Secret of the Forbidden City Read online

Tommy was up front, riding shotgun. He was also hanging on to the overhead handle for dear life.

  “Uh, how fast are we going?” Tommy asked.

  “One hundred and ninety-three point twelve kilometers an hour,” said the girl.

  “That’s one hundred and twenty miles per hour,” Storm translated.

  “Ja. I want to put some distance between us and your friends.”

  “They’re not our friends,” I said. “They work for Dionysus Streckting, the most evil and physically repulsive villain in the world.”

  “I know all about Herr Streckting. Your father told me.”

  “And how exactly do you know our father?” asked Beck.

  “We have been in contact for many years.”

  “Do you ever help him hunt for treasure?”

  “Only one.”

  “So you know what he’s looking for here in Germany?” I asked.

  “Ja. The same thing my family and I have been searching for my whole life. Your parents and my parents have known each other for a very long time. They were very close when your parents lived in that apartment overlooking the Marienplatz.”

  I finally put two and two together. “You put the movie stubs and popcorn tubs in the apartment.”

  “And my Clue board game.”

  “You wanted us to find you!” said Beck.

  “Ja.”

  “Well,” said Tommy, still trying to flirt over the screaming Mercedes engine, “I know I’ve dreamed about finding you.”

  The girl stomped on the gas pedal.

  The car lurched forward like a rocket ship.

  I think we were doing 140, maybe 150 mph.

  Tommy wasn’t flirting anymore. In fact, he had his eyes closed. His cheeks sort of flapped and wobbled on account of all the g-forces straining against his face.

  “Excuse me,” said Storm from the backseat, struggling to be heard over the fine whine of German engineering. “Why have you spent your whole life looking for one treasure?”

  “Let’s just say it is personal. I owe it to my family.”

  She cut the steering wheel hard to the right.

  We swerved across two lanes and zoomed off an exit ramp.

  She downshifted, eased on the brakes, and brought the Mercedes to a stop in a parking lot outside a prison-type building.

  She popped open her door.

  “Come. I will show you what I mean.”

  CHAPTER 64

  We were about ten miles northwest of Munich, facing some kind of memorial or museum.

  A sculpture that looked like a barbed wire fence made out of bony bodies and limbs was erected above a brick wall with raised numbers spelling out the dates 1933–1945.

  “Those are the years the Dachau Concentration Camp was in operation,” explained the German girl. “It was the first such prison camp erected by the Nazis right after Hitler came to power. Thirty-two thousand deaths were documented right here at Dachau, many of them Jews. Some of them members of my family. The Nazis took their homes, their money, their art, and, finally, their lives.”

  None of us said anything for a real long time.

  I focused on a wall that bore NEVER AGAIN in five languages. It was like a prayer that something as horrible as genocide—the deliberate and systematic extermination of a whole race or religious group—would never be allowed to show its ugly face on earth again.

  Tommy finally broke the silence.

  “You know, guys, being here, seeing this memorial, makes what we’re doing way more important.”

  “Kind of puts everything in perspective,” said Storm. “We can’t let Streckting and weird Uncle Timothy steal all that stolen art.”

  “We have to find it all first and keep them from getting their hands on it,” I said.

  “And give it all back to its rightful owners,” added Beck.

  “Totally,” said Tommy.

  “I’m glad to hear you say that,” said the German girl. “Because my family, with the help of your parents, has been tracking down the missing degenerate art for decades.”

  “Have you seen our dad lately?” I asked.

  “No. But we have been in communication. He told me you might be coming to the safe house where your family once protected mine. So I planted the clues.…”

  “Whoa, wait a second,” said Tommy, squinting at the German girl like, all of a sudden, he had X-ray vision. “Are you Petra? Petra Pichelsteiner?”

  The German girl finally smiled. “Yes, Thomas. It is good seeing you again.”

  Tommy sort of blushed. “Wow. You’ve grown up. I mean, you used to be this little girl. Now you’re, well, like I said—you’re all grown up.”

  “Shall I take that as a compliment?”

  “Definitely.”

  “Thank you. Now then, fellow treasure hunters, if you don’t mind, we have much work to do.”

  CHAPTER 65

  “So where do we go now?” said Beck, sounding frustrated. “We’re all out of clues.”

  We were standing in the parking lot of the Dachau Memorial, clustered around our “borrowed” Mercedes.

  “Plus,” Beck continued, “by now, Franz Hans and his flunkies have probably noticed that one of their henchman-mobiles is missing.”

  “No way are we going back to the safe house,” I said.

  Petra shook her head. “Too risky.”

  “And if it’s risky,” said Tommy, “the safe house isn’t actually ‘safe’ anymore, huh, Petra?”

  Petra rolled her eyes. “Way to use your noodle, Thomas.”

  “Thanks,” he said, puffing up his chest a little and shooting Petra a wink. “Dad told Uncle Timothy, who told Herr Streckting, that I was the smartest Kidd.”

  “When? Before any of your siblings were born?”

  Tommy nodded. “I guess.”

  “You guys?” said Beck. “We need to focus. Where did the Nazis hide the stolen art?”

  “We’re missing something,” mumbled Storm.

  “What do you mean?” asked Petra.

  “So far,” Storm explained, “Mom and Dad’s clues, no matter how absurd or abstract, have pointed us in the right direction.”

  “Following Dad’s trail of bread crumbs to Munich is how we found you,” I said to Petra.

  “Totally,” said Tommy. “Best. Clues. Ever.”

  Petra continued ignoring him.

  “Okay,” I said, “I have a dumb idea.”

  “At this point,” said Beck, “I’ll take it.”

  “What if we contacted Uncle Timothy?”

  Tommy raised his hand. “Um, Bick? Uncle T. has gone over to the dark side of the Force.”

  “I know. But maybe he knows something he doesn’t know he knows.”

  “Huh. Just like me.”

  “It’s worth a shot,” said Storm with a shrug. She fiddled with her iPad.

  “What are you doing?” asked Petra.

  “Disabling location services. We can Skype Uncle T. With the GPS switched off, he won’t be able to pinpoint where we are.”

  “Unless,” said Beck, “he checks out the background and sees the Dachau Memorial.”

  “Good point,” said Storm. “Tommy? You make the call. But do it from inside the car.”

  “I’ll handle the camera work,” I offered. “I can make sure Uncle T. doesn’t see anything except Tommy’s face and the plush leather upholstery of this very sporty Mercedes.”

  I took the iPad from Storm. Tommy started primping for his on-camera screen time.

  CHAPTER 66

  Tommy slipped behind the wheel of the Mercedes.

  I climbed into the passenger seat to frame up the shot for his video chat.

  “You ready?” I asked.

  “Chyah,” said Tommy.

  Petra rapped her knuckles on the driver-side window.

  “One second, Bick.” Tommy powered down his window. “Hi. Do you, uh, want to insult me again or something?”

  “No,” said Petra, with a soft smile. “Viel Glück!”
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  “Is that the sound a German duck makes?”

  Petra laughed. “No, Thomas. It means good luck.”

  “Oh. Okay. Thanks.”

  Tommy smiled at Petra. Petra smiled at him.

  Beck cleared her throat. “You guys? Can we save the smilefest for later?”

  “Right,” said Tommy. “Hold that thought, Petra.” He powered his tinted window shut. “Okay, Bick. Make the call.”

  I tapped the Video Call button.

  Uncle Timothy answered almost immediately.

  He did not look happy.

  “Uncle T!” Tommy said with a big smile. “How’s it hanging?”

  “You kids made a big mistake. But it’s not too late to come back.”

  “Right.” Tommy asked, “Have you guys freed Mom yet?”

  “That information is classified, Thomas. Top secret.”

  “No way,” said Tommy. “You’re not working for the CIA anymore.”

  “What? Who told you that?”

  “The most interesting and physically repellent man in the world.”

  “Streckting said that about me?”

  “Yep.”

  “Look, Thomas.” Uncle T. sounded nervous. He lowered his voice. “This thing is about to run off the rails. Your ‘aunt Bela’ has gone rogue.

  “Bela Kilgore has made unauthorized contact with your mother’s kidnappers in Cyprus,” said Uncle Timothy.

  “Unauthorized? By who?”

  “Dionysus Streckting.”

  “Wait a second. Wasn’t that what she was supposed to do? Her mission was to deliver the Ming vase to the bad guys in Cyprus.…”

  “She didn’t wait for our call!”

  “So? Did she make the deal? Is Mom safe now?”

  “That’s irrelevant.”

  “Uh, no it’s not.”

  “Yes, Thomas, it is. Unless you children find the hiding place for all that degenerate art, Dionysus Streckting will make a call. When he does, no way will Aunt Bela be able to protect your mother, wherever they are. Not for long. They’ll both wind up dead.”

  “Well, to be honest, Uncle T., we’ve sort of hit a dead end on the art treasure hunt front. Can you give us some kind of clue? Even a semiclue would help. Or a hint. A hint would be awesome.”

  “Where are you, Tommy? Franz Hans and his people are looking for you. They say you ‘disappeared.’”

  “No, we didn’t. That would mean I was invisible right now.”

  “Where are you?”

  “Like I said—in a car.”

  “Don’t play games with me, son.”

  “Yo. I am definitely not your son because you are definitely nothing like my dad.”

  Uncle Timothy looked steamed. Then he started humming that tune Mom hummed in her video.

  “Such a silly song,” he said with icicles dangling off his words. “What if that little lullaby is the last any of us ever hears from your mother? What if she and your father end up dead because of your stupidity, Thomas? So one last time—tell me where you are. Now!”

  Tommy narrowed his eyes. “You don’t scare me, Uncle T. Not anymore. You’re nothing but a coward and a traitor.”

  Uncle Timothy grinned.

  And kept on humming.

  “Kill him,” said Tommy.

  “Um, I can’t,” I said. “He isn’t really here. Besides, I’m not sure killing Uncle Timothy will change—”

  Tommy waved his hand at the iPad. “I meant kill the call.”

  I tapped the End Call icon.

  Knuckles rapped on the glass again. Tommy rolled down his window.

  “Way to go, Thomas,” said Petra, another smile brightening her face.

  “Huh?”

  “We heard everything out here. And…” Petra nodded toward Storm. “Apparently, your strange uncle Timothy did know something he didn’t know he knew.”

  CHAPTER 67

  “Petra’s right,” proclaimed Storm. “I figured it all out.”

  “Awesome,” said Tommy.

  “Way to go!” Beck and I added.

  “So what exactly did you figure out?” asked Tommy.

  “Everything. Uncle Timothy gave us the final clue. I know where the missing degenerate art is hidden.”

  “Really?” I said. “Because all I heard him do was threaten Tommy and hum Mom’s lullaby.”

  “Which, I realized, is a few notes off from the one Dad used to hum to me, the difference being that Mom’s lullaby is based on Plato’s musical code.”

  “Play-Doh?” said Tommy. “I had a Play-Doh Fun Factory once. Used to make those spaghetti string things and eat ’em.”

  Petra gave Tommy a quizzical look. “Thomas? I believe your sister is referring to Plato, the ancient Greek philosopher.”

  “Oh. Riiiight. Plato.”

  “Correct,” said Storm, tucking her hands behind her back and pacing around the parking lot like an absentminded college professor. “The song Mom was humming in her video was actually a coded message. By mocking it, Uncle Timothy was unwittingly resending us Mom’s message. One we’d all missed before.”

  “Wait a second,” I said. “That lullaby was a secret message?”

  “Yes. Based on Plato’s musical code. The ancient Greeks believed music was the key to mathematics and the cosmos. So Plato used Greek musical scales to give his works a hidden structure and then built layers of hidden meanings beneath that.

  “First, we need to transcribe the musical notes in the lullaby to their mathematical equivalents,” Storm said as she finished scribbling a very long and extremely complex mathematical formula on the front window of the Mercedes with her lip balm. “Now we take those numbers and, once again, using the same simple alphabet code we used to decipher the meaning of the Lucky Numbers on the back of our fortune cookie slips, we come up with… N-E-U-B-I-B-E-R-G!”

  “Okay,” said Beck. “I’ll admit I was kind of excited there, sis. Right up to the point where Plato’s secret musical code spelled out nerdberger.”

  Storm let out an exasperated sigh. “Not nerdberger. Neubiberg. Didn’t you ever study German geography?”

  “I did,” said Petra. “Come on. Everybody back into the car.”

  “Where are we going?” I asked.

  Storm let out another sigh. This one was even more exasperated. “Neubiberg!”

  “It’s a suburb nine kilometers south of Munich,” explained Petra. “It used to have an airport, which the Nazis used as a Luftwaffe base during World War II. Messerschmitt fighter-bombers were stationed there.”

  “A Nazi air force base?” said Tommy. “That means Hitler could’ve flown his stolen art collection to Neubiberg on cargo planes.”

  “Ja,” said Petra. “The Allies did not capture the air base until April 1945.”

  “So let’s go!” said Beck. “And Storm?”

  “Yes?”

  “I don’t care what Dionysus Streckting says, you’re definitely the real brains of this family!”

  “Chyah,” said Tommy. “Totally!”

  CHAPTER 68

  It took us about forty minutes to drive from Dachau to Neubiberg.

  It would’ve taken us less time if Petra had been behind the wheel instead of Tommy.

  More proof we were on the right track?

  When we pulled into Neubiberg, we saw the town’s coat of arms.

  Call me crazy, but the guy on the bottom looked an awful lot like Dad doing his birdman bit in Beijing.

  (Wow. Beck just said that, despite my generous offer, she won’t call me crazy. She said I actually uncovered a pretty decent clue. For the first time ever.)

  “Okay,” said Tommy as we cruised the suburban streets, “we’re here. What are we looking for?”

  “Sorry,” said Storm. “Plato’s musical code only told us where to look, not what to look for.”

  “Well, keep your eyes open, everybody,” I said, because I could sense we were close to finding our treasure. When you’re a treasure hunter, you just have a sixth sense ab
out that sort of thing. “Don’t ignore anything, no matter how trivial. Remember what Dad wrote in that text: ‘The most important clues often seem small and insignificant.’”

  “Your father said this to you?” asked Petra.

  “Well, he texted us.…”

  Petra nodded. “He sent me the same message.”

  We drove up and down ordinary-looking German streets for what seemed like hours, all of us peering out the windows, looking for anything, no matter how small or insignificant.

  Finally, as we were crawling along a side street, cruising past tidy hedgerows and bushy evergreen trees hiding whitewashed houses with terra-cotta roof tiles, Petra saw something.

  “Halt!” she shouted. “Stop the car!”

  Tommy slammed on the brakes.

  We were in front of a building with the same kind of look as those ski chalets in Bavaria. Only this one was four stories tall and took up the whole block.

  “That sign says it’s a museum!” exclaimed Beck.

  “Do you think they might have some of the stolen art on display?” I asked.

  “Doubtful,” said Storm. “However, they might be hiding it.”

  “I agree,” said Petra.

  “You do?” said Tommy eagerly. “Then I do, too.”

  Petra grinned. “And do you know why we stopped here, Thomas?”

  “Um, because you told me to?”

  “Ja. And because this is Das Museum der Kleinen und Unbedeutenden Dinge.”

  “Cool. And, uh, what does that mean?”

  “It means we have found the place your father wanted us to find. It translates into The Museum of Small and Insignificant Things.”

  CHAPTER 69

  The five of us ventured inside the museum for a look-see.

  The place was open but empty. The air smelled like mildew and mothballs. The floors creaked under our feet. Display cases were filled with weird stuff, all of it extremely small and seriously insignificant.