Countdown (11 page)

Tikal, Guatemala

“It's gone,” Jake said, shaking his head in disbelief. “It's like the jungle just swallowed it up.”

Dan, Jake, and Amy had gone back into the jungle to search for Olivia's lost book, retracing their steps futilely, while Atticus tried to figure out where the riven crystal was.

Dan hunched his shoulders. He looked tense, coiled tight. Amy wanted to comfort him, to let him know she didn't blame him for losing the book, but he shied away whenever she came close. At one point, he'd actually shuddered, as if she were already dead and he had just brushed against a corpse.

He caught her watching him. “What?” he asked, his voice strangely flat.

“Nothing,” she said. “Just hope you're okay.”

“I'm fine,” he said, avoiding her eyes. She could feel him shutting down, pulling away as if trying to get a head start on his grief. Or was he
punishing
her for dying? For taking drastic action to save
his
life? Could he possibly be that ungrateful? And yet . . . she understood. If the burden had been too much for him before, it was greater than ever now.

No one said a word on the long walk back to the hotel. The silence was thicker than the heat, heavy with all the thoughts they were afraid to say aloud.

“Any luck with the glyph, Att?” Dan asked when they returned to the hotel.

Atticus shook his head. “I've checked all the hieroglyphs that have been deciphered so far, but this one isn't there. I've even tried reenacting a
pok-a-tok
game with these palm nuts to see if it triggers any ideas. . . . Amy, what does this glyph look like to you?”

Amy sat down with Atticus and focused on the symbol. Maybe now, with her mind sharpened by the power of the serum, she could crack the code. Despite the grave faces surrounding her, she felt invincible. When she focused on distances it was like looking through a telescope. She could spot a worm in a bird's beak miles away. Her vision in the dark was like looking through night goggles. She'd been in great shape before she took the serum, but she'd had to work hard for every muscle. Now, for the first time in her life, bookish Amy Cahill, denizen of the library, was a natural athlete.

She had to keep reminding herself why she felt so strong, and when she remembered, her mood plummeted. The serum was doing this to her. The very thing that made her feel so good now would soon kill her.

But that didn't feel real. Death seemed impossible. She knew in her mind that the serum was fatal, but she couldn't feel it in her body, which was so full of energy and life. It was like carrying a time bomb inside her body, only she misheard the ticking of the bomb as the beating of her heart.

The crystal . . . focus on the crystal.
She trained her eyes on the glyph. The bottom part of it had a squarish shape with rounded corners and inside it a smaller square and two horizontal lines like dashes. On top of the main square were three vertical rectangles.

“They almost look like panels,” she said. “Or — what if the square was a man's face, with two lines for eyes . . . and the top part was a headdress?”

Suddenly, there was a tap at the window. Startled, Amy jumped up and whirled around, leg in the air and fists clenched, ready to defend against an attack. She was about to kick through the window when she saw a small, furry black creature crouched on the sill, staring at the nuts Atticus had left on the table.

“Relax, Amy,” Jake said. “It's just a howler monkey.”

Amy let her hands fall to her sides.
Breathe, breathe . . . 
The monkey knocked on the window again and hopped up and down as if it were laughing at her. She looked more closely at it. “Jake, that's not a howler monkey. It's a spider monkey.”

“What?”

“You can tell by the reddish fur on its upper body. Anyone who knew anything about the native fauna of Guatemala would see the difference easily.”

She heard the contempt in her voice and saw the flash of hurt surprise on Jake's face. “My mistake,” he said.

She opened her mouth to apologize, but another thought zipped through her brain.
He's smart, but he's not a Cahill, and he never will be. He'll never be able to keep up with me and Dan. Why doesn't he just take his little brother and go back to Rome?

“Amy, it's just a monkey,” Dan said.

“Just a monkey? Every detail matters! You know that as well as I do, Dan.”

Dan, Jake, and Atticus were all staring at her with worry on their faces. And fear. Amy felt a stab of pain at the sight of them. She wanted to melt into the floor and slip away like mercury. They loved her, all three of them. And she loved them. They were working themselves to the bone to save her life, and she couldn't keep herself from snapping at them. The contempt she'd felt drained away in a rush, replaced by remorse. “Jake, I'm sorry —”

Her phone buzzed — Nellie. Amy was grateful for the distraction. She transferred the call to her laptop so they could all see her and talk to her. Amy was still startled every time she saw Nellie with plain brown hair — no crazy colors, no neon skunk stripes. Yet although she looked shockingly different, she still sounded like the same old Nellie, which was more than Amy could say for herself.

“What's up, kiddos?” Nellie asked. “I've got some news. Pony confirms that Debi Ann Pierce is Deborah Starling.”

“Why didn't we know that before?” Amy asked, working hard to keep her voice calm and measured.

“Pierce had any connection to the names ‘Starling' or ‘Cahill' wiped from his Internet history,” Nellie explained.

“I thought that was impossible,” Atticus said.

“It's not easy,” Nellie said. “Pony says April May did it.”

“If she's still working for Pierce, it would explain the ambush,” Amy said.

“What ambush?” Nellie cried in alarm.

“They swarmed us when we went to find the riven crystal,” Amy explained.

“And Dan almost got killed,” Atticus added before Amy could shush him.

“What?” Nellie shrieked. “Dan, are you okay? Put your face close to the camera so I can see you clearly.”

Dan pushed his face at the camera on Amy's laptop. “I'm fine, Nellie. Don't worry. Amy saved my butt.”

“Don't worry? You were almost killed! What happened?”

Amy struggled with the warring impulses inside her. The slightest threat to her kiddos and Nellie went into battle mode. She'd done so much to protect them, made so many sacrifices. Amy felt protective of
her
now, wanting to spare her this blow. But Nellie deserved to know the truth. She needed to know.

“Calm down, Nellie,” Amy said, keeping her voice steady. Nellie had started pacing in front of the computer screen, unable to stand the suspense. “Pierce's men ambushed us in the jungle, and they tried to cut a zip line while Dan was on it —”

“Dangling over a river —” Dan put in.

“— but I rescued him, and we all got away safely. That's the good news.”

Nellie's eyes narrowed. “What's the bad news?”

Dan glanced at Amy, and she knew he was trying to postpone the inevitable, too. “I lost Olivia's book,” he confessed, stalling for time. “It fell out of my pocket while we were fighting the soldiers, and we can't find it.”

“Okay.” Nellie nodded. “Okay. Okay. That's bad. That's very bad, but as long as my two kiddos are safe . . .”

“It's not that simple,” Amy said. “Dan was — he was about to die. He was dangling over a river. He would have fallen and smashed against the rocks, if — if —”

Nellie stopped pacing. “If what?”

Dan looked at Amy. She shook her head. She couldn't do it.

“Spit it out, kids,” Nellie said.

“Amy took the serum.” Dan's shoulders hunched as he spoke. Amy could see the coil of anger and pain inside him tighten. “The original, undiluted serum. A full dose. That's how she had the strength to save me.”

Nellie blinked. “What are you talking about? How could Amy take the — ?”

“I had a vial of it,” Amy said. “Sammy made it for me.”

As the news sank in, Nellie's features contorted in pain. Amy knew she was watching her friend's heart break.

Nellie pressed her palms against her eyes, then dropped her head on the table in front of her. Finally, she lifted her head and wiped her eyes. “I am not going to let you die.” Her voice had grown fierce. “You won't die. All we need is the antidote. Did you get the crystal?”

Atticus frowned. “Still working on it.”

“Wait.” Amy hovered by Atticus's shoulder and looked at the glyph. From a slight distance she saw it differently — more clearly. “I know what those vertical rectangles remind me of. A mirror.”

Atticus tilted his head, studying the symbol. “A mirror?”

“You know, that three-way kind they have in store dressing rooms, or on a vanity table?”

The three boys were giving her blank looks, but on the computer screen Nellie perked up. “I know what you mean. The kind with three panels, so you can see yourself in front and from both sides at the same time.”

“Right!” Amy said. “Does that help you, Atticus?”

“A mirror . . .” Atticus picked up his laptop and started searching for something. “That sounds familiar.” A few minutes later he jotted something on the paper. For the first time all day, Atticus smiled.

“Amy, I think you cracked it.”

Washington, DC

“What this country needs is more democracy.” Pierce was standing in front of the Lincoln Memorial with his daughter, Cara, by his side, surrounded by a select group of US senators. He wasn't supposed to be giving a speech, but the press was there, so why not?

“And what does a democracy need to grow? Strong leadership.” Pierce patted the giant stone pedestal underneath the statue of Abraham Lincoln as senators nodded and clapped around him. “This country hasn't had a real leader in years. What we need is a true patriot — someone who understands that America comes first, and every other country should bow down to our power!”

Cara was amazed at the enthusiastic applause. How did her father get away with this stuff?

“Excuse me, Mr. Pierce.” One reporter waved a pen to get his attention. “Is that how you define democracy? It sounds more like a dictatorship to me.”

“You, madam, are not a patriot!” Pierce said with a dangerous smile. “Get that reporter's name,” he muttered to one of his bodyguards. “I'll see that she's fired.”

Whoa
, Cara thought.

Cara was used to her father's ruthless tactics — that's why he had a real shot of winning the election. But she'd never really stopped to think what would happen
after
he was sworn in. Who would be president? The nonstop charm machine the public saw? Or the J. Rutherford Pierce that only Cara, Galt, and their mother knew, a man who cared about power more than anything, more than his own family.

They finished their tour of the great monuments of Washington with a state dinner at the Capitol. While waiters served them roast beef and potatoes, Cara steered the conversation in a direction she knew her father would like: foreign policy. He had just been touring the capitals of Europe, making sure to act as boorishly American as possible wherever he went, and he had lots of funny stories to tell of uptight prime ministers looking like fools around a laid-back American.

Laid-back. Cara wanted to laugh. It was the last phrase she'd use to describe her father. But he'd become a genius at being whoever people wanted him to be. The perfect candidate.

“So I said to the chancellor, I said, ‘Well, Helmut, the problem with your country is you spend too darn much money on silly things like art. If you spent the money you give to the arts on your military, you wouldn't need to come crying to Uncle Sam every time some nut in a banana republic sneezes.' ”

The senators at the table laughed appreciatively, but one aide looked a little troubled. “It might be okay to joke around with our allies in Europe,” he said. “But what about someone like the president of Iran? How would you handle diplomacy with him?”

“Son, what you've got to understand is these leaders are people just like you and me. They can boast and bluster all they want, but if you show them you're not impressed and treat them like a good ol' boy, or
girl
,” Pierce added with a wink, “then you've got them eating out of your hand like a gerbil.”

What is with the wink?
Cara was annoyed. Then, as the table broke up laughing, she felt something bony knock against her shin, and the senator sitting next to Pierce cried, “Ow! Pierce, did you just kick me?”

It was quick, but Cara caught it — something she'd never seen on her father's face before. A flash of panic. It was gone so fast she thought she might have imagined it. But she hadn't imagined that her father had kicked both her and the senator under the table, and he couldn't have meant to.