“’Sup, Attleboro-o-o-o?” came a loud stadium cheer from the monitor. Despite the fact that the image was mostly cap, sunglasses, chains, and radiant smile, there was no mistaking the face of world-famous rap artist Jonah Wizard. “Yo, my homeys, listen up — okay, my boy Hamburger and me? We’re waiting here in Roma so long I’m afraid my cover is going to stop working. Do you know how hard it is to hide from fans in a country where my sales are through the roof?”
Jake paused for a moment, startled. He turned briefly to the screen, giving Amy just enough time to dart between him and the door.
On-screen, someone was bumping Jonah from the side.
Despite his muscle-packed, two-hundred-pound physique, Hamilton Holt had a hard time jostling Jonah for screen time. “Sorry, dude, but it’s grub time and I’m wasting away. What Jonah means to say is, we were supposed to meet Erasmus, but he didn’t show up.”
“You guys are related to Jonah Wizard?” Jake asked, his lip curled disdainfully.
“And the other guy,” Dan grumbled. “Vin Diesel’s stunt double.”
Jonah pushed his way into view again. “Yo, also? My man, Mac and Cheese? He didn’t show up, either.”
“He means McIntyre,” Hamilton clarified. “Is this a lawyer thing, to miss meetings?”
“That’s not like him,” Sinead replied. “Or Erasmus.”
“Did you say McIntyre?” Jake said. “As in William McIntyre?”
“You know him?” Jonah asked. “Skinny guy, a little dusty, nose like a screwdriver, kind of boring?”
“Yeah, I know him,” Jake replied. “He’s my dad’s lawyer. And he’s tough. Anything happens to Atticus, I will get him to sue you blind.”
Amy took a deep breath. McIntyre was their confidant and friend, the man who set the hunt for the 39 Clues in motion. He had been there in the background, watching over them, like the eyes and ears of their late grandmother Grace. Painfully formal, he was the last person in the world who’d appreciate being called Mac and Cheese.
He was also the last person who would ever sue Dan and Amy.
“Sit, Jake,” she said firmly. “This is more complicated than you think.”
Dan shut the bedroom door quietly behind him. No more noise.
Enough of Jake’s anger. Enough thinking about what happened to Atticus. One more moment and he would split apart.
He needed hope. Now.
He pulled his phone out of his pocket and checked his most recent text:
Suspend judgment. The whole story is always more complex than its parts. Wait.
AJT
The words made his blood race. The sight of those initials: AJT. The initials of his long-dead father. Arthur Josiah Trent.
Dan had only known him by the stories Amy told. By a blurry face in a tattered photograph he’d lost in the Paris Métro. AJT had died in a fire nine years ago. A fire that consumed his house and both of Dan’s parents.
When this message came in, Amy had scoffed. It could be anyone. Which was logical.
But life was not ruled by logic. If the 39 Clues had taught Dan one thing, that was it. Sometimes good was bad, sometimes dead was alive.
Dan poised his thumbs over the keypad. There were so many questions he could ask to prove the ID.
Then, if AJT did prove to be real, Dan could ask him . . . well, everything. Whether Erasmus’s tale was true — that Dad had been recruited by the Vespers as a young man. That Dad had renounced them, married Mom, and become a Cahill. He could find out how Dad had miraculously survived the fire.
But Dan’s thumbs were frozen. The truth terrified him. Either way.
If AJT wasn’t his dad, hope would be completely lost. Somehow, if you didn’t know the truth, the possibility stayed alive.
But if he was, how could Dan adjust to his father coming back to life? Could he forgive the lack of contact? What kind of man would let his own son think he was dead for nine years?
And how could Dan deal with a father who was a Vesper?
Suspend judgment. . . .
Dan’s eyes filled with tears. Images raced through his mind — helicopter blades cutting the cable of the gondola in Zermatt. The sight of Nellie, bloody and pale. The boat chase that had nearly killed them on Lake Como, and the halon gas in the library in Prague.
“Suspend judgment for what?” he murmured under his breath. “For nearly allowing your own kids to die?”
No. He couldn’t complete this circuit.
He tossed the phone into a corner. It bounced harmlessly on the rug. That was exactly how he felt — harmless. Powerless. Tiny. Confused.
He was tired of being the helpless kid. The victim. The chased. The lackey for a voiceless Vesper. When would it stop? Why could they never be on top — why was it that he never scared anyone?
It doesn’t have to be this way. . . .
Numbers and symbols spilled from his memory — a complex set of ingredients and precise formulas. It was the life’s work of their ancestor, Gideon Cahill. A formula thought to have been destroyed in 1507, discovered in a cave in Ireland, and now known only by Dan. It granted superhuman abilities. Strength to overcome any attack. Speed to move great distances. Intelligence to outthink an army.
With it, every decision was clear. Every enemy was doomed.
Every mystery yielded to utter clarity.
Cheyenne and Casper Wyoming wouldn’t stand a chance. The mystery of AJT would be resolved.
Dan wouldn’t wonder if he had a father. He would know. He would know whether he was the one thing he wanted to be, more than anything else.
A son.
A son to the most detestable man in the world.
Twenty-six more ingredients. That’s what he needed. He had thirteen of the difficult ones already — myrrh from a Chinese herbalist, iron solute and a solution containing tungsten ions from a machine shop, amber from a jeweler, iodine from a pharmacy, and a bunch of stuff from various chemical suppliers: mercury, liquid gold, zinc, magnesium, phosphorus, sulfur, calcium carbonate, and soluble silver in the form of silver nitrate. Some of the others, like water, clover, salt, and cocoa, would be easy.
“Dan, what are you doing?” Amy’s voice suddenly called from the doorway.
Dan jumped. “Come on in, the door’s open, thanks for knocking.”
“I wanted to talk about Jake,” she said softly.
“Oh, great,” Dan grumbled. “Mr. Congeniality.”
“He’s so angry all the time. I can’t bring myself to show him the text from . . .” Amy’s eyes locked on the phone, resting on the carpet. Its screen glowed with the text from AJT. She sighed.
Dan scowled. “Here comes the lecture.”
She sat on the floor next to him. “Dan, Dad was a Cahill. Through and through. Even if he wasn’t born one. I wish you could remember his eyes. When you were little, he’d hold you up to everyone and say —”
“‘Moon face,’ yeah, I know, you told me a billion times,” Dan said.
“You both would flash this big, identical grin,” Amy said. “Mom said you were twins separated by a generation. The man wasn’t capable of evil. His life was not a lie. If you really knew him, you’d never say the names Vesper and Arthur Trent in the same breath.”
“People lie, Amy,” Dan protested. “People pretend —”
“Dan, there were two bodies in the fire,” Amy insisted. “No one could have lived through that. Besides, if he were alive, he’d be with us. He wouldn’t have stayed away from the Clue hunt. He would have led it.”
Dan spun around. “The bodies were burned beyond recognition. They could have been anybody. Uncle Alistair survived a cave collapse, Amy! Cahills do things like that. And if Dad tried to save Mom, then watched her burn to death — in a fire set by her own family? Because Isabel Kabra thought they wer
e hiding one of the thirty-nine clues? You think he’d just be a happy Cahill after that?”
Amy’s face drained of color. “What are you saying, Dan?”
“Remember Grace’s note — the one we found after discovering the secret to the clues?” Dan said. “She said the Cahill family was broken. Untrustworthy. Isabel set the fire, and no one helped out — the Holts, Uncle Alistair, none of them. I’m saying Dad would have seen them for what they are. Murderers.”
Amy’s face darkened. “So you think he went over to the dark side, just like that?”
“He would have seen it the opposite way, Amy,” Dan said. “The dark side was what he left.”
Amy reared back her hand to slap Dan. He reeled in shock.
Before she could move, a beep sounded from Dan’s smartphone.
They both froze.
Dan stooped to pick up the phone and noticed a blinking icon across the top of the screen. A GPS signal. He opened the app and saw a signal moving across a map of western Europe. Its origin was RUZYNE AIRPORT, PRAGUE. It was moving east.
Along the bottom was the name A. ROSEMBLOOM.
“Wake up and smell the limestone,” said Cheyenne Wyoming, yanking the blindfold from Atticus’s face.
He blinked. On the plane, hours earlier, he had lined up his worst fears — torture, plane crash, poisoning, being shoved out at thirty thousand feet.
Waking up at Site Number Seven on his Cool World Travel Wish List would not have been anywhere near the top.
Awestruck, he stared into a scene of lopsided, cone-shaped mountains, like giant castles made of dripping wet sand. “We’re in Göreme, Turkey?” he said, his voice still froggy from a forced sleep.
“You’re familiar with this dump?” Cheyenne said.
“In actuality,” Atticus said, “it’s one of the most interesting geological formations on the planet. If I weren’t with you, I’d be running around like, woo-hoo —”
Casper pushed him hard. Atticus stumbled forward, his sleepy eyes focusing. His brain suddenly connected with something that had been dulled by sleep.
His terror.
Bread truck. Sack. Handcuffs. Jet. It all rushed back.
They had knocked him out on the plane. Cheyenne insisted on it. She was afraid he’d get sick.
He glanced around for a way to escape. He was no longer handcuffed, but there was nowhere to run. It looked as if they were in a vast moonscape, the monstrous rock formations casting deep shadows in the afternoon sun. He’d seen photos, but in person they were much bigger — like giant rock fingers poked through with enormous holes. Caves.
They were heading toward the largest rock, shaped like a sinking ship. At its base, an ominous- looking sign had been tied to a trash can:
Atticus rubbed his eyes, recalling his years of online language tutorials. “Wait, that’s Turkish,” he murmured. “And it means ‘Danger: Collapsed Cave.’”
“Don’t believe everything you read,” Cheyenne said.
She shoved him in before he could protest. He hit his head and had to duck low to fit through. His ankle twisted as it landed between two wooden planks, rotted and termite-eaten. Cheyenne scampered on ahead, waving a flashlight.
“I can’t see!” Atticus said.
“Casper, where are you?” Cheyenne called over her shoulder.
“Emptying my pockets.” Another flashlight beam, behind Atticus, began illuminating the planks. “A trash can outside. All the convenience of home.”
Atticus stumbled along, his head scraping the low ceiling. “Wh-where are you taking me?”
“To a place where we can talk in private.” Cheyenne stopped short. She gestured into a corner of the cave, sweeping aside a thick spiderweb. “Go.”
Atticus peered into the pitch darkness. The cave seemed to end there, a tiny, dank chamber big enough for one person. Nothing beyond. Just a cranny in a cave where a dead body could rot and no one would ever see it.
Cheyenne pushed him in. As his back hit the cragged wall, she and her brother crowded close to him. A light blinked on above, bathing them all in a greenish white glow. “Unrecognized DNA,” a mechanical voice droned.
“Allow access!” Casper called out.
A series of beeps was followed by “Voice recognition accepted.”
The ground rumbled. With a loud scraping noise, the floor beneath their feet began to move. They were on a circular platform, slowly sinking.
“No!” Atticus reached for the lip of the floor, but Casper batted his arms away. Bright lights flickered on below their feet, and soon the cramped, stinking cave gave way to a vast underground chamber.
The place was freezing. Enormous maps spanned the walls. A news ticker scrolled headlines near the ceiling. A bank of clocks ticked in unison, telling time in different parts of the world to the thousandth of a second. Brushed-steel cabinets lined the walls near empty computer workstations, their black, webbed chairs gathering dust.
The platform reached the chamber floor with a dull thump. Casper grabbed a chair. “Make yourself at home.”
Atticus sank into the chair, sending up a small cloud of wispy dust. His throat was dry. He had to swallow twice before he could eke out a sound. “What am I supposed to do?”
Cheyenne pulled a handkerchief from her bag and dusted off two seats. The twins sat. “Tell us what you know.”
“About what?” Atticus asked.
Cheyenne glanced at her brother, rolling her eyes. “The genius thinks he’s too smart for us nincompoops.”
“About being a Guardian!” Casper exploded, lunging forward.
Atticus screamed. His leg dug reflexively into the floor, propelling the chair backward. He crashed against a computer table, the impact knocking the wind out of him.
Casper cracked up. “Brave kid.”
“I suggest cutting to the chase,” Cheyenne said, looking brightly around the room. “No one can hear you in here. No one knows where you are. You will not leave until you answer. And you will not live if you don’t.”
“I don’t know anything!” Atticus insisted. “I told you! My mom was dying. She said I was a Guardian. She said we were enemies of you guys. The Vespers. She said you were after some secret. It was all in fragments — I can barely remember.”
Casper grinned. He stood slowly and sauntered to the wall. There, he opened a cabinet door. “Maybe we can change that,” he said.
Inside were a series of long knives. Casper pulled one out, a thin blade that made a high-pitched shhhhink.
Atticus felt the blood rush from his head. For a moment he could see only white spots. The room around him seemed to shrink, its frigid temperature warming, the walls rushing in, everything decaying into a tiny trap. . . .
His brain flashed an image of the tiny room at the airport. A men’s room. A tiny can.
Germ Away.
“I know! I mean, I don’t know!” he blurted, words propelling through his mouth before he could think. “That is, in actuality, I don’t know the information. In my head. But I have it. All of it. That’s how we Guardians do it. Even though we’re, like, nerds and geniuses, all we know is the inscription.”
Casper cocked his head. “The what?”
“Encryption!” Atticus said.
Slow down. Think.
Casper came closer, casually sliding the blade along his fingernail and shaving off a thin slice as if it were butter. “Go on. . . .”
“It . . . it’s a precaution,” he said. “To avoid hypnosis. And torture. And truth serums. We just know the key sequence, that’s all. So we can decrypt it.”
Casper flung the blade’s tip forward, sending a fingernail into Atticus’s face. “What. Exactly. Is it. That you decrypt?”
“It’s all in my flash drive!” Atticus said.
C
heyenne looked dismayed. “The one I smashed under my foot at the airport?”
“No!” Atticus shot back. “Another one. Hidden on my key chain.”
Casper’s face darkened. He lifted the blade carefully over his head. Then, with gritted teeth, he hurled the knife at Atticus.
Atticus screamed and ducked. The blade tore through the fabric of the seat and impaled itself into the table behind.
“That’s for making me have to go and get that stupid key chain,” Casper said. “I threw it in the trash can outside. It was ruining the hang of my pants.”
As he left, Cheyenne walked over to the bank of clocks. She stopped near one that said EASTERN STANDARD TIME, US, which read 7:02 A.M.
“This is Boston time, set precisely by the atomic clock,” she said. “All your little friends are waking up and getting ready for school. In a half hour, at seven thirty-two, they will be running for the school bus. And you, halfway across the world, will have decrypted your flash drive and given us all your supposed information.”
Atticus was shaking too hard to agree.
A half hour?
Even if he could make contact — with anyone — a half hour was not enough time. “I — I — m-m —”
“Chill out,” Cheyenne said. “You’re among friends.”
“I may need more time,” Atticus blurted out. “I need to . . . write code.”
“It’s a fast computer,” Cheyenne drawled.
“But I’m a human,” Atticus said. “Not even Mark Zuckerberg can code that fast!”
Cheyenne walked to the table where the knife was lodged. She yanked it out and held it toward the light. “Well, then . . . epic fail.”
“I don’t care about pecs, lats, or smelts,” said Natalie Kabra. “I am boycotting push-ups.”
“Smelts are fish,” said Reagan Holt, who was conducting a workout with Ted Starling, Phoenix Wizard, Alistair Oh, and Fiske Cahill in a dank cell. “What you meant to say was — I want GOOD push-ups, people . . . thirteen . . . fourteen — what you meant was delts. As in deltoid muscles. Seventeen . . . eighteen.”