?”
“He took Ian’s phone by mistake. Nellie, I’m afraid they’re being tracked!” Amy said frantically.
“Are you in London?”
“We just landed.”
“Listen, I don’t have much time. I sent Pony with Jonah — they’ll meet you at the Greensward Hotel, King’s Cross, at three P.M. They’ll be delivering new secure phones. I’m driving to Delaware.”
“Delaware? What’s there?”
“Long story. Sammy is missing, and I’m going to find him. Kiddo, I’m afraid this plan is even bigger than we thought. You were right about his security guys. I think he gave them a special Tomas boost. But I think they’re just a test case. He’s going to mass-produce it.”
Amy felt sick. “Mass-produce it . . . the serum? Are you sure?”
“He just bought a major pharmaceutical lab. That’s where I’m headed.”
“Alone? You can’t . . .”
“Better this way.”
“No!”
“I have to go. Stay in touch.”
Nellie hung up. Amy quickly filled in Ian and Dan.
“Mass-produce the serum . . .” Ian said. “That can’t . . .”
“. . . happen,” Dan finished. “It would be . . .”
“Unthinkable,” Amy said. “He could make an army of those guys.”
“An invincible force,” Ian said. “Undefeatable.”
“And now they could be after Atticus and Jake.” Amy tried to call Ian’s number again, praying that Jake would pick up.
Please pick up, Jake. Please . . .
When she heard his voice, she collapsed back against the seat. “Jake, it’s Amy.”
“Amy, what is it?” Jake’s tone was frosty.
“Listen fast, because I think there’s a GPS tracker on your phone. You have Ian’s phone and he has yours. Where are you now?”
“Heading for our hotel. We couldn’t get a flight out until tomorrow morning.”
“Did you pay for the hotel with a credit card?”
“Yes . . .”
“Don’t go there. They could be waiting. They could be following you now. There’s a hotel near King’s Cross station called the Greensward. Stay with crowds, walk around, and meet us there in a half hour.”
“I don’t understand —”
“Ditch the phone after we hang up. We can’t be sure, Pierce might want to take out our friends, too. And that means you and Atticus. Just make sure you’re not followed.” Amy hung up before Jake could protest.
Amy, Dan, and Ian hurried off the plane and into the terminal. They passed a newsstand on the way to the escalator. The headline screamed at them.
It was splashed over a picture of Amy and Dan.
“Oh, no,” Amy breathed, stopping short. “Not here, too!”
Another paper shouted:
THEY NEED A NANNY.
And, the worst one: a picture of Ian, looking handsome in a blazer and tie.
JUST ANOTHER HOTTIE, OR IS IT TRUE LOVE AT LAST FOR AMY?
Amy groaned.
“I hate that photo,” Ian said. “It was my school picture. The fit of that blazer is simply horrendous.”
A woman eyed her, then whispered to her companion, who stared. “Let’s get out of here,” Amy muttered. “It’ll be even easier for Pierce to find us if the paparazzi are after us!”
Ian looked at his watch. “I hate to succumb to public transport, but the Tube will be faster. Follow me.”
They dashed through the terminal, up escalators, and into people movers until they got to the platform. Amy gazed down it, her nerves screaming.
If anything happens to them, I’ll . . .
I don’t know what I’ll do . . .
Ian touched her arm. “I’m sorry. I made the most elementary, stupid mistake a Cahill could make. I trusted a stranger.”
Amy gazed at him without seeing him. Was that what being a Cahill was? Being afraid to trust a helpful stranger? Always paranoid, always watchful, never trusting? Always looking for the bad, not the good?
If that’s true, I don’t want to be a Cahill anymore, either, she thought suddenly, looking over at Dan. He was gazing down the tunnel and then at his watch, his foot tapping nervously.
“No, Ian,” she said. “It wasn’t your fault. We’re not superheroes. We’re just kids, Ian. Just kids.”
Jake stared down at Ian’s phone. It felt like it was burning his fingers. He wanted to drop it in the nearest trash can, but that impulse wouldn’t help them.
“Was that Amy, Jake? Did she change her mind?” Atticus hopped on one foot, then the other.
“No . . .” Jake said.
He didn’t want to scare his younger brother. They were now on a busy commercial street with lots of shops with plate-glass windows. Like mirrors. They could help him. Jake stopped at a shop window. Behind him he could see the steady stream of pedestrians. Just people strolling, or hurrying to an appointment. Tourists ambling, looking for souvenirs to take back home.
“I took Ian’s phone by mistake,” Jake said. “She wanted to let me know.”
“Oh,” Atticus said in a small voice. “Does she want to see us?”
“We’re supposed to meet them at their hotel.”
“Woo-hoo!” Atticus said. “Maybe she did change her mind!”
Jake was now hyperaware of his surroundings. Every time he passed a window, he used it to check behind them. He needed to stop and see if that would flush out anyone.
Ahead of them, several fashionable women walked, holding shopping bags and chatting.
Jake tugged on Atticus’s arm. “Look, it’s a bookshop up ahead.” It was the only diversion that would halt Atticus. “Let’s check it out.” He quickly swiveled toward the shop, brushing by the women. As he did, he dropped the phone into one of their shopping bags.
“They have old books!” Atticus jogged toward the entrance.
A man in jeans and a black jacket walked past them, then paused outside a pub and checked his watch, as if he were waiting for someone.
“Can we go in? Do we have time?” Atticus asked.
“Sure,” Jake said.
They pushed through the door and Atticus headed to the shelves marked CLASSICAL LITERATURE. Jake stood by the window. From this angle he could see the man still standing in front of the pub. The man wore an earpiece, the wire sneaking inside his jacket, and Jake saw his mouth moving.
Could be just a guy, talking on the phone.
But something about the coiled assurance of how he stood . . .
Jake scanned the sidewalk across the street. With a sinking feeling, he saw another man across the street. A man in dark clothes, waiting for a bus. Except the bus just left, and he didn’t get on.
Jake drifted toward Atticus. “Att? We’ve got to split. Out the back door. And then we have to run. Some very large men are right outside, looking for us.”
Atticus’s eyes were wide. “We’re being followed?”
Jake nodded. “We’ve got to lose these guys. We can’t lead them to Amy and Dan. Come on.”
At
ticus and Jake walked toward the rear of the shop, surprising a clerk with a stack of books.
“Excuse me, gentlemen? This is a private area —”
“My brother is sick. Does this door go outside —”
Atticus made a convincing gagging sound.
The clerk took a step back. “The alley. Oh, my, yes, go right ahead.”
“Where does it go?”
“It will bring you to Oxford Street —”
Jake pushed the door open, shielding Atticus. The alley was empty.
The alley ran past the shops, then turned right. Jake and Atticus jogged down it. After the turn they could see Oxford Street ahead, the busiest street in London. Jake thought fast. There would be even more people there, and buses. Lots of buses.
They had almost reached the end when Jake heard the sound of running footsteps. He turned and saw the man from outside the pub. He’d already covered half the distance of the alley. He was fast.
“Run,” Jake said.
They burst onto Oxford Street. Jake saw a bus just pulling up across the street.
“Stay with me, buddy.” He darted into the traffic, holding up his hand to stop the cars. Horns blared.
“Sorry!” Jake shouted. “Stupid American tourist!”
He and Atticus weaved through the traffic. “Hold the bus!” Jake shouted.
Someone yelled, “Are you daft, you two?”
They landed safely on the opposite sidewalk. Behind him, Jake could see two men trying to weave through traffic. One vaulted over a car.
Over a car?
Jake didn’t have time to think. The bus was just taking off as he lifted his skinny brother and placed him on the step, then jumped aboard, grabbing the rail and pulling himself up.
Atticus hung on to the rail, panting, but grinning in relief. Jake looked behind. The man was running along the sidewalk, trying to keep up with the bus, but he ran into a crowd of tourists and the bus turned the corner. Safe.
Not for long. Because now they were a target, too.
Chapter 28
Text from April May to J. Rutherford Pierce, routed to Security 1:
CCTV shows targets passing through Kings Cross station. Picked up again on Euston Rd. Lost somewhere btwn Euston and Pancras station. Four hotels in two-block area. Suggest ground search.
Pony was surrounded by scones, whipped cream, jam, and cake when Amy, Dan, and Ian caught up to him in the Greensward Hotel restaurant. Jonah lounged nearby, his famous face obscured by a slouchy cap and tinted glasses. He jumped up when he saw them.
“My homeys!” Jonah hugged Amy and bumped Dan’s and Ian’s fists. He gestured at Pony. “This is his second tea. He digs clotted cream.”
Though Jonah’s words were light, Amy could see how relieved he was to see them. Pony jumped up, wiping his mouth, and they introduced him to Ian.
They pulled up chairs, but Amy anxiously kept her eye on the lobby doors. Jonah had chosen well. They were on a balcony overlooking the lobby, with views in all directions. From here, they could go down the stairs to the main entrance, or take a side entrance down a short corridor. The lobby was thronged with tourists, but the restaurant was half empty. They had privacy, and yet a full view. Perfect.
“Let’s bust out the new tech, son,” Jonah said to Pony.
Pony grinned with pride and slid new smartphones across the table. “These are totally fortress-safe. Encryption, et cetera — your basic moats and barbed wire and electric fences. A program will constantly run security checks. I’ll put the same thing on Atticus’s and Jake’s phones.”
“This is Jake’s phone,” Amy said, pushing it over. “They should be here soon.” She crossed her fingers underneath the table. She knew it was a childish gesture, but she was too anxious to care.
Ian and Dan quickly filled Jonah and Pony in on what they had discovered in Ireland.
Amy felt too nervous to listen. She uncrossed her fingers and checked her watch. Where were they? If anything happened to Jake and Atticus . . .
Then suddenly there they were, hurrying through the doors into the lobby. Amy felt sweet relief pour through her. She wanted to jump up and shout, but instead she waited quietly until Jake’s gaze moved around the lobby, then up to the balcony. She lifted her hand.
They climbed the stairs quickly and joined them at the table. “Were you followed?” Amy asked.
“We lost them,” Jake said, sitting down. He tossed a newspaper on the table. Amy winced when she saw the TRUE LOVE AT LAST headline about her and Ian, but Jake just flipped the paper over to point to another headline. PRESIDENT PIERCE? A photo of J. Rutherford Pierce shaking hands with an uneasy-looking prime minister dominated the page.
“I read the article. Pierce is on his goodwill tour, and it’s going to end at a press conference on his island in Maine. In two weeks. It’s expected that he’s going to announce that he’s running for president. He’s throwing this huge clambake for his supporters.”
“That might be the perfect opportunity to slip him the antidote,” Amy said. “He’ll be mingling, shaking hands, eating and drinking. . . .”
“Good plan,” Dan said. “Except that we don’t have the antidote. We haven’t cracked the code yet.”
“Or discovered the formula,” Jonah said.
“Or gathered the ingredients,” Ian said.
“Let’s hope there’s not thirty-nine,” Amy said, and they smiled ruefully at each other. Amy looked into Jake’s eyes. He quickly glanced away.
“Two weeks? No problem,” Atticus said. “Let’s get started.”
Pony looked up from his cream puff. “You dudes are awesome,” he said.
Nellie had booked them a hotel room, just in case. Pony loped downstairs to the lobby to pick up the key. They all piled onto elevators to the fourteenth floor and set up camp. They moved the desk to the middle of the room and put Olivia’s book on it with a pile of paper and pencils.
Amy watched as Atticus kicked off his sneakers and sharpened a pencil. Jake pored over the book. He hadn’t looked at her once. He would never forgive her for kicking him out of the house in Ireland.
In her heart, she vowed that nothing would happen to them. She would die first.
Text Message from Security 1 to Security 3:
Surveillance of Renaissance Hotel completed. Move on to Clarke Hotel Pancras Rd.
“‘Now take what thee owns outright, count eight and on the sixth do pause. / Take that sixth, match to first that Romans brought’ . . . What does she mean, ‘what thee owns outright’?” Dan asked.
“I own a plane,” Jonah said. “Three cribs. But not outright. One has a mortgage.”
Jake smiled wryly at Jonah and gave him a fist bump. “From what Amy’s told me, once Olivia Cahill lost the family estate in a fire, they had to make their own way. So if she’s talking to her daughter, they might have had nothing at all.”
“We own who we are,” Dan said. “I mean, basically, when you have nothing, at least you have that.” He thumped his chest. “Me, Dan. You, Atticus.”
Atticus laughed, but Jake looked at Dan for a long moment. Amy looked at Jake. His gaze slid from her brother to her.
“Her name,” they said together.
“‘That which you own outright’ is her name,” Amy explained to the others.
“Madeleine. Nine letters,” Jake said.
Amy shook her head. “Can’t be, then. Olivia says ‘eight.’ ”
Dan padded over to them in his socks. “‘Her Joy, her Song,’ ” he said. “Isn’t a madrigal a song?”
“A medieval song without instruments,” Jake said. “For four to six voices . . .”
“Olivia had five children,” Amy said. “She wanted Madeleine to reunite the family. Madrigal could have been a pet name for her!”
“Eight letters,” Jake said.
Atticus’s pencil was moving quickly. “It’s a simple alphabet code!” he burst out. “‘Match to first that Romans brought’ . . . the Romans brought us the alphabet!”
“Stop on the sixth,” Jake said.
“M-A-D-R-I-G,” Amy counted. “Start with a G. Match it to first — means —”
Atticus was already working, his pencil flying. “Substitute G for A as first letter,” he muttered. “That means G is really A, and the next letter, H, is really B, and so on . . . easy peasy.”
He held up the paper. “This is the new alphabet. Now I can really get to work.”
Jake was busy decoding. “Wait . . . there’s a null,” he told Atticus.
“A null?” Dan asked.
“A cipher term. It’s a letter or a number, usually, but it means nothing. It’s just thrown in the mix to confuse. This one is just a consecutive letter. Easy to strike out.” Jake bent over his page again.
“No clue what he means,” Pony said, stretching out on the bed, “but he’s my hero, man.”
“The rest of this is in Italian. Jake — you’re better at translating. I’m all about dead languages,” Atticus said.
“That’s because you’re a zombie student of doom,” Dan told him.
Atticus stiff-walked across the room at him and they began to zombie-wrestle, but they stopped and drew closer when Jake began to read aloud, translating as he went.
“‘After my mother’s death, such profound grief we felt that my father decided to journey to the land of his youthful study. At the age of fourteen I traveled first to Milan, where I met the companion of his youth, now the great and famous teacher. He took me on secretly as his apprentice, though I was a girl, after his eye fell upon some drawings and sketches of mine. We studied in secret, and perhaps it was that conspiracy of learning that led us to the deepest friendship of my life.’ ” Jake looked up. “She calls him maestro di vita, just like in the poem. It’s Leonardo, of course. She continues that he taught her botany, anatomy, drawing, painting. . . . And then, when she was seventeen, ‘My destiny appeared one day at the doorway of the studio. My Gideon.’ ”
