“Why do we have to wear them now?” Cass asked.
The man looked at Cass stonily. “The Massa are on high alert. They have access to your trackers—which means we have just led them here, away from your friend Aly. Once you put yours on, the signal becomes a dead end.”
I shook my head, remembering Aly’s antics in Building D. “No. Aly disabled the KI’s tracking machines. Fried them with an overload of electricity.”
The man’s rocklike expression twitched.
“You . . . have this much confidence in her ability?” he said.
“If you knew her, you would, too,” I said.
The man nodded. “So if they’re not tracking, how did they find you?”
Cass and I exchanged a look and shrugged.
The man took our arms. He pulled us toward Seventy-Second Street, back the way we’d come. “Tell me who exactly you met in Turkey.”
“What do you mean they hacked you, Canavar?” I barked into the speakerphone.
We were back in the KI meeting room in the New York City headquarters, in a sprawling corner apartment in the castlelike building. Dad was glaring at the silver-haired man, still upset about the way he’d hijacked the taxi.
Canavar’s reply squeaked through the tiny speaker. “Perhaps I have not used the proper terminology. It appears that early this morning thy dreaded nemesis the Massa made several phone calls. They reached out to each vicinity that is home to one of the Seven Wonders—including our museum at Bodrum. My employer. Naturally by that time, I had, well, mentioned our exploits to a discreet friend or two . . .”
The back of my head hit the seat’s leather headrest. “That’s not hacking, Canavar,” I said. “That’s a big mouth. You weren’t supposed to say anything!”
“But . . . an experience so momentous!” Canavar said, “of such singular archaeological interest!”
“Canavar, did you tell them where we were headed?” Cass demanded.
The phone stayed silent for a long moment. Then a tiny, “Mea culpa.”
The gray-haired man pressed the off button. “That’s Latin for ‘my fault.’ We have our answer.”
He sat back in his thick leather seat, closing his eyes and pressing his fingers to his temples. The room fell into a tense silence. Cass gave me a kick under the table. His hands still in his lap, he pointed to our companion.
Omphalos, he mouthed.
I don’t know if it was a question or a statement. But I felt a shiver up my spine.
Was it possible?
The man was no-nonsense. Steely. Smart. Cagey. Hadn’t answered when we’d asked his name. He kept his cool, said exactly what he meant and no more, and understood Latin. He didn’t draw attention, yet he could strike fear with a glance or a gesture. The perfect profile for a leader.
And this realization made my heart sink.
Because he was no longer the KI’s best-kept secret. He was here with us, on the ground. Pulling antics in a cab. Totally misunderstanding how we were tracked. Taking unnecessary risks. Revealing his weaknesses. To me, it was a sign. This centuries-old organization, the KI, was on its last legs.
The Massa were out there. Somewhere. Stronger than ever. About to win the game.
I gazed through the window. Below us, tourists wearing green-foam Statue of Liberty crowns were heading into Central Park. Some of them were tossing flowers onto a colorful mosaic that spelled out one word:
IMAGINE.
I turned away.
I didn’t want to.
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
LOSING IT
DR. BRADLEY’S LATEX gloves snapped as she pulled them off her fingers. Her face was lined and haggard. “Aly will be all right for now. Thanks to my New York colleagues. They are lifesavers.”
Cass and I stood in the doorway of the makeshift operating room, watching the two other medical personnel carefully unhook electrodes from Aly. Her mouth moved slightly. I could hear a soft moan. As the KI doctors left with the silver-haired man—Number One, aka the Omphalos—we shook their hands. Torquin sat quietly on a stool, which barely contained him. “No ukulele . . .” he said sadly to no one in particular.
“This is amazing news, Dr. Bradley,” I said, “because we were just told we have to move Aly right now.”
She shook her head. “She’ll need some recovery time. I told that to Number One.”
Cass gave me a quizzical look.
“When did you talk to him?” I asked, puzzled.
“I didn’t. Not directly.” She pointed to a monitor on the wall. “He texted us, on that.”
“Sneaky guy,” Cass said. “I didn’t even see him take out his phone, did you, Jack?”
“Take out his—What are you talking about?” Dr. Bradley asked. “You’ve seen Number One?”
“We took a cab ride with him,” I said.
Dr. Bradley dropped a length of IV tubing. “You what?”
Before we could answer, our taxi companion came running up the hallway. “They’re onto us. The Massa. We were hacking into their text messages and they just went dead cold.”
“Do you know where they are?” Dr. Bradley asked.
“Unclear whether they’ve landed in New York yet,” he replied. “If the girl isn’t ready, the other two must get to the museum now.”
“Not two,” Torquin grunted. “Three.”
Behind us, the monitor on the wall beeped. A message instantly materialized:
NOT SO FAST.
Cass jumped back. “Who’s that?”
The response crawled quickly across the screen:
GREETINGS, CASSIUS. YOU WILL EXCUSE ME FOR NOT SPEAKING. ANONYMITY IS KEY. YOU AND JACK LOOK WELL, FOR TWO WHO HAVE SURVIVED THE UNDERWORLD. AND THE INCOMPETENCE OF MR. KRAUS.
The silver-haired man’s face lost its composure. “The iridium bands were an honest mistake.”
“Wait—you’re not the Omphalos?” Cass said, slowly looking from the silver-haired man to the screen. “And that is?”
SECURITY HAS BEEN COMPROMISED AT ALL LEVELS. THE KARAI INSTITUTE WILL BE OFF-LINE UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE WHILE WE RESTRUCTURE. MR. KRAUS WILL COMMENCE ERASING ALL EVIDENCE OF OUR EXISTENCE.
“I have a patient!” Dr. Bradley said. “She needs to recover. There will be more episodes. We will continue to need emergency protocols.”
“I—I’m good,” Aly said, rising groggily from the bed. “Maybe not ready for a marathon right this minute, but I’m good.”
BRAVA. TAKE WHAT YOU NEED TO CONTINUE YOUR MISSION. PORTABILITY IS NECESSARY. I AM ASSEMBLING A HANDPICKED COMMITTEE OF OUR ABLEST REMAINING SPECIALISTS. WE WILL REPORT WHEN WE CAN.
“What does this mean for us?” Dr. Bradley blurted out. “What good is the KI if you disappear?”
A TRANSPORT WILL ARRIVE FOR TORQUIN IN EXACTLY 20 MINUTES AT THE TRUCK DOCK ON WEST 68TH BETWEEN BROADWAY AND COLUMBUS. FURTHER INSTRUCTIONS WILL AWAIT. TILL THEN, TAKE HEART.
Torquin stood abruptly, knocking over his stool. “Leave Select? Cannot. Will not!”
The screen glowed again as words formed.
I COUNT ON YOU TO BE THE CORNERSTONE OF OUR PHYSICAL REBUILDING. AND PLEASE BE AWARE, THERE ARE CONSEQUENCES FOR DISOBEDIENCE.
I saw Torquin’s fists flex. I nudged him. In the hall outside was a man I hadn’t seen before—a man almost as big as Torquin, with a serious-looking pistol hanging from his belt.
Torquin’s fists uncurled.
Mr. Kraus wiped his forehead and gave old Red Beard a sympathetic look. “Brother, trust me, you don’t have much of a choice.”
Seven minutes later we pulled to a stop at a sprawling building with broad stone steps.
“Who’s the dude on the horse?” Cass said, gazing out at a statue of a heroic-looking horseman with a Native American standing by his side.
“Theodore Roosevelt,” Dad said as he stepped out of the taxi, clutching the bag with both Loculi. “He and his father played huge roles founding this place.”
We left the cab and began climbing the steps, pa
ssing a school group about my age. They were taking selfies near the Roosevelt statue, making faces and goofing off. One of the girls looked at me and turned away, giggling. She was annoying, but she was normal. For a moment I imagined Dad and me as normal people visiting the museum. The thought of it was . . . well, amazing.
Fat chance that would ever happen now.
I looked left and right. I didn’t know what I was looking for. The Massa could be anybody.
“Buddy, dollar for a cup of coffee?”
I gasped and jumped away from a stringy-haired man in tattered clothing, who was standing at one of the top steps, holding out a cup to us. “Easy, Jack,” Aly said, fishing coins out of her pocket and dropping them in his cup.
“Bless you,” the man replied, then winked at me. “And take care of that anxiety, kid. It’ll kill you.”
Easy. Aly is right.
Dad led us into the front hall of the museum, which contained a gargantuan skeleton of a dinosaur raised up on its hind legs. “Looks familiar,” Cass murmured.
I nodded. It resembled a slightly smaller version of the skeleton in the Great Hall of the House of Wenders, back on the island. As we stepped to the end of a long, snaky ticket line, I craned my neck up to see its head.
I almost missed the man wearing a dark robe, who disappeared into the exhibit hall behind the skeleton.
I jabbed Dad in the side. “Look!”
“Massa?” Dad asked.
“Where?” Cass said.
“You are too hyped up!” Aly said.
“Normal people don’t wear robes!” I shouted.
I bolted toward the front of the line, barged past the ticket taker, and raced into the exhibit hall. It was a high-ceilinged room with a balcony, and in the center was a circular display of enormous elephants. The floor on all sides was crowded with families and school groups. I ran to the right, leaping to see over people’s heads.
There.
I caught a better glimpse of him now, his robe swinging as he walked. I thought he was heading out the other side, but he seemed to change his mind. Picking up speed, he made a full circle and headed back out the exhibit entrance.
Had he seen me?
“Excuse me . . . sorry . . .” I pushed my way through, nearly trampling a two-year-old in my path, and stumbled into the hallway outside the room.
Elevators lined both walls, but only one car was open—and it was closing, jammed with people. I saw a bearded face, a flash of the robe’s material, before the door shut.
A “down” arrow lit up. Behind me was a set of marble stairs. I nearly fell trying to run down. I got to the next level just in time to see the door shut again. A crowd had exited, but the Massa was not among them.
I ran to the next floor. The bottom. I could smell burgers from a food court behind me. A sign pointed to the subway entrance. I heard the ding of the elevator, but it was a different door. A different car. I’d missed the one I’d been chasing.
“Pardon me, young man,” said an old lady with an American Museum of Natural History hat. “Are you lost?”
“I’m looking for a guy in a robe,” I said.
She nodded cheerily. “Ah yes, I just saw him.”
“Do you know where he went?” I blurted.
“Of course.” She pointed to a room with two wood-paneled doors, just beyond the food court. The guy was disappearing inside. I sprinted after him. “Yo!” I yelled as he entered the room. “Stop!”
A million words welled up from my gut and collided together in my brain. I was breathing so hard and fast I could barely speak. “I don’t know . . . how you got here, but you . . . will never . . .”
The man turned. He was wearing thick glasses, a clerical collar, and a long black beard. “How I got here? Why, I took the C train. There is an exit from the platform—so convenient. Do you need directions, son? Have you lost your parents?”
That was when I noticed a name tag just below his collar: REV. JONATHAN HARTOUNIAN, MID-ATLANTIC ARMENIAN ORTHODOX COUNCIL. On a blackboard in the room behind him, someone had written GLIMPSES OF ARMENIAN RELIGIOUS CULTURE IN MODERN ARCHAEOLOGY. A crowd of bearded, black-robed guys turned in their seats, all staring at me with placid smiles.
“Um, sorry,” I said. “So sorry . . .”
I backed into the hallway. Two kids were staring at me, holding tightly to their mom’s hands. The old guide was approaching me with a curious expression.
Without a word, I turned for the stairway and ran.
I was losing it.
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
THE SONG OF THE HEPTAKIKLOS
“PROMISE YOU’LL STAY with us,” Cass whispered over his shoulder as he climbed the basement stairs.
“Yes, Cass,” I said wearily, “I promise.”
“No chasing nice priests,” he said.
“Ha-ha-ha,” I said.
“Or being scared of beggars?”
“Knock it off!”
“Ssshh!” said Dad.
“Easy, Jack,” Aly whispered. “We don’t have a Loculus of Soundproofing.”
We were walking fast, heading up from the lower level to the museum’s first floor. At this point Cass was the only one holding on to the Loculus of Invisibility, which had hidden us nicely while the museum had closed for the night. But in a narrow stairwell it was hard for everyone to hold hands while one person held a Loculus, so Dad, Aly, and I were in plain sight. But that was fine. We’d snuck into a supply closet and found a custodial uniform for Dad. If someone did see us, Dad would say he was an employee and we were his niece and nephews from out of town, who he was showing around.
We gathered at the top of the stairs. The place echoed with the whine of distant vacuum cleaners. Just to be safe, we all held hands—Cass to Aly to me to Dad—and went invisible. We tiptoed through the empty Native American exhibit, under the disapproving frowns of dark totem poles that lined the aisles like trees in a forest.
At eight P.M., the museum had been closed for over two hours. We’d already seen a lot of the place, and I hadn’t yet felt any sign of the Loculus of Healing. We were going to cover every inch until we did.
“Uh, guys, I have to go,” Aly said.
“Go where?” Cass asked. “You have a hot date?”
“Go there, I mean.” Aly gestured toward the restrooms.
As she headed in that direction, we all followed to maintain our invisibility.
We walked past a huge wooden longboat filled with Native American mannequins and a bear. To our left was a locked exit. Windows looked out to a circular driveway and a row of old apartment buildings across the street.
Aly gave us a raised eyebrow look. “Guys. You’re not invited,” she said.
“Not—wha?—we know!” Cass stammered. “We’ll just, um, wait outside.”
But then I began to feel a tingling in my feet. Then my knees. My heart started to thump.
“Wait a minute,” I said. “It’s here. The Loculus.”
“In the bathroom?” Aly asked.
“Farther away,” I replied. “But in this building. I feel it.”
Aly’s face lit up. “Go find it! Now. You, too, Mr. McKinley. Give me your phone, Jack. Cass and I will follow with the Loculi and catch up.”
I fished out my phone and handed it to her. As Aly darted into the restroom and Cass vanished from sight, I went quickly into the next room. And the next. Dad followed close behind. Exhibits raced by us, but I hardly noticed. Rodents hanging on a wall. A roped-off exhibit in preparation. A stairway.
Floor Two. Secretary birds. African costumes. Antelopes.
The feeling was getting stronger, throbbing in the marrow of my bones, tickling the follicles of my skin. I stopped at the bottom of a dark stairway. “Up there,” I said quietly.
At the base of the stairs was a sign on a brass post that said RESEARCH AREA/PERMIT REQUIRED. Dad slid it aside. “I think an exception to the rule can be made.”
We scampered up the stairs and paused at the top, staring into
a dimly lit hallway with closed doors on either side. Down at the far end was a T, two hallways leading left and right.
I froze. From the left hallway I could hear the steady tap-tap-tap of distant footsteps.
“Don’t worry.” Dad smoothed his uniform and began whistling softly.
Whistling?
“Why are you doing that?” I whispered.
“So they know someone’s here and won’t be startled when they actually see us,” Dad said. “It’ll be less suspicious. Now come on. Look like you belong.”
I tried not to feel completely dorkish as we walked up the corridor. But the Song of the Heptakiklos was screaming inside me, pulling me forward. Telling me where to go. “Go right,” I said through Dad’s warbly whistle.
When we turned, we nearly collided with a woman in a simple custodial uniform, with her hair pulled back into a tight ponytail. “Howdy!” Dad said, way too loudly.
“Yesterday,” the woman said.
“Huh?” Dad replied.
“The song you were whistling—‘Yesterday,’ by the Beatles—I like it.” She looked closely at Dad’s name tag. “How do you pronounce your name? Kosh . . . Koz . . .”
For the first time I saw the name tag on Dad’s uniform: KOŚCIUSZKO.
“Koz!” I blurted out. “Everybody calls him Koz.”
“This is my, er, nephew,” Dad added. “Just giving him a little private tour.”
“Nice to meet you,” she said, pointing to her own tag, which read MARIA. “My name’s easy.”
“Well, Maria, we were just heading to grab something from room number . . .” Dad said, glancing toward me. “Room number . . . which one, young man?”
I didn’t know!
It could have been any of the doors. There were three of them, one on each side and one at the end of the hallway. The sound was so unbearable I couldn’t believe they weren’t hearing it. I staggered closer. The room numbers swirled before my eyes—B23 . . . B24 . . . B25 . . .
I could feel Maria’s gaze. “Is the boy all right?” she asked.
“Fine,” Dad said.
“Fine,” I said at the same time.
She suspects something’s off. Pick a room. Any room. “B twenty-four!” I blurted out.