The 39 Clues [Cahills vs. Vespers] 05 - Trust No One (20 page)

“Oh, man,” Jonah groaned. “Can’t I at least wear something black?”

He was thinking of Erasmus. Erasmus always wore black.

He was trying
not
to think of Phoenix, but his cousin’s face hovered at the edge of every thought.

Hamilton sighed. “We’ve been over this. We’ve got work to do, and we can’t have you drawing crowds everywhere we go. Think of it as — as going undercover.”

Undercover. That sounded like something Erasmus would do.

As a worldwide hip-hop star, Jonah had long thought of himself as a pretty cool dude. Now he knew the truth.

Erasmus was beyond cool. Way beyond.

Erasmus wasn’t about wearing bling, or how many fans he had, or how much money. That stuff was all outside stuff. Erasmus’s kind of cool came from inside.

Jonah hadn’t quite figured it out yet, but he was sensing that it had something to do with not caring quite so much about what other people thought.

It was whack: Not caring about being cool was what had made Erasmus so cool.

“Okay,” Jonah said. He put on the final item of the disguise, a blue denim baseball cap devoid of logos.

Ham shook his head. “Other way, dude.”

Jonah did his best to suppress a scowl of disgust — at both his reflection and Ham — as he turned the cap around so the bill was at the front.

After the flight from London to Palermo, the boys hired a car to take them to a hotel in Syracuse. They arrived in the evening, too late to begin any investigating. The next morning, checking out the hotel’s concierge desk, Hamilton found a brochure for a tour with a company that rented Segway personal scooters.

The boys had exchanged several texts with Atticus on the subject of Archimedes and had also researched on their own. There were two places in the city of Syracuse worth investigating: the downtown area called Ortigia and the archaeological district north of there.

“Look,” Ham said, showing Jonah the brochure. “The tour starts at the Piazza Archimede and ends at the Tomb of Archimedes. Can’t do better than that. You ever ridden one of those Segway things?”

“Yep,” Jonah said. “On tour, a couple of years ago. It was way cool because we had a ramp built and did all this fog and lighting stuff — the audience could only see my head and shoulders, and it looked like I was floating down onto the stage.” His face fell. “I remember Phoenix saying how awesome it was. . . .”

Hamilton looked at Jonah for a moment. Then he frowned and said, “You think I’ll catch on quick enough to keep up with you?”

Jonah blinked a couple of times and squared his shoulders. Then he slapped Hamilton on the back. “It’s easy, man — like, five minutes’ practice and you’ll be good to go.”

On hearing Jonah’s praise, Hamilton lit up like the human equivalent of a 180-pound Christmas bulb. Jonah was proud of himself.
That’s what Erasmus might have done. Quit stewing and get on with things. And don’t forget that it hasn’t been all cupcakes for Ham, either.

In the wake of losing both Erasmus and Phoenix, Hamilton had been a rock for Jonah. Sticking more closely than the most dedicated bodyguard, Ham had taken care of everything from travel and hotel arrangements to making sure they ate healthy meals. He even scheduled regular workouts, alternating swims in the hotel pool with weight sessions.

“Exercise releases endorphins,” Ham said every time he rousted Jonah out of bed and into workout gear. “And endorphins make you feel good.”

The only trouble with the Holt method of recuperation was that it made you feel worse before you felt better. Jonah’s muscles hadn’t worked this hard in years. And he knew it would take more than a swim or two to get over the losses. But at the moment, none of the Cahills had much time to mourn.

The Vespers’ latest deadline felt like bad breath right in their faces.

Piazza Archimede was a traffic roundabout. Cars and trucks circled the piazza at crazed speeds, and it appeared that in Sicilian vehicles, neither the brakes nor the accelerator would work unless the driver was leaning constantly on the horn.

Take away the cars and it could have been another century in the piazza, with its dignified old buildings around a fountain featuring an impressive sculpture. But the statue had nothing to do with Archimedes.

“It’s a nymph who got away from some god who was chasing her by turning into a spring,” Hamilton said, reading from a brochure.

“A spring? So she could what, boing away?” Jonah asked. It didn’t seem like a great way to escape.

“Not that kind of spring,” Hamilton said. “The water kind. And the actual spring is here in Syracuse, too.”

“Well, okay, she escapes, but then she has to be a spring for the rest of her life?” Jonah shrugged. “Some of that Greek-myth stuff is lame.”

The Segway-rental shop was just off the piazza. As Jonah had predicted, the scooters were easy to get the hang of and the two boys were soon off on an audio tour of Syracuse.

The tour they had chosen lasted three hours. Afraid of missing out on something important, the boys rolled their way through the entire audio file. They learned quite a bit about the city of Syracuse, but relatively little about Archimedes.

At least the Segways were fun. After the first hour or so, Hamilton almost felt like the Segway was part of his body. You made it go by leaning forward and stopped it by leaning back. If you pushed a button on the handlebars and leaned left or right, the scooter would turn the way you wanted it to. It wouldn’t do jumps or wheelies or anything cool like that, but for getting around the narrow streets and alleys of Ortigia, it was way better than walking.

Tourists were not allowed inside the Tomb of Archimedes. This was not as big a disappointment as it could have been. “They’re not even sure it’s his tomb!” Jonah complained.

Archimedes’ tomb was indeed somewhere in Syracuse — the Greek philosopher Cicero had found it back in 75
B.C.
and written about it — but no one knew where it was now.

“Too bad we didn’t know that before we started,” Hamilton said. None of the Internet sites he’d researched had been very forthcoming about the Tomb of Archimedes not really being the tomb of Archimedes.

They decided on one more stop: the archaeological museum. It was a huge, very modern structure laid out along the lines of a giant hexagon. Tooling along on their Segways, Jonah and Hamilton followed the signs to the entrance.

Jonah pulled up in a parking area set aside for scooters. One other Segway was parked there, but most of the vehicles were Vespas, the sleek scooters beloved by city-dwelling Italians.

“Jonah, watch this!” Hamilton called from across the parking lot.

He leaned forward and got his Segway up to its top speed of twelve miles per hour.
Steady . . . steady . . . lean a little . . . NOW!

Hamilton pushed the turn button and leaned hard to his right. In previous attempts, the result had been a neat three-sixty, the forward momentum used up by the spin so the scooter came to a perfect stop. This time, he waited a little too long to go into the turn.

“HAM!” Jonah yelled and jumped out of the way.

Hamilton was inches away from a crash when he leaped off the Segway and sent it barrelling into the row of Vespas. They toppled over like awkward dominoes.

Both boys picked themselves up off the ground. One knee of Jonah’s new pants was torn, but he was otherwise undamaged. Hamilton had impressive cases of pavement burn on his right hand and his left elbow.

“You okay?” they said at the same time.

“My bad,” Hamilton said as he retrieved his Segway from the pile. Then they began resurrecting the toppled Vespas, eight of them. The scooters were surprisingly heavy.

As they pulled the last of the Vespas upright, Hamilton — or maybe it was Jonah — let go too soon. The scooter fell sideways, knocked into the Vespa next to it, and one by one, the rest of the scooters tipped over again.

“You’re kidding,” Hamilton said in disbelief.

Jonah groaned. Together they hauled the offending Vespa upright. Then they moved on down the line.

When they reached the last scooter, Hamilton was taking no chances. “Careful with this one,” he said. “We don’t want the same thing all over. One, two —”

“LADRO!”

A man was running toward them from the museum, waving his arms wildly and pointing at them.

“LADRO!”
he yelled again.

Startled, both boys turned toward their accuser and let go of the Vespa —

Which toppled over, and all eight Vespas went down
again.

Jet lag and general tension added up to a terrible night’s sleep for the Cahills and the Rosenblooms. At six in the morning, a message from Vesper One came through. Dan read it aloud:

“‘I just adore jewelry. That lovely ring of yours — I simply must have it. In fact, it’s the final piece I need to complete my collection. Put the ring and whatever you got from dear Dr. Siffright into a book bag. And come to think of it, I’m hungry. I’d like a nice juicy bacon cheeseburger. Put that in the bag, too. Central Park, Strawberry Fields forever! But in your case, at 8:35
A.M.
for a rendezvous with Goldilocks. And of course, don’t try to follow her. You know the consequences.’”

The ring.

The Madrigal ring.

It had been protected by Madrigals for centuries, passed along secretly, guarded and protected and valued over life itself. Neither Dan nor Amy knew
why
it was so important, but the fact that Grace had entrusted it to them was all the explanation they needed.

The ring was embedded in Amy’s watch, forming the circle around the dial. The watch had been custom-made by a Madrigal/Ekat jeweler, waterproof, shatterproof, fireproof, every other -proof available.

Why did the Vespers want it? What did Vesper One mean by saying it was the “final piece”?

Palms sweaty and throat dry, Dan went into the bathroom for a drink of water. The phone beeped and another transmission came through.

It was a video file showing an extreme close-up of Nellie’s face. She looked terrible, her hair limp and greasy, dark crescents under her eyes.

“Hey, kiddos,” she said in a whisper.

The entire history of their relationship in two words: Nellie had called them “kiddos” from the first day she met them. Whatever happened, Amy and Dan would always be her kiddos.

Dan had to clear his throat against a lump formed by equal parts love and dread.

The camera pulled away slowly.

He gasped.

There was a gun pointed at Nellie’s left temple. The finger on the trigger twitched.

Then the feed cut off.