Secret of the Forbidden City Read online

  “So let’s make a deal.”

  And Beck went to work. When we were on The Lost, she was the one who always negotiated the best prices for supplies and repairs. She could even sell ice cubes to Eskimos. In about two minutes the high cultural minister was on the phone. In ten minutes we were presented with our Ming vase—all nicely packed with straw in a wooden crate with and FRAGILE stenciled all over the sides.

  I grabbed the plastic bag with my bottle hand and, water sloshing, handed it over to the minister.

  “Careful!” cried his interpreter. “We must keep the birds dry!”

  “Don’t worry,” I told him. “I’m pretty sure that, for a project this important, Dad would’ve used the solvent-based ink. It’s basically permanent.”

  “But you said water—”

  “Did I? Huh.”

  The Chinese angrily left with their prize.

  Tommy grabbed ours.

  “Not so fast,” said Uncle Timothy. “You don’t know where to take that or who to give it to.”

  “And you do?”

  Uncle Timothy smirked. “Of course I do, Thomas. I know everything and everybody.”

  CHAPTER 42

  We headed outside with Uncle Timothy so we could talk in private.

  We ended up under a streetlamp in an empty alley.

  It was all very mysterious, and I wasn’t crazy about doing anything that involved Uncle Timothy. None of us were. But it’s what Dad had told us to do.

  “If you four children truly wish to set your mother free, you need to do exactly as I say.”

  We all rolled our eyes. Uncle T. said that kind of junk all the time.

  But if it would help rescue our mom, we needed to play along.

  “Fine,” said Beck. “As long as it doesn’t involve wearing mirrored sunglasses and jibber-jabbering spy lingo into earpieces twenty-four/seven.”

  “I’m serious, Rebecca. Tomorrow, no matter what it takes, bring that urn thirty-one miles north of Beijing to the Ming Dynasty tombs near the Great Wall.”

  “Okay,” said Tommy. “But, which wall are you talking about? Because, so far, I’ve seen some pretty excellent walls. One had all these neon signs and another—”

  “Tommy?” said Storm.

  “Yeah?”

  “It’s the Great Wall of China. There’s only one. I know how to find it.”

  “Oh. Okay. Awesome.”

  “Stephanie?” said Uncle Timothy.

  Storm’s nose and left eyelid started twitching the way they always do when anybody calls her by her real name. “Yes?”

  “You and your siblings need to meet me down in the tunnels of the tombs. I’ll introduce you children to my contact—someone who is in constant touch with the men in Cyprus who are holding your mother.”

  “Can you really do this?” I asked. “Can you help us set Mom free?”

  “Yes, Bickford.”

  Suddenly, a door creaked open. A very short woman stepped out of the shadows.

  “It’s true,” said the woman. “Trust him.”

  I couldn’t believe my eyes. In fact, all four of us looked like we had just seen a ghost.

  It was Bela Kilgore.

  A woman we had met in Egypt back when we were treasure hunting in Africa.

  We all thought Bela Kilgore was dead because, the last time we saw her, she had just blasted out of a twenty-second-floor Cairo hotel window with a jet pack strapped to her back and landed headfirst in the Nile River.

  Usually when that happens, you die.

  “You’re alive?” said Beck.

  “Never felt better,” said Bela Kilgore.

  “Wait a second,” said Storm. “If I remember correctly—and I always do—Uncle Timothy was the one who sent that scoundrel Guy Dubonnet Merck to assassinate you in Cairo.”

  Bela Kilgore nodded eagerly. “That’s right.”

  “Merck shot at you.”

  “With a silencer!” I added.

  More happy nods from Bela. “Correct.”

  “Then,” I said, “Merck basically made you jump out of a hotel window.”

  “Right again.”

  “Your jet pack fizzled.”

  “It was a new model. Still had a few bugs.”

  “And you crash-landed in the river.”

  “I can hold my breath underwater for three minutes. The CIA and several Navy Seals taught me how.”

  That’s right. Bela Kilgore was a spy, too. In fact, she was our mother’s “aunt” Bela, running her undercover CIA missions the way “Uncle” Timothy ran our father’s covert operations.

  “But,” said Bela, “Guy Dubonnet Merck was an amateur compared to the vile fiend we have to deal with now.”

  “Who’s that?” asked Tommy, sounding ready to take on the world.

  “The man who holds the keys to freeing your mother and finding your father,” said Uncle Timothy. “Mr. Dionysus Streckting.”

  CHAPTER 43

  Bright and early in the morning, we made our way to the section of the Great Wall of China snaking through the mountains just north of Beijing.

  Tommy was toting the crated Ming vase. Storm was spouting facts.

  First, about the Great Wall.

  “It’s the longest structure ever built by humans—five thousand five hundred miles. The Chinese invented the wheelbarrow. Probably so they could haul all the bricks to build this wall.”

  Then she filled us in on Dionysus Streckting.

  “I did a ton of research on him last night,” she said.

  “And?” said Tommy.

  “He makes Mom and Dad’s other nemeses, Guy Dubonnet Merck and Nathan Collier, look like twin Santa Clauses.”

  “Nemeses are bad guys, right?” asked Tommy.

  “Correct. And Streckting is pure, undiluted evil. His main business is illegal arms sales, but his ‘hobby’ is collecting expensive, no doubt stolen, art.”

  “Just like Athos Aramis,” I said.

  Aramis is the big-deal arms dealer and art thief behind Mom’s kidnapping in Cyprus. We’d dealt with him earlier in our quest to free Mom and find Dad.

  “You think Aramis worked for Streckting?” asked Beck.

  “Probably,” said Storm. “Dionysus Streckting is the big cheese, top dog, head honcho, and CEO of a major international art and ammo crime syndicate.”

  Storm wasn’t done. “He’s also stunningly creepy-looking: a weasel crossed with a badger. I hacked into Interpol’s database, and Streckting is our most impressive and nastiest enemy ever. He should be considered armed, dangerous, and stinky.”

  “Stinky?” said Tommy.

  Storm shrugged. “It’s in his files. Apparently, he has odor issues.”

  “Too bad,” said Beck. “We’ll just have to hold our noses. This treasure hunt is way too important.”

  Beck was right. This was our ultimate quest! The Treasure Hunt for Mom and Dad.

  This is what we had been training for all our lives.

  And why we were willing to risk going one-on-one with the most dangerous villain we’d ever encountered.

  CHAPTER 44

  As instructed, we made our way down from the Great Wall and into the very narrow, very deep, very spooky tunnels of the Thirteen Tombs of the Ming Dynasty.

  Yep. These were the catacombs where thirteen dead emperors were buried.

  Leave it to Uncle Timothy to choose a tomb as a swell place to meet.

  After trudging through a few burial chambers, we came to the tomb room where Uncle Timothy was waiting for us.

  He wasn’t alone.

  Two of the Germanic goons from the art gallery were with him. So was a stunningly creepy-looking man with slicked-back hair. He sort of looked like a weasel crossed with a badger. I started fanning the air in front of my face.

  That’s right.

  It was Dionysus Streckting. And the intelligence was correct. Even at fifty paces, he stank. Like a clogged toilet. In a greasy gas station. On a hot day.

  All four men were chu
ckling and chortling.

  Tommy raised his hand. At his signal, we hugged the walls and hung back in the gloomy tunnel so we could hear what the bad guys found so amusing.

  Apparently, the two guys with the soul patches, the thugs who had been chasing us around Beijing longer than anybody else, worked for Dionysus Streckting, too.

  Beck gasped when she saw what they were holding. “It’s the stolen Picasso! Naked Woman on the Beach. It’s from that art gallery!”

  “Well done, gentlemen,” we heard Streckting say. “Well done, indeed.”

  “Danke, boss.”

  “Timothy?” said Streckting.

  “Yes?” asked Uncle T.

  “Cross it off the list.”

  “Consider it crossed off.”

  Beck had seen enough.

  She marched out of the shadows and into the room. The four men spun around.

  “You’re going to give that back to its rightful owner. Right, Uncle Timothy?”

  “Ah,” said Streckting. “You’re Rebecca, correct? The annoying, artistic child.”

  “So?”

  Streckting grinned. “Nothing, dear. It’s just that you look so much like your mother.”

  “Oh, really? How would you know?”

  “Easy. For I have spent a good deal of time with your mother.”

  Laughing, he showed Beck a photograph.

  Streckting and Mom. Holding a newspaper.

  Dated yesterday.

  CHAPTER 45

  Streckting and Uncle Timothy seemed as chummy as a pair of poisonous vipers trapped in the same basket.

  They sniggered when Streckting made that crack about our mom. The two German goons were giggling, too. But they had to. Henchmen always have to laugh at whatever their boss finds funny.

  But Uncle Timothy?

  You know all those bad things I’ve been thinking about him, like how Dad had to abandon us on The Lost so he could go on a supersecret mission to shut down whatever sort of shady dealings Uncle Timothy had going on over in China?

  I was pretty sure I was absolutely, positively correct.

  Streckting drifted across the room toward us.

  He smelled like dung. Cow dung. I think it was his cologne: Axe Cattle Spray.

  He drooled a lot, too.

  He also spit when he spoke. I guess because he wanted to pronounce all his words supercorrectly. Too bad he always spoke (and spat) right in our faces.

  “So are you in charge of the gangsters who kidnapped Mom in Cyprus?” I asked. “We’re pretty sure you are. We even have a chart. Did Aramis really work for you?”

  Streckting just smiled. The guy was cold, snobby, and wicked smart.

  “My dear boy, all you need to know is that I am the one person in the entire world who can guarantee your mother’s safe release. But, it seems you puny, putrid, and problematic persons would like to know more about me?”

  I wiped my face. There were a lot of spittlespattering consonants in that last sentence.

  “Very well. I have degrees from Harvard, Oxford, MIT, the University of Tokyo, and several online schools of torture. What they say about me is true: I am the most interesting and physically repellent man in the world.”

  Streckting wasn’t finished telling us about how wonderfully horrible he was. “I am also the world’s greatest art connoisseur.”

  Beck stepped forward. “Then you know that Picasso painting was stolen by the Nazis during World War II.”

  “Yes. Poor thing spent so many years in a Hungarian salt mine. Now it will see the light of day once again. In a brand-new museum.”

  “But—”

  “I believe, Rebecca,” said Streckting, “we were talking about your mother?”

  “Yeah,” said Tommy. “Tell those kidnappers in Cyprus to let her go.”

  “Oh, I’ll tell them, Thomas. And they will let her go. Just as soon as we do two little things.”

  “Name them.”

  “We must, of course, first send them their Ming vase.…”

  Aunt Bela leaped out of the shadows. She was wearing another jet pack on her back.

  “I’m on it.”

  “Hand Aunt Bela the urn, Thomas,” coached Uncle Timothy.

  “But…”

  “She will be our emissary,” said Streckting. “Neoklis and Ibrahim are expecting her.”

  “Who are they?” I blurted.

  “The Cypriot kidnappers,” muttered Storm. “Duh, Bick.”

  “Your mother is my friend and colleague,” said Bela. “I promise—I will not fail in my mission to see her released from captivity.”

  Somewhat reluctantly (because so many adults had lied to us ever since Mom and Dad disappeared), Tommy turned the urn over to Aunt Bela. She took off running up the tunnels. I hoped she didn’t blast off when she reached the surface. We’d seen her go jet-packing before. Crash landings aren’t a good idea when you’re carrying a piece of priceless, irreplaceable pottery.

  “Bela will make the trade for your mother the instant I tell her to,” said Uncle Timothy.

  “And when will that be?” demanded Tommy.

  Streckting smirked. “As soon as you four children, the Kidd Family Treasure Hunters, find something very, very important. For me.”

  CHAPTER 46

  “What do you want?” fumed Beck.

  “Something I had hoped your father would give me,” said Streckting. “Unfortunately, he left China before we could… chat. Such a pity. He dropped his hat at the Forbidden City before my associates could arrange for us to meet.”

  “You mean he escaped before they could nab him,” said Beck.

  “Tomato, tomahto.”

  Streckting showed us a baseball cap with the letter D on it.

  D for Dad.

  It was the same hat I had seen Dad wearing when he was flapping his wings outside the art gallery.

  “So that’s why he didn’t meet us at the Forbidden City,” said Tommy. “He had to flee or your goons would’ve kidnapped him, too.”

  Storm took the hat from Streckting.

  The way she was studying it, I could tell she was cross-referencing it against all the random images stored in her photographic memory.

  “Let’s not dwell on the past, children,” said Streckting. “Let’s just accept the fact that your father has, once again, abandoned you.”

  “No, he did not!” I shouted.

  “Yes. He did. But I am not here as your family therapist. I need some vital information from your father’s vast trove of treasure maps and rare documents. Information we suspect he hid somewhere in Germany.”

  “Germany,” mumbled Tommy (probably because he was smelling pretzels again).

  “Since your father won’t give me what I want, you children must go find it for me. And when you do, I will contact Neoklis and Ibrahim in Cyprus with final instructions to set your mother free.”

  “And if we refuse to do your dirty work?” asked Beck.

  “Then, my dear little girl, I will call my Cypriot friends with very different instructions concerning your mother. Painful ones.”

  “That baseball cap,” said Storm. “Dad was really wearing it?”

  “Yes,” said Streckting. “I give you my word as the most interesting and physically repellent man in the world.”

  “Huh,” said Storm. “Usually, Dad’s a Miami Marlins fan. This hat is for the German national team.”

  “Ja,” said one of Streckting’s musclemen. “D for Deutschland. Go, Big D!”

  The four of us exchanged a quick glance. We all figured the hat was another clue. Dad was telling us what to do and where to go.

  “Fine,” said Tommy. “We’ll go to Germany and try to find whatever it is you’re looking for.”

  “I’m going with you,” said Uncle Timothy.

  “Us too,” said the two goons.

  “Wunderbar!” said Streckting. “Now, then—off you go. See you in Berlin.”

  Uncle Timothy led the way out of the tombs. The four of us f
ollowed behind him. The two obviously armed guards brought up the rear.

  As we climbed up a set of dark steps, Storm handed me the baseball cap.

  “Check out the tag,” she whispered.

  I glanced inside the hatband.

  I smiled.

  Dad was sending us another message: ME IN GERMANY!

  CHAPTER 47

  Ah, Germany!

  After a ten-hour flight from Beijing (with Uncle Timothy totally hogging the armrest), we arrived in Berlin.

  Yep. We traveled all the way from the Great Wall to the Berlin Wall.

  Actually, it was the Berlin Wall memorial on Bernauer Strasse, a street in the German capital.

  “This is the last chunk of the barricade still standing,” explained Storm. “The rest of the wall—a fortified border of concrete, steel spikes, guard towers, and barbed wire—was torn down in 1989.”

  It was extremely cool to be in Berlin, where President Kennedy once declared, “Ich bin ein Berliner” (which, Storm assured us, meant “I am one with the people of Berlin” and not “I am a jelly doughnut,” even though a berliner is a very popular jelly-filled pastry in Germany).

  But how were we ever going to find whatever it was that the disgustingly stinky Dionysus Streckting wanted us to dig up for him before he’d set Mom free?

  So far, the most physically repellent man in the world hadn’t been very specific. He just kept saying, “I need for you four to find what I suspect your famous father has already found!”

  He also sprayed us with a salvo of saliva every time he said one of those s or f words.

  We’d been at the Berlin Wall memorial only about fifteen minutes before Streckting and his crew of stump-necked flunkies strode across the street to greet us. The thugs we first met at the art gallery in China were still with him. So was a new short and stubby guy.

  “Welcome to Berlin,” said Streckting. “This Tyrolean troll is my trusted lieutenant, Franz Hans Keplernicht. He will be supervising you children from now on. I am far too busy masterminding evil plots to be a babysitter.”