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Dedication
Contents
Contents
Cover
Vertigo Page
Ready, Set, Go!
Title Page
Dedication
Contents
Chapter 1
Chaper 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Sneak Peek
Teaser Page
Copyright
Chapter 1
Dan Cahill awoke from a bad dream only to find himself in the midst of a worse one.
Images of the past twelve hours flashed like a rapid-fire slide show of horror inside his brain: a madman with the power of the US presidency nearly within his grasp; Pony — ally and friend — killed, trying to rescue Dan . . .
And Amy . . .
Tears blurred his vision just as it returned to him. His sister was dying, a timer literally ticking her life away.
He blinked the moisture from his eyes. He was tied to the armrests of a leather airline seat. Dan had spent enough time aboard Jonah Wizard’s Gulfstream to recognize the luxury interior of a private jet. Only this one didn’t belong to Dan’s celebrity cousin. . . .
“He’s awake!” exclaimed a gruff, unpleasant voice.
Galt Pierce was striding down the aisle. He was blond, brawny, and ripped — unnaturally ripped. His older sister, Cara, was right behind him, slimmer, feminine, but also muscular. Which meant this was the plane of J. Rutherford Pierce, head of Founders Media, billionaire, tycoon, megalomaniac, and the madman who wanted Dan dead.
Cara untied Dan’s right arm and handed him a cup of water. Thirsty as he was, Dan couldn’t resist tossing it back in her face. It was a pointless thing to do — but also deeply satisfying. For Pony, he thought, hatred flooding his soul. And for Amy! If it hadn’t been for Cara’s father, Amy never would have taken the serum that had started her on a death clock.
“You little —” Galt raised his hand, ready to bring it down hard across Dan’s cheek.
Cara grabbed his wrist. “Don’t!”
He stared at his sister. “You’re letting him get away with that?”
“You think I want to?” Cara demanded, the water dripping down her cheeks and nose. “But if you break his jaw, how’s he going to tell us what we need to know?”
“What you need to know?” Dan was instantly alert. Outside the window of the jet, the wings dipped, bringing a sliver of the Central American rain forest into view. Dan had felt it in the aircraft’s motion, but his brain had been unable to process the information until now. “We’re circling! We’re still over Guatemala!”
“So?” Galt snapped.
“So you were waiting for me to wake up! You need me!”
“Don’t flatter yourself, Dan,” Cara said coolly. “We know exactly what you and your sister have been up to —”
“Our dad decoded your ratty old book!” Galt interrupted.
Dan gasped in mock horror. “You mean he figured out our secret recipe for potato salad?”
Galt howled his outrage, but Cara put a hand on his arm. Something about the gesture reminded Dan of Amy. Normally, such acts of big-sisterliness annoyed him to no end. But right then, he ached to see Amy, to know she was okay. Only, that would have meant she’d been captured along with him. And besides, she wasn’t okay. She was the polar opposite of okay.
“There’s an antidote to the serum,” Cara told Dan. “That’s what you and Amy have been working on. We want to know how much progress you’ve made.”
“Yeah, I’d be wondering about it, too, if I were you.” Dan sat back with a smirk. “Good luck with that.”
There was a rattling sound as a stainless steel rolling cart was pushed down the aisle by a Pierce employee. Goon might have been a better word. J. Rutherford Pierce’s henchmen looked like adult versions of Galt and Cara, and like Pierce himself. Big, muscular, enhanced — glowing, almost. It was all artificial. The key was the same secret that had made the Cahills the most influential, successful, and powerful family in history. The 39 Clues — a serum with thirty-nine ingredients that gave a person nearly superhuman strength, genius, creativity, and cunning. Pierce had gotten hold of a modified version of the stuff and was feeding it to his staff, his family, and even himself. It had rendered him — and everybody around him — virtually unstoppable. That was why Dan; his sister, Amy; and their companions were risking everything on this quest — to assemble the ingredients of an ancient antidote to Gideon Cahill’s formula. It was the only way to thwart Pierce’s dangerous ambitions.
The attendant plucked a hypodermic syringe off the tray and held it up to the light. It was filled with clear liquid. Panicked, Dan tried to struggle, but Galt grabbed his free arm and pinned it to the seat.
A mewl of desperation escaped Dan as the needle drew nearer.
“Wimp.” Galt smirked. “If we wanted to kill you, you’d already be dead.”
“It’s sodium pentothal,” his sister added. “Truth serum.”
Dan knew the sting of the needle and braced himself for the onslaught to come. But instead of blinding pain or nausea, he experienced a flood of warmth and well-being. Warning bells went off somewhere inside his head.
Stop feeling good, stupid! That’s how the truth drug works! You get too comfortable and spill your guts!
To counteract the effect — fight it, fight it! — he forced his mind onto unpleasant thoughts. For a Cahill, there were always a lot of options. The death of his parents in a fire when he was only four; the sight of poor Pony, his eyes wide with terror, dropping from a helicopter to a violent end on the rain forest floor. And most painful of all, the last days he’d spent with Amy.
Amy had saved his life, but in order to do it, she’d had to take the serum. Not the modified version that Pierce was using to dose his people, but the real thing — Gideon Cahill’s five-hundred-year-old recipe, pure and strong. The real serum produced extraordinary results almost instantly. But no one had ever survived longer than a week after taking it. Now it was doubly urgent to complete the antidote. Amy’s life depended on it.
Dan pulled himself up short. Did I say that out loud or just think it? He realized uneasily that he couldn’t be sure. It was the injection working on his mind.
“And how many ingredients have you collected so far?” Cara probed.
“What?” The sodium pentothal was making it impossible to distinguish between thoughts and speech. “Did I say antidote? I meant anecdote ??
? you know, like a funny story —”
Galt muscled into his view. “The ingredients — do you have them all?”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Dan announced, pleased that his resistance seemed to be working now. Of the seven antidote components mentioned in the diary of his ancestor, Olivia Cahill, Amy and Dan had already acquired three. Other Cahill sources around the globe had come up with three more. That left just one remaining.
In horror, Dan heard the sound of his own voice. He was talking, and Cara and Galt were nodding and listening! He tried to add, “Forget that! I’m lying!” but the words just wouldn’t come out.
“Confirm the location of the final ingredient,” Galt persisted.
The antidote had been assembled from the ancient wisdom of seven lost cities. The last of these — the one Dan must not reveal — was located in modern Cambodia, in the ancient Khmer civilization of Angkor.
“Anger?” Galt was no scholar. “Dad said it was in Cambodia.”
“Not Anger,” Cara corrected. “Angkor — and it is in Cambodia. Angkor was one of the most developed societies of the ancient world!”
No! Dan was in agony. I spilled that, too, although the Pierces seemed to know it already. I’m a living, breathing Wikipedia! He had to stop himself before he gave up any more information. But how? The injection made it impossible to keep anything secret.
Galt was like a bloodhound. “What’s the ingredient, and where do we find it in this Angkor place?”
Dan bit down on his lip until he tasted blood. He had to get out of this, but the enemy was himself and the chemical inside him that was turning him into a blabbermouth. Then he spotted the bottle on the rolling tray. Chloroform, read the label.
Knockout drops!
He pulled his hand free of Galt’s grip and grabbed for the bottle. In the ensuing struggle, the contents spilled onto Dan’s shirt. Crowing in triumph, he buried his face in the wet fabric and breathed the strong solvent odor. With a great sense of accomplishment, he felt himself slipping away.
You can’t talk if you’re unconscious!
He slumped in the seat, useless to them now.
Galt slapped Dan’s face, but the prisoner did not stir. The sharp contact filled Galt with an exhilaration he wouldn’t have believed possible. Finally, he was a part of his father’s plans! Not just posing for father-and-son pictures, but taking action. He was a real Piercer now, a soldier for the cause!
“Wake up!” Energized, he reared back to strike another blow, but his sister grabbed his wrist.
“It’s no use,” she told him. “He’s out like a light.”
Galt turned to the man with the syringe. “Toss him out the door.”
“Are you crazy?” Cara exploded. “We’re at fifteen thousand feet!”
Galt glared at his sister. Where did she get off contradicting him? “He’s already told us what we need to know.”
“Think, Galt — this is huge! An antidote in Cahill hands — it’s the one thing that could wreck Dad’s plans.”
“All the more reason for him to go skydiving without a parachute!” growled Galt, indicating the unmoving Dan.
She shook her head. “I’ve heard he has a photographic memory — that means he can tell us everything the Cahills have seen and done. The kid has more uses than a Swiss Army knife. We’re not going to harm a single hair on his head.”
Galt opened his mouth to overrule her, but bit back the angry words. He looked around the cabin at his father’s hired muscle. There was something in their expressions and body language that told him they were tuned in to his sister’s orders, not his own.
When had that happened? He had always been Dad’s favorite, and he’d grown up believing he’d be Dad’s heir. Sure, Cara would be entitled to her share of the money. Yet the business, the power — J. Rutherford Pierce was going to be president of the United States soon. And even that was only the first step in Dad’s master plan. . . .
“Tie the prisoner back in his seat,” Cara ordered the henchmen. “I’m going to talk to the pilot about a flight plan to Cambodia.”
Galt burned with resentment. Those should have been his lines.
The Pierce siblings worked for their father, but that didn’t necessarily mean they were on the same side.
Chaper 2
The Jeep hit an exposed root, jouncing eighteen inches straight up and nearly launching the four occupants into the jungle underbrush.
Instead of slowing down, Amy Cahill stomped on the gas, coaxing even more speed out of the rickety four-wheeler.
“Everybody okay?” called Jake Rosenbloom from the passenger seat, hanging on to the roll bar.
“Barely,” groaned Ian Kabra. “I nearly lost my computer, not to mention my lunch.”
“Ponyrific,” Jake replied soberly, using Pony’s nickname for his custom laptop. “It’s all we have left of — him.”
The brilliant Pony had built the machine himself, using components from some of the best computers anywhere. It was a magnificent machine, but it could never replace the magnificent friend who’d been taken from them.
Another bump sent passengers bouncing around the Jeep.
“I thought the rental agent said this was a good road,” Ian complained in his clipped British accent.
“In actuality,” put in Atticus Rosenbloom, Jake’s younger brother, “she never said it was good. She just said it was better than the roads in Honduras.”
“You asked me to research the Tonle Sap water snake,” Ian persisted. “With all this tossing about, I can’t find the T key. Not even Pony could work under these conditions. Do slow down, Amy!”
Amy let up a little on the accelerator. Thanks to her serum-boosted acuity of vision, she had actually watched Pony’s grip on the chopper’s skid fail, sending him plunging to his death. Loyal Pony — who wasn’t even a Cahill — had offered his digital cowboy skills to their quest. And the cost had been his life.
Amy’s grip tightened on the steering wheel. That was the helicopter that had flown off with Dan. For all she knew, at this very moment, her younger brother was being tortured.
For all she knew, he was as dead as Pony.
To keep from screaming, she pressed harder on the accelerator, and the Jeep leaped forward, rattling and rocking along the dirt road.
“As much as I hate to agree with Ian,” Jake ventured, “this is crazy driving. We’re not going to be able to help anybody if we hit a tree.”
“We’re not going to hit a tree,” returned Amy through clenched teeth. “I’m in total control of this car.”
“Good to know,” Ian said smoothly, “because I left my spleen about twelve kilometers back.”
“But, Amy,” Jake persisted, “We need to talk about why you’re in total control of this car — why you can drive like a NASCAR champion on a road meant for ox carts.”
“There’s nothing to talk about,” Amy snapped. “I took the serum. Stop worrying. I’m fine!”
She was fine. Better than fine, and not just because the serum was making her faster and stronger with every passing hour. Her thinking was clear. She could plan strategic moves and countermoves almost to infinity. Her eyesight was amazing, her hearing acute, her reaction time virtually instantaneous. She had no superpowers — she couldn’t lift locomotives or fly through the air. Yet her natural capabilities were enhanced to the nth degree.
No sooner had this thought crossed her soaring mind than the pinkie of her left hand began to twitch slightly against the wheel. Under normal circumstances, she would not even have noticed it. But in her heightened state of acuity, she understood that this tiny spasm represented the beginning of the end. It was Amy’s future — the loss of control; the organ failure; the terrible, painful conclusion. The serum was glorious — until it wasn’t. And that, apparently, happened very quickly. The stuff could burn out
a human being inside of a week. Amy would suffer the same fate if they couldn’t come up with the antidote.
How crazy was that? She’d never felt better in her life — and she was dying.
Suddenly, an enormous logging truck roared out of the trees, looming above, almost upon them, its broad cab hogging most of the road. Before any of them could shout, “Amy, look out!” she was on it. Her reaction was lightning fast — the instant her eyes identified the danger, her hands were moving the steering wheel. She found the path that hadn’t been there milliseconds earlier, squeezing through an impossible gap with mere inches to spare. Then they were back on the road, full speed ahead, as if nothing had happened.
For a few breathless seconds, no one spoke. Before, there hadn’t been enough time to scream; now it was no longer necessary.
“Don’t take this the wrong way, Amy,” Ian managed at last. “But at the moment, I’m really glad you swallowed that serum.”
No normal driver could have avoided that truck. Gideon’s formula may have been a death sentence, but it had just saved all their lives.
At that moment, the Jeep suffered one tremendous jolt before the ride leveled off, becoming not only smoother but quieter as well.
Jake was instantly alert. “What happened? What did we hit?”
“Pavement,” supplied Atticus, daring to look over the side. “We must be getting close to Guatemala City.”
With the better road conditions, Ian was able to return to his research on Pony’s laptop. “The Tonle Sap water snake,” he reported. “Scientific name: Enhydris longicauda. A slightly venomous colubrid snake native to the Tonle Sap, Cambodia’s Great Lake. It’s a close relative of the sea leopard snake, the rice paddy snake, and the Kapuas mud snake.”
“‘Slightly venomous’?” Atticus repeated. “What does that mean — when it bites you, you only get a little bit dead?”
“If you think about it,” mused Amy, “the venom can’t be deadly or it wouldn’t work as part of the antidote. It’s not much of a cure if it kills everybody who takes it.”