Fire the Depths Read online

  Alex yawned. “Do you know anything about Harlem? The Apollo Theater? Striver’s Row? Duke Ellington?”

  “Give me a minute.”

  “Or maybe the location of Verne’s treasure?” Alex pleaded. “We haven’t figured that out.”

  “True . . .”

  Alex eased on the brake as the car headed for the tunnel. Max’s GPS app chimed: “After the tunnel stay to the left and take the exit for Forty-Second Street.”

  Alex exhaled. “You know, suddenly I have the strong feeling we should turn back . . .”

  Max nodded. “No way. I looked up Jules Verne’s route in Twenty Thousand Leagues and matched its path to a cruise liner that’s leaving this morning. The SS Sibelius. All we have to do is get on board.”

  “With what money?” Alex asked

  Max frowned. “We have two hundred sixty dollars.”

  “There’s no way that’s enough for two cruise tickets!”

  “Oh.” He picked up his phone, went back to the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey site, and clicked on rates. His heart thumped. “Tickets for today’s cruise start at seven thousand. Each.”

  “What?” Alex swerved out of the tunnel lane, nearly side-swiping another car. Car horns blared, and people shouted every nasty word Max had ever heard, and about three new ones. “How are we going to do this?”

  “Ask them if they need waiters?” Max asked.

  “Think again, and think fast!”

  Max put down the phone and tried to think fast. But the only fast things were the cars emerging from the tunnel and into the snarl of city traffic. An enormous Greyhound bus veered from the left lane to the right, cutting them off.

  Alex slammed the brakes and pressed her horn. “Watch where you’re going, idiot!” she shouted.

  The luggage bay passed by Max’s eyes, about six inches away. And Max realized he didn’t have to think fast anymore.

  He had his idea.

  15

  LEAVING the Kia in a New York City parking lot, they strapped on their backpacks and marched along the docks of the Hudson River. Water lapped onto the wood pilings, seagulls cawed and swooped, and across the water in New Jersey, glass apartment towers blazed in the morning sun. Max checked his phone for the location and led Alex onto a wide dock, where a towering luxury liner was moored. He couldn’t help but crane his neck upward. The thing was the size of a skyscraper turned on its side. Already people were starting to line up to board—hundreds of them.

  On the side of the keel, in big gold letters, were the words “SS Sibelius.”

  “You’re out of your mind if you think this is going to work,” Alex hissed.

  “I think there’s enough room for us,” Max said.

  He looked left and right. Opposite the ship was a stocky, tan-brick building with offices and shops. The place teemed with passengers preparing to board and tourists taking in the sights. Families kissed and cried, couples hugged, and ice-cream-cone-eating kids clung to their parents’ hands. A man pushing an elderly woman in a wheelchair shouted angrily at a kid who rode by on a skateboard. Bikers sped along a narrow path, inches away from idling buses lined up at the curb.

  “Come on,” Max said, pulling Alex toward the bus line.

  He eyed one bus discharging its last passengers. Its luggage bay was open, and one of the porters was pulling out the last piece. The passengers were crowding the sidewalk, standing still, taking selfies, moving slowly toward the ship. Max eyed the luggage, which had been pushed against the brick wall. These people did not travel light. Steamer trunks, enormous rolling suitcases, duffels the size of human beings, golf bags teeming with clubs—it was like a city skyline itself. At some point, all of this would have to be loaded onto the ship.

  Two or three bus lengths farther down, a team of dockworkers was tagging the luggage. “Good. They haven’t gotten to this bus yet,” Max whispered.

  He crouched low behind the skyline of luggage and grabbed two items—a huge trunk decorated in pink and a giant, blue rolling duffel. With a pocketknife from his backpack, Max poked two holes in the sides of the trunk. Just enough to let in air. He opened it and pushed aside piles of clothing. “You hop inside this one,” he whispered. “Plenty of room.”

  “Pink?” she said, horrified.

  Max unhooked his own bulging backpack. “And can you take this with you?”

  “What’s in it?” Alex asked.

  “Vulturon,” he said.

  “You couldn’t have left it behind?”

  “We’ll need something to do in our spare time.”

  Grumbling, Alex stuffed both packs into the trunk. Max glanced quickly over the luggage, and then toward the crowd. When he was sure nobody was looking, he unzipped the duffel and wedged himself inside. It was tight, but Max liked tight spaces.

  As he began zipping it shut, he peered out at Alex. Her hands were shaking as she lowered the trunk’s top over her head. “Are we sure we want to do this?” she hissed.

  Max had been asking himself that question the whole trip. Whenever the word no popped into his head, he pictured his mom. And the no turned to yes.

  This was their only chance. Grabbing the inner handle of the two-sided zipper, he carefully pulled it shut. “See you on board,” he whispered.

  “Or in jail,” Alex hissed.

  16

  ALEX didn’t know which was worse—the darkness, the smell of someone else’s underwear, the hum of the engine, the scritching of little animal feet, or the suffocating warmth.

  “There are rats down here!” she whispered.

  “Ssshh!” came Max’s voice in the darkness.

  “I’m sweating like a pig.”

  “Maybe that’s why the rats are attracted to you! They love pigs.”

  “Stop it!”

  For a moment Alex heard nothing. Then a soft rhythmic tapping on the floor of the cargo hold.

  She held her breath. Whatever it was, it was coming nearer.

  Squeeeeek . . . squeeek-eek-eek . . .

  Alex tried to block out the noise. Rodents were small. And the trunk was thick. Solid. She glanced at the holes in the side. Rats were known for fitting into small spaces. Could they . . . ?

  Tiny paws skittered up the side of the trunk. Alex felt her throat tighten.

  The trunk’s latch clicked. Alex froze.

  “Max . . . ?” she whispered.

  The lid seemed to move. And then the trunk slowly opened.

  Alex screamed. She lurched backward. The trunk toppled over and the lid fell open.

  Max was standing over her, grinning. “Got any cheese?”

  “Is that supposed to be a joke?” Alex shouted.

  “You’re like a ghost!” Max said with a howl of laughter.

  “And you’re toast,” Alex said, storming toward a door at the back of the hold.

  Max couldn’t understand why Alex was so mad at him. He had thought she liked pranks. And he thought she’d be grateful for getting them on the ship.

  But she hadn’t said a word to him up a flight of grimy stairs, down a hallway, and in a short elevator ride.

  “I promise I’ll never do that again,” Max said as the elevator door opened. “But I did get us aboard. I solved our problem.”

  Alex didn’t answer as she stepped out.

  The deck of the SS Sibelius was jammed with people waving to friends and family. Behind the crowd, Max and Alex walked carefully, breathing in the fresh air. Two enormous smokestacks towered overhead, and the ship cabins rose up behind them like a giant gaudy hotel.

  Max didn’t like it up here. People were staring at him. Which made sense, because he and Alex didn’t have tickets. It was one thing to solve a problem. It was a whole other thing to know what to do afterward.

  “Next time, we buy tickets,” Alex grumbled. “Or steal them. Or pretend we’re the lounge singers. Anything but what we just did.”

  Max nodded. “OK, OK. But I miss my duffel. It was cozy in the cargo hold. There are too many peopl
e up here.”

  Alex looked up to the sky. “Am I truly related to him?”

  “I belong . . . I belong . . .” Max murmured.

  “What are you doing now?” Alex said.

  “Pretending I belong,” Max replied. “People are looking at us. I think they know what we did.”

  “Max, they don’t.” Alex squeezed his hand. “Everyone’s just being friendly. It’s like a big summer camp.”

  “I’m scared. And you hate me.”

  “No, I don’t,” Alex said. “OK, I admit, there would have been no other way to get on board. I didn’t like the prank, but your plan was pretty awesome.”

  “Thanks,” Max replied. “But now what? I’ve been trying to think what to do next. And all that happens is I smell ham.”

  “What’s that?” Alex said.

  “Confusion.”

  “I have to write these down.”

  “Here are the facts. We don’t have a place to stay. We don’t really know what to do. We don’t know how to find this fortune. Do we stand on deck humming to ourselves and wait for a monster-size seagull to swoop down with a treasure chest?” Max let out a deep breath.

  “We’re a team, cuz,” Alex said, taking his hand. “We need an emergency meeting. Let’s find a private place where we can brainstorm quietly.”

  To their left was a bank of plate-glass windows containing a minimall of shops and cafés. Max and Alex headed for the door. Just to one side of it, a man with a straw hat and Hawaiian shirt was going face-to-face with a woman crew member who was dressed in crisp whites. “The room is tiny!” the man bellowed. “I can hear the engine. It sounds like a moose! No flowers, no chandeliers, terrible views—nothing like the picture in the brochure. My wife and I were expecting that room.”

  “Is that room available?” said his wife with an expectant smile. She looked about half her husband’s age and one-third his weight. “We had our dreams set on that.”

  “Ah, the Dolphin Penthouse,” the officer said with a polite chuckle. “That room has been closed for repairs, but come with me and I’ll see if we can find better accommodations for you.”

  Alex pulled Max past them. “People are so picky,” she murmured.

  As she grabbed the door to the café, a deafening hoot blasted from the smokestacks. People on the dock let out excited squeals. Max could feel the ship moving out of the dock and into the Hudson River.

  Even the complaining couple had paused to wave to someone on shore. The ship’s engines sent up a wake behind them as the jagged skyscrapers began to recede into the distance.

  Max gulped.

  There was no turning back now.

  Alex grabbed a seat at a small table. As Max pulled his chair close, she displayed the image of the translated note on her phone. “I’ll be right back.”

  Max stared at the message on the screen.

  Upon reaching the great unruined chamber at the prime locations of the fifteenth, third, and second to the Pole Star and eleventh, seventeenth, and fourteenth to the sunrise, be guided by the camptodactyl of the king.

  It was gobbledygook. Max stared and stared. Finally he closed his eyes.

  “Sleeping already?” Alex slapped down two orangey- pink drinks, each with an umbrella on a long toothpick skewering a stack of fruit chunks.

  Max took a sip and gagged. “It’s too sweet.”

  Alex set down her drink and unfolded the map on the table. It showed the route of the SS Sibelius—up the northern coast of New England and Canada and then off into the Atlantic Ocean. “You were right. It’s superclose to the same route as the Nautilus.”

  But Max was staring at the note again. “‘Pole Star’ . . . ‘sunrise’ . . .”

  “Say what?” Alex replied.

  “I am trying to break down the message,” Max said. “Into parts. Like a math equation.”

  Alex nodded and peered at the phone. “The Pole Star is the same thing as the North Star, right?”

  “Exactly,” Max said. “And the sun rises in the east. So we have two directions.”

  “How does that affect the message?” Alex said. “Fifteenth, third, and second to the north . . . eleventh, seventeenth, and fourteenth to the east!”

  “Sounds like geo coordinates to me,” Max said. He scribbled the numbers on a napkin, then accessed Google Maps and tapped them in: 15°3´2˝N 11°17´14˝E

  They watched in excitement as the map moved.

  “Drumroll please,” Alex said. “Ladies and gentleman, we are going to . . .”

  The map sharpened, dropping a pin on the final location.

  “Southern Niger?” Max said.

  “That’s Africa,” Alex said. “Niger is landlocked.”

  “We’re doing something wrong . . .” Max pocketed the napkin and tapped his fingers on the table. “It’s got to be on some coast. Or some remote island.”

  “Or buried out to sea,” Alex pointed out. “Verne was traveling in a sub!”

  Max sighed. “That does complicate things.”

  “OK, first things first,” Alex replied. “Let’s find our room.”

  “We don’t have one,” Max reminded her.

  Alex swigged down her drink in one long gulp, then leaped up from the table. “You’re not the only one with bright ideas. Follow me.”

  The sign on the door of the Dolphin Penthouse was in black and white with enormous letters: Please Excuse Our Appearance During Renovations.

  “That’s a pretty clear no,” Max said, his eyes darting up and down the empty hall. “Can we go back now? I want to finish my awful-tasting drink.”

  But Alex was squinting at a collection of small-printed notices taped to the door beneath it. “The work doesn’t begin until next week. It says so on the permit.”

  She pushed down on the latch and the door swung open. “Well, well . . .”

  “What are you doing?” Max said, standing agape.

  “Welcome to my boudoir . . .”

  “Does that mean gigantic mistake in French? We can’t go in there!”

  But she was already inside.

  Swallowing hard, Max followed her in. The room was lined with glass windows overlooking the water, with a vaulted ceiling and a chandelier of hundreds of tiny lights. Two plush sofas faced a humongous flat-screen TV, and a doorway led into two other bedrooms. As he headed for them, Alex cried out, “Max, this is perfect!”

  “This is criminal,” Max replied.

  She headed into the biggest bedroom and gestured to the peeling paint on one of the walls. “There’s the problem. Water’s coming in through the wall. Can’t very well charge some rich people top dollar for a leaky room, so that’s why they have to keep it empty.” She jumped on the bed and stretched out. “Their loss, our gain.”

  “This makes me very nervous,” Max said. “Couldn’t we just sleep on the deck in one of those lounge chairs?”

  “Uncle Jules would want us to do this in style!” Alex sat up and threw her head back dramatically. “Could you ring room service for some tea sandwiches and foie gras, my dahling?”

  She shut her eyes and fell back in a flounce. To Alex, the gentle rocking of the boat was soothing and peaceful. The last sea voyage she’d taken with her parents was a ferry ride from Cape Cod to Martha’s Vineyard. They had had a fried-clam dinner and ice-cream cones. It was nothing like this.

  In her mind’s eye she saw the cover of a book with a romantic image of this room. She imagined her name—Alexandra Verne—splashed across the bottom. Along with quotes: “A masterpiece of adventure!” and “No one does it better!”

  This—this was why she’d taken a year off. Saving a life . . . living an adventure . . . making a fortune . . . cooking up a bestseller.

  Alex smiled and drifted off.

  She was in the middle of a dream about meeting J. K. Rowling when she heard a knock on the door.

  “What the—?” she said, bolting up in bed.

  Max was sitting on an armchair near the room door, looking at his phone.
“I was reading. You’re right. Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea is awesome. I’m at the part where they find the underwater city, and it’s all destroyed—”

  “Max, there was a knock at the door,” Alex said.

  “Sorry,” Max replied, setting down the phone. “Must be room service.”

  “Room service?” Alex said.

  Max stood. “You’re in luck. They had both those things on the menu.”

  “What things?”

  “Tea sandwiches and foie gras.”

  Alex leaped off the bed and held Max back. “That was a joke, Max! I didn’t mean for you to actually call room service!”

  “Now you tell me.”

  The room door opened with a click so loud it seemed to echo in the living room. A moment later, a man and a woman in security uniforms walked in, giving Max and Alex baffled looks.

  “I’d like to cancel the order,” Max squeaked.

  The woman gestured to the door. “Come with us, please.”

  17

  “NO parents. No tickets. No passports . . .”

  The ship’s captain paced his office as he spoke. Behind him was a plate-glass window with a view of a rocky coastline, dotted with nice wood-shingled houses and small beaches. The man had a strong Australian accent and a deep red-brown tan. His thinning hair was plastered across his head like guitar strings. He patted it down while he paced, as if he were afraid it might fly off.

  All Max wanted to do was disappear, fly through the window, and swim away.

  “No, sir,” Alex said softly. “We have none of those things.”

  “Quite a feat,” the captain said. “Do you know what the penalties are for stowing away on a commercial vessel?”

  Max shook. “F-F-Firing squad?”

  “Not quite so drastic,” the captain said with a laugh. “But we will have to drop you at the next port. I would advise you to call someone and have them meet you in Newfoundland.”

  “Newfoundland?” Alex said.

  “We don’t know anyone there,” Max said. “My parents are in Minnesota.”

  “Can’t we just stay on?” Alex said, digging in her pockets. “We’ll pay what we have. And we’ll work for the rest. Dish washing, waitering, singing—”