Treasure Hunters--Quest for the City of Gold

by James Patterson

  “I’m sure you do, Stormy.”

  “Storm. There is no ee sound at the end. Ever.”

  “Gotcha,” said Chet. He tapped his temple. “Making a mental note. I’ll tell the writers we have scripting your reality show.”

  “Reality show?” said Beck.

  “That’s right. We follow the Kidd Family Treasure Hunters in action, here in Peru or wherever else you guys want to go exploring. You’ll be like the Von Trapp family in The Sound of Music, but without the singing. Love to talk to you folks about it, give you the pitch. Someplace where I’m not bobbing up and down so much.”

  Dad and Mom agreed to “hear what young Mr. Collier has to say.”

  We docked the seaplane with a local named Jorge who wore silver aviator sunglasses and somehow reminded me of George the CIA guy.

  “El pastor cuida de sus oveja,” said Jorge as he and Dad shook hands.

  “Eso no es una oveja,” said Dad. “Es un hidroavión.”

  I had no idea what they were saying. Guess I really should’ve done my Spanish homework.

  Storm understood everything, of course. Guess that’s why she was giggling. (Storm eventually told me it was spy mumbo jumbo, except the code words were in Spanish. Something about sheep.)

  Anyway, Chet Collier took us to a seaside café with a sign in English advertising FRESH FISH.

  I just hoped his pitch didn’t stink as bad as yesterday’s needlefish sitting in the sun.

  “Let me put this on the deck and see if you folks swab it up,” said Chet. He nervously fidgeted with the ring on his finger while he made his pitch. “Me and my camera follow the six of you on your current treasure-hunting adventure. I get all sorts of amazing footage—you trekking through the jungle, crossing the Andes, deciphering ancient treasure maps, digging up priceless relics. Then we mix in the family element: Mom and Dad. Sons and daughters. The laughter and the tears. The high jinks and the highly emotional moments when you wonder if you’re on this journey for the right reasons. You guys just being, well, you.”

  “Seriously?” said Beck. “You want to film Bick being Bick? Have you ever been downwind of him? They eat a lot of beans in Peru, right?”

  “I want the good, the bad, and the stinky!” said Chet. “And Tommy?”

  “Chya?”

  “I want to turn you into the world’s next teenage heartthrob!”

  CHAPTER 25

  “I’m in!” said Tommy. “Should I walk around without a shirt a lot?”

  “Probably not a great idea, son,” said Dad. “We’ll be heading into the rain forest on this quest.”

  “There are mosquitoes in the rain forest,” added Mom. “Big ones.”

  “Not to mention brown recluse spiders,” said Storm.

  “Are they poisonous?” asked Tommy.

  “Very. Their venom is hemotoxic.”

  “Um, what does that mean?” I asked.

  “It can cause necrosis of the skin,” said Storm.

  “And what does that mean?” asked Beck. “No big doctor words allowed.”

  “Fine,” said Storm. “It means that your skin will die and melt away.”

  “Oh-kay,” said Tommy, turning to Chet. “The shirt stays on. I might wear gloves, too.”

  “No problem,” said Chet. “How about the rest of you Kidds? Are you in? Can I turn you all into TV stars?”

  Mom and Dad stroked their chins and looked at each other.

  While they were mulling it over, I jumped in with a quick question.

  “So how’d you even know we were coming to Peru?” I asked.

  Chet winked. “We work for a basic-cable network. We know all sorts of stuff.”

  “Well,” said Beck, tag-teaming him with me (it’s another twin thing), “how do we know your father’s really changed his ways? The last time we dealt with him and his knuckle-dragging goons, they were trying to steal a Grecian urn from us in New York City.”

  Chet smiled. “Dad figured you might still be upset about that.”

  “Well, duh!” Beck and I said together.

  “So he made this video message.”

  Chet pulled out his phone and played us a clip of his father apologizing. Profusely.

  “I’m so, so sorry!” said Nathan Collier on the small screen. He was in a TV studio somewhere, standing in front of a giant logo for the Adventure Channel.

  “I’m sorry I ever kidnapped any of you,” Collier said on the screen. “I’m also extremely sorry that I had my Ukrainian henchpeople threaten you with their nasty rifles and that I had some other henchpeople steal that piece of pottery you kids needed to ransom your mother. I want you all to know that I have fired all of my minions, cronies, and lackeys. I promise: no more henchpeople. Please forgive me? If you do, I promise that my son and I will turn you and the noble causes you care so much about into TV sensations.”

  After he said that last bit, Mom nodded at Dad.

  “This kind of coverage would definitely help us make our case to the Peruvian president,” said Mom. “We can record up-to-the-minute evidence of the rain-forest deforestation and take the video with us to the big meeting.”

  “Whatever you need, Mrs. Kidd,” said Chet.

  “Very well,” said Dad. “It’s decided. Mr. Collier? Pack up your gear. You’re coming with us.”

  Beck and I looked at each other and shook our heads.

  We couldn’t believe what was going on.

  Now Mom and Dad didn’t need their extra parental votes to overrule us kids because we weren’t even taking family votes anymore.

  This had become a Mom-and-Dad dictatorship.

  CHAPTER 26

  Our waiter brought us steaming plates of seafood pasta, so Beck and I decided to let off a little steam.

  We put a new spin on our Twin Tirades. Instead of taking each other on, we turned on Mom and Dad, who, by the way, decided to label this kind of outburst, if it ever happened again, a Twin Tantrum.

  “This is so unfair,” said Beck.

  “It is egregiously unfair!” I added.

  “You guys aren’t the boss of us!” said Beck.

  “Well, technically, you are until we turn eighteen,” I said. “Unless we’re in Denmark, then it would be sixteen. Same in Liechtenstein.”

  “But that’s not the point!” said Beck.

  “No,” I said, “the point is, you weren’t with us when Nathan Collier was doing all that nefarious, despicable, and malicious stuff while we were busy trying to rescue you guys!”

  “He was also evil,” added Beck.

  “That’s what all those words I just used mean,” I told her.

  “Then why didn’t you just say evil?”

  “Because I’m a writer!”

  “No, you’re a wronger.”

  Yep. Our Twin Tantrum had morphed back into a Twin Tirade (number 1,104, if you’re keeping score at home).

  “Wronger isn’t even a word,” I shouted at Beck. “You’d have to say more wrong.”

  “Fine. Bick, you’re a more wrong.”

  “Oooh. That doesn’t sound nice.”

  “You’re right. Sorry.”

  “No worries.”

  “It’ll never happen again.”

  “Great.”

  “So we’re cool?”

  “Totally.”

  Chet Collier was gawking at us. Understandable. He’d never witnessed the fast-moving fury of a Twin Tirade or a Twin Tantrum. Storm and Tommy, however, were rolling their eyes at us. They’d seen too many of our eruptions. Like, 1,103 too many.

  Mom and Dad shook their heads and laughed.

  “How about us?” asked Dad. “Are we cool, too?”

  Beck and I both gave him a look like we were willing to think about it.

  “You guys,” said Mom, “having Mr. Collier and his camera recording whatever we discover will help us achieve our ultimate goals: Doing what is best for the people of Peru. And helping to save the planet.”

  “Turning me into an international superstar,
” added Tommy.

  Beck and I sighed simultaneously.

  “Fine,” I said. “Mr. Collier can come with us.”

  “Awesome!” said Chet. “Where to first?”

  Dad turned to Storm.

  “We have a ways to go until we reach the Andes Mountains and then the rain forest,” she said, prying open her laptop. She tapped a couple keys and called up her map app.

  Chet tried to peek at it.

  Storm slammed the lid shut.

  “You don’t need to see the map,” she told Collier. “You just need to follow us with your camera.”

  “Riiiight,” said Chet.

  “We need to go to Cuzco,” Storm announced. “The historic capital of the ancient Incan Empire.”

  “Cool,” said Chet. “Was Cuzco on the map?”

  “No,” said Storm. “This is a treasure map. It doesn’t spell things out for you, Mr. Collier, it makes you use your brain. Otherwise, anybody could find the treasure. Including your father!”

  “Remind me, Storm,” said Dad. “What were the graphics that helped you decipher Cuzco?”

  “An owl perched on a rock.”

  “Well done!” said Dad, pulling out his high-tech satellite phone. “I’ll contact Jorge. Ask him to prep the Platypus. We need to fly to Cuzco!”

  CHAPTER 27

  Mom and Dad charted a course from Pisco Bay to Cuzco, a city in southeastern Peru near a valley in the Andes Mountains.

  “How’d you know we’re supposed to go to Cuzco next?” I asked Storm once the Platypus was airborne.

  “Yeah,” said Chet Collier. “How’d you know?”

  Collier was strapped in between me and Beck on the rear bench seat. The three of us were facing Storm and Tommy (who was trying to get his hair to curl in the middle of his forehead like Nathan Collier’s always does on TV). Mom and Dad were, of course, up in the cockpit, piloting us the 285 miles from Pisco to Cuzco.

  “The indigenous people’s name for the city of Cuzco was Qusqu, derived from the phrase qusqu wanka or ‘rock of the owl.’”

  “And the owl was sitting on a rock,” said Chet.

  “Very good,” said Storm.

  “Man, you know a lot of strange stuff, girl.”

  “Thank you,” said Storm. “It’s my superpower. Cuzco was also the Incan capital from the thirteenth century until the sixteenth century, when it was conquered by the Spanish. It’s where Inkarri’s arms might be buried.”

  “Wha-hut?” said Tommy.

  Storm swiveled the screen of the computer around.

  “Since this flight will take a few hours, I thought I would use the time productively and do more research on the Inkarri legend.”

  “Way to go, Stephanie!” said Mom from the front.

  “Whoa,” said Chet. “Your real name is Stephanie?”

  “Yes,” said Storm, those dark clouds filling her eyes again. “Say it again, Chester, and who knows where I might bury your arms.”

  “Riiiight. Gotcha. My bad.”

  “Tell us what you learned!” said Beck, because she likes horror stories way better than I do.

  “As we already know,” said Storm, “when the Spanish conquistadors tortured and executed the last Incan king, he vowed that he would one day rise up from his grave to avenge his death. To make sure that couldn’t happen, the Spaniards buried his body parts all over Peru. According to my new research, legends claim that his head is under the presidential palace in Lima—”

  “Great,” said Mom. “That’s where the big rain-forest meeting is going to take place.”

  “Stay out of the basement, dear,” joked Dad.

  “His legs, some say,” Storm continued, “went to Ayacucho, the capital of the Huamanga Province. His arms were buried under the Square of Tears in Cuzco.”

  “Let’s not go there,” said Tommy.

  “Buried underground,” said Storm, using her spooky voice, “all of Inkarri’s body parts will grow back together, like the roots of a mighty tree, and when they do, he will rise up, take back his kingdom, and restore the harmony between Mother Earth and her children! Moo-hah-ha!”

  CHAPTER 28

  We all gave Storm a round of applause when she finished her in-flight entertainment.

  “So,” asked Chet, “why can’t you guys hang out in Cuzco, take in all the top tourist sites? Why the big rush? We could pick up some good footage for the show. The Kidds kicking back and being the Kidds—”

  “We may not be the only ones following this particular treasure map,” said Mom.

  “Fortunately,” said Dad, patting his leather shoulder bag, which was draped over the back of his pilot’s seat, “the other treasure hunters don’t know precisely what they’re looking for. A map isn’t much good if you don’t have the key.”

  “Cool,” said Chet. “And you guys have the key? Is that what’s in your bag, sir?”

  “That information is currently classified,” said Mom.

  Hearing Mom say that made me feel way better. Chet Collier could film our treasure-hunting adventures all he wanted. But he couldn’t know all of our family secrets—especially not the ones Dad figured out by reading that priest’s letter we found on Cocos Island.

  We landed at the airport in Cuzco.

  Dad said we had “just enough time” to check out a few sights (because Mom never misses a chance for a quick homeschool field trip). Our first stop was an ancient Incan temple known as Qurikancha, “the house of the sun.”

  “This was the most important temple in the Incan Empire,” said Storm, our self-appointed family tour guide. “The walls were covered in sheets of gold. The courtyard was lined with golden statues.”

  Storm’s fact-filled speech suddenly screeched to a halt when three menacing and extremely ancient-looking locals stepped out of the shadows.

  CHAPTER 29

  The three angry old men were dressed in traditional Quechuan costumes.

  “The gold on the temple walls was our gold,” said one.

  “Which the Spaniards stole,” said another.

  “To melt down and send home to their king,” said the third.

  “Stay away from Paititi,” said the first one.

  “The Lost City of Gold belongs to us,” said the second.

  “It was a gift from Inkarri,” said the third, who was the oldest and the scariest.

  “We’re not here to steal your gold,” said Mom. “If we were to find—”

  The oldest one raised his hand to cut her off.

  “Stay away from Paititi, Kidd Family Treasure Hunters. The Home of the Jaguar Father holds many, many dangers. Those who search for it seldom come out of the jungle alive.”

  We all just stood there, stunned. I also gulped a little.

  How could these three scary old men know who we were and what we were looking for? Had the bad guys from the submarine been here already? Did they figure out the owl-on-the-rock clue meant Cuzco as quickly as Storm did? Had they told the angry old guys that we were on our way?

  The three wrinkled men in their bright red costumes turned and disappeared into the shadows of the sun temple’s ruins as eerily as they had arrived.

  CHAPTER 30

  “Soooo,” said Chet after a prolonged silence. “Are you guys calling it quits and heading home? That’s what my dad would do after running into those scary old dudes—”

  “No way, Collier,” said Tommy. “We’re Kidds. We live for danger, action, and adventure. Right, Dad?”

  “Indeed. However, Tommy, we need to tread most carefully. Our competitors in this quest have clearly spread false rumors about our intentions.”

  “It’s too bad they turned the locals against us,” said Mom with a sigh. “If we find the Lost City of Paititi, we plan on giving all the gold back to the people of Peru.”

  “You do?” said Chet, sounding surprised. “What is this? Catch-and-release treasure hunting?”

  That made Dad laugh. “Something like that, Mr. Collier.”

  “My dad wo
uldn’t do that either.”

  “Chya,” said Tommy. “We know.”

  “Come along, everybody,” said Dad, looking at his satellite phone. “It seems our local contact has procured ground transportation for us. We’ll need it to head southeast into the rain forest.”

  “Is that where you guys are going next?” asked Chet, aiming his camera at Dad and then Storm.

  Storm nodded. “According to the treasure map, we must hike through the cloud forests toward the morning sun.”

  “To find the Lost City of Paititi,” said Dad, tapping his shoulder bag again, “we must first visit another ancient city.”

  “Machu Picchu?” I said—mostly to prove to Mom that I’d done my geography homework. “Is that what the priest’s letter says?”

  “No, Bick,” said Dad. “Someplace altogether different and, at this point, unclear.”

  “Completely unclear,” added Storm.

  Bummer.

  Machu Picchu—a fifteenth-century Incan citadel perched on a mountain peak eight thousand feet above sea level—is considered one of the Seven Wonders of the Modern World.

  It’s also Peru’s number-one tourist attraction, so that meant there’d be a pretty easy way to get there. There’d probably be souvenir shops, too. And refreshing, ice-cold Coca-Cola.

  Instead, we’d be heading in the opposite direction. Up into the mountains and the jungle.

  The steep mountains. The muggy, sticky jungle.

  Pack your antiperspirant, people. We’re in for a sweat-fest.

  “We’d better hurry,” said Dad. “Our new friend says he’ll wait for us at the historic Plaza de Armas with our transportation package.”

  “That’s Cuzco’s main square,” said Storm, still in auto-tour-guide mode. “It’s also known as Huacaypata, which translates to ‘weeping square’ or ‘place of tears.’”