The Serpent's Curse (14 page)

I
am moving.

Again.

Sara knew this as the cushioned walls so tight around her tilted side to side, inclined up, then leveled out, and stopped. Her moment of clarity wouldn't last long.
They'll soon drug me again,
she thought,
and I'll be out another I-don't-know-how-many days.
She tried to think, to process. She'd read Terence's spy novels, his international thrillers. What could a kidnap victim do? What could a victim learn from her surroundings?

One thing was the conditions of the kidnapping. Here, there were elaborate measures taken, not only for her restraint but also for a kind of comfort. Her hands and feet were bound, and there was some kind of thick belt across her forehead, in addition to an impenetrable blindfold. She was gagged. But she also knew a tube was attached to a needle in her right arm. There was oxygen, pure and cool, being pumped into her nostrils. She was cushioned like an artifact in a box.

She was being cared for, if
cared for
could ever be the proper term.

Though the low pulse of an oxygen pump somewhere near her feet obscured most sound, her ears were open.
Listen!
She made herself still. Unless it was her own mind, she detected a murmur of voices nearby. Faint, almost like whispering. Then a whirring sound around her. And . . . bolts? One, two, three, four. Then the box jostled. Air—real air—swept over her face, her arms. The lid of her prison was open. Was it her keeper? The man with sunglasses, her handler from Bolivia?
Handle me, and I'll bite your arm—no, scream—no, both!
She couldn't, of course, do either.

“¿Está viva?”
a voice said.

Yes, I'm
viva
!
Sara snapped. Then she thought:
Spanish. Spanish, yes, but not the accent of Bolivia or even of New York. Spain? Am I in Spain?

A sharp poke in the arm. Sara screamed—tried to scream—but the pressure went straight into her brain like a magician's sword through his assistant in the box, and she was falling again. Quick. Remember.
Spain.

Roald! Darrell! I'm in Spain! RoaldDarrellRoaldDarrellWadeDarrell . . .

The lid of her prison crashed shut, and the roar of an engine thundered through the cushioned walls so tight around her, and . . . and . . .

London

S
eemingly within moments of Boris Volkov's thundering fall to the floor, the Promenade was invaded by squads of police and scurrying medical technicians.

In the chaos, Becca saw Uncle Roald sweep the envelope of documents from the table and subtly tuck it into his jacket pocket just before he was called away for questioning by several plainclothes policemen. Lily simply stood there, shaking her head, hands poised in the air as if not knowing what to do with them, her mouth gaping open, nothing coming out.

She's terrified to death! Boris spoke to her. Why?

Becca wrapped her fingers around Lily's wrist and pulled her gently to the far side of the room with the others. “Boris was telling us a lot. Too much,” she whispered. “Someone wanted him to stop talking, and stop him going with us.”

“That was no heart attack,” Darrell growled. “No way.”

Wade shoved his hands deep into his pockets. “Do you think we should try to find his flat? He practically told us where it was. Five floors, no elevator.”

Two police officers were standing in front of Roald now.

“Either Dad's waving to us or he's doing the code,” Darrell whispered. “Look. Five fingers. What's five fingers? Create a diversion? Like a food fight?”

“No, that's three fingers. Five fingers means get away from me,” said Wade. “Which I thought was just for us.”

“Apparently not,” said Becca. “He keeps doing it. We should leave.” Bowing her head, she urged them with the other guests toward the lobby just as the medical personnel loaded the giant man onto the gurney. It took three technicians plus two policemen, hissing at one another to make sure he didn't fall off it. It was horrifying to see the once-animated Russian hanging limply over the sides of the gurney. Tables and chairs squeaked and knocked as a handful of remaining customers pulled them aside to make way for Boris to be wheeled to the ambulance.

“Where are we going to go?” asked Lily, still shaking. “What are we even doing?”

“Look, Uncle Roald wants us out of here, and Wade's right,” said Becca. “Boris told us he only walks. So his flat is walking distance from the Dorchester. Lily, maybe we should check maps. Can you?”

“Maps?” she said, turning to her. “Are you thinking we should find his place? How are you thinking about anything?”

“I don't know, but he said his flat is on the fifth floor,” Becca said as they gathered under the hotel awning. “There's no elevator, remember? Plus, he said he never takes a car or a cab. He walked here. Boris was way out of shape, so it can't be far away.”

“His last words were
bird
and
cage
,” Darrell added.

“To me,” Lily said. “He was talking to me.”

“Plus, he gave me this,” Wade said, digging into his pocket. “I don't think it's a clue, though. I think . . . he just wanted us to have it?” He opened his palm. In it lay the blackened tooth of Boris's brother.

“Seriously?” said Darrell. “He gave you the tooth? Why did he give you the tooth?”

Wade shrugged nervously, then said, “I don't know, to keep us moving? To remind us of what the Order and Galina are capable of?”

Becca glanced through the doors and saw Roald sitting in the lobby now with one of the policemen, who was writing in a pad. “Your dad always does the dirty work,” she said. “Lily, the maps.”

“All right, already,” Lily said, finally coming back online. She flipped out her tablet and keyed in several words as she spoke them. “London. Five-floor building. Near Dorchester Hotel. Bird. Cage. No elevator.” After a few moments, she perked up in surprise. “That was easy, even for me. I guess the reason Boris was saying stuff to me was because I'm the tech brain of the family. A real estate site just gave me a couple of addresses on a street called”—she turned her tablet around for them to see the map—“Birdcage Walk. Twenty-four minutes from here on foot.”

Becca nodded. “Boris was telling us to go to his flat to find another clue. We can swing by his place before we head to our safe flat. Wade?”

They peeked in as Roald's face grew exasperated, one more policeman came over, and they all sat at another table. Roald caught the kids watching him and seemed to deliberately raise a single finger.
The Order is near—run.

“Whoa,” Wade said. “We'll text him later. Let's beat it!”

Following Lily's map, they doglegged quickly to Stanhope Gate, South Audley, Curzon Street, then to the quaintly named Half Moon Street and across a large park that practically connected to another park. Twenty minutes later, they arrived at the short, classy street known as Birdcage Walk.

Trying to determine which building might hold Boris's flat, they dismissed those that were offices or complexes that undoubtedly had elevators. That left a brief half block of older buildings. Each had a stately, crisp exterior, and all of them were set deep on bright green lawns closed in by tall wrought-iron fencing. The neighborhood appeared very exclusive. It was hard for Becca to think of rumpled, maybe-dead Boris living there, but then she remembered that he was staying in a flat owned by someone else.

“You know how I know when we're being followed?” Darrell said. “It's a gift, I understand, but someone's after us now. Whoever Dad warned us against must have followed us.”

They looked down the street in both directions and across to the park.

“No one,” said Lily. “Which to you only proves that someone is there.”

“You bet it does,” Darrell said. “We should definitely hurry this up and get back to the safe flat.”

“Right. So some of the buildings only have four floors,” Becca said. “That leaves seven houses old enough not to have elevators, and where the fifth floor is the top floor.”

They were the narrow-fronted row houses of the charming sort she had seen on the way from the airport, though now they were shrouded with the aura of a possible death. She didn't want to think about it, but Boris's fall, his great booming crash onto the table, kept playing in her head.

They spread out across the housefronts and knocked on the doors. What could have been a lengthy process of elimination was made unnecessary by a middle-aged woman who came to the door for Wade, the third door they'd tried. He called them over.

“The
Russian
fellow?” the woman said, a tiny dog nestled in her arms. She narrowed her eyes at them. “I don't
know
. I mean, I
know
him, of course.
Borrrris.
So does Benjy here, don't you,
Benjy
? You remember
Borrrris
.”

The dog started yapping and didn't stop for a full minute.

“Can you tell us where he lives?” asked Lily.

“Where he
lives
?” she said, her eyes squinting even more, if that was possible, and stepping back from the door. “Oh, I
could
tell you, dear. Certainly I
could
, but why, my dear,
that's
the question,
why
? He's not there, no, I
seen
him walk out of his flat just this
morning
. Cross the park. But I don't know as I should tell
you
where he lives, no, because, as I say,
why
?”

That stumped them. There was no reason why the woman should volunteer such information to random people who came looking for a neighbor. Until Darrell said the obvious.

“We know he's not here,” he said. “We were just with him across the park at the Dorchester Hotel for breakfast. And . . . but . . .”

He started to falter when Wade jumped in. “He left something behind that we need to return to him.”

“
Oh?
And what did Boris leave behind?” she asked, edging even farther back into the hallway.

“Show the lady,” said Lily, apparently guessing right away and nodding at his pocket.

Wade held up the black tooth. “This.”

“Oh,
goodness
!” the woman screamed, and Benjy growled. “That
awful
thing. He shows everyone. He'll be wanting
that
back for certain. Number Five, two doors over,” she said. “Top floor.
Mind
you don't trip on Boris's
bottles
!”

Two minutes after thanking her and petting Benjy to calm him down, they stood in front of Number Five Birdcage Walk. The building door was, happily, unlocked. They entered. The lobby was quiet. They ascended the stairs quickly. The top-floor landing was small, half the size of the others. The flat's door was closed. Wade tried the knob. That door was, unhappily, locked.

Wade and Darrell put their ears to the door as if it were a thing brothers normally do.

“We should just break it open before the cops come and seal it up,” said Darrell. “Cops always do that when there's a crime. Everywhere becomes a crime scene.” He stepped back and lifted his foot.

“So we're sure it's a crime?” said Lily. “Because I'm not a hundred percent sure. It could be a heart attack.”

“You should be sure. The restaurant was the scene of the crime,” Darrell said. “Now, stand back. . . .”

“Stop!” Becca said. “Boris said he carried no money, no wallet, no keys, remember? Well, if the door is locked, but he didn't have the door key, how did he get in? He must have left the key somewhere—”

“I can still kick it open,” said Darrell.

“Will you wait!” Lily snapped. “Becca's thinking.”

Becca scanned the landing. The only other door in sight was narrow, as if to a utility closet. She tried it. It was unlocked. Looking all around, she reached to the top of the closet's door frame and felt along the outside first. Nothing. Then the inside. She stopped. “Yes!” She pulled her hand away. She was holding a key.

Lily grinned. “Well, aren't you the genius.”

“I try.”

Becca inserted the key in Boris's door and turned it. The door inched open. It was small and cold inside. And dark. A petite table lamp sat on a desk inside the door. Lily tried the switch several times. There was no power.

“Maybe there's a coin box here,” Becca said. “I've read about them in novels. If the electricity is coin-operated, you can only use it if you pay for it. Boris was frugal. Or maybe he wasn't planning to stay very long. Anyone have change?”

Wade cast a quick look around and found a dish of coins sitting on the counter in the kitchenette, near the electric box. He pushed some coins into the slot, and several dim lights turned on.

The furniture in the three spare rooms was plain. The bed was unmade. The kitchen, such as it was, was a small nook off the living room. There was next to nothing of any personality about the place, except for one whole wall of Russian books.