The 39 Clues [Cahills vs. Vespers] 05 - Trust No One (9 page)

“A NAP?!” Atticus yelled. “What do you think I am, a three-year-old?”

They were outside the Beinecke once again, after having left the reading area and retrieved their backpacks. On the way out, they had passed two guard stations, as well as the one at the building’s entrance.

“Shh,” Amy said and led them to a bench.

“What was all that in there, anyway?” Dan said angrily.

“I couldn’t very well yell ‘Abort, abort!’ with Dr. James standing there, could I?” Amy said. “I had to figure out a way to tell you
not
to steal the manuscript.”

“I guessed that’s what you were doing,” Jake said. “And anyway, there were all those guards and they were inspecting everyone’s coats and bags. We’d never have gotten away with it.”

“But a NAP?” Atticus was still outraged. “Couldn’t you have thought of something else?”

“Sorry,” Amy said. “I just said the first thing that came to me.”

“Why did you call it off?” Dan said. “There might have been something in the manuscript that would tell us where seventy-four is!”

Amy shook her head. “Look. Dr. James and the Beinecke people — they’ve had the manuscript for years. They’ve examined it every which way possible. If there was anything in it that pointed to the missing pages, don’t you think they’d have figured it out?”

“So why would the Vespers send us here?” Jake asked.

“To see it. So we’d have an idea what we’re looking for. I’m not sure, of course, but that’s my best bet. The Vespers always know exactly what they want from us, and in this case, it’s not the whole manuscript — it’s Folio Seventy-four.”

Dan refused to be swayed. “I still think —”

“Jake? Atticus? Is that you?”

All four heads turned in the direction of the voice. Across the plaza, they saw someone approaching them.

Atticus couldn’t see the man clearly yet. Beside him, Jake rose to his feet.

“Hey, guys!” The man’s face broke into a grin and he trotted the last few yards.

“Dave!” Atticus let out a huge sigh of relief.

“He was one of my mom’s research assistants,”Jake explained. “Dave, this is Amy and Dan.”

They exchanged greetings, then Dave noogied Atticus’s hair. “How are ya, kid?”

“I’m good,” Atticus said. “What are you doing here?”

“Working,” Dave said. “In the classics department.” Then his face grew solemn. “I know I’ve said it before, but I’m really sorry, guys. Your mom was a great lady. I miss her.”

I do, too,
Atticus thought, but it seemed too obvious to say. Then his mind went back to the day his mother died. Dave had been at the house. Atticus, Jake, and their dad had taken turns sitting by her bed.

Astrid had been delirious for several days before her death. Tossing restlessly, wringing the sheets and her hands, her eyes open but unseeing. It had been so hard to see her that way. . . .

And she had mumbled a lot. Mostly streams of incomprehensible syllables, but occasionally a few words. Atticus had tried desperately to understand, responding to her as if they were having a normal conversation in the hope of breaking through her delirium.

Already his recollection of her mumblings had helped them once, and he had been meaning to search his memory again. Somehow he hadn’t gotten around to it, and he knew why: It was too painful.

But seeing Dave brought it all back — the hours that were endless because of seeing her suffer, and at the same time, much too short because they were her last. Her words may have been mostly nonsense, but they were his final memory of her.

The Mad King . . . something about guardians . . . stay friends with Dan . . .

And there had been more.

Missing . . . voyage . . . where . . . LaCher . . .

Voyage?

Not voyage —
Voynich
! She was saying ‘Voynich’!

Atticus was thinking so hard that he held his breath, as if any activity other than recollection would take away his ability to remember his mother’s words.

“You okay, bud?”

Atticus blinked. Dave was staring at him, looking concerned.

But it wasn’t just concern. Atticus frowned. There was something else in Dave’s expression, something sharper and less kindly than concern . . . or was he imagining things?

I’m just paranoid over this whole Vesper thing.

“I’m fine,” he said. “Sorry — I was thinking about Mom.”

Dave nodded. “So, what are you up to? Is your dad here, too?”

“No,” Jake said. “We’re, um, just here with our friends.”

“Dave,” Atticus said suddenly, “do you know a friend of Mom’s named LaCher?”

“Sure,” Dave said. “LaCher Siffright.”

Siffright — again?

“Siffright?” Dan said. “That’s —” He stopped for a moment, then went on, “That’s a funny name.”

“She’s a medievalist — at Brown, I think,” Dave said. “Tall, blond hair . . . Why do you ask?”

“No reason,” Atticus said, aware of how lame that sounded.
Quick — think of something else!
“I mean, I was just trying to remember all Mom’s friends. I thought maybe — maybe I’d write and ask if they have any pictures of her.”

There, that’s better. Pretty convincing, if I say so myself. Besides, it’s a good idea — I should do it for real.

“Want me to track her down for you?” Dave asked.

“That’s okay,” Jake said. “I’m sure Dad has her address somewhere.”

Dave took out his phone. “Sorry, just thought of something.” He took a polite step back, punched in a quick text message, then put the phone away.

“Can I buy you all lunch?” He smiled at Atticus. “Do you still like peanut butter on your tuna-fish sandwich?”

Amy looked at her watch. “That’s nice of you, but I’m afraid we need to get going,” she said.

Dave glanced at Amy’s wrist. “Cool watch,” he said. “Okay, I’ll get back to work, then. Say hi to your dad for me. And take care, both of you.”

Atticus waited until Dave was out of sight. Then he turned to the group and said, “I know what we need to do next.”

Ted could sense the heaviness of the depression in the room. He and the other hostages had staked everything on the escape attempt. Now that they had been recaptured, they had nothing left.

It was quiet, with only the occasional sounds of Nellie and Natalie moving about as they attended to Alistair. Nellie should have been a patient herself: During the escape attempt, she had been attacked by the Vespers’ dogs.

But Alistair was worse off. He had lost a lot of blood from the deep gash in his leg, which had been cut on a sharp rock as he was trying — unsuccessfully — to keep Phoenix from going over the edge of a cliff.

The wound had gone septic. Alistair had a high fever, and the girls were using up some of their precious water ration to soak rags and place them on his body in an effort to get his temperature down.

Ted could have told them it was no use. The combination of Alistair’s advanced years and his weakened constitution left him defenseless. Ted could already smell it — the putrid odor of the infection snaking inexorably through Alistair’s system.

Then he heard an odd noise like rapid drumming, followed by Nellie’s panicked voice.

“Quick! Turn him on his side!”

Natalie’s voice: “Oh, my God, what’s happening?”

“He’s having a seizure —”

The noise was Alistair’s feet beating uncontrollably against the floor. The drumming sound slowed, then stopped as the seizure ended.

“Alistair? Alistair, it’s Nellie. Can you hear me?”

Ted heard the slow, strained gasp of Alistair’s lungs pulling desperately for air.

“Brave,” Alistair croaked. “Amy . . . Dan . . . all of you.”

“Alistair!” The anguish in Nellie’s voice made Ted flinch.

“Help him!” Natalie’s scream bounced off the walls. “Somebody, please! Hurry!”

Ted heard another long, terrible breath that made his scalp tingle and the rest of his body shudder. To him, the sound was as bad as what everyone else was seeing.

Maybe worse.

The silence that followed was absolute.

“Here’s what I’m thinking,” Atticus said. “We need to —”

Amy’s phone sounded with the tone she had programmed for Vesper One’s calls. It was a text alerting them to an incoming video transmission. Quickly, Dan got out his laptop so they could see the video on a full screen.

The transmission came through as a Skype call. On the screen they saw Nellie, live, her eyes filled with fury even as tears spilled out of them.

“Amy and Dan? Bad news here. Really bad.” Pause. Sniffle.

Amy held her breath.

Nellie looked pale and haggard. She cut her eyes to one side, glancing at something or someone else. After a few moments, she looked straight on again. It seemed to Amy that she was receiving silent cues about what she could and couldn’t say on camera.

“He was already so weak, and then he got a cut on his leg. It got infected. And the infection spread really fast. There was nothing we could do. . . .”

Her voice caught; she cleared her throat. “He was thinking of you at the end. He said, ‘Brave, Amy and Dan and all of you.’ And then —”

Nellie lowered her head and sobbed, unable to speak for a few moments. Then she wiped her eyes and looked into the camera.

“He’s gone, kiddos. Uncle Alistair’s gone.”

For a moment, Amy’s vision was blotted out by the black anger that engulfed her whole being. Grief would come later, she knew; for now, she could only feel rage.

“I KNOW YOU CAN HEAR ME!” she screamed at the computer. “I thought you at least had SOME sense of honor — in your sick, twisted way! HOW COULD YOU DO THIS?”

The image of Nellie’s face blipped out and was replaced by the program’s placeholder icon. Vesper One’s words were creepily robotic, filtered through an electronic voice distorter.

“You have forty-eight hours left.” The call disconnected. Dan cursed — not loud, but fiercely. Amy put a hand on his shoulder and felt him trembling with grief and rage.

Amy put her other hand to her neck and deliberately scraped the small powder burn with her fingernail. For some stupid reason she wanted to feel physical pain . . . to match the anguish in her heart.

It hurt. A lot.

“Atticus,” Jake said quietly. “Let’s go to the car.”

Amy gave Jake a look of gratitude, but he had already turned away.

Dan was leaning forward as he sat on the bench, head down, elbows on his knees, picking aimlessly at a loose thread in his jeans. He spoke without looking at her. “Nellie said that he said our names at the end. And ‘brave.’ Do you think he meant ‘Be brave,’ or that he thinks we
are
brave?” He didn’t wait for her to answer. “Both, I bet. Pretty cool of him.”

Yes. Yes, but —

Amy closed her eyes against the heat of her tears. “Dan,” she whispered, “I don’t think I can do this anymore.”

Dan was silent for a few moments. “I know,” he said at last. “It’s — it’s awful. But, Amy —”

She could feel him shifting his weight, leaning toward her, so she opened her eyes and looked at him.

“Two things. First, it’s not like we have a choice,” he said. “I mean, what are you gonna do — just give up and abandon the hostages? And second, remember what you told Ham, about how Erasmus and Phoenix would have wanted us to keep going? It’s not just something you said to make Jonah feel better. It’s the truth.”