The 39 Clues Book 7: The Viper's Nest (11 page)

CHAPTER 16

Murderers? Thieves?
This has got to be a mistake.

The names on the passports had seemed a little odd to Amy, but not familiar. Maybe Dad had chosen a South African crook's name by mistake.

Amy glanced at Dan, but he was staring at the photo. "I --I don't think--" he stammered.

"Honestly, I can't imagine how this passport ended up on the airport floor," Mrs. Thembeka said as she opened a file cabinet. "The Nudelmans were Aussies, I believe, but they went all over the world on their spree. India, Indonesia, South Africa ..."

India, Indonesia, South Africa ...
Arthur and Hope's route in pursuit of Amelia Earhart.

"What did they do?" Nellie insisted.

"Without using graphic details," Mrs. Thembeka said, "suffice it to say, brutal crimes with no motives. Ransacking buildings and leaving no one alive. Happily, they haven't been seen in years. I assumed they'd died, but ... ah, here we are!" She lifted a

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document from the file and put it on the desk. "You may copy it, if you promise to keep it to yourselves."

"But--about the--" Dan began.

Amy cut him off with a strong glare.

A mistake.
That was it. Pure and simple.

"Thank you," Amy said. "We'll make a copy."

* * *

Dan ran out of the building. He was trembling.

"Wait up!" Amy said, clutching a manila envelope.

Nellie followed close behind. "Dude, you're shaking," she said, putting a hand on Dan's shoulder.

"Sorry!" Dan took a deep breath. "It's just... she called them ... murderers."

"She's old. Bad eyesight," Nellie said reassuringly.

"Wouldn't Mrs. Thembeka know what Dad looked like if she and Grace were good friends?" Dan asked.

"Like I said,
old,"
Nellie said. "Grandparent-old. People like that don't show off pictures of their grownup children. That's, like, for parents of little kids."

"So ... Dad chose to use the name of a
famous bad guy
on his passport?" Dan asked. "Why?"

"Maybe he didn't know who Nudelman was," Amy said. '"Roger Nudelman'-- that's the kind of goofy name Dad would always make up. Remember Oscar Schmutz, the dirty-fingernail wizard?"

Dan shook his head sadly. "No."

Amy fixed her eyes on Dan's. "What
do
you remember about them, Dan--Mom and Dad?"

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"Practically nothing," Dan said, his eyes welling up.

"Dan, think," Amy said. "You told me you didn't remember them in your mind, but you did everyplace else. What were those memories?"

Dan was breathing hard. "Silly stories. Hot chocolate on the white kitchen table. Songs at night. This clean-laundry smell. Big arms around me ..."

"When you were about two," Amy said, "I heard Dad say to Mom, 'I just want to reach forty-three. Then he'll be eight, and if I die, at least he'll remember who I am.' I wasn't supposed to hear it, and it scared me. Mom told him he was being morbid. I'll never forget what she said next. 'Babies remember souls, Arthur.' So for a year or so I tried to put you near Dad's shoes. I thought she was saying
soles.
Okay, I figured out what she meant--but it wasn't until now that I really understood. Those things you remember?
That's
what Mom meant. "

"People like your mom and dad," Nellie said gently, "are not capable of such bad things."

"Irina turned out to have a good soul," Dan said. "And she was capable of very bad things."

Amy put her hand on Dan's shoulder. "Irina found her goodness late. Mom and Dad already had it."

"Right," Dan said. "That's true. Can we go now?"

As he walked to the car, he unfolded the copy of the Churchill letter.

Amy linked arms with Nellie. She hoped Dan could let go of this. She hoped she could, too.

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In the parking lot, Dan laid out the copied letter on the backseat. "Check this out..." he said in awe.

[proofreader's note: the T in the word "taste" is circled.]

From the Desk of Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill

11 May 1900

My Darling M__ C__,

Tho' my loyalty to Britain &

taste for tumult may have drawn me to the Anglo-Boer conflict eventually, I

commend you for urging that

my war reporting begin here now.

My loss in the election, as you say, was a scar to be borne bravely & is surely meant to strengthen me, as will our army's troubles with the mighty Boers strengthen it. Yes, I

did escape imprisonment from Pretoria's

State Model School, to where they'd

taken me, fortunately, from H. Hill.

One cannot summon words for that

filthy pit in Johannesburg, a place

far more miserable than my fetid

hidey hole in Witbank's mines, post-

escape (where I was able indeed to discover a realization, given herein!).

[proofreader's note: there is a blank line here.]

This I send you.

With all my heart,

Your Winnie

[proofreader's note: there is a blank line here.]

The unbroken line shall deliver

thy desire to the letter, if thou

proceedeth downward ever, in single steps.

[proofreader's note: end of letter.]

"This is a big help," Dan said disgustedly.

"H. Hill," Amy said, flipping through her Churchill biography. "That must mean Hospital Hill. That's what they used to call Constitution Hill back then."

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"Right. And Churchill hated it." Nellie shrugged. "No big shocker there."

"It says here that Churchill was taken from the prison here and transferred to a place called the Staatsmodel, or State Model School, in Pretoria," Amy went on.

Dan nodded. "Where he wrote this. Where it stayed for years until Grace sent it to Constitution Hill."

Amy continued reading her book. "Okay. They were using that school in Pretoria as a prison. Churchill scaled a ten-foot wall and escaped to a mining town called Witbank, where he hid until he was able to hop a supply truck. It all checks out with the text in this letter!"

Dan leaned close. "What's this bit at the end? 'The unbroken line shall deliver thy desire ...'?"

"An unbroken line could mean, like, eternity," Amy said, scanning her book's index.

"Or a circle," Dan suggested. "Or a box or a trapezoid or any kind of closed shape!"

Amy glanced at the top of the letter. "Who is M-blank C-blank?"

"C for Cahill!" Dan blurted out. "Maybe he was writing this to, like, our great-grandmother. Do we know her first name?"

"No," Amy said, pacing back and forth. "Okay, let's think this through. The guy at the airport gave us the code that led us here. Somehow, he's connected with all this. Grace left a secret document here for us, a document stolen from Pretoria and written by a Cahill.

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The Holts have reason to believe that there's a Tomas clue hidden somewhere in South Africa--"

"Yes --and Churchill knew what it was!" Dan said. "That's what Grace is trying to show us. Maybe the location of the clue died with Churchill. Look at what Old Winnie wrote at the end of the message."

'"Witbank's mines ..."' Amy read, '"where I was able indeed to discover a realization ...' A Cahill writing to possibly another Cahill about
discovering a realization*.
Sounds like a clue to me."

Amy felt light-headed. Grace was talking to her from the grave -- did she know where the Clue was?

Nellie slid into the Yugo and began tapping her new GPS. "Carlos, darling, take us to Witbank."

* * *

It took longer than expected to find Witbank, mainly because its official name had been changed to Emalahleni and no one had told Carlos. No one had told Carlos he should be an air conditioner, either, and as far as Dan was concerned, that was even worse.

After a few confused questions in a petrol station, they were driving toward the abandoned mine where Churchill had been hidden.

Amy was reading again. Constantly.

"'... a town built on its rich mining resources, Witbank was the home of British sympathizers who hid Churchill after his daring escape from the State Model School..."' Amy read.

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"This was before he turned into ... you know, a famous fat guy," Dan said.

"Prime Minister of England," Amy corrected. "During World War Two."

Nellie parked in a small lot. A house stood nearby and behind it a parched landscape marked with mounds of dirt. They walked through the open door.

Inside the building, a craggy, thin man with a pencil behind his ear played chess with a teenager.

When the guy turned around, Amy began stuttering. Silently. It was a feat only Amy could manage, and only Dan could notice.

And it only happened in front of boys who looked like this one. He had brown hair and caramel-colored eyes, like Dan's friend Nick Santos, who made all the sixth-grade girls turn into blithering idiots when he looked their way--in fact, would even say
Watch, lean make them turn into blithering idiots,
and then he'd do it. Only older.

"He. Is. Hot," Nellie said under her breath.

"You too?" Dan hissed.

"Checkmate!" Mr. Hottie exclaimed.

"Wowww," Amy managed.

"Um, we're looking for the Churchill escape site?" Dan said.

The man groaned and rose from his chair. "It's out back. You'll see the plaque. Help 'em, will you, Kurt? We'll have our rematch when you get back from chorus rehearsal tomorrow."

The boy smiled -- mostly at Amy.

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"Sorry, her heart belongs to Ian Kabra," Dan said, except that something in her expression made him realize her heart didn't belong at all to Ian right now.

Kurt gave a perplexed smile. "Walk this way," he said, unfolding himself to his full height, which had to be at least 6'2". Amy watched him swagger to the door.

"Churchill hid from the Boers in this mine shaft after his escape," Kurt said, "until he was smuggled out in a supply truck."

"Did he, like, leave any messages here?" Dan said. "You know, letters written to someone from inside the mine? With stuff about, um, locations and stuff?"

Kurt leaned closer to Dan. "Sounds like you know the secret--that the Churchill story was all a lie."

"Yes, exactly," Dan said, playing along and trying not to look like an idiot. "A total lie. I knew that."

"A l-l-lie?" Amy squeaked.

"Churchill was a double agent," Kurt whispered. "That's why he was in South Africa. Not to be a reporter. To find secrets."

"A double agent for the Boers?" Nellie asked.

"Someone else," Kurt said. "Some group. He left a symbol on a clothing scrap we have inside. Two snakes and a sword, with a big L. Haven't figured it out yet. But he was looking for something. And he was exchanging messages with his agents, in the tunnels. I know, because he left a message on the wall."

Dan glanced at Amy and knew she was thinking that same thing he was.
L -- Lucian.

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"What did it say?" Dan said.

Kurt shrugged. "I saw it when I was a boy. I used to spend hours down there, practicing my singing where no one could hear me." He smiled at Amy. "I used to be shy."

"Where's this wall?" Dan demanded. "Can we see it?"

"You have asthma," Amy said. "Mines are dusty."

"So was the cave in Seoul," Dan said. "I was fine!"

"Well, take a look," Kurt said, gesturing toward a rickety structure, a fenced-in area marked off-limits. "There have already been a few incidents with that mine. Look at the thing the wrong way, and something inside collapses. They plan to cave it in soon."

"So ... we can't get inside?" Dan said.

"Sure, if you're looking for a free burial," Kurt replied. He winked at Dan, then turned to Amy. "Do you play chess?"

"A l-1-little," Amy stammered.

Perfect. Dan couldn't believe his good fortune.

"She's great," Dan said. "She'll kill you!"

"I accept the challenge," Kurt said flirtatiously. Dan couldn't believe it -- did Kurt actually
like
his sister?

Red-faced, Amy followed Kurt to the building. And Dan backed slowly away.

Toward the abandoned mine.