The Viper's Nest Read online

  “He’s my … find of the month,” Dan ad-libbed. “The passport was on the floor at the airport.”

  Dan thought he could see Mrs. Thembeka shudder. “Then I would destroy it,” she said. “And if you were to find his wife’s, destroy that, too. Although it probably wouldn’t help. Forging passports is nothing to murderers and thieves.”

  Murderers? Thieves? This has got to be a mistake.

  The names on the passports had seemed a little odd to Amy, but not familiar. Maybe Dad had chosen a South African crook’s name by mistake.

  Amy glanced at Dan, but he was staring at the photo. “I — I don’t think —” he stammered.

  “Honestly, I can’t imagine how this passport ended up on the airport floor,” Mrs. Thembeka said as she opened a file cabinet. “The Nudelmans were Aussies, I believe, but they went all over the world on their spree. India, Indonesia, South Africa …”

  India, Indonesia, South Africa … Arthur and Hope’s route in pursuit of Amelia Earhart.

  “What did they do?” Nellie insisted.

  “Without using graphic details,” Mrs. Thembeka said, “suffice it to say, brutal crimes with no motives. Ransacking buildings and leaving no one alive. Happily, they haven’t been seen in years. I assumed they’d died, but … ah, here we are!” She lifted a document from the file and put it on the desk. “You may copy it, if you promise to keep it to yourselves.”

  “But — about the —” Dan began.

  Amy cut him off with a strong glare.

  A mistake. That was it. Pure and simple.

  “Thank you,” Amy said. “We’ll make a copy.”

  Dan ran out of the building. He was trembling.

  “Wait up!” Amy said, clutching a manila envelope.

  Nellie followed close behind. “Dude, you’re shaking,” she said, putting a hand on Dan’s shoulder.

  “Sorry!” Dan took a deep breath. “It’s just … she called them … murderers.”

  “She’s old. Bad eyesight,” Nellie said reassuringly.

  “Wouldn’t Mrs. Thembeka know what Dad looked like if she and Grace were good friends?” Dan asked.

  “Like I said, old,” Nellie said. “Grandparent-old. People like that don’t show off pictures of their grownup children. That’s, like, for parents of little kids.”

  “So … Dad chose to use the name of a famous bad guy on his passport?” Dan asked. “Why?”

  “Maybe he didn’t know who Nudelman was,” Amy said. “ ‘Roger Nudelman’ — that’s the kind of goofy name Dad would always make up. Remember Oscar Schmutz, the dirty-fingernail wizard?”

  Dan shook his head sadly. “No.”

  Amy fixed her eyes on Dan’s. “What do you remember about them, Dan — Mom and Dad?”

  “Practically nothing,” Dan said, his eyes welling up.

  “Dan, think,” Amy said. “You told me you didn’t remember them in your mind, but you did everyplace else. What were those memories?”

  Dan was breathing hard. “Silly stories. Hot chocolate on the white kitchen table. Songs at night. This clean-laundry smell. Big arms around me …”

  “When you were about two,” Amy said, “I heard Dad say to Mom, ‘I just want to reach forty-three. Then he’ll be eight, and if I die, at least he’ll remember who I am.’ I wasn’t supposed to hear it, and it scared me. Mom told him he was being morbid. I’ll never forget what she said next. ‘Babies remember souls, Arthur.’ So for a year or so I tried to put you near Dad’s shoes. I thought she was saying soles. Okay, I figured out what she meant — but it wasn’t until now that I really understood. Those things you remember? That’s what Mom meant.”

  “People like your mom and dad,” Nellie said gently, “are not capable of such bad things.”

  “Irina turned out to have a good soul,” Dan said. “And she was capable of very bad things.”

  Amy put her hand on Dan’s shoulder. “Irina found her goodness late. Mom and Dad already had it.”

  “Right,” Dan said. “That’s true. Can we go now?”

  As he walked to the car, he unfolded the copy of the Churchill letter.

  Amy linked arms with Nellie. She hoped Dan could let go of this. She hoped she could, too.

  In the parking lot, Dan laid out the copied letter on the backseat. “Check this out …” he said in awe.

  “This is a big help,” Dan said disgustedly.

  “H. Hill,” Amy said, flipping through her Churchill biography. “That must mean Hospital Hill. That’s what they used to call Constitution Hill back then.”

  “Right. And Churchill hated it.” Nellie shrugged. “No big shocker there.”

  “It says here that Churchill was taken from the prison here and transferred to a place called the Staatsmodel, or State Model School, in Pretoria,” Amy went on.

  Dan nodded. “Where he wrote this. Where it stayed for years until Grace sent it to Constitution Hill.”

  Amy continued reading her book. “Okay. They were using that school in Pretoria as a prison. Churchill scaled a ten-foot wall and escaped to a mining town called Witbank, where he hid until he was able to hop a supply truck. It all checks out with the text in this letter!”

  Dan leaned close. “What’s this bit at the end? ‘The unbroken line shall deliver thy desire …’?”

  “An unbroken line could mean, like, eternity,” Amy said, scanning her book’s index.

  “Or a circle,” Dan suggested. “Or a box or a trapezoid or any kind of closed shape!”

  Amy glanced at the top of the letter. “Who is M-blank C-blank?”

  “C for Cahill!” Dan blurted out. “Maybe he was writing this to, like, our great-grandmother. Do we know her first name?”

  “No,” Amy said, pacing back and forth. “Okay, let’s think this through. The guy at the airport gave us the code that led us here. Somehow, he’s connected with all this. Grace left a secret document here for us, a document stolen from Pretoria and written by a Cahill. The Holts have reason to believe that there’s a Tomas clue hidden somewhere in South Africa —”

  “Yes — and Churchill knew what it was!” Dan said. “That’s what Grace is trying to show us. Maybe the location of the clue died with Churchill. Look at what Old Winnie wrote at the end of the message.”

  “ ‘Witbank’s mines …’ ” Amy read, “ ‘where I was able indeed to discover a realization …’ A Cahill writing to possibly another Cahill about discovering a realization! Sounds like a clue to me.”

  Amy felt light-headed. Grace was talking to her from the grave — did she know where the Clue was?

  Nellie slid into the Yugo and began tapping her new GPS. “Carlos, darling, take us to Witbank.”

  It took longer than expected to find Witbank, mainly because its official name had been changed to Emalahleni and no one had told Carlos. No one had told Carlos he should be an air conditioner, either, and as far as Dan was concerned, that was even worse.

  After a few confused questions in a petrol station, they were driving toward the abandoned mine where Churchill had been hidden.

  Amy was reading again. Constantly.

  “ ‘… a town built on its rich mining resources, Witbank was the home of British sympathizers who hid Churchill after his daring escape from the State Model School …’ ” Amy read.

  “This was before he turned into … you know, a famous fat guy,” Dan said.

  “Prime Minister of England,” Amy corrected. “During World War Two.”

  Nellie parked in a small lot. A house stood nearby and behind it a parched landscape marked with mounds of dirt. They walked through the open door.

  Inside the building, a craggy, thin man with a pencil behind his ear played chess with a teenager.

  When the guy turned around, Amy began stuttering. Silently. It was a feat only Amy could manage, and only Dan could notice.

  And it only happened in front of boys who looked like this one. He had brown hair and caramel-colored eyes, like Dan’s friend Nick Santos, who made all the six
th-grade girls turn into blithering idiots when he looked their way—in fact, would even say Watch, I can make them turn into blithering idiots, and then he’d do it. Only older.

  “He. Is. Hot,” Nellie said under her breath.

  “You too?” Dan hissed.

  “Checkmate!” Mr. Hottie exclaimed.

  “Wowww,” Amy managed.

  “Um, we’re looking for the Churchill escape site?” Dan said.

  The man groaned and rose from his chair. “It’s out back. You’ll see the plaque. Help ’em, will you, Kurt? We’ll have our rematch when you get back from chorus rehearsal tomorrow.”

  The boy smiled — mostly at Amy.

  “Sorry, her heart belongs to Ian Kabra,” Dan said, except that something in her expression made him realize her heart didn’t belong at all to Ian right now.

  Kurt gave a perplexed smile. “Walk this way,” he said, unfolding himself to his full height, which had to be at least 6’2˝. Amy watched him swagger to the door.

  “Churchill hid from the Boers in this mine shaft after his escape,” Kurt said, “until he was smuggled out in a supply truck.”

  “Did he, like, leave any messages here?” Dan said. “You know, letters written to someone from inside the mine? With stuff about, um, locations and stuff?”

  Kurt leaned closer to Dan. “Sounds like you know the secret — that the Churchill story was all a lie.”

  “Yes, exactly,” Dan said, playing along and trying not to look like an idiot. “A total lie. I knew that.”

  “A l-l-lie?” Amy squeaked.

  “Churchill was a double agent,” Kurt whispered. “That’s why he was in South Africa. Not to be a reporter. To find secrets.”

  “A double agent for the Boers?” Nellie asked.

  “Someone else,” Kurt said. “Some group. He left a symbol on a clothing scrap we have inside. Two snakes and a sword, with a big L. Haven’t figured it out yet. But he was looking for something. And he was exchanging messages with his agents, in the tunnels. I know, because he left a message on the wall.”

  Dan glanced at Amy and knew she was thinking that same thing he was. L—Lucian.

  “What did it say?” Dan said.

  Kurt shrugged. “I saw it when I was a boy. I used to spend hours down there, practicing my singing where no one could hear me.” He smiled at Amy. “I used to be shy.”

  “Where’s this wall?” Dan demanded. “Can we see it?”

  “You have asthma,” Amy said. “Mines are dusty.”

  “So was the cave in Seoul,” Dan said. “I was fine!”

  “Well, take a look,” Kurt said, gesturing toward a rickety structure, a fenced-in area marked OFF-LIMITS. “There have already been a few incidents with that mine. Look at the thing the wrong way, and something inside collapses. They plan to cave it in soon.”

  “So … we can’t get inside?” Dan said.

  “Sure, if you’re looking for a free burial,” Kurt replied. He winked at Dan, then turned to Amy. “Do you play chess?”

  “A l-l-little,” Amy stammered.

  Perfect. Dan couldn’t believe his good fortune.

  “She’s great,” Dan said. “She’ll kill you!”

  “I accept the challenge,” Kurt said flirtatiously. Dan couldn’t believe it — did Kurt actually like his sister?

  Red-faced, Amy followed Kurt to the building. And Dan backed slowly away.

  Toward the abandoned mine.

  “Are you out of your mind?”

  Dan spun around. In the setting sun, he saw Nellie in silhouette. With her current hairstyle, she looked like a tiny stegosaurus mounted on a human body. “He winked,” Dan said. “Meaning it’s okay to do this.”

  “You are out of your mind,” Nellie said. “He winked because he likes your sister. Amy is being held captive by the mad chess fiend of South Africa.”

  Dan looked over her shoulder. Through the window he could see the older man was chatting, fixing something on a stove, while Amy and Kurt sat playing chess. When they weren’t looking at the board, they were sneaking glances at each other.

  “They’re perfect together,” Dan said. “And he was exaggerating about this mine. These guys get all nervous about this stuff for insurance reasons.”

  “Do you even know what that means?” Nellie asked.

  “No,” Dan said. “But hey, it’s been here since the eighteen-hundreds, right?”

  Nellie thought a moment. Then she reached around, unhooked her backpack, and pulled out a flashlight. “Take this. If I hear one pebble come loose, I pull you up for safety reasons. Duck down into the shaft. Do not fall. If you find something written on the wall, I will help you write it down. If you don’t, that’s it. We’re out of here. Got it?”

  Dan grabbed the flashlight. “You are awesome.”

  “I know. Now hurry.”

  Dan ran toward the shack and darted around back. In the center of a fenced-in area was a wide hole with the top of a frayed rope ladder bolted to the rim. He gulped. “This ladder is looking a little vintage.”

  Nellie peered over. “Okay, Plan B. You lean over and look. That’s it. I’ll hold your legs. Hurry!”

  “Right.” For a moment Dan froze. The last time he was in a mine, in Coober Pedy, Australia, he had encountered poisonous spiders and a deadly snake. Not to mention asthma. You’re not actually going in, he told himself. Just dipping down a little.

  Swallowing hard, Dan got on all fours at the edge of the hole. He could feel Nellie’s hands gripping his ankles as he flicked on the flashlight.

  The hole was wide enough for one person. The walls were slick, as if painted with shellac. The rope ladder hung down, disappearing into nothingness and swaying slowly on the current of some invisible breeze. An acrid, vaguely rotten stench wafted upward.

  My fetid hidey hole in Witbank’s mines … Churchill had written.

  “What do you see?” Nellie hissed.

  “Hold tight,” Dan said.

  The rock walls were rough and pocked, and a jagged crack ran down the opposite side. Dan thought he could spot some writing, but it was just the accumulation of gravelly dirt on a narrow ledge.

  “I hear something!” Nellie said. “Make it fast!”

  Nada.

  Dan exhaled. It was too dark, too much pressure. “Beam me up, Scotty,” he said.

  The words caught in his mouth. His flashlight was angled inward now, shining on the wall just below him.

  And there, carefully carved into the rock about four feet directly underneath him, were several lines of writing. “Wait! I got it!” Dan cried. “Lower me a little! I see something!”

  Nellie inched forward. Dan sank lower into the shaft. Pebbles shook loose from the rim and rained downward into the hole — into silence. Dan never heard them reach bottom.

  Dan squinted, reaching down with the flashlight to the writing on the wall. It was too hard to read.

  A rubbing. That would do the trick.

  “Pull me up!” Dan said.

  In a moment, Dan was over the edge of the hole. “Okay, Nellie, I need to go back down, this time with a sheet of paper and pencil. There’s writing down there, and I can get it by rubbing it.”

  “Now I know you’re crazy,” she said.

  “Checkmate!” Amy’s voice echoed from the hut, followed by a laugh from the old man and a playful moan from Kurt.

  “We have a few more minutes,” Dan said. “He’s going to ask for a rematch.”

  “How do you know?”

  “It’s a guy thing!”

  Nellie sighed. Rummaging around in Dan’s pack, she pulled out a pencil and a notebook, ripping out a sheet. “Okay, but be quick.”

  Maneuvering the light, the pencil, and the paper wasn’t going to be easy. “I’ll need spares,” he said. “In case I drop something.”

  With a look of exasperation, Nellie tore off more sheets and found two other pencils. Dan stuffed them into his pants pocket and held on to the originals.

  Clasping the
flashlight in his mouth, he said, “Chhochhay, chech go!”

  Dan stretched out on his stomach at the hole’s edge. He felt a shudder and heard the sound of pebbles slipping down the wall beneath him. He moved left, until he gripped what felt like solid rock.

  “Chhere!” Dan said, inching over the edge.

  “Just a minute, dude, you have something sticky in your pack,” Nellie said. “I’m getting it off my —”

  Suddenly, the ground beneath Dan fell in an explosion of black soil. He felt himself drop abruptly. And then he was hurtling down into the darkness, his mouth open in a silent scream.

  “GOTCHA!”

  “YAAAAGH!” Dan thought his left leg was going to be pulled out from its socket. He was hanging by it, with Nellie’s hand clasped around his ankle.

  His arms flailed. Pen and paper fell. The flashlight flung away, casting a wild, brief light show around him.

  “I’m pulling you up!” Nellie called.

  Dan instinctively pressed his hands against the wall, looking for a root, something to support him, just in case.

  The wall was solid here, filled with tiny cracks.

  No. Not cracks.

  Carvings.

  “I got it!” Dan said. “I got the message!”

  “You’re heavy!” Nellie complained.

  “One minute, Nellie! Just one minute!”

  Quickly, he pulled the spare paper and pen from his pocket. He placed the paper over it and began to trace.

  When he was pretty sure he was finished, he folded the paper and tucked it back into his pocket. “Okay— now!”

  “Arrgghhhh …” Nellie pulled. Dan felt himself begin to rise. Slowly.

  He felt a jolt. Soil poured down around him, catching in his hair, sliding into his upside-down pants. “Pull harder!” he yelled. “It’s collapsing!”

  “I’m pulling as hard as I can!”

  Now Dan could hear a commotion. Other voices — Amy’s, Kurt’s, the old man’s.

  He felt himself rising steadily. He tried to grab on to the wall but it was slipping out beneath his fingers wherever he touched it, sliding down in cascades of soil.