Shatterproof (23 page)

“Yale University,” Amy said to the driver.

“Where is?” the driver asked.

“Connecticut. New Haven.”

The driver shook his head. “No. No go that far.”

Jake reached for the door handle. “Let’s go,” he said decisively. “No use wasting time — we’ll find someone else to take us.”

Who died and made him boss?
Amy thought. She turned to the driver.

“We need to get to Yale,” she said, “and we’ll make it worth your while.”

The man muttered to himself, then put some info into his GPS.

“Two hour there, two hour come back . . . I do it for six hundred,” he said.

“Six hundred dollars?” Atticus yelped.

“Fine,” Amy said.

The driver looked surprised; clearly he had picked an amount he thought they would never be able to afford.

“See money first,” the driver said skeptically.

Amy took out her wallet, counted off six hundred-dollar bills, and flapped them at him. “There,” she said. “Now can we
please
get going?”

As if the sight of the cash were a turbo-fuel injection, the driver gunned the engine and pulled out from the curb so fast that the tires squealed.

Amy raised her eyebrows at Jake. “Watch and learn,” she said.

He snorted, then swept his hand from his forehead toward her in an exaggerated mock bow. “As you wish, m’lady,” he said.

Dan had put his backpack into the trunk of the cab but kept his laptop with him. Now he turned it on, clicked through to a search engine, and hesitated with his fingers over the keyboard.

“What should I type in?” he asked. “Yale, of course. And then what — four-oh-eight? Or maybe seventy-four?”

“No way!” Jake exclaimed.

Startled, Amy turned to see his eyes widening.

“Yale and four hundred eight? That has to be —” Jake stopped and shook his head.

Amy could see the shock in his expression.

“Amy, we can’t — it’s not —”

He took a breath. Then he looked at her pleadingly and said, “Please don’t tell me we’re going after the Voynich?”

Toothpaste. Very important. That nasty feeling when you hadn’t brushed in a while even had a name now: “biofilm.” Yuck.

Enough of the idle thoughts. Hurry.

Some clothes (clean underwear also very important), phone charger, laptop and charger, camera, digital recorder . . . what else might be needed?

A couple of false IDs, just in case. And finally — most important — a piece of electronic equipment
specially modified for the task. Can’t just toss it in, gotta be gentle with it —

Was someone coming up the stairs? No, but they could be, any minute now. . . .

Get out, quick.

But quietly. Don’t let the door slam.

Phoenix had never really been cold before.

He was cold to the very middle of every single one of his cells. His scalp and hair were like a cap knit of ice. He couldn’t see his face, but he knew that his lips were Crayola blue. Even his
toenails
were cold.

Never before had he shivered as long and hard as he was shivering now. And shivering was hard work. After a fitful night dozing against a tree trunk, Phoenix woke with deep aches in all his muscles.

As if being cold wasn’t bad enough, now it hurt to shiver.

He was wandering through an endless forest where everything looked the same.

The trauma of the kidnapping, the confrontations with an enemy he couldn’t even see, the physical and psychological deprivations of captivity, the escape
and near drowning — his ordeal had drained his
body and apparently his brain, too.

He just kept stumbling around in a stupor.

He tried to remember the books he had read about kids surviving in the wild.
Hatchet
— that kid had lived for weeks in the wilderness on his own, right?

But he had had — duh, a hatchet.

In frustration, Phoenix kicked at an old rotting stump. It cracked open a little, revealing an active colony of small white grubs.

Grubs. Bears ate grubs.

Humans did, too. He’d seen it on one of those crazy food shows.

Phoenix looked more closely into the crevice. There were dozens of grubs in the dead wood, pale and soft, wriggling and writhing and squirming. . . .
His stomach heaved at the sight of them.

He couldn’t do it.

Turning away, he took a step and stumbled on the uneven ground. His reactions dulled by hunger and fatigue and cold, he couldn’t catch himself, and fell to his knees. He felt tears coming into his eyes and let them roll down his cheeks unchecked.

At least they were warm.

Phoenix cried for a while. When he finally stopped and his vision cleared, he saw a slim stick in front of him. Almost a twig, really.

And he remembered something from another television program. On one of the nature channels.
Chimpanzees and termites . . .

The edges of Phoenix’s poor frozen brain started to thaw a little.

I have to get out of here and get help for the others. And I’ll never be able to do that if I don’t eat something.

Phoenix picked up the stick. He chewed one end of it until it was frayed, then fanned out the wood fibers. Now it looked like a broomstick for a very tiny witch.

He pushed the stick into the crack in the stump and waited a few moments. Slowly, carefully, he pulled it out.

There were three nice, fat grubs clinging to the frayed wood.
They’ll taste like chicken,
he told himself.

Phoenix took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and opened his mouth.

Evan stared at the computer screen.
This can’t be right.

Some time ago, Evan had put out a call to Cahill operatives all over the world, asking for their help in identifying a mole in the network.
No one
was above suspicion. Not Amy, not Dan, not himself.

The results of the search were in, and Evan couldn’t believe what he was seeing on the screen.

Something this big — I have to find a way to verify it. I need to be one hundred and ten percent sure before I tell Amy.

Evan shook off the shivers that were crawling down his spine, then shoved his ethical reservations firmly aside as he tapped into the suspect’s computer.

Where to start? E-mails and documents would be the obvious choice.
Maybe too obvious . . . isn’t that where you’d expect someone to start looking?

Evan moused over the desktop icons.

Music . . . calendar . . . spreadsheets . . . photos . . .

Photos.
One picture is worth a thousand words?

He clicked on the icon and, after only a few moments, found a password-protected file. It was quick work to figure out the password.
Tsk, tsk — shouldn’t use the names of family members. Too easy.

The file opened. Evan frowned.

There were several copies of a photo of Nellie — the one sent by the Vespers, in which she was thrusting a lizard toward the camera. The copies were identical.

Evan leaned closer to the screen. “What the heck?” he said aloud.

Identical, except for one thing: The lizards were different.

Green lizard. Brown lizard. Spotted, striped, bug-eyed . . . There was no question about it: The photos had been manipulated. The lizard in the original photo had been swapped out for different ones. The last four photos showed the same lizard altered slightly for size and position.

A tegu lizard, from Argentina. That’s what she said.

Evan sat back and gulped for air, trying to settle the sick feeling that was roiling his stomach.

South America — where Ian was. She was trying to make us think it was him.

She,
meaning Sinead.

Amy’s best friend.

Who knew everything —
everything —
about the Cahill operation. The damage she could do —

Evan was on his feet and headed for the door. He ran up the stairs and down a hallway, shouldered open a door, and hit the light switch.

Drawers gaping, closet ajar, clothes discarded on the floor — all the signs of a hasty exit.

He was too late.

Sinead was gone.

Evan spun around wildly and crashed into the door frame in his haste to get back to the comm center.

He had to tell Amy that Sinead was the mole. If Sinead got to her first . . . Evan’s heart was pounding.

Amy could be in terrible danger.

Dan, Amy, and Atticus all stared at Jake.

“What the heck is the Voynich?” Dan asked, followed immediately by, “What’s the four-oh-eight?” from Amy.

“It’s an old manuscript,” Jake answered, “kept by the Beinecke Library at Yale. In their collection, the Voynich is manuscript number four hundred eight. But I’m not sure what the seventy-four means.”

“How do you know all that?” Atticus asked.

Jake slumped against the seat back. “Mom,” he said quietly.

“Your mom had something to do with the Voynich?” Amy asked.

Jake scowled at her.
Why does she have to question everything I say?

“That was her field,” he said with exaggerated patience. “Mostly the ancient world, but sometimes medieval, too. She liked old stuff. Is that okay with you?”

Amy held her hands up in mock surrender. “Sorry for asking,” she said.