The Medusa Plot Read online

  But if things got really terrible, shouldn’t they at least consider it? Who could predict what the Vespers were really up to? Some things, he thought grimly, were worse than five hundred years of treachery and feuding.

  He might have slept, or perhaps dozed off and on. But before he could get any real rest, the captain restored the cabin lights and announced that they were about to land in Zurich, Switzerland. From there, it would be a short hop on a commuter flight to Peretola Airport near Florence.

  They were on the ground in the transit lounge when the electronic chime sent Amy scrambling through her backpack for the special Vesper phone. She stared at the screen for a moment and then handed it to Dan.

  It showed a photograph of a stark white, featureless room. There, wearing prison-style jumpsuits, were the seven Cahill hostages. The picture was captioned by only two words:

  “Send it to the comm. center,” Amy quavered. “Sinead can blow it up, analyze it.”

  “That’s all it is to you?” Dan exploded. “Something to be analyzed? That’s Nellie! And Fiske! Even Alistair, the old goofball.”

  “We don’t help them by falling to pieces,” Amy reasoned. “We help them by figuring out where they are. Maybe something in the picture will tell us that.”

  Dan forwarded the picture to his laptop and then established the link to upload it to the comm. center in Grace’s house. When he looked away from the screen, he saw that his sister was holding a Ziploc baggie containing a small spiral notebook.

  “What’s that?”

  “McIntyre gave it to me while you were packing,” Amy told him. “It was one of the only things that survived the fire that destroyed Grace’s original house.”

  She removed the notebook from the plastic bag and handed it to Dan. It was seared and blackened, but a little bit of their grandmother’s handwriting remained.

  He felt a twinge of emotion. More than two years had passed since Grace’s death. To behold something that was uniquely hers made the loss feel fresh again. He could see his sister blinking rapidly and knew she was having the same reaction.

  “I can’t understand a word of it,” Amy went on in fond exasperation. “It’s classic Grace — her own weird shorthand, practically code. McIntyre says it’s mostly clue hunt stuff. But there are several entries marked with the letters VSP that might be about the Vespers.”

  Dan looked at her, eyes alight. “You think Grace knew things about them that she didn’t tell the other Cahills? Not even her fellow Madrigals?”

  Amy shrugged. “It wouldn’t be the first time.”

  Dan flipped through the pad and found the clearest page.

  VSP 79 – PUNY DESCRIBED FIRST TEST

  He frowned. “‘Puny’?”

  “I saw that, too,” Amy confirmed. “McIntyre has no idea what it means.”

  “If there’s a Vesper One, there might be a Vesper Seventy-nine,” Dan suggested. “And he’s a really short guy.”

  “The Vespers are run by a Council of Six,” his sister reminded him. “Vesper One could be the top spot on the council — followed by Vesper Two, and so on down to Six. They’ve probably got hundreds of agents, maybe thousands. But I doubt they’re numbered beyond the council.”

  “Yeah, I figured it couldn’t be that easy,” Dan grumbled.

  The computer beeped as the upload completed. A moment later, Ian Kabra appeared on the screen.

  Dan was surprised. “Hey, Ian, isn’t it, like, two in the morning back there?”

  “It’s called jet lag,” Ian informed him. “I’m still on London time. I don’t suppose you savages have any tea in this mausoleum.”

  “There’s diet Snapple in the fridge.”

  Ian shuddered. “I thought not.” He removed the picture from the printer and smiled grimly. “Poor Natalie. She won’t like that jumpsuit.”

  Amy peered over Dan’s shoulder. “Thanks for getting there so fast. Hey, what happened to your face?”

  Dan instantly recognized the angry scratch that stretched from the corner of Ian’s eye all the way along the olive skin of his cheek to his chin. “Have you been messing with Saladin?”

  “No. Saladin has been messing with me,” Ian shot back.

  “He isn’t big on Lucians,” Dan explained. “Animals are really good judges of character.”

  “Spare me.” Ian glowered at him. “Any word on what your ‘task’ is going to be?”

  Dan shook his head impatiently. “I hate this waiting. Why can’t Vesper One just come out and tell us?”

  “He’s keeping you off balance,” Ian reasoned. “It’s sound strategy. Everything he’s done so far shows a mastery of the tactical arts.”

  Dan regarded his cousin on the laptop. Lucians were masters of cunning and calculation. They had been absolutely ruthless during the Clue hunt.

  All that was in the past, of course.

  So why was Ian saying nice things about Vesper One?

  CHAPTER 6

  Florence. The Jewel of the Renaissance.

  “This place could really use a facelift,” Dan commented as the taxi bore them past churches, palaces, monasteries, art galleries, and public gardens.

  “You’re kidding, right?” Amy was literally buried in reports. File folders containing every scrap of Cahill knowledge on the country of Italy were piled in her lap or on the seat beside her. She fumbled to unfold a huge road map. “Florence is the one truly preserved Renaissance city left. It’s a UNESCO World Heritage Site.”

  “Yeah, but why does everything have to be so old?” Dan complained.

  She glared at him with the impatience of the frazzled. “We don’t have time for this.”

  “Yes, we do. Until we get the next message from Vesper One, we’ve got nothing to do at all.” His stomach gurgled loudly. “I’m starving. When we check in to our hotel, let’s ask the desk clerk where we can find one of those vast pizzas.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Your guidebook says Florence is a city of vast pizzas. Look it up yourself.”

  “Those are vast piazzas, not pizzas! It means public squares!”

  Dan’s face fell. “Oh.”

  Amy sighed. “I honestly thought the clue hunt took the dweeb out of you. No such luck.”

  The text from Vesper One came in as they were settling into their suite at the Hotel Ilario.

  Welcome to Florence.

  You now know that our guests are well treated. So far.

  Your task: In the Uffizi Gallery, there is a painting by Caravaggio called “Medusa.” You will steal it and await instructions.

  The consequences of failure will be the same. One Cahill will die. You’ve seen the photograph. Eeny meeny.

  Vesper One

  “A painting?” Dan was bewildered. “That’s what he wants? I kind of thought he was going to make us give him your watch. Wasn’t that what the Vespers were after last time?”

  Amy was white as a sheet. “Not just a painting,” she breathed. “A Caravaggio — a national treasure. No, a masterpiece like that belongs to everybody.”

  “Don’t I wish,” Dan put in. “If it was part ours we could just go to that gallery place and say, ‘Can we borrow our Garbaggio for a couple of days?’”

  “Caravaggio,” Amy corrected. She was so distraught by the task ahead that she wasn’t even annoyed at Dan’s butchery of the painter’s name. “His work inspired Rubens, Bernini, Rembrandt, and dozens of others! We’ll be committing a crime against all countries and all people!”

  “Is it even possible?” Dan wondered. “You’ve been in enough museums to know they’ve got security up the wazoo! You can’t just pull a painting off the wall and stick it in your back pocket.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” she told him. “He’s got our people. He’s got Nellie. We have to find a way to give him what he wants.”

  “How?”

  “First things first,” Amy decided. “Let’s go look at some art.”

  The Uffizi Gallery, on the banks of
the river Arno, was housed in a building that was begun in the sixteenth century. The long U-shaped structure was originally a mammoth office complex — the word uffizi meant offices in Italian. To stand in its narrow central courtyard, gazing up at the two mammoth wings, was an instant transformation back to Medici times. In those days, great artists like Da Vinci and Michelangelo had used the Uffizi for both work and recreation. By the mid-eighteenth century, it had become a full-fledged art museum, open to the public. Today it housed — bar none — the greatest collection of medieval and Renaissance art anywhere.

  Dan was not impressed by art galleries, and the Uffizi was no exception. “Fat naked babies. Big deal.”

  Amy heaved an exasperated sigh. “They’re cherubs and angels.”

  She had always dreamed of visiting this place of so much fabled beauty, but today she saw none of it. The only thing that attracted her attention was the security—guards, locks, wires, cameras, pressure plates, alarm Klaxons. And those were just the visible features. Hard experience had taught her that the biggest danger often lay in those factors that could not be prepared for.

  Another concern was the crowd. The museum was one of the most popular tourist attractions in Italy. Visitors seemed to be everywhere. Even if two would-be art thieves could manage to elude the Uffizi’s vaunted security, they would never be alone with the object of their plan. At best, they would have to commit the crime in front of fifty witnesses.

  “All right, where’s the ‘Medusa’?” asked Dan.

  A gallery map directed them to the third floor—the Caravaggio room.

  They saw it instantly. It was impossible to overlook, and not just because it was one of the few pieces that was not religious in nature. It was somewhat smaller than most of the works in the room — a round canvas mounted on a wooden shield about two feet in diameter.

  “Whoa —” breathed Dan.

  Amy followed up with “Ewww.”

  The image on the shield was the severed head of Medusa, her snake hair wild and unruly, blood still running from her neck. The eyes were wide and staring, the expression a perfect mask of horror, hatred, and ugliness. It looked so real and had so much depth that it was like a disembodied head coming at you with evil intent.

  They were silent for a while, just staring, too mesmerized to look away.

  Dan found his voice first. “If this is Vesper One’s favorite painting, then it says an awful lot about the guy.”

  “We don’t have to love it,” Amy whispered. “We just have to steal it.”

  They pushed through the crowd to get a closer look. The shield was mounted on the wall rather than hung like a regular piece. It had a narrow metal frame. It didn’t seem very heavy, but of course, they wouldn’t know that until they were lifting it.

  If they ever got that far.

  There were two uniformed watchmen in the Caravaggio room as well as two security cameras. Amy scanned the space for blind spots. Between the guards and the video surveillance, there were none. The only possible cover was human — hiding in the midst of a crowd.

  But crowds are made up of people, and people are unpredictable.

  An art class arrived — a teacher with a dozen or so students carrying portfolios. They established themselves on various benches and began to sketch.

  Dan sidled over to one of the watchmen. “Pretty packed today.”

  “It is always, as you say, packed,” the guard replied proudly. “The Uffizi attracts nearly two million visitors each year.”

  “Sweet,” Dan acknowledged. “Were you working here a few years back when they had that big art heist?”

  The man bristled. “There has never been a robbery at the Uffizi in modern times.”

  Dan looked surprised. “Are you sure? I heard some guy snatched one of those naked baby paintings, stuck it under his coat, and walked right out the door with it.”

  The guard laughed. “This is impossible. At the Uffizi? Never. Each artwork has its own weight sensor. If a piece is removed, an alarm sounds, and every entrance locks down automatically. Your thief would never get out.”

  Dan swallowed the rising lump in his throat. “I must have been thinking of some other museum. Maybe yours was the night robbery. They broke in through the roof and —”

  Now the man was truly amused. “What imaginations you Americans have! At night the Uffizi is a fortress. Where there are no guards there are motion sensors. Not even a little moth could get in.”

  “Sweet,” Dan said with very little enthusiasm.

  They remained in the Caravaggio room a few more minutes and then explored possible exits from the museum via elevator or stairs. There seemed to be no quick way out before an alarm would trigger a lockdown.

  When they examined the door that provided access to the rooftop sculpture garden, Amy spotted small wires. So escaping up rather than down was not an option, either. This entrance was undoubtedly linked to the security system.

  Once outside, they strolled through the long central courtyard, stepping past the Doric screen to the Arno.

  “You know,” Dan said in annoyance, “if I owned a hideous piece of ‘art’ like the ‘Medusa,’ I wouldn’t turn my museum into Fort Knox with every high-tech gizmo money can buy. I’d be praying for some art thief to bust in and take it off my hands.”

  Amy drew in a breath. “It’s not going to be easy.” The task that lay ahead was so overwhelming that she couldn’t quite wrap her mind around it.

  Don’t even try, she advised herself. Break the whole operation down to individual problems. Solve one at a time.…

  “You mean you think there’s a way to get in there and get out again with Miss Congeniality under your arm?” Dan demanded.

  “There’s always a way,” his sister lectured. “We’ll need help, though.”

  “What help?”

  Amy grinned. “Sometimes it doesn’t hurt to be part of the most powerful family in human history.”

  CHAPTER 7

  The landing wheels kissed the tarmac, and the Gulfstream G6 taxied along the runway of Florence’s small Peretola Airport. Behind a row of riot police, hundreds of young Tuscan girls screamed, cheered, and threw flowers.

  The door of the jet opened, and the star himself appeared, ramping up the excitement level.

  “Wassup, yo?” greeted Jonah Wizard.

  The throng went berserk for ten solid minutes, while Jonah pretended to be surprised and overwhelmed by such a reception — as if it didn’t happen everywhere he went.

  Camera flashes exploded, and a babble of questions rose from the assembled reporters and paparazzi.

  “Jonah, is it true that Gangsta Kronikles is being rereleased in 3-D?”

  “What about the rumor that you’re training to be a cosmonaut on a Russian space mission?”

  “Why have you lost touch with your mother, Cora Wizard, the sculptor?”

  “Jonah, what’s the reason for your trip to Florence?”

  “Since when does there have to be a reason?” Jonah replied airily. “Florence is off the chain! I’m just here to kick it with some homeys and soak up a little culture.”

  Toward the rear of the crowd, Amy and Dan paid no attention to their famous cousin and his usual hip patter. Their eyes were on Jonah’s entourage, who were unloading the star’s luggage from the G6’s cargo bay. More specifically, they watched a muscular young man handling an unwieldy parcel that was carefully wrapped and secured.

  While the shrieking crowd surged to follow Jonah’s progress to the terminal, Amy and Dan intercepted the burly member of Jonah’s posse.

  “You got it?” Dan hissed.

  The young man turned and raised the flat visor of his Wiz-Up Tour 2010 baseball cap to reveal the grinning features of Hamilton Holt. “Hey, guys. How’s it going?”

  “How should it be going?” Amy asked wearily.

  Hamilton turned serious. “Any word on Reagan?”

  “We saw a picture,” Amy informed him. “They all look okay, but you’ve got to f
igure they’re pretty shaken up.”

  “Let’s check out the merchandise,” Dan prodded.

  “Not here,” Hamilton warned. “There’s a VIP suite in the terminal. Jonah’s meeting us there.”

  “Check it out.”

  Jonah removed the bubble wrap and held up the picture for his three cousins.

  Dan took a step backward. The shock was almost as powerful as it had been the day before at the Uffizi. “It’s perfect! It’s every bit as disgusting as the real one!”

  Amy nodded. “And so fast. We only called you yesterday.”

  Jonah shrugged. “Even the Janus take a short cut every now and then. You can do a lot with digitization these days. You break the picture down to squares and reproduce them one at a time. The other two are just as fly.”

  “You mean, just as hog ugly,” Hamilton amended.

  “The serpents don’t help,” Dan put in critically. “Live fat spaghetti. Look — that snake’s biting the body of another one. Lady, if you’re thinking of a modeling career, forget it!”

  The rapper clucked sympathetically. “You guys just don’t appreciate the power of the visual image. The Wiz used to be like that—until Gangsta Kronikles. When you’re in the film industry, you understand the whole picture’s-worth-a-thousand-words deal.”

  Hamilton rolled his eyes. “Here we go again.”

  Jonah picked up one of the “Medusa” copies. “Just look at this sucker. It’s every slasher flick ever made packed into a single stomach-turning moment. That’s why the Janus always respected Caravaggio. Back in the day, we tried to marry him into the family—Rembrandt’s aunt, I think. He didn’t go for it.”

  “If she posed for this picture, I can see why,” Dan agreed.

  “That wasn’t it,” Jonah told him. “The Janus records say Caravaggio was part of something bigger than the Cahills. Remember, the family was pretty new back then — only a few generations past Gideon’s time. But I think the real reason artists love the ‘Medusa’ is the whole Da Vinci connection.”