39 Clues _ Cahills vs. Vespers [03] The Dead of Night (14 page)

Dan switched off the light. The voices were quickly coming closer. Amy could hear the crunch of gravel beneath footsteps. “What are they saying?” she asked.

“How sh-should I know?” Dan hissed. “I don’t speak Uzbek!”

“Get back!” Jake whispered.

Dan looked terrified. “B-but . . .
Uncle Alistair . . . !
”

“Get to the bottom — now!” Jake shoved him. Dan’s hurtling body nearly toppled Amy, but they both managed to climb to the bottom with Atticus.

Jake was still on the stairs — and now he was climbing!

“Ja — !” Amy started to yell, but Atticus clamped his hand over her mouth.

His footfalls echoed loudly. Outside, voices were coming nearer.

Amy tried to run up after him, but both Dan and Atticus pulled her back. “He’ll get hurt!” she whispered.

“He knows what he’s doing,” Atticus replied firmly. “If he told us to stay, that’s the best advice.”

Now the tunnel ceiling was coming to life with reflected flashlights. It seemed like a cruel imitation of the night sky, a mockery of Ulugh Beg’s precise measurements.

Voices rose as men entered. They were yelling at Jake in Uzbek, and as he answered in English, Amy could make out words:
police . . . trespass . . . arrest . . .

Footsteps came closer to the railing over their heads. “There’s no one else!” Jake was saying. “Just me!”

But now a flashlight beam was swinging down the rutted wall, outlining the steps on the other side. . . .

“Come back here!”
a thick-accented voice bellowed from above, booming through the vast tunnel.

Suddenly, the lights were gone. Footsteps were racing away, out the door again. Amy heard Jake’s voice yelling, but the sound was outside.

Jake had run off, slipped away.

“He’s creating a distraction,” Amy said. “Let’s go!”

The railing area above, crowded a moment earlier, was now empty. Amy took the steps three at a time. At the top, she ran for the door and carefully peered out.

Jake had somehow made his way across the plateau. An officer had caught him by the collar and was slamming him against a car. There were two cars, four officers, all of them with their backs turned.

Amy’s breath caught in her throat. She fought the urge to run after him. But she knew that would only ruin what he’d set out to do.

Jake was taking one for the team now.

For Uncle Alistair.

Amy turned. Silently she pointed toward the far end of the plateau, away from the driveway. And she ran.

Atticus and Dan followed her to the edge. In the dark, all she could see was a sharp drop-off.

Amy glanced over her shoulder. The frame of the sextant’s entrance blocked them from the sight of the police. Dan flicked on his flashlight and shone it downward. The light traced a steep, rockstrewn path.

“Come on.” Amy clutched the delicate tool to her chest and stepped off. Her heel dug into the gravelly slope. With a loud
sssshh
, it slid about a foot. She let out a squeal.

“Go . . .
go!
” Dan said.

She carefully lifted her other foot and set it down sideways, trying to keep her balance. The gravel slipped again, and this time the ground gave way beneath her.

Amy’s back scraped against the soil. Her head hit it and then bounced back. She was sliding, head over heels, her arms hugging the instrument tightly.

“
Amy!”
Dan shouted, tumbling after her.

They collided at the bottom. Amy smashed backward into the trunk of a scraggly tree.

“Yeow!” came a cry to their left. Atticus.

Amy unfolded herself. Her chest throbbed. In the morning, it would have an indentation of the astrolabe.

She glanced at her watch — 10:49. “Dan?” she cried out. “How many bars?”

His eyes were as bright as a supernova. “Two!”

One minute left. Vesper One could reach them now. He was a stickler for promptness. Amy looked up. The police voices were coming closer.

“They must have heard us,” Atticus whispered.

Amy scrambled behind the thin trunk of an olive tree.

“Ow!”
came Jake’s voice from above.
“I twisted my ankle. I’ll sue! You’re going to hear from my lawyer!”

An eerie beep pierced the night air. Amy stiffened.

Dan’s phone glowed with a message. “He’s early.”

I’ve been waiting to hear from you. After all, you have the ability to contact me, don’t you? Counting the seconds . . .

“We have to use Luna’s phone!” Dan whispered.

Atticus’s face was a rictus of fear. “We have twenty seconds!”

Amy dropped the astrolabe. She fumbled in her pocket for the phone.

It was gone. “I don’t have it!”

“What?” Dan shot back.
“What did you do with it?”

“I don’t know!” Amy grabbed the flashlight from her brother and shone it around the area. She didn’t care if the police saw it.

There.
She had nearly missed the glint of metal at the base of the drop-off. The phone must have fallen from her pocket when she landed.

She scrambled to it but Dan got there first.

“One second!” Atticus said.

“Hurry!” Amy urged.

Dan hit
REDIAL
. He thumbed two words —

Got it

But his finger slipped on the way to the
SEND
key, typing another character.

Got it1

“Time’s up!”
Atticus shouted.

“Press send, Dan —
send
!” Amy said.

“There!” Dan shouted, showing her the screen.

Sending . . .

Above them, the beam of light scanned the area. It swept across the tree where they’d just been. Amy, Dan, and Atticus pressed their bodies against the edge of the cliff.

Amy’s eyes did not waver from the screen.

The lights above them went away. The sound of shutting car doors punctuated the night. Then the dull roar of two car engines.

But the screen remained blank.

10:51.

“It can’t be. . . .” Dan shook the phone. “Something must be wrong.”

It couldn’t be. A slip of the finger. A microscopic bead of sweat causing him to press 1 instead of
SEND
.

“It’s my fault,” Amy moaned. “I didn’t mean to drop the phone.”

“I don’t care!”
Dan said
. “I just want to know what happened to Uncle Alistair!”

“That guy — Vesper One — he couldn’t have,” Atticus said. “He wouldn’t. . . .”

Dan wheeled on him. “Oh, yes, he would. And you know what? I will return the favor some day. I will kill him.” He raised his face to the sky.
“Did you hear me? I will kill you, AJT!”

“Dan — ?” Amy said.

“I know what you’re going to say, Amy,” Dan said through a torrent of tears, “but I hate him. I hate our —”

“No, look!” Amy said, pointing to the phone in his hand. “Your screen just lit up!”

The phone had turned liquid in Dan’s vision. He blinked and focused on the words:

Did I scare you? Don’t let it be said I don’t have a sense of drama.

And since you like the illusion of control, I will make the drop easy. Someone is coming to you.

Oh, yes. Congratulations. Your dear uncle is safe.

For now.

As the police car lurched, Jake Rosenbloom tried not to get carsick. “Where are you taking me?” he asked.

One of the officers in the front seat turned to face him. “You were trespassing. Resisting arrest. We must file report.”

Jake slumped into the seat. He hoped that Dan and Amy had been able to make the drop.

The driver muttered something in Uzbek and yanked the steering wheel to the right. Another car had fishtailed and was now broadside across both lanes.

With a screech of tires, the car swerved off the road and into a ditch. Jake braced himself. Even though he was wearing a seat belt, his face smashed against the side window.

The police leaped out of the car, yelling at the top of their lungs. Guns drawn, they approached the other car. It was a long, black limo with dark windows.

Jake grimaced, reaching up to touch a gash on the side of his head. Blood trickled down his cheek. Too early to know how serious this was. But he felt okay. More or less.

He glanced back outside and saw the limo’s back window rolling down. Inside was a man wearing a black hat and sunglasses. He looked up slowly at the cops and shrugged, as if to say he didn’t understand. Which only made the cops shout louder.

Jake looked to the right. It was nearly pitch-black. He slid over to that side of the car and tried the door. It swung open.

He knew he didn’t have much time. He jumped out of the car, tumbling into the small ditch. A few yards beyond it was an open gate. He stood. His head throbbed, but he was mobile.

He raced through the gate at top speed.

Behind him came two quick shouts, then silence.

And the thudding of heavy footsteps in pursuit.

The sunrise came as a shock. Amy realized she had no sense of day and night anymore. It seemed only moments ago that Vesper One’s message had come through:

Change of plans. At the earliest light, enter the graveyard. Use the entrance near the Shah-i-Zindi, just before the Siab Dekhkhan Bazaar. At precisely 5:30 a.m., find Olga Sakarov by the base of the nearest hill. And say hi from me.

As she entered the graveyard, the tombstones looked like lost, frozen souls, glowing with a pale silver light.

She clutched tightly to the astrolabe, tilting her wrist to check her watch. 5:15. They were fifteen minutes away from the drop. Acting, as always, on Vesper One’s instructions.
Like puppets,
she thought.

“Let’s move,” Amy said.

Fiddling with his phone, Atticus nearly stumbled.

“Any luck?” whispered Dan.

“No response from Jake,” Atticus said, his voice thick with emotion. “I’ve been trying for six hours.”

Amy looked left and right as she edged into the pathway. Her neck ached. Sleeping in the field had not been comfy. She and Dan had managed some uncomfortable shut-eye, but she was worried about Atticus. He hadn’t slept at all.

“I don’t see our contact person,” Dan said.

“Maybe it’s the wrong place for the drop,” Atticus suggested.

Dan angled the screen toward him. Amy stopped to read the message once again.

“Olga Sakarov . . . she even sounds like a Vesper,” Dan said.

A small animal skittered across Amy’s path. She stifled a scream, took a deep breath, and stepped carefully. Polished stone slabs of all shapes rose around her like road signs. They were etched with faces that seemed to glower with disapproval.

“These names are in Cyrillic,” Atticus said.

“They look like real stone to me,” Dan remarked.

“
Cyrillic
, not
acrylic
,” Atticus said. “It’s the Russian alphabet. Samarkand has a huge Russian population.”

Amy stopped at the foot of the hill. The distant birdsong sounded like screams of the dying. As the sun’s crown oozed over the horizon, a vulture hovered overhead. Amy checked her watch. 5:24. “She should be within sight by now.”

“She better get here before that thing gets us,” Dan said.

“It’s a vulture,” Atticus said. “They only eat carrion. Dead animals.”

Out of the corner of her eye, Amy spotted another small critter racing across the ground. It stopped just beyond a massive gravestone, near a soft, ragged lump on the ground. It looked like a freshly killed squirrel. “There’s its breakfast,” Amy said.

Dan was walking closer to the lump, squinting. He stopped and turned, his face pale. “It’s not the only dead thing.”

Amy followed his glance to the silhouette of a foot, sticking out from behind the tombstone.

Atticus gasped.

“Is that . . . Olga?” Dan whispered.

Amy moved closer, girding herself against her worst fear. That Vesper One had found a total stranger and killed her. Just for kicks. As a warning.

A hostage by proxy.

Overhead came an angry cawing.
Move away and let nature take its course. Leave the dead for the living
. Every instinct told Amy to run from this creepy scene. Just drop the astrolabe and run.

“The foot . . .” Atticus said, holding tight to Amy’s arm. “It’s too wide for an Olga.”

Amy could see a leg now, wearing jeans. “H-h-hello?” she called out.

Dreading what she would see, she came around the front of the stone. A young man was sprawled on the grass, his head angled back into a shadow.

She stepped forward to see his face.

“Jake?”