Dan frowned. “I wish we could translate some of this writing.”
“Uncle Alistair knows Chinese,” Amy mused.
“No way!” Dan was adamant. “I’m never trusting that guy again! We know he was with Mom and Dad the night Isabel set the fire!”
Amy tried to choose her words carefully. “You know, Dan, I’ve been thinking about something that won’t go away.”
Dan was alarmed. “I don’t like that look on your face. It usually means I have to do research on Mozart or Howard Carter or some other boring dead guy.”
“Be serious,” she chided gently. “There’s something pretty big we have to face up to.” She took a deep breath. “Mom and Dad were Madrigals. Did it ever occur to you that the fire had something to do with that?”
Dan was wide-eyed. “You don’t think they helped Isabel burn their own house down!”
“Of course not. But who knows what kind of weird stuff a couple of Madrigals could have been into? We look at the other teams as the bad guys. But what if, back then, that’s how the rest of the family saw Mom and Dad? A couple of loose cannons who had to be stopped?”
Dan was horrified. “You’re saying they died because they had it coming?”
“Not exactly that, but—”
“You are! That’s exactly what you’re saying!” Dan reddened. “This clue hunt has turned your brains to cole slaw! That’s our parents you’re talking about! How can you even consider it?”
“You think it’s easy for me?” Amy shot back. “You were four when they died. You barely remember them.”
“You don’t own their memory!” Dan shot back. “Not even a four-year-old forgets when the fire chief tells him his parents are never coming back. If I close my eyes, I can still see the guy! He has a mustache and a big ring on his finger, and he’s showing Grace what’s left of that copper sculpture, the one with the bug on it!”
“Bug?”
“That’s exactly what he said!” Dan insisted. “You know how things stick in my mind! I’d bet my life on it!”
“And you remember seeing a bug?” Amy probed.
“No. Only hearing the words. The bug must have burned up in the fire.”
“Then how would the fire chief know about it?”
Dan stared at her. “Ask him!”
“Don’t you see?” Amy demanded. “He wasn’t talking about an insect. It must have been a listening device! Our house was bugged — by Isabel, probably.”
“So what?” Dan argued. “She burned the place to the ground with two people inside! She’s sick! Planting a bug would be kid stuff!”
“The point is that our memories of our parents are so distant we can’t rely on them,” Amy said in a choked voice. “If a bug can turn out to be a listening device, there’s no telling how much we got confused. Did we really know Mom and Dad? They were up to their necks in the thirty-nine clues; we had no idea. They were Madrigals, and even today, we don’t understand how bad that could be. Face it, Dan. We never knew them.”
Dan was so angry that his face radiated heat. “Speak for yourself! I know them just fine! I know they were great people! I know they didn’t deserve to die young! And I know they definitely didn’t deserve to have a daughter like you trashing their memory!”
“In Africa it’s the memory of two serial killers! Down there, people would be relieved to know they’re dead, and — and—” Her voice cracked.
He stuck out his chin, daring her to say it. “And what?”
“And maybe we should be, too,” Amy blurted.
In that instant, Dan Cahill knew what it was to be a booster rocket — white-hot combustion converting to pure motion, thrusting you forward. He launched himself at her, fists balled, ready to fight. But at the point of attack, he found he couldn’t hit her, couldn’t even yell at her. All he could do was run away.
“Come back!” she cried anxiously.
At last he found words, the only three he could bring himself to utter to the sister he no longer knew. “I hate you!”
He bumped into a tourist focusing a camera, sidestepped, kept on going. Anything to put distance between himself and Amy.
Her voice was distant now. “Don’t get lost! Nellie will be here in twenty minutes!”
Lost! he seethed. Amy was the one who was lost. If you spent enough time hanging around Cahills, eventually you ended up just like them. What a sorry bunch, squabbling over who was going to rule the world by out-backstabbing the backstabbers! And now Amy was right up there with the worst of them.
How could she say stuff like that? They had so little of their parents — barely more than a few fading recollections — a kiss, a touch, a burst of laughter. Amy was tarnishing all that. And for what? The Clue hunt!
I’ve got to get off this treadmill before it makes a traitor of me, too! I quit!
The sheer gravity of the decision brought him up short. He and his sister had nearly gotten killed for this contest. They had given up two million dollars to be a part of it. It was a chance to shape human history — to become the most powerful Cahills of all time!
Cahill, shmahill! I’ve already had enough of the Cahills to last a thousand centuries. I wish my name was Finkelstein! I’m out!
Could you do that? Could a guy just secede from the Cahill family? Leaving the Clue hunt would be easy. All he had to do was stop searching. But he’d always be a Cahill. The family knew it. Isabel Kabra knew it — he’d never be free of the danger from his crazy relatives.
He stumbled across the square, slaloming around classes of children on field trips, business people on break, senior citizens doing calisthenics and tai chi, tourists, and small patrols of police and military. The chatter of conversation was everywhere, much of it on cell phones, which everyone seemed to have. For the first time since arriving in China, he really had a sense of being at the center of the busiest, most populated nation on earth.
A plan — that was it. He needed a post—39 Clues plan. He’d gone straight from his regular life to Grace’s funeral to the contest. What was next? Aunt Beatrice? Not an option. The US Embassy? No good, that just led to Aunt Beatrice. Amy?
I’ll never forgive her for what she said!
He turned back to glare at her, but his view of Amy was obstructed by a wedding party crossing the square. Instead of a rented limo, the bride and groom rode in old-fashioned sedan chairs, sliding doors drawn.
What’s a Boston kid doing in this bizarre, alien place, ten thousand miles from Fenway?
Disoriented as he was, he had to admit this was the best way to travel in Beijing — carried around by bearers who toted you, unjostled, through the crowds in Tiananmen Square. The first chair brushed by close enough for Dan to see the grain in the painted wood. The second stopped directly in front of him. He stared in amazement as the sliding panel was swept aside.
It happened so fast that it was all over by the time Dan had the chance to register any alarm. Two strong arms reached out and hauled him inside. Then his captor jumped down to the square, slammed the door shut, and joined the bearers who were carrying the chair. Before Dan could protest, he was hoisted up and moving quickly.
“Hey!” Desperately, Dan worked at the slider, but it was locked in place. He pounded on the wooden panel. “Let me out!”
No one paid any attention. In fact, he seemed to be gathering speed, jolted along as the bearers broke into a run. A horn honked; traffic noise. They were out of the square, moving along the city streets.
Dan pressed his back against the side of the compartment and kicked frantically at the closed slider. The chair shook, but the panel held firm. He got up to a crouch and slammed his shoulder against the wall. Pain stabbed through his upper body. He fought through it, pounding ever harder. There were shouts of agitation from the bearers, but their distress never even slowed them down.
For the first time, Dan’s determination to escape gave way to fear.
I’m being kidnapped!
CHAPTER 6
A minute
ago, he’d been so furious with Amy that their argument had filled his every thought. Now, in the blink of an eye, the entire world had changed.
He resumed his struggle, banging and shouting. He couldn’t blast his way out, but the fuss he was kicking up might attract someone’s attention — maybe even a cop’s.
After ten minutes of it, he was sweat-soaked and exhausted — so much so that he almost didn’t notice when the sedan chair stopped and was lowered to ground level. A new plan formed in Dan’s mind. The instant that door opened, somebody was going to get a memorable kick in the head. And while the guy was picking up his teeth, Dan would be out of there and gone.
There was a clicking sound as the panel was unlocked. He tensed, ready for action. His foot was already coming forward as the slider eased open.
There was no one to kick. Instead, he was looking at the interior of a van. Suddenly, the sedan chair tilted, and he was dumped into the cargo bay. The van’s door shut, and the vehicle screeched away, burning rubber.
Enraged, Dan managed to get to his knees for the first glimpse of his captors.
“Is that you, or is the air pollution in Beijing as bad as they say?” sniffed Natalie Kabra.
Dan drew in a shocked breath. Natalie’s olive skin was darker than her mother’s, but the two shared the same chiseled features — classic beauty camouflaging merciless, piercing eyes. In the case of Isabel, the eyes of a murderer.
Natalie and her older brother, Ian, peered disdainfully back at him over the cargo partition. Dan looked around anxiously — no Isabel, at least, not in the van. The only other occupant was on a jump seat in the rear with Dan — a huge man, obviously the Kabras’ hired goon.
Dan wasn’t going to give his Lucian cousins the satisfaction of knowing he was scared. “No limo today?” he sneered. “What, you maxed out your credit cards in Africa?”
Ian turned to the driver. “Stop short.”
The man slammed on the brakes, and the van bucked to a halt, sending Dan flying into the cargo partition. He came up stunned, lip swelling.
“So Alistair was right,” Dan groaned. “You guys are in China.”
“We’re everywhere,” Natalie purred. “And rest assured we’re always several steps ahead of you two charity cases and your freakish babysitter.”
“Au pair,” Dan corrected automatically.
“Yes, we’re in China,” Ian said impatiently. “And so are you. Now explain to me what you were doing inside that temple in the Forbidden City.”
“Don’t know what you’re talking about,” Dan mumbled stubbornly.
Ian nodded agreeably. “I thought that might be your answer. This is the part where Mr. Chen helps you remember.”
With the smile of a man who enjoys his work, the goon reached out, grabbed Dan by the collar, and hoisted him in the air.
“Okay, okay!” Dan gave in. What was the point of taking a beating? Amy had the silk, so it was safe from these vultures. Besides, Dan was out of the contest. He didn’t care if he never saw another Clue in his life. “Yeah, I broke into the temple because there was a Janus crest on the outside wall.”
“And what did you find?” Natalie probed, voice silky, expression ruthless.
“Crickets,” Dan replied. “About forty billion of them. Ugly suckers — like you two.”
“Anything else?” Ian demanded with a gesture at Mr. Chen.
The goon twisted Dan’s arm in a hammerlock and applied subtle pressure. The pain was unlike anything Dan had ever experienced before. It was a shattering agony that erased all thoughts but one: Make this stop.
Still, he held back. If they know about the silk, that’ll sic them on Amy….
Angry as he was with his sister, he couldn’t do that to her.
“Tell us the truth!” Ian ordered, his composure slightly broken.
“Calm down,” Natalie soothed. “No one can resist Mr. Chen’s built-in lie detector test.”
“What do you know about the Holts?” Ian persisted.
Dan saw no harm in replying. “Uncle Alistair’s all freaked out about them. He says they’ve found a lead none of the rest of us have.”
“What lead?” Ian fairly exploded.
His sister was patient. “If he knew, then obviously it wouldn’t be a lead that nobody else has.”
“Hilarious,” Ian muttered. “It won’t be so funny if we lose to those gorillas! Can you imagine a world with them in charge?”
Natalie sighed her agreement. “I guess we’ll have to search the urchin just in case. And me without my flea powder …”
But besides an inhaler, a few bills from three different continents, and a dead cricket, there was nothing to be found.
Mr. Chen placed a chloroform-soaked handkerchief over Dan’s nose and mouth. Dan held his breath and put up a struggle, but a sharp chemical smell, somewhere between hospital antiseptic and rubbing alcohol, penetrated his defenses. His vision began to darken around the edges as the interior of the van receded from him.
“Can’t …” He tried to claw back, but it was no use. He was falling.
“Nighty-night,” Natalie whispered.
Dan’s last thought before blackness claimed him: I never realized how much she sounds like her mother.
Saladin was munching contentedly on a shrimp dumpling when Nellie carried him through Tiananmen Square to the appointed meeting place in front of the Gate of Heavenly Peace.
She spotted Amy and marched right up to her. “I got us a pretty good hotel right off the main drag — which I can’t pronounce. It isn’t luxe, but the chef in the restaurant is kind of cute. And he makes a bird’s nest soup to die for.” She looked around. “Where’s Dan?”
Amy’s expression was tragic. “Gone.”
“What do you mean ‘gone’? Gone where?”
Amy shrugged miserably. “We had a big fight and he took off.”
Nellie sighed tolerantly. “Save me from these Cahills! Bad enough your whole family is in a perpetual state of warfare; you have to start something up with your brother.”
“Sorry,” Amy mumbled. She had to hold herself back from spilling the beans about the argument she’d had with Dan. Not that it would change anything, but the idea that someone else knew might help her feel a little less alone.
And yet — how would she even begin to describe it? The feelings about Mom and Dad were just too personal and too painful. Aside from a few dusty memories, all they had of their parents was the belief that Hope and Arthur had been good. To lose that—
No wonder Dan couldn’t handle it.
Her words came back to haunt her. She had suggested they should be glad their parents were dead.
Harsh. True or not, it was a cruel thing to say. Madrigal cruel.
This is my fault. I drove him away.
She swallowed hard. “He wouldn’t go far, right?”
“Let’s search the square,” Nellie decided.
They did — for two solid hours. Dan was nowhere to be found.
“I’ll kill him!” Amy threatened. “He’s doing this on purpose just to make me nuts!”
Nellie’s face was whitening steadily as she scanned the crowd. “Where can he be?”
“Mrrp,” put in Saladin pointedly.
The au pair regarded the cat with annoyance. “How can you think of food at a time like this? Dan’s missing.”
“Never underestimate Dan’s capacity to disappear just to be a rotten kid,” Amy put in.
Nellie was more serious. “I don’t think so. He has no Chinese money, no clothes to change into, no place to sleep — he doesn’t even have his laptop, and you know how much he loves that. I have to admit I’m worried.”
“Animals have a good sense of smell,” Amy suggested. “Maybe Saladin can be like a bloodhound.” She took the belt from her jeans and looped it through the cat’s collar, forming a makeshift leash. Then she took out the silk that had been inside Dan’s shirt and held it to the cat’s nose. “Come on, Saladin. Find Dan.”
Nell
ie sat Saladin on the pavement, and the Egyptian Mau took off across the square. He was moving so fast that the girls had to run to keep up with him.
“Good boy!” Amy urged. “He’s on the scent!”
They drew a lot of curious glances — two Westerners scrambling behind a cat on a leash. The threesome left Tiananmen Square and headed east on Dong Chang’an Jie. That was where Saladin’s destination became clear. He led them straight to a sidewalk food vendor selling dumplings. There, he took his place in line behind the current customer, waiting his turn.
Nellie clucked disapprovingly. “For a cat, you’re a pretty big pig.”
“Mrrp!”
At last, Amy was able to step back from her short-term irritation and see the big picture.
Something’s happened to Dan.
CHAPTER 7
The headache came first, and it was awful — a pounding behind his right eye that would not quit. The whole room seemed to thrum in rhythm with his pain — or, wait! Maybe it was his pain thrumming with the room. What was that noise?
And why was his bed moving?
He sat up with a start and very nearly toppled off the conveyor belt to the factory floor forty feet below.
What the—
It all came back to him — being kidnapped, interrogated, and chloroformed by the Kabras. They must have dumped him here — in one of the factories that made China the industrial engine of the entire world!
He took stock of the situation. Behind him and in front of him on the belt were large sheets of multicolored plastic. About ten yards ahead, the pieces were being dropped into a hopper that fed a gigantic stamping machine beneath it. The closer he got, the louder the noise, until it threatened to jar loose his molars.
All remaining grogginess disappeared in a heartbeat.
I’m going to get stamped into the door-crasher special at Walmart!
The only way off the conveyor belt was a four-story drop. And there was no point in yelling for help. No one could possibly hear him over the general din. He had to find a way to stop this belt!