The Emperor's Code
He jumped up and ran against the direction of the conveyor. Every time he came to a sheet of plastic, he crammed it under the belt, hoping to disrupt its operation. There was no result at first, but he refused to despair. This giant machine was never going to run out of plastic. And he was never going to run out of energy to use it to jam the conveyor.
Not unless I want a one-way trip through the guts of that machine!
When he felt the first wobble, he was so encouraged that he found the strength to speed up his efforts. The burning rubber smell came next, and soon he had to watch his footing on the pitching belt. Smoke began to surround him, and the automatic sprinkler system came on. A moment later, the conveyor ground to a halt, and the stamping machine fell silent.
A hooray died in Dan’s throat as dozens of factory workers began scaling a system of catwalks toward his position.
Now that the belt had stopped, he could see that the only other way down was on the stamping machine itself. A system of grips and ladders for maintenance workers traced a route up its steel flank. He ran to the end of the belt and swung himself down to a metal ring. From there, it was like the rock wall at the community center back in Massachusetts — a simple matter of finding the right handholds and footholds.
As he jumped to the floor, he nearly tripped over a pallet piled high with the factory’s finished product — a mechanical lollipop holder with a figure as its base. All this equipment, all these workers, this giant manufacturing complex, for lollipops. Sheesh.
He picked one up and almost swallowed his tongue. The figure was none other than his Cahill cousin Jonah Wizard, reality TV star, hip-hop mogul, and rival in the Clue hunt. Jonah’s smirking face routinely appeared on posters, magazines, action figures, Pez dispensers, lunch boxes, and now motorized lollipop holders. There was no escaping the guy.
He pressed a small button on the base. The candy twirled, and Jonah’s tinny voice announced, “What’s happening, yo?”
Those recorded words turned out to be Dan’s undoing. A very agitated foreman grabbed him by the arm. In a few seconds, he was surrounded by a small army of irate factory workers, all yelling at him in Chinese.
He took a lick of the lollipop and tried to look like a passing tourist. “Mmm — grape. My favorite.”
The foreman switched to heavily accented English. “What you do, boy? You break everything!”
“Check out the conveyor up top,” Dan advised. “The belt got a little jammed. Happens a lot, right?”
“Never happens!” thundered the foreman. “You spoil perfect record on day of very important visitor!”
“What’s happening, yo?” came Jonah Wizard’s voice again.
Dan stared at the lollipop holder in his hand. He hadn’t pressed the button….
The angry crowd melted away and went to surround the newcomer.
Dan goggled. It was the real Jonah Wizard, live and in person, touring the factory where his lollipops were made. No wonder the Kabras had dumped Dan here. It was a message not just to Dan, but to Jonah, too. He recalled Natalie’s words: We’re everywhere….
The hip-hop star’s eyes widened when he spotted Dan. A half step behind him, his ever-present father began composing an e-mail on his BlackBerry.
“Mr. Wizard!” the foreman exclaimed. “Thousand apologies! Worthless boy break machine—”
“Chill, man.” Jonah somehow managed to imbue his street lingo with an easygoing, almost folksy simplicity. The world’s first down-home hip-hop star. “The kid’s my cousin. I told him to meet me here. My fault.”
Dan’s eyes narrowed even as he sighed with relief. The last time he and Amy had seen Jonah, the creep had marooned them on a crocodile-infested island in the middle of the Nile.
“Where’s your sis and the nanny?” Jonah asked.
“Au pair,” Dan corrected. “We got — separated.”
Jonah shrugged. “It’s all good. Chinese TV gave us a limo to use while we’re in town. I’ll have the driver give you a ride back to your hotel.” He noted the anxious flush on Dan’s cheeks. “I get it. You’re lost, and you don’t know where to find them.”
“I can take care of myself,” Dan said.
“Word,” Jonah agreed. “But why should you have to? We’re family. I got you.”
“Like you had my back in Egypt?” Dan retorted.
The star looked sheepish. “I feel bad about that. It wasn’t cool, but, seriously, I wasn’t trying to kill you. I was just slowing you down a little.”
“More like trying to turn us into Purina Crocodile Chow.”
“Not true, yo. I knew you and your sis could handle yourselves around a few crocs.” Jonah took in the wary expression on Dan’s face, then turned to his father. “Pops, have our people call every hotel and see if They can track down Amy Cahill and — and —”
“Nellie Gomez,” Dan supplied.
“Don’t stress, cuz,” Jonah soothed. “We’ll find them. In the meantime, you can kick it with us.”
Dan thought it over. He doubted Amy and Nellie would still be in Tiananmen Square, and he had no idea where they were staying. Right now, Mr. Wizard has a better chance of finding them than I do….
By then, the sprinklers had been shut off, and the workers were repairing the conveyor belt. Dan allowed himself to be taken on the factory tour with Jonah, the two of them licking at motorized lollipops.
After the factory, they boarded Jonah’s stretch Hummer and traveled to the mammoth Lufthansa Friendship Shopping Center.
When the staff saw the international reality TV star in their establishment, the store shut down and turned into an autograph session. Customers and employees alike lined up for the privilege of shaking Jonah’s hand and having their pictures taken with the icon. Some even tried to get their tongues around his rap riffs.
At last, Jonah pulled the plug on the celebrity meet-and-greet. “Thanks! ’Preciate the love. But right now, I’m in the market for the flyest jeans in China. Shirts, too. Show me some mad fashion love.” He turned to Dan. “What’s your size, cuz?”
Dan was astonished. “I can’t afford to buy anything in a place like this!”
“I got you covered,” Jonah assured him. “When you roll with the Wiz, you’ve got to look like you roll with the Wiz.”
Dan hesitated. Was he being bribed? “I don’t know when I’ll be able to pay you back,” he said cautiously.
“It’s all good. Let me do you a solid to make up for the crocs. And when we find your sis, we’ll be straight.”
When they left the Friendship Shopping Center, Dan was resplendent in designer jeans that cost more than a plasma TV, basketball shoes autographed by Yao Ming, and a limited edition silk-screen T-shirt that the salesman insisted read ROCK DA HOUSE in Chinese.
As they climbed back into the limo, a young girl on the street asked Dan for his autograph. He was a little ashamed at feeling so pleased.
Jonah grinned like a proud parent. “Now you’re getting it,” he approved as they drove away. “We’ll have you partying like a rock star in no time.”
Dan turned to Jonah’s father. “Any luck finding Amy and Nellie?”
“They aren’t in the major hotels,” Broderick Wizard reported. “But don’t worry. There are hundreds of smaller inns and guesthouses in and around Beijing. We’ll track them down.”
Dan gazed out the Hummer’s window. Night was falling. He wondered what Amy was doing right now. Was she worried about him? Or did she consider it his problem to get back to her, since he’d been the one to storm away?
She’s probably still mad. I almost took her head off in Tiananmen Square … maybe I should have.
And what about Nellie? Surely the au pair handbook had a rule against leaving one of your charges to wander a Chinese megacity alone.
No one felt like going out for dinner, so the Wizard entourage hired the head chef of the hotel restaurant to come to their penthouse suite and cook for them.
Afterward, they watched pay-per-view movi
es in the private home theater while Jonah autographed a stack of “Wassup, Yo” publicity photographs.
Dan imagined ecstatic kids all around the world receiving a letter from their hero. “It’s really cool that you answer every single fan letter.”
Jonah was the image of modesty. “Used to be a time when my concerts didn’t sell out in eight minutes, and my show was on basic cable. Paparazzi are the worst, but not half as bad as when nobody wants to take your picture. You do it — for the fans. They gave you what you’ve got; they can take it away.” He tossed a game controller into Dan’s hands. “Do you Xbox, cuz?”
“Bring it!” Dan challenged. He hadn’t played video games since before Grace’s funeral.
Many wounded GIs, slain dragons, vaporized spacecraft, and demolished police cars later, Dan and Jonah hunched over their controllers in the midst of a one-on-one all-night gaming marathon.
Weird, Dan reflected — Jonah Wizard was practically Dan’s opposite. Jonah was rich; Dan was flat broke. Jonah was famous; Dan was nobody. Jonah had powerful parents; Dan was an orphan. Jonah was supported by TV and record companies and, from a distance, the entire Janus branch. Dan? He’d never been so completely alone.
And yet playing video games with Jonah was the most normal thing Dan had done since the contest had begun.
“Looks like you’re bunking with us tonight,” Jonah said, clicking off the Xbox. “We’ll find your sis tomorrow.”
It brought Dan back to earth with a discordant clunk. “Your dad came up empty?”
“So far,” Jonah admitted. “Computers here are all based on Chinese characters. It’s tough to know how a hotel clerk is going to spell a name like Cahill or Gomez. The cell phone thing’s a killer, man.”
“We could still leave a message,” Dan suggested hopefully. “They might be able to call in from a pay phone or something.”
“Already done,” Jonah confirmed. “If your sis is looking for you, she’ll know where to track you down.”
Dan looked up in surprise. “You don’t think she’s looking for me?”
“Of course she’s looking for you, cuz! That’s a definite! You know, probably.” The famous eyes scrutinized Dan. “Yo, Pops!” Jonah called to his father. “Hook my man up with a room. Nothing cheap, either. I want a def crib, got it?”
Later, Dan lay in the silk sheets of his very own suite, savoring the taste of the mint he had found on his pillow. Def really was the word for it — five-star hotel, designer decoration, sixty-inch plasma screen. It must have cost a fortune, not that Jonah was hurting for money. The one thing it didn’t have —
He missed the sound of Amy’s breathing. Always just a touch too fast, fueled by the nervous dreams of a world-champion worrywart. Quiet, barely audible. But to her brother, as unmistakable as a police siren.
Amy — was she okay?
If I got kidnapped, she might also be in danger….
And Dan’s abduction had been at the hands of Ian and Natalie. The Kabra kids were bad enough, but what if Amy had been visited by their mother? Isabel — the murderer …
Don’t be such a baby! Everything’s fine. You heard Jonah — they’ll find Amy tomorrow.
It occurred to Dan that, just as the Kabras had used hired muscle to kidnap him, the Wizards might be using the high life to do exactly the same thing.
But if that’s true, why put me in my own room, free to take off any time I want?
He got up, opened the door, and peered both ways down the long hall. No Broderick Wizard watching his suite while texting on his BlackBerry. No record company flunky. He could leave when he pleased — if he had anywhere to go.
Was it really so hard to believe that Jonah actually felt bad about the crocodile thing and was trying to make amends?
“Trust no one,” William McIntyre, Grace’s lawyer, had told them at the beginning of the contest. Yet Jonah had shown him nothing but kindness today. And the last time Dan had seen Amy, she had bombarded him with hateful accusations about their parents. If anyone deserved not to be trusted, it was her.
For all he knew, she was totally thrilled to be rid of him. She probably hadn’t given him a second thought since Tiananmen Square, when he’d turned and walked out of her life.
CHAPTER 8
Amy barely slept a wink.
Worry mingled with jet lag in her mind, a toxic brew that had her watching the LED readout on her bedside clock throughout the long night. Never did more than ten minutes go by between red-eyed updates.
In the other bed, Nellie was also sleeping fitfully, murmuring under her breath through nervous dreams. Even Saladin was restless and had coughed up three fur balls by morning.
It was after five when Amy finally fell into an exhausted sleep. She was plagued by nightmares about her brother wandering through the deserted predawn gloom of Tiananmen Square. He would know no other place to look for her. And where was she? Safe in bed.
It was all her fault. Why had she burdened her brother with her deepest fears about Mom and Dad? No eleven-year-old was ready to face something like that. She wasn’t sure she could face it herself.
Nellie’s urgent whispering penetrated her reverie. “… in Russia they ran ahead of me on purpose. This is different. Dan knew we were in the square, waiting for him, and he didn’t come back—”
Amy sat up. “Who are you talking to?”
Startled, Nellie slammed down the hotel phone. “Your uncle Alistair,” she said quickly. “We got cut off.”
Amy frowned. “No offense, but that’s not your call. We don’t want to have anything to do with Alistair. He was there the night our parents were killed.”
Nellie was stubborn. “That was then and this is now. You’re in charge of the clue hunt. But when one of you kids goes missing, that’s Nellie time. Do you speak Chinese? Me, neither. We need someone who’ll pick up on it if there’s a story around town about a lost American boy.”
Amy nodded, chastened. “Call him back. Thanks, Nellie.”
They arranged to meet Uncle Alistair at the Imperial Hotel in half an hour. And as they slipped out the door, leaving Saladin asleep on a pillow, a tiny nagging doubt tugged at Amy’s mind. If Nellie had just been talking to Alistair on the phone, how come she’d had to look up the number?
“Amy. Nellie.”
Alistair Oh stood as they approached his table and gallantly saw them into their chairs before reseating himself. He may have been a backstabber like all the other Cahills, but his manners were impeccable.
“I took the liberty of ordering breakfast. Please help yourselves.”
Amy and Nellie dug in ravenously. In the tumult of Dan’s disappearance, they had skipped dinner.
“Amy, you must be frantic,” Alistair said in a mixture of sympathy and worry. “Dan lost in Beijing. All of us who love you will find this most upsetting.”
Amy’s lips were tight. “How much did you love us when you faked your own death in Korea?”
Uncle Alistair did not apologize. “That was different. A clue was involved. We Cahills are destined to serve two masters — our humanity and the thirty-nine clues.”
“And if a clue becomes involved again this time?” Nellie put in pointedly.
“I care deeply about Dan, just as you do,” he assured them, his expression pinched. “Where did you last see him?”
“In Tiananmen Square,” replied Amy, mangling the name with her full mouth. “Near the Gate of Heavenly Peace. We had an argument, and he ran away and never came back.”
The older man was astonished. “But you and your brother are so close. What were you fighting about?”
Amy stuck out her jaw. “The night our parents died. The fire Isabel set. And the other people who might have been there — like you.”
Uncle Alistair shut his eyes for so long that both girls thought he might have dozed off. When he looked at them again, it was as if his face had been drawn downward by a kind of peculiar gravity.
“If I could travel back in time and change a
single hour, that would be the one,” he said, his voice husky with emotion. “Two fine lives extinguished, two beautiful children orphaned. What a terrible calamity.”
“Calamity!” Amy sat forward. “You talk about it like it was an accident! Isabel burned our house down!”
Alistair winced, as if the effort of recalling were physically painful. “Do you want the truth?”
“I have all the truth I need!” Amy seethed. “She set fire to your house in Java, and now Irina’s gone! She did the same thing seven years ago!”
Alistair nodded tragically. “We all knew Isabel’s ruthlessness. I should have foreseen that she was capable of murder. Perhaps that is why I’ve always felt a special responsibility toward you and your brother — and why his disappearance is so distressing to me.”
It was not that Amy had nothing to say to this. She simply did not trust herself to speak without falling to pieces, as if the only thing holding her together were her silence.
Nellie put an arm around her. “I know this is big stuff for you, Amy. But right now we have to concentrate on Dan.”
“What do you need from me?” Alistair offered.
Nellie pulled a stack of Beijing newspapers out of a large tote bag and dropped them with a thud on the table in front of him. “Look through these. Anything suspicious — lost American kid, young tourist in trouble, boy found sleeping on the subway — that kind of angle. Check radio and TV news, too.”
“What about the US Embassy?” Alistair suggested.
“No embassy!” Amy rasped. “At least, not yet. Dan and I are wanted by Social Services! If they run our names through a computer, we’re out of the contest.”
“The contest,” he repeated carefully. “My dear child, far be it from me to use this terrible situation to pressure you to reveal secrets. But if I perhaps knew what you two were working on—”
“Don’t you Cahills ever turn it off?” Nellie interrupted angrily. “How stupid do you think we are? We’ve got a missing kid, and you’re gaming it to squeeze information out of us!”
“It’s okay,” Amy decided. “Dan might follow the clue hunt, hoping to find us that way.” From her backpack, she produced the silk sheet from the Forbidden City and spread it out on the table.