Shatterproof (16 page)

Timbuktu wasn’t the only victim of desertification.

Dan was afraid he could feel his own soul turning to dust.

Erasmus sat in the Starcity Cinema watching
Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara
, or
You Won’t Get Life Again
. This was his third time seeing the comedy and he found it just as funny as the first time.

He grabbed a handful of popcorn from the bucket in his lap and wondered how many films he had seen in his life.

Hundreds. Maybe thousands. I should make a list.

When he was on the run with his mom, they went to the movies every day, no matter what city or country they were hiding in. The theaters were dark and safe, and the films took their minds off the fact that people were trying to kill them. Erasmus had honed his language skills in front of the big screen. He had wanted to grow up to be a film director. Then his mother was killed.

He felt tears fill his eyes. He could be a sap when he was watching a film he knew she would like.

His cell phone vibrated. He wiped his eyes with a greasy napkin, then slipped the phone out of his leather pocket.

The text was from a server at the restaurant inside the Orchid Hotel.

Erasmus got up and quickly exited the theater. As he made his way down the crowded street to his motorcycle, a second text arrived. It was from Hamilton.

We may have a problem.

Hamilton wasn’t much for words, which Erasmus liked, but he wished the boy had included a few more to describe what the problem was. He got on his motorcycle and gunned it, making it to the hotel in less than five minutes.

Hamilton was exactly where he had left him a few hours earlier, but there was no sign of Jonah.

Across the street at the Orchid were two police cars and a couple dozen young people brandishing camera phones.

“Where’s Jonah?” Erasmus asked, still straddling his motorcycle.

“Yo, dude,” a voice whispered behind him. “It wasn’t my fault!”

Erasmus turned his head. Jonah was peeking around the corner of a rather noxious overflowing dumpster. He had on fake glasses, a gaudy Hawaiian shirt, baggy Bermuda shorts, black socks, and sandals.

Erasmus cracked a grin. “You might as well have put on a neon sign that says
I’m trying not to look like Jonah Wizard
.”

“I think I might have made a mistake,” Jonah said miserably.

“You danced with a cobra,” Erasmus said.

“YouTube?”

Erasmus nodded.

“Sorry, dude.”

“You lasted longer than I thought.”

The police were clearing the crowd so a taxi could pull up to the entrance.

“Luna’s on the move,” Erasmus said. “That’s her taxi. When she gets into it, we’ll follow. Stay two car lengths behind me. There are more motorcycles than cars here so I don’t think she’ll notice us. But this could be a ruse of some kind. Luna might ride around in the taxi for a while and come right back here to see if anyone is tailing her.” The hotel doors pushed open. “Here she comes.”

The crowd didn’t pay the slightest attention to the little old lady climbing into the back of the taxi. Erasmus pulled out into traffic behind it.

Hamilton jumped on the rickshaw motorcycle and kicked it to life. Jonah crouched down and hobbled toward the rickshaw so he couldn’t be seen from across the street.

“Hurry up!” Hamilton yelled.

“Yo, dude, it’s my turn to drive!”

“Just jump in back or I’ll leave you behind.”

Their argument turned heads across the street.

A young girl gasped, turned bright red, and started hopping up and down and pointing. “Jonah Wizard!” she screamed.

The rickshaw was not nearly as fast as Erasmus’s motorcycle. Ham and Jonah wouldn’t have caught up at all if it hadn’t been for the snarled traffic on the freeway and Hamilton’s crazy driving. Jonah bounced around in the back, keeping an eye out behind him for oncoming fans, and on the cars in front of him for oncoming death. He tore off his ridiculous disguise and struggled into one of Ham the Giant’s tracksuits, which wasn’t easy in the backseat of a rickshaw.

So far they’d ditched the fans, but Jonah knew from experience that this could change in a split second. The fans were on their cell phones, calling friends and tweeting.
Jonah Wizard is headed west on Nehru Road in a motorcycle rickshaw! He’s being driven by a guy that looks like a marine wearing a powder blue tracksuit!

It wouldn’t be long before they were spotted by a driver or passenger. All it would take is one tweet, and the fans would converge from all directions like hungry locusts.

Hamilton was paying no attention to Jonah. He was focused intently on Erasmus weaving in and out of traffic in front of them. He had no idea which taxi Erasmus was even following — there were at least fifty on the road. After about a half an hour traffic started to thin out and Ham got a bead on the car they were tailing. Luna’s taxi exited the freeway, turned south toward Mahim Bay, snaked its way through several side streets, and finally came to a stop in front of a three-story warehouse. Erasmus pulled into an alley a half a block away. Hamilton turned in behind him.

“Stay out of sight,” Erasmus said. He crept up to the alley entrance and peeked around to look up the street. “She’s in the building. The taxi left. We’ll wait until it gets dark, then move in closer.”

Erasmus turned around to the two boys. “I think Luna’s led us to a Vesper safe house. It’s the first time I’ve ever found one.”

He took up a position at the end of the alley and watched the warehouse. Jonah and Hamilton sat in the rickshaw and watched him. An hour passed before Erasmus moved. For a big man he was very light on his feet.

“Dude moves like a puma,” Jonah said to Ham as they followed.

“Keep your voices down!” Erasmus whispered.

He led them to a stack of pallets directly across from the warehouse where they could watch without being seen. The third-floor lights were on, but they couldn’t spot anyone through the grimy windows.

“I thought Vespers were rich,” Hamilton said. “You’d think they could do better than this dump.”

“The building and location are exactly what I expected,” Erasmus corrected. “It doesn’t look like much, so no one thinks about it. I’d guess the lower floor is a legitimate business and the upper floors belong to the Vespers. The building’s old. They might have been operating out of it for hundreds of years. Did you see Mahim Fort when we drove in?”

“I was too busy keeping up with you,” Hamilton said.

“I was too busy trying to get my pants on,” Jonah said.

“It’s only a couple miles away. The fort was built in the fifteen hundreds. This warehouse is built out of the same stone.”

“You know what’s weird about this street?” Hamilton said.

Erasmus shook his head.

“No people.”

“Dude’s right,” Jonah said.

Erasmus said nothing.

The light went out on the third floor.

“Do you see the flashlight?” Erasmus asked, pointing at one of the windows.

“Do you think the building has more than one exit?” Hamilton asked.

“If it’s a Vesper stronghold, it will have a dozen exits.”

They saw a flash of light on the second level, then the first. Luna Amato came out the front door, looked up and down the street, then set off briskly walking north.

“Follow her,” Erasmus said. “See where she goes.”

“What about you?” Hamilton asked.

Erasmus flashed his grin. “I’m going to do a little breaking and entering.”

As Amy made her way to the second library, her phone chimed. She wasn’t the only one to hear it. Phones shot out of pockets all around her as people started chatting. She had a text from Erasmus.

Luna has led us to a Vesper stronghold. Do you want me to go in and check it out?

She had only one bar and one second to decide.

Yes.

The messages swooshed into the ether a moment before the signal vanished. The people around her moaned and cursed in frustration.

She walked into the library. Before she could even say hello, the man behind the desk spoke. “Let me guess — the ‘Apology for a Great Transgression.’ ”

“You’ve heard of it?”

“Not until an hour ago, when your friends came in here and asked about it.”

“Friends?” Amy asked. Dan and Atticus were on the other side of town.

“Perhaps I am jumping to conclusions. If so,
I
apologize. There are not a lot of young Americans in Timbuktu. I just assumed that you were associated.” The man’s eyes flashed. “And they were not friendly.”

“That doesn’t sound like my group,” Amy said. “What did they look like?”

“Blond. Blue-eyed. Twins — a man and a woman.”

Amy’s stomach dropped to her feet. “The Wyomings!”

The man shrugged. “They did not say where they were from.”

She ran frantically through the scenarios.
Did they arrive before or after us? How many libraries have they been to?
But it was the last question that tortured her.
If they find the ‘Apology’ first, what happens to the hostages?

“Did they tell you that the ‘Apology’ is in Latin?” she asked.

“Yes. Our collection is not nearly as extensive as Ahmed Baba’s, but ninety-five percent has been digitized. I have not read every manuscript, but I have certainly skimmed them. I did not see Latin in any of the margins.”