Addison Cooke and the Treasure of the Incas

by Jonathan W. Stokes

  Guadalupe knelt down and peered at the two door locks. “I can jimmy open the second door, but not the third. It’s a dead bolt.”

  “Okay, we’ll start with the second door and see where it gets us,” said Addison. “Can you open it?”

  “Who’s got a knife?” Guadalupe smiled.

  “We can use my lock-picking set!” Raj exclaimed, beaming as he dug through his backpack.

  “I’m better with a knife.”

  Addison drew Zubov’s butterfly knife from his trouser pocket. He flicked it open. “Will this do?”

  Guadalupe raised her eyebrows, impressed. “It’ll do. Somebody count to ten.” She set to work picking the lock, her tongue curled in the corner of her mouth for concentration.

  Eddie began counting, “Uno, dos, tres . . .”

  “Are you sure you don’t want my lock-picking set?” asked Raj.

  “Done,” said Guadalupe. And the wooden door creaked open.

  The team stared down a musty hallway hung with old framed portraits of Spanish noblemen. The ceiling was rotted and mildewed. The red carpet was frayed and rat-chewed. Addison smiled; it looked promising. He stepped inside.

  “Guadalupe, aren’t you coming?” he asked.

  “No thanks. I’ll just keep a lookout here.”

  “She’s going downstairs to nick the silverware,” said Molly.

  “Guadalupe,” said Addison, “we’ve got a mission to do!”

  “It’s not my mission. And I need some kind of reward for risking my life here. Besides, I’ll be right back.”

  “Ragar’s men will be searching the castle, Guadalupe. Stay out of trouble.”

  “Me? Trouble?” Guadalupe looked deeply offended. She pulled her long hair back into a ponytail, rolled up her sleeves, and slipped on a pair of gloves she kept buttoned in her back pocket. She darted back downstairs, making a beeline for the dining room.

  • • •

  The rest of the group made their way down the narrow passage. The smell of rot assaulted their nostrils, and rats could be heard scuttling to and fro under the floorboards. Stepping into the hallway was as pleasant as rear-ending a hearse.

  The corridor was lined with doorways revealing compact bedrooms furnished with simple cots. “Maybe these are for wedding guests,” Addison whispered.

  “It could also be where the guards sleep,” said Eddie warily.

  The crooked attic hallway meandered crazily back and forth like a man who’d been beaned by a brick. As they rounded a bend, a bedroom door burst open, bathing the passage in light. Addison’s group froze.

  A handsome young man in dark glasses with slicked-back hair and a flashy suit strode down the hallway, flanked by security guards.

  Addison had to admire the moxie of a man who would wear sunglasses in such a dark hall.

  The man flicked off his shades and glared down at Addison. “¿Qué estás haciendo aquí?”

  “We were just looking for the bathroom,” said Addison.

  “You’re not allowed to be here!” the man answered in English. “This floor is off-limits.”

  “Yes, if you could just point us toward the facilities . . .”

  “This hallway is locked—how did you even get in?” The man waved to his security guards, who grabbed Addison and Molly, pinning their arms behind their backs. “Who are you?”

  Addison puffed up his chest with indignation. “I,” he announced, “am Don Héctor Guzmán’s son!” The words did not have quite the effect Addison was hoping for.

  “You are lying,” said the handsome man with the slicked-back hair.

  “How would you know?” asked Molly.

  “Because I,” said the man, “am Don Héctor Guzmán’s son.”

  Addison winced. Sometimes you roll the dice and come up snake eyes.

  “Don Miguel will want to hear about this,” Guzmán’s son declared.

  “Señor,” said a tall security guard with a shaved head. “We can not bother Don Miguel in the middle of the festivities.”

  “That is true,” said Guzmán’s son. “We will lock them up.”

  Security guards dragged Addison and Molly back down the winding passage and onto the landing. Eddie and Raj were herded before them.

  “Whatever you do,” said Addison, gesturing anxiously to the third door on the landing, “please don’t lock us in that tower.”

  “Why not?” Guzmán’s son leered. He slid on his shades and smoothed his hair in one practiced gesture.

  “I can’t stand closed spaces! I have claustrophobia.”

  Don Guzmán’s son looked at Addison, perplexed.

  “Eddie,” said Addison, snapping his fingers, “what’s the Spanish word for claustrophobia?”

  “Claustrofobia,” said Eddie.

  Addison turned back to Guzmán’s son. “I have claustrofobia.”

  The man shook his head. He’d known Addison for thirty seconds and had already lost all patience for him.

  The bald security guard grabbed a set of keys from his belt and unlocked the third and final door. He gripped Addison by the neck, far more painfully than was absolutely necessary.

  “No! Please!” said Addison. “I can’t!”

  “You will!” shouted Guzman’s son.

  One by one, the guard shoved Addison, Molly, Raj, and Eddie through the open doorway.

  “You will stay locked in here until Don Miguel is ready to deal with you,” said Guzmán’s son, smoothing his slicked-back hair. “Then, whoever you are, you will be punished.”

  The door slammed shut. The key turned in the lock, the dead bolt slid home.

  “Great,” said Eddie. “This is just harika.”

  “This is harika,” said Addison, rubbing his aching neck. He turned in a full circle, taking in his surroundings. “That helpful gentleman put us exactly where we want to be . . . the high tower.”

  • • •

  They mounted the dusty wooden stairs that spiraled upward toward the tower eyrie. It looked as if no one had climbed the tower in centuries.

  The stairs hugged the curved castle wall, each oak plank slotted into the stone masonry. Several rotten boards were missing entirely, and there was no railing to prevent someone from plummeting down the center of the shaft. Addison tried not to picture this, but it was easier said than done. Every few steps one of the warped and worm-eaten planks would creak underfoot, ready to snap.

  “I hope Don Miguel has good liability insurance,” said Eddie.

  Addison trudged up the stairs, growing dizzier with each footfall. The higher they climbed, the more his stomach filled with dread. He kept his eyes trained on each step before him, trying to ignore the gaping abyss a few inches to his right.

  Halfway up the tower, Eddie stumbled on a loose plank. The team watched it fall, tumbling end over end, disappearing into the darkness below. Addison counted six Mississippis before he heard the echo of its landing.

  Addison panted for air, fighting his panic. He pressed both hands against the outer wall, steadying himself for balance. “It’s times like these I wish I’d listened to what my aunt Delia told me about becoming an archaeologist.”

  “Why, what did she say?” asked Raj.

  “She said, ‘Don’t become an archaeologist.’”

  Despite his gnawing fear, Addison forced his feet to keep lifting, carrying him higher. At last they made it to the highest landing. Addison collapsed on the wooden floor and put his head between his knees to keep from fainting. The floor was covered with an inch of dust. There was nothing to see except abandoned rat nests, and rat nests that Addison wished were abandoned.

  The oak plank ceiling was so low it was easier to sit than stand.

  “A trapdoor!” Raj cried, excitedly.

  He clawed at the rectangular seam in the ceiling, and an old rotten trapd
oor swung open, revealing nothing but a thick roof of stones and mortar immediately above.

  “I guess it’s a dead end,” said Molly.

  “Does this mean we have to go all the way back down now?” asked Eddie.

  “You know, it’s a bit odd,” said Addison, still trying to steady his breathing. “From the outside, this tower was domed. But on the inside, this ceiling is flat.”

  “I think you’re right,” said Raj. He moved to an arrow loop cut in the stone wall of the tower, thrust his head outside, and peered upward. “We’re nowhere near the top,” he reported. “There has to be another thirty feet of tower above us!”

  “A false ceiling,” Addison concluded. “Look for another trapdoor.”

  The team examined the flat oak beams of the ceiling, searching for any loose plank, trigger, or hidden switch. “Nothing,” Raj concluded. “The ceiling’s completely solid.”

  Addison studied the way the rafters joined with the masonry. He placed his palms flat on the wooden ceiling and rotated, counterclockwise. Pushing with all his might, the entire ceiling shifted an inch.

  “Help me! Rotate the ceiling like you’re winding a clock.”

  The team pushed, and with a grinding of wood, the ceiling swiveled a few feet on its axis. The rectangular opening of the wooden trapdoor moved to reveal an empty space in the stone ceiling. Addison’s group pushed until the two holes lined up flush.

  A single ladder led upward into a hidden eyrie.

  “I wish I knew El Mozo’s interior decorator. He must have been worth every penny,” Addison said.

  “Let’s keep moving,” said Molly.

  Addison rested a hand against the rickety old ladder, but found he could not take a step.

  “You can do it, Addison,” Molly said quietly. “Every ladder has a first rung, right?”

  Addison’s hands trembled. “It’s not the first rung I have a problem with. It’s the third, fourth, and fifth rungs.” His arms shook.

  “What’s wrong with him?” Eddie asked.

  Addison took a deep breath. “I’m afraid of heights,” he admitted. He shut his eyes and turned his head away.

  Raj and Eddie scaled the ancient ladder. Eddie called back down, “Well, are you coming or not?”

  “I’ll be down here,” said Addison. “Keeping a lookout.”

  Molly stayed by his side for another moment. “I wish I knew why you had this fear of heights, Addison. Maybe then I could help you get better.”

  Addison only shook his head.

  Molly climbed the ladder to the eyrie.

  • • •

  The eyrie was lit by a single shaft of light from an arrow loop in the masonry. The floor held little of interest. Ditto for the sandstone walls. It was the domed ceiling that was spectacular.

  It glittered with tens of thousands of painted tiles, every color of the spectrum. The mosaic depicted a radiant blue sky with brilliant white clouds. Angels with trumpets soared in the heavens. And floating in the clouds rested dozens of Incan gods. Some gods were male and some female. Some were part jaguar, llama, or snake. Molly, Eddie, and Raj stared upward with their jaws agape.

  “What do you see?” Addison called up from the bottom of the ladder.

  “A painting of the sky,” Molly replied.

  “Remember—look ‘closest to the gods.’”

  “There are too many gods,” said Molly, searching the painted sky. “There’s nothing but gods.”

  “Do any of them point to a key?”

  Molly, Raj, and Eddie searched. But none of the gods appeared to have anything to do with keys.

  “I see a deer god and a monkey god,” called Eddie, “but I don’t see any key god. Addison, is there an Incan god of keys?”

  “I can’t remember.” Addison shut his eyes and concentrated. He called up the ladder. “What other gods do you see? Call them out for me.”

  “I see a thunder god,” said Molly, pointing to a god riding on a rain cloud. “And a sea god, an earth god, and a moon god. Which god would have the key?”

  Addison, at the foot of the ladder, took a deep breath to relax his mind. “King Atahualpa,” he said at last. “He would have the key.”

  “But he wasn’t a god.”

  “He was to the Incas.”

  “All right. So what does he look like?” called Molly.

  Addison opened his eyes. He was pretty sure he knew the answer. “The Incan emperor was considered the child of the sun. Inti, the sun god, the most powerful Incan god.”

  “You want us to look closest to the sun?”

  “Yes.”

  Addison’s team studied the sun in the center of the mosaic, spreading its rays to all points of the compass.

  “There,” said Molly at last. She pointed to a single discolored tile. “That tile, in the middle of the sun. It’s a slightly different yellow.”

  The team looked closely to where Molly was pointing. And sure enough, the tile in the center of the sun was not a tile at all . . .

  It was in the shape of a key. And it was made of solid gold.

  • • •

  Molly piggybacked on Eddie’s shoulders and carefully chiseled mortar from around the Incan key using one of Raj’s fishhooks. The ancient masonry crumbled away, releasing the key from the mosaic. Eddie lost his footing; he and Molly tumbled to the floor. They held their breath, waiting for a booby trap that never came.

  Molly, Eddie, and Raj carefully passed the key back and forth, feeling the weight of the solid gold. Then they raced down the ladder to show the key to Addison.

  A clue was engraved on the flat golden surface of the key.

  Eddie squinted at the tightly scrawled calligraphy. “I think some of these words have ancient spellings.”

  “Do the best you can,” said Addison.

  Eddie took a deep breath and read aloud:

  “The top of the world holds the treasure of the Incas.

  Above the sacred valley in a palace in the sky,

  Supay’s mouth is open wide to swallow up the brave.

  Beware the curse of Atahualpa or you will surely die.”

  “Eddie, this clue actually rhymes in English,” Molly said.

  “Yeah, I guess so. I like that bit about the palace and the treasure. I’m not sure I like the part about the curse and the dying.”

  “That’s just to scare away the amateurs,” said Addison.

  “It’s working,” said Eddie.

  “The clue mentions that Incan god Supay,” said Molly. “I think El Mozo’s obsessed with death.”

  “Everyone needs a hobby,” said Addison, turning the golden key over in his hands. “It’s no concern of ours. We’re just one puzzle away from finding the treasure.”

  • • •

  The team spiraled their way down the rickety steps to the base of the tower and stood staring, flummoxed, at the locked door.

  “The good news is we found the Incan key,” said Addison. “The bad news is, it doesn’t open this door.”

  “Well, we can’t just stay locked up in here waiting for Don Miguel,” said Molly.

  Raj picked up a loose plank of wood that had once been a riser in the staircase. He gripped it firmly in his hands like a baseball bat. “We could bash the door down,” he suggested hopefully.

  “Or we could try knocking,” said Eddie.

  Addison figured the latter option couldn’t hurt. He knocked.

  A second later, a key scraped in the lock, and the door cracked open. Addison recognized the scowling face of the tall security guard with the shaved head. His hulking body filled the doorway. He looked angry and resentful, presumably from getting stuck guarding a door when he could have been downstairs enjoying a wedding.

  “Well, what do you brats want?” grunted the guard.

  “On
ly one thing,” said Addison, smiling. “And you have already done it.”

  “What’s that?” the guard asked.

  “You opened the door.” Addison stepped aside, revealing Raj, who took a running start and swung his plank hard into the man’s stomach. It connected with a satisfying smack, like a Jell-O mold chucked from a high window and meeting the pavement.

  The security guard doubled over, clutching his gut, moaning a three-part harmony of anger, pain, and disbelief.

  Addison’s team slipped past him. They ran, fists pumping like pistons, across the landing and down the grand staircase of the castle.

  “I feel a bit bad about that,” said Addison.

  “I feel great about that,” said Raj.

  Addison reached the main floor and halted outside the library. “Now we just find Guadalupe and slip out of here.”

  “How do we find her?” Eddie asked. “She could be anywhere.”

  Addison never got a chance to reply. From the next room, they heard a heart-stopping scream.

  Chapter Fourteen

  A Wedding to

  Remember

  ADDISON’S TEAM ROCKETED THROUGH the library and skidded to a halt at the dining room doorway. They cracked the door open a sliver and silently peeked through.

  Guadalupe lay pinned to the dining room table, Zubov’s hand clutching her throat. Professor Ragar, flanked by his men, smiled triumphantly. He pried a few pieces of silverware from Guadalupe’s fingertips. “Where are the Cookes and their little friends?”

  Addison’s group pressed their eyes to the gap in the doorway.

  Guadalupe squirmed under Zubov’s grip and spat out a few choice Spanish words that Eddie refused to translate.

  Addison noted that Zubov had already procured a new knife—a stainless-steel stiletto switchblade. Zubov brushed the hair back from Guadalupe’s neck and ran the blade along the folds of her ear. “How about I pierce those pretty ears for you?”

  “We should rejoin the wedding, or our host will be upset,” said Professor Ragar. “Besides, we can’t have any more screaming. Don Miguel is trying to unite rival gangs today—he wants no violence here.”