Wade and the Scorpion’s Claw

It was evening now and the sky had darkened enough for the first stars to be visible, even over the brightly lit airstrips.

“Where math and magic join up, right?” whispered Darrell, sidling up to me. “What Uncle Henry said about the sky?”

I turned to him. “You do listen when I tell you stuff.”

“Sure,” he said. “Just not all the time.”

Where mathematics and magic become one was the way Uncle Henry had once described the sky to me. It was a magical place of stars and constellations and planets, always in motion, an area where science and mysticism wove into each other. Except now the sky had become something even more. It had become our way of life.

“You should try to sleep,” I told him as we headed back to the others. “We all should. We have another hour at least before we can even board.”

“I can’t sleep,” Darrell said, slumping into a seat next to Becca, stretching out, then hunching over, ready to bolt up. “Sleep is for other people. I hate waiting here. It’s dead time.”

“Have you tried humming a lullaby inside your head?” Lily asked, probably hoping a joke might distract him from his mother’s disappearance.

He groaned. He wasn’t taking the bait.

Sara is Darrell’s actual mom, so of course he was in worse shape than the rest of us, probably even Dad. Not knowing the fate of someone you love is crushing. I love Sara, too. We all do. But for Darrell it’s definitely the hardest. She’s his mother, the one who fed him and read to him and nagged him and held his hand when he had nightmares. It was kind of amazing he wasn’t even more of a wreck than he was.

“If I fall asleep,” Darrell said, staring at his hands as if wondering what they were for, “will it mean I’m not thinking about Mom?”

“That’s so not possible,” I said, and then added, “but I get it. No one’s going to be right until Sara’s back.”

Becca grabbed my sleeve. “Him. On our left.”

I think I actually shuddered when she said him and was instantly on edge. I turned my head slowly and saw a tall man in a long black leather coat striding into our gate. He carried no luggage, and his hands were driven deep into his coat pockets. He paused, pulled one hand out to glance at his phone, and then pocketed it.

“He’s German,” Lily whispered. “You can tell by his shoes.”

I believed her. Lily knew fashion backward and forward and usually got it right about stuff like that.

The man couldn’t have been more than ten years older than my dad, but his hair was as white as snow and cropped very short. I could see his face was weathered, as if he’d spent a lot of time outside.

“Plus, he’s totally overdressed for Hawaii,” Lily added. “Which makes him too suspicious not to be evil.”

“Lily,” said Dad softly, eyeing the tall man. “Don’t go overboard.”

She frowned. “Okay, but just in case, my code name for him is Leathercoat.”

“He’s with the Order,” Darrell said, raising his eyes to the man.

Becca shivered and twisted away in her seat. “At least he can’t do anything to us out here in the open …”

“I agree with Darrell,” I said. “Everyone’s with the Order—”

A baby laughed suddenly.

“The baby, too?” Lily asked with a smirk.

“Probably in training,” I said.

The baby’s laugh was full-throated, and so was his mother’s. The reason was a middle-aged man, one of the passengers joining us from the Hong Kong flight. He knelt in front of the stroller, making faces, then tipped over and balanced on one hand, his long black hair dangling to the floor. The baby practically exploded in laughter. Finally, the man jumped to his feet and took a low bow.

Several people clapped, including Lily. “I used to be able to do stuff like that,” she said. “Not since sixth grade, though. I’m rusty.”

“I never knew you were in the circus,” Darrell teased her despite himself. Joking around was his way of covering up his feelings.

“I was,” she said flatly. “It’s where I first saw your clown act.”

He grumbled a laugh, which was as good as he could do. I looked around. Leathercoat had wandered away, probably for a pineapple sandwich. Maybe Dad was right. He was just a guy.

“Kids, come over here.” Dad waved us toward him. “Terence Ackroyd just texted me the number of an investigator in Bolivia. I called and it’s ringing.”

Terence Ackroyd was the mystery writer who Sara had been due to meet in New York. After her luggage, cell phone, and passport all arrived from Bolivia without her, he was the one who’d told us Sara was missing.

Remembering what Galina Krause had said in Guam, we then put two and two together and realized that the Order had kidnapped Sara.

“One of Mr. Ackroyd’s mystery novels is set in Bolivia, and he knows a first-rate private detective there,” Dad said to us. “So he asked her to look into Sara’s disappearance. He just sent me the number and told me to call her anytime—” He held up his hand. “Hello? Yes, this is Roald Kaplan,” he said as softly as he could. “Terence Ackroyd gave me this number. Regarding … my wife. I was calling to see if you’d heard anything …” His voice trailed off. I could tell he was listening intently. Then he put the phone on speaker, and we crowded around.

There was a woman’s accented voice on the other end.

“Dr. Kaplan,” she said huskily, “our team of nine investigators believes that Sara Kaplan was taken from Bolivia to Brazil. We are tracking her location now.” Then her voice changed. “Mr. Ackroyd has insisted we do not contact official authorities. He has told you?”

“He has,” my dad said, with a glance up at Darrell, who hung on every word. “He said there was a message in her luggage?”

“He can tell you more about that when you arrive in New York,” the woman said. “In the meantime, we are on the brink of information that you will find helpful. I don’t want to go too far, but it could be very good news. I will call you within the next several hours.”

The expression on Dad’s face was suddenly a mixture of tears and smiles. “That’s really promising. I can’t thank you enough for everything you’re doing. Call this phone anytime. Please.”

“Of course. Keep it close.” She hung up.

Dad pressed the End Call button on his phone and put his arm around Darrell. He didn’t say anything. Neither of them did. But for the first time since we’d learned about Sara’s disappearance, Dad looked like he might really smile.

So did Darrell. “This is awesome! This is soooo good.”

It was definitely not news to go all crazy happy about, not yet, but it felt good that real detectives were looking for Sara. “Our team of nine investigators,” the woman had said. So far our little group had turned out to be pretty good at solving puzzles. But figuring out codes and riddles from the past was nothing like searching for a living person.

So, yeah, we felt lighter. I glanced around at the other passengers, wondering if they’d suddenly look less suspicious. They actually did.

Good. Now we could begin to relax a little.

The gate was cramming up even more now. There were so few empty seats that I didn’t think anything when a man in a dark suit sat down in the row directly across from us. He was thin, and he wore thick black glasses and carried a green shoulder bag. His hands were stuck deep in his side pockets. I heard my dad’s voice in my head—Not everyone’s planning something—so I looked away.

Darrell was feeling better, which usually meant he was hungry. “I need a Snickers,” he said. “Let’s all go to the newsstand, me for food and you to search the world papers for tragedies. Okay, Dad?”

“Ten minutes,” he said after checking his watch. “Stay close.”

In one of his last messages to us, Uncle Henry had predicted we’d hear about disasters happening around the world, and that they were connected to the Teutonic Order’s hunt for the relics. Sure enough, we soon read reports of a building collapse in South America, a ship sinking in the Mediterranean, and the disappearance of a school bus that later reappeared, shot up by musket bullets from the nineteenth century.

Yeah. Try to figure that one out.

In the airport bookstore, we searched the papers as we always did, but my attention was instantly snagged by the shelf of Terence Ackroyd thrillers. Last week, I would’ve barely noticed them. The store had quite a few of them—The Umbrian Vespers, The Berlin Manifesto, and his latest hardcover novel, The Mozart Inferno, which was currently at the top of the bestseller list.

“He’s an actual person,” said Becca. “I almost doubted it until now. I should read one. We’re going to see him in New York, after all.” She decided on The Prometheus Riddle, a spy thriller set in Greece.

“A nuclear submarine sank off India’s coast,” Lily said, holding up that morning’s London Times. “Ten crew members are missing. I bet the Order is behind it. They probably love to sink ships.”

Darrell poked my arm. “If I move a fraction of an inch—”

“Your head will fall off?” I said.

“And … I can see the German dude, hovering outside my field of vision.”

“Leathercoat,” whispered Lily. “Call him Leathercoat.”

Glancing over an issue of Science magazine, I saw the guy standing like a statue, holding a copy of El Mundo but not reading it.

I felt the same strange sensation I’d been experiencing for the last week: my skin tingled and a strange pain pierced my chest. It’s the jab of adrenaline you feel when you’re afraid. I’d felt that in my dream, too.

“I … have to use the bathroom,” I said.

“Because you’re scared,” Darrell told me. “It’s a well-known fact that panic makes you have to go—”

Lily put her hands over her ears. “Darrell, please stop talking!”

I headed to the men’s room. “See you back at the gate.”

“Nuh-uh. Buddy system,” Becca said. “Darrell’ll go with you.”

“What are you, my kindergarten teacher?” Darrell said. “Last time I took a buddy to the bathroom, I was five years old. And while we’re at it, why are we even calling it a bathroom? It doesn’t have a bathtub in it. That would be weird.”

“You’re weird,” said Lily.

“Or a restroom,” he went on, “because you don’t go in there to rest.”

“Darrell, please just go!” said Lily.

“That’s it!” he said. “We should call it a go room! I love it.”

She shoved him hard. “If you love it so much, then go to the go room already! Becca and I have our own mission.” She held up her London Times and five dollars. “We’re going to give the diary an old-fashioned makeover, a newspaper book cover!”

We split up, and Darrell tagged along with me. At least until his stomach remembered the Snickers he didn’t get. “My taste buds are requesting multiple Snickers bars for the road. Or the air. Or whatever. Wait for me here.”

“Easy for you to say,” I grumbled.

It was good to see him lightening up a bit. The phone call with the Bolivian detective had done it. We knew nothing about the investigation, but it occurred to me that if a team of detectives found Sara and got her on a plane, she might actually get to New York at the same time we did.

Meanwhile, I waited and waited until I couldn’t wait anymore. I waved at Darrell at the candy counter; then I sprinted off down a long hall to the men’s room. It smelled like disinfectant and hand soap once I got in there. I stood still for a few seconds, listening to gate announcements, until I was sure I was alone. I did what I needed to do, washed up, and was out again when a shape darkened the end of the corridor. “Darrell? It’s about time—”

Not Darrell.

Leathercoat.

He stepped purposely down the narrow hall toward the restroom. I tried to move aside to give him room, but he blocked me.

“I’m sorry—” I started, but he raised his hand, then fixed a pair of lifeless eyes on mine.

Leathercoat stood unmoving, staring right at me.

I could feel my scalp prickling. My forehead throbbed. My good feeling vanished completely. The man’s irises were so dark, they seemed almost black. There was nothing in them but a kind of intense stillness.

“Wade Kaplan,” he said softly, though his words managed to echo in the corridor, “you know whom I work for. You have met her. She injured your friend.”

My hands instinctively balled into fists at the mention of Becca’s wound and the thought of how much it was still hurting her. I remembered her from my dream, motionless on the floor of the cave.

“We knew you were with the Order,” I said. “It was so obvious.”

How many Snickers bars is Darrell buying? Where is everyone?

“Then you know who Galina Krause has taken from you,” Leathercoat said. “Kindly remember this fact the next time we meet, when I ask you for something.”

His words were delivered slowly and with precision. He had just a trace of an accent, and his voice was deep and crisp, like an actor’s.

“Because you have nothing better to do than follow us,” I said.

“Allow me to pick your brain for a moment,” he said. “Who do you imagine has the highest level of computing technology in the world?”

“What is this, a quiz?”

“Pretend it is.”

I eyed the end of the corridor. I couldn’t get to it. “NASA?” I answered.

He smiled thinly. “An appropriate response from an astronomer’s son. NASA is to the Teutonic Order’s Copernicus servers as a doghouse is to … Windsor Castle. Keep this in mind when you think to elude me and other agents of Galina Krause.”

I couldn’t think of anything to say besides “Whatever that means.”

“You see, you and your family have no idea of the cosmic scope of what you have gotten yourselves involved in.”

I stepped backward, bumping against the wall behind me. “You either,” I said, meaninglessly.

“The great machine’s relics? What has a simple family like yours to do with such treasures? Still, your cooperation may serve me well.”

“Yeah, like we’d help you.”

Darrell, come on and get in here! Really, in the whole airport, no one has to go to the go room?

“I could yell for help,” I said.

“Sounding an alarm will do neither of us any good.”

My fingers twitched. I wanted to hurt him somehow, to make him feel the terror that the Order made us feel. My hand dived into my backpack. Because it was shaking so much, it took me a second, but I finally whipped out one of the daggers. It felt wrong to be holding a deadly weapon, but I jabbed its short, wavy blade in the air anyway. It looked silly in my little hand. “Tell Galina to let Sara go.”

He flicked his dead eyes at the dagger, then back to my face. “Perhaps you do not know French, but allow me to enlighten you,” he said. “Galina Krause has given me carte blanche. This means ‘blank check.’ In other words, I may do as I wish. Wielding a dagger in this manner is impolite. Furthermore, it means nothing. You will not use it. You will never use it, Wade Kaplan.”

“Stop saying my name!” I gripped the handle so tightly my knuckles turned white. But he was right. I couldn’t imagine using the dagger. How could I hurt a person? Even a bad one. I couldn’t. I wouldn’t.

“We will want both daggers also,” he said. “But keep them for now, if it gives you comfort. We will meet again soon … Wade Kaplan.”

All at once, the entrance to the corridor filled with shapes, and two young boys and their father trotted in, chattering and laughing. Before they saw me, the German strolled out past them, whistling a melody that sounded like a wolf howling.

I staggered out into the concourse. Fear rolled over me like the sweat dripping down my arms, my face. Darrell sauntered over from the snack stand, munching one Snickers bar while tearing open the wrapper of another. “I got one for you, but I had to eat it … Dude, what’s with you? Did the sink explode? You’re dripping wet.”

Barely able to stand on my own feet, I glared at him. “Thanks to you, I’m never using a bathroom again.”

When we got back to the gate, Dad was flipping mad. “You never do things alone! I told you. Darrell—you messed up!”

“Dad, I’m sorry,” he said. “The phone call was so good …”

And more of the same, while I felt the blood drain from my face, neck, and head. I said, “I’m sorry, Dad. We’re sorry. It was … I didn’t expect he really was a Teutonic Knight. Dad, I’m scared …”

He settled me quickly into his seat. “All right,” he said more calmly, though his face was dark and anxious. “All right.” He scanned the crowd, but of course Leathercoat was nowhere in sight. “Please tell me again exactly what he said. Word for word.”

When I repeated Leathercoat’s actual words, most of it sounded weirdly polite, almost friendly. I realized the menace was in what he didn’t say. Allow me to pick your brain … kindly remember this fact … allow me to enlighten you … if it gives you comfort.

Dad listened intently, completely silent himself, as if, once more, he was trying to draw the whole incident into himself. Finally, he brushed my wet hair from my forehead. “Okay. Okay. You handled yourself very well.”

“Should we tell security?” asked Becca. “Wade is scared, and so am I, Uncle Roald. Leathercoat says he wants us to cooperate? He’s saying we can’t tell anyone. Are we just going to do what he says?”

“No. No. I don’t know.” Dad looked around the busy gate and breathed sharply. “First, we’d have to prove something against him. Threatening is hard to prove, but it would certainly mean we wouldn’t get to New York for another few days. Look, I get it. Not contacting the police helps the Order as much as it might help us, but that’s a risk we have to take, at least for now.”

“Like Terence told us, and the investigator from Bolivia,” said Lily.

“Exactly,” he said. I saw his face grow more determined. He set his jaw and narrowed his eyes. “So, no police for now. But one way to look at this is that Leathercoat just blew his cover. He knows about us? Well, we know about him now, too.”

I hoped that would help. Leathercoat had said we were in way over our heads. He was so right about that. I tried to swallow, tried to slow my pulse. I failed at both. Finally, with my hands quaking like leaves in the wind, I scribbled in my notebook. I wrote down everything I remembered of what Leathercoat said. Then I wrote down the sad dream. It was all pretty frightening stuff.

After what seemed like a century, the welcome announcement came.

“Now boarding Flight Five-Thirty-One to San Francisco and New York.”

Good, I thought. Get me out of this place. I stuffed the notebook in my backpack and headed quickly into line.

The jet was packed. The attendant at the desk told my dad that the flight had been overbooked and that one of our five seats wasn’t with the others. The loner was three rows back, which I said I would take, but Dad wanted us all together.

The man with the green shoulder bag was in the window seat across from our other seats. He already had a blanket draped over him and sat leaning against the window.

When another passenger—the long-haired acrobat guy who’d stood on his hand for the baby—came in, heading for the open aisle seat, Dad asked if he’d mind switching with me.

“Or are you two together?” Dad asked him.

“No, no.” The acrobat glanced at the man by the window, then at me, and smiled. “Not at all. Please, son, sit here.”

So after we were settled, Darrell and I were split by the aisle. He only took his seat—he was the last one to sit before the cabin door closed—after making sure Leathercoat wasn’t on our flight. “I didn’t see him. But if he works for Galina, he’s too good to be seen.” Which didn’t make any real sense, and didn’t slow my pounding heart, either.

As the jet taxied from the gate to the runway, the man with the green bag turned to me. “I am Dominic Chen,” he said, extending his right hand.

His fingers were ice-cold. “Wade Kaplan,” I said.

“I like to sleep on overnight flights,” he said with a slender smile, “but the protocol with fellow passengers is to chat, so we can, if you like.”

Protocol.

A week ago, protocol was just a school vocabulary word. But since Uncle Henry’s death had set off the secret Frombork Protocol—a set of instructions for the Guardians to gather the relics and destroy them—the word had taken on a whole new meaning. Maybe Mr. Chen’s use of protocol was just a coincidence.

Coincidence. Another word that sounded an alarm.

“That’s okay,” I said. “I like to rest, too.”

He nodded. “When we awake, it will be Sunday morning, the first day of a brand-new week. Enjoy your sleep.”

There was something soothing about Mr. Chen’s voice. Within minutes of hearing it, and the droning engines, I began to feel drowsy. I glanced at Darrell, the girls, and my dad. Their eyes were closed. We’d all gone a long time without any kind of rest, so that was good.

I closed my eyes, too. I wanted to go back to the dream of the cave, if only to get a better ending to it, but returning to a dream is nearly impossible when you try to force it. It didn’t work. Soon enough I stopped hearing noises and fell sound asleep.

I dreamed of nothing this time. Black space. No sound.

A few hours later, I woke up to bad news.

“… affects passengers with destinations in New York,” the pilot was saying. “A real kahuna of a snowstorm is flying up the East Coast and has shut down all three New York airports.”

Lots of passengers groaned, so we weren’t alone.

“Are you kidding me?” Darrell’s hair was going in every direction. He was obviously still groggy, but he had the ability to be groggy and jumpy at the same time. “We’re finally on our way, then everything stops? I can’t take this!” He slammed both fists onto his thighs.

“Don’t self-punch,” I said.

“But come on—”

“I get it,” I said. “Two steps forward, one step back.” I glanced at Dad, who leaned over and said something quietly. Darrell wiped his eyes and mumbled a couple of words, but shook his head sharply.

Soon there was a flurry of additional announcements.

“We’ll arrive a half hour ahead of schedule … it’s raining in San Francisco … airport hotel for stranded passengers …”

Blah blah blah. Landing early was normally good, except this time it meant that we’d spend an extra half hour in rainy San Francisco before we could get to New York and start our real search for Sara.

My ears popped as the jet descended. Mr. Chen was still wrapped up in his blanket, eyes closed, face turned to the window. Even with the clouds, the shade next to him was brightening with daylight. I wanted to raise it to see the city as we landed, like we were getting somewhere, but I didn’t want to bother him.