The Viper's Nest Read online

  “Excuse me.” Mondli nodded respectfully and escorted the man back to his chair, speaking to him in Zulu. As he walked back, he gestured for Dan and Amy to follow a bit farther away. Under the shade of a tree with a canopy that looked like someone had pressed it flat with a giant hand, Mondli said, “We have been trying to get these people to leave the community. I am a university alumnus, and a group of us are working with someone there. We have not been successful.” He glanced up the hill. “We do have a spy within, but to achieve anything against these people, you practically need an army.”

  Dan was not liking the sound of this. He gazed up at the imposing building and swallowed hard. “If we, um, decide to go up there, what’s the best way?”

  Mondli pointed out a route up through the steep incline among the rocks. “I don’t suggest it, but … stay on the pathway. Whatever you do, avoid the trees. There are hunting traps.” He stepped back, pulling a sheaf of papers from underneath his robe. “I am a cartographer by trade. My firm is involved in mapping the area. We are not quite finished, but here is a copy. For a souvenir.”

  “Thanks.” Dan nodded. “One question. What was that old guy telling us?”

  “He is a sangoma, a traditional healer,” Mondli said. “Most people look up the hill and see a big company. He sees something else. Tokoloshe.”

  “Toko …?” Amy said.

  “There is not a word in English for this,” Mondli said with a sigh. “Perhaps you believe in a soul? The tokoloshe take the soul away. They steal it, and it never comes back.”

  GUARD DOGS

  LIVE ELECTRICAL CURRENT

  ALARMED!! KEEP OUT!!!

  Dan gaped at the sign over the locked gate. Behind it was a stone walkway flanked by shrubbery. It led to a windowless building with six sides, constructed of pale marble that seemed to change shade as you walked. On one side, a massive air-conditioning machine hummed, and over the front door hung a sign with a corporate logo: UBUHLALU ELECTRONICS.

  “Well, that’s cheery,” Nellie said. “I — I think Mr. Mondli was right,” Amy said. “We probably shouldn’t do this.”

  “How would we get in?” Nellie said.

  “Do we want to get in?” Amy asked. “This could be a wild goose chase. I mean, Churchill wrote those coordinates over a hundred years ago. We don’t know if the Tomas are really here. What if they moved on?”

  Nellie glanced skeptically at the building. “This place doesn’t look very Tomas-ish,” Nellie said.

  Dan thought for a moment. Churchill had given coordinates for a Tomas clue. Mr. Mondli’s description made it sound like these people could be Tomas. But companies could be unfriendly, too. “Let’s scope the place out,” he suggested, heading around the side of the building, “and be careful in the bushes.”

  “Why?” Amy said.

  “This is South Africa, dude,” Dan replied. “Where cobras come from. And not the hot ones, like Ian.”

  He followed the building to its opposite side, where a hill sloped gently downward. Extending from the back of the building was an ugly, rusted metal structure that looked like the remains of an old warehouse. Above it rested sheets and sheets of sleek blue solar panels. A tidy white picket fence enclosed the warehouse, extending from the larger building’s wall down the hill. A weary-looking gardener was opening a door in the warehouse. He scowled, waving for them to go away. Then he disappeared inside.

  “Green recycling,” Amy remarked. “Old building on bottom, solar collector on top.”

  Attached to the fence was a sign with a message in different languages. In English it said DO NOT PROCEED BEYOND THIS AREA/ENERGY COLLECTORS.

  “Okay, that does it,” Nellie said. “I say we head back down the hill, buy some beads from the locals, crack a few antelope jokes …”

  But Dan had his eye on something. A vertical wooden post was attached to the bigger building, with a glass strip running down its length. A series of these posts, like stray cacti, had been placed in the grassy area between the picket fence and the solar collectors — like the remains of an older fence within the newer one. “Amy, do you have any coins?”

  Amy pulled out several Indonesian rupiah coins from her pocket, which she gave to Dan. Rearing back, he tossed them toward the old building.

  Dzzzit! Dzzzit! Dzzzit! Dzzzit!

  One by one, they sparked and fell to the ground, trailing wisps of smoke.

  “Who-o-oa,” Nellie gasped. “What’d you do?”

  “It’s an invisible electric eye,” Dan said. “Go past it, and you’re nuked. The gardener must turn it on and off.”

  “Nuking people to protect solar panels?” Amy said.

  “Come on, let’s pay these guys a visit.” Dan began sprinting back to the main entrance.

  Amy caught up to Dan in front of the warning sign. “ ‘Guard dogs … live electrical current.’ Who goes first?”

  “Maybe there’s a doorbell,” Nellie said.

  “Hey, this could be worse,” Dan said. “At least it doesn’t say …” Out of the corner of his eye, he spotted a slithery movement in the grass. “SNAKE!”

  Amy rolled her eyes. “Very funny.”

  “No, Amy, look!”

  “Ghhh … gchhh …” The words caught in Amy’s throat. She felt the weight across her shoe tops even before looking down. When she did, her feet were under the flowing green body of a snake at least six feet long. It slithered fast, its eyes wide.

  “Mamba,” Dan said, remembering it from science class. Snakes were one of the only topics that kept him awake in school. “Don’t. Move. As long as its head is close to the ground, you should be all right.”

  Amy’s arms were vibrating. Her face was bone white. The bulk of the snake’s body was over her now … the tail … almost gone …

  THWACK!

  The building’s door swung open. Amy jumped.

  With an angry hiss and a flare of its sides, the snake reared up out of the grass.

  “Dan!” Amy yelled.

  A man stormed toward them, down the flagstone walkway. He was dark-skinned and close to seven feet tall, with a potbelly that strained the buttons of his black shirt. A scar split his left eyebrow, running down his cheek to his jawbone. He glared at them with bloodshot eyes. In his right hand was a rifle.

  The snake rose higher, eyes now on the guard. As the man approached, it lunged forward.

  With one fluid motion, the man lifted a stick from the ground in his bare hand. The mamba clamped its teeth down hard on the stick. Calmly, the man tossed the stick down the hillside, the snake flailing along with it.

  He glared at Dan, Amy, and Nellie. The anger in his eyes had turned to puzzlement. “May I help you?”

  On his badge was the name A. Bhekisisa.

  “Th-that was awesome,” Dan said.

  The guard smiled. “Thank you. I am confused. An alarm went off. Was that you?”

  “Maybe,” Dan said. “We got kind of lost.”

  “We’re … l-l-looking for our p-p-parents,” Amy stammered.

  Dan groaned inwardly.

  Mr. Bhekisisa laughed. “I’m so sorry. The gun is making you nervous. I carry it by orders. We have some sensitive and very expensive equipment here. People are always trying to steal. Come!”

  Amy hated the place. It was vast and clean, with polished floors and rubber-wheeled vehicles scuttling to and fro. Around the perimeter were cubicles where geeky-looking people were scrolling through spreadsheets.

  Mr. Bhekisisa asked them to empty their pockets for security, apologizing the whole time. He offered to dispose of Dan’s candy wrappers. He looked at Amy’s various folded notes and souvenirs. He fiddled with Nellie’s iPod. Then he opened their backpacks.

  Irina’s wallet.

  Amy froze. If he looked inside it, he’d suspect something.

  But all he did was stir everything around and hand the packs back. “So sorry, they are quite paranoid here,” Mr. Bhekisisa said. “So. Where are your parents?”

  “We’re
, um, early,” Dan blurted out. “They should be here in an hour or so.”

  “Then I will take you on a tour,” said Mr. Bhekisisa.

  As he walked ahead, Dan muttered, “Killer electric eyes, for this?”

  “I think I know what the sangoma meant,” Nellie said. “This place does take your soul away. Yuck.”

  Amy passed a wall lined with cartons partially hiding a door marked with a small sign:

  RADIOACTIVE: AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY

  Her eyes stopped. Where did the door lead?

  She took a mental map of the room.

  The solar-energy storage area. The old warehouse.

  The door was about where those outbuildings had been. She examined the sign.

  Radioactive.

  That was weird. Solar energy wasn’t radioactive.

  Then again, solar energy wasn’t usually protected by an invisible high-voltage fence.

  She crept closer. The door had a small, shiny, rectangular panel near the latch. On a hunch, she pulled out Irina’s wallet from her pack. She flipped through the plastic ID cards until she came to Reagan Holt’s. Carefully, she held it up to the panel.

  A small LED screen lit up:

  HOLT, R.

  PLACE FINGER IN SENSOR NOW

  “Dan, you have to come now! Nellie, too!”

  Amy raced into the Ubuhlalu Electronics employee lounge, looking unbelievably excited.

  “Where were you?” Nellie blurted.

  “Don’t tell me,” Dan said. “You found a library.”

  “Where’s the guard?” Amy said, looking around.

  Dan gestured toward Mr. Bhekisisa, who was standing in a corner, talking into a cell phone.

  Amy grabbed Nellie’s hand. “Quickly!”

  Dan followed them across the floor. Amy led them to a door hidden behind a stack of boxes. He leaned in toward the door’s sign. “ ‘Radioactive’?” he said. “This should lead outside, to those buildings.”

  “Exactly,” Amy said. “Okay, remember Irina’s wallet, with all the IDs? She had one for each of the Holts.” Looking left and right, she pulled out three plastic ID cards, one each for Hamilton, Reagan, and Madison. “When I put Reagan’s card against the screen on this door, her name registered.”

  “It’s a Tomas hiding place,” Dan said. “I knew it! And we have access!”

  Amy shook her head. “It needs a fingerprint, Dan.”

  “Dang, I knew we should have amputated when we had the chance,” Nellie said.

  Dan frowned. “Wait — the door is just here? Unhidden?”

  “If this company is a front,” Amy said, “then there are a lot of Tomas here. Maybe everybody is. So hiding it wouldn’t be necessary. People probably come in and out of this door all the time.”

  “Let me see that wallet,” Dan said. Amy handed it to him, and he dug around, taking out the three small zipped plastic bags, each containing a microscope slide. On each bag, an initial had been written in black marker. Dan carefully opened the one marked H and took out the slide. He held it up to the light.

  “It’s impossible to see anything,” Amy said. “Someone left a smudge smack in the middle.”

  Smudge.

  Smudge meant handling. Handling meant hands. Hands meant …

  “It’s not a smudge,” Dan said. He separated the two pieces of Plexiglas comprising the slide. Inside it was a moist, shriveled-up membrane in the shape of a cap. “It’s a fingerprint.”

  “What?” Amy said.

  Dan reached into the wallet again and extracted Hamilton Holt’s ID card. “Hold this,” he said, handing the ID to Amy. As delicately as he could, Dan snapped the membrane cap over his right index finger. It felt a little slimy, more substantial than he expected.

  He nodded at his sister. “Now.”

  Amy waved the card over the plate.

  HOLT, H.

  PLACE FINGER IN SENSOR NOW.

  A round disk glowed red, just below the words. Dan pressed his capped finger to it firmly and waited.

  “Nothing,” he murmured. “What did I do wrong?”

  He pulled it away to look at the membrane.

  The red disk sputtered and turned green. The door emitted a beep.

  CLEARANCE SECURED!

  WELCOME, HAMILTON HOLT.

  With a click, the door opened.

  “Now, this rocks …” Dan said.

  As he stepped onto an escalator, he turned toward Nellie and Amy. One by one, they had cleared the sensor. The door had sealed shut behind them and they were now in the connected building.

  Like the tip of an iceberg, the solar-paneled structure was only the top of a gargantuan headquarters that seemed to stretch out forever. It was as if the entire hill had been hollowed out.

  The place was alive with natural light. There must have been windows strategically placed among the solar panels — maybe even windows embedded in the grassy surface of the hill beyond.

  As the escalator descended, Dan could see the arrangement of the place. It was shaped like a vast hive — interconnected hexagonal chambers with glass walls, each chamber filled with people.

  The strangest part was the voices — grunts, cries of anguish, shrieks for mercy, triumphant bellowing. Like a torture chamber with an unlimited budget. Some chambers contained two people, some groups — wrestling, boxing, forms of combat he had never seen before. Some of the glass walls were smeared with red.

  “What are they doing in there?” Amy asked, her face contorted in dismay.

  “It’s not ballroom dance class,” Nellie said.

  As the escalator reached bottom, a trim, gray-haired man bustled toward them. “Holt,” he said, eyeing them impassively. “The United States?”

  “Yes,” Dan replied.

  “Mr. Malusi,” the man said efficiently. “Follow me.”

  “EEAAARRRGHHH — STOP!” a voice screamed as they walked past a chamber marked COMBAT FREESTYLE.

  “It is quieter in my office,” Mr. Malusi said over his shoulder. He led them into a spacious room, frigid with air- conditioning. He gestured toward a set of leather chairs as he sat behind a dark polished-wood desk. “Holt … Holt …” he said, fingers tapping on his phone. “Not much information here. Oh! Oh, my goodness. Ha! Eisenhower …”

  Despite himself, Dan felt the pang of insult. “Our family has been loyal for generations —”

  “Yes, yes, the sins of the father, et cetera,” Mr. Malusi said, vaguely waving the thought away. “It is still very good you have volunteered for the training.”

  “Training?” Nellie said.

  “You have seen our pods,” Mr. Malusi said. “Each is dedicated to an aspect of Zulu training adapted for the twenty-first century—agility, tactics, strength, endurance. The Zulus, of course, were the greatest warriors ever known. Under history’s greatest leader. We are a leadership school.” He stood up abruptly. “We have exactly two hours for a tour and dormitory placement. Then you must choose your combat specialty.”

  “I — I — I don’t know if …” Amy stuttered.

  But Mr. Malusi was already out the door.

  They followed him past a three-walled boxing ring where two men were duking it out with lightly padded gloves and no helmets. Each whirled with blinding speed, leaping impossibly high, lashing with legs and arms, seeming to defy gravity as they ran up the walls to execute flips and frontal attacks.

  “Now, that’s cool,” Dan said.

  “It is the art of samhetsin, a martial art invented by the Tomas,” Mr. Malusi said.

  Just beyond the ring, taking up nearly half the room, was a dirt-floored cage. In it was a bare-chested man facing a slavering animal with a sloped back.

  “Is that a hyena?” Dan asked.

  Mr. Malusi nodded. “Chosen for the power of its jaws, which can crush and pulverize bone.”

  The hyena leaped at the guy. With a grunt the man stepped aside, managing to avoid the animal and dart out his hand to its neck at the same time.

  The
hyena collapsed silently onto the floor.

  “Excellent, Mr. Yaman!” Mr. Malusi called out. Noticing Amy’s look of horror, he said, “Do not be concerned. Mr. Yaman has mastered the art of nerve isolation, which demobilizes the animal only briefly, before we let it back into the wild.”

  “And if he misses?” Amy said.

  Mr. Malusi shrugged. “He doesn’t.”

  As Mr. Malusi moved on, Dan felt Amy grabbing his shirt. “D-D-Dan, we can’t do this,” she said.

  “I know,” he whispered. “I’m thinking.”

  “Unlike the other branches,” Mr. Malusi said over his shoulder, “we realize we are at war. Ownership of the clues will require the greatest defense, the fiercest and most skillful protectors the world has known. Other branches may have the technical know-how, the design skill, and so on. Only the Tomas will be prepared to keep and hold the secret of the thirty-nine clues.”

  And do what? Dan thought. What exactly do you do when you find the greatest power on earth?

  Dan looked nervously at Amy. He could tell she was thinking the same thing.

  “How will you — we — share it?” Dan asked.

  Mr. Malusi turned, tilting his head curiously. “Share? That’s an odd concept. Does a country share its nuclear stockpile? Does a successful merchant share his goods? We are not in the business of chaos, young Hamilton. We are in the business of taking and holding. For the benefit of our glorious family.”

  He led them to a section set off from the others, the size of several pods put together. “Our theater,” he said. “Your timing is impeccable. The Shaka Zulu play begins in five minutes.”

  “Can I go to the bathroom first?” Dan asked.

  Mr. Malusi looked at his watch. “Three minutes. Fourth pod to your left.”

  Amy had a creepy feeling even before the play began.

  The Tomas training center was like being in some kind of end-of-the-world fantasy. Was this the branch philosophy? People turning into fighting machines? If this was what power did to people, why search for the 39 Clues at all?