39 Clues _ Cahills vs. Vespers [03] The Dead of Night, Page 3

  Natalie glared at her. “Were you trying to make a joke?” she said with a flip of her black hair. “Warn me next time, and I’ll pretend to laugh. Even though mockery is awfully inconsiderate toward someone who saved your life. Oh, and by the way, you’re welcome.”

  Nellie didn’t have the energy to answer. Yes, Natalie had pulled the bullet from her shoulder — but only after she’d been forced into action. Her precisely plucked eyebrows made her the hostage with the most tweezer expertise.

  And Natalie had been been fishing for compliments ever since.

  “Come on, Alistair, sixty is the new thirty — give it to me!” Reagan shouted. “Twenty-six . . . twenty-seven . . .”

  “Argghhh . . .” Alistair Oh collapsed, his once-green prison uniform now a grimy gray. Next to him, a thin, silver-haired Fiske Cahill also hit the floor. “I’m afraid our delts aren’t what they used to be,” Alistair said.

  “Actually, mine rather are like smelts,” Fiske added. “Small and floppy.”

  Ted’s arms were also wobbling, and Phoenix let out a loud sneeze. “Reagad?” he said, his voice nasal and clogged. “Baybe that’s eduff for today. We’re gettigg codes. We deed rest.”

  “We’ll rest when we’re dead, Wizard!” In a whirlwind, Reagan quickly knocked off fifty more push-ups, flipped, and did thirty crunches, then turned and landed a kick that dented the metal door. “I’m feeling sick, too, and look at me. What if Babe Ruth had said ‘Time to rest’? Or Michael Phelps? Or Neil Armstrong? Come on, guys — what are we?”

  “Hungry,” Natalie said.

  “Sleepy,” Alistair added.

  “Grumpy,” Fiske said.

  “Sneezy,” Phoenix piped up.

  “Shot,” Nellie said.

  Reagan was about to launch into another pep talk when Ted held up his hand. Nellie adored Ted. He’d been blinded in the explosion in the Franklin Institute, and afterward had become subdued and thoughtful. He didn’t demand attention much, but when he did, he had good reason. Now he was sitting bolt upright.

  “’Sup, dude?” Nellie whispered.

  Instead of answering, Ted fell to all fours. “Shoulder to shoulder,” he said softly. “Keep it close. Hunch.”

  It was an order. Cringing at the pain, Nellie dropped beside him. She eyed the ceiling cameras. Ted clearly wanted to hide something.

  In the dust of the prison floor, he scraped in tiny letters:

  “We know that,” Nellie whispered.

  A couple of seconds later, he rubbed the words out.

  Good, Nellie thought. This was new info. New info always helped.

  Ted had developed an awesome sense of hearing since he’d lost his eyesight. He’d heard voices in the prison before, but never had he located them so precisely. She wasn’t sure how this helped — yet. But that’s why you became a Madrigal. To use info to your own advantage. She’d had a lot of practice with that.

  “Dude, thanks,” she whispered.

  “Well, then, they can hear me just fine,” Natalie said, angling her head upward. “Request to food personnel! Send extra soy sauce!”

  Nellie stood and clapped her good hand over Natalie’s mouth. Shrieking in surprise, Natalie stumbled backward and fell. “You pulled out my bullet,” Nellie said, “but you’re not going to sabotage us.”

  “That is assault and battery!” Natalie cried out. “I shall contact my barrister!”

  “Back off, Rambo,” Reagan said, pulling Nellie away. “Martial arts training begins next week!”

  Nellie felt pain shooting through her whole body. Bad move, girl.

  She hadn’t meant to hurt Natalie. The dirt, the close quarters, the pain — they did something to her head. It was only a matter of time before the hostages began to lose their humanity.

  Fighting back the agony, Nellie sidled over to the whimpering Kabra. “Sorry, Nat,” she said. “When we get home? Sushi dinner on me, at my culinary school. But you gotta promise me one thing, okay?”

  Natalie looked up warily. “What’s that?”

  Nellie put her fingers to her lips. “Stay quiet.”

  Wiping away a tear, Natalie nodded.

  Taking Ted’s hand, Nellie spelled out How far? with her finger on his palm.

  Ted traced two vertical lines on her palm. Eleven.

  Nellie knew what he meant — eleven feet. She eyed the dumbwaiter door. It was shut tight. The captors had been using the little elevator to convey food and fresh laundry. Up until now, the Cahills had no idea from how far up the stuff had come.

  But now they knew they were just a few feet away from their tormentors. On the other side of a thin ceiling. Connected by a dumbwaiter. A dumbwaiter on which they’d already tried to stow away, unsuccessfully.

  No, not a dumbwaiter . . . that’s not how the floors are connected.

  An escape idea began to form in Nellie’s brain. While in culinary school, she had also been taking an art course. Her teacher had taught her that art wasn’t only about the objects you painted. It was about the spaces between them.

  “No secrets, please, Gomez,” Reagan said. “We’re a team.”

  Nellie shushed Reagan and drew everyone into a huddle again. She looked carefully from eye to eye and began mouthing words silently:

  Reagan tried the dumbwaiter, but not the shaft.

  Vesper One felt it again. The itch. How odd.

  Over the years, he had weaned himself from touching the scar. There was no reason to. It was old, completely healed. The urge to scratch was merely psychological. Brought about on rare occasions — like the incompetence of his inferiors.

  we have g, the message from Vesper Six had read. Nothing more.

  That had been nearly a day earlier. Nothing since.

  Have was such a word of cowardice, he thought. Especially when he was expecting the word killed to follow it.

  The Guardian should have been dead by now.

  If he isn’t, someone else will pay the price.

  Vesper One smiled, considering all the delightful possibilities. The itch, magically, was gone.

  7:29:52.

  Atticus could barely see the screen. Sweat dripped into his eyes, stinging, blurring his vision. He had a good glimpse of the contents of his flash drive.

  What he didn’t have was a clue.

  “Two minutes,” Casper said, looking up from a phone game.

  Meaning twenty-eight minutes of nothing.

  Atticus’s fingers clacked away. Down here the Germ Away transmitter was useless. But there had to be a connection to the outside world. The clocks were connected to the atomic clock. Which meant there was a network connection — satellite, wired, something.

  “One minute . . .”

  Atticus felt Casper’s breath on his shoulder. For twenty-nine minutes, he hadn’t shown a bit of curiosity, and now he was staring at the screen.

  Atticus minimized all windows. “I need more time!” he blurted.

  “Forty seconds . . .” Cheyenne said.

  “Ten more minutes!” Atticus shouted. “Please!”

  “What are you hiding?” Casper asked. “Let me see your work!”

  Don’t panic.

  “I can’t show it,” Atticus lied. “Not yet.”

  “He’s lying,” Cheyenne called out. “He’s trying to get a network connection.”

  “He wouldn’t be that stupid,” Casper said. “If he’d tried, he would have knocked out the system! Let me see it!”

  “Twenty seconds . . .”

  Not panicking was not working.

  I’m dead.

  “I don’t know anything! I have been telling you the truth!” Atticus saw someone’s fists banging on the keyboard. It took a moment to realize they were his own. Windows flashed across the monitor like uncaged bats. He felt his arms grabbed from behind.

  “Time’s up,” said Cheyenne.

  “He’s got nothing,” Casper replied.

  “Fine,” Cheyenne said. “Kill him.”

  Nusret Kemal did not mind
driving a taxicab. Most of the people were friendly, and the work was pleasant enough. But as he drove into the arrivals section of the airport, his hands were shaking. He pulled up to the curb and left his car in the taxi line. Slipping the dispatcher a tip, he made a quick run inside for a cup of Turkish coffee and some sweets. To settle his nerves.

  The last ride had been too bizarre for his taste. The robust American couple with their nervous nephew. What a family! The boy didn’t look a thing like them and hardly said a word. The aunt and uncle — could anyone be so rude? Such a long ride, all the way to the caves of Göreme. They’d barked at him the whole time. As if he were a slave.

  “A bad ride today, Mr. Kemal?” said the young lady behind the counter. She had a lovely smile.

  “I have had better,” he replied politely.

  He was calming down. As Mr. Kemal stepped out the front door, he headed for his clean but slightly beat-up BMW.

  It was pulling away from the taxi line with a squeal.

  He dropped his coffee. “Hey!” he screamed, running as fast as his tired sixty-three-year-old legs could carry him. “Come back here!”

  Too late. His car — his livelihood — gone! What was he going to do now? He fumbled in his pocket for his cell phone.

  That was when he saw the envelope.

  It was lying on the curb, where his car had been. He stooped down and picked it up. It was thick and sealed. Perhaps it would hold some clue to the thieves’ identity.

  He ripped it open violently.

  A few people saw Mr. Kemal as he stood on the sidewalk, opening the envelope. Later they would say that his jaw nearly fell to the pavement with shock when he saw the wad of American money inside.

  Atticus felt a sharp blow on his back. He fell, hitting his jaw against the side of the desk.

  “Harder, Casper,” Cheyenne said. “Or do I have to do this myself?”

  Casper crossed in front of the desk. He was holding a heavy flashlight, which had just made contact with Atticus’s head. “Be right back, don’t go away.”

  He gave the flashlight to Cheyenne and pulled open the knife cabinet.

  Atticus bolted to his feet. The screen glowed up at him:

  Do something. Anything.

  He thrust his arm forward and pressed Y.

  The screen now showed a black background and a single line of text:

  Atticus backed away toward a sealed door. What did I just do?

  The Wyomings were advancing on him. Casper brandished a long dagger.

  “G-g-guys . . .” Atticus said. “L-l-look at the screen. . . .”

  “Games are over, genius boy,” Cheyenne said. “And don’t even think of that door. It’s locked tight.”

  I love you, Dad, Atticus thought sadly. I love you, Jake. And you, too, Mom, wherever you are . . .

  An alarm sounded. The system’s steady hum became a brief electronic shriek. And then . . .

  BEEP.

  The hum ended. There was a click, and the room went pitch-dark.

  “What the — ?” Cheyenne’s voice rang out.

  Atticus lunged forward, scoring a lucky hit to Cheyenne’s abdomen. Both fell to the floor. Atticus grabbed her arm and bit hard.

  “YEOOW!” she cried.

  Atticus heard the flashlight clank to the floor. He stooped and picked it up.

  He lunged toward the back of the room. Where was the door . . . ?

  “Stop him, Casper!” Cheyenne’s voice screamed in the dark.

  Got it.

  The latch turned easily. The electronic locking mechanism was out. Everything electric seemed to be out.

  He bolted into a narrow, clammy stone corridor and flipped on the flashlight. His head smashed against a stalactite and he yelped.

  Not good. That gave away his location.

  He shone the flashlight once to get the lay of the land. Then he shut it off and plunged ahead. Hunched but fast. Careful was crucial, but speed was key.

  Casper and Cheyenne were behind him in the room, stumbling in the dark, shouting, arguing. Atticus heard a crash. They’d knocked over something big.

  As he sprinted, his ankles twisted in stone ruts. He flashed the light again. Ahead of him was a sharp fork in the rock. One path had to lead outside. It couldn’t just be going to nowhere. Chances were that it circled around and met the path they had taken in. He tried to orient himself in his mind. He had always been good at that. Jake had called him a human GPS.

  Left. No, right.

  He raced up the right path, which led to an uphill slope — then another fork, and another. Now he was just guessing.

  “Hey! Get back here!” came Casper’s voice.

  “You’re heading into a trap!” Cheyenne shouted.

  They’re lying, he told himself. How far away were they? Judging from the voices, maybe thirty yards. Close.

  He glanced over his shoulder and ran smack into a stone wall. “OW!”

  Atticus’s voice echoed off the stone. He was at a three-way fork now. He stopped. No clue whatsoever.

  “We heeeear you!” Cheyenne called out.

  “Ready or not, here we come!” Casper taunted.

  He chose the middle path and scampered as fast as he could.

  It curved ninety degrees and then ended abruptly in a solid wall. Dead end. Not even a crawl space to hide in.

  Casper’s and Cheyenne’s footsteps were loud. Close. Atticus felt sweat pouring down his body. His clothing clung to him. The cave was sticky and cold, and his hands were clammy. His flashlight slipped, hitting the ground with a loud smack.

  He flinched. Standing stock-still, he stared at the passageway opening — back toward the nexus of the three-way fork.

  The Wyomings’ flashlights flickered on the floor there. “Did you hear that?” Casper said.

  “Bats,” Cheyenne replied.

  Casper gasped with horror. “You know I hate bats,” he hissed.

  “Bats bats bats bats bats,” Cheyenne said.

  “Stop it! We’re not kids anymore!” Casper shouted.

  “This way, Braveheart,” Cheyenne drawled.

  Casper’s voice receded. To the left. “This is no joke. You should have been watching him. The system sensed an intruder. It shut itself down.”

  “Systems like this do not shut down, Casper,” Cheyenne replied. “They self-destruct. Bats are the least of our worries. Blowing up would be top of the list.”

  The footsteps picked up speed, clattering away.

  Blowing up?

  Atticus waited, willing himself to breathe.

  He caught a rush of cool air and sucked it in greedily. When he could no longer hear footsteps, he prepared to bolt.

  But where? The Wyomings had clearly gone the correct way — but he couldn’t just follow them. They’d be waiting for him.

  He looked down, felt around for his flashlight, and bent to pick it up.

  As his hand touched the metal, he froze. How had he been able to feel a breeze?

  Caves didn’t have breezes.

  Unless . . .

  He looked up. High above, he could see a line of wispy gray, like the ghost of some phosphorescent slug among the crags.

  Escape equals breeze plus light, he thought, then modified the calculation.

  Multiplied by impossible climb.

  He had a sudden vision of his mom’s face, all stern and exasperated. It was the day she’d signed him up, against his will, for rock-climbing lessons at the Brigham Recreation Center. He was afraid of heights. She had told him this was for his own good — which was what she also said about asparagus and chores.

  He hooked the flashlight into his belt and grabbed a handhold above his head. This time I gotta admit, Mom, he thought, you were right.

  The rock face angled slightly away, just enough for him to climb with foot- and handholds. Grunting, using muscles he hadn’t accessed in months, he inched slowly upward. After about twenty feet, he climbed onto a platform.

  In order to get to the light, he wo
uld have to make his way over a huge outcropping that angled above his head and was slimy with drippings — or crawl underneath it, through a rock tunnel about ten inches high.

  He lay flat, squeezing through the opening. It was barely enough room, and he left shreds of his shirt on the rock floor. At the other end, just past the mouth of the passage, was a thin ledge. Atticus grabbed a fist-sized rock and threw it into the void. No sound.

  He stood. Light seeped from above him, through a hole that was impossibly high.

  Far below him came a distant thook. The rock he’d thrown had just landed. How many seconds was that?

  He blanched. He couldn’t think about it.

  To get to the hole above, he would have to climb a nearly vertical wall. He grabbed a handhold, but it came off in his palm and he stumbled backward.

  His heel caught the edge. He wobbled, wind- milling his arms. At the last moment, he lunged forward again, grabbing another handhold.

  This one held.

  His heart juddered so violently he worried it would shake loose the rock.

  Do. Not. Look. Down.

  He tried again, keeping his eyes wide open. He made sure to test each jutting rock before shifting his weight. Slowly he made his way up the wall. The breeze washed over him from above, growing warmer the higher he got. It was wicking away his sweat. He could taste freedom. When he was within ten feet, he stepped up the pace, digging his foot into a deep hole.

  His toe touched something that moved. A screech ripped the air. A tiny, black form skittered. Flapping its wings wildly, a bat flew at Atticus’s face.

  “Ahhhhhh!” he screamed.

  He jerked his foot out. His left arm slipped out of its hold. He dangled by one hand, his shout echoing down the chamber. The fingers of his right hand slipped . . . slipped. . . .

  He looked down. The abyss loomed black and large.

  Desperately he lashed his left arm . . . over his head . . . back to the wall.

  Got it.

  His fingers latched on to the tiniest hint of an indentation. A rock dimple.