One False Note

by Gordon Korman

  Amy was skeptical. "Are you sure you're not thinking of Wolfgang?"

  "No, wolfram. Grace told me about it." He rounded on his sister. "You're not the only

  grandchild she told stuff to, you know."

  Amy sighed. "All right, what did she say?"

  He looked stricken. "I was sort of tuning her out."

  "That's why she told most of it to me -- because she knew you'd forget it all." They wandered through a hallway of exquisite carved and gilt furniture from all corners of the world, which dead-ended in a round room. At the center, bathed in blue light, stood a polished mahogany harpsichord.

  "I'm out of here," said Dan. "This is starting to look a lot like you-know-who."

  Amy put a grip on his arm strong enough to splinter bone. "It is

  you-know-who! It says right here -- this is the instrument Mozart played at his performance in Racco's house in 1770!"

  "There's only one problem: It's a harpsichord. It doesn't tell us what D > HIC means. And it has nothing to do with cake, in French or any other language."

  "Still," Amy insisted. "Everything we've been through has been leading us to this

  instrument. It's going to give us the next clue. I'm sure of it."

  Dan reached into the pocket of his jeans and pulled out a wadded, crumpled napkin.

  "Good thing I wasn't wearing these pants when we went into the canal."

  Amy was confused. "What's that?"

  He unfolded the napkin to reveal the train logo. "The only thing to do with a harpsichord is play music.

  This is music." He turned it over, and there was the version of KV 617 he had reproduced on the train.

  Amy had to keep herself from cheering. "Dan, you're a genius! We take a musical clue from Ben Franklin and play it on Mozart's instrument!"

  They looked around. The harpsichord was cordoned off by velvet ropes. A uniformed security guard was stationed by the door.

  "Well, we can't do it now," Dan observed. "That guy would beat our heads in if we laid a finger on his precious keyboard." "Good point," Amy agreed.

  "The house closes at five," Dan said. "We're going to have to hide out till then." The art deco bathroom was old, probably from the 1920s or 1930s, with black and white tiles and immaculate porcelain fixtures.

  How can you obsess on tiles and toilets at a time like this? Amy admonished herself.

  Well, that was the point, wasn't it? If she worried about the real stuff, she'd be a puddle. What if the mansion had an alarm? Or an army of night watchmen? What did D > HIC mean? How could you subtract music from the French word gateau?

  Too much for a fourteen-year-old brain.

  And those were just the crises of the minute. This family! To find out you were related to Ben Franklin and Mozart and Marie Antoinette

  There's no describing it! You feel like you were born with royal blood! Like you're a part of history!

  But those great Cahills of the past were exactly that -- history. They were long dead and buried. Who were the Cahills of today? Jonah. The Holts. Uncle Alistair. The Kabras. Irina. Double-crossers, thugs, con artists, and thieves. People who smiled and called you cousin while reaching around to put the knife between your shoulder blades.

  This contest was supposed to be so high and mighty -- a chance to shape the future. But the nitty-gritty was more like a reality TV show called Who Wants to Be a Backstabber?

  It was getting more cutthroat by the hour. Were all Cahills so awful? She couldn't picture Mozart in a boat chase or setting off a bomb in a tunnel. How deep did this ruthlessness go?

  The fire that killed Mom and Dad was ruled accidental. Uncle Alistair says he knows "the truth." Does that mean it wasn't an accident?

  Just the thought of it took all the fight out of Amy. Words like contest and prize

  made this whole business out to be some kind of game, but the tragedy of seven years ago was no game. It had robbed her of the parents she loved. It had robbed Dan even of the memory

  of parents. The faintest notion that the fire might have been deliberate --

  She felt suddenly, unexpectedly spent. Maybe we should just give up. Go home to

  Boston, let Nellie off the hook. Surrender to Social Services; see if Aunt Beatrice will take us back...

  And yet she knew in her gut that quitting was the last thing they would do. The last thing they could

  do. Not with the next clue so close. They had no proof that their parents' death had anything to do with the Cahills. But even if it had –especially if it had -- then it was fifty times as important to win the contest.

  She resettled herself on the toilet seat cover and tried to relax. Across the hall, in the men's room, she knew Dan was doing the same. Or maybe he was too dumb to be scared.

  No, not dumb. Her brother was smart. Brilliant, even, in his short-attention-span kind of way. He was the one who had come up with this scheme to hide in the bathrooms until the exhibit closed. She'd just been following his lead when they'd ranged through 164

  the wings of the old house, taking careful note of the location of the security people. And when one of the guards had begun regarding them with suspicion, it had been Dan's reliable instinct to melt away into another exhibit.

  I would probably still be there, babbling lame excuses.

  Dan needed her, yet she needed him, too. Like it or not, they were a team -- the crazy

  dweeb and his stammering sister. Not exactly a recipe for world domination.

  The butterflies in Amy's stomach threatened to fly away with her. Dan had his talents,

  but he wasn't exactly a deep thinker about what could go wrong. Amy envied him that. Sometimes she thought about nothing but. She was the Albert Einstein of worst case scenarios.

  She checked her waterlogged but still functioning watch. It had been half an hour since the announcement -- in six languages -- that Collezione di Racco was now closed. There was the click of a timer, and the bathroom was plunged into sudden darkness. Oh, no! They had no flashlight. How would they get to the harpsichord now? Carefully, she felt her way past the stall door, straining to conjure up a mental picture of the layout of the ladies' room. She had to find Dan, but first she had to make it out of here!

  The sound of footsteps froze her heart. A security guard! They would be caught,

  arrested, shipped back to the States --

  "Amy?"

  "Dan, you dweeb! You nearly put me into cardiac arrest!"

  "The coast is clear. Let's go."

  "In the pitch-black?" she demanded.

  Dan laughed in her face. "It's only dark in the bathrooms. The rest of the place is okay."

  "Oh." Embarrassed, she followed his voice out through the heavy door. Dan was right. Collezione di Racco was in night mode, with the exhibit spotlights off but every fourth fluorescent bulb illuminated. "Any sign of a night watchman?" she whispered. "I didn't see anybody, but it's a big house. Maybe he's over guarding the gold and diamonds. I would be. Who steals a harpsichord?"

  They hurried through the grand halls, grateful that their sneakers made little sound on the marble floors. The blue light had been turned off, but even in semi-darkness, Amy could make out the ivory glint of the keyboard that had been played by their distant cousin, the young Mozart, in 1770. Excitement surged through her body like an electric pulse. The next clue was close, very close.

  And then the cold muzzle of a dart gun at the back of her neck erased all other brain activity.

  CHAPTER 20

  "We have got to stop meeting like this," purred Natalie Kabra behind her.

  Enraged, Dan made a run at Natalie. But Ian stepped from the shadows and grabbed

  him firmly around the midsection. "Not so fast, Danny Boy. I see you've recovered from

  your evening swim." He sniffed Dan's hair. "Well, not completely."

  "What do you want?" Dan challenged.

  Ian regarded him pityingly. "Are you kidding? Like it's a coincidence we're all here. Basically, it's like this: You'r
e going to stand in front of my sister's dart gun while I entertain you with some music."

  Roughly, he thrust Dan against the wall and shoved Amy over beside him.

  Natalie faced them, holding them at gunpoint. "Don't worry," she promised with mock sweetness. "The dart won't kill you. But you'll wake up in a few hours with a nasty

  headache."

  "Again," added her brother. He stepped over the velvet rope and seated himself at the

  harpsichord, cracking his knuckles with a flourish.

  "You're bluffing!" Dan accused. "You don't even know what to play!"

  "I'm sure something will come to me," Ian said cheerfully. "Perhaps 'Three Blind Mice.'

  Or 'Pop Goes the Weasel.' Or maybe a little tune called KV 617."

  "How could you know about that?" Amy blurted.

  "You think you're so clever, but really, you're pathetic," Natalie scoffed. "We've been following you since the train station in Vienna. We've intercepted your computer's wireless signal. You downloaded this piece from the web, and we downloaded it from you."

  "I took the liberty of printing my own copy," Ian added, unfolding a page of sheet music and propping it in front of him.

  Amy and Dan exchanged a meaningful look. Ian and Natalie had no way of knowing that the Internet version of KV 617 was not the same as the Ben Franklin clue. Maybe all was not yet lost.

  Ian began to play. The metallic sound of the harpsichord reverberated through the tomblike room. It was much louder than Amy expected, and only a little out of tune. What a magnificent instrument! She craned her neck to watch Ian's long fingers dancing across the ivory keys. That was when she saw it -- a tiny wire extending from underneath D above high C and disappearing into the burnished wood of the harpsichord.

  D above high C. Amy frowned. Why did that sound so familiar? And then a picture of it formed in her mind: D > HIC.

  Grace's note on the Nannerl pages! It's a warning! That D key is booby-trapped!

  The notion had barely crossed her mind when she heard the pitch of the music rise and saw Ian's right hand fluttering in the direction of the fateful D.

  Her reaction was so natural, so instantaneous, that she had no time to think about how foolish it was. With a cry of "Don't!" she leaped forward, bowling over Natalie. The gun discharged, but the dart missed and buried itself in the drapery. Amy was in full flight, determined to knock Ian off the stool before disaster struck. She was a split second too late.

  She plowed into Ian just as his finger caressed the booby-trapped key.

  BOOM!

  With a flash of flame, Mozart's harpsichord blew apart, tossing Amy and Ian ten feet clear. Amy tucked and rolled, emerging unhurt. Ian's head struck the marble floor. He lay there, out cold.

  Natalie scrambled to her feet and reached for the dart gun, but Dan was too quick for her. He snatched up the dart from the drapery behind him and flung it like a spear at his adversary. The point buried itself in her shoulder. She raised the weapon, woozily fighting the effects of the knockout formula. Dan braced for impact, knowing the next dart was coming for him. And then Natalie's eyes rolled back in her head, and she dropped like a stone beside her brother. Dan ran to his sister. "Are you okay?"

  Amy crawled to the wreckage of the instrument. The woodwork was in smoldering pieces, but amazingly, the keyboard was intact. Both could now see a second set of wires, which disappeared into the floor. "Quick! The music!"

  Dan stared at her. "It's not going to play now.

  It's on fire."

  "Give it here!" She unfolded the napkin and began to press the keys. There was no sound except for a soft clicking. But she "played" on, following the notes exactly from the Ben Franklin clue.

  Suddenly, the floor began to shake beneath their feet.

  "Way to go, Amy!" cried Dan. "Now the whole building's coming down!"

  A section of marble one yard square dropped away on a hidden hinge. The Cahills

  crouched over the new opening it created. Before them, on a bed of black velvet, lay a

  pair of gleaming swords.

  "Samurai!" Dan said with reverence. He reached down, took hold of a golden hilt, and

  then stood up and brandished the weapon. "Samurai warriors carried two blades -- one short and one long. These must be the short ones. Seriously cool."

  Amy drew out the other sword and examined the Japanese characters engraved in the

  metalwork. "I'll bet these are made with that special steel Mozart was interested in." Dan nodded. "But how can that be our clue? It has nothing to do with the stuff Grace wrote in those diary pages."

  "D above high C turned out to be the booby-trapped harpsichord key," Amy explained. "And gateau minus the music -- " It came together in her mind. "Musical notes are also letters,

  remember? A, B, C, D, E, F, and G. If you take those out of the word gateau,

  you're left with ... T-U." She looked puzzled. "It doesn't make sense."

  "Yes, it does!" Dan exploded. "It's the old chemical symbol for tungsten! That's the thing Grace told me that I forgot! Wolfram is what they used to call tungsten!"

  Amy's eyes sparkled with discovery. "That's why Marie Antoinette said 'Let them eat cake.' She wasn't talking about the poor gateau was the coded message between Franklin and Mozart telling him what ingredient he needed. We've got it! The first clue was iron solute; this one's tungsten! That's what this contest is all about! We're putting together some kind of formula!"

  It was a supercharged instant -- the smoke from the explosion, the steel of the swords,

  the thrill of a breakthrough. Yet for Amy, there was so much more. This clue brought them closer to winning the contest --

  And closer to understanding who we really are!

  Somehow, she knew their parents were smiling down on them.

  She reached for her brother's hand. The two spent so much time bickering, but this was their moment.

  We're still in this thing!

  Suddenly, the lights blazed on, and a uniformed night watchman galloped frantically into the room, bellowing in Italian. Shocked, Dan wheeled to face him, not realizing he was still holding the samurai sword two-fisted, like a baseball bat, ready to swing. With

  a terrified yelp, the guard turned tail and ran the other way.

  "Let's get out of here," Amy decided urgently.

  "What about them?" Dan indicated the Kabras, out cold on the floor.

  "That guard will be back with the police any minute. They'll call a doctor."

  Hugging their swords, the Cahills sprinted for the exit.

  Nellie was ready to throw in the towel.

  She could no longer bear the sight of Saladin, gaunt and languid, barely able to work up a decent "mrrp."

  As soon as Amy and Dan got back, she was going to find a fish market and buy fresh snapper. Okay, it was

  172

  total surrender, not to mention a waste of thirty bucks a pound. But that was preferable to a dead cat.

  Grace Cahill may have been a great woman, but as a pet owner, she hadn't known much about tough love.

  Nellie frowned at her watch. It was after seven. All the museums had closed a couple of hours ago. Amy and Dan were late again. She was afraid to think about what that might mean.

  With a sigh, she decided to give it one more try. She popped open yet another tin of cat food and brought it to Saladin, who was draped over the arm of the couch, listlessly watching

  Home Improvement dubbed in Italian.

  "All right, Saladin, you win. You've proven you're the better man. But I can't get you the good stuff until later, so why don't you take a few bites of this to tide you over until the kids get back?" She took a morsel on her finger and applied it to the Mau's tongue during a yawn.

  If a cat could look startled, Saladin did. He smacked his palate like a wine taster. Then

  he lunged for Nellie's finger and licked it clean.

  Encouraged, the au pair held up the tin. It was empty in thirty seconds.


  "Good boy!" Nellie cheered. "I knew you'd love it if you just gave it a chance! It's cat

  food -- it's for people like you!"

  Saladin was halfway through tin number two when Amy and Dan came bursting in the

  door.

  Nellie was beside herself with triumph. "Congratulate me, you guys! The hunger strike is over -- " She took in the sight of Dan waving the lethal samurai sword around the tight hotel room. "Put that thing down before you slice your own ears off!" Dan ignored the warning, but Saladin stopped feasting and ducked under the bed.

  Pink with excitement, Amy waved the other sword. "It's okay! It's the next clue!"

  "Swords?"

  "Tungsten! That's what the steel's alloyed with!"

  "Start packing!" Dan crowed. "We're going to Tokyo! Oh, yeah, and way to go, Saladin. We knew you could do it."

  A nervous "Mrrp!

  " came from behind the bed skirt. Nellie was totally confused. "But why Tokyo?"

  "That's where the swords are from," Amy explained breathlessly. "That's where the steel was forged. And the exhibit said that Fidelio Racco went off to Japan and was never heard from again!"

  "And we have to do it, too?" the au pair demanded. "The trail leads there," Amy insisted. "That's where we'll find the next clue." It was the best thing about loyal Nellie Gomez. Without another word of protest, she picked up the phone and called Japan Airlines.

  The Kabras had money; the Holts had muscle; Irina had guile and training; Alistair had experience; and Jonah had fame. Amy and Dan Cahill had their wits and little else. Yet only they had uncovered the second clue. On with the chase.

  CHAPTER 21

  To the citizens of Salzburg, Austria, William McIntyre looked like just another tourist. More formally dressed, perhaps, in a dark business suit, but a foreign visitor strolling through the public square. Nobody seemed to notice the tiny handheld monitor, nor did they hear the soft beeps emitted by the device as it homed in on the transmitter beacon.

  For nearly a week, Mr. McIntyre had used this equipment to keep tabs on Amy and Dan as they traveled from Paris to Vienna and on to Salzburg. But now the signal had stopped moving. In fact, it had not budged in two days. Something was wrong. As he crossed the crowded plaza, the beeps consolidated into a continuous tone, which meant the transmitter was very, very close.