The doctor began performing CPR on Dan, pumping his chest rhythmically.
Dan looked so frail now, under the doctor’s insistent hands. Didn’t people’s breastbones sometimes break if CPR wasn’t done correctly? But she was a doctor; surely she knew what she was doing. Please please please . . .
“Can I help?” Amy was sobbing, but still managed to get the words out.
“Just hold his hand,” the doctor said. “You can talk to him if you like.”
Amy wiped her tears with her sleeve. “Dan? Hang in there, Dan. There’s a doctor here helping you —” What a stupid thing to say, with her leaning right on his chest.
She couldn’t go on, couldn’t do anything more than squeeze his hand.
Atticus scooted around until he was next to Amy and crouched beside her. “Amy?” he said in a low voice. “She said ‘curare.’ I’ve read about it; it comes from tropical plants. You put it on a dart and shoot it, and it paralyzes your prey. It stops breathing, that’s what kills —”
Amy’s mouth opened, closed, opened again.
She needed to scream. And hit something. Or somebody.
But she couldn’t move or make a single sound. It was as if she, too, was paralyzed.
“Atticus, stop it!” Jake said angrily.
“I wasn’t finished —”
“Shut up! You’re not helping!”
“No, YOU shut up!” Atticus retorted fiercely.
The outburst was so un-Atticus-like that Jake and Amy both stared at him, mouths agape. In the silence that followed, they could hear the doctor counting quietly as she continued working on Dan.
Atticus spoke earnestly. “The effects of the poison aren’t permanent. If she does CPR on him, keeps his blood pumping and getting oxygen to his brain, it’ll wear off, and he should be able to breathe on his own again.”
“Atticus, are you sure about this?” Jake asked. “You better be —”
“I’m sure, I swear it! Animals that get hunted, nobody does CPR on them, that’s why they die. That’s why she’s doing CPR now!”
Amy grabbed Atticus’s arm, feeling almost torn in two between fear and hope.
“How long?” she gasped out. “How long until he can breathe by himself?”
Then the doctor spoke, in between counts. “One — two — three — four — Depends,” she said, “on how much — two — three — four — poison got into him — two — three — four. Where is that ambulance?”
It was a few hours after the attack. Amy sat next to the hospital bed, her face blotchy with tearstains,
He looks younger somehow, she thought. For a moment, Amy felt like she might never be able to move again. But she forced herself to reach for Dan’s hand and hold it.
Which he would ordinarily have never let her do in front of the other boys.
Thanks to the good work by the doctor on the scene, as well as the fact that Dan had plucked the dart out almost immediately, he was already breathing on his own. But Amy wouldn’t relax until a doctor gave the all-clear sign.
“I’m fine,” he declared for about the seventh time. “My arm feels a little weird, that’s all.”
The nurse put another pillow behind him.
“I should send a — a thank-you note or something,” he said. “Did you get her name?”
“The doctor who came in with you? That was Dr. Hubble-Machado,” the nurse said. Her English was really good; she had acted as translator for them since their arrival. “She’s on the staff here. Lucky she was there, yes?” She pointed to a cord at the head of the bed. “The call button, you need something, okay?” She smiled at him and left the room.
“So what happened?” Dan asked.
Amy was relieved by the question. Maybe he won’t remember too much about it. What I remember is plenty enough for both of us. She crossed her arms, trying to rub away the shivers brought on by the memory of seeing him lying there. . . .
Jake gave a quick rundown on the evil Mr. Blowpipe. “But here’s the weird thing,” he said. “I could have sworn that he was aiming at Atticus. Not Dan. It’s almost like Dan was — you know, collateral damage.”
Amy saw the expressions that flashed across Dan’s face: surprise that he hadn’t been the target, resentment that he’d been hit anyway, and finally, concern for Atticus, who was looking guilt-stricken now.
“No problem, Atticus,” Dan said. “I’ve always wanted to be collateral damage.”
Amy refused to joke about it. “You’re sure you’ve never seen this guy before?” she said to Jake.
“No, but almost the whole time at the falls, I had the feeling someone was following us.” He shook his head in distress. “I should have said something. But it probably wouldn’t have made any difference, because it wasn’t the blowpipe guy I was worried about.”
“There was someone else?” Amy said.
“Yeah. Well, maybe.” Jake looked confused.
“Just tell us what you saw,” she snapped.
“I kept seeing the same person,” he said. “But like I said, it wasn’t the guy with the pipe. It was a woman.”
“What did she look like?” Amy and Dan spoke at the same time.
“Taller than average. Pretty good-looking for someone her age — dark hair, sunglasses. Oh, and she was really well dressed. I remember that, because I thought it was a little weird to come to a place like this wearing such nice clothes.”
Amy felt the blood draining from her face. Jake had just described someone the Cahills knew all too well.
Isabel Kabra.
Isabel.
A vial of the serum in one hand and a gun in the other, her fine features contorted by the ugliness of evil.
This was the image that first came to mind for Amy. Then, oddly, it was replaced almost at once by a memory of the female capoeirista: “Um, dois, três —”
Why? Why am I thinking about that now?
Like a radio being tuned from static to clarity, Amy could suddenly hear the capoeirista’s next words. Her mouth went dry. She tried to swallow.
Not “more . . . a little less . . . a bell,” but —
Amor to the littlest, from Isabel.
“It’s definitely her,” she said hoarsely. “And she’s after Atticus.”
Nellie had always thought of herself as the tough and feisty type. Not aggressive or mean, but determined to achieve what she set out to do, loyal to those she loved, and fierce when it came to standing up for what she thought was right.
She was utterly unfamiliar with how she was feeling at the moment.
Defeated. Exhausted. Hopeless.
But that wasn’t the worst of it. Try as she might, Nellie couldn’t summon any anger. Since the moment she was kidnapped, she had been furious with the Vespers, and that fury had been like a flame inside her. Keeping her going, helping her keep the others going.
The flame had flickered out, extinguished by grief over the losses of Phoenix and Alistair.
I thought — I was sure — that somehow, we’d all get out of this alive.
Not that she hadn’t been truly frightened any number of times. But deep down inside, it was in her nature as both a fighter and an optimist to expect good to prevail in the end.
Now she knew that, however this ended, Alistair and Phoenix would not be part of it.
Nellie looked around the room and saw her mood reflected in each of the others. Fiske lay stretched out on the floor, eyes closed most of the time. When they were open, he stared out into space, looking at nothing. Natalie sat with her back against a wall, her knees drawn up in a fetal position, hunched over and picking at her cuticles until they bled. Reagan was no longer working out. Instead she paced the bunker restlessly, prowling back and forth with no purpose, muttering to herself, driving them all crazy.
And Ted . . . well, it was hard to tell with Ted.
Because I can’t look into his eyes. Nellie hadn’t realized before spending all this time with Ted, how much she “read” people through the expressions in
their eyes.
She looked at him now. He was sitting next to Natalie.
Huh — I can read him. I can tell that he’s not just sitting there. He’s thinking — his brain is really working.
Nellie walked over to Ted and sat down on the other side of him.
“I’ve remembered something,” Ted said slowly. “The hiker. His voice — I was sure I’d heard it before, but I wasn’t sure where at first.”
He paused. Nellie felt her neck muscles tense up.
“And?” she prompted him. She clenched her fists to stop herself from shaking Ted to knock the memory loose.
“Last summer I went out west with Sinead. She wanted to get away from everything. We stayed in the Olympic Mountains, in Washington State. We didn’t do much, just hung out, went for some walks. It rained a lot, but that was okay — we didn’t have any real plans.
“On one of the walks, we met this guy named Riley McGrath. I think Sinead kinda liked him. He invited us to go rock climbing, but I didn’t want to go. She took me back to the lodge where we were staying and went on her own.”
Ted turned his face toward Nellie.
“That’s who the hiker was. Riley McGrath. So why would he say he was Martin Holds?”
Nellie tried to clear the fog of confusion from her brain. “Ted, are you sure? I mean, a lot of people’s voices probably sound kind of alike —”
“Maybe to you,” he said. “Not to me. Think of it this way. You might know two people who look similar, say, medium height, dark hair, average build, glasses. You can still tell them apart, right? No problem?”
“Sure.”
“That’s what it’s like for me with voices. It was the same guy.”
A tiny spark of hope ignited inside Nellie. She grabbed Ted’s shoulder. “Maybe this tells us where we are! It could be a huge lead, Ted!”
Ted nodded slowly. “It’s just too much of a coincidence, you know?”
Nellie got to her feet. “We’ve got to let Amy and Dan know somehow.”
The only way to communicate with them was through the transmissions sent by the Vespers. Which were never sent for the convenience of the hostages.
With one hand in a fist, she punched her other palm several times. Think. Think. Figure out a way to say it so they get the message. And then we’ll just have to wait — I HATE all this waiting around!
The spark inside her flared.
Nellie was mad again.
“She’s after Atticus?” Dan and Jake said together at the same time that Atticus said, “Me — are you sure?”
The attack on Dan, followed immediately by the reappearance of Isabel: Amy felt her eyes getting hot, which meant tears were threatening to slither out yet again. She picked at the powder-burn blister on her neck, as if to provide an excuse if the tears did begin to fall. The blister was now turgid with fluid, like a tiny flattened water balloon.
Haltingly, she explained her theory. “Um, dois, três. One, two, three. I think it means that there will be three attacks. The first two have already happened. At the airport, and now this one.”
A bubble of panic was growing in Amy’s chest. She’s playing with us. Like a cat with a trapped mouse. There will be one more attack — the third. The final one . . .
“We have to get Atticus out of here!” She stood up so quickly that the chair fell over, her arms making jerky movements that she couldn’t seem to control. “Jake, you take him to Attleboro on the next flight. That’s the safest place for him. He’ll have to stay there until — until all this is over. Once Dan recovers, we’ll try to find Folio Seventy-four and join you there as soon as we can.”
“I don’t know,” Jake said. “Wouldn’t he be safer if we stuck together? You know, all three of us looking out for him? That way he —”
“HE is right next to you!” Atticus snapped. “Would you stop (A) treating me like a baby and (B) talking about me like I’m not here?! And for the record, I am NOT going somewhere to sit around and do nothing. Or take a nap.” He glared at both of them.
“Atticus, you don’t know her! She’s completely, totally ruthless. The last time we were up against her, it took seven — no, eight of us to beat her.” Amy was almost shrieking now. “Dan almost died just now. If anything happened to you —”
She had to stop talking because she couldn’t get enough air into her lungs.
“I am NOT going to let anything happen to him — I mean, to you,” Jake said, glancing quickly at Atticus. He turned a scowl on Amy. “What is your problem? Would you calm down — are you trying to scare him to death?”
“My problem?” Amy shouted. “My problem is, she almost killed my brother!”
“She knows what she’s talking about,” Dan said, entering the fray. “If you knew Isabel you’d be scared to death, too. I mean, look what she just did —” His hand went to his shoulder, and he winced as if the dart were still embedded there.
Atticus crossed his arms stubbornly. “This isn’t just a Cahill thing anymore. It has something to do with Mom, and that makes it MY fight now just as much as it is yours. Maybe MORE. I’m not leaving until we know for sure whether the folio is here or not.”
“Sorry, baby bro, not your call,” Jake said.
“Why not?” Dan demanded. “Why can’t he have a say in this?”
“Yeah, and quit calling me that!” Atticus said.
“Look, it’s my responsibility —”
“STOP IT! STOP STOP STOP!”
All three boys stared at Amy in shock. In the sudden silence, she could hear herself breathing. Gasping.
“Think,” she whispered to herself. “Think think think . . .”
But there was no room in her head for anything except fear, and she didn’t notice the worried glances exchanged by the boys.
After a few moments, Dan spoke carefully. “Amy,” he said. “I agree with Jake — that it’s riskier to send the two of them back than it is to stay together. Besides, it won’t be for very long. I mean, the deadline — we’ll all be going back soon, one way or the other.”
Somebody else making the decision. On the one hand, it was exactly what Amy wanted at that moment. On the other, it felt terrible — weak, indecisive, and unworthy of the trust Grace had bestowed on her.
Just this once, Grace.
“Okay,” she mumbled.
The sense of relief that the four of them would be staying together lasted about half a second. Then the dread returned.
Um, dois, três . . .
Dan insisted that he felt fine and wanted to leave the hospital. The doctor on call refused to sign the release form, saying that the patient needed to stay overnight for observation.
After the doctor was gone, Dan looked at the others. “I can’t stay overnight,” he said. “We don’t have time for that.”
A noisy discussion ensued, which boiled down to Dan vs. Amy with the Rosenblooms refereeing. When the nurse came in, they all fell silent, but then Amy asked her a few questions, and the nurse assured her that the overnight stay was just a precaution. She took Dan’s pulse and temperature.
“You are healthy as um cavalo — horse,” she said cheerfully. “The young ones, they bounce quick, very good!” She left the room again.
More fuel for Dan’s side of the argument. Finally, Atticus looked up curare poisoning online and found enough information to convince Amy — and himself, Dan thought — that it would be okay for Dan to leave the hospital.
Amy may not be happy about it, but she knows we have to do this, Dan thought as he hopped out of bed and got dressed.
The foursome had no choice but to sneak away when the nurse’s back was turned. They caught a taxi outside the hospital.
“I hope she doesn’t get in trouble for this,” Dan said, meaning the nurse. “She was really nice.”
Dan’s left arm still seemed a little fuzzy, but otherwise he felt great. He wished Amy would stop fussing over him. She had made him zip his jacket all the way up to his chin. Like that made any difference,
except to make him look totally uncool. At the same time, he knew she needed to fuss over him, so he tried to keep the sighs and eye-rolls to a minimum.
“Now, where were we?” he asked.
Their mission seemed a lifetime away, but they had to click back into search mode. “The folio,” Atticus said. “We were going to search underneath the walkway, remember?”
“Any climbing stuff, you’re out of the picture,” Amy said to Dan. “And don’t even try to talk me out of it.”
“Rope, harnesses, some carabiner clips,” Jake said. “A sporting-goods store would be our best bet. Second best, a hardware store.”
“Anyone know how to say carabiner clips in Portuguese?” Dan asked. “Didn’t think so.”
He booted up his laptop. “I’ll find an online translator,” he said. “Then maybe the driver can help us.”
One of the Voynich images was now his home page. It was Folio 75 — the “plumbing picture.” He clicked on the browser icon, and the screen filled with the image of basins overflowing with water and naked women.
Next to him, the driver glanced over. “Ah,” he said with a grin. “Mabu, sim?”
Dan looked at him blankly. The driver pointed to the image on the screen.
“Isto é Mabu,” he said firmly. “Mabu.”
Whatever the guy was saying, he seemed really sure about it. Dan spoke on impulse. “Okay, Mabu. Let’s go — vámonos.”
Which was Spanish, not Portuguese, but the driver got the message and pulled away from the curb, tires squealing.
The backseat reacted immediately. “Whoa!” “What’s going on?” “Where are we going?”
Dan explained about the driver’s reaction to the Voynich image. “He seems to think it’s something called Mabu,” he said. “So I told him to take us there.”
“That’s ridiculous!” Amy said. “You have no idea what he’s talking about — it could be hundreds of miles away!”
The 39 Clues: Cahills vs. Vespers Book 5: Trust No One Page 8
