In Too Deep - 39 Clues 06 (11 page)

"Especially back then," Amy agreed.

Amy plugged in "Robert Cahill," "1890s," and "Darwin." Another stream of information came up.

She read down the list. "This isn't working, I'm getting all these references to Charles Darwin ... wait a second ..." Suddenly, Amy sat up straight. "This has got to b
e it! I have his name! It's… "

CHAPTER 18

"Robert Cahill Henderson," Isabel repeated into the cell phone. "Got it."She turned around to talk to the others in the backseat.

They'd left Coober Pedy at high speed, but she'd pulled off the road in order to take the call she'd been waiting for."It's about time somebody did something right. The Lucian stronghold used their mother computer to analyze all known Ekaterinas from 1840 to 1900.

The computer had a match for Coober Pedy and Cahill.

Apparently, even mute crazy fools have to use their real name on a mining claim. Robert Cahill Henderson is our man."

"So where do we go next?" Natalie asked, flipping her long silky hair over her shoulder. "I hope it's someplace with good shopping. Dubai?" she asked hopefully."Jakarta," her mother said."Where is that?" Natalie said, crashing back against the seat.

"It doesn't sound glamorous."

"Why am I paying for your education?" Isabel asked. "Jakarta is on Java.

Henderson took passage from there on a ship called the Lady Anne to Sydney in 1883." Isabel eyed Irina.

"What's your problemski, comrade? Are you worried about little Dan and Amy? They seem to have nine lives.

They survived. A little scare will keep them on their toes."Irina said nothing. At her feet was the empty jar and box that the Fixer had delivered to Isabel.

Isabel had whistled as she'd carried it herself to the private plane she'd hired to take them to Coober Pedy. She'd also arranged for a Hummer to be driven up from Adelaide.

Irina hadn't known what was in the box until Isabel had opened it. Isabel had smiled as she shook out the jar of deadly spiders.

She'd planned on releasing them into the Cahills' hotel room, but this was better still. Right down the shaft onto their heads! Isabel had also handled the snake easily.

Not a drop of perspiration on her brow as she flipped the latch and grabbed him from behind, wearing the heavy gloves. She had enjoyed it.

Enjoyed being close to so much deadly terror."I want you to keep track of the Cahill brats while I take Ian and Natalie with me. Report in on their movements. If by some slim chance they're on their way to Java, delay them. I'm tired of them in my hair."

"And then?" Irina asked."And then what?" Is
abel asked irritably. She was
checking her lipstick in the rearview mirror, and she tilted it to look at Irina."They aren't going away for long," Irina said. "We have seen their tenacity.

What are your ultimate plans for them?"Isabel shrugged. "I haven't thought that far ahead. I'm concentrating on this clue.

We could even find all thirty-nine clues -- can you imagine that, children? -- because we're almost one hundred percent sure that Robert Cahill Henderson had most, if not all, of them. Amy and Dan will be immaterial.

They'll be dust. Not worth dealing with." Isabel played with the gold charms on her bracelet, then turned her attention to her fingernails.

Irina watched Isabel's
careless indifference, as though her manicure was the most important thing in the world. She knew Isabel too well and for too long. It was true she cared deeply about nail polish. But she also cared deeply about getting rid of dust.

Isabel had used some of her best tricks to scare them away. Soon she would unleash her rage. Irina could feel it building.

This has been a long road, she thought. No
w, I can finally see the end.

CHAPTER 19

"Robert Cahill Henderson was a brilliant chemist," Amy said, reading rapidly.

"He was also engaged to a cousin of Queen Victoria.

He was a champion of Darwin's theories. That's why the search engine came up with so many hits. This is fascinating...."

"Yeah. Wake me up when it's over," Dan said. He lay stretched out on one of the twin beds in Ken's spare room. He glanced over at the closet. "Are we sure they caught the snake?"

"We're sure. Anyway, one day he suddenly broke his engagement -- which was a huge deal in those days -- and took off for the South Seas.

He said he was going to do further study on Darwin's theories. But he wasn't a naturalist, he was a chemist," Amy added thoughtfully. "So that's strange."

"Whatevs," Dan said with a yawn. "When does the fascinating part come?"

"He made his way around the islands of Indonesia until settling on one t
o conduct experiments. He was
believed to have perished in the eruption of Krakatau in 1883."

"Krak-a-wa?"

"Krakatau," Amy said. "It was a huge volcanic explosion.

Actually, a series of explosions. The mountain basically imploded, and then came these huge tsunamis that killed about thirty-six thousand people. They heard the noise of the final explosion all the way in Australia. The dust cloud that came afterward gave spectacular sunsets even in the United States."

"Now you're getting to the cool part.""That's it! The upside-down ice cream cone!" Amy said excitedly. "It was a volcano! He was drawing Krakatau. But why did he suddenly leave his fiancee and go to Indonesia? There has to be a reason."

"Sure," Dan said. "He was one smart dude. Get married or go lie on a beach. No contest. Even with the volcano, the dude was ahead."

"So he must have been in the vicinity of Krakatau when it blew. He barely escaped with his life," Amy said. "He got to Sydney somehow. And Cahills and Madrigals have been looking for him ever since. Why?"If you found something, it belongs to all of us. If you keep it, you are thieves. Simple as that.

It was the strangest thing. Dan's face was in front of her, but she had been gone, for just a moment. Standing in her nightgown, listening to the grown-
ups."Earth to Amy," Dan said.

She didn't fall asleep until the people left. She heard the front door shut. She looked out to make sure they were really gone. But they stood in a little knot right under her window.

She raised it slightly so she could look at them again. All she could see was the top of their heads."Get some nerve," the beautiful lady said.

"We have our answer. They traced him to Australia. This has to be taken care of tonight."Her fault."Amy? You're wigging."

Dan peered at her. "Seriously, are you okay?"She looked at her brother. At his pale face, the way he was worried about her but trying not to be. The asthma attack had taken so much out of him, but he was pretending it hadn't. She could see the exhaustion in the dark circles under his eyes."I'm fine," she said."So, what's next, space shot?" Dan asked.

"Back to Sydney?"She cleared her throat. Her voice sounded rusty to her ears. "Darwin. We have to keep following their footsteps."* * *

On the plane the next morning, Amy settled back into the seat and opened the biography of Amelia Earhart she'd borrowed from Shep.

She didn't know what she was looking for, so she leafed through the book,140reading various passages, while Nellie zoned out with her earbuds and Dan made his way through a package of chicken-flavored potato crisps.

A good night's sleep had restored him to his usual ravenous self."Dan, listen to this," she called. "In 1935, when Amelia was in Hawaii, she consulted with a noted volcanologist!"

"Fascinating!" Dan said, ripping open a Violet Crumble."Don't you see? She could have been gathering information about Krakatau, even then," Amy said.

Dan closed his eyes and gave a huge pretend snore. Amy sighed and took out the pages she'd downloaded from the Internet and printed out on Ken's printer.

She read through accounts of the original explosion. Occasionally, she'd read out an interesting fact to Dan, even though he had taken all his wrappers, balled them up, and was pretending to shoot baskets with them. Then she read a story that made her sit up. She read it slowly again. "Dan!"

"Swish! Another three-pointer!"Amy threw a pillow at him.

"DAN! Listen to this. During the day of the eruption, a ship heading for Batavia -- that was the name for Jakarta then -- got into trouble.

They ran into this huge cloud of ash, and then all this pumice-- volcanic rock--started to rain on the deck. So the captain pulled into a harbor miles away. They never made it to port, they had to turn around. But get th
is -- the cargo was wolfram."

Dan sat up straight. "Wolfram? That's tungsten, one of the clues."

"Not only that, the captain mentions that they had all these myrrh plants on deck.

And the pumice and ash was raining down, so he had to order the crew to take it all below. What are the odds of a ship carrying both tungsten and myrrh?"

"They were bringing clues. Probably to Henderson, right?"

"It must have been! He was assembling clues!" Amy cried. "That's it! He was a scientist, so he was working on some kind of formula. Maybe that's why trying to find him is so crucial -- why all the branches are looking. He set up some sort of lab...." Amy smacked her chair.

"On Krakatau! That's it! He had to order stuff to be delivered. And then when Krakatau blew... the lab was destroyed. He must have gotten caught in the tsunami... but he survived."

"So the only thing left... was in his head," Dan said. "And he was nuts."Amy nodded, remembering the crazy obsessive writing in the mine.

"I bet we're right that he was an Ekat. He attacked Mark Twain, so he can't be a Janus. And Isabel doesn't seem to know much about him, so he can't be a Lucian. He sure didn't look like a Tomas."Dan frowned.

"We know that a Lucian-- Constantine of Russia -- had found most of the clues early in the nineteenth century. It seems like two of the branches were getting pretty close back then."142Amy tapped the papers. "You know what else is in here? The island of Java is part of this whole area of volcanoes in the Pacific called the Ring of Fire. RCH wasn't talking about opals. He was talking about Java. That's where we have to go next!"* * *

Nellie took over the piloting and Shep came back to stretch out in one of the seats. He blinked when Amy and Dan mentioned Jakarta.

"I said I'd do anything for you, and I will, but my plane doesn't have the range," he said. "I'd guess it's about sixteen or seventeen hundred miles. You'll be better with a commercial flight. Plenty of those from Darwin. I've got a satellite phone
-
I can set you up right from here."

Shep hesitated. "I trust Nellie to take care of you. But is there any chance you can pass on Java? Danger seems to be tailing you guys -- that, or some incredible bad luck.

You could hang out with me for awhile. Not that I'm a father figure or anything ... just a surfing bum. Can't you not
do ... whatever it is that you won't tell me you're doing?"

Amy blinked back sudden tears. "We'd be honored to hang with a surfing bum like you." She swallowed hard.

"But we have to do this."

Shep held her gaze for a minute. Then he nodded.

"I never tried to talk Artie out of anything, either."While Shep made arrangements, Amy looked down. They were flying over red
earth and tall cliffs, a dark
blue river snaking through a canyon. It was spectacularly beautiful."Katherine Gorge,"

Shep told her, hanging up. "There are some amazing sights here in the Top End."

"I wish ..." Amy said. She didn't complete the thought. The next time I go around the world, it would be nice to actually see it."I've got you on a flight leaving about an hour after we arrive," Shep said.

"It's going to be tight, but I know the airport. We can swing it." He looked at Amy and Dan. "Things will be hectic when we get there, so it seems like a good time to tell you that if you ever need anything from me, it's yours. I won't fail you guys again."

"Thanks," Amy said. "And you didn't fail us.""You helped us when someone else would have screamed and run," Dan said. "Cousins for life."

"And one more thing," Shep said.

"So far I've been chased off my favorite beach, almost crashed into on a runway, almost killed in a mine, and had to entertain the biggest bore in Coober Pedy in a pub for two hours.

Not to mention that I've grown fond of you three. So out with it.

The truth. I think I deserve to know. What's really going on? And leave out the aliens."Amy and Dan looked at each other.

"Okay," Amy said, blowing out a breath. "Our grandmother Grace left a will that gave us a choice between a million dollars and a hunt to find thirty-nine clues, which, wh
en we put them together, will
make us the most powerful people in the world.

So we chose the hunt. Along with various assorted horrible Cahill relatives, all of whom have tried to kill us at one time or another."

Shep sighed. "If you don't want to tell me, I guess that's up to you."* * *