The Viper's Nest

  “Winifred and I are old friends,” Robert said.

  From behind them, shouts rang out. Dan turned. The Tomas were flying out of the building, fanning out down the hill.

  Amy panicked. “Hide the box!” she cried out.

  “GO!” Mr. Bhekisisa yelled.

  The group stayed close to one another, leaping over bushes, slogging through mud. Dan clutched the box. No time to hide it. No time to think.

  They were totally outnumbered. “Dan,” Amy said, running alongside him. “We have to give it to them!”

  “Are you crazy?” Dan said.

  “It’s theirs, Dan!” Amy shot back. “We stole it! It’s not like the other clues. We took it from them. That makes us just as bad as they are.”

  “Children, run!” Professor Bardsley cried.

  Amy and Kurt took off at a sprint through the trees. Dan followed behind, looking left and right.

  Mondli had said there were hunting traps. But what kind of traps? Iron jaws? Suspended cages? And where were they, anyway?

  The map.

  Dan stopped short and swung open his backpack. He reached inside and pulled out a rolled-up sheet of paper.

  “Guys! STOP RIGHT NOW!”

  Amy and Kurt spun around at the sound of Dan’s voice. He was running toward them, his face red.

  “Did we lose them?” Professor Bardsley asked.

  “Just tell your people to stop!” Dan insisted.

  Professor Bardsley shouted to the others, who began turning curiously.

  Just ahead of them, visible through the trees, was a huge grassy clearing.

  “We have to stay out of this clearing at all costs,” Dan insisted, running past them until he was at the edges of the tree line.

  The others gathered behind him, staring at the sundrenched, oval field. “This may sound crazy,” Dan continued, “but trust me. We have to go around to the other side.”

  The students, looking skeptical, wound their way around the clearing to the other side. They huddled behind bushes, shrouded by the canopies of trees.

  “What’s going on?” Amy asked.

  Dan had that concentrated, intense look on his face, the one that in normal life said I’m waiting to see if Mindy Bluhdorn will notice that I put gum in her hair but now could mean anything.

  “Everybody, listen!” Dan blurted out. “The Tomas are heading toward us from the left, the north, through the woods. Start making noise — now!”

  “This is a strategy?” Professor Bardsley said.

  “Just do it — please!” Dan said.

  Amy looked at Nellie, whose face was ashen.

  One by one, they reluctantly did as Dan said. Shouting, singing, beating trees with fallen branches.

  Now Amy heard footsteps, voices. The Tomas were tromping through the woods. “Dan, come on, we can’t just stand here!” Amy shouted.

  The first Tomas broke through the trees. Among them was Mr. Malusi. Kurt stepped in front of Amy and began to nudge her back.

  “Well, well,” Mr. Malusi said, his face creasing into a tight, pained expression. “Daniel and Amy Cahill, I presume? I should have known. You didn’t seem to be cut of the Holt cloth. You pulled off quite a trick. Now all you need do is return the box.”

  Soon the upper edge of the clearing was filled with kick boxers, sword fighters, and guards. The entire Tomas compound began edging toward Professor Bardsley’s students, staying to the edge of the clearing.

  “I don’t believe this,” Dan whispered. “This part isn’t supposed to happen….”

  “What? Us dying?” Nellie said.

  “Them staying to the edge like that, not coming into the clearing.” Dan shouted over his shoulder, “Start singing! Spread out to the right and left!”

  “Excuse me?” Professor Bardsley said.

  “ ‘I’m with you and you’re with me’ — that one!” Dan said. “We need to throw them off. To get them to move into the clearing!”

  The students exchanged confused looks. But Kurt took a step forward, and in a voice deep and resonant, began singing:

  “I’m with you and you’re with me, and so we are all together, so we are all together, so we are all together….”

  The men and women crossed their arms over their chests, reaching for the hands of the singers on either side, to form a human chain. Their voices soared into the trees. As they sang, the stepped to the right in rhythm, along the perimeter of the clearing.

  “Sing with me, I’ll sing with you, and so we will sing together, as we march along! We are marching to Pretoria, Pretoria, Pretoria …”

  The Tomas stopped in their tracks, looking uneasily at each other. Amy had no idea what on earth her brother had in mind, but she was singing, too.

  “That’s it,” Dan said softly to Professor Bardsley. “Surround them on either side.”

  Bardsley looked at Dan as if he’d lost his mind. Then a sudden smile crept across his face. “You are a student of Shaka….”

  Dan nodded. “The buffalo horns — some of us remain as the body, and the others …”

  The students moved outward, into the trees, singing, enclosing the Tomas like a big fist.

  Mr. Malusi looked to both sides with a smile that was half confusion, half amusement.

  But the Tomas were angling their bodies, backing up, bunching … and slowly inching into the clearing.

  “I am in no mood for a musical interlude,” Mr. Malusi said. “And I am in no mood to attack stupid children. But you have seen the kind of training we do. And if you do not give me that box immediately, imagine what will happen!”

  Professor Bardsley’s people were closing in, arm in arm. All around Mr. Malusi, the Tomas were crowding in, waiting for orders.

  Dan took a deep breath and held the box tight. “Over my dead body,” he said.

  Mr. Malusi shrugged. “All right, Tomas … ATTACK!”

  “YEEEEEEAAAAAAAAHHHGH!”

  The voices caromed through the clearing, bloodthirsty and loud. Amy was shrieking behind him. The singing had stopped.

  And then, nothing. No sound at all.

  Dan could feel his arms shaking. His fingertips were numb around the box. But he was still holding it. Around the clearing, Professor Bardsley’s students had gathered, all of them staring downward.

  The Tomas were … gone.

  There are traps.

  Dan was shaking. “I — I don’t believe it worked …” he murmured.

  Where the grassy field had been was now a huge hole, at least ten feet deep and nearly the entire circumference of the clearing. From the bottom, among the throng of bruised and groaning Tomas heroes, Mr. Malusi lay dazed.

  “Dan, what did you just do?” Amy was pulling him from behind, shrieking.

  Numbly, Dan pulled out the rolled-up map. “Mr. Mondli gave us this. It’s a topographical map. It shows this humongous trap. I don’t know what they catch in here. Maybe rhinos.”

  Professor Bardsley was wiping his brow with a handkerchief. “Brilliant, my boy. I don’t know if we’d have made it without you!”

  “Without Shaka,” Dan corrected.

  Move the body forward, then let the horns form outward to the side. Squeeze your enemy.

  “The buffalo horn formation worked in battle,” Dan went on. “People still use the technique in wars. These guys weren’t going where we wanted them to. We needed to get them to move. I just thought we could … learn from history, I guess.”

  “Wait,” Nellie said. “Is that Dan Cahill talking?”

  The Tomas were lying below him in a vast pit, moaning, arguing, trying to scrabble up the nearly vertical sides. The students stood at the edge, singing another song in a foreign language with flowing harmonies. Professor Bardsley smiled. “French,” he said. “ ‘Mon coeur se recommande à vous.’ Orlando di Lasso. One of your grandmother’s favorites. And mine.”

  “The box, Dan,” Amy hissed. “Open the box!”

  Dan tried to yank the top off, but pieces of the cactuslik
e plant were still jammed into the crack.

  “Let me try,” Amy said, smacking the top. She pulled it open and broken plant roots spilled out. But even more had grown into the box through the crack. The insides seemed like one solid-packed tin of plant root.

  “Whoa,” said Dan, “it’s like tuna.”

  Kurt produced a pocketknife. “You may need this,” he said.

  Amy stabbed the knife into the roots, chipping them away. “There’s something in here,” she murmured.

  “Yeah, pressed cactus,” Dan said.

  “Not cactus.” Kurt smiled. “That is umhlaba, also known as inhlaba, a medicinal plant. You’d call it aloe. It helps with many ailments. It’s fairly unique to this part of the world.”

  “Dan, look!” Amy was pulling out a delicate piece of jewelry, a bracelet with gems that caught the sunlight, reflecting it in sharp pinpoints of light. She dropped the box and let the piece hang so it could be fully seen.

  A glittering arrangement spelled out SHAKA.

  “May I?” Professor Bardsley held the bracelet up to the light. He pulled out a small knife from his pocket and scratched one of the stones. “Dear God, those are diamonds. Do you know how much this is worth?”

  Dan reached out, running his fingers over the clear, cool stones. He recalled the words of the old man at the Shaka Museum in Durban:

  Churchill was obsessed with Shaka. That is why he traveled to South Africa. Not to report. Not to fight. To find out about the isipho.

  “Um, guys?” Dan said. “Do any of you know the word isipho?”

  “A Zulu word,” Professor Bardsley said. “It means gift.”

  Dan’s brain was swirling. Churchill had been on a mission. He was obsessed with the Tomas Clue. He had been jailed, had hidden in a mine — and none of that had stopped him. As the men walked ahead, Dan murmured to Amy and Nellie, “In his note, Churchill said he wanted the thing that was in the ground with Shaka — and remember what the guy at the museum said? He was after the isipho! This is the Tomas clue, Amy!”

  Diamond. The most magical of substances. Organic matter—plants, trees, animal remains — compressed by time and the earth’s weight into the hardest, most brilliant substance known.

  He held the bracelet to the sun, through the dappled cover of the trees. The diamonds had been hidden for who knew how long, and yet they shot back the sun’s light with a radiance that was nearly blinding.

  “We should have guessed,” Amy said, taking back the bracelet. “Wars, apartheid — all of it happened because of the diamonds in the soil.”

  “Everyone wanted it, and people were willing to kill to get it …” Dan said. “Sounds like the secret to the thirty-nine clues.”

  “You will pay for this,” Mr. Malusi’s voice called out from inside the pit. “You are thieves of identity and thieves of our property!”

  Amy wanted to throw something at him. She counted to ten and unclenched her teeth, holding tight to the bracelet. Taking it from Malusi would be the perfect revenge. But she realized something: She wasn’t sure if it rightfully belonged to the Tomas, but it sure wasn’t hers, either.

  Amy took a step forward. Kurt started to follow, but she motioned for him to stay and walked to the edge of the hole and looked down. “Um, about that shield you stole from the museum in Durban?”

  Mr. Malusi glared at her silently.

  “Maybe the Tomas still believe that one good turn deserves another,” she continued softly.

  The bracelet was beautiful, and valuable. But the hunt was about knowledge, not possession. She gave the bracelet a look, then tossed it down into the hole.

  “Amy, what are you doing?” Dan shouted.

  Nellie groaned. “That could have paid off my MasterCard!”

  Below her, the Tomas began falling over each other, clawing to get to the priceless diamonds. Mr. Malusi quickly became engulfed in a sea of grasping arms. “Stop! STOP—THAT IS AN ORDER!” he shouted.

  To the sounds of scrabbling and fighting, Amy turned her back and walked away.

  Karachi.

  The name had been in Amy’s mind for days, but it was now struggling for space against thoughts of an easy smile and a singing voice that gave her chills.

  Back in Sydney, while threatening to feed Amy to sharks, Isabel Kabra had listed the places Dan and Amy had been. For some reason, she’d included a place they’d never visited: Karachi, Pakistan.

  Amy had to accept that they were done in South Africa. Lingering any longer would be a mistake. The Holts were still out there, and angry. But that didn’t make it any easier to leave.

  “Let’s keep in touch,” Kurt had said before they’d parted. “I hope we meet again.”

  Amy hoped so, too. She couldn’t expect it, though. She couldn’t expect anything other than constant change.

  “Flight 796, Johannesburg to Karachi, will be boarding in ten minutes,” a voice echoed through the terminal.

  “Hey, gotta go,” Dan said.

  Amy hugged Professor Bardsley. “Thanks for your help.”

  “Yeah, and the tunes you let me upload onto my iPod,” Nellie said unenthusiastically. “Can’t wait to listen to Renaissance church music.”

  “I suppose,” Professor Bardsley said, “I cannot convince you to remain.”

  “Sorry,” Amy said sadly. Professor Bardsley had been kind to them. He had driven the Yugo all the way back to Johannesburg, allowing Nellie, Dan, and Amy to sleep. He had found food for Saladin, helped book the flights, and even offered to pay. “We know how you feel about the thirty-nine clues, Professor Bardsley. But we have to continue. We were given a challenge, and we have to see it through.”

  “By grace,” he murmured. His face crinkled, and he gave a small wink.

  Amy wasn’t expecting that response. “Grace …?”

  “She was a remarkable, lovely, generous woman,” Professor Bardsley said.

  “You knew her?” Amy said.

  “Did she know everyone in South Africa?” Dan said.

  Professor Bardsley nodded, smiling. “Grace had many friends here. Does this surprise you?”

  Amy smiled. Bardsley had a long history with the 39 Clues and the Tomas. He knew Winifred Thembeka. Of course it made sense that he’d known Grace. “Let’s stay in contact, Professor.”

  “Godspeed,” he replied.

  She, Dan, and Nellie turned to the security line. It was quicker than they expected. After passing through the scanner, they followed the sign for the boarding gates, but a man with a mustache gestured toward a motor cart. “This way, please,” he said.

  “No, thanks,” Amy replied. “We’ll walk.”

  The man moved closer. “This way.”

  “Just give him some baksheesh and tell him to go away,” Dan murmured.

  “Wrong country, dude,” Nellie said.

  The man stepped quickly in Dan’s path. In his right hand was a small knife.

  “What the —?” Dan looked around frantically.

  Behind him, Nellie drew in a breath. “Better do what he says. Now.”

  Amy trembled. She and Dan climbed into the back of the cart as Nellie took the front passenger seat. The man sped away from the gates, driving out a back door and across a tarmac. Small craft buzzed overhead and cargo carriers rolled by.

  Soon they raced around the corner of a hangar. If the coast was clear, they could make a run for it.

  Dan poked Amy. She eyed him and nodded ever so slightly. The driver swerved around the building.

  Suddenly, Dan felt a bag come down over his head. “Hey!” he shouted.

  Amy and Nellie were screaming. Dan tried to stand, but his arms were yanked behind him. He felt a coarse rope tightening around his wrists and a gag around his mouth.

  In moments, he was being shoved from behind. They were walking on concrete. A rush of wind lifted his shirttail as a low-flying plane passed.

  He felt himself being pushed through a door. Then two hands were shoving him downward, into a chair. On either sid
e of him, he could hear Amy and Nellie grunting against the gags.

  “One … two … three … all present.” The voice felt like a scrape of acid down Dan’s back. “Let’s be civilized about this, shall we?”

  The bag was pulled up over his head, and he was staring into the face of Isabel Kabra.

  “Diamond,” Isabel Kabra said, filing her fingernails and looking out of place in a molded plastic chair. “You came to South Africa and discovered the clue was diamond. Aren’t they clever, children?”

  “Hope it wasn’t too … erm, hard for you,” Natalie said, snickering.

  “A pity you had to strain yourselves,” Ian continued, “when we could have easily told you.”

  The mustached man squatted behind Amy, Dan, and Nellie, tying their legs to the chair. Isabel, Ian, and Natalie faced them across the cement floor of a storage shed. Shelves were crammed with cans, boxes, tools, and parts. Behind Ian’s head was a huge, dented propeller lying sideways on a machine with a fan belt.

  Amy pulled at her restraints. Isabel knew about the Clue. Somehow she’d tracked them down. But Amy was no longer surprised at Isabel. No longer scared. At this point, all she wanted to do was one thing.

  Get her.

  “How did you know? Dan sputtered. “This was a Tomas clue!”

  “Churchill was a Lucian, dear,” Isabel said with a chortle. “He found the Tomas clue a hundred years ago. Did you really think we wouldn’t know?”

  “Indeed,” Ian piped up. “Well put, Mother.”

  She shot him a glance and he shut up.

  “So … if you know it already,” Nellie said, “why are we here?”

  “I missed you, darlings,” Isabel replied. “Ever since our awful little tête-à-tête with the sharks, Amy—for which I apologize — I’ve had a bit of a reawakening. I’ve been wondering about your health.”

  “You didn’t seem too concerned about it when you set that fire, you animal!” Amy said.

  Dan glared at her, his face rigid with fear.

  But Isabel just shook her head sadly. “Animal. This is a strong word for someone who murdered Irina Spasky.”

  “Me — murder?—it was YOU!” Amy shouted.