As the other car slowed and stopped, Max had his eye on the yaks, which were now wandering toward them. Their eyes were enormous orbs of black, their faces whiskered and narrow.
One of them grunted. “Hey to you too,” Max said, leaving the car. “Do you guys belong to Armando?”
Now someone was emerging from the second car, calling out to KB. In the night’s silence, the voices seemed crisp and close. The two men spoke for a moment, and then the second driver called back toward his passenger in clear English: “This driver needs petrol! I will help him, all right, sir?”
But no one answered. The second car looked empty.
“Sir?” the driver repeated, walking warily back.
From inside the car, Max heard a voice hiss, “Yes! Yes, of course!”
It was a man’s voice. With a British accent.
“Bye, nice to meet you,” Max said to the yak. He walked toward the second car. As he neared it, he could see movement in the shadows of the back seat.
This was weird.
Flounder-in-the-nostrils weird.
He glanced back toward KB’s car. Alex and Bitsy were climbing out the rear door. Max put his finger to his lips and waved them over toward the other car and mouthed, “Someone is in there.”
The two girls froze for a moment, then walked toward Max. KB, Sal, and the other driver were leaning over the open trunk, searching for something. As Bitsy passed them, she reached in and extracted a flashlight.
She and Alex tiptoed wordlessly to the other car and stopped by the rear door. There, Bitsy shone the flashlight through the rear window.
“That’s awfully bright,” came a voice.
“Nigel?” Alex said.
The old man, who had been lying in the back seat, sat up. “Well, hello! Isn’t this a glorious evening?”
Max instinctively leaped away. “Not with you in it!”
“No need to be harsh, old boy,” Nigel replied, climbing out the opposite side of the car.
“I don’t believe this . . .” Bitsy said.
“You want to know what harsh is?” Alex snapped. “You, at the Kozhim River, all by yourself. You misled us with texts from a burner phone on the Trans-Siberian Railway. You dressed up another person in your clothes. And now you’re sneaking after us. Oh, and did I mention? You are a class-A creepo.”
“Where’s my phone?” Bitsy demanded.
“Where’s the stuff you stole from us?” Max added.
“Oh, dear . . .” As Nigel spoke, he stayed behind his car, keeping it between him and the kids. “I know—I know what this looks like, but please hear me out. I was forced to do this for your own safety.”
“And the world is flat, asparagus tastes like candy, and your nose has grown about five inches,” Bitsy said.
“We want the hippo bone, now,” Max demanded.
He made a quick run for Nigel at the front of the car, with Alex and Bitsy behind him.
The old man bolted, leaping into the field with the speed and grace of someone half his age. Alex and Bitsy took chase, but Max veered toward the yaks. “Attack him!” he yelled. “Bite!”
Nigel ran directly to the yak in front. He placed his hand firmly on the beast’s spine and leaped onto it. “Choo! Choo!”
The yak grunted. Then it let out a deep fart, turned toward the hill, and began to trot toward the farmhouse of Armando.
The trio ran after him.
“What in the world are y’all doing?” Sal shouted.
“He stole from us!” Alex replied. “And now he’s trying to steal again!”
Bitsy had already climbed aboard one yak. Max felt Alex lifting him onto another. She then ran to another and swung her legs over it.
Nigel was already way ahead of them. Max’s yak seemed more interested in eating grass than racing. Its spine was hard and sharp underneath him, and its hair made Max’s legs itch. He hated long pants, but this would have been a good time for them. Max was slipping from side to side, so to keep himself from falling off, he leaned forward, hugging the yak’s neck. “So, what’s your name?”
The yak grunted again.
“Hi, Snort, I’m Max. Tell me if I’m wrong, but if I want you to go, do I say ‘Choo! Choo!’?”
The yak lurched forward. Max nearly slid off. With a slow, lumbering gait, it marched toward the car.
“Other way!” Max shouted. “Go after your friend!”
“Grab his mane, Max!” Sal yelled. “Pull it in the direction you want to go, and give the yak a little kick!”
“I’ll hurt it!” Max replied.
“A little kick!” Sal urged. “They’re built for it!”
Max took two handfuls of mane. He dug his heels into the yak’s right flank, and it veered that way. “Choo!” Max shouted.
Sal shook her head. “Lord, I believe this is shaping up to be the slowest race I have ever seen.”
Max was well behind Alex and Bitsy. About fifty yards ahead of them, Nigel’s yak had stopped.
“Go, blast it, go!” Nigel shouted.
Bitsy and Alex were gaining. But as they reached Nigel, their yaks stopped too. Both of them sniffed the grass and began to eat.
There was something in that grass. The yak equivalent of chocolate.
Max yanked way to the right. “Sorry, Snort. No time for you to be Ferdinand. Gotta get to that farmhouse. Last one there is a rotten egg.”
The yak veered around. As it picked up speed, Max felt his body jamming down into the spine with every clop of the yak’s hooves. But he was in the clear now. He urged Snort on, keeping his eye on the farmhouse in the distance, which was growing ever-so-slowly nearer.
For a few minutes the hooves were the only sound in the night, until Snort lost interest and began to slow down. Another set of hooves was pounding the soil behind them. Max turned quickly. Nigel was bearing down, holding on for dear life.
Max kicked harder. Snort snorted.
And stopped.
“This isn’t a rest stop!” Max shouted. “Choo! Choo!”
Snort turned, but he was too late. Max felt a hand on his back. “See here, lad,” Nigel yelled. “Now who’s the rotten egg?”
Max felt himself slipping. He grasped the mane as hard as he could, but Nigel’s push was too much and he fell.
As Max hit the ground hard, the pain shot up his spine. He let out a yell and lay facing the sky. The pain came in waves. He took deep breaths. Snort gave him a deep, appraising gaze, like Max was some mildly interesting weed.
And Nigel receded from view, up the hill toward the farmhouse of Armando.
“Max!” Alex’s voice. Her yak was galumphing up behind him, and she jumped off. “Are you OK?”
“No! But I will be, if you beat Nigel,” Max said.
She knelt by his side, helping him into a sitting position on the ground. The pain was sharp. He saw a sky full of imaginary bright colors, and he heard a shriek to his left.
Except the shriek wasn’t imaginary.
Max blinked. A shadow was moving by them. Fast. Bitsy’s legs pumped out and in, kicking the flank of her yak. The animal moved its bandy legs in a rough imitation of a gallop.
Her silhouette passed them and drew closer and closer to Nigel’s, until the two beasts rammed into one another at the sides. Both yaks seemed surprised by this. With a grunt, the old man’s yak went down on its hind legs. Nigel slid down the beast’s back and onto the dirt.
Alex let out a loud hoot. Max scrabbled to his feet. Nigel’s backpack had been flung aside in the fall, just out of his reach. He moaned, writhing in agony.
“Be right back,” Max said.
“What? Where are you—?”
Max raced up the field, ignoring his own pain. He scooped the backpack off the ground and hooked it over his own shoulder.
“No!” Nigel protested. “You can’t do this to an old man, Max! Would you really leave me here?”
Max stopped. A great big yes burned in his brain.
But the old man was lying in a co
ld, dark field in the middle of nowhere, and soon he would be alone. There wasn’t anyone around for miles. “Do you have a phone?” Max called out.
“In my pack,” Nigel said. “But don’t leave me here. Please, Max.”
“You lied to us,” Max replied. “And stole!”
“I did not want to leave you in Greece.” The old man grimaced. “I was told to leave. I was to take the bones, and then to follow you. I was to find out where you were going and try to beat you to the punch. I was even given a story to tell you in case I was caught. My hands were tied, lad.”
“You were told? Who was bossing you around?”
Nigel moaned again. “Someone I met years ago, when I went to Niemand Enterprises. You have to understand, only two people in my life were ever kind to me. One was the fellow who died, Basile. Unfortunately he didn’t call the shots.”
“Stinky did,” Max said.
“Right you are. But someone else even closer to Niemand took the time to listen to my story about Gaston,” Nigel said. “I wanted very badly to redeem his name in the historical record. And before I knew it, this person involved me in this plan to sabotage your mission.”
Max cocked his head. “Who was this?”
“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you,” Nigel said softly. “Open my pack. My phone!”
Max yanked open the pack, took out Nigel’s phone, and handed it to him. In a moment Nigel was turning the screen back to him. “My list of texts over the last few days . . .”
Narrowing his eyes, Max stared at the scroll of names. Every single one was the same.
BENTHAM, GLORIA.
32
BITSY Bentham’s face was pale in the moonlight as she read some of the messages from her mom to Nigel. “‘Have you found them yet?’ . . . ‘They will reach the Kozhim River before you. We must stall for time’ . . . ‘Darling, you were not to go rogue in Russia. Be sure to stay with them in Kathmandu.’” She handed the phone back to Nigel. “Wow . . .”
Alex put her hand on Bitsy’s shoulder. “I’m sure it’s complicated,” she said without much conviction.
“I’m so sorry,” Nigel said. “She was good to me for many years.”
“She hated how Spencer Niemand dismissed you,” Bitsy said, her voice choked and distant. “That’s all I knew. I had no idea you and she were working together.” Her eyes were moist as she looked at Nigel. “After Uncle Basile died, Mummy became . . . oh, I don’t know, cut off. Angry. Impatient.”
“When she found out Max and Alex would be coming to London, everything changed,” Nigel said. “The genius sleuths who had discovered a secret treasure—decoding hints no one else could! She got it in her head that you’d be the ones who could solve the mystery of Gaston’s missing work.”
“She never asked us,” Max said.
“She wanted to,” Nigel replied. “The idea was, she and I would entice you—little by little. I would show you the code . . . we would get to know one another. She didn’t want to overwhelm you after your ordeal. But things didn’t go quite as planned at the funeral home. You went off with . . .”
He looked at Bitsy.
“They went off with me,” she said. “And I was worried Mummy would be upset. So I kept our whereabouts a secret.”
“I contacted her when you found me,” Nigel said. “She began imagining herself as a silent partner. An overseer. At first I was to be her eyes and ears. Then the keeper of the artifacts.” Nigel sighed. “After things went bad in Greece, I’m afraid she rather snapped. Her assignments to me became more bizarre. I believe she lost track of the mission. She thought that I could find the ingredients myself.”
“Did she make you rat us out to the police?” Max said.
Nigel chuckled ruefully. “I’m afraid not. I was being followed too, you know. A fellow from Interpol tracked me to my hotel. I had to give him back an artifact so he would leave me alone.”
“He didn’t lock you up?” Alex asked.
“Darling, they’re hippo bones, not Rembrandts.” Nigel smiled. “He doesn’t know that I kept a couple hidden in my skivvies.”
Bitsy squeezed her eyes shut. “Did you have to tell us that?”
“I still don’t trust you,” Max said.
Nigel sighed. “I don’t blame you.”
“We’re trying to save someone’s life,” Max went on. “My friend has a few weeks to live. This could save her. For us, it’s not about some dead ancestor. So give us what you have and leave us alone.”
Nigel rose from the ground, struggling to stand upright. He reached into his backpack, pulled out a small sack, and handed it to Max. “I had a daughter once. And a wife. I lost my girl to sickness and my wife to grief. Take these, please. They’re yours.”
Max took the sack and opened it. He pulled out four water-filled vials, two containing hippo bones and two containing coils. “Thank you.”
“I’m . . . so sorry about your family,” Alex said. “I didn’t know . . .”
Nigel nodded. “Save your friend. You have two of five ingredients. I am old and tired. I am more than willing to go back home and fade quietly into history. But if you would have me, I’d help you heart and soul, to my last breath.”
Alex and Bitsy stood silent. Both of them looked at Max.
“What do you think?” Alex finally said.
Max’s eyes were fixed on Nigel. He wasn’t smelling fish. Or ham. Or cat pee.
No fear, no confusion, no anger.
Just yak manure. But that was real.
“One for all, and all for Jules Verne,” Max said softly.
Nigel nodded. Max saw his shoulders shaking. Alex put her arms around him first. And then Bitsy.
Max didn’t bother. He moved toward Snort, who nodded his head and grunted.
“I like your attitude,” Max said.
Out by the road, two sets of headlights approached. Bitsy tore away from Nigel, running toward the lights, waving her arms. A moment later, Sal’s voice called out from the first car, “Who won?”
Nigel laughed, wiping his eyes. “Children, it looks like our chariots have arrived.”
“It was a tie!” Max shouted to Sal. He and Alex each took one of Nigel’s shoulders and led him out to the second car.
As Bitsy climbed into KB’s car, Max remarked, “She looks sick.”
“I don’t blame her, given the rather shocking news,” Nigel said, as both vehicles snaked up the hill toward the farmhouse.
“I can’t even imagine what that must have felt like for her,” Alex said. “Her own mother . . .”
“Between you and me,” Nigel said, “I never thought those two were very close. Gloria always regretted marrying Niemand. The way she told it, he influenced Bitsy. Turned her into a mini-him.”
“Bitsy isn’t at all like that guy,” Max said.
Nigel shrugged. “I don’t see it either. I suppose Gloria was lying to me about that too.”
The cars were approaching the top of the hill. Max could see the farmhouse behind a wrought iron gate. The building was made of stone, with large front windows and an ornately carved wooden front door. Furrowed fields stretched out on either side, extending back to the foot of a terraced mountain. A stream wound its way downward through the crops. Closer to the house, at the edge of the field, crates and sacks were piled high, waiting to be picked up. Two white domes loomed overhead—one belonging to a nearby silo and the other to a Buddhist temple visible over the tree line in the distance.
They stopped before the gate, where a sign in many languages was embedded into the stones. Max’s eyes immediately went to the English part:
WELCOME TO
ARMANDO OF KATHMANDU
PRODUCE FOR RESTAURANTS AND HOMES
The gate opened with a loud metallic groan, and they drove up a winding gravel driveway to the front door. A thin man with salt-and-pepper hair emerged. Shielding his eyes against the headlights, he called out to KB in Nepali.
“He doesn’t look too happy,” Alex said.<
br />
“Wait a second . . .” In the front car, Sal rolled down her window and called out to the man. “Aren’t you the father of little Milan Karkhi?”
The man’s annoyed expression vanished. “Ms. Munson?”
“You know him?” Max called out.
“I had his daughter in fourth grade! This happens to me all the time.” With a laugh, Sal bolted from the car and gave the man a hug. “Mr. Karkhi! I didn’t know you lived here!”
“Of course,” the man said. “Armando was my wife’s great-great-grandfather.”
As Max, Bitsy, and Alex got out of the cars, Sal quickly introduced them and took a deep breath. “Mr. Karkhi, I’m dying to catch up, but first I have a favor to ask. My friends here are on a search for something important that you may be able to give them.”
Max quickly explained the basics and showed him the list, pointing to the entry “Derived from the black smear of eternity from Armando of Kathmandu.”
Mr. Karkhi scratched his head. “Well, we’re Armando of Kathmandu all right. But I don’t know what the black smear could be.”
“Sherlock Holmes would ask to see the grounds,” Bitsy said. “He’d come up with ideas by observing.”
“I’m happy to show you around, if you think it would help,” Mr. Karkhi said. “Come.”
He led them around the house, gesturing toward the silo. “We built that to echo the dome of the stupa, just beyond—the Buddhist worship site. Although much of Nepal is Hindu, Buddha himself was born in this country. His name was Siddhartha Gautama, and Armando believed that his spirit blessed the soil.”
Max dug his hand into one of the furrows. “What’s this stuff?”
“Mustard,” Mr. Karkhi said. “The blossoms cover the fields with yellow in the winter. Up ahead we grow many squashes. Some of the harvest is already packed into the crates and sacks, which we’ll bring to market in the morning. The soil is perfect for okra and spinach and potatoes, and up there in the hills we also grow cauliflower and rice.” He stopped. “Any of this ringing a bell for you?”
“Not yet,” Alex said. “Let’s keep going.”