A King's Ransom

“What about the document? Infiltrating a family in Massachusetts? Two children? Information destroyed? What information?”

Amy shook her head violently. “I don’t believe any of this. You shouldn’t, either. We’ve been through this before, Dan! We’ve already been afraid that our parents were the bad guys. We know they weren’t!”

“And what about no suspicion from G? It’s Grace!”

“There’s a G in Jane’s notebook, too.”

“That could be Grace as well. What if Jane was a Vesper?”

“She wasn’t a Vesper!” Amy barked this furiously. She had grown fond of Jane. She refused to believe she could have been part of such a despicable organization.

And her father couldn’t have been, either.

“What if he’s not dead?” Dan asked in a hushed tone. “What if he’s still a Vesper?”

Amy shook her head as the enormous weight of Dan’s words hit her. She swallowed, feeling sick. “No.”

“The fire … he was concealing the evidence!”

“Isabel Kabra set that fire! We know that! And we buried him. They found his body, okay?” Amy was yelling now. “Don’t you think Grace would have checked?”

“Checked what? Fingerprints? He died in a fire. Except maybe he didn’t. Somebody did. How are we supposed to know who it was?”

“Dan, we were there that night. I remember parts of it. I know Dad was there. I saw him!”

“Yes, he was there. But maybe he escaped. Do you remember the circus girl? She said that V-One had a burn.”

Amy stood back up on shaky legs. “This is all circumstantial. You’re really jumping to conclusions.”

“Are you the only one allowed to have instincts, Amy?”

“Our father was not a Vesper!” She glared at Dan with all the fury that blazed inside her. “Since when are you so quick to denounce him?” she demanded. “He was your hero!”

The lost look in Dan’s eyes frightened her. “Since I grew up.”

Even through her anger, Amy felt something pierce her heart. Fear. She was so afraid for her brother. Had he really lost his childhood? Was that what the Clue hunt had done?

The Vesper phone buzzed in her pocket. She felt revulsion rise in her throat. She hated Vesper One. She hated all of them. She accessed the text.

Greetings, children. Time is running out.

Amy scrolled down. It was a low-resolution photograph of the hostages. Clumped together, made to sit in a line in their jumpsuits. Staring at the camera.

They returned to Prague in silence. Amy had sent a text to Attleboro, not trusting herself to speak.

NEED TO CONTACT ERASMUS IMMEDIATELY. HAVE HIM CALL OR TEXT US WITH A TIME TO SPEAK.

They sat in an outdoor cafe in Old Town Square, watching the darkness fall. Across the square, tourists gathered at the top of the hour to see the famous Astronomical Clock. Amy heard it bong six times. They ordered a dinner they didn’t want. To Amy, it felt like the end of the world. They would get into the library somehow tomorrow; she had enough faith to know that. But whether they would find the de Virga or not …

A man moved along the buildings of the square, from shadow to shadow. He wore small, round blue-tinted glasses and had curly dark hair streaked with gray. In his black leather jacket and black jeans he looked like a shadow himself.

Erasmus slid into a chair opposite them and lifted one finger to hail the waitress. “I hear you need to talk to me.” He spoke rapidly to the waitress in Czech.

“We didn’t know you were in Prague,” Amy said. “Sinead said you were on the way to Rome.”

“I leave for Rome tonight.”

He paused as the waitress put down a steaming cup of coffee. He took a sip. Behind the tinted glasses Amy knew his gaze was constantly roving, picking out possible danger, routes of escape. What Erasmus did before devoting himself to the Madrigals, she didn’t know. But he had a Vesper database in his head, every scrap of information the Madrigals had been able to pick up over the centuries.

Amy was wondering how to ask the question when Dan just blurted it out.

“Was our father a Vesper?”

Erasmus took a careful sip of coffee. He leaned back and blew out a sigh as he stared out at the square. Then he took off his sunglasses. His eyes looked tired. He leaned forward again, his big hands cradling the cup. With every move and gesture Amy felt her heart sink. She wanted to run as far and as fast as she could to escape what was coming next.

“Yes,” Erasmus said.

“The bro just orders,” Jonah said. “I’m not saying I don’t like him. I’m just saying.”

“I hear you,” Hamilton said. He threw another T-shirt into his pack.

“It’s my plane, bro. And he walks in, dressed so fine in his leather, and he says, ‘We’re going to Italy tonight,’ and it’s, like, say what?” Jonah zipped up his duffel. “I’d just like a vote. That’s all.”

Still talking, they rode down in the elevator and walked out into the lobby. A gray-haired woman in a gray jacket and a shapeless hat was just getting up from a chair. Just as they passed her, Hamilton slung his big pack over his shoulder and caught her on the side of the head. She stumbled, and her purse went flying.

“Oh, man, I’m so sorry.” Hamilton and Jonah dropped their packs and quickly stooped over to help gather the items that had spilled.

“It is okay,” the woman said in an Italian accent. She shook her wallet at Jonah playfully. “I know you. Jonah Wizard.”

“Busted!”

“That is a funny choice of words. In American English, that can be slang for … arrested, no?” The woman’s brown eyes twinkled.

“Word. I should be careful, right?”

“You should be very careful.” The woman flipped her wallet open. Inside they saw an ID card. Luna Amato was the woman’s name. And then, in big black letters – INTERPOL. “Perhaps we can have a chat, no?”

Jonah and Hamilton exchanged glances. They had a feeling that answering “no” was not an option.

She directed them to a quiet corner of the lobby. She sat in an armchair, parking her purse on the floor. They sat on the edge of the sofa facing her.

“Just a little chat,” she said in a friendly way. “You are here in Prague because … ?”

“Just chilling with my homey, doing the tourist thing,” Jonah said.

“And your cousins, Amy and Dan Cahill? Are they enjoying the city as well?”

Jonah’s heart sank into his running shoes. “Whoa, are they here, too? You know, I’ve got a bunch of cousins. Can’t keep track of everybody.”

“It seems to me,” Luna Amato said, “it would be easy to keep track of people who travel with you on your private plane.”

“What do you want?” Hamilton asked.

“Ah, let’s cut to the chase, as they say in American movies, no?” Luna Amato leaned forward. “I am hoping you will take a message to Amy and Dan Cahill. We know they have Il Milione.”

Jonah kept his face expressionless. Hamilton stiffened.

“Che macello! What a mess! The lost manuscript! And these two children steal it! Why? To sell it? But they have a fortune already. To keep it? But they are not known as art lovers. I have seen children manipulated and forced to do things they do not want to do. I say to myself, maybe this is the case with these two.”

“So what is the message?” Jonah asked.

Luna Amato sighed. “My partner, Milos Vanek – we are not alike. To him, if you steal something, you are a